Last night was the baby shower for our new little guy, and it was wonderful! Since we weren’t expecting to have another baby at all and haven’t had a boy baby in nearly ten years, our pile ‘o stuff was a bit thin. I’ve been thoroughly enjoying shopping the Gymboree sales for actual proper clothes (the clothes out now are so much cuter than the measly selection of boy clothes from when Georgie was a baby), but my stash of necessities like jammies, onesies, socks, boy blankets, etc. was pretty non-existent (blankets with flowers? Those I have).

My friend Amy and I went to Target a few weeks ago and registered there, which I had never done before. Wow, that works great! Last night I ended up with a wide variety of stuff and sizes, only one duplicate, and pretty much everything we needed to start off. This week I need to buy diapers and that’s about it. I’m so thankful for everyone who came. What a huge blessing and especially since it was all stuff that we needed. Thank you guys!

We also got a new high chair, which we really needed since our existing one has been in use since Georgie and the current occupant has started peeling the vinyl off the back. So attractive!

The girls and I got home a bit after 9:30 last night, and I pretty much walked in the door and collapsed on the couch where I declined to move until trudging up the stairs to bed. Carrying around this baby makes me soooo tired! Then I went to bed, slept for a few hours, woke up, and couldn’t get back to sleep so I went downstairs and watched reruns of Home Improvement for a bit before passing out on the couch for a couple hours of restless dozing. This sleep pattern has become more and more frequent lately. For some reason attaching a bowling ball to your stomach is not conducive to restful repose. Who knew??

Somehow despite being a near-total zombie this morning I managed to run a load of laundry and fold four (three from yesterday were already patiently waiting on the couch) and sort through all shower stuff from yesterday. The 0-3 month things are now all washed and dried (and patiently waiting to be folded….) and the bigger stuff has been relocated to the baby’s “Grow Into Box.” Some odds and ends still need to be put away, but most of it is cleared up. It’s like unpacking after a vacation, I think. If you don’t do it right away, it sits around for a week before it gets finished. Then I crashed for a nap this afternoon, where I tossed and turned for another couple hours in between getting up twice to lumber off to the bathroom and glaring at my inconveniently located giant belly. Doesn’t that sound restful?

Tonight I’m going to watch American Idol, eat my favorite ice cream (the one with the Heath bar and caramel in it), and fold up the now-washed baby stuff. Actually, I kind of like doing that. That stuff is so cute! And we’re having a boy, who will hopefully be here soon. Kyra has taken to telling me at least six times a day that she reeeeeally wants to see her new baby brother or asking me when her new baby brother is going to be here. After hearing this 42 times a week approximately, I am getting somewhat less patient myself (although I have my own reasons for being impatient. In case you are really thick or have the memory of a tsetse fly, reread the paragraph above about sleeping….).

This weekend George and I are happily going to redeem our “alone weekend” that we had planned for three weeks ago but had to postpone due to half the family acquiring plague. George asked me this morning if we were going to spend all weekend trying to put me into labor. I must admit, I am torn between the desire and relief of spending time with just George and no howler monkeys…. errr…. children, and wanting to GET THIS KID OUT OF MY STOMACH!!! Yes, tough call. We’ll see how it goes. Of course, despite vast quantities of our own personal, non-clinical trials over the course of five (so far) pregnancies, we have yet to find a fool proof method of making labor come on, so the entire point is likely moot anyway.

Hmmm, Sunday is also our anniversary (12 years!). Having a baby right next to our anniversary sounds like it’s asking for scheduling conflicts in years to come. Okay, well restless natives are starting to hover about asking when dinner will be forthcoming and acting like they haven’t eaten in weeks (when I know for a fact that they’ve all eaten at least once in the last 24 hours), so I guess that means I have to move again (should only take about five minutes to get off the couch) and go rustle up some dinner. My weekly menu tells me that tonight I am making Monterey Chicken, which is chicken with bacon, melted cheese, tomatoes, and chives on it. Yummy!

Rachel

Clear! No broken arm. Phew! Messing with a two year old with a cast sounded rather miserable for all involved. George is recovering but still not quite all together so I took Faithy to the radiologist.

It occurred to me that she would probably need someone to stay in the room with her and they probably wouldn’t want me to do it since I’m pregnant, so I called my parents and Dad ended up drawing the short straw (Mom is sick now, which is not our fault since we haven’t seen her in two weeks).

Turned out to be a good thing he came. They wouldn’t even let me go back and stand in the booth with the lady who pushes the button to snap the pictures! They said they didn’t want me anywhere near the X-ray so I had stay in the waiting room.

Sounds like I missed quite the show. Dad said that Faith didn’t like the X-ray at all. She had to lie on a table with the machine above her doing its thing, and she just flipped out while Dad and one of the assistants were trying to hold her down and keep her still. I guess they managed to X-ray the assistant’s hand three times! This is one of the few times in the last eight months that I’ve actually been glad I’m pregnant.

Anyway, the radiologist came out to talk to us before I even got my purse picked up, and he said the scan looked just great so hurray! Thank you, Dad, for coming with us today. This would not have worked without you (and it was nice hanging around visiting with you in the waiting room).

And now, because I am evil, I just have to post my very favorite picture of my wonderful Dad even though the picture is blurry (hey, it’s hard to hold still during a dragon attack). Hehe.

Now how can you not love that? He’s being attacked by Georgie’s six foot stuffed dragon, Draco. I think Georgie actually took the picture.

Rachel

Well, Kyra and Anika are now pretty fully recovered, but Faith had the flu earlier in the week (fever only lasted two days for her instead of seven like Kyra or five like Anika). She’s not sick anymore, but now my husband has it and has been mostly zombified since Thursday. He seems worse every day. Then this morning Faith was in her high chair watching me, Anika, and Kyra make pancakes and started freaking out for no reason. I picked her up and she started pointing at her arm.

She was crying so much she was shaking, wouldn’t let anyone touch her arm, and totally melted if we put her down, changed position, or gave her to another person (like from Mom to Dad). So off to the doc she and I went. By the time we got there she had settled down almost entirely but still seemed a bit touchy about the arm.

Last year when Anika broke her arm we didn’t figure it out for an
entire week because after the initial incident (her brother jumping on her arm on the trampoline) she seemed perfectly fine unless her arm got twisted a certain way which didn’t happen very often. Since we were already at the doctor’s office, I decided to go ahead and have Faith checked out even though she seemed better. And……. now we get to go get X-rays on Monday. Hurray!

Her arm is showing the exact same symptoms as Anika’s: seems fine unless it gets rotated a bit and then she looks like “Hey, don’t touch me” and has that same pained, worried look on her face. I can’t figure out how she possibly could have broken it (pretty sure Georgie was not involved this time though). Pancake Making, the violent spectator sport. Who knew? Argh!

Anyway, this flu thing has been here for a solid week and a half now and I’ll be at 35 weeks tomorrow. I’m getting a bit tired. Or a lot tired. Sort of exhausted-ish. I half wish I could catch the flu after my husband gets done with it so I could sit around and not move for three or four days. Actually, no I don’t wish that. All those guys have been pretty miserable who have had it. George can’t sleep, is hot and cold at the same time, and says his eyes hurt too much to watch TV. That doesn’t sound good. Anika had a 104.5 degree fever. I think I’d rather avoid that too if possible. Kyra was sick for a week. Nope, I don’t want that either. I think I’ve been basically supporting the AirBorne corporation in an effort to not get sick (so far it’s been working!).

What I really wish is that I could deliver. Then I could rest
for awhile afterwards and not have a baby in my stomach. Double good! George just asked me what I was doing and then asked “why” when I told him I was blogging. Most of my social contact lately has been with people who are running fevers and asking for soup or sitting on my lap crying all day. It’s been a
really fun week….

I think my parents might take my older kids to church with them tomorrow. I’m supposed to be “protecting Faith’s arm from further injury” until the X-ray (and exactly how I’m to do that wasn’t clearly outlined… If only I could temporarily change her from a two year old into say, a seven year old, that would be much easier), and I don’t really want to leave zombie man since he’s too sick to make himself soup or tea, which has been most of his diet for the last three days. Alice, if you’re reading this, we will not be coming to fellowship tomorrow after church. I’m sorry we’re missing again!

Well, they’ve discovered that I’m not napping (I haven’t been sleeping too well myself lately. For some reason there’s a giant bowling ball in my way), and George is back up here in bed, which means I’m back on duty. He took a nap and then went downstairs while I tossed and turned in a failed effort to nap. Now he’s back up here in bed and mentioned something about Trinity and Anika making something in the kitchen.

This may need a bit of monitoring, although we gave Anika a kids’ no-bake cookbook for her birthday and the girls made something out of that all by themselves yesterday. It took me 20 minutes to unglue the cookbook pages after they were done and took them at least half an hour to clean up all the powdered sugar that clung to every surface of the kitchen, but they did make their frosted graham crackers all by themselves and if they can clean up their own mess (which they did admirably yesterday), then I don’t mind too much if they make one in the first place. Plus, it kept them happy and occupied for at least an hour. Well, I can hear Faith fussing. Guess it’s really time for me to go. But it’s so quiet up here….. :(  (pout, pout, whine, whine. Okay, I’m done now.)

Rachel

Several weeks back my older three children finally got collectively clever enough to pull a prank on my Hubby. Trinity called him into the dining room to “show him something” and when he got beneath the stair railing, the other kids upstairs dumped all the laundry directly out of their hamper and onto his unsuspecting head in one big heap. They were pretty proud of themselves that they actually managed to surprise their Dad and pull this off (we were rather impressed too).

Fast forward two months to tonight. Our typical Sunday evening routine lately has been to have Sunday Night Special for dinner. This consists of a fruit plate, different deli meats, cheese slices, and a variety of crackers. Everyone gets to pick what they want, I don’t have to hear “I don’t like this,” it requires no thought and very little effort for me, and is non-messy enough to eat in the living room while we engage in our other Sunday evening ritual of watching AFV (America’s Funniest Home Videos). Yes, amazingly enough that’s still on the air.

Every week the show has an assignment section where they tell you what kind of videos they want you to send in, and the kids keep laughing and saying they have to try that. Uh huh. So tonight, Trinity called George into the dining room to “show him something.” As he was standing there trying to figure out what he was supposed to be looking at and noticing that she kept trying to reposition him to right beneath the stairs, it became apparent that the children were clumsily trying to recreate their original prank.

Unfortunately, this proved more difficult than the first time around. Georgie was in the living room hiding under a blanket with the camera, thinking that no one actually noticed the giggling fuzzy blob on the floor. The fact that he kept going, “Wait! I can’t get it to turn on” did not improve the stealth factor.

While Trinity was downstairs trying to tell Daddy where to stand and Georgie was in the other room fighting with the camera, Anika was upstairs wrestling with the hamper. Since Georgie was downstairs not filming instead of providing the helpful muscle as he had the first go around, the hamper was too big for Anika and she had to content herself with throwing pieces of clothing over the rail one by one and hoping they actually landed on her Dad. Unfortunately, they landed next to him and the intermittent drifting down of a shirt here and a sock there was not quite such a startling blitzkrieg as having an entire hamper dumped on you at once.

Since all three of them gave themselves away by laughing, the camera caught absolutely none of this, and George could tell from within five seconds exactly what was going on, the entire fiasco was a clear failure. However, it was funny enough that I did wish we had it on tape (AFV would be proud). Instead, I have to content myself with writing it up here. Yes, I live with a barrel of monkeys.

Rachel

We got in a discussion tonight about various things the children remember being disciplined for (the kids brought this up, not us). Georgie said mostly he gets in trouble for messing with the girls. I replied that you’d think he’d figure out to be nice to them! This ensued:

Georgie: Sometimes the brutal urge just whacks me on the head.

Me: The brutal urge?? Georgie, what I am I going to do with you?

Georgie: Ummm, raise me as your son? {This is followed by uproarious, snorting laughter on his part}.

George: Shall we call you Pig Boy from now on?

Georgie: Only if we can call you Warthog Dad. {Insert much more laughter here}

What a smarty pants! He’s getting pretty fast too. Can’t imagine where he gets the smart-aleckiness….

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Oh, also I’ve been messing with my photo gallery software for the site and it seems to work ok. Here is a link to all the pictures from Ani & Faith’s cupcake birthday party the Saturday before last: Anika’s 6th and Faith’s 2nd ~ Cupcakes! Click on any of the pictures to make it bigger and you can scroll through them that way by clicking the arrow buttons on the top right (right under the album title).

Here are a couple of my favorites:

Instead of a big cake this year, the kids got cupcakes that they decorated themselves (no one seemed upset about this…).

I like this one because it’s a good action shot of Anika and the other two girls (Charlotte and Kyra) both have such funny looks on their faces.

Happy little Birthday Girl #1

Happy little Birthday Girl #2

Somewhat less happy non-Birthday girl

Frosting Lessons

Rachel

Yesterday was SuperBowl Sunday and we spent the afternoon with George’s sister and some friends at George’s parents house. Before church while I was sitting on the floor in the big kids’ room helping Anika get her tights on, I told the kids we were going over to Auntie Masha’s to go watch the football game. Not being sports fans, this is something of a novelty.

Trinity pondered this for a moment and then wanted to know if that didn’t mean the football players were working on Sunday and if God gets mad at them for working on the Sabbath. Naturally, I deferred the question to her father who had just walked into the room. I typically deflect these types of questions to George for a few reasons:

1. I want the kids to think of him as the Spiritual leader of our home, and if I answer all the questions they’ll assume I’m the authority on Biblical topics.

2. I answer all sorts of weird questions all day. It’s good for him to get a few and then I don’t have to think about it…. (yes, lazy, I know).

3. He always has clear, concise answers that he presents well to the kids and that make sense to them. My answers tend to be much more long-winded and warble around a lot.

4. I like hearing his answers.

Anyway, George told her that not everyone believes like we do and that it used to be that hardly anyone worked on the Sabbath and that stores and things weren’t even open on Sundays. Then he pointed out that some people have to work on the Sabbath like policemen and firemen and hospitals have to be open. Georgie was listening too and realized that these professions were protecting people and figured that they got an exception.

Georgie also noticed that getting out of bed in the morning is work (yes, you poor nine year old, you), but that that’s ok. Trinity was pretty quiet through this whole conversation, but clearly she was thinking. After Georgie’s observation about getting up in the morning, she added that “we are allowed to gather grain on the Sabbath, so that’s ok.”

In case you were wondering, George and I have not gotten around to teaching the kids Old Testament case law yet, so I’m assuming she learned this in Sunday school, in which case I can only say “Wow!” Our church’s kid’s Sunday school program is pretty thorough! All I learned in Sunday school when I was a kid was, “Jesus loves me, this I know.”

Actually, I think that was pretty much the main point of every sermon in the church we went to when I was young too (before Dad started Reformation Bible Church). Slightly repetitive after awhile…. Makes me glad that we’re going to Reformation Covenant Church and that the kids appear to be actually learning something. Georgie got a 94% on his final test in December. I don’t remember my Sunday school classes growing up having any tests at all….

Rachel

I’m having a boy. You already know this, of course, but you see I have pretty much no boy clothes left from Georgie, who was born nine years ago and then was followed by four girls. Naturally this means I must shop. Darn! Gymboree has been having a bunch of great clearance stuff so I’ve been snapping up all kinds of things for under $5 (sweaters, overalls, pants, jeans, boots, etc.). Anyway, I bought this really cute Moose sweater

the other day for $5 and have been trying to find the matching hat

ever since, because of course one must have the hat and it’s on sale for $.99 (heeheeheeeheheheee). Clackamas Town Center and Washington Square are both sold out, and it’s nowhere on eBay. If any of you guys are out shopping and find it at your local Gymbo in a size 0-3 months, can you pick it up for me. I’ll pay you back your $.99 and if you live somewhere not here and can ship it to me, I will of course reimburse you. I also bought this sweater and hat (the earflaps on this one button up so they don’t have to hang down and look all goofy; both pieces are fleece lined. Aren’t they cute??):

but I really neeeeeed the Moose hat to go with the Moose sweater. It occurs to me that I may possibly be making a much bigger deal out of this than it should ever be, but I failed miserably in the sleeping department last night and can feel my brain not functioning too well. It seems to be rendering me capable only of meaningless tasks like trying to find a $.99 hat. Well, I’m off to go phone the other area stores and see if any of them have it and can ship it to me.

Rachel