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.

Peter Milton Barton

So, that last post was a little grumpy. A couple of notes about it:

• I shared that funny story because I'd for some reason been wanting to have a baby on April Fool's Day.
• And, one of those days I got woken up with false labor, wasn't really false labor. It just took its own sweet time getting down to business.

So I woke up around 2 on Thursday with contractions, which didn't last. I got a couple more hours of sleep before the kids got up. I had contractions about every 20 minutes or so, not that I was keeping track. I just figured, more false labor. Since it was spring break, and I'd been promising them a trip to the airplane museum all week, I decided it would be better to get out than stay home and be grumpy all morning. So, we headed out.

The kids had a great time while we were walking around. And, I flattered myself, I handled the few contractions I had very discreetly. It wasn't too crowded, so hopefully nobody noticed that here is a woman in labor, surrounded by children? Levi was a little surprised where we were when he called to check on us. (Levi spent the week in classified meetings, and so spent his break time checking for messages from me or calling to see how things were.) The girls took a turn to dance on the stage in the far building, and then they were ready to go. We stopped for sandwiches at Arby's, and we were going to eat them at the church while I entered visiting teaching numbers, but I didn't have my church keys. So we went home, had lunch, we probably watched some TV.  Contractions stayed the same all day. So I didn't think I was in real labor.

Levi came home, we had dinner, I sat at the table with Nathan as he pouted about finishing homework, and timed contractions. Contractions got a little closer together but I still didn't think I was in labor. I considered calling someone to watch the kids, but, what's the point? I'm not really in labor. I tried to go to bed, but that didn't happen. Around 11 I realized I really was in labor, and then about 11:30, woah. Contractions every three minutes. Time for a hospital.

Levi's parents came really quickly, which was wonderful. By that time my water had broken and I was getting more than a little miserable. When we got to the hospital I walked part of the way to the door before another contraction hit. When Levi and a nurse came back with a wheelchair, I was crouched down, holding on to a parking lot barrier. It was a pretty good way to deal with it, I thought. It probably didn't look that way. And the best part of waiting too long to get to a hospital is, they don't make you go into the triage room. We got sent directly to a room, once they found a clean one. It was apparently (as we would see) a busy night.

Even though I had preregistered I they couldn't find my information so I had to answer a bunch of questions. When that was finally done the nurse checked to see how far I was dilated. I was hoping for at least a 6, but I was really happy with an 8. And by the time the nurse got my IV in (after only 3 tries--I have the bruises to prove it), I was pushing. Not because someone said, oh, it's time to push, or even, oh, I feel like it's time to push, but because pushing was the only way to manage the contractions.

The doctor showed up at some point, checked things over, and then left when nurse told him he needed to see how things were progressing in another room (another natural labor). I was not really paying attention at this point, but I'm pretty sure the baby's head was out and the nurses were getting ready to catch the baby before the doctor made it back into the room.

I only said, "I can't do this!" once before one last push to get the shoulders out. And instantly I felt so much better. It was wonderful. I heard somebody ask if it was a boy or girl, which was good, because I hadn't thought to ask.

Then they numbed me to sew me up, gave me some medicine to help control my bleeding, which made me feel awful for a few hours, and left us to enjoy our sweet little Peter. He was born at 1:15, almost exactly an hour after we arrived at the hospital, and was 8 lb. 9 oz, 21 inches. And, if you count the start of labor as 2 am Thursday, it was just short of 24 hours of labor.

Waiting

I've been woken up at 2 am twice this week with false labor. Not cool. It makes me kind of grumpy, and it makes the kids get to watch a lot of TV.

We've had a lot going on in our Relief Society in the last month. We had our March activity, and several food orders, and we're midway through a seemingly constant stream of people having surgery. I think, counting the last two weeks and the next two weeks, we're at seven? That seems like a lot of people from one group going under the knife. Oh, and don't forget the babies. We've just about got it all squared away. I've been feeling like Heavenly Father won't let me have my baby until everyone else gets taken care of. Are we close enough yet?

I heard a story that made me laugh. A wife called her husband on April Fool's Day to tell him she was in labor. Pretty good trick, right? Except it meant he missed the birth of their son because he thought it was a joke. It made me laugh pretty good.

Farewell, piano

Yesterday we lost our piano. Sad day. For two years we stored my sister-in-law's brother's piano and yesterday they came to pick it up. But I'm looking forward to having the extra space back in our living room. You know, until all that baby stuff starts exploding everywhere. I loved having a piano but I didn't actually play it that much and I don't think we'll be replacing it until after we've moved, somewhere, sometime. It just felt a bit too squishy for me in that room.

I read a blog post somewhere the other day about the small house movement. Apparently there is a small house movement that values functionality over square footage. And I can get behind that. I don't feel like I need a big house, or a lot of belongings, in order to impress the neighbors. But. If we don't get into something a little bigger with a much better kitchen in the next few years, my head may explode.

I keep forgetting funny things Alice has been doing. She likes to make funny faces. I don't remember this being a thing at not-quite two with the other kids.

And one day she wanted her clothes off, so I helped her. Then she walked into Clara's room for a bit. She came back out, having put on one of Clara's skirts. But she can't pull it up over her diaper in the back so it was normal in the front, and bowed way down in the back. And she came out, threw her arms out, like ta-da! Look at me, world! She was so proud of herself.

Nathan is still learning to read, and adding numbers, and such. He loves kindergarten, luckily. He is starting to not love homework, though. He has been wanting to go outside and catch some bug pets lately. And he really wants a goldfish in a space rocket aquarium for his birthday. I'm considering it, because I'm tired of my mason jars getting filled with weird junk from the yard to satisfy his want for a pet.

Clara has been learning lots about letters from our home preschool. Once a week my sister comes over and teaches Clara and her daughter. Sometimes I help, but really it's mostly her show. I have a pretty great sister. Clara is learning to write her name and random other letters from the alphabet. I really need to be looking into preschools for the fall but I haven't really started yet.

That's pretty much it. Five more weeks from tomorrow.

We made it to March!

March is going to be a good month. I can feel it.

Here's what's been up. After feeling around in murky exhaustion and mental fog I'm figuring things out. My lesson I'm teaching tomorrow seems to be to a point that it won't embarrass my face off. That's always a good sign. I'm almost done editing a book for my friend. Then I'll be able to focus on my book club book and figure out what we're going to discuss. (I seem to to have a problem with picking books that don't have discussion questions conveniently in the back, and then I have to write my own.) I've been awake since 5:30 planning our March Relief Society activity. Seems like this shouldn't be on my mind, but I seem to be bad at delegating when I'm pretty sure things won't get done. But I have a plan and now the delegating will happen. So once I get through with this activity and go to my friend's temple sealing in a few weeks, I think I'll be ready to have this baby come. I have just over six weeks left but I'm kind of counting on it not being quite that long.

The pregnancy is going well. The scale says I have gained a lot of weight but we were never on close terms anyway. I've not had heartburn, or backaches, or most of those late pregnancy discomforts. I finally went back to see my hematologist and we have made our peace. I didn't go for a long time because I knew she'd push me to start prednisone before I was willing to, but we compromised and I know that taking it is really the best course. My platelets have come up quite a bit since I started taking it. And I'm dealing with the side effects better this time around.

And another thing about Alice: I forgot to put this last time, and it was so funny. She's stopped doing it already, which is a sad thing. Instead of yes, she'd say yea. Like "yay," you guessed what I wanted! or "yea," I'm from the sixteenth century. Now she's graduated to a more adolescent "Yeah." So casual. She's learning a lot of imaginative play. When I fold laundry she'll get a clean washcloth and climb into the laundry basket and wash herself. And, mom has to watch.

Clara is getting really excited and curious about the baby. She is wondering how the baby got in there, and how do I change the baby's diaper, and is the baby naked?

Nathan is still mad at me for not finding out if the baby is a girl or a boy. He does not want to be surprised. But he's keeping himself busy with school and general mischief while he waits.