Getting things done

I've been meaning to get on here and get some blogs done just so I can have the memories again from what we are doing day to day.

Lately I have been enjoying playing some games with the kids. Sid has had several days off of school the last few weeks because we had such cold temperatures that it just wasn't safe for the kids to be outside. I believe there were moments in the days and nights when it was down to - 50 degrees with the windchill. Now, that is cold. I think I was inside for the span of the days where we had coldness like this and I am glad that I could do that.

Sidney is an excellent Sequence player and just recently we started playing a game called Mancala. At first I thought that a game with just marbles and a wood board probably wouldn't be that fun. I was wrong! It is all strategy and some luck and Sid rocks at this game!!! We played again tonight and she won most of the games. I was trying to win too...which is very sad. I was beat by a 7 year old :( She has won in Sequence too but that is because I usually just don't play my Jacks. At the end of the game she likes to see what cards I have though and one time I had 3 Jacks. She said, "Mom, you could have played your Jacks. Why didn't you play those. You could have won!"

Micah will be turning 4 very soon and he is always asking me how many more days it is until his birthday. He is inviting all of his friends over and he wants to play games and have a Spiderman cake. He would be very content with just that...friends, food and Spiderman. He does want a baseball though for a gift because Santa didn't bring that to him at Christmas and it was on his list. Micah still wears his eye patch Monday, Wednesday and Friday or at least 3 days a week for at least 3 hours at a time. It is getting to be less of a struggle now but he still doesn't like it. He is supposed to wear the patch while he does puzzles, coloring or something else that requires him to really focus with his eyes. When I put the patch on his eye today he covered his eye up with his hand, which he usually does, but today he didn't scream for 10 minutes about wearing his patch. While he is wearing his patch he really does have a hard time seeing things and some of his comments really tell me how much he can see. I usually have to wash his glasses once I put his patch on because then I see how dirty the glasses really are. While he has his patch on his good eye and nothing on his other eye he says that I am fuzzy and everything else is fuzzy. After he takes his patch off for the day, he usually lets out this sigh of relief and then says something like, "Ohhh, I can see again". Micah's next appointment is a few days after his birthday so we will see then if he has improved his vision while wearing his glasses. We will probably be ordering his next pair of glasses at that point too so we will have to see if we will find a different pair of glasses or if we will keep the same style.

Quinn is getting closer and closer to walking. I think in the next month or so he will be up and going. The other kids walked when they were 15 months old so he may actually beat them in this area. He is a little shorter than they were and doesn't weigh as much either so he doesn't have quite as much of himself to hold up and balance as the other two kids. Quinn is becoming a stinker though. We had to put cabinet locks on almost all of our kitchen cabinets because he opens them all and takes everything out. It was getting to be very frustrating to walk to the kitchen and find the items from the entire cupboard on the floor. This wasn't just once a day but was becoming more of a once every 20 minutes type of thing. Quinn did get up some of our stairs today and he did it quite easily. When he wanted down he just simply climbed down. None of our kids were climbers but he might be.

I now have a full day care with my current license and am not taking any new kids at the moment because there just isn't any more space. We had another baby start just after Christmas and we are getting used to his schedule and have made things work very well. We have a routine and it is pretty regular each day. This routine leaves very little time to do anything other than feed kids, change diapers, put kids on the potty, do crafts and play, and then repeat all over again several times throughout the day. The last few days I have had everyone asleep in the house at the same time for at least 30 minutes. That is usually 7 kids that take naps, so that is pretty good if they are all resting at the same time...I think anyways. Quinn is getting better at sharing his mom, which has been hard for him. He is doing well though and just climbs on my lap when he wants me to hold him.

I am glad that I get to just unlock our door in the morning and not have to rush to get out the door or fight the traffic each day. It is a tough and busy job but fun too.