My Friday

Mike got home late Wednesday night. Yea. So my Friday was considerably better than my Monday. It went something like this:

5:15 - Kira wakes up... I try to get her back down, but no luck

5:45 - Still sort of trying to keep Kira from waking up, I send Mike to get Reid in the shower

6:00 - Give up, get Kira up, get Zach up, make lunches

6:45 - Zach out the door for the bus

6:50 - Load Kira up, take Reid to seminary

7:05 - Home, start watching Survivor

7:50 - Sneak out to get Reid while Kira is playing in the living room

8:05 - Home, finish watching Survivor, start watching Amazing Race

8:50 - Ask Mike to take the boys to school and to take Kira, so Mike loads up Kira and takes the boys

9:20 - Put Kira down for a much needed nap

9:25 - Finish watching Amazing Race, watch Grey's Anatomy and Ugly Betty

11:40 - Kira up, lunch, play

3:30 - Zach comes home off bus... he didn't realize he had practice after school

4:50 - Reid home off bus... he actually didn't have practice today

5:30ish - I put in Gladiator upstairs and start watching it

8:30 - Zach loads the dishwasher and runs it

8:45 - Cole cleans the kitchen table

9:45 - Sitting on couch posting to my blog while Mike and the kids are upstairs

So I went out of the house a total of two times today. And one of them was without Kira. Ahhhh... I'll take more days like this anytime!

My Monday

Mike left really early yesterday morning to catch a flight to Boston. He'll get home super late Wednesday night.

So my day went like this:

5:45 - up, kids up, make lunches

6:15 - Kira wakes up

6:50 - Load Kira up, drive Reid to seminary

7:05 - Home

7:50 - Load Kira up, pick up "Morning Brothers" from seminary

8:05 - Home

8:50 - Load Kira up, take "Morning Brothers" to school, stop by bank

9:20 - Home

10:00 - Put screaming baby down for a nap

12:00 - Feel grateful that Kira napped for two hours

3:00 - Load Kira up, take food to Zach (who has a football game I can't go to because it's windy and rainy and not good weather for Kira to be out in)

3:40 - Home

5:20 - Load Kira up, pick up Reid from football

5:40 - Home

6:40 - Load Kira up as well as Reid, Jacob and Cole, pick up Zach from football game... it takes me 30 minutes to get across town because of a broken down truck on the highway... still rainy and windy and now it's dark, too)

7:20 - Get Zach, drive to book store to get book that Reid has needed for English class for over a week

7:40 - Park a million miles away from bookstore because apparently everyone is at the mall where the bookstore is located... leave all kids in car because Kira is sleeping... threaten them with their lives if they wake her up

8:00 - Home, Kira wakes up, screams for half an hour before going back to sleep

9:30 - Bed, pray that Mike makes it home safely because this whole single parent thing is not for me!

Piggy Flu and "The Bearded One"

So Mike has swine flu. He went to the doctor yesterday because he was running a fever. He figured it was an infection related to his poison ivy which now covers many sections of his body. (I told him he should have warned me of his defectiveness BEFORE I married him.) However, it was just that his body was kicking him while he was down and he tested positive for swine flu. The doctor gave him a steroid shot to help with the poison ivy and wrote him a prescription for some fancy ointment to help with the really bad spots. He also got a prescription for some super duper cough suppressant.

And he's feeling much better today. His fever is gone (the dr said it usually only lasts around 24 hours) and the steroid shot has really sped up the healing of his grotesque face. :) (I'M KIDDING!!!)

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Kira woke up this morning while I was taking Reid to seminary. Mike said she yelled out, then another minute later made a couple of sounds, so he went to her crib. At this point, she was pretty quiet and it was very dark when he picked her up. She reached out, felt his beard and burst into tears. I wish I could say that she wanted me because of my great mothering techniques, but we all know why she really wanted me...

Small Things

The church has early morning lessons for high school students called seminary. The class starts at 7am and ends at 7:50am. So every morning I drive Reid there, come home for a while, and then go to pick him up. Kira usually comes with me to pick him up. We also pick up two to four other boys who come and hang out at our house until around 9am when I drive them all to school. We call these boys Kira's "morning brothers". She loves them and they love her! They talk to her, sing to her, and have recently begun talking about what they'll call her when she's older. Right now they call her "Baby" and say it with much gusto!

Shaeson and Parker come over every day. Two other boys are more sporadic. Shaeson is the one holding her. He usually carries her in from the car when we get home each day. And Parker is the other boy. Reid is peeking in from the background.

And last week, we took the baby gate off the stairs. Kira can go up and down safely now. We are keeping a folded sleeping bag on the floor at the base of the stairs just in case she takes a tumble, but she's a little pro, so hopefully she'll do alright. While I was folding clothes just now, she went upstairs, played for a while, then came back down.

What a cutie!

I thought her birthday post should be about something that she both likes to do and is good at. She likes her puff snacks and she is quite good at getting into them.

See how the edge of the lid is starting to curl up? She uses her bottom teeth to pry it up. (And she has 10 teeth now. All four molars are in!) Then she takes the lid off:

And reaches ALL the way in! The only thing missing is a picture of them spilled all over the floor! I love how she has her whole arm inside the container!

She is such a precious little person. We are amazed that she is a year old.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Kira is 1!!!

I'll post a bunch of pictures of our birthday girl later in the day!

Freakazoid

Poor Mike.

He went with Jacob and the 11 yr old scouts on their campout this past weekend. And now his face and lips are covered with poison ivy (or some other plant... he's allergic to EVERYTHING!).

He looks plain freaky. It worked it's way into his right eye overnight and now it's all swollen like his lips (which are also oozy).

Poor, Poor Mike.

And to make matters worse, he has his annual business meeting next week. I would say that maybe he'll have time to heal by then, but he's Mike and will probably have it completely covering his face by then. Maybe I need to knit a couple of leper bandages. I told him he was reminding me of Robert the Bruce's father in Braveheart. He was an evil, hideous looking guy. Mike's not evil, but he's not too far from hideous.

No. He's not hideous. Pitiful is more the right word here. I'll say it again:

Poor Mike.

(Kira is walking across the living room with one of my flip flops on her foot.)

So lots of kind thoughts in Mike's direction will be appreciated.

Four Kids, Four Winds

I know I have five kids, but the saying doesn't work with five. And Kira's a bit young to be going off on her own.

Anyway. Yesterday Mike and Jacob headed out to Jacob's 11 yr old scout campout. They left around 4pm with the plan to come back today around 5pm.

At 4:15, Reid comes in asking if he can go to Parker's (his good friend here). He had a day full of church activities this morning and was supposed to be done by 4pm, but I haven't heard from him yet. There's a Stake dance tonight at 8pm that he's going to, so if he doesn't come home before that I probably won't see him until tomorrow morning since I'll be in bed by the time he gets home tonight.

Then this morning around 9am, I got a call from a friend from Austin who is up visiting family in McKinney. They invited Cole to spend the day and night with them (their son is Jake, Cole's one and only friend from our neighborhood in Austin). So Cole left with them this morning and won't be back until 11am tomorrow.

Zach has stayed home and thankfully my dad called (they've got their own wind and are spending the evening with my step brother James who is performing in a play tonight) and asked if Zach would wash his truck if he dropped it off here and picked it up tomorrow on his way home. Zach was thrilled. The truck is now washed and all spic and span.

I have had an unusually empty house. I like it when my house is empty. :) I know that in 10 years when all the boys are gone, I'll feel differently, but for now, I really enjoy a quiet house. Cleaning is so much easier that way.

I had decided last night that my cleaning strategy for today was to start at the front door and go from there. It has worked pretty well. The house is pretty clean and I've even got dinner in the oven.

However, the dinner also has a wind because it's going to the neighbors who just had a baby. I didn't have enough ingredients to double it and make some for us...

Oh well. Be free, dinner. Be free.

New Experience

I've known for a long time that no matter how many kids I have, I'll always feel like a bit of a first timer. All my kids are so different. And recently I've been proven right all over again.

It's been clear for a while now that Kira likes to nurse. A few months ago, when she started walking and becoming a little more independent, she would, at times during the day, stop and just cry and cry at my feet. She wanted to nurse. The boys never really cared. She nurses a lot more frequently during the day than they ever did at this age. The two boys that I was still nursing at 12 months were down to twice a day. Naptime and bedtime. And by 14 or 15 months, I decided it was time to stop, so I stopped. No big deal. They didn't care.

Not so for Kira. Yesterday she was fussing, so I picked her up and she started banging her head against my chest. Then today she was sitting beside me on the couch when she lifted my shirt up and started "nursing" on my stomach. When I pulled my shirt down, she started crying and banging her head against my chest while also lifting my shirt.

I don't really have a plan for weaning her. I guess I figured it would be like it was with the other boys. I'd decide I was ready to stop and stop. I had thought the other week that I might want to nurse her through the winter to hopefully help her avoid colds and such. But now I'm not sure. I don't know that I want to continue on and have it become a big fight. But I'm not necessarily ready, either.

So... something new for me to experience. Lovely.

Good News

Jesse is home from the hospital. I called him yesterday afternoon to see what room he was in and he said he was home. So Reid and I went over to his house yesterday afternoon to take him some cookies and a small gift. He looked good. I visited with his mother and grandmother while Reid talked with Jesse. They are really nice people and were very nice to Reid. Jesse told Reid that he was going to be out of sports for 6 months. So he won't be able to play basketball like he had planned, but he said he'd be playing baseball in the spring. It just emphasizes the fact that while you know it's all part of the game and everything, Reid has changed this kid's life.

While I was thinking of what to write on the note that we sent with the gift for Jesse, I kept thinking of the line from Better Off Dead: "Sorry I blew up your mom, Ricky."

Well. A little, cute girl just made a present for me in her diaper. I should go tend to that.

Double Ack.

So yesterday I picked Reid up from football practice and asked if he had heard how Jesse (the boy who got injured) was doing. Reid said that Jesse was still in the hospital with broken ribs, a cut spleen, and a bruised kidney. I pulled the car over and went in to get Jesse's parent's number from the coaches. Good grief. I knew I needed to do something for them.

So I called the number today and talked to Jesse's dad. He said that Jesse was still in ICU and that he wasn't allowed to move at all because of the danger with his spleen. They're trying to keep it immobile so that it can heal. They're trying to avoid surgery and removing the spleen. Then he said, "But they let him start eating today." How do you respond to those things? And then he says, "It was really great of you to call. You really didn't need to worry." Didn't I? I know it's part of football, but my kid just put your kid in the hospital for four or five days... I think I'm required to call!

I asked if it was okay if we take a gift basket to Jesse and he said of course. They are supposed to be moving him to a regular room tonight or tomorrow. So we might get to visit with him a bit. Hopefully he's out of the woods surgery wise and may even get to come home on Saturday or Sunday. I certainly hope so.

Ack.

I went to pick Reid up from football practice today. As I was coming up on the school, I noticed an ambulance in the parking lot where I pick Reid up every day. I pulled into the lot, trying to make sure I didn't get in the way of the ambulance (and fire truck). I'm wondering what's going on and if it has to do with Reid's team, another team, or the middle school football players who are playing a game at the high school field. I knew Reid was okay because he had called me a few minutes before to come pick him up.

Reid starts walking to to the car and as he's getting in, I ask him, "Do you know what's going on?" He says, "Yeah, I tackled a guy and he came down on my knee and broke his ribs."

ACK. I was not expecting that.

I feel bad for the kid, but as Reid's mom, at that very moment, I felt really bad for Reid. I asked him if he was alright and what the coaches had to say and all of that.

I think he's alright. But I'm going up to give him a big hug before bed just in case.

And I think I'll make some cookies for the kid who has broken ribs. Reid has a class with him, and hopefully he'll be back at school soon.