Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Adventures in Potty Training - Round 3

Trouble is doing really well with using the potty. I am completely amazed, just because of how different he is from his big brother and sister. They both got trained pretty easily, around 2 1/2. I thought based on how he acts, he'd probably be around 13 before he was out of diapers. He's definitely not near being out of diapers yet, but he has worn underwear for a few hours at a time with no accidents. I am actually the one that is more on the lazy side of the training. I have been so exhausted with carrying around #5 that sometimes I just put diapers on Trouble to not have to take him to the potty. It's bad, I know. But potty training is exhausting. When he does sit on the potty, he jumps back and forth between the little potty chair and the big toilet as many times as possible. I either stay right in the bathroom with him, or I walk into the other nearby rooms but check on him every few seconds. Otherwise, this happens.
1. He drops little Thomas trains into the toilet.
2. He unrolls the toilet paper all the way.
3. He pulls all the toddler wipes out of the package and throws them around the bathroom.
4. He throws various objects from around the bathroom into the tub.
These have all happened, in a matter of minutes, with me being in the room right next door.
When he does sit still to use the potty, he has to hold at least one little toy (usually Charlie the train from Thomas). And he sings. He starts off by singing Old MacDonald. But the other day he transitioned from that into a very cute version of Rolling in the Deep by Adele. I thought the farm song/Adele combo sungy by a 2 year old was very well done!
Round 3 (for the third child) is going to be a long road, but at least we're off to a decent start.

Monday, November 21, 2011

A sneaky little nugget

This story is from a while ago, but I just remembered it today. Like I said, there are a lot of stories from the 4 months where I forgot about this blog!
Sometimes when Donkey poops, it's just these little rabbit like turds. You know, like little balls of poop. Other times, it's a major, huge, full -to- the -brim diaper. Trouble and Donkey share a room. Usually they will nap at the same time. And almost every afternoon when they are done their naps, their room smells like poop, to the point that I can smell it before I even open the door. On this particular day, Trouble had a huge poopy diaper that I changed and sent him on his way, to terrorize the other kids. Then I went to change Donkey. He had the little ball turds in his diaper. I cleaned him up, put on diaper cream and a fresh diaper, and we were on our way. I took him downstairs for his afternoon bottle. While I was feeding him, I still smelled poop. I checked his diaper, and it was clean. But I couldn't get over the poop smell. Something was off. I let him finish his diaper and sat him up to burp him. As I was patting his back, I felt it. I felt a lump on his back. I looked down the back of his onesie, and sure enough there was a little tiny turd stuck between his shirt and his back. I was thoroughly grossed out. Apparently when I lifted his butt to put on the new diaper a sneaky little ball turd rolled out of the diaper and into his onesie. So there you have it, the story of the sneaky little nugget.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Potty Talk

I have a sonogram picture that proves Baby 5 is indeed a boy. I showed the kids the pictures I received at my sonogram today. One is a profile shot, so I was pointing out his eye, nose, mouth, hand, back, head. The other picture is of his femur (thigh bone), butt cheek, and scrotum (as the sono tech so gently put it). So, I showed the kids and told them it was his weiner. They must have laughed for 10 minutes. Any time I talked to someone on the phone, they said to tell them we saw the baby's weiner! Apparently it's hilarious. I'm starting to think they were under the assumption that he was fully clothed inside my stomach!
In other news today, Trouble is still learning to use the potty. Yesterday he woke up from his nap totally dry. I had him sit on the potty for almost a half hour until he peed. I knew he would fill his diaper if I took him off, or pee on the floor. Every time he takes a bath, he walks to the same spot in his room and pees on the floor, like an animal. We learned a lesson after three times, so now he sits on the potty after his bath. Slowly, he's learning to use the potty. I can't have three kids in diapers at the same time. He needs to be trained by February!
Another favorite saying I hear a lot lately is "I farted!". I hear this from all three of the older kids. For some reason it strikes me most funny coming from Trouble. Something about a 2 year old announcing his farts is incredibly funny to me!
While we're on the potty talk, I also like that when I change Donkey or Trouble's diapers, the other kids immediately ask how big the poop was, or what color or consistency it was. Clearly this falls back on me. I must talk about their poop more than I realize! Princess takes care of wiping herself, but she does sometimes fill me in on how much she went. Pirate still needs me to wipe him (or he gets poop streaks in his underwear because he doesn't wipe enough). When I wipe him, he inspects the poop in the toilet and lets me know all about it. We're a classy family!

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

The Climber

Trouble climbed out of the crib a couple times over the summer. Then he got stuck, and never tried again... until last week. Trouble and Donkey share a room and we have both of their cribs in the room. It's tight, but works. Some might call it cozy. The baby monitor is in their room, and I have the other end in my room and in the living room, so I can hear them on all the floors of the house. I heard them wake up from their naps in the afternoon. It's cute because Trouble talks to Donkey, and Donkey laughs. I went upstairs to get them both out of their cribs. As I was opening the door, I caught Trouble sliding down the outside of his crib. I just looked at him. His response was,"I get outta my tweeb (crib)". I asked why and he said," I needa get outta here.". The next day he didn't climb out, but the following day he did it again. I was in the living room with Princess looking at her school papers, and all of a sudden, Trouble marches down the stairs into the room. Two days later was Saturday. We like to "sleep in" on Saturdays. If we make it to 7:30, it's a good day. Pirate comes in our room every day around 6:45 and starts bugging us about what he can do. He was in our room 5 times that morning. We kept telling him to go back to bed or play quietly in his room. I thought he was coming back in for a 6th time, however, to our surprise, Trouble came walking in our room. We didn't even hear him on the monitor. He quietly snuck out of his crib and came in our room. Needless to say, the top of stairs gate is back up now. Trouble is the same child who opens the front door (deadbolt and all) and goes outside. All we need is him sneaking out of his crib and going outside in the middle of the night. At least he can't open the gate. Have I ever mentioned how different he is from his two older siblings? Every day we pray that Donkey is more like them and not like Trouble!

Monday, November 14, 2011

Bad luck with Cars

Sometimes I am convinced that we are cursed or have the worst luck in the world. My husband helps me to take a step back and realize things aren't that bad, and they could be worse. He is right. But when a lot of bad things happen at once, I can't help but feel overwhelmed and stressed. Thankfully I have an amazing husband who does not feel the same way.
We have terrible luck when it comes to cars. We have lived in our house for almost 5 1/2 years. In that time, we have gone through 6 vehicles. Or I guess more accurately we are on cars # 5 & 6. When I was pregnant with Trouble (number 3), we traded in our SUV for a minivan. This was March of 2009. My husband still drove our Jetta. We bought the Jetta right after we got married, our first couple's purchase. We loved the Jetta. He had two freak accidents in the Jetta. In the first one, my husband was driving down the road, and all of a sudden there was a big log in the middle of the road, that he didn't see until the last second, and he hit it. It did a lot of damage to the underside of the Jetta. The log had fallen off a truck further up the road, who obviously didn't have the lumber secured correctly. A few months later, another freak accident occured. My husband was on the same road, driving to work. He had Pirate, who was almost 2 at the time, in the backseat. He was going to drop him off at my grandmother's before work. He drove over a manhole where the cover came up off the ground and hit his car. The manhole cover totalled our little Jetta. The best part of the luck there is that the State of MD claimed it was not their fault, nor the fault of the State Highway Administration, and the insurance claim was up to us. In retrospect, we should have fought harder or gotten a lawyer or something, but we didn't want to put money into a fight on top of finding a new car. But for the record, how can a loose manhole cover coming up off the ground be the fault of the driver? So, we bought a new car. This was in April of 2009. In November of 2009, the day before Thanksgiving, coincidentally the day before my 30th birthday, I had my first car accident. I took the three kids in their cute matching Christmas outfits to get Christmas pictures taken. We were driving back from the photo session, and I ran a red light and hit another car. The other car was turning left, and I hit them head on. It was the scariest thing I ever experienced. I wasn't speeding. I saw the green turn arrow, and mistook it for a green light, and continued through the light. I was convinced the other person ran their red light until I realized what had actually happened. The van was totalled. Thank God no one was hurt. Trouble was only 5 months old at the time. We ended up buying a new van that December. We purchased 3 vehicles in one year. Not the type of statistics you really want. So, since then, we have been lucky and careful drivers, and haven't had any major problems. We sold my husband's car and he bought a cheap used car with cash because his car is only used to take him to and from work. We were looking to save the money of a car payment. Two weeks ago, he was driving to work, on the same road as the other two freak accidents, when another freak accident occurred. The rear driver side tire of the car in front of him flew off of that car and smashed into the front of my husband's Jeep. He said if he had been in his old car, it would have gone through the windshield. After 5 days, the insurance company of the other driver finally accepted liability, and the jeep is currently at a shop to be fixed. However, the damage isn't too far from totalling it, so it could still go that way. We could potentially be on our 7th car. Fun stuff. In the meantime, my husband had to drive the van to and from work while the insurance stuff was being negotiated. I used the van to take my daughter to Girl Scouts one night, and as we were driving home, the tire light came on. I told my husband and he came outside to meet us when we got home to check out the tire. I had a flat tire on the front passenger side, and a nail in the front driver side tire. Apparently I ran over a bed of nails that evening. At one point we were down to zero cars and two sick kids. It was a lovely time. I couldn't do anything but cry and ask why so much bad stuff happens to us. In the end the tires were fixed the next day and didn't cost us an arm and a leg, which was good news, or good luck. Most importantly out of everything I just wrote about, no one was ever hurt in any of these accidents. For that, we are truly lucky.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Sick Time

Now that I've remembered I had a blog, I'm trying to get myself organized and decide what to write about first. Four months is a long time, and a lot of poop and puke stories. This past week was filled with both, so I guess that's a good starting point. Two weeks ago, I took Princess to a class she takes once a month. I ran a few errands while she was there, then picked her up and brought her home. When we pulled into the driveway, I saw a trashbag on the front porch. I thought maybe my husband put it out there to remember to take out before he left for his part time job that evening. (One salary and 4.5 kids doesn't cut it around here) We went in the house, and my husband said, "Tis the season.". Knowing that it was only 2 days after Halloween, I figured he didn't mean to break out the Christmas decorations. Yup, he meant sickness season. Pirate was the lucky one to get it first this time. Apparently he was headed upstairs to get his jammies on, and he just stopped on the steps and barfed all over them. Hubby ran him into the bathroom to throw up over the toilet, but didn't get the lid up in time, so Pirate then puked all over the toilet lid, back of the toilet, floor, shelf, and trash can. He was sick a few more times that night, and seemed much better the next day. By Friday, 2 days later, he seemed back to himself. My mom and sisters came to babysit that Friday night so that my husband and I could go out to dinner for our anniversary. We had a nice night out, came home and were happy to get in bed and be able to sleep in the next morning. Around 1am, Princess came running in to tell us that Pirate threw up in his bed. And it wasn't just a little. This was a 2 parent job... clean the kid, change the sheets, clean everything... all the while trying not to let myself barf from the smell of it. So, Pirate spent the rest of the night in our room just in case he got sick again. He was fine the next day. I think he went back to eating normal foods too fast. Saturday night, Fall Back night - we were excited to get "an extra hour" of sleep. Somewhere in the middle of the night, I heard Trouble on the baby monitor coughing. I just knew, so I jumped up and said, "He's throwing up". Hubby thought I meant Pirate, so he ran in his room, but I ran in Trouble's room. Sure enough, he had barfed all over his crib, the bumpers, and the floor, as well as himself. Same routine as the night before. Then Trouble spent the night in our room. Sunday he laid in bed all day, which definitely is a sign that he's sick because the child is never still. In the meantime, there were several cases of diarrhea. Those don't even deserve mention because they were so gross. Thankfully, Princess and Donkey never got sick. Neither did my husband or I.

Friday, November 11, 2011

Baby #5

It's been a long time since I blogged. I guess that's what happens with 4 kids. I don't have time to keep up on the blog. I'm going to try though. So, since my last post, a cool 4 months ago, we received some life-changing news. We found out that I am pregnant again. I say again like that because I just did this. I was just pregnant a year ago. I just had a baby in March. I wasn't ready to find out I was pregnant again. I was giving away baby clothes and baby stuff, cleaning and organizing, ready to get back to my own body. We were doing a bunch of projects on the house, content and happy with our family of 6. So, this news came as a huge shock to us. My hubby took the news much better than I did. After a little bit of time I started feeling better about the news. I knew that it was happening, and I had to prepare myself. Then I hit the wonderful morning sickness phase, which is super awesome when you already have 4 kids to take care for. One of my most glamorous moments was when I had to stop giving my then 4 month old his bottle so that I could run to the bathroom to puke. Most moms fall into the category of having experienced morning sickness. For the other moms out there who haven't had the pleasure, I hate you. Just kidding, I actually envy you. Morning sickness lasts all day, for me anyway. And I constantly felt like I was going to be sick, sometimes actually puking. Most of the time I just hung over the toilet in this awful in between phase, wishing I could throw up, but just feeling nauseous as hell. I had to eat constantly or I would get sick. And when I started to get hungry, I started to feel sick, and I started to do this disgusting cough/gag thing that completely grossed out anyone around me. I kept a stash of grocery bags in the car for when I had to throw up on the road, which happened more than once. Like I said, it's a very glamorous time in a pregnancy. Luckily, it only lasted about 2 weeks this time. With my first child, I had morning sickness pretty much the entire pregnancy. It seems to have lessened with every child. It took me until I was around 16 weeks to start to actually feel pregnant. I was in maternity clothes pretty soon after I found out I was pregnant. Maternity shorts, mainly, because they are more comfortable. Clearly I hadn't lost all my baby weight from the 4th baby, so I had a lot to work with in the maternity clothes. At 20 weeks I went for my big sonogram. We were all hoping for a girl. Princess is the only girl, and she desperately wanted a little sister. She was under the impression that was the reason we were having a fifth baby, to give her a sister. But, alas, we found out we're having another boy. I wasn't even surprised this time. I figured it was a boy all along. Actually, the sono tech said she was "pretty sure" it was a boy. At this point, I've changed enough diapers and seen enough sonograms to know that it is indeed a boy. Maybe the tech was new. I have a follow up sonogram later this week. Maybe I'll be surprised, but it clearly looked like balls on this first sonogram. So, here I am, 25+ weeks pregnant, with an 8 month old, a 2 year old, a 4 year old, and a 7-turning 8- in a month- year old. Life is already crazy, but about to get crazier. I accept the challenge.