Forts

A little tape, a table and some chairs makes for a very entertaining hour or more. Sometimes a little change of the normal makes for a lot of fun. The boys loved it. Rayna did too. She was ready to make it a home and Emmitt and Everett were just so excited to be under the table. Mom even joined them which made it more exciting. Think we might need some tylenol before nap time but was worth it.

A Mother of 5 Now!

I am now the mother of 5.  Our fifth and final child, Brynn was born on Feb. 16.  She is a beautiful little girl. I would have to say I never thought I was going to have 5 children.  My husband and I had planned and talked about having 4.  Peyton was born over the summer of 2005 a year after we were married.  Rayna came two years later.  We were surprised with our third pregnancy that we were having twins.  We thought it was going to be a lot of work but we will have our 4 kids.  Emmitt and Everett were born in 2010.  I think life figured that we the girls were a little out numbered because we were blessed with a little girl almost 2 years after the boys were born.  It was unexpected but she is wonderful. 
I never thought I was going to be the homemaker and a stay at home mom but I am.  I love being at home with the kids.  I think that when the kids are older I will sub.  I think that going back to teaching with 5 kids would be a challenge and with Eldon already a teacher maybe too much.  I do get to teach everyday even though I am not in a classroom.  The boys, Emmitt and Everett are learning their colours.  Peyton is in grade one and I love doing his work with him at night.  He is such a good reader.  Rayna is ready for Kindergarten to start in the fall.  She is spelling her name.  We need to work on some letters but does it pretty good.  Being to a new life with 5 children.  It is going to be an adventure.

Monday, November 8

So I am not going to get excited because this has happened before. The boys got up at 7 am and then went down for their first nap at 9 am. Crossing my fingers and hoping that they have a good long sleep but know that it may not happen. They feel asleep nicely too. It was not a lot of crying a little fussing and that was nice. The fussing to sleep kind which means they were ready for a nap and happy to go to sleep.

Saturday November 6 (Almost 7 months)

Emmitt and Everett are almost 7 months old and they are still so on and off. We did the whole sleep training thing over the summer after they were 3 months old. We laid them down and let them learn how to self soothe and fall asleep without us. I don't know if it is because they go from one cold to another or if it is because they are not good sleepers or if it is something we are doing.

My problem is when we lay them down and for how long they sleep. Sometimes they go to sleep right away and then other times they cry for 5 - 20 sometimes very rare 40 minutes and then fall a sleep. There does not seem to be any consistency. We lay them down when they seem tired which is usually after 1 and 1/2 hours and we try to push it to 2 hours but sometimes don't make it. They are happy sometimes when they wake up and sometimes they are crying. One usually wakes up before the other and we usually only get about 1 hour... sometimes (very rarely they sleep or one sleeps for 1 and 1/2 hours). If they don't sleep for one hour I would say the other 40 percent of the time they sleep for 45 minutes. I wouldn't mind if they were cat nappers but then they get very fussy sooner because they didn't not have a good sleep. We don't go and get them right away... we always wait a little to see if they go back to sleep but if we let it go it usually turns into an all out scream fest and they are so worked up when we finally go get them that they have to be nursed or they won't calm down.

As for nights they go okay...we have had some really good ones where they go until 5 am and then they go and get sick again and start waking up more. They only have really bad nights every once and a while when they wake every 3 hours most times they only wake twice or three times in 12 hours. I don't think this is tooooo bad. I don't know if people think that I am just focusing on the bad but I am going to record how they go to sleep and what we are doing so I can keep track of what is going on.

Emmitt and Everett Days Old 009

Bad Pizza Delivery

My husband and I were just recently in Edmonton, Alberta attending a Wiggles concert at Rexall Place with our 2 kids. We had a great time at the Wiggles but had horrible service from Pizza Hut. I had called Pizza Hut to have some food delivered before the concert and we had just enough time to eat, get ready and head to the concert. Our pizza and wings arrived on time but we did not get our pop that came with. I had already signed the receipt before realizing that we didn't have our pop. I caught the delivery guy before he entered the elevator and told him we did not recieve our pop. He checked the bill and said that he didn't have any pop and would have to go back to get some. My husbands first responses was he will not be back. He is going to screw us out of some pop. We didn't have an option of waiting or complaining at that time since we had to go to the Wiggles Concert. It was awesome,, but in the back of my mind I was thinking about the pop. Did the driver come back with the pop like he said and leave it at the front desk. I had told the front desk at our hotel before we had left for the concert. When we arrived home after the concert of course no pop. I didn't have time to complain at that time either because we had two young kids to put to bed in a hotel which is always a struggle.

The next morning we went for a swim to get the use out of the pool before we had to check out at 11am. I phoned Pizza Hut after we got back from the swim and got ready and packed up so we could leave. The person on the phone wanted to get us our pop. My problem with the whole thing is that he kept saying if you come here I will give it to you. Is that not beside the point? We ordered delivery for a reason we didn't want to pick it up. He also want us to wait until 11am when the restaurant actually opened and send us the pop. I informed him that we were checking out at 11am. After more complaining on my part and actually get a little upset with the bad service he had decided to send us some pop before 11am. Well we checked out and no pop. So I not very happy with Pizza Hut and I am not going to order or get food from Pizza Hut until I get my pop.

I guess what really upsets me is that they lied 3 or more time to me about my order, my pop and they didn't seem to be really concerned about satisfy their customers.

Pizza Hut rating for service is horrible. Never Again. I want my pop.

Parenting

I just finished reading one of the best articles about parenting. I was reading an article from Today's Parent one of Canada's parenting magazines. I have been getting the magazine ever since I was pregnant with my first, Peyton, who is 4 years old now. The article was called Words of Wisdom by John Hoffman. I really enjoyed the sense that he speaks about in his article. I really find he speaks a lot about how I parent and how I feel about parenting as a whole.

He talks about expert advice and says this "Experts are not experts on your kids. YOU ARE!" This is exactly right. Parenting is not an exact science that you can say well just sleep train them, put them in timeout, don't spank, don't co-sleep, don't hold them too much, and whatever you do listen to what I am saying. With saying all of that I have strong beliefs about certain ways I do things but this is the way I do them not everyone else. I don't think there is one way to do things, each child is unique and requires you to do things different and being the first, second or even third child plays and roll in how you parent too. I also don't want to discourage parents from reading and learning more and more about what parenting advice is out there because you may use some of what they are saying or use nothing but being open to learning about what else is out there makes and helps make you a better parent.

I also find that not just experts make us questions or feel guilty about how we parent but family, friends and even complete strangers. Someone always knows how to fix your problems with you and your baby or child. I remember being a first time parent and feeling all the pressure and advice coming from everywhere and how overwhelming it is and how much you just want to scream and say "This is our child and we are going to do what we want to do." Now I find that I really empathize with new parents and don't ever want to be that person who tells them how to do it. I find when I hear someone else saying well I think they shouldn't hold the baby to much or just critising how they are doing things I will often say....... "It is really hard being a first time parent and not everything is easy and we don't know everything. If they make mistakes they will be their mistakes which is the way it should be." My mom and my sister and I all parent different and we are different and I do what suits me and my sister does what suits her. We don't agree on some parenting but we do agree that we all do things the way we think they should go, the best we know how and the best for our kids.

I like to read Today's Parent because I find it informational, hilarious, helpful, and encouraging. I want to keep informed about today's parenting practices and use or not use what I read about. I hope you keep being informed. I know you do know what you are doing because if I was to ask anyone about your kids you would be the expert.