Christmas Update

First off, Mary had a lovely birthday party.  We took some of her friends to a pottery-making place up the road a bit, and they all had fun stamping and glazing clay pieces.  (It will be interesting to see how Izzy's turns out since she changed color mid-glaze and seemed to be coloring in a preschool fashion.  Urgh.)  We put this party together a week before her birthday, after a swim meet, so she was pretty busy that day and showed up for her own party with wet hair.  Several girls we invited couldn't come due to the crazy-madness of the sports and holiday seasons, but we still had enough to get the party going.  And her one oldest friend stayed the night.

Mary's Christmas Eve Eve birthday was lovely, too.  She was totally thrilled to receive an ipod nano from Mom and Dad.  Dad was having a ball downloading songs for her the night before.  (He forced himself to only download approved songs instead of complete albums--that's just WRONG, but necessary.)  Mary has pretty much only listened to the same seven songs over and over again, but she promises to start sampling the other tunes soon.  Mary's other best friend stayed the night while Izzy got to go to stay with the friend's sister--not a bad deal, really!

Chirstmas Eve I completely wore my pregnant body out doing that cleaning, laundry, baking thing.  But at least the presents were mostly wrapped, and the only reason I was up until 1:30 was so that I could take a relaxing bath to ease my fatigued body.

Christmas the kids were thrilled to find that Santa brought each of them a 3DS.  So now we have two spare DS lites hanging out (one isn't in the greatest shape, the other *I* have claimed for my own).  And now between her b-day and X-mas, Mary has three new Zelda games to play (*I* have almost solved Phantom Hourglass myself).  And we have several more Wii games.  And Keith was only disappointed that there weren't more Legos under the tree (dude, you have a birthday in two months!).

We went out the day after X-mas to buy even MORE games with the money that Grandpa and others sent.  so now poor Izzy has more DS games than just the ONE that was under the tree.  Sure do love those buy two used, get one used game free promos!

We've spent this last week doing absolutely NOTHING but play games.  It gets to be a bit of a hassle when we do need to do a few essential things--like take Mary to swim practice or even go to the grocery store to stock up on our milk and cereal--but they have been WARNED that this is the only week that non-stop DS playing will be tolerated (that goes for Mom, too).  It's been a lot of fun, tho.

I've managed to try to get the kids back on their food-prep and dishes schedules that sort of disappeared a few weeks ago.  Why is it that the kid who most enjoys doing dishes is the worst at actually washing them?  Poor John has been working all week to attempt to fix our apparent plumbing problem that is keeping the dishwasher from draining correctly (and so we've been doing dishes by hand for almost two months now), but he is starting to admit that he may need professional help.  Ka-ching! 

Each kid got a new cookbook for X-mas, so we're going through picking out recipes to try--and hopefully expand those kid-palettes a bit.  Tonight Keith helped me make some fried rice, and it wasn't even his night to be the prep cook!

Speaking of cooking, Mary has used some of her Home and Careers skills to good use here and has now prepared eggs on toast for her family twice just within the last week.  I really could get used to someone else cooking!  When do they learn how to make lasagna? 

Another post up at the baby-brewing blog where I discuss the typical aches and pains present during the third trimester. 

Other news

   

I forgot to tell you all about Izzy’s birthday party.  Oh boy.  John and I googled around until he finally discovered that the horse barn down the road from us had a reasonable package—a better deal than the one ceramics place that Mary was hoping to have HER party.  Horses and ponies for 6- and 7-year olds?  We’re THERE.

We’d been to this horse farm previously.  Mary had her very first pony ride there when she was probably 3 or 4.  I also took Mary down there last spring for a horse ride on the trails.  We had 12 girls who were supposed to come counting the birthday girl and her sister (can’t have a horse party for Izzy and NOT invite Mary), but only 9 showed.  John decided to keep Keith home to help him clean the garage.  A barn full of little girls is probably not the most fun for a 9-year old boy.

The party was a bit of a let-down for me for two simple reasons:  they were supposed to provide the party goods—and they did, but there was no table cloth on the painted-on, crafted-on, don’t-know-what-on table and there were NO napkins; they were supposed to provide goody bags—they did NOT.  (My one friend reassured me that the party had HORSES so NO ONE CARED that there were no goody bags, and NO, I did not look like a sucky hostess.)  But the ponies!  Oh, the ponies!  The girls got to feed them and pet them and brush and comb them, and then they got to ride them.  Really, when there are pony rides, do the kids really care about getting dollar store plastic toys and candy?????  The girls all had a blast, with ONE exception.  One little girl and her mother discovered about 20 minutes into the party that the girl was HIGHLY allergic to something in that barn—be it the horses, the dust, or the straw, or all of the above.  The poor little thing got hives and started wheezing, and well, NOW they know they should dope her up with allergy meds if she gets close to a horse again.  So, she had to leave before she even got to ride a pony.  

I’d do the party again.  But make sure to bring a table cloth.  And wet wipes (thankfully, two parents had some stashed in THEIR cars so that the girls could eat their cake with moderately clean hands).  And birthday candles (oops).

Izzy got some great gifts just perfect for her.  Lots of craft items AND a Zoobles mommy and babies set.  There was a neat little Barbie Volkswagon with a Barbie included which is NOT quite up Izzy’s ally—we’re going to donate it for the holidays.  (But *I* want to play with it, it’s so cool.)  And Mom and Dad let her pick out a new bike.  Maybe she’ll learn to ride without the training wheels this summer?

I’m now officially done with work, and they’ve already asked me to come back next year.  I told them it all depends on my day care options.  It’s nice to be wanted, tho.

I hope another little temp job pops up before #4 gets here.  I can’t imagine sitting around the house for a whole trimester.  Not only will I miss that little bit of money I’m bringing in, I’ll probably go batty.  I am much more productive when I get out of the house on a daily basis.  

We are mostly ready for the holidays.  We got the house all decorated.  We have all the gifts for the kids all bought.  We have the Star Wars Advent calendar bringing us joy every day.  Now we need to work on getting gifts for the nieces and nephews and anyone else we can fit in our budget.  And I am going to start wrapping the presents that the UPS-Santa-man has been dropping off now that I will be home all day while the kids are not around.  I will NOT put it off like last year and end up staying up until 3:00 in the morning watching bad movies and my husband drinking beer while I wrap up a closet full of gifts!

Check out my rant on the baby blog!

Demons

Izzy has turned into a little monster lately.  Actually, I guess she's always had that monster-like personality, but lately, it's been coming out more often.  The crying!  And screaming!  And stomping!  And defiance!  And...she's not the only one.  Keith has been testing my patience more and more lately.  I would just chalk this up to another pregnancy symptom--maybe this growing of a new human being is making me a bit cranky--but John has confirmed my suspicions.  The littlest Q's are acting out.

Probably I'm not handling it well.  Probably I'm yelling way, way too much.  Probably my bag of tricks is completely empty.  Probably I assume that a 7- and 9-year old should be a bit more reasonable and well, ADULT than they are.  Probably I need to get a clue and pay more attention to them, huh?

So I will.  I will try to chalk in some more one-on-one time with all three of the kids.  And John is going to try to do more one-on-one things also.  It's just so hard.  Mary swims four nights out of five.  And John works late most nights.  This has really put a damper on any kind of family time--let alone one-on-one time.  Lately, Keith has had a pitching clinic on Wednesdays.  So while Mary is swimming, John is with Keith for the pitching, and Izzy and I are alone.  I haven't really taken advantage of this time in the first few weeks.  I sat and read while Izzy played and played and played (although, really, she does need some alone playtime without her older siblings bossing her around so much, too).  This Wednesday, John reminded me to DO SOMETHING with her.  Oh yeah!  So, I decided to take her out for a simple dinner.

(Amusing part.  An acquaintance called just before we were getting ready to leave.  When I told her that Izzy and I were going to do a one-on-one dinner, she says, "Hey!  Where are you going?  Maybe my daughter and I could come!"  Um, REALLY?)

Anyway, we ended up just heading to the grocery store.  Hey, she really wanted to go there!  They have huge slices of pizza and an amazing salad bar!  Izzy got her pizza; I got a turkey and pepper jack wrap.  We shared a sweet tea.  And then we bought her some grape tomatoes for her lunches.  And we bought the frosting and cinnamon candies she needed for the gingerbread house decorating her class will do later this month.  And there was no yelling or screaming or defiance.

I worry about how we're going to juggle this all when (still nameless) baby #4 gets here.  My lovely three are all mostly independent now.  They don't need me to help them get dressed (although I still pick out Izzy's clothes) or wipe their butts (thank heavens) or even to pack their lunches (although I need to keep an eye out to make sure that they are packing more than just crackers).  But they do still need me to talk to them and read them a bedtime story every now and then and check their homework (Oh!  The homework!).  And they just need ME.  And JOHN.  And I know, I know that this will all work itself out eventually but I also know that getting there is going to be a struggle.  And I'm not looking forward to battling through this while I'm nursing and sleep-deprived and will probably have screaming, yelling, defiant kids arguing with me over stupid things and the only response I can think of is to scream and yell back.  Ugh.