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It’s the sort of thing that I am afraid to say out loud, fearing that I will jinx the progress we’ve made somehow. It’s the baby. She’s been sleeping through the night…four nights in a row now. I know, 4 nights out of 18 long months of not sleeping is not exactly progress. I know. But God, she is finally sleeping. And it’s nice. Every morning I wake up surprised because she hasn’t been up screaming at some random hour. I’ve heard her whine a bit a few times, usually to throw out the blanket I rudely cover her with, since she sleeps with her blankie crumpled beneath her, but she is not up and screaming for me to “meer!!”

You want to hear how this came about? It’s simple really….I just stopped going to her. I know, right?? Hub started going in, and telling her firmly that it was sleeping time. He did not pick her up, made her stay in her crib, and talked to her. And when she asked for me, he told her that I was sleeping, which seemed to bewilder her, like “Mommy sleeps?? What??” But she took it from him and laid back down and went to sleep several times over. There was one night when I went in and tried to do the same, and all hell broke loose, but when Hub came in she settled right down.

So yeah, 4 days. I’m sure now she’ll get some horrible virus that throws this all off, but I’m taking these 4 days and running.

Not that I’m sleeping anyway. It’s The Olympics; they always do this to me. I don’t even care about them, but I end up getting sucked in, and watching, and staying up way later than I should on a work night. The big kids stayed up with us last night to watch the women’s skiing, and the speed skating relay (I was just watching Apollo’s beard…I mean WTF…and why does the camera only focus on him?), and while I crept out of the house at 7:20 this morning, having been up for more than an hour already, they were still warm and snuggled in their beds. Jerks.

Bud had a TKD test last night (first stripe of his blue belt) and we brought Liv, and she was a terror. There was another baby there, just a few days older than Liv, and that baby did not stuff handfuls of Goldfish down her mother’s shirt, did not scratch her mother’s face or try to pry her mouth open to get her gum. That baby did not scream at the injustice of being corralled to one small area. That mother did not miss her son getting his award because she was removing her baby to the lobby where she could be entertained by finger painting in the steam that had accumulated on the exterior doors. That mother surely does not have sore arms from holding her baby tight to stop her from flinging herself on to the floor.

But she is sleeping, so I won’t complain.

I can pinpoint the exact moment in time when I became a chicken, and it was not, as some might expect, the moment I pushed out my first baby (although having children has inexplicably altered my ability to ride anything that spins). No, I became a chicken on mild day in March 2003, when Hub, my brother and I all went snow tubing. It was a rather warm day, close to 40 degrees, and we’d talked about going for some time. This would probably be our last chance of the season, so off we went.

The warm air had made the slopes a bit slushy, but it was still fun. Not too fast; I would say just right. As the sun went down though, the temperature dropped and that top layer of slush turned to ice. I was starting to get cold anyway, so I decided to take one more trip down and then I was going to go to the lodge for some french fries and cocoa until the guys were ready to go.

I could feel the difference in the snow as the lift pulled my tube to the top of the hill. Definitely slicker. I could see the tubers going down the hills to my right, screaming their heads off. At the top I was warned to go down on my belly so I could control the tube with my feet—a warning which I ignored. I started down the hill on my bum and could feel the difference in speed. I bounced higher off the bumps. It was exhilarating and so fun…and then I flipped. I flipped completely over and landed with my head stuck in the snow, ostrich style. It hurt like a mother, but I had to get up and get back down the hill because other people were coming. I was scarred for life.

We’ve been sledding a few times since then, but the kids have been small and content to go down baby hills with Hub. Hub has also built hills on our front lawn for the kiddos in the past and that has worked out just fine. When he called on Saturday and suggested sledding at a local park, I was ok with it—I would at least have the baby to hide behind. Plus the zipper on my down coat had broken, so all I had was my wool coat. So sure we could go. He would deal with the big kids and I would handle the baby.

Until of course, Bud asked me to go down with him. And how do you say no to your pleading first born? So I said yes, and down we went in the new tube we bought him for his 6th birthday. I was petrified and probably would have peed my pants if I’d had time to think about how scared I really was. It seemed like an eternity until the sled stopped moving and the adrenaline and sheer terror pumping through my veins was probably the only thing that got me back up the hill, instead of laying at the bottom and crying. I hated every second of it and Bud found that to be very amusing.

The kids did end up having a blast though, going down with Hub and each other. Lucy was too scared to go by herself, but Bud went down a good 10 times solo. He’d have gone 50 more if we’d have let him. Liv was content to be pulled around in her sled and conned all of us in to taking a turn. We stayed longer than we planned, until dusk had settled in. My terror aside, it really was a good day.

One of my friends, pregnant with her third and final child, posted to facebook last night that she found out that she was having a boy—her third boy. She had something like 30 comments, and I went in to add my congratulations. I was infuriated to find people actually offering their condolences to the fact that it was not a girl. People actually saying “I am so so sorry you will never have a little girl…”, or “you poor woman in a house full of boys..” I mean, seriously people. So I went in and offered my sincere congratulations and excitement and got the hell out of there.

Now I don’t know if she is harboring any resentment, but I started thinking about the assholish things that have been said to me during my pregnancies. I’ve heard it all from “the perfect family” after Lucy to “give your body a rest already”(from my own mother), and have even heard that I am contributing to over-population. I get stares and looks of sympathy when I am out with all of my kids, and on the occasions where I also have my 2.5-year-old niece, I actually get comments of “I am soooo sorry”. I always hear “Wow, you must have your hands full.”. I do. But I deal with it. And I chose this handful.

When I get in moods like this, I start getting spun up about every injustice that was ever thrown my way. Like the bitch in the restaurant bathroom last summer who actually said out loud how nice it was for me to use soap as I washed Lucy’s hands. This was sarcasm of course, since I didn’t use soap; that commercial stuff tears her hands to shreds. I have a gentle moisturizing hand sanitizer in my purse for such occasions. I didn’t say anything to her then…but I wish I would have, because seriously—what an asshole, but I’ve spent many a night coming up with what I should have said. (The jerk store called, and they’re running out of YOU!!)

In an attempt to redirect though, I started thinking if there was any time that I may have been insensitive without realizing it, like those poor misdirected shlubs who left comments for my friend. I remember a time when a friend brought her new baby in to work; he was a few weeks old. I gushed how cute he was and squealed that he was just! so! tiny! To which she snapped “he’s a baby, he’s supposed to be tiny. At the time I was taken aback, because clearly I meant nothing. I found out later that her son had some growth issues and she was sensitive about it. Duly noted. I didn’t mean anything by it, but to her, it meant EVERYTHING.

But…

Here’s something I’ve caught myself saying a few times while visiting friends in the hospital, with their tiny 6 or 7 pounders: “She’s just so cute! My kids were only this tiny on the inside! I wouldn’t know what to do with such a tiny baby!” I don’t mean anything by it, but if we changed it around, if someone had said to me about 10lb 2oz Newborn Bud “Wow, he is huge! My kids were his size when they were 4-months old hardy har har..” I would probably have been infuriated. (not that we didn’t get comments about his size, but whatever)

So I guess the question is, who’s the asshole now. Clearly, it is me. It’s probably been all of us at some point or another. Do we all just need to shut the hell up about the age, size and gender babies of others? We just might.

I think I’ll be going with the standard “He is just darling.” from here on out. It’s safer that way.

I slept well on Saturday night, dressed warmly in thermals and a fleece. The baby didn’t wake up, and neither did I. I fluttered in and out of consciousness around 8am as the kids started waking and making noise. They were laughing, entertaining each other and entertaining the baby who was still in her crib. I thought to myself how nice it was to not have to be out of bed the very second my children were awake, and shut my eyes again, my head buried in my pillow.

After a few minutes Hub got up and was dressing at the end of the bed. I could hear the girls starting to bicker, so I stretched and opened my eyes. As I started to sit up, I caught something yellow from the corner of my eye and before I knew it, there was my son, his Halloween mask on, screaming “BOO!!” right in to my face. I screamed and sat up straight in terror, not quite certain what was going on; not sure whether to laugh or cry. He’s lucky that I didn’t push him over. He was pleased to have gotten me. I…well, I was recovering.

This is six.

Six is a weird age. He’s like a full fledged kid, unlike Lucy who is 4 and still clings to a bit of the baby-ness. He’s a kid, who gets on the bus in the morning, and goes to Tae Kwon Do in the afternoon. He has homework at least 3 nights a week. He can read more than just 3 and 4 letter words, he can get himself a snack, and he can call me every morning when I’m on my way to work, just to say ‘have a good day’.

He’s a bundle of gangly arms and legs, extra long toes, always dirty fingernails and a mix of permanent and baby teeth. Some days, he tells me that he loves me more than anyone ‘in this whole house’, and other days he tells me that he doesn’t like me much at all.

He’s my only boy and the most loving of all my kids. When sitting with me, he subconsciously twirls my hair in his fingers, just like he did as a nursing baby.

Six is a constant reminder that he is growing up. I can accept it; but I don’t always like it.

When I got out of the shower this morning and walked through the living room, I thought that the blanket on the couch looked a bit more rumpled than I’d left it. Sure enough, out popped his boo-screaming head.

Six got me again.

• The baby is 18-months old today. 1.5!! Holy cow where does the time go? Soon I will be referring to her as my almost two-year-old. Oh no…that is just not possible. She reminds us every day that she is big. BIG. And that she has opinions and stuff. About everything. But mostly about having an endless supply of crackers; CRACKERS!!. And yogurt; GOGOAT!!. And how clearly she is big enough to eat a taco right at the table. I call her on my lunch break and when she comes to the phone I say “Hi baby!” and she mimics me back, my high-pitched mommy voice to a T “Hi baby!”. She is something else; like no child I’ve ever known. And I am sure glad she’s here (even though she STILL does not sleep through the night).

• On a recent trip to Cracker Barrel for breakfast, Hub and I were given 3 mini bottles of real maple syrup with our pancakes. They were glass bottles, similar to mini liquor bottles. We were a bit intrigued as they were sealed, and were clearly one serving type items. We got to talking with our server who mentioned that the bottles were just thrown out after the meal, unless the patrons took them home. We were kind of outraged. You have to imagine that they sell a lot of pancakes there and if you get 2 bottles with each set of pancakes…well that is a lot of glass to be throwing out. Wouldn’t it be pretty easy to recycle those? I’m thinking of making this a crusade.
• Hmph, I really thought I would have more random things to share, but I guess I don’t. So with that said, have a great weekend!!

We took Lucy and my niece, Sam to see Disney on Ice this past Sunday. Maybe it was the little girl in me, but damn if I wasn’t sucked right in to it just as much as they were.

Events like this, what, with the chaos of entering and finding seats give me a huge case of the Nervous Tummy. So much so that when Hub suggested dropping us off at the door since it was raining, and just meeting us at our seats, I started hyperventilating. We opted for the $10 up front parking instead, and all walked in together. The lines weren’t bad and we made it through security with no problems, however, when the usher scanned our tickets, he looked puzzled. He tried again, and nothing. He paged Customer Service and had someone come and escort us to the business office. A million different (horrifying) scenarios were running through my head. I had printed the tickets at work—what if someone had gotten to them and copied them and had already used them? What if I entered our credit card number one digit off and they think I am a thief. I’m sure I was white as a ghost and under my breath I just kept saying “ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod”. When we got to the business office though, it was a completely different story. The arena had mistakenly allowed us to book seats that were blocked by a camera and so, even though we had only paid $12 for our seats, we were upgraded 2 levels, to just under the suites in the second row of the 200 section. It was AWESOME. I never have such good luck!

So off we went to our seats, and we really enjoyed the show. They started with Aladdin, and moved through other various princess stories. This was the first time I really got a chance to use my new camera and all of its features too, so I was doubly giddy. And I took over 150 photos.

Sam was so excited and appreciative. She loved every minute of it. Not to say that Lucy wasn’t, but you could tell the difference between the child who does a lot of things and the child who has not. I think though, that Sam liked the cotton candy best of all.

Hub complained, but I think he thought it was pretty cool too. Here is a rare photo of my Prince Charming with my beautiful Lucy.

Here I am too, not content to let the girls be the only princesses.

I really have to say that Disney did a fantastic job with this production. The characters were believable, and they even found a way to work in Mickey, Minnie and Tinkerbell. I would do it again in a minute! Well maybe not a minute, but you get the picture. It was a fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

I am in a funk.

I can’t remember the last time I was so glad to have a long weekend. Life has been exhausting lately. Just the daily minutiae takes so much out of me, and when coupled with the unexpected I am left feeling drained and weak, like I can’t even go on for another minute. But I do, and the cycle starts all over again.

We had our niece Saturday until late in the afternoon Sunday and at this point we are so used to having her around that she doesn’t throw too many wrenches in to our schedule. After dinner, we made popcorn and all watched Aladdin, and then Niece and Lucy camped out on her bedroom floor. My brother came over and ended up staying the night as well since he was going with Hub and Bud to Toronto on Sunday to see Monster Jam.

Lucy and I have a tradition of going out and shopping and having dinner when the boys are at Monster Jam, so she, Liv, Niece and I headed out to Target soon after the boys left on Sunday. I was a bit disappointed with the clearance section at our local Target, but did find a few things for Liv for next year and 2 outfits for Niece who just needs some clothes (I always put her in Lucy’s old clothes when she comes over). We grabbed a few personal pizza’s from pizza hut and came home where the girls went in for a nap. Well, Niece and Lucy napped. This is the only nap Liv took all day:

And here is Niece posing outside of Target:

Liv did play quietly in her crib for a bit though which gave me a chance to lie down and nurse the migraine that was raging for about a half an hour. I felt a bit better and got her out when she started getting loud and we shared some ice cream and watched TV until the other 2 got up, dropped Niece off with BIL around 5, and headed to the mall with my girls.

My Target disappointment waned as we got in to Old Navy and worked their clearance. I had no luck with anything for Bud, but got 2 shirts and a headband for Lucy, and a summer blouse and 2 summer skirts for Liv and I spent $14. I picked up one shirt for Lucy at JC Penny that IS NOT for next year (and that kind of goes against my purpose for shopping, but she asked so nicely) and at Sears got Liv 2 dresses for next year, one dress for right now, and a new purse for me. All day, including our Ihop dinner, I spent around $100. Not too shabby.

Yesterday was a normal daycare day for Lucy and Liv, and I signed Bud up as well for the school aged program. The plan was for Hub and I to get some much needed housework done. Instead, when I got home I crawled in to bed with him and was just so warm and comfortable that we slept for most of the morning. And after a late breakfast, we decided to go to the movies. We saw ‘Up in the Air” and I really liked it. I’d say I loved it, but I don’t feel like it really had an ending and that kind of bugs me. But the movie itself? Just my thing.

We had lunch at Olive Garden and by then were ready to pick the kids up, and get back to real life and prepare for today’s work and school day.

Like I said, I really needed this weekend. I’m no less tired; we were very busy! But I am refreshed in a way and that helps. And I am very much looking forward to our new laptop (our very first laptop, actually) arriving tomorrow, and finally being able to go wireless at home. The little things certainly do help to defunkify me. Here hoping that they work for a few days at least.

Thanks for indulging me with your comments yesterday. I mean it!! I’m glad to know that even though I’ve been lazy on the blog front, you guys still care. I’m lazy because of my job, you know. The recent changes have severely cut my internet time. Bastards.

Anyway, you indulged me, so now I will indulge you!

* On work days, I almost always eat reduced sugar apples and cinnamon oatmeal, with black coffee for breakfast. Its not a health thing, just what I like. Some days I have an everything bagel instead. Living on the edge, right?

* I wear between a 7 and an 8 sized shoe. My feet did grow when I was pregnant, but they grew wider. It’s crazy. I used to wear a 6.5.

Random Tidbit:

Did I mention that Hub got me a new camera for Christmas? He did, but he talked me in to returning it for a model that takes AA batteries because he knows me, and figures I will never keep the battery charged. He gave me a Target rain check for the model he thought I’d like that was on sale before Christmas. I took his advice and returned the camera even though I loved it. I have looked and looked for the suggested model and no store has had it in stock. So today I called Target to find this camera once and for all. It seems that the model for which I had the rain check was discontinued. Furthermore, we should not have been issued a rain check for an item that was about to be on clearance. Target is reasonable though and agreed to let me apply the 26% discount referenced on my rain check to another camera. When I got to the store, the CSR seemed unsure about this and called her manager. Not only did they honor the discount, they gave me the camera I picked for the clearance price of the discontinued item. It happens to be the exact model I opened on Christmas morning, only now, it was $50 cheaper. I’ve never felt so lucky!!

I know, I know. I don’t comment anymore. But I promise I will today! It is Delurking Day!! So please show me some love….I’ll show you mine if you show me yours!

You can just say, “I’m here!” Or you can tell me what size shoe you wear. Or tell me what you had for breakfast—I am always interested in breakfast food. Or tell me something off the wall and random.

Here is something off the wall and random about me:

When I sit in meetings, I make mental tallies of how many people have blue or brown eyes, how many people wear glasses, dark hair vs. light hair and so on. I don’t know why I do it, and I don’t do anything with the data I collect.

So there! Now please, announce yourself! Otherwise the next time you are here I will release the hounds!