The juggle

No one prepared me for REAL motherhood. Those intense but everyday moments of motherhood.

A couple weeks ago Quinn woke up sick from a nap.

I kept Quinn in the boy's room with me so I could keep my eye on him while I changed the yucky sheets on his bed, changed his clothes, gathered anything else in the room that needed to be washed, and wiped down the mattress pad.

Amidst this I had originally closed the door and locked it leaving Maxson and Bryson out of the room so I could focus on the mess ahead and Quinn. Of course those other 2 boys are having a fit I left them out of the room. Through Maxson's frantic tears he goes down stairs finds a knife and is then able to unlock the door happily allowing himself in to the throw up room so now I have Quinn's mess as well as 3 needy children all in one small room.

I go to put Quinn in the bath, rush downstair to get a couple oils, Lavender and Wild Orange, to put in the bath with him. Of course when I get up there Bryson is trying his hardest to get in the bath with all his clothes on and Quinn has pulled out his yuckified stuffed animal from the basket of things I need to put in the laundry.

So we start the bath with just Quinn to have his own alone time. Bryson and Maxson are dying to get in but I talk in them out of getting in with Quinn enough to wait a few minutes.

I get Quinn out. Let the bath drain, refill it for Maxson and Bryson. Go downstairs to get Quinn a cup to throw up in. Try to get Quinn dressed I can tell he's starting to not feel well again. As I sit outside the bathroom door watching Maxson and Bryson in the water continually asking Max not to do this or that (dump water on Bryson's head, use tons of soap to make bubbles, taking toys away from Bry, etc) Quinn is in my lap pale as a ghost throwing up a little here and there as I keep comforting him.

Once Quinn's episode is done I go in the bathroom trying to crouch enough to make it comfy for Quinn to cuddle me while dumping the throw up in the toilet. Of course Bryson needs to get out of the bath tub and come look in the toilet and cup to see what I'm doing. So as I'm trying to cuddle with sick Quinn with one hand, pushing wet slippery Bryson back in the tub with another as he is grasping onto the cup or toilet to get a better look and I'm trying to flush the toilet as fast as I can before it touches anyone and then rinse the cup out to be ready for the next episode on Quinn, and surely Maxson is doing something I don't love in the bathroom.

It's that moment that i'm like "No one prepared me for this. No one told me I would literally be juggling throw up, sick children, and slippery fish children all at the same time and no one would be around to help."

When your first child is sick everything you do in life revolves around that one sick child. Your day and tasks stop all to comfort that little one.

Enter more children and one sick child and the day keeps going. Everyone else still wants to be fed and making messes while one just wants and needs to be cuddled and loved and held and for time to stop for them. But it can't.

The struggle of the juggle is real.

You press forward.

You keep going.

You get through it.

In the moment you do what needs to be done and as much as you can, and then afterwards looking back at it you're like "Woah, that was tough stuff and I made it through!"

That's it.

Cold and flu season

Being sick is the pits, I absolutely hate it. Even worse is when my little ones are sick because it seems to last longer in their little bodies! And when they get sick they pass it to everyone. It seems like we have something almost every other week these and I'm ready for the sickness to STOP! We've been very diligent at washing hands, cleaning surfaces with lysol disinfectants, and having hand sanitizer in various rooms, cars, and bags easily accessible and use often. We have even big dabbling in using the onGuard oil on kids feet to see if it helps keep their immune systems stronger with fighting of all these awful germs.

Poor little Bryson, is halfway through antibiotics for getting rid of an ear infection. He's finally eligible for tubes in his ears, which is scheduled for next week. I just feel so bad for this poor boy, I want him to finally be unstick (and me to be able to stop wiping noses 24/7 or carrying him around all the time!). This is the face of a sick child, those dumb germs.

Max went in to get his 3 year well checkup yesterday and it all went as expected. 

The whole car ride there and first 10 minutes of the visit he kept saying "no doctor, no yike doctor," he was totally unwilling to do anything even step on the scale to get weighed, sigh, that boy. Every time, I don'd know why! But after they just kept doing stuff like blood pressure, heart rate, questions, he was completely fine with it all and liked the nurse and doctor. We got his flu vaccine and it was so easy. All he had to do was sniff the vaccine up his nose, no pokes, woohoo! He was very happy to get 2 sticky lizards afterwards for his prize and a minion sticker. 

The babies got their vaccines back at their year check up. I always have questions about vaccines so I'm so glad when Bankers Healthcare Group reached out to me with this infographic about flu myths to share with you guys.

So here's your happy and healthy reminder to keep yourself healthy this season (or go get your vaccine if you haven't already, MOTHER!)

Being sick, ponderize, kids, fall,

Holy monkey, you never appreciate your health more than when you are sick, blah.

Saturday starting around 4 am I only got out of bed all day long to take trips to the bathroom to throw up, it was awful. My stomach was in pain all day. Nothing like leaning over the toilet throwing up and your almost 3 year old coming in next to you watching and say "Wus wong mama? Was wong? Happin?"

I was so thankful I was sick like that on a Saturday so Casey could be home and take over the house and kids and I didn't feel like a burden on a friend or neighbor. A week before that I had another random terrible day of stomach pain for most the day but never ended up throwing up, and I could still function enough as a mom.

Now today Casey is taking his turn being sick. Except not throwing up. That guy has never thrown up in our whole marriage. It's almost 6 years! I on the other hand throw up at least once a year, it's dumb.

So our poor home, hopefully we don't/haven't passed this sickness along to our dear friends :(

***

This week our ponderize scripture was Joshua 1:5-6 "As I was with Moses I will be with thee, I will not forsake thee nor fail thee. BE STRONG and of GOOD COURAGE"

I had a picture of the scripture and my kids on my phone, we had it on the fridge, and we were constantly having Maxson repeat it, it was a really great experience! Hopefully we can continue forward with that!

***

This week I was scheduled to have 6 photo shoots, they all got rescheduled to next week because of weather, things came up, or I was sick. So that was a wasted week as a photographer, blah.

But I did get to go to the hospital to take pictures of my friend's brand spankin new baby! It was so sweet!!!!!

***

Of the time we are all awake during the day, I'd say we spend 1/3-1/2 of our time outside. It's so wonderful outside. Temperatures range from 60's-80's depending on the day. Fall is here and it's BEAUTIFUL. Last year I didn't get to really enjoy fall at all because I was HUGE pregnant with the twinsies and couldn't get places very easily. This year we are out walking everyday somewhere and we're seeing fall slowly get more colorful everyday and so many different trees, I love it! It's been fun teaching Max about it too!

The different things about Nebraska vs Utah fall is that since Utah has these large beautiful mountains all around, you slowly see fall coming down the mountain and it just lasts longer. Here in Nebraska it is all flat so fall comes and goes fast it seems! We're trying to take in this beauty as much as we can!

***

Quinn got tubes in his ears this week. They didn't put in normal tubes because the shape of his ear drum was worse than normal causing some bad problems, poor kid. He had a really hard time waking up from it. He was practically unconsolable it was so sad, so so so sad. After a good 3 hour nap he was back to normal. So here's to hoping for no more ear infections!

***

Usually the kids wake up between 6-6:45. I'm used to that time now and it's not bad at all (the twinges got to bed at 7, and Max sometime between 8-9 but he takes a 3 hour nap during the day so it all equals out). Well Thursday-Sunday this week Bryson has woken up at 5:10, 5:45, 5:30, and 4:45 respectively. Happy as can be!! I'm like WHAT?!?!?! The Thursday morning wake up at 5:10 I was up and getting ready for Quinn's ear tubes surgery at that time anyways so we were all messed up and hand to deal with it. Friday's at 5:45 wasn't WAY too off the normal time so we just got up. Saturday's 5:30 time I was up throwing up in the bathroom with the light on and we all were messed up with it. So TODAY, Sunday, no one was up at 4:45 so I was like, "uh uh, you are going back to sleep." Max came in our room (and never totally went back to sleep), Quinn must have mostly slept through it, and Bryson finally went back to sleep at 45 minutes of happily talking and then angrily crying.

With Max in our bed I kept telling him different things like "The sun is still sleeping so you have to go back to sleep"  "Go back to sleep one more time and then you can wake up" "Do you want oatmeal with sprinkles for breakfast? Ok then go back to sleep and you can have it when we wake up" And then when I was really desperate that last 20-30 min he just played (soundless) games on my phone. Oh jeeze, what we do to survive!

***

I hope to stay up on our family pictures this week, I am SO behind from phone pictures over the last 2 months, sigh, I just need to press forward though and not look back. I have switched to a  new organizing method since it will be better long term so I need to keep with it!

***

If you made it to the end, great!

Happy Sabbath Day! We will sadly not be attending church today because of our sickness and that makes me really sad. I truly miss the opportunity to partake of the sacrament, it is so special to my heart.  We will go over our Relief Society and Priesthood lessons as well as the nursery lesson with Max and fill up our soul a little. I also hope to read through some conference talks today too! I hope you enjoy your family on this the Lord's Day!

Even sicker day

**Written last Saturday**

OH. MY. GOSH.

Remember how Max had a fever and was sick? As awful as it sounds I will take Max sick over the babies being sick any day because he is so much easier to deal with when sick. The babies spiked fevers last night (friday night) and it was one of the longest nights ever. I kid you not. They awoke at 11:15 and I couldn't get them back settled until 12:30 am until Casey was home picking my mom up from the airport and I had more hands to get the poor kids off my chest. They were oh so hot even after their tylenol, they were so sad, and their noses so runny. Starting at 3:30 we were up every half hour with the babies for some reason or another. It is/was so sad. My poor sick little babies. They can't sleep for a very long and they can't stay awake for very long either. It was a long night and has been a long day thus far. I just want my babies to be happy again.

All day long they couldn't sleep or stay awake for more than 30-40 min at a time and they were so cranky and sad and congested, it was just the saddest thing ever and super exhausting as parents.

By the way I am sick too. Starting in the evening I started a yucky not feeling cough, then a headache, then achey joints, and then during the night I probably had a fever go on and off with getting chilly. At one point I was in sweat pants, thick socks, and a sweatshirt with the hood up and still freezing under the covers. I don't know what my poor little babies are/were feeling either which stunk. Were they hot? Were they cold? It just makes me so sad.

GO AWAY GERMS! LET US BE HEALTHY!

COME BACK SUMMER, I MISS YOU DEARLY!

But my wonderful mom is here now to help. How great is that? I was able to take a nap when all the kids were awake and my house isn't falling apart with all these sick kids and sick momma. How indebted I am to her.

**Written Tuesday**

We had 2 nights of very sick babies and those may have been the hardest nights we have thus experienced as parents. Imagine 1 sick baby: I don't know what your sick babies are like but maybe they wake up every couple of hours, you have to suck out their noses so they can breathe, it's sad, you may have to hold them more, etc. It's a hard night but doable, you get through it

Now imagine 2 sick babies in the same room and then a toddler in the next room that wakes up to all the crying. Going through the chain of events that night would take way too long but let me right a few bullet points.

(I'm going to call Quinn and Bryson one and two just for fun because it doesn't really matter which woke up when, actually I have no idea who was who all night it seemed like because they were both equally awful and sad)

-One wakes up to eat and then won't go back down easily for a good half hour+ because it's s hard to fall asleep with a stuffy nose and high temperature. A half hour after you get one down two wakes up to eat, you have to suck out his nose because he can't breathe causing him to cry very loud then waking up one then you tried so hard to get to sleep. You then play this dance every half hour with both: feeding them, sucking out noses and screaming causing the other to wake up, and then finally falling asleep in your arms only to wake up nearly immediately and bounce/cuddle the baby back to sleep.I kid you not be I was out of bed every half and hour and there was a 2 hour stint I didn't sleep even a blink.

-Max woke up I think 3 times beginning at 1:30 and pretended he'd go back to sleep but end up screaming and not going back to sleep. He ended up sleeping in our bed from about 2:30-5 (first time he's slept in our bed in a year I think, it was so weird!) After a couple hours he must have gotten woken up too much by the baby's crying and decided to wake up for good. That was not cool and not going to go on. After 15-20 minutes with him downstairs arguing that he needed to go back to bed and it was still night time while he yelled back that he wanted the iPad, I somehow bartered with him that I would give him strawberry milk and he'd go back to sleep. He (shockingly) immediately agreed and went back to sleep, so weird and so exhausting.

The rest of the night was a blur, I think the day started at 6:30 or something, so early, I'm pretty sure I got a MAXIMUM of 3 hours of sleep. So flipping exhausting, I felt so bad for my babies too though, they were probably feeling terrible. The rest of the day they could barely sleep 30-45 minutes at a time and were only able to stay awake for 30-45 minutes at a time (usually they stay awake 1.5 hours and sleep 45 min-3 hours). It was rough.

We took the babies to the doctor on Saturday to make sure there was nothing seriously wrong with them, they test them for RSV and nothing showed up, just really bad yucky virus I guess.

Their fevers broke after about 36 hours, it was so long. And now their sleep habits have turned for the worse with all that sickness. Rmemeber how they used to sleep a ton at night? Not anymore :( They're now up 4-5 times a night, insist on formula after being nursed, wake up to each other's cries and just are not good sleepers anymore! Ugh, please change for the better babies! I told Casey that even though they were/are crappy day time sleepers, at least they slept fabulous at night. WEll the their redeeming quality has disappeared…they need a new redeeming (sleep) quality from somewhere, mmeh.

This picture was the day it started, I should have seen the signs in Quinn there on the right.

The first time they woke up with fevers I rocked their hot little bodies for a couple hours while they went in and out of sleep. Casey was gone getting my mom from the airport and I had to wait for them to return to move them, it was oh so sad.

The death days of 4 out of 5 people not feeling great and everyone not getting any sleep.

a. Quinn's stank face of how he was feeling, poor guy

b. Max was cuddling with Casey in the middle of the night and it was the stinking cutest thing ever.

Entertaining our tired sick selves during church.

Any tips on getting babies back to sleeping through the night is GREATLY APPRECIATED! Sadly, we have a tiny house and they have to sleep in our room, we don't have another room for them with Maxson being in our 2nd bedroom. We've thought about sleeping in the family room for a week or so while they learn to sleep through their night wakenings and each other's cries (read let them cry for longer times at night. With them in our room we come to their rescue immediately so we can get the most sleep possible). Also, why are they not satisfied just by breastfeeding anymore?!? It takes so much longer to bottle feed them too and it's so frustrating!

Funny thing, after the third awful night of helping the babies I was sitting on my bed with one of them at 4 am feeding them a bottle or just hushing their cries and I remember thinking "As crappy as this is, I'm so glad it's me taking care of these boys. I love them so much and want to be the one nursing them back to health, cuddling them through the night, and holding them tight" Funny how motherhood works, huh?

Rant over.

Germs: go away.

Health: come back.

Babies: be better sleepers.

Friiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiday

The end of a week.

Friday.

I love Fridays since that means Casey has less than a half day at school and then he's home for pretty much all day Friday, Saturday, Sunday, yipeeeeeee!

It feels as if we are an all hands on deck house right now. If you're home, you're helping, no rest for the weary.

Poor little Max was/is one sick puppy. He's had a pretty runny nose for the past 4-5 days and then yesterday he came down with a fever and was just wanting to sit and not do much. My poor baby boy. And his eyes were watery all day long and he napped for 4 hours I think and then went back to sleep for the night just 2 1/2 hours later. Today he continued the fever on and off while we gave him tylenol here and there. Still an awful runny nose today (can't seem to get him to blow through his nose, it's killing me!) but eyes a little less watery, he's been eating less today too.

But remember how I said he went to bed pretty soon after his nap the day before? WELL, that was not a wise choice to allow him to do because at 4 am we here Max awake, Casey goes in (Casey always deals with Max in the middle of the night because a) he's nice b) I pretty much always deal with the babies c) Max is overall more used to Casey when it comes to going to sleep or back to sleep because he pretty much always puts him to bed). Well after talking to him and trying his best to coax him back to sleep, Max insisted "ALL DONE! AWAKE!" Ha, oh man. I asked Casey to stay up with him (stay up=let Maxson watch a movie on the iPad downstairs while he slept next to him, ha) and I told him I'd switch him when the babies woke up. Did I mention the babies woke up FOUR times to eat that night? What in the heck happened to them that night? No clue. Bryson decided to start the day at 6 am (usually the absolute earliest is 7:30, but more like 8/8:30). So I forced Quinn to wake up too and we switched Casey.

Babies went back to sleep 1-1 1/2 hours later and I was able to convince Maxson back to sleep at 7:30/8 too. The whole family slept until a glorious 9:30. I fed the babies and went back to sleep while Casey got up with the children (he didn't have school today because of boards for the 4th years, TENDER MERCY). When he came back in to put the babies to sleep at 11 I decided it was finally the right hour to wake up.

Oh my goodness, what a morning, right? Do you see why my last post was surrounded by exhaustion?

But my glorious, heavenly, wonderful MOTHER is coming tonight to my rescue!!!!!!!! I told her at the beginning of the month that I would be needing a break soon, ha, and was hoping she'd come help me out again.

This stage of my kids is just so overwhelming and intense, I'm so grateful she's so willing to come help and join me in the ranks of mothering small children again for a week to relieve me for just a bit, how I love her so much (if anyone else wants to come slave labor visit me for a week you're more than welcome! Wink, wink)

Onto something more exciting than me being exhausted and our household's sleeping status.

I'm working on my 2014 photo book again!!!!! GO KIMBER!

You guys, it's seriously a huge accomplishment to start it again. I got out 2013 the other day and Max and I loved looking through it. I decided I needed to hurry and pump out 2014 so we could hurry and enjoy last year too, especially since Max will still remember those later months! It's really not that hard to do, I got half of July, August, Sept, and half of Oct done in like 2 nights. It just take effort and remember how I said that at night I want to sit and nothing? Yiiiiiiisssssss.

I got up to the part of where the babies are born. I imagine the next 3 months of the book are going to take longer than just 2 nights though…

Also I took all 3 kids into the doctor this week BY MYSELF! This was the first time I've ever gone anywhere with all 3 by myself!!!!!! (Ok one time we went to the park but I'm not really counting that, it was 15 minutes maximum and I didn't even get the babies out). Well our ward is FULL of sickness, my family included. So we went in to check that they didn't have anything serious and just little colds. Moral of the story, I went somewhere with all 3 kids by myself and I did it!

I'm not sure why I've gotten all chatty lately on my posts recently. Maybe it's because it feels good to examine my feelings and my days, to step back and see where I am/where the kids are/where I want to be and that happens because I can write it out, now that I think of it, blogging is very therapeutic.

Pictures another time, I'm too tired and headed to bed.

under the weather.

today i really wish maxson would focus/be distracted by a movie.

i woke up with a sore throat that's just been getting worse and worse. my lymph nodes are oober swollen, it'a hard to swallow and hurts, my body is overall a little achey, i have a borderline head ache, and by entire body feels like the energy is just depleted out of it. fun stuff, eh?

maxson hasn't been that needy today (probably because i'm not standing doing dishes/making food, ha). i've played with him a little here and there, i'm hoping he's not feeling the same way. through some tender mercy casey had a 2 hour break at lunch and during that time i soaked in a bath which helped a ton, he put maxson down for a nap at a 11:35 and i promptly began sleeping when i got out of the bath. i napped from about 12-1 where upon i was awakened by a maxson cry, i went in promptly to get him to find a snuggly baby who then slept beside me on my bed for another 2 hours. huge tender mercy there because a) he never naps that long (last night's lack of sleep on his part probably attributed to this) b) he never goes back to sleep after we've gotten him c) i don't remember the last time he fell asleep next to me on my bed. tender mercy of the lord i tell you. too bad i couldn't get anything productive done because a) his feet were dangling off the bed the whole time and i was afraid he'd fall off b) i was so timid laying next to him attempting to move, the last thing i wanted to happen was ME wake him up from moving. nonetheless, it was wonderful.

and now i'm sitting here on the couch feeling worse by the minute, counting down the minutes until casey gets home from school (we live a 3 minute bike ride away, it's wonderful), also waiting upon my saintly neighbor to return from the store with milk, bananas, and soup (and maybe some medicine if she finds any).

send good thoughts my way.

i shall leave you with pictures of a delectable fruit pizza i made a couple weeks ago at a baby shower. i used this recipe for the crust and this recipe for the frosting. i also dipped the bananas in lemon water so they wouldn't brown. it was delicious.