I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried!

What a crazy week we have had!! From Friday to Friday, our week included:

• RSV (Whitt)
• strep throat (Emma Claire)
• stomach bug (Ben)
• 104 degree fever/ear infection (Whitt)
• sprained ankle (me)
• me backing into Emma Claire's teacher's car
• the police visiting our house because a neighbor didn't like where the men doing our yard work were putting the leaves and yard debris so they called and reported us (RIDICULOUS, and the police just laughed, thank goodness)
• our cat taking an enormous dump on a rug
• a toilet overflowing onto the floor
• two sinks and a bathtub stopping up

...and I could go on, but you get the picture. At one point I wondered if we were on candid camera or something. This has just not been our week! Thankfully, everybody is feeling better except for poor Whitt. He just cannot shake this RSV and we're well into week two of it. The ear infection I'm sure doesn't help things, but please say some prayers that his cough and wheezing start to ease up soon. The good news is that he's really been healthy up until this point, so at least it's not anything he's had to deal with for a long time--and this is his first ear infection and the first time he's been on antibiotics, so I don't think that's too bad for an almost-9-month old.

In other news, it's SPRING BREAK, baby!!!! Grayson and EC have the week off from school and we are so excited to have a whole week to do lots of fun things together. We are trying to plan as many fun things as we can around Whitt's therapy schedule, and the weather is supposed to be beautiful so that's an added bonus. We're babysitting Emma Claire's class pet, Belle, the guinea pig, for the week---so all fingers are crossed that we can keep Belle alive, especially after our week of bad luck and the warning from EC's teacher that Belle is very old so "please don't feel badly if you wake up one day and he's not alive anymore." Great, that's all I need!!!! :)

Happy Spring Break, everybody!

Proud mommy moment

Look at who learned how to write his name today!!!!! My heart almost burst with pride for my sweet boy, who has been working SO hard to learn how to do this!

On a lighter note....

The sad thing is this wasn't even staged. I sent Ben to the store before my Jersey Shore bday party (another post in itself....HILARIOUS!) and was busy getting ready when I walked into the kitchen to find this. Our 8 month old guarding the beer. What fabulous parents we are. :)

Overloaded

Overloaded. That's the only word I can use to describe how I feel these days. I don't think I've mentioned it on the blog, but I've taken on a "job" of sorts. I'm now the babysitter of my friend Lindsay's two children, Emery (3) and Wilks (6 months). Lindsay is a teacher and went back part-time when her maternity leave was up last month so I now keep her kiddos every afternoon from 11:30 until 4 on Mondays and 12-4 on Tuesdays through Fridays. This means that for four hours every afternoon, I have a 4 year old, a 3 year old, a 2 year old, an 8 month old, and a 6 month old. Yes, overloaded. :)

As if that isn't enough, Whitt has recently been diagnosed with having some significant developmental delays. We've known that he was delayed, and he was referred for OT (occupational therapy) back in December, but referrals are slow around here and a few weeks ago we were still impatiently waiting for him to get in when it occurred to me to try a different OT--one that Grayson went to last year and we LOVED. She wasn't taking new patients but thankfully made an exception and has started seeing Whitt twice a week. She also recommended that he start twice weekly physical therapy, as well as feeding therapy (a whole other story--basically, he won't eat any baby/soft foods due to some sensory issues), so we are now in the beginning stages of several hours per week of OT and PT for Whitt, and hopefully soon we will introduce some feeding therapy. I'm now trying to figure out when I'm going to get to the grocery store, run errands, cook healthy meals, clean this house, etc..... Like I said, overloaded! :)

I apologize if I'm absent from the blog for awhile. I did get a sweet new lens for my camera for my birthday though, so I hope to get a chance to try it on the kiddos soon. If I do, I'll be back to post some pictures. Don't abandon me while I'm gone! :)

The Gift of an Ordinary Day

My mom sent me this video today, and it was absolutely what I needed to see. It's several minutes long but I highly recommend watching it. It's a great reminder for those of us with young children that we need to cherish these ordinary days---the days where nothing special happens besides sandwiches being made, noses being wiped, books being read, clothes being washed---because eventually these needy children of ours grow up and don't want anything to do with us, and then they eventually graduate high school and turn into adults who don't need us anymore.

The ordinary days that Katrina Kenison talks about--the dandelion bouquets, caterpillars in a jar, ice cream cones, lopsided snowmen--sound so sweet and nostalgic, and I really hope those are the things I one day remember about our "ordinary days." For now, I think they're filled more with dirty diapers, spit up on my shoulder, vacuuming the kitchen floor three times a day, telling a child over and over to stop jumping on the couch, sending children to time-out, cleaning poop off the bedspread, breaking up arguments over a favorite toy, wiping noses and tears and bottoms, listening to screaming when somebody doesn't get their way, picking up toy after toy after toy....I could go on, but I'm sure most of you are living the same life so you get the picture!

I hope you enjoy this as much as I did, and I hope it helps put things into perspective like it did for me. I adore my children and although my life is far from glamorous, I wouldn't have it any other way. It won't be like this forever and I need to cherish these ordinary days.

Oh, and get your Kleenex ready! It's a tear-jerker! :)

10th picture

My friend Jen, from I'm a Nola Girl, did a little game where you go to your pictures on your computer and pick the 10th picture and post it. Here's mine---my sweet Grayson and Emma Claire when EC was a few weeks old and Grayson was almost two. I can't believe how much they've grown, and especially can't believe what a baby Grayson was when his sister was born! :)

Feel free to play along! I'd love to see everybody's pictures!