What We're Good At

Kota is good at sticking out her tongue.  She does it throughout most of every day.

Micah is good at getting ready to cry AND crying.  She does it every night for a long time.

Copper is good at dressing herself (pants, shorts, skirt, and two shirts).  She is also good at getting stuck and making big messes.

 

Don't let the first pig tails fool you.  Despite being bathed, clean, dry, and fed, this is not a happy moment.

Copper loves to dress herself.  Backwards, inside out, summer, winter, mixed, matching, doesn't matter.  Sometimes she looks like a first class dork; usually it's pretty cute.  I've tricked her into trying pineapple, mandarin oranges, and peaches.  She liked them all.  Except for the peaches, which she chewed up and spit back into the full container.  Last week she finger-painted the kitchen with peanut butter, for the second time. She doesn't usually make messes other than her toys; I guess peanut butter is pretty enticing.  I can't tell if she knows the twins a part by name because she gets it right about half the time.  But she LOVES her sisters and they are still in awe over her.  Copper is one of the very few people who can really make Micah laugh.

The babies tried yogurt for the first time tonight.  Kota made faces the entire time but ate an entire bowl full.  Micah loved it and ate double what Kota did.  We visited the doctor today after day two of fevers with Kota.  Sure enough, she's been sick for 10 days and it led to an ear infection.  She's pretty miserable except when drugged up.  Exciting news, though- Kota hit 16 pounds even and Micah at 15.  Growing!  Kota is wanting to be on the move; she's climbing and one of these days, as soon as she tolerates her stomach more, will be moving all over a lot faster.  Micah's getting there.  When I'm home, I'm usually holding Micah.  She cries when I'm not, cries when I leave the room, whines when we aren't snuggling.  She likes to take a hand of hair on both sides of my face and pull it close until we're touching.  She falls asleep best when cuddled and just loves to be held close.  Kota's a bit the opposite.  She loves hugs and to be close, but when she's tired, she likes to be put down and left alone.  She'd be a champ sleeper at night if it weren't for the other two.  Some nights there have been all five of us in bed.  The kids sleep fine but it's a long night for Tim and I.  The babies have started "fighting" over toys and being held.  They sure get jealous of each other.  Can't wait until they're friends.  Right now it's just competition over who is fed first, held the longest, given the best toy, etc.  

Such funny girls, all three of them.  I've realized the hardest part of parenting for me, which is the disillusion of thinking what parenting is/should be like and how life really is.  It's been a rough couple of weeks at our home, maybe some of the hardest.  The kids are the very best and the most challenging parts.  Glad they're super cute.

I should be working but I'm having a hard time keeping my eyes open, let alone my mind focused.  I wonder how long I can go without sleeping through the night.  Really, it's only been a handful of times in the last 2.5 years.  Copper didn't sleep through the night until her tonsils and adenoids came out- on her 2nd birthday.  Two weeks later Micah and Dakota were born.  Some people's babies sleep through the night after a few months.  Mine don't and it's a real bummer because I think we'd be better parents if they weren't in our faces at 3 o'clock in the morning.  Maybe if I covered the window to my office door and turned off the lights and nobody bothered me for about 14 hours...it might help.  Luckily the body adjusts.  What little miracles bodies are.

3-0

When Tim makes a baby bottle, he shakes it for at least one or two full minutes.  It might be the most irritating sound in the whole world.  If it were real milk, it'd turn to butter before he was done shaking it.

Some dads don't do much, or do too much of the wrong thing.  My kids are lucky- their dad helps feed them, change them, bathe them, play with them, and love them.  He doesn't hold back- when they're being too much to  handle, he tells them so.  But he also doesn't hold back love or laughter.  He's nice to have.

This past week he celebrated his 30th!  I keep telling him it feels exactly the same but he thinks otherwise.  In celebration, I picked up the kids early from the sitters and we took off to buy gifts and food.  It might sound fun to take three babies to Walmart and Cal-Ranch, but it's really not.  It's more like a chore.  Copper knocked over a few boxes of toy horses and I accidentally head-butted her to tears.  But, we did it, and we rushed home to make his favorite dinner of chicken parmigiana- and decorate the house.  This is how I pictured it: balloons and signs hung, gifts wrapped, dinner staying warm in the oven, and all of us "hiding" behind our table to jump out and yell surprise.  Eat a nice dinner, blow out some candles, and enjoy our time together.  Kids to bed early and the two of us watching about ten episodes of Jericho because it is that good.

This is how it really went: Came home from shopping and the babies were starving because I forget to feed them when we're out and about; Copper trying to blow the balloons up herself and upset that she can't; one batch of spaghetti noodles to pot because I let them boil for almost an eternity; Copper crying because she can't eat the treats we wrapped up; dishes and clothes and toys everywhere- Everywhere.  Instead of hiding when we hear the garage door open, I'm changing Micah, who has a gallon of spit up coming up her throat and a lot of poop coming out her rear.  Copper is still whining, now because she can't eat chocolate chip Teddy Grahams, and then because she didn't get to hide and scare Tim.  We did not watch Jake Green save his town.

So he got a halfhearted birthday evening.  But at least Copper spit on his dessert to rid the candle flames.

In spite of our crashed attempt at a celebration of life, it was a good evening.  I realized that if Tim wants to shake the babies bottle, let him shake his little heart out; at least he's up and shaking away.  And although I get sad and anxious and upset when life throws me into a tornado, at least I have a family to ride it with.  And although he' so old now, a good guy to pull me down.  Just think... next year on his 31st birthday, we'll have two 18-month old girls breaking spaghetti noodles everywhere and an almost four year old with more spit to blow out the candles.  Life might get better but not sure how.

This post is about our kids. What a surprise.

Copper is 2.5 years old.  She weighs a whopping 26 pounds and is the pickiest eater there ever was.  I offered her a handful of chocolate in exchange for eating one grape and she walked away.  I finally got her to bite a cucumber and it may have been one of the worst moments of her life.  She lives off of peanut butter, string cheese, bread, yogurt, and anything snacky- chips, pretzels, crackers, and not to mention all sweets.  Most of the time, Copper is a highlight of our days.  She loves to dress up.  She would wear her swimming suit every day, even during winter.  She LOVES carousels, her blankets, and trains.  She's pretty happy most of the time, still has that classic smile, and just when she's tricked the world into thinking all is grand, she throws a major meltdown.  Maybe it's partly her age, though I hear age 3 is worse, and maybe it's partly because the huge life changes over the last several months are catching up. Just this last week Copper cried for an hour, really, because she couldn't sit on the baby-sitter's toilet longer.  And because she couldn't wear her boots to bed.  Which, actually, she ended up doing anyway.  Despite her crazy tantrums, Copper really is a doll.  She's absolutely gorgeous and has an all-star dynamic personality.

Micah at six months is nothing like Micah at two months.  Obviously the growth is different.  But what's really different is her personality.  As an infant she was so content laying on her own and observing the world.  She rarely cried.  Now, the sweet little monster cries almost every evening.  Still.  She's sitting up on her own and may be able to roll over if she gave herself time on her belly and back to practice.  She hates it, usually.  She loves to be held and at night likes her hand to be right below my mouth, I think so she can feel my breathing.  (Remember Copper slept with her hand in my mouth for months??)  She is the observer, usually.  She watches everything that goes on and (as long her she's content and her belly feels okay) loves to watch what's going on around her.   Micah loves to eat food and will eat a jar of pears, applesauce, or sweet potatoes on her own. She still spits up more than she takes in.  Sometimes it's full of food she just had.  Talk about disgusting.  She can't wait to grow out of her digestive troubles and the rest of us can't wait either.  She has super blond hair that curls right up.  At her 6 month check up Micah is 13.11 pounds (7%), 25.75 inches (45%), and her head is 15.5 inches (0%).  Small but proportionate. 

Dakota is also very different from a few months ago.  She's grown out of her crying, for the most part.  She's a champ eater. She makes the goofiest faces and usually has her eyebrows raised.  She tries to beat Micah up, stealing her stuff, trying to pull her socks off, and ripping the binkie from her mouth.  The one time this weekend that Micah ripped it back, Kota sat there a bit dumbfounded for a minute.  Taste of her own medicine, I guess.  Kota is sitting and rolling.  She seems to be a few weeks to a month ahead of Micah, developmentally.  She's turning into a pretty happy baby.  She puts herself to sleep when she's tired, plays great on her own, and smiles a lot.  At six months, Kota weighs 14.13 (25%), is 25 inches long (20%), and her head is 16.25 inches (10%).

A few days out of the week look like this, where they're all screaming and you kind of feel like shooting yourself or just running away.

But there are more days like this, which makes life a bit easier...

Okay, well, they're actually crying here, even Kota, but I contribute it to shots.  And the pic is cure.

New Year's

We spent New Year's evening with Tim's family. You can't tell from the following picture, but Micah cried and cried.  Only when she was in her carseat to come home did she smile.  Kota was pretty happy.  And, as you can see from the pictures, Copper was a complete ham.  A cute one, at least!