My Five Little Monkeys

An Open Letter.

Dear Lady In Front of Me at Michael's,

I know that I was perhaps giving you incredibly nasty looks when you were in front of me in line. I was secretly wishing that you had far less items in your cart than you actually did. I think that secret wish was actually written all across my face. While you were waiting in line, and you kept turning around to "casually" glance at my son Evan throwing a fit of massive proportions on the floor, it wasn't making me feel very good. Especially when you were glancing from me, to Evan, and then over to my other son Jack. When I saw you waiting for me to gather my things, myself, and my children up off of the floor, I truly thought nothing good could come of this.
However, I do have to apologize to you. I'm sorry that when you asked me if these were my only children, I had a look of disgust on my face. When I told you that I had three more at home, instead of looking overwhelmed (like I felt) your face lit up like a pumpkin and told me how blessed I must be. When you asked me their ages, and I explained that I had another son the same age as the boys, as well as twin girls, and you were overwhelmed with my blessings, I felt myself warming up to you... But it wasn't until you told me that you had never seen a Mother so well equipped to handle children like mine before, that I wanted to hug you. That I never once acted like what Evan was doing was something that he could control or that he was doing to embarass me...

Sincerely,
Jessica

I spoke with this lady for a few more minutes and then left... My two very perfect children in tow. I loaded them into the car, and felt very happy with myself. No matter how overwhelmed I had felt in that situation with Evan, it didn't show. On the contrary, to that single person, I appeared to be the picture of patience... I really feel like I've come a long way since the boys were originally diagnosed. I used to be afraid to even go out in public with them... It dawned on me after I was back in the car, that not only did I take the boys in a store, but I did it by myself, and I took them both in there together BY MYSELF.
There are days that they boys absolutely amaze me, and then there are days when I amaze me... I think this is one of those days, but it took a total stranger, a total angel to point out just how amazing I can be.

Tables and Chairs.

Anyone need five highchairs? I've got 'em. They're out in my garage... I was thinking I would move them there and they would promptly get moved back into the playroom where they've been housed for nearly three years. I was sure that as soon as we tried to transition the children to something new, like tables and chairs, they would revolt, run around the playroom like mad, and we'd need to put everything back where it was.
And since I fear change, about as much as I fear the grim reaper, I have rebelled against letting the kids sit in anything other than the highchairs to eat. However, since the highchairs are as old as they are, they're beginning to show their age... We'll find the random screw on the floor and acknowledge that the highchairs need attention yet once again. This had become far more frequent than I wanted.
Jon's parents and I are huge flea market people. We love to look for and find a great deal... Since I'm trying to feed a family of 8, I think pinching pennies is a game, luckily my husband thinks its a great game too... Danny & Connie, live in an apartment complex and occasionally people purge their places of random furniture. A few months ago, they happened upon a table that wasn't quite a dining table, but it also wasn't quite a coffee table... They brought it home to show me and it was PERFECT!!! It was a childs craft table!!! I was beside myself with excitement over their find... After they cleaned it up for us, we put it in the kids basement playroom where it has been sitting, and sitting, and sitting... Connie got us some small school type chairs that matched the table and it's perfect to play at.
Jon and I have been debating over how to do this whole family dinner table thing... We have a kitchen table, and no dining room table. The kitchen table is large enough for 4 people, and our dining room has wall to wall carpeting. We've been in a bit of a quandry over how to do this effectively. Ultimately we'd like to pull up the carpet in the dining room, and extend the hardwood from the foyer into the dining room... A project for sure.
Until then, we pulled the glorious little table up from the basement, and it fits into the playroom perfectly. It still isn't a family table as Jon and I can't sit there with them... But we're getting one step closer to our goal. At least all 5 kids sit at one table together and eat their meals. They don't get up and run around, they don't steal food, they don't rarely put their feet on the table. It's a great work in progress...
I just can't get over the fact that my little babies in highchairs are now big kids at the table... How did that happen to me?
Up Next: Moving from the crib to the bed... Stay tuned...

Toys, Toys, Toys!

There are few toys out there that we've found recently to be "family" favorites. I say this because a lot of toys that we end up buying/receiving are typically not geared towards a family with five children all the same age. While a toy might be the "perfect" toy, it ends up being put away because it causes so much fighting and screaming that I can't handle it. We recently got this awesome Aquadoodle coloring mat. It is the coolest thing EVER. Since the kids really like to color and paint, but doing that entails me being on top of each kid and making sure the don't color and or paint on the walls... This seemed like a genius invention! The Aquadoodle is a flat fabric mat that you use with a water filled pen. The pen acts like a marker and as the pen touches the fabric surface, color magically appears! It's SO cool. The kids loved it. One downfall however, the kit comes with only one pen. For nearly $25 I would have preferred two pens. However, at pretty much every local retailer the Aquadoodle AND it's accessories are sold. Including extra pens! How neat... They also sell stamps, rollers, you name it... They've got the market cornered on water painting fun. I love it because it's clean, the kids love it because it's fun. The suggested age was 3 and up, I slightly disagree. The girls and Will found this toy to be hugely entertaining, and played with it very appropriately. The boys however, had a slightly more difficult time with it. Their adjusted age is probably somewhere around 18 months. They liked to put the pens in their mouth, and also enjoyed licking the mat a great deal... While there is no harm in doing either of these things, it's a bit easier to play with the toy if it's not coated in spit...
The other new toy we've found and love for our family is the Bath Blizzard. It's so unbelievably cool... For the kids, we like to put them into the big tub in our master bath. Sometimes we bathe them a few at a time, other times we do all five at once. Either way it's a chore. Bathtime is craziness... The kids love to take a bath though, and love to play in the water. When we were introduced to the Bath Blizzard it sounded like a great concept. The BB is a machine that hooks onto the faucet of the bathtub, and creates a gazillion bubbles for bathtime fun! By turning the knob, a waterfall of bubbly foam fills the tub instantly...Unless the kids to get it first and decorate themselves, and you, head to toe in the stuff! At about $20 you get the machine, the holder to hang it, as well as bath bubbles... The only thing that wasn't included was 4 C batteries... Oh how I despise the batteries... Lucky for us, this is one toy that is certainly getting it's money's worth out of the battery!!

The National Zoo.

So the National Zoo in Washington DC is ranked among the top 10 zoos in the country, and in some lists that I've seen it's ranked in the top 10 in the world. That just astounds me. Not just because this zoo is free, or because we're a mere hours drive from it on a good day... No, this amazes me because every time I go there we see no animals. I don't mean an empty zoo with big empty cages, I just mean, the zoo seems lacking in wildlife. When I go to a zoo, I want to see it all!! Elephants!! Pandas!! Zebras galore!! When we've been to this zoo, we've seen scanty amounts of animals. In fact we see more animal poop than we see actual animals... It's kind of a bummer really. However due to the amount of animal droppings we see we know there are animals there, but they are apparently avoiding us.
We did see some Gorillas and while staring at them, I felt really sorry for them. Their big dark eyes, they seemed to look right into us. It was like they knew that we were there, staring at them... For the first time in my life, I felt like a voyeur. It made me sad as I walked away, these poor animals... Jon tried to throw a spin on it, that maybe they were living here at the zoo because they were hurt and this was all they know... Even still, I totally felt like those monkeys and gorillas could tell we were staring at them, and that they didn't like it...
I sound ridiculous.
So from my blathering you've probably gathered that we went to the zoo. We did. On Sunday. It was quite the day. I slept in until 830a, rolled over and asked Jon if he wanted to go to the zoo. I had been invited by my good friend a couple days earlier and suddenly at 830a on Sunday morning, the invite sounded like a great idea. Why? I have NO idea. Needless to say, Jon and I bustled around and packed the kids up for a trip to Washington... The kids seemed to enjoy themselves for the few animals that they saw. The zoo was very festively decorated for halloween, and the kids surely enjoyed checking out all of the ghosts dancing around, and the skeletons playing golf... It was very cute. No matter how cute though, I would have preferred to have seen a giraffe with a grim reaper mask on or something... Where are all the animals people??

A post about nothing.

I've sat down to write out posts... And no matter how much I have to say, I really have nothing to say...
I'm sorry for this hiatus, and hope that you're still checking in on us. I'm not sure if it's the infection from hell that has just made it's way into the creative part of my brain, or if I'm just uninspired, but I just haven't had it in me to talk recently.
To bring you all up to speed quickly, everyone here is doing well. The kids are all coming in and out of winter colds and ear infections. It seems that no sooner does one cold pass, that another crops up... Welcome to fall & preschool! Speaking of school, all of the kids are fully enjoying school now, and seem to have finally gotten the hang of things. It only took two months!
Jon just came back from a trip to the West coast where he enjoyed his down time with his co-workers. They were able to visit some bars in the Cal State, Fullerton area... During this time he found a new love for racing tricycles... We'll see if it turns into anything, but for right now we're just enjoying the photos from his trip.
I am still battling this nasty sinus infection. It's totally getting better, but it is SO slow to clear up. I'm on a new antibiotic, and will be on it four times a day for 30 days... I wish I could say that it was all gone, but it's not. Other than that I'm exhausted daily from traipsing the kids all over our town all day. It's amazing that you can get worn out from driving, but I think a lot of it has to do with pulling them in and out of the carseats a million times too. That doesn't help.
I'll be back soon, maybe with photos...

For Those of You Keeping Tabs...

I'm still alive.

I saw the ENT on Tuesday, and it was deemed that on the outside I look fine and dandy. However on the inside I'm a festering pocket of nastiness. X-Ray's showed that my sinuses are completely obliterated with pus... It's really possible that this is the cause of the fever, pain, fatigue, and overall and general malaise. I was put on a hefty dose of antibiotics, and instructed to call back if I was not feeling markedly improved by Saturday.
Since being on the antibiotics, I do feel better. While meeting with the ENT however, it was noted that if in fact I WASN'T improved by Saturday they would go ahead and admit me to the hospital and drain my sinuses manually... As terrifying as that may sound to most of you, I nearly begged this poor, innocent man to do this procedure in the back of my minivan. The relief that this draining procedure sounded like it would offer?? Sounded like heaven to me... To no avail however, I need to wait... And wait I will...
And as I'm starting to feel better, I'm beginning to think that I'm a little crazy for thinking that someone sticking a needle in my head sounded like a good idea...Oy Vey.

I Is Good. How Is You?

That's right about where my brain is functioning right now. No joke. You've probably been wondering where the heck I've been, and what I've been up to. I've been here. Under a pile of mucus filled tissue. Surrounded by empty bottles of cough suppressant, decongestant, and nose spray. My life is currently in a state of disarray. I blame it solely on how I'm feeling.

And how AM I feeling you ask?

Like Crap.

Thanks for asking.

We came back from the Outer Banks 13 days ago. Which means I was seen by my Doctor 12 days ago, which means I've been trying to rid myself of this germ for essentially a little under three weeks. Since, I got this nasty and mean bug while ON vacation (how cruel and unfair is that by the way?). We got to the OBX on Monday, and I was sick on Tuesday. That was the 16th of SEPTEMBER. It's now the 5th of OCTOBER. Insanity people, sheer insanity. Am I rambling yet?
Now, I will say this much. I am better. Better is just such a subjective word. When I was at the beach, I had no voice and I had a terrible sore throat... Along with a myriad of other symptoms. Now, nearly 3 weeks later? I have a voice (praise God) but I still have a sore throat, and I have a literal plethora of symptoms. When I went to the Doctor I was diagnosed with:
Upper Respiratory Infection
Double Ear Infection
Conjunctivitis
Sinus Infection
All of this was treated with a hearty helping of antibiotics and a nice doping cough syrup... I was hoping that in a few days I'd be on the mend. Hmmm... Not so much. I went back to my Doctor the other day, because I was still running a fever in the evenings (anywhere from 100-103) and thought my head might fall off. Clearly the symptoms from the sinus infection were taking over my body. My teeth hurt so bad that I couldn't eat, my face hurt so bad I couldn't put on sunglasses without wincing, and my ears felt like they would explode at any minute...Take all of those symptoms and then throw a fever of ANY degree on top of it, and I felt like I was. going. to. die. Still do really. The pain in my head, face, and teeth has lessened since earlier this week. However... Since then... I've developed the most lovely pain in my lungs... This of course warranted a chest x-ray which of course, showed pneumonia. Of COURSE it did. I was taken by surprise on that one, I had so much pain in my head, I couldn't even really FEEL anything below my neck... I really thought I had just pulled some muscles from the wracking coughing I'm doing... Clearly not.

In any regard. I'm going to see an ENT on Tuesday, because I'm afraid I have snot permanently glued to the inside of my sinus passages. I think they may need to put dynamite up there and blow it out professionally... But in all seriousness, my Doctor mentioned something about a needle, sinuses, and draining... I thought I was in heaven and begged him to do that RIGHT here, RIGHT now... That type of relief sounded heavenly. Turns out, it's up to an ENT... Damn professionals. I'll also be going for a CT Scan on my sinuses, so as to prove to them that there really truly IS cement in my nose. We'll see how it all pans out. I'm praying it all passes before I have to go and have it done, but at this rate, I doubt it.

So that, in a VERY LARGE nutshell is how I'm doing.

Hey. You asked.

The State of Her Hair

My very dear friend Kelly, has a very dear friend Erin... Through the grapevine Erin has been bugging me (along with some other blogging buddies) to know what the heck is going on with Lilley's hair.
I'm sorry that I've taken so long to update this fascinating topic, however as a woman, I know that watching hair grow is only second to watching water boil, or perhaps watching grass grow... I'm not sure. In any regard, I'm thinking that perhaps I should have done monthly status check posts on just HOW her hair was growing, since I did have so many fascinated readers.
The bottom line of all of this is...Drumroll Please...

It worked.

For us.

Lilley's hair is dramatically different NOW than it was in the middle of June. Back in June, Lilley had baby fine, very thin, seemingly fragile hair. Now, three and a half months later, her hair is totally different. It appears to be very similar to Williams...Her hair, first off is much more full. There appears to be much MORE hair on her head. As we all know, there are only so many actual hair follicles on the human head. So in shaving it, I didn't create more follicles. It is possible though that I stimulated some that were blocked by sebum. When Lilley was a baby she did have a minor case of what I thought might be cradle cap, it cleared up nicely, but we did use a multitude of topical oils and magical aids to help clear it up. It was unsightly to look at after all. The hair that's growing back in, is clearly more robust, and is very much healthier. While her baby hair seemed very fine, and would break easily, this hair is thick and almost coarse.

Now the point could be made that this hair was just hiding at the end of her baby hair and was waiting to grow out. I would agree with that. I didn't do anything different to her or her head in these past three months. The only thing that has been done differently is that the hair was cut off at the scalp, near the root. Also the scalp was able to be cleaned and aired out for a nice long period of time...

So, all in all it was a great experiment. I'm totally glad that I did it. I would NOT have done it if Lilley had been much older, or if it had been cold out, or we thought she had a misshapen skull. I'm excited to see if this growth continues and if she actually has nice hair now... What a pleasant surprise that would be!!