Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Yikes!

I can't believe it's been so long since I've posted. Man, time really flies by during the holidays. I'm busily cleaning the house today because a group of friends is coming over for a craft night. I've never met any of them before so I guess it's a stretch to call them friends just yet...Chloe's asleep for the moment so I better get back to work! Hopefully I'll have something more of interest to report tomorrow.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

I can't take it anymore!!

Oh why, oh why can't people just keep their mouths shut sometimes???

Apparently going from 2 to 3 kids enters some other realm in the public mind. Every time I go anywhere someone says to me, "You have your hands full!" I've managed to smile along thus far, but last night I almost reached my breaking point. We were heading into a local craft store. I had Blaine and the baby in the double stroller and Claire was walking alongside. Everyone was happy at the moment-no fits of crying (them) or screaming (me). As we headed in the automatic door (no crazy finagling with a regular door), a group of women walked out of the store. One of them looked up, saw us, and said "Oh good Lord in heaven!!" It took everything in me not to slap her in the face right then and there!!! Instead I smiled-at least I tried to...but then again I don't really know, it all happened so fast. In fact as I think back on it, I was so shocked that someone would say that to a complete stranger that I likely gave her a "What the hell are you talking about??" look. You know the one where you pull your head back in disbelief and turn your head from side to side thinking surely she's talking about someone else! You'd think I had 8 kids with one hanging off of each of my limbs with the look she had on her face.

Maybe I'm looking more haggard than I realize...

Sunday, November 19, 2006

2 months already?

It doesn't seem possible that it's been 2 months already. In fact, it was almost this exact time of night that we headed off to the hospital. Claire cried as we drove off but was quickly distracted by Grandma with cinnamon rolls made in her Easy Bake Oven. Today was nice with Jeff off. It's hard to squeeze a whole weekend into one day, but I'm thankful for every minute I have with him. We're busily planning our Thanksgiving feast, our first alone. Thankfully, Jeff's day off was switched to Thursday so he'll be home to help cook.

Here's a picture of our baby from today, her 2 month birthday!

Friday, November 17, 2006

on parenting and other such thoughts

I think one of the things many parents struggle with is admitting when they aren't the best person for the job. When I say job I don't mean parenting as a whole, but rather the issues that come up day to day. I guess we somehow think that it equals admitting defeat. But that is equating parenthood to some kind of game where winning is involved, and that you as the parent should be winning. I see (at least) two problems with this:

1. Parenting is a lifelong endeavor full of ups and downs with few tangible rules. Every game I know of has an exact beginning and end with definitive rules of play: how points are gained, directives of which path to take, how to determine the winner, etc. This model simply does not seem to fit parenting. There are days when I wish it did, when things could be so cut and dry. But indeed they are not.

2. We've already established that it's not a game with a winner and all, but if there was a winner...should it be you?? NO! It should be your children. And we all know that deep down, but maybe it bears repeating now and then.

So, no winner = no defeat That can be a load off your shoulders if you let it. Some of the issues where I see this happening are: whether or not to home school, whether or not to stay at home, . You really have to take a look at yourself and know your assets and your weaknesses. Maybe we don't want to take that long and hard of a look at ourselves because we're afraid of what we'll discover. But in the end if you take the time to do this, your kids will be much better off.

This brings about another thought. We each are individuals (duh!), so why do we look at other people for comparison of how we should act or progress through life?? Just because Sally down the street homeschools all eight of her extremely bright and well adjusted kids does not mean that you should feel guilty about sending your kids to school. I surely know that I could not homeschool Claire. I don't know yet about my younger two. Sometimes I feel a little guilty about that, like maybe I should be able to homeschool her. After all I did teach junior high math for 5 years. But when I look at it honestly I know that I do not have the right personality for that. There are many things that I feel completely capable of teaching Claire, but I just don't think academics is at the top of that list. Yes, we work on those things. But there are so many things she get stuck on and I don't seem to have the right words to "unstick" her. Plus, there are so many things that I have full responsibility for that it's refreshing to let go a little and see how she flourishes with someone else's instruction.

Well these are my thoughts for today...I don't want to sound preachy or anything...just putting thoughts in writing and seeing what happens. It's almost Thanksgiving! How I love the holiday season.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Being Thankful

I picked up my daughter from school yesterday and she said they talked about being thankful (actually I think it came out thanfkul...so cute!). I guess they went around the circle with each child telling things for which they were thankful.

She said, "I am thankful for Hannah, the cat and my Daddy and Mommy...(pause)...because she makes me popcorn!"

I know from the adorable look in her eyes that she loves me for far more than my popcorn, but it was a very classic Mommy/daughter moment!

Her is one of my favorite pictures of Claire alone. It was almost exactly one year ago that Jeff took this-one of those moments that happens by accident because you'd have to be a professional to create it.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

He knows us by our drinks...

I've always said kids understand a lot more of the subtle things in life than we give them credit. Here's an example of Blaine doing just that!

Blaine loves opening and closing the fridge, over and over again. He discovered the Capri Suns yesterday and has been begging for more ever since. I only let him have juice now and then-if you had to change his diapers after sucking down all that sugar, I mean juice, you would limit it too! So today he was nosing around in the drinks and he held up a diet drink and said "Dada!". I said, "Yes, that's Daddy's drink" wondering if he really knew the difference or if it was a coincidence. Then he help up a "regular" coke and said "Mama!". Ok, question answered...he does know the difference and he was spot on! Silly little guy.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

hanging out

It's so nice to know Claire and Blaine love their baby sister so much. I had set Chloe down on the sofa and they just had to sit and snuggle with her. I know there are many years ahead of snuggling in this very spot!



If you ever want to see a bigger version of a photo, just click on this small version.

On the call front, well it still stinks. We're on the second half of another night of call. That means Jeff will get home earlier than normal but will be so tired he'll have to sleep at least a couple of hours. After that he spends time with us all, so that's fun to look forward to.

Monday, November 13, 2006

Deep thoughts with Crisanne

I've been staying home with my kids for 4.5 years now. Prior to that I taught junior high math. I had our first child in September of my last year of teaching. I took about 9 weeks of maternity leave and then finished out the school year. Claire spent her mornings with one of her grandmothers and her afternoons with Jeff-he scaled back to half-time to avoid putting her in day care. That summer we moved about 6 hours away from our families so Jeff could start medical school. We decided it was best for me to stay home rather than move to a new city, start a new job, and put Claire in day care all at once. I am so thankful we made that decision. I love being home with the kids. I know what it's like to work all day out of the house and I know how much help Jeff was in taking care of dinner and the house during that year. There was no way we could have shared responsibilities once he was in school though. The studying kept him busy day and night. Some weeks it was all I could do to get him to stop just to eat meals. Now that residency has begun and student loans are no longer attainable, we really need more income. With the baby due in September, I couldn't really look for a teaching job here this fall. So now the questions become...how will I make some money without having to put it all in to day care? do I want to teach again? can we keep our house/family together if I'm working full time? what could I do that would be part time or can be done at home with 3 kids?

On the note of teaching...I was watching this show about people teaching cooking classes and one of the men said something that really made me think. I wish I could remember his words now, but it had to do with finding your passion and it will be fun to teach it to other people. What I got from it is I enjoy teaching and working with kids, but maybe math is not my passion. I know for some math (or history or whatever) is just the vehicle to reach the kids, but with standardized testing and all the stress with it, I think I lost that sense of passion. Am I making any sense here?

These are some of the thoughts bouncing around in this head of mine. I'll let you know if I come to any kind of conclusion.

Friday, November 10, 2006

call stinks

It's a necessary evil of my husband's job, but I still say that overnight call just stinks. I know many people's husbands travel frequently or are away in the military, and I'd deal with those situations if I had to. But it never seems to fail that at least one of the kids has problems in the night when he's away. In fact, this is supposed to be Friday's post. I was interrupted last night at 10pm with Claire calling for me-she was barely hanging on to the edge of her bed...about to hit the floor. I got her tucked back in when Blaine started crying. He'd fallen asleep super early on the sofa and I transferred him to his bed around 7:30. I was right in the middle of feeding the baby so I put her down in her bed crying for more milk, closed up around the house, and plopped Blaine in my bed. He snuggled happily while I finished feeding the baby, but when I layed her down to sleep he couldn't settle down to sleep. Nothing a little Charlie Brown Great Pumpkin couldn't fix. He finally settled down and fell asleep diagonally across the bed and stayed there until 7:15 this morning. If only the baby could sleep so long...

Jeff comes home today and the house is well...not so pretty. So off I go to do some quick cleaning up. On a better note-He's off tomorrow all day!!

UPDATE: Yes I did read over this post, after I published it. I do realize there are far too many he's and him's and settle downs and go to sleeps, etc. You see I was just so tired when I wrote this. And even though it says I posted this on Friday, I didn't actually publish it until Saturday...

Thursday, November 09, 2006

True Love

Does it get any better than this??



True love at its best!

Happy Love Thursday everyone!

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

In the name of science

Sometimes I wonder if it's really worth all this...

So yesterday (Tuesday) started as a fairly harmless day. At 9 I called to get the baby a doctor's appt. to check on her cheeks-she has baby acne that could rival any teenager out there. I wanted to be sure it wasn't getting infected or something. The nurse said they could see us at 11 which was great. Plenty of time to get everyone dressed and fed and out the door by 10:30, but also time to get to Blaine's 1:00 appt. with the child study center. You see I signed up the kids to participate in studies conducted by the psych dept. at a nearby university. You know, things like telling the child where you hid a toy in another room and then showing them a video of you hiding it in another place...which one will they believe? So the day was shaping up ok. Of course it was raining, which is no piece of cake when loading and unloading 3 kids, but I thought 2 stops, not too bad...silly me!

We made it out the door, loaded up, and pulling out of the driveway by 10:30...great! It was barely even raining at that point so I was especially thankful. The doctor's visit went well enough. Just a terrible case of baby acne-a little lotion, but not too much, just wait it out, basically. I even managed to sneak in flu shots for the older two. Wow, I was making good progress! On the way to the university, we grabbed a bite to eat. A little bribe I made with Claire so she wouldn't whine while waiting for the nurse to come in with the "pinch". That's what she calls it. Guess our nurse in TX must have always said, "Just a little pinch and we're done!" or something like that. So we ate our meal, if you can call fast food a meal, and waited in the parking space for the girl from the study center to meet us outside. They meet you out there to give you a parking pass and take you into the building. It was raining constantly now. Not a downpour or anything, but still very annoying.

She explained the studies to me-in one she would read him a book, teach him the name of one of the animals, and see if he seemed to learn it, in another she would place him in a room full of toys, a live hamster, and a live fish and see which one he went to first. He was a bit apprehensive at first after all he'd fallen asleep in the car in between the appointments, so they decided to try the toys room one first. They let me go in with him but alas all he did was hug my leg. He's not usually my shy one, that's my daughter's role, but on occasion he pulls out the shy card. What impeccable timing! We gave up on that one and moved on to the other study. She read him a pop-up book of animals several times and then taught him the name of the parrot. Then she used several other pictures and toys of parrots and flamingos to see if he learned which one the parrot was. I'd say it was pretty inconclusive. Sometimes he's grab the right picture or toy, but mostly he'd just stare at them. I wanted to say make the sound effects for him, he remembers that much better than names! But I guess that might mess up the data. A fairly uneventful experience, but he is just 22 months after all.

With that behind us, we loaded up the car once again. But guess what? The car wouldn't start. I'd turn the key, but all it could muster was this click, click, click, click sound. To make matters worse, my cell phone was completely out of battery. I tried the usual things: turn off everything-radio, heater, wipers, etc., pleading prayers, hitting the steering wheel, NOTHING was working. So I packed us back up again and headed back into the building. Thankfully I had the charger with me so I parked us all by a plug and paged my husband. He was super thrilled to leave the hospital to come get us (note the sarcasm here) after all he's only working in the NICU this month. By the time we moved all the carseats into our Mazda-that was a fun experience all on it's own-it was nearing 3:00. I knew the baby would wake soon and realize she'd gone an extra hour since she ate and Jeff thought he'd be finished around 4:30 or 5 so we decided to stay in town and play at Barnes and Noble instead of driving the 30 minutes home.

Ok, I'm really trying to shorten this story...I promise...but we're only getting started. The kids played well at the book store as I fed the baby. Of course Blaine filled his diaper-and I do mean filled-announcing "Ewww, poo-poo!" to everyone in earshot. And of course all the supplies are in the other car. So we loaded up the stroller and walked down to CVS. Yes, it's still raining...it rained the ENTIRE day...but we were under cover most of the way. Then it was back to the car, load up the baby and Claire, and toss Blaine in the trunk to change his diaper. Thankfully we have a hatchback so it shielded me from most of the rain. Meanwhile (about 4:10 now) Jeff calls, just about 30 minutes more work then off to get a new battery. So we finish loading and head back to the hospital. Well, 30 minutes turned into about 1.5 hours. I drove the kids around town again and again and finally at 6 he was finished. We HAD to vote, after all we do live in VA. So we voted, went home to grab some dinner and feed the baby again. Once we'd recharged our batteries-no pun intended-we headed out for some jumper cables and a battery. We got the cables hooked up and the car started right away. Yea!!! We headed home one last time and arrived around 9:15. We got the kids dressed in pjs and in bed and Jeff began watching the news shows and checking his favorite web sites. What a day!

And so I ask again...was it really worth all this, in the name of science???

Saturday, November 04, 2006

mmm chocolatey goodness!

Here's a recipe I tried today. It is absolutely fantastic! So yummy and rich with dark chocolate.

http://www.verybestbaking.com/products/chocolatier/recipes/detail.aspx?ID=137779



Have a glass of milk ready and waiting...

Friday, November 03, 2006

all tuckered out/Tip of the day

We've been passing around a cough/cold this week. I'd given my son some medicine which knocked him out as evidenced by:



Poor Hannah (the cat) is so starved for attention that she let him stay there at least 20 minutes!

Now for the tip of the day:

If you find you don't have any of those cool medicine syringes or droppers on hand try this cool idea:

Measure the medicine with the appropriate measuring spoon, poor into small glass (for me this was a shot glass-I know, great mom), let child drink medicine through a straw. Bear in mind I was giving my son that yummy tasting Amoxicillin, not some foul tasting cough medicine. Yes, my little guy has an ear infection, again, despite having tubes in his ears...

Thursday, November 02, 2006

Love Thursday

There's a group of bloggers who post a picture or story every Thursday that demonstrates love. Here's my contribution for the week:

Love is...



Walking as slowly as I can to this, my own special oasis, to check the mail all by myself.

You see, "alone time" is a bit of an anomaly to me right now.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Halloween fun!

This is how we started the carving fun:



Which graduallly became this (note the little guy now on the table):



And then:



And finally:



Note how much better my husband's (the big pumpkin) is than mine. In my defense, mine was too small to work with very well. So much for trying to a few bucks!

Things have been pretty crazy here, hence the hiatus from posting. It is November now and I am joining the ranks and trying to post every day, even if just a short note. This wasn't my idea...honestly I can't remember where I read about it. It was one of those times when you're reading one of your favorite blogs which leads you to a link which leads you to another link...you get the idea. Anyway there is a movement in the blog world to try to post every day in the month of November. So I figure I'll give it a try. Especially now that I've gotten the pictures to work. It seems every good idea I've had lately involved pictures.