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.

Today at the Children's Museum Robin and Dallas were playing with these two other boys who were about 6 and 4 who were being a little rough. Warren really wanted to be in the tent with them and older boy wouldn't let him in. Robin and Dallas got out and said "This is Warren and he's our brother. If you want to play with us, you have to play nice with him." They started playing again and went back into the tent and the other boys both start pushing pillows at Warren to block his entry. I hear Robin from inside the tent "Maybe you didn't understand me." He crawls out and the boys follow. "This is Warren, he's my brother. I'm Robin and that's Dallas, he's my brother too." pointing to Dallas who chimes in "I'm Dallas" then points to me "and that's our Mother."
Robin starts again. "We play together so if you want to play with us, you need to be nice to Warren too."
Warren was standing there looking at them smiling and nodding. These boys also have a younger brother, a bit younger than Warren and he's in the corner having a snack with his parents who are just as curious as I am, watching this interaction. The other boys introduced themselves on their parents prompting and they all started to play again.

There was a time the boys got too rowdy close to Warren and he ran scared behind Robin and Dallas stood in front of them and said "I'm Dallas and this is Robin and Warren. Don't forget to be nice cause he (Warren) doesn't like that." Then everyone went back to playing.

Eventually Warren went to draw and Robin and Dallas got hungry so everyone went their separate ways, but we were in there together for nearly an hour.

I found it interesting how they handled the situation without any intervention with a formal introduction. Robin and Dallas were playing with the boys for quite a while before Warren wanted to join and no names were needed before that point. It's as if Robin was saying my brother is little but he's a person with a name. That's certainly what his body language and tone said. Except for Dallas pointing me out as part of their family, then never needed to look to me for guidance.

I feel really proud of how they handled it. It could have gone so many different ways. This was a herd of boys romping roughly together. Although all good kids it could have turned physical just by the nature of how they were playing or most likely I would have though Warren would have been left out. I was prepared to step in and redirect him to another activity where he was less likely to be hurt but I never needed to. I guess I'm just in awe of my children's maturity today, combined with the love and respect they showed for each other.

I'm laying in bed watching Warren sleep. He's having a dream and twitching a bit when all of a sudden with the stealth of a ninja, he sits up and let's out a battle cry while attacking my arm with two hands, he pulls himself to me and tries to bite, almost before I realize what he's doing. his eye were shut the whole time. Just after I dislodged him I he babbled something that sounded like "and don't try that again!" then went back to sleeping. It was amazing the speed and purpose in which he moved. I'm sure it was a victorious dream.

I was reading a book to the boys called "Animals Nobody Loves". This book is about scary creatures like sharks, cobras and spiders. Between each two page spread, the kids would act out the creature and even Warren was getting into it. When we came to the cockroaches, for some reason, my near two week sleep deprivation caught up with me. I was out for less than twenty minutes, and it was when we used to have nap time, a few weeks ago when the kids thought sleeping was cool. When I woke up Warren was climbing on me, he had colored his hands and belly and markers were in a pile next to me. Robin and Dallas were snuggled up to me, trying to wedge themselves under me. They told me that we were baby birds and they were trying to sleep under me. Robin added that Warren just wanted to nurse because my boobies were the pouches I kept the bugs in and Dallas confirmed, "Yeah ,like ants Mama!" Warren just bounced up and down on me. After feeding Warren, checking my face for pen marks Robin brought the book to me and asked; "Can we hear about the crocodiles now?"