Facebook Updates (i.e. Motherhood Captured in Brief Posts)

January 7th, 2014

Isaac sitting on the potty with an iPad, talking to his good pal Siri:
Isaac, very sincerely: "Hooey," which is Isaac for Siri, "Why is my butt not pooping out anything?"
Siri: "Let me check into that . . . "
Isaac: "Hooey, why don't I have poop coming out of my butt?" getting slightly more concerned.
Siri: "That's not nice."
Isaac: "MOM! Hooey said I'm not being nice!"
I just had to break up a fight between my son and my iPad. 

Isaac: "Siwi," (it seriously just switched to 'Siwi' from 'Hooey' during this conversation), "Why is the sound on the iPad not working?"
Siri: No answer. I'm guessing 'cause he muted it.
Isaac sighs and says: "Thanks anyway, Siwi."  

Owen made a predictably huge mess with his waffles, strawberry syrup and coconut cream -- but he insisted he was done even when he'd only eaten 3 or 4 bites. He was very, very insistent, despite all my urging for just 'one more bite'. So, I wiped down his face, washed off his hands, did the best I could to clean off his pajamas, then gave up and just stripped them off him. After several minutes of clean up, and starting on the highchair itself, of course he reached for his partially eaten waffle and said, "More, Mom," and started chowing down. Guess we'll do that all again after he has a few more bites . . .

January 5th, 2014

There are tiny, colorful rubber bands on every surface of my house . . .

Greg spent at least an hour and a half making bracelets with the girls . . . they even helped him for about half that  

January 3rd, 2014
Isaac fell asleep around 4PM today. No matter how hard we've tried we haven't been able to get him to wake up. He just grunts angrily, rolls over and goes back to sleep. I see one of three things happening. a.) He sleeps 'til 4AM and then wants to party with us. b.) He's coming down with something and will be sick tomorrow. c.) He somehow miraculously sleeps 'til 7:30 tomorrow morning, recharged and refreshed.
Only one out of three of these work out well for us . . . :-)

Update: Ha. He woke up at 4:15AM (I almost got the time right.) He had SOAKED through his diaper, clothes and bedding. And he was hungry. We got him changed (and started wash), got him food, then set him up downstairs with the iPad, told him he could only watch pbs shows ('cause if he'd tried to watch Diego ones from Amazon, he'd constantly need the password), and he did not come up again until his sisters woke up at 7:30AM. He woke us up a couple times when he laughed REALLY hard at a show, or cheered while playing some game (I'm so shocked how well sound travels from the main floor to our bedroom with the door shut! No wonder my kids can't sleep when we have people over to play cards!) But, for the most part, he was happy to have the iPad for so long without having it taken away from Mom or stolen by siblings, so he was happy with the arrangement. :-)

Wow! Owen's 2 year well child check up went better than I expected -- he's a whopping 35% on the charts for weight!! (And 18% for height. And he's our tiny headed kid at only 75th percentile on head size) This kid spent over a year not even on the charts, and from 17 pounds last year at one year old, he has put on well over 8 pounds this year! Yay for gluten free for our tiny (not quite so tiny anymore) Celiac kid, and yay for growth! 

My favorite exchange, "Wow," said the Doctor, "75th percentile for head! That's pretty big for a little guy!" "Yeah," I said, "And that makes him our smallest headed kid, since the rest of them were always between 85th and 99th percentiles." "Hmmm," she said as she sized me up, "well, you definitely don't have a small head." "Um, no, I have a pretty large head." "I mean, you must notice it when you borrow someone's hat and you have to adjust it to fit you or it doesn't fit at all, right?" "Um, yeah, I've had that experience." "So we definitely see where they get it from . . ."  (She only says that 'cause she hasn't seen Greg's head)  

January 2nd, 2014

So excited that Costco had a new gluten free flour blend to try -- this one is brown rice, flaxseed, quinoa, buckwheat and amaranth. Really excited that it doesn't have any of the standard starches in it, and am curious how it'll work.
In related news, just got my first shipment of coconut sugar. It's like I'll never truly rest until I've replaced all our standard baking ingredients with ones that cost 10x more than what we used to buy  :-)

 

Ugh . . . first day back after break is a killer . . . it's like fighting tooth and nail for every. single. thing. Teeth brushed, breakfast eaten, lunches made, shoes on, now-go-take-off-your-shoes-and-put-socks-on-first, backpacks gathered, find your coat . . . I would go fall back into bed and sleep soon as they're on the bus except I have Isaac to fight tooth and nail now to get to preschool! :-)

 

December 31, 2013

The three older kids are going strong, but Grandpa Robert fell asleep on the couch, so Grandma Karine woke him up and took him home. So now it's just Greg playing cards with the girls, and we curled up in bed with Isaac while he watches 'Super Why' . . . I am so hoping he falls asleep soon, so I can too.  :-)  Why yes, it is only 9:30, and that's several hours earlier than I normally fall asleep, but there's just something special about New Years . . . 

 
Ellie is not happy about taking her pills before bed. So far she's busted out, "I won't take them! If you make me, I'll go to the orphanage and live there where they never make me take pills!" Then, "I am NEVER coming to your room again, then you can never make me take them." Then, my favorite, "I can't take them, they have gluten in them," then, "and if I take them, I'll DIE!" Then even she couldn't keep a straight face and busted out laughing. It was a good try, kiddo.

 

Another Ellie argument:"Dad, read the bottle! It says, 'makes your body work worse.' Why would you give it to me?!"

 

Attempted yoga with four kids home. During the guided meditation, Owen came up and tried the following tactics to get me to stop: forcibly prying my eye lids open, lifting my head with all his might (at one point, wiggling his entire little body underneath my head so he could push up from that position), and pulling at my arms and then hair. Surprisingly, yoga is WAY more relaxing and easier to do when my kids and I are in different buildings.

 

 Put the baby down for a nap, stuck the kids in front of youtube with some 1980s 'Super Friends' episode and actually got to do yoga with nobody trying to peel my eyelids back! And when I came back upstairs, I found the kids watching "Super Amigos" . . . so Super Friends in Spanish. Then it was distracting and educational . . .

 

December 30th, 2013

Can't believe this little guy is two already!
Happy Birthday Owen!

 

December 29th, 2013

Annie reading to Cousin Bailey

 

 

 

December 28th, 2013

Isaac and Ellie are fighting in the bathtub, mainly because they keep splashing each other with their new toys. My favorite part though, was when an angry and confused Isaac said, "Barbie! Why would you do that to me?" Then he added sadly, "You are a HORRIBLE Barbie."

 

December 25th, 2013

There is much debate among my kids, whether it took 12 elves or 20 elves to put up the bunk beds in the middle of the night. I kinda feel bad now I didn't get my Dad and Greg more help :-)  Such a great surprise -- the kids were all so excited. Even more so, when the girls' found out they had a tumbling mat hiding in the playroom downstairs. Santa was just all over our house last night -- hit all three floors  :-)

December 24th, 2013

Got a non-dairy potato dish going, gluten free rolls rising, and a gluten/dairy free dessert going into the oven now. Also got my hair done cute, cleaned the house and am ready to start mopping. So grateful my parents and Greg took the kids to the Rec Center this morning to go swimming. This would've been so much harder with four VERY EXCITED and hyper children bouncing around under foot :-)

My one year old has the exact same taste in music as my seven year old. He walks in, and points to the computer, "Brave, Mom. Brave." So, after listening to 'Brave', he says, "Roar, Mom. Roar." After listening to 'Roar', he sat there for a second thinking, then said, "Cups. Cups, Mom." And we played the 'Cup Song'. This also shows that my one year old and I have identical knowledge of the pop music that's out there right now too . . .

 

 December 23rd, 2013

Annie's been excitedly telling us all about the things Santa's elves have come and done in our house the last couple days -- they washed the mirrors in all the bathrooms, cleaned the boys' room, cleaned up the front room, and worked on the play room. "Mom!" Annie calls excitedly as she is running out of the bathroom with a rag and some windex, "The elves came and cleaned our bathroom mirror!"
This is frustrating the heck out of Ellie. "MOM! There are no elves in our house! It's me and Annie doing all the work! We did it! Not elves! Us!"
Ha -- I get it kiddo, I like getting credit for what I do now. Get used to it now though -- one day you will have children :-)

 

December 22nd, 2013

Uncle Cody was babysitting one night, and I found some pictures on my camera documenting the TurboFire workout he and the kids did while I was gone Cody jumps WAY higher than I do when I do this same video . . .

 

December 21, 2013

CREEPY! Annie and Ellie are now obsessed with "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" -- and they're in their room, in haunted voices, singing slowly, "Is it raining? Is it snowing? Is a hurricane a blowin'?"

 

Everyone, please just remember in your online discourse that someone you love is on every side of every issue. Someone you know is gay (um, probably lots of someones), whether you know it or not. Would you say the same things to their face? I'm not even saying agree or disagreeing with the courts -- just how we talk about the issue and how we word our thoughts.
There has to be a way for us to honor God and our beliefs and relationship with Jesus Christ, without crushing and tearing down His children. "Love one another." Just remember how much God loves each of us.

 

December 19th. 2013

Only an idiot leaves in the snow without her cell phone. As evidenced by me getting incredibly stuck (not like in deep snow, but in a low part of a neighborhood where the streets had turned to ice and two were blocked off by giant work trucks that were stuck), and not getting home in time to get kids from preschool/off the school bus, and not being able to call anyone and tell them why I was late. I'll try not to be a phoneless-idiot next time!  

 

December 18th, 2013

Isaac sitting with my iPad, shouting stuff at Siri like, "Huey?" which is what he calls Siri, "Why does Santa have to have cookies on his sleigh pack thing?" And Siri responds with stuff like, "If you say so." And Isaac shouts back in a rushed sentence, "Huey? Who's the best Mom my Mom Hilary!" "Here's what I was able to find."
He could seriously talk to Siri for hours, even though they never have a single back and forth discussion that makes any sense.

"Huey, who's the best Mom? Dad is! Ha ha ha ha!" "I'm not sure what you just said."

 

December 18th, 2013I know it's not a huge deal, but I'm feeling really grumpy that the G.I. can't get Annie or Ellie in for their endoscopies the entire time they're off track in February. They're scheduled for the Monday they go back on track. (The boys are scheduled for early February). I don't know why this has me so bummed out, but it does -- like what's the point of year round if I can't use their off track times to get invasive medical procedures done! :-)

 

December 13, 2013It's been a good year, and there's a lot to celebrate and rejoice -- but I sat down to start trying to write a Christmas letter and just kept hitting a brick wall as I fumbled through the medical crises that we've dealt with this year, and all the still-unanswered questions we have about the health of our children. It's not that it's been all unhappy or that I don't have so many things that I'm grateful for, it's just been hard. So, I may not get out a Christmas letter this year afterall. And that's OK . . .

 

Here was the attachment for the now-defunct letter, at least . . . :-)

 

[Then, on facebook, with some friends we joked about things to write, so here's some of the comments from there:]

I didn't want to write a letter that was all 'ode to our medical saga', but ignoring it completely seemed incongruous. But throwing in a mention of it seemed weird too, like, "Oh, Annie's doing great in Dual Immersion and is really starting to catch on in Spanish, Ellie is loving Kindergarten and could finger paint all day, and Isaac's G.I. has said if this next scope doesn't go well, we might need to start talking Elecare . . . 'tis the season, fa la la la!"  :-)

 

All I can come up with though is stuff like, "Good news! Since being diagnosed with Celiac Disease and going off wheat, Owen put on four pounds and is finally on the charts!" and "Since cutting out the top 8 allergens, Isaac's chronic diarrhea subsided and we only deal with 3-5 poopy diapers for him a day now!" So festive :-)

 

And gems like, "We've found a great therapist for Ellie who deals with children with chronic illnesses! Counselor Carrie has been a real find, and Ellie's taken quite a shine to her, and very much enjoys dancing around her office and showing off her math skills!"

 

My friend Jessi added her best TAMN impersonation: "Instead of going just gluten- free (that is soooo 2011), we have taken our kids off all 8 of the major allergens. Oh, your kids still eat dairy, nuts, and soy. {Frown smile.}"

 

I added:  "Ha! Eggs are so 2012."

Jessi replied, "We got to experience Halloween this year without letting our 7, 5, and 3 year old be distracted by things like candy bars. Instead, they got to truly appreciate the true meaning and the season and a good dum dum sucker."

 

Me again: "A big accomplishment for 2013 was fooling our children into believing that sorbet really is as good as ice cream. Also, they seem to have forgotten what chocolate taste like and truly believe that skittles are the best candy ever. Thanks to Daniel Tiger, they accept frozen bananas run through the BlendTec as a high quality dessert, and we've made pudding out of avocados multiple times this year and they seem to believe they are eating real pudding. 

"Greg's work experienced a major slide up at the mine, and while Greg is still working for the company, they've changed his job title no less than six times, and he's changed offices and desks so often that he doesn't even unpack his engineering books anymore. Hilary's learned to cook all kinds of fun things without wheat -- and during the first half the year, followed the same strict dietary restrictions as the kids and lost 20 pounds! Of course, then Isaac's scope during the summer came back with horrible results, confusing and stressing the heck out of her, and she's managed to stress eat back on those 20 pounds, plus an extra five! She's started yoga now, hoping to gain some balance and centering amid the stress and endless worrying, and her New Years Resolution includes going gluten free again and meditating.

"Dude, these letters practically write themselves, what was I so afraid of?!? ;-) "This year, we've adapted to paying $6.00 a pound for almond flour, conveniently located right next to the 40 lb. buckets of wheat for $18 in the aisle at Costco. And we buy coconut flour on Amazon for less than $5 a pound now! We no longer have a workable food storage, our children would starve in a zombie apocalypse, and our grocery budget has exploded to the point we might not be able to take family vacations anymore. But the good news is all these sacrifices have paid off. Oh wait, they didn't -- Isaac's disease got markedly worse for no known reason. Who needs answers when they have a freezer full of buckwheat, sorghum, teff and millet flours and no less than four kinds of starches! 

"Writing Christmas letters with no filter is therapeutic!"  :-) 

 

December 13, 2013

I was getting Isaac ready this morning, and I can't remember what I'd suggested, but his response was classic Isaac, "Mom, you have some strange thoughts, my friend."

 

December 11, 2013

Isaac's favorite book, that he asks for every night, is The Cat in the Hat's "There's No Place Like Space!" He can quote whole parts of it, and loves to talk about the astronomy terms in the book. But some of the words are a little bit big, and he occasionally gets a little confused. Which explains why reading it tonight went like this:
Me: "It's star dot to dot. Use your imaginations, and you'll see big pictures we call . . . "
Isaac, excitedly, "CONSTIPATIONS!"
"Constellations?" I asked, trying not to giggle, since I'm super mature.
Isaac, "Yeah, something like that."

 

December 10, 2013

Greg and I were reading "Honest Toddler" the other day, laughing so hard we could barely breathe -- this was a particular favorite:

Overheard mama say that she's going to lose her mind if I poo on the floor one more time. Did it again right away to show her how strong she is.

 

December 9, 2013

I don't know where it's come from, but Owen has taken quite the shine to Santa. He asks to see pictures of him on the computer and loves any books or videos that show him. While Greg was changing his diaper tonight, Owen was fairly distressed about it, and he kept calling out for help, "Santa? Santa!"

 

December 8, 2013

OK, who's done "Potty Train in a Day" and had in actually work?
I don't want more info about it -- I want to know if anyone who's been successful with it would love to make a little extra money and take Isaac for the day :-)

 

December 7, 2013

Isaac brings in a book, holds it up and proudly exclaims, "Mom, I'm going to read 'The Incredibles' all to myself!" "That's great, Bug," especially since I was mopping the floor at the time. "Yeah, it's great! I just need you to tell me all the words in the book first . . . " 

 

December 6, 2013

Isaac went through seven pairs of underwear today. Three of those times I was never able to figure out where he actually was when he peed. My house should probably just be condemned. (Guess who's carpet shampooing the whole house tomorrow?! Yay for me.)

 

December 6, 2013

Playing on the Kindle, Isaac says, "Mom, I want to talk to Harry! Can you get on Harry?"
"Ummmm?"
"You know, Harry. I ask who the best Mom is, Harry asks for your name?"
"Ummmm?"
"Mom! I ask where Harry is, and Harry says, 'I am wherever you are.'"

Took me a few minutes. Harry is Siri. (Who obviously only works on the iPad, not the Kindle) and apparently Siri and Isaac have been talking a lot. Including conversations about who the best Mom is, so I'll take that.

 

December 5, 2013

"Ellie!" Isaac called out back, "I'm going to have to close the door, okay? It is letting all the cold air in and all the hot air out, and because of that I need to shut the door -- are you coming in or staying out?!" Good thing the three year old is so good at door policing 

 

December 4, 2013

Isaac was my last kid left in the tub tonight, and when I came in to get him out he exclaimed, "Wait Mom! Not yet! I haven't finished my experiment," as he frantically mixed 'potions' from one container to the other, "I've almost discovered how to defeat Annie!"

 

All three of my older children no longer want anything they used to want on their Christmas list -- they have all now decided they want remote control helicopters. I'd be worried about them being awfully disappointed on Christmas, except that I think they will all change their minds another half dozen times between now and Christmas.

 

Ellie was telling me about the vision testing -- she was explaining how when she covered one eye she could see better than the other eye, the whole while demonstrating by covering her eyes one at a time. Isaac suddenly cried out, quite concerned, "Ellie! When I cover both my eyes, I can't see very good at all!!" as he had hands covering both of his eyes. Ha!