Friday, April 25, 2014

Birthday Boy!

Happy Birthday Zekey Lou! Tomorrow - at 3:20 a.m. to be exact - my middlest buddy Zeke turns the big 3. We are having a party tonight here with our family--- which is why I decided to blog right now-- I just wrote my list of things to clean and then naturally decided to procrastinate. To increase productivity in the long run. After I called my sister for our daily chat #1. I just got done telling her that I really don't have much left to clean... have been doing a little here and there all week... and I'm not going to bother dusting as that would take days. So if you are a guest tonight --- any dust you pick up is FREE! I just am not a duster. I think Gramma Jude always passed that job off to me when I was at home and she had MILLIONS of little brass things sitting everywhere that needed dusting (and mom is thinking - wait, Jenni helped?!). Maybe I did dream that up. I was with Alicia one time when she had called her mom to ask her to pick up a can of "dust" (dusting spray?) for her while she was at Wally World. And I was like what the heck do you dust that you would EVER go through a whole can of dusting spray!? Because the only way my can is ever going to get empty is if 1) child sprays it all over the couch or their bed or the wood floor making it so slippery you can never walk in that spot again or 2) the can gets a hole in the bottom of it. Maybe I will let Mack run the Norwex mitt over the most obvious places when he gets home. :)

So Zeke Louis was born on a Tuesday morning at Regional Medical Center at 3:20 in the morning. He weighed 7lb. 11oz. and was 20" long. He was the only one we "knew" was going to be a boy. Although Jordan, who moonlights as a radiologist, "knew" with all three. He has been our good sleeper - after 8 weeks, I only got up with him maybe three times until the past six months when he has.... regressed. After I had Huck, I didn't put the older boys to bed much for probably two months. So then I started missing it so I started laying down with Zeke before bed. And I ruined EVERYTHING. Now he needs me to lay with him for no less than an hour before I can leave the room. Then he continues to get up and run back and forth from his room to our room 4 or 5 times. Then he shows up at the end of our bed at least once in the middle of the night. And comes in bright-eyed and bushy tailed as soon as day breaks. But he's cute, and all he wants to do is snuggle and watch Angry Birds Play Doh on YouTube on my phone so it's okay. He really is the sweetest little boy ever. I always say You betcha baby! and he responds with You betcha Momma! He is always saying that the dog "sure likes me best!" I sure do like this food! I sure do think so! I sure do wuv you best! He also is a little sh!t. Several times a day he sneaks out the front door wearing nothing but a t-shirt and a smile. We have smashed pop tarts and Nutragrain bars every. where. He climbs in our bed with a can of Pringles on days I just washed the sheets --- not just crumbs, SHARP crumbs. His ears do not work. He is the boss honcho at our house. But we wouldn't trade him for the world -- he keeps our house interesting to say the least. Plus he has a super cute lisp.

Tomorrow we are taking Mack, Zeke, Wesley, and Bennett to Jumping Janes, "Old" McDonalds, and maaaaybe a movie for the big day. I just texted Jordan that I had offered to just have W and B spend the night tonight after the party since we're leaving early in the a.m. anyway. He called back wondering why I am such a glutton for punishment and torturous (word?) things. :) He knows he gets sleepover duty tonight. Momma doesn't lose much sleep without good reason! I also texted him that I had banished Humpy the Happy Humper dog outside. The DD (damn dog) is 10 weeks old. Should 10 week old puppies be humping already?? Jordan said maybe he just has a twitch. We will see what he thinks when DD starts twitching on his leg. Leave it to us to end up with an oversexed dog. Good grief.

Well, I should get back to cleaning. I have two more toilets to go. I cannot tell you how glad I am that I went ahead and bought the toilet seats that "clip" on and off. When the lady was explaining this to me I was thinking no way in pee hell would I be touching the toilet seat in its usually dirtiest part to take it off and clean it. But I do! It takes me a minute to muster up the courage... like when you are about to jump in a cold pool... but I do, and it's yellow/orange and disgusting, but I tell myself it's all probably Mack's pee and how dirty can 5 year old pee be!? (please be just Mack's pee... surely Jordan's aim has been perfected by now.)

Also - in current events, I have chosen to give up on working my one (night - yawn) weekend a month at RMC for now. It was a love-hate relationship - love the excitement and new babies and adult interaction, hate the nights and weekends and holidays and stress those 24 hours brought to our house. Hopefully by the time I am gainfully employed again, I will know what I want to be when I grow up. Probably a lab tech. :) Or a coffee shop owner! Don't get rid of the Old Feedmill yet Papa Gerald!!

It is a beautiful day- Enjoy! The birthday boy can attest because he just peed outside! Facing the golf course! Can't rain on the bday boy's parade though - today or any day. He's just a happy camper.

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Herky Is My Hero

Hi all! We got a dog this weekend. A chocolate lab puppy actually. Before I go too deep, those of you who know me well know I sometimes have ideas that are.... grandiose. (Several things really scream out at me that I'm bi-polar... manic episodes, really over the top, grandiose plans to name a few. Classic symptoms.) I like to think that having a dog, starting a business, having 7 kids, nature walks through snow and thorns with a two year old in cowboy boots would be fun... but then actually it's just a lot of work. Which is no fun. So yes, we got a dog - Herky. He ( i know- i cant even get a girl dog) was first Sam, then Romeo (my personal fave.) and then we threw out Herky and of course the boys loved it and it stuck. And then we got the dog -- and it is very hard to differentiate between Herky and Hucky. Which is what we call little brotha most of the time. Jordan and I had planned ahead about how when picking names that he and I should pick some pre-approved names to suggest to the boys so that they don't think of their own --- Brown dog automatically = named Brownie (first thing Mack suggested!). And then we threw caution to the wind and blurted out Herky without thinking of how that might pan out. So yesterday was my first day in the trenches with the dog. It was suggested on FB that we take the dog out every 25-30 minutes during the day (ain't nobody got time to get up in the night with a dog- I told Jordan I don't even get up with my human baby anymore, you won't see me getting up with a dog. And he agreed since he gets up with no human babies ever.) SWEET JESUS does 25 minutes come around fast! By noon I had texted Jordan to come get the f-ing dog because I had already been outside with it 12 times and had basically spent more time with it than Huck. Which really made me hate the name Herky because I kept getting them switched up and I felt bad for calling my sweet boy Herky when at the time I wanted to put the darn dog on Craigs List (this is how these types of things usually go for me - day one). But, I switched to every 45 minutes and kind of got a routine down on how I do things and he has had only 2 accidents in 2 days --- and last night slept about 10 hours and had a clean kennel this morning! So the consensus today is that I'll keep him. As soon as he's house trained, Zeke is going in the kennel!! Oh and after we got home with the dog on Sunday, it was mass chaos - first warm day of the year, puddles and mud everywhere, newness of the dog = boys have to go out every time we take it out (45 times at least)---- 4+ outfit changes later and Jordan says "Not in a bad way... but I'm glad I get to go to work tomorrow." Kind of like No offense, but this sucks. Yeah. Throw in 6 loads of laundry and dishes and poopy diapers all around, and it's a regular ole blast around here!!

I have been patiently impatiently waiting for my sister to have her baby. Due date = this Thursday. She had a doctor appointment today and he was hopeful she will go soon... but if not he will induce her on the 10th. ON THE 10TH! She should have said and by the 10th do you mean APRIL FOOLS?! I guess I'm just spoiled that I get induced at 39 weeks (but God just laughs and laughs and says you will still have this baby on the birthday that I have planned. next week.).. 41 just seems cruel. We were just talking about how excited she is to get the nightly baby-is-hungry wake up calls from the nurses while she's in the hospital. Worse sound ever. Thrilled baby is finally here, but if there was ever a chance that you are going to get even a little bit of sleep in the foreseeable future - it's gonna be in the hospital. While baby is being snuggled at the nurse's desk. Can't wait until my niece is here! The only bad thing about us all having babies at the same time is that you really can't be of any sort of help --- here I'll hold your baby so you can relax a minute... and hold mine. :) She has had many days of "maybe this is it...??" so I have kept my phone on vibrate. We have a thing where we text mom and sisters and Justin all the while during labor... mine were usually like "doing nothing." "going home." "maxed out on Pitocin again. doing nothing. Dr. Thompson is probably afraid to come in (for fear of the hot mess i will become when he says well baby is lookin famous... but maybe lets try again tomorrow)" "Epidural in, thank you LORD" Can't wait to get her texts this time around!!! And go to Starbucks when I visit them (thank you Jess for delivering in a city!!!)

Mack is the Star Student this week at school - we filled out a sheet listing his favorites and he got to bring some pictures to share with the class. 5-10 were requested but this guy has caught MANY fish in his life, so we went a bit over that with all of his best catches, and a few of him and his brothers. Friday we take him to kindergarten round-up! I still remember when I had my kindergarten round-up --- Mrs. Elledge had her classroom out in a trailer in the parking lot and after she took my picture, I was amazed that there was another little girl in my class that looked exactly like me and was even wearing the same clothes! (one of those old cameras that spit the picture out right away --- newfangled stuff Ed-Co had back then!)


Anyway - 45 minutes is up. Puppy time :( 45 minutes isn't much better than 25 now that I think about it. Boo.

Have a great week!

Also - for the record, Jordan has gotten up with the boys at night before. Because I have kicked him and cursed at him and forced him to do so. :)