Bullets

• The Boston MoD walk was today.  We've decided to pretend that 2013 didn't happen.  We'll do better next year.  :)  In the past 3 years (2010-2012) we raised almost $30,000 as a team- so about $10,000 a year.  This year?  $2,000.  We've had a lot on our plates... new baby and house stuff.  So we dropped the ball, big time.  Every year we make shirts-- not so much this year.  We usually do a "big" event.  Not this year.  This year the only people at the Boston walk with us were my family.  At the Lowell walk it was my family + one of our friends + two of Johnny's cousins + one college friend.  Not our 40+ turn out of years past.  Again, we'll get better.  Oh, and we didn't even really walk today because of parking drama + hungry kids + rain.  Next year will be different.

• But I should mention, we may have only raised $2,000 but we are SO grateful for that money.  And we KNOW that it will go to a good place to give babies a healthy start.  $2,000 is better than nothing.

• SYDNEY.  I know I've mentioned it before, but that girl is TROUBLE.  She can be so sweet but she can be mean too.  And I mean mean because she knows what she's doing.  I can ask her "Is it nice to bite?"  and she'll answer no.  And then I can ask her about pinching and hitting and scratching and so on.  I can also throw in "Is it nice to hug?" and she'll answer yes.  So I know she gets it, but then a minute later the teeth or the nails come out.  Colby has a huge bruise on his back and Zoe has a few on her body.  

• I am burnt out.  Between everything {life} I'm just tired.  Hunter sleeps well from about 10-1 or 2, but then he's up pretty much every hour ish, which I can handle because he's easy, but add in everything else of life (you know, dishes and laundry and cleaning up and putting kids to bed and baths and on and on) and it just never ends.  I don't expect anything to change here, but just saying.

• But the girls are finally off the bottle.  They have been for almost a month.  For a month or so my routine was "put the girls to bed, come down, feed Hunter, get him settled, then wash a sink of bottles, do laundry, etc." and it got to the point one night I looked at the sink of bottles and I was just done.  So I washed them, packed away the drying rack and all the bottles and just called it quits.  The next day the bottles were "broken" and we had a rough day but it was over before I knew it.  And they're fine... though it does make me a little sad sometimes because Zoe loved her bottle so much and now she's so big.

• The day after the bottles broke Zoe decided to break free of her crib for good.  She's been climbing out for awhile, but she was just done.  I put her in, she was out.  End of story, so she spent a day on a mattress on the floor and after a particularly rough night with her on the floor but then jumping in Syd's crib we got 2 toddler beds (amazingly cheaper than buying the conversion rails).  We had an awful couple of naps and nights, but now they are amazing.  It takes a little to get them down for bed, but once they're out, they're OUT.  No more waking up crying and all that crazy jazz we had.  Naps are a snap too.  So my girls are officially BIG.  And two in two weeks.

• Hunter is growing like a week and on all the WHO charts for growth.  It's amazing.  He's officially 1/2 Syd's size and just under 1/2 Zoe's size (they're about a pound apart).   He's just chunky and chubby in all the right baby places.  It's just so odd when I compare him to the other kiddos.  Colby was 9lbs at 3.5 months after TONS of extra calories to plump him up.  (Though a 2lb 3oz vs 4lb 14oz birthweight makes the comparison pretty unfair)  The girls are just slow to gain weight even though they eat like horses.  It's so odd to have a baby that fits into the clothing that matches his age.  We just bought him 3-6 month clothes for the summer and his 0-3 are right on target for him right now.  What did I buy the girls?  12-18 month clothing and even that is loose!

Continuation of bullets...

Since last time...

• Our house was officially listed this past weekend.  We've had two showings so far- Monday and yesterday.  They are a huge pain in the neck.  We joke that our house is in "Transformer" mode.  We have the house with kids and toys & then to show we "transform" to the "show" house where we put all the toys in the basement and make everything look "just so".  And holy goodness, it's exhausting.  And then we have to manage to get out of the house with the four and find something to do.  The first day we were actually just leaving as the agent showed up and he told us to stay.  So we hunkered in the backyard as random people went through our house.  Awkward.  Last night we got out on time, but H had to eat so we ended up parked in front of the mail house as he chowed down before heading to the park with the rest of the kids.

• Hunter's appt at Children's yesterday showed that yes he does have a hypospadias.  So we'll be heading back to Children's in about 5 months for him to have surgery.  I knew it was coming I think, but it still was a little hard to hear the words.  It's not a big deal, but anesthesia and an hour+ of surgery on my baby isn't something I look forward to.

• In other news, my itty preemie was 10lbs yesterday.  That's up about 5lbs 2oz in the past 2 months.  What can I say?  He likes to eat.  He'll eat pretty much every 1 hour & 45 minutes from about 2am to 10:30pm.  From 10:30pm to 2am I get a nicer little break.  :)  But it's so much less exhausting to nurse him than it is to deal with the bottles and pumping I did with Colby & with the girls so I will take it.  

• And he's waking up so I will go.  I never post pictures on here anymore because I don't have time to upload and edit all the photos and to get them all set.  Instead follow us on instagram-- ccszh.  I post there more frequently.

A few bullets

Life continues to speed up as I need it to slow down.  We've been busy with no end in sight.  A few long bullets...

• Last weekend we had the March for Babies in Lowell.  We were the ambassador family so we cut the ribbon to start the walk.  It was beautiful during the week leading up to the walk, but of course the day of it was windy and super cold.  I managed to last half the walk with the kids before looping back to the car to warm everyone up and to feed Hunter.  It was a nice walk, but the atmosphere was no where near as amazing as the Boston walk, so I'm looking forward to that in two weeks.

• The same afternoon we rented a UHaul and with the help of my family we loaded up about half of our things and shipped them down to my grandfather's house.  Like I mentioned before, we're putting our townhouse on the market and step one was to make it more presentable for the stager & photos.  We unloaded a ton of things, but so much as packed away with the assumption we'd be moving in just a few months.  Any longer and we'll have to go dig a bunch of things back out.  My grandfather is letting us store for free which is a huge help.  Now we just wait and see...

• We have an appointment at Children's for Hunter on Tuesday.  He has a suspected hypospadias. He was actually supposed to have the appointment last Friday but that happened to be the day they locked down Boston because of the bombings, so here we are.  In the hospital the NICU and Urology teams went back and forth over yes he has it and no he doesn't, so it will be nice to finally have a decision.  A 'yes' verdict means at about 6 months Hunter will be going in for surgery.  I've kind of just decided not to worry either way.  It's not life threatening so either way we'll get through it.  

• I headed to the park this weekend with the kids & my parents.  I hung out in the car with the girls while they slept so I could feed Hunter while my parents and Colby headed to the park.  The park we go to is a 2-5 year old park so it's perfect for the kiddos.  Very often we're the only ones there but this time there happened to be twin boys just slightly older than Colby.  To say Colby had a blast playing with them would be the understatement of the decade.  My heart hurt a little.  Another one of those reminders of possibility.

• Colby's starting to "grasp" Connor.  He knows Connor existed and that when they were born he and Connor were both very sick.  He knows that Connor didn't get better, but he obviously still doesn't get what it means when we say that Connor died.  He's been asking me lately when Connor will get better and come home.  I think he vaguely thinks that Connor's still at the hospital and that he'll be home when he gets better.

• I don't know if I ever mentioned that Colby calls Connor is angel.  I don't think we (Johnny & I) ever really referred to him as Colby's angel, so it's interesting to hear.  Awhile back Colby also told Johnny that he doesn't get scared in the dark because sometimes when he's afraid his angel Connor will come down and make him feel better before flying back to the sky.  

• Sydney is always saying words that sound just like Connor-- she says corner and counter and they sound like she's always saying Connor.

• The girls are 2 in less than one month.  TWO!

On tragedy & the future

Being from Massachusetts and living very close to Boston makes the bombings hit very close to home.  I grew up about an hour south of Boston and we visited for the museums, Red Sox games, and school field trips.  I attended college at Boston University in the heart of the city. Now I live about 40 minutes north of Boston.  During my pregnancies I traveled to Boston biweekly for checks at my MFM.  I "lived" in the city for a few months while on bed rest with the boys and then with the girls.  We walk in the Boston March for Babies event each year along the Charles River.

Point being, though we're not living in Boston, we're in Boston a lot.  I think that's why Monday's events were particularly hard to swallow.  For once, one of the horrific events that we hear about on the news wasn't "somewhere else".  While in college I watched the marathon from the streets of Boston.  A few years ago we headed to the city to cheer on a friend who was running the race.   I've never been to another city's marathon, so it might be the same everywhere, but I was always amazed how the marathon in Boston brought the whole city & state together.  Marathon Monday is a holiday in Massachusetts-- the holiday is really Patriot's Day and it always falls on school vacation week.

So after being horrified of hearing of the events-- and hoping against hope that it was just a horrible accident.  Maybe a gas line burst? -- after that all I could think was how it was all just too much.  Less than 4 months ago we were reeling in the aftermath of the Newton school shooting.  5 months before that it was the Colorado movie theater shooting.  And those are just the "big" ones.  And then all you want to do is grab your kids and run away.  Where?  I'm not sure, but I know I just wanted to be somewhere safe.

But then I was outside playing with the kiddos and just seeing them play, so happy, so innocent- just seeing that reminded me of all the good in the world.  Really, the world is a pretty good place.  People can be amazing.  Yes, there are some horrific people who do unthinkable things.  But most are good.

And tragedies like yesterday remind me just how important my job of raising these 4 miracles is.  I can't fix what happened.  I can't stop someone else from taking another life.  But instead I can raise my kids to be decent, caring, generous people.  I can raise them to think of others.  To do the right thing.  To be a ray of hope in a dark time.  And that's a pretty amazing power.

And because of that, I'm okay with the future.  I teach amazing children who are going to grow up to be amazing adults.  I am raising four smart, caring children who will grow up to be anything they choose in this world.

And all I can think of is Ghandi's quote "Be the change you wish to see in the world."

And good ole Dr. Seuss "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing will get better.  It's not."

It's easy to stop and blame and shake your head at the future.  But at some point we need to stop and take responsibility to make it better.   And I know my kids will do just that.

Odds and Ends

There was a post that was going to go with the last entry... but I never finished and apparently just updated the title? But now it's been a week or so so most of what I wrote it outdated.  Maybe I can finish this entry... ?

Let's see...

4 Weeks
Hunter is 4 weeks old today.  I'm still in denial because time is just going so quickly yet with 3 other kiddos it doesn't feel like I get much time to just enjoy Hunter.  He came home at 14 days so really he's only been home for 2 weeks.  But he is so easy, it's actually worrying me that he's so easy.  During the day he eats every 1.5-2.5 hours for usually between 15 to 40 minutes at a time.   At night I usually get a few larger windows... typically midnight to about 3:30 and then again from 5 to about 8.  I know those are only 3ish hour windows, but it makes me nervous that he sleeps so well already!  My mom jokes that I deserve to have an easy baby, but after 3 kiddos who were always awake, it's a bit disconcerting.  (Remember, Colby still doesn't usually sleep through the night and instead usually wakes 1 to 2 times for water every night.  The girls finally slept through the night at 15 months, but still pretty frequently wake 1 or 2 times a night.  I'm pretty sure they're afraid of the dark!)

We head to the doctors on Thursday and I'm so anxious to know how much he weighs.  He's exclusively breastfeeding so I obviously don't have any guarantee that he's getting enough.  Some feeds he's done in like 5-10 minutes and I worry that he doesn't get enough.  I have no real reason to worry because he has enough wet diapers, he seems content, and I still pump an extra 30ish ounces a day.  But I always have to have something to worry about apparently.   I'm also anxious to get to use the Moby and our new BumGenius diapers-- they both require 8lbs.

He rarely cries and if he does he is consoled so easily.  He loves to cuddle and snuggle.  He'll sleep right through a feeding during the day if he's sleeping on you because he just gets so comfortable.  He's just a sweet, sweet baby.  I have to remind myself that he's still "early" so things can (and probably) will change in the next week or so.  This coming Saturday is his official due date, so we'll see.


Colby, Syd, & Zoe
These three keep me on my toes every day!  They love, love, love their baby brother.  Or as Colby calls him "HIS Baby".  We have some great days and some days where I want to pull out my hair, but they're all good.  :)

Colby is doing well.  He has a hard time sharing everything with his little sisters, but he's doing his best.  He's so smart and compassionate and sweet that sometimes it's easy to forget that he's only 3.  We constantly tread this fine line of expecting him to act like a 3 year old & expecting him to act as grown up as he seems.  He hasn't done preschool yet & he probably won't.  It's more of a logistics thing than anything.  As a former K teacher I know the risks of kiddos coming into K without preschool experience-- they're usually the immature and more difficult ones just because it's all totally new.  I'm not worried about him on an academic level, but I will be watching for the maturity.  He'll be old enough for K in 2014, but he shouldn't have been born until October in 09 so he shouldn't have been ready for K until 2015, so we're willing to hold him back that extra year if it seems like he needs it.  I'm way ahead of myself, of course, but things to think about.

Sydney is drama and trouble and sweetness all rolled into one.  She can throw some epic tantrums over anything.  Give her the wrong cup or give Zoe the one she wants and cue tantrum.  Yesterday it was that Zoe was wearing the dress that Syd wanted although Syd chose her own dress.  Major tantrum.  And then she knows how to push buttons.  She is so vocal and can talk so well and she knows what she's doing.   In the car yesterday she was pinching my arm and I asked her what she was doing.  She got a big smile, pinched harder and said "I pinchin'!"  She knows just the right time to dump a plate of pasta on the floor (just when I've already scrubbed up after everyone else), when to kick Colby's cars (when he has finally finished meticulously laying them out in a straight line), or when to empty a drawer of diapers (right after it has just been filled).  At the same time she is a sweetheart though and gives amazing hugs and kisses.  When she feels like it.

We affectionally call Zoe our sour patch kid.  You know the commercials where "first they're sour, then they're sweet"?  That's Zoe.  Usually she's sweet, but sometimes she can bite or hit but as soon as you say "ouch!" you're rewarded with a cuddle and the softest, sweetest kiss.  She's the peacemaker of the two and I often feel bad because I feel like Zoe gets taken advantage of.  Syd throws a tantrum because Zoe had the cup that she wanted?  Zoe usually will hand it over and take the other cup without prompting.  Colby steals her toy?  No problem, she'll find another.  She is just so easy going.  I know she's little, but I don't want her to be walked all over.  She's not quite as verbal as Syd yet, but she will have conversations for hours- they're just in Zoe-speak instead of English.

And some other stuff
We're fixing to move soon (thankfully!!).  We moved in about 3.5 years ago at the time of the tax credits for first time buyers which meant we were obligated to stay here for 3 years.  About 3.49 years ago we realized this place was too small and my work commute is awful.  It's typically 1-1.5 hours in the morning and 45 min to 1 hour in the afternoon.  I work 20 miles away.  And it's all highway driving, so it should be a bit shorter.  It's just frustrating.  We've met with our agent and things are moving in the right direction.  We have to meet with the stager next which means tons of stuff is going in to storage and we're going to play the dance of putting toys and toy boxes away every time there will be an open house.

Once we sell we have no idea where we'll end up!  I'm also in the process of applying for jobs further away from the city and in a more southern part of MA.  But I can't really complete that process until my license is renewed, but the department of education is so slow I've already been waiting 7 months for that.  If I get a job where I want then we'll be moving down that way (and I'm SO excited about that-- we'll be closer to my family!!).  If not I'll stay where I am and we'll rent for a year and try again next year.  Basically?  Limbo.  I'm not worried though... things will work out.  We have contingency plans, but I am so hoping to be in a new house starting a new job come September.  Or maybe we'll win the lottery and I can stay home... but that's debatable!




This has taken me 4 nights to write, so I'll end here.  :)

Time Flies When You're (busy &) Having Fun

Home Sweet Home

Hunter's home.  :)  He came home on Sunday evening & he's settled right in.

I'm scared to talk about how good he is because... well, he's so good.  I know he's still in the sleepy newborn phase, but he has seriously mayyyybe cried for a total of 2 minutes in the past few days.  Total.  He's on a NICU schedule... but not really because he was always Ad Lib in the NICU, but he's eating pretty much every 3 to 4 hours on the dot.  (For an hour or more, but still, so easy.)

He's pretty much exclusively nursing.  He has to get a small bottle 1x a day with his iron & vitamin.  And I'm also nervous because I've always known how much my kiddos were eating so it's so hard not to really know.   (I'm so tempted to rent a baby scale!)  So, though he eats for what seems like forever and then he seems content and sleepy, I have snuck in a few smaller bottles just to be sure that he was getting some milk... a 20ml bottle last night and then his vitamin bottle today was 50ml (as opposed to the "needed" 10ml).  It's just so hard to not know that (or if) he's eating what he needs!

As far as nursing/pumping, I'm not sure exactly how to do that either!  With the girls I was so focused on getting my supply up to support the 2 of them that I focused much more on pumping than nursing.  Now I know I'm making more than enough, BUT with him eating sometimes 4 (or even 5) hours I'm afraid that my supply will drastically dwindle because I was pumping every 1.5 to 2 hours when he was in the NICU.  SO what I'm doing... I feed him then when he is satisfied I pump for 15 to 20 minutes.  Then I usually pump again another hour or so later.  Then he wakes up another hour or two later & the cycle starts again.  But part of me knows I don't need to pump... but the neurotic part of me that loves the numbers makes me pump... (and I already have about 70oz of frozen milk in the deep freezer...).

So... what were your solutions?  And how do you get over the need to know that you babe is getting all they need?  (He was up 2.5oz yesterday at his check up over his discharge weight, so I do know he's eating.)