things we’ve learned this summer

i figured this summer would be a good one and i was right.  gabe and mia are at great ages to just enjoy themselves at the pool or the beach.  i don’t have to be in the water with them and i know that barring a real lapse in judgement, they are going to be fine.  lila, meanwhile is too little to crawl away, fall in the pool, eat the sand, etc.  so we’re good.  i can sit with the baby for the most part and we can go do fun things for the big kids.  we have had a great summer!

highpoints for gabe:  he became a GREAT swimmer.  he can swim wherever, in whatever depth he wants.  he learned to dive, to swim all the way across the pool, do the front, back, breast and butterfly strokes, and most importantly is not afraid to do all kinds of crazy stunts off the side of the pool into the water.  he also did basketball camp with some buddies and found that he really likes it!  in one of their games, he scored the winning basket with 5 seconds to go.  very fun!  finally, the kid is a fantastic reader.  he really picked it up during first grade, but in the summer the library does a summer reading program.  if over the whole summer you complete 20 hours of reading, you get a medal from the firefighters and get to go to a bbq sponsored by the library.  well, needless to say, he had it done in a few weeks.  he LOVES to read.  my mom got him a bunch of the children’s edition classics from barnes and noble for his birthday.  he’s almost done with all five.  we love that he loves to read!

highpoints for mia: mia has also learned to swim pretty well.  we started out the summer being afraid to put our head in the water, so the fact that she loves to jump in now and can swim easily to the side is a big deal!  goggles seemed to be the trick.  pink ones, of course.  she has also learned to read a few words.  we got a dick and jane book and she did great with it!  kindergarten will be fun for her to learn so many new things.  she got a new day bed at the end of the school year and that has helped HUGE in learning to keep a room clean.  she likes to have things “just so” when she’s in the mood.  mia has spent a good portion of her summer playing with lila.  our problem is not getting mia to engage with lila.  it’s more trying to get her OFF the baby.  she just loves her.  and she’s so helpful and loves to be helpful.  she especially loves to crack eggs. : ) kindergarten here we come!

highpoints for lila:  lu is 6 months old now.  that means, she rolls all over the room, can sit up by herself for a few seconds and loves to eat real food.  she’s an incredibly messy eater, but it’s just so dang cute!  she’s always up for a good time and the big kids are more than happy to give her that entertainment.  and she loves to talk – loud.  she is indeed a tacklind.  we’re all loud.  DA-DA-DA-DA!!  BA-BA-BA-BA!!  do you hear me!!!??!  what an awesome baby!

we’ve got another month left to enjoy.  part of it will be in seattle again, which is awesome!!  we’ve been so seattle spoiled this summer.  we can’t wait to hang out with cousins for another week.  and then back to school!  i’ll have a good 5 hours everyday to myself!  (well, i’ll have lila, but now that i have 3, a baby doesn’t count for making me busy.)  it’s gonna be great!

cooking

so in the last few weeks i read “my life in france” by julia child and am in the middle of reading “julie and julia” by julie powell.  julie powell undertook the crazy challenge of cooking all 524 recipes in julia child’s cookbook, “mastering the art of french cooking,” in one year and blogged about it.  the blog led to a book. the book led to a movie which i went to see yesterday with my good friend mary.  i was really curious how they were going to change julie’s character to make her likeable.  because, she in her book, she is definitely not very likeable.  she’s completely self absorbed, narcissistic, plain mean to her husband almost all the time, cusses up a storm and is sex crazy (not that that is bad, but it’s to the point of not discouraging her friends to have affairs, sort of having them herself, vicariously through them, etc.)  i’m sure if i met her, she’s probably very nice.  but in reading her stuff, i have a hard time respecting her.  so i was curious to see what they’d do in the movie.  well, they make her very likeable in fact.  she has a few mental breakdowns, but who wouldn’t if you took on a challenge like this?  she’s a little selfish sometimes, but in a very apologetic way.  and she’s not the all important center of the world that the actual author portrays herself to be.  so it makes little sense in the movie when her husband leaves her and that julia child doesn’t actually like her.  reading the book, you can absolutely see why her husband would leave and that julia wouldn’t like her.   maybe the author decided to go with this more edgy portrayal of herself?  i’m not sure, but she can’t be very happy in this state.  i hope for more for her.

all of this to say, i want to learn to cook!!  especially from reading “my life in france.”  it has shown me that i absolutely do not know how to cook (no surprises there. even though i cook everyday, i don’t actually KNOW how to cook) and that i’d really like to learn!  i’ve never been that into cooking.  but seeing what you could actually make if you had a clue and that a normal person like me might be able to do it!  that’s exciting.  not motivating, but inspiring.  i have no time to be motivated, but inspiration is good.  it might put some good meals on the table this year!

today i’m all excited to make a peach & raspberry cobbler with some chicken and green pepper skewers, rice, and an antipasto appetizer with balsamic dressing over it.  i want to take it to the concert in the park with some friends.  but first we need to go to church, to the grocery store to get all of this stuff, and go on a run that i was supposed to do yesterday.  it sounds a bit like a crazy undertaking (in my current world) that isn’t really possible, like trying to make 524 recipes in 365 days.  enough to drive everyone around me crazy, make my husband leave me, and make my idols hate me : ).

later:  (by the way, we pulled off all the sunday goals and no one was fried at the end of the day!  it included an awesome quinoa recipe my sister in law gave me and this peach raspberry cobbler thing i made since peaches were 49 cents a pound.  it was fun!)

life is good

we are all sick.  mia is sickest right now.  i’ve had it the longest.  jeff was down for a few days, lila had a funky eye, and gabe is still hanging in there.  in spite of all of that, i can’t help but notice how GREAT my life is : ).  today i dragged sweet sick mia to el morro to register for kindergarten!  she kept telling everyone that her birthday is july 21.  apparently that’s when  you can go to kindergarten.  when you turn five : ).  then we picked up gabe from school and hung out in mary blantons 2nd/3rd grade classroom.  she ROCKS as a teacher (and as everything else.)  her classroom is so inspiring.  cocooned butterflies, tadpoles turning into frogs, all kinds of things hanging from the ceiling, zodiac tracings everywhere.  it’s so cool!  i really want gabe to have her for his teacher sometime.  she’s just awesome.  then we went to our chiropractor (at the bottom of our street) to see what i needed to take to get rid of this illness.  our doctor, the whole office really, are familiar friends of ours.  i love living close like this, knowing and being known.  it’s so great.  then we walked a few more steps to the library to get the next few books in the series that gabe is rocketing through.  the children’s librarian is so nice, and recognizes us now too.  the kids always go right up to her and ask where they can find a book, which she knows exactly where and what they have.  so fun.  and now back home where sick mia can lay on the couch watching tinkerbell while gabe goes next door to bus stop bible club and play with his buddies.  and i’m here writing, waiting for little lu to wake up, looking at my AWESOME peonies from trader joes.  not everyday is like this, but i have to say, this one is pretty good  : )

my boy and his friend

they had twin day at el morro yesterday.  gabe’s best buddy at school is aiden.  they are such sweet friends and they decided to wear matching shirts.  aiden’s dad made the shirts with a picture of the boys at the aquarium.  here’s a few pics of the goof balls together.  i love this friendship!

couple more that i like today

two more pictures i like today.  my baby and me…

a picture a day

my friend shae is posting a picture a day in 2009 so she can remember what happened through her eyes.  i love the idea.  there’s no way i’d ever be able to do that, but i like the idea of being able to just post everyday memories without it having to be long and drawn out.  so, i’m following in her footsteps, for the moment at least.  for today, i just love my little angel/fairy/ballerina, box and bag collecting, toy stashing, eczema fighting, attitude throwing, big brother following, fort making, littlest pet shop wii playing, puzzle making, coloring, obsessed with all things hearts, ponytail hating, super helpful, cuddly, beautiful, ridiculously smart, loving girl.  she’s such a joy to my life.  i love my mia!

(by the way, the heart she’s making with her hands is her way of saying “i love you.” : ) )

Lila’s first bottle

so, neither of my other kids ever took a bottle.  ever.  that meant, it was me, the dairy queen at least every 4 hours for a full year.  it wasn’t the end of the world, but it would have been nice to be able to disappear for longer than that.  but, we hardly ever needed a bottle, so it was never convenient to learn a bottle.  plus, half of me had a weird emotional attachment to nursing and it was kind of convenient that they never needed one.  i got to feed them all the time.

well, this time, i wanted lila to take a bottle.  not because i’d need it very often, but a year is a long time not to go to the theater or whatever, for a date.  and i figured, i needed to get over the emotional attachment in order to have a little freedom.  and kirsty reminded me that it’s really good for jeff and lila to have that time together too.  but still, it’s so hard for me not to meet that need personally!  granted, it’s my milk but still it feels like a loss of some kind.  i’m not saying it’s healthy, it’s just how i feel : ).

so, for the past few days, i’ve been hemming and hawing about it.  she’s 5 weeks old tomorrow and i don’t want to miss the window of opportunity, but for lots of reasons, the days keep disappearing, and we still haven’t tried the bottle.  gabe and mia both hated it, so my hopes weren’t up too high.  i figured it’s going to take a few days at least before she’ll go for it.  and it’s the fussy time of day, so she really isn’t going to like it, etc.  but tonight (with kirsty’s encouragement : ) ) i bit the bullet and jeff gave her a bottle, which she sucked down like a PRO!  i feel weird about it, a little bit of a loss, yet liberated too, and i’m so proud of her at the same time.  conflicted feelings anyone?  we’ll try again tomorrow to make sure we remember how it works, and i’m sure i’ll get used to it soon enough -  right about the time i get to go out with my hubby as long as i want to!

my blessed life

babylila

Originally uploaded by ptacklind

there is much going on in my house right now! this is my favorite picture of lila from the day she was born, but she’s already so different! she has her little baby acne, she throws up everything she eats at least once a day, and she screams her head off when she is over tired. and i am totally whipped on this little one! sometimes i feel like my heart is going to jump out of my throat when i look at her and i have to smother her little face in kisses. meanwhile, mia is the most amazing helper – upset when i don’t let her help enough, and gabe is so tender. i love it.
it’s definitely good that mia isn’t in school everyday yet. this way, we get to take care of the baby together a few days a week, being partners again. we were such partners before lila was born. it’s nice to still have those moments every once in a while.
the other day, jeff discovered a movie that he and gabe made when gabe was about to turn 4. it was the sweetest thing. it was just exactly like gabe today, just littler. i bawled watching it. i love that little boy or big boy, depends on the moment. he’s about to finish reading his first chapter book. he’s so big. lately his allergies have been so bad that he’s having trouble hearing. it’s a real concern, as he can’t hear his teacher and isn’t getting his work done because of it. we’re attacking the “dust/mold/dust mite” possibilities. i’m sure his bedroom is the main culprit. i got a cover for his mattress and pillows today as well as those vacuum storage bags to store away clothes in. i REALLY hope this is a piece of the puzzle. allergies are a long road with lots of wrong turns…
anyway, back to gabe’s movie. as i was watching it, i realized that when he was 4, he drove me crazy with all this negotiating and protesting, etc. but his heart was so sweet it made me cry. today, is the same. it’s easy to get on his case for things he should “know better” about, or things i’ve said a million times and have to say again. same thing with mia. the daily grind if full of good and rough moments. but this little movie reminded me that these kids are the best gift to me. i am SO blessed to have them. and now lila is a part of that. i am so lucky. i have friends whose heart’s desire is to have kids and haven’t been able to YET. but for some reason, i’ve been given 3 little souls to love. i am so thankful, it’s not even funny.

my house of kids!

Lila will be a month old on saturday! are you kidding? where did this month go? it’s crazy. and as i look back at the past 9 months, it seems even more strange to have an actual baby who is like all other babies. she’s sweet, she’s alert, she sleeps all the time, she cries a lot now that she’s starting to wake up, etc. she’s a real baby! a real baby is such an abstract idea when you are pregnant. and especially when you are altering your life so significantly for this little one while still pregnant. you wonder a little bit if it’s all worth it. i knew it was because i’d do the bedrest any day for gabe and mia and knew i’d some day feel the same about lila. and indeed it is. this girl is so sweet! i’m totally into her.
this was the craziest pregnancy! first off to do all the progesterone and have a little bit of spotting. STRESS! then at 20 weeks, to find the previa = no exercize for the past 5 months! then to have the bed rest for the last 7 weeks, 6 at home, one in the hospital. meanwhile, finding out i was anemic. then an amnio (NOT fun) and a c-section at 36 weeks, 6 days. recovering from a c-section is not fun at all. i don’t get why people would schedule them on purpose! it’s SO much worse recovery-wise. BUT in all of it, we had a perfect baby girl! she came out rocking the long black mo-hawk hair, good size and lungs and nursed right away. i was so thankful. SO thankful. there’s no way it would have happened that way if the whole world hadn’t pitched in to make it work. my mom being here the whole time was indispensable, jeff was so awesome every minute with the kids. friends brought all kinds of food, movies, books, took care of the kids, everything. this baby’s lack of developmental problems is a direct result of the awesome community of people we have around us. it’s why we made it to 37 weeks. i am so thankful.
gabe and mia love their baby sister. mia is ridiculously helpful, calling her her little pumpkin all the time. gabe just wants to look at her and give her kisses. it’s so cute. they really are great kids. right now the poor baby is screaming her brains out because she’s so tired and can’t figure out how to fall asleep and they are both dying to make her feel better. sweet big brother and sister : ).
as for me, i’m recovering. actually yesterday i felt so good. i was up for cleaning house, grocery shopping AND going to the park, and i wasn’t rude to gabe and mia once! granted i was worked by the end of the day, but it still felt good. 3 weeks really is a significant benchmark. it always is, i just forgot.

okay, poor baby is still so sad in there.  i doubt i’ll ever get a whole post done at once again!  i love this level of chaos though.  i think it fits me. : )

2 1/2 weeks to go!

yes, i’ve been on my couch for 4 1/2 weeks!  it was fine before christmas, but now i’m getting a little grumpy.  i think we’re all just over it.  still decent attitudes, but still over it.  BUT, this is so much better than being in a hospital for the next few weeks or having my baby right now!  i’m 34 weeks along, so that is great for her lungs.  i’d just really like to avoid NICU.  i really want to be able to nurse her and get her started off well.  especially if she’s going to be little.  granted, little for us is anything less than 8 lbs., but still she’ll probably only be 5 or 6 lbs, being born 3 weeks early.  that’s so little!!  anyway, i’d like to hold on until 37 weeks so she can be full term and not have to have lights keep her warm.  so i guess a little baby is one of my fears about this.

the second, and really the main fear, is the c-section itself.  i have so many friends who have had and recovered easily from c-sections.  but i’m still just so nervous about it.  first off, my babies come late, so i never know when it’s coming.  they come on their own time, unless it’s way to long, like gabe was, but even then, i at least started labor before i went to the hospital for the induction.  scheduling it 4 weeks before when my babies are typically born is bothersome to me.  then, there’s the whole surgery thing.  surgery isn’t nerve wracking to me.  it’s being awake for the surgery that is scary.  but i’m not about to be put under and not see my baby in her first minutes of birth.  so, the idea of being aware when they are cutting my stomach open is scary to me.  then what if there are complications with me?  i don’t want to hear all of that.  

i guess i’ve just done this my way twice.  now it’s completely NOT my way or what feels natural to me.  i know this c-section is not at all elective, and for any of my friends and family have c-sections, elective or not, good for them.  i can totally support that.  just for me, i’m scared about it.  

and my third fear, and this one feels really funny, is that i’m scared to have a new baby again!  what?  i’ve done it twice already!  what’s the big deal?  and babies are the sweetest little things.  i’m totally excited on one hand and completely nervous on the other.  who is she?  what kind of baby will she be?  what kind of person will she be?  how will it all fit in to our existing family?  how will gabe and mia deal with it?  at this point they are excited and i don’t totally expect that to change, but who knows?  and we bring A LOT more germs into this house now with preschool and elementary, so will she get sick a lot?  and when she’s so little?  

i think had my pregnancy been at all normal, i wouldn’t have a lot of these baby fears.  i would feel pretty ready and confident.  but since everything is different this time, i’m back to being concerned because i don’t know what to expect.  only one in 200 people have complete previa at this point in the game.  my situation is hardly normal.  and having a little baby, maybe being in the NICU, how does that affect the future?  it’s what keeps me laying down all the time, trying to avoid long term issues.  i guess i’m just sort of scared of everything right now, and am completely unable to do anything about it, like get the baby room ready, do projects around the house, etc.  things that i guess could be construed to avoiding my fears, but could also be seen as having something to do other than be concerned!  

the one thing i am not worried about, that i always have been before, is how there can be enough room in my heart to love another baby the way i love gabe and mia.  i’m not nervous about that at all this time.  the cool thing about bed rest is that i’ve been able to feel every single one of her little moves in my belly.  it’s like we just spend our whole day together without taking care of the rest of the world.  that is very sweet.  so, she’s already got a place in my heart and i can’t wait to meet her and introduce her to the rest of her family.

i feel like i “know” that all of this will turn out fine in the end.  i still won’t sleep at all the night before the c-section, but i know in the end it will be fine.  even if there are complications, i have learned by now that they aren’t all bad and you can certainly deal with them in positive lights.  i just want to get there and know what’s going to happen.  but not too soon…