So long!

When we moved into this house in September 2008, I knew the outside needed a fair amount of yardwork to be done. A few projects were tackled over the years (removing some ugly ground cover, relocating one bush), but no progress was made last year due to my bed rest. I decided to work on it this week. I have always thought that Paul would be the one to remove the rest of the ground cover and some mostly dead bushes, but he's been a very busy guy over the past almost 5 years, and that isn't going to change any time soon. He's trying to work full-time whenever possible plus prepare for interviews and somewhere in the next few weeks needs to help Nadia make her car for the AWANA Grand Prix. That means I need to tackle the stuff around the house myself. I probably should have waited until the weather returned to spring like temps (it felt like summer yesterday and today), but I'm not complaining, as I'll take warmer than usual temps over colder than usual temps any day of the week!

Yesterday I removed one bush, and today I removed four more plus some evergreen ground cover. I actually even got two of the stumps out! The other three stumps can be hidden. I'm not feeling the need to dig them up. This yard work should help me toward me weight loss goal! I'm going to need to buy more flowers this year. I feel silly that I waited 4.5 years to say farewell to these bushes. The only time I see that side of the house is when I'm mowing the lawn, but I'm sure our neighbors will appreciate the improvement, and if it helps us sell our house, it's well worth the effort! I think Paul is going to borrow his dad's truck one night so we can get rid of all this yard waste. Yesterday I forgot to put sunscreen on the kids, but I remembered today as their cheeks were still rosy from spending so much time outside yesterday. Now that the grass is turning green again, I feel confident I can get a nice picture of Oliver and skip taking him to a photographer. 

I've said it before, but some times it seems there is a conspiracy amongst the children to make sure their parents don't sleep well at night. I remember thinking that when Ian was younger and not sleeping well at night, on the rare night that he slept well, Nadia, who is usually our best sleeper, would have a rough night. It happened again last night. Oliver slept through the night for the first time in weeks (he slept from 7:45pm to 5:45am), but Ian, who now usually is a good sleeper at night, was up every hour starting at 3am. The first two times Paul took him back to his bedroom. I let him join us in bed at 5am, and Paul let him come downstairs at 6am. Normally the earliest we let him in our room is 6:30, and the earliest we usually let him come downstairs is 7:00. The reason he couldn't sleep well was that he was hungry. He sat at the dinner table for over 2 hours and only ate a little bit of the hamburger I had grilled and didn't eat any macaroni and cheese that I made. You would think that would be a very child friendly meal. Nadia scarfed it down. He had a VERY large breakfast this morning and took a longer than usual nap this afternoon. He actually was nodding off while he was eating his sandwich at lunch he was so tired. Last week I let him try ice cream for the first time in his life. I was so excited as I thought he'd love it. Wrong. He didn't like the fact that it was cold. Oh well. I am certainly not going to make him eat ice cream. He's adjusted better to wearing shorts than I thought he would although when I first put them on him the past two days at first he tries stretching them down to his ankles. He keeps asking me if the shirt has "big sleeves." I guess that's what he calls a long sleeved shirt.

 

 

Textless Tuesday

Good News, Bad News

The good news is that the weather was simply gorgeous today (highs in the 70's!). I was thrilled to be able to put on some capris and a short sleeve shirt. Nadia was also thrilled to wear a new short sleeved outfit. Ian was excited when he picked out a new short sleeved Lightning McQueen shirt to wear, but then the bad news was that he still has trouble transitioning from one season of clothing to the next. I had hoped he had outgrown this sensory issue, but that is definitely not the case. Many, many tears were shed today over the fact that he was wearing short sleeves. He kept pointing to his skin and crying "my sleeves." My poor dear. I hope at some point it isn't so traumatic for him to make these transitions. Thankfully (for him) it's not warm enough to wear shorts yet. That will be another battle for another week (probably in a month when we're in Florida).  We had so much fun playing outside today. Nadia was pulling her brothers in the wagon, and then she climbed in and I gave all three of them a ride. I was running as fast as I could while pulling the wagon, which was a great little workout for me! I think I'll start making that a daily activity (weather permitting) in addition to the walks to the park. Nadia and Ian also were enjoying drawing with chalk on the driveway. The highlight for me was when Nadia said she wrote "Nadia loves Mommy." When I came over I saw MOM NADIA and a little squiggle underneath the two words that I am guessing was her attempt at drawing a heart. Priceless.

The very good news is that Paul received an email early this morning inviting him to interview on campus at SUNY Delhi on the 19th! This was a result of his phone interview three days ago. We are thrilled that he made the cut and is one of the three individuals they are bringing to campus to interview for the tenure track position (teaching chemistry and physics). Both places he is interviewing in NY are paying his travel expenses (the school he interviewed at last month in NJ did not). The bad news was that his phone interview this morning did not result in an invitation to interview. It's a bummer because that one (in North Carolina) was our first choice. New York wasn't our first choice of where to move, but we are very thankful for potential job offers for Paul. Of the two places he's scheduled to interview thus far in New York, we'd rather end up at Delhi. He had another phone interview today (also in NY), but they said they won't let him know until next week if he will be invited up for an in person interview.

The bad news is that Oliver woke up at 3am this morning. The good news is that I had gone to bed earlier than usual last night so I still managed to get a decent amount of sleep even though I was up from 3-4am and up again at 6am. Another bit of good news would be that the last two mornings the other kids haven't gotten up before 7am. Oliver got back in his normal nap scheduled today (after it being out of whack the last two days due to the trip to the mall on Saturday morning and church yesterday morning). I actually woke him up at 3pm so we could go to the park, and I usually hate to wake a sleeping baby, but he had been asleep for 2 hours, and he had slept for 1.75 hours in the morning so I didn't feel too guilty about waking him up so we could enjoy the gorgeous weather. I took lots of pictures today. I'll save some for later this week.

 

 

8 Months Old!

My baby is 2/3 of a year old! Since the gestational ticker for pregnancy really includes the two weeks prior to conception, Oliver was alive in the womb for just shy of 30 weeks, which is about 7 months. This means he has now been out of the womb for a month longer than the time he spent in my womb. His weight gain slowed down by 50%, but that must be normal for babies this age because at 16 pounds he's now at 4.3 percentile (compared to 3.8 last month). Ian and Oliver both weighed 9 pounds at 4 months, but Ian weighed 18.5 pounds at 8 months. Over the past month I put away the last few 0-3 month articles of clothing that he had still been wearing, and he's begun wearing some 6-9 month clothing in addition to the 3-6 month clothing he's worn the last few months. He also moved up to size 3 diapers a few weeks ago. He goes through 3-4 diapers a day.

He hasn't made much progress with his feeding skills. He seems to want the food and enjoy it, but he hasn't figured out what to do with his tongue. A lot of it is ejected. He's had rice cereal, many different fruits, and sweet potatoes thus far. I decided to try him on truly solid foods a couple of weeks ago, and he actually does better with that as far as not as much comes back out. He's had Ritz crackers, Gerber biscuits, banana flavored puffs, and a few bites of a pretzel. Hopefully before he turns nine months old he'll figure out how to swallow baby food. As for nursing, he's down to just one feeding a day (when he first gets up in the morning). Up until about 10 days ago he was still nursing several times a day, but he started biting me, which really hurt even though he doesn't have any teeth yet. He was only nursing for super brief periods of time (aside from the first feeding session), and I wasn't willing to continue those tiny nursing sessions if I was going to be in serious pain each time. It upsets me, but my best way of dealing with it is to try not to think about it. At least he's still nursing once a day. Something is better than nothing, right? Sometimes I am tempted to analyze and try to figure out if I should have done something differently, but that really isn't going to do me any good. If the FET does result in another pregnancy that results in another preemie, then at that point it will be beneficial, but otherwise it's pointless. I know the first four weeks he was in the NICU I certainly gave it 110% as every single day I pumped 8-12 times a day around the clock in addition to nursing him around the clock once he was two weeks old.

 

His sitting skills continue to improve, but he still topples over from time to time. He enjoys playing with a wide variety of toys. He puts most of them in his mouth, and if he's sitting in his highchair, it doesn't take long for all them to end up on the floor. We keep the exersaucer in our bedroom, and he goes in that when I'm getting a shower. He jumps in it and rocks it back and forth in addition to rotating around playing with the all of the toys. Over the last month he's improved some as far as not crying as much when he's in his car seat. Until the last month unless he was asleep or had a bottle in his mouth (thanks to Nadia), he was crying in the van. Now he's sometimes content even when he's awake and not being fed. He usually does pretty well in the stroller, as long it's in motion. Hopefully this means he'll be able to handle spending lots of time in the stroller at the Magic Kingdom next month.

He only slept through the night twice over the past month, but the last three days he woke up at 4:45, 5:05, and 4:30am, which is a slight improvement in the right direction. I'm hoping over the next couple of weeks he'll adjust his wake up time closer to 6am so I don't have to let him cry it out. He usually sleeps for another two hours after that feeding, so he has been getting about 9-10 hours total of sleep at night. I rarely get back to sleep though, which is why I really want to give up the 4am feeding. He does really well with naps. Lately his first nap has usually been from 9-10:30am, and his second nap has typically been from 1:00-3:30pm. A short nap for Oliver only lasts 45 minutes, and a long nap for Oliver lasts a full three hours. He usually naps for a total of four hours a day, which is more than Nadia or Ian ever did. It's very easy to put him down. Sometimes I put him to sleep with a little milk, and other times I put him down when he's fully awake. He does an excellent job of soothing himself to sleep without any crying. His nap schedule gets messed up on Sundays. Usually he takes a short morning nap at church, but today he was awake for 6 hours straight as he couldn't stay asleep in the pack n' play in the church nursery. Yesterday I made the mistake of taking the kids to the mall in the morning to buy Nadia some smaller cleats. I won't be taking them anywhere in the morning any time soon as it really messed up both boys' schedules. He is like his big sister and sleeps on his belly. Sometimes when he wakes up he rolls onto his back.

 

I had planned to take Oliver to get his picture taken professionally once he was able to sit independently, and so all last month I kept thinking, I need to make an appointment, but I figured I'd wait until Easter had passed because I know the studios are busy right around Easter. That was a mistake. I hadn't taken him since November. I found out a couple of days ago that ALL (3,100) Picture Me and Sears portriat studios were closed down a few days ago. I know that in some places Target and JcPenney have portrait studios, but none of the stores within 100 miles of our house do. Now I have two choices - do it myself (will be easier once the outside is prettier and I can do some outdoor shots) OR pay a LOT more money than I've ever paid for pictures before. I feel badly as I already was feeling guilty that I hadn't taken Oliver for pictures as often as I took his siblings, and now the cost just skyrocketed. My thinking at the moment is I'll do more pictures myself (and start framing ones I've taken more than just framing professional ones), but I think we'll splurge in August for a professional shoot that focuses mostly on Oliver but also includes a family photo. I'll do Nadia's 5 year shoot myself, and Wendy can probably help me with Ian's 4 year shoot in December. The upside of all of this is I think it's going to force me to work on improving my skills (and maybe buying some things like a remote for my camera and a sheet to use as a backdrop). I certainly never dreamed that many studios would be closed suddenly in one fell swoop. I feel badly for all those who must have lost a job when that happened! I am grateful I have a better camera than I did when Nadia and Ian were infants. Speaking of pictures some of these (the ones without the 8 months sticker) were taken yesterday. I have so many pictures that I'll save some for later this week. I'm motivated right now to improve my skills a little before our trip to Florida!

 

 

 

I was walking through the park...

When I was a child my dad used to sing a portion of a song to us while we were on the swings. He sang, "I was walking through the park one day, in the very merry month of May, when what to my surprise but a pair of Irish eyes, I was walking through the park one day." As he sang, he purposefully walked close enough that our feet would hit him as we were swinging, and this would cause us to laugh hysterically. I have continued that tradition with my kids, and let me tell you, it is just as hysterical to them as it was to me and my sisters, particularly when I point my finger at them and "scold" them for kicking their mother. Priceless. Oliver will enjoy it too some day I am sure, and maybe I'll get to play this little game with my grandchildren some day.

 

 

Homeschooling Update #1

The first official textbook Nadia completed was Get Set for School by Handwriting without Tears. They have since made a new edition of it, and it's now called My First School Book. This was an excellent introduction to the capital letters, and I plan to use it with Ian and Oliver in the future. A couple of weeks ago Nadia started their Kindergarten textbook (Letters and Numbers for Me). Yesterday she completed the review of the capital letters, and today she started learning the lowercase letters. The letter she still struggles with the most is "S." Her favorite lowercase letter thus far is definitely "i." She likes to write her name in all caps except she makes the "i" lowercase because she loves the dot. She also practices her handwriting by writing in a journal almost every day. Once she becomes more interested in drawing, I am going to have her use the Draw and Write Notebook for her journal.

The second official textbook has been I Know How to Count and Write, which is actually a handwriting and math textbook for preschoolers. I do NOT plan on buying this again in the future. It's been too easy for Nadia, and some of the pages aren't usable without buying the teacher's manual. The workbooks I've picked up at yardsales and Ollie's and such have been just as good (and MUCH cheaper). We are flying through this book since it's rather easy for her. It has about 180 pages, and I think it will take us less than one month to complete it from start to finish. When she finishes it, I plan to start her on their (Purposeful Design's) Kindergarten mathematics textbook, but again I am dubious as to whether I'll make that same choice for Ian and Oliver because some pages seem impossible to use without buying the teacher's manual (which I am unwilling to purchase). We shall see, but right now I'm guessing I'll try a different curriculum for first grade. I wish I had taken the dates of the homeschooling convention in Harrisburg into account when planning our vacation. I'll have to wait until next year to be able to attend one.

I was thinking of starting the My Father's World Kindergarten curriculum, but the first letter they work on is "S," which is her hardest letter to write. Also, I then discovered that I had purchased the preschool (age 4/5) curriculum from Sonlight rather than the Kindergarten curriculum. OOPS! So I am going to use that with both Nadia and Ian first and then do the MFW curriculum with Nadia after we finish the Sonlight curriculum. I don't think I'm going to purchase Sonlight's teacher manual for Kindergarten (like I did for their P3/4 and P4/5), but I do want to read the kids most (or possibly all) of the books they use in their Kindergarten curriculum. We've already read a few of them such as: Beezus and Ramona, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Little House in the Big Woods, The Hundred Dresses, and The Complete Adventures of Curious George. I can see that Nadia is going to be the guinea pig as I try different curricula out to see what will work best for our family, and of course depending on the learning styles of each child, I might make different choices for each one!

We typically do our "schoolwork" during Oliver's morning nap. Ian usually colors or plays with play-doh or stamps and stamp pads while Nadia does her math, handwriting, and journal. Once I start the Sonlight curriculum I am planning to include him for that portion of our "school day." I haven't been writing lesson plans yet, and I don't think I'll start any time soon unless we move this summer to a state where Kindergarten is mandatory (it's not in PA).

Thankful Thursday

1. Paul submitted his dissertation today and completed various other paperwork and returned his keys to wrap things up at PSU! Yesterday he got up when I got up to nurse Oliver and spent a few hours working on his dissertation before he went to work. He did the same thing this morning, only he ended up not going to work. In addition to being grateful that he's done with his Ph.D., I am glad that he won't be needing to work on the computer in our bedroom at 5am tomorrow so I can get more sleep. I got less than 6 hours of sleep the past two nights between Oliver's 3am or 4am feeding, Paul having the lights on in our bedroom, and Ian getting up at 6:30am.

2. I am grateful that Paul's dad is so flexible as to the days and hours that Paul works. Not many employers would be this flexible! I've certainly never had a job that was this flexible. Although he shouldn't be taking more days off for his Ph.D., I am sure he'll be taking more days off this month for interviews.

3. It's a good thing Paul was able to be a FT student due to PSU and Bucknell giving him free tuition and paying him a stipend over the past 7 years. I worked full-time as a school principal while I completed my doctorate. That type of schedule would not have suited Paul.

4. Paul has four upcoming interviews! He has a phone interview tomorrow at 4:30pm, two phone interviews on Monday (9:45am and 4:30pm), and an in-person interview at Colgate on April 24. The school he is interviewing with at 9:45am said they would let him know later that day if he was selected for an in-person interview, and if he is selected, his interview will be on either April 19 or 22. Of the first batch of 17 applications, Paul only had one phone interview (which did not result in an in-person interview). Of the second batch of 20 applications, Paul was invited to participate in 6 interviews (at least two, which has been far more encouraging. We are still waiting to hear if he'll get any invitations from the most recent batch of application (9 more). It would be wonderful if we knew by the end of this month where we were moving this summer!

5. Nadia has such a voracious appetite for chapter books! Over the past week she has listened to unabridged readings of Heidi and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Now she's listening to The Wind in the Willows. I am almost done reading the kids Little House in the Big Woods. She picked out Ramona Forever and Pippi Longstocking as the next two that I will read to them (she's already listened to both of those on CD).

6. The highs are supposed to be in the 50's today and then in the 60's in a couple of days and then possibly up to 70 in about 5 days!!!!! Soccer practice will be far more comfortable to watch today, and this means far more trips to the playground, which hopefully means losing another ten pounds. Yahoo!!! Can you see why I'd like to move to North Carolina?

7. Nadia LOVED the ham and swiss pie I made for dinner last night with the leftover ham. She kept raving about how delicious it was. Any time I find a food one or both children enjoy for dinner, I feel like doing a happy dance!

8. We enjoyed the yummy chocolate peanut butter eggs that Millie brought us on Sunday. All this extra candy lying around though has done nothing for my weight loss goal (I assume..I haven't actually stepped on the scale in the past week), which is why I am planning on walking to the playground today and as many days as possible between now and our trip to Florida.

9. So far Ian hasn't had any allergic reactions. Every few days I give him a little something with milk in it (not baked) such as I've used skim milk in his cold cereal a few times or let him have some cheese and crackers a few times. He even had a yogurt once this week. I am not confident enough yet to go all out with his milk consumption, but I am thrilled that thus far he seems to have outgrown all his allergies. PTL!!! I also haven't been pushing the eggs beyond baked eggs, but that is no big deal in my opinion.

10. I found out yesterday that our neighbors (who moved to Oklahoma last June) are coming to visit in May!!! The kids and are are so excited!!

That's not right!

Yesterday Nadia received her soccer uniform. When she saw the big "3" on the back, she said, "That's not right! I'm FOUR years old!." It was all I could do not to burst out laughing. Yesterday I remembered to bring what we needed to return to the library, a hairbrush and ponytail holder for Nadia (because she hates to have anything in her hair so I have to put it up in the dance studio right before her class starts), soccer socks, dance skirt, cleats, tap shoes, ballet shoes, and the money and order form for the soccer fundraiser. I thought I had everything, but at the soccer field I realized I forgot her shin guards as well as a bottle of water for her to drink during the practice. It should be easier to remember everything tomorrow because we'll only be going to soccer (although I am guessing the tights and leotard she wore under her sweatpants and sweatshirt and winter coat helped keep her a little warmer). It's supposed to be warmer the next four days. YAHOO! It's really sunny out today, but it's still too chilly for me.

Many shoes and no socks

Oliver has been tugging on his socks, but he hadn't been taking them off very often. This week it has become almost impossible to keep socks on him. Since we were headed out and about today, I thought I'd put some of those leather soled soft shoes (like Robeez) on him today (ones that were Ian's), but they were WAY too big. The smallest pair of shoes I have for a baby boy are size 2 (black Sunday dress shoes), and those are also too big. I guess he'll just be going barefoot for awhile. It's not like he's going to be walking any time soon anyhow. Hopefully the weather will warm up soon so his toes won't be cold if he's going to keep yanking off his socks.

When we left for the library this afternoon, Nadia was wearing one pair of shoes, and we had three other pairs for her in the van (ballet, tap, and cleats). After her ballet/tap class, we went through the drive thru at Dunkin Donuts so we could eat dinner en route to the make-up soccer practice. Ian finished his bagel during the practice. It was rather cold out this evening. I'm hoping it will be warmer on Thursday night.

Paul received an invitation today for an in-person interview at Colgate University (in NY) for a two year teaching post doc position! The three upcoming phone interviews (Friday/Monday) are for permanent positions (two in NY and one in NC) so we'd rank those higher than this one, but a post doc certainly would open up the job field for him in 2 years. The interview in NC is the one we're both most interested in, but we shall see where we end up. I'm just praying for at least one job offer somewhere!

April Fool!

As we were discussing today's date this morning, I explained that it was April Fool's Day. Nadia showed some understanding as she described an episode of Calliou in which the dad played an April Fool's joke on the mom by changing the clock so the mom thought she had overslept. This then launched literally three hours straight of April Fool jokes. Yikes. Most of them were totally nonsensical (ex."Mommy, there's a tiger on the ceiling!"), but sometimes she did a better job of coming up with something that would be closer to an actual April Fools joke. Ian tried to play along at times, but he didn't get it. I felt badly as one of my jokes was "Hey, it's really warm outside, let's get our bathing suits on and go swimming!". Ian promptly ran upstairs and came downstairs with his swimming trunks, and he was very disappointed that I wasn't serious (the temps were only in the 40's today). I have to say I am glad April Fools Day only comes once a year!

On March 15 I completed all but one part of an application, and I asked Paul to write the 1,000 word essay that was a part of the application. It was due today, and he hadn't written it  yet; so he decided to stay home today and work on Saturday this week instead. This is why I am glad I am now doing almost all the application work for him. The deadline for one school  in New York was today, but they set up the phone interviews last week (his will be this Friday afternoon) so this proves to me that it's not the best idea to wait until the deadline to submit an application. Paul also worked on editing his dissertation again, as the final draft must be submitted by Friday.

 

Nadia and I both had fevers today, so we both took naps while Ian and Oliver napped. Ian woke up first, but Paul was gracious and played with Ian a little so I could nap a bit longer. I got up next, and it was quite awhile before Oliver and Nadia woke up. I had been congested the past few days, and I assumed it was allergies, but now I am thinking we caught a bug - again. Over the past 5+ weeks I've been up at 4am all but two mornings. I really would like to ditch this 4am feeding asap!