Happy Noon Year!

For the past couple of years we have planned a Christmas party for the cousins on my side of the family.  This year some of the cousins didn’t get out of school until December 23 and others were headed out of town for Christmas so there really wasn’t time to have a Christmas party.  Instead we had a New Year’s Eve party.  But since all the kids we’re talking about are twelve and under, we had it during the day.  We had a couple of activities and games, party hats and horns.  At 12 o’clock p.m. we went out in the driveway and counted down to noon.  Sort of.  None of us had a timepiece with a second hand so we just picked a start time and went for it. When we got to zero-ish we let the kids scream and yell and blow horns and jump on bubble wrap.  Then we ate party food for lunch: pigs in a blanket, chips and dip, pink 7-Up in plastic champagne glasses, etc.  It was a fun change of party themes and it was much more relaxing scheduling in a party after Christmas.  Not only that, but now I can go to bed early and still feel like I celebrated!

I've Said It Before And I'll Say It Again...

...I'd happily be chubby and near-sighted for eternity if it meant I never had to have another headache.  Especially the migraines that are so bad that I have to call Kev and have him come home from work because I cannot get out of bed without falling down.  Yesterday it was so bad that I couldn't even move my eyes without the making the room spin and my stomach roll.  Good times...not.

For Christmas We Got...

...sick.  The Monday before Christmas, Matthew was sick.  He recovered and then on Christmas Eve Daniel and Nathan got sick.  On Christmas Day everyone was feeling relatively well.  The day after Christmas, I got sick.  The day after that, Nathan got sick again.  It was totally not awesome.

In spite of the fact that so many of us felt gross, we still had a nice holiday.  Having two sick kids meant a quiet Christmas Eve at home instead of having a big Christmas Eve gathering with our extended family.  The boys were all in bed at their normal bedtime and even Kev and I were asleep by about midnight.  Christmas morning brought the normal chaos that usually ensues on Christmas.  The boys were all pleased by what Santa brought and were terribly excited to give the gifts that they had chosen for everyone.  Matthew kept digging around under the tree for things.  At first I thought he was looking for presents for him, but in reality he was trying to find the presents that he had picked out for everyone else.  It was one of those moments when I was really proud of my kids.

Santa brought Matthew a new bike.  Kev helped him put it together the day after Christmas and Matthew has been riding it around in the basement ever since.  He also got a Mack (think Pixar's Cars) truck that can carry Hot Wheels sized cars.  He has been wanting one ever since he played with a similar one at a friend's house at the beginning of the year.  He saw one in the newspaper a couple of weeks ago and got all excited about it.  When he opened it up on Christmas morning he exclaimed, "This is exactly what I wanted!"  Points to Santa for knowing just the right thing for him!

Daniel got a lightsaber (the purple one he has been wanting) and one of the Lego sets he has been looking at online.  He also got a Star Trek calendar.  I think it is funny that the calendar is one of the first things he shows everyone.  He has been working his way through the original Star Trek series on Netflix and has become a bit of a Trekkie lately.

Nathan got a bunch of books (I love that he is so excited by this!) and a big Lego set.  This is his first big Lego set.  He has had small ones, but never one of the great big ones.  He was very excited and spent all his free time on Christmas day building it.  As he completed each section, he would come upstairs and show us.  He had a great time!  He also got a Nerf Dart Tag set. (Daniel and Matthew also got a Dart Tag set to share so that everyone can play.)

Malia slept through the first flurry of activities, but woke up later to discover a baby doll and some new toys that she is developing the skill to grab.  Matthew was especially excited to give her the stuffed monkey he got for her.

Kev got some tools and tweezers to use when he does modeling and he got me a new ipod touch.  (Very excited about that!  When I bought my first one two years ago, I thought 8 gig was more than I would ever need.  Of course, I was wrong and have had to rotate a lot of the content to keep what I wanted on it.)  We also got a new camera.  This was not a planned present, but our camera broke.  Six days before Christmas.  While we definitely feel like we got our money’s worth out of it (8 years), the timing was stinky.  And while we knew exactly which camera we wanted to buy, it is a popular model and it was actually pretty hard to find six days before Christmas.  But find it we did and then we needed to get it up and running in time for all the Christmas festivities.  So while it wasn't actually under the tree, it took pictures of the tree...

Kev's parents joined us for Christmas dinner and brought a few more things for the kids and a wonderful family home evening chart for me.  I had plans to make a new one this year.  Not only did our old one not include Malia, but it is a cheap one made of plastic foam and over the years more than one of my children has decided to write on it or rip pieces off of it.  The one my mother-in-law made for me was exactly the concept I was imagining but far cuter than what I had in mind!  I love it!  But my favorite present by far was...

4 Months and Counting…Way Too Fast

Today was Malia's four month checkup.  She is continuing to grow well and is making up for the fact that she was little when she was born.  She is 14 lbs. 2 oz. and 24 inches long.  Her head is still on the small side, but is getting closer to being in proportion with the rest of her body.  Although we were told when she was born early that she might develop closer to her adjusted age rather than her real age, in fact she is a bit ahead.  At four months, she is beginning to hit developmental milestones that are common at six months.  The doctor attributes it to good parenting.  I attribute it entirely to Malia.  I’m not doing anything special.

She is in no danger of having a flat head, although she does have the "ring of baldness" that all my children have developed, the one where the hair is rubbed off their head all the way around where it comes in contact with the surface they are lying on.  She is beginning to grasp objects and makes all kinds of vocalizations.  She loves to interact with people and she is sleeping like a little angel.  She is generous with her smiles and lets us know without a doubt when she is displeased.  She can roll up on her side and is getting close to being able to sit up for a few seconds.  She has all her brothers wrapped around her little finger and she thrives in the midst of all the attention.

I am madly in love with my little stinkpot.  Her big old grins can make any day seem brighter.  She had her second batch of immunizations today and tugged at my heart when I picked her up to comfort her afterward and heard, "(sob, sob) Mamama...(sob)."  How could any self-respecting mother not melt at hearing that?  The first couple of months with her extended hospital stay and being tethered to the oxygen tank seemed to last forever.  But now time is going by much to quickly.  I want to just tell her to slow down and give me a chance to savor her babyhood!

Have I Mentioned Lately That I Love Our Preschool?

Today was Breakfast with Santa at preschool.  Santa takes time out of his busy schedule to spend a morning with the kids in Matthew’s preschool.  He reads them a story, brings them a small gift (a book), lets them sit on his knee, and hangs around for some classic 4-year-old conversation while they eat cinnamon rolls and drink milk.  Although he always gets shy when Santa comes, Matthew has been excited about this all month.  When I woke him up this morning, he got right out of bed and got ready for school.  As we left our house, we noticed that there were hoof prints in the snow on our driveway (for real).  When we mentioned it to Santa, he told us that Donner had gotten out.  Matthew may have declined to talk to Santa (“He already knows what I want!”), but when he told Kev all about the hoof prints and the reindeer he got super excited: raised eyebrows, wide twinkling eyes and the whole bit.  Although Matthew will always pose for a photo with Malia, he is still like a Hollywood mogul doing the jail walk for the paparazzi when he is alone.  So while the other moms get a picture of their little darlings sitting on Santa’s knee and grinning, I get this:

Once again, life would be boring if he didn’t have such a huge personality.

I've Never Seen One Like This In Nature...

My boys are really into Star Wars, as evidenced by the great lightsaber battles that frequently occur in at our house.  Knowing this, Rachael sent me a link to a website that had patterns for Star Wars snowflakes.  This morning the boys got around to trying them out.  They were pretty complicated and since I was baking cookies while they were crafting, all Matthew got done was cutting out the circles of paper.  After having two “epic fails,” (his words, not mine) Daniel got frustrated and gave up.  Nathan had two or three failures of his own, but then he figured out how to make it all work and spent the next three hours making snowy Star Wars creations to adorn our walls.  It would appear that the (Christmas) force is with us.

A Baby High

No, I am not referring to drug consumption.  I am referring to Malia’s first time in the highchair.  She is a people person and she prefers to sit up rather than lie down so dinner time either consists of her crying because she is down on the floor, crying because she is alone in the swing, or perfectly happy while Kev or I eat one handed.  So out came the highchair.  Unfortunately, we can’t find the legs (we have moved since the last time we used the highchair and they were not where we thought they were) so we had to get some 1-inch dowels to make new legs.  We haven’t had time to trim them down yet, so the high chair is even higher than usual.  And Malia is perfectly pleased about the whole thing.

She Definitely Knows Her Own Mind...

You may recall that I mentioned that Malia was highly opinionated before she was born.  That was why in spite of the plethora of ultrasounds we had (7) we never did get that cute profile picture that most people get.  And this particular personality trait has not diminished now that she is on the outside.  She is generally a very happy baby, but she will cry…a lot… when she needs something if it takes us too long to figure out what she is in need of.

For instance, she used to scream heartily when I gave her a bath.  For the first couple of months, bath time was synonymous with torture time.  Then one day I accidentally got the water too hot.  It wasn’t hot enough to burn or anything like that, but it was definitely hotter than I would ever run it for a baby.  But since it wasn’t going to hurt her and I figured she was just going to shriek anyway, I just stuck her in the tub.  And guess what?  No crying.  At all.  It would seem that she gets cold easily (like me) and really, really hates being cold.  Now I run the bath water hotter than I normally would for a baby, turn up the heat in the house, close the bathroom door to trap the warm air and periodically pour nice hot water over her to keep her warm.  I feel like I’m basting a turkey.  The bath time temper tantrums have ended and I even get an occasional smile while she is in the tub.

Needing a diaper change is another event that will send Malia into fits.  Once she cried all the way home from my parents’ house (about 35 minutes since we had one stop we needed to make) because she had a wet diaper and we didn’t know it.  When that happens, she will stop crying as soon as I lay her on the changing pad.  Sometimes she even looks a big smug when I start taking her clothes off to change her.

Last night was another one of those nights when screaming happened for an unknown reason.  Bedtime is usually pretty calm for us.  Not only does Malia sleep 9-11 hours each night, but she falls asleep on her own in her bed.  I just lay her down when she is drowsy and she goes off to sleep.  Perhaps the biggest (we’re talking huge here) blessing of having such a great little sleeper is that we did not have to let her cry it out to learn this skill.  She did it all on her own.  She’s the only one of my children who hasn’t needed some time screaming their lungs out before they would fall asleep without being held and rocked.  Much nicer on my nerves.  But back to last night.  We had finished the first half of her bedtime feeding and Malia had been changed and bundled into her jammies.  I settled in to finish her feeding…and that is when the wailing started.  We’re talking banshee-like wailing.  End of the world kind of wailing.  She obviously did not want to eat, so I started working through all the things that could be bothering her.  Checked her diaper to make sure it was still dry.  Repositioned her jammies and blanket to make sure they weren’t pinching or binding her in an uncomfortable way.  Tried rocking her and soothing her in all the ways she likes best.  Nothing worked.  And as she screamed in my arms, her little body as stiff as a board, a little thought came into my mind.  The thought was that I should just put her into her bed.  Now, this thought was pretty welcome at that point because I was getting worn out and I realized that at the rate we were going she was never going to let herself relax enough to get drowsy so I could put her to bed.  So I figured I’d try it.  I mean, she was already shrieking like a maniac.  I figured it couldn’t get much louder.  And then guess what?  As soon as she realized I was headed for the bedroom, my little stinkpot immediately stopped screaming.  I laid her in her bed and heard not another peep until morning, when she woke up gurgling and cooing and “talking” to the Snoopys on the canopy of her bassinet.  Happy as a little clam. (That’s another blessing, by the way.  Having a baby that wakes up happy in the morning instead of crying is such a wonderful start to the day!)  So obviously she was tired and just wanted to be put in her bed, but I have to admit that I’m a bit afraid of how stubborn this child will be when she is two…