Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Thursday, February 20, 2014

About a Boy. And a boy, and a girl, and another boy

Kieran (8 1/2 months) has a favorite toy.  Not a music toy, or something flashy or intricate.  He loves hotwheels cars.  Just to chew on.  Obviously he's way too young to play "cars", but of all the options he has for things to hold, he picks a hotwheels car as a top choice.  It's so cute.

I'm calling his 'learned to crawl' date as his 8 month birthday, as that was the first day he made the real crawling moves.  Progression was slow though.  Just in the last few days he's finally starting to actually go places.  Until now he'd crawl 2 or 3 "steps" at a time and mostly hang out in a small area.  It took him a while to roam.  But yesterday he ventured into the dining room/kitchen, and I even found him in the bathroom chewing on legos!  Yikes!  It's time to keep every room Kieran-ready.  Ugh.

My gosh but he's such a cute little guy.  Brian and I are so smitten it's not even funny.  I love how much his siblings love him too.  Asher always likes to talk about how our baby is the cutest baby ever.  Brennan loves playing with him.  He just makes everyone feel happier simply by being here.

Hollyn's eye seems to be normalizing, but it's not completely gone.  Her lab results showed within normal in areas tested for autoimmune diseases (which are often a cause of such inflammation).  The only abnormal results were mild anemia and... something else I can't remember, but anemia is often the cause of THAT.  So, we still don't know what's causing the Brown Syndrome, but at least it's going away again.

Asher is kind of a conundrum.  He's very social and can talk anyone's ear off, but he's also sort of anti-social.  He STILL spends his time either playing on the computer/TV, or bouncing off the walls of his room playing something out of his imagination.  When his friends ask him to play, he usually declines, explaining that he "wants his alone time".  When I let the friends come in to our home, within minutes they've split up - friends playing with toys or something, Asher excusing himself back into his room to play alone.  One night Brennan joined him and demonstrated what he thinks it is Asher does in there.  Which led to Asher laughing and "teaching him" how to play like he does.  But he isn't interested in teaching his friends.  (He says he only gives lessons at night.  To Brennan).  I've asked him who he plays with at recess, and though at the beginning of the year he used to run around with others, he now spends a lot of recesses doing AIM.  AIM is "Adams In Motion" and is a track that kids can run and their laps are kept track of.  Asher's motivated by seeing the numbers and I think there are prizes, more than just loving to run THAT much.  But how normal is it for a kindergartener to run laps during recess instead of playing tag/chase/etc with other kids?  Part of me worries about the extent he avoids others, but at the same time he's totally gregarious and a little social butterfly in other situations.  When I make him play outside with friends, he has a blast and is very popular, I get the impression, with his peers.  I dunno.  He's just a mystery.

Brennan, dear Brennan.  He's doing well.  He started piano lessons and is busting out the beginning of "I am a Child of God" with two hands already.  Only 2 lessons, that most of them were spent on the very, VERY beginning.  He needs to learn the notes and terms and everything.  But it's coming along.  It's fun to have this in our home.  I let him quit soccer.  He just isn't into it.  And he frustrated his teammates because he'd spend more time spacing out than actually playing.  Most things he's tried he hasn't maintained interest in, except swimming lessons.  He loves those without tire.  And although he's not a prodigy or anything, perhaps by virtue of it being something he doesn't tire of (or space out during) it's a sport we can keep up longer term.  If I ever have the moolah for anything else, he'd love dance lessons.  Like, modern dance/breakdancing type stuff.  We'll see.  I don't believe in overdoing the extracurricular activities - there are so many options, it's ridiculous to try to get your kids into everything.  But I would like to pinpoint the couple of talents/activities that are worth pursuing for each child.  The things that hold long-term benefits for them.

Aaaanyway, baby's crying, dinner needs to be made, yada yada.  Here's to life!

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

February

Did some rearranging again.  We’ve lived in this house less than 6 months and already all three boys have slept in 3 different rooms, and Hollyn in 2 – twice each. Lol.

It’s been hard to decide how to arrange everybody.  I want both the littlest ones upstairs with me.  I don’t really want them together though. But if I split them and make Asher or Brennan share with one or both of them, then there’s a good chance Hollyn/Kieran will be woken up and wanting to be gotten up when Asher/Brennan gets up for school.  That’s why for a long time Brennan and Asher shared the downstairs bedroom.  Between the fact they’re just a little big to be sharing a twin-sized bed, (not that they minded, but it bothered Brian mostly, lol), and acquiring the piano which caused us to move downstairs furniture around – it was time to come up with a better plan.

I put the boys in the bunkbed room and moved Hollyn in with Kieran.  After much, MUCH thought the bed I chose for her is a junior loft bed.  The height is lower than a regular bunk bed – a perfect height for tucking your child in.  I planned to put a dresser or two underneath, but didn’t get that far.  I wasn’t loving the way things were going with Hollyn and Kieran sharing.  Hollyn was often waking up at night (maybe from Kieran’s sounds?) and turning on the light, which would wake K up and make him cry of course.  Or when he’d wake up at night to eat, she’d wake up too and try to talk to me, get up, etc.  The mornings were nice though because Hollyn’s presence did stall Kieran.  He’d watch her in interest, and I’d buy myself a little more time before getting up with them.

After the loft bed came and I set it up (all by myself, thank you very much!), Hollyn spent all of, like, two nights on it because I came up with a new plan.  I flip-flopped the kids.  I moved Hollyn BACK into the bunkbed room, put a mattress under the loft so that Brennan and Asher now use it as a bunkbed, and moved Kieran in with Hollyn, but into the closet!!!  Genius!  It’s exactly what was needed – they’re sharing the room, technically, but the walls and partially closed closet door offer enough buffer that Hollyn and Kieran don’t wake each other up anymore.  In fact, we’ve put them both down for nap times at the same time on several occasions.

It’s not perfect – Hollyn at first totally ignored the closet, but lately has climbed in with him.  Or bothers him for a bit then goes out to play elsewhere in the room.  Another problem is that I don’t really want her climbing onto the empty top bunk at this age, but I’m not sure whether or not to go to the effort of stopping her.  Without the mattress up there it actually makes for a pretty tall railing.  And by keeping most of the toys up there for a “play loft” the floor has never stayed cleaner.  So that’s a perk.

 

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One day during a joint “nap” time, (and Hollyn stopped napping a looooong time ago.  Or rather, she doesn’t usually fall asleep but if she does it’s not before 4:30 or 5.  Always.) we heard a terrible banging.  Brian went to check and found Hollyn in Kieran’s crib with him, shaking it.  But he left them to it. 10 minutes later when I went to rescue Kieran I found them both sound sleep.  That’s Hollyn’s head poking out from a blanket.  I wonder what it’s like to grow up with a Hollyn for a big sister. *shudder*

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She still loves coloring on herself.  I wont be sorry for this phase to end, if it ever does.

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On the second “snow day”, the previous day’s snow iced over.  Asher attempted get me to check out how weird the snow was, but was busy with Kieran and was like, “yeah, yeah… snow feels cool…”  Finally that evening I stepped outside to see how amazing everything looked with the light shining through the iced-over world.  At that point I finally touched the snow and was shocked.  I was knocking my hand on the snow covering the bushes and it held firm.  Everything was SO sparkly, it was so cool!  Neither Brian or I could take any pictures that did it justice.

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Ice encasing everything

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She became pretty upset when I wouldn’t let her go out and play in the snow, at night, without pants and underwear on.

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The lights bounced off the clouds and snow creating a nice glow.  This picture was taken around midnight.

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Monday was the third snow day so we avoided some cabin fever by going to Grandma’s.  The snow was perfect that day for building and snowballs.  I helped the boys roll up some snow until it was too heavy to budge.  They were enjoying climbing on it, so to help them out I made another ball and moved it over to be a step.  Except the end result was a giant snail.  My mom laughed about how she was probably the only one in town with a giant snow snail.

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And yes, we did have a nice snowball fight before going in Smile

Friday, February 7, 2014

It's Official

Brian's been offered (and has accepted) a full time position at Med Tech.  We are SO pleased.  Having this contract job was a great blessing, but the full time thing comes with benefits etc. that self-employment lacks.  Soooo, Happy New Chapter of our Lives Day!!!

S'more Snow Days

Why is Dad the only one working?

Day one
Hi





Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Lovely Day

I love that I get to stay home with my kids all day.  Do I always love it?  No.  Am I a crazy mess by the end of the day?  Absolutely.  Would I give up my opportunity to see these sweet faces each day?  Never!
The cheeks that just wont quit...

As Ben Brewster commented, "his cheeks hang below his chin!"





Coloring the bear she got for Christmas



Of course coloring paper is always fun too