Neck Deep

Totally irrelevant photos of summer-ness at our house.

I've just survived having Mr Renn out of town 2 of the last 4 weeks.  Granted, they were the two bookending weeks of those 4, and each trip was technically less than a week, but still, it was a lot of fudging by this mama who really absolutely requires a ton of extra support from Mr Renn in order to make this grad-school thing work.  In fact, my entire Summer term has been sort of stilted by it.  I'm  now trying frantically to get everything back on-track and caught up, all while fielding an endless stream of popsicles stolen from the freezer and left to melt on my couch.  (While the freezer door is left open, as often as not.)  The entropy at my house is mind-blowing, friends.

Also - sleep deprivation.  I don't think that the severity of my sleep deprivation is actually getting any worse, but the longevity of it continues to get more drawn out, and the effects keep getting more severe.  My judgment, depth-perception, forecasting, and problem-solving skills are all pretty much shot.

So, when I've had a day like last Thursday, when Mr Renn was out of town, and I was running on every iota of energy and will I had, and embarrassing things kept piling on me, all I've been able to do is laugh and shrug it off.  If I tried to apologize for it or justify myself, I'd implode.

Thursday - Lots of small crazinesses, involving scissors and renegade rolie-polies, but I knew that Mr Renn wouldn't be coming home to relieve the babysitter, and I felt morally obligated to have dinner made before she showed up.  So, after putting Bunny down for a nap, I sent the two younger boys out to play in the sprinklers and chopped and sautéed and braised like a mad-woman.  (Sir O was with Mr Renn on this trip).  At some point when my hands were covered in something slimy, I got a knock at my door, and answered it all aproned-up with a dish towel in hand.  It was a man from my neighborhood with whom I'd never had a conversation before, wondering if I was aware that the Gentleman was hanging out nearly a block away, stark naked.

How do you answer that sort of a question?  Also - why is it always people whose children never gave them this kind of grief that find and return our kids in these circumstances?  The lack of empathy was searing.  Also, my babysitter showed up right at that very moment and was driving slowly, escorting our Gentleman home, and laughing her head off.

She informed me that she wanted to take my kids swimming, and I said "go for it," but you'll need my van.  And TOTALLY FORGETTING that Mr Renn was out of town and I had a perfectly functional car sitting in my garage, I swapped vehicles with her and drove her unfamiliar, generic white chevy to school that night.  Then, after class, I walked up to the first generic, white chevy (with a graduation tassel and lei hanging from the rear view mirror, in my defense) and tried to open it.  No go.  Did it occur to me that it was the wrong car?  Oh no, I made 3 phone calls and spent almost 20 minutes trying to get into that car.  Only after I had asked my babysitter to pack up my kids and come get me, did I glance up and notice an awfully similar look car parked one row over.  Which I promptly unlocked and drove home feeling as sheepish as I ever have.

The power of sleep friends, cannot be over-rated.  As such, grad school appears to be making me dumber.



But, despite how awesome I am at failing all the time, (hopefully not in school, but I can't ever eliminate the possibility) we are having a pretty pleasant summer.  My kids get along with each other really amazingly well  (which is to say, more often than not).  Everybody seems willing to forgive everyone else for doing dumb things at regular intervals.  We hold hands and have fun most days.   And I haven't quit yet.

Our Gentleman in action

I had to shoot, and then edit a "process" with a subject (for school), and our gentleman was the most cooperative subject I had access to. To put him most in his element?  Coloring pages.  He is my only child who can sit and color for an hour at a time, which is not an unrecognized blessing.  He was not exactly comfortable in front of the camera, but here's what I managed to make of him:

Spring Break - Grad School edition

This week, I'm honing my mettle.



I'm also patting myself on the back the tiniest wee bit.  Because if I'd been ask to live this week a year ago I would have found it utterly unbearable.  But now, I'm mostly managing to roll with it.

The kids are out of school all week, which means there is no break whatsoever from the entropy of Sir O.  My home will constantly be falling apart all around me.  On top of which it is my last full week of class for the semester and I have a major paper due Friday, and finals and another giant paper due next week.

Plus the regular rigamarole of reading lots of things that require every iota of available brainpower to make sense of.

And a baby with a broken leg.  And a penchant for re-injuring it.

And a 3 year old who's potty-training in earnest (which means he's naked most of the time).

It's just really a lot.  A full plate.  A fairly large amount of stress.  Not earth-shattering stress, but mess-up-your-biological-rhythms stress.

And while it's certainly not pretty and never what I'd call "ideal," I'm essentially keeping myself held together.

This morning, to get out of the house, and to keep Sir O contained in a seat-belt-sized space, I packed all the kids out to go see the progress on the new Provo Temple.  The angel was placed on top a few days ago, and I thought it might be a nice outing.  Free and close and short. Only the Gentleman seemed to agree with me though, nobody else wanted to get out of the car.  This is why God gave me this child.



So, two days in and my head is still above water.  I am growing up, aren't I?

initiation

I was pretty sure we'd already done this one, but maybe I didn't document it properly, so God decided we needed to do it again.  Enter kids + scissors.  Our Captain and our Gentleman gave each other hack-jobs recently.  The Captain just had one chunk out of the front, but our Gentleman, oy vey.

So with some intervention, it turned into this.  With a side of short-term nicknames: Buzz, Baldy, you name it. 

The culprit.  I'm pretty positive he instigated the whole thing, I know he took the scissors to his brother's head, and he's quite regularly taken to saying things like, "When you love somebody, you love them even when they make you mad." He's going to negotiate his way through life, no doubt.

stretch marks

Why yes, I did just accidentally go a month without blogging one word.
It's lunacy - my life.
But it's nice to be able to say I haven't blogged for a month because I've been too busy doing things.  In the past when I've gone a month or two with mostly radio silence it's been because I've been essentially depressed and overcome with unhealthy apathy.
So sure, the effect of my absence is the same either way, but I prefer a more buoyant excuse.



The month of November ... the blur... I have no temporal details for you just now.

But things floating to the top of my brain include:

We are becoming genuinely concerned about Sir O's intense anti-social habits.  It is becoming apparent that the kid sets himself up to get picked on; he makes enemies easily.  He's intensely defensive and likes to lord over people when he can get away with it.  He also goes to ridiculous legths to avoid dealing with new people or new experiences.  Altogether not a super-loveable pile of characteristics.  Lucky for him we love him anyway, but I can't take away the social awkwardness he faces.

Conversely, my 3 other kids make friends wherever they go.  The Captain, despite his physical awkwardness, is often the center of socialness because he's so dang delightful.  And Bunny flirts with most strangers (though only from the safety of her parent's arms.)

Bunny also plays with her tongue all day long.  And on her it's darling.  But her brothers have started copying her, and a 3,5,or 7 year old blowing excessive raspberries at you is not cute.  It's just rude.

Mr Renn has been picking up a lot of slack for me this holiday season.  He's taken ownership of all of our holiday baking, gingerbread building, neighborhood gifts, and contributions to family parties.  In other words, he is a lifesaver.

I've realized that despite my proclivity for it, I have a rather pathetic collection of holiday decorations (for every/any holiday).  I may never arrive at that place where I feel I can give myself permission to spend time or money toward that end.  Over the years thousands of items have been put in carts, only to be removed before purchase.

Mr Renn claims we can start looking into buying a house of our own in earnest come February.  You cannot grasp the weight of this promise - but I'm posting it here to hold him accountable.  10 years of "I don't want to bother with that until it's our own house/I don't want to have to move that" have taken a toll.

Sir O has developed an intensely irritating habit of discarding and losing expensive articles of clothing.  He never loses the cheap stuff, only the newer and most expensive things.  If I had a dollar for every time that kid has lost or destroyed an article of clothing the first time he wore it - I'd have at least $50.

My first grad school finals are December 17th, and I am a mess until then.

I am not getting nearly enough sleep to function properly.  Hence my sluggish responses and reflexes.  And yes - this blatantly affects my performance in class. Vicious cycle.

Our gentleman began potty training and then quickly lost interest.  Time for plan D.

Bunny is standing often, and her brothers are the best cheering section a girl could ask for.  But when they cheer too loudly she realizes she's standing and quickly gets herself back down.  She's only taken 1 step, and she's still mad at me for tricking her into that one.

She's also terribly fond of playing peekaboo, and while her favorite is to hide in the curtains, she'll also hide her eyes with the backs of her hands, and make a squished up face that is beyond charming.

She still loves her dad more than anything or anyone in all the world.

I bought Sir O some sketchbooks, and I love what he comes up with.  Today in church we got 5 pages of clone trooper helmets.  We've also gotten a lot of dinosaurs, volcanoes, trucks, tall buildings, and mountainsides (with either a U or a Y emblazoned on them).

Our Gentleman's tongue thrust shows no sign of letting up.  I watch him talk and all I see is his tongue hanging out.  Speech therapy forever more, because that's how we love to spend all that extra time of ours....

Our Christmas cards are running late this year.  Hopefully they will arrive this week and we can create a super-sonic assembly line to get them back out in the mail without eating up too much study time.

Because yes, finals at Christmas time is utterly brutal for moms who are students.  I cannot speak for moms who are teachers or professors, but in a great many households Christmas is a production put on by mom behind the scenes.  When mom's time, focus, and energy is at a crazy premium, things get hairy.  Let's just say we're going to be flexible with celebrating St. Nicholas day this year.  Like - almost a week late flexible.  Same goes for St. Lucia.  I am giving myself a year off, and hopefully next year Bunny will be old enough to be the center of that celebration.

I only bought 2 new Christmas albums this year.  So far that's a record low.  But when you have over 1200 Christmas songs on your playlist, it becomes increasingly difficult to justify new additions.  Still really loving Joshua James, Sleeping At Last, Sufjan Stevens and Bebo Norman.

So, there's some catchup of the random-crap variety.  I hope I don't prove this spotty for the entirety of grad school, I still want to document life outside of film responses.  But you know, I'm dropping balls all over this place.  I'll try not to leave this one lolling on the floor for too long at a time.

Happy Birthday Dear Gentleman

Last week my littlest man turned 3.  How does an age manage to be so grown up and so tiny and tender all at once?



This child is a gem.  I hear it is common for third-born children to be the congratulatory pat-on-the-back from God to their parents.  "You've really invested yourself in this parenting thing, look at all that selfless, thankless service.  Let's make this one easy on you, you've earned it."



This one practically parents himself.  He has an oversized conscience that makes it easy to teach him, but rather hard to make sure he is getting enough attention.  He wants to do everything "right." He's still human and all, but he's got none of the oppositional defiance I deal with every day in Sir O.  The difference is huge.  It's fun to be his mom.  (I can have fun with all of my kids, but he's consistent.)

Despite his agreeability, he is finding his own way amongst the other oversized personalities around here.  He is learning how to be stubborn, for better or for worse.

gentlemanly

Our gentleman loves to say prayers, and every day they've been becoming slightly more intelligible, if glib.   He negotiates the tricky territory of his brothers' quirks and hangups admirably, though he does tend to take advantage of the Captain's weaknesses which often pits those two against each other.

He watches and self-teaches like crazy.  He may  just be my most teachable child, we shall see.  So far he is certainly the most compliant.  This is the kid who will actually do what he is asked to do more often than not.  (The first or second time he's asked!) It's quite the experience, to have one of those.  The down side of this is how tender he is when he does get in trouble.  It doesn't take much reprimand to have his just fall apart in alligator tears.  He's always been that way.  I remember making fun of the way his bottom lip quivers and squares up when he's crying, and that was when he was not much older than Bunny.

I'm regularly thankful that he came to us with such an amenable disposition.  While nobody's perfect, he's a good little man.  And he's funny as all get-out.  But whereas our Captain is funny unintentionally, our gentleman is solidly aware of when he's being funny.  He milks it for all it's worth.  I'm kind of ga-ga over the way he competes for positive attention.  It's so obvious and so likeable.  Plus he really is a funny little ham.  I see lots of laughter in his future.

crazy cakes

This child - wow.

If anyone needs a laugh, this is the direction to head.  If Sir O has an oversized cantankerous personality, then our Gentleman has an oversized sanguine one.  He always has his head up, his ears perked, and he doesn't miss a trick.  He still thinks using verbal language is unneccessary, he communicates so well without it, but he's figuring out that if he gives it a go anyway, we are quick to reward his efforts.  And everything he says starts with "Maaaaaeeeehh".

"Maaaeeehh..breakfast?"
"Maaeeeehh...drink?"
"Maaaeeehh...outside?"
"Maaaeeehh..popsicle?"

I cannot lie, it's both funny and cute.  As is his insistence on doing summersaults and teaching himself to pedal our tricycle.  He's not about to get left behind by his brothers in anything.

But he still breaks into alligator tears over the slightest implication he's been naughty.  (Though he is naughty, and fairly often.)  And he wants to say every prayer, every time, with different helpers.  He closes his eyes, and bows his head and folds his arms, then peeks through his eyelashes and tilts his head back to be able to watch us all while he prays.

This kid knows he's hilarious.  It's dangerous.  He's still got everybody wrapped around his little finger, he doesn't need to stay the youngest for that (he's even Bunny's favorite, I'm fairly certain).  He cries everytime anybody leaves the house without him.  From his dad to his speech teacher.

We're crazy about him, still.

The gentleman sheep

I'm buckling down and remembering November and December, belated as it is.  Someday my children will thank me for this effort, maybe.

Less than a week in advance, our family was asked to be the majority of the Nativity Christmas Pageant for our church Christmas party.  And to find our own costumes.  The costume wrangling was the hard part, but I did manage to procure this sheep costume for our Gentleman, and he stole the show in it.  He pranced across the stage throughout the whole production and caused a fair lot of genuine belly laughs. (Especially when he body-slammed Sir O the shepherd).  The photos taken there didn't turn out, so we had to re-enact it again with my cousin and her husband, just so I could get a photo of this.  All of my children are little turkeys, but this one is also a ham.

i blinked

Time is a'flying.  Because it seems impossible that it's been a year since we did this:

 



 But then again, look how our gentleman has grown...




So I guess it wasn't just yesterday, was it?  We let our gentleman celebrate with a Sir O-made crown and a fistful of spice cake, shared with neighbors (not the fistful of cake, but the cake proper).  And he charmed us all.  If he proves this charming 20 years from now there will be many young women with broken hearts on his behalf.  It cannot be helped.  But until then he can just practice melting my mom-heart over and over.  Such a boy.







I felt guilty not planning a proper birthday party, as I've done for the other boys when they turned 1. (See here and here) but October has been such a busy month for family gatherings already, and we haven't been living here long enough to have an impressive network of friends who are invested in our kids.  So there was nobody to invited to a proper party.  I shall have to make it up to him in the future.  (Is a pony in order?  My dad just gave himself two new horses for his birthday....)

stop and smell

In the midst of an abundance of craziness and abnormal levels of stress, our little Gentleman has taken to reminding us to slow down, and that life cannot be put on hold until ____ is over.  We may be up to our eyebrows in boxes and tape and missing (?!) sharpies, but he's going to choose this moment to start crawling anyway.  I'm learning (slowly) to be more fully present even when my lists and my brain are looking long and daunted.  I suppose that's part of how motherhood is teaching me to be more like God.  Not too many years ago I would have been significantly more hyperventilation-prone through this process than I am today.  But, judging by my snappy mom voice in this clip, I've still got a lot of learning to do.



Early tomorrow morning we ride, and officially change addresses.  It's actually a messy convoluted gypsy-like weekend we have ahead of us, but for all intents and purposes today is the last where I call my parent's house "home."

for the record

In case it should ever be wondered about, our gentleman is the most delightful and mellow tiny man this world has ever seen.



And I am loving every minute of it.  We all are.

lift off

A certain gentleman around these parts insists on racing through his babyhood.  Suddenly all he can think about is going places.  He has the audacity to pull himself up on all fours and scoot.



I cannot keep up at this pace.  How about if we switch places?   It can be my job to lay around all day, and you can do all the hustling?  Something tells me that wouldn't quite work out.  So, my baby, do your job and SLOW DOWN.  We are not in a position to fill your position (baby) as quickly as you're bent on vacating it.



And trust me, someday having nothing to do but lay around, smile, and look cute will sound like a pretty good gig.

chunky gentleman

Speaking of our Gentleman, isn't he growing up fast?



Most of the time when I go to pick him up after a nap I'm convinced he's doubled in size since I laid him down to sleep. He is a solid, wiggly, delightful little man. I'm certain you never saw such a smiley baby. And, like all my children, he's ticklish out his ears. (The poor boys are related to me.)



You cannot hear his soulful laugh without smiling inside.  Is it any wonder he's so popular around here?

a hopeful heirloom

I never did get to show you the blessing outfit we made for our Gentleman back in January.
It was a crazy labor of love.
I bought vintage italian linen and velvet ribbon and an out-of-print pattern for it.  (On an ambitious day) but then decided it needed to be lined (which, not being included in the pattern, is still beyond my comfort zone) so I had to call in reinforcements (in the form of my mother taking a day off of work to help me.)

I am beyond pleased with how it turned out.  I hope someday I get to see a grandbaby in it.

I'm remembering why this is not my favorite thing to do....

At Mr Renn's encouragement, we let our gentleman have his first taste of solids today.  I don't think we're ready to start enduring this every day.  I only lasted about 90 seconds, and then I had to stop.  The futility of shoveling slobbery cereal back into my baby's mouth just so he could thrust it back out again got under my skin fast.  I passed the torch to Mr Renn and then grabbed the camera instead.  Based on how I handled the whole affair, it may be a while before anyone sees this again:

never enough time

In the midst of our familial headcold of death, of which I am the hardest-hit casualty, I am trying to learn how to use my new camera/lens.  I'm quite determined to be a responsible camera-wielder.  I finished reading Nicole's book, and I'm half-way through my manual (for which I deserve a cookie - who writes those things anyway?)  And whenever I can muster enough spare moments strung together I pull out the behemoth and practice, practice practice.  And guess who gets to be my model and muse while we're all stuck indoors with sub-par natural window light?  My only non-ambulatory child.  Good thing he's cute.

Teeth

Somebody has a few pearly whites eeking through their gums.



Can you tell?
If not, trust me - come 3am you'd be able to tell.

a portly gentleman

A certain 5 month old has been packing on the ounces lately.



 He's getting down-right squishable with multiple chins and chunky thighs.

Luckily Mr Renn's parents will be home  from Argentina in less than a month so they can kiss his cheeks.  I don't know how they can stand such a wait.  Sometimes I can hardly handle waiting for the kid to wake up.  This is the age of irresistible smushing.  I'm learning to enjoy these things before they're over.  Maybe if I have 12 kids I'll perfect it.  Or I'll lose my marbles.

I've got sunshine, in the month of February

I keep waiting for the day when I'll stop feeling bad about not being able to do everything that's expected of me.

Still waiting.


In the meantime, one particular gentleman has discovered just the button to push to eliminate the possibility of a grumpy mom.  It looks something like this.