Mambo #5

 

Ha! Do you know what song I am talking about? The one that came out when I was in highschool and that I very vividly remember dancing to at school dances and screaming out my own name to with all my friends. It makes me smile to remember it. I will admit that lately this song runs through my head more than I would like. It’s such a stupid song with such a wrong message but the whole trying to balance 4 kids act keeps bringing this song to mind.

On Monday my version went something like this:

A little bit of Emmett one on one

A little bit of Gagey in the sun

A little bit of girl times what I need

A little bit of Jama did the deed

A little bit of Sissy while M napped

A little bit of Braxton on the tramp

A little bit of Jeffery in the end

A little bit of you makes you my friend

One, two, three four five everybody in the house now come on let’s jive…

Ok. Now you all who are my age are probably busting a move and don’t worry you will have that song in your head for days now. ;)

Regardless, Monday was a really good day. I felt very balanced and good and refreshed. I think the sunshine helped, a lot!

And it helped that some friends moved into town and offered to carpool Adelle into school. This left me and the little boys at home to hang out by ourselves which was just marvelous to say the least. Emmett is my little crafty boy. He loves a good project. The picture with the pink paper is, “I am a pink ninja!”

And it helped that we we were able to spend most of the day outdoors!

And it helped that my dear, dear friend Jama,  moved down the street with her sweet family and so now we can walk to each others' houses and play whenever we want!!

And it helped that Jeff came home before I had to make dinner so I got to hang out with just Braxton for a while doing something other than reading and homework.

Basically the whole rest of the week has been the same. Lot’s of play dates in the backyard. Park picnics. Late dinners. Lots of soccer in the sun. Long walks, phone conversations, reading…

Yesterday my mom stopped by with bunny ears for all the kids. She then proceeded to teach them all the bunny hop in our front yard. She let me get out and go for a nice run and then got fish and chips (my fav) for everyone for lunch. Score!

Happy Friday!

Latest and Greatest

   I signed up for organic produce delivery and my first bin came on Wednesday. It was like Christmas. I didn’t know what was going to be packed into my harvest bin but enjoyed opening it and letting my kids indulge in organic apples.  So far so good. I really appreciated the variety. The bin delivery has multiple purposes. First, it’s convenient. Duh, but that wasn’t enough for me. Second, it’s all organic. I loved that because I feel like at the store I often compromise once I see the price of the regular vs. the organic, even though I really feel like organic is better, I sometimes go with the cheaper. With the bin it’s a set price, every other week, and I’ve already budgeted for it so I don’t even think about it. Third, I like the variety. Like I never would have bought the pears, they aren’t my favorite, but I forget that my kids really like them. Also, the mushrooms, never buy those either because Jeff doesn’t like them but I love mushrooms and they were delicious. So there you go… and forth, they are a local company and I appreciate local business and try to support the locals ;) You can check out their website here for more info.
And if you don’t already know, oven roasted vegetables are our favorite thing around here. Like for 3 nights in a row I did a different combination and my family never tired of it. Yum!
Saturday was typical. Gage woke me up around 4 am to eat. It was then that I noticed M in the bed, squished between Jeff and I and comfy as could be. He comes in after he goes potty in the middle of the night. We love waking up with that cute boy. After I fed Gage I came back to bed until around 7 when the kids think they have to wake up for some reason. Emmett always look at me and says, “can I get up yet?” So he and Jeff got up and I stayed in my cozy bed until sis came in and joined me. We cuddled and whispered about what we thought the boys should make us for breakfast. We scored french toast when we got up. It was delicious.

Saturday was filled with sunshine and spring cleaning. Gage took a snooze outside while the men worked in the garden. Adelle and I had inside chores. She washed the windows while I scrubbed all my kitchen cupboards and my whole floor, all while rocking out to pandora. Adelle has the best memory in the world and now she knows the words to all the songs we danced and cleaned to.

Today I made these for my Sunday School class and for Chelsey for her birthday. Then my kids ate two each. Then Jeff ate a handful. There are few things I love more than making a healthy snack and having people devour it. It brings me so much bliss.
Check out my recipe here.

Hipster… Homie… Hippie?

What do you think?

Hipster? Does anyone really know what this is? I am not sure I understand completely but I think it’s like a trendy hippie? Gage’s outfit makes me think Hipster I guess or just his cuteness. If I saw him walking down the street I would most definitely turn my head in his direction ;)

Homie? The way this babe rocks the beanie makes me think homie-G all the way!

Hippie? Well let’s be frank. He was born into that one without much of a choice. BUT, he does have some of his own hippie ways. Like he sleeps best outside in the fresh air (imagine someone hippish laying in a hammock). He also likes to be barefoot (so he can eat his toes). Imagine someone downtown just walking around without shoes. And he likes to eat frozen blueberries blended with frozen breastmilk. I’m not for sure but I have a feeling I could probably open a stand down-town and sell this special smoothie and people may buy it once I explained all the nutritional properties and if I used something biodegradable to sell it in.  Oh and his hair… I don’t know what to classify that as.

feelings

This is me on Friday. Feeling better and with my back to normal appetite. Jeff always gets a kick out of me taking pictures of food so when he saw my hamburger he grabbed the camera and claimed my burger, "picture worthy!"

This post has been on my mind all week. Ever since I re-read my, "this is our sick day," post. I have already been back to that post, and deleted the parts I was embarrassed about even writing. The whole post is not  anything to be proud of but I figured, for the record, it is what it is and I can accept that it was a hard day
week and move on.

But the whole topic of feelings has been on my mind for some time. Feelings are so complicating to me and I spend more time than I would like thinking about them and trying to understand them. Trying to justify them. Trying to interpret them. Trying to express them in a manner that is beneficial and healing. Trying to appreciate them for what they are and not undermining the importance of them.

I am a really happy person. I hope that comes across in my blogging. I really love life and all the different aspects of it. I love getting old too, really. I am happy though, sometimes, to the point where I don't allow myself to feel any other way. I am so blessed with so many things that often, even when things are really hard and I naturally feel stress or frustration or sadness, I feel guilty and I make myself be happy. It works every time actually, quite well.

You see I have a short list of go-too's if I am not happy. Go for a run. Excuse myself to my bedroom for a small while and  cry. Make something yummy and take it to a friend. Read. Nap with my kids. Go on a date with my husband.... You get the idea.  So when I don't feel happy it's always like, "ok I feel really crummy right now!" "But wait, I have it so good." "I don't have any right to complain or feel crummy." "I am so selfish and ungrateful!" "I need to cut it out, now!" "Suck it up Andrea!" "I can't even believe I was letting myself feel so down." "What is my problem?" And then I am happy again, instantly.

So this is the problem. Or is it? Maybe it's the solution? I just know that for me I think being happy all the time is exhausting.

So I go on my run or to my room or wherever and I talk myself out of whatever I am feeling and I convince myself that I am happy again and then I can move on with my life for however long until I feel overwhelmed again and it starts all over. In the meantime, everyone in between instance one and instance two think I am this amazingly happy person. Just like I think that same thing of everyone that I encounter on a daily/weekly basis. We all do it, "how you doing?" "Great!" "How are you guys?" "How is the business?" "So good!"... Really?

I think for me I have always been the happy one so I am a bit afraid to know what would happen if someone thought maybe I wasn't in a happy mood. Not a friend, obviously friends let friends have bad days. But an acquaintance or in this instance, someone who just reads my blog occasionally. Like if I dropped my son off at school and his classmate's mom asked how I was doing, like she commonly does, and what if I said, "I am completely drained!" what would she even think? What if she thought I wasn't a good mom or what if, and this is the big one for me, what if she thought I had too many kids and I couldn't handle it! I would never want anyone to think that so I always act happy. Always put together. Always good. Always up for whatever.

I guess it's the label I am afraid of. In the previous sick post I said I didn't want to be THAT MOM and after I re-read it I was mortified that I used that phrase. The truth is, if you are a mom, then you are THAT MOM, by someone else's judgement or more likely by your own judgement. We are all that mom at sometime in our mom hood and who the heck cares. We are all trying our best and sometimes we all just need the benefit of the doubt. I think as mom's and just as women in general we are so hard on ourselves that we just assume others are hard on us too.

This last week I am pushing my double stroller, with 3 of my young kids inside (yeah 3 of them in a double stroller), and we are running because we are going to be late picking up my son from school and I totally try and take a shortcut across the grass, like I often do, and we totally bite it! Like Adelle flies off the  front of the stroller, Gage slides under the bar and onto the grass (nope, he was not strapped in, remember I was running late) and Emmett is still in the stroller but he is on his knees in the grass and the stroller is on top of him. Yep. That was me. I was THAT MOM. That one who was running late. That one who didn't strap in her baby. That one, that one, that one. I was admittedly that one who needed help at that moment soothing my startled kids and leave it to another mom to walk up and help me. I wanted to die. Thankfully no one was hurt. Gage didn't even peep. Adelle was more concerned about her shoes getting dirty and Emmett when I got him out looks at me with his big, beautiful, eyes and says, "that was munny (funny)."

So for me, when my kids are sick, I feel completely defeated. I feel like I have lost the whole healthy battle I try so hard to fight. It's a yucky feeling to feel defeated. It makes me feel tired and like I have failed. I feel like I should just give up and who cares... and that's what I was feeling last week when I posted about being sick. When I feel like that I say things and do things that I normally wouldn't do and then I re-read them and I think, "why didn't I just find something to be happy about and blog about that instead?"

This is all a bit of a jumbled mess but it's an interesting topic.

I met someone at church today for the first time. Never met this woman in my life but she knew my husband when he was young. My husband introduced us and she says to me, "yes I read your blog," and my first thought was, "oh fun so she knows how dang darling my kids are and what fun we have," and then my very quick second thought was, "oh my gosh! I wonder if she read that sick post..." and then the negative thoughts started in.

Happy is a safety net for me I think. It's a wonderful place to be and, don't get me wrong, I am very much there a lot of the time. But then there are the other feelings too and while I try not to dwell on them, they do exist and it's ok. I am sure they have a purpose.

I am going to stop now but I am still thinking on this....

5 months

It's amazing that it's been 5 months since this little babe joined us.

Gage has no idea he is little. He thinks he is just hilarious and pretty big stuff.

Adelle says, "why is he so much cuter with his clothes off?"

This is his famous, "why aren't I moving," look of frustration. 

Do you see the drool hanging there off his cheek?

Gage is 5 months old!
He is a whopping 18 lbs too!!

The babe is solid and strong.

Gage can roll both ways.

He is already trying to scoot himself to his toys.

I think he is going to be a mover and a shaker!

He is a drooling machine but so far no teeth have broken through.

He has massive hair and a bald stripe in the back.

He can almost sit up on his own for more than 3 seconds.

Gage's favorite song is "row, row your boat." The kids love doing this with him and he is a huge fan!

He is a smiley, happy, boy!

He is a stinker for naps but still sleeps all night.

He loves the stroller and outside naps though so when I am desperate we go walking!

He loves to be rocked and sung too.. Lately I have been singing, "if I had a hammer," and "a child's prayer" and he loves them. 

He likes to be wherever the action is.

Last week I put him in Adelle's room with her while she was coloring so I could clean the bathroom. I came back later to find him swaddled in her blanket and holding her kitty, fast asleep. It was so sweet. This boy is so loved by his sister and brothers.

love you babe!

this is what our “sick day” looks like

So I just want to know if anyone else around here is going to get sick? Is that too much to ask? I seriously think there is a virus growing in my home. We did not go anywhere last week, except on Monday to the Library. Seriously. My sister even texted and asked if she could take my kids to some germ fest play area in Bellingham on Thursday and I talked her into just coming over and going on a walk with me and the kids (before she got on her plane to Hawaii. I’m not jealous. Just sayin!)
So out of nowhere Emmett gets the throw-ups. No fever, nothing. He sleeps with Adelle, in the same bed. Adelle is fine. He sleeps in the same room as Braxton. Braxton is fine. Sunday was really long. Emmett wanted me to “rest” with him and his super friends in my bed. I wanted to too. Gage wanted me to hold him, constantly. Braxton and Adelle are rock stars and they played really super good together and by themselves and basically fetched me whatever I needed.
By Sunday afternoon Emmett had shared the wealth and I was nice and green. Same thing though…. nothing but the throw-ups. So Jeff waltzes in after the Home Show and acts as if he is invincible.  Drives me crazy. I am a paranoid sick person. I don’t want anyone near me and I don’t want any physical contact. Why risk getting someone else sick. Am I a freak?  I even kept Adelle home from Preschool on Monday because I wasn’t sure that she didn’t have the sickie germs and I would have hated for her to spread them. Jeff works from home Monday making follow-up phone calls while I manage to hold the fort down and by Tuesday morning, early, early, Jeff is throwing up. Argh!
I know I am a pessimistic sick person but it seems to never fail. Once someone has the throw-ups everyone else gets them? Am I right? Well that is what I have always thought until just in January Jeff got the flu, bad, and I never got it. So I basically thought I was super cool and of course I prided myself on my healthy diet and blah blah blah. Well, not this time. I got it too. So that must have been just a fluke?
So today Jeff and I are both down. Like really yucky, don’t feel good, don’t want to entertain the kids, don’t want to cook, don’t want to eat… you get it. I have to stay home from MOPS. My sister offers to take my kids but I don’t let her because I still can’t be sure they don’t have the germs. Mind you they have no symptoms and Emmett has not thrown up since Saturday night.
Braxton went to school again because I was thinking I can’t really keep him home and say, “Yes, this is Braxton’s mom. Yes, Braxton stayed home today because his dad and I are sick and I am a little bit paranoid and thought he might have the germs.” No! I can’t do that (even though it would have been handy to have him home ;)
So here is my question. And I am really asking you all, whoever you are. Would have the germs spread to everyone by now? Certainly my kids are clear for the play date we have tomorrow? What are your experiences? I keep telling myself to let it go but I don’t want to be THAT MOM. You all know who THAT MOM is, right. So here I am being THIS MOM. The one who is going crazy!
And my poor kids are like let us out of this house!