Trying to stay on top of pictures, how quickly I get behind! (Because I take way too many.)
This was actually awful light but he was being so cute that I had to get over that...
Don't you just love that newborn stretch they do?
Labels: baby, photography, pics, pictures, Sam
After First Bath
First time in pool
And in case you are wondering whose feet those are in the background above, they're his-
Justin's, who is holding a diff. sort of baby. (Holding OR trying to drown... because men and big dogs have this strange sort of love/hate relationship, haven't you noticed?)
Cute little bum #4.
And, that's been about enough for Sam...you can see time is running out...
AND TIME! Officially over this experience.
Labels: baby, milestones, Sam, summer
I made funnel cakes this morning. With a plastic bag. Which means they looked more like elephant ears, but they were a big hit and easy because we had everything on hand. Frying things takes a lot of oil, though, so be sure you have enough of that on hand if you try them. I imagine the more expensive and better your oil, the better these taste. They'd prob be good in peanut oil, too (we did veggie oil.) And I think next time I will add a little lemon juice or zest to lighten up the batter. But they really are just like the carnival funnel cakes; puffy but heavy somehow at the same time. I got the recipe and picture from www.momswhothink.com :
Funnel Cake
This is the county fair type funnel cake recipe. Light and fluffy, this gets dusted with powdered sugar and served hot for a fun and tasty treat. Funnel cake doesn't have to be a once a year treat...make it a County Fair night by serving all the fair favorites for dinner!
Ingredients:
1 egg
2/3 cup milk
2 tbsp. sugar
1 1/4 cup flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
Directions:
1. In a deep skillet, heat about two cups of oil over medium-high heat until hot. Test the temperature by dropping a pinch of flour into the hot oil. If it sizzles right away without smoking, it's perfect.
2. Beat egg and milk. Mix all other ingredients in a separate bowl and slowly add to the egg mixture, beating until smooth.
3. Using a funnel, drop into hot oil working from center outwards in a web pattern. (You can use a gallon sized freezer bag instead of a funnel by pouring the batter into the bag, snipping off a small corner of it, and squeezing the batter into the oil.)
4. Cook for about 2-3 minutes, remove from the oil when golden brown and crispy.
5. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve.
Labels: food for thought, let there be butter and sour cream
Yesterday morning Madalyn walked out of her room to find me in the kitchen: "My throat hurts like I'm gonna throw up" she said.
And then as soon as she'd spoken she threw up bile.
She does this in the mornings every so often... if she doesn't eat her dinner and wakes up with low blood sugar or dehydrated or an empty stomach... for whatever reason both she and Jack have these mornings once in a blue moon. It is usually a one time episode, but yesterday I must've given her muffins and milk too soon because right after we got her all dressed and bathed, complete with hair bow, she did it again. Twice. At that point I was in the bathroom giving a slightly constipated two-year-old a potty pep talk. She came in, sat on the floor and said, "I'm gonna throw up again."
"Okay," I said, "well do it on the floor- on the tile- move to the-"
And I will spare you of sound effects but let's just say she didn't move from the bath mat to the tile but heaved chocolate chip muffins all over her legs and skirt, and the bathmat.
It was one of those moments when I wasn't sure what to address first... the now-hungry baby crying in his crib, the toddler who had just had victory on the potty and needed wiping, or the vomit... I decided to go get cleaner (having a newborn in the house, and just in case it was a virus,) and while I was gone the toddler, who was given strict instructions to not dismount the potty, had done just that and was jumping on our upholstered bedroom chair. At this point, I should add, I had already sopped up some of the vomit that had, after all, reached the tile as well as the bathmat, and sprayed cleaner there. Now, once I realized the toddler was jumping with a soiled derrière in our bedroom, all else became background music (if background music from a horror flick.) I tore into the bedroom after him, yelling, and probably appearing like some monster from that horror flick, head spinning like girl from The Exorcist.
His natural response to my furious chase was- to run. And so he took off running away from me, back toward the bathroom in all his nakedness, in all his fear... at this point I am telling him not to run because I see where this is going... and it does... he slides through the vomit and cleaner as if on ice, clear across the bathroom until his feet go up in the air and he hits his head on the tile. And what do I do? In all of my nurturing glory? I tell him this is what happens when he disobeys mommy- he gets poop on my chair, and vomit on his feet, and hits his head on the floor- all because he didn't stay on the potty.
Long story short, and somehow or other, the two middle children end up in the shower and the baby gets fed... although not without me first walking by the eldest, who was sitting by the front door sniffling because he thought I spanked his little brother (he has never cared before but he had not been part of the fiasco and felt left out) and so I had to answer to him, the third parent in the house, and tell him I had not, in fact, spanked his little brother but he had hit his head running from me in disobedience, hence the racket. The eldest responded by saying he would just sit by the front door and play his video game until his grandmother arrived. You know, an adult who would be, how should he put it? Sane.
Wow, am I super mom or what, I thought. Whatever, I thought next. Then my third thought wasn't really a thought but more of a hysterical, crazy-woman laugh.
This is because: A) with your first kid you are determined to not mess up... and then you do. Once. B) So you have another kid, and you look at them in all their pure, newborn glory and think, okay, this one I haven't messed up yet, clean slate. And then you mess up. More than once. C) Then, with your third, you start learning it's okay to mess up and be, you know- fallen and human and all of that- because if we could attain their salvation then Jesus died for nothing... and besides which, mess-ups and all, they are still turning out to be really great kids...
But the fourth? By the fourth kid you just start laughing; a good, hysterical, long laugh at how serious you used to take yourself and your parenting, because now you know it's ENITRELY up to Jesus, your parenting highs and lows... and if they sit in a counselor's office saying as much, lamenting about what a horrible parent you were, you will not only be okay with that, but you know your next best move will be to say "Amen, son, amen" and "I am so sorry." (Not that we ever stop trying to do them better...be better... but at some point we have to accept that we are imperfect and they will get some of our baggage and be imperfect, too, no matter how hard we try to prevent it... that's the nature of it. Literally. This stuff called sin.) And because you realize this you are able to laugh, free to laugh... to have a really pleasant, if seemingly psychotic laugh over your morning.
I'm not making sense, am I? I'm overanalyzing, aren't I? Okay, so maybe scratch all that. That's because I should be napping. And instead I'm going to tell you another story, another confessional, if you will... about this morning.
This morning I was watching the kids swim outside when Evan broke through the surface of the water with a piercing scream and holding his ear. I glibly mentioned an ear infection possibility and that we should see if it keeps bothering him, but you don't glibly mention anything to Evan. (What I should've said was that it was his imagination and to stop pretending so hard or something to that effect.) Anyway, I didn't, and next thing I knew he wouldn't move his head, and was keeping a permanent hand over his ear as though it might fall off if he moved too suddenly. He was also screeching in sudden pain every time he moved right or left.
SO, seeing as how it was almost lunch time, I packed three lunches, got the other two kids out of the pool- loaded up the baby- and we headed for the clinic because none of us want to hear screams like this for the rest of the day. The clinic was so full there was nowhere to sit, or stand, really... so we left... loaded back in the car, all five of us, two in car seats, where the kids ate lunches and I nursed... then we drove to a different clinic- much further away.
On the way we got ice cream cones at Chic Fil A and after we got on the road again and made some headway, Madalyn dropped hers between the seat and the side of the car...
I dare you to ask me if I was cool and calm- ask me if I was patient and collect- go ahead, ASK ME! (I wasn't.) I said why in the world couldn't she now pick it up, why couldn't she reach it, I said things along the lines of "you've got to be kidding me" and "unreal"... things that I'm sure will resurface in our counseling days. We pulled over and I climbed in the way back from outside the car and cleaned it up best I could, and cleaned her up, too... soothed her and told her we'd get another and I did know it wasn't her fault... all of that pasting together what had come unglued, you know... It was a really pretty scene for the Shell station to witness, let me tell you...
So an ice cream cone and drive-thru line later, we were then on our way to clinic #2 with ice cream cone #2, where there was no line (praise God!) The kids were great in there (praise God.) The only upset was that when the doc looked in Evan's ear- finally- while we all held our baited breaths, knowing we were about to get a nasty report on how his bloody, pussy ear drum had already ruptured and he would be partially deaf for the rest of his life (judging by his carrying on)- what happened?
The doc said: hmm. Well, it's certainly not infected.
And then she suggested that maybe he just had a little pressure from his sinuses when he swam way down. Pressure? A little pressure? Let's talk about pressure, SHALL WE. And right now I am laughing again. And dancing a little... to that song that just popped in my head from the 80's or 90's- "pressure- pressing down on me, pressing down on you..." I could do a really rad break dance to that song right now and I think I would feel so much better. I love that song, do you? WHY do I love that song? It's probably perverted, right? I have no idea what it's talking about but I dig it.
But I digress. So nothing is wrong with his ear, (but don't try to tell him that.) Because now his neck hurts from straining it to protect his not-hurt ear for the last three or four hours. Seriously, he walked around for hours as though he were wearing an invisible neck brace, wincing in pain. So by this point in the day, when we were leaving the clinic, he really was in pain as he had given himself a neck ache, and I made him nap when we got home. When he lay down in his bed (after many cries of pain to get comfortable) he looked at me and said very matter-of-fact, "I think I'm dying."
Wow. Dying? Really?
Let's hope not because I will not be able to live with the amount of guilt I have from not believing him.
Ah, and now see how this ends... he just walked in here just now and said he feels better after sleeping and is fine.
Sleep. I forgot how magical that stuff is.
On another note, our 9 year anniversary is tomorrow. NINE years. Wow. I said to Shaun who knew in nine short years here we would sit- with 4 kids and a dog- and after 6 moves, 10 job changes, 1 business started... I told Shaun if someone told me 9 years ago that all of this would happen in the next decade, along with some family deaths and a divorce, a surgery for a two-year-old and who can remember what else... I think I would've stuck my head in the ground.
But as Beth Moore says, sometimes God wants to show us that we're capable of a lot more than we think we are...
You know, like being able to move our heads around without our ears falling off.
Labels: dumbhead parenting, Evan, sick days
