Visit with Grandmom

Ice cream!

You get too close to my ice cream, and you might lose your hand!

Joyce came to visit this weekend, and we had a lovely time. The boys enjoyed having her here, and they got to read books with her, play Legos, play on the back deck, and read the Sunday comics together. They also had a very special trip to the ice cream store last night after dinner. I stayed home with Peter, so David, Joyce, Jack, and Thomas piled into the car and headed off to Cold Stone for dessert. The boys were in heaven! Jack got blue ice cream (aka cotton candy) with sprinkles, and Thomas got pink (aka strawberry) with sprinkles. What a treat! And I had about half an hour of complete quiet at home, probably for the first time in a long time. Peter was asleep, so it was very peaceful :). And they brought me back some coffee ice cream with brownies and chocolate fudge sauce (the best!!!), so we had a good night. Peter did show Joyce just how fussy he gets in the evenings, so we all took a turn rocking and walking him until he finally passed out around 11:30PM. Fortunately, he slept until about 5:45PM, which was nice, but those 3 hours of fussing last night were a little tough. I even tried a pacifier, but Peter really didn't want anything to do with it. Joyce offered to buy a baby swing for Peter, so we might just do that -- he seems to really like the back and forth motion of walking, so maybe that will help.

Anyway, we had a great visit and David and I are enjoying the rest of our Sunday before we head into another week (I don't know if I'm ready for another Manic Monday, but fortunately we get to see Kim tomorrow for lunch which will surely be the highlight of our day).

Sunday Best

I couldn't resist taking some pictures of the boys all dressed in striped polo shirts for Mass. (By the way, we did pretty well at our second Mass as a family of 5. Peter slept the whole Mass, Jack was quiet and well-behaved, and Thomas was a loud little monkey, but there's nothing new about that!).

And the answers are...

1 - Peter, aka Peelo (that's how Thomas says it!)
2 - Jack
3 - Thomas


Good guessing!!


Well, we survived the week -- I'm very glad that David is home today and Sunday. Peter has been really persnickety in the evenings lately and wants to be rocked/walked/bounced constantly, so it's very nice to be able to play Pass the Fussy Baby with David so at least one of us gets a little break. I'm tempted to try a pacifier to see if it will comfort Peter, but I'm not sure I want to go down the road of trying to break him of the habit when he gets older. Jack loved his pacifier and then it got lost when he was around 2 - 2 1/2 years old, and I didn't replace it. And it was a bit of a tough adjustment -- it might have been a coincidence, but that's about when Jack stopped taking such reliable naps. We'll see. A few more of these super fussy nights and I might try a pacifier to see if it helps, and if it really does, I'll probably be willing to deal with whatever consequences come later. It's funny, though, because even when I'm exhausted and Peter is fussing and I just want to crawl into bed for a solid 8 hours of sleep, I find myself very grateful to have a new baby again. I think of people who can't have kids, or who have been pregnant but have miscarried, and I'm grateful even for all the "inconveniences" that kids and babies come with. I also find myself thinking that I would be sad if Peter were our last child. This may end up being God's will for our family, and if that's the case I would do my best to accept it gracefully, but I really do hope we're blessed with more children. I look at pictures of Jack and Thomas when they were newborns, and it makes me excited to go through all of the firsts with Peter -- cooing, crawling, talking, walking, etc. And I hope we have more firsts to come after that, God willing.


Thankfully, I didn't have to go out anywhere this week. David did our grocery shopping after work one night, which was great. He insisted, and argued that he would be saving us gas also, and I can't disagree with that. So, for the time being that's one less weekly outing I'll have to worry about. It was weird spending the week at home -- I had been having a lot of dr's appointments and outings in the weeks leading up to Peter's birth, so it felt funny not going anywhere. We kept busy enough, though, with household chores, playing in the pool, watering the garden, and working on a fence around my garden to keep the bunnies and squirrels out. I think we did well this week. Jack was a bit difficult, but yesterday and today he had much, much better days.

Other than that, I'm looking forward to having my normal body back! It's comforting that my tummy is getting smaller rather than larger now, but it's hard because I can't quite fit into my pre-pregnancy clothes, but there's no way I want to wear maternity clothes (and most of them are way too big or stretched out anyway). So this stage is like the opposite of early to mid-pregnancy when I felt "thick around the middle" but I didn't look pregnant at all yet. Ugh! I know it takes time for the pregnancy weight to melt away, so I'm trying to be patient, but I'm definitely looking forward to wearing my regular size again. And I know trying to cut back on calories now is a bad idea since it can affect my milk supply, which obviously would not be good for Peter. Plus, I would be miserable if I even tried since I have a pretty hearty appetite these days.

Which newborn is which? :)

They do look a bit similar, don't they? :)

1

2

3

David's Aunt Charlotte and Aunt Madeliene...

made each of our boys quilts when they were born. The quilts for Peter both arrived yesterday (even though Charlotte and Madeliene live on opposite sides of the country!), and they're gorgeous. I wanted to take pictures of Peter with his quilts, and I thought it would be a good idea to get some photos of Jack and Thomas on their quilts also.

Aunt Madeliene's quilt -- the top right corner is folded back so you can see the back (which David immediately noticed "It's Dodger blue!!").

Aunt Charlotte's quilt

Jack and the quilts -- the top is actually Thomas's (from Aunt Charlotte) and the bottom is Jack's, from Aunt Madeliene (I mixed up the quilts while setting up the picture, and these photos turned out so nicely that I didn't get a chance to re-do them!)

Thomas and the quilts -- the top is actually Jack's quilt (from Aunt Charlotte), and the bottom is Thomas's (from Aunt Madeliene). I'll get some more photos of the kids with their own quilts soon!

All the boys and their quilts!

Let's see ... Manic Monday yesterday was a little crazy, but we made it. Thomas's eyes have been red and irritated since last week (you can tell in his picture above), so I got him an appointment to see the dr yesterday morning to make sure he didn't have pink eye. I'm so grateful for Kim, who offered to help wrangle the boys while I took Thomas to the dr -- she met us at the dr's office and kept the boys entertained while I tried to nurse a mad Peter, and then she sat in the waiting room with Jack while I took Thomas and Peter in to the exam room. And then she sat with all three boys in the car while I zipped into Target and got Thomas some eye drops. She was such a huge help! Fortunately, the dr said Thomas's eyes are most likely irritated by allergies, chemical (like sunscreen, which is a distinct possibility), or the sun. They should get better in a few days and some saline drops will help soothe them. I'm grateful it wasn't a bacterial infection which would mean washing his hands every time he touched his eyes, washing his pillow and bedding every day, etc. -- more work than I'd like to take on at this point!

Other than that, the boys had a pretty good day. They played in their wading pool and watched movies while I folded clothes. Today, so far, is also going pretty well. I did some chores in the front yard while the boys rode bikes in the garage, carport, and driveway, and then they played in their wading pool in the carport. I find that if I sit still for too long I get sleepy and start to nod off :), but if I keep moving then I can keep myself awake. Thankfully, I really don't feel as overwhelmed or as stressed as I thought I would at this point, and I'm grateful for an extra helping of patience that God is most certainly sending my way. Tomorrow, if I'm feeling brave enough, I may actually venture out to the grocery store for a couple of things. David has offered to do whatever shopping I need him to do, but I figure ... what's the worst that can happen if I try it on my own? (Tune in tomorrow and you'll find out!)

We survived, but barely

I suppose you could say that attempting to take a 4 year old, 2 year old, and newborn to 5PM mass (when dinner is normally at 6PM) followed by dinner at 7PM (when bedtime is normally at 7PM) was The Perfect Storm of events to create total chaos. So, I can't really blame the kids for their insanity (and I don't), but let me tell you -- it was a long evening!

Mass started out OK ... meaning we actually got all 5 of us dressed, fed snacks, and loaded into the car early (!) so we could get a good seat at mass. (This was a farewell mass for our pastor, so it was packed!). So we had that going for us. It was record heat here yesterday, and our church's air conditioning was working overtime, but it was still pretty hot inside. Everything started out well enough, but by about halfway through, the boys had had enough. They were wiggly and Thomas forgot everything we ever taught him about whispering. And he kept asking "All done?" loudly :). Peter was fast asleep in his car seat, which is what I expected since I had just fed him before we left -- I was hoping for a 2-3 hour nap, but that was not to be.

Just as Thomas's loudness was ramping up enough that David decided to take him out, Peter woke up and started fussing. Jack was still with me in the pew, and I was worried that if Peter started really fussing, I'd have to take him and Jack out and then we'd lose our seat (the mass was standing-room only and I didn't have a way to save our seats). I took Peter out of his seat to try and calm him down, only to discover that his diaper had lost containment and there was a poopy mess on his legs, outfit, and carseat! Thankfully, David and Thomas came back in after the homily (David actually had to give Thomas a time-out in the narthex!) and I was able to take Peter and out and change him. Once I changed him, Peter decided that he was hungry again, so I looked for a place to nurse him. Normally I would head to the mother's room where it's a little more quiet and I could nurse more comfortably, but it was closed due to the farewell dinner after mass. And the daily mass chapel (used for overflow seating) was totally packed. So, I headed back to the pew and nursed Peter there. Aside from Thomas asking "Where Peelo go?" loudly several times because I was nursing him under a blanket, that went pretty well .... until Peter spat up all over once I put him back inside his car seat. :).

After mass, everyone headed to the church parking lot where they had set up tables and chairs for the big farewell dinner for Fr. Pat. We got a good table with a nice family from church, and the mom of the family held Peter while David and I ate our food and tried to keep the boys in line. Jack and Thomas ate a good dinner and sat nicely for quite a while, but eventually they got antsy and proceeded to run laps (literally) around our table. Every so often Thomas would just take off running and David would have to herd him back. David and I were taking it all in stride, though, and we had a good sense of humor about it. Plus, our expectations for the evening werem set pretty low -- we just wanted to survive it -- and that we did. We stayed as long as we could, but we realized that it was going to be a very long evening because after dessert they started in on the farewell tribute speeches, and I think they had 4 or 5 speakers lined up, so we headed out. By the time we got the boys in bed it was 9:15PM, and Peter was wiiide awake and fussing. Eventually he conked out, too, and slept about 7 hours straight, which was awesome.

Today actually went better than we expected, considering how tired the boys were. They had a good Feast Day -- doughnuts for breakfast (they got to apply the sprinkles!), watching a movie, watering the plants, playing in the pool on the deck, helping David BBQ hamburgers, and having a chocolate chip cookie and milk for dessert. This week will be rough, I'm sure, but we'll take it one day at a time. Once again, I'm grateful to be feeling great, so I think I'll be able to handle whatever the boys can dish out.

A few pictures

Jack and Thomas (so far) adore Peter ... but I can tell Peter is going to have to grow up tough in order to survive this brotherly love. Sometimes overeager big brothers think squeezing harder = "I love you more" :).

Peter's freshly combed mane of hair.

We had a good outing at the park this morning. It was our second outing with all 5 of us -- the first being a checkup at the doctor for Peter last week. Jack and Thomas played very nicely at the park and got to burn off some of their energy before it got too hot (it's supposed to be 104 here today!). Peter slept through the whole outing, which was nice.

Tonight we go to mass for the first time together as a family. I'm on Peter duty, obviously, and David will take on Jack and Thomas. Wish us luck! Hopefully Peter will sleep through mass, but we'll see. Directly after mass is a farewell dinner for our pastor, who is transfering to another parish in about a week. I'm looking forward to the dinner, but I'm a little nervous about how all of our boys will hold up. David and I might take separate cars in case the boys get crazy and I have to bail out early.

Tomorrow, June 22nd, is Jack and Thomas's feast day! Since we're going to mass tonight we won't be going tomorrow morning, so I think I'll use the extra time to make a nice breakfast. Maybe doughnuts? I actually have some doughnut dough in the freezer -- I can't think of a better occasion for doughnuts than the boys' feast day and the last day before David returns to work. Peter's feast day will be June 29th, the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, until Fulton Sheen is canonized -- and then we'll go with whatever date is chosen as Fulton Sheen's feast day.

Finally, wish us luck in selling my little white car! We finally got it all cleaned up and ready to go, and we placed our ad today. It will be great to get it sold and to use the money to hopefully refinance our house before it loses too much more of its value.