T's 6-year-old Birthday Interview

If you ask Talmage, this was the best birthday in the history of birthdays. For most people that's just an expression, but that kid has the most impressive memory of anyone I know (and can remember details from his second birthday like it's nothing) so I'm tempted to believe him. It doesn't take much to make him feel loved and special which makes me want to spoil him all the more. We had a great day of breakfast pancakes, donuts at school, a Times Square dinner and Toys R Us shenanigans. I have a hard time believing my baby is six...but I guess it's true. He's six! Last night when he was giving me a hug before bed he said, "Mom, are you going to miss me?" I was super confused and then he said, "This is the last time you'll ever hug a five-year-old Talmage. Tomorrow, you'll be hugging a six-year-old T." That certainly made me tear up a little, but luckily six-year-old Talmage's are awfully fun to hug and cuddle!

And now, to the birthday interview--by far my favorite part of every birthday! We read all of T's past interviews and our eyes were filled with hysterical, laughing tears over all his cute answers. That kid is awesome! I must admit, my favorite part of this year's interview was when he called me the prettiest girl in the world. It sure beats last year when he said he didn't know any pretty girls!!!

What is your favorite...
Color: Yellow
Food: Macaroni and Cheese
Game: Fruit Ninja
Book: The Book With No Pictures
Toy: I don't really know. I don't really play with any toys. Well, wait. I do play with toys. Legos! Lego, le-go of my legos!
Treat: Chocolate
Song: Gummy Bear
Thing to learn about: Sharks
Animal: Uh, cheetah
TV show:  Wild Kratts
Thing to wear: Subway shirts
Holiday: Uh, can I choose two? My birthday and Christmas.

What do you want to be when you grow up? Mmm, tricky, hmm, what do i want to be when i grow up? A construction worker!

If someone was being mean to your brother, what would you do? Ask them to stop!

Who is your best friend? Adam, he used to tell me animal stories...the monkey story was the funniest!

What is something you want to learn to do this year? Uh...hand stand. Wait, and do monkey bars better.

What is something that you are really good at? Hmmm...flips. 

If you had a million dollars, what would you buy? The hot wheels fire track thing. It's just a race track where you have to free a trapped car and if one of your cars gets trapped you have to pull a lever. I saw it in the toy store. 

If you were an animal, what would you be? A cheetah, because I want to go really fast and get lots of food. Even though I'd get tired.

What do you want someone to invent? What do I want to invent? Paper airplanes that can fly from New York to Alabama...or even further. Or nuts that can fly! (Cue hysterical laughter from T and Ev)

If you could have a magic power, what would it be? To be the silliest person in the world.

How many kids do you want to have when you grow up and get married? Uh, 12.

What kind of house would you like to live in: an igloo, a tree house, a castle, a cave, or our house? Our house, because it's so nice!

Who is the prettiest girl in the whole world? Mom! My Mommy. 

Where do you want to go on your mission? Florida! My dream planet.

What's your favorite scripture story? Nephi building the ship

T's 6th "This is not a birthday party" Party

Talmage somehow talked me into throwing him a birthday party. No, a "get together with friends." His words, I kid you not. You see, our kids have the option of having a party or an experience for their birthday and this year (just like last year) T has chosen an experience, namely Aladdin on Broadway. But then one particularly cold, grey, NY-ugly-winter-day he said, "Hey Mom...Since I'm turning six how about I have six friends over for a little pizza get together. You know, not a party, just a get together with friends for my birthday." I knew I was getting hosed as soon as he opened his mouth, but you better believe I fell for it in point two seconds. Embarrassingly fast, really. Mostly I think I needed a project to get my mind off of how small our apartment is in February and this seemed like the perfect creative outlet. So...a lego get together it was!

We really did keep it super low-key, but the boys all loved it just the same.  We had pizza and juice boxes (covered in paper to look like lego bricks). Strawberries and blueberries and T's requested cookies and cream cake. As far as activities are concerned, I bought everyone a little lego set (on sale on Amazon!) that doubled as a party activity and party favor. The kids were so excited to take those home--as well as a yellow balloon with a lego man face drawn on it! We also guessed how many legos were in a jar, drew our own lego figurines, played lego-spoon races and had a dance party to "Everything is Awesome"! 

Our birthday boy in his new 6 shirt was so excited about every little detail and so grateful. He has such a fabulous group of friends and they all had a blast running circles around our tiny space. He and we feel so blessed with our people!

Here are some pictures of some little party details:

Birthdays are just so magical, aren't they? It's so fun to have a day spent celebrating one special person so they know how loved they are. And my Mr. T, boy is he loved! I guess it's worth noting that 5-year-old little boys don't sing "Happy Birthday to you!" instead they sing things like "Happy Slurp Day, Burp Burp!" or "Happy Fart Day, Toot Toot!" I'm usually the "bathroom word" Nazi but I decided to let it go and let the boys laugh hysterically over their silly sayings, and let me tell you all 8 of them were in tears!  

Happy Birthday my oldest little love.  He told me this morning, "Mom, it's so weird that today is my very last day ever being 5!" So weird baby boy. Tomorrow you'll be six for real!!!

Mommy & Quinny Selfie

This girl better get used to taking a trillion pictures with her Mama, because that's what us Wiggy ladies do! Especially when an afternoon is spent walking around Central Park in beautiful, balmy 40 degree weather (what! what!) and an evening is spent falling asleep in my arms after a warm bottle. I know she's still such a little person, but I just don't know how we ever survived without Quinny in our home. Gosh I love that baby girl!

Life Lately in the Arctic Tundra

I'm playing catch-up because we're entering birthday season (hooray for something to get us out of the winter pits) and you just can't be behind during birthday season because then things get out of control. So...here is a little photo-dump with all the random pictures on my phone for what, like the last month? Can I just be annoying and say one more time that winter is the worst. Every year I think it's going to be better and then bam! it's still cold in March and I'm over it. But yay for birthday season and maybe even getting out of our house one of these days. T and I are itchy to go on all-day adventures again, sans parkas. It'll happen soon, right? In the meantime...

The best little boy FHE lesson on being a master builder and having Jesus Christ as your foundation, idea courtesy of my awesome Mom. Scripture reference: 1 Corinthians 3:10. If you live with lego lovers then this is a lesson your kiddies will love!

For awhile Quinny thought baths were water torture, but now she's all grown up and gets that they're luxurious. It's about time sister!

 This = a really darn cute moment that happened so spontaneously. It's so interesting to see Ev play the true big brother role when T is at school.

 Turns out T is doing pretty well with the ladies at school! A few parents of girls in his class told me that their daughters swoon over him, and I guess this just confirmed it! This was just one of the love letters he brought home from girls in his class on a random day last week. "The girls were writing me letters and drawing me pictures during art because they love me. So many girls want to marry me mom, it's going to be hard to decide." Life is really hard sometimes, T! 

 T is for Tiger at preschool. 

Baby girl fell asleep randomly in the middle of the living room while T was playing airplanes and both boys were sharing a picnic lunch. Things were loud and crazy and there she was, peaceful and content. That Quinn is just the sweetest thing and doesn't lack love in our home, that's for sure.

Ev and I made bright blue play dough and stayed in our pajamas until we had to pick up T from school, the usual around here! 

 Another brutal winter storm that we had to trek around in. Ever's face says it all. Blah!

February

February. It's just the worst month of the year, am I right? Sure you've got all that lovey-dovey holiday stuff which is fun, but the month pretty much tanks from there. James asked me this last week if I felt like our apartment was caving in on us, and I was all, "Yes! All month long!" Let's start with the fact that we're consistently reaching record low temperatures which means that we're consistently being forced to stay indoors. Stir crazy doesn't look good on any of us. But what makes it worse is that we have to stay inside our little house which is full to the brim with winter junk. There are coats and boots and scarves and so many other darn winter accessories stacked in every corner and hung from every door/hook/hanger in this tiny little place that I frankly feel like I'm suffocating. Suffocating in February. March will kick-off birthday season and our schedule and (hopefully) the weather will warm up from there. But for now, baby it's miserably cold out there. Insert grumpy face here.

 Left: Walking to church post-storm in a slushy mess. // Right: The dirty, ugly, graffitied snow pile on our street.

Babies feeding babies

It's taken me a couple of weeks to come to grips with the babies feeding babies phenomenon that is now our norm. And to be honest I'm still not sure I'm at peace with it, but such is life I guess. You win some, you lose some (or in my case: you fill some, you starve some).  

 

Nursing has always been my thing. Getting pregnant, staying pregnant, delivering babies, having healthy babies, now those are all things I'm admittedly not very good at. But nursing? Well I've always had enough milk to feed a village and my chunky babies were the proof. I nursed T for a year and Ev well over a year and the thing I was most excited and least worried about with this new little one was nursing. Because psh, I got that!

 

But then enter Quinn and her oh-so cute but totally-tied tongue. A few snips in the mouth couldn't rid her tongue of it's heart shape (I'm sure there is an analogy in this, mom?) and although she could nurse better after the procedure, she was still pretty terrible at it--just ask my shirts and bras and undergarments that were soaking with milk after every feed. But we soldiered on through every sloppy, gaggy, gassy feed and by all accounts things were going well.

 

And then something unexpected happened at Quinn's 4 month check up. We put her tiny little body on the scale and she had gained a mere 8 ounces in the previous month. EIGHT OUNCES! IN A MONTH! I immediately felt sick to my stomach. My doctor and I agreed that she had been sick which could contribute to her weight and that she'd probably gain a ton of weight soon but I couldn't shake the feeling that something was not right. I had noticed lately that after feeds she was really fussy. I chalked it up to gas, but I started to wonder if she just wasn't getting enough to fill her sweet body. No big deal, I thought. I'll just pump and set my fears to rest.

 

An ounce, ya'll. That's how much I got when I went home and pumped at her scheduled time. One ounce, from both sides. I immediately texted my mom and sister a picture of the lame little milk bottles telling them that my boobs should be ashamed of themselves. Because seriously? An ounce? Luckily I had a freezer full of frozen milk (from when my boobs were working overtime) and sure enough Quinny drank down 5 ounces of de-frosted milk like her life depended on it. And turns out most people's lives do depend on eating, so I totally understand the girl.

 

There was a good 10 days right in the middle of this transition when we thought something could be seriously wrong with my body and that might be the reason that my milk was tanking but most of those tests came back A-OK, so we're back at square one in the milk-loss department. (She's always been a bad nurser and then she was sick, so maybe that caused my milk to tank? Add crazy hormones, stress, and who knows what else...) And I guess I should mention that some of those tests (which were for other symptoms, but milk production could have been related) required me to stop nursing for 48 hours so I pumped and dumped and blew through my freezer stock in no time. So I gave her formula. And although I dramatically thought everything was going to go to heck in a hand basket when she took her first sip of that stuff it ended up being just fine. More than fine, she loved that stinky drink more than I can say (which was not, in fact, a compliment to her chef of the past 4 months!) For now I'm doing triple feeds (nurse, pump, formula) and even though I know it's not sustainable, I'm hoping my milk will decide to return with honor! Today I only had to supplement a total of 8 ounces of formula with her breast milk feeds, so maybe it'll happen?

 

In the meantime my big babies are feeding my little baby all the time and as they're smiling and being sweet to each other my heart is both breaking and bursting, because it's so endearing but at the same time isn't feeding the newborn my job? But they're loving the responsibility of "nursing" the baby, and she is growing right before our eyes like I think she always should have been doing.

 

If there is a lesson to be learned in this (which isn't there always a lesson to be learned?) it is that sometimes things happen that are out of our control. I think during my milk-heavy times I was always a little questioning of people who lost their milk. Never judgmental, because I completely respect the choices all mothers make for themselves and their babies, but I guess I always assumed that they just didn't really want to nurse all that much or they would have/ could have. But I'm eating my words now in a real way and I know that I was wrong. So wrong! Because sometimes these "natural" things are not as easy or natural as they should be. I'm also realizing that sometimes what should happen is more important than what I want to happen. I want my baby to exclusively nurse, but what's more important is that she eats and grows and gets nourishment, even at the hands of a bottle.

 

In the long run, this is just the smallest of small deals, but it has taken me awhile to mourn my ideal--I think that's always the case when things turn out different than you planned. I guess I'm still working on it. But looking at these pictures of all my loves make things feel so much better!

  

Not only do all my boys take turns feeding her, she can now feed herself on the busy streets of NYC! And don't mind her outfit, that baby is rarely dressed by the end of the day!

Pink Eyes and Pink Tutus and Winter Blues

They're mocking me, those birds singing that springtime tune in the bare trees outside my window. Mr. Sun is in on it too, sitting high in a clear blue sky and shining on my still-PJ-clad body sprawled on the couch like a warm summer morn. It's all a ruse though because what they're forgetting to mention--those birds and that sun--is that the temperature this morning is actually a record-breaking -15 degrees with wind chill. If that doesn't make you want to vomit then I don't think we can be friends.

The winter blues didn't really hit me until this week when Talmage had school off and our structure of leaving the house went caput. Pick-up is mostly a real drag, but I've realized that without pick-up I'm kind of a winter hermit, and a grumpy hermit at that. Not to mention T has pink eye in both eyes, so even if we had wanted to spend his winter vacation exploring the freezing city we couldn't because he's just about the most contagious human being on the planet these days. I am pretty in love with this City most of the year but then February hits and I start Zillowing homes in Palo Alto and start planning my escape. So...there you go.

If there is one good thing that has come of this week, it would have to be the treats. Oh the deliciousness of Winter when there's nothing better to do than eat warm, comforting, sweet treats! We've inhaled leftover Valentines and knock-off Swig sugar cookies, PB&Nutella sammies and pancakes with extra syrup for breakfast (and snack. and lunch. and snack again). Cake cook-offs and frosting-tasting parties and oh the sprinkles that we have consumed. What's on tap for today you may ask? I'm thinking my mom's recipe for cinnamon rolls. Or maybe chocolate chip cookies. What the heck--we'll probably make both and eat our sick, cold sorrows away.

The food isn't the only good thing that's come of this week I suppose. I mean, I took this picture of Quinn playing with her pink little wolfie which is just the cutest:

And then I turned her on her back so I could grab a picture of her whole outfit. Having a girl continues to be the best, just look: 

 

But mostly this week has been about this sicky kid and his pink eyes (which were looking better than ever in this picture, but still):