Aedan: 70 Months, Week 1
Owen: 27 Months, Week 3
This blog post continues with our night at the hotel in Ohio, as we drove back home from Chicago. We got a hotel room what was a one bedroom suite, so we set Owen's pack and play up in the corner of the room, and Samantha and Aedan decided they wanted to sleep with one of us instead of each other, so they were asleep in separate beds as well. It took Owen awhile to calm down and fall asleep. He kept talking, which we knew was then keeping up Samantha and Aedan. (This is why it doesn't work for us to all share a room. Owen is just not old enough yet.) I ended up having to go back in and hold him for awhile until he was basically asleep. Ben and I hung out in the in the living room area watching TV for awhile, as there was an Ohio State football game on that Ben really wanted to see. I was pretty tired, so I ended up going in to bed before him. I was sharing a bed with Samantha, and Ben shared a bed with Aedan. Our sleep that night was not very restful as Samantha kept tossing and turning a lot in bed, waking me up every time, and making me wonder if there was something going on. Then, around 4:30 a.m., she sat up in bed and vomited all over the bed in between her and I. There was really nothing we could do at that point, so she just finished getting sick, and then I helped her get out of bed and into the bathroom, which was attached to the bedroom. We were trying so hard to be quiet and not wake up Aedan and Owen. Aedan stirred a little bit when Samantha got sick, and expressed concern to Ben, wondering if she was okay. Ben left the hotel room, which I later found out was because he was asking if there was any other room we could switch to, but they were totally booked that night. Meanwhile, I gathered up all the bedding from our bed as quietly as I could and dragged it out into the hallway. I didn't know what else to do with it. I found extra clothes for Samantha and myself, and then I went into the bathroom with her to help her out. She got sick in the toilet one more time, and then after she sat for awhile, I convinced her to wipe off her face with a wet washcloth, wash her hands, and get changed into clean clothes. Ben was able to get extra bedding for the pullout couch in the living room, so he made that up so that she could spend the rest of the night out there. We had no idea how much more she might get sick, and we wanted to keep her away from the boys as much as possible. Ben offered to sleep out in the living room with her, while I went back into the bedroom with the boys, sleeping in bed with Aedan this time. Ben said Samantha took a little while to calm down and go back to sleep, but she didn't get sick anymore, which was good. With all the commotion of the last hour, I had a hard time calming myself back down, and at that point it was close to 6:00. Aedan is also a pretty wiggly sleeper, especially with all the commotion that had taken place while he was trying to sleep. However, it made me nervous every time he stirred because I wondered if he would end up getting sick to his stomach as well. The boys ended up sleeping until around 7:30, and I was so amazed that Owen, the boy who wakes up during that night even when he's in a room by himself, never woke up once this whole night. (I think God knew that we could not handle having to deal with getting him back to sleep as well.) In an attempt to keep the boys quiet so Samantha could sleep as long as she needed, I turned on the TV and let them watch a few shows in bed with me. I was even able to doze in and out while they watched TV.
Samantha woke up around 9:15 that morning, and we were so glad she was able to get some good sleep and that she hadn't gotten sick again. However, she was still very lethargic and wasn't interested in eating anything. I think she was afraid to because she didn't want to get sick again. We still had seven hours of driving to do that day, and I was just praying that everyone else would be okay. We had everyone eat a light breakfast, just to be safe. I was just picturing everyone throwing up in the car on the way home, but it wouldn't have made sense to just sit in the hotel and wait to get back home. We all were just ready to be back home, especially after Samantha getting sick in the early morning hours. We took a trash can from the hotel with us in the car, just to be safe, and I was so thankful that if anyone was sick, it was Samantha, because she knows how to throw up in a trash can and not all over the place. She was able to sit in the back of the car and relax, rest, and read, and she still went all day without getting sick again. We had no idea how she got sick, maybe she picked something up from the museum? Or maybe she was just overtired from traveling and not sleeping well and all that comes with that? We did not stop long at all that day, even eating lunch in the car so that we could just keep driving and get back home to pick up Izzy before 6:00. We were so very glad when we made it back home. Samantha was such a trooper for riding in the car all day when she wasn't feeling well, and we were very grateful that we would have the night to adjust, unpack, and sleep before our two new little ones would be dropped off the next morning.
Everyone slept great that night, back in their own rooms and in their own beds. It was nice being back home, and the kids were really excited to open all the presents that we made them wait to open. They spent the whole next day opening things, playing, building Legos, and dancing to the new Frozen soundtrack played on their new CD player. Owen really enjoyed getting all his kitchen stuff out, and it was just a nice, relaxing way to spend our day. While the kids played, Ben and I were able to tackle our mountain of laundry and put things away from our trip. Samantha was doing just fine, and nobody else got sick either, so part of us were wondering if maybe it was food poisoning or something. We had Chipotle for dinner that night, and she was the only one who got carnitas, so maybe there was something up with that meat that made her sick. Who knows, but we were glad to have a few days at home before the kids went back to school on Thursday.
I had talked with my friend, Heather, about going to see "Little Women" when it came to the theater, and she messaged me that day to see if I would be available that evening to go see the movie. I almost just said no, because I felt bad leaving Ben at home with all five kids on the first night our two new little ones were back with us, and we weren't exactly sure if that would be a difficult transition or not. However, they had been doing fine that day and pretty much fit right back in like they were before we left on our long trip, which I was very grateful for because the lady that did respite care for us said that she couldn't get the little girl to sleep while she was there. We didn't quite understand how it was that everyone seems to have trouble getting her to sleep but us. We have just learned that she literally can't have anything in her room. We tried giving her a My Little Pony shaped pillow and a fleece star blanket to sleep with one night, and she just played with it and talked to it, so we had to take it away. I don't know if it's just the sleep environment we provide with no distractions, a dark, quiet place, and an early bedtime, but what we do seems to be working, and I'm glad she fell right back into our normal routine. Unfortunately, Ben had to go up to Owen's room six times that night in order to finally get him to sleep, so it was our own third born child that gave him the hardest time.
Going to see "Little Women" with Heather and Grace was so much fun. Making new friends is difficult for me sometimes, especially with how introverted I am and how much we have moved in our married life. I was so thankful that I am already making connections with other moms, and I really appreciated that they were thinking of me and inviting me to do things with them. "Little Women" was a wonderful movie, and I enjoyed it so much that I didn't even notice how long it was. After the movie was over, we sat at one of the tables in the theater and just talked for awhile. It was really nice to get out with our moms, women, who are fast becoming friends as well.
On Tuesday, December 31st, Ben went to campus to work because he hadn't gotten much done all Christmas break with traveling and everything. I was home with the five kids all day, and it went fairly well. The little girl slept well at our house the night before, so we were glad for that, but she was acting very tired that day, crying over everything and getting several time outs for not listening.
Samantha spent some day building with her Tinker Crates, the present from Chicago Grandpa and Grandma. She didn't need any help following the directions and setting them up, and I was impressed with how easy it was for her. She is a smart little girl, and I love that doing something like this is fun for her, not like work. This box has a battery pack attached to a motor that spins the plate on the inside of the box, and you drop different colored paint in through the hole on the top to watch how centrifugal force works. She was excited to show me how it worked.
Samantha spent some day building with her Tinker Crates, the present from Chicago Grandpa and Grandma. She didn't need any help following the directions and setting them up, and I was impressed with how easy it was for her. She is a smart little girl, and I love that doing something like this is fun for her, not like work. This box has a battery pack attached to a motor that spins the plate on the inside of the box, and you drop different colored paint in through the hole on the top to watch how centrifugal force works. She was excited to show me how it worked.
That evening, Ben had to run around to few stores looking for a Sterno can to use for our fondue pot. We have started a yearly tradition of having cheese and chocolate fondue on New Year's Eve. Samantha and Aedan remembered it from last year, and they were really excited for us to have it again. We had bread, green apples, steamed carrots and broccoli, and bacon to dip into our cheese fondue, and it was all very delicious. Everyone pigged out, and we even let the kids drink Sprite out of fancy little punch glasses. After a little while of cleaning up the items from the cheese fondue, we got out the chocolate fondue. We had cake, strawberries, bananas, marshmallows, and pretzels to dip into the chocolate fondue. Everyone was totally stuffed by the end of our fondue meal. I enjoy this tradition we have started, and it's fun to share this with the kids as well.
On Wednesday, January 1st, we decided to be adventurous and take all five kids down to the Please Touch Children's Museum in Philadelphia. We had never taken our two new little ones that far in the car before. (It's about a two to two hour and fifteen minute drive, depending on traffic.) We also had no idea how the little girl would behave somewhere like that. We didn't know if she would try to run away from us, if she wouldn't listen, if we would have to do a lot of redirecting or even time outs, but we didn't want her potential behavior to scare us away from doing things like this, especially when our kids have the day off of school, and we wanted to take advantage of our last day before Christmas break was over. To our surprise, our day went great, even with having to keep our eyes on five kids. The little girl didn't ever try to run away from us. She stayed together with our family, just like our kids were expected to do, and everyone had a really fun day. Here are some pictures and videos of our day.
We started in the water section, with everyone enjoying playing with the planes and boats. (I took pictures of our two new little ones, but I figured since I have to block out their faces anyways, I wouldn't include any pictures that were just of them.)
Owen likes to go in this toddler play area that is right next to water area. They have these lily pads you can stomp on that make different noises, pretend logs to make a campfire, and this cool log slide.
After playing in the water area, we took a break to eat the packed lunch that we brought along. Everyone ate pretty well because and quickly because they were excited about getting back to playing in the museum. We then went to the transportation section where the kids played inside a city bus, a few different cars, and an ice cream stand.
We then checked out the new Eric Carle exhibit, and this area was really fun with the long grass to climb in and different ways to explore his books. I think the most fun area was the place with the insects that were 3D puzzles. Aedan took them all apart and didn't need much help from me to put them back together, but it was fun to work together to complete the larger than life puzzles.
From there, we went through to a back room that we discovered last time with a whole space set-up with rocket launchers and astronaut gear you could dress up in. They all loved this place, and Owen was really excited to wear this astronaut helmet around.
We were done with that side of the upstairs exhibits, so we decided to go to the bottom floor and spend some time in the grocery store and restaurant. The biggest problem with this area is that it's really popular, and there are only four or five carts for everyone to share. Owen has a hard time being patient and waiting for his turn for a cart, but Aedan understood that he needed to be a big boy and find a different way to play in this section. This area was where we realized that Samantha is getting too old for museums like this because she also realizes she is too old to be taking carts from the little kids that want them, so she kind of just stood back and watched. It made me a little sad to think of her being "too old" for children's museums, and it brought back a flood of memories of all the times we have taken her to museums, whether the Children's Museum of Indianapolis, the Cincinnati Museum Center, or now the Please Touch Museum. It has been fun to be able to give her these experiences of play as she has grown up, and now we get to venture beyond children's museums with her as her learning and curiosity grows into more complex topics that require more thinking and longer attention spans. It's sad to see the simple ways of childhood pass, but it's exciting to think about the future and the amazing ways we can connect and continue to build our relationship with her as she grows, learns, and develops into the person God created her to be.
Here is a picture of Aedan sitting at the cash register. He chose to be someone who would check out people's groceries, and he took his job very seriously.
The bottom floor of the museum has a lot of these pretend play exhibits, so the next one we spent some time in was the hospital, which is always one of Samantha's favorites. She loves pretending to take care of the little babies, as well as doing check-ups on Aedan and Owen. For some reason I didn't get any pictures of her performing her serious work of being a doctor, but here is Owen giving his baby an x-ray and Aedan putting together the bones of a skeleton.
After playing in the Alice and Wonderland area as well as building with the big blue blocks, it was after 2:30, and we decided we would ride the carousel as our last thing before heading back home. I stood with the little boy, and he was a little fussy when he had to sit on the horse and wait for the ride to start, but after it started he really liked it. Here are pictures of our three kids on their chosen horses. Samantha doesn't find carousels very exciting anymore either, but she joins in to be a part of the family, and I appreciate that about her. Our three kiddos are just so cute. We had a fun day getting out and doing something together, and I'm glad we took the risk to go with all five kids. We had a great, fun day with no issues, and it was a nice way to spend one last day together on their last day of Christmas break.
After a long, full day of playing, the kids were all pretty tired (and the parents, too!). We stopped at Starbucks so Ben and I could get some coffee for the ride back home. The two new little ones were in the car seats in the back and fell asleep pretty much right away. Owen took a little bit of time, but he ended up falling asleep after looking at a book for awhile. Samantha took time to read, and Aedan colored quietly, allowing the rest of the kids in the car to take a little nap as we drove the two hours back home.
We had dinner in the crock pot that night, so it was all ready for us when we got home, which was good. Then, we just spent the night hanging out together, getting ready for school the next day, and getting everyone to bed early. Ben and I were even able to do a workout together that night after the kids were in bed. Now that the Christmas craziness is over, I really want to start being more consistent in working out every day. I know Ben and I both need more exercise, it's just finding the time and making the commitment to do it, seeing it as important for us, for our health, and for how we will feel in the future.
Owen had a really hard time going to sleep that night. He's been doing something for awhile where after one of us puts him to bed, he will cry out for the other person until we come up to his room. With four other kids trying to sleep in the house as well, we don't like waiting for too long because we don't want his crying to wake them up and keep them from falling asleep. Owen should have been tired that night after being at the museum all day and only taking a short nap in the car, but even though he fell asleep and was snoring in Ben's lap, as soon as he laid him down, he started kicking in his bed, crying, and screaming again. I went in there to try and settle him down, and then we decided we weren't going to go back in there again, and we told him that. We shouldn't have to keep going in there like that multiple times a night, and I think he's getting to the point where we need to draw a boundary and make him get used a new routine. We don't like letting him cry himself to sleep, and we never have done that with him, but with how much he's been crying lately, especially at the beginning of the night when we have just put him to bed, I thought that we needed to start letting him cry for awhile. I just couldn't help but think he was starting to take advantage of us always coming in his room when he cries. He's getting old enough that he knows what he's doing. He rarely falls asleep much with me at night, but he was just being ridiculous lately, and I felt like we needed to start breaking him of his habit. He ended up crying himself to sleep that night, only crying for about ten minutes before he finally started settling himself down.
Once Christmas is over I always feel a little bit of a disappointed feeling because I look forward to things so much, and I love traveling and the extra time together with our family, so I feel sad when they are over. With having our two new little ones, December definitely flew by for us this year. However, I also have almost felt too busy to really feel disappointed, or like there is enough downtime for me to even think about things like that. We will see if I feel more like that once the kids go back to school and Ben starts a new semester. I am always really happy when Ben has extra time off over Christmas break, and I miss him tremendously when he goes back to his normal semester work hours.
Thursday, January 2nd Ben went back to work because he had to get ready for the upcoming semester and finish his conference papers. Samantha and Aedan went back to school, and our two new little ones had a visit all day with their mom, since the little girl didn't start school yet. We are trying our best to make visits around her school schedule so she doesn't miss anymore school than she already has. It was so interesting just being with Owen again. The little boy is pretty easygoing and doesn't require a lot of extra work, but lugging two two year-old-boys is a handful sometimes. Since it was just the two of us, Owen and I ran some errands like dropping checks off at the bank, picking up dry-cleaning, and looking at a clothing store to see if they had any shoes for the little girl. I spent the rest of the day working on laundry and just relaxing some.
Samantha came home from school that first day with some great news. She was a "Be Your Best" Nominee for demonstrating the value of being: "Helpful." That character trait doesn't surprise me in the least. Ever since preschool Samantha has been described as empathetic and helpful, always looking for ways to reach out to the peers in her class and even to include people that may be feeling left out. She is a good leader in group settings, and she is always willing to go above and beyond what is required of her. She was super excited to tell us about it, and we were very proud of her.
Friday was one of those days where the day started off bad and just got worse and worse as the day went on. It started with Owen waking up crying four times overnight, so Ben and I woke up Friday morning feeling exhausted from a night of interrupted sleep. Then, the little girl woke up her brother that morning, and she was just being overall disrespectful towards us both the night before and that morning after the visit with her mom.
When Ben came downstairs with Owen and went into the kitchen, he heard something rustling around, and when he turned on the light he saw a mouse run across our counter and go behind the oven. It grossed me out when he told me that. We had these glass jars that we were keeping dried beans in to count the number of days we had foster kids. (It was an idea Ben heard somewhere.) I didn't even think about it when we left for our Christmas trip, but they were all gone when we got back. After seeing the mouse scurry across the counter, we decided we were going to put out some sticky traps and see if we could catch any. We just needed to be extra careful to not leave any food out for awhile. I didn't notice any droppings in our cabinets or anything, but I hated the idea of a mouse scurrying around our house at night and not knowing where they are coming from or how many there might be.
Jenny
Then, at breakfast the little boy threw up all his breakfast all over himself and his high chair. I didn't know if he was coming down with something or what, but he had a bad day the day before with his mom, and I don't think she gave him a nap, so he was really overtired from that plus being woken up by his sister that morning. They had an unsupervised visit at their house, and when they got back to our house, they were acting a lot like when we first got them, reverting back to some of the original behaviors.
Luckily, since classes hadn't started yet for Ben, he was able to help me get things cleaned up and get the big kids sent off to school. We had to cut part of the fabric on the high chair so we could get all the padding off to wash it. Ben took the little boy into our bathroom to wash him off in the tub, while I got the pack and play and set it up in the living room for him. I had no idea if he was going to keep getting sick or not, and with him being little, there was no way he would understand what was going on, and I wasn't going to be able to follow him around all day to watch if he got sick. Plus, if he was really coming down with something, I didn't really want him wandering around the house and playing with a lot of toys. I put some puppy pads that we had leftover from Izzy down to cover the mattress of the pack and play, and then I just let him hang out in there for the morning. I tried giving him a few different toys, but he just kept throwing them out. He was not happy being stuck in the pack and play, and he would cry for me to get him out, but I thought that was our best option. At some point that morning I put a movie on for Owen because everyone was tired and I just needed time to sit on the couch and take a few moments to breathe and decompress. The little boy got sick one more time in the pack and play, and then after cleaning him up and putting him back, a little while later he curled up and fell asleep right in the middle of the movie. He must have just been really tired because when he woke up he had a lot more life in him and was acting fine. He didn't get sick anymore that day.
The craziness of the morning was just made worse by the fact that I was so tired form being woken up multiple times a night by Owen every since we got back home from our Christmas travels. He hadn't slept through the night once, and even before we left and while we were gone he would wake up during the night some, but like once every 2-3 days, not 3-4 times in one night. At this point I had never been more excited to get out of town without kids when Ben and I get to go down to Puerto Rico together for his conference and a little vacation. We arranged for our two new little ones to have a weekend visit with their parents from Friday through Sunday, so that way Ben's parents would get a break from taking care of all five kids, and our kids would get special time with just Ema and Papa.
That afternoon the boys took decent naps, the little boy seemed to be doing fine, so I was able to do more laundry, and spent time on the phone calling for appointments for our two new little ones,and then only had about twenty minutes before the little boy woke up from his nap and his sister got home from school.
Here is some work Aedan brought home from school: color word recognition, more work with the letter Kk, and working on addition problems in Math.
Jen
After a long day, I was very glad that Owen actually went to sleep that night without Ben or me having to go back up there again. It was so nice to not have to deal with him crying over and over for us.
Saturday was going to be a busy but fun day. Samantha was starting her next play at the KISS Theater called "The Journey of the Noble Gnarble." She loved the Christmas play so much that we decided to sign her up for the next production.
Then, on Saturday night we had tickets to a Wilkes-Barre/Scranton hockey game because the kids won free tickets for reading ten books as part of a reading incentive program. Alysse, a friend of mine from Bible study volunteered to come babysit our two new little ones so we could just go with our three kids. Our two new little ones wouldn't be able to handle sitting for a game and being out late like that. Owen would be tired as well, but he would be the one more interested in watching the game, or at least he was when we would go to Lake State games. I thought about leaving him behind to go to sleep earlier, too, but I didn't think he would like that very much.
It was a little stressful getting dinner done and explaining everything Alysse would need to know to take care of and put our two new little ones to bed that night. We left later than we wanted to and were cutting it close to get to the game on time, then I picked the wrong arena for Google Maps, so it was taking us the wrong direction. And to put icing on the cake, apparently the arena has a rule about not being allowed to bring bags in unless they are clear, so Ben had to take Owen's diaper bag back to the car and just carry diapers and wipes in separately, making us even later to get in to the game. It wasn't exactly a relaxing start to our family night out.
The hockey game was fun, but I don't think our kids were quite in the mood for it. It was obviously a much bigger arena than Lake State, meaning there were a lot more people, more noise, and we were farther away from the ice, as well as more scrunched on space since we didn't have a separate seat for Owen. Aedan really only cares about the snacks he can get and then he just got bored and started causing trouble after that. Samantha enjoyed clapping and cheering, but she also said that she would have much more fun if she could bring a book along to something like that, and Owen didn't enjoy having to sit on someone's lap instead of having his own seat. The game didn't start until 7:00, which is usually when we are getting the kids ready for bed, so even though it was fun to get out and have a new experience, part of me wondered if it's not worth it to do things like that where we are out late. It was fun, but not as enjoyable as it could have been (or maybe how I expected it to be).
(Blog about December 29, 2019-January 4, 2020)
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