It’s been so long since I wrote a gallimaufry post that I had to look up my old entries to see what my usual format for the title was. But I was making my bed yesterday when little bits of necessary updates starting flitting and forming together in my mind so clearly that it was quite obvious a jumbled-medley post was going to be needed.
Here’s a bit of what’s been happening around here.
[Read more…]I remember when I had just two children and they each went to bed very early in the evening, and each had an independent playtime and naptime during the day, and my laundry “room” (a closet, actually) was on the second floor right next to our bedrooms. And I would get up in the morning and start a load of laundry immediately, then throughout the rest of the day work on drying, folding, and putting it away. And that’s all that was necessary to keep up with laundry.
Then I fell pregnant with my third, and for some reason everything fell apart. 2013 is the last time I remember being caught up on laundry.
[Read more…]Flannery, I missed your nine-month update and then felt so guilty about missing it that I missed the next three updates, too. So I am trying to backtrack. Here’s what I recall of your eleventh month.
Flannery Simone turned eleven months on the 30th of March.
[Read more…]Flannery, I missed your nine-month update and then felt so guilty about missing it that I missed the next three updates, too. So I am trying to backtrack. Here’s what I recall of your tenth month.
Flannery turned ten months on the 30th of February, which doesn’t exist. So we will say it was the 28th of February instead.
Biggest occurrence this month was another stomach bug. I don’t remember who started with it, but I’m fairly sure we got it from an indoor playground.
This is not a picture of Flannery sick with the stomach bug. This is her sleeping in my arms at said indoor playground. She had been sitting in the stroller as we walked around the mall–myself, Flannery, Beatrice, Aurick, and Eldore. She was quite late for her nap, but as she typically does, she will not sleep if there is too much activity, sights, and sounds to grab her attention. When we finally got to the playground, I sat down to nurse her. While her head was covered she promptly fell asleep. Poor thing!
Flannery, I wish you would just nap when you need to. You are given to just holding on until the bitter end, though.
A couple of days later everyone started getting sick.
Beadie got it first–she almost always does. Then it wiped out everyone else one by one. I remembered the last bug Flannery got, and waited for her to make that same strange sound she made before. I heard it in the middle of the night one night (why always in the middle of the night?) After getting her cleaned up, she sat with me out on the couch while I alternately took care of her and the other sickies that were spread out around the floor. She were such a trooper, though. She never cried while vomiting. Thankfully this bug was a very fast one, and it wasn’t too bad for her.
Another repeat experience for Flannery was we attended another funeral, this one for a relative on Grandmaggie’s side. Flannery did well; it was my first time taking five children to a funeral alone. Eldore forgot his shoes, but other than that we were mostly OK, and Flannery stayed quiet. (This is good, as once she gets going, she is hard to stop.)
She has quite the grabby hands, and a good grip. Here she is checking to see how secure Anselm’s hair is. Caveat frater (or something like that.)
Another frequent victim of Flannery’s Grabby Hands, Aurick began making his peace with her, though he still guards his toys closely. He also keeps an eye on whether or not she’s being quiet in her high chair or not. (Typically she’s not.)
In hindsight, Flannery did seem to be getting louder and spunkier these months. Her red hair and blue eyes stayed the same, however,
Flannery, I missed this update and then felt so guilty about missing it that I missed the next three updates, too. So I am trying to backtrack. Here’s what I recall of your ninth month.
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Flannery turned nine months on the 30th of January.
She is still a little peanut, fitting better into six-month things than the nine-months that she is, but she is growing, so that’s what matters.
We’ve been going (almost) every day this month to a playground with a basketball court. This is so that the big kids can use the skateboards/scooters they got for Christmas. She sits and watches the activity in a little fold-up wagon. It works like a mobile pack-n-play. She’s very content to sit in there, play with a toy or two, and watch all the activity around her.
She likes the swings, too, though not for too long. She giggles so much when she’s first put in there! But she tires of it fairly quickly. When she’s had enough, I plop her back in her wagon. She’s pretty happy in there–especially if Beatrice will come and sit with her.
Since getting over the solids hurdle, she’s been eating more. She seems to like meat, and even loves spicy breakfast sausage. She still doesn’t like the applesauce I made for her.
This month she went with me to a coffee shop to do some homemaking scheduling/planning. She was reasonably well-behaved for the first couple of hours, then (rather understandably) started to get grumpy and vocal. We left fairly quickly after that! Once she’s decided to make noise, very little will deter her.
Here she is wearing Grandmaggie’s baby bonnet while we cleaned out Nana’s house. That little outfit she has on is greener than it looks in the picture. She looks perfectly lovely in greens, owing I think to her hair, which is still very reddish.
Flannery turned seven months on November 30.
This post is being written a month late, Flansie Dear, so I will try to remember what this month was like for you without mixing it up too much with the month you’ve just completed!
Dear Aurick, you turned 20 months on the 7th of June, 2022.
This past month was something of a whirlwind. We had Flannery just before you turned 19 months, so the house was deep in the fog of those newborn days.
You never missed a beat when we brought Flannery into the family. You were fascinated with her, and loved to come and sit with her and I. You never showed any jealousy, even though you were something of a clinger with me already before she came, asking me “eeeee-UP” when you wanted me to pick you up, and fussing a little if I said I couldn’t.
We took a few trips as a family of ten–going to antique stores, a Strawberry Festival, etc. Since you weren’t walking yet, we put you and Beatrice in the fold-out wagon as we walked around these places. You hadn’t ever sat in the wagon like that, but you loved it, and you were very good at staying seated and keeping your hands to yourself.
You liked to go outside and play in the sandbox. This was helpful as generally I knew if you went outside and I lost sight of you, that’s where you would probably be. But it meant you would come back into the house looking like this:
Hrothgar, the dog, liked to dig in the sandbox and lie in the cool, wet sand he uncovered. Maybe you gravitated towards the sandbox because he was there. He, however, was not always thrilled that you came to play while he was trying to get his cool sand nap.
Since I was no longer pregnant and tired, we made it a point to go out weekly to a playground. You, however, would never go out and play, but just sit by me and Flannery on the bench and drink your water and watch everyone else. I imagine part of this was because you were still not walking, and the wood chips on the ground could not have been comfortable on your knees. I had been trying to get you to stand up, and then hopefully to take steps, but you just wouldn’t do it!
Aurick, you turned nineteen months on the seventh of May.
On the 30th of April, you became a big brother as Flannery officially joined us. You were very sweet with the baby and didn’t show any signs of jealousy at all.
Along with your incessant head-shaking, you started saying “no” along with the gesture. You also started saying “ball”, and I think this was the time you started this funny little word that sounded like “mahmoh”. I thought you were using it to refer to me, but maybe instead it meant “hey, you!” because you started using it for everyone to get their attention.
This month you started running a fever that wouldn’t come down with meds, so I took you back to the walk-in-clinic. They said you had another ear infection, which I thought was strange. The medicine they prescribed you was one that Ephraim is allergic to (but Clive isn’t) so I gave it, but watched you closely for any reactions. About an hour after taking it, your fever spiked to over 105. I don’t know why it did that, but I was worried it was related to the medicine somehow, so I didn’t give you any more. That was a long night, waiting for your fever to come down. It also coincided with the time we were expecting Flannery any minute, so it was an exciting couple of days. The next morning I called your real doctor and asked for a different medicine. She checked you out and said you didn’t have an ear infection at all, so any medicine would be useless anyway. That is the last time I will take a child to that walk-in clinic. Anyway, it was apparently just a virus you had. It went away in a couple of days. Thankfully we didn’t have Flannery while you were sick. You were pretty miserable.
Oh! While we were at the pediatrician you stuck your finger up my nose and made it bleed like crazy. Thanks!
As mentioned in your last update, you had decided pretty quickly that you didn’t like being in the playpen, no matter how many new toys were in there. You did love the mega blocks that we got for you, however, and you loved for a sibling to come into your room and play with them with you. So we did succeed in getting some kind of corralled play to happen after all.
