Everyday Wonderful

Life is insane right now, but also it's not. There are so many moving pieces and unknowns hovering over us in this brief season that I have found myself unable to deal with more than one day (or sometimes one hour) at a time. And I think that's okay, as survival mechanisms go. Definitely not my norm--I am a planner by nature!--but it's working.

And while we weather the first trimester sickness & worry with this sweet new little babe (blogging about it here), wonder where the military will be sending us in June, and scramble to get the house ready for market by March 1st (props to Steve here! He's a powerhouse of home-sale preparation!), there is still so much life getting lived.

And the everyday wonderful has always been what keeps me going. So here's what I want to remember right now, in this crazy season when I'm hardly mothering (or person-ing) and any meal when Dad isn't home is reheated pizza, macaroni, or the ever popular "cereal dinner."

The kids are thriving. They're happy. They're finding ways to pitch in, help out, and take responsibility. They're on top of their chores (when prompted) and sometimes even clean each other's rooms. ;) (More about their individual ways to help on the baby blog.)

Every afternoon when they clean their parts of the bathroom (one does toilet, the other does counter), they do it together. There is often much giggling and goofing off, but the work gets done, and their friendship keeps growing.

Gracie often does her school-required 15 minutes of reading by reading aloud to Charlie. Charlie often speaks soft words of comfort to Juliette when she gets sad (orrrrrr throws a tantrum) and is always available to fill up her ladybug water bottle. Jules wants to play whatever the big kids are playing, and will stand with her eyes covered spouting random numbers when a game of hide-and-seek breaks out.

Now more than ever, they gravitate toward each other. If one of them settles down to draw, one or both of the others are quick to follow suit.

When we found out the new babe was on the way, we moved Squish into a "big girl" toddler bed. She calls it her "new girl bed." :) Now when I'm feeling sick (which is still pretty often), the big kids put her to bed. They sing her extra songs and tuck her in with "pink blanket," and sometimes there are belly raspberries and gales of laughter. <3 p="">

And after bedtime they all lay in their beds and talk to each other across the hall, playing games of their own making. (One favorite is "Spotlight," in which they describe a stuffed animal and the others have to guess which one it is.)

Lots of games of Spot It are getting played. Sometime solo, sometimes with sibs, sometimes all of us circled up on the carpet, elbows propped on pillows.

Less baths being taken, less laundry folded, more improvising of their outfits, less strict rules about bedtimes, more movies watched. Less vegetables, more Papa John's.

Earlier bedtimes and more naps (some impromptu) for tired parents.

We might be in survival mode--well, actually we are definitely in survival mode!--but I sure love my people.

Laundry

Sometimes I get so caught up in recording the EVENTS that I forget to record the everyday stuff. In the end, that is what is really important to me. Those are the things that fill my heart, recharge me on a daily basis so that I have the energy to keep going. Raising my babies is taking a very lot of energy. :) And I don't want to forget the simple things, the moments of our life that are, as Neal A. Maxwell puts it, "the molecules that make up eternity."

Laundry is a constant.

There is always, always, always laundry.

Big socks and little socks, and socks in between (those in-between ones are mine, and Steve claims he can't tell them apart from the kids' socks. Hmmph.). Everybody's underwear, and t-shirts long-sleeved and short (a high proportion of which are Star Wars specific). Jeans, skirts, leggings--both fleece-lined and regular--gym clothes and yoga pants. And pair upon pair of pajamas: zippered, footed, and 2-piece.

Whatever else may be swept, wiped, mopped, decluttered, tidied, or cleaned--there is always laundry.

It's not my nemesis, per say. Its definitely a battle. I do a load every weekday to keep on top of it:

Kids clothes Monday
Dark clothes Tuesday
Light clothes Wednesday
Catch up (sheets, bath towels, and clothes, rags, and dish towels from the downstairs hamper) on Thursday and Friday.

It's part of my morning routine. Wake up, scriptures, prayer, maybe a tiny bit of yoga (stretches for my neck and shoulders), get dressed, fix my hair and put on my face, make the bed, wipe down the master bath, and throw a load of laundry in the washer.

Later in the day I move it to the dryer.

By afternoon its ready to fold, but usually I don't fold it. I haven't figured out where that fits into my life yet. It's not a priority, you know? And the kids are accustomed to checking the dryer or the clean-baskets in the laundry room if they can't find something they need in their dressers.

But Tuesday afternoons I always fold, because that's the kids' folding day, too.

When I decided that I needed to drastically simplify in 2014, one of the changes I made was to be proactive about teaching the kids to help around the house, and enlisting them for regular household "contributions" like picking up their rooms, folding laundry, and sweeping the floors.

I have to give them a huge amount of credit for their [mostly] good attitudes about this. I think starting them young has helped with that a lot, but there are other things I do that help, too. I try to acknowledge that it's not fun, and that maybe I don't want to do it either--but that we do it to help our home stay clean and cozy. That resonates with them, and I am so grateful!

I've also learned to be patient.

They go at their own pace. It is slower than mine, but they are happy, and the work gets done.

They fold in their own way. It is different than mine (even though I taught them!) but they do good work.

Afternoons are a little rough on me. Not terrible or anything, but definitely the hardest, longest-feeling part of the day. My natural energy hits a valley around 2ish, and once we pick Gracie up from school the kids are on high-speed, high-volume. I'm an introvert, so that gets kind of overwhelming for me.

But Tuesdays, during laundry time, are nice.

We're all together, but we all have space. We talk and Charlie comes to give me lots of kisses as he tries (unsuccessfully) to avoid his folding.

I sit in the laundry room, on the floor, and fold into a plastic basket.

And look at the sunshine coming in through the window in the hall.

The sunshine through that window was my first indication that we needed to buy this house.

Oh I love it.

The kids take over the hall just outside the laundry room door, each with their own basket. They fold all their own clothes, and sometimes help with Juliette's.

And we fold and talk. And sometimes listen to music. And sit in the afternoon light.

And while I wouldn't say that I like laundry, it is kind of soothing to sit quietly(ish) and make order out of chaos, one fold, one crease, one stack at a time.

It is definitely one of our molecules.

Back to school.

Well.

Back to school kicked my tail.

I feel like I am just now resurfacing and clawing around gasping for air, and writing makes me feel like I'm breathing, so here I am. (Plus, Steve has been begging me to get back on our blog since I started blogging at Bright Light Forever... like... over 6 months ago. Hi love!)

I got zero pictures of first-day-of-school on the front porch, but the kids were obviously adorable and attractive, so go ahead and just imagine that. We were just a buzz of activity and I never remembered until we were all buckled in and ready to go.

There was, however, plenty of time to take poor-quality pictures in the pick-up line!

It is always a million miles long the first week of school. I can only assume this is because of the poor, bewildered parents-of-kindergarteners who are new to this routine. We just plan on it taking basically forever for the first five days, and then everything works itself out.

But before that happens, we spend a lot of time here.

Going zero miles per hour.

Sending text messages to Steve of how long the line behind us is. (And the line in front of me is way longer than this!)

And jamming to our favorite tunes (this summer the most-requested song was "Crossfire"--a throwback by Ben Kweller, Ben Lee, and Ben Folds) and enjoying the gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous (not sarcastic--actually beautiful) view of farmland by the school driveway.

While I know the first day of school is important and exciting, I don't really mind that I missed the photo-ops. We lived in them, and that was fun, but I know the things my kiddos will really remember will be things like this.

Our little daily routines all line up one after another and form the latticework of each week, month, and year. And looking back on the things I've documented so in the past 420 posts it has become really clear to me how precious these little things are. I love looking at photos of our morning routine when the kids were little, photos of them playing together on the floor, bath times and park times and dancing in the kitchen.

Knowing that our time here is ticking down (we'll be done with residency and on to the Air Force in July) has reminded me to photograph and slow down and enjoy. We love it here.

Even the pick up line.

(Well... mostly.)

Hey, summer.

Summer is here.

I feel like the last few weeks have just been this lovely descending sigh of relief. All my kiddos are home. The sun is awake earlier so it is all buttercup yellow in my room when we wake up, and it stays up later so I can sit on my bed and write or lay on the couch and read after the kids are down for the night and still have sunlight filtering through the blinds.

There is nowhere to rush off to, no timer ticking out ten minute intervals to help my big girl stay on track and be ready when it is time to leave for school. The kids stay in their beds until seven and then convene in someone's room to play. Sometimes they don't even bother to come get me up.

So I bring this sweet thing into bed and nurse her and listen to her gurgle her baby noises (Da da da da, Ma ma ma ma, Ba ba ba ba!) and watch her chew on my sheets.

Can you even believe how pretty the sunlight is? The way the light filters in through these windows is my favorite. At dusk, too:

So a cozy baby and sunshine is such a happy way to start the morning.

I had all these huge plans for this summer. We were going to keep to a schedule. I was going to take them somewhere or do something (make something, go on a field trip, etc.) every day. We were going to do big summer goals and workbooks and implement all kinds of structure and big stuff.

But it turns out that a little bit of routine has been plenty. We wake up slowly. The kids get dressed and make their beds and then take like forty-five minutes to eat breakfast and talk and giggle. I'm not sure how they make their granola last that long, but they do. And it is kind of nice that there is no rush. We do a chore together and then they get to just play. And they do. They play LEGOs and dance class and are mommy and daddy to their babies (an elephant and a fox called "Puppy") and sometimes it lasts for hours.

So now my big summer goals for them are just to keep building their friendship. To keep playing, practicing how to work things out together independent of adult refereeing (this has been a big project, actually, and they are doing great), and just to enjoy the opportunity to move at their own pace and be happy and have fun.

I was a little nervous about having all three home at once, but for the most part I am loving it. I am soaking it up. It is so good to have my big girl home and have our little crew all together. We're enjoying each other.

(Even at Costco.)   (...there were good samples this day, too.)

Juliette: One Month (well, really 6 weeks)

Juliette

6 weeks

11lbs 9oz (95%)

23 inches (90%)

Our delicious, squishy baby girl turned six weeks old on Tuesday! Thanksgiving set her 1 month doctor appointment back a little so we didn't get in for her checkup until that morning. Which just means that I get to talk about a few extra things she's picked up in these extra two weeks.

So far Juliette seems to be a pretty mellow baby. Unless she is hungry, gassy, or sleepy she is mostly very content. Even when she had her little bout of whatever-it-was yesterday (the pediatrician said it wasn't a virus/stomach flu, but she threw up after every feeding all day long!) she was happy or asleep, but never really crabby about losing her lunch (and breakfast, and dinner, and snacks).

She's got the schedule thing down pretty well, though I've been much more laid back about it with her than I was with Charlie. We'll get her on-the-clock a little more when she starts sleeping through the night, but so far I'm content with our only slightly varied routine.

At 6 weeks Juliette...

• Wears 3 month sized clothes (she outgrew her newborn clothes at around 2 weeks old), and fills them out nicely.
• Eats every 2.5 to 3 hours during the day, starting at around 6 or 7 depending on the morning. Her last feeding is usually around 9:30 or 10 at night, and then she typically sleeps until around 3am, takes a feeding, and then sleeps until her morning wakeup. Not bad! On occasion, however, she wakes up to eat every 3 hours during the night, too. We can tell when she is growing because she gets extra hungry! She is doing great with her eat, play, sleep routine and usually has waketime after every feeding now, except the 6:30 one before bedtime and the nighttime feed(s).
• Cries for about 5 minutes while she falls asleep and can nap in her crib, in the carseat, or in the pack-n-play.
• Nurses and can take a bottle (we started day one, and she practices with a bottle at least one feeding every day). She prefers to nurse, but she's cool with the bottle.
• Likes to look at windows, but loves to look at anything black (maybe for the high contrast?), especially ceiling fans. She also likes the slats on our headboard and the black Ikea bookcase.

Can you see what she is looking at so adoringly during her bottle?

• Does not like to have her arms handled. Few things make her angrier than having her arms put into sleeves. Really.
• Likes to spend her wakey time being held (she likes snuggles and also being held sitting up so she can practice holding her head up--which she also likes) or kicking around on a blanket.
• Is starting to smile much more easily! She gave her first smile to Daddy at a little over 4 weeks but she was a little withholding (except for a few she gave to the ceiling fan). After a few weeks of practice she smiles at us multiple times a day and is starting to coo and chat at us, too. It totally melts us.
• Is holding on to her most prominent nickname of "Squish," and also gets called "pretty baby" and "Jules" in addition to her real name. Gracie likes to call her "J" and "Sissy," but Charlie almost always calls her Juliette--he probably uses her real name the most out of all of us, which I find really cute.

We love playing with her and holding her, snuggling her while she sleeps and trying to coax coos and smiles out of her when she is awake. She is one of the most frequent topics of conversation around here. :)

The sibs are adjusting pretty well, though they both are struggling a little with having Mom & Dad's attention more divided than before. But they love baby sister. Charlie likes to talk to her and tells me things like, "Juliette likes me!" He's not as interested as Grace was at his age, but he definitely likes her and finds her interesting. Gracie likes to be very involved in taking care of her sister and asks to carry her (we let her carry her small distances, like from my arms to the changing mat or from one parent to the other), unsnap her for diaper changes, feed her, and anything else she thinks might be good to do. She even made us this "baby chrt" (based on the behavior chart she has at kindergarten, with purple being the highest "excellent" rating) to track how well each of us do at taking care of the baby:

As you can see, we got a LOT of check-pluses, but Gracie was ranked highest for good baby care, followed by Daddy, with me coming in third. Charlie gets a green, which is still very good. And Juliette got the lowest score for caring for herself, which seems appropriate at this point. (I agree with the yellow, though, since she sleeps pretty well at night and is generally cute/happy/fun.) I love the things big sister comes up with. :)

Dixie Classic Fair

Every year before the Dixie Classic Fair comes through Steve and I talk about how we should go. And every year we've managed to miss it--until now!

In the weeks before Miss Juliette joined us we tried to do some extra fun things with her big siblings--kind of hoping to fill them up with love and affection to tide them over as we all adjusted to life as a family of five. One night we took them on a "family date" to eat dinner at Costco and dessert at Frogurt (our favorite frozen yogurt place--there are a surprising number of FroYo places here...). And one Friday after work Steve came home and said he wanted to take Grace to the fair.

I was laying pregnantly on our bed feeling heavy and huuuuge and kind like a beached whale, and I really, really wanted to go but I literally didn't know if I could walk for that long! (This seems so pathetic/embarrassing to me now that I can actually walk again, but it was so legit at the time.) Steve was looking at Charlie and thinking how much fun he would have, too, but neither of us was sure Steve could wrangle both kiddos at a fair solo. So I decided to just give it a shot--and I'm so glad! Look how HAPPY Charlie is!!

We started out by checking out the animals (the barn fulllllll of chickens totally creeped me out. I couldn't even walk the full circuit before I got out of there). I talked Gracie into waiting for the pig races with me, and Steve and Charlie headed to check out some construction equipment. I love the pig races (they compete for an Oreo, and they are tiny and fast and adorable) and I was really excited that Gracie loved them, too. She got really into rooting for our zone's assigned pig, and he (or she?) won every heat! She was pretty stoked about that.

The kiddos really really PRETTY PLEASE wanted to ride some rides, so we got some tickets (and a nice man gave us his extras, too!) and let them go on a bunch of them. Charlie really dug this truck ride (though he wouldn't sit in the cab!) but their favorite by far was a firetruck that went way up high and then dropped down--over and over. They rode it twice, even knowing their tickets were limited. :)

There were a bunch of tractors and backhoes and stuff sitting out trying to lure people into renting them. No one was sitting with them, and they were big and shiny and beautiful--the apple of Charlie's eye. I don't know if we were supposed to put our kids on them or not... but Charlie sure gave us some good grins from the driver's seat. (AND figured out how to honk the horns and turn on the blinkers on his own...)

And speaking of apples! My big treat was a carmel apple (I am such a sucker for carmel apples!), and we got the kids candy apples with sprinkles, too. They were, as you can imagine, in (a very sticky version of) heaven. We made sure to get photos of the three of us chowing. Here is adorable Charlie with an attractive, pregnant me noshing in the background, for example:

I love the intensity in Gracie's eyes here:

Look at those baby blues. Don't you just want to buy him another apple?

Family of Five

On Tuesday Juliette will be four weeks old! The days (and nights) have passed in a mostly-lovely blur--having three kiddos is definitely different than having two!--and we all love having our squishy baby around.

We were incredibly blessed that Steve was able not only to take his scheduled week off (we had set it up to start on our due date) but also got the days of and following Juliette's induction off, too. His scheduler (who I seriously want to bake a cake for or something) moved a few shifts around so he could be at the hospital or at home with us for almost two weeks. I was so thankful to have him there!

The first couple of weeks at home were spent in the newborn haze--we were exhausted but also in love, so night feedings and fussy evenings were outweighed by the hours when our girl would fall asleep on our chests. Is there any better feeling than having a baby fall asleep in your arms? We have been drinking it up.

I was surprised to have a severe case of the baby blues for about the first ten or twelve days. I felt anxious and sad and hopeless, and then angry and frustrated because I didn't want to feel anxious and sad and hopeless when I was home with my brand new little one. I cried--hard--every day, at least once. I was so thankful to have Steve home--he was incredibly sweet and supportive (and reminded me that this was a totally normal hormonal twist) and was always on board to help take care of the big kids.

And we also got a lot of nice family time--lots of snuggling, resting, and the occasional walk up the street. Steve and I watched a lot of George Gently on Netflix during feedings. :) And when we felt brave we ventured out with baby girl--she went to the pumpkin patch with us to choose carving pumpkins, and sat in her stroller dressed as one of those charming squashes while we took the big sibs trick-or-treating for Halloween.

Though they were confused as to why I spent several days in bed once I was home from the hospital, Grace and Charlie both seemed happy to have us home. Gracie has enjoyed snuggling on her sister and feeding her bottles (just like she did with Charlie! How can that have been so long ago!?), and Charlie likes to lay down next to her or put his face up by hers and talk to her about dump trucks. And then he turns to me and says, "Juliette can't answer. Babies are still learning."

Lucky for me my tender heart was mostly healed up by the time Steve went back to work, and I am actually pretty surprised how natural having three feels. I mean, I am still way behind on folding laundry (and okay, pretty much everything else in my life, too) and I have yet to leave the house alone with more than one kid, but we're getting into a good groove at home, and I know that once the kids are feeling secure again and I'm getting more sleep things will even out a little more. We're still working out the kinks, but I'm confident that things will settle into place. *phew!*

My first day home solo with all three!

Juliette herself has been so sweet and so fun. We love that her hungry giggle-cry sounds just like Gracie's did when she was a baby. We love her wide blue eyes and her soft, soft skin and stroking her baby hair. She likes to be held and gets very calm when you cradle her head against your chest, and she can't bring herself to cry when someone is walking her down the stairs--the bouncing is just too soothing. She likes to be held over our shoulders and have her back patted and she still gets hiccups at least once a day, just like she did when she was in my stomach!

She is mostly pretty content, too, so far. She cries ferociously when it is time to be fed, but once her tummy is full she is mostly happy to look around on a blanket, snuggle in our arms, rock in her swing, or fall back to sleep.

I've gotten her onto a pretty consistent schedule--she eats every 2.5 to 3 hours, starting around 7am--with her final evening feeding around 9:30. We feed her a pumped bottle before bed so we can make sure she gets all her tummy desires before we put her down. Some nights she wakes every three hours to be fed in the dark, too, but other nights she won't wake up until sometime between 2 and 4am. Which means I get 4 or 5 consecutive hours of sleep! Hooray! She also eats much faster than her siblings, which is a huge blessing (especially in the middle of the night!). Grace and Charlie both took 40 minutes to an hour to feed for at least the first month, but Juliette rarely takes more than 30 minutes--and that includes a diaper change in the middle and a burping session. Clearly I am a fan of this!

There is something very special and lovable about her. Part of it, I think, is that she feels so much like ours--our whole little family's--and it is nice to have all four of us love her so much. It draws us together even more.

And part of it is her sweet self. When she was in my stomach she was always moving during the day, almost like she was always letting me know she was okay. During Gracie's and Charlie's pregnancies we had at least one incident each when I couldn't feel them moving for a long time--long enough that we prayed and I drank caffeinated stuff to get them bustling around again--but Juliette never let me worry. The moment I even had the slightest bit of apprehension about her being okay she would wiggle or flutter--every single time. So even though she hasn't smiled yet (Steve and I are both so soooo excited for her to smile!) I feel like I know a little piece of her soul already.

I love seeing her in her room! Every single time! 

We are so happy to have this pretty little girl (who has, by the way, been nicknamed Squish because she is just so squishy and yummy--Charlie will say, "Oh, don't cry Squish!" and Gracie heard her squeaking on my lap today from the other room and called, "Oh! Is Squish down here?!"). The wait to get her felt long, but the days since she has come have felt so quick! And she was most definitely worth the wait.