My last (?) baby is 16 months old

This boy is less baby and more toddler every day! I took all of these photos yesterday (Sunday) and wow, they're pretty blurry, but you should have seen the ones I'm not posting...he is go go go all the time. (And as you'll see farther down, he also figured out how to use my iPad to take selfies during family scripture study. 16 months my foot). 

Nathan's second year of life is so much more enjoyable for all of us than his first. He is eating and drinking and we are no longer having to track how many ounces of weight he gains every day, which is awesome. I can finally just relax and enjoy him--okay, I can just try to keep up with him, as he is WAY more skilled/agile/crafty/climbing than any and all of our other children. His favorite thing to do is to run into the bathroom, close the toilet lids, climb into one of the sinks, turn on the faucets, and simultaneously stuff all the nearby toothbrushes into his mouth (which is why the most frequent noise in our house is an older child yelling "Tottie Alert! Tottie Alert! Tottie Alert!" and then enraged Nathan yells as he is pulled away from whatever activity he is not supposed to be doing, like taking my Garmin GPS watch for a dip in the toilet, or climbing inside the washer, or climbing onto the trampoline BY HIMSELF or opening the fridge/dishwasher/oven/interior doors, licking the power meter, etc. You know, just those sorts of things). 

Good thing he's so darn cute that he has every single one of us (except Luke, who still views him as a crazed interloper) wrapped around his finger. When the biggies get home from school they immediately run to him and he greets them by name ("Bah-bah-boh! Doo-wa!") and then gives them giant slobbery kisses all over their faces. 

I was giving the boys haircuts last week and every time I tried to use the scissors on Tot, he went crazy trying to pull them away and use them himself (yes, that's another great skill he's already mastered). So he ended up with a buzz cut, in case you were wondering...

This set of photos is all from scripture study the other night. I was using my iPad since Tot had my copy of the Book of Mormon (we just keep a big stack on our end table and pass them out for scriptures) and I couldn't help but take a few pictures of how intent he was. Of course, it didn't take him long to decide that he'd really rather trade me the paperback version for the electronic...

So as you may remember from past posts, I have really been agonizing for the last six months or so over whether it is time to shift our focus from growing our family to raising our family. This is another thing where I have finally found peace and friends, I am just loving the stage we are in right now and the opportunity to really focus in and enjoy each of my children as individuals. My pregnancies have been increasingly difficult and I'm looking forward to a fall that is not spent on bed rest (that is, if this darn plantar fasciitis calms down!) 

Before we had children, Neil and I always planned to have six children, and part of me is like, what, don't quit now! and another part of me is like, hello, dummy, don't have another child just to hit a numerical goal. As our children get older I realize how easy it is to keep having babies--because babies are easy! Don't get me wrong, pregnancy, delivery, sleepless nights and crying babies (and parents!) and exploding diapers and never going anywhere during naptime--those things are not easy--but now that I am dealing with some real heartbreakers of issues with my older children, I'm realizing more and more that I need to be 100% present for them in a way that I just can't be with a difficult pregnancy or a newborn. This answer isn't a one-size-fits-all type, but this is what I have come to feel after lots of fasting and prayer and blessings and loooong talks with my husband. (Plus, do you realize that in a year I could be DONE with diapers and naptime?!?!?!) In hindsight, I think so many of the difficulties of the last year prepared me to accept an answer that I never would have been content with otherwise--does that make any sense at all? It's still really bittersweet to me--and who knows, we might have another couple of children in a few years--but for now, I am focusing on the babies I have.

 

I remember a friend of mine telling me that with her fifth and last child, she and her husband were constantly saying to each other,"This phase is so darling! Did so-and-so do such cute things at this age? Goodness, we missed out on a lot!" and I often feel the same way. Natie is a rascal but an absolutely darling, endearing, precious little rascal, and I am enjoying his toddlerhood so much...as are we all. Cross your fingers that this child is not going to be spoiled by the total and unreserved adoration of his parents and siblings (don't worry, they still frequently lock him out of their rooms so he can't eat their Legos and Neil & I are still driven bonkers by his inventive antics, so it's not all Nathan-worship around here!).

Pretty darn lovable.

So remember when I mentioned that he figured out how to take selfies? Yeah, he's totally in love with the camera button AND with seeing his own little face (I like how my arm is in every single one of these pictures trying to hold the iPad out of his reach and frantically trying to get back to my scriptures app. Why do little kids figure out how to do crazy electronic navigational shortcuts that I can never recreate?

aaaand the end, because mean Mommy took away the iPad.

Daily life

 

Juliet is 7!

 Our sweet Juliet celebrated her golden birthday just a few days before school started. As luck would have it, every single person in our family was snuffling and miserable with an end-of-summer cold, but we still managed to have fun! (Our original plan had been to go camping for her birthday...we all wound up asleep in our own beds at 7 pm that night instead. Oh well.)

We had a nice morning--we opened presents bright and early, made the pancakes & bacon Juliet had requested, and then played with her new Legos most of the day (we were all so crummy-feeling that we didn't even remember about lunch. I fed Natie and everyone else was just like...I think I can handle a piece of toast and some water).


Juliet's birthday cake was very simple (thanks to a good idea from my mom--otherwise it would have been a plate stacked with Oreos!)--an Oreo crust + all the chocolate ice cream in my freezer + more crumbled Oreos on top. Quite the hit and this girl was delighted!



Juliet is, as always, a sweet little spitfire. She swings from being utterly enchanting and batting her eyes at you one minute to being a little tornado the next! The other night after she and I had yet another tussle over whether she would or would not do something I looked at her and said, "Jules, the problem here is that the two of us are too much alike!" And she laughed and said, "Yep, that's exactly it!" and we hugged and made up.

When Jules was about two I remember that people were constantly telling us that she would be a handful as she got older, but I must say, I am always so impressed by Juliet's ability to take a step back, defuse, and look at the situation objectively (it definitely helps that this is our second go-round with a seven-year-old and we've learned a few tricks!). She is bright, intelligent, independent, and stubborn, but she is also incredibly loving and has an ability far beyond her years to consider how her actions impact others. She is very compassionate, quick to help, and an absolute delight in our family.



Juliet's favorites right now: reading reading reading! (She made it through the entire Harry Potter series in first grade, whipped through all the published-thus-far Percy Jackson books over the summer, and spent the last week before school started rereading all the Little House books.)

As always, she is super into imaginative play and dressing up. Over the course of the summer we slowly watched most of the Star Wars movies and that provided fodder for many an afternoon of adventure.

So glad we have our darling Jules in our family! Here's to another great year with this sweet girl!

Changes

My three oldest children are all at school right now and I am missing them SO much! Yesterday was a really, really, really hard day for me. Lots of tears (from me, not them!). I have felt so great about Abigail & Juliet's classes & teachers this year, but Isaac's has caused a lot more uncertainty. Fortunately, yesterday I finally worked out a schedule with his principal and teacher that makes me feel much better about things--essentially he goes to school until around naptime and then I pick him up and have two precious glowing golden hours with him while Natie (and maybe Luke?) is/are napping.

In any case, I am home with just Nate and Luke this morning and boy oh boy is it going to be good for those two to get some time together to become friends! It is sorely needed (it's been a long morning already!).

Last night I was lying awake thinking about things and I suddenly had a flash of inspiration about this blog. I've been searching for a more appropriate name since Juliet was born, and I realized that the quote I have inscribed into my planner pretty much perfectly encapsulates how I feel about my life right now. It's from Anne Campbell (unfortunately I couldn't format the header to display the quote attribution as well so hopefully this will do).

The poem is called "To My Child," and I like the first stanza best:

“You are the trip I did not take, you are the pearls I could not buy,
you are my blue Italian lake, you are my piece of foreign sky.

You are my Honolulu moon, you are the book I did not write,
you are my heart's unuttered tune, you are a candle in my night.

You are the flower beneath the snow, in my dark sky a bit of blue,
answering disappointment's blow with "I am happy! I have you!”

It's a bit of a downer poem in some ways, but that's one of the things I like about it. Motherhood isn't all about self-fulfillment. There's a lot of sacrifice and putting yourself on the back burner and questioning all the time if you're doing ANYTHING right at all or if you're messing your kids up irrevocably. But at the same time, there IS so much joy and fulfillment of a different and deeper sort. It's quiet and it's not grandiose and your post or tweet or status update about making it through another day isn't going to go viral.

But you and I know that inexpressible heart-swelling gratitude for the opportunity to pour every bit of ourselves into this calling. And those children of mine truly are my foreign sky.

Monday night fun

 Tonight for Family Home Evening we decided to go for a bike ride and grab some ice cream on the way. We packed along our ice cream scoop and stopped at the grocery store to pick out a couple of yummy flavors & some waffle cones, then went to a nearby playground and had ourselves a delightful time.

Note to self: keeping the kids up an hour past bedtime for a seven-mile bike ride and lots of running at the playground equates to no bedtime fuss at all--they were out almost instantly!

Juliet is my favorite photobomber. Seriously, she's awesome.

 One of my favorite things these days is watching the older kids look out for Nathan. They are so great about it and I (almost) never have to ask them to help him out--they just do it! Too bad their parents aren't as on top of things, since Neil and I both agreed that we should toss a diaper in the bike trailer, didn't actually do it, and wound up using a crumpled-up napkin (moistened in a nearby drinking fountain) and a plastic grocery sack (thanks, ice cream stop!) as a makeshift diaper/wipe. #parentingfailorwin?

Everyone (except me--I'm still having crazy issues with vertigo, thanks!) went for a ride--or fifty--on the "Vomit Comet." I have no idea where that name originated, but gross.

 Isaac was having an awesome time...

And Natie started to slow down just before we packed everyone back on their bikes, and so I snapped a few photos of my beautiful beautiful baby (who is 15 and a half months!!). I love him so much and I love the darling stage he's in...lots of babbling, getting into EVERYTHING (he climbed onto the trampoline yesterday, which is something that Luke just mastered this year), and all kinds of general darlingness. My very favorite is when the kids say, "Natie, who's the cutest baby in the world?" and he says, "Meeeee! Meeee!" and they kiss him and say, "Yes, yes you are, Natie! You're the cutest baby in the world!"

As Neil said when we were pulling up to our house in the dusky rose-tinged twilight, we've got a pretty great little family.