Mommy of 4 for the morning

My sister in law Denise called me yesterday and asked me if I would mind watching Jack and Anna for a few hours while she went to work today. I told her sure, that would be fun for Cameron and Reagan to have their cousins come over and play. So at about 10 this morning she dropped Jack and Anna off for us to watch.

Jack is 3 and Anna just turned 7 months old. They are good kids and really easy to watch, but I was thankful that Chris was working at home today, just in case! :) I carried Anna around while I washed Reagan's sheets, and then I set her up with some toys on the floor while I did Reagan's hair. Cameron was good to keep Jack entertained, which was really helpful and nice! They played video games in his room, and played with some other toys later on.

After Reagan's hair was all done, she wanted to watch a movie with Anna. So she picked out an Elmo's world DVD, and I set the two of them up on the couch with Elmo while I finished up the breakfast dishes. I was really surprised at how fascinated Anna was with the TV. I would have thought she was too little to 'watch tv.' I had just gotten the dishes done, and went to check on the boys when Anna got fussy. So I got her bottle ready, and fed her. After she ate I took her up to my room and rocked her. The rocking didn't help as much as I thought it would, but I remembered Dad's trick of "Thump a Bum" and she went right to sleep after a couple minutes of that. I laid her on my bed with pillows all around her and then went to fix the kids their lunch.

We had Shrek macarroni with Apples and Capri Sun to drink. I even stuck some pre-made chocolate chip cookies in the oven for a little desseret. After they ate all their lunch I convinced them to go outside and play for awhile. I got my lunch almost eaten when Chris came down with Anna. I was surprised she had slept as long as she had! He went out to check on what the other kids were doing, and when he came back he kind of laughed and said, "Kind of feels like we have 4 kids huh?" I said, yeah, I guess it does. :) Then he said something like, it's not so bad, I kind of like it. :) I had sort of thought the same thing to. It was kind of fun to have them all around.

Denise came and picked them up around 1:30 p.m. and then it was back to just the 4 of us. I don't know how well I would do if 3 kids and a baby were a permanent, long term situation, but I do know I found myself appreciating my mom a lot more today! I have always known that she always had a lot of little kids around when I was growing up, but I guess this was maybe the first time I was actually in her shoes for a few hours today! I don't know how you managed to do it Mom, but thanks!!!!



Reagan and Anna watching Elmo's World.


Cameron and Jack playing with Magnets. Just for the record....I didn't do that to Jack's hair! His mom said he wanted pig tails like Anna this morning, so she put them in for him. :) He's such a funny kid!

Chompie...he's not a good dog, but lucky for him, he is a cute dog.

This week is the start of our "Spring Break". The kids are in California with their Mom, Chris has a lot going on at work, and since....I'm kind of a walking house, we didn't plan anything big this year like last year. I figured my time off would probably be better spent staying at home and getting started on my Spring Cleaning anyway. Not that Spring Cleaning is enjoyable to me in the least, but it does need to be done, especially with Keric coming in the next few months.

The day started out OK. I got kind of a slow start on the cleaning, but I was getting into it and was feeling pretty good about things, until I noticed that I only had one dog at my heels. When Chompie is gone, it's never good news! I called his name a couple of times and started out looking through the house. Then I heard him running up the stairs. NOT good! If he had gotten himself all the way downstairs, he had been gone longer then I thought. I went to meet him at the stairs and when he ran up, this was what I saw.....





He has gotten in the garbage before, so we have had to start closing the bathroom doors when he is out and running around. I guess I forgot to close the bathroom door downstairs this morning. Up until now, he has never done more then find a Kleenex, or some toilet paper, get it out and shred it into a million pieces. This is never one of my favorite scenes to find, but it's a little easier to clean up then gum stuck in fur!! Apparently, I not only have to make sure the bathroom doors are closed but also that there is no gum in the garbage!! I can't WAIT until he discovers diapers in the garbage!!! Like I said, good thing he is a cute dog, or at least we think he is. :)

No...I'm NOT having twins!

The past couple of weeks or so, I have been getting some rather rude questions from various people, mostly women. It has happened enough times, that when I went to the Dr. on Friday, I decided to ask her about it. I've joked about my "big belly" lots of times, but lately I have been feeling a little self conscience about it. It started about two weeks ago when one of the Para's that works in my school asked me when I was due. This is a fairly normal almost every day question, and didn't catch me off guard or upset me in anyway, but her response to my answer sort of hurt my feelings. She said "JUNE! Oh my gosh, are you having twins?" When I said no, she didn't even have the common sense to stop her line of questioning! She then asked me, how I was going to "stretch any farther" then I already had. I kind of laughed it off, because after all she is a little Hispanic lady, (and when I say little I mean she probably still buys her clothes in the children's section), so I figured she just didn't know how big a person was supposed to look when they were pregnant. I mean come on, it isn't like I'm only 3 months along here. I'm starting on week 26! Unfortunately, she has not been the last person to ask me these sorts of questions. In the last week I have had 4 people, not including her, ask me when I was due, and then follow this question up with either a). are you having twins? or b). is your baby just extra big? So after coming home and crying over this line of questioning a couple of times I decided to ask my doctor about some of these comments. I mean this IS my first baby, maybe I'm the naive one about what I should be looking like, and it isn't like big babies aren't uncommon in my family. I felt a little better when she told me how rude those questions were, at least I couldn't be accused of being overly sensitive yet again,and then she proceeded to also confirm that NO I was not having twins. ( I had already pretty much guessed the answer to this question seeing as how I have had three ultra sounds!) NO my baby was not too big, in fact she measured me and he was measuring the "perfect size" for where I am at in my pregnancy, and YES, I am due in June. I've only gained about 15 pounds since being pregnant, but apparently, I carry my babies high, or at least I carry this one high. So after seeing Bethany's 'Jessica Alba' stomach, and being asked yet again JUST TODAY before leaving church when I was due....(You know the rest of the line of questioning) It is with great hesitation that I post my OWN 'J-Lo' stomach on the Internet. Just bare in mind that the three questions that may pop into your mind have been confirmed by a Dr as NO, NO, and YES! You have been sufficiantly warned!

"The apple doesn't fall far from the tree"......are you SURE????

They say..."The apple doesn't fall far from the tree". Not only have I always accepted this, I have SEEN it with my own two eyes especially while I have been a teacher. More then once I have ended a Parent/Teacher conference and thought to myself, "WOW, he/she looks like....or acts like.... their Mom/Dad!" However, the past couple years of being a "Step Mom" has made me wonder a little bit about this saying.

Cameron has always been, and will always BE the spitting image of his Dad. He looks like him, acts like him, and we were even laughing the other day at the fact that they have the EXACT same feet! They share many of the same interests, and love many of the same things, ie, computers, candy, being outside and not being able to sit very still for very long! (This is not encouraging considering Keric is ALREADY showing signs of this last character trait!). For example, this morning Cameron got up at 6 to exercise with Chris, and last Saturday he decided he wanted to go running with Chris and ran two miles without stopping on his first try! This is all to be expected from him, no real surprises, and therefore kind of proved the saying that the apple truly does NOT fall far from the tree.

However, then we have little Reagan. She makes me question this saying several times a day. At first I thought I was just making things up in my head. I thought many of the things she did that sort of reminded me of myself as a little girl, were really just generalizations of little girls period. Of course she loves to dress up, she's a girl! Of course she loves purple, and sparkly things, she's a girl! All of these were general enough, I couldn't truly say her mom didn't love them too, but lately, she has been acting more like ME, and I wonder if maybe apples don't fall from trees after all.

Reagan has always been my little shadow and loves to follow me around and help me clean, or do dishes, or just sit and watch whatever I am watching on TV. Last Saturday when Chris and Cameron went running, I laid down to take a nap. When I woke up, Reagan was curled up next to me totally zonked out! She normally hates naps, but she slept for a good hour and a half, and was snoring away just like I supposedly do! ( I have yet to hear myself, but Chris swears I do!) :) A few weeks ago on a Wednesday when Chris was working from home, he instant messaged me and asked me to guess what Reagan had been doing that afternoon. I can't remember what my guess was, but the answer wasn't at all what I had expected. She had been re-arranging her shoes and her closet! Sadly, that is kind of a Nati thing to do, and she was so excited to show me her neatly arranged shoes and closet when I got home. Last Saturday we bought Cameron some running shoes so he could keep running with Chris, and we bought Reagan some spring type shoes that look exactly like something I would wear myself. (In fact we looked for some in my size so we could be twins.) haha Granted I had a lot of pull in picking out the shoes, but she ultimately had the last say in which ones she wanted. She LOVES her shoes. She shows them to everyone and if we would let her, I am pretty sure she would wear them all day long everyday!

Although she is still pretty much the spitting image of a Wexels, I would like to think that somewhere in the mix, there happens to be just a TINY bit of her Nati in her. It does my heart good to see something of myself in her once in awhile, even if it is JUST a love of shoes and naps!

I do love my kids!!! I may not have given birth to two of them, but I think somewhere in the big scheme of things, they were always "mine!"

Oh the fun of having a big belly!

So as the days and the time go by, my stomach seems to just get rounder and more obvious. This of course was fun at first, I liked looking a little more pregnant instead of just "fat", however there are the various draw backs of this new development on my body. These are just a few of the ones I have figured out. I'm sure there are many more to come.

Pregnant bellies seem to have some kind of appeal to little kids. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but it is almost like my stomach is a child magnent! If there is a child with in 20 feet of me, they are automatically drawn to my stomach, whether I know them or not. The past few weeks I have had inside lunch duty, which basically means I babysit all the third and fourth graders while they are eating lunch. It's not a bad duty, but I don't count the days until it's my turn by any means. I usually get lots of hugs from my past students when they see me, but this time was different. Not only did I get hugs from past students, but from students I hardly knew! These weren't "normal" hugs, they just like to come up to me and put their arms around my stomach. At first I thought it was sort of cute, and then I just started to feel dumb. Were they really excited to see me, or did they just want to feel my big stomach! As if being a circus freak at school isn't bad enough, it has now started at home too!

Reagan has always liked to pat my stomach and talk to baby Keric or give him a kiss goodnight, but as my stomach has gotten bigger, this has gotten to be more of a habit, and it's not just when we are at home. She likes to lift my shirt up to "see the baby" and has done so at various places, like Wal-Mart and Cameron's Basketball games (to show her cousin). Sometimes she even likes to "show" OTHER people the baby, which becomes rather akward at times! The other day I came home from grocery shopping and Reagan came out to greet me. She likes to help me carry in the groceries and then help me put them away. As I was opening the back of the car she said "Nati, stay RIGHT THERE! I'll be back". I assumed she was just telling me she would be back to help me, but before I could respond, she ran out of the garage and yelled "Jayden, and Shatan, come see baby Keric!" Out of the corner of my eye I see the two little neighbor boys running up the driveway to "see the baby". I think they were somewhat disappointed to only see ME standing there with bags of groceries in my hands and no baby, but Reagie was just beaming as she put her hands on my stomach and said "See....baby Keric is in there". I have tried to nicely talk to her about this, but it doesn't seem to be getting through, plus I suppose it's sort of a "bonding" experience for us. haha

Besides being a child magnent, I have become a puppy detourent. The other night Chompie and T were laying on my lap, (what is left of it anyway) They have contests on my lap. One always has to fight over who is lying above the other one. Chompie had won the battle that night and was lying right on top of my stomach. He had fallen asleep and been there for probably 10 mins or so snoring away. I was quietly watching American Idol when all of the sudden I felt Keric kick harder then I ever had before. It was almost like he put his whole leg into it! As he kicked Chompie immediatley woke up and looked at me with the saddest little eyes. He had evidently felt the kick and thought I had done something to him. He kind of hung his little head down and quickly jumped off my stomach. I felt so bad!! He looked so heart broken and unwanted! For the remainder of the night he wouldn't come near my stomach. Apparently Keric doesn't appreciate Chompie lying on top of him.

Other then the little "draw backs" I do like my big round belly. It makes me that much more excited to see that Keric is that much closer to entering our little family. I wonder all the time what he will look like, or WHO he will look like, and how his little personality will be. So far I would describe him a little more like his Dad and older brother, FULL OF ENERGY, but who knows. Guess we'll find out in about 3 more months!



Keric's Ultra Sound Photo Nov. 18, 2007