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Last night I downloaded the song “16 Tons” to my Ipod. It’s an old song from the 50′s but its in one our favorite movies, “Joe Versus the Volcano.” Meredith heard it yesterday and wanted to watch the video of the song, so I popped it on and pulled out the camera.
Enjoy. Until next time…
People often ask me, “Is it getting any easier?” It’s a difficult question to answer and I’ve thought a lot about that question recently. As you’ll read below, the best way I can put it is that it’s not any easier, just different.
Since returning from Oma and Opa’s house in Rock Rapids a couple weeks ago, our family has gone through a ton of change and I’m not sure it’s been more difficult on us or the kids.
Last week, we got Meredith a big girl bed and when a little girl becomes a big girl, she doesn’t use pacifiers any longer. Angela came up with a great idea that I hadn’t heard of before, the Binky Fairy. During Meredith’s first night in her big girl bed, she gave up her binkies and in the morning, she found a little present. She hasn’t asked for her pacifier since. Great idea, Angela!!!
We’ve also made some changes with the kids’ feedings. Since our trip, it’s become clear that some of the kids are more than ready for big people solid food. Madeline won’t leave anyone alone if there’s food around. We’ve jumped in to feeding the kids what we eat or at least something similar and we’re trying to reflect more regular meal times; 3 times daily. Madeline is our best eater. She seems like a happy baby, almost like we were starving her before. Lauren is really good too, but she’s quiet. Emma does a pretty good job, but can be picky. Alex isn’t very good and has a tendency to not chew his food, which was one of the things holding us back from starting this sooner. Brook is just flat out resisting. She really isn’t eating anything. We’ve tried darn near everything. We’ve tried mixing fruits and veggies in their baby food, but she won’t take it. If it isn’t Gerber coming from the Gerber container, she isn’t eating…except for graham crackers and cheerios. She’s getting along fine, but sooner or later, she’s going to get hungry and play ball.
We also quit giving the kids bottles. They’re all packed up and in storage containers in the garage. Holy cow, we have counter space! We decided to quit, cold turkey. The kids didn’t want to follow procedure the first day and go with our plans of sippy cups only, but after some dry diapers in the morning, they seemed pretty eager to drink from a sippy cup and they’ve been fine ever since.
The new meal planning has been a big challenge for us. We really can’t seem to find something that they all like and will eat, which is really frustrating. We’re still giving some baby food once in a while to supplement so that no one goes entirely hungry, but it’s hard. We can’t be a restaurant with a full menu for 6 kids. Just isn’t gonna happen. Finding the seating room for everyone has also been a challenge. If we cook for Angela and I first, the kids want to get started with dinner early and if we get the kids going first, then Angela and I aren’t eating until around 9pm each night, which isn’t the best for us. It’s just difficult, but we’ll get it figured out.
Meredith has been increasingly difficult the past couple weeks. She’s been hitting the quints and throwing toys. She isn’t listening and flat out ignoring us when we tell her to do or not do something. When she does listen, she’s been talking back. Where the hell do kids who are totally isolated from that kind of behavior learn to act that way? I just don’t get it because she’s at home all the time and that kind of talking back doesn’t happen here. Today in particular has been extremely difficult with her, and all the kids for that matter.
Have you ever woken up and thought to yourself that you really don’t like your life very much. Today was one of those days. Angela and I talk about it often. I’m being entirely serious when I say that we think that if we could just wake up and like our lives more often than not, then we’d be in pretty good shape; but Madeline is really pushing us to be on the wrong side of the equation. Since our return from Rock Rapids, she’s been waking up earlier and earlier each day. She started getting up at 530, but quickly started getting up earlier and earlier and earlier. I have no problem letting a child cry, but at that time of the morning (or night depending on your perspective), the kids aren’t sleeping deeply any longer and they all start to wake up if we don’t get her out of the room. We’ve tried letting her cry. What’s really frustrating is that she’ll go back to sleep in our arms or on the floor in the other room, but she flips her top if we try to give her a pacifier and lay her back in her bed. Today at 4 am, we had enough. It was gonna go poorly if I went upstairs, so Angela went upstairs to deal with her for the first time since she broke her leg, but I could hear every second of it on the intercom. At 6 am she came back down to bed and I went up. 4 of them were up at this point. It was an extremely early morning and it was the last time. Angela and I are discussing wholesale changes to how we deal with nap time and sleeping at night/morning. I’m not entirely sure yet, but these kids are eventually going to fall in line. For everyone’s sake, this has to end.
The morning continued in traditional train wreck fashion. For whatever reason, Alex’s breakfast didn’t settle well and he threw up 3 times. 3 damn times…2 of them on the living room carpet. He also had a blow out diaper that went all the way up to his neck line. Un-friggin believable sometimes. Guess who got a special bath before 9 am today? Later that morning, Meredith and Angela shared the following conversation:
“Momma?”
“Yeah, Meredith.”
“Momma?”
“What Honey?”
“Alex smells.”
“What does he smell like?”
“He smells like sick.”
And that’s how our day has gone.
Still later today, I need to get Madeline to quit crying a take a friggin nap, mow the lawn, do a few loads of laundry, another load of dishes before dinner, help with dinner, update the website, write an email for the volunteers regarding our next week, do some planning with Angela for a trip to Tama later this month and also plan for a garage sale following the trip, and get some photos updated and added to the website and write another blog about the trip to the zoo that we took last weekend.
So with that said, I have a few things to get done before the daylight slips away.
Until next time…
We have successfully completed our first road trip as a family. The trip went well and was a good learning experience for everyone involved. A week ago, last Friday, Oma and Opa drove to Wisconsin early in the morning. They helped us get packed and loaded. The kids have their final meal and bottle for the night around 7 pm with all of them usually going to bed by 745/800pm. Instead of carting them all off to bed, we loaded them up in the van for a nighttime drive. During the trip SW to Rock Rapids, Oma sat in the back of the BAV and Opa followed behind. The crying stopped very quickly. 3 of the kids were sleeping in the first 15 minutes of the trip. Alex was in the front row of the bench seats along with Meredith. He lasted about an hour before he finally gave up. Meredith though, made an amazing performance of endurance and stamina. She talked and talked and talked. I was upset after two hours of all the talking but by the third hour, it was becoming laughable. The highlight of the drive was probably the following conversation (keep in mind that Meredith in is the first of 4 rows of bench seats and Oma is in last row):
“Oma!”
“What Meredith.”
“Oma!”
“Yeah Meredith.”
“Oma!!!”
“What honey?”
“I saw the chicken nugget sign!!!”
Conversations like that took place ALL NIGHT LONG.
About 3 hours in to the trip, we were treated to one of the most impressive lightning storms that we’ve ever seen. My brother Robert called and warned us of the storm, but we barreled right down the interstate in to the teeth of that storm. We watched for a solid 20 minutes or so before it started getting hairy. Opa called and warned me that he heard on the radio that a semi had been turned over on the interstate just 10 miles from where we were. I could see the rain coming down from a half mile away. Just like a wall. It was impressive. Once it started, I didn’t last a mile. I couldn’t see outside of the windshield at all. The wind was deafening. I quickly pulled over, but that was challenging because I really couldn’t see where I was going. It was disappointing because we were making such good time. Typical comment coming from a man, I suppose. The wind was so strong. The van was just shaking and rocking. Thank goodness that we didn’t get any of the hail that fell in other parts of the storm. The storm really scared Meredith. Keep in mind that it was near 11 pm and she’s still wide awake. She screamed and cried quite a bit and that woke the other kids. Our control of the inside of the BAV was quickly slipping away. Before you knew it, two more cars pulled over behind Opa and one more in front of us. After 5 minutes or so, we decided to continue. I had to get that BAV moving or the kids would have lost it. Due to the pending traffic issue due to the turned semi, we got off at the next exit and headed south. After dodging another developing cell to the storm, Meredith finally fell asleep with 45 minutes left (around midnight) in the drive. We arrived quietly in the drive between 1230 and 100 in the morning.
The week went remarkably quick, but there were times that we felt like it would never end. I got a chance to play a round of golf with my dad, which hasn’t happened in years. I also worked with my boss in Sioux Falls during the course of the week so I didn’t have to face the brunt of the weekday activities back at the house. Meredith spent some time with Opa in the afternoons and she told us a wonderful story about the airplanes that she saw. I’ve included some new photos of Meredith with her airplanes and Opa. Click here to see them. We had a wonderful assortment of family and friends from the community help out with the kids during the week. We had shifts for people to come, much like we do at home. Becky Carlin and Anne and Tina Ageson spent a lot of time with us, but there were many others. Thanks so much ladies. 
I promised Sabrina Sieperda that I’d get her pic on website. She and her mom were a couple of our helpers during the week too.
Everyone was getting tired by the end of the week. Following our previous travel routine, we took off on Saturday night after the kids’ final meal and bottle and arrived back at home a little after midnight on Sunday morning. We had a bit of a navigational issue, but that was my fault. We still made very good time even though we needed to make a trip through the city instead of taking the back highways. By noon on Sunday, Oma and Opa got back in the car and headed south.
I’ll leave you with this little funny story from the week. If you’ve ever ridden in the back row of a bus, you’ll know what I’m talking about. We were flying down the interstate a little before sunset as we headed south to Rock Rapids. I hit one of those dips in the interstate where you can see all of the oil spots. In a car, you may not notice the dip too much, but in the BAV, it’s apparently a pretty big deal. I saw the bump coming and as we hit it, I saw out of the corner of my eye in the rear view mirror my mother fly off her seat in to the air. I wish I could have seen the look on her face. While laughing, I yelled back at her that I was sorry. It was hilarious. She asked me to try to miss the next one. That will teach her to not wear her seatbelt.
Thank you Oma and Opa, my brothers and their families, and the rest of our extended family for your help. Thank you also to everyone else in the Rock Rapids community for your help during the week. It really takes a village to raise this family.
Until next time…
