A little more tripping

I have spent the past 2+ years protecting my baby from the world. And by "the world," what I mean is...his older siblings (specifically Zoë and Benjamin). They are just...not careful...with him.

I'm a lot less nervous about them hurting him now than I was when he was a tiny, helpless baby and they were doing things like tipping over the pack'n'play to roll him out so they could play with him and things like that. Now that he's bigger he's able to fend for himself a little better (and Benjamin and Zoë deserve everything he does to fight them off) and is better able to communicate his desires with cries of, "Go away! Leave me alone! Don't touch me! I want Mom!" instead of just suffering in sweet baby silence.

Still, they're just not gentle with him and he's still so much littler than everyone that I worry.

Yesterday the three little kids went outside together and I was fretting about what to do because I don't like the baby to go outside without a more responsible person with him and I had a couple of things inside that I needed to attend to. Instead I was watching out the window while the children played.

"He'll be fine," Andrew said, coming upon me at the window. "You're all about free-range parenting."

"Not with my two-year-old!" I said.

"Let him explore."

"They're not careful!"

"They're somewhat responsible."

"They're not remotely responsible. I mean, I guess they'd tell me if he got hurt but that's the problem:  he's going to get hurt."

"Kids get hurt all the time. He'll be fine."

"I'm going to get one of the girls to watch him for a minute..."

"Oh, but they're playing so nicely and he's just right in the backyard he'll be..."

Our conversation was interrupted by a piercing scream.

Tripping and tramping

Yesterday morning we went to a friend's house to practice the girls' song one last time before Sunday. We had planned to walk because they only live half a mile away from us, but the morning got away from us and we found we weren't quite ready to leave the house when we needed to so Andrew dropped us off on the way to take the boys grocery shopping.

Zoë was so excited to be included that she leaped out of the van. It was a rather impressive leap, too—she cleared the curb and everything! She crashed on the landing but picked herself up off the ground and started leading her way to the front door. We were cutting through the grass* to get to the front door and Zoë made it about two steps before she slipped—I wouldn't say it was an icy morning but it was frosty (and what is frost, if not ice)—and slid down the hill to the front door on her behind.

We had a pretty good practice and then said our goodbyes and headed out the door for our walk home.

"Hold my hand," Rachel ordered Zoë the minute we stepped out the front door. "You're going to trip and fall."

"No!" Zoë said. "I don't want to! I won't fall!"

"But the stairs are slippery," Rachel cautioned (and they are—not with ice but with moss (things have been so wet that it seems everything in our world is frosted green right now (I have a feeling power-washing season is coming up))). "Hold my hand."

"No!" Zoë repeated. "I won't fall."

"Suit yourself," sniffed Rachel. And then she herself tripped and landed sprawled out spread eagle on the lawn.

We had a good laugh about that!

NOT in the way

Alexander came in from outside complaining that "everyone says I'm in the way, but I'm not in the way" and I was struck by a sudden desire to read And You Can Be the Cat to him, poor boy. He was rather upset about it and continued to whine about it in the cutest little fashion for several minutes.



He is not in buh way! He is not in wuh way! He can not say /th/.

Math and Reading

Benjamin claims to have slept in this box last night:

I honestly couldn't say for sure whether he did or not. It doesn't look very comfortable to me, but evidently it's comfortable enough that he spent a couple of hours reading there this afternoon, for which I'm extremely grateful. It's been terribly rainy this week (this year, really) and we've had a bit of cabin fever, so I was happy when he decided to settle down with a good book (or several; he prefers to read more than one book at a time, so you can see he's got a Percy Jackson sequel on the floor behind him but he's reading something different, and is also in the middle of a Who Was? book and has another book or two downstairs that he's reading).

All for naught

Remember how I said that I really didn't want Alexander wetting my bed and that was the whole reason we were keeping him in diapers at night still?

Well, last night when Andrew came home from work I hadn't quite managed to get all the kids ready for bed yet (we were too busy playing UNO), so he got Alexander ready for bed. He was sure to put a pull-up on him and then told me, "This time he is really, truly, honestly in a diaper."

So I tucked him into his own bed and then in the middle of the night when he came to find me I very trustingly pulled him into my bed and in the morning was very, very sad to find that Alexander had peed in the night for the first time in...weeks...probably. Mostly this was sad because that "diaper" Andrew had put Alexander in was a swim diaper. 

A morning mystery

Last night was our church activity night, so I went to church with the three oldest (since I'm one of the activity leaders) and we ended up staying out later than we ordinarily do because the girls had to practice their song for Sunday and so forth.

By the time we got home, Andrew had Alexander and Zoë in bed. They weren't asleep, but they were in bed! I sang to them and rubbed their backs and read them a chapter from Anne of Green Gables. Then I sat in the hallway and read and crocheted until Alexander finally succumbed to sleep.

He sneaked into our room in the middle of the night and padded over to my sided of the bed and I just heaved him on in and let him nestle in between us, not giving anything a second thought. When we woke up in the morning I reached over to check if Alexander was dry and was shocked to find that he was not wearing a diaper or a pull-up (so was then extra relieved that he had, in fact, stayed dry)!

I texted Andrew: "You put the baby to bed wearing underwear?!?!?!"

To his credit, Alexander usually stays dry over night. He's not going to be a complicated nighttime wetter like some of our other children have been. But he still climbs into bed with us every night and I really don't want him having an accident in my bed, so we still put him in a diaper (we have a few sleeves left over from his diaper days) or pull up (we have some that Uncle Cory gave to us before we left that Riley didn't use). We've talked about going without, but aren't quite ready to take that leap. At least, that's what I had thought we decided.

"No...?" Andrew texted back.

"Yes," I said.

"No, I put him to bed in a pull-up."

"No."

"100% certain. A pull-up and his blue bear jammies."

"100% not in a pull-up and blue bear jammies. 100% in underwear and green moose jammies."

"????? No."

"!!!!! Yes."

By this time I had started laughing because this was all so weird!

Cavity-free club

In happier news, the kids had their first cavity-free check up ever. We have always had to go back to the dentist for one child or another. But we bit the bullet and bought electric toothbrushes for all of our children (except Alexander, but perhaps he'll get one for his birthday since they're technically only for humans ages 3+) and I think that (as expensive as it was) it was worth it. Our children are much better at brushing with an electric toothbrush than with...manual...toothbrushes (and electric toothbrushes are much more effective overall, even more cost-effective when you factor in the cost of fillings (even with decent dental insurance)). We're happy it paid off. 

All the kids went back by themselves, except for Alexander. I went back with him and he remembered what we'd practiced and talked about at home: we were going to open wide for the dentist and cooperate fully. The minute he got in that chair (in my lap, technically, but I was in the chair) his mouth popped open. And he would not close it for anything!

We waited in the chair for several minutes—no dental workers in sight—and he kept his mouth wide open, drool cascading over his lip and onto the bib they had so fortuitously put on him before leaving us there (otherwise his shirt would have been soaked. I told him he could close it but he just said, "Uh-uh!" and kept it wide open.

Murmurings

Yesterday the stake president came to our ward to announce that our ward is being ousted from the stake. We're not sure what's happening entirely—we'll be meeting with another stake(s?) in the next couple of weeks to hear all the juicy details—but we know that we'll no longer be part of our stake and thus that our building will no longer be in our stake so more likely than not we'll no longer be meeting at that building.

It's all speculation for now, but it's certainly not cheery speculation.

No one seems entirely thrilled by the idea of driving half an hour to get to church (even less thrilling is the thought of having to battle through rush hour traffic to get to the church on a weekday evening for church activities), but I am particularly un-thrilled.

Allow me to let you in on a little secret: I hate driving. (*gasp*)

When we were considering moving to Atlanta (which, I mean, there wasn't a whole lot to consider) the traffic kept haunting me. So we purposely looked in a less densely populated area, an area decently close to the metro, an area with what we thought would have good schools, an area where I thought I could learn to drive all the places I needed to go even if it was all terribly intimidating.

Location, location, location!

Isn't that a line realtors use?

I thought we'd picked a good place but now I feel like everything I thought I might like about it has been taken away. So why are we even here? I mean, obviously we have to live somewhere and this place is better than no place, but I'm rather disenchanted by it.

Weaning

After today Alexander will have gone without momma's milk for a full week. Some days moments are easier than others. This morning he woke up begging for milk and he howled down the moon when I told him there was no milk left for him (there is, but somehow we've reached the point of no return...after he willingly skipped nursing on Friday (didn't ask a single time) and then went the weekend with a lot of help from Daddy (the king of distraction) and suddenly here we are...).

It was a rough start to our day, but we got through it. 

He had waffles and oatmeal for breakfast (anything you want, kid). 

Yesterday afternoon when it was far too late to take a nap, he came to me and begged for snuggles. 

"I want a nap," he said and even though it was far too late for such a thing I told him we could lie down together for a few minutes before dinner (I wasn't feeling well, anyway). 

"But you can't have any milk," I told him (he has never taken a nap without nursing, which means he hasn't taken a nap this entire week (so it's been a long week)).

"I don't want milk," he said. "I just want you."

He nestled in for some snuggles and soon fell fast asleep.  

And I think he's going to be okay. I think we're going to be okay. 

Does it smell like up-dog in here?

I took the kids over to a friend's apartment complex this afternoon so they could help put up flyers for her lost cat. She has arthritis and wanted someone to help her run flyers up to the top floor so that she didn't have to. It was quite a lot of stair climbing for my little brood (and thank goodness, too, because they needed a good tuckering out).

At one point Benjamin and Zoë went scampering up a little hill and Alexander wanted me to put him down so he could follow them, so I did. He romped up the hill with them and then ran back to me. I scooped him up and caught a whiff of fecal matter in the air.

"Did you poop in your pants?!" I asked.

"No!" he said.

I verified and this was true. He had not pooped in his pants.

So we continued on our way, posting flyers here and there, and always with the lingering smell of fecal matter following us around.

"Are you sure you didn't poop?" I asked. "Do you need to go poopies?"

No and no, he insisted.

I decided to put him down on the ground this time in order to take a better gander in his pants (the first time I had him in my arms and took just a quick peek). When I put him down I noticed that I had mud all over my clothes from him kicking me with his shoes as I carted him around. It was smeared all over my pants, all over my shirt, all over my sweater...

Wait a minute, I thought. That's not mud!

Indeed, it was not.

He had been kicking me all over with his dirty shoes but he had not stepped in mud. He had stepped in doggy doo-doo...which was now all over me.

I carefully wrenched his shoe from his foot and wiped off as much of the remaining doggy doo-doo into the grass as I could but he and I were a hopeless, stinky mess (he less so than I). We continued to perfume the air around us while we worked, which I'm sure everyone appreciated.

When we got home I had Miriam give him a bath while I freshened up myself.

His shoes are still sitting on the front porch. I'll get to them eventually...

(As Andrew pointed out to me: it could have been worse).