Esther @ 9 months

{March 16th}

1. She is pulling herself up on everything (we lowered her mattress).

2. She learned how to drink from a straw. 

3. I need/have/want to stop nursing by the end of the month. Our big VACA is only a couple months away so this girl has to get into SHAPE!

4. Dr. Lash checked her iron so that maybe we could just put her on whole milk early. It was a no go. It was just barely under what it should be so we'll wait a month or two.

5. SHE IS STILL MY BEST EATER! So refreshing after Alex who wouldn't eat anything. She will eat anything and everything and everything and anything.

6. She's over baby food. Right after I just stocked up of course because of a sale.

7. She just eats what we eat now. It's so nice.

8. Her two top teeth came in this month. So 4 teeth total.

9. She claps when you say yay. Waves when you say bye bye. And dances when she hears music.

10. I can't believe she will be 1 in three short months! Her celebration is already in the plans.
11. She didn't gain one single ounce since last month. He assured me this is totally normal for nursing babies. Around 6-9 months they start thinning out because of crawling and all that jazz. I just want my chubby baby back. 
12. She's sleeping 11-12 hours at night now. With two 2.5-3 hour naps. 
13. She pulls the funniest faces.

This girl's 9 month stats:

Weight- 18lbs and 10oz (50%)

Length- 28.5 inches (80%)

Head- 45cm (75%)

Our IRISH kids

Yah I don't really know if we are Irish but I figure we are somewhere down the line.

Friday, we did our annual neighborhood TREASURE HUNT. The Leprechaun left clues that led to his two HUGE treasures. 

(Thank you everyone for coming and for all the contributions!)

Then the kids woke up to more treasures. Well new ray bands and flip flops! Those are treasures to me anyways. We cannot wait for SPRING!

And then all year I look forward to corned beef, cabbage and corn bread. yum!

Again, ho ho ho ho (as Alex would say it) a pirates life for me.
He sings it all day so it's the last thing I think when I shut my eyes. Good night.

Alex deserves some PRAISE

We've always said Alex is our "special" boy. But as time passes we are discovering he really is one-of-a-kind.

His speech delay is getting SO much better. It's like when he turned three, something just clicked! I of course owe it to both of his preschools. They do ALL the work. And he LOVES school! He's still behind on speech but has done leaps and bounds over the last year. We are so proud of him. I now just consider him a "late talker".

We recently learned he is a COMPLETE visual learner. We just started putting things together in our heads and it makes total sense. Thus why he would struggle with speech. Speech is not visual.

He really is a SMART kid! And believe it or not, he's starting to READ. It's like you always hear, those kids with ALL the energy or the kids with speech delays or the kids that struggle in the beginning....... Turn out to be brilliant in the end. I'm not saying Alex is brilliant by any means because he's not but he has a really good memory.

One of Alex's teachers approached me to tell me how he is doing. She is the one that pointed out that Alex learns differently. Instead of learning his ABC's (which he knows) and then learning what each letter sound makes (which he also knows) and then sounding out letters to make words. Alex just memorizes the word and doesn't forget it. 

I thought hmmmm? I wanted to test it out myself. He has been watching these site word videos for a couple of months now. They come with site word flash cards. I've never even opened up the flash cards before because why would I?  I went through the cards and he knew every single word! All 45 cards! Whatever? I was shocked! He didn't get his memory from me. I can't remember what I cooked for dinner last night.

So now his teacher sends home books for him to memorize so he can pass them off. Some of the books have the same words in them so he will pass them off even before he brings them home. It's crazy. It's crazy to listen to him read a book. He is only 3 years old. I wonder what else he has in store for us? Because I bet we get a few more surprises throughout his childhood. 

All my kids are so different. Keeps my life interesting.

Organize me
Me and clothes. It's a love/hate relationship.

When Tyler asks what my deal is with buying clothes, I tell him it's like my trademark.

I don't have a space between my teeth like Madonna or a mole on my face like Cindy Crawford. So I have to buy my kids clothes to feel important.

No but I do really enjoy it.

Alex is the only kid of the four that gets the hand-me-downs. And I still end up buying him new things to "match" his older brother (they are so cute when they match).

This so called "hobby" comes with a darker side, which is about every six months I have to go through 3 closets and re-organize them. It's partly because we live in this place that actually has 4 seasons and I have these 4 kids that won't stop growing.

Luckily I have arrangements with two friends (which I highly recommend). One friend buys Olivia's clothes that she has outgrown. And another friend buys Alex's and Drew's. It's so great. I need to find someone for Esther's and I'll be set.

So this week I did just this and went through closets and clothes. And my closets thank me for it.

Alex always has way too many clothes because he basically gets double.
Before:

After: Do you see a difference? I promise there is.

Here are all the empty hangers.

(But then I opened the box that has Drew's outgrown clothes and basically filled all those hangers back up. Ugh.)

Olivia's black bag of outgrown clothes:

Why is it so hard for me to get rid of baby clothes? Am I the only one with this problem?
I know my family is COMPLETE. 2 girls and 2 boys, I could never mess that up. But it's still very hard to let go. I don't think it's the clothes I am attached to but rather the baby that has outgrown them. 
So the bigger pile is getting put away for when I can part with them. One of the smaller piles will be placed with someone who really needs them and another smaller pile are hand-me-downs from a friend that Esther will get to wear!

I'm glad it's done! For six months that is...I am consistent with organizing clothes because I HAVE to. Otherwise we would be drowning in them.

RSV

...Our first battle with RSV...

{A long story sort of cut down. I will try not to be dramatic and exaggerate everything.}

It all started a few weeks ago. Our first day in California, at Tyler's Brother's house. Esther did not feel good. She had a 102 degree fever and was miserable. I thought for sure she had another ear infection. The next day we took her into urgent care so we didn't have to worry about it at Disneyland. 

The Dr. (not a pediatrician) said her ears are fine. He did listen to her lungs and said she was super congested. She probably has a virus and she's teething. And give her Tylenol because it's easier on the tummy. Okay? Okay. When we left I thought congested? This guy was a joke! She doesn't even have runny nose.  

So we go to Disney. That first morning at Disneyland was miserable for her. For a baby that NEVER cries to a baby that would not STOP crying, I about jumped into the lake. I even went to the Disney Nurses station in tears myself. They didn't do anything. We were only there for a couple of hours when I decided this Tylenol is not doing shiz and I was going to take her back to the hotel, give her some IB (the magic stuff) and lay her down for a nap.

That seemed to do the trick. IB saved us! Tylenol just doesn't work for her. She slept a couple of hours and was happy after. So we headed back to Disney to join the rest of the family. She was good the next 2 days. Not her little happy self but good. 

She was great on the drive home as well. But we did notice her nose started running and she was getting a cough. I thought, of course, why wouldn't she be getting a cold. She touched and would occasionally suck on all those safety bars on the rides.

The next four days her cold gets worse and worse. It turns into green snot and a very wet cough. Poor girl can't catch a break! One morning I noticed she was weezing a little. I thought this is not normal and so I took her in. I love my Dr.s here and they love me. I explained the WHOLE Disney trip and he immediately said she has RSV. Then he listened to her lungs, strapped the stethoscope on me and let me listen. And explained how RSV works and bla bla bla. Her O2 stats were good at 98%. He did say she was at the tail end of it and her body is getting all the "stuff" out. He also said she will be fine and to keep an extra eye on her. 

It seemed like the very next day she was better. And each day after better and better. And she's perfectly fine now.

I always thought "RSV" oh my goodness, hospital, scary. But I guess it can be just a glorified chest cold and thank goodness for us it was. I would bet some of my other kids have had it without us knowing when they were younger. 

So the moral of the story is the California Dr. wasn't a quack after all, Tylenol sucks, Esther really isn't the most dramatic teether (and "ho ho ho ho a pirates life for me" is still in my head).

Side note:

We've been to Disneyland twice now.The first time the kids had the Swine Flu. This time Esther had RSV. So I'm hoping one of us can contract some kind of herpes virus to share for the next visit! Who wants to go with us!? ha

The End.

{Even RSV can't keep us away from Target} 

my sweet little girl

Organize me

I am consistant with eating. I do it all the time. Maybe that's why I am sick of my pantry, I'm in there often. I love to organize food, it's weird.

Here's what my pantry looks like at the moment

(okay maybe not this bad)

But I want something like this

or maybe this

It's going to take some time and money. But I'm up for the challenge.

Olivia and the Simple Machine

I remember the days when I didn't have to think so much....

Having a second grader you have to help with homework, which means you have to think. Sometimes really hard. 

The kids have homework every single day. It's rather annoying. But I guess it's life. A lot of the kid's homework I have to correct before they send it back the next day. Which means I have to know the answers. Which means I am getting really good at my 2nd grade math again. Which means Olivia frequently says "Mom, just google it".

So Monday she brought a paper home that said her science project is due Thursday. What the? I'm guessing this project was given out while we were on vacation, giving everyone else a week and a half to complete. We had 3 days. They are learning simple machines. So she (and Dad) made a machine with incline planes and a pulley system. And then she had to write a report all about it.

She was seriously so proud of her project. She really did do a lot of it herself.

And heck yes we are keeping it and renaming it for when Drew/Alex/Esther need to make a simple machine.