Reflections

So last night, Alan and I did our whole bedtime routine with the boys, and I put Olivia to sleep. We pretty much thought we were done, and that it was time for some couple time. Then....

Adam poked his head out of his bedroom door.
Alan: "You need to lay down, Adam"
Adam: " I need to talk to Mommy."
Me: "What is it Adam?"
Adam: "I still need to love you."

(This is what he says when he wants to hug me/ cuddle with me.)

I gave him a nice long hug, and turned to get up...
Adam: "I still need to love you. Okay, Mommy?" (Arms out.)

(That is really hard to resist.)

Me: "Okay"

I gave him another hug, then started to leave. 

Matthew: "Mommy! I still need to love you."
Me: "Okay."
I gave him a cuddle, then started to get up.
Matthew: "No! I still need to love you."


I went ahead and laid down next to him, and held him. Adam moved his pillow closer and scooted closer to us, so I reached one hand out so I could hold his hand. At first I thought, "I need to get out of here, I have things to do!" Then I thought, "Why am I in such a hurry to leave? What else do I really need to do?" I decided to just relax and enjoy these cuddles. Nothing seems to make my two 3 year olds happier than when their Mommy loves on them. So I just enjoyed the perfect moment. 

Until...

Alan poked his head into the room.

Alan: "Krystal! Krystal! I need my apples!"

(Yes, I slice his apples for him. But he does do his own laundry, so that's a bonus right? ;)

Me: "I'm busy, Alan'."

(A few minutes later..)

Alan: "Krystal! I need my apples!)

(This actually happened a few times. But the kiddos really didn't want me to get up. Eventually Matthew fell asleep. )

Me: "Okay, okay!"

(I told Adam that Daddy was hungry so Mommy had to make him a snack...)

Then, before I could cut the apples, Olivia started crying..

So I picked her up, and immediately she calmed down and smiled at me. I nursed her back to sleep while rocking her. It was the sweetest moment. <3 p="">
Then, I got Alan's apples, and brought them to our room.

Alan: "Finally!"

(You kind of have to know Alan's sense of humor. He was half joking. But he really does like his sliced apples and his wife, free of kids, in the evenings :P) 

But seriously... we wives and mothers can't win!! No wonder we feel guilty that we aren't doing enough, there are so many things pulling at us. In addition to the 3 kids and the husband, there was also a dirty kitchen and laundry. (But I can ignore the latter two when needed.)

My other thought is, I can't believe that these three kids (And my husband too, but in a slightly different way!) rely on me so much, and love me so much. I mean, NOTHING makes my kids happier than a hug from Mommy. I sometimes wonder, "Do I deserve that kind of unconditional love?" (At this age at least, they are very forgiving.) It is truly a huge blessing and a huge responsibility to be that important to a tiny, developing, impressionable, fragile person. Sometimes it takes my breath away.

I pray for the patience and wisdom to do a good job.

Daylight Savings Time

Why, why, why do we still have DST?? It messes us up twice a year. The boys have been getting up BEFORE 5am :( And I get up at about 12 (and haven't fallen asleep before then the last two nights, even though I tried!) and then at 4 or 4:30 to feed Olivia, so I have only been getting that 4 hours of sleep. I am confused because they are getting up OVER an hour earlier than they were before? 

These pictures were taken at 5:15am, after being up almost half an hour already! Ugh!

Adam

Matthew

Yes, they are cute. But they are much cuter when Mommy has had more sleep. We need to form a Mom's Against DST group :)

(Also for the record, Olivia woke up at 8:30am yesterday. See why I am always saying how easy she is. :P)

5 Months

 Miss Oliva Ruth is 5 months old today.

Some of her new tricks include rolling from back to front, sitting in the "tripod position" by herself and trying really, really hard to use words like the rest of us. (She makes all kinds of interested noises. Like she's really trying to form a word, but doesn't quite know how. We call her our little zombie :P) I have a feeling she will be a young talker.

Also we moved her to her own room about a week ago. I miss having her right there beside us in the pack n play, but she was starting to wake up/get upset when we would turn the TV on at night, so she is probably happier now. And we don't have to tip toe around. We have a video monitor in her room, so I can see exactly what she's doing :)

She wakes up about twice a night, and sleeps in until about 8:30. She goes to sleep around 8pm, but only takes about one longer nap and one short nap per day.

She melts our hearts every day. Mom, Dad and her brothers love her so much!

Preschool at Home

So we are contemplating homeschooling the boys. We haven't made any final decisions, except that we are going to do preschool at home. I have been having fun with it, and it is so rewarding to watch the boys learn and enjoy our "preschool" time. Sometimes we just call it our "activity" time.

I have found a lot of printable activities and ideas that I like at the Confessions of a Homeschooler blog. (All of the activities my kids are doing below are from that site.)

And recently I have found some nice printables at this site.

Olivia usually hangs out on a blanket or bouncy chair next to us, or we do preschool while she's asleep.

The main activities we do are:

Do-a-Dot markers (use markers to stamp a letter/number shape or to find a specific letter on a worksheet)

Magnets (Make shapes, count numbers)

Coloring

Tracing

Some freehand writing (They can write A, M, H, T and O... and probably others, on demand)

Cutting shapes/designs/freestyle with scissors

ABC's and 123's (They know their ABC letters and sounds, and can count to 20. We are working on having them identify the number 1-20..which is why all the activities below are number oriented.)

We usually do their preschool activities on the days we stay home and don't go anywhere. I really love having something ready for them to work on, since I was running out of activities for us to do together. With the added bonus that they are learning fine motor schools and letter/numbers/shapes,etc.

We also try to go to story time at the library at least once a week, (Love story time!) and check out books for us to read throughout the week. Our other favorite (educational) destinations are the zoo and the museum. We have a season pass to the children's museum, and we are going to see their new Curious George exhibit later this week!

Olivia Turns 3 Months

Well she turned 3 months about 6 weeks ago, but I am catching up on my blog posts!

The biggest thing we did in her third month was take her to Las Vegas. Yep, parents of the year.... :)

Alan has gone to the Las Vegas Star Trek Convention for the past 3 years, so Olivia and I joined him for the weekend. Olivia was such a good travel buddy! We took my mom too, for babysitting while we went to a few shows and restaurants. My mom, Olivia and I traveled by ourselves on the way there, since Alan went early.

Olivia's first plane ride. She did awesome! We cloth diapered her the entire time, and just changed her diaper right there in the chair. There really was no place to change her in the airplane lavatory.

  

My mom and Olivia

In the beach pool at our hotel.

Did I mention the boys were not invited?
They stayed home with Alan's parents :)

At my favorite buffet ever.

Gordon Ramsey's BurGR.

 Brotherly love:

Adam hugging his baby sister

...And going in for a forehead lick (yuck). Sometimes they have too much love!

They always want to be touching her.

Mom & daughter

 And a few my 3 month "photo shoot" of Olivia:

She has continued to be a very laid back baby. 

We have been battling some baby acne with her, but I finally realized she was spitting up after I laid her down to sleep, and getting some spit up on her cheek. After I started staying up and changing the blanket under her about 5-10 minutes after she fell asleep (it always had spit up), the rash started to clear up (finally!) I was going through about 5 or 6 blankets a night. She is a very "spitty" girl! 

She only wakes up 1-2 times a night, and hardly cries except when she's tired or hungry. Her brothers absolutely adore her! 

Pumpkin Pie

Yesterday, the kids and I went to a pumpkin patch. It was an unplanned trip (so I unfortunately didn't have a camera.)

The same Pumpkin Patch last year.

I let the boys pick out two pumpkins each, and they played in the hay and roamed through the pumpkins. They didn't want to leave, so I told them, "When we get home, we can make a pumpkin pie for Daddy!"

They were ecstatic! But, whoops.... this Mommy has never made a pumpkin pie before. All it took was a quick Google search though, and we were good to go (hopefully :P)

Adam: "Let's hatch the pumpkin!"
Me: "What do you think is inside a pumpkin??"
Adam (without hesitation,) "A bird!!"

They helped me make the entire pie from scratch. And we roasted the seeds and ate those. It was a fun activity.

Alan actually didn't get home until the boys were in bed that night. But, I was in their room when they heard Alan come in. They sat up in bed, so I said, "Do you want me to have Daddy come in and hug you?" Adam said, "No, made pumpkin pie for Daddy!" Meaning, we had to give it to him RIGHT then. So we did :) And it got good reviews from Daddy. ;)

We only got a picture after eating the pie for a couple of days:

Matthew in blue, Adam in orange, last week

 And here are a few misc pictures taken today:

Olivia, almost 4 months

Matthew using Olivia as a pillow.
"I'm 'sleeping' on Olivia, because... I love her."
<3 td="">

Huge Decision

So, my last day of work as an RN in the NICU was two days ago. One day a week may not seem like much, but every time I was going to work I was feeling like I was abandoning my children. Olivia wasn't liking the bottle. And anytime I told the boys I was going to work the next day, Adam (without fail) would say (in the sweetest imaginable voice), "No, Mommy, stay with me." !!! :(

That broke my little Mommy heart, and Alan has always said I didn't have to work, even before we had kids. But I wanted to work. After we got pregnant I thought I would work two days a week, but decided on once a week after we found out it was twins. Then I ended up being canceled a lot when the boys were babies, and only working 1-2 days a month, which was doable (but still hard.. pumping enough milk for twins.) They developed close bonds with their grandparents who watched them, and it was a much needed break for me. As they got older I found I really didn't need that break anymore, even though I still enjoyed my job. I was enjoying being a Mom more since I didn't have two colicky babies anymore. Even on the hard days, I really felt like I was where I needed to be.

I struggled with what to do while I was on maternity leave with Olivia. I made up my mind, then changed it, so many times!! The problem was I loved my job, I loved the little NICU babies, I loved my coworkers and I liked the money.  But I felt like I had abandoned by three little ones, and I was starting to have an empty feeling when I went to work. Like I wasn't where I belonged.

So I have decided to take some time off to focus on my three kids, my husband and our home. Honestly I am slightly terrified that now that I'm not also working outside the house, that I have to be the best mom and wife EVER. But I really shouldn't put that on myself. It is actually impossible to get everything done I really want to do during the day. That is okay. I really want to focus on spending good, quality time with my kids. (While keeping the house reasonably clean, everyone fed healthy meals and getting fun outings in several times a week :P)

I feel that I can go always go back in the future, if that's what we decide is best for the family. But for now, (even though I will miss my coworkers and the babies) I am so glad I don't have to leave my kiddos for 12 hour shifts anymore!!

Last day of work for a while.