Saturday

It's a great day to clean the house, get some errands done, catch up on everything you didn't get done all week, right?

Wrong. My house will have to wait. That seems to be a theme lately. Oh well, I'm busy making purple poop and pink hair and green dolphins and blue spiders. And, yes, I know it's not a "school day" but I couldn't help but get out the animal encyclopedia and explain the difference between a spider and an insect. And there's nothing like hot chocolate outside on a cool and windy spring day and introducing Teshome to his first marshmallow.

Two and a Half

It's hard to believe that our sweet tiny Charlotte has gone from this




to this big, wild, busy girl.






sometimes even she needs a break from all her wildness!

Could her timing be any worse?

Just the other day Pete and I were discussing when to potty train Charlotte. It is something I pretty much dread with each child. I usually use the sort of potty training boot camp approach. We start at the beginning of a week when we have little to nothing planned. I stock up on juice and m&m's and stickers and make a sticker chart. We start with pants checks every couple of minutes, gradually waiting longer between each check. A dry pants gets a sticker. A dry pants and potty in the potty chair gets 2 stickers. A dry pants, potty and poopy in the potty chair gets 3 stickers. We do this for a few days to a week, increasing the time in between pants checks until we're only checking a few times a day. Usually after 5ish days they are going on their own. We keep giving stickers for about two-three weeks. By then the sticker chart is usually full and then they get a prize that was in sight but out of reach for the whole training period (a flashlight, a new baby doll dress or something like that) That's just what has worked for us several times now. And after trying with 3 of our kids right at age 2 (and having it seem to work and then not) we've also decided that what is best for our family is to wait until they are about 33 months old. So after discussing how nice it would be to have Charlotte out of diapers before we get our new son home, we decided to just wait until near summer's end right before she turns 3.

I wasn't planning on this happening- Charlotte came upstairs a little while ago and said she needed to go potty on her toilet. Alright then, let's go. She sat, I read the potty book, and she did nothing. Then she freaked when I tried to put a diaper back on her. So she's wearing underwear. Yikes! Since then she has told us 3 times that she needs to go potty, but so far, nothing. Hopefully soon she'll do something! I guess I need to call my mom and see if she's up for potty training while I'm gone!!

Tangled

Dear Little Girls

Yesterday as I sat at the table with you after the three big kids had all run off to play, I was struck with a thought that gave me chills- it won't be long and you'll be too busy to have lunch with me. Sometimes lunch seems like a circus. I sit down, you ask for more of something so I get it for you. I sit down again, you spill your drink so I get up and get a towel. I sit down, you drop part of your sandwich so I get up and get it. I sit down again, you decide you are done and want to be washed up right away. In that moment, I realized these days of jumping up and down out of my chair to serve you -and looking with longing at the sun dried tomato, turkey, swiss, and veggies wrap that I can't wait to take a bite of- are fleeting. One of these days soon I will call you on the phone to see if you can meet me for lunch that week and you'll have too much going on. I hope you'll find a way to fit me into your schedule. For now, I'll enjoy watching you as you eat your salami and peanut butter sandwich (Ella) and grin at me with your "picture smile" eyes closed silly face (Charlotte).

Sunday afternoon knitting

Yesterday I started knitting Charlotte a hat while the kids were having naps and rest time and I sort of couldn't stop until I had it finished. Pete took a few of the not too sick kids to church in the evening and I kept knitting. When the hat was finished and I saw that the fit was perfect (even though the pattern was for "child- one size"), I decided to make a scarf to match. Then I figured since scarves and little people are kind of a pain I'd make more of a tube-like neck warmer. It's not perfect, but I think it will do the job. Charlotte loves her new winter accessories. And I love that they cost me $2.99! Now maybe I'll attempt to make a matching pair of mittens.

Silly Baby

I was just wondering yesterday how long I'll be able to get away with calling her my baby. For awhile, I think. Charlotte, being the youngest of five is so much more babyish than Peter was at this age. I'm okay with that though! She is a sweet, silly little thing and I just love having her as my big giant adorable baby. She does these cute and smart things that I am surprised by for a moment- until I remember, oh, yeah. She should be doing that- she IS 17 months after all! Stop it! Just stop growing up so fast! Some of her favorite things to do right now are unfolding the laundry and unsetting the table. She is also learning how to sit still for longer periods of time and actually listen to a story. She is very loving and always willing to give big slimy kisses to her brother and sisters. She jabbers a lot, but doesn't say more than a handful of words. But she can point to all sorts of thigs if you tell her to and follow commands like "put that back," "close the cabinet" etc. It's almost funny how much she gets away with though because she sort of "plays dumb" :)

wiping her nose on a little baby doll blanket. lovely. this is why we keep the kitchen towels out of reach :)

setting up the baby dolls meal

Don't be jealous

Well, to satisfy those of you who were jealous (Racine!) you'll be happy to know that my sweet baby did in fact wake me up this morning at 2. That one "full" night of sleep was a fluke I guess. So I will continue to be zombie like and have a headache until she is regularly sleeping 7-8 hours at a time. With my other children once they reached that sixish week mark and had slept through once or twice, I no longer nursed them in the night on the sporadic occassions when they did wake up- unless they were sick or something. Since I knew they were able to do it, I didn't want to sort of backtrack. BUT I am not ready to do that with Charlotte yet because she's just so little and new still! And her skinny legs need as much fattening up as they can get.

Now that she's nearly 3 weeks old I am definitely noticing how much she's changing already! Oh my heart! And for any of you who are wondering (because you know we have taken all of our other girls' long, beautiful names and shortened them), we are planning on calling her Lottie. I've tried it out a few times and it works, but she's still Charlotte most of the time- it usually takes me awhile to adjust. And then eventually they each have 2 names- the first time I call it's "Kate." That quickly becomes "Katherine!" Which often leads to "Katherine Alaina!!!!" Which sometimes continues on to "Katherine Alaina Vander Wall!!!!!!!!" (You get the idea) Also, for anyone wondering how we chose her name- Charlotte because we love it and Jean is for Pete's mom (Donna Jean) and my grandma on my mom's side (Linda Jean).

One week later

Well, it was a week ago that I just felt kind of funny all day. Having never gone into labor on my own, I didn't dare to think it possible! Still, in the afternoon I attempted to get ahold of Pete to just let him know that I didn't exactly feel normal. Although we figured I'd be induced as usual and we'd have no need to rush to the hospital, he had assured me that he ALWAYS had his cell phone on!! Well, he was at a golf outing for work that day and I tried in vain to get him on his cell phone for HOURS! I was getting slightly worried when FINALLY in the evening on his way to cadets at church (for his first meeting as a counselor) he called me back and said he didn't have a signal at the course. I told him to just be sure to answer his phone if I called again. Then at 7:45 my water broke!!! I had 2 out of 4 kids in bed and was trying to calmly get the other 2 in bed as well as call Pete on his cell phone. Again, he didn't answer!! Turns out he was in the middle of helping one of the boys work with a saw for some kind of project and he had to wait until they were done cutting. So he called me right back, I told him my water broke and he said he'd be right home and he hung up on me! So I called our friend, Annette (her husband, John works with Pete, they go to our church, and they live about 5 minutes away) to see if she could stay with the kids until we could get one of our mom's here. Thankfully she was on her way home from work and she came right over. When she got here I was trying to finish up packing while Maddie followed me around crying that I needed to read her a bedtime story. It was slightly stressful. Again, since I've never gone into labor on my own I had no idea if I was going to start having really strong contractions right away or if it would take awhile. When I was ready to go, I read Maddie part of a book and got her in bed- she would rather go to bed early and have mommy tuck her in than have a babysitter put her to bed! By then Pete was home and we had explained to the kids that the baby was ready to come out and we had to go to the hospital. So away we went with Pete driving very fast. I let hime know that he could drive normally- I was fine! Oh yeah- I forgot part of the story- the night before, Peter fell out of bed and hit his head on his nightstand which required a trip to the ER and a couple of staples. So Pete had a practice run on both the hospital drive and a night of very little sleep. And John and Annette helped us out that night as well because I wasn't home when the boy "broke his head" (as Kate later explained to Ella). Okay, so when we got to the hospital my contractions were about 5 minutes apart, but not very hard. I got all settled in and was told that we'd just wait and see how the night went and then I'd be started on pitocin in the morning if I wasn't progressing. During the very long, restless night the contractions pretty much stopped. At 6:30 am I was given pitocin. In the past it took awhile for the contractions to get hard- not this time! At 7:45 I decided to ask for staidol which I've had with every other labor. On staidol I still feel everything, it just relaxes me. Being more relaxed means I dilate fast- I went from 6 cm to 10 cm in 15 minutes. I pushed twice and baby was born at 8:11 am. Our sweet little girl is so tiny to us! After having babies that weighed 9lbs 8 oz, 9lbs 9 oz, 9 lbs 12 oz, and 8 lbs 8 oz, having one that is 7 lbs 10 0z is crazy! Her little legs are so skinny and she hardly has a butt!

Pete's mom spent the night with the kids the first night. Then my parents came from Michigan in the morning, popped in to see Charlotte and me at the hospital, and my dad dropped my mom off at our house and headed back to Michigan. My mom was here Thursday and Friday to help us out. I came home from the hospital on Friday. Then Saturday my dad came back to get my mom. Pete worked half of the day on Friday and was able to take off Monday and part of Tuesday. So this is my first day on my own. We are so thankful that we've had so much help from friends and family. It's always an adjustment to bring home a new baby. And while we're pretty comfortable with caring for a newborn, you never know what kind of challenges you'll have with the other kids. They've all adjusted well so far. I just can't leave the baby in the room with Ella without supervision because she thinks Charlotte is a baby doll and wants to grab her and squeeze her. She's learning to be more gentle each day though and she loves it when I hold them both and she can rub faces and kiss her baby sister. Maddie has become quite the little mommy. She asks all the time if she can hold Charlotte and she has been playing with her dolls a lot more. Peter and Kate like to hold her for a few minutes and they're very generous with kisses, but they are really too busy playing and enjoying a little break from our typically very scheduled day of school and chores to spend much time with her. Hopefully next week we'll get back to doing some school work- we'll see how it goes. I just want to enjoy every second with this sleepy cuddly baby. The whole reason we started school in July was so that we could take a break and everybody could get used to us being a family of 7. So that's what we're going to do!

Sweet Times

A Little Surprise

Good thing we took some pregnant belly pictures last weekend!

She's here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!





Charlotte Jean Vander Wall


September 11, 2008
7 lbs, 10 oz, 19 1/2 inches

We're doing great and thanking the Lord for a beautiful, healthy baby girl!
I'm tired, so I'll have to tell you the story later :)

Hiding a beach ball? and a yummy lunch

Well, it's been awhile since I posted any baby belly pictures so I thought I'd have Pete take a few on Saturday. When I came in the house to look at them I actually cracked up when I saw myself! Is there a beach ball under that shirt? And yes, there really is only one baby in there!

We didn't have anything planned for the morning on Saturday (other than a million things we probably SHOULD have been doing around the house) so Pete had a crazy idea that I easily agreed to. We drove an HOUR to have lunch at Chick-fil-A!! I know, it probably sounds insane what with the price of gas and all. And we also seem to always forget (after having 3 children that are GREAT travelers) that Ella does not like to ride in the car. But we survived the ride and boy was that a yummy lunch. I absolutely LOVE Chick-fil-A and miss it greatly from my days of living in South Carolina! Another place I miss- Sonic!!! And wouldn't you know it, there was a Sonic right around the corner from Chick-fil-A! I so wanted to just camp out in Lafayette for the afternoon so we could eat dinner at Sonic, but that will have to be saved for another ridiculously impulsive day.