Life with a Toddler

OK so I will admit it, Teagan isn't really a baby anymore (though being the youngest of 4 I am sure he will be called "the baby" well into his 50's). Even though he has been officially toddling since he was 9 months old, he seems more toddler-like lately. He "talks" meaning he has a few words and lots of signs and can get a long ways with grunting, pointing and yelling. He has very distinct likes and dislikes and now nods his head "ye"s and shakes his head "no" quite vigorously.

He is an adorable, easy child... not sure if it is all tempermant or just that by boy #4 you start to get the hang of things. He goes down to sleep more easily then any of the other 3 ever did and sleeps longer and more consistently than any of the others either. He also has a wonderfully varied diet, but I have this feeling that some of the others did also at this age and I know that somewhere around the age of 3 is when things may turn on me -- for now it is fun to watch him enjoy his food.

BUT... as wonderful as he is; he is also full of energy and is tall enough now and dextrious enough to get into more things and make bigger messes and generally cause more mayhem when he wants to. He is our first to not have any form of daycare other than being watched by my mom on Mondays and it is challenging for me to take on the stay at home mom role (while still working 24 hours per week -- plus extra meetings and things also). It is a good kind of challenge though and I know I will miss these days dearly when he is older.

The other boys are at good ages too -- but they are definitely caught up in the world of boys: video games, adventure books, Legos, playing tag, wrestling with each other... not really mom stuff (though I do like my Legos!) so I see how quickly it can all go by.

Anyway, I was feeling nostaglic about it all today watching my darling toddle around the neighborhood with me. Sorry to sound so sappy... life is good :)

Snow pictures

I must say I still find Facebook much easier these days for posting pics -- but we got a request from relatives to post some pics of the house, so I thought why not put up the pretty snow covered house pics!

The Christmas tree is now down and lights are off the house and kids were back in school today -- ahhh. It is nice to be back to more of our usual routine. We sitll haven't not sold our other house and it is depressing and frustrating... but I am hoping the new year and low interest rates and so forth will bring us a buyer. I am less interested in renting these days just because of everything that jas to go into finding good tenants and maintaining the property... I just don't have the time for it all.

So we'll see how it goes. The kids have all had chest colds as have Joe and I... but everyone seems to be on the mend now.

Teagan is more and more communicative these days which is really fun. He has lots of baby signs (sign language for babies) and a few word-like sounds. His most common one being "Dut duh da!!" for "There he is!" or "There it is!" when he is looking for an objest or when he is hiding, playing peek a boo or some other game that involves us calling out "Where is Teagan?" he likes to then come around the corner beaming with his "Dut duh da!"

He is pretty cute if I do say so myself. He likes to run around with only a onesie and his shoes on (with no socks) -- that is his outfit of chioce really, which is pretty silly and cute also.

Anyhoo... here are pics of the house and kids from the giant snow storm (we got over 13 inches right before Christmas -- a 59 year record!):

Due to check in...

I have some dear friends not on Facebook that are still checking the blog, so I figured it was about time to check in again and write something.

No real news to report though. We are still paying two mortgages which really sucks and I am now listing the old house as a rental via craigslist. I have had a few hits, but nothing has worked out. I know I need to be picky about tenants so as to make sure they can really handle the rent and will take care of the place, but the temptation to lower my standards and just get someone in there is strong and hard to resist. Then again -- I will really regret it is we end up with an eviction snafu and a trashed house to deal with down the road, so I will stick to my guns.

So financially I am feeling really poor because I didn't really budget for this many months of double mortgage payments. I have now signed up to work an extra shift each week which has me basically working full time hours again for the next two months. I am hoping that will be enough to pay the extra mortgage, but until we sell or rent the other house, it won't be enough to dig ourselves out of the hole we are currently in due to buying stuff for the house and paying both mortgages. I should have probably upped myself to full time 2 months ago, but with soccer and school and all the stuff going on, it didn't even occur to me to do that.

Sorry to be such a downer.

One a happier note, Teagan is such a doll lately. He is at that magical age where he really does understand lots of what you are saying but hasn't yet learned to talk back ;) He is signing more and will follow simple instructions well like: "bring me your pajamas" "go get your shoes" "Where is your bear?" It is totally cute! He does not yet throw tantrums or get too worked up about much of anything unless he is totally exhausted and being picked up and held still fixes everything about 99.9% of the time.

I think I am enjoying him more than I did the other 3 boys because I know the ages and stages to come and know how fun this one is in comparison and how quickly it goes by. The older boys are fun too and it is nice to see them play together and help out and work out squabbles amongst themselves in a civilized way... they are definitely growing up!

Anyway, I am watching my niece today and she and Teagan are napping but it seems like they should be up at any minute, so I will sign off for now. :)

First Haircut

So Teagan's first hair cut involved a bit of drama. He aws not thrilled with it all but got to be OK by then end. The pics tell the whole story.

I was thinking of waiting until after his 1st birthday to do it but got tired of cleaning food out of his hair!

The Advantages of Twins

So 5 years ago when the twins were 7 months old I don't think I would have been able to foresee a time when having twins would ever feel easy. We were still in the midst of frequent night-wakings and I had just returned to work and was finding life to be exhausting. They weren't walking yet of course but were moving around enough that you couldn't simply put them down and expect them to stay put. Connor would scream with frustration because Quinn could crawl away and he could not yet. Every meal time was dreaded by me because of the need to clean up two high chairs. I found myself trying to come up with meals that were the least messy to deal with but then felt bad because nutritionally, they were sometimes lacking.

This year has been interesting because with the twins starting school, there are a whole new set of twin-like challenges. Strangely enough for the past couple of years I haven't felt like a mom of twins, just a mom of 3 boys (and recently of 4). Because Connor and Quinn are so different and have such different interests and because in general people don't spot that they are twins and just assume they are close in age. But now with them attending Kindergarten together, they seem very much like twins again. When I get the update in the afternoon about their day, one will start out explaining something they did and the other will finish the story.

They will look to each other about things like what the name of one of their friends is or what exactly it was they had for hot lunch. They sit and do their homework together, partly because I have them do it that way but mostly because if one is working on something for school, generally the other one wants to also (not always though ;))

I find the whole duplicate school folders/papers/announcements bit to be annoying and feel like there out to be a way to consolidate and conserve paper. I also find helping two non-reading kids work through their homework to be an all consuming task, which wouldn't be a big deal except that I often have an 11-month old pulling at my leg and a 9 year old asking for help with his homework as well.

But.. as the title promises... there are advantages as well. They are upstairs happily playing Legos at the moment. In general, they always have a built in buddy whether it be to walk with to a friends house when one of them is feeling too shy to go it alone, or to sit with on the school bus, or to play with in the house on a rainy day like today when their aren't any neighbor kids home to play with. At this age, Andrew was a bit lonelier and wanted to be out with neighbors all the time -- but most of the neighbor kids we had then were older and we didn't always let me hang out with them.

I went to let them know that Teagan was napping and I would be going downstairs and Quinn was literally trying to shoo me out of the room "Okay okay mom -- bye!" because they were so wrapped up in their make believe game. They had tried to include me earlier but I was opposed to the need for my Lego characters to have weapons (one of those things about boys that I don't get) so they decided I didn't need to play.

Ahhh... all good things must come to an end, Quinn is down here saying he is "bored" already... what a bummer!

Due for an update

So we are a lot more moved in. I still need to paint the boys' bathroom someday and the downstairs entry way / stair well, etc. I have paint for the bathroom but not the other. The boys are enjoying school. Teagan gets a bit sad when they leave but enjoys the trip out to the bus. He took a major fall 2 weeks ago when we were all heading to the bus and he decided to try and step off the front porch step on his own. I have pics from that day but should have gotten a good pic the next day when everything was scabbing over and looked much more grusome.

Here are the day of injury photos:



We celebrated my niece's 1st birthday. We had a mini celebration at mom & dad's house and then Mary had a big party with Angela's side of the family and more friends the next day.

She really didn't know waht to think of the cupcake mom made:
I love that she knows what to do with dollies -- so cute! She will also feed them bottles which seems funny for a kid who has never taken a bottle herself.

Teagan's 1st birthday is now right around the corner... I can't believe how fast this year has gone. I am already feeling sad to see him get big so quickly. But he is at the most delightful age, it is hard not to just enjoy it all.

I have more pics on facebook for those who are signed on. It is way easier to upload on that site, so check it out! :)

Computer still broken, lots left to unpack

So I am still needing to use Joe's laptop for my computer needs. Mine has been back and forth to the Geek Squad (at Best Buy) 3 times now! (Needless to say, I don't recommend using them). This last time I said, I really think it is a virus, which is what I thought the first time, and they came back after running a scan saying "oh yeah, it really is quite infected" well duh! They said it was the video card the first time and I spent $70 on a new video card. The 2nd time it came on for them so they said "it is working fine" and did nothing but at home it still kept re-booting incessantly. I am so frustrated by it all but hopefully the 3rd time is a charm.

On the positive side, Joe has been working hard getting the last bits of things over from the old house. I think the garage is still a big disaster, but hopefully we get rid of most of that stuff. The kitchen is functional and we are getting reacquainted with gas cooking. The kids bedrooms (except for Teagan's) are a giant mess - partly due to not unpacking everything appropriately and partly because they all just keep discovering old toys, games, cards, etc. that they want to play with and then get distracted.

I should be unpacking right now but I am just feeling lazy and exhausted lately (last few days). It took a bit to get Teagan settled for a nap today because he managed a cat nap in the car this morning but then didn't stay asleep but it was enough to give him energy to fight off a real nap. Now he is down for a bit so I ought to get working on stuff. My bedroom is quite the disaster as well. I can't quite figure out where I want things to go in the new closet and bathroom and so I have been procrastinating a bit. We had a bunch of stuff that was in a hall linen closet at the old house and now we don't really have a space like that but we have lots of storage in the 2 upstairs bathrooms so we just need to redistribute items.

You'd think with a really big house, unpacking would be easy -- but the reality is we are lacking shelves and furniture items to really work in the rooms we have so there is a lot of stuff that doesn't have a home. We are also trying to keep it so both cars can be parked in the garage but previously we had all storage in the garage so that is a lot odd stuff that needs a home as well -- and a lot of stuff to get rid of also.

I have become addicted to HGTV -- I really like watching all the makeovers and such. Watching TV is not helping me get anything done nor is it helping my new plan to exercise more.

Still no pics to share since this is Joe's laptop and not my PC. Back to school routines are starting to gel a bit more -- though with the twins going only every other day it is a bit confusing at times. Yesterday I went to pick up Andrew and he starts wandering off and I yell "hey - where ya going?" and he says "to get the boys" and I say, "they are right here in the van, they didn't have school today" and he grins sheepishly. I called about buses and we do have one here but you have to cross a busy road to get to it. I am still tempted to try it out and just walk the kids over there. I figure it still saves gas and if Teagan was napping in the afternoon I wouldn't have a problem leaving him in his crib while I walk across the street to get them. Today Connor was fussing about not wanting to try the bus though and I didn't feel like arguing so I drove.

Anyway... enough rambling for now. Oh -- as far as milestones, Teagan now has 3 teeth. One on top and two on the bottom and he can run, get to standing from the floor quickly and easily and dribble a soccer ball (seriously! it is really cute) and oh yes, he is now 10 month old!!