Just falling from my head...

Warren is now using the toilet and we are starting to feel the pain of having one toilet shared between 5 people. Follows me into the bathroom chanting "Potty coming out, potty coming out." So I quickly set him on the toilet. Dallas comes running in and says "I need to poop real bad! Aw crap. He's pooping isn't he." shakes his head and walks out. The second Dallas leaves the room Robin come running in "What? Is there a line now?"


Dallas like his vitamins. He likes them a lot. He comes to me while I'm in the middle of cooking lunch and says. THe conversation went like this:
Dallas: Mama, stop what your doing and get me stars.
Me: No Dallas, Im in the middle of cooking. I'll give you vitamins after you have some food in your tummy.
Dallas: But I promise I won't get a tummy ache.
Me: Food will be ready in a couple minutes so I'm sure you wouldn't but I don't want to get them right now, I want to finish cooking.
Dallas: But my happiness will hold back my crazy because it's so strong.

Well what could I do. I got this kids his vitamins!


With lunch we tried out this new to us vegetable, garlic curls. Robin asked were they came from again, I told him the farmers market. Dallas chimes in "You know we are farmers. We have lots of cats and all farmers need lots of cats. We are rich too. We are rich in toys." Robin adds, "Yeah so rich we can't even clean them up. We should look into getting some one for that."

I did it. I took all four kids out alone. This might not sound like much but for some reason it was a big deal to me. Really big.

I took 6 weeks off to stay home except when we all went out as a family. At first it wasn't intentional time off, I just kept putting off going out. I felt guilty about it. I tried to make plans and had to cancel all the time. I stopped making plans all together. I still don't know that I can commit to anything with a definite time line yet. I can't put my finger on why it was so frighting to me to take all 4 kids out without Doug. It's true that Myrna went through a time where she needed a diaper change every 5 minutes, announced by the kind of crying that says "HELP ME NOW MAMA!", and some parts of the day are randomly like that still, it just is. I now see this was more of an excuse and inconvenience than something truly keeping me home.

It could be that Warren doesn't like to hold hands in parking lots and feels like he's 12 not 2. I'm glad he doesn't feel inhibited to do things on his own but I do wish he would take me seriously when I have to say "No really, you NEED to hold a hand. I need you to hold a hand." He's not nearly as much of a darter as Dallas was but I still have such fear because Dallas almost got hit once while I was putting Warren in his carseat as an infant. There was a sudden moment of save the baby or save the toddler but the balloon tied to the back of his pants made him visible and the car stopped just as I reached him not three steps from me. That day I learned the a good reason to use a baby bucket, it's for the safety of your other kids. If you carry your baby out of a building to the car in a infant seat, you can lift and snap in the toddler safely then get the baby in. I brought the seat with me everywhere even when baby wearing for a long time after that. I can't carry her in the infant seat right now. It alone is heavy. I hurt my upper back and neck while wearing her in a pouch, the only carrier she will tolerate yet and I have a huge collection to choose from. I can barely carry her right now and it's not without pain.

Now about today; we went to the chiropractor first, I won't tell you it was easy. I ran in to a problem when the two youngest were sleeping and I couldn't carry them both. Warren had to wake up and he wasn't ready so he cried through my whole appointment. He started crying about the receptionist holding Myrna. He had a hard time last weekend at the LIFE Is Good Conference with people holding her, in fact on a couple of occasions he demanded I get her back. He is very protective of his sister and after the conference at Folklife festival if people got too close while taking a look at her he would start growling "Don't touch Myrna." at people. This time he wouldn't be consoled by anyone at the chiropractors office, even when the receptionist got down on the floor with him while holding her. He was crying Mama get Myrna over and over so I asked her to hand Myrna to Robin. He changed to Mama let's go while pulling my finger towards the door as I'm laying face down getting an adjustment. It was heartbreaking. Had I not been in so much pain I would have just left. There wasn't time in the day to wait for him to calm down. My choices were let him cry for me to leave while I try to get fixed so I can better meet his future needs or leave and possible get even worse. I chose to stay because I couldn't live with the pain. Dr Jason came in and brought gummy vitamins and it didn't calm him right away but when Dallas picked them up to hold them for him, Warren wanted them and calmed down, stopped crying and loved on Myrna for the rest of the time. When we got back to the car I changed and nursed Myrna who had started fussing for a change at the end of the appointment. The whole time in the office was about 20 minutes. It felt a lot longer. We all made it through with no signs of permanent emotional scaring, not that I know what that would look like. I think we could go out again.

You know you've become one with the country life when you hear your husband say "That's some good smelling cow butt, not like that farm up the street. Now that's some nasty cow butt.

Today we left the children's museum before close because we were all too tired to play any more. This is a rare thing, but the boys were up late then up again early. No one wanted to walk back to the car so Robin and Warren were seated in the Chariot stroller and Dallas was on the end...siting backwards on the edge. I told him he couldn't sit there and needed to get all the way in or walk. "Why Mama?" he asked, like he always does before he will budge but before I could answer he promptly fell out backwards. He had on a toy fireman's hard hat and that broke the 6 inch fall. Dallas is very vocal and you can't always tell when he's really hurt or not. I suspect he doesn't always know at first either so I treat all accidents with the same level of concern, even though I wasn't worried about this one, he needed me to be worried right then.

There happened to be a Center House Security Officer riding his bike back inside to base behind us and he stopped to give us an ice pack. Dallas calmed instantly at the sight of him, he looked much like a police officer and Dallas always gets shy around police officers. He asked Dallas where he got hurt. Dallas just stared, but Warren, who now had Dallas' head in his lap, taps him on the head pointing and says with a smile "Brain". I started laughing and ask "Did you just say brain?" Warren looks and me and shakes his head yes and repeats "Brain." The security officer is cracking up and asks Warren directly "Where did he get hurt again?" To my surprise, the child who is least likely to talk to strangers answers again, loud and proud "Dallz brain. Boom brain!"

I don't remember teaching him specific anatomy, yet he was sure of it. Dallas is fine by the way. He didn't even get a bump on his head because of the plastic hard hat.