Assateague Island

Yesterday, Tim was reading about Assateague Island, which is about an hour away from our house, and was very excited about taking the kids there to figure out if he would like to camp there sometime.  I thought he was talking about taking them that afternoon, and said that I would love to go...but I wasn't sure I wanted to go that same day.  He told me that he hadn't been talking about going the same day, but since I mentioned it....he suddenly REALLY WANTED to.  :D  I balked and declined and was unsure and told him he could take the older kids while I stayed home, but when he told me it wasn't as fun without me there, I acquiesced.  After the kids came home from school, they hurriedly packed a supper picnic, and we zoomed off to Maryland.

Israel entertaining Caroline on the trip over.

The distinctive aspect of Assateague Island is their wild horses!!

We saw about 5 of them.  The park ranger who gave us a map when we paid to get into the park also gave us a paper detailing how to relate to the horses - namely - don't feed them, don't touch them; they can charge you and bite you, and they can potentially carry rabies.

Israel and Gabe were immediately both horrified when they read the precautionary handout.  "Why would you bring us here?!?!" Israel asked tearfully.  "This is a terrible place!!"  This island where rabid horses look for you to chase you down and attack you and bite you.  :D  At one point while we were on the beach, Gabe went back to the minivan to change his clothes and he was gone for so long I went to look for him.  He was in the van, and informed me that something must have bumped against the van, because he heard a noise, and he thought it was probably a horse, so he immediately retreated to the safety of the van, and stayed there. ;)

But the beach won them over.

It didn't win me over, though, because it was COLD!!!  It was HOT at home, and sweatshirt weather one hour away at the beach.  I loathe being cold and the baby was dressed super lightly and I had a momentary flirtation with great crabbiness and the intention to camp out in the van until we left until I found a bag of goodwill-bound warm clothes that clothed the coldest of us.  Tim also dug us a sand fort to block the wind.

The cute little person walking in front of me on the way up to the beach.

Tim using sand the block the wind off of baby's legs before we found sweatshirts.

Zion is like me.  He likes to bring everything that we might want so as to maximize our experience. ;)  He made me laugh when I saw his energetic lugging.  He was bringing an extra shovel, a life jacket for Layla in case she wanted it, and towels for everyone.

Israel and Zion were crazy.  They were playing full on in the cold water!!

Brrrrrrr.

There was a Princess Baby there.

So I had to take lots of pictures of her.

Cuteness alert.  Cuteness alert.

Caroline eating the cereal snacks flung into the sand by a grouchy sister.

 
I actually really liked taking pictures of the birds, who were very very hopeful that we came bearing food.

Tim took Caroline down to the water.  She was just...not...quite...sure...about it all.  See her little hand clutching his shirt?

Israel stayed out in the water the longest and was totally undettered by it's temperature or the cool wind.

He was just sopping wet when he came back up on the beach before we left.

Other sights...

Gabe's silly face that he practiced diligently in the reflection of the minivan windows as we were packing up to leave.  

A deer grazing by the road as we left.  It was very not scared. 

I liked the combination of land and water.

The beautiful sunset when we got home!!

Aaaand the kids went to sleep quickly.  It was all part of my master plan...rubbing hands together.

Valentine's Day

Tonight I was supposed to go to a wedding reception, and I was looking forward to it.  But instead I am home, with one child who has the stomach flu and four children who do not.  Poor buddy feels pretty lousy and has spent a lot of the day just laying quietly or sleeping.  I miss him when he disappears like this. I like my Zion commentary on the day.  Fortunately, this is the only child who is going to get sick - the rest are not on the schedule to vomit for this month, so there's that to be happy about!

So Tim is gone and the rest of us are home - the boys are playing video games on the Nintendo 64, which they joyfully unearthed the other day.  Layla,age 3 1/2,  has been camped out in the room we call the office, which also houses our warm, cozy pellet stove, and has been chattering almost non-stop for over an hour.  I can't hear her very well while I am working in the kitchen, and keep saying, "What, Layla?  Come into the kitchen if you want to talk to me, because I can't hear you!", to which she says "Mom! Mom!" and then continues her monologue.  Ok.

I really like how she doesn't pronounce her "l's" right now.  So she is telling me about things she "yikes" or talks about "yaffing".   Or she needs help turning on a yight. :D  She likes to tell me about made-up events that involve her "fwiends" - either her girlfwiends or her boyfwiends.  (She only means boys that are friends.)  She definitely has a good imagination - she and Zion will play together for HOURS happily and a lot of what they do is pretend and imagine.

Look at this pair.  Can you SEE the industriousness just seeping out of them??!  (Her room is currently a disaster area as a result of this playing and I really need to get in there and sort it out.  Roll of eyes.)

"Mom, I wish we had an awesome car...with lots of colors on it...and I wish it had a dragon on it." She cocks her head and stares at the top of my head.  "Mom, you need to wash - Mom, your hair yooks - i think you need to make your hair yook gooder."

I keep occasionally saying, "Mmmmhmmm..."  She also continues to talk a constant stream while I talk on the phone.

Baby is wandering around with a pair of Layla's fuzzy pink pants draped around her neck, ever so self-consciously pleased with herself.  Tim said today that she is his winter antidepressant, because she is such a mood-lifter. :)

I baked some inexpensive, pre-made dough Valentine's cookies to celebrate the holiday and they are sitting ever so crispily on the table.  I always overbake bought cookie dough!! I can never "read" it right when it's cooking.

It's very cold tonight.  It's supposed to feel like it's -20 tonight with wind chill.

Oldest Daughter is still going strong over here.  Almost two hours of nonstop talking.  "One day Caroline tried to take herself apart.  And Kitzi tried to take herself apart.  And brothers and dad were so mad.  And me and you and Caroline were so happy."  ????  Tuning back out now.

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Last night we made homemade pizza.  Actually, it was most Tim, to give credit where credit is due.  He also got a little help from Israel.

Israel loves projects like these.  He shows a lot of initiative in things.  Yesterday he wanted to get the baby dressed, and did his best - but this is a hard project indeed.

Then this morning he wanted Layla to come outside with him to play laser tag, so he went and found her shoes and a coat and helped her put them on.  :)  Just makes me smile.

The pizza was DELICIOUS and we felt very proud of ourselves.  Routinely making homemade pizza has been "on my list"...the infamous list of things I aspire to "someday".  Someday...when the babies sleep better and I'm not so tired and I have more of the energy to do more of the things.  Things like a successful garden are on this list.  Or landscaping.  Or canning beans.  Or making bread.  Or granola.  Or establishing a successful chore routine for the kids. Or selling extra items and make money.  Today I made my own chicken broth and I feel like a virtual Helen Housewife.  Which I am.  A virtual. Helen. housewife.  (quiet cough)

But it's seriously exciting to get anything on my list accomplished.

Now it's snowing, which is about the best Valentine's Day present I could get.  Aside from help cleaning the house, which I also got.  So I'm set, ya'll. Happy Valentine's Day!!! :)

Sunday

It is a beautiful day outside (currently 60 degrees) and the boys are outside playing with a friend they brought home from church.  He is a very polite friend who plays very well with the boys and who compliments my food, and so I have decided that he is permanently welcome. ;) Caroline is taking a nap and Layla is busily opening junk mail with great enthusiasm.  She declared at length over the AARP materials that came in a nice big envelope for my aging ten year old son, Gabe, and showed me the beautiful full page pictures of attractive and flourishing seniors that she wants to "keep".

I am enjoying a day of spring in the middle of my winter, myself, and am whipping up a tasty batch of chocolate chip cookies, the third in 4 days.  (One batch was for something else, though.  But still. We're like cookie-hogs. Oink.)

The boys have been playing laser tag, pogo sticks, rip-stiks, and tree climbing.  All quite proper energetic boy activities.  They also went down to the tennis courts for a while.  Tim took Zion and Layla down too, and the colors of Layla's outfit demanded that I take her picture.

Her coolest ever Chinese jacket is from a neighbor who works at a consignment store.  She saw the jacket and thought of Layla and it looks like the real deal from the tags inside of it.

Layla has recently taken to wearing tights, which she used to be "violently allergic" to the concept of.  We've had quite the clothes battles this winter, as she is currently "violently allergic" to anything "squeezy", including pull-ups, leggings, fitted or cuffed sleeves, and fitted or cuffed pants. Shoes are also an issue.  I had to go get her a separate wardrobe of loose, almost sweatshirt style shirts and loose legged soft pants.  She will also wear most dresses.  But somehow tights seem recently to have bypassed the dreaded "squeezy" label and graduated to nifty-cool.  That's great because I love them.  :)  

Here's the little pink-dressed bare legged sweeter after she woke up from her nap.

She's so ridiculously precious that it's just...ridiculous.  :)  We just have a "hard time" with how adorable she is.  So. stinkin'. cute.  I have recently begun to wonder if everyone in the world should have a one year old in the house at all times because there is so much heart warming reward...but the implications of such a plan are...just more than I PERSONALLY am ready to commit to at this point.  Ahem.  !!!  Lately, as babies do, those ol' babies, she's been changing up the means to get to sleep at night and from nursing to requests to be marched around industriously in the Ergo to gently bounce her way to sleep or be held to sleep by her Daddy.  She's still cutting teeth, and life is always screwy during that process, so I'm ok with these (probably temporary) changes.

Last week we camped out in front of the computer to stream the Superbowl since we don't have cable and can't pick up NBC with our antenna.  Actually, they watched while I cleaned around them, which was my activity of choice.  We also ate Hot Chicken pizza from Pizza King which is approximately one of the best pizzas in the world and made the evening feel very festive and warm.

Thursday was the Fine Arts program at school.  Israel made a birdhouse and Gabe played and sang "How Great Is Our God".  He did pretty good for one week and one day of piano lessons and probably about....3 practices.  I thought that maybe if it were me I might want to practice a little more, but some things are learned from experience.  Honestly, he did way better than I would have done with three practices.  He definitely has an affinity for music.

Friday Gabe had a dentist appointment.  He had no cavities and got three Skylander stickers for coming in.  Good job, Gabe!!  I divide up the kid's dentist's appointments because it becomes a fun time to spend time with them.  We "celebrated" with a Dunkin Donuts breakfast afterwards. :)

I suppose it's time to start funneling tribes of children to bed.

Hindsight is 20/20

Layla scribbles busily in her notebook.  "Yook!!" she says happily to Zion. She holds out her notebook for his perusal.  "Yook what I drawed!"

"Ohh!!" Zion exclaims supportively.  They both examine her work together.  "It's a...wooster!!" Zion guesses.  "It's a...bird!!"

Layla examines her work carefully.  "Yes," she decides.  "It's a bird."  She nods decisively.  "I drawed it for mom," she says, and hands me her love offering, one of many such pieces of decorated paper I receive during the day.

I find this activity of deciding what you drew and who you drew it for after the fact satisfying. Because......why not??

Cough cough cough and other equally fascinating news

Last evening was cozy.  The pellet stove was warmly humming; I was crashed exhaustedly on the couch beside it and at one point realized all five of us were in the room.  Tim was reading in the chair on other side of the stove, the baby was playing on the floor, Gabe was listening to music on the computer and Israel and Zion were on the couch with me.  Pretty sure even the cat was there. :)

Yesterday the two older boys started piano lessons.  They LOVED it.  They are taking lessons from a teenager that we know in Bridgeville.  She is teaching them chording to worship music and how to read music.  The first song they are learning is How Great is Our God and Gabe especially can already play and sing along it.  He is going to play and sing it for the Fine Arts Program next month.

Zion was reading to me out of his little booklet that he brings home.  If someone listens to him read then he gets to pick a prize out of a box.  I looooooove the excitement of them learning to read - it's just one of the best things.  I also love the first pronunciations.  All the vowels are stretched waaaaay out and sort of change shape mid-word.  "Haaaaaaaaaaat"  "Nooooooooot".

Gabe spent a long time last evening doing long division on the chalkboard in the hallway.  Math makes him happy.  He likes it and feels good at it and is good at it.  He did not inherit this from his mother.

*********************

Since the girls got sick last week, sleep has been EXTREMELY SPARSE.  But....I FINALLY got a blessed, wonderful, amazing solid night of sleep last night.  Felt like a new werman today.  (prounced like "vermin".)

The night before last I was thinking about how I felt like sleep deprivation was like a steady hammer chinking away the foundation of my functionability.  Chink chink chink chink.

Recipe for One Sleep Deprived Exhausted Insane Person: Two children with fevers and misery followed by one round of RSV and coughing till they vomit and neb treatments every 3 hours around the clock and not hardly sleeping for over a week and having the dumb virus yourself.  And then needing to get up at 7 AM to get the boys to school every morning during the week.

Oh. my. word. I was so exhausted after a week and a half of this.  Tim was also helping steadily by the way.

But last night everyone slept so much better and today I felt so much better, and the difference was just about joy inducing.  I was driving to pick the boys up from school being SO JOYFULLY HAPPY that I wasn't EXHAUSTED.  That my brain felt normal and not sleep fogged and headachy and my eyes felt bright and I felt simply springy and I could do a normal chore without dread and fatigue.

Observations:

1.  Cough medicine is amazing.

2.  Friends who bring you food when life is less than stellar are amazing. (That's YOU, Nikki and Deb!!) 

3.  I NEEEEEED at least 45 minutes to 1 hour BY MYSELF at some point in the evening to best handle staying up all hours of the night or getting up repeatedly.  If I don't have just a little bit of time of my own, all the children everywhere aaaaaalllll tthhhhheee tiiiiiimmmmeee all feels way more overwhelming and intolerable.

You are SO. WELCOME. for all my "interesting" news.  I'm off to do exciting things like...not cough.  And...listen to everyone sleep.  Splendid and marvelous things, these.

Birfdays and Balenetime's Day

Somewhere along the line I turned 37 this month.  37 seems significantly older than 36, in case you are interested.  I'll likely be having grandchildren next month I think.  Here I am in all my agedness, with lines forming rapidly on my face probably as we speak.  Just look at 'em.

Ahhhh.  Nothing like a tell it like it is photo for your birthday.  Cough.  That's ok though.  I am grateful to be 37.

I had a uber-relaxed, mostly non-eventful, still completely content in my heart to stay home after all the Christmas gallivanting we just finished doing birthday where I made DELICIOUS chicken taco bowls (just on the stovetop, not in the slow cooker) for our supper that I had a craving for, and bought my cake at Walmart mostly for the sake of the kids who just LOVE a good birthday.  There was much happiness in their hearts over this cake.  They had a most excellent time putting candles on it.  I love them.  :)  I bought myself two can openers for my birthday, which gave me an unreasonable amount of happiness.  One is orange and one is red.  Contented sigh.

**********************

"I think those are for Balentime's Day", Zion says with satisfaction, pointing to red flowers with hearts on the vase.

I look at him. "Oh, you do?  What do you think they are for?"

"Balentime's Day.  And I think those are for Balemtime's Day too."

I looooove misprounciations and milk them for all they are worth.  I just relish them, and usually get him to repeat them like five times without ever correcting them and hoping he keeps saying them the same way for a while.

Lately every night, he has been asking me if it is "Movie Night" that night.  As in, from Monday on.  Fridays are when we have our Movie Night.  Today I said, "Zion!! What is it about Movie Night that has you all excited??"

He sat there for a moment on the arm of the couch with his arms wrapped around his knees and looked all Zion-y.  "Because we get to have pizza and pop," he said after a pause, his eyes looking around a little uncertainly.  I had to immediately pounce on him and give him a big hug and a bunch of kisses because he was so stinking cute.

The. boy. loves. pop.  Loves with giant capital letters.   He loves sugar, period, and soda he just savors and it's a like a little party of joy in his heart whenever he gets it.

**********************

Tonight I tucked one feverish girl into bed (Caroline) and came out to check on the other feverish one  (Layla) tucked into her daddy's lap for some sick awake time.  Caroline got sick on Tuesday, and was almost inconsolable from about 2 PM that afternoon until Thursday afternoon unless you were holding her.  Tuesday night she slept terribly and would wake up and be inconsolable and nothing normal would get her back to sleep.  One time I got into her crib with her and laid her on my chest and after a while she woke up and realized she was in her crib and cried and cried until she realized she was laying on top of me, and then she put her head down and went right back to sleep.  Another time I had her in the chair beside her bed and she was crying and fighting to get down and she slid down my lap until her legs were hanging down and her head was in my lap, and then she stopped and immediately went to sleep.  :D  Mostly, she wanted to be held with her head on my chest or carried in the Ergo.  I don't think I have ever had a child in so much discomfort while they were sick.

She would cry and cry even when I was holding her sometimes.  She had a slight fever and wouldn't hardly eat and I had to work to get her to drink, and she was drooling PROFUSELY, and her mouth obviously hurt her a lot.  She is getting a bunch of teeth at once and I wasn't sure if it was that or something else.  Today after she woke up from her nap she was feeling a lot better and was playing happily all evening...and boom - down goes Layla.  Fever and obvious discomfort somewhere.

**********************

We seemed to have had a break-through in terms of Layla's sleep issues.  For about a year and a half, sleep has been a major issue with her.  Getting her to sleep and her waking up and having disoriented tantrums in the middle of the night that would last up to two hours.  For months those happened every single night.  The past while they had tapered down to once a week or so.  Lately I had been really feeling that we needed to get her to fall asleep on her own, because I felt like it would help with her sleeping more soundly in the middle of the night.  Now she is sleeping in the fourth bunk in her brother's room, and she goes to sleep on her own (yes, this was a fight that we fought for 3 nights before putting her in there) with no fussing.  She still often comes and crawls into bed with us at some point, but the tantrums in the middle of the night have disappeared, and the absence of both the struggle of getting her to get to sleep and dealing with a screaming, raging child in the small hours of the night, night after night after night after week after month over a year is just....glorious.  SUCH a relief.

This last year and a half, between her sleep issues and day time tantrums and having a newborn that is now a baby that still wakes up some to nurse has been one of the hardest, most laborious stages of parenting yet, I think.  Not not-enjoyable - there's been plenty of good and happy things along the way, and I haven't felt depressed or anything and have enjoyed my life - just exhausting.  I have just felt like all of my creative energies just dried up and have been non-existent for this entire length of time, and to write about life as it was happening was just too tiring.  I haven't even wanted to remember all of the sheer WORK of this stage, much less laboriously write it out, even though I love reading back in my blog.  I thought it was significant that tonight I felt a blog post germinate in my head, for about the first time since all of these sleep issues began (everything since has been dutiful recording of events, not writing I have enjoyed), and HOPE that the added sleep I have just started getting (well. the few nights before the girls got sick!!!) means that the desert of creative ambition is over and that my brain might feel well watered again and work more properly-er.  ;)

All The Things

I keep thinking I'm going to blog...and then there's this little miss who has had one cold followed by four teeth coming in at one time who seems determined to issue an immediate cease-and-desist order on all enjoyable evening activities that may otherwise occur...such as soothing cups of hot milky tea, or just a brain on veg, or an uninterrupted Netflix show, etc. etc....nope.  Right now I am typing and she is busily investigating the boys room, where they are happily camped out on the floor in their blankets, or trying to high-tail it down the hall with a gleeful chuckle and glint in her eye towards Layla's room.  When we really get down to bidness, I'll probably put a big chair in front of the living room door that she can't squeeze past, and then she'll howl her little head off in great distress and then I will comfort her by nursing her to sleep.  It's all planned out, you see.

This made me laugh the other day.  So, we have a cat, Kitzi.  And she is verrrryyy friendly.  She will get right up in your face and demand the love.

She takes very little offense if you push her off after a bit, and pads off to find her next patron.  She's such a good cat.  She and Caroline have a symbiotic relationship and have had from as little as Caroline could grab her.  She is exceptionally tolerant with Caroline and often goes to find her so that Caroline can grab at her, which Kitzi interprets as petting.  :)  She has a funny quirk of PREFERRING to obtain water by sources other than a water dish.  She spends a lot of time in the bathtub waiting for drops to drink, or if that's not working out for her, goes scouting for stray water cups, which she will dip her paw into, and then carefully lick off the water.

Meanwhile, we're settling into Christmas around here.  Christmas really is fun with little kids.  They have such wide-eyed delight in it.  When we got back from Thanksgiving, the shieldren's were hot on my heels about Christmas.  I told them that the living room needed to be cleaned up first and they were ON IT.

Israel is especially chief of Christmas excitement.  He just can hardly contain himself.  :)  This is the second year that he has been both the primary urger and primary helper to obtain all items and do all the Christmas goodness YEEEESSSSSSS!!!!  But it's pretty contagious to the leetle ones too.

The aforementioned Kitzi surveying her Christmas domain.  She's a very regal Queentzi.

The Baby and her daddy were looking at the Kitzi and talking together about her the other night.

Luuuuvvv's me some Baby Curls. ;)

She's SUCH a sweet baby and totally adored by all parties at all times around here.

Seriously people.  That is a morsel of sweet child, right there. 

On Friday night, we did our Official Christmas Activity of the season, which was to go to The Salted Rim in Ocean View, DE, where they have two train cars set up as part of the restaurant, and you enjoy a Polar Express Train supper.  It was really fun, actually.  We went through a buffet,

and were seated where we could see large screen TV's that played The Polar Express.  The boys were transfixed the whole time.

The train car.

Layla got a little restless eventually, and romped around playing with the baby.  They served hot chocolate and a cookie, and then Santa came to visit...

He asked all the kids what they wanted for Christmas, and then gave them a little bell with a ribbon to match Santa's bell in the movie.  Layla wanted a doll, Israel wanted a Wii U, and Zion wanted a sword.  Gabe couldn't decide.  :)  

I mentioned to Tim as we traveled the 50+ minutes away that it was significant (and potentially promising in regards to Christmas travels) that the distance was not intimidating this year in terms of Caroline.  Last year at Christmas, I was not ready to commit to traveling anywhere further than 15 minutes away from home (and even that was stretching!!!) but this year she is older and able to be entertained.  We have officially entered a new phase that makes life a little broader and less survivalistic.  

Tonight (Saturday), we ate pizza and watched Home Alone for the first time.

The boys LOVED it, which I knew they would.  I don't normally have patience to watch kid's movies, but I happily sat through this one just to see their enjoyment of it.  Layla seemed slightly concerned about the concept of staying behind at home by one's self, and stated insistently and repeatedly that she would not do that, but she would go with everyone.  :)