Like Riding a Bike

Maddex is one month old today!  Now that the kids are older I don't remember what it was like when they were babies.  But surprisingly, it's kind of been like riding a bike.  It's all coming back to me now. I had forgotten...
-how tiny the diapers are
-how soft the bottom of a baby's foot is
-that funny thing they do with their toes when you push on their feet
-babies are slippery when wet
-crusty eyes, flakey skin and baby acne
-how explosive the poop sounds only to leave you wondering if the clothes made it or not
-being pleasantly surprised they did make it and it wasn't as much as it sounded
-changing the poop only to find out they're not done and you are the one who's not gonna make it
-getting spit up on and deciding what the limit is before changing shirts
-the types of spit up:  projectile, curdled milk, semi-curled and milk drool
-trying to wake them up and they sleep through anything
-trying to get them to sleep and the smallest thing will wake them up...a cruel irony
-how night feedings last a lot longer than during the day due to the fact that I'm falling asleep
-waking up during the night feeding and looking at the clock to see that I've had my head hanging down for the past 18 minutes
-the crick in my neck that follows
-being whacked in the cheekbone by their bobble head
-their eyes start to cross when focusing
-their eyes roll back and flutter when they sleep
-smiling and laughing in their sleep
-trying so hard to make them smile and just getting a blank stare in return
-getting excited that they smiled at me only to get let down when there's a poop or spit up to follow, it was just another gassy fluke
-rocking them in the rocking chair and putting myself to sleep instead
-how hard it is to get their little arms through long sleeves
-having to plan 20 minutes ahead before going anywhere to get a good feeding in
-secretly hoping that while I'm out they'll sleep the whole time
-nap when they are napping, otherwise they will make you pay for it later...which I will since I'm using the kids' nap time for my computer time

So here's to next month when I will hopefully get a REAL smile.

  

All Grown Up

The past 3 weeks have flown by and I've realized something...my babies are all growing up!  Am I blubbering about this?  No.  In fact, I couldn't be happier.

After waiting and waiting, Ella has FINALLY  lost her first tooth.  She's been anticipating this for over a year now and over the weekend, she was lucky enough to lose two (and by lose I mean Brian yanked them out).

With her 'shark teeth' growing in behind it was just time for those bottom teeth to go.  It's kind of funny not having a gap there since the others are pretty much fully grown in behind.

I asked her what she thought about the tooth fairy.  She said she believed.  I said "Really? Why?"  Her response was, "I just do."  I wasn't really wanting to do the tooth fairy thing.  But she said that she didn't want the tooth fairy to take her teeth and she wanted to keep them.  So the tooth fairy can pocket the money, Ella's not interested.  Works for me.

Meet Mr. Mom.  He's my no. #1 babysitter helper.  If Maddex needs tending to, he's right there.  Brian got the shun a few days ago.  Maddex was crying and Aiden whips in the room and dismissed Brian saying "I'll handle this."

 
Riley got a double whammy this week too.  Last week she got her ears pierced!  We decided that we would wait until the girls asked for it.  Ella was 4 when she wanted hers, but Riley's been asking for months.  I was going to wait until her 3rd birthday, but Christmas works too!  Riley also started booty camp (potty training) today.  I was waiting until Maddex was here to start, but now I've finally run out of reasons to put it off.  Maybe she'll make this easy for me.  So far so good!  

Maddex is weighing in at almost 11 pounds.  She's holding her head up and actually staying awake for about 4 hours a day!  I'd like to see her walking and talking by next week, but then Riley would have to find a new baby doll to play with.

Week One

Well, I've managed to survive my first week with four kids.  Although, we are still in the 'sleep all day' phase, so I'm sure it'll get trickier once Maddex keeps her eyes open longer than ten seconds. 

I saw a lady in the grocery store on Saturday and she had four kids trailing behind her.  I thought to myself, that's a lot of kids, then backed that thought up with, Hey, hang on a sec, that's me!  Filter, party of six.  What???  This is all so surreal, and yet normal at the same time.

The kids have been great.  It's like nothing has changed except now there's a baby around.  I think that Aiden has been the most excited though.  Surprising.  He genuinely adores and loves her.  He has also nicknamed me 'The Milk Machine'.  It's got a nice little ring to it, don't you think?  If you want to traumatize your children here's 2 ways to do it:  Step 1-Let them watch you pump  Step 2-Try to explain.  This whole baby process is probably really confusing for them.  Good thing I've made it nice and clear.

Baby 101 (as understood by Aiden)
Where do babies come from?
Mommy gobbled her up and swallowed her.

How do babies get out?
Here, watch this video and it'll all make sense...Greenville Zoo's Baby Kiko

Why is mommy's belly a little sore?
Because Maddex kept doing gymnastics in my belly. You know how your muscles get tired from doing gymnastics?  It's like that.

How does the milk come out?
Because I'm like a cow.  And a robot.  I'm RoboCow.

Yep, nice and clear.  Hopefully he's young enough to not remember block this out of his memories.  I think I'm well on my way to him seeking out therapy when he's older.  Hey, if he was looking for medical answers, he should have gone to Brian.  Let's just hope he doesn't come to me when it comes to 'the talk'.

I'm confident in saying that we're definitely done here.  I won't change my mind.  So I bid my pregnant self adieu.  You were good to me, easy even, but I will not miss you.  Don't take it personally, it was you, not me.

And Then There Were Four

Finally!!  A baby!!  To make a short story short, labor started at 11:01 pm Saturday night (I know this because I was folding laundry and looking at the time debating if it was really worth it).  Finally decided it was the real thing about 30 minutes later, told Brian I was in labor, called my dad to come stay with the kids and we got to the hospital around 12:30 am.   I measured in at 7cm dilated and we got sent to our room.  My water broke at 1:24 am and at 1:53am Sunday morning she was born!!  I'd also like to add that her daddy delivered her, which we think is actually pretty cool.  I'm still trying to figure out why the nurses left after my water breaking, but they did, so it was just the two of us in the room.  Brian had just got done asking me "So how do you know when you're supposed to push?"  And with the next contraction (in my stupor of being 'in the zone') all I could mutter was "Brian..."  He saw her crowning, ran out and said something along the lines of We're having a baby in here! and next thing I know nurses are scurrying around me trying to snap on their gloves saying "Don't push!" (Like I haven't heard that one before, don't push?  Really??) but Brian had already caught her.  Job well done, Dr. Filter.  Guess we could have had that home birth after all... 

So here she is!  Maddex Elise Filter.  Weighing in at 9 lbs 6 oz.  I'm a little reluctant to put up the 'fresh out of the shoot' pictures because now that we're home and she's almost 24 hrs old, she's already looking better.  And by better I mean not all smooch faced and just born looking.  But it is what it is, so here's the good, the bad, and the, well...newborn.

  

I have only one comment about this:  I look tired.  But then again, it is 2 o'clock in the morning and all I wanted to do was take a shower.  On the other hand, check out those rosy lips!

 The kids came up to meet her later that morning around 10.  A prize goes to anybody who can correctly guess the number of times Ella says "She's sooo cute!"  If you want to indulge yourself into 5 minutes of our day, knock yourself out.  If not, these pictures of the kids should suffice:)

 

We got home around lunchtime today (Monday)...I harassed them enough to get me out early.  I'm looking forward to being in my own bed.  How about a good night kiss?

Oh, right, who am I kidding...I have a baby and I want to what?  Sleep?

 

The Room and The Name

I'm finally getting around to the baby room pictures!  I've been done for a while, but my focus turned to sleeping and sleeping and oh yeah, sleeping.  Seems that my nesting has kicked in today though and with only 2 weeks to go, I'd say it's a good thing.  Just this morning I cleaned the garage, the van and washed the car seat.  Aside from hanging pictures in our bedroom, I've officially run out of house to do.  You would never know we've only been here since August.  So, onto the baby room...

We decided to go a little funky with the colors.  Red, yellow and turquoise.  Seemed like a good idea at the time, except NOTHING baby comes in those colors!  Good thing I can sew.  I searched high and low for a yellow changing pad cover only to find the soft buttery color.  I finally broke down and got a towel from Target and made one myself.  Take that generic baby colors!  I loved making the bean bag.  Riley and Aiden helped too.  I let Aiden use the presser foot on the sewing machine and well, let's just say he thought he was rather cool.  They also helped with the beans (whenever I'm at a yard sale or Goodwill and there's a bean bag for a couple of dollars, I'll snag it.  It just seems to be one of those things that are nice to have on stand by for projects such as this).  I was naive to think that I could contain the beans.  They kept saying it was snow.  Southern children are deprived of actual snow.  Guess this is the next best thing. 

The bookcase I got at a thrift store for $8.  It was stained and white.  Thanks to a little color matching at Lowe's and leftover fabric from the beanbag it recovered nicely.  The typography I made/stole from this lady.  I tweaked her version and made ones of my own.  I've been asked about the flashcards.  I'll admit, I saw them on another blog and after that I was bound and determined that I had to have them too.  I'll spare you the search...they're called My Favorite Things Flash Cards, purchased on Amazon for $7.

So why the M E F flashcards??  We changed her name.  In our initial Baby No. 4 announcement, we had decided on the name Natalie.  On July 4, while watching fireworks, Brian and I decided we didn't like it anymore and to just start over.  By this time we knew we were having a girl, but our discussion went back to boy.  Brian was still hung up on his all time fav boy name, Maddox, which I have vetoed MANY times.  Then something inside me stirred and I said "What if we use it as a girl's name?"  And from then on, her new name is...

 

We realize that it's different, but confident she'll be cool enough to pull it off:)  Just wait, in a couple of years it'll be on the top baby girl name list.  As it stands now, it hasn't been used as a girls name since 2006.  I'm sure she'll get deemed the nickname 'Maddie' somewhere down the road.  We've come to terms with it.  But I think it's safe to say she'll be the only Maddex in her class. 

Dirt and White Paint

For the past few weeks I've been working on getting the house put together, but I find myself only motivated to do the baby room.  Go figure.  I've been having to wait for Brian to help me on the weekends with painting.  We're using the same crib that all the kids have slept in and an old dresser that's been in the family forever.  I'm kind of over all of the wood, so I decided I wanted them white.  This makes complete sense because with four kids, it's the obvious color choice, right?  It will stay blemish free I'm sure!  So while I worked in the garage to get ready for a yard sale and Brian painted, the kids did a great job of entertaining themselves...

  

 

Why am I going with white again?  Final pictures of the baby room soon!  So far I'm really loving it.  I've only got two projects left...

School Girl

Well, Ella started kindergarten today! 

I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked to (they kind of shooed us at the door), but I was able to put a little something together none the less.  The video is pretty grainy full screen, must have been all the converting.  

CLICK HERE to watch on YouTube

She loved it!  I knew she would.  She was even excited about doing her homework too.  And I'd like to go on record saying No, I didn't cry...

Boys Will Be Boys

Sunday afternoon and what are the boys out doing?  Playing with bows and arrows, of course.  I love Aiden's expressions.  Now that's what I call some serious archery.

 

 

 

Happy Sunday!