Survival

i spy 3 children

Oh my, has it been rough around here lately.  A willful three-year-old and a fussy almost one-year-old can really drive a mother toward the looney bin. 

Sunshine, sprinklers, and popsicles help.  Getting up at 5AM also helps.  I've been going for walks before David leaves for work at 6, and the extra energy I feel on those days makes the early mornings more than worth it.  At 5:30 in the morning it's just me and the birds; most days I don't even see a car.

Summer is good for so many, many reasons. 

Jonas: 11 (and a half) Months

*Yesterday he was sitting in his high chair yelling, "Lola! Lola!" and throwing his food at her. 
*He started waving 'hi', and does a perfect little princess wave where he twists his hand back and forth.
*There is little motivation to learn to walk:

He's been waking up around 6 each morning and wanting his breakfast immediately.  He eats just as much as the big kids because he really likes food.  He's only 3rd percentile for weight though, so high five to him for his amazing metabolism.  (16lbs 11oz (and a pulse of 118!) at his May 7th doctor appointment.)

All 4 top teeth have come through now.  I thought that might help him be not quite so clingy, but instead he seems to have found something else that bothers him.  Not sure what the mystery ailment is this time around, but anytime he wants to let me know I will gladly try to help make it better. 

He loves being read to.  I feel kind of badly about this one, because I read to the big kids a lot but haven't really read directly to him.  Finding out he loves to sit on a lap with a book was a recent discovery that made me feel like a terrible mom.   

"ok Jonas, Jesus had 12 de-cycles"

He is SO squeezable and loveable.  What do you call the phenomenon where you can be extremely weary of holding the baby, and yet the second you put him down you miss him?

Even fussy, I can't get enough.

i miss you too, mom

i neeeeeed you, alllllwaaaays

alright, one quick smile

Highlights or Maybe Lowlights

Is it too late to post Easter photos?  They turned out so nicely, it would be a shame not to share.

what a nice looking family

Then there was the birthday party David threw me.

And Mother's Day.

Last night was a midnight vomit party x 3 with Christian; no photos of that.  After sickness #3 there couldn't be a #4 or more because we were out of clean sheets and pj's.  David says it's OK for the kids to wear regular clothes to bed but I don't think it is. He also thinks it's OK to miss-match their two piece pajama sets...he likes to see me haul the kids out of bed in order to put them in the correct pajama pairings after he purposefully messes them up.  It's one of our greatest sources of marital discord. 

And there you have the highlights of our April and May!

Jonas: 10 Months

Before we get started, let's mention real quick that this is almost three weeks late.  Yowza.

Favorite Things: food, standing up. Even when I'm holding him he likes to stand on my hip.  It's very uncomfortable.

Most Impressive: saying 'mama,' 'Daph,' 'all done,' 'night night,' 'boo;' mimicking sounds and pitches.

Weirdest: if I lay him on the floor, he will barely move.  If I lay him on a bed, he will roll and crawl all over it.  If only the whole world was a bed. 

I noticed his top teeth coming in recently.  And just like with Daphne, it's not the typical top middle two, it's the two on either side.  Like little fangs.  So weird and funny that both of them did that.

hanging out on the counter top gnawing on garlic, because we are anti-vampire

He had been waking up so often at night, and I think part of it had been his nighttime use of a pacifier.  It would fall out, then he would wake up and need someone to put it back in for him.  Like the gentle mother that I am, one day I just stopped giving him the pacifier at bed time.  He was very alarmed at the loss and we had a few very rough days and nights of sleep, but now he seems to *mostly* be sleeping through the night. This makes him my youngest baby to sleep through the night, and so he wins a prize of...nothing.  Except my joy and gratitude, of course. 

smart lola

look at his face!

One reason I've been blogging so scarcely lately is because Jonas wants to be held constantly.  As much as I love holding my babies, I think being in the stage where they want to be held almost all of their waking hours is one of the toughest things for me in the baby year.  I wish I could at least get super muscle-y arms out of the deal.

But the nice thing about being on baby-number-three as opposed to baby-number-one is that I know each season passes, and I know that one day it won't be as hard.  Soon enough I'll be able to do whatever I want with my arms.  Wave them around, or....just whatever. 

And one last thing; he lives with perpetual bed-head.  

A Trick Question Included

Since Jonas was content in his Bumbo with a snack, and since I had just found another place to hang a boxwood wreath, it seemed imperative to use my free arms to photograph the newly-organized wall.  Nothing like wall photos as fodder for the blog.

Then I spotted Jonas through the camera lens...

And now we've graduated from Bumbo use.

I found this book at an antique store recently, and immediately memories came to mind of looking at it over and over again as a kid.  A grandma had it; maybe Grandma B?  Daphne and I are reading it so that she can learn all about Amish people.

We had a pretty successful visit to that particular antique store because we found vintage picnic baskets, too. (Stars, fyi.)  The baskets store kitchen linens and sit around looking pretty, and they are very successful at both of their jobs. 

Soon our house will be fully decorated and then what will there be left to do in life?  

(Trick question: how many pictures of Amish children are in this blog post?)

(This is a trick question on so many different levels.)

We Have a New Firepit

I went into the backyard Monday and found the big kids stomping around in the muddy garden.  I was so very close to telling them to get out, like literally had the words coming out of my mouth, when I realized this was a time to be quiet and let them be.  The only reason to make them stop was because I didn't feel like having to clean up the mess, but that's probably not always the best reason to say no.

Daph smeared mud up her legs and said to me, "Mud is really good for your skin, right?"

Sure.

lunch break at the mud spa

Another time to be quiet is when all three kids are down for rest at the same time, and you can lay in the hammock while your husband slaves away laying bricks for the new fire pit.  Did you know hammocks are amazing?  As long as you can figure out how to get in without falling back out. 

Speaking of fire pits, ours at the old house was a re-purposed wheel barrow, and we loved it.  We loved it so much we were afraid we wouldn't be able to top it. 

Oh, but top it we did.  Check it out:

We found an old woodstove at a salvage place, managed to haul the thing home (I think it weighs 9 million pounds), and now this back corner feels like a living room.  This week I got a bunch of planters put together for the area, and soon we're going to get some electricity out there so we can hang cafe lights.  David has plans for a play structure nearby.  Isn't it the cutest?

 And speaking of cute, here's Jonas rolling around on a bed.  This has nothing to do with fire pits or mud. 

The Family Room

Nine months later and our upstairs family room is finally painted.  Small victories!

This room is technically a part of the 'master suite,' but as much as I would love an extra room to set up as a sewing room, or a sitting room, or a leave-mom-alone-she's-eating-her-hair room, a family room seemed the most useable idea for the largest number of people. 

The room isn't completed yet because I still need to purchase bamboo shades for the windows and finish the curtain for the kid's closet kitchen.  (They have a closet kitchen and it's just as cool as it sounds.)  (Which may not be very cool?)

Oh! And I have this super great idea for David to build me a faux-mantle to set the TV on.  Something like this:

i have no idea the original source...i've seen this many places

Right now the TV is on a bookshelf, but I think a mantle would add some fun visual interest and help make the room feel even cozier.  And it would give us a great place to hang Christmas stockings since stocking-wise we're not quite sure yet how to utilize our funky wood stove alcove downstairs. 

jonas's opinion on mom painting

Lighting in this room is a little hard because I hatehatehate using ceiling lighting and there's not a lot of space for lamps.  Lights on the old window saved the day!  I added a boxwood wreath because my current hobby involves making more of those than I have room for.  So many wreaths, so few spaces to hang them.

In the absence of 'after' photos of the family room, here are photos of the room being used for what we consider valuable family time. 

fighting

staring blank faced at the television

lots of messes