Favorites of the week

Quotes

"Daddy, I'm Done!" - Pirate, two separate times this week!

"Popcorn and Pizza are not junk!" - Princess

"This dog is a chiwalla." - Pirate referring to his stuffed chihuahua (I'll be honest. I had to look up how to spell it the right way.)

Conversation

Me: "Trouble, what's your name?"
Trouble: "Trouble"
Me: "Trouble What?"
Trouble: "Trouble Charlos (Charles)"
Me: "Good! Trouble Charles What?"
Trouble: "Trouble Charlos Bad!"
The kid thinks his last name is Bad. Maybe we have to rethink saying he's being bad! Once we established our last name, he then proceeded to name everyone else in the house by addressing them First name, Charlos, Last name. Apparently we all have the same middle and last name.
*He does know our real names and doesn't refer to himself as Trouble!

Other happenings

Trouble trying to stick his finger in his stream of pee while on the potty.

Trouble falling asleep on the couch in the middle of the day. Made for a quiet 30 minutes.

Finding a Pull Up in the washing machine... after the load of laundry was run. Gross.

Poop on the couch - after Trouble pooped in his underwear and didn't tell anyone and it went through his pants onto the couch.

Poop Hand x3

Big baby smiles - 5 is smiling up a storm all the time now! So cute!

Finding out about the movie rentals on the TV bill courtesy of Pirate.

Seeing that the broken vacuum belt was a result of Trouble shoving a sock into the vacuum.


Again, never a dull moment in this house of chaos!

Poop Hand

It never fails. Every time the little boys actually take naps after lunch and I just sit down to feed the baby, Pirate announces, "I just have to go poop real quick." and runs for the bathroom. He's 4 1/2 but I still wipe his butt. I guess he needs to learn how to do it before kindergarten. I can't imagine teachers wiping butts in elementary school. I sure as hell wouldn't have back in my other life when I was a teacher. It's not that I don't want him to wipe his own butt, it's just that he doesn't get it clean. Then he walks around digging at his butt all day because he has "itchy butthole". (His name for it, not mine.) He also sharts more when he wipes his own butt. So, to make things easier, I just wipe him for now. But he seems to have to poop every time I'm feeding the baby in the afternoon. I'm also usually watching my soap at the same time, so I double don't want to get up to wipe him. Luckily when he says he has to poop real quick, he's right. He's in and out of the bathroom. I just have to pause my show (most importantly!), put the baby down, go wipe his butt, wash both our hands, then pick up where I left off. So, this happened today with Pirate (1).

Shortly after, Trouble came downstairs to tell me that he couldn't take a nap today. I'm thinking he's about to give up naps which will make me cry when the day comes. That 1-2 hours a day when Trouble sleeps is the most peaceful time of my day. Today, I just sent him downstairs to rest on the couch with Pirate. To my surprise, he did rest, just didn't sleep. A little later, when he would normally wake up, I took him to the bathroom to pee and changed him from his Pull Up back into his underwear. He went back to playing and was actually behaving himself. When 5 started crying in his swing, I realized that he had pooped, and because he was in the swing, the poop had squished up his back onto his onesie (2). (Another onesie bites the dust because I don't scrub poop off of clothes) Changing a poopy onesie is a delicate task. You must very carefully stretch the hell out of it to not get poop all over the baby's back and head. This particular poop also required 5 being turned over onto his stomach so that I could wipe the excess poop off of his back. He had already had a bath this morning, and unless it's an extreme emergency, I don't bathe one kid more than once in a day.

When Donkey woke up from his nap, I could smell poop from the hallway (3). I knew it was going to be a good one. But his poops are tricky. Some of the worse smelling ones are the most compact and easy to clean. I was hoping for one of those. I didn't get my wish. This diaper was full front to back with gross, mashed poop. He had poop up the front, all over his balls and dong (as my boys refer to their boy parts... again, not the name I would use for it). I always give Donkey a toy to hold while I change him. It keeps him from squirming around and trying to get off the changing table. So, while I'm holding his legs back with my left hand, I'm wiping his butt with my right hand, all the while holding my breath because the smell could make me barf all over the place. Suddenly, the toy he's holding isn't good enough, and in a split second he throws it on the floor and reaches down and sticks his hand right on his poop covered dong. He now has Poop Hand. I had to maneuver around everything and wipe his hand off, then go back to wiping his butt, and he sticks his hand down there again. More Poop Hand. I don't have enough hands to hold down his hands and hold his legs back, and before I can even react to wipe his hand again, he grabs my hand that's holding his legs. Now we both have Poop Hand. To make it worse, I had to make his hand a priority over my own because I didn't want him touching anything else, or God forbid, putting his hand in his mouth. He didn't, and I was able to clean his hand off, wipe my own hand, and use my arm to hold his legs back and not allow his hand around to his diaper. My husband came in then and we decided Donkey just needed a bath at that point. As soon as my husband took over, I ran to the bathroom to wash and wash and wash my hands. I do not enjoy having Poop Hand.

After we recovered from this incident and Donkey was clean, Princess yelled up the steps, "Trouble pooped in his underwear!" (4). I asked him if he did, and of course he said no. I told him to come up so I could check, and to my delight, he came upstairs and went right over to Daddy so he could check him. My husband said it wasn't a huge mushy one, just a few turds, so he took him upstairs. I told him to hurry up because those turds have a way of falling out of Trouble's underwear and on more than one occasion I have found turds on the floor. While he was changing him, I heard my husband say, "Stop it, Trouble, stay still. Oh, come on... now  I have poop on my hand!". He ended up with Poop Hand too!

Later on, Princess went running up the steps with a book yelling that she had to poop (5). Thankfully she takes care of her own business. We had enough Poop Hand for one day!

Two months in...

I was looking back at some Facebook messages with friends from the past few months. The recent messages have to do with the baby, our kids, art projects, upcoming events, sickness, sleep, etc. Then I got a little further back, and I hit the messages from when I was pregnant. Then I reread my blog post from January, where I basically complained about being pregnant the whole time. It got me to thinking about how weird it is to be pregnant one minute, then blink and suddenly have a 9 week old baby.

just born

2 months old



It's weird to think back to that time, when I was still pregnant and 5 was just "the baby". We had his name picked out, and referred to him by name with the kids (kept it a surprise to everyone else until he was born), but still couldn't imagine him. At that point in time, I couldn't imagine not being pregnant, or holding the baby. I couldn't imagine having five kids. There was so much unknown. When I think about the day before the baby was born, I laugh at how much I was worrying.  I was so worried about actually going to the hospital and leaving the kids at home. Mainly, I worried about Donkey. He was only 11 months old, and he was my baby. He was/is such a Momma's Boy. I cried and cried the night before my induction when I put him to bed because I knew I was leaving him for two days and that when I came home, life wouldn't be the same. I literally typed five pages of "instructions" on taking care of the four kids while we were in the hospital. My husband could have come home, but between my parents and my aunt, the kids were covered. So we took advantage of the mini vacation in the hospital, a few days on our own getting to know the new baby before starting our life as a family of seven.

The worrying and the complaining were so unnecessary. I knew it at the time, but I still did both all the time. I complained about being uncomfortable. In my defense, two back-to-back pregnancies really took a toll on my body. Heartburn was terrible, my back, hips, and tailbone hurt constantly, I was either nauseous, starving, or throwing up all the time, and pretty miserable. And the worrying was for nothing. I had already given birth four other times. I knew what to expect in the delivery room. I knew what it was like to bring home a new baby. I knew I would love him just as much as his brothers and sister. But I still worried. I was scared of the unknown.

My labor and delivery went really well. I mean it wasn't pain-free, but I've come to realize I'm tougher than I give myself credit for. Also, whoever invented the epidural is sheer genius! You lose all your dignity in the delivery room, and by the fifth time, I didn't care who was in there. The maintenance man could have been there for all I cared when I was 10 cm and feeling insane pressure. (Funny story, the maintenance man was actually in the room when I was in labor with Pirate. Not when I delivered though!) And the second he was born, the second I saw that cute little face and the big eyes looking at me, that I had imagined for 39 long weeks, I was completely thoroughly in love. I loved him before I met him, but that grew when I got to see him. The kids came to see him that afternoon and loved him right away. I think they're just used to new babies. I seem to have one every year! 



When we got home and settled, everything just kind of fell into place. My husband was off for two weeks, which was a huge help. I cried when he went back to work. But then I was on my own and found my own groove with all the kids.



Obviously there have been a lot of ups and downs in the past 9 weeks- lots tons of diaper changes, crying kids, crying mommy, rearrangements (is that a word?) in the rooms and in schedules, and milestones with the kids. Pirate lost his first tooth, Princess lost two teeth, Donkey got four molars within three weeks, and Trouble got a couple molars. I didn't realize we had so much happening with teeth until I wrote that! Most of all, there has been a LOT of love going on in this house. A lot of crazy and annoying things happen here, and it's chaotic pretty much all the time, but I don't just focus on that. There is a lot of love here, and it makes all the craziness worth it.



Two months in and everything is going well. The kids are happy and healthy and that's what is most important. I couldn't imagine life without 5. He is just a perfect completion to our family. As much as I couldn't picture life with him when I was pregnant, I can't imagine life without him now. He's cute as can be, with the most lovable chubby cheeks. The kids adjusted just fine to life with another new baby. Donkey had the hardest adjustment, but now he's doing great too. Two weeks after 5 was born was Donkey's first birthday, and we made sure we had a celebration for him, even though he won't remember it. We want to make sure the kids all know that even though we have a big family, each one of them is special to us and deserves to be celebrated.

Things aren't perfect. I don't strive for perfection. People say, "I don't know how you do it. I could never have five kids.". Since giving them back is not an option, we just do it. We just take care of them and love them and do our best. It's not easy by any means. But they are our children and we love them and do what we have to for them. And count down the days until they are out of the house! Just kidding... sort of :)

The Fab Five :)



Lock the TV settings!

Our TV is on a lot. Like most of the day. It doesn't mean my kids are glued to it 24/7 or anything like that. Usually it's on because they go outside and forget to turn it off. But it is on most of the time, to the point that when Trouble was a little toddler, he would say "Uh-oh" and point to it when the TV was off, like it was broken. We stick to a few specific channels for the kids, mainly Nick Jr and Nickelodeon, Disney Jr and Disney. They think it's neat that if they miss a show, it will come on again 3 hours later on the West channels. We also have DVR, which I believe might be the greatest invention ever. Seriously, the ability to watch a show after it comes on, fast forward through commercials or boring parts, and keep a show to watch over and over... Genius! I can get through my soap opera in 15 minutes! Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is the only show that Donkey actually sits and watches, and having it in the DVR got us through a couple days and nights when he was sick. Needless to say, I have several episodes memorized :) We also have On Demand on Dish Network, but we don't use it much.

Princess has been able to use the remote for a while. She is the one who will put on shows for the boys, change the channels, and check out the schedule for what is on later. One reason she is able to do this is because she can read. That makes the menu easier to understand. The other reason is that she is responsible and knows the channels and what they are allowed to watch. If a new iCarly or Victorious is coming on Saturday night, she'll ask if she can record it. She knows to ask. She also knows how to correctly set the DVR to record new episodes or record something one time.

Pirate is another story. He just recently started using the remote to change channels. He knows the channel numbers for the shows they can watch, and can read enough letters to pick the shows. He also learned to go into the DVR to pick shows. He figured out the two words starting with P mean Peppa Pig and the words with M mean Mickey Mouse. Over the past few months he's learned how to spell the names of other shows and he can go into the DVR and put shows on for himself and Trouble. (No, I'm not saying that sitting your kid in front of the TV menu should be how they learn how to read!) Then Pirate started getting adventurous and trying to record shows. I guess he thought he saw us do it enough that he could figure it out for himself. All of a sudden, I was finding that the few shows I record during the day were being stopped so something else would record. So, I told him he could not record shows without a grown up or Princess being with him. Even Princess asks if she can record her shows.

He stopped playing with the remote, or so I thought. I had made a couple of folders in the DVR to keep shows grouped together. We have a Halloween folder, a Christmas folder, and a Kids' movies folder. That way we don't have to scroll through everything to get to those shows. The whole DVR goes by date, so the Halloween folder is all the way at the bottom, since we haven't added to it since October. Same with the Christmas folder. If you're wondering why I keep these shows, it's because my kids are weird. Sometimes they want to watch Rudolph or the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown in the middle of April. Anyway, all of a sudden the Christmas folder was at the top of the DVR. I looked to see what had been moved into it, and found Law & Order SVU  at the very top. Then I found that he had moved a bunch of other shows into other folders as well. At least he wasn't trying to watch those shows! They're locked from viewing, but apparently not from being moved around. So, I told him he couldn't use the remote anymore at all.
That didn't last long though, because when things get crazy with the babies, it's easy to tell him to put on a show downstairs. Yes, I sometimes send my kids to watch TV to get them out of my way. Don't judge unless you also have 5 kids. I made sure I told him not to move any shows around in the folders.

The next day, I went into the DVR to watch something in my "spare" ten minutes, and found 37 Spongebob episodes had recorded. Princess had been at school, and Trouble just uses the remote as a weapon. He doesn't try to put shows on, so I knew it had to be Pirate. When I checked the schedule, I kid you not, Spongebob was scheduled to record every half hour for the entire day. It was the weekend, and I guess there's nothing on but Spongebob all day. Apparently he tried to record an episode, but hit Record All instead. I took the remote out of the basement for good.

I thought we were over the whole remote issue after that incident this weekend. Yesterday my husband called from work and said to make sure the remote stays out of Pirate's hands. He had logged onto our account online and saw that our bill was $60 more than it should have been. He called the company to see what was up, and was told that we rented 8 Pay-per-View movies last month, including Happy Feet Two four different times. OMG!!! Pirate had rented all the kids' movies that came up on the home screen as advertisements! One of which he rented on four different days! Thankfully the very nice customer service lady removed the charges for us. Even more thankfully, my husband caught it yesterday, before our account was automatically debited the payment tomorrow. We locked the whole system, so all they can do now is watch something already recorded and watch the approved (by us) channels.

I swear, there is never ever a dull moment over here!

Toy Overload

Toys took over this house years ago. We try to contain them into certain areas, but it doesn't last more than a day. Pirate is a toy hoarder, and he carries handfuls of toys with him everywhere. And his toys are tiny. His favorites are action figures - little tiny Star Wars guys, little tiny Batman guys, and little tiny pirates. They all have weapons (where his obsession with weapons must come from), that I find all over the place. I found two tiny swords and a machine gun in my bed last week. He knows everything he has, too. When the swords and gun were missing, he knew exactly what he was looking for, but he just didn't remember where he left it.  We keep some toys in the big kids' room, some in the baby boys' room, some in the living room, and tons in the basement. Slowly but surely, by the end of the day, the toys have migrated into all the other rooms of the house. Every night we put up with the same complaining about cleaning up the toys. Princess states that she didn't make the mess. This is usually true, but we tell her that since we cleaned up for her when she was the only child she has to help her brothers put things away. Pirate starts to say he's "just really tired". Then we ask him if he wants to have his snack and he perks up and says yes. Then we say he's not that tired and to start cleaning up. Trouble actually starts putting toys away, but then counters that good action by dumping out another bin of toys, doubling the mess.

Here's how my kids "play". Pirate will take out a bunch of toys, usually little tiny ones, but with a few bigger ones mixed in. He will hoard them all in a corner of the couch and surround himself with pillows "so that Trouble doesn't take my stuff". Or he will sit in the big chair with all of his guys crammed in behind him. He'll play with them for a little while, getting up occasionally to add another random toy to the mix. Then he'll decide he wants to play with something else. So, he'll completely disregard the first pile of toys, leave it where it is, and move onto another hoarding spot with another pile of toys. Same goes for books, he'll drop whatever he was looking at to get something else, never putting anything away in between. Trouble will dump out a bin of toys on the floor, pick out a few to play with and leave the pile on the floor. Within minutes, he throws the toys across the room and grabs something else. Instead of driving the trains and cars on the train table, he drives them across the TV stand, resulting in Princess screaming at the top of her lungs, "MOVE, TROUBLE!!!", which usually results in me yelling at her for being so loud. Donkey will take one toy and walk around with it. He is just happy to be walking around the room instead of being stuck in the play yard. He has just recently gotten into the stage of dumping loads of toys onto the floor. Princess doesn't really play with toys much. Sometimes she'll go into her room and get out all the Barbie stuff and play for a while, only if the boys leave her alone. Most of the time she just wants to play Wii or her DS or games on the computer. (Damn electronics!)

We also experience what I refer to as the "Trickle Down Effect" with toys. When Princess sees Pirate playing nicely, she wants to take his toys. On the rare occasions where Trouble is actually sitting and playing with something, Pirate takes something away from him. When Donkey is walking around with his toy, Trouble takes it from him. Why do they do that? Why can't they let each other be happy and content? The boys constantly steal toys from one another. I guess that's the nature of having siblings.

New toys are exciting for a few days, maybe a week or so tops. Then they end up in the toy box with everything else. They end up broken or lose pieces and become junk. I feel bad because other people spend their money on these toys, and the kids don't appreciate them. Princess is finally at the point where she takes care of her toys. But it took close to eight years for her to get there! Pirate and Trouble both have summer birthdays, only 3 weeks apart. So, we have combined parties for them every year. Sometimes we ask for combined gifts for them, like the sand table, the playhouse, and the water table. Those still get used every year. Last year they got a train table. I thought it would be a great idea. They loved trains, and how fun is a table with all those accessories? It took a long time for my husband to put together.

How could they not love this?! They did, at first. But after time, the train tracks were destroyed, and the table became a storage spot, with crap piled all over it.


This weekend, we rearranged our basement. We wanted to move all of the toys to one side, then have the other part for the sofa and TV, kind of separating it into two spaces. It's a really small room, but we made it work. Princess and Pirate spent the day with my grandparents on Saturday, so we had less kids in our way. During nap time, my husband and I started moving the toys, but decided to get rid of a bunch of them. There were toys that I didn't even realize we had.




one of the piles of toys

 We got rid of anything broken or missing pieces, put some things in a pile for a yard sale we want to have in a few weeks, and organized everything else. It took a LONG time. I laughed that they were the ones that made all the messes and we were the ones cleaning and organizing, again.  Then I went through the bookshelf and cleaned out the books, threw away ones that were ripped, missing pages, and the few that were just covers. No clue where the pages to those books ended up!

By the time we finished everything, the kids were in bed, so yesterday was the first test with the new arrangement. Unsurprisingly, things were all over the place within an hour. I showed them how to clean up and put the toys in the right spots, and by last night when it was clean up time, they got it right. We'll see how long it lasts...

Favorites of the Week

Quotes

 "I wonder how the monsters get their wieners out to go potty on Monsters Inc." - Pirate

"Trouble, come here and stand next to this big ruler so we can weigh ourselves". - Pirate, standing by the awesome growth chart made for us by the one and only Naptime Decorator. One day he'll know the difference between measuring height and weight.

"Mommy, don't cut my fingernailers and toenailers!"  - Trouble when it was his turn. One of my weekly highlights is cutting 100 fingernails and toenails.

"How will Santa get in our house since we covered the chimney?" - Princess and Pirate simultaneously, upon realizing the wood burning stove was gone, closing off Santa's access to the house. (We're going to leave him a key this year.)

"You come change donkey. He smells like a poopy diaper."  - Trouble, after he busted into Donkey's room and woke him up from his nap.

"Mommy, I'm really, really done. Hurry up!"  - Pirate

"My tummy sure feels hungry for some candy after all that pooping I did." - Pirate

"Mickey!" - Donkey, when he saw him on TV. He has said it before, but I just love seeing how his face lights up when he sees his friends on the screen!

"Mommy said I have stinky feet, but it was her feet she smelled." - Princess explaining to my husband how I accused her when in fact, it was my own feet that I smelled. Curse you, flip-flops!

"Margarita time!" - Me to my husband when he got home from work tonight. I've been dreaming of this time all week.

Other fun happenings

I used three diapers to change 5 once this week. One lost a tab while I was trying to put it on, the next one was used as a shield when he started peeing all over the place, and finally the last one was able to be used. You'd think I was a novice diaper changer!

Swing poop - when 5 pooped while in the swing so it squished all up his back. Made it extra fun to change when the poop was on his onesie that had to be lifted over his head. Needless to say it went straight into the trash. I'm not scrubbing shit off of clothes.

Donkey getting his first black eye. I was literally right next to him when he fell down holding a toy dump truck. His face hit the back of the dump truck and gave him a shiner right under his eye. Seriously, not even two minutes later he fell down again, holding the same truck, and got a fat lip. That toy has been banished.

There is never a dull moment in this house of chaos!