21 Weeks

I have been having a hard time keeping up with my blog lately mostly because of this cute guy.

He's such a good baby, but since I had the bright idea to stop nursing him at night a month ago we've been having some bad nights. Not all nights and not super bad nights, but they are just frequent and hard enough to keep me perpetually exhausted. I really kind of regret it, but I don't want to go backwards when I really don't think he needs it. I have to say this is one of those times when I am at a loss as what is causing it and how to fix it. I know he isn't hungry because his days are always the same (nursing 6 times from 5:30/6am till 10pm)and he is not dying to eat when I get him in the morning. Occasionally he poops in the middle of the night still, but so far I have caught this because I know when he doesn't poop all afternoon/evening that it is possible. Those are the times I send Brian in for a diaper change. When Brian puts him back down, he usually doesn't cry at all and goes right to sleep. Otherwise, I am just letting him cry himself back to sleep without going in there which takes less than 10 minutes most of the time. (I do check him on our video monitor.) For this I am thankful, since on these bad nights he wakes up 2-4 times. Like I said, not horrible since the amount of time he is crying is short majority of the time, but it is frequent enough to totally disrupt my sleep. He'll sleep through the night for 4 or 5 nights and then wake up a lot for 2 or 3 nights.

I have also tried Tylenol at night in case the teeth are bothering him. I put tons of diaper cream on in case I miss the poop, but I have yet to do so. He is swaddled in the Miracle blanket still with a sleep positioner (seems to help keep the swaddle on since he can't move around) in a Moses basket that has been propped up. I also have a humidifier going in his room now. I would have thought it was the recent sickness causing his waking except for the fact that he slept through the night better the whole time he was sick. Now he is better with a little bit of a runny nose and an occasional cough, but it really is significantly better than when he was sleeping through the night. Time will tell. What I do know is that these things come and go and this too shall pass. He will eventually sleep through the night more consistently. In the middle of these phases it always seems like it will last forever, but it won't. Perspective. Perspective. Perspective.

Drew is screeching and squealing and grunting all the time. Noisy guy for our family. Remember I am not a fan of noise. Isaac and Genna were quieter, but I can't recall if Hannah ever did this noisy thing so young.

His favorite toys seem to be the ones he can hold the best and chew on. He loves to chew on blankets too. The excersaucer is the place of choice this past week. He doesn't last long in the Bumbo seat or the Jumperoo. Possibly because he drops his toys too much.

At bedtime, when I am reading him a story he has been playing with the pacifier, but as soon as he gets sleepy he drops it and turns his head away from the book. Since he was sick, I was rocking him to sleep a bit, but mostly this is because he has been so tired that he falls asleep very suddenly. One minute he is moving around and fussing the next he is out, usually before I finish praying with him. I do not think this will become a problem since he is not in a deep sleep when I lay him down and zip him up in his swaddle and he opens his eyes and looks around a minute, then quickly goes back to sleep. If he doesn't fall asleep during our short (~5-7 minute) routine then I still lay him down awake and he is happy to fall asleep on his own.

He found his feet a couple times this week, but isn't super fascinated by them yet.

Another perfect age

Brian caught up with me today and is 33 also. Happy birthday to a wonderful husband and father! Marrying him was the best choice I ever made. Without him I would not have these four precious babies. I would never have been to Europe or possibly anywhere besides Texas. I would be less adventurous and less self-confident. I would not be as strong as I am today. I wouldn't even be Catholic I am sure. I love you, Brian!

The perfect age

Well, another birthday has come. Since turning 30 a few years ago, I started dreading birthdays, but in light of recent events in my life that have caused me to take stock of my life this year I feel differently. I still wish time would slow down. These precious kids are growing up way too fast! I am feeling much more thankful for this birthday than I have in the last few years. I am very thankful for my family and for every moment God has given me with them.

I was blessed with some sweet home-made crafts from my daughters. Hannah made me a paper butterfly with a balloon taped to the end filled with Reece's Pieces (my favorite candy) and gum. Genna made me one of their famous bottle cap dolls which I haven't posted about yet. The girls collect bottle caps and have started making bottle cap dolls out of them with recycled material they confiscate from around the house. Their grand plan is to sell them and give all the money they make to the poor. Sweethearts!

Here it is, made with pipe cleaners, paper, tape, and a bottle cap.
Sorry for the poor picture!

Brian gave me a gift card for a massage and some coffee which was very thoughtful and a much needed mini vacation. It's funny because all the birthday cards I got in the mail had a similar theme to them. Relax. Take time for yourself. I got the message loud and clear and even though my birthday was a "normal: hectic school day (add in baking and making valentines cards for a party,) with my massage gift card I see a day in the future when I will get to do just that. Thank you friends and family for all the warm wishes!

My husband surprised me with a late birthday dinner Friday night after the girls' basketball game with all the kids and a surprise visitor, Uncle Frank, at Macaroni Grill. It was a nice dinner and the kids made it through despite the late hour for them. Hannah was exhausted though and didn't even have the energy to eat some of my birthday dessert. Drew fell asleep during dinner, just a little later than his normal bedtime. Everyone was too tired even for stories by the time we got home. We all just fell into bed.

Drew's well check and 20 week update

All was great with the chubby, smiley boy. He weighed less than he does on our scale. Usually the opposite is true, he weighs more once we get to the doctor. He weighed 18.1lbs (19lbs on our scale) and measured more than 25 inches. I guess I wasn't paying very close attention and they didn't write it down for me. Oops! Looks like he isn't quite as big as Isaac was after all.

He has a little artery on the bridge of his nose that they are going to ultrasound, but I am not exactly sure why. Something about pressure and bones closing. I'll update after I get that ultrasound done. I'm sure it will be fine though.

Drew tries to eat his dad's Pathology book while he was studying.

Drew is getting better at manipulating things with his hands. He can grab and get anything in his reach, including the doctor's stethoscope. :) He's been grabbing at my food and other things.

His appointment was on the 24th, but I am just now getting around to posting due to quite a few issues. The first was my husband's email account (the one linked to my blog) was hijacked, and I couldn't sign in for over a week. Then I had some major catching up to do, but I have been consumed with family and with getting back on track with school. So here we are on the 31st. A few weeks have gone by since an update on Drew. So he is now 20 weeks old! Wow, where did the time go?

He got a bit overly tired the week of the funeral from all the traveling around in the car and staying out later than normal. (He was a terrific baby during the whole week, being passed around and giving easy smiles to everyone.) So he recovered over the following weekend, sleeping extra. Then the night disruptions began. He had been sleeping through the night, and then he started waking a lot. We had some pretty rotten nights and just when he started sleeping through the night again, he got sick. Isaac first came down with a fever, runny nose, and a nasty cough. Three days later Drew started with the cough. He hasn't had much of a fever, thankfully. Oddly enough, he is sleeping okay at night so far, but his naps are very short because the cough wakes him up. He's actually been sleeping until 6 or 6:30am in the mornings which has been nice even if it doesn't last. Even sick he is fairly smiley, not as much as usual though.

He has no new amazing feats, but he is doing something new. He is biting me when he's finished nursing sometimes. All of my babies have done this a few times, but he is doing it a lot. I am trying to pay attention and catch him before it happens. He looks innocent enough, doesn't he?

Absent-minded Professor

Genevieve is one of those absent-minded professor types in that she is super smart, but loses things constantly and gets words mixed up. The former quality comes from her dad who is ever in search of his lost glasses, wallet, or keys. (Love you, Honey!) The latter quality comes from my side of the family, passed down from many generations, and though I don't like to admit it I let the wrong word out from time to time and get teased by my genius of a husband. In fact, I made a rather embarrassing word mix up on our first date that I may tell you about some day.

Back to Genna. Genna was telling her Mimi, a fellow word mixer-upper, on the phone recently what books she was reading. Can you believe she is reading a book about the "Kivil War," also known as the Civil War? When I reminded her about the "ci" phonics rule, she changed her pronunciation to the "Silver War."

Recently we had Little Caesar's for dinner. I got some Crazy Bread, and Genna asked for another piece of "Scary Bread" when she had finished her pizza.

There are so many things she says that I don't remember by the end of the day. I wish I could record them all. She keeps us laughing. That's a good thing.

Father Daughter Dance

American Heritage Girls has an annual fundraiser, a Father Daughter Dance, and this year I was in charge of helping the older girls to organize it. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see its completion. When my aunt passed away, I handed over all the information in case I wasn't able to go. As it turns out I would have been able to, but the other ladies helping out sent me home to recuperate from the week. Brian took the girls though since they had been really looking forward to it.

This may be my favorite pose. They were practicing some of the dance moves I taught them. I love Genna's serious face. :)

Daddy wore a Snoopy tie!

What a lucky daddy!

Here are the two pictures they took at the dance. The first is of Genna getting crazy at the craft table.

Here are the girls getting down at the dance together.

They all had a lot of fun! I stayed home with the boys and my mom who was still in town from the funeral. We watched a movie after the boys were in bed.

A Wonderful Life

Today was Cindy's funeral. I opted to have a babysitter for the service for the girls and Isaac. I have been to some really hard funerals in my life and I was wanting to spare them the extra pain. I also wanted time for myself to grieve without having the kids to worry about. Drew came with us, of course. As it turns out, there were quite a few kids there which I didn't expect.

It was a beautiful service. There was a perfect balance of missing her and remembering her that I would hope would be present at my own funeral. The most touching part were the tributes people read about Cindy. The way each of her friends and family described her had many common words like beauty, grace, patience, kindness and humor. I enjoyed the funny stories told even though my eyes filled with tears. The tributes made me wish I had had the courage to write one, stand up, and read it.

As I thought about this later, I realized that though I am a terrible public speaker (and I mean terrible, I often laugh hysterically out of pure nervousness) I do have one outlet that has been working for me for almost 5 years...my blog. This I can offer. This I can give.

Cindy married my mom's youngest brother, Frank. My sister and I were in their wedding when I was 7 years old, Hannah's age. I don't remember much about it from experience, but I have heard many stories about how my 5 year old sister put on quite the performance pulling up her tights up and shaking her finger "No" at my mom as my mom tried to get her to stop. For some brides this would have been a disaster to have at their wedding, but Aunt Cindy thought it was a riot, retold the story, and laughed about it for years to come.

When they had three beautiful girls, I babysat for them until the family moved to Virginia. Then I just saw them at Christmas and sometimes in the summer. Their three girls were in my wedding as junior bridesmaids. It wasn't until I moved out of Texas that I got to spend more time with my aunt and uncle. We have had the pleasure of stopping in for visits on our way back and forth between Texas and Germany. The kids always loved to visit them, and not only because Uncle Frank always put on movies and gave them way too many sweets, although I am sure that helped. Aunt Cindy always had creative and fun activities for them to do. Whether it was a home-made play-dough volcano, well thought out crafts, or a spur of the moment taped on mustache.

By far the most memories we have with Cindy are from the last year and a half when we have lived close to them. Cindy and I shared a love for children and arts and crafts. We had many great conversations over the years. She was always so fun to be around and had a great sense of humor. I have always been impressed at how my uncle and her raised their three girls. They've become great young women and I am proud to have them as role models for my girls. Even better than all that Cindy was to me was all that she was to my kids. They have never had a grandmother live close by and Cindy filled the role of surrogate grandmother very well since we moved here. She and my uncle took the kids for craft days and even a whole weekend before Drew was born so Brian and I could go on a vacation alone for our tenth anniversary. During the summer that we moved to the area, while I was still in TX with the kids, Cindy would come over all day while Brian was at work and set up my whole kitchen, the bathrooms, and helped unpack much of our boxes, and she would come grocery shop for me when we first moved in. Before she got sick, Cindy came out to visit sometimes during the week when I needed help with the kids like when I had to paint the living room or go to the dentist. She and my uncle came to the kids' birthday parties and had us over for dinner all the time.

I am especially thankful for this last Thanksgiving. That is really the last time she was her usual self. She bought new serving pieces, set up the tables so beautifully, and had wonderful crafts for the kids to do that day. That was when the kids made the Indian costumes out of pillowcases. She set up such a cute kid's table for them. And then there was the Advent boxes she spent so much time pulling together for the kids. These are great memories, but they are not without the pain of realizing she is gone and it was the last Thanksgiving with her.

The whole time she was sick, I wished that I could be more helpful to her. I love through service, and it killed me that because of being pregnant, having a newborn, and homeschooling I wasn't able to help her out more. However, I was so blessed by her friends and family at the visitation and memorial services. First, one of her really close friends that flew in for the services came up to me and told me how much she loved my kids and how well behaved they were. Cindy had been so glad we moved close. She told me that Cindy had said, "This is what grandchildren must be like." She told me that I gave her a gift, that my kids were a gift to her since she never got to see her own grandchildren. I can't tell you what that meant to me. I was still thinking about this when someone else came up to me and said something to the same effect. For the two days more people than I can count told me the same thing more or less, that she loved my kids and thought of them as grandchildren. And I can't help but think that my Aunt Cindy was blessing me and comforting me even after her death. What an amazing woman and a wonderful life.

Cindy's family
My aunt, three cousins, and uncle