Sleeping Kids

Three of my four kids are in bed with me tonight. They are all sound asleep and it made me want to write about their different ”sleep styles.”

Brenna is a snuggle bug. If I scoot an inch away, she scoots an inch closer to me. It’s like sleeping with a magnet. She loves to snuggle with our foreheads touching. She’s loved this since she was a baby, and I’ve always loved it too.

Joshua burrows. He will crawl into my bed from the foot of it, worming up under the sheets and blankets until he finds a leg to curl up next to. He circles like a little puppy and then snuggles in, curled in a ball between my knees.

Madalyn tends to sprawl, spreading her arms and legs out wide and taking up a lot of space. She also is a great, warm little cuddler. She loves to sleep on my (or Rick’s) chest, and she’s tiny enough that she still can.

Braden takes the “bum-in-the-air” approach. Whenever I peek into his crib to check on him, I find him sleeping this way with his stuffed brown bear tucked underneath him.

Blog Guilt

I think I am guilty of neglecting my blog. It has been so busy around here lately, with a family reunion and tons of packing to keep me moving constantly. (We close on our house in ONE week!) I do feel a little guilty for not recording things here like I usually do, but I suppose it’s better to neglect my blog than it is to neglect anything else.

Monkeys in My Bed

We made a pre-bedtime run to Walmart for pull-ups for Joshua to sleep in tonight. (He slept without a pull-up last night and had soaked through four towels by 1am!) Joshua, Maddie, and Braden all fell asleep on the ride home (just as I hoped they would), but Brenna was wide awake.

After I tucked the little ones into bed, Brenna asked very sweetly if she could just have a “quick” movie night. She was just so cute that I agreed to let her watch a 30-minute “Angelina Ballerina” DVD. Two hours later she was still awake. She’d spent that entire time prancing in and out of my room, begging for bites of my oven-baked pizza, and requesting just one more hug.

At about 10:15 I sent her to bed, but was aware of her sitting just outside my bedroom door. Then I heard Maddie start to whimper in her bed. I called for her to come to me, and then turned around to see both Brenna and Maddie coming into my room. Then Joshy’s little blond head popped around the corner too, completely surprising me because I had no idea that he was awake!

I pulled back the covers on my bed, and invited all three kids to climb in with me. Grinning, they all snuggled down in bed next to me and next to each other, packed side by side in our queen bed like little sausages.

It makes me happy to have them with me. I like looking over and seeing three little blond heads, three tiny noses, and three pairs of round, innocent eyes. I like seeing them all tucked in together. I like having the three of them so close to me as we fall asleep. I wish Braden were here too.

I remember when Rick was home, we would sometimes end up with three or four kids in bed with us all at the same time. I remember how sweet it was to wake up in the morning and see Rick’s sleeping face, all the way on the other side of a ”kid pile” in between us. We would reach across all those little ones, so that we could hold hands, and it was like our entire family was wrapped up in a hug. Even though the bed was crowded that way, I always liked the feeling of knowing that I was inches away from everything that was most precious to me. 

When Brenna Got Her Earrings…

Thinking about Brenna’s earrings, prompted me to jot down a few memories of that day…

Brenna got her ears pierced when she was 4.5. She had been asking for earrings since she was 2, but was very put off by the pain involved. It took her over 2 years to work up her courage. She finally began to insist that she really was brave enough and started making phone calls to family members to plead her case. It never hurts to have Grandma on your side! She’d call and say, “Can I please get your opinion on something? Don’t you think I would look so cute with earrings?” This made me smile every time I heard it.

Finally we agreed. She picked out the perfect earrings, little flowers with blue centers “to match my eyes,” she said. When the big moment arrived, she sat still and brave on my lap, with her little fingers digging into my thighs. Those little white knuckles were the only indication that she was nervous. I reassured her and mentally told myself not to jump when the gun went off because it would only make her jump even more. I looked at her small, round earlobe and felt a little sad that I would never see it that way again. Lol, remember I am an overly sentimental boob!

30 seconds later Brenna had earrings. She flinched a little and then got this funny look on her face, like she was surprised it was over so quickly. We asked her if it hurt and she said, “Nope! Not a bit!” As we left the store, she asked complete strangers, “Can you guess what is different about me?”She looked so cute in her earrings, and the blue centers really did go nicely with her eyes.

Brenna’s Earrings

After much begging and pleading, Brenna got her ears pierced last summer. She loves her earrings and has always been great about taking care of them. She let me clean them willingly, is careful not to lose earrings, and turns them occasionally to keep them from sticking. Turning her earrings today, she told me that they were twisting very well.  Very pleased, she told me, “They can twist as good as wheels on a car.”

Ear Twigs

Brenna likes me to clean out her ears with what she calls, “ear twigs.” These are (obviously) q-tips.

How do you say it?

Madalyn will do absolutely anything for some “um-ah-yams.”

Joshua will do anything for ”en-ah-nems.”

And Brenna will do anything for “M & M’s.”

Yes, they are all referring to the same thing.

Thump!

I was talking on the phone and folding laundry when I heard a loud thump in the kids’ bedroom followed by a scream that was definately a “hurt cry.” I jumped up to see what was wrong.

Apparently Joshua was leaping from the toddler bed to the bunk bed, but rather than landing on the bottom bunk, he was catching the top bunk with his hands and swinging beneath it… Until he missed, fell, and cracked his head on the wooden corner of the toddler bed.

OUCH! 

He ended up with a truly enormous goose egg on the back of his head, but is otherwise okay.

I sometimes feel like I am spending my life waiting for a broken bone or stitches from this child. He is always trying something new, always falling off of something,  or running into something, or getting stuck somewhere. It’s a good thing that I keep a lot of icepacks and bandaids on hand.

I am actually surprised we’ve made it four years with no stitches or broken bones so far. Joshua has given us quite a few other scares that landed us in the ER or the pediatric ward of the hospital, but I am glad we’ve had no stitches or broken bones yet!

What’s that Stink?

Today I opened the kitchen drawer that holds all the clean kitchen towels and rags. I emphasize the word clean because when I opened the drawer I instantly recognized the smell of something that was far from being clean. I searched gingerly through the drawer, looking for whatever was causing such an offensive odor. I found a damp hand towel that smelled terrible. It was one of the worst smells I’ve ever inhaled and that is coming from a mommy who once had 3 kids in diapers at the same time. I don’t know who cleaned up a mess with this towel, and I have no idea what the mess actually was… but judging by the strong smell, I am not so sure I’d like to know anyway.

Maddie’s Birthday Plans

Madalyn has been waiting for months to have her birthday. Ever since March, when we began planning birthday parties for Brenna and Joshua, Madalyn has counted down to her own birthday. To family, friends, strangers, anyone willing to listen, Madalyn has explained that her birthday is coming in July and she will be three and have cake and everyone will sing “Happy birthday to Maddie!” She has waited for months for July to come. And now that July is actually here, the poor girl still has to wait until the 3oth!

Madalyn is planning her party in earnest now and it is delightful to hear the simple birthday wishes of my sweet little girl. She wants a “banana cake” for her birthday. When I asked her what presents she might like and what she would want for dinner, she answered both questions with “bananas, please.” When I asked her what she wanted to do for fun on her birthday she replied, “Go to Walmart and buy bananas.” Did I mention that Madalyn really, really likes bananas?

I then asked her what she wanted the very most for her birthday. Very sweetly she replied, “I just want to go to my Daddy.” After three months apart (by the end of July) that is a birthday wish that will definately come true!