My little Munch is five months old today, and yes, that is one of her official names. Natalia will respond to Natalia, Nati, or Munch Munch, and in general, is happy anytime someone pays attention to her. She is such a sweet, happy baby, and she gets to excited reaching with both arms and legs whenever she is playing in her bouncy seat and someone looks at her. It's like she is saying, "Pick me! Pick me!" And she certainly is trying to say it out loud. She is a noisy baby, and she has been for quite awhile. For the longest time we thought we were just silly, delusional parents pretending her babble represented real words, but it's becoming so frequent and regular, we are thinking she really is talking. She loves to say "Aye uh oo" and then cuddle, and you could swear she is saying, "I love you." She is also big on saying, "ma ma ma ma" like all babies do, but she only says it when I enter the room or pick her up. My favorite was last night. After those of us who eat solid foods had dinner, it was time for her to eat. Her big sibs were completely nuts, so she and I went and hid in the bedroom where Miss Natalia had a nice, long meal. When she got done, she let out a wall-rattling belch and said, "Mmm. Booba." I almost dropped her.
The day she turned four months, Natalia decided it was finally time to roll from her tummy to her back, and over the past four months she has gotten very good at rolling in this manner. She also knows how to spin around when on her belly, and she will use a combination of spinning and rolling to ensure she can see the TV if it is on, no matter what we do in an attempt to keep her from staring at it. She has yet to roll from her back to her tummy, but we think it's because she hasn't found a reason to do so. She spends most of her energy trying to sit up, and when in her bouncy seat, she spends an awful lot of time in a v-sit position where she lifts both her head and chest and legs off the bouncy seat as she tries to get at least semi-vertical. When we help her sit up, she tries to stand, and once she's standing, all she wants to do is jump. The girl is full of energy.
As much as Natalia loves the TV, she also loves books and singing. Of course Jeff and I read and sing to her and include her when we do so with the big kids. But Natalia is also loved by her siblings, and Ree and Michael often read to her or sing to her when Jeff and I are busy. And it is crucial to have someone with her because the only time Natalia gets upset is when she thinks she has been abandoned. I guess that is a natural side effect of living with two parents, three other kids, and two dogs.
Natalia is still maintaining her "sturdy" figure, and with two teeth already in place, and a desire to stick anything she can reach in her mouth, we know it won't be long before she is grabbing at food and eating along with everyone else. And we know it won't be long before she is mobile and trying to keep up with everyone. It's amazing how quickly our new baby is turning into a little girl.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Saturday, June 25, 2011
It's been a hot summer so far. I realized just how hot the other night when Ree showed up at our bedroom door at 3 a.m. I won't lie; often, when she wakes me up during the night, I am completely annoyed. She tends to be hysterical and its over something silly like one of the approximately 427 stuffed animals she sleeps with is missing. To make it worse, she often just lays in bed shrieking. But this time she had enough sense to get out of bed and walk to our room, and she was neither screaming nor crying, so I was already happier than usual to help. I asked her what was wrong. Her response, "I'm cold and I can't figure out to get warm." I smiled and asked her if she had been sleeping under the covers. Nope, she hadn't been. And it's been so long since she's slept any way other than on top of her bed with a fan on her and the A/C blasting that in the middle of the night, she had forgotten it was possible to actually climb IN bed. So I tucked her in bed then went back to sleep myself happy that on that "chilly" night when the temperature dipped to the mid-70s, I was able to avert disaster.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
I haven't been posting stories about all the cute and wonderful things the kids have been doing lately because, quite frankly, they have not been cute and wonderful. They have been little demon children! Over the last 10 days I have watched them morph into THOSE KIDS. The ones who run around screaming and terrorizing things. They bite each other and rip books and are just bonkers. Someone is always crying. It's pretty awful, to say the least. Thankfully, last night we finally figured out what was wrong. Preschool is out for summer.
It's crazy to think that school ending could have such a detrimental effect on the kids, but it's more than just preschool. It's all the things preschool represents. Preschool means a schedule and a routine and a chance for Ree to play with other kids her own age. It means getting the kids out of the house, even if it's just for a car ride.
My parents were in town the week after school ended, so the kids were super busy and the lack of preschool didn't even register. They then spent the next week recovering from my parents' visit. They all had nasty colds and mostly slept and watched TV, so again, thoughts were not of preschool. But then we had a really crazy weekend.
I had to take a work certification exam in Raleigh on Saturday morning. Raleigh is about two hours from here, so that ate up most of the day. Knowing that was coming, we attempted to use Friday to get stuff done. Jeff took off on Friday morning to take care of some errands. While he was gone, I wanted to cut the big kids' hair. They are all horrible and panic when I take them to get their haircut, and their hair ends up getting butchered. Rather than paying lots of money for them to get bad haircuts, I choose to cut it myself and give them bad haircuts for free. I have learned that it is easiest to plop them in front of the TV while I cut it, so there is a chance that they watch TV rather than try to see the scissors. (And they all spend so much time twisting around trying to see the stupid scissors!) I thought it would be a special treat to get to watch random Friday morning shows on PBS Kids. I was wrong. They were not the shows we watch during Mom Time (which is usually Sunday morning), and they were not interested. Still, we managed to get through it without drawing blood. Their hair was even trimmed. Good enough.
Natalia mercifully slept through that debacle, but by the time it was over, she was up and ready to eat. A show had come on that the kids did usually watch, so I told them they could watch it while I fed Natalia, then we would do "something fun" after it was over. (I have learned to never actually say what we might do, because there is always a significant risk that it will never happen.) This seemed like a good plan, but again, they were super, monkey wild children, and rather than me feeding Natalia and them watching the show, I spent the next 20 minutes running around taking care of one crisis after another with them. We finally gave up and went outside.
I can't remember what happened outside. Sometimes, especially early in the weekend, when we go outside, the kids just sit on the patio and stare at me. It's kinda creepy. Not to mention really weird, since what kid doesn't want to run and play? Although the memories are sketchy at this point, I'm pretty sure they did try to play a bit. I gave them a big bucket of water to play with in the shade while I finally fed Natalia. Outside time did not last long though. It was really hot, like it's been every day for the past month, and within 20 minutes they were done. We may have lasted outside for a full half hour, but that was it.
We came in and got everyone cleaned up and dressed. (I let the play outside in their pajamas since they always get wet and dirty. We then get dressed when we come inside.) By this time, I needed to make lunch, and I thought the kids would finally play by themselves since we had done something fun, but nope. Things quickly turned to chaos, so I got out the Magic Wonder markers, and they colored while I quickly threw together some lunch. (We probably had something like cheese and crackers with baby carrots, and yes, they needed an activity for the five or ten minutes it took me to assemble that.) They ate. And while they ate, I got the next Super Fun Activity ready. I decided we would make cookies after lunch since we hadn't done a baking project in awhile.
They were very excited about cookie baking. And they even somewhat took turns while adding the ingredients. They were also incredibly hyper and on three instances I had to catch someone as they were falling off their chairs (that they had been told to sit or kneel on, not stand and jump!). We somehow managed to get the dough made without any critical injuries or me taking a single shot of Jack Daniels.
So I sent them off to play while I baked the cookies (we actually made bar cookies to minimize the hands-on time) and cleaned up the kitchen. I thought SURELY at this point they could play by themselves. Ha! I apparently should've done a shot to purge silly thoughts like that. It wasn't long before I was dragging out the tub of Legos. Yes, things were so bad, I was willing to risk picking up all four hundred million little Lego pieces just for a few minutes to wash dishes. It is a sad life I lead.
I did manage to actually restore some order to the kitchen, by then it was time to clean up and read books before naps, and I don't recall any significant disasters during any of that. I finally got everyone tucked in, and then I finally had time to take care of Natalia. Yes, the forgotten child was there! Thank goodness she was having an amazing day and was happy to mostly just play in her bouncy seat, with some occasional time in the sling, while I dealt with the insanity.
Wow that was a lot of rambling about a single morning. I guess I will eventually get to the remainder of the past ten days!
It's crazy to think that school ending could have such a detrimental effect on the kids, but it's more than just preschool. It's all the things preschool represents. Preschool means a schedule and a routine and a chance for Ree to play with other kids her own age. It means getting the kids out of the house, even if it's just for a car ride.
My parents were in town the week after school ended, so the kids were super busy and the lack of preschool didn't even register. They then spent the next week recovering from my parents' visit. They all had nasty colds and mostly slept and watched TV, so again, thoughts were not of preschool. But then we had a really crazy weekend.
I had to take a work certification exam in Raleigh on Saturday morning. Raleigh is about two hours from here, so that ate up most of the day. Knowing that was coming, we attempted to use Friday to get stuff done. Jeff took off on Friday morning to take care of some errands. While he was gone, I wanted to cut the big kids' hair. They are all horrible and panic when I take them to get their haircut, and their hair ends up getting butchered. Rather than paying lots of money for them to get bad haircuts, I choose to cut it myself and give them bad haircuts for free. I have learned that it is easiest to plop them in front of the TV while I cut it, so there is a chance that they watch TV rather than try to see the scissors. (And they all spend so much time twisting around trying to see the stupid scissors!) I thought it would be a special treat to get to watch random Friday morning shows on PBS Kids. I was wrong. They were not the shows we watch during Mom Time (which is usually Sunday morning), and they were not interested. Still, we managed to get through it without drawing blood. Their hair was even trimmed. Good enough.
Natalia mercifully slept through that debacle, but by the time it was over, she was up and ready to eat. A show had come on that the kids did usually watch, so I told them they could watch it while I fed Natalia, then we would do "something fun" after it was over. (I have learned to never actually say what we might do, because there is always a significant risk that it will never happen.) This seemed like a good plan, but again, they were super, monkey wild children, and rather than me feeding Natalia and them watching the show, I spent the next 20 minutes running around taking care of one crisis after another with them. We finally gave up and went outside.
I can't remember what happened outside. Sometimes, especially early in the weekend, when we go outside, the kids just sit on the patio and stare at me. It's kinda creepy. Not to mention really weird, since what kid doesn't want to run and play? Although the memories are sketchy at this point, I'm pretty sure they did try to play a bit. I gave them a big bucket of water to play with in the shade while I finally fed Natalia. Outside time did not last long though. It was really hot, like it's been every day for the past month, and within 20 minutes they were done. We may have lasted outside for a full half hour, but that was it.
We came in and got everyone cleaned up and dressed. (I let the play outside in their pajamas since they always get wet and dirty. We then get dressed when we come inside.) By this time, I needed to make lunch, and I thought the kids would finally play by themselves since we had done something fun, but nope. Things quickly turned to chaos, so I got out the Magic Wonder markers, and they colored while I quickly threw together some lunch. (We probably had something like cheese and crackers with baby carrots, and yes, they needed an activity for the five or ten minutes it took me to assemble that.) They ate. And while they ate, I got the next Super Fun Activity ready. I decided we would make cookies after lunch since we hadn't done a baking project in awhile.
They were very excited about cookie baking. And they even somewhat took turns while adding the ingredients. They were also incredibly hyper and on three instances I had to catch someone as they were falling off their chairs (that they had been told to sit or kneel on, not stand and jump!). We somehow managed to get the dough made without any critical injuries or me taking a single shot of Jack Daniels.
So I sent them off to play while I baked the cookies (we actually made bar cookies to minimize the hands-on time) and cleaned up the kitchen. I thought SURELY at this point they could play by themselves. Ha! I apparently should've done a shot to purge silly thoughts like that. It wasn't long before I was dragging out the tub of Legos. Yes, things were so bad, I was willing to risk picking up all four hundred million little Lego pieces just for a few minutes to wash dishes. It is a sad life I lead.
I did manage to actually restore some order to the kitchen, by then it was time to clean up and read books before naps, and I don't recall any significant disasters during any of that. I finally got everyone tucked in, and then I finally had time to take care of Natalia. Yes, the forgotten child was there! Thank goodness she was having an amazing day and was happy to mostly just play in her bouncy seat, with some occasional time in the sling, while I dealt with the insanity.
Wow that was a lot of rambling about a single morning. I guess I will eventually get to the remainder of the past ten days!
Thursday, June 9, 2011
We Have Tooth!
Natalia got her first tooth today. I was very excited. She was not. Her mouth is not being kind to her right now. I don't think she's as miserable as her brothers - poor Leon has the last of his molars coming in and was writhing in pain in his sleep Saturday night - but it's no picnic. But her itty bitty little tooth nubbin is so darn cute!
In other news, Michael was outsmarted by a meatball tonight. The kids are currently on a meatball kick, and we eat them at least two or three times a month. There are several different recipes we make with the favorite being Chinese meatballs made with water chestnuts and soy sauce. Tonight we happened to have regular ol' spaghetti with some big, fat meatballs. Leon currently wants all of his food whole, and he produced buckets of tears when I foolishly cut his blueberry pancake into bites so he could dip them in syrup last weekend. This is not unusual, and it's at moments like this that I fluctuate between bashing my head into the wall in frustration and dissolving into a fit of giggles because I can hear the little demon voice in my head goading me on to say, "You better stop crying before I give you something to cry about!"
Jeff was actually the one making and serving dinner tonight while I took care of Natalia. To keep the peace (and possible to avoid his own demon voices), Jeff plopped a nice, big, whole meatball on Leon's plate. To keep things fair, Michael got one too. Only when Michael sat down, he looked at the meatball and freaked out. He had no idea what it was, much less how to eat it. I was still feeding Natalia and couldn't see what was going on, but I know there was some drama, and I think there may have even been a few tears before Jeff showed Michael how to break off a chunk and eat the meatball. I'm sure Michael then said, "Ohhhhh," and smiled. And by the time I made it to the table, Michael was crying (there's apparently always a reason to cry in our house!) for more meatballs.
In other news, Michael was outsmarted by a meatball tonight. The kids are currently on a meatball kick, and we eat them at least two or three times a month. There are several different recipes we make with the favorite being Chinese meatballs made with water chestnuts and soy sauce. Tonight we happened to have regular ol' spaghetti with some big, fat meatballs. Leon currently wants all of his food whole, and he produced buckets of tears when I foolishly cut his blueberry pancake into bites so he could dip them in syrup last weekend. This is not unusual, and it's at moments like this that I fluctuate between bashing my head into the wall in frustration and dissolving into a fit of giggles because I can hear the little demon voice in my head goading me on to say, "You better stop crying before I give you something to cry about!"
Jeff was actually the one making and serving dinner tonight while I took care of Natalia. To keep the peace (and possible to avoid his own demon voices), Jeff plopped a nice, big, whole meatball on Leon's plate. To keep things fair, Michael got one too. Only when Michael sat down, he looked at the meatball and freaked out. He had no idea what it was, much less how to eat it. I was still feeding Natalia and couldn't see what was going on, but I know there was some drama, and I think there may have even been a few tears before Jeff showed Michael how to break off a chunk and eat the meatball. I'm sure Michael then said, "Ohhhhh," and smiled. And by the time I made it to the table, Michael was crying (there's apparently always a reason to cry in our house!) for more meatballs.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Summer
It is hotly debated in our house as to when summer begins. Jeff thinks it is a season and it begins with the solstice later this month and ends with the fall equinox. While I can't technically argue with him, to me, summer is more of a state of mind, and summer starts when school gets out and lasts until school resumes. (Perhaps this is why I was so sad when working in public accounting - it was never my summer!)
No matter how you define it, last weekend felt like summer. It started with Ree's preschool graduation.
At her school, EVERYONE graduates every year because, hey, they made it through another year. The kids made lots of artwork to decorate the stage, tie-dyed t-shirts to wear, and even performed some of their favorite songs from the year. We stayed after school for a giant picnic. The kids had a great time playing.
Natalia was in the sling and slept through everything.
We also took the kids swimming at the pool at my parents' apartment complex. The kids may run in different directions at the beach, but right now they are still easy to track at the pool.
And to make it officially summer, at least in my mind, we busted out the grill. What could possibly be more summery than meat and veggies cooked outside?
No matter how you define it, last weekend felt like summer. It started with Ree's preschool graduation.
At her school, EVERYONE graduates every year because, hey, they made it through another year. The kids made lots of artwork to decorate the stage, tie-dyed t-shirts to wear, and even performed some of their favorite songs from the year. We stayed after school for a giant picnic. The kids had a great time playing.
Natalia was in the sling and slept through everything.
We also took the kids swimming at the pool at my parents' apartment complex. The kids may run in different directions at the beach, but right now they are still easy to track at the pool.
And to make it officially summer, at least in my mind, we busted out the grill. What could possibly be more summery than meat and veggies cooked outside?
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