Chaos and Exhaustion!

We had quite the week.  There were highs and lows and I am glad it's over.  I think the best approach is to take it by day instead of person, so let's get started.

I guess we should start with Sunday.  Lila developed a UTI, so she was dealing with that discomfort until we got her on antibiotics.  We had lots of accidents, but that's okay because I did lots of extra loads of laundry all week.

Monday was Tim's first day of work.  He was excited to get started, but discovered that it's going to be a slower start than anticipated.  Long story short it he is ready for them, but they are not ready for him.  From what I gather, they need to train office staff and stock the clinic.  So, he spent much of the week doing onboarding stuff and helping them decide what to order.  I say stuff, because I don't know all the technical terms for machines, medicines, and boots.  We celebrated with some homemade Costa Vida and ice cream.  It's weird to be permanent...but in the best way possible.

Last week Owen's first tooth came in and on Monday I was sure the second was coming in as well.  This meant lots of terrible sleep all week.  Owen wakes up about every hour and half to two hours all night long.  Sometimes he goes back to sleep easily, but sometimes it's an hour plus before he's asleep.  I'm really hoping that once the teeth are in that the sleep issues work themselves out, because we are very tired (putting in mildly).

Tuesday Hyrum and Lila received their first kits.  We decided to supplement homeschool with some fun kits.  Hyrum will be doing an engineering kit.  He made a disc launcher after watching a cool video from the creator who is a former NASA engineer.  Lila has a crafting kit.  Her favorite was creating a firefly stuffy.  Each will get one box a month.

Wednesday marked Owens five month mark.  He also reached 14 pounds.  At his last appointment he dropped to the 10th percentile in weight.  We have been doing regular weight checks, pushing extra feedings, and started him on oatmeal.  I feel like we have fought tooth and nail for every ounce.  We see what the new pediatrician says.  I tried dairy and he still had some issues, though not nearly as bad as a couple of months ago.  I'm going to give it another month and then try dairy again and see how it goes. 

We also prepared the house for potty training.  Liam started showing some signs of readiness in North Carolina, but with the transition we opted to wait.  I wanted to do it before school started, so we pulled the trigger and did it on Thursday.  It was also Wednesday that Tim and I lost some freedom.  Liam figured out how to get out of his crib.  He's the first to do it and it's a little sad.  On top of teething and potty training , we are working with him on staying in bed.  He does like to come out, but we know what to do after Hyrum, so that part isn't bad.  The loss of freedom in the morning is what's so hard.  He started waking up almost an hour earlier than he usually does and comes into our room.  I just wasn't ready to deal with that transition in the morning yet. 

We stayed mostly around the house for Liam starting Thursday.  We had been practicing for a couple of weeks, so he was actually very good with pottying in the toilet.  He only had a few potty accidents, but as ended the week with starting to tell us that he has to go potty.  Tim was mostly home because he felt he had worn out his welcome at the admin building he was meeting everyone at.  He office isn't ready yet and he needed a computer to get things done.  He was able to help with Liam and took the older two to the library. 

Friday, Liam was doing so well that I made him go to the bathroom and took all the kids to the playground down the street in the morning.  We are trying to figure out the summer heat.  Our kids are used to being outside for hours during summer, but the heat here is so awful that they really don't like playing outside, which is getting difficult.  There is a lot of yelling, fighting, screaming, and general pestering of each other and the parents.  I'm trying to get them out in the morning before it hits 95, but Owen's schedule isn't very good and it's not the best for him to be out in the heat.

Lila has been doing so well with her letter and sounds.  She and Hyrum started playing Bananagrams and she has figured out how to sound out words like cat.  I think it's awesome and I am really excited to see her progress this year.  It might be a little tricky to see, but she made a cat and then spelled cat in the top left corner.  She also finished up her medicine and has been right as rain every since.  

Saturday Tim went running with a running group.  It's mixed with members of our ward and others from the community.  He got back and was promptly asked by the kids if he would go running with them.  After naps we went to another splash pad.  It wasn't as shaded as the last one we went to, but it was still nice and it filled their friend needs.  

Sunday ended up being really busy.  Lila sprang a fancy hairstyle on me and this is what I came up with this.  One day she will realize just how untalented her mom is when it comes to hair.  I try, but I'm more of a ponytail girl.  We made it to church, where it was announced that our ward was providing the choir for Stake Conference in two weeks.  Hyrum leaned over to Tim to ask if he could sing.  He has seen younger boys singing in the choir in our last ward, so it was something he had already been talking about.  We get excited when Hyrum is excited about church things.  So, instead of heading home right after church Tim took the older three to choir, while I took Owen to the relief society training.   

We ended the day with Liam having a messy accident, people from the ward dropping off cookies, and Owen's tooth coming in.  We were ready for everyone to go to bed.  Here's to another week!