Okay, Monday morning: I forgot in the course of the weekend what it it like to be home with just the three kids. Busy. Getting Jon dressed, and Charlotte Claire, no sooner do I get her all clean and dressed, and she poops...then Camille's awake, and Charlotte gets into Sonja's purse, complete with lip stuff and bubble solution. As I approach to pick the stuff up, I slip in bubbles spilled on the kitchen tile, and ouch...my leg just doesn't go sideways like that. They all get breakfast, oatmeal and toast with jam, and baby cereal for Camille. I do some laundry while Camille bounces in the doorway bouncer in the laundry-room doorway. Then, she's ready to go back to sleep....Charlotte thinks it would be fun to take a bunch of videos and dvds out of the cabinet and throw them....and Jon thinks when I sit down to nurse Camille is a good time to go in and poop, and yell for me to wipe him. Okay, finally get baby back in bed (sorry sweet baby, but it does feel good to lay you down in your bed, aah) Then, Jon and Charlotte Claire want to go outside....I switch another load of laundry, grab some things that can be hung outside, and out we go. They bring their sippy cup and bottle of apple juice, and I bring the pretzels. We: play in the sandbox, smell the lilacs, they bounce on the trampoline while I sit in the sun....then they play on their jungle thing, then it's time to go back in....Charlotte Claire has been up for 6 hours, and I think it's time for a nap....my back is killing me from all the stuff I did around here on Saturday, and I would like to lay down, too. But Camille will be waking up....
The good news is that my brother is coming tonight to hook up the hot-tub. I need to go get some supplies for it, but don't want to take these three by myself with my back so sore, if I can help it. Maybe after school, I can get away with a few of them and some one who can do the buckling of the carseats!
Jon has waffle-blocks all over the living room again. Yesterday, he insisted on keeping the wrapping paper from Charlotte's presents. Now it's in a Wal-Mart bag....he likes to empty it out, and pretend to wrap things in it. I made him pick it up before he got the waffleblocks out..
My number 5 child is turning 17 years old this Friday. I remember when he was born....it was my exact due-date, and it was hot. Not just hot, record breaking heat and humidity for May....and we lived in a mobile home which just heated up like an oven...so, my sister and I decided it was a good day to go to the mall, 45 minutes away....I had a helper staying with me, just for a week, named Irene. Anyway, my sister was expecting her sixth child, and had a few in school, and I had one in school. We packed up the kids in her van, with Irene, and got on the New York State Thruway. Which is about when I realized I was having regular contractions. My sister asked the toll-lady if it was okay to do a U-turn if I was in labor....that toll lady didn't like my, because I had accidently let my thruway ticket be taken by the wind a few weeks before, and made no effort to exit the vehicle and chase it, being 8 1/2 months pregnant....anyway, that toll-lady looked into the van and saw me, and yelled, "YOU!"....So, we got on the Thruway....and I decided that the contractions were real, 5 minutes apart. We got off at the first exit, and went back.....we went to the hospital, all of us.....Irene and my sister waited in the waiting room while they checked me, and I was four centimeters and having regular contractions...so I was staying.....
That was 12 noon. About 5pm the dr came in, and I wasn't moving along too quickly. He offered to break my water, or let me go home for a few hours and see if things picked up. I thought of my mobile home and the 95 degree heat and humidity, and chose : break my water! Joe was born at 11:45 that night, after just one or two pushes...he was 21 1/2 inches long, and 8 lbs something..... Joseph Michael was the baby I raised myself: our house was started when he was a few months old, and completed when he was 11 months. My husband went directly to the building site each night from work, and worked every Saturday...I was back at the "trailer" with the 5 kids, doing the appointments, shopping, and picking out the light fixtures, paint colors, and sinks, ect....it was a rough year, but the only way we could manage to get a house, and a fine house it is. I am eternally grateful to my brothers for their help, and to their wives for holding down their forts in their absence.....
I do go on! I shall go before I bore myself to death.......Miss Charlotte Claire is sitting with me, and she is tired....
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2 comments:
I'm getting tired and sore just reading! Okay, not really...
I am curious. How many bedrooms do you have in your house? We have never had more than 3 but hubby and I slept in our "second" living room for several years while the kids occupied the bedrooms. During the day "our" room became living space one again. I straightened the futon we slept on and turned it into a couch once again. We moved when our oldest was in college in Florida and they youngest was almost six, but we still have just three bedrooms.
Our house is like a raised ranch, with the back fully open, so the downstairs rooms in the back aren't "basement-y". The front downstairs rooms are sort of half basement-y...And, we have 3 bedrooms upstairs, and 5 downstairs. Except the 5th down there is really a storage room with a freezer, and some shelving, but they made a bedroom out of the other half of the room. It works. We built the house when we had 5 kids...little did we know! Our kitchen/dining room is not big enough, but we manage. Our house isn't fancy, it's functional and comfortable...
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