Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Time to Fly

We leave today.  Holy smokes, we have been planning this trip for 4 months and now it is here.  And I may or may not be just quite ready yet.  In fact, this morning I have to haul 5 kids to a couple of stores and get all the last minute things I should have gotten yesterday.

On a side note, I was talking with a girlfriend the other day who faces the same problem when flying- once on the airplane and before take off, I absolutely must, and I mean must, go to the bathroom.  Even if I just went 2 minutes before boarding.  It is seriously a Pavlovian response, I get into that plane, I know we will have to sit strapped down until we level out at our flying height, and this can sometimes take awhile.  Plus if you have bad timing and get stuck behind the drink cart you could wait forever.

Dumb, I know, but so unfortunately true.

Chris packed last night.  That's how he rolls.  He packs at the very last minute.  I don't know how he can do that- pack in one night and be just fine with it.  I start packing like a week in advance, more if I am going somewhere really far away or to a third world country.

And, I am slightly ashamed to admit that my kids have watched a lot of PBS while I have figured out what I needed and cleaned my house since my in laws will be living here for the next 11 days.  I sincerely hope my children don't drive them insane.  This morning I found Moyz hiding out in his room stuffing himself with a package of crackers he filched out of the pantry.  Kembia is going through a phase where if she doesn't get what she wants she will throw herself on the floor and cry, Truitt crawls all over the place, his favorite being the bathroom, royal yuck, and of course Ava and Owen spend a good chunk of time being annoyed and sassing one another.

Probably when I return the twins will be speaking in complete sentences, Truitt will have learned to walk, Ava will be shaving her armpits and Owen will be 5 feet tall.  I hate how grown up the kids always seem when you are gone for awhile.  Hate is maybe a strong word, but it just seems crazy that if you go away for a little bit you come back to kids who have miraculously aged.

Okay, I hear screaming and I really must finish all my crap....  I am going to try and have some posts done while I am gone if I can figure out how to do that!

Thursday, June 21, 2012

The Canoe Trip Cometh

So we leave for our 104 mile canoe trip in 5 days.  Let me remind the reader that I have canoed exactly 0 miles in the last 5 years.  I am going with the theory, once you ride a bike you can always ride a bike, only in canoe terms.

And for those of you who think I shouldn't tell people when we are leaving the home, don't worry, the 5 totally crazy, spastic, extremely loud and often annoying Nelson children will be here.  With their grandparents.  Who could probably kick most people's butts.

We're kind of a motley crew of people going.  Me, hubby, my dad, his sister and brother, and my mom's sister.  I know, it sounds a little weird to type it.  And I am afraid that my mom's sister may have misunderstood the type of camping we are doing.  I know this because I got an email last night from her wondering if the bathrooms would have a plug in to charge her cell phone, or perhaps at the campground.

Bwah, ha, ha.  (That's laughing with lots of snorting)  Um, I am not sure how to put it lightly, but there are no bathrooms.  The Montana DNR has very graciously installed a few out-houses along the way, but if you can't make it to those, then you will have to use the handy-dandy bucket toilet that each canoe is required to carry.  And actually the bucket toilet is a better alternative to what the DNR suggested making which involves PVC pipe and coffee filters.  I am totally dead serious.  We decided to spring for the bucket toilets instead of going #2 on a coffee filter and shoving it into a pipe.  Can you blame us?  Still, the whole idea of telling three canoes full of people to look the other way while you do your business is a little disconcerting.  It's a river, we can't exactly escape.  And hauling a bucket toilet onto shore and trying to hide doesn't sound like a thrilling alternative.

Ah, camping.  This trip is seriously not for whiners, or the average camper.  Most of my friends think roughing it involves a pop-up trailer hauled behind their car.  And seeing as we have to set up and take down camp every night, which includes hauling everything into our tens from our canoe so nothing gets wet/blown away, etc., it may perhaps be a little bit more work then what I was at first thinking.  Not to mention being stuck in a canoe for 8 days with hubby.  Whom I love dearly, but still, even I realize that 24 hours a day, eating tuna from a pouch and spending large amounts of time just doing things to survive may take its toll on our relationship.

Thus the canoe switch.  There is sort of an informal policy that we will all be spending time in each other's canoes.  For sanity purposes.  While we are all adults, has anyone spent 8 days straight, every waking moment and every sleeping moment with your significant other, or in the case of the others on the trip, with the same person?  Me neither.

Here is what I am bringing for clothes:

one pair of long pants
sweatshirt
2 t-shirts
pair of shorts
swimsuit
swimsuit cover up
clean underwear for every day

That's it.  For 8 days.  One thing I have learned from past more extreme excursions, is that people always bring way too many clothes. (I'm talking to you dear hubby)  And it's pretty useless.  You are gross and sweaty and never change as much as you think you are going to, so why have a giant load of laundry to do when 2 shirts will work?  Plus the Upper Missouri is a very silty river, and we wouldn't be washing clothes in it anyway.  Hence the need for clean underwear every day.  I am not even bringing shampoo because what is the point of cleaning your hair in a mud river?  (I don't know why this sentence is highlighted.  I have no recollection of doing that.)

I am more focused on collecting the things we need to stay alive- ways to start a fire, first aid kit stuff, things like that.  It is supposed to be an adventure after all.  Of course, if we were really serious about it we wouldn't even take food and just plan on "living of the land and river".  But if we did that, I am not sure we would all make it back out.  Plus, fish isn't exactly my favorite meal, and I am not sure how I would handle a week of it.

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Owen

I would love to get a sneak peek inside Owen's brain.  I think it functions on a whole different level then most people's.

Yesterday as I was heading out to get the mail I overhead Ava telling him he had to eat his pepperoni pizza before he had grapes because all he had eaten was broccoli.  To which he replied "That's because I'm a herbivore."

For real.  Because he's a herbivore.

I can pretty much guarantee that I wasn't using words like herbivore when I was 5.  That kid never ceases to amaze me.

Monday, June 18, 2012

I pierced my nose

Yep, that's right.  After 10 years (seriously) of wanting to pierce my nose I finally did it.  I had some birthday money, and I figured I probably should do it now rather than later so people don't think I am having a mid-life crisis if I do it when I am 40.

And my friends swear up and down that I can "pull it off".  So here it is:


If you look really close on my left nostril you can see it.  If you click on the picture and make it bigger you can also see it much better.  My mom called me a "d*** hippy".  Off to a good start I guess.

Ava and the kids love it.  Chris thinks it's not too bad either.  I think he might have been envisioning a giant gold hoop or something along that nature.

Everyone asks how they do it, so in case you don't have one of your own, it's like this:

1. They clean the area
2. Make you smile as big as you can to help determine the placement of it
3. You confirm you like where they are going to put it, and they mark it with a marker
4. You lay down on a table, and they stick a stopper piece up your nose
5. You take in a big breath and then they literally jam a hole in your nose that's stops at the stopper piece
6. Insert earring and off you go

I have to clean it with sea-salt water a couple of times a day.  It hurts just a little bit, although a lot if it gets bumped, and although you can't see it really in the picture, is red in the area around it.  It will take around 3 months to heal.  A lot longer then I would have imagined.

My only thought is that I wish I would have done it sooner.  I put it off for various reasons, didn't want to do it when I was pregnant, didn't want to spend the money when trying to adopt, things of that nature.  But I am glad I finally bit the bullet!


Thursday, June 14, 2012

Where oh where are the babies?

Since I am sort of on a confession role, I have another one.  There is almost always once a day, often times more, a moment where I cannot account for all of the babies.  I don't see them all, and I don't hear them all.  It's when I don't hear them that I get a little panicky.  Those midgets can get into so much trouble.

Today I couldn't find Moyz.  Kembia was napping, and Truitt was playing by the front door and the closet door.  I ran around into all of the upstairs rooms and nothing.  The door to the basement was closed so I know he didn't go down there and both of our outside doors were deadbolted so he hadn't snuck outside, something he loves to do with an alarmingly increasing pace.

And then I heard this noise coming from the front closet.  The one where Truitt had been playing.  Sure enough, I opened it up and lo and behold there was Moyz.  He must have gone inside and then his little brother decided to just finish the job and close it after him.

Hmm.  I wonder how Truitt really feels about him?  I'm thinking it may be recompense for when Moyz head-butted him while we were waiting in the teeny tiny waiting room of Tires Plus to get our tires rotated.

And just for fun, here's a picture of the little stinker after he ate an oreo.  I think it was a hit.


Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Confessions of a Mother of 5

I am quickly learning that the more kids you have the lower your standards get.  Here is a list for your enjoyment.

PS- It's all true

1. Truitt has 6 pacifiers, I know where 2 of them are.  I am buying more today because it easier to buy them then find them in our house.

2. I consider pool and sprinkler time equivalent to a bath.

3. We brush their teeth only a couple times a week.  It's a major fight.  So I am saving it for when I can reason with them.  Which will probably be in a couple years. And if they get cavities, well that's what adult teeth are for.

4.  I have squeezed Moyz's butt into a size 4 (he's a 6) and wrapped Truitt up in a 6 which is like a blanket for him because I was too lazy to go and find the right size diaper.

5. On days when my kids have eaten nothing but crackers and bread I tell myself it's okay because they take a multi-vitamin.

6. I paint my boys' toenails.  They love it, and I feel bad that there are 8 million pretty colors for girls and they get zero.  It drives Chris crazy.  Also part of why I do it.

7. Kembia has about 12 pairs of size 5 shoes.  She's a 4 and has exactly one pair of size 4s.  I refuse to buy any more and am instead waiting for her feet to grow because I can't justify buying shoes when she has so many in the next size.

8. I keep buying Owen shirts at garage sales (fancy ones that we could never afford otherwise) because I felt like he didn't have any clothes, only to discover he now has 34 t-shirts.

9. I use Public Television to regain my sanity.  I love that Word World.  I would probably watch it if there were no kids home with me.

10. Two weeks ago I watched the entire season of Once Upon A Time in a week-  twenty-two episodes.  I am not 100% sure what my kids did during that time.  But hey, they are alive and not injured, good enough in my book!


Monday, June 11, 2012

Attachment needs or typical toddler behavior?

This past weekend we went up to Chris' parents house.  With all of his family.  There was a lot of us.  And due to people logistics, we couldn't sleep close together.  Moyz got the laundry room, and Kembia the space under the stairs.

When I placed Moyz in his pack n' play and walked away he went ballistic.  I mean the kind of frantic screaming I haven't heard in quite awhile.  I immediately went back in to calm him down and lay him down again and whisper nice things to him.  The minute I walked away the screaming again.  He climbed out of the pack n' play and fell onto the cement floor.  After about 5 minutes of soothing/going back in, I decided to let him scream it out.

It was kind of a big moment for me.  We have let him scream it out at home, but this was in a much more unfamiliar place with a lot of people that he knows, but doesn't necessarily see regularly.  I went upstairs and was talking with my sister in law and trying to ignore his pleading cries.

Of course all sorts of terrible attachment stuff was going through my brain- I was setting him back to when we first got home, he was going to feel abandoned, he would mentally change and start peeing/pooping on the walls because he couldn't handle family.  Basically the worst-case attachment scenarios I had read all about were running through my mind.

And then he fell asleep.

The next day, normal as ever.  No changes in behavior, nothing.  Just my sweet, crazy energy little boy.  It was a good moment for me.  He's come a long way.

Friday, June 8, 2012

Adoption Tax Refund Update

Not much to update actually.  I just called today to see where we are in the scheme of things.  And they have not looked at our file yet.

Timeline:

March 1 sent in taxes
Late March got letter stating they needed all info. again
Sent in all sorts of paperwork
April 18 they registered our new paperwork
Now we wait for them to review it and hope and pray that they don't ask for more information.

Bummer.  They also said there was nothing they could do to expedite it unless we were in a financial hardship.  They said to call back July 1st and see where it is.  If they haven't even looked at it by then I think I may consider calling a tax advocate.  That would be 5 months that they have had our file and still nothing.  Seems like an adequate amount of time to me.


Thursday, June 7, 2012

Moyz's New Hair

Moyz's hair is still filling in.  The curls that he did have were long, although you couldn't really tell until you pulled them out.  Then they were several inches.  We thought maybe we would try to loc his hair, but he still had a lot of sparse spots, so we decided to go for the big buzz.



At first I was almost in shock how different he looked.  How soooo much older he looks.  Holy cow!  Where did my babies go?!  Look at these two- they aren't even two years old yet.  And I am sad to say, not looking one ounce like a little kid any more.  Man they've come a long way.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

My New World Map

I have been wanting a kick-butt world map.  Yesterday I went on to etsy.  That etsy is a dangerous place.  But I found this beauty.

Watercolor Map of the World Map, Art Print, 24x36 inch (687)

Isn't it gorgeous?  It's done by a young guy in England.  I ordered it in a 3 foot by 5 foot size, and I plan on hanging it in my kitchen.  But first, I have to paint all the walls black, and then one of the walls will have black and white stripes.  Add this awesome map and lots of white and colorful accents and I think it's going to rock the house.

Of course, I may have to change the cupboards from black to white, and that's always a lot of work, but we'll see.

The bigger problem is how I am going to do all of this painting with all my babies?

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Detachment Parenting

For all of us Attachment Parenting parents, thought you would appreciate this article.  I got a good laugh out of it!  And some things may or may not be true in this house!

http://moms.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/18/11748100-the-latest-child-rearing-fad-detachment-parenting?lite


Monday, June 4, 2012

Pink and Black Braids

I have a friend who's daughters have braids with colored yarn in them.  It looks so stinking adorable I had to do it with Kembia.  Well, we started last night, and then will finish today.  Here's the pic half way through.  Notice that she is in Moyz's jammies, and you can see Truitt in Kembia's pink jammies.  Moyz has no jammies on, that's because he peed in them.  But the other two, I feel a little bad about putting a girl in boys jammies and  vice versa, but if I can't find their's when I am looking I just grab the first one I see.  It will probably give them a complex of some sort, but that's just part of growing up.


I have to admit I am not sure how I feel about them.  She is super cute in braids, but colored braids make her seem a lot older.  She's not even 2 yet, and she has colored hair!  I envision later rebellion where she comes home with a colored fro.  And now Ava has hair envy and has requested yarn braids with color as well.

Plus, this morning Ava came up with some tattoos and asked if she could put it between her shoulder blades.  When pressed for the reason, she said "because that is where you have yours".  In the end, they were iron ons, and not tattoos so she had to go without.

What am I setting myself up for?!

Friday, June 1, 2012

Nail Polish

Miss Kembia was sitting oh-so-sweetly on the couch watching tv.   I should have known better.

When I walked over I discovered that she had found a bottle of nail polish.  You know where this is going.

She painted her fingers, and toes and feet and hands and stomach.  And the couch.

Good thing she's cute.