6 Miles

(I was about to say we were moving, but that’s just cruel. Our family is staying put–as much as I’d like to move–just the blog is moving).

SO…readjust your bookmarks, reset your feedreader, how ever you find and follow us, you need to change it to: http://milesclan.wordpress.com/
and join the fun there!

• Marcus pulled a bunch of kids books off the shelf and I stopped to put them back on.
• As I was starting a load of laundry I got side tracked working on using Goo Be Gone to remove residue from name tags that got wet on two different shirts. (Our church uses peel and stick labels for name tags–one was from a name tag on a shirt that got washed before the tag was taken off and one was a name tag that a baby drooled on. When wet it leaves a papery/gluey residue.)
• David woke up and needed to be fed.
• Marcus got into the marker box and was coloring mostly on the notebook paper he found next to it, so I redirected him to the table to let him color more on the paper at the table–where I can wipe off the other marks…as opposed to the carpet (where he had been before).
• While cleaning off the counters after lunch I decided I should refill the spice jars on the spice rack on the counter with the bigger bottles in the cupboard. (I can’t totally blame the kids here!)
• During snack time Marcus smeared sticky stuff all over himself, requiring a bath. (He’d just had a bath yesterday so I hadn’t planned on it, but that + the red marker all over his legs, arm and face making it look he’d been in a fight with a cat made me choose to give him one.)
• David woke up and needed to be fed.
• Cleaning up all the water Marcus dumped out in his bath while I was off getting David. (I’ll count that as washing the floor and add it to the To Do List.)
• David was all cute in the jumping chair and I had to stop and get a video clip of it.  (I’ll share it later, I promise!)
• Marcus pulled a bunch of kids books off the shelf and I stopped to put them back on.
• Welcoming home the older boys, looking at papers they brought home, making a snack, talking about their day (this is a good distraction). Making chore lists for older boys (Ditto.)
• “Helping” Will and Alex focus on what part of the room to clean (or splitting the room in half down the middle with a string and making each do one side to stop them from fighting over who was working and who wasn’t and how much each was doing.)
• Going to the computer to look up the pizza dough recipe and suddenly realizing I’d gotten distracted with looking at the weather online and Facebook (Will we hit 100 today?!? I think it only got to 99 and we missed tying the record–for the second day in a row!)
• Asking Will to pick up the books Marcus pulled off the shelf.
• Asking Alex to pick up the toys Marcus dumped out. (We need to get Marcus doing more! Some days he helps clean up, other days he helps make more of a mess.)

I finally got some work done and finished Marcus’ before supper and David’s after. But I never did get to the socks! I guess that’ll have to happen next week…and then I’ll need to do Will and Alex’s…

When we first got to the field it was raining. Not heavy, but big drops that you could feel individually as each one hit your head. Thankfully, after some heavier splatters and spurts, the rain moved on out.

Driving home Alex asked, “Did it rain the whole time?”

I said, “No, didn’t you feel it stop?”

“No, I was having too much fun to notice!”

Today we (FINALLY) got to go to the State Fair. (The Finally is for the boys, the fair has been happening for over a week and they couldn’t wait to go.  Sadly, it made the news for the stage collapse last Saturday.  It seems to have been a bit more subdued and not as busy since then…I’m not sure if those are related but I know today it seemed VERY empty. One vendor I talked to said this was the slowest she’s ever seen it and she’s worked it for 35 years. So if you’re in the area, go to the fair tomorrow. There are free tickets online!)  Today James took his final licensing exam for going into training to be a manager at work. He was given the morning off to take the test and he took the afternoon off so we could go to the fair together.  So once the older boys got home & had a snack, we headed out. (Sadly it was a pretty warm afternoon but it cooled off in the evening.)

We started at the FFA Building, where the older two boys couldn’t wait to play mini-golf. They were quite excited about this and wanted to play a long time.  I figured that was fine, there was a playground there for Marcus and shade for David, so it was win-win-win.

Marcus was convinced to go down the slide one or two times by James.

But he really didn’t want to play in the playground.

He wanted to do what the big boys were doing!

He actually did a pretty good job keeping the ball on the carpet and getting it in the hole.  After that we tried to visit the petting zoo, I thought Marcus would be interested in that. He did like running around looking at the animals, but didn’t want to touch them–probably for the best!

After they got bored with that area, we got some corn dogs and then headed down to the south side of the fair ground. There the boys noticed horses going into the show area and we went in to the (Air conditioned) stadium to watch horses parade around with wagons or small 2 wheeled buggies. It was cooler then I just made it sound.  Then the boys were ready to hit up another favorite spot–The Dairy Barn! (Home to great, low priced ice cream and other diary products.)  We kept up the tradition to have some milkshakes.

David discovered he likes ice cream (but he really had to think about it, or he was really trying to get it).

Silly brothers. Alex ran into a friend from school who rides on the bus with him and had fun seeing him.

Marcus loved his.

As we were eating we talked about what to do next and it turned out Alex was quite sad we didn’t go to an exhibit called Little Hands on The Farm–where they get to pretend they’re feeding animals, planting seeds, harvesting food, selling the food at the market and then taking the money to buy something (they get to buy a granola bar, milk, juice or string cheese.)   So we went back to the north side of the fair grounds and worked of a bit of those milk shakes. The boys had fun doing their farming and they both picked juice. Then we met up with James, who was watching a lumberjack demonstration near-by.

Even Marcus enjoyed it, though he’s playing with his balloon right there. After that it was time to go home. Alex wanted to come back tomorrow, so he could do more mini-golf. We were glad we got to have a fun time and the rain held off.

I did post pictures of David when turned 5 months old, I just didn’t call it his official “5 Month” post.  And I have more pictures of him as well–I don’t want anyone to think he gets lost in the wake of hurricane Marcus around here! (Ok, he does some, but that’s age. He’ll starting to do more to assert himself already!)

In the last two weeks David has started enjoying the saucer more and more. He loves to chew on various toys in it (not teething already! ) (And another aside, this outfit is a cute one my mom got him. Every time I put him in it when she’s going to come over, he throws up or poops and it gets all dirty. So this is partly so she can see him in it. And next time I will wait until she’s here and THEN change him. Seriously kid, its just getting ridiculous. And it wasn’t until I typed this that I had no idea how to spell ridiculous, which is ridiculous in its own right. Gotta love spell check!)

These pictures are in the kitchen (nice broom in the background, huh?), where David was keeping me company while I hulled strawberries. This lasted, oh, maybe 5 minutes.

That time between month 4 and 5 was really busy. We went to the farm and he got to meet most of the Miles side of the family. He started sitting up more and looking around more.  He’s still not totally sure about eating baby food…he starts chewing on his tongue and that makes swallowing harder.  James was feeding him last night and Marcus got a big jealous over David getting applesauce. James gave him a bit of it with the rice cereal in it and he wanted more–so he got his own bowl of plain applesauce.  (We’re out of the applesauce we made last year, so I had to buy it–GASP! When I do,  I just buy a big jar of unsweetened and everyone can share. The older boys ended up getting their own bowls as well.)

With his ability to sit up getting better, he is now taking baths sitting in the bath seat.

When in the bath he was interested in the water and the toys–probably to try to grab and pull towards his mouth, but at least he’s not crying like in the past or just sitting there. As you can tell he was very focused on them.

I finally remembered to get the right sized batteries for his mobile and he’s enjoying watching that. He actually prefers to be on his belly looking up at it then on his back! I’ve started putting him down for naps like this and letting him watch it and he goes right to sleep (though he moves around and usually ends up moving 90 degrees and stretching out the width of the bed.) He likes to grab onto the railing. He likes to grab on to lots of things, he’d rather hold my hand or shirt while eating and he likes to have a blanket to hold while he’s sleeping. (Thus the blanket in his bed AND on the railing of the crib, I’m annoyed I didn’t move that before I took the picture! But right after this shot he was done, so much for taking another.)

When I went to the store this week I tried putting the two younger boys in a double seated cart.  (It was my first time to go on a big shopping trip with just the younger two. Usually I go in the evening or I went with the older boys to help push a cart or stroller. I didn’t want to have a second cart or drag the stroller and a cart so I decided to try it!)  It was so cute to see both boys sitting next to each other, I wished I had a camera there to get a picture of the two of them together. He did get tired of sitting about half-way through the shop and I carried him in the baby carrier I can use (but don’t like to because he’s getting hea-vy!)

As you can see, the little guy continues to be a happy, easy going, joyful little guy.  Enough that I’ll forgive him for not sleeping through the night the last 3 weeks since we got back from vacation.  Good thing he’s cute as well!

The previous post had me thinking how there are so many things that cause me (or the older boys) to say “Oh, Marcus!” throughout the day. I thought it’d be entertaining (? how about a good memory tool to remind me what I won’t miss about this age) to keep track of a few. I also decided to try to take more pictures of a typical day–so here are pictures from today.

• After he finishes up his sippy cup, he decides to run into the kitchen and throw it away.

• We let him have a sippy cup of milk to fall asleep (yes, I know we’re not supposed to, but we’ll file this with “what-ever works, he’ll stop eventually”). When he gets done drinking it we hear a “THUNK”–he’s thrown the cup out of the bed to the floor. Right now he’s quite good at getting them to go or roll under David’s crib.
• Today while I was making supper he pulled out from the trash the ONE thing I DIDN’T want him to–the wrapper for the cream cheese that I just threw away.  And then decided to run away and drag it along the wall as he ran down the hall and I ran after him. (Yet he threw away 2 matchbox cars, a sippy cup, a hair band and several plastic cups today!)
• Yesterday I discovered he had found a crayon someone had left out and he colored on the wall.
• Today when in the bath with David, he decided David was in the way, he wanted to go to the back of the tub…so he tried to push David (in the bath seat)  out of his way.

• Yesterday, after I folded laundry and stacked it neatly in piles on my bed, he ran in and reached up, pulling it down. That was partly because he was mad I wouldn’t let him get up on the bed–but there were piles of folded laundry on it!
• The last two days I’ve caught him pulling clothes out of the laundrybaskets and throwing them all around on the floor.

• He loves to dig in the shoe basket and pull out shoes. He’s now taking to wearing any shoes he can find. (The picture above is him putting on Will’s shoes and trying to tie them.)

As I often tell him, it’s a good thing he’s so cute!

Today, while I was working in the kitchen,  Marcus got into some markers and crayons. I realized this when I saw him come into the kitchen with some marks on his arms and shirt. (Top detective work, I tell you!)  I put the markers away and got him some crayons and paper to color at the table (where I could keep an eye on him).  He had more fun throwing the crayons on the floor and we moved on to a new toy.

This afternoon, after he woke up from his nap, he was on my lap as he slowly woke up. He then pointed out the mark on one hand, and then we looked at the one on his other arm.  I asked him “What are we going to do about that?”  Then he got off my lap and went to the (old, blue leather) recliner.  He pointed to the seat and as I got closer I got to see more of his art work he was proud to show off.   Oh, Marcus!

Well, since the theme of the week seemed to be “Firsts”, we couldn’t leave Marcus out! You just have to look at the pictures of him playing in the hose from last week to see how badly he needed a haircut. His hair has grown in thick, straight and BLOND, and I really wanted to keep it long on top, but it needed trimmed around the ears. The “wings” on either side really needed to go.

So tonight we got him set up in front of the TV (watching Curious George), with a lolly-pop (the sure fire way to make hair cuts fun!) and in David’s purple Bumpo chair. Marcus likes to sit in it and I knew that would help keep him still.

He did fairly well.  He seemed puzzled when he noticed some of the wet things falling on his leg. This was the only time he really tried to get away, and it was more of a lean away.

After 2 other boys, I KNEW he’d look older once we did this, even with just the trim around the ears. (I can’t imagine him with a buzz cut like the other two got for their first hair cuts!) Doesn’t he look like a little boy now?

The last few weeks David and Marcus have not been sleeping well at night. I first blamed it on vacation, then I began to wonder if maybe David was ready for some baby food to help him get through the night. (And if you look at the two posts I put up last week, it seemed he was looking longingly at food in both of them.)  So Wednesday he got his first taste of baby food.

He’s all ready!

I have a box of rice cereal given to us by someone, a box of baby oatmeal given to us by someone else and a few jars of fruit and veggies given to me by 2 sister-in-laws, so I just pulled out some peaces & rice cereal and let him try it. (I found it funny I had so many options. I know Will and Marcus got applesauce because that’s all I had on hand. Alex got avocado.)  David wasn’t quite sure about what to do with it, but he didn’t spit it out, so I kept giving him more.

And then I got some great smiles, but I get those any time I look at him so it could be from just smiling at him.  Sadly he was still up in the middle of the night, so that didn’t seem to be the issue. But he is liking the food more and more as he gets it, today he was actually reaching for the spoon (of course it could just be he wants to chew on the spoon!)

Tuesday, August 9th was the first day of school for the boys. (Yes, that is a bit early. BUT–they’ll get half of December off AND, if we don’t have more then 3 snow days, they’ll be out by May 24th. Its been hot here and since we’ve been back from vacation the two have been at each other more and more, we were quite ready for school to start up).

Alex–Kindergarten, has Mrs. Johnson

He met her at the Kindergarten Round up the Thursday night before. There we got to see the classroom and while the parents met in the gym to talk about “boring stuff”, the kids met.  The we got to go to the cafeteria to hear the procedures there and then we got to ride a bus around the neighborhood.  (I think we were supposed to hear about the bus rules, but that didn’t happen.)  Alex left the time quite excited about school and counting down the days until he got to go back. His teacher seems very nice & has her classroom decorated with football & Colts things!

Wii-2nd grade, Mrs. Fishers

Will’s teacher has her room decorated with M&M things–how could she not be fun? She seems quite outgoing and fun.

4 days in and I’ve only heard good things about their days so far. They are both enjoying the bus ride, the activities and making new friends.