finley rose is 1 month old...

actually...almost 6 weeks but we were at the beach when she officially turned a month old and then i wanted to wait for her official doctor's appointment before i made this post. to be fair, all of the pictures are of her at the beach, so they are historically accurate :)

finley has grown so much over the past couple of weeks and i am watching her infancy just speed by. everything seems intensified since i know this is the last baby. i mean, i won't toss one back if it happens, but it is definitely not in the plans. when i left the hospital i had this weird feeling knowing that i had just left the hospital for the last time for something good happening to me. when i see my family i have a sense of joy and completion paralleled with the knowledge that everything is moving forward. life is moving forward. finley is our little caboose. and as i watch her pass through stages i know that those are stages i will never pass through again. not as a mother anyway...one day i will be a grandmother i am sure...but my turn as mother to a baby will be over. i take my role as mother very seriously and i will admit that i am quite selfish with that role. i have realized over the past few weeks that i do not like passing the responsibility of my children over to other people. i like the break. i like the time to myself. i do not like sharing. especially since my little caboose has come along and made me realize how quickly this is all going. she will be 5 like harper soon and that will mean that harper will be 10!

what a blessing to have a reminder that i need to appreciate the 5 year old that harper is, the 4 year old that calvary is, and the 1 year old that oliver jack is because it is all happening too fast.

finley is a great sleeper...at night that is.

during the day she takes minimal naps and most of those naps are in my arms. which is sweet. ooo and ahhh...but i have 3 other kids! and a house! and a husband! so, needless to say, i have to work on this. i love to snuggle, but sheesh baby, i'm not a machine!

most nights she goes down between 8 and 8:30 and then i wake her at 10:30 or 11:00 to eat and then she sleeps until 6:00 and then goes back down until 7:30-or 8 when we all start the day. i am thankful that at 6 weeks she is sleeping so well at night. she continues the streak of breaking the mold of my babies. she is still sleeping in our room at night because she sleeps so quietly. everyone else had been kicked out long ago because i would wake at every grunt, whimper, or movement. but not finley; she sleeps soundly...at night.

i am interested to see how her disposition continues to develop. in many ways she is very laid back and unscathed by the madness around her, but in other ways she is very particular. she is a very sweet baby and seems to love being around all of her family. of course we all love her but i wish i had some sort of photographic proof of how much oliver jack loves his baby sister. truly, words do not do justice to just how much he adores her.

stats:

height--21.5 inches (75%)

weight--10lbs 12 oz (90%)

head circumfrance--16 in (>97%)

a hairy situation...

what if all hair grew like baby hair?

we're back from vacation...

my favorite picture from vacation. harper is in the foreground and calvary is in the upper right corner jumping...

questions...

being the mother of many small children i receive many interesting, and sometimes inappropriate, questions EVERY time i go out...
some of my favorites with their respective answers:

1. "have you guys figured out what causes this?" ~ no. what causes it?

2. "you are done, right?" ~ somehow this doesn't feel like a question.

3. "how can you afford it?" ~ first of all, you would be surprised how high in demand a stay-at-home mom and wife with an expensive english literature degree is in our recent economic climate. however, if that alone is not enough for you, then just ask yourself, "how can we afford NOT to have this many children?" given the outlook for the financial security of our social security system we have only given ourselves better odds of having a child that can and will take care of us when we are old.

4. "you sure have your hands full don't you?!" ~ again. this feels less like a question and more like a statement. and how am i supposed to answer this. if i say yes, then my children may be hurt. if i say no, then i would be lying.

5. "are they ALL yours?" ~ as far as i know. except for the one throwing cantaloupe on the floor. he's not mine. or that one slamming the door. she's not mine either. or that one screaming at that other kid. definitely not mine. come to think of it...only the sweet sleeping baby is mine. we should find these other kids' parents.

6. "are they twins?" ~ no. none of them are twins. harper is just tiny. calvary is just mature (sometimes). and to the people that think finley and oliver jack are twins...you people are just ridiculous and i refuse to answer that.

7. "how do you do it?" ~ i didn't know i had an option. :)

he has a pseudonym...

oliver jack has loves to make people laugh...
i recently decided that i would teach him to shake hands and introduce himself to people. he was so cute shaking hands and telling me that his name was "ahhhwer" (oliver) and i asked him to shake hands with me multiple times a day. however, one morning at breakfast when i shook his hand and asked his name he responded with "bob". harper and calvary and i started laughing hysterically and from then on he told anyone who asked that his name was bob.
as if it was not confusing enough...oliver, oliver jack, jack, jack-jack...now he is throwing in bob to the mix.

while we were at the beach this past week a stranger asked him his name, to which he responded promptly with "bob".
this might be a good way to keep creepy strangers from getting too familiar.
maybe i can come up with pseudonyms for all of my children...

just because...

oliver jack is 18 months old...

this month not only introduced our family to the newest addition, but also welcomed oliver jack to his 18th month. he has continued to be a complete joy...even in the moments where he is completely impossible he manages to maintain the most fun disposition. well, most days. :)

he is beginning to put 2 and sometimes 3 words together. he says, "find harper", "hit it", "snack please"...all the important phrases are covered.

he has also taken advantage of the new level of distraction i find myself in. every time i am nursing or bathing finley, jack finds something to get himself into. after giving finley rose a bath one evening i walked into the kitchen to find jack next to the counter on a chair (which he had pulled up to the counter) and eating a peach. he was quite pleased with himself. so pleased in fact that he repeated the task the following morning while i was feeding the baby and even decided to elaborate on his mischief a little more by taking a few bites out of every single peach in the bag.

another day he walked into the living room, where i was nursing the baby, holding a container of bleach. he walked up to me proudly displaying his bounty saying, "milk! milk!". awesomely, oliver jack has learned how to undo the baby proofing that we have done.

yet another feeding led me to find jack in the workroom sitting on harper's desk coloring with markers. as i rounded the corner, he looked at me and shook his head and said, "no desk." that's right, jack. we do not color on the desk. he was, once again, super pleased with himself.

if any of my children are going to get into mischief it will be jack. in fact, i have taken to expect mischief from him on levels that kyle has not yet grown to expect. for instance...i know the minute he disappears that he has either climbed something or thrown something in the toilet. i also know that if he peeks around the corner at me and grins that he is planning a covert snack attack on the kitchen.

he, surprisingly, is the most attentive to the baby. he wants to hold her all of the time. he wants to kiss her and he is very concerned about her umbilical cord (which has recently revealed a sweet little belly button). he helps bring diapers and burp cloths and sings to her when she is laying on the couch. he is possessive of her and dares anyone to try and take her out of his arms before he is ready. he has completely surprised me with his cool approach to this whole baby thing. i am not sure why it surprises me really though, because he has always been laid back, but i never expected him to take this so easy.

in fairness, he has had many more tantrums and moments of irritability. those moments have not been fun, but considering all he has recently adjusted to we have been more than pleased.

he is so much fun...even though he cannot be trusted.

he is so sweet...

he is so in love with all of his family

and we are so in love with him!

an explanation...

the reason i had four children was so that i could always have an excuse for having a dirty house.