Pause Button

Life is sometimes a blur, extra blurry during this season of life.

I'm not making time to document the little moments here anymore. I want to write so much and then another day goes by in a blur of school schedules, nap schedules, work schedules, and dissolving 'free time' blocks within all of those schedules. 

So tonight I'm just going to mention a few very random things that will likely slip my mind by morning.

Cecelia is fully potty trained (not that I will forget THAT one anytime soon!), and completely ditched the pull ups for sleeping five days ago. So two weeks from start to finish with the potty training and my girl stays dry at night and for naps. No accidents during the day. Woah. I totally underestimated her and I'm pretty sure the motivation lies in candy and big girl undies. I also think the pull ups were too itchy because she started asking to wear her underwear to bed about a week into the deal. So stinking proud of her. She's a lot more independent with the whole process than Truman was, too, because she will just go into the bathroom, use the big potty alone (sometimes without the inner training seat), pull up and down her pants, wash her hands, etc. She does the whole routine without even making a big deal about it anymore, still uses her little froggy potty in her room before and after sleeping, but otherwise it's all big potty stuff. But don't worry, she is totally abusing the reward system now and figured out how to milk that candy bowl for all it's worth. Will have to cut back on the rewards soon but I want her to stay excited and positive about it….without losing all of her teeth from sugary decay in the process. 

Also, she woke up yesterday morning crying that her left ear hurt. She continued to cry about it for a good hour and it's completely unlike her to say that anything specific hurts like that ('I don't feel good' or 'I have that cough' are common announcements, but never the ear). I got her the first appointment with our doctor at 4pm, worked a full day, rushed to Lori's and took the little kids to the doc. CC's ear does have a lot of fluid behind it but it's not infected yet. Hopefully it will clear on it's own but if she starts to feel worse, I can call and get a prescription right away. Today was a great day without any complaints of ear pain. But the funny part of the story was last night.

She was whiny and really tired, and I figured that Ibuprofen couldn't hurt since she was still saying her ear was bothering her. I asked her, 'Do you want some medicine for your ear? Will that help?' and she adamantly nodded her head yes. So I pour the meds into the little cup, hand it to Nate as we are both talking about something else, and then he hands it to CC. Nate looked down and yelled, 'No!!' and it scared the bajeezus out of the poor girl. But she was literally pouring the Ibuprofen into her left ear, dripping out all over her top and the floor.

She started to cry, thinking she was in trouble, but Nate was just shocked to see her dumping out the medicine. He and I both consoled her that it was no big deal, and actually very smart of her to think that the medicine belonged inside of her ear. So freaking cute. No clue where she got that as we've never used ear drops or oils or anything on the child. Love my literal thinker.

Also, Porter has had a cough/cold combination for about a week now. Pretty sure he got this from his big sister, but at least she is able to clear out that junk better than he can. On Saturday I noticed that he was kind of wheezing/crackling when he was exhaling. Totally happy, no fever, eating well, acting fine but the breathing just sounded off to me. Saturday night was a crappy night for our boy and I was convinced that I needed to take him to Urgent Care on Sunday. I packed us all up and prepared to spend the hours in the waiting room, cursing life and attempting to be a human shield for all of those germs at Urgent Care. But then Nate had the awesome idea of asking our physician neighbor to listen to Porter's lungs first. Totally on the fence about what to do with the babe since he felt fine but sounded gross. Our neighbor didn't hesitate to come over and listen, and decided that it was probably nothing to worry about. Didn't sound like pneumonia, just really congested but his coughing did seem to make it better.

Of course, since I was already taking CC to the doc the following day, I had our Pediatrician listen to Porter, too. And yep, same diagnosis---doesn't sound the best but since he feels pretty good and it's not likely bacterial, no meds needed. 

Today was a good day with both little minorly sick babes. Really not looking forward to winter sicknesses though, especially with THREE kids now. I mean, honestly the thought terrifies me to imagine all three being really sick at the same time at some point. One day at a time. LOTS OF HAND WASHING, CHILDREN. And stop breathing on the baby (yeah, right). 

And now for my first born: Truman loves having his 'PaPa' days after school when I'm working. It's heartwarming to see Tony drop Truman off at home after their afternoon over at grandpa's house. Truman gives Tony about 10 hugs, and 'I love yous' and giant smiles. CC gets in on the action, too, of course. We are so lucky to have Tony watch Truman for us on my work days, since his class gets out at 10:55 am every day.

But tonight I wanted to mention the sweetest compliment known to a mother. While standing outside of school, after meeting Truman and letting him play with the other kids on the playground for a bit (so cold, it's always so cold), another mom told me something that made my week (month? year?). I don't really know her, but I do know who her daughter is because Truman loves her, and so this mom and I may have exchanged a few conversations back in the fall when we all loved to let them play outside after class a bit. She said, 'Truman is such a good spirit. He is alway so happy and well behaved.' I sort of stopped in my tracks, not really knowing what to say---but I thanked her and said that was the best compliment any mom could get. I joked about how he is a classic first born rule follower who loves school. I joked about how my kids always seem to be perfect angels in public but at home it's sometimes a different story. But really? Truman is just an awesome kid (all of our knuckle heads are, but Truman is the leader of the pack). I can't take the credit for that but at the same time, Nate and I feel like we must be doing something right as parents. For all of the low moments of feeling like a failure of a mom, one that never has enough patience or time or attention for each child…one that gets annoyed too easily, that has too high of standards, that isn't the most FUN all of the time…a mom that is completely imperfect, but trying her best, darn it. For all of those tough moments as a mom it just takes one really badass moment of another woman saying, 'Hey, your kid is pretty great,' to make me realize that WE ARE DOING JUST FINE. 

I gave both CC and Truman unprompted hugs this afternoon and told them that I had a 'bubble of love' for each of them. It's something my mom used to tell me as a little girl. 'Bubble of love!' and then she'd give me a big hug, saying she just felt extra proud to be my mom, and extra amount of overwhelming love came out at that moment. I totally get bubbles of love for these kids all of the time and I need to make it a point to tell them! Because I got two really genuine hugs in return, right before they returned to whatever odd sibling game they were playing at the moment. They are so much fun and it's so hard, but so amazing to be their mom. 

I've been on a quest to use my Canon more often since I got a new lens for Christmas (the 24mm, f/2.8 in case you want to know). So I made the hashtag #grabthecanon on Instagram and am trying to post at least one 'real' picture per day for a whole month. It seems like I'm also hell bent on getting one sibling shot with all three smiling….the mecca of all mom photography, right? So far we are getting very very close and I have a lot of awesome images that will always be special to me. I haven't gotten the ONE that makes me want to order a 6 foot canvas or anything, but I really can't complain with these! 

And Truman is getting in on the 'big camera' action. He demands to take many pictures. This one is my favorite of his bunch. Porter would totally take that sucker down if he could, obvi.


That's it for now. Life is kind of blurry at times but posting here and taking pictures helps me to press the 'pause' button.