Happy Holy-Days

Well, I'm not even going to waste time with excuses why my blog is so hit-and-miss.  Whatever.  It is what it is.  I have big news, though!  We are going to be moving (again, for those of you who know us) to a rockin' farm house in the Maple School District.  We are excited and have convinced the kids to be, also!  They will be switching schools first thing in January.  Unfortunately, our zip code is now going to end in "63".  You know what I mean...

A couple cool short stories since last I wrote:
My Mom, Bauer, and I were on our way to Bakersfield one afternoon.  We hear this "ugh" from the backseat and shortly thereafter, something in the air took me back to this Indian restaurant Ed and I ate at in Seattle...I looked back to see that Bauer had opened one of my mom's spice jars--left in the backseat without too much foresight, oh well--and there was curry powder all over his lap.  Nice.  Then, I was trying to open my mom's moon roof to let the smell out, but it took me awhile since I'm unfamiliar with her car.  We get to Shafter a few minutes later, and at a stop light this weirdo keeps waving.  I finally realize that I had opened the trunk.  I am so cool.

Since the beginning of football season, Farmer has been absolutely OBSESSED with the game.  This isn't really a story, but please continue reading.  Last Christmas he received a Bengals football uniform from my parents.  If I had to estimate, I would say that in the last month, he has worn that uniform about 250 hours.  He takes it off to go to school, but that's about it.  As soon as we are in the door, he puts that thing on.  The pants were white; they are now somewhere between brown and vaccuum bag contents.  What's the best is that he can play football all by himself.  He grabs a small IKEA plastic cup (the green one), and over and over again throws it up in the air right in front of himself.  Sometimes he catches it, and he falls down and says "Touchdown!"  And lots of times he misses and says "Not like that".

Claire story...hmmm...Claire now has an avatar on WeeWorld named Jessica.

Archer: He fell off the bed at my mom's house, and ever since, if he is alone on the bed and wakes up, he gets right up to the edge and lets his arms dangle off, but he doesn't go any farther.  Just confirmation that he is indeed human, even if he doesn't seem like it at 4 AM.

Long Time, No Post

I'm back!  It's been almost a month since my last post, and it's for good reason: I am a football widow.  Not that I NEVER see my husband, but, well, I can't exactly get online and opine for 20 minutes while my four children run amuck.  This is why at this moment, I am blogging at work.  This is inherently wrong, and is known as time theft.

So I'm going to keep it short.  I do have a few pictures, thanks to Annie.  :-)

Mom's 58th (!) Birthday!

Archer Dean!  I don't know what everyone else thinks, but I think he looks a LOT like Bauer.

I L-IKEA

(pictures coming!)  In a brief reprieve from the craziness on Alpine Meadow Ct., I made my first ever trip to the IKEA store in Burbank. SO COOL. First of all, you know a store is huge when they have their own cafeteria (Looks like we’ll be here awhile, Toots!). I would like to know why the Swedes can feed a person breakfast for 99 cents per plate (eggs, potatoes, and your choice of bacon or sausage), yet we still have tons of starving people in the US? But I digress…I wanted to get there early, so I suggested we leave at 7:00 AM. My mom and sister Betsy were like, OOOOOOOOKKKKKKKK. We made great time, and got there at 9:25, and the store WASN’T OPEN. And my mom was like, Yeah, they don’t open until 10. I said, WHAT?!? I thought they opened at 8:00! I could’ve slept another hour! ARGH.


Luckily, the cafeteria was open for breakfast already, so we went up there and sampled the cheap food. It wasn’t too bad! Then we entered THE STORE. This place is huge—and there’s like this yellow brick road that you follow through the whole place so you don’t miss anything! It’s actually a gray linoleum road. Once you’ve seen all of the staged areas, you head into the self-serve warehouse area. They seriously have a very streamlined system going.

I came away with kid’s cups/bowls in rainbow colors, two pillows for the couch, a rug for the boys’ room that has roads and buildings printed on it, a scrub brush, a stool for my kitchen counter eating area, a high chair ($20!), a baby toy for Archer, dish towels, and I can’t remember what else. I could’ve gotten the kitchen sink, too, but there was no room in the van.

Can I Lick It?

Cool story: today my mom and I took my brood to Costco.  It went well, without incident.  We decided that cheap hot dogs and soda at Costco would do nicely for dinner, so mom got the food, and I got the table.  Those hot dogs are BOMB by the way.  Of course, one kid likes only ketchup, one kid likes only mustard, and one kids likes both.  How do they figure this out...anyway, I didn't get my own hot dog, but decided to take a few bites of theirs.  I took one especially unfortunate bite of Claire's dog, and wouldn't you know, the mustard AND ketchup dripped down onto the hem of my shirt.  It was gross.  I wiped it off with a napkin while the kids commented on it.  Claire says, "That's what you get for biting my dog!"  Farmer says, "That looks like Archer's poop!"  Bauer says, "Can I lick it?"  Yes, in that order.

Am I Bad?

So, this morning, I had a near-trekkie experience. Our school librarian is an interesting cat, and a borderline trekkie himself, so we get to talking about Wil Wheaton (did I just hear your heart skip a beat?) If you don’t remember Wil Wheaton, check it out. He was one of my first hearth-throb posters. I think he was on the wall next to my shrine of Johnny Depp of the 21 Jumpstreet era. Anyway, we got to talking about the merits of the different Star Trek movies, and it reminded me that I was considering dressing up my three oldest children as Spock, Kirk, and Uhura. Is that bad?

Saturday Morning Car-Tunes

We didn't really watch cartoons this morning (who am I kidding, thanks to TiVo, we have a 24 hr. Sponge Bob channel), but we did all get in the car.  Ed wanted us all to go to get an adjustment at Dr. Tatsuno's office.  As if I have not spent enough time in dr's offices this week with all 4 kids.  But to humor him, I went along.  Since I promised myself to blog bad AND GOOD moments of having so many kids, I wanted to share a moment (just one moment, mind you) of joy I had in that office.  Ed left me in one examination room while he went to get put up on "blocks" in another room.  I had all the kids in there cuz the dr was giving them the once over.  I was just looking at all four of them like, dang, I have really sweet kids.  They're beautiful.  It was a nice moment. 
We also had our Biggest Loser weigh-in at lunch today.  It was AWESOME.  Ed and I (mostly ED) blew everyone away with a >7% loss for the month of August.  I think we will market the new tonsillectomy rapid weight-loss plan.  Fully covered by most insurance plans.

Diamond in the Rough

My sister Betsy has been a fan of the website Hungry Girl for a long time, and I'm just getting into it.  I saw this: PEACH PIE ICE CREAM!  I am so all over that--it will be my "diamond" in my rough afternoon at home with all 4 kids.  I think I will mozey on over to Save Mart later and get some.  It might blow my Biggest Loser weigh-in tomorrow.  Or I could just consider it dinner.  If I budget 500 calories for dinner, and there's 120 calories in a half cup of ice cream, I'll be able to pig out on about 2 cups of it, right?  AND, I will do my usual hide-what-I'm-eaing-from-the-kids routine.  SCHWING!

Six Months

In all of the excitement today, I barely realized that my baby is 6 months old today.  Happy Day, Archer!

Family Circus

When I was a kid, I didn't know what "Family Circus" meant, but now I know.  I think it should be illegal to have two different back-to-school obligations in one week.  I have spent the last 3 evenings doing stuff outside the house, and my house looks like a sty.
Anyway, the big adventure today was a post-op check-up for Claire.  I decided to take all four kids with me.  Why?  Well, let's see...I drop them off at 7:30 in the morning.  I had to ask my father-in-law to watch recovering Claire all day today (and as a bonus, can you please take her to her school at 11:45 so she can chat with her friends during lunch?  You can just sit there and talk to the teacher's aide that you don't know from Adam), and I had to ask my mom and sister to watch the three big ones so I could go to back to school night (no children, please) at my kids' school.  SO, you can see that my favors were all used up today.  My husband didn't really understand that when I told him that I had trouble remembering everything the doctor said because I was keeping little hands off the medical equipment.  His solution was, don't take all of them.  Gee, ok.  Gosh, why didn't I think of that?

This Is the Day that Never Ends (to the tune of This Is the Song that Never Ends)

Today has been one of those crazy running around days. Since my choice to be a working mother has morphed into a necessity to work, occasionally I have a day when there is a little bit “extra” work to do. This extra was voluntary today, but it was a real resumé-booster. I won’t bore you with THOSE details; instead I will bore you with others.
It began with a call from my sweet mom, who has been watching my recovering daughter all week. Actually it was my dad on the phone, but that’s irrelevant. My mom had been up all night ill, and wasn’t sure that she could watch 3 kids (plus the 4th after 2:00). I said, no problem, I can find another place for the infant and the 6 year old after 2:00. Luckily, my dad volunteered to pick up daughter and 4 year old at 7:00 AM. I left at 7:20, as usual, and took infant to Jeanie’s and 6 year old to school.
At work, I usually check my bank account balance, and I discovered that I have $1.73 in the bank, to last until Monday (no, I didn’t forget any zero’s). Ed needed gas, but he couldn’t get any, so I dropped him off at his classroom. At 2:00, when Bauer (6 year old) got out of school (Wednesdays only!), I decided it would be prudent to pick both him and the baby up and transport them to their next location, so that I wouldn’t have to do it as two separate trips. So I shot my boss an “I’m leaving real quick, but I will be back and stay late” email, not really getting permission………but anyway, I drove to the school, drove to Jeanie’s, drove home because I forgot formula, drove to Papa’s, and drove back to work. The running around isn’t over yet, either. I still have a meeting and AWANA to go…I’ll keep you posted. Like you care!

Dentist Love

Farmer had a dentist appointment this week. I couldn’t really remember the reason for the appointment, but that’s what happens when you have to keep track of 5 people’s appointments. And it’s not like we only go twice a year for cleanings—Oh no—we go at least two other times for fillings (each kid and parent). And then there’s referrals to orthodontists, oral surgeons, ENT’s, and whatever else. But I digress. Farmer’s last appointment (for a filling) went great. He went right in, let the dentist do her thing, and he came out with a smile, a sticker, and a pencil. This time, however, he went back, plopped into the chair, and wouldn’t open his mouth. I was distracted by the poopy diaper that I discovered as we entered the office, but I finally went back there to use both positive and negative reinforcement. I tried to call his Dad, who is usually able to talk him into anything just over the phone, but Dad was at football practice. The scene ended with Farmer screaming like a banshee (he will demo that for you anytime). I DO NOT put up with public fits, so I took him to the restroom. What happened in there is censored. But we came out, he sat in the chair, and…wouldn’t open his mouth. In fact, he was lying on his stomach. I said, do you want to go back to the restroom? He shook his head. I said, ONE… and he slowly turned on his back and opened his mouth. He was an angel after that. So, I was able to breast feed in the waiting room while Bauer played on the iPod.
The best part of the story happened when we got back in the van. Farmer says (out of the blue, but I think it had something to do with a piece of sugar free candy from the office) “Bauer is a good brother. I love you Bauer.” WHOA, this coming from a boy who purposely leaves Bauer out of his bedtime prayers on a routine basis. I was thrilled, and I told him so. Then we went to get a Wendy’s frosty. Who cares about fluoride anyway?

Quinoa Queen

Hey, I made quinoa for the first time last night. It was the bomb, very Indian flavored. I got the recipe from allrecipes.com. Anywho, I had to boil the chicken first, and I simultaneously made mac n' cheese for my two middle boys, and a can of chicken noodle soup for my recovering daughter. She just had her tonsils out, and that's a story for another post.
This is one of those NOT so great moments of being a mother of four: one child not feeling great, two children fighting, one baby crying, two pots of boiling water, one bowl of cooling soup, and a shortage of patience. So I YELL for my daughter to come pick up the baby. I YELL and YELL. I YELL for my oldest son. No answers. Turns out they were both taking a deuce. Now, can I really get upset at that?

My Family

So I have 4 children. They are the best, but sometimes I wonder what I was thinking. I hope to choronicle here some of the best and worst things about having too many kids. Some of you might have 1 child, and consider that too many! For me, it was 2 kids, but oh well. I welcome any cool stories you might have about your ups and downs as well. I will blog more when I'm not working. Shame on me.

Introduction

Welcome to my blog.

That was easy.