Turquoise

While Magda was in town I really wanted to get some photos taken of the family with her.  We decided to all wear jeans and solid color tops and the children would be in prints.  When we all showed up to meet at Bart and Marilyn's house 3 of us showed up in turquoise, 3 showed up in navy, and the younger girls were both in polka dots.  This was not discussed prior but turned out wonderful.  We all were so happy with how the photos turned out.  Donna Leathers, the photographer and owner of Captivate Photography, did a beautiful job and I look forward to our next set of pictures with her.  Anyone interested in her services should check her out as you will not be disappointed.     http://www.captivatephoto.com/

10 Things

This is a list of 10 things I never expected to say out loud:

1. "You can not do my hair with your feet"
2. "No I didn't say that you could put your head in the oven."
3. "Ben! Don't let Sam spit in your mouth!"
4. "Thank you for telling me that I have a big bottom Claire."
5. "Why did you think putting Cinderella's shoe in you eye was a good idea?"
6. "No, I don't think all moms give cake to their kids for lunch."
7. "Can you please pretend to like your brother so I can get this shot?"
8. "Why did you let the potato bug go down your pants?!!"
9. "Oh no!!!  Why did you pee on your pillow?!!"
10. "Did you just slip in barf?!"

Hamming it up

Those closest to us know that we have nick names for all our kids.  Claireeeee, Benny Roo, and now Hammy.  He also loves being the ham.  My mom loves that we call Sam Hammy since Hamilton is a family name.

It's a Not So Wonderful Life

Here we are at the beach enjoying spending time with Stephanie and her parents Ken & Kris.  The aquarium visit was wonderful and the dinner was awesome.  It came time for Ken and Kris to go back to their RV and Stephanie went to bed but Travis and I stayed up a little longer enjoying the quiet.  We were just about to get up and go to bed when we heard it.  It was.....Sam screaming.  Of course.  Alright it's 10:30pm what  is the best thing to do in this case?  Well maybe if we leave him he will go back to sleep? No.  Maybe if we just rock him he will go back to sleep? No.  How about a dose of Tylenol and teething gel since teething may be happening?  No.  Now it is 11:30 and he still is unhappy and I am trying not to nurse him so he doesn't think a midnight snack is now on the menu.  Well guess what?  I am tired and I haven't slept in 3 days and I just want to get to go to bed so I break down and nurse him.  He is seeming disinterested and he keeps biting me so I cut him off after trying to get him to nurse for about 30 minutes.  It is now midnight and he has been put back into his bed and is screaming his fool head off.

Travis and I are sharing a room with him and have decided that we are not going in there to try and "Sleep" through the blood curdling screaming 2 feet from our bed.  We choose to hunker down in the living room on the couch and the recliner.  After another 20 minutes of enduring the horror I decided that I will try to rock him again.  I bring him out to the living room, start the dishwasher, and rock vigorously enough to make it to the moon.  It eventually works after 30 minutes of serious restraint so he can't throw his head back and arch his back.  I quietly take him back to his bed and stand in the room for a few minutes to make sure he is really asleep.  I go out to the living room to wake Travis, who has fallen asleep on the couch, to let him know he can get into the bed now.  We both creep back into the room, sneak into the sheets, and get settled to quickly fall asleep.  We are in the bed maybe 3 minutes and he wakes only to start screaming yet again.  At this point he is dry, fed, warm, burped, drugged, and tired.  What the hell is left to do?!!  We both want to scream and are now starting to turn on each other and point fingers as to who messed up and woke him up.

After grabbing the blankets and pillows we trundled back out to the living room to try and go to bed.  We had come to the conclusion that he was just going to have to scream it out since all our efforts were being thwarted at every turn.  We restarted the dishwasher to try to drown out the screaming and get some sleep ourselves.  This plan seemed good on paper but trying to sleep while your baby was screaming for some unknown reason is quite difficult and I was straining to hear him over the dishwasher.  A mother through and through.  After an hour of listening to my baby scream, restarting the dishwasher again, and my husband snoring, I gave into the extreme exhaustion and fell asleep around 3:30am.  I awoke to the sound of screaming at 4:30am and was super concerned that Sam was still screaming and rushed back to the bedroom door only to find that the screaming was coming from a different room and a different boy.

Ben woke from a bad dream and was terrified to be in his room without me.  I had tried to talk to him and reassure him that no monsters were in his room but he was too scared for talking to do the trick.  He was so scared that I had to lay down with him and he had to hold onto my hair and neck to make sure I wasn't going to leave him.  After about 45 minutes and half my body being numb I was able to get out from his vice like grip and stumble back to the couch to try and get a smidge more sleep.  Of course the kids were up long before we wanted them to be and morning came faster than it should have but bags under your eyes is one of the true marks of being a parent.

All the dinosaurs are running wild

Monday was our Jurassic trip we had been planning for all of 30 hours. Cher and Magda wanted to take Ben to see the dinosaurs at the zoo. He was so excited to see them as was Claire and Sam was excited to see the older kids so pumped up. We woke up early so we could get there when the zoo opened. Children came from their bedroom like bullets and clambered onto our bed to wake us. It was like Christmas morning. Trav and I stayed up late the night before making sure we had everything packed and ready to go in the morning so all we had to do was eat, get dressed, and hop in the car. Things were going smoothly when I decided to look outside. Clouds? It was supposed to be 78 degrees today and we wanted to get to the zoo early so it would be cool enough that the children wouldn't get overheated and cranky. Clearly not an issue.

I checked the weather online again and it still said it was going to be a nice day. Shorts it is! I brought long sleeved T shirts for the kids just in case they were cold before it burned off. We all piled into the car, kissed Trav goodbye since he had to go to work, and off we went. Just about half way through Gresham it started to rain. Of course. We have been talking this up now all morning and before bed and it is raining. Oh well, we are Oregonians and we can handle rain. If we let rain stop us we would never leave our houses 9 months out of the year.

We arrived to find the parking lot quite full and raining harder when I remembered how much I don't care for going places like this without Trav. There are a ton of people and trying to keep track of 2 kids who are so excited that they follow any crowed of people to go see the next exhibit is nerve wracking. We met up with Cher and Magda and started our quest through the zoo. I knew that Magda and the kids were not going to last too long so I pushed to get to the dinosaurs since that was why we were there. It continued to rain and took a while to find our way there. We decided along the way to stop for lunch. Not long after that we were at the Jurassic gate and could hear the mighty beasts.

Ben at this point started to look a bit concerned with what we were about to see. We walked around the corner and there it was...the first dinosaur! Claire and Cher walked right up to it and were fascinated with it! Ben on the other hand took one look at me and got teary eyed. "They're too scary!" was all he could tell me and hid behind my legs. I picked him up and tried to calm him down by letting him know that they are just pretend and not real like all the other animals we had seen earlier in the day. I tried to walk over with him glued to my neck and waist but when we got about 6' from life sized Dino he panicked and couldn't do it. I reassured him that they were fake and asked him if he wanted to ride in the anti-dinosaur stroller that I had brought just in case (You never know when an anti-dinosaur stroller might be handy. I recommend everyone getting one. I believe that they are available on Amazon for a limited time).

He opted to ride in the safety of the chair for a little while and then decided it was most likely safe because we were in a zoo and not in the wild. He did fine up until we reached the T Rex and then needed a brief sit in the Dino repellent stroller again. In his defense, it was rather large. Overall everyone had a wonderful time and it did eventually stop raining even though it never burned off or got hotter than 62 degrees.

Somewhere Over The Rainbow

Last night while the kids were playing outside there was a beautiful rainbow. A photo opportunity? Why yes!

The groove

As I sit here drinking my Magic Bullet coffee drink and listening to Scissor Sisters I can honestly say I am feeling pretty darn good. I believe we have hit our stride for now. As all mothers know once you have mastered all the children and found time for other things the next day everything changes. I am going to take today for what it is and relish in the fact that we are all in harmony. Sam is busy crawling and Ben and Claire are dressed up like queens (Pun intended) and parading around the house. I am working furiously on a project, later to be revealed, and trying to plan outfits for our family portraits on Saturday with my dad's family. We are busy but what family isn't?

I feel like I finally really understand how to parent. I have a short fuse and kids are kids which fuels that fire for me at times. More often than not I was frustrated with them and now I feel like I really understand how they are viewing the world and how I can enhance their experience. I have been doing a lot of reading and experimenting with some techniques and have found that they really work. Now I don't have to loose my cool hardly ever. I am learning patience, what really matters, and what doesn't. I am loving my kids more than I thought I could and all of us are happy. Of course not every day is peachy but that is life. We learn to adapt and cope and that is parenting. Happy parents raise happy kids.

As a side note it took me an hour to write this because I have 3 kids. Instead of getting upset with all the little interruptions I embraced them and got this done when I had a couple of seconds in between. I know this change in me will make my family a better and more loving family.