time for some literary therapy :)

where to begin....
lets start from the little one up-

neiko had 3 rough weeks followed by 3 angelic days. he is SO SWEET when he chooses to be and SO WILD all the rest of the time. he is still working on those molars.
i had a nice text chat with his birth mom a few days ago. i felt really good about our conversation. i thought it was really cute when she asked me if neiko plays well with his "brother and sisters." makes me smile.
we had one minor incident with him on sunday. we were out of milk (where was the angel at the front door with a gallon of milk in her hands THIS time??) and so i gave neiko a bottle of soy milk before we left for church. apparently soy milk doesn't sit well with him cause we got to church and he started puking. he puked 4 times with dave taking the brunt of it on his suit coat as he was holding him while i was up front during the singing. poor neiko.....and dave.....i am not chuckling to myself at the thought of it.....not at all ;)

wren is STILL having accidents. in fact, they are getting worse. it makes for a whole new level of chaos around here.
for example-
yesterday morning she pooped at the table while eating breakfast. so gross. i was on the phone with the pediatrician about health records for the adoption while i was trying to clean that mess up. her clothes were so bad that i decided to take them outside and just hose them off.
i was not dressed yet. it was very early and i was still in my pajamas. actually "pajamas" is too generous a word for what i had on. but i live in the country with 3 whole neighbors so i figured it was fine to slip outside and hose off the clothes.
so i'm on the phone wearing next to nothing hosing off poopy clothes getting really wet when a man comes walking through the yard and straight to me.
he was there to take pictures of the outside of the house.
i was beyond embarrassed.
i stood there wet and stumbling over my words as he said things like "move your van, move some toys, glad i caught you outside....."
all i could think about was the clothes i was not wearing.....sigh.

then this morning i woke up to wren all snuggled up beside me. so sweet.
i turned to her and she looked up at me with her big sleepy eyes and whispered, "i pooped."
and yes, she had. in her bed. and that's why she came to my bed to finish sleeping.
i jumped up and started in on damage control. i put her in the big tub in our bathroom with the water running and without the plug in the drain so i could clean up without worrying about her.
while i was gathering up the sheets from both beds neiko started crying. i went to his crib and he smiled at me with a face covered in snot.
so i took his clothes off and put him in the tub too. then i gathered up the sheets once again and ran them downstairs to put them in the washer.
before you judge me too harshly keep in mind that i did not plug the drain so there was no water pooling in the tub.
i do this every now and then when i have to clean up messes while the kids are in the tub.
what i totally bombed on was that i forgot that i had put a little decorative bowl beside the tub the night before for a showing. i had just made it to the bottom of the steps when i heard the crash.
neiko had pulled the bowl off the ledge and into the tub.
i ran back up to find the 2 kids standing in a tub full of rocks and broken glass. SO SCARY.
i pulled them out and awkwardly carried the 2 crying, wet babies to another tub to wash them.
and then when i was done i started in on cleaning up all the glass and rocks from the other tub.
we were very blessed to come away from that disaster with only a few small cuts on neiko's hand. thank you, Father for watching out for them! could've been much much worse.....
and one more thing about that morning- while i was running around trying to clean up everything i glanced at myself in the bathroom mirror and had a good laugh.
i had done it again.
i sometimes dress myself while i'm sleeping. it's the weirdest thing. i go to bed without clothes and wake up fully dressed.
and i'm terrible at coordinating while i'm asleep- i always get a good laugh over what i'm wearing the next morning.....

sooo moving on to tekoa. i had a sudden realization last week of how much she argues with everything i tell her to do. time for some extreme parenting with that one. she's been getting a spanking each time she tells me "no."
which makes for a lot of spankings.
but she is slowly getting it. she catches herself now right after she says it and quickly apologizes and rephrases :)
and as i was tucking her in bed the other night she said, "sorry i told you 'no' today. i shouldn't do that. and it's okay that you spanked me."
so glad i have her approval :)

and then shaeya. she is the glue that holds the rest of the kids together. she is the imagination, the opinion, the helper, and the comforter of all of them. she leads and they follow. they are lost when she is gone. the little ones look to her for help and she gladly gives it.
and she is everything to tyden. she corrects him when he is wrong (which is most of the time), and she tells him what to think and then he thinks it.
when he gets scared at night she lets him climb into her bed and she keeps him safe.
the main battle i fight with her is over clothes.
her opinion is comfort above all else, so the girl refuses to wear jeans of any kind. jeans are cold and uncomfortable (i hold my tongue, but i want to inform her that she should try having 4 kids and then tell me about what it's like to wear jeans.) the quickest way to bring shaeya to tears is to tell her she can't wear her sweatpants to any given event.
oh, and we have a very predictable sunday morning battle every week over a certain pair of shoes that are NOT church shoes. i have never given in but she has never given up....

and finally tyden. he had a big event this week. really big. he was invited by my mom to spend the weekend at the lake and help her with some jobs. he was counting down the days til he could go, but a couple of days before the big day i realized that we were going to have a slight problem. my mom needed to pick him up at noon but i had to leave the house by 11.
i talked it over with him and said he could still go if he wanted to stay home alone for that hour and wait for grandma to come and get him.
okay, he will be 10 in 3 weeks and we live in the country. TOTALLY SAFE. but he and my mom were appalled by the idea.
i decided that it would actually be good for him and told them both that we were going through with it.
he was super nervous but he knew it was the only way to get to the lake.
and my mom kept moving her arrival time up.
i kept telling them both to relax. it would be FINE.
well, the big day came and i settled tyden in with my ipad and told him grandma would be here before he knew it. i kissed him good-bye and walked out the door- only to remember that neiko was still inside sleeping. so i had to go back in and grab the baby and then said good-bye again. he was trying to be brave :)
i finally hopped in the van and drove down the long lane.........only to see my mom's van parked at the neighbors kind of behind some trees.......
still makes me laugh......
she promised she would let him be "home alone" for a little while before she actually went up there to get him. :)
........i guess that's what grandma's do, right??
and i'm pretty sure i'll be the "hide behind the trees at the neighbor's" kind of grandma too :)

all right......time to quit.......i'm off to go help hang some cabinets!!!!!!!!