Updates

Well, the one person who reads my blog faithfully, my Auntie Marcia, has reminded me that it has been a while since I posted. I have a few posts in me, but thought I would give an update on the girls and what has been going on in our lives recently.

Doodle: We went to our second conference at school and she is doing great. She loves school and is making friends. She still has the love/hate relationship with this one little boy. The teacher knows all about our family, and asked if she might be so fascinated because he was brown like her Newbie. We thought about it, but she doesn't seem so fascinated with the brown girls in her class, although some are friends. We actually think she's so interested because she doesn't hang out with many boys--and there are only three boys in her class. This one happens to sit at her table. We really like her teacher--the homework calendar for this month included some Black history items, so we are so excited.
Doodle came home with some valentines from her valentines day party, so that was good. One never knows, but she was excited with her haul. Of course, the night before she tells me that she needs to bring a box for her valentines, so we are up late covering a box with wrapping paper and stickers. Typical. That in addition to the packet we need to do for student of the week, the usual homework, and reading. Kindergarten is so hard!
Doodle loves the Olympics, and will watch until we let her fall asleep on the couch (don't judge, she doesn't have school today). Even though she's been drawing pictures of ice skaters, she likes to watch the skiing best. She's particularly excited to see bobsledding, because it has the word "sled" in it. She spent the afternoon sledding off of the back stairs of our deck.

MooBear: Poor Moo had the croup and then got a double ear infection. Thank god for the pink medicine. It's weird that she had the croup at 5 years old, but whatever. At least it wasn't strep. About half of her preschool class was out last week with step. All of our three girls eventually got the croup, but Moo was the sickest.
Lately she's been really into drawing and making valentines and art. Her drawing/fine motor is really coming along. She's also very into legos. I've been telling the girls I'm not particularly good at legos. Dan makes these great things-- a crocodile, a shark, a plane. I have a complex. So this weekend I made a house. Moo told me it was just "ok" Nice blow to the ego there.

Newbie: What can I say? She's a handful. Her language is exploding. New words include: cool, what? (said with attitude), butt (thanks to Doodle), cocoa and mine. When Dan went to wake her up a few days ago, she responded with, "What???!!"
She's happy and stubborn and fun all at the same time. She's been sleeping better and for that I am grateful. She no longer wants to eat in her high chair, so I'm constantly trying to put food in front of her. Her weight has dropped a bit since she has become mobile, so I'm trying to keep her calories up.

At her last pediatrician appointment, she peed on the length measuring thing, shredded the paper on the table and escaped nude into the hallway when the nurse came in to ask us a question. Dr. Laura told me I finally had my boy.

The nice thing when Newbie was sick was that she would actually cuddle with us for more than 5 seconds. So much fun for me!

We've been working on her hand strength, so I got her a water table and those little animals that squirt so she can work her hands. She loves it!! We've tried playdough too, but she's afraid of it.

We got her new shoes, and her feet are two different sizes. She had a full on temper tantrum in the shoe store, which was fun. She wanted to go out in the mall. She would step outside the carpeted area of the store and then look back at me and start to walk out. I'd then have to carry her back screaming. If I focused on Doodle's shoes she would go out again. I eventually worked out a system with the shoe woman, that I would focus on one of the other girls and if she saw the Newbie try to escape, she would let me know. At the end, the saleslady complimented me on my patience. Sigh.

As for me, I got the croup, too, but am finally feeling better. I'll write more soon!

He's the Ethiopian Ski Team!!

Ethiopia has one skier in the Winter Olympics. Click here for a short video. Click here for an article.

We'll be cheering for him!

Working from home

I know it seems like lately this blog is all about the Newbie, and I promise I'll post soon about the other girls' antics. However, the Newbie, aka the Barnacle, had a spectacular morning working from home that I must share.

Today, I'm home. Sending an email to a committee to tell them that the id code for our conference call has changed. My employer has a variety of email lists. I've typed the email, and am typing the name of the committee, say it is called the "workers committee" in to "to" field of my email. Moo bear needs me upstairs. I help her and then I come downstairs to see this:

The Newbie is gleefully typing/banging on the computer. She looks a little bit like a mad scientist in pink santa pajamas working on a secret formula. I laugh, and take a picture of her with the computer's camera.

Then I realize that the email is gone. I think, "oh crap, she deleted the email." Then I realize, no, the email is showing sent. To ALL WORKERS in my company! Now, the dial in number meant for a few people sent to the whole group is not a big deal. I sent a disregard email, but I look like an idiot. No one is going to believe me that my 18 month old did it.

Personality

So the Newbie has a very strong personality. And she's different from her sisters. Strong willed, knows what she wants. Not afraid to fight for things. Likes to be in charge. What we affectionately like to call "leadership skills." For example, she loves coffee, wine and beer. At first we thought she just wanted to have what everyone else was having. Now, we know. If she sees you with a cup of something she likes, she's not shy about picking up your finger, dipping it in the liquid, and sucking the liquid off of your finger. If she likes it, and she hasn't met a beverage she doesn't like, she goes it and tries to take a big gulp. The first time it happened, I thought, once she tries the wine (dry white) she'll hate the taste and that would be the end of it. Not so! Then it was, well, she'll hate red wine. Wrong again. Then beer, we thought for SURE she would hate beer. Nope. Then coffee...well at least with the coffee maybe she had some in Ethiopia. Here are a few photos of her in action with my coffee. Now, before you get all up in arms that we are feeding our baby these things, we let her have a taste and that was it.

After the coffee it was the diaper. She's figured out, with her clothes on, how to undo the tabs on her diaper. So occasionally we'll find her with a wet diaper peeking out of one leg of her pants. We're thinking of investing in some duct tape.

On Christmas, she tried to choke herself multiple times by putting chocolate in her mouth with the wrappers on. We had to do an all-out manhunt at home for the chocolate ornament balls from Fannie May, since those seemed to be her favorite. Part of the Christmas video shows me sweeping out her mouth and trying to explain about the wrappers. Ahh, such a warm family moment caught on tape!

And then it was the outfits. I had one of my favorite holiday outfits for the Newbie to wear on Christmas. It was a hand-me-down from the older girls. I laid it out on the foot of her bed while she was taking her nap. When she woke up, I was greeted with the odor of poop, and somehow she had drooled/peed all over the outfit. Outfit number two was destroyed when she spilled her sisters' apple juice all over it. Outfit number three got drool and corn smeared all over it, but we just kept her in it. I didn't have anything festive left for her to put on, and there wasn't much time left in the day.

Then it was the water bottles. We keep the non-breakable stuff in the low drawers of the kitchen so the Newbie can play with them. Last week she managed to get both of her hands stuck in stainless steel water bottles. She clumped around crawling for a while before I figured out that she wasn't just having fun, they were stuck. A little soap and they came off--thankfully. It could have been much worse.

I could go on and on. Needless to say, it is very interesting at our house. I find myself saying the damnedest things and sweeping her mouth out all the time. Her sisters now know to do it, too. You never know what you'll find in her mouth. It's an adventure, but a fun one, too. People used to look at the older girls sitting at a restaurant and say, "I hope you get a boy." Gender has nothing to do with it. It's all personality, and we've got it in spades.

Merry Christmas Eve!

We're cooking here, and the wee ones are looking for Santa. Here's a few live action shots of our Santa tracking using NORAD. We'll be hollering when he reaches Ethiopia.

Thank you, Internet!!! Or Denise, really

So I read the comments on my last post, all two of them. Particularly, Denise's comment. I checked for teeth-- nothing. Then I thought, a little tylenol can't hurt. I also changed the white noise to soothing ocean sounds. The Newbie slept from 8:30ish p.m. until 3. A peep at 3 and back to sleep. This morning at 5:30?? Drool fest. YEAH Denise! If I could kiss you, I would. Sometimes I think in the heat of the moment, even an experienced mom loses the magic.

Please sleep!

I should have known that we were going to have a sleep issue soon, since Moo has been sleeping in her own bed in her own room (not Doodle's room) all night long for quite some time now. So it was time for the sleep bitch to mess with us again.

The Newbie has generally been a champion sleeper. Put her down, she goes right to sleep and sleeps on through the night. A few times before a milestone or with her ear infection we had rough nights, but generally, things are great. The only issue we had was the crib. She hated it and refused to sleep in it. Maybe it reminded her of her crib in the care center? All was well, until a week or so ago.

We keep having these nights where she wakes up crying and we try everything-- rocking, milk, singing, laying down next to her, bringing her in our bed. She wants to go back to sleep but can't. Even if you get her to doze, when you lower her to the bed she wakes up screaming. I've determined that it isn't the type of pajamas, the prescense or absence of white noise, whether the fan is off or on, whether she has covers on or off, the time she goes to bed, the temperature in her room, who puts her to sleep, etc. Her ears are fine, her tummy is fine, she's not hungry. She's just awake. ANd wants you to be awake with her. For HOURS and HOURS.

Dan takes a turn, then me. Two nights ago, he had her for a while, I tried for over an hour, tried to give her back, but Dan was all, "Nut uh. You have at least another hour and a half before you can hand her back. I've been up for over two hours. Good luck." I got her back to sleep for an hour and a half, gave her to Dan at 7 am and went back to sleep myself.

Last night, I had had it. From 12:45 until 2 I tried the soothing and the milk. Then I did the impossible. I let her cry it out. She cried in her room, I cried just outside the door. The first time, I lasted 3 minutes. Went in and started over. Then 5 minutes of crying. Went in, started over. Then 10 minutes. By then, she woke up Doodle, who joined her Dad in our bed. I'm still crying outside her room. Wondering if this is the right thing to do. Worried because of possible abandonment issues. Feeling like a failure since I never did this with the older girls and can't figure out how to help her. Was I stronger then, with them? More patient? More resilient?

Why couldn't she just curl in next to me and sleep? Then it stopped. I laid down on the hardwood floor outside her room. I was trapped. To move would mean the floor would creak and then she would wake up. I think I laid there for about 45 minutes. I slooowly got up. The floor creaked. She started to cry. Son of a B!

I gave up, and settled into bed. Crying again. Of lack of sleep and frustration. She quieted down after a minute. I slept. For a very few hours. I had to send Dan in to get my glasses in the am and she was up. No ill effects to be seen except she was tired. Well, sister, join the club!

I don't know what we'll do tonight. Probably try everything until we have to resort to the crying it out. Dan thinks it's fine. A different sleep solution for each girl. He thinks we were just lucky the first six months or so. We'll see. In the meantime, I need to try and stay awake.