Peter Milton

Here's Petey, as of the beginning of June. Have I ever posted a picture of him yet? Lots to catch up on.

A few things about Peter:

• He's five months old today! Stop growing up, baby kid.
• I'll have updated height and weight for him next week. Apparently you're supposed to take babies in for a four-month visit? They called yesterday to remind me. Whelp.
• He's still got an impressive bunch of hair. It started out brown, took on a strawberry/red cast to it, and is now growing in blond. He's got a nice hombre fade-in look going on. I've never had such an on-trend baby.
• Now that it's longer, it's not so much, but his hair is spiky. Alice cannot say spiky. One day, she stood over him, exclaiming: "Fikey! Petey fikey!" Which has now become one of his nicknames, Fikey Pete. It sounds a little foreboding. Don't mess with Fikey Pete.
• Peter is apparently a good name for nicknames. Peter, Pete, Petey. Alice for a while called him "peas" but has since settled on Petey. The whole family has followed suit. He has some pajamas with a dinosaur on them that Alice has named Pete's Dragon. (We had just watched that movie.)
• He's only rolled over a couple of times and still hates tummy time. 
• For a while he'd reach up and grab onto his hair. He made himself cry a couple of times, pulling his own hair. And once he pulled out a pretty good handful of it.
• He's stopped pulling it so much, though, because now he's learned to suck on his fingers and toes. They're delectable.
• He's starting to reach out and grab things. Holding him at dinner time has gotten a little more exciting, for both parties.
•  He loves to look at himself in the mirror. Such a friendly friend! Always smiling!
• For a while he slept through the night, then started waking up a lot. Like three times a night. He's starting only getting up once lately, around 4 or 5. Comparatively, it's something I can handle.
• He's a pretty good wiggler and can rotate himself around in a circle.
• Today his hair was pretty wild, sticking out all over. Levi summed it up pretty well when he said he looked like a japanese anime character.

So we are all pretty big Peter fans. It's hard to remember what our family was like without him.

On waking up

I'm back. Or, at least on my way.

You know how it takes you a while to feel like yourself again after you have a baby? You know how it feels when you have four kids in six years and spend the last two of those years as Relief Society president? Things were fine until Peter was born and I was released when he was 7 weeks old. Suddenly everything seemed too hard. Physically, I'm still getting back to where I want to be. But mentally, things are coming into place.

In trying to get my platelet count back up, I've been trying acupuncture. We'll find out this Friday if it's helped (fingers crossed), but it's been really great. For the past few weeks, for a half an hour, I lay in a dark room. No one talks to me. I don't have to do anything. A couple of times I almost fell asleep. I think that alone has made a huge difference in the way I'm feeling.

Also, it's raining today. Is there anything better than rain?

Saturday for our nine-year anniversary we went for a hike. It was not a huge success, but I'm considering it an investment for our kids to grow up to be good hikers. We got a later start so it was hot. Clara is an unhappy hot hiker. Midway down the trail, as I started to sing the song she had just requested, she started screaming and running down the trail because she just couldn't take it anymore. It seems funny now. It seemed a little funny then. That night, after the kids went to bed, we got Chinese takeout and watched an episode of Poirot. A low-key anniversary, but isn't that kind of fitting for nine years? Planning something was just too hard.

Today I got a babysitter, went to acupuncture, stopped by the library on my way to meet a friend for a pedicure. It was lovely. This afternoon I sat down and played with my kids, my friend's son, and the neighbor kids. We played outside and watched the storm come in. A good day.

All this to say, I just realized I have one week left until school starts. Nathan is starting first grade; he'll be gone all day. When we get along, he's such a delight, with his curiosity and intelligence and creativity. He's right on the cusp of greater independence, of coming into himself, with the inevitable pulling back of not needing me so much. Glory hallelujah, and holy crap. I'll never get this summer back. And now I have one week to make it count.

Nonsense ahead

It's been far too long since I've posted any nonsense. Isn't it?

I was looking at some old pictures the other day, and Nathan as a toddler was just bursting with energy. Zest.

Then it reminded me of the Zest soap commercials from when I was a kid. There was a catchy song about being Zestfully clean.

So if all my kids could be described as soap...

[I thought of this on a day I was still recovering from my three hours of sleep Saturday night. Just a disclaimer.]

Clara, Irish Spring. It really was just the first soap that popped into my head. I guess after her ballet class is over, we could enroll her in Irish step classes. She'd love it.

Alice, Dove. Every once in a while she is peaceful and sweet, rather like a dove. Although, her usual bellicose toddler-dom would make her seem more hawkish than dovish.

Peter, Lever 2000. And...I got nothing. It was just the last soap I could think of. Sometimes being the youngest bites.

Catching up from our weekend

Whenever I sit down to blog I can't remember all the cute things I've been saving up to write about. I'll just assure you that they've been happening, and then you can imagine them.

Peter's trying to learn to laugh. His hair is growing in blond under the red. I'm a little sad about it.

We got new windows the day Levi left for scout camp. I'm super excited about them. Is that what makes you a grownup? Being excited about boring things? They are going to do a lot better job at keeping the outside temperature from becoming the inside temperature. Thus saving money on energy costs. And they look a lot prettier.

We had to take the blinds down for the install, and then Levi was gone, and we needed to go buy new screws to rehang the brackets since they were getting stripped, and I wanted to clean the blinds before rehanging. So we've been living in a fishbowl for a week. With shiny new windows. No biggie. I've just been changing clothes in the bathroom.

We survived Levi being gone for six days, with help from family and friends. It actually went pretty well. I had low expectations for myself, and they were met. Success.

Clara's going to be starting her online preschool. That should be today.

The older kids had a stomach bug this weekend. We ate at Pizza Pie cafe and the kids didn't eat much. Just as well, since Clara woke me up about 1 saying she felt "a little sick." I thought this was code for "I'm scared of the dark" but she came upstairs a few minutes after I tucked her back in, saying there was "weird stuff" in her bed.

Puke in the bed, a little bit. Puke on the blinds, still sitting on her bedroom floor, a lot. Both the kids moved out to the couch, since their room smelled awful, and I spent quite a while cleaning the blinds. They're really clean now. No more dust...or food.

And that was the rest of the night. I'd not even get back to sleep before she puked again, maybe five times? She'd come upstairs and we'd usually make it to the toilet in time. Then feeding Peter. Then Nathan puked on the carpet before he made it to the toilet. I did get back to sleep, maybe around 6. For an hour.

They spent all day laying around, not eating. They did drink a little bit. Then they fell asleep and refused to eat dinner when we woke them up. Levi woke Nathan up, and he got up and went to the bathroom. He found him a few minutes later, asleep on the bathroom floor with his pants still down. They were out for the night at 5 pm. Poor sick kids.

It kind of felt like playing house, to only have two kids to take care of in the evening. They were pretty adorable.

Everybody was up at 7 this morning. Everybody ate breakfast. Recovery!  Levi told me later that Clara got up as he was leaving for work. "Dad, my legs don't work very well." She was pretty shaky. He gave her a bowl of yogurt and left. I'm pretty glad she didn't come wake me up next.

Super long post about not much

It's been a while, eh?

I'm sure there's a lot to catch up on, and I even plan blog posts in my head. This morning at 5 am I thought of a really funny one, but now I haven't an inkling what it was about. So I'll tell you about my day.

Levi's gone to youth conference; he left yesterday. This morning, 10:30, I had just finished the breakfast dishes (the progress of cleaning can be quite glacial around here) and feeding Peter and was gearing up for making the kids clean up the gargantuan mess/fort they had constructed the night before. When I let them stay up watching Charlie and Lola and "camp out" on the couch. But my friend texted to invite us to the Treehouse, so everyone's outlook brightened quite a lot.

I took a shower after telling the kids to clean up their room. This is a part of a fun game where I instruct them in things and they pretend to listen before filling the bathroom sink with water and floating things in it.

[interruption: I think I may remember what my planned post from this morning was! I'll think about it.]

I got ready, got Peter buckled in his carseat to hope that he'd magically fall asleep, chased Alice down to get her dressed, asked the kids twice to put shoes on, and did another batch of dishes--the night before's dishes (the buildup of dishes in my house is the polar opposite of glacial).

Then I--again--told the kids to get shoes on and brush their teeth. Clara shrieked, "Is it time to go? But we haven't finished cleaning up yet!!!" The shrieking is literal, no exaggeration necessary. I've never known the girl to be so concerned with a task left unaccomplished. I sent her down to--wait for it--put her shoes on. Then I sent the big kids on a quest to find Alice's toothbrush. (Are you learning too much about my housekeeping of late? I can't keep up when there's just one of me.) I packed a yogurt parfait for me to eat at school lunch.

We get to school lunch, where Peter waits until we've gotten our food, sat down, and opened everyone's chocolate milks and sorted out utensils and such. Then he wants to eat, since it's been an entire hour and a half, and the big kids are eating, and it's my turn. Once I get Peter latched on Alice tips over her bottle of chocolate milk and it's pouring on the bench and floor and when I get the wipes out to clean it up, I find my container has leaked blueberry juice from my parfait all over the diaper bag. Alice is the only one who eats without threats, and she devours all of her rice and green beans, then wails when her half-eaten snickerdoodle falls on the floor. I tell the kids not to complain at the Treehouse when they are hungry after their abysmal eating and we head to the van, with a still-disconsolate Alice, who I have to carry part of the way. We went to school lunch because I thought it would be easier than cooking and cleaning up another meal in my ridiculous kitchen.

We drive and park and after the long walk from the parking garage to the museum, I remember that I had the double stroller in the back of the van and wouldn't that have made things a little easier? We meet Sara and her kids and between us we have five kids and two infants, and they all seem to want to go different directions, and Peter's fussy, not being able to decide between wanting to eat again and maybe sleeping? After taking turns losing children we manage to interest them all in something in the same general area, Peter falls asleep, and things calm down to manageable for the next few hours.

After leaving the Treehouse at 4:30, I ask them what they want for dinner and they all (miraculously) want the same thing. Everyone falls asleep on the way home. Everyone wakes up fairly happy (again, miraculous) and eats and we watch a little TV before a neighbor comes to play; she leads my kids, a la pied-piper, out the front door without asking permission. We all head outside to play, where we are shortly joined by our other neighbors, with whom we just haven't played enough yet today (they were our friends at the Treehouse).

After riding bikes and other activities just aren't enough, Clara begins hauling stuff outside. Recovering remarkably quickly from the fit resulting from when I told her not to wear her ballet slippers outside and then put them on top of the fridge when she ignored me, she brought outside pillows and blankets outside to sleep. "For pretend." I offered to make it "for real." Nathan joined in with gusto, toys and blankets and such. And the side table from downstairs so he could serve soda to everyone. (Let no one say he's not a good host.)

Oh, and let us not neglect the "campfire" they constructed in the middle of the sidewalk, and the repeated parades up to the corner and back, and sharing the snack of banana chips and cranberries Clara found in her backpack from ballet on Tuesday, and...

It reminds me a lot of the fun I had as a suburb dweller when I was young. That was something I missed when we moved out to West Haven and didn't have friends just out the front door.

So, fun day. Thank heavens all days aren't like that. Most days we don't leave the house. But the rest...

All Day

Alice has a catch phrase. I think I'm going to recommend to her that she trademark it. Soon she'll be famous.

Everything is "all day."

Bug tickle me all day.

Trees moving all day.

I naked all day.

I like daddy all day.

Also, she calls polka dots poke-its. When told this morning she needed to get dressed or she'd be cold and naked "all day." (gotta speak language they'll understand, right?), she responded, "Not naked. Poke-its on." She was wearing a polka dot diaper cover that goes to one of her Sunday dresses. Apparently this totally acceptable Monday morning wear when the temperature indoors is 64 (forgot to shut the windows last night).

Not bad talking for a girl who, 7 months ago at her 18 month doctor visit, I had to respond that she did not know at least ten words. Now this girl talks all day.

Transitioning to a family of six

Just a few notes about what we've been doing the last few weeks. You know, besides that baby and things. Blogger's been super slow uploading photos and ain't nobody got time for that. So, while I figure that out, sorry.

The morning Peter was born Nathan complained of a stomachache, and seemed a little tired. And that was that for him, for a while. The morning we came home from the hospital Alice woke up in a pukey bed. And that was that for her, for a while. A few days (or a week? Who can remember?) later, Clara complained about her ear, and then her other ear the next day, and then her eyes were all red. Pinkeye! Somewhere in there Nathan stayed home sick for a couple of days, again complaining about his ears, and then we had a few more bouts of pinkeye, for everyone but Levi. It seemed like we'd have one thing, and then when we thought we'd be healthy, someone else would complain. Luckily, thanks to the wonders of garlic oil and leftover prescription eye drops, we did not have to make a million trips to the doctor. I did feel bad when Peter woke up with one eye crusted shut, though. That baby is way too young to have had pinkeye already. I'm blaming Alice for that one.

Alice loves that baby. We had a tense couple of weeks when she couldn't withhold her love. She was so rough, but she's getting better. She calls him peas, which is also the same way she says please. It gets a little confusing. When we get in the car, she asks, "Peas?" if Peter is not already in his carseat. Yesterday she started telling him, "no crying." He gets a little nervous if she holds him, and who's to blame the kid? Yesterday was also the day the girls both tried to climb the changing table, tipping it over, hitting the three older kids and depositing Peter relatively gently onto the floor. We were hugely lucky with that one. Now no one is allowed to touch the changing table while he's on it, and I'm not stepping away to throw away diapers anymore.

Clara is in love with this baby. And she's developed a real talent for baby talk. She'll sit by me while I feed Peter, or change Peter, or while he lays on the floor for tummy time. All the while she croons nonsense soothingly at him. It's very sweet. It's also driving me batty. She's also good at warning me when Alice is getting a little too physical with Peter so I can step in. So she's a good daycare, as she informed me.

Nathan, when informed that he had a baby brother the morning Peter was born, was thrilled. We heard he walked around all morning, beaming. He's so excited to have a brother. Whereas when Clara and Alice were born, he was slightly interested but too nervous to hold the baby, this time around he holds Peter frequently. He tells me Peter is cute and that he loves him. He wants to show Peter all his toys and his goldfish and his bunk bed. So things are good. Last week as I was feeding the baby he came in and said he thought he had a loose tooth. And so he does. I explained that it would probably fall out some time in the next few weeks, and he whispered, "I'm so excited!" The tooth fairy and the promise of money probably have a good deal to do with that. And he and his cousin decided that the more food you eat, the faster your teeth will fall out. So he's pretty motivated to clean his plate these days.

Peter's doing great. He's settling in and getting better at going to sleep. For a while he was getting up once a night, which was awesome. Lately he's been getting up twice, but it's hard to blame him. The kid just wants to eat. He's got a lot of growing to do. Three weeks may be too early for a real smile, but I'm claiming it anyway. He really did smile at me the other day. And his hair is just as awesome as ever.

Bonus picture! Kid stole my pillow.