I didn’t get much sleep last night. My mind was just running about unimportant things, and I was up from 1:30-5:00-ish. It goes without saying that I’m feeling a bit draggy this morning, but I’d really like to focus on the positives today. Woot!!

Its Saturday! Of all days to be tired, today is definitely the day!

Also, Spring is here. Despite the cloudy weather today, our kitchen window is open and the fresh air is blowing. I’m so happy nicer weather is here! I hope it stays!

I got up this morning, put on makeup, and went to apply some on someone else! I’m so thankful to have people around me who want me to succeed at doing something that I love! It was exciting and important and I think it turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself. That was a great start to my morning.

While I was gone, Solly barfed. It was kind of nice to skip that…

While I fed my sick baby a bottle, Brady vacuumed the entire house. What a huge chore off the list!

Hot coffee.

We spent time planning some fun music with a friend yesterday evening, and we’ll spend time with my parents tomorrow. It is always nice to be around loved ones.

Its nap time!! Three of the kids are going down today, and I’m anticipating a big bowl of the chicken lemon rice soup I made a few days ago. It turned out perfectly. Not to too my own horn, but *toot toot.*

I’m thankful for a lot of things, and a lot of people. My life is full and rich. God is just so so good.

I think that last one wraps todays post up pretty nicely 🙂 Its such a strange time of my life, with so many uncertainties on the horizon, so many plans in the works. Strange and wonderful all rolled together.

We have this book. Lots of you guys have probably read it. Its called “Pete the Cat and his Four Groovy Buttons.” Pete the Cat is super fun, so if you have kids, look into him. A couple of my cousins bought our kids this book a couple of Christmases ago, and its recently resurfaced as a “new” book. So we read it a lot these days.

I easily know this book by heart now, and so do the kids. They know the pages and the concept. Laela reads/recites it to Rowan almost every day. The story is simple. Pete the Cat’s favorite shirt has four bright buttons down the front of it, and for whatever strange reason, those suckers just keep popping off. But he just rolls with it. Once they’ve all popped off, he accepts his belly button in their place, and thats just it. No fuss, no muss, the end.

But in the last couple of days, I’ve really really appreciated this book. Pete the Cat is profound.

My favorite page goes like this:

I guess it simply goes to show
That stuff will come, and stuff will go.
But do we cry? Goodness, no.
We keep on singing.

Now, its possible that Pete the Cat is a bit more emotionally stable than I am, because I definitely cry when stuff goes around here. But I like where he’s going with it all.

Forgive me (or don’t) for putting a Christian spin on this, but this book reminded me that God gives and takes away, and that we are to keep saying “blessed be His name.” Or, in my words, we’re to roll with it and trust that He’s got it. And he does. Even when it doesn’t feel like it.

While I firmly believe that God did NOT “take” my baby boy from me, I do believe that He knows all things. He knew we would be faced with this devastating situation, and He knew that we could come out on the other side. And we did. But it was hard, and continues to be. But believe me, both literally and figuratively, I AM KEEPING ON SINGING! This is so not over. And I suppose, even if it were, I’d have to find a way to keep on singing. But how I pray that this isn’t the end of the line for us and our family…

I probably sound pretty mixed up. That’s ok. You guys probably know me well enough that you know I don’t always make sense 😉 Perhaps it feels just a bit more like a “rolling with the punches” kind of day. If you’re feeling the same way, know you’re not alone! Me, and you, and Pete the Cat are all working hard to keep on trucking. Or singing. Or rolling. Whatever you want to call it, we’re ALL doing it.

Seriously, guys. Pete the Cat. He knows things.

So I may kick myself for writing about this. I don’t want to jinx it. But I think its just about time to sleep train Solly. I hope.

We’ve tried to sleep train Solly a time or two before, but as soon as we nail down a plan, he gets sick or something, and it just hasn’t been possible.

In this last week or two, he’s been pretty miserable and sick. Our nights have been challenging. He wakes up around midnight, and wails and cries and coughs and rasps and screams. We. Try. Everything. We change his diaper, try to give him milk, rock him, walk him, no dice. To use a phrase that I really hate, he just can’t even. We end up holding him until his crying relaxes a bit. But it does not STOP until we put him back down the bed. So no, we’re not leaving his sick little self to wail for hours and hours. We work HARD to calm him down, and it only sort of works. The days that this has happened, he wakes up a couple of hours later when his medicine from his midnight wakeup call has kicked in, and he’ll take a feeding. Even that feeding is about half of his usual feeding size. But its something. When you know baby is sick, you just roll with stuff like that.

We’ve been putting two and two together though the sick time, though, and realizing that he can definitely go longer between night feedings than he has been. He’s not suffering with hunger when he misses that midnight feeding. I know he’s not.

Last night, instead of his tearful wakeup at midnight, he just slept through. Until 4:45!!! Keep in mind that he goes to bed at 7:30pm. That is NINE HOURS!! And WOW did I appreciate them! I also really appreciated that Solly woke up right around Brady’s alarm so he did the feeding before heading to work. What a glorious night for me!

I think this is it. I hope so much that this is it! I think, if he wakes up in the middle of the night, and I know he took a good feeding before bed, we’re just going to wrap him up and give him a good snuggle before putting him back to bed. And I think its going to be ok! I figure our worst case scenario will be, if it doesn’t work now, for whatever reason, Brady has a few days off in a stretch coming up, and we’ll just do it then if we have to. So if the whole house is full of exhausted children, I’ll have someone to tag team with! So, if not now, then.

On the note of sleepy babies, my little boys are napping and my big girl is watching some VeggieTales while I’m reclined, blogging, and eating broccoli salad. Spring is definitely upon us, and my whole self just feels much more relaxed and hopeful for the seasons to come. I hope you’re all feeling similarly.

I am WAY more likely to make a yummy meal if I’m feeding people other than my own family. Anyone else? Or am I the only one? I’m probably the only one :/ We’re bringing supper to a friend today, so naturally, I’m making two batches of everything, so my family can also enjoy it! Hahaha! Yay for eating food that was planned ahead of time!

I’d like to say that preparing supper today was a gong show because of my kids, but it wasn’t. It was just me, haha! I take ownership. But I think it’ll all still taste good, knock on wood!

I hesitate to even say it, but I think the main part of the meal will turn out smoothly. Its cooking away in the crock pot, seemingly normally. Last time I cooked two batches of something, I attempted to cook them both on low for the same amount of time, but the one’s “low” was much hotter than the other, and it didn’t help that I clicked the other one on “keep warm” for the first 2.5 hours of the cooking time. Sigh. I am NOT a chef. But today, they are both on low. I checked. Twice.

This morning, I was prepping the other parts of the meal, and it just kept not going smoothly. I was a bit flustered to begin with. I’ve suspicious that Laela has a bladder infection :/ It wouldn’t really add up if she did, but I’m watching her closely. Definitely don’t want to let one get advanced. But I felt a bit off my game from that whole thing, and realized I had to stop pestering her and continue on with my day.

So I started chopping broccoli into two bowls. Remember, two batches of everything. A few minutes into that, the little boys were ready for naps, so I put them down. A few more minutes into chopping broccoli, I cut myself. Not bad, but enough that it wasn’t stopping right away. So I snuck back up into our room, careful not to wake Solly, and grabbed some bandages. I got everything washed up well and wrapped up, and once the coast was clear, I finished up the chopping. I went to get my pre-made broccoli salad dressing in my fridge, and noticed I didn’t have enough. No problem. I went to whip up another batch but of course, my ingredients were low. So I made a half batch and finished it up. At least I had enough, right? I went to stick the salads in the fridge, but had forgotten to add the red onion. So I pulled that out and chopped some up. Of course, the smell made me cry, as did the onion juices seeping into my freshly bandaged cut. Felt marvellous. But I sucked it up. That salad is amazing and entirely worth it.

I cleaned up my island and went onto the next thing. I made a dessert yesterday that needed a glaze, so I gathered up the few little ingredients. A person cannot mess up glaze, right? Even me! I didn’t mess it up. I did somehow manage to break a perfectly good spatula stirring it, though. Don’t ask me how. It was literally half a cup of icing sugar, vanilla, and milk, but ok… The dessert will still be good. I accidentally doubled a chunk of it, lol, but it was a delicious chunk so I’m not too worried. It did, however, make the dessert spill over in the oven. I was lazy enough not to clean up the dish last night, also, so the plastic wrap was fully cemented to it. But like I said, the actual dessert itself should be yummy. I hope, haha! Questioning a few things now.

The last thing I prepared today was some chopping pineapple. We got these weird pineapples that do not look ripe AT ALL, but I figured I’d give them a try before sending Brady to Costco on his way home to pick up the pre-chopped stuff. I grabbed my spiral pineapple slicer and a cutting board to get things going. I normally do my chopping and preparing just right on my butcher block island top, but for really messy things, I use a cutting board, just to contain the pieces or juices. Well this pineapple completely surprised me! The juices overflowed with speed that send them pouring long past the cutting board and straight onto the floor. Ack! Its a good problem to have, let’s be real. Your pineapple is TOO juicy? No such thing. So I grabbed a bunch of paper towel and prepared for the next one to be the same juiciness. Even with my preparedness, the second pineapple flowed along my island and onto my floor. It was like it was laughing at me. Jerk pineapple. It even had the nerve to pour its sugary goodness into my wound that was still pounding from its onion bath earlier.

My dishes were done before my supper prep began, and I’m sure you can imagine my kitchen is now a total mess. I’m ok with that, though. My food is prepared, and its going to be delicious. I hope. I think. I should double check on that crock pot…..

 

**

 

Side note: Just in case anyone wanted to know, in the middle of writing this post, Laela had a very successful bathroom trip, so I think the hypothetical UTI is just that – hypothetical. Yay for my little potty trainer still being able to pee!

Laela is a fantastic helper. I hope I do this stage of her life right, and foster my appreciation for her work ethic correctly, because she LOVES to help. I know, I know, “it won’t last forever.” But maybe it would at least leave a good taste in her mouth about helping and participating and all of those good things.

Dekker’s school days thrilled Laela. Not because she doesn’t like to play with Dekker, but because she has zero competition for the jobs. They constantly fight over who gets to help. Its kind of the best problem to have.

But Laela is struggling today. She’s upset because I’m not letting her do all of the jobs. Because she is too sick.

I wouldn’t let her help me empty the dishwasher OR assemble Solly’s bottles, which she was pretty unhappy about. I just can’t risk it transferring through the kids again! I know its entirely likely that it will, but I’m going to do my part to stop it from happening, and that means not getting snot on the dishes. The little miss was pretty distraught until I offered that she could help with the dirty dishes. That seemed to help. I don’t usually have them help with stuff like that, but she wanted to! So she loaded the cutlery, plates, and cups, while I did the slightly less straight-forward stuff. When the dishwasher was full, she was super happy to be able to put the soap in and press the buttons. These are coveted tasks, believe me. Beyond that, Laela is helping put wet clothes in the dryer, and I even hoist her on top of the machines to press the buttons. So she’s getting her fill of jobs, haha! But just try to tell her that 😉 I have to bake today or tomorrow, but I’m leaving it for tonight, or sometime when she’s not around, because she would be SO SAD not to be able to participate! She is just chomping at the bit for things to do. Yet she rests between each and every job. She is SO shot.

Behold, Laela taking some cans out to the recycling in the garage. Love her. Look at that poor raw, rashy face.

My last update on her is that, since getting sick a few days ago, she has only had ONE accident!! She was super feverish and out of it and was dozing on the couch, and she peed. But she told us right away, and finished up in the toilet. Thank goodness for easy to clean leather couches!!

So thankful for my little girly. She is an amazing daughter and friend and helper. Now to just get her better!

A good while ago now, we booked routine appointments for the little boys. I’m pretty sure kids have routine appointments in general, but considering I’m fairly often pregnant and going to regular prenatal appointments, we tend to sneak in little checks on the kids here and there. I rarely actually book them appointments unless they’re quite sick. But since my last pregnancy failed, we knew we wouldn’t be seeing the doctor as much. So we decided to book the boys into the recommended time frame that we had previously discussed with Dr. Guselle. Rowan needed his two year appointment, and it was suggested that Solly be seen around nine months. Both of those times fell about a month ago, so we booked them in together.

With three out of the four kids feeling pretty under the weather, it was a bit of a hands-on appointment. Emotions were running high, as you can imagine. And then all of those emotions were put in an exam room and told to wait. Hahaha! So yes, a gong show. But we’ve been there before, and they know us. So we waited and did our best.

It was the PERFECT day for Dr. Guselle to come in on her own, rather than having to see a student first.

We started with Solly, because he was momentarily settled and Rowan was off exploring the stirrups attached to the table, lol! Promise me it isn’t just my kids that have a fascination with those things. Solly jumped on my lap and smiles and stuck his tongue out and charmed the heck out of his doctor. She was happy to hear that he is now crawling well, on his hands and knees, and sitting up on his own. We said he was making some specific letter sounds, and knew his name. She asked if he ever cried or reached for specific toys. I told her he doesn’t really, but that he definitely eyes up what he wants and just goes to get it himself. She laughed at his classic “fourth child” demeanour, and said that was just fine developmentally. She gave him a nice once over, listened to his lungs, checked his ears, eyes, and throat. He checked out just fine. His overall stats had me a little worried, with him somehow only weighing 22 lbs, but his growth chart shows him comfortably on the 85th percentile, which I’m happy about. He’s also just over 30″ tall, which is HUGE! He is over the 97th percentile on that one 🙂 He is a healthy, pleasant little dude, according to both his family and his health care provider, so I’m calling his appointment a definite win!

Rowan was next up, and he was a bit trickier to get a read on. He was SO tired going into the appointment, and didn’t appreciate having to do anything beyond what he himself wanted to do in that exact moment. For that reason, he was weighed on the baby scale and had his height measured by laying him on the table and drawing a line at his head and his feet. Height wise, he is 3′ tall, still leaving him around the 85th percentile. His weight has dropped, though. He weighs just over 28 lbs. He’s still healthy, and even on the bigger side, but he dropped from the 85th to the 75th percentile. NOT a problem or even a concern, but as Dr. Guselle said, we’ll check in on his weight in a few months when I’m inevitably in for a prenatal appointment 🙂 I can’t wait for that day… But seriously, she was very reassuring that Rowan’s size is just fine. I spoke to her about the changes made to his mouth, and how he had no blanket anymore. She said it seemed like we made the right decision, and that clearly his sleep wasn’t suffering for it, considering how much this boy sleeps. We spoke about his development as well, and he met every milestone she mentioned. He can walk backwards, he can complete a two-task instruction, and he plays well on his own, making up his own games. As we were discussing that last one, Ro climbed up onto the chair beside me, sat on his knees, and began barking. It was pretty endearing, honestly. And our doctor is fabulous, and played along with him. I did bring to her attention that I have a small concern with his hearing. It doesn’t make total sense, but I just threw it out there, and she’s so great and took me seriously instead of writing me off. I’ve been suspicious Rowan’s hearing isn’t batting 100 for a while now, yet his speech is AWESOME, and sooo clear! So he may just be a two year old and not have the time or interest to listen to me. Or he might not be able to hear me. She checked his ears and said his ears are not in any way red or infected, but there does appear to be a bit of fluid in them. But he’s sick, too, so that could be a factor. Either way, she offered to send a referral to the clinic at RUH and have his hearing tested, which I appreciate. Other than that, though, everything else checked out. His persistent sick pooping has got him a little bit of a yeast diaper rash, but we’re no strangers to that, and are on top of it. Ro did not want her to listen to his lungs, but she followed him over to the corner he was hiding in and did it there, crouched on the floor. Again, love her. He checked out wonderfully, with a few little follow-ups to come.

Once the appointments were done, Dr. Guselle walked us over to the stickers and let each kid pick two. She’s always so patient, where I feel a little bit flustered, and want to rush the kids so they don’t waste her time. Everyone picked their stickers, and out we went. As soon as we were at the van, Laela had to pee. We had been brave and brought her out in panties rather than a pull-up, so I rushed her in and even just with me holding her on the toilet (because we didn’t have a potty seat) she peed! Not everyone will understand the gravity of this, but it was pretty awesome. I brought her back to the van, and Dekker then announced that he had to pee, too. So I brought him with me and Rowan, and we went back in for that pee break, as well as finally catching Rowan up on his shots. He is DONE now until he’s four. Woot!

Our couple of hours at the doctor went really well, though the kids were pretty finished by the end of it. I can’t blame them. They had been so good 🙂 I always feel good after an appointment with Dr. Guselle, though. She is a picture of reassurance and warmth. I don’t know too many people who always leave their doctor feeling uplifted. It was so nice.

Now, perogies for supper, and broccoli salad. Yum! I’m so ready for a relaxed evening here at home 🙂 I hope you’re all enjoying the warmer weather, whether you got our rain or not. Spring is upon us!

I feel like I’m in a strange stage of life. I’m SO thrilled with my life; being a wife and a mother. I can’t wait to keep growing my family and continuing on that journey, however it looks. I deeply desire more kids, which isn’t a secret. I do feel fulfilled. Don’t get me wrong. But I am in search mode. Roaming. I’m not entirely sure what for.

I have a lot of ideas in my head, and I don’t expect to be able to make a clear post about them, especially when I don’t know how to organize them myself, so I’m not even going to try. But I am desiring something else. Something about reaching out, and having my own ministry of sorts. I want to reach out to people, or at least to have people KNOW that they can come to me. I WANT to talk to you guys, and hear from me. Which leads me to this post.

About two months ago, I shared with you guys about our miscarriage. That very day, and in the days and weeks that followed, an amazing amount of people came forward both publicly and privately, and shared that they too had suffered a loss, or lots of losses, or were struggling through infertility, or loneliness, or grief. I want you all to know that I haven’t forgotten you and the stories you shared. I actually look back to that post, and read the comments over. I read back over the private messages I received. And I wonder about you guys.

I wonder if speaking about these things made you feel better or stirred up old pain, making it worse. My biggest ache is for those of you who lost the last baby you had conceived. I wonder how you are. Have you conceived again? Are you grieving so hard that you can’t even think about that? Have you not been able to conceive since your loss? How is your heart? Are you dealing on these things, or closing up?

I know that no one’s pain in the same, and I don’t claim to understand how each of you felt in your time of loss and grief. While we were greatly supported through our miscarriage, we had a small amount of people subtly suggest that our loss wasn’t as sad because we already have kids. I don’t think those people meant anything rude by that, and we didn’t take offence. I understand that our pain is different than other people’s pain. But it was still very real, and continues to be. We miss our Theo so so much.

Losing a baby is HARD, whether it happens the day you find out, or a month later, or at the very very end. Different levels of pain, but they’re all real. Trying to conceive is HARD, whether its one month with negative tests, or several years. (You may think we can’t speak to this, but we actually can.) To ache and long for a baby, and to treat your body like its pregnant, and to watch so closely for symptoms that they appear, only to be unsuccessful over and over again. Its exhausting, and painful. Its HARD.

I’m not sure what I’m trying to say. I don’t want to be nosey, but for those of you who reached out to me, I’d be thrilled if you would again 🙂 I want you to you I’d love to chat with you, and that you have a safe place here. All of you mamas (in heart or in body) are so heavy on my heart these days. I hope you’re ok. Whether you are or aren’t, I hope we can talk soon. 💜

Brady went to a conference today, so I was without my partner in crime. Which I am often enough during the day, but it always feels different on Saturdays. Thankfully, I had made some afternoon plans with my parents to help the day go by just a little bit faster.

Laela added a fun twist by waking up with a fever. Honestly, I didn’t even check her temperature, but she was hot and lethargic, with visible beads of sweat on her little nose and forehead. Her hairline was soaked and she was pretty limp. Poor dear. I still took the plunge, put her in panties, and tucked her in on the couch. Within a half hour, she asked for breakfast, and from there, the day was normal!

She went from this…

to this!…

in LESS THAN AN HOUR! She’s gorgeous in both pictures, though. I am still baffled how she looks so beautiful even when she’s sick. Crazy girl.

My parents had been out for the morning but called once they were home, and I loaded the kids up and headed over for the day. I visited for a little bit before ducking out to have the side of my head reshaved and designed. I do it every 2-3 weeks, and its such a fun thing to anticipate. It was also a fun little outing for me, and some special time with grandma and grandpa. I blasted my music and drank Starbucks while half of my kids napped and the other half played outside. It was a really nice afternoon.

I got home around 3:30 ish, and Brady’s conference ended at 4:00, so he was home shortly afterwards. It was nice to be all together. We stayed at my parents and ate my moms delicious homemade pizza for supper. I haven’t had it in a while and man it was good today!! Like it really hit the spot. Amazing meal, mom!

But as things tend to go, my little crew faded pretty quickly. Noses ran a bit more, and tempers ran a bit high as well. Lots of eye rubs and crying lead us to tidy up and head home. And then we bathed them, which they were less than thrilled about. Its been a bit of a long evening here, but its only 8:15 so I shouldn’t complain, I know.

Tomorrow, we’re helping lead worship at church, so we have to be adults and get up, haha! So consider us signed off for the night. We are old and tired!

I realized recently that I never made you guys aware of the fact that I caught up on savings my blog books! I DID! I saved all the way up to 2017, and have even begun to save the blogs I’ve posted this year. On our Calgary trip a couple of weeks ago, I ordered them.

And they arrived today!!!!

Isn’t that exciting?? I’m SO happy to have them all on hand!! I was hoping to take a nice picture of them where they’ll live, up in my room, on top of my dresser, tucked between a purple lantern Dekker “bought” for me at Ikea, and a stuffed animal that was gifted to baby Theo at Christmas before we knew he was gone. Its going to be a pretty lovely set up when it comes together, but for the moment, our room is being used to store some things that can’t live in the basement or the garage :/ Yay for tubs taking up 50% of our space. BUT! I’m so so happy the rest of my blog books have arrived! It feels like a goal has been met, or accomplished, or whatever you want to say. It feels GOOD. That’s 4.5 years of our lives all recorded and waiting for someone to maybe pick them up one day, just to see how time was spent. It was spent rich in love, I can tell you that. ‘Tis a good day.

On an unrelated note, I received a couple of really sweet messages yesterday, congratulating Laela on her wicked potty training skills. I passed them all on to her, I promise you that, and she was SO thrilled! Just beamed with pride. I even snuck into her room after bedtime to tell her some of them 😉 It was a huge encouragement to her, so thank you for caring enough to actually send a message or leave a comment. As for today, it started strong here at home. She had used her nighttime pull-up pretty well, lol, but it wasn’t as full as yesterdays, so I’ll take it! During our successful morning, we were spontaneously invited out to a friends house for a cozy pj play date, which we jumped at. We were out from mid morning until around 4:00-ish, and Laela didn’t have a single accident!!! She actually used the toilet tons while we were there, and was showered with so many potty treats! I was thoroughly amazed, honestly. I packed her a few pull up sin the diaper bag, as well as a couple extra pairs of panties, none of which we touched, because she just killed it!!! I’m SO impressed. Like blown away. She even pooped there! Multiple times! Without too much “potty talk,” I figured she’d save them up and either go a bit crazy when she got home, or wait until she was in a pull up for bedtime, but she didn’t hold back for a second, and was TOTALLY successful. GO LAELA!!

When we got home, I quickly jumped on the phone to run a date and time of babysitting by my mom, and when I got off the phone, Laela was in the bathroom, putting her pants back on. I asked what happened, and she told me she had pooped. All on her own. And wiped. I did a quick poop check and while I helped her out just a bit extra, she had done amaaazingly well on her own! I can’t believe I had a little self-starter on my hands! I didn’t think these kids actually existed!