My Fourth Child, Kenai

Four months

Five months

Six months

Seven months

Eight months

Nine months

10 months

Poor, poor Kenai. His mami hasn't been blogging and showing off his amazingly cute growth and development during the ever-changing first year of his life! Now he's almost 11 months old and is cuter than ever. Two events over the past two days have got me thinking about my beautiful little boy.

ONE: Yesterday, I was working at my sister's cafe and I observed two young moms who entered with their little baby girls - one was about a year old and the other one was about 18 months or so. They all came in with wet hair and with my vivid imagination, I guessed that they'd just come from a mommy-and-me type of swimming class and were now ready to enjoy a girls' lunch out! I especially observed the little one year old, who knew several signs (please, thank you, drink, more) and even heard her say "please" when I went to their table for something.

TWO: The day before, Kenai was too rowdy for Sunday classes, so we were wandering the halls when we ran into another 10 month old, who was very interested in touching Kenai's face and "playing" with him. Each time the little boy tried to approach him, Kenai just turned the other way. He had no interest whatsoever in playing with this other little person. Why should he? I don't think he's ever truly played with another baby his age!

These two experiences have had me thinking a whole lot about my little Kenai. He is my fourth child. We do not do mommy-and-me swim classes like I did with the first two... instead, he sits in the car for with me for two hours at a time while his brothers are at soccer practice. We do not do play dates with other babies like I did with the first ones... instead he gets plopped in his car seat as we drive boys to and from school three times each day. He does get read to, but they are not board books like Goodnight Moon or Guess How Much I Love You ... instead he gets to hear Star Wars, Magic Tree House and Princess books with his older siblings! I have not taught Kenai any sign language... instead he gets put in his high chair (for very long periods of time sometimes as I work on the kitchen!) and has to kind of fend for himself when it comes to eating. Every time somebody passes by, he grunts until somebody gives him some food! He still has not learned (or been taught?) to sleep through the night... instead, he shares a bedroom with Ziya and has to be quickly rescued as soon as he lets out a little cry. He did not go with me to The Children's Place for a new Easter outfit like the older kids did years ago... instead, he wore an outfit that I found last year at a garage sale (although it is very cute and did still have tags on it!).

I started to feel bad about all of this (and so much more where Kenai seems to get jipped); but then I thought that Kenai is not my first or even my second child. He is my fourth and with this, there must be some wonderful attributes that will be his: he will know how to share, he will know how to appreciate what he has, he will know how to be resilient, he will know how to fight for what is important to him, he will know the special love that older siblings have for their younger counterparts, he will have examples (hopefully good ones) to look up to, and even though he is the fourth, he will still feel of his mami's eternal and very special and individual love for him.

I love my little Kenai. I love who he is now and I love who he will become. I'm so thankful for my fourth child!

p.s. Since it's spring break and Jacob is out with the three "olders" right now, as soon as Kenai wakes up from his nap, I will go and cuddle with him and read Runaway Bunny to him!

Crazy Days OR Crazy Boys???

For part of Dr. Seuss week at the boys' school, they had some dress up days and themes. For crazy hat day, we put velcro on some baseball caps and stuck some little army guys to them. Abe was concerned about wearing this to school because they are not supposed to take weapons to school, and some of the army guys are holding rifles... he didn't get in trouble! For crazy hair day my sister came to the rescue with some gold hair spray. That was easy. They didn't want to take showers at night cause they wanted their hair to stay gold and crazy. My CRAZY BOYS had fun on these two crazy days!.

Involuntary Haircut

Ziya's hair ends have been looking pretty ratty for a while now, and I keep intending to give her a trim. Her brothers took care of that for me! Their new favorite game is "Barber Shop." Sounds dangerous, I know, but up until today, it never actually entailed any cutting. Today wouldn't have either except that they decided to put a bunch of stuff in her hair: barrettes, rubber bands, ribbons and bows AND A COMB! They wrapped it around her hair so tightly that the only way to get it out was to cut! Fortunately, I didn't actually have to cut too much off. I guess now I really do have to give her a trim just to even things out a bit! Thanks boys (I think??)!

ENOUGH ALREADY!!!

This is my new motto: ENOUGH ALREADY! I say it to my kids all the time, and now I'm learning to say it to myself. The closet that needs to be cleaned, the exercise routine that needs to be started, the letter that needs to be written, and the very neglected BLOG that desperately needs to be updated (among dozens of other things I'm not getting to!). ENOUGH ALREADY, BERE! JUST DO IT!

You see, I have this horrible vice in my personality that I'm about to confess. If it's not perfect (or close to it), then I don't do it or I give up trying to do it (it's part of my OCD tendencies that I'm constantly battling with). Example: A few weeks ago, I realized that I was not drinking enough water, so I decided to fill up my very own water bottle and set it on the counter every day. With this water bottle, I could measure out how much water I wanted to drink in one day and thus meet my goal. Enter Ziya. She decided that she also needed to drink out of my water bottle. I didn't know how much water she drank so I didn't know how much I was really getting either. So... I stopped trying altogether and went back to drinking my minimal amounts of water! Dumb, I know. Don't worry, I realized how dumb this was and quickly got over it and am pleased to announce that I am now drinking plenty of water. But not before the experience made me think about how I do this with a lot of things in my life:

• oh no, I broke down and ate 10 graham crackers and a granola bar for breakfast so I might as well eat junk for the rest of the day! This has gotten even worse: I'm so, so far from my eating and weight loss goals that it's hardly worth the effort to try at all.
  
• I don't have time or energy to read my scriptures for 30 minutes, cross referencing and studying from a manual and writing about what I learn in my journal... so my scripture reading efforts have very sadly been minimal.
  
• I don't have time to jog and lift weights and do pilates all in one day like I used to, so I just won't do any of it!
• I don't have a perfect family picture. I don't know how to put a cute background on my blog and digitally scrapbook a bunch of cute stuff to put on it, not to mention the fact that I'm about seven months behind and have missed posting some huge, huge happenings and changes in our lives! So I'll just keep putting it off since I'll never be able to get caught up anyway.

I know, I know. Stupid Satan. He is written all over these lame excuses. You're not good enough. Why even try? I'm sick of it and I'm sick of him. ENOUGH ALREADY!

My ever-wise husband is very patient with this vice of mine. He lovingly and gently reminds me that there is a time and a season for all things. Just the other day, he reminded me of an institute teacher who told us that his wife used to read her scriptures on the toilet when her kids were young because that was all she could manage at the time. I kind of scoffed at the example, but now that I've given it some more thought, I'm going to get up right now and put some scriptures in my bathroom.

I demand a lot of myself. I think that I will always demand a lot of myself -- it's just part of who I am. The part I want to change is that I want to be more patient and forgiving of myself. Even if it can't be perfect, I want to die trying (a bit melodramatic, I know).

So ENOUGH ALREADY. Perfect or not, I'm back!!!
I remember Ms. Novinger, my junior high English teacher, taught me that you can never know what you think until you write it down. Now I know what I think and I know what I need to work on - line upon line and precept upon precept. I'm almost embarrassed to click on the "publish post" button because I've divulged some pretty silly stuff about myself. Oh well. I'm not perfect. I guess none of us are perfect. But ENOUGH of that ALREADY!