a holiday weekend to be thankful for

We got up early on Thanksgiving morning and went over the bridge....

Crossing the Verrazano

...and through the suburbs to Joel and Colleen's house. Thanks to a winter storm that struck the Northeast on the busiest travel day of the year, we were welcomed by this lovely sight when we arrived in their New Jersey neighborhood:

Garrett and Caleb spent most of their day outside playing in the snow -- building snowmen and snow forts...

...and dragging fallen tree limbs around the yard in an attempt to "replant" them in an upright position.

Matthew also played outside, though he got cold a lot sooner than his brothers. Garrett and Caleb would come inside periodically to warm up by the fire before heading out for the next round of snow play.

Even though the lure of the yard outside and snow to play in was incredibly strong, there was also fun to be had inside, like foosball and the Wii.

My cousin, Sam, his wife, Leisa, and their two young daughters, Vera and Petra came up from Maryland for the holiday, and it was great to visit and catch up with them. Matthew and Vera are only a few weeks apart in age, but while Matthew eventually warmed up enough to be in the same room as her, they still only played around each other, not together. (So maybe next time there will be an adorable photograph of the two of them.)

Aunt Colleen outdid herself as usual with dinner, especially with her famous orange rolls. To mark this edible occasion, Daniel sprouted his first two teeth just in time for the holiday.

But he still only got the pureed form of a Thanksgiving feast, thanks to Gerber's Turkey and Sweet Potato dinner. He thought it was pretty tasty.

Even though we arrived early and stayed late, it wasn't nearly long enough. But we had to get back to Brooklyn because the next morning we were taking family pictures. 

The conditions for outdoor photos were not ideal; although it was bright and sunny, the temperature hovered right around freezing, with frigid breezes that occasionally whipped up. But everyone was wearing sweaters, and we kept the car on and heated close by so we could run back as needed to warm up. We decided on a last minute location change (in part because of the weather) and in the end opted to take them in the wooded areas surrounding the abandoned runways at Floyd Bennett Field. For the most part, the whole endeavor went as well as can be expected, given the cold and the personalities involved. But of course it wouldn't be a family photo session if this didn't happen:

Adam, our photographer, sent us a preview of the photos today, and there are some really great ones to choose from.

The rest of the weekend was filled with a bit of online Black Friday shopping, a little local small business Saturday shopping, a trip to the storage unit to retrieve the Christmas decorations, but not actually any decorating, a little hand quilting, and a case of pink eye that hit Caleb on Saturday night. Since Blake had pre-church bishopric meetings to attend, I was able to send Garrett to church with some friends in the ward, but the rest of them stayed home with me.

The only Christmas item we unpacked was the Little People Nativity. It's the current hit of the household.

A very pink eye and a personality clearly intact enough to make a goofy ducklips pose.

"Mom, there's something wrong with my shirt." Why yes, there most certainly is.

 

Quilting by hand is turning out to be hard on my fingers but good for my soul.

Caleb stayed home from school today in favor of a trip to the pediatrician. He's been looking better and better as the day's gone on, and we're all crossing our fingers that he can go back to school tomorrow.

Despite the curve balls that occasionally get thrown our way, I clearly have much to be thankful for, and it was nice to have a relaxing long weekend to enjoy and reflect on that. And now the countdown to Christmas begins!

progress report

Between parent teacher conferences, well check-ups, and a few other things going on lately around these parts, I thought it might be good to write a little update on the family.

At parent teacher conferences a couple weeks ago I learned that Garrett, while performing academically right about where I expected him to be (pretty average all around, with the exception of his love of reading and his lack of organization skills), is highly sensitive at school (translation: he cries easily). He's kind of an emotional roller coaster at home these days, too, with moods that swing wildly and quickly from belly laughter to high pitched screams of despair, so I guess learning this wasn't too unexpected, although it was a little disappointing to find out that it carries over at school. I'm wondering if this new personality quirk has more to do with his genetic coding, or the fact that 7-year-olds have a tendency to be emotional basket cases in general. Either way, I'm hoping it's something he grows out of sooner rather than later. He's a very bright boy, and I'm grateful for this sensitive side of his, but he needs to learn how to reign it in.

The report from Caleb's teacher, on the other hand, proved that he behaves much better at school than he does at home. At school he is kind and hard working, while at home he tends more to be a button-pusher with a few anger management problems. I have a feeling a lot of his behavior problems stem from middle child syndrome and an inability to handle things well when he's on sensory overload. He seems to be enjoying kindergarten, though it's usually a struggle to get him there willingly. He blames this on the fact that he strongly dislikes the lunch period (it's too noisy which stresses him out). But he's been memorizing sight words and learning to read, which has been incredibly empowering for him. He knows the routine for homework after school and will tackle it himself. If nothing else, Caleb takes his learning surprisingly seriously.

As briefly mentioned in a previous post, Matthew recently qualified to receive speech therapy through the Early Intervention program. His twice weekly sessions started up last week. His therapist his a sweet older Hispanic lady named Miss Betty. I was a little concerned at first over how thick her accent was -- both because of my inability to sometimes understand what she was saying, as well as what it meant for Matthew's speech development -- but so far it's worked out just fine. He's still working on warming up to her when she's actually sitting in our living room, but he eagerly anticipates her visits. Between the time that I started the process with EI to get him services and now, his speech has actually improved quite a lot -- he's saying more words and fairly clearly -- so with Miss Betty's help, we can only go up. As for me, I have thoroughly enjoyed the time I get to spend with Matthew when his big brothers are at school. His current favorite things include ducks, penguins, "Old Street" (i.e. classic episodes of Sesame Street), and fingerplays and singing songs with hand actions, which I in part owe a huge thanks for to his nursery teachers.

Daniel recently went in for his 6 month well check-up. He's growing right along his established curve (weight: 17 lbs 6 oz, length: 26 inches), and has officially (and finally) stopped wheezing. He's a happy baby and recently stopped waking up to eat during the night. He still needs me to come in and soothe him back to sleep occasionally, but it's hard for me to count getting up for two minutes once or twice a night when he'll otherwise give me 10-12 hours of solid sleep. This weekend he cut his first tooth, which explained some unusual fussiness last week, and the world is his oyster now that he's undeniably mobile. This kid, while not technically crawling, is scooting, pivoting, planking, and butterfly lunging just about anywhere he wants to go.

At the end of October we went in for our annual family visit to the optometrist, and this year Blake and I got to pick out new glasses. Even though his new semi-rimless frames are a stark contrast to the dark plastic ones he's been wearing for years, only a tiny handful of people have noticed, and no one has seemed to have noticed mine. Granted, mine don't look all that different from what I had before, but still. We're deciding to take this apparent lack of notice as the fact that our new eyes fit us remarkably well. ;)

well-checking in

The last week has seen us at the pediatrician's office twice -- once for Garrett and Caleb's annual well check-ups, and again for Daniel's four month well check-up. Everyone is doing well and still growing -- always growing.

Now that they are seven and five years old, it no longer seems couth to share Garrett and Caleb's growth stats. Suffice it to say they are both continuing with their norms and there is nothing to be concerned about. A check of their eyes with a snazzy new machine (that I'm assuming checks the shape of the cornea to determine whether or not there is a vision problem that requires a more in-depth check by the optometrist) showed that Garrett's slight far-sightedness has corrected itself, as the eye doctor told us would likely happen at his check last fall. I'd suspected as much since over the last few months he's gradually stopped wearing his glasses (which he only needed to wear part time to begin with). Now it's just time to wait for the genetically inevitable over-correcting of his eyes into nearsightedness. Such fun!

Caleb got caught up on all the vaccinations he needed to begin kindergarten, much to his dismay, but he has since told me that being able to go to school has been worth it. And they both got their annual flu-mist vaccine.

At Daniel's appointment this morning my suspicions were confirmed that he is at just the right age for reflux-like symptoms to worsen (more fussiness, lots of spitting up, arching of the back), and I've done just the right thing to ease them by starting him on solids. If things don't improve with time and diet, we'll look to getting an antacid prescribed to help, but in the meantime we'll just keep doing what we're doing. It does, after all, seem to be helping.

He continues to grow and develop exactly as he should be, which is always a nice thing to hear. Since at four months of age it is not uncouth to share growth stats, here are Daniel's:

Length: 25 1/4"
Weight: 15 lbs 9 oz

He still has a smallish head (16 1/4 cm) relative to the rest of him, which has chunked up nicely. (Though, as I look through his brothers' 4-month growth stats, he is the smallest of the bunch at the same age.) His appointment ended with his next round of vaccines -- such fun, especially when he looked up at me, his eyes welling with tears and his lips quivering just before he burst into a loud, pained wail. He's sleeping the sadness off now, with a dose of Tylenol to help.

To even the score a little, we were able to sneak in a flu-mist vaccine for Matthew before we went on our merry way. Oddly enough, Matthew was thrilled to be the patient, if only for a minute, but then Matthew has a way of always being oddly adorable, so I shouldn't have expected anything less.

lemons and lemonade

There's nothing quite like four children to constantly remind me that "if it's not one thing, it's another." For example, in the last couple weeks three of them, including the tiniest, and each one swiftly following the next, have broken out in an impetigo rash. Such fun! And last night, even though Daniel managed to sleep solidly from about 9pm until 5am, Caleb was up several times throwing up.

And then today, with Caleb still battling some sort of stomach bug, I had to cart them all along with me to Daniel's belated two month well check-up, at which he was given his first round of vaccines. Caleb managed to keep the contents of his stomach where they were, thank goodness, but he was so miserable, he was near tears until the very end when he finally couldn't hold them back any longer. Ultimately I had two (Daniel and Caleb) children in hysterics, one (Matthew) begging like a broken record to go home, and the fourth (Garrett) brimming full of unrelated questions that I couldn't muster the energy to field let alone answer.

Such fun!

But let's go back to Daniel, who passed his two (and a half, thanks to our doctor's summer vacation pushing it back a couple weeks) month well check up with flying colors. Overall, everything about him is right on target. And by all accounts, he appears to be the only one of the four of them who has not suffered from infant reflux. In fact, he's even starting to outgrow his colic, which means that he's not only a much happier baby all around, but that I'm also starting to like him more.

That happiness is apparently evident in his growing fat rolls:

Weight: a whopping 13 lbs 5 oz (though he did just down a full 5 oz bottle just before he was weighed, which may have contributed to the results)
Length: 23 1/2 inches

 He willingly and oh-so pleasantly let the doctor poke and prod during the exam, clearly oblivious to what was going to happen before he could go home.

Screaming off the effects of those painful shots at home.

Sleeping off the effects of the stomach bug on the couch.

While we're not completely out of the woods yet -- not with the colic, the effects of the shots, the stomach bug, or even the impetigo -- we'll get there soon enough, I'm sure. But even so, if I can manage to sneak out later today to pick up some needed milk and infant Tylenol, I might also throw a few actual lemons into my cart because one thing my life could really use right now is some lemonade.

pages from the photo album: aunt chelsea's visit

Here she is to save the day!

 Learning the delicate art of twisting balloons into animals.

 A boy and his dog.

 Cute baby alert!

 Sunset over the Verrazano.

He was fussy.

 Visiting the 9/11 Memorial.

Touring Governor's Island.

Cooling off face-first in the playground sprinklers.

I walked into the room to find that he wanted to hold his brother but couldn't wait for someone to help situate him. (Also, they accidentally dressed like twins!)

 Garrett found another frog in New Jersey. He named this one Water Swimmer.

Daniel in profile.

Morning conversation.

 Brothers in Brooklyn.

 At Sunset Park waiting for fireworks.

 My favorite part of our view of the Macy's fireworks was that they were silhouetted against a rooftop water tower. Very Brooklyn.

 Gearing up for a quick game of catch at Brooklyn Bridge Park.

 Under the Brooklyn Bridge.

 Devouring the best chocolate ice cream in the world at Jacques Torres.

 Crawling through playground tunnels.

Smiley baby.

Look who we found stranded at JFK! None other than Aunt Bethany and the twins!

 Someone asked me if I had quadruplets. I was relieved to be able to tell her no. Four children is one thing, quads is a quite another.

Not pictured are the big smiles Daniel gave to Garrett.

The best shot I have of his W-shaped tongue pre-tongue tie clipping.

 This is the way we leave the house.

 It's a boat!

We are seriously going to miss this girl. Seriously.

running on fumes and autopilot

After the arrival of my first baby, time seemed to stand still. Now that I'm in the wake of the birth of my fourth baby, I find myself wishing that I would have taken more advantage of the slowed pace after Garrett was born.

Normal life this time around has, of necessity, resumed rather quickly. Daniel and I were only given ten days (granted, they were ten solid, filled-with-lots-of-help days) before we had to be on our feet and keeping up with the needs of the rest of the family. I'm now on the other end of my first week as a bona fide Mother of Four. Among the tasks that have kept me running, I handled two school pick ups each day, got Caleb to his OT and speech appointments, did laundry twice, registered Caleb for kindergarten, took everyone on a brief outing to the playground, packed away my maternity clothes (!), and took Daniel to his 2-week well check-up.

So real life is in full swing (see photo above), and we've managed. But I am exhausted, running on fumes and relying on autopilot. Which works fine until I do things like mix up Daniel's formula with only half the amount of powder required for the amount of water I used, not realizing I did so until an entire day later.(No wonder he was particularly fussy that day -- he was literally half-starved!) Oops.

Daniel's 2-week appointment was this morning. In the ten days since his first office visit*, when he was five days old, he has gained 11 ounces, which is right on target. Here are his current stats:

Weight: 8 lbs
Length: 21 inches

In the last ten days he also seems to have forgotten how to poop on his own, which has been painful for him and frustrating for me. We've dealt with this problem in all of our other children, and I know that with a little prodding from outside sources, it will resolve itself eventually, but in the meantime, it's made for a very fussy and uncomfortable baby who is really only happy when he's sleeping. While we wait for things to get moving, so to speak, we've found that tight swaddling and white noise seem to help calm him, as does the euphoria that comes after screaming through a warm bath.

 Awake and sad

Swaddled, sleeping and happy

At this appointment, we also addressed yet again the issue of tongue tie that he was born with. It's not disrupting his ability to eat (see the above 11 ounce weight gain), which, in addition to the fact that he's still so tiny, is why the doctor is hesitant to do anything about it immediately. But it has the potential to cause other problems down the road, including speech issues, so for now we will be keeping an eye on it. Caleb and Matthew, both of whom were also diagnosed with tongue tie as infants, were tagging along on this visit, and, since we were on the subject, and because it's been a recent concern of mine, I brought up Caleb's articulation issues and resulting need for speech therapy and my fear that Matthew's speech seems to developing the same problems, and asked for his opinion of what our next steps should be. He agreed that it was probably time to clip their frenulums, and we will likely be visiting an ENT this summer to get that taken care of. So stay tuned for some really fun times ahead in this regard.

While I am so, so glad to be at the end of Week 1 and looking at a 3-day weekend ahead, I haven't had to face these last several days alone. In the weeks both before and after Daniel's birth, we have received more help than we probably deserve from our ward family. From meals and help with school pick ups to visits, emails, and texts, we have been so well looked after, it's been a challenge to keep up with the thank you notes. But you know who you are, and if you're reading this, please know that we are eternally grateful for you and the love you've shown us. (Also, you'll get your official thank you note soon, I promise.)

The boys have also been very helpful. Aside from stepping up in his role as biggest brother and caring for his younger siblings, Garrett has often taken it upon himself to help keep our house clean. The other day (after a discussion in school about being a good citizen, which I'm sure helped prompt his actions) I woke up from a unplanned nap to find him dusting the living room and orchestrating other clean-up assignments for his brothers. Caleb is always retrieving Danny's two dollies (an elephant lovey and a little sock monkey) for him to hold when he's upset. And Matthew, who is as addicted as ever to his white cloths, is always making sure that Danny's burp cloths are accessible in case he, too, needs something to clutch when he's anxious. It's been sweet to watch each of them rise to the occasion, and gives me something to think fondly on when they're fighting with each other.

Mesmerized by white noise.

And now, what I intended to be a short update has turned into something more rambling -- a sure sign that I should be taking advantage of Daniel's nap by lying down myself rather than sitting at the computer. Sigh. It's just as well, though: that baby has a habit of waking up as soon as my head hits a pillow. ;)

_____
*Matthew had his 2-year well check-up at that same visit. He's growing just fine and doing everything a 2-year-old should. Here are his measurements:

Weight: 27 lbs
Height: 33.5 inches