Rosa's six-month letter

Rosa Jane,
Today, you are six months old!  Half a year.  Wow.   Of course, it seems like you've been with us for simultaneously much longer and shorter than that.  It feels like you have always been a part of our family, and yet also just like yesterday that you were born and on Mommy's chest and we were falling all over ourselves to say hello for the very first time.

All this is to say, of course, that we are absolutely over the moon about you, kiddo.  You are a very satisfying baby for many reasons, some of which I will enumerate here.

First, you sleep!  You go down around 7 pm and wake up with us around 6 am.   You almost always wake up to nurse in the night and spend the rest of the night in bed with us.  I sometimes don't realize that you've woken up until I look over and see your little face in bed next to me.  I love it.  You're the only one of our children to actually want to sleep with us during babyhood and we love it.

Secondly, you eat!  Oh, how you can eat.  We may be experienced in some areas of parenthood, but in dealing with babies who actually want to eat food, we have little to no experience!  It is so very satisfying to feed you and to see how worked up you get!  You often lunge for the spoon and end up with cereal or fruit on your cheek or in your hair, because your aim was slightly off :)  Mostly, you love rice cereal above all things except Mommy's milk.  You also like sweet potatoes in their pureed form, and banana mashed up and served to you on one of our fingers.  You hate baby food bananas, though, and pretty much all other types of baby food when served straight up.  However, you will eat almost anything if it comes mixed with rice cereal.  Peas, bananas, pears, prunes, you name it, you'll eat it.   It is awesome.

Third, most of the time you are quite simply a happy baby.  You will smile at almost anyone.  You still have two great dimples and you love to show them off.

You really only cry when you're hungry, have a wet diaper, are tired, or when your gums hurt.  This type of crying has been happening a lot lately, because you just got your first tooth!  It popped out two days ago, that ornery little left front one on the bottom.  You've been working on that sucker for a long time!  The gnawing and fussing and drooling hasn't let up, though, so we think you must have another one coming.  For some reason, having your first tooth makes it seem like you are growing up way too fast.

You're probably working on some milestones, but, as third-time parents, we have opted not to keep track too closely.  It just stresses us out and makes us feel competitive to look at those lists of when kids are supposed to do certain things.  I'm sure the doctor will remind me what you're supposed to be doing at your appointment on Thursday, so don't feel too neglected :)

You're definitely working on grabbing and are very interested in grabbing objects in front of you.  You try really hard to pass from one hand to the other, but then end up grabbing your other arm instead and then the wheels kind of come off from there.  In other news, you have mastered the fine art of rolling and can get placed surprisingly quickly by doing it.  You've even got down the complete roll from front to back to front again in one motion, although it always takes you by surprise when you do it!

Finally, sitting.  You don't, although not for lack of wanting to.  You have gotten so much tummy time (because you love being on your tummy) that your back is really strong, and so you tend to hurl yourself backward anytime we put you in a sitting position.  Your siblings both wobbled and fell forward when they were learning to sit, but you go backward and with vigor!  One of these days, you will do it and then just think of the possibilities.

Oh, and one more thing:  your siblings!  They love you and you love them, or at least we think you do.  You smile at them a lot and sometimes laugh, and generally let them hold you, help pick you up, and help roll you over.  You are going to have your work cut out for you, chasing them around, so it's a good thing you're such a strong girl!

Rosa, we love you just exactly the way you are right now, and we will always love you like that.  Now that you're six months old, just think of what tomorrow might bring!

with all our love,
Mama and Mommy

Sick

I woke up yesterday morning with a nasty cold.  I wasn't feeling my best, but I had registered to run a 5K that morning and so I went out and did it anyway.  Once the race started, I felt fine, although I could tell that my throat was taking a beating.  After the race, even after I changed out of my soaked t-shirt, I felt yucky.  So, I skipped out on the post-race pancake breakfast and went home. 

I gave my best shot at a normal morning but by afternoon, I was wiped out.  I finally took my temperature just for the heck of it and it was up a little.  By that point, Sacha and her mom (who is visiting for the weekend) were both taking naps (Sacha had been up in the night with Mateo), so I opted for a little of one of my favorite parts of fall:  college football!  I quickly made a bowl of popcorn and the kids and I just sat on the couch and watched the Oklahoma State/Texas A&M game.  I was hoping for something more local, but it was actually a great game. 

It was the perfect way to spend a slightly sick afternoon, although I did have to explain more than once to Mateo that yes, football is dangerous even though they wear pads.  He's kind of fascinated by things involving danger, which include motorcycles and football.  At this point, he thinks both are dangerous and bordering on bad, but we shall see what he thinks of them in a few years!  Having owned and loved a motorcycle in the past, I have no moral leg to stand on in that department! 

Anyway, the football game got us through the afternoon and pretty soon Sacha got up and sent me to bed.  I'm still feeling pretty icky today, but functional, and I hope tomorrow will be better. 

On a completely different and more fun note, Natalia is finishing Headsprout Early Reading as we speak.  She's on the very last lesson!  We are so proud of her and are planning to celebrate with fancy macaroons later this afternoon.  Go, Tali!

Lemon

It seems abundantly clear at this point that we have a lot to learn about buying cars.  I haven't blogged about it, but our minivan has had several major problems crop up in the year that we've owned it, including a leak in the back hatch, a back door that won't close on its own, and one of the side doors completely breaking while we were at our family reunion this summer. 

The last straw, of sorts, came yesterday, when I took the kids to the mall and was getting them out of the car only to hear a crunching sound from the other side door as I tried to close it.  It was so stuck that I thought I was going to need a tow truck, but I finally managed to wrestle it closed and then got it to the dealership, where they informed me that it would be $1,900 to fix it and no, it wasn't covered by the warranty.  I had the three kids in tow and we had quite the adventure of getting to the dealership, getting shuttled to a rental car place, and finally getting a rental van.  Each step of the way involved uninstalling and then reinstalling three carseats, so the whole process was slow at best. 

Anyway, at that point, we (and by we, I mean Sacha) entered into negotiations with the dealer about swapping our van out for a similar year and model, because Siennas supposedly don't normally have these types of problems, but those ultimately went nowhere. 

So, we are going to suck it up and pay for the fixing of the door and hope that nothing else goes wrong in the near future.  Then, when it makes sense financially, we will sell the thing and get an Odyssey.  I've had a Honda Civic for the last 12 years and nothing has ever gone wrong with it, and now we are kicking ourselves for not sticking with the brand that we know and love.  I'm really just venting because there's nothing else to do about it!  Let's hope we've learned our lesson from this and exercise greater caution in the future with such purchases.  Argh.

Photos of the new house being painted!

The new house is in the process of being painted. Here are some photos of how it is coming along!

The magic time

I don't know about you, but 6:45 pm is the magic time in our house.  The reason it's so special is because 6:45 is when our kids start getting ready for bed.  All I have to do is get them in their jammies and get their teeth brushed and such, and then I hand them over to Sacha, put the baby down, and then the house is quiet.  Soooo blissfully quiet.  Don't get me wrong - I love our kids to the moon and back.  However, everybody needs a break now and then, and, for me, I need a break every day starting at 6:45 pm! 

Having an evening is a great thing.  I can't recommend it highly enough!  It is especially sweet now that Rosa has the same bedtime as her siblings, because we have our evenings back again.  It's not like we have a party every night or anything; mostly we just chat or have tea or watch something online (right now we're obsessed with this series about the witness protection program called In Plain Sight).  Sometimes we even have a friend or friends over!  But mostly, we just enjoy the peacefulness of all three kids sleeping at one time. 

We really do need to enjoy this blissful quiet in the evenings, because it is frequently broken up by one or more kids in the middle of the night.  Most predictable is that Rosa wakes up for a night feeding and then spends the rest of the night snuggled in our bed.  Right on her heels, at the moment, is Mateo.  He has been coming to sleep with us for the past, well, probably a long time.  It used to be that he'd come in around 5 or 5:30, but it has moved earlier and earlier recently.  Last night, he came in smack dab in the middle of the night and just stayed.  We have a queen bed, but it gets quite crowded with Sacha and me and two of the kids.  At least (knock on wood) Tali stays in her bed at night!  One of us actually has to go in and get her up in the morning, because she won't get herself out of her room even after she wakes up.

Anyway, I will close with this:  before bed, I tried to have a talk with Mateo about staying in his bed and sleeping in it all night long.  "Mama," he said, quite calmly, "I'm just not that kind of a boy."  There you have it, I guess.  At least he is the kind of boy who goes happily along with my 6:45 pm magic time.  Give me my evening, kid, and I will sleep for most of the night on the very edge of the bed, because there is nowhere else to go, for you! (Well, not really.  We must work on that.  Soon.)

Miles

We are definitely getting our money's worth out of the swagger wagon lately.  It seems like all I do is pile the kids in the car to go somewhere and then pile them out again when we get there, and then rinse and repeat.  A lot of it is shuttling ourselves back and forth between the old house and the new house, which is a good thing, just more driving than we're used to.  The good news is that things are coming along!  We painted more this weekend and I even got some painting done this morning while the two bigger kids were at preschool.  Then, we hired a friend to do a bunch more painting and we are hoping that he will knock out some big sections in the next couple of days.  After that, we think we can finish it off on our own.  We are not do-it-yourself-ers by nature, but we're getting a little better at it as we go!

Anyway, our day today was kind of relentless and it reminded me of this hilarious conversation we had with a neighbor the other day.  An inebriated neighbor.  Remember how I blogged about feeling invisible awhile back?  Well, we were not invisible to this guy.  We ran into him while out on a walk around the neighborhood, and, after he sized up the situation and established that (#1) I am a woman, (#2) all three kids were ours, and (#3) we had had them after we got married (this completely stumped him), he wanted to know what we did for a living. 

Sacha said that she was a teacher and I said that I stay home with the kids.  To this, the guy replied loudly, "YOU MEAN YOU DON'T DO NOTHIN'?"  It sounds insulting but really it was quite funny.  Trying not to laugh, I said "Well, I do take care of the kids," to which he replied, again very loudly, "YOU MEAN YOU COULDN'T FIND A BABYSITTER?" in this very shocked tone.  Again, in context it was hilarious, although it doesn't look very funny when I type it. 

Sacha and I managed to extricate ourselves somehow and decided that perhaps being invisible is preferable.  And, we've been repeating to ourselves and laughing, "you mean you don't do nothin'??  I had to laugh about it today especially, because I got everybody out the door, made all their lunches, did school dropoff, painted at the new house, got groceries, picked up the preschoolers, worked out, drove everyone to the new house to pay our painter friend, drove home, took them to a coffee shop for a treat, drove home, made dinner, played with them and Sacha in the basement, and then, now, finally, sat down after everyone was in bed.  You see, I really don't do nothin.  And I love it, nonetheless :)

Grass

I went out to a coffee shop for a little while this afternoon (thank you, Sacha!) and Sacha called to tell me that our littlest one had explored a new culinary sensation.  Yes, she had grabbed a handful of grass out of our backyard and stuffed it into her mouth.  Luckily, Sacha managed to remove it, but it was pretty hilarious to hear about!  Our baby #3 is exploring all sorts of new territory that her older siblings never did and she is keeping us on our toes.  We fed her some banana tonight for dinner and oh my goodness was that cute.  We are all just head over heels in love with Rosa and watching her eat that banana was just about the cutest thing she'd done, well, all day.  Going along with that, watching Mateo and Tali ooh and aahh over Rosa eating some banana made my day, too, because they dote on her so much.  I was worried that there would be a lot of sibling rivalry with three of them vying for our attention, but so far it really feels like she's our whole family's baby and everyone wants to help take care of her.  Let's hope it continues!

In other news, we had an adventure this morning.  We have picked out colors for the inside of our new house and are going to hire a friend to paint it, but this morning we felt like a project and so we decided to see how far we could get on our own.  Here's how far we got, with three kids in tow:  we painted one wall.  One glorious, victorious wall!  That doesn't include getting us all to the house, sending me to the paint store for supplies and paint, taping the whole area and getting the drop cloth positioned so that it was kid-proof.  Considering that we left our house at 10 and finished up at the new house around noon, we decided that our one wall was a pretty good start.  We're going to try taking food and napping paraphanalia over there tomorrow and see about spending most of the day there.  We'll see how it goes!

I'll leave you with a picture of our little grass-eater.  Just look at that baby chub!