Category: Groftzoo Updates

Rough Times at Mass

This morning’s mass was seriously a rough one. Lily started showing her mood this morning when I couldn’t finish putting my make-up on before she started throwing a fit. She wanted to be held. By me. And no one else.

We arrive at mass, choose our seats, and I take Max and Lily back to go potty and change Lily’s diaper. When we got back Lily began warming up her vocal chords and testing out the acoustics. She was singing, “mamamamama” but in the church it sounds like “MAMAMAMAMA“. She has also hit the point where, while she only wants to be held by me, she can slither and squirm at an unbelievable pace. It is like holding a wet cat through mass. A noisy wet cat.

Mass began. Max was sitting on one side of me, squirming quietly and Lily-the-wet-cat was thrashing around in my lap. During the songs the whole church is loud and I can stand up and bounce so we made it through that pretty easily. But then the readings began and we need to sit still and quiet. Lily was just not having it. She was winding up more and more, whining and thrashing and working up to a full cry. We make our escape just as the Psalm is ending. The next reading goes by in a flash. I bounced Lily near the door, hoping and praying that chaos didn’t break out in our pew in the mean time. Max, Tessa, and Ben were there all alone. And while I can count on both Tessa and Ben to sit still, I can’t count on them to not get into a full out brawl with Max if Max decides to act up.

Then I hear the music start for the Alleluia.

Oh, shoot. I picked a bad time to leave mass! Max thinks the Alleluia is a party! He stands and sings it/yells it at the top of his lungs and sometimes gets up to try to climb the pew in front of us or dance in the aisle. His exuberance is delightful – as long as I am right there to moderate it a little bit. But now I have Lily fussing on the sidelines and I have to make a run to get back to our pew before my little Pentecostal gets all excited.

So I run. I get there just in time to stop him from climbing over the pew in front of us, but unfortunately I scratched him with a hangnail while trying to pry him off that pew. So instead of singing he spent the Alleluia pouting, even after I kissed it an apologized (all the while still wrestling Lily-the-wet-cat).

Then the homily. Ben asks if he can go get a drink because he feels sick to his stomach. Um, yes. Lily settles in to nurse and drifts off to sleep. Oh, thank you God. Now I can sit still for a moment and maybe hear something that Father is saying since I have completely missed the readings. Nope. Max keeps trying to get as close to me as he can and is bumping and waking Lily. Jay has come from the choir to sit with us and tries to occupy him by drawing him a picture. One more moment of peace. But just as Lily falls into a deep sleep Max bumps her and she bites down. Hard. So I carefully remove her from my breast, trying not to scream out myself, and she starts crying all over again.

So I take her out again, climbing over Jay and Max just to get to the aisle. I calm her down through the Creed and then come back to sit with the kids.

Sometime during the Consecration I discovered that the song sheet kept her fairly happy. So I let her tear one up and play put-this-on-my-head-let-it-fall-off for a few minutes until she started trying to eat it. Then I had to take it away and give her a toy, which she threw on the floor at least seven hundred times before we went up to receive Communion.

Through all of this Max was alternating sitting on the pew and the kneeler, asking me when it was time to go, and if there were donuts afterwards.

And then suddenly mass is over. How did that happen? I missed the whole thing again. I had a couple moments of prayer in there, the kids experienced the mass, and I certainly got to practice my Patience, so it must not have been a complete loss. But I tell you, I just need a nap now.

Sleep Trouble

The past few nights I have been waking up and sitting bolt upright in a panic, convinced that Lily is about to crawl off the edge of the bed. I frantically feel around the blankets only to discover that she is sleeping peacefully either in the pack and play or right next to me.

It finally occurred to me this morning at 4am when it happened again what this is all about.

Paisley is in the process of moving out.

It is not my youngest daughter that I am hunting for frantically in my half-sleep, but my oldest. This wide span of milestones has finally just fried my brain.

As of right now I have one child moving out, one learning to drive, one who is newly a teenager, a couple in normal childhood, one who is potty training, and one who is learning to walk and becoming more mobile all the time. No wonder my sleep is disturbed!

Waiting for a Sign

Lily can say a few words now. She says mama, dada, ball, car, cat and probably a few that we haven’t decoded yet. But at this stage of the game what I am really waiting for is for her to start signing. That is when language just takes off – at least it has for the last two kids.

She seems to be doing some “sign language babble” and moves her hands in specific ways that mean something. But just like verbal baby babble, it seems that one motion can mean several things and basically what she is saying (signing) is “I’m trying to tell you something.”

For now though, we have a little foreign language speaker and we wait each day for her to start speaking our language. Someday soon it will happen, but right now we are in the communication waiting room, waiting for that moment when her face lights up and she knows we can understand what she is saying to us.

R.I.P. Ringlets

I cut Tessa’s hair. It was so dry on the ends, it had to be done. But I hoped that cutting it would remove some weight and the curls would perk up more.

I was wrong.

She just has (lovely) deep waves. The ringlets are GONE.

Before:

Tessa's hair: Before Tessa's hair: Before

After:

Tessa's Hair: After Tessa's Hair: After

A Sad Goodbye:

R.I.P. Ringlets

She is still my vivacious beautiful Tessa, she just has a little less hair to show for it. But she loves her hair and it is much easier for her to deal with now.

48

Max asked me at breakfast this morning, “Mama, what’s 48?”

It took me a few moments to understand what on earth he was saying but after he said it a few times I told him that it is a 4 and then an 8. How else do you answer that one?

Then he asked, “What comes next?”

“49,” I told him, “and then fifty after that.”

And then he laughed.

Who knew numbers could be so funny?

Our EC Journey

Now that my graduation post is finally written, I will swing back to the other end of the spectrum and discuss baby stuff.

I have read about EC (Elimination Communication) for some time now, but never thought is sounded realistic. But things changed last week.

Since we are hoping for some kind of potty training miracle to fall from the sky and hit Max, was have potty chairs littered around our home right now in hopes of never missing an opportunity. Last Monday, I think it was, when Lily woke up first thing in the morning, I was changing her diaper on the floor. Right next to me was a little potty chair, so I figured, why not put her on it, she very often poops within the first few moments of waking up in the morning, maybe I can get away with not having to change one poopy diaper.

Well she didn’t poop in it, but she did pee in it right away. Over the next several days, I put her on the potty each time she woke in the morning or after a nap and sure enough she peed every time!

I have also caught at least the first half of her morning poops most morning since then. The second half is trickier since it happens about a half hour later.

Yesterday and today she has started something new, sometimes when I try to put a diaper on her she thrashes around and pulls at it while I am changing her. If I put her on the potty then, she will pee right away and then she is fine having her diaper put on. A couple of times now I have been nursing her to sleep only to have her wake up and start thrashing and crying, fighting me like crazy, so I put her on the potty, she peed and then was perfectly willing to go to sleep.

My mind is so boggled by all this.

In the mean time Max is making a real effort to go in the potty. Since there is obviously no pressure on Lily to actually go in a potty, it has been easier for me to let go of some of the pressure I have been putting on Max as well. He has been spending part of each day in big-boy- pants and has had reasonable success in those. When things get really busy though, he is still in a diaper. There is a coveted yo-yo ball waiting for him atop the fridge for his first poop on the potty.

And just so you don’t think I am certifiable, my goal with Lily is not to get her into panties before a year. I figure it is a few less diapers to wash and will keep her in touch with her body’s signals of when she needs to eliminate. That is what this is all about. Most days we have caught 2-8 pees and 1-2 poops. she still goes in her diaper, and I would not expect her to hold it until I got her to a bathroom. But it is much easier to keep her dry and happy this way. It really hasn’t taken any extra time, either. I have to change her diaper anyway…

After checking out a book from the library on Elimination Communication (The Diaper Free Baby) I realized that I have done this to some extent with most of my kids, I just didn’t start this early. Usually I would introduce a potty chair shortly after a year old and put the child on it upon morning waking, before or after baths, or when Jay or I would go. Within a few months they all seemed to get the basic idea and most of them were fully trained by age 2. (Max was obviously an exception to this, but then there is always an exception to the rule, isn’t there?)

But and 8 month old? This is completely new territory for me, but we are enjoying it all the same.

It began with mozzarella

My Graduate
When I was pregnant with Paisley, I craved mozzarella sticks from Denny’s all the time. As we drove away from her graduation, we stopped at Denny’s again and had a nice round of them with Posy and Ben and I thought, how fitting, to finish off Paisley’s childhood in a similar way to how it began, with mozzarella sticks.

The busyness of the last few months has kept me from really focusing on the hugeness of the changes that are afoot. There has been the usual Spring craziness of Lent and Easter, and there has been the rush to finish up college and financial aid applications and a little bit of surliness left to assert who is an adult and who is not. I kept getting a glimpse of what I was going to have to face – that my oldest child is… nah, I can’t say it yet – I haven’t had time to process any of what was going on.

Last Wednesday was the Baccalaureate mass for her class. They have been together to celebrate mass over the last few years so many times and now this was it for them. They left with a song about praying for each other and it left me wondering what things will be like for each of them when they come back for a reunion ten years from now. That mass was very special and showed me that all that sacrifice for tuition was well worth it. (When asked, Paisley’s take on it was that it was cheesy and lame, but I think it meant more to her than she was willing to say.) At one point I got all teary eyed and worried that I might become a quivering puddle of tears, but Jay’s mom fixed that by leaning over and whispering that one of the girls looked trashy. That was it, my tears were gone as I stifled a laugh.

Then Thursday was the graduation. It was hot in the church and the speeches were hard to hear, but it was amazing to seem my little girl, a high school student no more. Just that morning she had attended her Freshman Orientation for college. She graciously posed for pictures afterwards and then went off with her friends. I felt so happy for her, but so sad that my little girl was… nah, I still can’t say it.

I am grappling with the reality that one of my children is moving on to the next stage of life. Just when I was kind of getting the hang of having teenagers, THIS comes along. I remember being pregnant with her. It seemed like that first pregnancy would last a lifetime, I just couldn’t really imagine having a real baby to care for all the time. It was a totally alien experience and I wouldn’t know what it was about until I was there. Now here I am at the bridge to adulthood for her, feeling the same way. I can’t even imagine what it might be like to have one of my children grown, no longer under my roof. I know I will be her mother forever, and my job as a meddling, annoying, bossy, parent is still in full force, but it seems there has been another umbilical cord to sever. And it hurts.

This time is full of joy and tragedy, pain and excitement all at once. I am sure there will be more to discover as the summer moves on.

Spic and Span: Step 1

The house is on the market again. Last year we put it on the market and set the listing to expire two weeks before my due date with Lily. That turned out to be a good thing since she was born just a couple days after the listing expired.

So this year we will list it again in hopes of moving closer to school and church since we are forever driving there anyway.

In spite of the fact that no one is looking at this point, we still need to keep the house ready to be looked at, and I admit it, I like having the house clean. It is a more peaceful place when thing are done and reasonably picked up.

My morning routine now needs to include three things:
Getting the kitchen clean
Getting the laundry under control
Tidying up the upstairs (bedrooms)

Each day I will check in and let you know if Step 1 is done. No computer or email until it is. Maybe that will keep me in line.

Baby Numbers

How long have I actually nursed?
Paisley 20 mon
James 33 mon (actually 36 months but was tandem for the last three mon)
Posy 27 mon (actually 48 mon but tandem from 27 mon to 4 yrs)
Ben 33 mon
Tessa 28 mon (I think…)
Max 22 mon
Lily 8 mon and counting

For a grand total of 171 months or 14 years and 3 months.
That is a loooong time!

I also figured out that if you throw in being pregnant in with that I have NOT been either pregnant or nursing for somewhere between 7 and 10 months of our marriage. We will be married for 18 years this July.