5 months

Oh Sadie. I love this girl with my entire heart. Truly. I feel like she is so much a part of me, more than any of my other kids is physically part of me. And, she mostly just likes me. I do not exaggerate that. And while this is so so hard for me, there is that one part of me that feels like it is sweet. Spencer says when she asks him for money someday he will remind her that she wanted nothing to do with him when she was a baby. (Actually, the last few days she has become more pleasant. I even like her! I need to remember that months 2-5 were nearly impossible, and at 5 months old it got a little easier.)

Sadie slept pretty well until about 4 months old. Then she wigged out. She was waking me up at least twice, and because she shares a room and we all are pretty close I couldn't let her cry for too long (more than 30 or so minutes). Sometimes I let her cry and sometimes I get her and feed her just because it is easier (in the short run, not the long). I am frustrated with myself because I'm not consistent, and frustrated with everyone because I am just so tired, and frustrated with her because she has regressed bigtime and is now worse than a newborn. I've got to figure her out! The only thing consistent about her (specifically about sleeping) is her inconsistency. No two nights have ever been the same, not even.

All my kids need constant stimulation and attention as babies, but Sadie is just a little priss! If I hold her she will be happy all day long. But we have places to go (read: she isn't being held in the car, heaven forbid) and I have dishes to do and dinner to make, and homework to help with, so she spends some time screaming her guts out. I thought she would adjust as she got older. She will sit in her saucer for about 10 minutes before turning into a crazy woman. Let's just say I would never describe her as calm and content. Not even close.

But! Sadie's smile can light up a room. Her eyes are gorgeous and blue and sparkly, her smile is perfect, and her fat legs are scrumptious. Her dad teases that she probably has oreos in her rolls. She doesn't roll over yet but I am more focused on getting her to sit up. I have a glimmer of hope that she will become slightly independent when she can sit and play with toys.

My friend Carrie said, "She has to be feisty. Kids have to be like that these days." That makes a lot of sense to me too. I want her to be independent and stubborn as she gets older. I want her to have a strong mind and personality, to stand up for herself, to stand firm for what is right. So I guess I can take it now.

At 4 1/2 months old she weighed 15 lbs 3 oz. She was 24 inches long, so she is pretty much long and wide (80th percentile). I still find it so ironic that my smallest baby, who tried to come the earliest, is now the biggest.

As much as she is super demanding, I am so thankful for her. I am glad she'll be the last one home with us. I am glad she forces me to be an attentive mom. I am grateful she is keeping me in line. I am glad she's our last baby...because we will go through these milestones with a bang. As her personality is starting to show more, I get a thrill wondering and guessing what she will be like. I am excited for the next 18 years with her. And beyond.

break

When Emma was 15 months old and I was 5 months pregnant with Tyler, we went to Washington DC in April. I find it funny that what I most remember from that trip was Emma having a total blowout while we were in Arlington National Cemetery and I had to change her next to the headstones on our walk to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
(Just because I happened to find an old picture from that trip, here it is. I was pale and Spencer looks so young!)

And perhaps what I will remember most from this most recent Spring Break camping trip is that Sadie cried. MAN, that girl cries. My parents say it is payback because I cried all the time as a baby, but this makes my 3rd that cries constantly (though Sadie takes the cake for the worst). Last week Tanner finally said, "Mom. Sadie is just crying because she misses Macie." He said it so matter-of-factly that I told him he was probably right. So that is what I will choose to believe. Because it just may keep me from killing her. (I won't even go into what a horrible sleeper she is, because in a year that won't matter and she will be a perfect angel like my other kids.)

Anyway, this is not about Washington DC and messy diapers, or about crying babies. I hope I can remember everything else - the fun stuff - about our 2-day trip. I hope I can remember how hard Spencer works when we take the motorhome out (because I complain about "all the work"), how much planning he puts into each detail of our itinerary, how Tanner thinks everything is so exciting and how he called himself "Rescue Tanner" the whole time, and how my big kids are such a big help. We went to Point Reyes national seashore, because it was relatively close (gas prices are crazy, people!) and because we haven't been there yet. I got anxiety just thinking about having all six of us (but mostly just Sadie) in the motorhome.

We got there late on Easter night, and the recent rain had left lots of mud. Pretty much saw nothing driving in, and went to bed. The next day we explored the outside of the point, where the lighthouse is and where Drakes Bay/Beach is. We were determined to see a gray whale, and when we heard that 35 had been spotted the day before we felt confident. After looking for a few minutes we decided we weren't going to wait around. So no whale sightings. The lighthouse was meh and we had two huge, steep ramps and 320 stairs to walk back up. Emma was the animal here and powered up those stairs holding our bags. Spencer had a Tanner on his back and I had a Sadie on my front, and I think we are both just a little out of shape.

We drove over to Drake's Bay and while I fed Sadie everyone else went to see the elephant seals. When I was in the car a coyote got really really close.

My poor baby got a little sunburned.

Spencer and the other 3 kids went to an Indian Reservation. 4 of the 6 of us fell asleep in the motorhome for a late afternoon nap. I woke up drooling - gross.

Spencer made a fire and we did foil dinners and dutch oven cobbler. Spencer is perfecting the art of the dutch oven. Sadie kept me up all night.

The next day we decided to actually use the bikes we had brought. Because it was a really bumpy trail I kept sadie in the Bjorn and we walked the trail while everyone else rode. It was quiet, but I enjoyed the quiet as she slept against me and as I wrapped my sweater around her. Those quiet moments are few and far between, and it was great to have my thoughts to just myself for about 30 minutes.

(That thing has been the best purchase ever.)

We packed up the motorhome and headed back. I drove the van alone (!!) and left Emma in charge of the two littles in the motorhome. I do not and will not ever drive that beast. Apparently it went really well in there. Of course it did. (She slept on Emma.)

Just because things are hard and take a TON of work and patience doesn't mean they aren't fun or worthwhile. This is something I need to remind myself. Sadie can't cry all the time forever (right?) but this is a time I sure enjoy in spite of that.

Spring Break. I love it. Whether on the East Coast or on the West.

easter

We have two azaela plants that bloom every year in the beginning of April. When Easter is late in April they are looking rather sorry by that point. With Easter early this year, they weren't quite in full bloom.

We always take our Easter pictures in front of the pink one. As the kids get older/taller we see fewer blooms.

Sadie's thighs are just awesome. I can't help but smile and pinch them. My first CHUNK.

Growing up we had an Easter dress/Easter tie tradition. I am trying that in my family. I think. I will do better next year. (This year Spencer got a new tie and Emma and I had new clothes.)

We clearly need to spend more than 3 seconds posing ourselves. I know better.

Love my cute family.

fortification

It amazes me how quickly morality is declining. There are things all over the news about this. I take it in with a lot of thought, but lately it seems I just can't get it off my mind. One of my YW last night was really distraught over something one of her friends told her. She is young, a Beehive, and I was interested to see how something as upsetting and sad to her was dismissed rather quickly by the older girls, only because they are used to it.

When Spencer was in Utah with some of his siblings, he saw that recent (potential) social/moral changes that are hard for us to swallow are extra hard for them. My own kids are going to become desensitized to things that would otherwise be shocking, I am starting to see. I want certain things to shock them, and I want them to stand for what is moral and for what is right instead of just shrugging their shoulders. Sometimes I wonder if I can shield them from such things, but I realize I can't do that. We can fortify our families in our homes. I remembered a talk by Elder Bednar and looked it up. I love his recommendations of how we can be more concerned at home:

1. Express Love--And Show It
I love this part:

"Sometimes in a sacrament meeting talk or testimony, we hear a statement like this: “I know I do not tell my spouse often enough how much I love her. Today I want her, my children, and all of you to know that I love her.”

Such an expression of love may be appropriate. But when I hear a statement like this, I squirm and silently exclaim that the spouse and children should not be hearing this apparently rare and private communication in public at church! Hopefully the children hear love expressed and see love demonstrated between their parents in the regular routine of daily living. If, however, the public statement of love at church is a bit surprising to the spouse or the children, then indeed there is a need to be more diligent and concerned at home."

 

Hmmm...I can do better at this.

 

2. Bear Testimony--And Live It

I need to do better at this too. But I often find that as we converse daily, I am able to carefully share bits and pieces of what I know is true and what is important to me. And my kids! They are so good! They do this daily with their friends - it blows my mind.

 

3. Be Consistent

This happens all too often in our home right now...

"Sometimes Sister Bednar and I wondered if our efforts to do these spiritually essential things were worthwhile. Now and then verses of scripture were read amid outbursts such as “He’s touching me!” “Make him stop looking at me!” “Mom, he’s breathing my air!” Sincere prayers occasionally were interrupted with giggling and poking. And with active, rambunctious boys, family home evening lessons did not always produce high levels of edification. At times Sister Bednar and I were exasperated because the righteous habits we worked so hard to foster did not seem to yield immediately the spiritual results we wanted and expected."

 

But I can tell you...watching Tanner hold his little Book of Mormon every morning - usually upside-down, with sleepy eyes, listening and sometimes repeating aloud, I can't help but think we are establishing something really important for these kids.

 

 

My kids may become de-sensitized to some crazy stuff because of where we live, but as long as they can recognize truth I hope it will be enough of a fortification.

 

I took this picture Sunday and I LOVE it. All of their faces are so perfect here. Love these stinkers.

 

fireplace makeover

I wish I could blame this particular episode of I-need-to-change-my-house-ness on my 4 weeks of bed rest, but alas, this began right before that.

Rewind to September. Actually, rewind a really long time. We moved here 6 years ago next month and even though we rented this house first and I LOVED it, there were things I wasn't a fan of. The kitchen was the biggest, and we have since fixed that. The other was the fireplace. But no big deal. When we bought the house we considered taking it out. We never used it. The brick (stone?) was just awfully ugly. I had heard about whitewashing or painting over it, but I didn't think it would look good. And we finally decided to keep it - I have heard wood burning fireplaces are huge selling features.

We have a friend who is just so handy. We had him over one Sunday evening to give us an idea of how to spruce up our fireplace. Here it is; I didn't think to get a picture of the whole thing before demolotion and I am pretty sure I have old pictures of it but really don't want to go back through my files and look. That old hearth held many song and dance performances. But yuck.

None of us realized just how much work it would entail but we decided to go for it. He emailed me about getting the new stone the day I went into the hospital in pre-term labor. It was all put on hold.

I got home from the hospital, on bed-rest, and decided I wanted to proceed. I hated that fireplace, and really, our main reason for this re-vamp was to utilize the space in our living room better. Our bedrooms are small and we wanted our living space to be bigger because our family is just growing. Fixing the fireplace up, flipping the couch around, mounting the TV and ultimately getting rid of the big entertainment center was going to free up some serious square footage.

It took Todd a while. He has three kids, manages apartments, and doesn't live near us. He brought some stone and marble samples to me because I couldn't go anywhere. The demolition started two weeks before our planned c-section date. I wondered if it would be done, but figured it wouldn't be.

The demolition was disgusting. They found a rat's nest that was estimated to be 20 years old (gag), and lots of spiders, and there was a ton of empty space. So they had to rebuild the old insert with brick, which took extra time of course. And because Todd and his dad do such incredible work, they built the mantle. I was expecting a cute little "shelf"-type thing. Oh.my. I love the mantle. I could never have designed anything close to what they came up with. It took days to assemble and paint. It is a work of art.

They ended up working a lot while I was in the hospital, and wrapping it up when I was home. Alas, when Sadie hit 10 days old it was finished. The TV is mounted, there are NO WIRES showing (hooray for that), and I have a gorgeous mantle and new crown molding above. I could not be happier, and Todd didn't even charge us for the added square footage to our living room.

(Do you like our overlapping holidays this year?)

Oh! We made our first fire! And our second, and third.

So happy we took this on. Timing was weird, but Spencer just makes fun of me because very often my timing is not ideal. Actually, it never is.

Can I say how fun it is to have one more flat space to decorate? (We won't discuss the crap that also collects there, including lego creations meant to stay out of little 2-year-old hands.)

mothers who know

Since my last post (and since my "thing" at the school is now over) I have been thinking a lot about my role and how I spend my time. One of my kids is really struggling right now. This child is having a hard time fitting in and making friends. It breaks my heart every night as I hear sobbing coming from the bedroom and as school is now a HUGE source of dread. This is the first issue I have had as a mom that I feel like I can't just "fix" myself. I know there is a lot more to come. But this is a hard reality for me. It is consuming my thoughts right now. We talk endlessly about how to make it better, and I feel like we never get anywhere.

My friend and neighbor reminded me of this talk after my last post. Some of these words go through my head constantly. I actually remember hearing this talk while Spencer and I were in Hawaii 5 1/2 years ago. It struck me and I recognized immediately the importance of these words. I remember thinking "Yes!" so many times. (And there was so much controversy about this talk! Why?!)

Yesterday as I was thinking about my kids, and specifically this one child, I felt like I need to carefully give as much time as possible to them (and especially this one). I need to eliminate a few more minor things to be completely present when they are home. Mothers who know do less is what I hear in my head all day long. Nevermind the fact that I don't really do extracurricular things right now, but I can do less of those things that are in-home distractions.

Here is my favorite excerpt from this talk:
Mothers who know are willing to live on less and consume less of the world’s goods in order to spend more time with their children—more time eating together, more time working together, more time reading together, more time talking, laughing, singing, and exemplifying. These mothers choose carefully and do not try to choose it all. Their goal is to prepare a rising generation of children who will take the gospel of Jesus Christ into the entire world. Their goal is to prepare future fathers and mothers who will be builders of the Lord’s kingdom for the next 50 years. That is influence; that is power.

Maybe now that I have this down somewhere as public as my blog I can be accountable and do a little better. I want to be this kind of mom! I probably can't fix this issue going on right now with my child but I want this person to feel like I tried, and know that I care. And if I don't give it a little more effort it will probably end up breaking my heart.

This mom thing sure has a learning curve, doesn't it?