Friday, January 27, 2012

7 Quick Takes

One

I've discovered that the palm of Baby's hand is the most ticklish part of her body.  All my kids' palms have been ticklish, but Baby's the most ticklish, hands down. (Ba-dum-bum. Thanks, I'll be here all day.)  Whenever I want to hear her gurgly belly laugh, I tickle her palm.   If you have a baby at home, try tickling his or her palm.  Is it just my kids or is it funny to all babies?

Two

Speaking of Baby, she's been awfully busy with her milestones.

A couple of weeks ago, I had mentioned to her doctor that I was surprised she wasn't sitting up on her own yet.  She was 7 months at the time, and she showed no inclination to sit.

Usually I feel pretty laid back about the time frame for developmental milestones, but the sitting up gets me.  I think it's because it was one of the major developmental problems that we missed with Fiver.  He didn't sit up alone until he was 11 months old.   Baby wasn't that old, but it still made me kind of twitchy for some reason.

Well, all that twitching was for naught.  In the space of ten days, Baby decided to sit up, crawl, and start to pull up on furniture.   She is everywhere.

I'm telling you, it's feast or famine in all things over here.

Three

We are undergoing another great room swap with the girls, and it all makes me slightly twitchy until the dust settles.

We pair the girls up mostly according to sleep patterns as opposed to age.  Mopsy is the lightest sleeper on the face of the earth.  A feather can hit the floor and her eyes will pop open.  People who have slept in a room with her regularly report back that she wakes at all kinds of odd hours, talks to herself for a little while and then eventually drifts back to sleep.

Knowing that, we moved Sally in with Mopsy.  Sally could sleep through the apocalypse, which is handy when Mopsy wakes up at dawn and yells for her sister from her crib.

That leaves Francie and Baby as roommates.  I don't think Francie is all that excited about sharing with Baby, but it's what we've got.  On one hand, Baby can't get into Francie's stuff yet.  On the other hand, Baby goes to bed at 6:30 at night, effectively barring Francie from her room until she goes up to sleep.

Oh well, at least she gets the room to herself for a short time since Baby is staying with us until we get things switched around.  And knowing the glacial way things move around here, she may get her own room for a little longer than she anticipated.

The boys, God bless 'em, are going nowhere.  They are stuck with each other for the long haul, but their sleep patterns are perfectly suited to each other.

They did ask me to consider a new coat of paint for their room, and I will.  They also asked that I consider orange with green stripes for the new paint in their room, and I will absolutely not.

Four

For those of you with larger families, I put this question to you:  Does everyone in your home have a dresser or set of drawers of their own in their room?

We have to be fairly creative with clothing storage, which means people share dressers and closets.  And those shared dressers and closets are not necessarily in the room in which they sleep.  It's like an adventure, right?!

Besides, their clothes are small and we don't have the room (or cash money) for another dresser.  Sharing makes sense.  And it's GREEN! Don't forget the planet! (How could we?)

But my kids tend to be disbelieving when I tell them that tons of other people do this.  It bothers certain people more than others, but I have no sympathy since I don't have a dresser at all.

Five

I have joined Pinterest and I find it . . . interesting.

I won't say I've become completely addicted, I just don't think I have the time for that.  But I do like that I have one place to stash all the cool things I see on the internet but can never seem to find twice.

I also feel a real sense of kindred spirit-ness with people when I see that they like the same things I like or they have re-pinned something from one of my boards.   I am so weird, and it's nice to know that there are people out there who are similar in their weirdness.

Six

Sally got to see the new dentist at the office for her cleaning and checkup, and when she was finished he came out to talk with me.  He was cute as a button and looked to be about 2.5 days out of dental school.  He very kindly and earnestly told me that Sally is a sweet kid, her teeth look great, but we need to really discourage her thumb-sucking because it's ruining her bite.

He said, "She's a great kid, I'm sure she'll do whatever you tell her to do."

Yep.  That'll be the day.

Then he said, "If she doesn't stop, then we'll look into some behavioral therapy for her."

Yep.  That'll be the day.

I tried so hard not to laugh, mostly because he was so sweet, but behavioral therapy?  No thanks.  Not everyone in this world needs some kind of therapy.

It was one of those times where I was acutely happy that Sally is not my first child and I am not a 23 year old mother anymore.  It's takes a lot for me to feel pushed around about my parenting style these days.  I'm not saying I've got it all figured out, but I have definitely realized that no one else does either!

Rob and I had a good chuckle over it, and we have now taken to offering each other behavioral therapy if deemed necessary.  Funny thing is, we are probably the ones who need it!

Seven

A certain almost-4 year old found the camera feature on my iPod.  He shot 145 pictures of himself.

This kid cracks me up so hard.










Happy weekend, my friends!





3 comments:

  1. Love those pics of Bun. He is so funny and NORMAL. My teenagers do the same thing. Maybe they are NOT normal ;-)

    From one who sucked the first two fingers of the left hand until about age six, I wouldn't give Sally's thumb another thought. My parents tried all sorts of *behavioral therapy* including Tabasco, bandaids, white gloves and punishment. I finally just forgot to use them. And then was praised and rewarded. That worked! Of course my brother gave up his thumb much younger with the promise of a quarter. :-)

    I requested an invitation to pinterest over two weeks ago. Trying not to get a major complex since the invitation has not yet come. Hmmm. Dunno 'bout pinterest.

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  2. You just crack me up!
    1) I've never ever ever tickled one of my baby's palms. The soles of their feet, yes, but never their hands. I must try it

    2) I love when babies get mobile. Then it's like, oh THAT's what you like to play with/see/touch/do.

    3 and 4) We just switched up and cleaned bedrooms for the kids. All 3 boys are in one room, and yes, each has their own dresser. We have no closet space for them. Maggie is with baby and they each have their own dresser. Maggie also has a place to hang her dresses (not a closet, more like a pole).

    5) I refuse to even look at pininterest for fear of the timesuck it will be. It's the reason I gave up Facebook, and I need to stay away from the stuff that tempts me!!

    6) Our 2nd was a thumbsucker and when he was 4, the dental hygienist told him that he needed to stop sucking his thumb because it was ruining his teeth. He stopped sucking it right then and there. He told us he was worried he would forget at night, so we put gloves on his hands to help remind him. He seriously amazed us!

    7) So cute and funny!

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  3. Funny boy!

    My big boys share a dresser that is in their closet. Ben's clothes are in canvas bins under the bed.

    Lily has a dresser in the girls' closet. Their clothes are in two 5-shelf bookshelves that someday will have curtains over them to hide the poorly folded clothes. We are constantly working on clothing storage. And Ben still sleeps in our closet.

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