Feels like Tuesday

Let’s just say that this week, in terms of parenting, has been a doozie.  It seems, that for some reason, my children have a new habit of alternatingly vomiting on Wednesdays.  Someone has thrown up in my house on Wednesday (or, maybe Tuesday?) every week for the last four weeks.  Can someone please tell me what the problem is here?  Feel free to buy me Lysol and come and spray my home!

My children have been refusing to do their normal napping routine, and it is making me a tiny bit crazy.  Below is a picture of William who has raided the pantry and eaten all of his sister’s puffy treats.  He would dig to the bottom of the container, eat one, and then show off his dirty fingers.  This is how I got approximately 97 seconds to send an email on Wednesday afternoon.

In the last 48 hours I have had two firsts:  Yesterday, I had to call the pediatrician’s office to talk to a nurse to walk through the signs of a concussion because Anna pulled a ceramic lamp onto her head, and it shattered.  (she did not have a concussion.  we are thankful.  mental note:  all three of my children can quickly and easily get out of my sight and cause harm to themselves and others.) 

This is a picture of Hudson-in-demo-mode destroying my bedroom.  About 13 seconds after this, Anna pulled the lamp onto herself.  It was not a great morning.

Sissy did have a knot, but it is going down nicely.  She has recovered very well from her big boo boo.

Today, I had to call Poison Control because while I was upstairs with Anna putting her down for a nap, Hudson went downstairs (where William was coloring) . . . and, when I asked what he and William were doing, they told me “gettin’ medicine!”  WHAT?  We had recently been playing “Doctor William” and using the stethoscope and “giving shots,” but we had not discussed medicine.  ANYWAY, I FLEW down the stairs to find that the rascals had pulled a stool into the kitchen, they had commissioned Hudson to climb it (he is taller, you know) and he was trying to eat the Flintstones vitamins.  (Yes, they have a safety cap.  No, it was not on tightly.  Yes, I am to blame.  BUT, to my credit:  I am almost always doing 87 things at one time with at least one, two or three children yelling/screaming/crying/acting-like-they-are-starving in front of me and there are occasions where the phone is ringing, someone is knocking on the door, or our crazy dog happens to be barking all at the exact same moment).  The kind woman at Poison Control explained to me that toddlers like to climb.  Noted, thank you very much.  While Hudsey told me that he ate “firty” (thirty) vitamins, I knew that was not true.  When I asked him again, he replied “one and a half,” which is probably right because they only eat half of one each per day and there are some halves floating around in the bottle.  So, after counting vitamins and calculating those numbers against Hudosn’s weight, Poison Control and I decided that Hudsey was fine.  Turns out that he would have had to have eaten 25+ to have a real problem.  I am so glad that was not the case.  And, while William was holding an open bottle of Vitamin B12, I knew there was no way my very-picky-eater would have even let one of those things linger on his tongue; and, he assured me that he did not eat anything.   Again, we are thankful. 

I used to think that being a mom would be really fun and that I would be wonderful at it.  I am realizing that while I ADORE my children, this whole motherhood thing is quite challenging.  Most days, I’m not feeling too well equipped for this craziness!  It’s a great thing they are all so sweet!  Now, if they would just sit still and take naps! ha!

And, in other news, my baby brother went back to school this week.  Isn’t he the most handsome 8th grader you have ever seen?  No braces, no glasses, and new hair cut.  HANDSOME. And, very VERY sweet.  Anna Bug loves him so!

My children are sleeping and I should be, too . . . who knows what tomorrow will bring!

september

oh, september.  for the first time in my entire life, I welcome you.  I usually hang on to every last second of the no-school summer days—kicking and screaming and digging my nails in that fall and schedules and school days are upon us.  but, this year, the thought of falling leaves and bonfires (not that we participate in many of those with toddlers, but still) and wearing jackets and cool breezes and picking pumpkins and, oh yeah, PRESCHOOL all seem lovely to me.  you see, this year, august almost ended me.  while we had a great beach trip at the beginning of the month, we came home with three sick children . . . followed by a sick mama . . . followed by 8 days of 2 toddlers with a stomach bug . . . followed by an earthquake . . . and then a hurricane . . . and no power for 48 hours (which was one of the shorter turn-around times in our area) and people driving like raging maniacs . . . followed by a fever and more vomiting for one of the boys . . . followed by lights out again, but, thankfully, back on again, too . . . and, now, here we are:  thankfully, in September.

 

And, life as we know it:  dressing like daddy.

Yay for September!

Too tired for words . . .

. . . that, and I think Aunt Katie took all of these with my camera while I wasn’t home . . .

LOVE LOVE LOVE!

Oh, those eyes!

And, a sneak peak of what’s to come (that is, if the power will stay on and people will stop vomiting.)

Sister is 10 Months Old!

I took these pictures a few weeks ago, around the 10 month mark for Little Miss Anna Banana.  It is so wild to me that she is 10 months old already!  How did we get here?  It feels like time is flying by!  Well, at least, it seems that the months fly by.  Most Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays do not fly by . . . and most days 3pm-7pm does not fly by.  But the months, yes, they fly by.  The week that I took these pictures, the boys were sick, so we were staying close to home and sister was playing with my lens cap in the big blue chair while the brothers were splashing in the pool next to her.  She is so fun to watch!

Anna has mastered sitting, rolling, and even scooting her little self back onto her rear into a sitting position.  When she first began to sit, she would do it in her crib and then cry because she couldn’t figure out how to lay back down again!  In this set of pictures, Little Miss has a boo boo on her lip because she fell trying to crawl.  Being a big baby is hard work, you know!

Today, Sister began to crawl.  I held out some snacks and she followed my hand across the room until she could grab them!  So far, food has been the only thing that has motivated her to move! 

Anna lights up when she sees her brothers, her Daddy, and her cousin Charlie.  It is so sweet!  Hudson has a special voice he uses when he talks to her, and everytime she gets up from a nap, he says in his deep-Anna-only voice with his head cocked to the side:  “Hi Booo-teee!” (hi beauty) or “Hi fweet Ting!”  (hi sweet thing) or “Hi fweet peas!”  It is absolutely precious.  Hudson will sing to Anna if she is sad, and most of the time, when I walk into the den to see who is doing what, Hudson is playing on the quilt next to Anna.  Oh, my heart!

 

This past week, we went to the Children’s Museum with friends, and Hudson was behind me wanting to play in the sand box.  He climbed up on the bench, and while taking his shoes off, he looked over at the mom who was sitting beside him with a baby in her sling and said:  “What your baby called?”  She told him (I couldn’t hear what she said), and he said “Why?” (of course!)  Then, he turned to her, and he said:  “My baby is Anna.”  It was just so dear!  Oh, how I love these boys of mine! 

Sissy loves to eat and will munch on just about anything we put in front of her.  She takes 3 bottles a day, and snuggles her lovie and plays with my hair while I feed her.  It is such a sweet time.  I don’t want her to stop taking her bottles when she turns one—I just love that time with her!   Sister LOVES her lovie—she giggles when we give it to her, and she also giggles when we cover her with her blankie.  It is so sweet!

Annabug’s hair is coming in thicker, and I’m eager to see what color it will be in the end.  I still say she will be blonde like William, but who knows!  Only time will tell!

Anna has a tad of a dramatic side as well.  She may throw her cup across the room when done eating, or scream as loud as she possibly can if you try to change her diaper.  It seems to me that she has no problem “asking” for attention, and I feel certain that her squeals are the loudest things I have ever heard.  Watch out brothers, Little Sister is going to rule the roost (at least in volume, if nothing else!)

 

Anna Kathryn is starting to chit-chat more now, too.  She will repeat sounds that we make, and at least twice a week she begs for us to put her to bed (bless her heart!)  “Ni Ni, NI NI NI NIIIII(ght)”  She has said “all done” in her own little language a few times, too.  She makes a little panting noise when she sees Dog-Dog!  And she loves to shake her head no and dance to the boys’ “tractor song” in the car—it is adorable!

Hey, beauty!

Anna chomps on everything in her path these days!  She has her top two middle teeth, her bottom two middle teeth, and I think she is working on two more bottom teeth.  This teething thing is a wild time.  She tends to cut teeth at night, and when she wakes up screaming at 2am, there are often little toothies to be seen in the morning!

Anna loves to laugh and giggle, and she is quite ticklish!  She is such a fun little love to be around.  She smiles and grins and talks and waves—it is just so much fun!  I think I say it every month, but this baby is such a JOY.  If I could have three more of her, I think I would (but don’t tell my husband I said that!)

Sister, we love you, love you, love you!

 

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In other news, I was reminded today of the verse in the Bible that says that God won’t give you more than you can bear (1 Cor 10:13) . . . within 24 hours of my power being turned back on (my parents and sister are still in the dark!) William spiked a fever and started throwing up.  I am so grateful that we are not having to care for a sick boy in the dark!  One step at a time.  One. Step. At. A. Time.

Oh, Irene!

Last week ended up being quite a week for us! We were struggling through the lingering tail-end of a week-long stomach bug (which left us with few naps, even less patience, and lots of toddler behavior) and we survived our first earthquake and then hurricane as a family! The earthquake was wild . . . we heard it coming before we felt it, and once I realized what it was, I swooped everyone up and we headed to the basement. William was very upset because he was in the basement without his shoes on (I have trained him well)! Hudson kept talking about it thunderin’ . . . we were fine and grateful for it! Hudson was the only one who woke up during the aftershock a few nights later—he told us about the thunderin’ again. Wild!

On Saturday, Hurricane Irene came through Richmond. We are all fine, and we are so grateful for that. Several homes in our area have trees down and a home that very-much resembles ours a few blocks away has a tree through the middle of it—when I saw that, it just made me sick. If that had been our house, the tree would have gone through my boys’ room. We are so thankful that we are all safe!

We saw this on our way home from my parents’ on Saturday around 2pm—and, the bad part of the storm hadn’t started yet!

On Saturday, we lost power around noon due to a tree falling on the lines in our alley. Our friends invited us over for dinner, so we threw on our hurricane gear and headed over in the wind and rain to escape the darkness!

Since Sister didn’t have a rain coat, we put her in a sweater with a hat and with a hooded towel overtop!

She didn’t mind the darkness or the rain!

While we were at our neighbor’s house, their power went out too. And, we realized we were approaching the 36 hour mark of food in our fridge. So, Hatch took a load of fridge food to a friend’s house. And, yes, head lamps are most handy when the power is out (just don’t blind your baby with yours)! He may have been less-than-thrilled that I was taking a picture of him while he was hauling food across our neighborhood at 10pm. While he was out, he saw that a massive tree had fallen on a house and that another tree was completely blocking our street. Wild!

Sunday morning brought some drier weather and we were able to survey the damage a little better. The boys were so very excited to see all of the activity going on to clean up our street!

DIGGERS!!!

This boy was barely able to contain his excitement—he was talking a mile a minute about the diggers!

Loving life!

And, this is our new favorite truck. I’m not sure what the name of it is, but it has a crane that picks up the huge trees and a dump truck bed to put them in . . . our whole family enjoyed this excitement, can’t you tell? We spent most of our Sunday driving around Richmond trying to save our food and looking for trees and trucks all around the city!

After the crazy winds from this storm, about 75% of our city was without power. Thankfully, we were able to save most of our food—I carried around a cooler with me for two days, and we had our fridge food in two friend’s homes and our freezer stuff at my mom’s (they have a small generator.) As I write this, my mom and sister are still without power! Many stop lights don’t have power, and so driving has been scary, to say the least! My husband feels very strongly that the people doing traffic updates on the news should alert drivers that we should treat all traffic lights without power like a four-way-stop. (See Hatch, I have done my duty of spreading the word and reminding people of driver’s ed!)

Our neighbors’ across the street got power back on Sunday because one of our sweet neighbors who works for Dominion (check out his wife’s wonderful photography site here) got off of his 12 hour shift and went to fix their power on his own time! Our power was said to take a while longer because it needed new poles and new lines due to the tree falling in the alley. Yesterday, our neighbor was able to work with the cracked poles and fix the line so that our lights came on . . . they will come and finish the job (new poles, etc.) later this week. We have great neighbors, don’t you think? We are so grateful for them!

Here’s to a less interesting week this week!

Happy Sugie!

Our sweet Sugie celebrated her birthday on Sunday!  Unfortunately, the Reppard crew has been under the weather (stomach bug!), so we didn’t get to see Sugie until today.  Sister (who is not sick) and I went to join Sugs and the fam—including Uncle Chrisferferfer--for a birthday dinner.  (Hudsey, the Original, may have cried about not being able to go to dinner for Sugie’s birthday—fortunately, for us, we can let the celebration continue once the boys are better!)  We had a lovely time!

Sugie, we all love you lots and are thankful for you!  What would we do without our Sugie?  I do not know!  Sugie spends most of her “free time” taking care of her grandbabies, and they adore her for it . . . and Aunt Katie and I adore her for it too!   You are special to us, Sugs!  Sugie enjoys celebrating a birthday month . . . so, Sugie, I hope it’s a great one!  You deserve it!

Charlie was most excited to see “baby” . . . Aunt Katie may have been a little excited to see “baby,” too.  Baby was excited, but mostly tired!

Kissing Cousins!

Happy Happy Birthday to you, our Sugie!  We love you so!