Zoe

Since I took that break from Blogging I have decided this is a very good way to keep track of the growth and changes my children make. That being said, I have a lot of catching up to do including the introduction of Zoe.

Zoe at birth. She had a fight with the birth canal and doctor, but that is another story!

Zoe was born in September. She is currently five months old and so much fun! She has figured out how to roll from front to back (she was doing this late two months) and then from back to front and is now army crawling around. I don't think she is satisfied with her mobility. She will pull herself up on to hands and knees. She loves playing with her siblings toys and looking at (and slobbering on) books.

Zoe around two months old.

Last night I was giving a family night out of the nursery manual. Zoe was a few feet away from me and the kids. We were all on the floor. Once I pulled out a picture and held it for Dallas and Chey to look at, Zoe started making her way over and soon was looking at the picture and gumming my knee. She really loves to be involved.

Dallas, Chelane, and Zoe a few weeks after she was born.

She doesn't take a pacifier and isn't fond of a bottle. She was fed from a bottle for a day six weeks after she was born; the day I had my gall bladder out. Luckily, she took the bottle for Cameron that day. She has discovered her thumb and, when she is really tired, will plug herself with that and drift off to sleep. Note that she only does that when she is REALLY tired and SHE has to plug herself with it, she doesn't take kindly to me trying to plug her!

Zoe and her thumb.

Now I preferred my thumb so much that I sucked mine until Kindergarten. So I am a bit worried about the thumb sucking. However, Chelane likes her binky. In fact until we lost it she sucked on it ALL the time. Even now she will sneak a Zoe binky (since they aren't being used) once and a while. Apparently they can both be addictive!

She has also started on some solid food in the last week. We have done cream of rice, cream of wheat, mushed banana (all these mixed with pumped milk) along with bread, white rice, and even waffles right off the table. She seems fond of eating like the rest of us.

Zoe on February 13th, almost five months old.

She is growing and changing so much everyday. She is such a joy to us and we love her!

Playing with Zoe

Zoe loves to be around people and dislikes being left out. Luckily Dallas and Chey adore her and usually keep her around. There are a few times that they start playing with her and then migrate to another room leaving her behind. After a few minutes, Zoe will start yelling. If no one responds that usually turns into a cry. She has been doing this since about month four (she just hit five months four days ago).

We have to talk to the two about being gentle and not making Zoe's body move, especially in painful or awkward ways. Dallas loves to carry her and Zoe loves to be carried and given the attention by her older brother; she often smiles when he talks to her and comes to pick her up.



Dallas and Chey were playing Duck, Duck, Goose and let Zoe join in. I will admit this video is staged as I was not quick enough with the camera before.

I love that even with their vast age differences, my children love playing together!

Sledding

After taking Cam up to campus, we stopped by a store to look at sleds. It is the perfect time in Logan to look at sleds 1) there is more snow on the ground this weekend than any other time since we moved here January 1st, 2) all the stores are clearance-ing their snow items to make way for spring.

We grabbed a plastic dish for $3. Went home, dressed in our snow clothes, drove back to campus where Cam took Zoe and the car back home while Dallas, Chey and I trudged up USU's east hill. Unfortunately I forgot the camera. We took turns sledding in various combination of bodies on the sled. The kids both decided they liked all three of us sledding down together best. We took a break and built a snowman - that turned into a snow angel and sled down once more before we had to head home to take care of Zoe.

Luckily we did all of this before 11am because now, at 3pm, the light snowing has turned to a drizzle and the snow is disappearing. There has been an odd amount of rain and snow this winter since we moved here. I think Logan has received more precipitation by rain than snow. We have been spending lots of time at the library.

The Many Faces of Chey

I want to remember how much of a goof and spit-fire Chey was as a pre-schooler, just in case she decides to change :)

She was potty training in these pictures with the power of her new Agent P shirt from "Phineas and Ferb," one of the kids' favorite TV shows (and I will admit I like them as well). To commemorate the beginning of potty training I asked her to smile...

Potty Training

We potty trained Chelane this last month. We started January 16th going cold turkey. We put on the underwear, bagged up the diapers, and had a talk about keeping dry.

She didn't pick up on going potty nearly as quickly as Dallas did, but she did take herself to poop the first day. We dealt with (what seems to be common) regressing with peeing the second day which she quickly fixed. We thought everything was dandy until she started regressing with pooping the second week.

With encouraging her to start pooping on the toilet again in mind, we made up a potty chart that second week that has a separate "poop" and "pee" sections . Once she filled up the first row (six bowel movements in the toilet) we went to McDonalds (her pick, whenever we ask what she wants for dinner she commonly answered McDonalds so she can, " have chicken nuggets, french fries, apples, and slide down"). Once she fills up the entire poop (12 times) and pee (36 times) she gets sticker earrings. It looks like we will be sticker earring shopping tomorrow!

She is doing great. She hasn't wet the bed at all, in fact she gets herself out of bed in order to go. Chey also has only had two accidents since she started pooping in the toilet again: yesterday when she decided candy she was eating was more important than going potty, that upset us, and a few days ago when Dallas was taking his sweet time in the bathroom and Chey really had to go, that one upset her.

It is nice to have two using the toilet and only the little one in diapers. Downside: our one bathroom is getting lots of use and the toilet needs to be cleaned often, but I'll take it :)

What Does Your Servant Look Like?

I know parenting shouldn't include sarcasm but around here, too often it does. Mostly when an exasperated Mommy meets a lazy Dallas.

The questions: "I'm thirsty (with an already filled glass just waiting for him at the table)" "I need my shoes (which are by the door like they always are)" or "Where is my ?" gets replied with a, "Go get it yourself, what do I look like? I am not your servant!"

A few days ago I started to reply with my, "You can get it, what do I look like?"
He replied very emphatically, "Not my servant!"

Christmas! (almost two months late)

We actually celebrated sometime during the first full week of January. While it wasn't a up to full Christmas standard - it was after all the first time we celebrated with just our own little family and it was right after a move - it was great for a first go.

A few days before we celebrated (and about three days after we moved in and were mostly settled) we set up the tree. I put hooks on the ornaments while the kids were free to put them anywhere on the tree. I think next year we will have a talk about balance and distribution...

As you can see there are a few clusters of ornaments. In fact, once when tell Dallas to put one on the tree I specifically said to not put it on a branch with another and to spread the ornaments out, so he put it on the branch right next to it instead

Ok, I admit it! I put some of the ornaments on the tree...

We had a nice Christmas Eve dinner of meatballs, mashed potatoes, asparagus, and corn with strawberries and grapes to finish it off and sparkling apple, peach, pear, and grape to drink. (Chey likes to call it "sparkly juice")

I have found my kids love asparagus and I am extremely happy about it.

Also note the festive tablecloth (that is still on our table to this day). I am growing leaps and bounds in homemaking/interior decorating

This is about where the story ends however. Neither Cam nor I remembered to pull out the camera Christmas morning... I told you we are still learning!

Something Dallas got for Christmas/his birthday was a bike and he enjoys new challenge (he has never ridden a two-wheeled bike before... don't get too excited, it has training wheels).

The first time it was ever ridden was to the park. I realized after we started that the way to the park is on a slight incline the entire way. Dallas had to climb that learning curve fast! Then on the way home he was given the chance to work on braking. While at the park he got some practice on the mostly flat pathway.

On the trail in the park. Chey was walking faster than he was riding.

On the sidewalk heading home, he starting picking up speed. He is still wary of going much faster than a run but he sure loves it!

You may notice the weather in those pictures looks not very wintery. We had a week or two of fairly warm, dry weather in beginning/mid January. Since then the snow, rain, cold, and wind have all shown their face and it is no longer very good bike riding weather.

"Steady Days"

We moved again and are in Logan, Utah now. Logan is an amazing city. Before we moved we heard comments like, "Logan? I used to live there, you will love it!" No one explained why we would love it, just we would. After a month we do love it, and I can't seem to explain why either. It is a lot of little things. Everything is so close. We can walk to the store, the library, the church, the transit center where we can hop on and ride somewhere further for free. Running errands takes 15 minutes total instead of 15 minutes just in travel time. I am sure there are other reasons I love Logan, but this cozy feeling is one attribute I just can't get over!

Cam's started school (the actual Computer Science coursework, yahoo!) and we are settling in at home. We started going to the library since the cold and wet weather of January made going out to play difficult most weeks. By chance I looked up some parenting books and stumbled on "Steady Days" by Jamie C. Martin. It is a small, thin book so I figured I had a fighting chance of actually finishing and applying the book.

The subtitle is "A Journey Towards Intentional, Professional Motherhood." Intentional and professional mothering is something I have struggled with since having Dallas.

Up until Dallas was born I was constantly in school or working, usually a combination of the two. I had something other than myself telling me where I needed to be, what I needed to do and my sense of hard work and responsibility (I felt guilty if I didn't do assignments to the best of my ability, I couldn't even fathom intentionally skipping class or sloughing off assignments) took care of the rest. After he was born I was suddenly at home ALL THE TIME and no one telling my what to do. I had no idea what to do with myself. I had intentions of setting specific days to clean, of always having dinner of the table when Cam got home and other "homemaker" duties. Unfortunately, I didn't. There were times it got very bad (we won't go into details, but I never left the house so I wouldn't shower until Cam told me I smelled... yeah I guess that was too much detail, huh?). However my work ethic was still there making me feel incredibly guilty, but I didn't know what exactly what I was feeling guilty for.

I only felt accomplished when I was working outside the home so I found a job and kept working. I felt I needed that something telling me what to do! After working part-time in the tutoring, para-educating, and substitute teaching realm; I finally landed a full-time teaching job! If that wasn't going to make me feel accomplished I didn't know what would! However, even while teaching full-time and being told how much I was benefiting the 150 students in my classes; I felt guilt for what my children (and, to a lesser degree, the house) weren't getting.

So what gives? I realized "doing" work didn't fulfill that guilt for sloughing off my responsibility to my children. I was a good professional educator, why couldn't I figure out how to be a good professional mother? That is why this book really caught my eye: "Intentional, Professional Motherhood."

The book has been an eye-opener. It isn't full of ground-breaking thoughts or techniques, but has given me clear ideas and methods to make being at home with my children productive and meaningful. Along with creating a "Steady Routine" the book suggests finding one thing to improve upon at a time. It is so easy to tackle things one at a time.

If I sound like you, or you sound like me, I would recommend giving this book a gander. You'll take some, you'll leave some, but I believe it will be a good experience :)