ornery kids

Look what they taught my sweet little baby boy to do.

The girls taught PJ to stick his tongue out when they stick theirs out at him........  And Scott helped with that lesson.  Darn ornery girls and daddy!

But he is starting to laugh now when you get him excited enough.  I love getting him going real good with the kicks and the grins and squeals until he gives out a little chuckle.  He's also starting to blow raspberries during those times too, which just increases his cute factor.

Yup, I am definitely going to have my hands full soon with him, especially since he's starting to do pushups and can already propel himself forward by wiggling his front end and pushing with his legs and feet.  I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet.

9 years ago

OK this is a couple days late, I should have posted it on Saturday, but hey better late than never, right? :-)

9 years ago, I was 21 and clueless.  I also became a mom for the first time ever on April 14th at 4:30pm to a 6lb 14oz little baby girl.  I had never held a baby before in my life, and was from that point on expected to take care of and train this baby girl to be a beautiful independent woman.  I had to ask the nurse at the hospital how to change a diaper and bathe my baby, I was that clueless.  I felt like I would never figure out this who parenting thing.  All I knew was that I didn't want to give up and leave like my own mom had done when I was little.  I was determined to give that baby girl both a dad AND a mom, and a life that I never had.

And now today, that guinea pig baby girl I had at 21 is a beautiful and kind, compassionate, caring girl who is growing into an amazing young woman.  She has an independent streak almost as big as her stubborn streak, and makes me proud of her every day.  She has her struggles with learning differences, but her determination to push through and master her lessons is something to admire.  I can't wait to see what the next 9 years of her life will bring, she is an amazing person.

Happy 9th birthday Missa.

lookie what I got in the mail today

That, my friends, is an Action Baby Carrier (ABC).  I love wearing my babies, and I find it increasingly needed as our family grows.  I've never actually purchased a baby carrier before, as all ours were either gifted to us or I made them myself.  I had 4 different carriers (2 wraps, a sling, and a mei tai) but PJ didn't care for any of them, so Scott and I decided to try purchasing a soft structured carrier and see if that would be any better.  He loves being held upright, but none of the other carriers I had would give him the support he likes to have (trust me I seriously tried).  So, I did some looking and asking around before deciding to purchase an ABC to try.  This one is the Deco Dots print, which is the lowest priced clearance carrier they have currently at $65 with free shipping in the US.

It was ordered on Saturday, then on Tuesday I got notification that it was finished.  Today is Thursday, and it is at my home.  I ordered direct from ABC instead of through one of the retailers, and this is the standard size carrier.  The girls helped me open the box it came in, then I took PJ into my bedroom to try putting him in it (I always do the first couple times with a new carrier/kid combo on my bed in case I drop the baby, soft landing spot is a good thing).  It took under a minute to get him in it and the thing perfectly adjusted, and then we put on my shoes and coat before heading outside with the girls to play before lunch.  He stopped crying as soon as I got him in it, then fell asleep within just a couple minutes.  He stayed asleep for an hour and a half, which allowed me to play with the kids outside, make lunch and feed them, then load the dishwasher and get it running before having a bit of computer time.

I think its safe to say he loves it.  I love it too, my back didn't bother me one bit the entire time he was in it and I'm about to get him back in it so that I can unload the dishwasher and refill and run it again.  I wish I had gotten one of these when Missa was a baby.

a kid on crutches

What a crazy time its been here the last couple days.  Missa managed to fall and hurt herself on Tuesday, so we had an unexpected trip to the doctor.  The official diagnosis is a couple bruised bones and she pulled/stretched muscles and other goodies in her left foot.  I was told ice, Advil, and keep her off it for at least a few days.  Well, yesterday I couldn't keep her off it at all, she kept getting up and running around with her sisters whenever I wasn't watching her, so last night we put her on crutches to keep her weight off that foot.  Hopefully we can get her back on her feet by Sunday, we have a special trip planned for a birthday gift for her (she'll be 9 on Saturday).

She is soooo like her momma with her coordination.

next school year's social plans

Ahhh yes, the social aspect of schooling.  Many people love to ask about socialization when it comes to homeschooling.  Well, I thought I'd give a peek into what we are planning for outside activities to show you exactly how a homeschooler does things.  Now remember, I have 5 kids and I attempt to get as many kids as I can convince into a single activity so that I'm not doing 2 million different things at once.

American Heritage Girls (similar to Girl Scouts, but with a biblical and family emphasis)
Awana (2 in T&T, 1 Spark, and 1 in Cubbies)
weekly park trips as long as weather allows
regular grocery store trips
a million checkups for kids with doctors
church Saturday nights (including Motion City)
maybe 4H if we can agree on what they will do
regular library trips

And this year we also are adding hopefully a couple of trips out of state for history-related field trips.

One of the best things is that we are able to provide a social moment pretty much every time we go out in public.  It is impossible to go somewhere and not interact with anyone at all, so we are blessed to have such a variety of ages and personalities and so on with public outings for social moments, instead of being locked up in a classroom all day during the week and only interacting with your age-mates and teachers during designated times.  This is something I really am looking forward to, I know that I will be incredibly busy with the things that we have planned for the school year as far as running around for the various activities and all that may entail.  However, it will be worth it to provide the kids with such a valuable real-world application of the social lessons they are getting with all of this.

Take that, socialization myth.

American history 2012-13 school year

Yup, that's what I'm doing this upcoming fall.  Our *plan* is to either get Sonlight core D (the first part of a 2 year US history study) using the 9 month time payment plan, OR to create my own thing.  Since we can't apply for the payment plan until after April 1st, I am spending this week's free time looking over resources to buy for us to create our own thing.  I'm going to just post this as a reminder of what I'm liking as of right now.

History Pockets- love these, we did the grades 1-3 ancient civilizations one alongside our world history studies this last couple years and it was great.  I'm going to be purchasing some of the ones that go with US history to do as the starting point for our studies, and we'll lapbook them instead of making the construction paper pockets (how we did the ancient civ. one)

Smithsonian Children's Encyclopedia of American History- I am pretty sure this is the US history reference book we'll be going with, but I'm still exploring the different ones available.  It is going to be difficult to find one that doesn't have an obvious political slant (either liberal or conservative) but this one appears so far to be fairly neutral.  I need to take this search to the local public library this weekend to see if I can find this one to look at closer, as well as look over some other reference books that they may have. (feel free to comment if you have a suggestion for a good book to fill this spot, it will be one of my big tools for teaching this subject)

library books- an ever-popular resource, I'll be finding a lot of books at the library to add to our studies.

Not too much set up yet, but I'm working on it.  In fact, if I get a good feel of what I'm doing before we can try for the payment plan, I may just opt to go this route instead of buying Sonlight.  I'm actually having fun trying to come up with something to do on my own like this instead of just buying the next core package in line, although I can 100% guarantee that I will be buying Sonlight's core F in a few years for the girls to do while PJ does a core (either the P cores or core A, depends on how old he is when we buy it)

the Kindle

Yes, we finally bought one this month for me.  I swore that I'd never own one, as a book lover one of my favorite things about reading a book is the rustling of pages and being able to twiddle the side of the pages as I read to help me focus.  However, books are horribly impractical for reading when you are spending hours a day stuck in a chair while the baby is latched on to nurse.  A traditional book is a little too heavy and big to hold with one hand and read easily, and turning pages is a chore.  So, Scott and I agreed that a Kindle would be the way to go.

We were initially going to get the Kindle Fire because I like gadgets like that, but we decided to go instead with the classic and continue to save up for my iPad that I've been wanting since they first came out.  That iPad will come in VERY handy at managing my life with some of the apps I can get, but that's a completely different post for a future date when I actually GET the iPad and can share all the things I will be using it for.

But anyway, the Kindle.......

It was a breeze for me to get set up and charged, and get some books on it.  I have about $24 in Amazon gift certificate money loaded to my account still, and I want to spend it on books for me to read.  I have many free domain books on the Kindle already, sorted into collections based on who and what they are for (kids' history, kids' read alouds, mom's reading, and such).  OK so maybe many isn't the right word here as I only have about 30 books loaded on it.  But it feels like a lot of books to me.

So now I must ask for some suggestions.  I am in need of some new reading material for me personally.  Most of the books I have already on it I've read in the past and enjoyed, or they are the entire 6 volume series by Charlotte Mason (dry as heck).  I'm looking for new reading material.  I'm especially interested in books that may help me as a parent, wife, and/or homeschool parent, and total fluff (I rather enjoyed the Ann Rice books I've read in the past and plan to get a couple more).

What do YOU like to read on your Kindle?

Planning the new school year

Yes, I know its ONLY March.  However, it is that time that I like to look over where we are in each subject and start getting real solid ideas for next fall.  We typically call our first day of school officially at the very start of August, and I would *like* to take July off most lessons if possible so that we can enjoy some street fairs and summer weather.  July is the month that is usually slowest for Scott at work, so we get to spend more time together as a family before it picks up again in August with all the kids getting glasses for school to start (in case you don't know, Scott makes eyeglasses for a living, a lot of his work is actually for children on Medicaid in a few different states).  So, during his hours off work we do field trips on weekends and go on picnics and stuff like that.  It is something we always look forward to, even if the paychecks are barely enough to cover our bills during the slower season.

So, I'm looking now and figuring out fall, mainly to ease the amount of work I have to do when Scott is at work less.  If I plan now, then it is ready to go before he's no longer working 70 hour weeks (that's the busier times, during summer he gets 45 hours a week if we're lucky).  So here's what we have figured out so far.

This fall I will have an infant still, which I hear that the infant year is easiest to do this.  I've never schooled kids with an infant, Missa didn't start K until Jojo was a year old, so this is a new experience for us.  I'm learning as we go with it.  Anyway, this fall I will also have all 4 girls going formally.  Jojo will be of K age by cutoff date, so we will begin K with her and plan to stretch it out over 2 years on paper for maturity.  So she will be a Junior K and then her sisters will be in grades 1, 3, and 4.  Sounds fun, don't you think?  Lots of juggling, and not a lot of independent work with a couple of them.

So, here's what IS working for us this year, which will follow us into next year:

Math-U-See (I will have to get only 2 workbooks, the middle girls went slower than expected this year)
All About Spelling (Missa is working her speed and Liddy will start level 1)
Real Science 4 Kids (not finished with the books we got for this year so we'll finish them up and go into some unit studies)

That right there takes care of half my requirements easily.  Now for the fun part.  What didn't work so well, or what we're changing out of necessity because it just is a bad fit for our situation with all the kids going at once.

The biggest change for us will be that we are taking a year off Sonlight.  I'm feeling a need to spend a year doing geography and some US history and state studies, so I'm working out the kinks in this one now.  I already have "Geography Songs" that we are going to do to cover the basic geography stuff, from our Sonlight core (one of the things we got then dropped early on because of the pregnancy when I started lightening my load in teaching back in I think October).  I also have some free domain books on my Kindle that we will utilize, as well as 11th grade A Beka US History to refresh my own memory before I start working this out.  I will need to use as many free resources as possible to cover this year's history, we just don't have the money to buy all the consumables I need for 4 kids AND the US history program I was originally wanting (I had originally decided on Winter Promise American Story 1 for this fall, then Scott had to get a car and we decided on one about $1500 more than we planned so my homeschool budget went down from $1200 to $300 and I spent part of that on a Kindle).

I also am dropping Handwriting Without Tears, and getting a couple of dry-erase handwriting practice books they have at a store here locally.  This year, I simply cannot afford to buy handwriting workbooks for all 4 kids to go through as fast as they do, so they will use the dry-erase variety and take turns practicing.  I also am going back to regular copywork instead of the copywork and journaling books we did this year, also because of cost.  Thankfully, I only need to buy 2 math workbooks for Missa and Jojo to do this fall, and a friend blessed us with the teaching materials for all the Math-U-See levels we didn't have up to Algebra 1 so I am set there for several years.

And that's about all I figured out so far.  I am hoping to make it to the CHEO convention in June this year, but I'm not sure I can do it with the cost for the person we have do our portfolio reviews for reporting.

Pictures!!!!!

I mentioned EARLY this morning that we had pictures today, and here are a couple from that session.  PJ was not in the mood to cooperate too much, that child has a one-track mind and only wants to be feeding if he's awake still.  But we got some great shots I think. :)

I am definitely enjoying having a little boy too much obviously.  I loved getting to pick out his first little man outfit for today, and I do think he looks amazingly handsome in it.  Even Scott had to agree that he looked good for pictures.  I just wish I had been able to get his outfit in a newborn size instead of 0-3 month, it was a little big on him.  Oh well, just means he can wear it a little longer before he outgrows it.

what a busy week!

I'm waiting for the van to warm up now so I can make a run to pick up some clothes for the kids for today, so this will be short.  I hope. lol

Monday was supposed to be my due date, and instead I had a 2 1/2 week old baby boy in my arms.  Loving it by the way, he is bringing a whole new level of joy to our home, one that only a new baby can bring.  For the first time, I don't feel like there's someone missing here.  Yes, I do have moments where I think that a few more babies would be nice, but that is something that we're not even considering right now.  We are too busy enjoying this little man.

Tuesday, PJ had his 2 week checkup AND it was our wedding anniversary.  Yup, 8 years married now, and this July we'll have been together officially for 10 years.  What an amazing feeling THAT is.  Anyway, PJ was 2 ounces below his birth weight and a full inch bigger.  That puts him in the 50th for height and the 25th for weight and his head measurement.  Looks like he's got my build.  He goes back in uhhhh mid April I think, I have to look and see first.

Wednesday I saw the midwife about my blood pressure issues I had.  I'm still on the meds to control it, and its at the higher end of the normal range now.  She and I had a nice long discussion about how those last weeks of my pregnancy went and what the future could hold for me if we have another baby.  She also made it clear that my long term recovery will be a better indicator of the blood pressure issues and that at this point she won't say whether or not it would be a good/bad idea to have more because its not that long after birth.  I go back to her again in April for my official 6 week checkup and to re-evaluate the pre-eclampsia.

Then Thursday we hung out at home and I prepped diapers.  I forgot how much work prefolds can be to get ready for use. :)  But they are all washed and ready to go now.

And today, we have PJs first pictures.  Which means, I need to leave now to get 4 girls dresses and a boy a little outfit.  I'll share pictures later when we have them.

PJ at 11 days old

Yup, I think he's fitting in our home nicely here..........  He actually likes this style of sling better than the Moby wrap I have, so here soon I have to buy a sling that isn't quite so girly to wear him in public since we don't own a stroller (and have no plans to buy one either, I have an umbrella stroller we'll use with him when he's older but none that will work with him right now at this size that will lay down flat for him).

math headaches

As you know, I have a lot of fun with teaching Missa sometimes.  She is stubborn just like I am, and we butt heads regularly.  I had tried passing math to Scott to do with her, but his approach doesn't actually teach her how to do the work.  It only taught her how to be lazy and mess around until he gives her the answer and tells her how to do the problem.  I make her actually DO the work herself, and keep trying when she makes simple mistakes where I know she knows what she's doing.  I'm talking a problem like 62+16, she'll just randomly say that the answer is 91 and then when I send her to redo the computation she'll put 92, then 90, then 93, and so on every time in hopes that I'll give up and tell her the answer.  That was one of today's math problems, by the way, one that she just threw down answers on to get out of the work.  She's capable, she knows how to do the work.  I sent her back to recheck her computation on that problem (and 3 others) four different times before she started screaming at me about it.

Time out, kid.  Get on your bed.

She detests actually putting forth a little effort in math.  Of course it is difficult, she doesn't take her time with each problem.  She did so well in math before, even when I moved her up to Beta in October.  But I've noticed that the last 6 weeks or so, she's become increasingly resistant to doing the work.  She has balked at it, ignoring me when I say it is time for math, she's smarting off, screaming at me, not even trying to do the work, and doing everything she can to get out of it.  And every day, math gets interrupted by my having to send her off to cool down on her bed for a little bit so she can regroup and focus on the couple problems that she keeps butting heads with me on.

These are the moments that make me want to bang my head on the brick walls in our home and just scream.  These are the moments that lead to me fantasizing about enrolling them all in the local public school and saying forget it.  These are the moments that make me feel most like a failure as a mom because my child won't listen to me.  I know they are hard on Missa too.  She gets all worked up and flustered, then starts to scream and freak out which makes me yell back.  She pulls every excuse she can out of the bag, from trying to use her dyslexia to get out of it to saying its because she's not a Peterman like everyone else so she doesn't get it as fast to anything else she can think of.  She manipulates, ot ay least tries to, and I smack down those attempts as fast as she makes them.

She will make a great politician one day, if we can get her through school and college..........

today

So here it is, 10 days after we welcomed little PJ into our family.  He's a great baby, one of the easiest I've had so far.  Sleeps great at night (6 hour stretch already!) and nursing like a champ.  We had a few hangups with my milk not coming in right away, it took a full week before I was producing enough to completely stop supplementing with an ounce or two of formula a few times daily.  But now we are settled there too.  He has a birth mark on his forehead, right between his eyebrows, that we originally had thought was just bruising from how fast he was born but now I see it as a birth mark as he lightens up and the jaundice resolves.  It is getting darker as his skin lightens, and it is kind of in the shape of a capital U or V.  Once he's fully to the pale he will end up being, I'll get a good picture of it to show you what I mean.

But today is another day.  Today is the day that I was originally scheduled to be induced because of my blood pressure.  And instead, here I sit with my baby in my arms, sleeping happily after a heck of a good feeding while I get my computer stuff done for the morning before kids get up to start our day.  It is a strange feeling, knowing that today I was supposed to be induced when he's laying here in my lap, but I'm ok with that right now.

But for the rest of today, I have some goals.  It appears that the weather is going to be tolerably decent as far as temperature and such, so I'm thinking that today I may see if I can recruit the girls to help me with a little outdoor spring cleaning.  We have some toys laying around in the yard, and leaves still out back from fall that need raked up, so I'm going to try and bribe with cookie making to get that done.  I also have to get Missa finished up with her math lesson and taking her test today, and Liddy has a unit test to take today.  If Liddy does well with that test and is open to it, we'll also start her on her new lesson so that I don't have 2 kids starting a lesson tomorrow.  Ummmm, what else?  Oh yeah, I have to portion out meat into meal size packs for the freezer today, and our usual daily chores.  And perhaps we'll get to some extra schoolwork, I may attempt to add in history lessons this week if I am feeling up to it.  Or maybe we'll just do another week of the R's while I figure out how to do all this stuff in my life one-handed, PJ isn't loving the Moby wrap as much as his sisters did right now so I have to keep an arm available for him at all times.  Maybe when his umbilical stump falls off and finishes healing fully he will like it better, or he'll like the ring sling that I am planning to buy in the next few weeks.

Oh, and I have to find something that I can use as a diaper pail until I manage to remember to buy myself a small trash can to use, I'm sick of the smell of dirty/wet disposable diapers in my house.  I have my very small set of diapers and covers all washed and ready, so now I need to use the silly things.  I'm hoping to get that going today too.  I can't wait to see how cute his booty will be all fluffed up from his diapers!

Yup, that covers my day I think.  I'll come back tonight hopefully with a positive progress report on how we did here with that list.  Hopefully I have a positive report for you on this one.

Woah, what a weekend lol

So, we had a VERY eventful weekend here.  Scott, being the awesome guy he is, called in late to work on Friday and watched the kids while I went to my midwife appointment.  I knew it was going to be an interesting day when Erica told me that my blood pressure was too high and my protein had more than doubled in my 24hr test so I needed to go to the hospital for monitoring, testing, and to be induced the next day.  So, I went home and got the family so that Scott could drop me off on his way to taking the kids to his mom's before hanging with me at the hospital.

I got there and all hooked up at 9am to the monitors, where they picked up mild contractions and got my blood pressure back down again with laying me down.  2pm came and they decided to keep me another 2 hours just to see what was going on, and the monitor decided to stop picking up my random contractions at that point.  When they checked me at 4pm, they had to RUN to get a delivery room ready and call in the midwife, I was ready to have a baby.  Oops...... lol  So, at 5:05pm on Friday, February 17th we had a baby.  I wanted an epidural, instead I got some Nubain after he came because I was really sore.  Oh, and I kicked the midwife in the chest in the process, and didn't get both doses of antibiotics so they had to keep us 48hrs to watch for Strep B in the baby.  It was by far my fastest, easiest, and least painful birth, even with him being posterior.  And yes, I was pissed that I didn't get an epidural at that moment when I had to push him out and feel every bit of that pain, but now I'm really happy I didn't get it because I am moving so much easier than I did after Jordan (the only epidural I did have before, I had planned on it mainly because it can lower blood pressure and I wanted to increase my chances of keeping it down).

Then Saturday we watched as my blood pressure started going up again. *sigh*  Yup, the pre-eclampsia didn't resolve itself with delivery.  I was put on blood pressure meds to bring it back down once it hit 154/109 at 11pm.  They are working though, so I was released with a prescription and orders to get checked again in 2 weeks to see how its going.

Yeah, you could say this weekend was eventful.........  Welcome to the world, Scott Preston Jr.

8lbs 1oz, just shy of 20" long, and already spoiled rotten lol  Not a bad size at all for being born at 37  1/2 weeks, he came a full 10 days before we had planned to induce for safety with the blood pressure issues I was having.  And yes, I made it a total of 3 hours after coming home before I grabbed the Moby Wrap and tied him to my chest so I could take care of a few things easier.  I have a bit of a headache on and off, and I get little spells of dizziness where my scalp starts tingling, but other than that I have the standard pains and discomforts of having just had a baby 2 days ago.  As soon as Scott gets the girls into bed here in a little bit, he's going to go pick up my blood pressure meds at the pharmacy for me.

Oh, and Scott's car has officially died now so we are down to just my van until the tax refund gets here and clears the bank so he can buy himself a used compact car to replace it.  I sure hope it comes soon, I don't like being stuck at home even if I did just have a baby and I have NO plans to go anywhere without him for several weeks.  He is taking a day or two off work here tomorrow, then in 2 weeks he has a full week vacation so I can schedule my appointments with the pediatrician and the midwife and WIC so I can go with just little man and Scott can watch the kids if I don't decide I'd rather he drive me to them.

the waiting game

Yup, that sums it up pretty much I think.  We're in a holding pattern here waiting on our little boy to arrive.  I've been having random signs for almost 2 weeks now that he will be coming soon, and it has me worn out and grumpy.  And since I'm a big believer in keeping your mouth shut if you don't have anything nice to say, I've been quiet here to avoid a huge long rant post about how I'm feeling.  I'm just tired of it now, and will leave it at that.

But on the plus side, my midwife has said that if I don't go into labor beforehand, she is going to induce me on Feb. 27th because of my blood pressure issues.  Of course, that is all provided that I manage to continue to stay fairly stable in that area and we don't have a major change that would require immediate delivery.  So this means that in 11 days at the most, we will have our first son join our family.  I hope we are all ready for this, I've not had any children at all in diapers for a year now, and it has been 4 1/2 years since I've had a newborn in my home.  Scott is hopefully planning to take time off work with FMLA for us to have some time together as a family and adjust to being a family of 7, and all the girls are beyond excited at the upcoming arrival of their new brother.  I, on the other hand, keep having dreams at night that involve my own anxieties about this upcoming change in our family size.  I need this to hurry up and happen so that I can just be thrown into the middle of all the chaos and have my sink or swim moment.

Oh, and the baby shower last weekend that Scott's family had for us was a total hit.  I got so many baby clothes and such that I don't know WHAT to think of it all.  I'm totally overwhelmed still by all the clothes and stuff we got, even though it has been washed and folded and is all ready to go.  I even have 90% of my bag packed for the hospital, minus a few little things I need to buy for myself (bathroom stuff, and I want a new robe and slippers), and the car seat is installed in the van and all ready to go thanks to a wonderful friend who is just as good as I am with that stuff.  Just need to buy a baby swing and some more cloth diapers, and I'll be good to go.

nervous for Friday

Friday morning is the growth scan to make sure that my blood pressure hasn't caused any issues with lil man's size and development.  I wish Scott could go with me for it, but we need him to stay at the house with the other kids.  I am worried that they will find something wrong and need to induce, especially knowing what my resting blood pressure has been running lately.

But in good news, my lab testing I did over the weekend came back good.  Protein is still elevated but holding steady from the last time, and my blood tests all came back within normal parameters.  I repeat them again this weekend.  Praise God for the little things!

34 weeks and great news

I had another visit to the midwife today.  A friend of mine brought her son over to play with my girls so I could go without the kids, just in case my blood pressure was acting up so I wouldn't have to deal with that on top of it all.  Anyway, I came home to a clean house (minor miracle, she actually got my kids to listen and help out) AND I had a good appointment too.

I gained 3 1/2lbs since my appointment last week, which isn't so great in my eyes, but hey I'm in the final weeks so I'm not surprised.  My blood pressure was completely normal for the first time in several weeks, AND I wasn't spilling protein when they did the dip.  I do have to repeat all the blood tests and the 24 hour collection again since my 24 hour results last week are higher than the week before, but today was a VERY good day for me with her.  She had a smile on her face when she came in, its been a while since I've seen her smile when she opens the door.

I decided to ask for information about permanent birth control options, as the first step in our decision about what to do after this baby comes.  We have no plans to make any decisions like that until he is at least 6 months old, however.  I'm too unstable emotionally to trust my own judgement at this point, and I don't want to have any regrets later if we choose to do something right now.  The only thing I do know is what we'll do while we wait to make a decision when I'm mentally stable again (yes, I've turned into a nutcase this time around, as usual, and I do anticipate that I'll end up on antidepressants after birth again as well).

So I go back next week for the routine tests and checkup that happens at 35 weeks *yuck* and I also get an ultrasound to check on our little boy's growth, placental function, fluid levels, and such.  With the issues I've had with my blood pressure, there is some concern that it may have affected his growth, blood flow, or placental function so they are going to take a look to double check that everything is good.  While we're looking, I'm going to ask if we can take another peek between his legs to be sure he's still a boy.  Yes, I'm still having a little trouble believing that he's a boy after having the 4 girls.  That is a surprise I do NOT want to have on delivery day.

Downside to next week?  My appointment is at 7am.  I'm NOT a morning person, getting up before 8am is really pushing it for me.  But I can do it, especially since Scott is pulling strings to get covered at work for a couple hours so he can go in late that day and watch the girls for me.  Yes, daddy will be the one dealing with breakfast that day, my poor kids.  I just hope that all goes well again next week, now that I'm in crunch time to baby.

FINALLY a homeschool update lol

Yes, I know I've not done much of that the last couple months, but we've also not done much for lessons lately either.  I will explain that one in my pregnancy update here in a minute.

So I was having a good day today with my blood pressure and symptoms, and decided to take advantage instead of taking it easy and trying to not overdo it.  I did a history lesson and a tie-in art lesson with the girls.  Now, I don't know if I mentioned this yet, but we have streamlined our history from doing a full Sonlight world history core to just reading "A Child's History Of The World" and doing whatever strikes our fancy to go with it as I feel up to it to finish this school year.  Simplified history here, so we could work with my limitations of the pregnancy and also be able to not miss much with a new baby and getting settled and adjusted to 5 kids.

Today's chapter was about Egyptian writing, also known as hieroglyphics.  Now, a couple years ago I went over this material with Missa when she was in 1st grade with OHVA, so it was review for her and new for her sisters.  I read the chapter, and we discussed the stuff that we read (lots more than JUST writing in there, it was also a good bit about Egyptian culture and gods/goddesses they worshipped, I'm going to do some searching later today for coloring pages and simple things to do tomorrow and the next day when I crash physically so they can continue with the culture and such with minimal work from me directly and I won't have to read to them too much hopefully).  I then remembered that we had some stuff hanging around from Missa's time in OHVA so I went to dig a minute.

I got out 3 pages that show the American English alphabet and the hieroglyph translations, and made a couple copies for the kids to use as a reference.  The project was simple.  Draw a simple self-portrait and write their first name (or nickname, in the case of the little girls) in hieroglyphs.  I paired them up so that the little girls each had a big girl to help, and then spent 45 minutes listening to Liddy throw a conniption fit because she couldn't draw her name out perfectly enough.  *sigh*  Yes, she is my motor delayed child, mostly we're caught up but she still has some issues there at times, but she is also a MAJOR perfectionist and drawing is the enemy with her most times.  She spent time cooling off and working out her fit in her room while Missa helped both little girls with theirs (this girl has a talent for hieroglyph drawing, she does rather well for an 8 year old I think).  Liddy and I came to an agreement that she would draw her picture and point out which hieroglyphs she needed for her name, and I would draw her name out for her.

Missa did better than I did at drawing names out.  But that is ok, hopefully Liddy will see that it is ok to not be perfect at everything and sometimes someone else is better than you at something.  We hung their portraits on the wall over the fireplace, and a copy of the pages for the "translation key" as a display of our work today.  I'll take pictures later and might share, if I feel up to it.

But 3 of the 4 girls thought it was an awesome fun project, and I found it really simple to come up with in a pinch.  I just wanted something to fill a little time after reading the history chapter just in case I needed to lay down because of my blood pressure.

snow day!

We got our first REAL snowfall last night overnight.  All of yesterday it rained, then it turned to snow around 8pm here.  Roads are covered in ice and snow, and they were shutting down portions of freeways in the area last night until the salt trucks could hit them to try and get rid of some of that ice on the roads.  As a result, many public and private schools in our area are on either a 2 hour delay, or closed completely.  Our district is one that decided to close for students.  So, technically it is a snow day here for the kids in my area.  For us, however, it is just another day.  We are sort of on a break from schoolwork until the baby comes, just doing a bit of work here and there as I feel able to stay up without my blood pressure acting up too much.

So now I get to decide, are we doing any lessons at all today or just enjoying the pretty snow from the window?  I think its just a little too cold right now to go play in it, and Kimi has a cough that sounds strangely like her coming down with a cold so I have to be extra careful right now for her sake.  Last thing I need on top of everything else is her to get seriously ill with bronchitis or something that could put her in the hospital while I'm at the tail end of my pregnancy.

pre-eclampsia

Yup, it sucks.  I am still doing the testing, but the OB that I saw yesterday for my appointment (yes, instead of the midwife, but that's ok I like this doctor, she's really nice and willing to talk to me about stuff openly and frankly) said chances are that is exactly what is going on.  So, there we have it.  I've danced with the vampire for a 4th time yesterday, and have more testing still to do. *sigh*  And here I was expecting a nice uneventful pregnancy for a 5th time.  Oh well, God knows what He is doing and everything will turn out as it is supposed to.

Now I just need to decide if I feel motivated enough to use the patterns I found over the weekend to make our little boy some footy pj's and such to wear.  Sewing calms me, but I'm not sure if it is going to be something I can do without my blood pressure going up too much.  Maybe I should go to a yarn store and get some yummy yarn to knit a blanket instead, that may be safer.  But then again, I really would like to make him a couple fleece overalls, some cute shirts, and some pjs with matching blankets.  The patterns I have are rather cute if I can just work up the motivation to dig through all my fabric.