I am here asking for prayers again for my Uncle Mike. His doctors have found another spot of cancer in his lung. Please pray that God’s Will be done!

Today it is sunny and 74 in Valdosta!

Right Now…10:05 and cloudy. Caecilia is playing, sort of quietly and the other two are playing a geography game on the computer. They work very well together.

This Weekend…we had plans for this weekend, doing things like making granola, pecan pie, grilling out burgers, you know, fun stuff. Well, none of that happened. We started Saturday out with Joshua letting me sleep in. I woke up around 915 and nursed Benedict until 945, just snuggling for the last few minutes and headed to the kitchen. Joshua was in there fying up some donuts, awesome. They were really really really good. I wish there were some left for this morning.

After donuts, I showered and got Margaret ready  we headed to the library, produce market and Target. I wanted to get the book “A Year Without ‘Made in China” and thankfully our library had it. Margaret picked out a book about the piano. Then we headed to the produce market. On the way there, we were stopped by a funeral procession. Down here, all the drivers on the road pull over to the side and wait for the procession to pass. I seem to recall some places up north do that, but I haven’t seen it in a long time.

The produce market is south of town and just wonderful. Two green peppers for $1 and four cucumbers for $1, much better than the grocery store. We then headed over to Target where we had a treat from the Target cafe and walked around the store for a bit. Our Target is pretty small and lacks a lot in the clothing department. It also does not have a grocery section, just a little area with some snack foods, cake mixes, flour and milk. Yep, you can buy milk there and it is cheaper than the local grocery stores. If I am at Target, I buy our milk there. I wonder how weird it looks to be buying three gallons of milk to the cashier.

We got home and hung out for a bit, then I got dinner started. After dinner, Joshua took the kids to the park while I nursed Benedict, then we went out for a ride in the van. We ended up renting movies (who does that anymore!?) We haven’t rented movies in a long time, because we own pretty much any movie we want to see. However, Joshua wanted to get Ratatouille, for the kids, so we headed over. Of course, for some reason, the DVD doesn’t work in our player. What is up with that? All of our DVDs work just fine, but when we get one from the library/netflix/movie rental place, it does not work. So we ended up a bit frustrated but put on a Star Trek Deep Space Nine for us to watch with the kids and they fell asleep.

We left them sleeping on the couch (Karol and Margaret that is) and headed to bed. Benedict was sleeping and all was well. Until about 330 when I heard Margaret coughing and crying. She then stumbled back to our bedroom where I was half asleep and half hoping I was dreaming. I also had Benedict next to me and really couldn’t move at the time, so I nudged Joshua and he started taking care of her. I removed myself from the clutches of Benedict and went out to help. She puked on the couch, floor, area rug. Nice. We got it all cleaned up and headed back to bed. Benedict was somewhat awake at this point and needing me, so I did not get back to sleep for a while. We think that Margaret ate too much popcorn, too late at night.

With our sleep interrupted, we were racing to get to Mass, but made it on time, thankfully. After Mass we came home and Joshua made breakfast for us while I nursed again. We all took naps yesterday afternoon and woke up not nearly as crabby as we all were before our naps. Dinner was hamburgers cooked inside with zucchini and squash on the side. Joshua played video games with the kids while I vegged on the couch looking at Made in the USA websites and tried to find all leather shoes for children.

Oh, I forgot one thing, when I was getting in to the van to go on Saturday, I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. It was a little three inch lizard. Yes, I screamed, like a girl. I ran to the window and made Joshua come out and remove that thing from my van, all while having the heeby-jeebies. Lizards, ew.

Some plans for the week…Preparing for our mini-vacation coming up in November. For school, we are having Space Week. Karol and Margaret are fascinated with seasons and stars and the moon, so I picked up some space books from the library to read with them. We will also have more evening reading lessons. Karol is on the ball and sounds out words all the time. Margaret is remembering sounds and recognizing more letters, which is awesome for her.

If I find some time for myself, I want to…ha ha ha.

Special prayer intentions…that our house closes this week!

Something that makes me smile…Caecilia building Lego towers on her own.

In Anne’s comment, she said something that ended with “…for 10 minutes”.  That got me thinking, how long should it take to nurse? Since I use the SNS for supplementing, I always thought it took 1/2 hour or longer to nurse and never really thought how long it took for other women. Sure, I have seen my friends nurse and notice that the baby was on and off in just a few minutes, but generally the baby was a bit older, so I thought they were “nursing on the fly”. So I sought out another friend, to see how long it takes for her to nurse. She said her baby takes no more than 15 minutes to nurse.

I started thinking. I do not want to switch to bottles yet, as he is getting breast milk from me. I also enjoy nursing him, he is a good guy and we have so many little “conversations” while he nurses. No, not ready to switch to bottles, but I also cannot be nursing him for 45 minutes at a time, while the kids do all sorts of naughty things.

Well, the answer was pretty obvious, well for me, well maybe not for me, but it should have been. The SNS comes with three different sized tubing. I had been using a smaller sized tubing and switched to the bigger tube. What a difference it has made! Our 45 minute nursing sessions are down to 20, tops. The first few feedings after the tube switch, he ate too quickly, and spit up a bit. (Of course, all over my shirt and I was about to leave for grocery shopping, thanks kid ;)) However, things are going well  now.

Middle of the night feedings no longer scare me, as I know we won’t be up together for an hour. He eats around 1230 and I put him down no later than 115 (and that is after a burb session, diaper change and a snuggle). I have started staying up until that time, also, as he has been sleeping until 630 or 7oo. If I went to bed at say, 10 and woke up for his 1230 feeding, I have had just enough sleep to be awake for a good part of the night. Of course, now that we have figured out something that will work, things will change and we will be back to trying to figure things out again!

So, this brings me to Caecilia. Now that I am only “tied down” for 15 minutes at a time, she is much more manageable.  So far today, all she has done is dump out a box of Arm & Hammer Washing Soda. That only happened because I did not realize it had been left on the counter last night, after making laundry soap. Oh, she did walk out of the bathroom with the plunger but put it back when instructed to do so. Then I found her in the bathroom, with the toilet brush, scrubbing the toilet for me. We washed hand for a good long time afterward.

Help! Mothers out there who have ever had a near two year old and a newborn, help! I realize I have been down this road before, but it was so much easier last time.  Caecilia is crazy and if she is not trying to “love” Benedict to death, she is either doing things to wake him up or to get herself hurt.

She tends to get in to trouble when I cannot get up to get her, like when I am nursing. (Poor Benedict, he has to deal with meal interruptions a lot.) I notice that some of her actions are not mischievous, but “helpful”, like climbing up on the table to help clear it. However, some of her actions seem to be very well calculated to be able to get away with the most she can while I am unable to get her.

Anyone? Advise? How did you nurse and deal with a toddler?

This weekend…we were busy busy busy as we have been for the past few weekends.

Friday I had the van, so we picked Joshua up from work and went to the park. We went to one by Valdosta High School. While the kids played, Joshua and I sat on a bench and talked. (Then I got a phone call from an unnamed reader looking for directions to the airport, in Ohio! Great call!) We got to see the visiting football team arrive, with a police escort. Two cars from the city/county they were from. We went home, ate dinner and I fell asleep on the couch after nursing Benedict. He slept for about five hours that night, only waking around five to eat. Of course, he was up for two hours, then he fell back to sleep. I did too…

…sleeping 930. Joshua made breakfast and suggested making crackers and yogurt this weekend. I nixed the yogurt because I had a few other kitchen things to do and yogurt is a bit time intensive as well as space intensive. While he worked out in the yard, I made some homemade wheat thins. I think with a bit more practice on rolling them out and making them uniform, they will be pretty good. They are much more substantial than the ones bought at the store. I also made seven layer bars for the parish picnic and baked some chicken for dinner. (We eat A LOT of chicken around here). I had thought of taking the kids to the movies for Margaret’s feast day, but ended up just having Joshua pick up ice cream when he went to the store. He needed to pick up a part for the cradle and said he would take one of the kids with him. Usually, I say “take Karol and Margaret” or just Karol. Saturday, I told him to take Caecilia. It was nice to get dinner started with out wondering what she was getting in to. She is by far the most mischievous child we have had. We ended up watching Wind in the Willows and eating ice cream in the evening then I headed to bed early.

Yesterday we went to Mass then to the parish picnic at our new parish. We had a nice time visiting with all the people there and my kids loved running around all afternoon. They are all nice and toasty colored now. Note to self: Sunscreen is needed in October here. When we got in the van, we had four sleeping kids within five minutes. Our ride home was nice and quiet. We drove by cotton fields and fields of newly planted crops! I think one of the fields may have been tobacco, but I am not sure. We also drove by a pecan orchard. I am excited for pecans to become available and hope they are much cheaper than 8.99/lb.

Some plans for the week…work on the budget. I am so very particular about making sure the bills are paid and things are budgeted for that I actually look forward to payday and paying bills.

We are going camping in November (I know, crazy, but it is on the ocean!) so I need to prepare a menu plan for the few days we will be gone. I am looking for ideas that don’t involve fresh meat, Spam will do just fine.

If I find some time for myself, I want to… I have given up on this concept! 🙂

Some prayer intentions…That our house closes soon and very soon.

Something that makes me smile…Caecilia taking herself to the bathroom, all by herself.

h/t to Suzanne McG!

I have actually been meaning to post pictures of the house here, but I never think the house is clean enough, so I hold off. Of course, for each room that is clean, there is one that is messy. Today I figured most rooms look decent, so here you go!

**In the kitchen pictures, please pardon the things on the counter, thanks!

**In the bedroom, please pardon the baskets of clean laundry. I washed it all today but did not get a change to fold it all.

**Notice all the things stacked on the bookshelf, away from Caecilia. The top of the bookshelf is mostly school books for Karol and Margaret.

**The kids were in bed when I started this post, so I did not get a picture of their room. The other bedroom is used as the office and well, the room where we put boxes of books and things we did not want to unpack yet. In other words, I am not going to post a picture of it because it is too messy!

**I will try to get outside pictures tomorrow if my tired body makes it outside.

Here are some pictures of our Tententen Day Dinner.