Easter Sunday

He is risen!!!

It was an interesting Easter. It was snowing when we woke up so we ditched the Easter sundresses and dug out next year's Christmas dresses for the girls. The worship service was good, although I missed most of it because of the baby. Then we had lunch at my aunt's house, which we always do, but my parents were in China. I really felt the loss. My mom always helps make it really special for the kids. At the end of the day I wondered if I really celebrated the fact that Jesus was risen as much as I celebrated the cute dresses, the hash brown casserole, the snow, and the family time. I always struggle with this at Christmas, too. It's hard to slow down and remember why we are enjoying the festivities in the first place. We have talked about the true meaning of Easter more before and after the actual day than we did on Sunday. I think Big Sissy is starting to understand the meaning a little bit.

Day at Chuck E. Cheese

Last week my cousin, who is visiting from Malaysia, spent the day with us. She has a 3-year-old just 2 months older than Big Sissy and an 8-month old. We were quite a sight trying to manage all of our kids. We both had problems conceiving, so we were cracking up that we were cramming 5 kids (ages 3 and under) into a minivan and taking the whole troop to Chuck E. Cheese. It was spring break and crazy crowded, so I was secretly glad when the tokens ran out. It was fun hanging out with the cousins, though. I'm sad we only get to see them once a year.

Little Buddy at Six Weeks

If you make fun of my double chin, I'll knock your socks off, Buddy.

Funny Face

Starting to Smile

Long Lost Blog

I am sad that I haven't had time for blogging lately. It's actually therapeutic for me to sit still long enough to reflect on my days, but lately I am scrambling just to get the essentials done before I go to bed. I still can't seem to hit the pillow before midnight. I'll try now to update you on the last few weeks.

Little Buddy is now 7 weeks old. He is gaining weight nicely, and has a few chins to prove it. :) He's about 12 1/2 pounds now. I have heard that 13 pounds is the magic number for sleeping through the night, but he is nowhere near sleeping through the night. If any of you are baby sleep experts and want to share some wisdom with me, I would welcome it. I used to have a book called "Sleeping Through the Night" that my pediatrician recommended. I let someone borrow it, but I have no idea who. If you are reading this and you have it, consider it a gift. I ordered a new one because I'm desperate to get some sleep!!! So Little Buddy eats every 2 hours through the day and every 3 or 4 through the night (sometimes 2). I know this is temporary, but I'm ready for some longer stretches.

One would think with as much as he is eating and gaining weight that I would be losing some, but not so much. I finally packed away the maternity clothes and went shopping for some "postpartum clothes." I am resisting the urge to call them fat girl clothes because Hubby thinks that sounds derogatory. :) A tip for anyone who wants to deliver at Missouri Baptist: They give you a $75 mall gift certificate if you check out a day early. This was a win/win situation for me since I REALLY wanted to go home early, and of course I love to shop.

So I took my gift card and went shopping. I actually didn't go to the Mills mall and I actually didn't even look at kids' stuff. Along the way I discovered a store that I love. It might be my new favorite. It's called H&M, and they have European-style clothing at really great prices. I had heard people talk about it and assumed it was expensive, but it's really not. They actually had racks of things for $1, $5, and $10. I collected about $50 worth of stuff and took it to the checkout. The girl at the counter asked how many times I had been there before. Weird question, I thought. Either I looked like a hippie and belonged there, or I was drooling and panting like a girl with free money and no children in tow who was intoxicated with the discovery of this store. Anyway...I'm all excited about my purchases and it turns out that the gift card is AmEx, and H&M doesn't take AmEx. Darn it all. Now I have to buy all these clothes plus spend $75 somewhere else. :) I should have bought an Easter outfit since this was the day before Easter, but my sweet mother had bought me an outfit to wear on Easter. It was brown and didn't feel very "Eastery," but it was nice and it fit. Turns out that all the kids wore brown too since it was snowing that day and we had to dig out next year's Christmas dresses.

Monday night Little Sissy came down with the stomach flu and puked all night long, all day Tuesday, and most of the day today. Yesterday was really hard. I literally used every pair of pajamas in her drawer, and I wore all mine plus I had to dig out the maternity pants again. Lamby had to be washed and dried 3 times. Who knows? This might be the thing that breaks her of her Lamby attachment. She was quite put out that he kept taking a bath while she was suffering. Today was better--no fever and the puking ended about noon. That could be because there was no food left in her stomach. I wouldn't allow her to eat anything or drink anything but water. I know it sounds mean, but we were running out of clothes!!! Between doing all the laundry, trying to care for a newborn, and nursing an ailing child, I was quite exhausted by the end of the day. And in the middle of all that, Big Sissy poops on the rug. No, I'm not kidding. She never has accidents like that, but she farted and it just happened. Of course I was totally grossed out and told her (from the other room where I was nursing a baby) not to touch it, but alas, she had already picked it up with her fingers. No, I'm not kidding. The girl is fascinated with poop, so it was just screaming to be touched. Today was a better today, and tomorrow will be even better. I'm about to bust out in song: "The sun will come out tomorrow...." Hmmmm...if I look at the word tomorrow too long it seems misspelled. It's an obsession.

OK, enough rambling. I'll just start posting pictures now. It was fun catching up, my blogging friends.

His Eyes Do Actually Open Sometimes

Little Buddy is growing so quickly. At 5 weeks old he is already 11 pounds (up 4 pounds from when we brought him home). He is such a good baby. He still sleeps most of the time, but he is starting to smile at me at least once a day. That's enough to make it worth the short nights and feedings every 2 hours.

Third Time's a Charm

Yesterday we all got out, and it was truly great. The weather was a beautiful 70 degrees. That's St. Louis for you. Just last week we got caught in the blizzard. We met a friend and her little girl at the park, and the girls just loved being outside. I tried using my Baby Bjorn with Little Buddy, but apparently I'm not smart enough for all the straps. He was screaming while I tried to figure it out, so I ended up just holding him. That was tricky trying to hold him in one arm while hoisting the other two up into swings, etc. But we survived, and it was so worth it to be outside on such a gorgeous day. We tried to go get pizza afterwards, but we were pushing our luck. I had to hop out of the van at a stoplight to tell my friend we had to go home because I had 2 kids screaming who needed to eat NOW. Thankfully she went and got pizza and brought it back to my messy house. She is the one friend who I would never want to see my house this way, but I was desperate. Now she knows how we really live--laundry half done, toys everywhere, dishes mostly loaded in the dishwasher but not all, the table collecting all our mail, etc. It was kind of freeing, actually. Now if we could just get consistent warm weather I think we'd be ready to resume our active lifestyle...well, almost.

Chocolate Lovers

We got an advertisement in the mail this week for a local department store who was giving away free chocolate with coupons wrapped around it. Everyone who visited the store got the free chocolate. Big Sissy asked, "Why are they giving away chocolate?" I told her it was because some people like her daddy would go to the store just for the chocolate. After a minute, she said, "Oh. I'm a people like Daddy." I think I'm a people like Daddy too. I would do just about anything for chocolate.

Don't Tell My Pediatrician

There are major concerns about SIDS because of putting a baby to sleep on his tummy, thus was born the "Back to Sleep" campaign. But after having a child wear a helmet because of a flat head, I've decided to try it for naps. At least then I'm awake and can make sure Little Buddy is still breathing. I've noticed that he sleeps REALLY well this way. I usually have to wake him up to feed him in the daytime. Plus he looks really cute.

Second Day Out

Yesterday I was finally feeling brave enough to get all 3 kids out again. I needed to go to Sam's to get coffee, bananas, and diapers--3 staples in our house that we have to buy in bulk in order to avoid buying them every other day. I thought it would be fairly easy since the carts there are double wide and Big Sissy likes to walk anyway. We were all dressed (with the exception of me since I had actually slept in my clothes) and ready to walk out the door by 10 am. There was a nice soft flurry of snow, but everyone was happy to get out.

We got our items and spent $4.00 to get lunch for everyone (I love Sam's). As we're having a leisurely lunch, I notice that people keep going to the door and emitting expletives as they look outside. I hurried the girls and headed to the car. By the time I got to the car we were having a blizzard. I'm actually not exaggerating--the news called it "blizzard-like conditions." The roads were already covered and there was hardly any visibility. I have never been so scared. Thank God for front-wheel drive. I was following a van that was fish-tailing all over the road. At one point he stopped on a ramp, and I barely got going again.

The 2 things that kept going through my mind were (1) the Carrie Underwood song "Jesus Take the Wheel" and (2) that I keep teaching Big Sissy that we can ask Jesus to help us when we're scared. She keeps having major, irrational fears lately. Monday I got 2 hours of sleep because between baby feedings, she was waking up screaming because she thought a moth was trying to get in her door. Before that she was screaming because a "bug" was chasing her around the bathtub. That bug turned out to be a piece of lint. So I got to practice what I preached. To add to it all, I had forgotten my cell phone. In the meantime Hubby had called twice to make sure I wasn't "silly" enough to leave the house. But alas, I was already having my own Little House on the Prairie moment (minus the horse and the rifle). For some reason I always picture Paw out there trying to get a turkey for dinner and he can't find his way home because of the blizzard. Anyway...we're home safely. Hmmm...maybe the third time out will be a charm?