Trying to Talk

So Drew is finally really trying to say some words.  He will usually try to copy us if we ask him repeatedly to say some specific word.  However, most of the time is is just the first consonant sound or the first syllable and there would be no way we would know what he was taking about if he said it on his own.  I have videotaped me trying to get him to say somethings here.  You'll see what I mean with the "spoon" for sure.  He loves spoons and I have really been trying to teach him that word with no real success.  It may seem odd that I am teaching him to say "No" to Hannah in the video, but it is because he normally screams at them when he wants them to stop bothering him.  I would much prefer he just say "No, Hannah" to the screeching, but I may regret this later.

Drew said his first compound word which was Isaac's first compound word as well..."highchair."  It sounds like "Hy-cha," but that is really good for him to put the two sounds together.  Here is a current list of his words he says somewhat regularly or can repeat consistently and sound relatively clear.

Mama/Mom

Dada/ Daddy

Ball

Wow

Uh oh

Oh no

No

Up

Out 

Down

Bye bye

Night night (nah nah)

Hot 

Hat

Hannah

Duck

Dog

Cat

Drew (sounds more like "Duh" most of the time)

Ouch (ow)

Hi

Poop

Balloon (boon)

I don't know (dunno)

Isaac (Isah)

Baa (for sheep sound)

Hoo hoo (for owl and monkey sounds)

High chair (Hycha)

So 28 words, which is about where my other three were at right after they turned a year.  Seems slow to me, but I hear he is in the normal range.  He knows many many signs and uses them on his own a lot more often now.  I'll have to try to make a list of his signs one day soon.  He is very physical, and likes to try puzzles now.  He can't always get the wooden pieces to fit, but he does many times.  He is pretty good at the shape sorter.  I like that he tries so hard and doesn't give up.  This is one aspect of his personality that I think causes his lack of communication.  He doesn't ask for help very often.  He just keeps trying to do it himself.  He is also able to get both feet off the ground when he jumps sometimes.  He is excellent at following directions.  He can unload most of the dishwasher by himself (and know where everything goes) if someone keeps him on task which the girls love.

His lack of speech and his church behavior are the two things we are currently working on the most.  Also we are gearing up to move him into Isaac's room this summer to get them adjusted before the new baby comes.  The main problem I foresee with this is that Isaac is waking up screaming every once in a while and he doesn't know why.  Hopefully it is a phase that will pass before the summer.  Drew will have to adjust to having a night light and to Isaac getting up to go going potty in the middle of the night too.  Drew has always been a great sleeper, so lets hope this goes smoothly.  We are keeping him in his crib.  I'm not crazy.

1st Reconciliation

 Hannah had her first Reconciliation last Wednesday.  She was very well prepared and I could tell by the questions she asked me on occasion while doing her examination of conscience that she was really thinking and praying about it.  She told me that she never forgets her sins and that it was easy.  The bad thing is that she never forgets anyone else's sins either, she told me, but she said that she tries not to think of them.

She wasn't even very nervous.  This is her in line with her book of sins.  She wrote them down so she could remember them.

Before pic- Excited!

 Hannah was last in line since she couldn't decide which priest to go to.  She said that she liked them all.  So we just picked a line and even ended up switching when the other line moved faster.

After pic- Can you see the difference in her smile?

 After she was finished, Hannah said that she felt like a "newborn baby."

Father lovingly teased her and made her feel right at home.  He even told her she was his best confessor that day.

Genna kind of messed up this picture with her itchy nose, but I didn't notice it at the time and therefore did not have a redo.

While she was in line, her daddy went to the store to get her some roses and picked us each up a Junior Frosty to celebrate.

Trying to Say the Rosary with a Cute Little Distraction

I had to take a picture of our typical evening.  We try to say the Rosary and Drew runs around being adorable and making us all smile and even giggle during our prayers, pretty much every night.  He was kicking his feet and making monkey sounds in this picture.  He had just been acting like a chimp all around the room.  He would stop and pause, then look up to see if he got anyone's attention with a sly smile spreading across his face.

The 4 C's and the 2 P's

I promised elaboration for the "vomiting extravaganza" and the "disastrous morning" comments in earlier posts.  The way I see it is I am being attacked for my Lenten sacrifices.  We gave up the 4 C's.  Cookies.  Candy.  Cake. Complaining.  The first three have been remarkably easy since who really wants to eat at all when you are doing is cleaning up puke.  However, not complaining when you are cleaning up puke for the majority of the past 20 days! is insanely difficult.

So here's the story.  Hannah was released from quarantine on Saturday afternoon.  Sunday morning I was greeted with a crib full of puke again.  Plus a big pile made it on the carpet too which has proved very difficult to get the smell out of this time around.  Drew had not thrown up since Tuesday, so I am not sure if this is the Norovirus to be continued or what.  He was fine after a bath just like last time, no fever, but still eating bland foods as he had been almost all week anyway.  Brian and I split up for Mass so we could both go and Drew could stay home.  While he was at Mass and I was doing laundry while Drew napped, another disaster struck.  I was running the first load of laundry and scrubbing the crib mattress with oxiclean int he laundry room when I heard a water sound coming from the empty bathroom down there.  After exploration, I discovered sewage water (yeah, that's the nice way of saying poop water) was spewing out of our shower drain and then it started coming out of a previously empty toilet as well.  I kind of did my initial panicky, run around saying, "What do I do?  What do I do?" thing for a few seconds and then turned off the washing machine and the water to the toilet.  Score!  The poop stopped coming.  I sat down to cry and text Brian to call me ASAP when Mass ended.  Plumbers came and $600 later we have clear pipes again.  However, it could happen again since a pipe at the junction of the city sewage and our sewage is askew and causing the blockage.  We have to find out who's responsibility that is to fix.

If you haven't figured out what the 2 P's are yet.  Poop and Puke.  Apparently these can't be given up for Lent.  And if that whole situation wasn't bad enough, Tuesday Drew puked again.  While I was cleaning the kitchen after lunch, Genna was playing with Drew.  In an attempt to throw him onto the couch (no I did not give her permission to do that,) she missed and he bounced off the side of the couch onto the wood floor.  He was crying pretty hard and I didn't see it happen, just heard the retelling of it.  I was trying to comfort him, but he was pushing me away and then reaching for me.  He started to cough a bit and I held him at arms length thinking he might loose his lunch.  He reached for me and I hugged him again only to be immediately puked on.  The whole lunch came up all at once.  Immediately, I think of a concussion and decide probably not since he has had such a sensitive stomach the last week.  Drew and I stood in a pile of puke in the kitchen covered in puke.  I just stood there because I was trying to make a plan and that's about when Isaac turned to me from the table and said, "I'm ready for my fruit salad now mom."  And that has been my entire February.

These are really minor trials, and yet I am totally buckling.  Motherhood is not for wimps.  I pretend like I am not a wimp anymore, but I totally am.  The sheer amount of laundry I have had to do, times I have bleached the bathrooms and scrubbed the carpet, and times I have had to rinse off puke or clean up poop during this calendar month has done me in.  And yet, I can't quit.  I have to keep truckin'.  Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right?  So maybe by the end of this career of mine I will finally officially not be a wimp and complainer.

P.S. I did watch Drew very carefully that day, and he had no other signs of a concussion. 

Disney on Ice

We had kind of a disastrous morning on Sunday (to be explained later,) but we made it to Mass, and at least the girls were healthy so we could still go to Disney on Ice as planned.

 

We went with another friend and her two daughters.  Sadly, we were rushing around so much that I forgot to get a picture of all the girls together.  We left over an hour before it began and still missed the beginning because of the parking line and a massive potty break.

Genna's favorite performance was by Aladdin and Jasmine.

Hannah's favorite performance was The Little Mermaid.

It was a great program and the skating was wonderful.  Simba did drop Nala, but it was not too bad.  The girls loved it.  We bought snow cones in fancy souvenir cups, but other than that they had a surprisingly small selection of things in the gift shops.  Although initially Genna said, "I am definitely getting something."  I told her we should only buy something if it is something we really want and will use.  Neither of the girls could find anything they really wanted.  Mostly they had dolls which is not something my girls play with too often anymore.

Dresses for Summer

I made matching maxi dresses for the girls.  These are for the spring and summer, obviously.  I got the idea and tutorial on The Polkadot Chair.  They were super easy, especially with my new attachments for my sewing machine.  I have my mom's old Kenmore because I think it is the best sewing machine in the world next to the super fancy, crazy expensive ones.  To find the hemmer foot was a bit tricky since my machine is older than I am, but I did some research online and found a whole slew of Greist antique attachments in a set and some evidence that it would fit my machine.  So I received, not only the hemmer foot, but also a ruffler (along with many others I have yet to explore) which came in handy for this project also. 

This is the dress minus the sash.  It is not half as cute this way, so I am planning to do a few stitches to secure the sash to the dress.

I bought the shirts at Old Navy because I couldn't find any that I was willing to cut up in their drawers, but they were only $5 or something each.  Then I could not find any fabric that was 50' long in my stash of remnants, so I bought this yellow fabric off the clearance rack at Joann's for about $15 since it was the end and I got the last half yard at a 50% additional discount.  The sash was just $5 or so worth of fabric (1/2 yd).  The total for each dress ran me about $15 which is higher than I was expecting, but I love the dresses.  I think for the next ones, if I make time for more, I will go to Goodwill or a secondhand store and find an old kid shirt and a long woman's dress to make this cheaper.  To be honest I was too excited about this project and didn't have the patience to go hunting for the fabric like that.

 I cannot take full credit for these dresses since I had a little helper.  I can't believe I am even putting these awful pictures of me on the blog, but Drew is just so cute and it may be the only chance I get to mark this piece of history.  Just be warned that the following pictures of myself are me at my worst since this was in the middle of the vomiting extravaganza (which is still going on, by the way...more on that later).  I was taking a sanity break while the kids watched TV.

Drew loves to sit in my lap while I sew.

 My sewing cave is in the unfinished basement/laundry room and it is going to be majorly cleaned and overhauled this summer if it kills me, and it very well may do just that. 

He likes to try to push buttons which are too hard for him to push.  The only problem comes when he crawls under the table and accidentally sits on the pedal.  :)

On the Machine Again

 Since we have been trapped at home so much lately, I have been finding a bit of time to sew.  Okay, truthfully, I have been making the time to sew so that I do not go insane.  I had some projects for the girl's summer clothes refashions and things that I want to finish before I find out the gender of the baby and can't resist the urge to start making things for Tad.  My first project was to cut off all leggings with holes int hem and turn them into shorts.  To most of them I added a ruffle of another fabric, but for one I used some of the same legging to make a band and then put a decorative ruffle down the sides.  I got these ideas from the Sewing Dork.  It was fast and easy just like I need 'em to be.

Now I am working on maxi dresses for the girls and a slew of easy skirts since Genna loves skirts and dresses.  Hannah's hard to please, so I am not counting on any of this solving all summer clothes issues in our girls' closets.

Boys will be boys.

These boys have been playing together more lately.  It reminds me of when Genna was Drew's age and how the girls played together except they play different games.  They chase each other and sword fight.  The other day I was watching them sword fight a book shelf together.  Then it turned into a sword fight between the two of them.  Drew had a foam sword and Isaac had a plastic one.  Drew was wailing on Isaac at first, but then Isaac got a good shot in and got Drew on the face.  He stopped to see how Drew would react.  When he realized Drew was just waiting for the game to begin again, he gave him a quick hug and they continued in their game.  

 

Also, like the girls when they were younger, Isaac is taking on the pestering position, as Hannah did, and Drew has learned the only way to stop that is to hit him and make him cry, as Genna did.  History repeating itself.

Post Valentine's Post

Even though we didn't go anywhere, I wanted to o this to Genna's hair.  I saw this "heart" hairstyle on Pinterest.

Drew had a crabby day, but he liked the balloons on a stick that I got for everyone.

Hannah had a rough day, but she woke up feeling much better this morning.  She napped on and off all day and so she stayed up later and slept with me in the "sick" bed.  She talks in her sleep, by the way.  Funny thing is that the other kids were so thrilled to be able to watch almost nonstop TV, but she was bored with TV by 8:30am.  She read her books in between naps and watching a movie or two.  She is reading Shel Silverstein poems and The Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler right now.  She'll be in bed for another two days, I guess which means no basketball or co-op or playdates.  Poor girl!  The important thing is that she gets all better by Sunday because after Mass we have a special girl adventure that has already been paid for. 

Happy Valentine's Day!

These are our valentines for our co-op last Friday.  Genna was sick the week we were putting these together and so I bought her the Brave ones.  Isaac was always just going to be writing his name on his so we stuck with the original plan there and went with the Fruits of the Spirit.  (That is what I just taught them in co-op.)  Hannah made the bubble valentines and did everything by herself except for curling the ribbons.  She wasn't patient enough to try to learn that.

Unfortunately, Hannah is puking this morning and so our Valentine's day has been interrupted with some more yuckiness.  I can absolutely not believe that this is happening when I thought we were in the clear.  How long can this be contagious?  We all have raw hands from washing them so much, and I have bleach all things bleachable in this house.  I guess my dad was right, I should have locked them all in a room together from the beginning to get this all over with faster instead of stretching it out for weeks.

Ash Wednesday and Our Lenten Plans

This lent we are sacrificing cookies, candy, and cakes as a family (except for special feast days, like Valentine's Day, and Sundays.)  We are also going to work on not complaining, but being thankful for all things instead.  In the past, our crown of thorns has been for the kids to take out thorns only, but this time we are going to add thorns as well, but only for complaining, not all sins.  This is because it would be impossible for us to not complain at all, so this is a way of trying our best and not giving up when we fail.  The children can pull out thorns for all good deeds, but especially if they hold in a complaint or make a thankful statement in place of a complaint.  The puling out of thorns for withholding a complaint will be done on the honor system since I cannot know their hearts.  The girls are old enough to understand and examine themselves in this way, but Isaac may not be.  We'll see how it goes.

We are going to be using Catholic Icing's free printable Lenten Calendar instead of a homemade one.  The kids will each get their own to color everyday.  We will be reading from Amon's Adventures each evening, in addition to saying the rosary as a family.  We will also watch the Holy Heroes Lenten Adventure videos and do some of the activities (i.e. coloring pages and crossword puzzles).  I hid the Alleluia sign and set the altar up last night.  We will include Stations of the Cross into our Fridays as well, whether we go to the church or have our own here.  I also hope to do this new Veronica craft during Lent.  Have a good, purifying Lent!

Here are my Lenten posts from the past years if you need other ideas.  I have learned you can't do it all every year.

I could always use more laundry, right?

Just because he is too cute for words, in my biased opinion anyway.  This picture was from Monday.

I can't get enough of this cheesy smile.

Isaac got hurt and Drew went straight to comfort him with big hugs.  Isaac was pleased, and the boo boo went away faster due to Drew.  Maybe Isaac is rubbing off on him after all.

So I entered Drew's room this morning at 6:15am and was immediately hit by the rank smell of puke.  I turned on the light which I usually don't do when I get him up.  He was covered in dried puke, as was his crib.  This tough guy slept in his own vomit.  He was pretty disgusted when he actually saw it though.  He was pointing and whining while I was trying to strip him down in the crib so I could take him straight to the bath.  He loves baths, so he took an hour long bath while I waited to see if more puke was to follow.  Luckily, it all seemed to be over.  He never got a fever like the other kids, and although he didn't each much most of the day (I kept him on the BRAT diet) and he stole some cuddles here and there he seemed fine the rest of the day.  I am not convinced it was the Norovirus that Genna and Isaac had since it was so fast, no diarrhea, and no fever, but I am not convinced that it wasn't either.  I stayed home with Drewy tonight while the rest of the family went to eat pancakes at the church for Shrove Tuesday.

This picture is from this evening.  While the big kids were getting their shoes and sweaters on, Drew brought me his shoes (albeit mismatched shoes) and when I wouldn't put them on he started trying to do it himself.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Our family has been officially healthy for the time being.  So we have resumed our regularly scheduled activities since Thursday.  Today the big kids went to German school which they all missed last week due to Genna being sick with such a contagious bug.  When I picked them up from school today, Hannah told me that her teacher asked why they were not there last week.  Instead of just saying that Genna was sick, she quotes her father and says, "Genna had the two bucket blues."  At this point in the conversation I die laughing.  No!  She didn't just say that to her teacher.  But it gets worse.  The teacher is a native German and doesn't know what the "two bucket blues" are and asks the girls.  No!  No, no, no.  Tell me she didn't say what I think she said.  Oh yes she did.  "I told her one bucket was for the puke and the other bucket was for the diarrhea."  Let's just say it was a struggle to stay composed enough to drive them safely.  Once I stopped laughing so hard we had a discussion about slang and colloquialisms and their appropriate use.  Brian got a kick out of this story.  No lesson learned there.

More about the little guy...almost 17 months

This little man loves to eat!  "Mom's still making dinner.  No problem, I'll just snack on this plate."

See if you can tell his wacko eye color.  Half of one eye is totally blue, but the rest is a weird mix of blue and light brown.  I don't know.  I keep thinking that when he is older he won't have a clue what to put on his driver's license for his eye color.

 So, I was looking up a recipe on the computer when I heard a kitchen drawer open.  I looked over to see what Drew was getting into to find him opening the silverware drawer, getting out a spoon, and closing the drawer.  I just watched him while he brought it back where he had already acquired a plastic bowl and transferred, by hand, his Cheerios from his snack cup (that has a no-spill lid.)  Then he sat down and started eating his Cheerios with his spoon.  This is the first time we have had older siblings that are fairly independent in the kitchen and it is funny to see him know where all the dishes are.  He even helps his sisters unload the dishwasher.

I was so amused that I had to get a few pictures of it.

Since everyone has been sick, Drew has been remarkably happy to play independently and occasionally with Hannah.  We did have to put up gates to keep him from searching out the sick siblings upstairs though.  He typically is like his dad and gets a little antsy if we are home-bound too much.  He LOVES to go in the car and go just about anywhere.  If someone is leaving without him, he carries around his shoes and coat crying while they are getting ready to leave.

His new words are "hot," "hat," and "duck."  He is definitely trying to repeat things if we really push it with him.  I have to say "Look at my mouth," because if I just say, "Watch Drew.  Say duck."  He will look at my hands expecting a sign to learn or do the sign if he already knows it.

Releasing the Prisoner

Oh, yeah!  She's free at last!

 I disinfected Genevieve last night and released her from the prison of our master bedroom, AKA the movie theater.  She was thrilled to be able to see Hannah and Drew. 

"I have so much energy, Mom, that I may scream all night long!"

They hugged about a million times in between Genna's bath and bedtime, and they whispered and giggled late into the night.

We were reading a story about two sisters that had to be separated for a journey and every time they mentioned how hard it would be, the girls looked at each other and hugged again.  So cute!

This is my life right now...still disinfecting EVERY THING!

Isaac is still in prison for at least another day, maybe more.  The girls and I got back to a little bit of school today.  Oh, and it was Brian's birthday today.  He needs a raincheck too.  Happy birthday, Honey!

I'll take a rain check. Thank you very much!

It's officially my birthday today, but I am taking a rain check.  Isaac started throwing up right after I turned off my lamp last night.  It was not nearly as bad as Genna's.  It only lasted about 4 hours.  Unfortunately, I got no sleep since he is such a wiggly, chatty sick child.  Every time I fell asleep he woke me up with a question, leg jiggling, thinking he needed to throw up again (false alarms,) him having a nightmare, or  asking when he can watch TV.  I did not even get one solid hour of sleep.  He felt much better by the morning and was rearing to watch TV.  He had been grounded from TV for about 5 days and had one more day to go.  Of course, I told him while he was throwing up I would cancel the last day of his punishment since he was so sick.  Poor guy!  I am praying the rest of us don't get sick still and that I get a full night's sleep tonight.  I am not sure I am going to make it through the whole Superbowl.  So. tired.

So, yeah.  Rain check on the birthday.

He's all mud and smiles!

We had a warm up in the middle of the week.  It went from the 20s and 30s to the 60s for just a couple days before it returned back to the cold temps and snowed again.  The kids played outside both days that were warm.  Drew was covered in mud since the ground was soaked from the melted snow.

Believe it or not, this is a smile.  In fact, it is his camera smile.  It looks like he is howling at the moon.

Again, camera smile, even though he looks like he is crying.

This looks a little more like a real smile.  Brian said he looked like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbs.

Trying on his sister's shoe and giving me that smile again.

Drew learned how to work the spoon.  I think he has known how for a while, but I kind of forgot to offer him one.  He asked for one the other day, by a series of pointing and grunting coupled with the sign for "please."  He is an excellent eater, probably too good.  I can barely feed all these kids with the size of pots I have.  I am going to have to go industrial when they are teenagers.

When the spoon gets too hard...

...he just dives in!

 Drew is saying "Bye bye" and trying to say his name.  He has the D sound down.  He is also saying "Out" and "Night night" without the T sound.  He is also using his signs better (i.e. without me asking him to first/of his own initiative) in the last few days and crying less.