The Week is Finally Over

On Sunday, we found out that our credit card number had been stolen.  We use our credit card for everything and then pay off the bill every month.  We do this to ensure that we have activity for credit score increasing purposes, as well as to get the 1% cash back from everything we do.  I also pay almost all of our bills on this credit card.  So, to have this card number changed is a bit of a pain.   Not having a credit card for a full week is even more of a pain.  I had to go on a search for my debit card, and the first time I used it I had to try 3 pin numbers, because I couldn't remember what mine was!

Strike one for this week.

On Monday, my nanny showed up to work and gave me her notice.  In front of my children.  Without warning.  The week before my autistic son starts first grade, which is his first time being at school all day.  So later that day my six year old asked me what "notice" meant and my two year old whimpered as I explained that the nanny had decided to work somewhere else.  Did I mention that I had also been working toward switching to mornings for my job and having the nanny watch the baby for the past month?  All to not even see it to fruition.  Don't get me wrong - I'm glad she gave notice.  The timing was just not good for my family..

Strike two for this week.

On Tuesday, I decided to eat a serving of prunes at night.  I had been eating them pretty regularly since Macie was born.  Also, I have been noticing some pretty strange symptoms for the past month and a half.  For instance, my ankles and feet have been turning bright red and swelling up.  Now, this probably should have concerned me.  But, I am still on four blood pressure medications.  (I am slowly being weaned off, but this will be a long process.)  One of them causes water retention.  (So not a good thing for a person like me that has high blood pressure and a sodium intolerance.)  But I just assumed that this puffiness was due to that.  Now, on Wednesday I ate prunes for the first time in about a week and a half.  And about an hour later my ankles started puffing.  And then my wrists started puffing.  I didn't really think about it at the time, but I hadn't noticed these symptoms for the past 5 days or so.  When I looked in the mirror just before bed, my face seemed puffy too.  But I was tired.  So I went to sleep.

On Wednesday, I woke up covered in hives.  Everything except my neck, my face and my feet.  And I mean everything.  It was then that I realized I was probably having an allergic reaction.  And it was about 5 hours later that I put together the break in prunes and the break in my reaction.  I tried to be good about not scratching and the hives got better.  Until the afternoon, when Macie decided not to go to sleep while I was working.  So I was holding my warm and toasty baby and a laptop for three hours. Which would be fine if I didn't have fire skin.  But I did have fire skin.  And I ate some apples.  And then I was seriously covered in bright red swarms of hives.  It was not pretty.  I had to get permission to take benadryl because of all of the medications I'm on.  That took a couple of miserable hours, and then I had to stagger it with another medication that I take that causes sleepiness.  So I lived with that horrible peak of hives for 6 hours.  And then they finally started to subside.

Strike three for this week.  Shouldn't we have been out at this point?

On Thursday, still looking like a freak with a horribly contagious condition, I had to take Charlie to his school to meet his teachers.  Really, that experience wasn't so bad except for the fact that I had to wear clothes that aggravated my hives and I was still really swollen from my reaction, so I was just generally uncomfortable.  Also, when I returned, my baby screamed at me for a full 30 minutes to let me know that I am not to leave her.  Suffice it to say, I was in full stress mode and exhausted from dealing with the pain and discomfort of the hives I was still fighting.

On Friday, we had planned a shopping day to buy Charlie back to school clothes.  I was so happy to sleep in, Andy was so happy to have a day off of work.  Alas, we woke up to Charlie sick in the bathroom at 6:30 in the morning.  Luckily, it ended up just to be stomach issues without fever or other symptoms.  Probably some stress from getting ready for school himself... but we did finally make it out shopping.  At 3pm.  Unfortunately, Macie had a full-on-screaming-nothing-will-make-me-happy-one-hour-meltdown at 4pm.  So that trip was cut short.  At least we got a few clothes.

Thankfully, by nighttime my hives were all gone.

Did I mention that between Monday and Thursday I had advertised my nanny job, networked through Facebook and email to get the word out and been phone interviewing people between all my usual and unusual insanity?  Yeah, that happened too.  And I successfully set up in person interviews for my top contenders on Saturday.  Saturday was supposed to be our fair day.  But, then again, I didn't know that I'd only have a few days to find a new nanny when I planned that.  (Didn't know I'd be looking for a new nanny at all.)  Sorry kids, next year.

Saturday we all slept in.  Every one of us.  We woke up happily about an hour and a half before the first potential nanny was to arrive.  We ate our breakfast and were getting along.  And we went through meeting the nannies.

And fell in love with one of them.

And she accepted the offer.

And now...  I have a new nanny, a son who has all of his school supplies, knows who his teachers are and when the bus will come.  (And he only needs about half of his school wardrobe, which I will find by Tuesday.)  I have healthy kids, that seem to have survived.  My hives are gone, a new credit card is on its way.  The house isn't too horribly messy.  And the last week of summer still has two days for me to enjoy my kids.

It could have been worse.
But boy, am I glad this week is over!

Brothers and Sister

One of the best parts about being a mom of more than one child is watching how those kids form relationships of their own.

Things are a bit different in our family because we have some special circumstances.  Charlie's autism means that he relates to others differently and what he wants and needs socially is just different then the norm.  But being autistic does not mean that he is not social.  Charlie is social, and relationships are important to him... just in a unique way.

Charlie and Ephram have a good bond.  They love to have fun.  They wrestle, they laugh, they build, they knock down, they chase.  They are boys.

Charlie and Ephram have individual relationships with Macie that are markedly different.  With Macie, Charlie shows a softness that I have rarely seen.  He displays concern and tries so hard to figure out just what will get her to smile.  For Ephram, it comes a little more naturally.  And because of that I think there is less of a barrier between those two.  Macie loves both of her brothers.  And they love her.

Here are some of the moments they shared in July.

Ephram has assigned himself the role of Macie's protector.  Anytime he is worried about anything, he will run straight to her side to ensure her safety.

He also desperately wants to care for her.  On this particular day, he put her to sleep all by himself.  He was very proud.

Both of the boys love to sing to her.  Sometimes she gets a little overwhelmed when they are both there, so we need to take turns.  Here is some Itsy, Bitsy Spider action

The second Macie is laid down on the floor, Ephram is there.  He always has at least one toy in hand to teach her about play.  This girl is going to have so much help in learning how to use things!

Ephram has been trying to get Macie to be ticklish.  She thinks he is funny.

Charlie's favorite thing is reading - so he often will bring a book to read to Macie.

And then Ephram will step in and show her how to make it light up.

That Ephram is Macie's shadow.  But she doesn't mind!  I have a feeling these two just might be the best-of-friends kind of siblings.  I'd love that.  Only time will tell...

Macie at Four Months

Yes, four months!  My last baby, (at least that's how I've been strongly advised,) is getting so big so fast.  She started so small but she's not very small anymore!  We saw a remarkable change in Macie this month as she blossomed into a social creature that started to enjoy her playtime.  Macie is markedly social.  She will cheer up anytime that anyone looks at her and immediately smile and start to communicate.  Her voice makes me smile every time.  Here is a snapshot of where she was as she entered her fifth month.

Stats:
Chronological Age - 4 months
Adjusted Age - 2 months

Height - 22.75 inches (+2 from 3 months)
Weight - 11 pounds 14 ounces (+2 pounds 6 ounces from 3 months)
Head Circumference - 41 centimeters (+3.5 cm from 2 months)

The nurse did not provide me with her exact percentages, but... she had tremendous growth between two and four months!  She is now on the charts for full term babies in all 3 categories.  For babies born at 33 weeks gestation, she is now at least in the 50th percentile in all categories.  Just take a look at this growth chart below.  It represents weight for age for full term babies, and you can see what awesome growth she had!

Need further proof?  Just compare this picture from the beginning of the month to the picture at the top of this post.  :)

Milestones:

• Babbling (added some consonants to talk) - 14 weeks
• Transitioned to 100% nursing - 14 weeks
• Found her reflection - 15 weeks
• First toy play - 16 weeks
• First laugh - 17 weeks
• Blow spit bubbles - 17 weeks

At four months Macie was in size 1 diapers and 0-3 month clothing.

Feeding:

Macie made a successful transition to 100% breastfeeding during this month!  We started the transition at the end of the previous month for several reasons: my sanity and my diminishing supply being the top priorities.  Once we got some good advice from a friend, the rest of the transition flowed smoothly.  Macie had her last bottle on July 3rd.  

I anxiously tracked the number of wet and dirty diapers for the next few days until I realized that she was probably getting more than she had before.  She was making me almost twice as many dirty ones!  Obviously, her growth during the month supports this.

For those of you that followed my breastfeeding journey with Ephram and know of the challenges that come from both having a c-section, having a preemie, and spending the first 3 months as a pumper... I am sure that you understand how elated I am, and the fact that I harbor a bit of pride on this one.

I nursed Ephram up until the halfway point of my pregnancy with Macie, when it started to become a problem.  At that time I was okay with stopping because I knew I had another baby on her way.  But when it became a question mark for Macie, when I didn't know if we'd ever have that traditional breastfeeding experience, I was very sad.  Some of my best bonding memories with Ephram were at feeding time.  And now I am already enjoying the same with Macie.  I am very fortunate.

Macie continues to take Zantac to treat her reflux at a dose of .5ml twice a day.

Sleeping:

With the transition to nursing full-time we went through a rocky period as she adjusted.  When you pump and bottle feed, a baby gets equal amounts of milk throughout the day and night.  When you nurse, your supply naturally diminishes at night and then grows large again in the mornings.  That first week was an up-every-two-hour-and-scream-at-mommy's-chest week.  And then we settled into a new normal.  Macie started sleeping an initial 3 hour stint, followed by a 4 hour stint and two more 3 hour stints.  Pretty near perfect if you ask me!

Macie spent her first half of the month sleeping in the co-sleeper.  At that point she started to have more issues with reflux overnight.  So I started sleeping her inclined in the swing when it got rough, which was usually for one of her stints overnight.  I also returned to work, and began sleeping her in the swing for her naps while I am working.  She just doesn't stay asleep if she is stationary while mommy banters on the phone all afternoon long.

Favorite Activities:

• Talking (she is very social)
• The tongue-sticking-out game.  This is a mimicking game that is extremely cute.
• Playing with her rattle and her Dolly.
• Being held
• Smiling at her reflection
• Sleeping
• Eating
• Playing with anyone that is close by!

Least Favorite Activities:

• Tummy time
• Spitting up
• Being head-butted by her brother Ephram
• Being immunized

Nicknames:

• Macie D
• Cie Cie (Charlie's name for her)
• May May (Ephram's name for her)
• Peanut (My name for her)

Enjoy these pictures from throughout the month of July!

 Macie in a dress that Daddy picked out for her.  He has great taste!

Spit bubbles and drool!

Hanging out, very cutely in my opinion, on the blanket I crocheted for her while in the hospital.

The tongue sticking out game-  I had to capture this while she played it with Ephram, it didn't work so well if I was behind a camera and trying to play with her!

Look at all the glorious baby chub!

New Blog: My Mommy Moments

You may have noticed that there are now tabs at the top of this page, just under the header picture.  I have started another blog.  This one I am calling "My Mommy Moments".  Lately I have been looking for a way to compile and save all of the quips, quirks, observations, thoughts and moments in general of life with my kids.

You see, it took me 10 long years to become a mom.  I intend to enjoy it as much as I can... I intend to live in the moment... And I want to remember those moments.

For years I have been putting some of them on this blog and many of them have found their way to Facebook.  But now, I've decided to dedicate a whole blog to these quick moments.  I love Blogger's new dynamic view templates for this purpose.

Hopefully this will give me a way to save the moments, remember them and share them with my kids and their loved ones as they grow.

And, in the meantime, I thought you might want to laugh along with me.

So, please check it out... let me know what you think!

Ephram's Big Boy Bed

When we left off on my Christmas in July post, I mentioned that the boys were super excited to learn that there was another present waiting for them where they slept.

And Ephram was about to discover a very big surprise.

We had talked to Ephram about moving into a big boy bed and sharing a room with Charlie for months.  Our initial intention was to move him there mid-March but a little thing called pre-eclampsia and the early arrival of Macie changed our plans.  Instead, we had worked on slowly moving him.  By this time, all of his toys had moved into the room and he understood that it was to be his room too.

We had been reading an excellent book, Your Own Big Bed, for a couple of weeks.  He loved learning about how all of the animals were babies, just like him.  How they were held by their parents, learned to walk/hop/swim, and eventually found a bed of their own.  It was a great way to introduce the concept without being completely obvious.

Then, the week before we had gone to Target and showed him all of the bedding sets.  He had proudly chosen out a Cars-themed set.  The only problem was that they did not have the comforter in stock.  So we had to wait for it to arrive from Target.com.  While we waited, I had also ordered him a pair of big boy Cars pajamas and a set of Cars board books as a surprise.

Ephram knew what was going to happen eventually, but he had no idea that I had washed everything and snuck up to his room to make his bed while he was outside riding his bike with Charlie and his Dad.



So, when we told him to go to "where you sleep" to find a surprise, he ran up the stairs.  He paused very briefly at the door of the nursery, and then laughed gleefully as he ran into the boys' shared room.  He saw the bed, all while still clutching his new copy of Harold and the Purple Crayon.

He was so excited.  His smile was priceless, but he was also instantly shy.  He tried so hard to reach the present waiting on his pillow without actually getting on the bed.

Finally he reached it and ripped off the paper to reveal the set of Cars board books.  He immediately opened the carrying case and started to flip through the book about Mater.  (In the meantime Charlie found and opened his second present too - the first two books in the Geronimo Stilton series.)

Finally, Ephram decided he could be brave enough to climb up on the bed.  How else could he investigate his new Mater Pillow Pet?

And then my wild two year old went crazy.  He started rolling all over the bed, jumping on the bed, making vroom vroom noises, and pointing out all of the cars that he recognized.  Shy no more, just super excited.

After awhile I went to get his final surprise, his new Cars pajamas.  He usually wears footy pajamas because he really isn't a fan of covers at night.  But lately he has really wanted to wear this 2-piece style of pajamas so that he can be just like Charlie.  He was so excited to put them on.  And then my Remy decided it was time to take a peek under the covers.  He instantly went all the way to the foot of the bed underneath the sheet and blanket.  There he rolled around and pretended to be an Ephram-monster before climbing back to the top with my favorite huge smile.

And then it was time for sleeping.  I will be truthful.  He was nervous to sleep in the bed.  We ended up bringing in a flashlight and a cup of water and setting them next to his new set of books.  It took about 20 minutes of "flashlight reading", some shadow puppets, and the night's unique rendition of Ephram and the Three Bears before I heard his sleep-breathing.  (Ephram loves, loves the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  Except I change the lead character to Ephram and really draw out the beginning of the story.  He loves hearing about what the house that the three bears live in will look like each night.  On this specific night, it was made out of tires, cones and old road signs.)

He woke up at about 2am.  I went in and had to stay with him for awhile.  He was nervous to be there alone.  Finally we settled on my giving him Mr. Floppy, the bunny that the boys brought for me when I was in the hospital.  Mr. Floppy kept me safe, warm and happy then, and now he keeps my boy happy.

Mr. Floppy did his job, and has every night since.  And this is what I found that first morning.

Ephram seems to cherish his newfound independence.  I often find him in the morning, sitting at my usual spot on the couch, legs crossed, iPod in his lap and a beaming smile.  One morning I found him at the window in our breakfast nook, after he had fed himself a bowl of Lucky Charms and self served a cup of water.  He was definitely ready for this step.  And I am so proud of him.  He's getting so big!

Fourteen Years Ago Today

I was this girl, preparing to step inside this building.  Anxious, excited and very warm.  (It was really hot that day!)

Inside that building, at the end of a short aisle, this waited for me.

This man, who I know loves me fiercely, gave me away.  

And this man, who I knew and respected nearly all my life, joined me to my best friend in marriage.

And I was blissfully happy.  Still am.

I gained a brother and a sister.

And a wonderful father-in-law, from whom I have since learned much.

I gave Andy all this awesomeness... plus a brother who is not pictured because he was serving a mission in Brazil at the time.

We ate cake.

And I exited that building no longer an individual alone, but a part of a pair.  We ran off to start the journey of our lives.  Marrying this man was simply the best decision I ever made.

To Andrew with all my love - 
may the next fourteen plus years be as amazing as the first.

Photo credit goes to my sister Daja Harris for all pictures excluding the one she is in.  

That family picture was captured by my Grandpa, Marvin Hayman, who I loved and miss very much.

Christmas in July 2012

The last week of July is always Christmas in our family.  I love Christmas.  I have these great memories of all of the things that we did to prepare for the holiday when I was little.  I have not really come close to recreating what my mom did for us, so maybe I can make up for that by celebrating Christmas twice a year.

During Christmas in July we do a Christmas craft/cooking activity every day, listen to Christmas music obsessively and watch a Christmas movie or special every day.

We also have special Christmas-decorated breakfasts each day.  Which usually means that I let the kids pour Christmas colored sprinkles on their oatmeal in the morning.

This year we made paper Christmas trees, which provided a great opportunity to work on shapes and cutting with Ephram.  For Charlie it was so nice to see his autonomy.  He required zero help from me and was so proud to show me what he had done and why once he was finished.

Our other craft this year was snowflakes.  Charlie had never cut snowflakes before.  The folding part was a little tough for him, so I sat and folded up 20 pieces of paper while he was cutting.  I even got to do a few myself.  There's something about making snowflakes that is undeniably fun.  A few of Charlie's got hacked up so much that they were no longer snowflakes, but overall his turned out great!  Ephram couldn't muscle through all of the folds to cut the paper.  Instead he took all of our scraps and did his favorite activity... poured Elmer's glue on various pieces of construction paper to make collages. Everyone had a lot of fun with this - we were at it for more than 2 hours!

Then we hung everything up on the back doors so that it would look a little bit like Christmas in the house.

We also made sugar cookies.  The kids were great helpers making the dough.  Yes, I have a KitchenAid stand mixer.  But I think it is more fun for the kids to make dough the old fashioned way, so that's how we do it when the kids are around.

The next day we rolled out the dough and cut out the cookies.  Ephram had never done this before... he had so much fun playing with the roller and placing the cookie cutters.  I was really impressed with his skill, I think it comes from all of the play dough time.  Charlie had fun putting sprinkles on the cookies before they went into the oven.  I think the most funny part about this day was that Ephram thought the flour on the board we used to roll out the dough was so very delicious.  He was getting his fingers wet, covering them in flour, and then licking it off.  (Once he started doing this I stopped rolling dough on that part of the board!)  At the very end I gave both him and Charlie a small bit of cookie dough to eat.  Ephram took one taste and spit it out.  I guess flour is better than dough!

Over the course of the week I let the kids choose out our Christmas movies from our DVD shelves.  We watched: The Mickey Mouse Christmas Carol (twice), Elf, The Santa Clause, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, The Polar Express and The Santa Clause 2.  (I was personally wishing we could just keep on watching every last one of them!)

On the very last day of the week we gave the kids each a present to open.  They were very excited to each find a new book.  Ephram got his first "big boy" book - Harold and the Purple Crayon.  Charlie got his first chapter books - The Magic Treehouse (1-4).  Macie got a super cute book called On the Night You Were Born.

When I told the boys that there was a surprise waiting where they each sleep, they were super excited.  We had wrapped another set of books for each of them by their beds... and we had one very big surprise waiting for our two year old...