Busy morning

I got up this morning thinking it would be a normal morning, but it ended up being a bit on the busy side. And a little stressful as I'd take the 4 boys with me places and have to try to get them to keep up or to listen or to calm down. I have to admit, I'm a bit on the cranky side now from having to do all that too.

I had been watching Daniel for a couple days because he's had a bit of a cold and started pulling on one of his ears. After his couple of ear infections and pneumonia since February, I'm a little more cautious about that with him. He is teething, so I thought there was a chance that it was all just related to that and would go away as soon as the tooth cut through. This morning he was coughing a bit and still pulling on the ear, only he would start to cry if I set him down on the ground and would take two steps away. I decided that I'd better take him in to see the doctor, especially with the holiday weekend. The appointment was at 9:15, and it was about 8:15 when I made the appointment, so I had to finish getting myself ready and had to tell Ben and Alex to get dressed so we could load up in the van at 8:45 to head down there. We did manage to get all loaded up and on our way to the doctor by about 8:55, so that was pretty good. Ben, Alex, and Chris all really liked the toys they had in the waiting room, so it took a bit to get them all into the examination room when they called us back. Then they decided it would be a good idea to yell in the little echoing room. I did get them to be quiet while the doctor was trying to listen to Daniel's lungs at least. Anyway, Daniel does indeed have an ear infection again. I scheduled a follow-up appointment in 2 weeks and then we got loaded back into the car.

After we were loaded into the car, we picked up some breakfast (the kids got to eat a little, but not much before we had to leave, so I picked us up some food) and then went to Costco to fill Daniel's prescription for Augmentin. Taking the 4 boys to the store by myself is never very fun, but at least at Costco they have the double-seater, so I could put Chris and Daniel in the front and make Ben and Alex in the basket so they were contained a bit. I did have to remind them to sit down a few times though.

We got home from picking up the prescription and had about a half hour to eat before we had to leave again to take Ben to swimming lessons. Of course when it was time to go, Chris decided he needed to go to the bathroom (rather slowly, I might add). So we were running a little late to begin with, then it took 15 minutes (literally) to get from the van into the rec center because of Chris. I had to pick him up a couple of times to get him moving. So Ben was about 5 minutes late to his last day of this session of swimming lessons. He had a good time though. He got to go down the slide a couple times, they rode in a canoe in the big pool, got to play with little squirty balls, and finally got their certificates of completion. He's really excited to start the next session on Monday, and Alex is very excited to be able to start lessons too. Of course, it did take another 5 minutes to get ready to go back to the van because Alex had decided to take off his shoes while we were waiting for Ben's lesson to finish and it took him a bit to be able to get them back on.

Now we're finally home and the boys are getting lunch and hopefully I can go hide in my room for a few minutes so I can stop being cranky. :)

Ben's swimming lessons

Ben started swimming lessons yesterday. When we got to the pool, he said he was a little nervous. It didn't take him long to get over that though. He had fun for the short half hour lesson, grabbing toys (or treasures, as the instructor called them) off the bottom of the pool, holding onto the stairs and kicking, and doing lots of spinning and jumping in the water. There were 4 girls and one other boy in his class. One of the girls and the one boy were both pretty timid and would just sit on the top step. He said his teacher was very nice and he was very excited and ready for his second lesson to start today. He's kind of funny though and didn't want me to tell his dad about the lessons. I'm not sure why.




Today he got to float on his back, swim with the noodle, dive for more "treasures" - this time he was doing all the way under, and jump to his teacher from the edge of the pool. His brothers all came with us today and Alex is very excited for when his lessons start in 2 weeks.

Daniel's 12 month check-up

Daniel had his 12 month check-up this morning. It's amazing how nice it is to take him to the doctor when he's not sick.

As usual, they measured and weighed him before the doctor came in to do the exam. He's 29 inches long and weighs 20 pounds, 15 1/2 ounces. Why they didn't just round it up to say he was 21 pounds, I'll never know. Guess that half an ounce is important. He's in proportion though. Right at about 25% for height, weight, and head size.

The doctor came in as I was playing peek-a-boo with Daniel in the mirror they had in the room. He asked about Daniel's milestones, the things he can do, and I told him how he climbs our stairs and walks along the furniture, is starting to copy what we do, says a few words, etc.

The doctor then looked over his past history with the visits to him, mostly to see how his ears had been, since he's had 2 ear infections since February and often had fluid in his ears still when he didn't have the infections. Today Daniel's ears were clear, his lungs sounded good, he was healthy. I know I said it before, but it's really nice to take him to the doctor when he's healthy.

Daniel got 3 shots today. He would have had 4, but apparently there's a nation-wide shortage on the HIB shot, so they're deferring that booster. They're not sure when they'll start doing it again, so I'm supposed to try to remember to ask about it at the next appointments. The look he gave the nurse after she gave him the shots was pretty funny. I don't think I've ever seen him glare at someone like that.

After the shots, I set up his next appointment, which is at 15 months. I also set up Ben's 6 year appointment and Chris's 3 year appointment. It's nice to know that part is taken care of.

Daniel's first birthday

Today was Daniel's first birthday. Since we brought him home from the hospital on Father's Day last year, it was kind of fun to celebrate his birthday on Father's Day this year. We don't have a lot of family around here, so we just kept it a simple immediate family thing today.

Because it was Father's Day, we let Bryce take a long nap after church, so we didn't start anything for Daniel until after that. Daniel's older brothers were all getting a bit impatient. They wanted to give Daniel his presents and really wanted to eat cake (yes, I just realized that I forgot the ice cream we had).

When we were all ready, we all gathered together and let Daniel have his present. I cheated a little and just used the birthday bag that his grandma and grandpa gave him their present in. Daniel thought it was pretty cool to look in the bag and see a bunch of toys. His favorite was the ball. He loves to sit with it and bang on it. He also seemed to like the cars and superheroes he got, although I think his brothers like those more than he does. They wanted to keep playing with them.






After the presents, we got Daniel's clothes off him and got him in the high chair for his cake. We all sang "Happy Birthday" to him and his brothers blew out the candle, then we handed him the cake. He had his own 8 inch round cake, since the local grocery store gives a free one when you order a cake for a first birthday. Pretty cool, I think.



Daniel likes cake.

He went after the cake more than any of his brothers did on their first birthdays. He was grabbing it before Bryce even set it down in front of him. He really liked the frosting and kept grabbing for more, so Bryce broke off a tiny piece of the cake for him so he could start on that. He would shove handfuls of cake into his mouth (probably mostly on his face) and a couple of times would just lean over to the cake to take bites directly off it. His brothers thought it was hilarious. Especially when Daniel started getting a little full and decided to start throwing a couple pieces of the cake, or when he tried wiping off his face with his messy hand and arms, only to make it worse.







I finally took the ramainder of the cake away from him and tried to wipe him off a bit before taking him upstairs for a bath. The cake actually came off him better than I thought it would. I thought I'd be washing off bits of cake I had missed for a few baths more. Fortunately, that wasn't the case. Especially since he has his 12 month well-baby check-up tomorrow morning.




After his bath, Daniel got to play with his toys a bit more. He saw the rest of the cake we had for his birthday and really wanted to try some of that one, but we didn't let him.

I think he rather enjoyed his birthday.

Slip 'n Slide

After a spell of cold weather, we finally had a warm day today. Not that I'm complaining about the cooler weather; I actually enjoy it and would like it to stay a bit longer before it gets too hot.

This morning I mowed our back yard. Yes, it took me over an hour and a half to mow and I had to fill up the gas tank in the middle of mowing. It had been a few weeks since I had previously mowed because I had put down seed and wanted it to get a chance to grow before I mowed.

Since we had a nicely mowed lawn and it was warm out today, I set up the slip 'n slide for the boys that Grandma and Grandpa bought them. They were having a really good time sliding down it and drinking the water from the fountains. Makes it finally feel like summer when we can get that out and play in the water outside.

Anyway, here are some pictures from playing today:



Ben is trying to drink from the fountain things here:


Sliding!


Chris is happy to play:


This one is Kyle and Alex diving for the flag at the far end, Ben at the close end: