A Quiet Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day weekend was a rough one for me. How is that so? Well, let’s go back two weeks before the holiday.

On a regular afternoon, after school, during homework, and before dinner time, Evan came running out of the bathroom claiming her threw up. I am positive that Evan has never thrown up, pretty much his whole life. Even as a baby he hardly ever spit up. So naturally, I was shocked and asked him about it. He was so sure that he threw up, but I convinced myself it must have been some mucus instead. It was only the one time, anyways. Soon the instance was forgotten.

A week later, Aiden didn’t want to go to school and said he was unwell. Upon arrival at school, he proceeded to throw up along the sidewalk right outside of the gates. So he remained home, and as with Evan, that was the only time he was sick.

So now we arrive to the Saturday before Mother’s Day. I woke up with Owen for a feeding at 5am. I already felt so nauseas but was too tired and simply went back to bed. That was a horrible idea. For the next 12 hours straight, I could hardly stop vomiting. My head pounded, I couldn’t think, I couldn’t see. I truly thought I might die. I wasn’t even fearful, I simply felt disconnected.

Mother’s day morning I woke up very weak, but better. I was so scared to sit up, or walk, or drink and especially to eat.

However, the boys had other ideas. After being cooped up with Dad and a very sick Mommy, they all wanted to get out of the house. And so we did.

 

We headed over to our favorite serene spot, Sunken Gardens.

They some decorations up for mother’s day and it was not busy at all. Just what a recovering Momma needed. I was still so weak, but we took it slow and enjoyed being out together.

Mother’s Day 2018 did not go as planned, but in a weird kinda way it did.

I got to stay in bed, unwillingly.
All of my boys took care of me and each other.
We ended it with a fun outing together.

What more could a Momma want?

10 Chores For Kids Under 8

Now that Aiden is about to turn six years old, it is time to add some big boy chores to the ones he already does.

Chores starting at two years old

When Aiden turned two, and most likely even before that, I introduced him to chores. However back then, they weren’t really chores. I would ask him if he’d like to help me with something or ask him to clean up specific things that were in his room. Later when Evan came along, I did the same thing with him.

The chore: Help Mommy with small tasks & pick up certain things in room (for example, stuffed animals or books). 

Every year they grew older, I would add in more chores that were a little more complex.

Chores for 3 to 5 year olds

At three years old, children are much more independent and can do more than ever. That includes make bigger messes. At this stage, the boys were expected to do more chores. This not only made it easier on me during the day and especially at bedtime, but it also taught them to clean up after themselves and not expect others to go behind them all the time.

The chores:

• Make bed: blankets, pillows, and stuffed animals placed onto the bed every morning.
• Get yourself dressed and ready for the day: fresh underwear, shirt, bottoms, and socks every morning, then brush hair and teeth properly and thoroughly. 
• In the bathroom: go potty completely by yourself, including all wiping (although at 3-4 years old I do check if it’s a #2). Then wipe the seat(s) clean afterwards (must be done at least once daily).
• All dirty clothes go directly to hamper.
• Take care of your dishes: food scraped and dishes (cup, plate, bowl, cutlery) goes into the sink.
• In the bedroom/playroom: When finished playing, clean up the toy(s). You got them out, you put them away or they will go into a “time out” bin. This is when Mommy finds a toy and it’ll be in timeout from playtime for a few days. 

Although it seems like a whole lot in list-form, these chores really are simple tasks that usually happen anyway with Mom or Dad’s assistance. It simply informs the child that he or she needs to start doing on their own.

Chores for 6 to 8 year olds

This is where I find myself- what chores do I add on for Aiden to do. The chores that work best for our family are as follows:

• Sweeping: We only have tile in our kitchen and bathrooms so this is a small chore that can be done two times a week, nothing too major.
• Vacuuming bedroom: This will only apply to his own room (plus it’ll guarantee that the room will be clean, mom win!) 1-2 times per week.
• Laundry awareness: He knows better than anyone when his laundry basket is full. Also, he must wear uniforms at school, so consistent laundering is a must. I believe he will do great at this, simply bringing his laundry basket to the laundry room when it’s time to wash, about every three days.
• Hang up clothes. Aiden has been doing this for a while now. He gets empty hangers from the closet, sits with me to put clothes on the hangers and then hangs them where they belong in the closet. (For example play shirts together, shorts together, and pajamas together). 

Sometimes, there might be times that I’ll need extra help and the list will  be longer or there may even be times when he’s done something exceptional an I might take care of items on the list for him. My main goal for having Aiden and Evan do chores is to prepare them for adulthood, learn and respect responsibility, and have a helpful heart.

12 Week Update in a Hurricane |Baby #3

Please note: this is from my 12 week appointment in October, there is not a hurricane in Florida at this time. Enjoy!

A massive category four hurricane is skirting along the East coast of Florida. The county cancelled school today for safety so Aiden is tagging along with Evan and me to my 12 week appointment this morning. Aiden was thrilled to be going since I purposely schedule my appointments for after he has gone to school so it’s a little easier on me. It was so cute to see how excited he was, he believed that we would get to see the baby on an ultrasound and wouldn’t accept any other answer.

The roads were a nightmare. The hurricane was causing strong winds that pushed my car all over my lane and rain that made it hard to see what was ahead of me. But strangely, I was very calm. I usually have sweaty palms when I get nervous, but I didn’t today.

Somehow the office was very busy despite the storms. This appointment was a pretty easy one, consisting of a urine sample, weight update, and blood pressure check. After being so sick, I have lost three pounds and am now down to 144.

After waiting for what felt like a lifetime, the doctor arrived and used the doppler to find baby’s heart rate. I suppose the times have changed; with both Aiden and Evan the doppler worked at both 12 week appointments to measure baby’s heart rate. But this time around my doctor told me she was going to try the doppler because Aiden had asked so nicely and they usually don’t use it until the 16 week appointment. The baby’s heart rate was in the 160’s this time.

12 week symptoms:

This week was a little easier on me and I began to feel more like a human being again. My symptoms included: bloating, fatigue, breakouts on my face and neck, and consistent nausea.  I will vomit if I don’t eat enough or in time. Also, headaches and round ligament pain have started this week.

12 week feelings/emotions:

I have been very stressed. We have a few parties over the next few weeks and since we have not publicly announced the pregnancy at this point I am worried about hiding it. The bump is no problem, I really do not have one yet. But my symptoms can hit hard and out of no where.

Food cravings and aversions:

The only thing I actually want is cold things, like icees. Nothing sounds appealing and I have aversions to lots of things. The strongest aversions are to pasta sauce, mushrooms, and cheese. So pretty much no italian food for this mama.

Baby’s size:

Baby is the size of a lime!

If you’re already a mom or are expecting, when did you first hear your baby’s heart beat on a doppler? If you’re not, would you prefer to try to find baby’s heart beat with a doppler at 12 weeks, knowing the possibility that it might not be located yet? Or would you rather wait til 16 weeks when you know it can be easily found since baby is much bigger?

Spilling the Beans to My Kids!

We did a pretty good job of keeping this pregnancy to ourselves, for a while. We weren’t hiding it from anyone; I was actually really looking forward to telling the whole world since my first ultrasound. It’s just that we’ve gone through so many changes in such a short time that we just didn’t feel like sharing our good news until later on. However, there are two littles that we could not keep the news from…

Trying Our Hand at a Green Thumb

Now that Spring is in full swing, the littles and I have decided it is time to start some gardening! We purchased some Sunflower seeds and Johnny Jump Up seeds to test the waters before planting a vegetable garden.

I thought this would be a great project for the littles to learn a bit of responsibility in keeping something alive that is not a pet. Also, this project will, hopefully, last through the summer and end with some beautiful blooms for us all to enjoy.

On April 3rd, we planted our seeds.  It didn’t look like much at the time, but the littles enjoyed pushing the dirt to make a little hole for the tiny seeds.

Next, we needed a sunny spot for our little seeds to grow.

Within just a few days, the sunflowers had begun sprouting! It was so neat to see the green leaves pop out of the seed shell.

And now, the sprouts are growing and growing. So much so, that we have estimated a growth of 1/2 inch per day! They now, as of April 11th, stand about 3.5 inches tall!

However, the Johnny Jump Ups are not doing quite as well. Some cubes have a small sprout in them, but we are not holding our breath for them all to sprout and grow.

So far, this experiment has created a bond between the littles and I. Every morning we race over to the sprout to see if and how much they have grown and if any new ones popped up overnight, which they have done almost every night. It’s makes my heart so happy to see their little faces light up over how many sprouts we have. In the afternoon, we work together to water each container. They love to sit, as still as they can, to water the water get absorbed by the soil, it’s probably their favorite part and they laugh so hard when it gets sucked in fast.

No matter if our flowers grow and bloom, but hopefully they will, the littles will definitely have fun trying out a green thumb.

The day of planting

4 days later

2 weeks after planting

January 2016 recap

Hey guys! How in the world is January practically over already??!!  Any who, I was thumbing through my photos on my phone and realized I have not done a “Photo Dump” on here and figured it would make a great month recap, too.

So, here it goes:

New Year’s Eve! So, technically not January but let’s go with it. With the Littles asleep it was quite hard to stay awake for the ball-drop. But a 10:30pm selfie totally counts, right? I was out by 11:00pm.

Next it was Arthur’s Birthday! Turning 25 is a big deal and we celebrated by going to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens! We loved it and cannot wait for the next one, hurry up Dec. 2017! P.S. I had to wear my “Lightsaber pants” 😀

Next is a BIG one! Aiden and I attended a Kindergarten round-Up at his soon-to-be school! He was very excited because the elementary school had its very own library, but was confused and thought he had to leave his VPK now. We had a chance to tour the school and his potential classroom and meet all of the kindergarten teachers. We are all very excited for Aiden’s next step. 🙂

Just after, it was time for a mini vacation! So where else to go but Walt Disney World?!

We visited three parks during this visit, two of which were new to us. Above, we are waiting for the Frozen Sing-A-Long show to begin.

Who doesn’t love seeing these balloons on Main Street?! P.S. Aiden really loved the BB-8 Balloons, just look how cute they are!

Along the way, my littles joined a pirate crew!!! But it’s alright, I know they’re in good hands with Captain Jack Sparrow.

Once we got back home, my Spring Semester began and it’s been nothing but work, work, and more work.

Although, I did receive quite the fortune cookie from my Chinese food…

Maybe another Disney trip is coming up soon? 😉

Stay warm out there!

Preschool Interview

Holy cow! This week marks 11, yes eleven, weeks that Aiden has begun VPK! Somehow it seems longer and shorter than that at the same time. Hmm, Mommy deja vu?

The morning that changed everything!

So I wanted to take a moment and do an update, but with a twist. As you could tell by the title, I interviewed my preschooler about his preschool experience up until this point. Children change their minds very often, so here’s his answers right now:

1. What is your favorite color?
   A: BLUE!
2. What is your favorite food?
   A: Gingerbread man and Goldfish. *Note, his class helped make a pretty big gingerbread man as a part of a story they had read, and the Goldfish were a snack.
3. What is your favorite song?
   A: “This Old Man”. He has been singing this all week, it’s definitely his favorite.
4. Who is your best friend right now?
   A: (After thinking for some time) Allana. I believe there’s about 15 other students in his class and he’s great friends with everyone.
5. What’s your favorite part of the school day?
   A: Doing centers.
6. What’s your favorite thing to play at school?
   A: Puppets

This was a very short interview, he is only four. He seems to enjoy school very much. He never has any problems in the mornings with getting ready for school, and is excited to go. After school he loves to tell his brother and me all about his day and what he looks forward to for the rest of the week.

Even after eleven weeks I still cannot believe my little guy is a preschooler; he was just a little baby in my arms, right?!

Aiden, I am so proud of you! You are so smart, kind, caring, and brave. You have set a wonderful example for your brother to look up to, and know that Mommy and Daddy will always be there to guide you and love you, no matter what. ❤ Keep growing little one, in heart, mind, and spirit.