Being a Parent Can Be Yucky

Yes, being a parent can be yucky.  This week I had the privelege to clean up pee, poop, and vomit several times.  Lincoln generally does pretty well getting to the toilet but sometimes if things aren't just right he doesn't make it in time.  It usually involves trying to turn the light on or get the stool in place that makes him a little late.  He was a little late one time this week and didn't get positioned just right and he sprayed everywhere-lovely.  Then later in the week he wanted the light turned on but I was changing one of the babies.  So even though he really had to go, he moved the stool over to the light switch, got it turned on, and then I hear, "Mommy, I didn't go poopy in the the potty."  Which means he went in his pants.  So much fun.   To top that off, after small group Wednesday night, I went downstairs to turn off all the lights (all the kids hang out down there with some sitters while the adults meet upstairs) and walked into the bathroom to see poop smeared on and in the toilet.  Then Thursday I got to hlep out with Jackson's class field trip to the Conservation Department.  We were towards the end of the nature hike and the guide had the kids all sit on a bridge and was explaining to them how you can also hear nature if you are quiet.  About that time, a boy in his class threw up.  One of the paras took him back to the main buidling and there was a poor girl who had a little splatter on her pants.  I had some small wipes in my purse in a ziplock bag.  So I used the bag as a glove and cleaned her up and put it all in the bag.  Then a girl wanted a kleenex to wipe her nose (it was cold outside) and then she wanted to hold my hand the rest of the walk :-). And to finish up the week, Ellie came down Friday night around 12:45 and said her belly hurt.  I told her to go in our bathroom and see if she needed to go to the bathroom.  A little bit later I hear a cough and then she was yelling for me.  There was vomit all over the toilet and on her, poor girl.  I got her in the shower (had to hold a Wal-Mart sack in there for her once so she could throw up a little more) and got everything cleaned up.  We got everything set up for her to sleep right outside our bathroom and she was fine the rest of the night.

All is quiet right now.  The youngest three are napping, Ellie is at a birthday party, and Jackson went to the office with Andrew.  I think Andrew thought it would give me a little down time, which is nice.  He has a jury trial coming up this week so he has been working hard at the office with early mornings and later nights and will be spending a lot of time there the next few days prepping everything.  So while I have a little time, I thought I would try to get this post done.

The kids didn't have school on Monday and it was a gorgeous day outside.  We ended up skipping dance and just let them play outside for awhile.  They were pretty dirty from playing on the dirt piles when we came in and since I was late getting dinner in the oven, we did an early bath time.  It is usually a task to get Lincoln to eat dinner and this night was no different.  Everyone had finished and I had cleaned everything up when I came back to the table to find this.

I let him skip his nap that day since we were playing outside and between that and being forced to eat dinner, he was worn out.

Tuesday, Miles, Bennett and I hit up Wal-Mart and Aldis.  Our new system got us through both stores, so I am glad that is working.  I just have to find a way to hide their baby food jars when I put them in the cart because they get mad if they can't get them or if I take them away.  There are a lot of them though as we are up to 28 jars of food a week. 

Ellie had Career Day at school on Wednesday.  She decided she wanted to be a doctor.  I brought out a pair of old scrubs I had from when I worked in the ER during college.  I've held on to them thinking the kids would get some use out of them at some point.  I did a very rough job of altering them a bit.  The pants were just pinned up with safety pins and then I sewed a couple seams up the sides of the top to make it a little shorter and narrower.  It did the job.  We topped it off with some stuff my dad picked up at the hospital for her and she loved it.

As I mentioned before, I helped out with Jackson's field day on Thursday.  It ended up being a cold, dreary day.  It rained on us a little while we were outside.  First we did the nature hike and then they did some fishing before we headed inside for a couple activities.  I knew they were going to be fishing but I didn't think it was going to be around 18 kids each with their own pole and hook.  Surprisingly, no one got hurt and there were actually a few fish caught.  And another thing to be thankful for- Jackson is still excited to have his mom come along on field trips :-).

It ended up raining Thursday afternoon, so Jackson's football practice was cancelled and they got to go to Little K instead.  After dropping them off, I was home just long enough to get stuff started for dinner before it was time to pick them up again.  Andrew came up to eat a quick dinner and then was off to a volunteer training session at our church.  In an effort to be efficient with my time, I put the twins in our bathtub, Ellie and Lincoln in our shower, and then had Jackson sit in the bathroom with me while I was bathing everyone so we could do his practice spelling test.  Maybe not the best environment for studying, but it worked. 

Friday was a fun day because our new family picture came in.  I love it.  I also ordered one of the silhouette picture to put in Andrew's office. 

Jackson had another football game Friday night and it was our first cold one.  They twins didn't last too long.  We were only there for probably a half hour.  After the game, we had my parents and Andrew's parents over for dinner.  We ended up just ordering out Coltons-easy prep and cleanup.   Friday night was a rough night.  After the incident with Ellie, I went back to bed around two  slept lightly thinking she was going to get sick again.  Then Miles started the screaming thing again around four.  Andrew ended up getting him up for a bit.  And lastly, I decided to sleep in a bit since I didn't get much during the night and Lincoln comes in around 6:30 with his clothes to get ready for the day.  Jackson and Ellie both had soccer games at 11 on Saturday, but I kept Ellie at home just to make sure she was okay.  She had breakfast and dinner and didn't act sick at all.  I think she just has a sensitive belly.  So we decided to go ahead with the rest of our day.  Heidi was in town so we went by her parents new house to get a tour.  It was beautiful.  After that, they decided to join us at Family Fun Night at the Primary school.  I am thinking they may have regretted that decision.  It is pure chaos.  I think the kids had fun though.  Andrew tried so many ways to get out of going to it.  In the end, we didn't have much time to stay there so he thought it would be best for him to keep the twins in the car and go fill up while I took the other three in for a little bit.  We were there for about a 1/2 hour, the kids played a few games, got some prizes, and then it was time to head out to Matthew and Kristin's for Luke's 2nd birthday party.  It was an adorable tractor party and the kids had a lot of fun running around playing with each other.  Miles and Bennett also had a good time exploring their house and finding new toys to play with.

Miles and Bennett have become even more of a handful these days.  They have discovered the cabinets, so we finally need to do some babyproofing on those.  I have just put rubberbands on them for now.  And they stand on their toes and grab things off of the end tables and night stands. 

 

Sometimes when I clap and say, "Yay," Miles will kind of mimic me. And the other day, they were playing beside our chair that is close to the wall. There is maybe a foot a space in between them and they both like to squeeze in there. Bennett started crying and at first I thought they were just fighting. But it continued, so I went to check on them and Bennett had been trying to crawl through and Miles was sitting on top of him.





We are now anxiously awaiting the arrival of our new niece and nephews.  I keep thinking Amanda could go at anytime now since she is at 34 weeks.  I was at 34 1/2 weeks when I had Miles and Bennett.  I really feel for Amanda right now.  I was so miserable at the end of the pregnancy.  Everything hurt and it took so much effort to do the smallest thing.  And sleep was a thing of the past because you could never get comfortable and would have to go to the bathroom multiple times during the night.  Kaitlin could go anytime now too.  I think she is doing pretty well though.  Since she was so sick during the beginning that I don't think she has gained much weight.  Either way, I bet they are both pretty excited.