(that’s for CLC, my only link to multi-culturalism. I am trying to expand my horizons.)

I’ll have to do the christmas catch up next year (HA HA – that joke never gets old!)

But for now, here is a brief glimpse of 2008 here in our crazy household.

Crazy to think that at this time last year, Kaylen couldn’t even sit up on her own, and now she is practically ready to start driving…

oh so nostalgic to look back.

It’s been an absolutely chaotic year, and I wouldn’t trade a single second of it.

May God bless you and your families in 2009!

T.

Snow rocks. The cold, not so much. But it just seems more christmas-y-ish with lots of snow. My apologies to those who have to drive in it. unlike myself who has not left the batcave since sunday morning. I feel like a pioneer, holed up in my little wooden hut. Except with a TV and a microwave. Oh and the computer. but other than that….totally pioneer livin’ going on over here.

Anyhoo.

I have not so many words to share today- just some pictures. They sum it up better than I could anyways. Just livin’ life, one day at a time. We survived yesterday where I had one child (K1) puking her guts out upstairs, in tandem with her sister (K2) pukin’ it up downstairs. K3 was just overall hungry all day and her usual destructerado self, and K4 just decided she didn’t want to be put down. So I ran up and down the stairs all morning into the early afternoon when the bug just seemed to have worked it’s way out of everyone’s systems. It was fun times. At one point I had two kids puking WHILE the other two were pooping. Simultaneously. I LIVE for mothering moments like those let me tell ya.

But then in the wee hours of the morning, as I was nursing Kendall, it struck me, that 32 years from now (I don’t know, i guess just the age i am now doubled), these sleepless nights, long stretches of endless feeding, cleaning up the puke and the stinky diapers – they will all be but a memory, ones I am sure will be fondly cherished for their fleetingness. so I tried to squeeze my eyes shut and burn this memory into my head, holding my tiny baby in my arms when it’s just me and her, feeling the softness of her hair, her little head, her long spindly fingers that never stop moving and are rarely curled up like baby fists. and i tried to remember that moment with kealey, in our little house in Washington when I thought i would never get the hang of the whole nursing thing; and with karissa in our huge new strange house here in Illinois, knowing something was wrong with my baby and not having a clue how to fix it; and with kaylen, not so very long ago at all, and yet it seems like ages. it really does go so quick. i need to take more pictures. to burn into some semblance of physical remembrance via pixels and hard drive space these memories of how little they are, and how very MANY of them there are.

That’s why i was so struck by this picture. Ben lined them up like this last week and it wasn’t until i was developing them today that it struck me – there’s a LOT of kids here now. Like a lot a lot. i am way outnumbered. And look at how far they range!  Of course Kendall had to be completely uncooperative and turn the other way… I think that is just one of what is sure to be many little troublemaker moments from that one! i still can’t believe i have FOUR little girls…

I also cannot believe it is Christmas Eve Eve. We have church tonite, and then tomorrow is a flurry of preparations to begin preparing for Christmas. As in I have no wrapping paper. It all got destroyed in the great basement flood of ‘08 and i have not had a chance to replace it! So I will hopefully have a few hours to go fight the crowds standing in line with their fun stuff while I get wrapping paper and batteries. It still doesn’t quite feel like Christmas can actually be here. I don’t know if that’s the dead tiredness talking, or if it’s some combination of that plus the fact that it’s going to be a very small Christmas this year (not my usual going nuts with too many gifts for the girls)…and yet, I feel like i have more of a grasp on the SPIRIT of Christmas this year than in years past. Like our brush with death a few weeks ago woke me up to what is real, what matters, and what doesn’t. I feel like this whole year has been one of, not so much actual growth, but like, how a bulb grows underground in the winter, and when you see the first little green shoots in the spring, that’s just the tip of the iceberg – kinda like that. Like I haven’t seen those first little shoots quite come up from the muddy earth yet, but there’s a lot of stuff going on underneath, behind the scenes, and soon it will all start coming together. For this reason i am looking forward to the new year. i know I could start “resolving” or reaching for goals now, but there is something about the clean slate of a whole blank calendar stretching before you that motivates and inspires you towards those changes. And besides, who wants to try to start losing weight during the week of the best meals and desserts ever??? That’s just stupid!

so yeah, we’ll wait till Jan. 1 – then work out all our feelings in a journal, then resolve to put all the pieces together and apply all this living and growing and learning to great things in 2009.

Kaylen’s Resolution will be to give up the bubba (bottle). I get a lecture a mile long from the pediatrician every visit about how she needs to be off of it. Ok I get it. Kealey had hers till her 4th birthday ( I know, its my deep dark secret of mothering). So by comparison, 17 months is NOTHIN’. But here she is with “bobby” (the beloved blanket without which sleep CANNOT occur, and i’ll be danged if that isn’t a one of a kind handmade frickin’ blanket so i CAN’t get two to have a replacement…although I hear a rumor that my darling sister has one that she is holding hostage!!!), and her mouth is open because she is yelling for “BUBBA!!!! BUBBA!!!!” So yes, she is hereby resolving to be free from her addiction to silicone n*pples by the end of 2009. Or sooner. AND potty trained. My diaper budget can’t handle 2 in diapers for much longer!

The other two older sisters will resolve to stop fighting over every stupid little piece of fuzz that crosses their paths (and everything of any value upwards of the fuzz). And to comb their hair every day. And to stop wearing summer clothing on the coldest day of the year (a la miss karissa in this summer’s favorite dress on a day where the wind chill was 15 below zero.) which i guess i can’t complain about too much because look at kaylen, she isn’t even wearing a summer dress! in my defense, yesterday was just a bad bad bad day for anything beyond the very basics.

She eventually did have nice warm clothing on. But seriously – have you ever seen kaylen eat a meal? Everyone else at the table ends up wearing some of it…clothing just gets in the way and adds an extra 5 steps to the after meal clean up…

i digress.

See – there she is again with the bobby!!! she carries it around all day and then its an all out search party when it comes to naptime or bedtime to see where was the last place she left it! It started out as a much cuter concept than it is becoming in execution here in real life…

And to sign off, just one more precious shot of the girls. kealey is such a good big sister and such a huge help to me. she loves holding her baby sister and kendall, well, she is learning to love being held by her sisters. However since some object always seems to find its way to hitting her randomly when anyone under the age of 7 is holding her, she has taken lately to wanting only the relative comfort and safety of mommy’s arms. Can’t say that I blame her in this zoo. Soon she’ll be part of the chaos, and can get her youngest sister back for all the bodily harm she has been inflicting since she was in the womb and getting poked, prodded and kicked from the outside.

Ok off to the cookie baking I go. I hope you are all having wonderful enjoyable family times of Christmas preparations! If you are all done wrapping and have any scraps of leftover wrap, any and all donations are being accepted!!! LOL! I just know all they’re going to have left at Target is the fugly crap with like spongebob dressed like Santa Claus or the uber expensive gold plated crap that I wouldn’t even wrap a gift in because its too expensive to waste…WHY do i save these things till the last minute?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Wait do’nt answer that – it was rhetorical.

Anyways.

See you all on the flip side.

Terra

Or does it seem like Saturday to anyone else?

I guess its the “snow day” that’s doing it. Ben is home, Kealey is home – life is, in general, thrown into chaos.

Random listing of topics I need to catch up on:

• chillin with “Blue Shmeterson” at the dentist’s office
• I think my tooth is decaying right out of my head (gross I know)
• Christmas wish lists
• Why i am still not done christmas shopping (oh wait i do’nt know the answer to this one…)
• does blistex do more harm than healing?
• my new toy!!!! the precious #2, Iphone (Precious #1 is ipod)
• Kendall Updates (now she has reflux. awesome.)

wait – is it really snowing again outside or is that just blowing over from the neighbor’s snowblower…

I am so confused.

So yeah it’s been a couple days since last blog post. I get “reminded” by Ben that it’s been a while since I’ve posted since this is apparently his daily entertainment. Shockingly my adoring blog readers, who i am quite sure number into the thousands by now, have not been emailing me like usual asking if i am still alive. I guess everyone assumes that yes, I have officially lost it, and the crazy bin Ben checked me into doesn’t have Wi-fi. Which would never happen. He knows better than to go ANYWHERE without Wi-fi. My looney bin will be HOOKED UP fo shizz.Oh and yes – it apparently IS actually snowing again.

I really and truly love the snow. Its just the cold and the crazy drivers I hate. It doesn’t look like we’re going to have a White Christmas, per Bing Crosby’s dream, but there will at least be snow on the ground, which I guess will have to do.  I was just  looking through some old pictures…Remember days like this??? Where it was so hot we just wanted to complain?!?!? Who wouldn’t LOVE to go for a dip right about now?

Man I remember it being SO hot on the day i took this. It seems like SO much longer ago than 5 months. Maybe like 5 years. I guess time drags when it’s all one huge blur of sleeplessness, fussiness, diapers, feedings, snacks, cleaning up, laundry, and more diapers. But you know, I really wouldn’t trade a minute of it. It’s a crazy life, but it’s my life. and I know this craziness will pass entirely too quickly.

Ok -

on to the randomness.

So a famous, or maybe “infamous”  figure of some notoriety in my hometown is a man I’ll call ” Blue Shmeterson”, to protect the presumed innocent. Anyways, I am sitting in the dentists office a couple weeks ago, debating whether or not it was worth the public humiliation/effort to attempt to br**stfeed kendall in the altogether NOT private waiting room when in walks Mr. Shmeterson himself, and pulls up a chair pretty much knee to knee with yours truly. It was all I could do to not lean over and whisper ‘” Just tell me where you buried her, I promise I won’t tell a SOUL!” (I’d only blog about it.) But while I was sitting there, and watching him have to go through the ritual we all do as parents (taking our kids to mundane checkups and whatnot), it struck me that we’re all human. Monstrous as he may seem in the media, and probably in real life too, at the end of the day, he’s still a dad, and those kids still have to live their lives in spite of all the chaos. It just made me sad. Morose. Thoughtful. I can’t think of the right word. It made me something. And made me DEFINITELY decide to keep “the girls” full of milk just a few minutes longer.

And speaking of dentists…So my filling falls out one random day in July, blah blah blah, three dentist visits later they decide it can wait till after the baby to do anything permanent about it. So they don’t yank it, just leave it in my head instead. I am not sure why. Anyways – now I am pretty sure it has continued to just, decay, and there really isn’t a tooth there anymore. Just jaggedy edges. But honestly I am too scared to look to be sure. I’d rather just….I do’nt know. Be pleasantly surprised one day when i feel gum there in between my molar and … other tooth. But it is semi-disturbing still the same. So I thought I’d share it all with you. Cause I am thoughtful like that. (PS – I HATE the dentist so please don’t suggest I go back there. CLearly they don’t feel there’s an issue so I am not subjecting myself to their wily ways of charging you up the yin-yang to inflict bodily harm on you again.)

Christmas wish lists. Ahhh yes. My materialistic children who want pretty much any and every toy advertised during the prime marketing hours of 8 am and 3 pm on Nickolodeon and Disney Channel. If it looks plasticky, Taiwanish, and pink, its on the list. So we tried to narrow it down a little. Karissa is now AD. A. MANT. that she wants a “can-tar” (this is karissa-ese for guitar.) Nobody in her immediate world plays a guitar. Sure Uncle doobie and Uncle friend do – but she has never seen them play it, I do’nt think – doobie, maybe over the summer??? Anyways. I have no idea where this came from. But she INSISTS that not only does she KNOW how to play it, but that she is GOOD at playing it. Then she air guitars to show me like “duh mom, you just do this”.  So maybe Santa will bring her one. I am sure it will last all of about an hour in this house in Karissa’s capable hands. But we’ll see. oh and for the record, Kealey’s one favorite special gift is one of those disturbing “Stylin’ Heads” (you know just a plastic head with fake hair and unblinking eyes) that changes from Hannah Montana to Miley Cyrus. I got one of those one time. Cut all it’s hair off within the first couple hours and then cried inconsolably when I realized that it didn’t magically grow right back so I could do it all over again next time I wanted to play with it. Hopefully Kealey has more sense than me.  Kaylen just wants more cheese, and I think Kendall would just be happy with a little peace and quiet every once in a while.

And life is starting to turn chaotic around me so I better get back to mom-hood. More randomness to come later.

Does anyone have a good recipe for “puppy chow”? You know that really good powdery sugary chocolatey chexy type stuff? Send me it por favor!

love and hugs,

me

is both crazy and bland. I feel like i am channeling britney spears. Ok i am not going to go all batfecal crazy and shave my head or anything, but I feel like I know a little bit of where she was coming from. Every day kind of blends into the next – I pick up kaylen’s 583 messes, change lots of diapers, feed lots and lots of babies a lot of times throughout the day, and then i lay in bed in the dark and pretend to get 3 hours of sleep and then i wake up and do it all over again.

Ok its not always only 3 hours of sleep – ben gets the baby for her first feeding of the nite – but some mornings it FEELS like it was only about 3 hours. Kendall is so fussy all nite long. I can’t figure out if its just gas (which we are already on our third bottle of mylicon drops since we brought her home), if she is just really mixed up on days and nites, or if she maybe doesn’t have some reflux issues a la kaylen. So ben and i will just keep trying different things, hoping one or two of them work long enough for us to get a full straight hour of sleep, and hopefully at her next doctor appointment we’ll be able to get some answers. OR maybe everything will just click in her little system and she’ll stop fussing all nite. It’s not like she isn’t SLEEPING – she is just so fussy in doing so. Not full out screaming all nite crying – just lots of little painful outbursts, most of them seemingly IN her sleep. Maybe she is having nightmares of her time in NICU getting poked and prodded and having that thing on her head – I don’t know.

She is, overall, doing GREAT. We get asked that a lot – and truthfully, all things considered, she is doing really well. I am sure that this nighttime issue is just part of her normal newbornness and not connected in any way to her early struggles. She has no issues breathing, eats fine, even has taken to breastfeeding finally. And during the day she is SUCH a great baby – so quiet, loves being held and just looking around. So it makes it that much harder to know something is causing her to be in so much pain at night. Trust me i have gone through EVERYTHING I have ever known or done as a mom to the other three and nothing seems to be working or clicking for her, but I will definitely take any and all advice or thoughts at this point!

So on to happier stuff – is anyone else in shock that Christmas is in TWO WEEKS?!?!?! I have about half of my shopping done.  Shopping for Ben is always hard because he is just so….particular about his likes and dislikes. And he has expensive taste. he wants like, a new Cadillac for christmas whereas i am giddy with joy over a new tube of lipgloss. Clearly the new Caddy is not in ye olde budget this year. he may just end up with some lipgloss since I get NO direction or help or hints from him.

It seems like I have both a busy and a quiet week – see what i mean about the ups and downs of my life? I have a lot to do, but feel no real pressure to do any of it. I think the tiredness is getting to me. But I think this is also the week it peaks in most newborns – after week 4 they kind of start to “organize” themselves better, in the wise words of Dr. Sears. Maybe momma just needs a new pair of shoes. Or a good nap. Probably a little of both.

*sigh*

ok – back to battle I go – Tropical Storm Kaylen has descended upon the TV room and it is NOT pretty…

  Since I know everyone just wants to see pictures anyways – here’s a few to keep you entertained!

some of them got put into this set even though they have already been previously posted – so enjoy two times!!!

Alright wisenheimers – here’s the fricking link since I have no idea what happened to the painstakingly produced slideshow that DOES actually contain more than one picture.

Kendall (& family) pics

let’s see how that floats your boat.