The Job

This job is wonderful. First off, I get an alloted amount to spend on dental/vision/health insurance before any money is taken out of my pay check. I am able to cover myself and my entire family with vision and dental insurance and get health insurance for myself out of this amount. Second, I am only working through the end of the school year (June 20th-ish) but will continue to get paid through August (not that what I am getting paid would be enough to live on quite yet). Third, I work with a good group of kids and have the opportunity of teaching almost every one of them in a small group setting at some point in the day. Fourth, one of those kids is Amanda, an old friend of Jadon's. My mom knows her mom and all that jazz. Fifth, I get to listen to an average of two chapters of Holes every lunch period. Honestly I could go on and on (and maybe sometime I will, but I need to go to the store with Mom right now). But let's just say I look forward to the day and they go by faster than any job I have had...

Worthless Post...

I really should post about my first day on the job, but I really don't want to right now. So this is me commiting myself to some future post regarding it. Hopefully that will expidite the whole blogging process, but, let's be honest with ourselves, it probably won't help...

Five Months?

Chelane is rapidly approaching her five month mark.


She rolls over. She hasn't mastered back to front, but she twists off her belly to either side with ease and expertise. She has discovered and uses her hands to a level I didn't know was possible for a small baby.* Chelane is also going through the cute stage of making loud, obnoxious, ear splitting, concentration-destroying, cute sounds. I know I have mentioned it before but she is also wearing 6-9 month clothes (and they fit now without drowning her at all).

She is so happy and getting so big but I am worried about her this month. She was born September 30th... so when exactly does she become five months old?...


*my past experience and knowledge is limited to Dallas, who at this age was: rolling, starting to sit up, bouncing for endless hours in his bouncer and had two teeth; but had no interest in sitting still and manipulating objects with his hands

Something New, Something Old...

Dallas has been reacquainted with some favorite pastimes and acquired some new, odd habits since we moved in with Grandma and Grandpa.

First, is being reacquainted with his jumper. We bought this thing when Dallas was barely three months old after I had to endure an hour of church constantly bouncing Dallas, his legs extended, up and down on my lap. The jumper lights up and plays music when you bounce in it and the first time Dallas caused that music to start you would have thought he was in heaven. He used it faithfully (mostly ignoring the activity bar) until he got too big and we had to retire it.

Chelane is now big enough for the jumper and started showing some interest in bouncing up and down, so we fished the box out of the garage. She enjoys the activity bar more than jumping, though. Apparently Dallas recognized his long lost favorite toy and helped himself...



At least it seems to be entertaining Chelane...

We have also decided that Dallas must be related to some sort of hibernating animal. It started with not letting go of a Buzz Lightyear toy, he found in Jadon's room, when going to bed and escalated to wanting every stuffed toy that was upstairs in bed with him. Then it morphed into a random assortment of "stuff" he dug out of drawers in the room he is sleeping in.


In this bed (that he had been sleeping in) are: a stuffed tweety bird, a pocket knife attached to a flint and steel, a clump of embroidery floss, a half finished embroidery project, Chee-chee (Cam's old stuffed monkey), a plastic colored pencil box, and Dallas's photo album...

For those of you cursing us right now...

Cam and I didn't stay immune from the flu bug. Neither did Grandma, Grandpa, and Jadon. In the last 72 hours since Dallas threw up, all of us have had one form or another of it (except Chelane, thankfully). If it is any consolation it seems to be a 24hour bug, although it is a particularly nasty one.

Again, sorry for contaminating all your kids (and by association, yourselves) with this virus.

We really should be cursing whoever gave this to Dallas...

Wordless Monday

Valentine's Day

Yesterday was one of the most memorable Valentine's Days I think I will EVER have! I apologize that there are no picutres with this post, but then again you are probably happy I didn't post any after you hear about the day...

Cameron's brother was coming into town with his new flame. The plan was to go out to lunch, maybe spend the afternoon around the mall, and then attend a church sponsored dinner/dance in the evening. Nothing fancy but I was looking forward to it (plus there were some clothes I needed to return to the mall, we had a gift card to the restaurant, and the church function would be free; really how could you get a better, relaxing Saturday than that?).

I will have to say I am so happy we had kids, it keeps life interesting. I am now either ready way in advance which allows me to be early/on-time to things, or we are embarrassingly late. Something always seems to come up and the only way to deal is to plan for the unexpected (which requires you to give yourself 10-20 extra minutes) and be flexible.

Two kids make this much more fun.

We were riding to the restaurant in two separate cars (having two kids also allows for only one (very small and quite uncomfortable) extra passenger in our compact car) when Dallas decides he needs to throw-up. I will spare you all the details for those with weak stomachs, but let me say there was a LOT of it. We pulled over to assess the damage and deemed it inappropriate to continue on to a restaurant. Cam stayed with his brother and company (who hadn't eaten any lunch yet) while I turned around and took Dallas home (with all the windows rolled down and the heater turned on full blast). Mercifully, Chelane fell asleep.

I stripped Dallas down to his diaper in the backyard, wiping off his hands, mouth, and neck with a clean corner of his undershirt. Grandma was nice enough to take him inside to bathe him while I hosed down (literally) his clothes and completely dismantled carseat (I took out the straps and everything). Then I tackled the small amount that leaked through the carseat onto the car seat. After coming inside I started a batch of laundry and let my frozen feet thaw out (I did all the hosing off barefoot).

We figured Dallas throwing up was a fluke. He had been sticking his whole hand in his mouth and practically down his throat the last few weeks and gagging himself (darn adventurous kids). We thought he had just gotten really bored in the car and gone all the way this time. We were still planning on the dinner/dance (and maybe a little bit of mall going). Jeremy brought some pizza to the house for lunch/afternoon snack/dinner (it was about 5pm) and Dallas ate it just fine. Ten minutes later Cam starts yelling at me to hurry upstairs.

Regurgitated pizza is not a fun sight, nor fun to clean-up, but it sure can clear seven people out of a room quickly. Cam isn't much help when kids start to chuck their cookies. He is a little empathetic and it starts his gag reflex up. I was trying to decide if I should bathe off Dallas first or tackle the carpet when Jeremy started to clean up the carpet without any provocation and I was able to bathe Dallas and start (another) batch of laundry. (As a little side note here I am SO thankful for washing machines and running water. I think episodes like this really put things like that into perspective. Since I am talking about being grateful for inanimate objects I should express love for family that helps unselfishly with things like this too!). After his bath Dallas threw up again downstairs (we caught most of it in a bowl) and he was banished to the bathroom (Grandma was tired of throw-up landing on her carpet, and really, who could blame her?).

Well we pretty much wrote off doing anything that night. The dinner was suppose to start at 6:30pm (seating at 6:15) and 7pm was rolling around. If you know anything about me you could figure that I was stressed not to mention tired. Dallas' last bout was pretty much just clear liquid and we figured his tummy was empty. He wasn't running a temperature either. He was doing a good job not throwing up while playing in the bathroom so we eventually let him out.

At about 7:30pm Cam's brother and company were trying to decide if they should just go when Grandma insisted that we all go to the dinner/dance, the dance wouldn't be starting yet anyway, and enjoy ourselves; she would watch Dallas. So we did. They were still serving dinner when we got there, so those of us that were hungry were able to eat. We even spent a few hours dancing afterwards. Cam says he has no sense of rhythem, but he is a good enough sport to dance with me anyway. We really did have a great time after all was said and done (I even was laughing, which after a day like that is an achievment for me), although I don't know how much fun Grandma and Grandpa had with Dallas.

I am so thankful for a loving and close family. And I apologize profusly to my brother's and sister's kids that Grandma and Grandpa were watching yesterday if any of them get sick. We didn't plan this, we swear!

(And incase you are worried, Dallas didn't throw up all night (and slept really well) and has eaten some toast, a tiny bit of egg, and some cheerios today with great success. Hopefully the throwing up is over.)

Rolling, Baby Clothes, and Leap Years

Saturday evening I was in Dallas' room making his bed and getting everything ready for him to sleep. Chelane, Dallas, and Cam were in the family room (just down the hall). Chelane was crying because it was her tummy time. She has no problem being on her stomach as long as it isn't for longer than a minute or two. She had been on her stomach for a while now with us coaxing her to roll over. Cam started yellng to me that Chelane had rolled over, I rushed out and immediatly and put Chelane back on her tummy. She wasn't too thrilled about that but did humor me enough to roll over again. She has stubbornly insisted on not rolling over since.

Also Chelane is now wearing 6-9 month onsies and sleepers. I also had to put her in a 6-9 month dress for church on Sunday, her 3-6 ones are just too small now. Yes, she was born September 30th, she is only four months old (plus a week or two). My little baby is getting so big. Thede larger clothes are drowning her as far as width goes, she really only needs the length.

On an entirely different note, last night at dinner Mom was asking about Friday the 13th birthdays (the question hd stemmed from the observation that we will have two Friday the 13th's this year). I knew I as born on a Tuesday (don't know why I have remembered that, but there you go) so we started counting around years and days of the week (it sure makes it easy knowing that a day moves forward one day of the week each year... I wonder why that is). I calculated that my birthday this year is on a thursday, so my 25th birthday (next year) will be on Friday the 13th. It also seems that my 75th birthday will be as well... So I am wondering if it will be on a 50 year cycle. If that is true then since my Friday the 13th birthdays so far have been turing 8 and 14, it should also happen at 64 and 58... however, I haven't tested this hypothesis yet...

I Got A Job

So for those of you that don't know, I got a job as a paraeducator with the Auburn school distirct. It is 8:55-3:55 (I was thinking it would be more part-time than that, but oh well) until the end of the school year. So Cam is going to do the stay at home thing. So *sigh* I had to start pumping again and, since I found out I got the job at 4pm on Friday and I start Monday, we haven't had much time to introduce Chelane to a bottle. The two times we have tried, she seems to take it just fine, but may need faster flowing nipples (the bottle puts her to sleep... so weird, with Dallas it was the other way around).

I still don't know exactly what I will be doing with the job, but it is money which is something we need pretty badly right now. I am a little bummed out to be leaving my babies all day but at least they will be with their dad. Oh also the school is Chinook Elementary which is down by Mucklshoot on Auburn-Enumclaw road, so a bit of a drive.

Hopefully by the end of the school year Cam will have a job with the Washington State Patrol (we mailed in the application this last week) and will be heading out to training or something like that. Although I have stopped trying to set up "best case scenarios" or "what Kassie would really like to happen" in my head because when they don't happen I get all stressed out, and that isn't good for anyone!