blahblahblahBABY

Man oh man, I am the queen of blog neglect. Sometimes I think I should just shut this place down, it started as a place to write down everyday things about my kids and my life (let's face it, for now, my kids are my life) so that I would remember them. Things that had no place in the baby book would go here.

Except I'm one of those weird people who are obsessive about the baby book. DO NOT mess with my babies books. Every single child of mine has three books. The First Year "Baby Book", and the Toddler years (2 & 3) Book are filled out in minute detail the day something eventful happens, like potty training success and talking. Then we have the childhood book, a book chronicling the big achievements until they turn 10. Every other mother I know has given up long ago on filling the baby books with cute anecdotes and important dates, and yet all five of my children have up-to-date books. Do not ask me how, it's a mystery to everyone.

This brings me to an announcement.

Helena Joan Louisa J. 

6 pounds 4 ounces 

20 inches 

August 16th 2011 

She's a little girl who knows what she wants, she didn't give me any indication that she was ready to be born and then she decided she would like to come out RIGHT NOW. One hour and seventeen minutes of labor. I had been to the OBGYN that afternoon and I wasn't effaced, dilated, nothing. I picked up the kids from their various schools, felt labour pains, and decided to drive 5 minutes to pick up Nick at work. He drove us all home, he evacuated the car or children and their things, grabbed our baby bag and infant seat, and went to the hospital. She was delivered seventeen minutes later, much to everyone else's surprise. My water never even broke, she was born en-caul. 

So we had another baby. We sent Theo into second grade, Sera into first grade, and Pippa and Viv into preschool. We've been getting the kids settled into their school schedules and various after school activities, of which there are many. We put Theo in Hockey again, Sera in figure skating again, and Pippa and Viv in CanSkate. Thankfully that's all on Thursday night, in the same place, at close but not too close times, so we get it over with all at once. We've also got all four kids in different levels of swimming and soccer. Have you ever tried to monitor 4 different children in two different pools at the same time, while comforting a squirmy baby? That's my Tuesday night. Nick takes the kids to soccer on the weekend and he usually takes the baby with him to pass around to the various baby-crazy moms, giving me a morning free of all children. He's a saint. We've also got the girls in ballet classes and Theo in baseball. Life is hectic. 

We're busier than ever because we've found that the kids all do better with structured activities during the week, keeping them busy and tired so that they can fall asleep by 8 and be well-rested for school the next day. A few people have told us to let go of a few activities, and we will as the kids finish the seasons and decide that they don't want to do it again. Maybe we'll try gymnastics, tap dancing, or karate next. Or maybe all four of them will want to do it all again. For now, we're trying what's available and affordable while Nella (her nickname) is still young enough to sleep through most of it. We've been blessed so far with the easiest baby on the planet, the kind of baby that makes us think we've finally got parenting perfected, the kind of baby that makes everyone who meets her want another baby. This is how I know we are done; If we had another baby we would be given a baby with reflux and colic who do wouldn't sleep or nurse or poop. Nick is relieved to hear that I won't be trying to convince him to have another baby, he dated me and we agreed on two kids, proposed and I upped it to three, married me and I said four, and then we were a family of six and we weren't quite full. So we got two dogs, and when that didn't work I got knocked up. 

Nella is 9 weeks old and is either very agreeable in nature or is pretending to be 5 days old, because I'm getting 8+ hours of sleep every night. She goes to bed around 9, wakes up at midnight for a nurse, another nurse at 3, and then another at 6. She sleeps until whenever I wake her up to change her and put her in her carseat to take the kids to school. Good girl. 

But now I'm tired and it's time for bed. I'll try to update this place more often from now on!

Some love and a rant, lucky you

Internet, I got my new baby today!

No, not that one.

I finally got my new car! We've been saving up ever since this baby got on it's way, and we took home our Honda Odyssey last night and spent the better part of today installing car seats. You guys, I'm driving 5 car seats around. And in a few months they will all hold (loud) children. We put the oldest three in the third row, Mico is on the drivers side, Sera is in the middle, and Pippa is on the passenger side. In the middle row we put the infant seat behind the drivers seat, and we put Viv's seat in the centre and slid it all the way forward, so I can hand her stuff from the front and she can't poke the baby, plus it gives the big kids more room in the back. The seat right behind the passenger seat is out, so there's lots of room for entering and exiting. The kids think the new car is cool, and it is SO MUCH EASIER to shove them all inside when there's room for them all and I don't have to crawl over anyone or anything to ensure all dependants are safely buckled up.

Cool. So I like my awesome (and clean!) supervan. Anyways.

I've heard a lot of parents discussing the topic of kids clothing recently, specifically dressing little girls like little girls. Okay. I agree completely that a preschooler running around in a tube top and miniskirt is inappropriate, HOWEVER. It's one thing to dress your daughter in age appropriate clothing, it's a whole other thing to constantly dress your girl like she's a china doll.

As a mother of three girls, I can tell you that they come in different shapes and sizes, and I would never put the same clothes on my two year old as I would my 3 year old, simply because they are so different. Picture this:

Sera is 6, she has a normal but solid build. This kid won't break easily, she's not a tiny little thing, she is average. Clothes are made with kids like her in mind.

Pippa is a pixie. The child turned 3 in February and wears size 18 months clothing. And it is roomy. She weighs less than 30 pounds. She is a feather, but she eats like crazy. Things fall of this girl, but she's the one people admire and hold up to their Perfect Little Girl Image. Pippa can wear anything and make it look dainty. She's the perfect breakable little china doll.

Viv is 2, and is twice as big as Pippa and 3/4 as big as Sera. Viv has baby fat, she's a chunky lil' girl, and she's wearing clothing for girls twice her age. Putting her in some crocheted little dress would be ridiculous.

These girls eat the same things, play the same things, breathe the same air. And they are so incredibly different, body wise. I don't see how putting Viv in leggings is unwomanly, she's 2! She's not a woman, she's a baby, and if she doesn't want to wear a lace dress, fine. You try and put it on her.

Since I've been gone...

Internet, I am 8 months pregnant. I don't know how that snuck up on me, but earlier today somebody asked me and I realized I had no idea. A bit of internetting and calculating and BOOM, 8 whole months. 32 weeks today, actually. Only 8 more weeks to go, although I've got a pattern of delivering my babies 2 weeks before they're due so... I'm going to operate on the 6 weeks to go train of thought.

I've been organizing the hell out of our house ever since the kids got out of school, and I don't know how I achieved it, but I think we are organized. We spent a lot of time at Ikea and bought many shelves, and we literally got rid of anything without a designated place. My goal is to keep us organized until the baby comes.

I was dreading the thought of keeping 4 kids entertained throughout the entire summer while gestating, so we enrolled the kids in various summer activities to keep them out of my hair. Mico and Sera are learning a new language at a day camp, which gets us all out of the house by 9 am on weekdays, and Pip and Viv are being babysat three times a week by two neighbour girls who are new to babysitting, so I'm using my "free time" to clean up and organize and return phone calls, as well as keep an eye on the four girls. I'm hoping to be able to leave the kids with them for a few evenings next summer, I think they could totally handle it by then.

The nursery is done, I'm not really sure when that happened but I put sheets on the crib last week and realized that I didn't have anything left to do. It's painted, furnished, and stocked with diapers and clothes. It's also a rather small room with a wall of floor to ceiling windows, so decorating pretty much went like this:

Build a storage centre over one entire wall, floor to ceiling. Buy some grey curtains for the floor to ceiling windows. Paint the two remaining walls turquoise. Spend two months wondering what to do now. Buy a super comfortable full size daybed and set it up alone, while 7 months pregnant. Drag a white nightstand in there and buy a pretty lamp. Decide it needs to be artsy, so spend 4 hours painting an enormous family tree, complete with photos, on the remaining wall. Buy a million diapers, baby socks, and white onesies in size newborn, and fill up that wall of storage. Get out the other baby clothes and put them away, knowing full well that you'll only dress the child in cute clothes when you need to go out. Otherwise, it's white onesies all the way, baby. Buy bedding for the cool new daybed. Surprise husband when he comes home from a work trip: The nursery is done!

No, there is no crib. I'll be co-sleeping with this baby until he or she starts sleeping through the night or stops nursing and/or needing nighttime feedings. We'll buy a crib in a year or so, maybe. I guess. We'll see.

SO. To wrap up. We pretty darn prepared, and treading water.

We're all moved in!

Well, technically we moved in last weekend, but I have some silly unpacking methods so the house only became livable this weekend. I like to open all the boxes and put everything in the center of the room that it belongs in, and then just set things up from there, mostly because I hate boxes and I want to get rid of them as soon as possible.

So after an entire day full of unpacking and putting things in piles on the floor of various rooms, it was finally time to start organizing. I couldn't decide where to start, I mean, so many rooms! While I debated the pros and cons of each room, we ordered pizza and put the kids to bed (in sleeping bags, of course) early. Like, at 6 pm. They were tired, it was fine.

So we decided to start with the garage. I decided (and here we blame pregnancy brain, very little good logic) that if we finished inside the house I'd be so tired that I'd procrastinate organizing the garage, and then it would be very hot and I'd be very pregnant and the neighbours would think we were slobs. So yeah. Instead we turned on the garage lights and organized that sucker until 3 am. Nick made his whole section of built-ins come together and he hung up all of his tools and we cleaned everything and he hung our bikes up and I remembered to leave a designated place for the stroller. Big deal, I know. But anyways, our garage now looks perfect, so the neighbours will like us, right? Right. So that was our Sunday night.

Nick had last week off of work, so of course he slept until the kids came home from school and I got up around noon. It was wonderful, and it was what the baby wanted. It's all the baby's fault. So I decided to organize the master bathroom, and it went by so quickly that I organized the half bath and the first-floor bathrooms as well. The kids got home as I started to organize the kitchen so I sent them to Nick and he took the easy was out and got them in their swimsuits and threw a few floaties at them in the pool. They had a blast, and NIck set up our new patio furniture. Win-win. I organized the kitchen for the rest of the night, and we ordered in chinese, put the kids to bed early, and then kept organizing the kitchen. It was done around 11 and we went straight to bed. Well, to our sleeping bags

Houses

We're going to be moving at the end of April or beginning of May.

Nick had to make a business trip to California last week, so we arranged for the kids to stay with various people so I could go with him. My friend called it a babymoon, but we mostly went to see houses and scope out schools.

We went through over 270 houses that claimed to be waterfront homes, and in the end we had a list of 24 beach ones we liked, because location, location, location, right? We loved some of the homes in the Canyon Lake area, but we decided against it in the end, and a lot of homes in the South Laguna area made our list, but it was just too far from Nick's workplace. More than 4 hours a day in traffic is not a good thing for family time. Plus, we would never be able to afford a beach house on our own, and we wanted to make sure to take full advantage of the opportunity here, that being The Company My Husband Works For Will Buy Our House Outright For Us. There are a million contingencies, of course, but that's basically how it is. We won't have a mortgage or rent to pay, and we get to choose the house. So of course we want to make the most of this opportunity.

Now we've just got to narrow it down from twenty-four to one.

The hardest part about narrowing this down is we don't know what it's like to be a family of seven, and that's what we will become in the new house. We've been living in a two-bedroom apartment since before Viv was born, and before that we had a condo for a bit, and before that we were in England, and before that we were childless and travelling the world. We've never had room to really spread out.

So when we walked into a six-bedroom house last week, it felt too big for us. But I'm realizing the potential in these homes. The perfect home for us doesn't exist, a home with 7 or 8 bedrooms can be found, yes, but then the rest of the home is a huge palace with ornate details and way too many things for my kids to hit their heads on. I don't want a palace, I want a cozy home with a lot of bedrooms. And I do realize that I sound a bit like a princess with my demands and such, but I'm sorry. Lots of bedrooms. That is all.

*Nick and I have been considering remodelling one of the houses, moving around a few walls so that we could end up with enough bedrooms. We'll see.

Couldn't be any more excited

So I think we've pretty much filled up the Big News category for march, yes? Moving across the country, new job, new house, new school, oh, and another baby! Yes, we've got a lot going on.

We've only told a few people so far, and we've gotten a mostly shocked and surprised, but still very excited reaction. It's so unbelievable to me to be able to truthfully say "We're expecting our fifth child." because I never pictured myself with so many children.

When I met Nick he wanted two kids, and his absolute maximum was three, with the third child being an accident. After which both babymaking parties would be taking preventative measures to prevent further offspring. I didn't have an exact number when I was young, I wanted a minimum of two, probably three, four seemed perfect, and five only if we had an accident or twins. I was crazy.

Then Nick and I got serious and talked about it and decided to start with two and see if we even wanted more after that. So we had our boy and our girl, and we were the perfect little family, and for a long time (right up until I got pregnant, actually), I didn't want anymore kids. Nick did. He would totally give up his man-card every. single. time. we saw a little baby when we went out, ooh-ing and ahh-ing and slowly persuading me to just consider one more. Just one more.

So we all know where this went. Philippa was born after an almost three year gap, a long space for me considering Theo and Sera are 15.5 months apart. When Pippa was about a year old, Nick and I decided that we wanted another baby, and we wanted to have it close in age to Pippa, like we did with Theo and Sera. We kept things a little longer this time, with 2 years and a few months between Pippa and Viv. Immediately after Viv was born, we knew we wanted one more baby, and since we didn't want to have one child a handful of years behind the rest, we decided to just go for it. So there will be a little bit more than 16 months between Viv and Baby5.

Honestly, I think I'm crazy. Nick too. I was going to stop after two kids. I would have happily been done. And while I was pregnant with my third and fourth children, I was so done. They were going to be my last. And after each of them, we needed another. And that has led us here, a chaotic family of six, with kids ages 7, 5, 3, 11 months, and one on the way. We are loud, we do not fit into a normal car, and we spend an obscene amount of money buying groceries. Old ladies love us, and middle-aged women raise their eyebrows at our circus, surely wondering if we have heard of birth control. (We have.)

As we've told a few people we've gotten a few of the shocked and-not-in-a-good-way reactions. Like this baby was an accident so we are just going to trudge through it. No. This baby was planned, and even if he or she wasn't, we would (and are going to) appreciate every single moment of this pregnancy and new adventure into parenthood.

The Other Reason We're Moving Out

Baby #5

Due the last week of August or the first week of September, 2011.

14.4 weeks in and we've already chosen full names for the baby boy or girl, who will be a gender surprise.