Mt. Rainier

Aaron is off climbing Mt. Rainier this weekend. He summitted 3 years ago going the Paradise-Camp Muir-Ingraham Glacier route. This time he is doing the White River- Camp Shurman-Emmons Glacier route which takes an extra day.

Living in the shadow of Mt. Rainier during high school enticed me to do the climb. However, we didn't live nearby during the pre-kid freedom days. Now with 3 little ones, risking life and limb doesn't sound so good. Maybe when the kids are older.

Summit day for Aaron is tomorrow. We'll be driving down to meet him, spend the night and do some hiking in the park the next day. Thankfully the weather is wonderful this weekend. Pray for safety and continued good weather!

I am so proud of my man!

Is this really possible???

STOP THE PRESSES!
Ethan made it through an entire feeding period with NO SPIT UP!!!

YES!

And he was very happy this morning, too, playing, talking and smiling.

Thank you Lord! What a simple pleasure of life, not having spit up all over you, your floor and the baby!

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In other news...
The other day Micah decided he wanted to make his own Baby Einstein video. He decided what music to use (Beethoven's 5th) and what toys he wanted to use. He made a list of all the toys and taped it to the wall. I was the cameraman, but he directed and starred in the show. Joel was the unintentional "co-star". Once I figure out how to upload videos I will post it here.

My Favorite Things

I've been thinking about this post for awhile. After having three babies I guess I can self-qualify myself as some sort of expert in this area. These are some products that I wish I would have bought 5 years ago for baby #1. So in honor of my two friends, Karen and Susan, who are soon to be mommies of 3, here they are...

(photo taken from website)

1. Ergo Carrier

I love love love this carrier! It is so comfy that you *almost* don't notice that your baby is strapped to you. The weight is carried on your hips instead of your shoulders. The Bjorn would tug and pull on my neck/shoulders. It gave me a headache. I even used the Bjorn Active, which has a hip support belt. With the ergo I have none of the headaches. Now, granted, nothing is perfect, but this is the best of them all, hands down!

The sitting position for the baby is more natural than the bjorn. With the bjorn they are hanging by their cr*tch. Wereas in the ergo, baby is snuggled up next to you on your chest. Ethan loves it, so much so that he can be crying and when I strap him on he goes right to sleep.

I didn't start using this until Ethan was 4 months old. Until baby has good head control you need to use an infant insert, which I didn't buy. I used a baby bjorn for 0-4 months. Even when he was that small it still gave me headaches.

When baby is older you can also wear him on your back. It also has a zipper pocket for keys and a sun shade to pull over baby's head. Did I mention that I love this carrier? It makes going anywhere possible with 3 kids. They are pricey, but what's the price of freedom? I have seen them on Craig's List too.

2. Skip*Hop Diaper Bag

I wish I would have bought this bag 5 1/2 years ago. (Can you believe Micah is 5 1/2??? I can't!) It is compact yet roomy. There is room for 3 sippy cups on the outside. There are zippered pockets that only go halfway down so you can put your wallet in there and not lose it in the bottom of the bag. It has special straps so you can attach it to a shopping cart. It can also be worn as a messenger bag... and its manly enough for hubbie to carry it too! It has just kept me organized.

I have another diaper bag made by Rowdy that I also like. It is a new company and the zipper broke, so I can't exactly recommend it.

3. Peg Perego Pliko (or P3 ) stroller

I think I wrote about this earlier. I still like this stroller immensely. Compact yet has all the features of a large stroller.

4. Nursing Shawl--Hooter Hider

If you own a sewing machine, can hem a rectangular piece of fabric and insert a piece of boning.... you could be rich! This simple item makes nursing in public SO much easier! The boning makes it easy to see baby yet covers up all the essentials.

I must add that my dear friend Sarah graciously lent me two of the four items above. THANK YOU SO MUCH!

What's your favorite baby item/gadget??

Weekend

Hope everyone had a fun fourth weekend! Friday we went to a new park that was really fun. If you are local it is a new playground at Grass Lawn. There is a merry-go-round, three boulder climbing walls, a water-play fountain and a very cool swing. Later that day we went to a BBQ with some friends and watched fireworks. Ethan's first fireworks! He loved it. Although he was more interested in watching all the people than the show. The two older boys had a good time as well. Micah even tolerated the noise pretty well! Usually he doesn't like loud noises whatsoever. Maybe he is outgrowing that now.

Today we went on a hike at Cougar Mountain and found two letterboxes. Ethan tried out the backpack for the first time. He was okay until we stopped at our first letterbox. He got uncomfortable and couldn't sleep. I didn't want to carry him the whole way without the front carrier so Aaron lovingly ran back to the car and got it for me! Ethan snuggled up as soon as I strapped him on and went right to sleep. I must say that I love the Ergo carrier. That should be a post in itself.

The area where we hiked is full of old mine shafts. We had to get a picture:

Facebook

So I finally joined Facebook. I guess its like MySpace for grown-ups? Just what I needed--more ways to waste time. I draw the line at twitter. Like anyone wants to know that I'm cleaning up after 3 boys--'cause that's what I spend most of my time doing.

In other news, looks like summer decided to come here to the PacNW, finally. It ain't called June gloom for nothing, that's for sure!

Update on Ethan

So I need to post some pictures. I just have not had time to download any pictures! It doesn't help that the amount of pictures on the camera keeps growing. I need some sort of blue tooth device for my camera where I just set it beside my computer and whamm-o they instantly appear on my computer.

Anyway....Ethan is now 7 months. He has two bottom teeth, he can sit alone and roll over both ways pretty proficiently. Between 5 and 6 months he only gained 1 ounce. He had a cold, so the doctor suspected it was because of the sickness that he wasn't gaining weight. She said to watch his reflux and come back in 6 weeks. Well after 3 weeks I had had enough and I took him in last week. He was throwing up (none of this dainty spit-up) about 5-6 times every feeding. I was changing clothes about 1-2 times a day because they were drenched, not because I got spit on once. Let's not even talk about Ethan's clothes. Sometimes as I held him, he would spit up and it would miss my shoulder and back completely and land on the floor a foot or more away. And the stains on the carpet are just lovely now that he's eating carrots and such.

In 3 weeks he had gained 6 ounces. Which is better, but not great. He's now on Prevacid, which doesn't come in a syrup form. It comes in these tablets that dissolve on your tongue, and you're not suppose to chew them. Yah, try telling that to a teething 7 month old! So I would have to split the tablet in half for his dose, which would crumble into powder. I had to guess as to how much "half" was and save the rest for his next dose. Then I had to dissolve it in water. Half would stay in the syringe and not budge. Ugh. So if you're still reading this....it was just hard.

Enter the marvelous compounding pharmacy which saved the day! We have to pay out of pocket for this service, but it makes my live MUCH easier. The compounding pharmacy makes Prevacid into a syrup and even added watermelon flavoring. He's been on the syrup for 2 days now and I already see a difference. He's been much happier (except for teething) and spitting up MUCH less.

I'm just praying that he will start gaining weight. He is a long and lean baby. 90% for height and 25% for weight. When he was born he was 100% for weight (10 pounds); so you can see how much he has fallen on the growth curve. Right now he only weighs 16 pounds. That's what Joel weighed at 2 months!

Look at what we came home to...

I let out a small yelp. Okay, maybe a large yelp. He just sat and stared at us for a few minutes before taking off. I've seen this critter in our neighborhood before, but never this close. He was less than ten feet from us.

This is not a picture I took. I was too startled to do anything but warn the boys not to go too close because racoons can be dangerous. I guess I warned a little too sternly because Joel wouldn't go in the backyard because "the wacoon was out there".

The first thing Micah said when he saw it? "Hey, I thought racoons were nocturnal animals!"

Allowance

So I need your opinion. We are considering starting allowance with Micah. I have heard two camps on this topic.

#1 Assign chores and give $$ for said chores

#2 Give a set allowance each week or month not tied to chores. Chores are part of living with the family and being in the household. We all work together. The allowance is away for the kids to learn about money managment.


I understand the logic of both camps. When someone is passionate about either style I nod my head in unison and agree with whatever it is they say. Then when someone of the opposite camp gives their opinion I do the same thing. My problem is when I start something like this I feel like it needs to work forever the same exact way. I'm learning to tell myself that things like this change, especially as our kids grow and mature. Just because we start off doing it one way doesn't mean when they are 15 we have to do it the same way.

Thoughts? Is there a 3rd camp that I'm unaware of?

thoughts

Yesterday was my mom's birthday. She would have been 61. I remember when my grandma turned 60 and my mom commented on that she couldn't believe her parents were 60. She didn't even make it to 60.

I'm prepared for sad feelings on anniversary dates like yesterday. Its the times that take you by surprise that are hard. Like a few weeks ago I pulled a bib out to put on Ethan. It was a bib that said "I love my Grandma" which my mom gave to Micah when he was a baby. It was bittersweet putting it on Ethan, knowing she couldn't see him. I know she would just adore him, he is such a happy baby.

Baseball Game

We had a very full, fun weekend. It started on Saturday. A local radio station was having a contest where you submit stories about your father. We won! Aaron's family has loads of good stories and we finally put one to good use! We won 2 tickets to the Mariners game on Saturday, gift certificates to a restarant, a car detail and 4 tickets to a museum.

As we were waiting to turn into parking at the ballpark, someone walked by and asked us if we needed parking. She gave us a voucher for free parking in the garage! Yay! She saved us $25!

We had a great time. Joel now is crazy about baseball. He pretends to swing a bat, then throws a ball, then runs down our wood floor and slides on his belly by the front door. "I a baysebawl pwayer" --Can you translate? Last night he decided his name was now JJ, which is one of the closing pitchers for the Mariners. He also refuses to use the tee to hit the ball. Because that's not what the baseball players do. That kid is sure head-strong! I'm sure it will serve him well later in life, but it makes our life hard right now!

This is for Julie

Julie posted a while back (sorry I didn't search for the link) about yellow ducks. How every kid's book has yellow ducks but she has yet to see a yellow duck.

Yesterday at the park we saw a yellow duckling. Maybe she meant and adult yellow duck, but nevertheless it was the first time I remember seeing any kind of yellow duck.

This is for Jodi

We were going through some old cd's and Micah saw one of my old cd's by The Monkees. You know what he said? "Mom! Its like Word World!"

This and That...

We have a strange happeneing here in Seattle today. Reports of a large orange glowing orb in the sky have surfaced. No here knows what it is. Maybe an alien mother ship?


Meanwhile back at the ranch:
While I was nursing yesterday, Joel went to the potty, got off, flushed the potty and washed his hands all by himself! Then he came out naked flying like an airplane saying "I shoot the bathroom, I shoot Ethies room. I'm a shooting plane". He WAS wearing a pilot shirt.

Is it October or June?

This is the headline I woke up to:
Colder than Siberia!

Grrrrreat. It is colder here than Siberia or Fairbanks.

Ben COULD move the island

There is an interesting article up at Popular Mechanics explaining exactly how this could happen.

To make physics sense of the movement of the island in Lost, I assume that the island is actually connected to the South Pacific by a wormhole-like warp in space-time. (It doesn't have to be a simple worm hole; it could be a warren of parallel and intersecting tubes.) Then, to move the island, all you have to do is move the wormhole connection, not the island itself. That's what I think Ben did. He changed the nature of the space-time connection between the island and the rest of the world. So the island didn't disappear. It didn't even move.

Imagine that you are visiting a small town that you used to visit when you were young. You drive for miles, and never come to it. But it turns out the town has not moved. Rather, the highway now goes around it. That's what Ben did—he changed the highway.

Hmmm.. let's pause while we figure this out.




Here is a link to all of Popular Mechanics articles pertaining to Lost this past season. Makes for some interesting summer reading!

In my other life...

Does it sound crazy that I've enjoyed working on trig indentity proofs, derivatives, integrals and marginal revenue problems? I feel like I've been clearing cobwebs out of my brain. You would probably be shocked to learn that I actually have an MA, what with all the potty talk of late. I know that I was shocked to remember the fact.

I've been clearing out our files and found lots and lots and lots of useless papers. Apartment lease documents, school district health insurance info, etc. Seeing these papers reminded me of many events I had forgotten about. They seem like two lifetimes ago. Looking at materials from my masters degree made me remember that I used to have intelligent things to say and write.

So I've appreciated the opportunity to tutor 2 students this week and next. They are very nice girls (sisters) who just let the material get away from them. Now finals are looming and they are desperate.

Chicken Squawker

Have you ever heard of a chicken squawker? I hadn't but Micah came home with this today from farm school. And I thought I had seen all the cutesy preschool crafts. Go here to see what I'm talking about.

Frustration

Last night I went to a community meeting about a new park the city is developing near our house. The 27 acres is mainly wooded with a pond and walking trail through it. There is a 14 acre "meadow" that used to be a landfill. There are different plans being considered and the city held the meeting to get the community's input.

We broke into small groups and answered questions such as "In 10 years this park will be a success because..." It seemed to me that most people wanted to leave the land how it is and mainly wanted the city to just maintain the trails, oh and be able to let their dogs run amok. Ok, not really. They want the area to be an "off-leash dog park". I said the park would be successful if there were NO off-leash dog area. Two people in my group said it would be successful if the whole place was off-leash. Now I don't mind my kids being around dogs where I know the owner. But when we are at a park and a dog comes running up to them.... it terrifies them and me. Proportionally, it would be like an elephant bounding up to you and jumping on you. That would scare me! I also have no idea if some strange dog bites or not when he's at a park.

So this guy's solution? He suggested putting a fence around the playground so the children would be "safe". What? Yes, my 2 and 5 year old will only stay in the playground and not walk the trails. Ha!

Usually I am a pretty laid back person. But these comments drove me batty! So you're telling me that my child's safety is less important that providing a place for your dog to run around?

Holy Cow, what a list!

Looking for kid's websites? Go here.

Our favorites are starfall and iknowthat.

I have no title

This post is for my friend Karen, so she can remember what its like to potty-train a little boy. =) They are adopting an adorable little boy from Ethiopia and are waiting for travel news. Here is a diversion for you!



If you remember during our trip to Oklahoma, Joel developed a Urinary Track Infection (UTI). This is pretty uncommon for a toddler boy so the doctor wanted to run some tests just to make sure there is nothing anatomically wrong. Monday afternoon he came down with a high fever with no other cold symptoms. He also complained that his stomach hurt. So I made an appointment to see the doctor in the morning to do a urinary test to make sure the infection hadn't come back. Thankfully, my babysitter is home from college and could come over to watch the other 2 kids.

Tuesday morning I'm trying to get them ready so that I can take Joel to the doctor. I take Joel into the bathroom and set him up on the potty, sitting down. I leave and them come back to see that, yes, he had indeed gone potty but it was all over the floor. Little boys and their aim! Mess #1 cleaned up.



Then, while I was feeding the baby, Joel pooped in his underwear. Of course it was right when we had to leave to go to the doctor. I tried taking it off of him gingerly, but at the last minute he flung it with his foot to get it off. Smack, it landed on the cabinet, sticking to it. Loverly. A big gigantic blob of poop stuck to the cabinet. I almost threw up as I was putting it into the toilet. I flung him into the bathtub. Unfortunately he still had globs of poop stuck to his bottom. Now they were floating in the bathtub. He starts to finger paint with them. Nice. Meanwhile the clock is ticking for our doctor’s appointment. I’m so glad Stephanie was there otherwise I would have had a screaming baby and a laughing 5 year old hopping around.

I change, get him changed and we head out. In the garage Joel realizes he doesn’t have tiger. I put him in his seat and half way buckle him. He starts screaming for him. I take a once-over the house but I can’t find him, so I drive out. This sends Joel into hysterics. “GO BACK!!!! NOOOOOOO! GOOOOO BAAACKKK AAAAAAHHHHHH” over and over and over with screaming in between. Get on the freeway and traffic is backed up with Joel screaming. Finally I realize that he’s not going to stop and this is not going to help with the urine test. So I bribe him that he can get a special surprise if he pees in the special bowl and he stops crying. This works like a charm and he starts talking about where he wants to go for his surprise. Of course then the mommy guilt sets in and I wonder if this is indeed a good device to use. Then I remember that Susan does it, so it must be okay.

We get to the doctor’s office and now he’s at least sane again. We try to pee in the bowl with no luck. He tries really hard but nothing comes out. So we have to wait, drink, wait, drink then try again. Then wait for results. Once again I’m thankful that Stephanie had the baby and Micah. Thankfully the results were negative.

Get home and feed everyone, which was uneventful. Put Joel down for a nap. He gets up once or twice and I put him back down. Then he starts yelling for me. I go in and unmistakably smell it. He had pooped right on the floor of his room, with poop foot marks around the carpet. His wet underwear was flung onto his bed and his sheets were wet. So, I learn my lesson now and he goes back in the diaper.

Meanwhile Ethan is spitting up on me. Am I a Mommy or a toilet?