Yelling, Lie Telling and Nudity

I briefly mentioned in my last post that I try to blog mostly about all the happy moments I want to remember and look back on – but sometimes it’s good to let all the rest of you moms out there know that I’m totally barely hanging on by a thread most days too. I feel exhausted, frazzled, outnumbered, under appreciated, and pray I survive until bedtime most days. I seem to never know what’s for dinner even though I’m in charge of making it. My kids fight, scream, bicker and whine. I’ve been terrible about yelling across the house at my kids to get them to obey ANYTHING I’ve asked lately. To top it off, I got puked on today. Not just a little spit up… I’m talking about a fountain of projectile vomit all over my hair, shirt, shorts, dripping down my legs and all over the floor and wall within a 3-foot radius of where I was standing.

I looked around for my mom and realized again that I’M THE MOM.

OH. MY. GOODNESS. GRACIOUS.  I stand frozen in shock trying to get my brain to function beyond my immobilizing disgust enough to figure out what to do next. I think to myself, should I set Charlie down and risk him crawling though his own vomit puddle and tracking it even farther than it already reached? If I move my feet I will track vomit with me. Maybe I should just stand here until Ryan gets home from work… in 5 hours. If Ruby comes in this room and sees what just happened she will FREAK because for reasons unknown to me vomit is the thing she is most afraid of in the whole world. I realize my three-year old is my only hope. In my calmest voice I call to her, “Clara, sweet Clara girl, can you please come in the kitchen and help mommy reeeeeally quick? Clara? Clara? HELLOOOOOOO? Clara?”

Ruby appears around the corner. “Mommy. What is THAT?!?” she asks pointing to the slimy liquid running down my arms and legs and dripping from my ponytail. “Well Charlie isn’t feeling good, can you just grab me that towel over there so I can stand on it to wipe off my feet?” “Mommy. Is that diarrhea?” she asks. I know I’m not supposed to lie to my children, but knowing what might happen if Ruby knew it was actually vomit made me respond, “Yes Ruby. Yes it is. Please stay away from it until I can get Charlie bathed off and come back downstairs to clean it up.” She tosses me the towel, I wipe off my feet and head upstairs to the bathroom.

A short while later Charlie is sleeping in his crib and I come down to clean up the mess. I’ve thrown all my clothing down the laundry chute and plan to run upstairs to shower as soon as I get the floor cleaned and a load of laundry started in the basement. The girls are disturbed that I’ve become a nudist and are asking me all sorts of questions while work on  getting chunks of gooey banana? toast? cheese? out of the carpet fibers. Ruby asks why I have to clean everything and I try to explain that it’s my job as a mommy to clean up messes sometimes. In her dramatic and exasperated way declares that she is “NEVER going to be a MOMMY, mommy.” and storms into the other room.

So there you have it. Having 3 kids in 5 years has turned me into a yelling, lie-telling, nudist who may never have grandchildren.

How was your day?

Charlie vs. Solid Food

 

Claraisms

Clara has become a bit of a chatter bug over the past couple of months. She is in her element when she’s one-on-one. If Ryan or I take her on a trip to the grocery, gas station or car wash without her siblings she becomes the most animated, excited, talkative little person you’ve ever seen. It’s so funny. If you come to visit, feel free to take Clara on a special outing by herself. She will love you forever.

One of Clara’s favorite things is watering the mums. She LOVES to check them out each morning to see how they’re doing and let’s me know many times a day that “we need to water those mums!”

She also reminds me regularly, “we need to clean this house!” I think she must have heard me say that often enough that now she’s telling ME! ha!

Clara love ranch dressing. She recently discovered that we can dip things in ranch… so now she asks for it at most meals. “Can I have some wanch? Can I have some wanch right here? wanch? wanch mommy?”

When we are at the playground or zoo or whenever there are other kids around, Clara sees it as her job to report to me what the other kids are doing. She will run up to me and say, “this kid is on the slide.” or “that kid has a brother.” or “this kid is not being nice to me!”

I let the girls watch a TV show after lunch and before naps most days. While I’m in the process of turning on the TV Clara is always so concerned that It’s not really going to happen. She has no faith that I’ll be able to turn the channel to find her show. She just sits on the couch saying, “No, it’s not gonna come on! It’s not coming on. No. It’s not coming on.” over and over until finally the Disney Junior channel is on. Patience is not her strong suit.

She is 2, so of course, wants to do everything by herself. If I’m trying to put her in her seat for lunch, she says, “No, I can do it myself!” and then proceeds to take A LOOOONG time to do it by herself. The same goes for brushing her teeth, putting on and off shoes, coats, gloves, hats, or getting into or out of her car seat. “I want to sit on my own bottom!”

This last picture shows how frustrated she was that she didn’t fit in her doll’s cradle the other day. She’s such a character. I never wonder how she’s feeling because her face makes it VERY clear! She says cute things like “pischker” instead of “picture”, knows her colors, is learning to identify some letters, can sing the ABC’s, Jesus Loves Me, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. She LOVES getting tickled and has such a great laugh. She is still taking a solid 2-3 hour nap every afternoon and I have not yet figured out which direction to comb her hair.

Claraisms

Clara is a little Who from Whoville. She turned 2 months ago and I still haven’t figured out which direction to comb her curly locks.

Clara loves to sing. She sings about all sorts of things and makes up songs to help Charlie stop crying. I think her favorite song is called “It’s OK baby Charlie” (the title includes all the words to the entire song.) She’s sugar and spice and finds great enjoyment pushing her big sister’s buttons then turning around and giving hugs and kisses the next minute.

Here are some recent Claraisms.

• I told her, “I love you Clara.” She snuggled her head on my shoulder and responded, “I love me too mommy.”
• Above all else, she is a big girl. I tell her she looks tired and she says, “I not tired, I a big girl.” If I tell her she’s funny she says, “I not funny, I a big girl!”
• She loves pretending she’s asleep, then opens her eyes and says, “I’M AWAKE!!” when she thinks someone is looking at her.
• She loves animals, especially fake ones who don’t get in her personal space or try to lick her face.
• She calls her swimming suit her “Slippy Sloop”
• Doc McStuffins is her favorite show and she loves giving people checkups and even says, “check your blood pressure? …looks good!”
• Charlie is overly loved by Clara. “I give him one more hug.” “There’s Charlie’s nose”… or mouth or eye (as she sticks her finger in it…) we are working on being gentle.
• Some of her most used phrases are, “I did it!” “Look at me mom!” “I feel better!” “mine!”
• She likes to watch her shadow when she runs – which is an issue when it’s behind her.
• Clara is super ticklish and loves having her back scratched. If I’m tickling her, she asks me to scratch her back. If I’m scratching her back, she says, “I want me tickled.”
• When Ryan comes home from work she runs to the door and says, “Hey Hun, how was your day?”

In closing, she is ready to potty train and I am not. I was looking back at some posts I wrote when Clara was a newborn and Ruby decided to potty train herself before I was ready. My Uncle Matt is probably looking forward to more potty training blogs in the near future.

A Level 10 Situation

You wouldn’t believe the level 10 poo explosion situation I just lived through.

Around here, we have a ranking system based on number of baby wipes required per diaper change. A level 1 = 1 baby wipe required. Level 2 = 2 baby wipes… you get the idea. A level 10 is beyond cleaning with baby wipes and requires a bathtub to properly remedy the situation.

Amazingly, all three of my children have coordinated their pooping schedules so that I am “needed” by all of them at the same time. Charlie is only 3 weeks old, but he is just as guilty as the other 2.

After lunch today I turned on “Doc McStuffins” to occupy the girls for 30 minutes so I could change and feed Charlie before putting the girls down for naps. Ruby and Clara LOVE the show and sing along with all the Doc McStuffins songs. They were happily singing when I left the room.

As I was putting Charlie’s clean diaper on, he decided to dirty it before I could snap his onesie back on. Right at that moment, I heard Clara’s little feet running toward me and she says, “I let my poop come out!” (her words) so I said, “Yay! Good job!” and as she turned to run back into the living room I noticed that her entire shirt up to the nape of her neck was covered in poo. “CLARA!! STOP! DO NOT GO IN THE LIVINGROOM!”

Then I realize she just came from the livingroom…

I decided to leave Charlie in his bed since his poo was contained within his diaper and grabbed Clara before she made it back onto the couch, which is when I noticed that she must have been sitting on the couch when the level 10 situation happened. My eyes followed the trail of poo across the entire cushion and down over the edge where Clara slid off the couch to come tell me her good news.

I told Clara to stand perfectly still with her hands in the air in the kitchen, grabbed an entire pack of Clorox wipes, a roll of paper towel, some 409 and a grocery bag to quickly deal with the poo in the living room and then carried Clara up to the bathtub while the sound of Charlie’s cries got more and more furious. He knew he had been abandoned.

Clara was happy to be in the tub and I was happy to have survived the level 10 situation. Just as I was thinking about how happy I was, Ryan called to tell me that the oil change we took our van in for had turned into 4 new tires as well… $$$! and then Ruby came running upstairs with poo all over the side of her shirt and told me “Clara’s poop is so sticky mom!”

I must have missed a spot in the living room.

I stripped off Ruby’s clothes, threw her in the tub too and within 6 minutes had both girls clean, re-clothed and ready for naps. FINALLY I could tend to poor Charlie’s dirty diaper (a level 2, FYI).

I kid you not, as I was googling “how to clean poop off a couch“, I heard Ruby’s voice from the bathroom, “Mommy, I pooped! I need help wiping!”

Seriously folks. This is my life. Shenanigans.

Charlie is 2 Weeks Old

Charlie turned 2 weeks old on Tuesday and he is officially out of the newborn diapers and into size 1. He is already growing out of his newborn size clothing… I can’t handle it.

I was looking back at the posts I wrote when Clara was a newborn. Charlie looks JUST LIKE HER! Then I looked at the pictures I posted when Ruby was a newborn and HE LOOKS LIKE HER TOO! Shenanigans! This pic shows Ruby, Clara and Charlie as newborns… can you tell they’re siblings? Genes are amazing!

Ryan’s mom came on Monday to help us this week. It’s been amazing to have her here and Ruby and Clara are pretty much in hog heaven surrounded by their Nana and Grammy for the past 2 weeks.

Wednesday Ryan took Ruby into work with him for a few hours. She LOVED going to the big city, meeting everyone in the entire gastroenterology division at the children’s hospital, and eating lunch in the hospital cafeteria. 

Wednesday night we left the kids with their Nana and went out for sushi. Hooray for sushi! Hooray for date nights! Hooray for Nana being in town!

…still pregnant

Since this blog is all about shenanigans, I figured I might as well tell you a little story about the time (last Wednesday night) when I went into (what I was certain was for real) labor, called Patrice, our emergency contact to come to our house in the middle of the night to watch our girls, paged Ryan (who was on call in the office upstairs at our house), called my parents (who began a 5-hour drive to Columbus at 4am), and went to the hospital to have this baby.

Well, long story short, upon arrival at the hospital, they got me all checked in, got the monitors on me and began tracking my contractions and the baby’s heart rate. After about an hour, they came in the room and told me to walk for about an hour to see if it would help me progress. So Ryan and I walked up and down every hall on every floor of the hospital multiple times. Ryan was starving, but the cafeteria didn’t open until 7am, so I snapped this pic of him contemplating the steak sandwich from the vending machine. After some deliberation, he decided against the inevitable gastronomic distress.

After walking myself to exhaustion, I hadn’t progressed and my contractions had slowed quite a bit. The worst part (for me) is the fact that I’ve birthed 2 other children, so I KNOW what it feels like to be in labor, and if I wasn’t TRULY in labor, I certainly wouldn’t have woken everyone up in the middle of the night!

Thursday morning they sent me home from the hospital still pregnant. Ryan showered and went to work, which confused his co-workers who had received an email that we had our baby… as you know, we did not. (I was still having regular contractions pretty much all day) my parents, the girls and I walked all around the neighborhood, then later that day walked to the park, where I walked circles around the park while my mom and dad played with Ruby and Clara. I just knew I’d be back at the hospital in no time having this baby for real! 

Friday morning I woke up still pregnant, so we decided to head to the pool at our apartment complex where I could float around weightless in the deep end while my parents played with Ruby and Clara.

Saturday morning I woke up still pregnant, so my dad drove back to Granger to be there for the all-church service at the St. Joe County Fair while Ryan, Mom and I took the girls to the zoo.

Sunday morning I woke up still pregnant, so Ryan and I left the girls with my mom and ran a bunch of errands, had lunch together (where I enjoyed an amazing strawberry shake), went to Cabela’s, then went to a dinner party with all of Ryan’s GI Fellow friends downtown. 

This morning I woke up still pregnant, Ryan went to work (today is the 1st day of his FINAL YEAR of Fellowship!), my dad is planning to drive back this way sometime today or tomorrow and pretty much I’m just seriously looking forward to getting induced Wednesday morning at 5am.

Its been amazing having my parents here to help me chase Ruby and Clara around. I know that eventually I’ll have our little boy in my arms and I know God has a great plan. I’ve never prayed for more patience in my life!

Talk about shenanigans. I can’t believe I’ve made it this long with my 3rd baby who seems to be the size of Paul Bunyon. That’s the news. My next blog post will include pictures of a baby boy! Yahoo!

Until then, I’ll be here …still pregnant.

Ruby Dawn is 4 Years Old!

4 years ago, a tiny little girl named Ruby changed our lives forever! I can’t believe how quickly 4 years have passed and how much life she has lived already. I’m so thankful I get to be her mama and so excited for the joy, light and happiness she brings to everyone she encounters. We started the tradition of recoding a birthday interview last year when Ruby turned 3. Here’s Ruby’s 4-year old Birthday Interview

Here are a few recent Rubyisms:

• “Did you know this is enchanted dinosaur food, Mommy?”
• “Do you like that chicken daddy? Do you like it really much?”
• While looking VERY closely into my eyes, “Mommy! I can see myself in your eyes! Your eyes are like a mirror!”
• Ryan’s proudest moment as a gastroenterologist and a father was the other day when Ruby mentioned a symptom and 2 medications from the bathroom. “Mommy, my poop didn’t hurt! Did you put some miralax in my pediasure?
• “When we are in Heaven, we are going to be with Jesus ALL NIGHT!!!”
• “girls, girls, girls.” She said this to a group of my friends at SideBySide who were all laughing and talking together the same way I say it to Ruby and Clara when they’re acting too silly and need to calm down.”

Rubyisms

I’ve collected a few more Rubyisms that are short enough to post. Ruby is in the stage where her sentences just keep going and going as more and more thoughts enter her head while she’s talking. By the time she is finished she has said too many ridiculous and hilarious things for me to keep track of.  I have managed to jot down a few lately. Enjoy.

• Mommy, when Clara grows, we can call her a different name. We can call her Joseph.
• God made you sooooo wonderful Daddy.
• These markers aren’t setting a good example mommy.
• You’re pampering me mommy! Stop pampering me! (she means “punishing” which is hilarious.)
• Mommy, are you pretending you’re a Sphinx?
• It’s fully Spring! But I don’t see any butterflies mommy!?!? If I see some, I will help them get their wings on.
• It makes me sad when you publish me mommy. (again… confusion about the word “punish”)
• Mom, why do you have stripes on you? – she said this while she was closely examining my forehead wrinkles. dang.
• While holding her harmonica, “Do you want me to play towel music or sink music? Do you want me to play plant music or face music?
• Mom, this is how I dance in Japanese, see?
• When we go to the play place at the mall, she walks the perimeter to talk to all the parents. It really funny to see how the dads react… they typically look around to see if this child’s mother would please come rescue them from having to answer all her questions and look at the handfuls of sparkles she picked up off the play place floor.
• A couple of days ago our grass was so long that it was as comfy as her bed… 

Out Of The Crib

Miracle of miracles, Clara has been sleeping in her twin bed and sharing a room with Ruby for over a week and it’s actually going well! Apparently when I wasn’t watching, she turned into a little girl instead of a baby.

A few weeks ago I attempted to transition her out of her crib and it didn’t go well... so I wasn’t expecting this 2nd attempt to be much better. Amazingly, last Tuesday night after baths we took her into Ruby’s room, read a book to both girls at the same time, said prayers and she just curled up with her blankie and looked at me like “what are you waiting for mom? I’m trying to go to sleep here.” I was so stunned by the whole situation working out so well that I didn’t know what to do. Ryan took my hand and led me out of the room. We shut the door, went back downstairs and that was that.

No sounds – other than Ruby’s little pitter patter feet running around for a few minutes (which is typical).

A few hours later when Ryan and I were getting into bed I said, “Do you think she’s ok up there? Maybe she’s being so quiet because something is wrong.” Ryan laughed, and offered to go up to check out the situation. They were both just snoozing away. Amazing!

I am so thankful that I can cross “transition Clara our of crib” off of my extensive “to-do-before-baby-is-born” list. YAY!