I was also feeling sentimental, so I sent Austin’s birth mom a text message thanking her for allowing me to be his mommy. She called me right back and we talked for about 30 minutes. It was nice to hear that she had no regrets, I have always worried she consented to the adoption out of desperation, and not because she truly wanted the best for him.

On Sunday, Austin turned 15. This is why I did Mother’s Day early. I knew he would make a fuss about it, and I didn’t want anything to distract him from his birthday. The little stinker still did, he made me breakfast in bed, and made eggs and bacon for the little ones. For his birthday dinner, he wanted me to make him BBQ Ribs on the grill. I also made corn bread and green beans. It was delicious. He played with his friends most of the day, he literally came home when the street lights came on. It was glorious. Our gift was delivered on Monday, a trampoline! The “t” was partially obscured on the package, so now the kids call it “the rampoline”.

For three days Austin and I built the rampoline together. Christopher helped keep the little three busy. I may or may not have taught Austin some new words as we stretched springs, and pulled safety nets tight. On the first day, I took a break for dinner, and just when I was about to put the last 5 of 8 safety net poles up, I asked Austin “do you smell something chemically??” He looked downstairs, and I looked in my bathroom, and I do believe my head exploded. That is a full bottle of deep purple nail polish, and some bare minerals face powder. I scrubbed on that thing for probably 6 hours (I was up until 3am) and I managed to lighten it to a lilac color, but it didn’t come out. I will need to replace the carpet in my bathroom. Right now it is half vinyl, half carpet, and I am hoping our landlord will let us rip out all the flooring in the bathroom and replace it with coordinating vinyl.
Liam is growing so fast, too fast. His new name is Mr. Grabbyhands. He has learned how to play with the toys on his bouncer to activate music. He has also learned how to make mama yelp in pain by grabbing onto a huge handful of hair and yanking really hard. He also can roll from his belly to his back, and most recently his back to his belly.

It is hard to believe my little man is already 3 months old (as of yesterday). He’s turning into a baby right in front of my eyes as some of his infant traits melt away. For instance, he rarely has evenings where he cries for no apparent reason from 9pm-10pm anymore. He also smiles, coos, and laughs now. He still has some more work to do on his head control, but he does well with holding it up, he’s just wobbly still. He also sleeps through the night very well, most nights for 7-9 hours at a time. If only I could get myself to lay down when he does, life would be near perfect.

He’s a pretty happy baby, at Matthew’s kindergarten teacher-conference yesterday, every time she would go into teacher mode when she read along with Matthew, he would start laughing. Something about her speech pattern just cracked him up. He’s pretty awesome about allowing anyone to hold him too. I remember Matthew & Sophie having a pretty healthy dose of stranger anxiety at this age, but not Christopher or Liam!

Oh dear Sophie, this girl is Drah-mah! She only naps about half of the time we lay her down, and then sometimes she will fight and by dinner time she is so exhausted we find her like this. Yes, that is my coffee table. We are still working on potty training, and it is so hit or miss. She still won’t poop on the potty, and today she peed on the potty. No “atta girl’s” here… I mean she peed ON the potty, as in panties up, onto the toilet lid. Don’t laugh. Okay, go ahead and laugh; I did. But don’t laugh in front of her.

Aren’t my boys cute?? Austin loves his baby brother. In case you are wondering, that is a road rash on Austin’s face. He ate the pavement with his face while riding his bike two months ago. Poor boy has his father’s bravado, combined with my grace. This totally explains why he has a major accident every other year starting in Kindergarten.

Quickies:

Liam is 2 months old today, he had a well baby exam and was 13 lbs. 3 oz shy of a 6 pound weight gain. Over 6 pounds if you count his lowest weight, he’s also gained 3 inches. Pretty awesome if you figure he’s gained 3 inches in 2 months and the average is 2 inches. The average weight gain is 5-7oz a week and he averages 11.6 a week.

Dude– I’m never getting another Dell. Christopher’s charger for his Alienware broke. 4 months of light use, we are talking probably 20 times of unplugging/plugging. It is a BAD design, think of a thin copper wire, like maybe the size of a .7mm pencil lead, housed inside a plug as big around as a pencil with the eraser pulled out. I was told that they would not honor my warranty because if it broke, it was “abuse”. BS! Got an aftermarket charger on eBay, no way is Dell getting $80 from me for a new cord.

Dyson, ROCKS. I love them! Their customer service is top notch. I called to order a new cover for brush, a thin piece melted or broke off. They are sending an entire brush mount, a $110 retail part, for free, on a 1 1/2 yr old vacuum. No questions asked. So now my raves for customer service are Apple, Comcast, Dyson, Verizon, Automated Petcare Products (Litter Robot), and of course USAA.

Austin was holding Liam last week and said “I LOVE it when his face turns colors, it is so red”. I said “yes honey, that is because he’s pooping”. His eyes got big, his face got red and he said “oh god no!!” and passes him back to me. Funny boy!

Sophia is totally potty trained, and we ventured out into public today without any accidents. Still no poop success, and we have not braved overnight yet.

Matthew got this ‘stache from a birthday party yesterday, I had to tell him to take it off to go to bed, he wanted to keep it on. I told him he looks like a young Burt Reynolds, but he didn’t get the reference, so I called him Baby Earl from the TV showMy Name is Earl. All day I was saying “my name is Matt”.

Christopher has been an absolute joy this week. He’s finally been allowed to get a Facebook page and has been absolutely superb at getting his chores done without being told.

I started writing this post 7 hours ago. I kept getting interrupted.

Crib is gone, binkies are gone, day time diapers are gone. I just hope she does not regress when Daddy goes overseas.

Next week we will be driving home to WA state to go spend time with my family for 3-4 weeks, and then we will come home in time for Bobby to come home on leave for 3 weeks. We are planning a huge surprise family vacation, but I am not saying where until the airplane tickets are purchased and the vacation home rented. The kids start back at school 2 days before Bobby heads back to Iraq.

The years flew by with so many unforgettable memories. Him calling me mom for the first time. Him wrapping his arms around me and telling me he loves me. First day of Kindergarten, losing his first tooth, riding his first airplane, riding on the back of my dad’s Harley and then telling me he did not even hold on half the time. His personality started coming out more and more and I adored the little person he was turning into. He is compassionate, caring, funny, smart, but at the same time so blond. I just cannot believe what a change he has made with his life… he was once such a mouthy, angry child. I remember him telling Christopher how much he hated him and getting into fights at school. I remember him hitting me in the face and acting out so terribly that we were concerned about his mental health.

Then he blossomed. Slowly, beautifully, like a flower in the morning dew. He let the sunshine into his heart and it spread! His joy and happiness was contagious, everyone he met loved him. His teachers raved about how much compassion he had for his friends. Last year, the school acknowledged all his marvelous traits when they recognized him for the great kid he is when he made student of the year. I cried, oh how I cried. I cried because he did not start out this way and build to this great kid. He worked hard, twice as hard to get to this place. He started out at a -100 and worked his butt off to be a +100. He overcame so much to get where he is now.

He is such a funny little boy. This morning he went back to school after missing 3 days of school this week due to illness. When we pulled up he said “ohhh, this place looks familiar, but I can’t place it… I think I was here a LONG time ago”. Funny, funny boy!

Sophie is sick with a fever and a cold. It started with a low grade fever on Tuesday and by Wednesday morning it was up to 103.5 and she had me up all night long. She is still a little warm today, but she does not seem so dependent on Motrin or Tylenol. I keep expecting to see teeth or chicken pox appearing, but so far neither one seems to be coming.

Matthew started preschool on Wednesday, so Sophie and I were able to rest while he was away. He goes 3 days a week for 6 hours a day and he LOVES it. I really struggled with the decision between a home daycare where they center around play-learning or an actual academic preschool. Both have up sides and down sides, but in the end I really liked the teacher, philosophy, price and convenience of the home based daycare near my home. He is only around two other kids who are 2 and 3 years younger than he is, but he does not seem to mind. I also like that he is exposed to less germs. I was hoping she would have another four-year-old or two, but he does not seem to mind at all.

Having only one child here for 18 hours a week clears up my schedule when Sophie naps to get much needed projects done. Part of my frustration was the clothing situation we are having. Matthew was pulling all his clothes out of his dressers to find one shirt, and when he and his brothers cleaned his room, those clean clothes ended up in the hampers and I had Mount Washmore climbing to scary heights. I felt overrun by laundry and was ready just to institute a burlap sack uniform policy. I decided the only reasonable thing to do was to move all his clothes into my room into Bobby’s dresser. However then I had to decide what to do with Bobby’s clothes. I ended up hanging up all his clothing, to include his jeans. It was actually sadder than I thought. I felt like I was “moving on”, when in reality he is just overseas, not gone.

With Matthew’s dresser now empty, I decided to use if for Sophia’s clothing and then I moved all her diapers off the top of his dresser and into her old dresser. The room looks a lot more orderly now. We will see in time how this arrangement works.

The older two kids have been busy this week with state standardized testing. Austin is done and Christopher has another week left, but I think they are both feeling pretty sick of those stupid tests.

I braved the post office this week when I mailed off a 17 lb box to Bobby, it took me 45 minutes of standing in line to get it mailed out, but I needed to take a helper and I knew that would mean going at a busy time of the day.

Today I am feeling like a drill sergeant, the kids have overrun the house with their toys and messes and enough was enough. It was time to take control of the situation and put them to work cleaning up toys, their bedrooms, and all their other little messes. I still have to go through the house and clean up all the little hot spots that they have gathered on tables and the kitchen could use a good scrub down. All the floors need attention from a vacuum or mop too.

Last night I had my first bad night since Bobby left. It was the first time I REALLY started missing him. I mean I miss him every day, but we also talk, email, and chat daily. It has been almost four days since we have talked, which is the longest we have gone without talking since he left in January for training or February to Iraq.

Matthew is also having a hard time, he went from only 2 or 3 accidents at night a month, or 4 or 5 or more accidents a night a week since he left. I forgot to bring it up with the doctor on Wednesday at his physical to rule out anything medical. I am also having other issues with Matthew and Christopher both that I won’t be bringing up on here to protect their privacy and keep from embarrassing them later in life.

I guess we all deal with changes differently, and we all have our good days and our bad days, all our trials and triumphs and in the end we will find our own ways to work through it all and be stronger for it.

Sophie started crawling for real yesterday… Didn’t she just start creeping???

Speaking of the kiddo in diapers… baby girl rolled over from back to belly, and then belly to back this morning. This is a day for milestones indeed!

Or, like my children, they use all of the above at one time or another. Last night, Matthew used them all, except when I was scraping aftershave out of my heating vents and scrubbing lipstick off his cheek I did not notice his new hairstyle.

This morning it became a little more apparent

So after Austin’s trip to Best Buy to spend his money he has been saving since Christmas, I dropped off Bobby and the kids and took Matthew to get his hair cut for the second time this week. The after looks almost as bad as the first because there is only so much you can do to fix someone else’s mistake.

As soon as he was finished with his haircut he ran behind the counter and said “I need a lollypop” and he had it in his mouth before I could even say no. Ugh.

My only solace is that DH is taking our oldest to school, so I don’t have to get out of my pajamas. I need whatever comfort I can get so not dragging out the two year old, scraping frost off my windshield to drive him to school is the best thing I could have asked for.

Don’t get me started on the middle son though…. the boy is on my last nerve. I have been wondering how it takes my oldest two boys to get ready to school when the oldest has 1 1/2 – 2 hours to get ready for school, and the middle child has 2 hours to get ready. Yes, they have chores in the morning (make sure the dishwasher is loaded, should have been done after dinner so that is a cinch, get the clothes out of the dryer and start a new load in the wash, pick up your messes, and get yourself showered, dressed, eat breakfast, brush your hair & teeth). NOTHING that should take more than an hour. Apparently my middle son thinks it should take 45 minutes to be dressed up to his underwear. When I finally gave up trying to sleep, and got up because I was sick of hearing him yell through the house, I got up to find he had showered for 15 minutes (no biggie) and then done nothing but stand around in nothing more than his underwear for the next 30 minutes. I am not sure how I can get that boy motivated without breathing down his neck for 2 hours each morning, which just is not feasible with my lack of sleep lately.

On a better and brighter note, I am 12 weeks today! The baby is starting to look more human, and I am *supposed* to start feeling more human soon, but I will just watch and wait to see if my morning sickness gets the hint that it is time to hit the road. I am going to go out on a limb here and say either I am carrying a girl (since I have 2x as much morning sickness than I did my other two pregnancies combined) OR this is another baby boy trying to guarantee he is last baby we have (which was always the plan anyways). Either way, I will be happy, as I truly just want a healthy baby. Don’t tell Matthew this, as he insists this is his “baby sister”, he gets angry anytime I even suggest it could be a baby brother.

Please someone tell my 2 year old that mama REALLY needs him to take a nap today, so she can try to nap herself. This nap strike he is on is about to drive me batty!

“Mommy, boo pwease”? I love when they start talking!! At the rate Matthew is going, I hope he does not need intervention like his brothers did.

We got Matthew’s hair cut!

We have been meaning to get it cut for weeks now, but we kept putting it off. Finally I just said “get in the car, we are going NOW”.

He was not too thrilled about it, but there were no tears, or grumbling, just wiggling and a lot of signing and saying “help”.

I was impressed how well he did, even when she pulled out the clippers to shave the back of his neck.

Afterwards we celebrated by getting Korean food at a REALLY good restaurant here in town, and then got him his own cup of ice cream on the way home.

And yes, I even cut the back.

Terri asked me how I felt about it earlier. Yes, it looks good, and I do like it… but I am also very sad. I have always loved the long soft downy locks of hair, and I do think the long hair was so cute… but it was time. He feels so much older to me now, and I miss being able to hold him against my chest and put my fingers through his hair at night when he was sleepy… but it was time. My 22 month old baby seems one step closer to being a two year old toddler.