I’m working on birthday stuff for the 29th. Elections for birthday breakfast and birthday dinner have already been made. I need to decide on what cake to make, and finalize presents. I’ve purchased some decorations and have some presents, need to get some other things accomplished in that vein.

Baby Q is getting so big, and talking more and more, and really understanding vastly more than ever. He’s really cute and quite a ham at times. He’s still my baby, but branching out more towards others. He’s a full fledged Toddler. He gets into trouble a lot too. We have a gate that is frustratingly not a good one though it should have been. I have to re-install it, he gets it opened and goes downstairs and opens the door to the room where the cats are when they aren’t supposed to be out … anyhow, he loves cartoons and “gets mad” if you turn the channel … and some other things make him mad, so that’s the big thing I have to work on with him, and also the others, as they get on each other and it’s just worse right now, with Spring kicking into high gear and things needing done and birthdays coming up and … on it goes.

Separate bedroom is tiny. Living room small, with balcony, cruddy but OK kitchen. The nicest thing here is that the bathroom has obviously been redone. [Now that I've written that I recall walking around the maze of outside corridors yesterday and passing some new appliance boxes in front of a couple of rooms. Dishwasher, Refrigerator, etc.]

There’s also a pullout sleeper couch and two narrow bunks intalled in a niche one on top of the other, of course. Plenty of places to put each of our 6 selves, but the bright spot in dealing with it all is the glass sliding door to the balcony. So many rooms don’t have a balcony, and many that do don’t have anything much worth looking at outside.

In this case there is water that sparkles as the sun moves overhead, it’s low tide, then high tide and the changes that brings. It’s interesting at least. Since it’s the Gulf side of Florida it gets too sunny and hot in the afternoon. Yesterday we got here in the afternoon. It’ll be nice to see the balcony all morning this day.

I have some schooling stuff with me, and that’s slated for this day as well (hubby is here for business, so we wait while he works.) We are also preparing for a birthday at the end of the month when my eldest goes from being a tween to a teen. :eyesroll : There’s some manners information we must all go over and practice again. It’s not just my eldest, he’s not as bad right now as some of the others really … and being stuck in a hotel room it’s not so long before someone is crying, another is sassing, another is screaming, another is … you get the drift.

Yesterday we were at a baseball game and today we go to another. I love baseball, and it was nice last night to sit by my eldest, he’s taking a higher interest in what’s going on in the game. Baby Q was a cutie too, but not interesting in the game, just showing off his toddler self to whomever would watch, particularly the row behind us.

I’m still nursing Baby Q at night and at home during the day every so often. I’ve not nursed this long with my others, it is just right for this one. Of late he’s picked up a new word to refer to me when he wants to nurse, ‘dink’ … so last night at the game he kept pulling at me ‘dink, dink’ … ‘Mama, dink!’ and I didn’t let him but awhile later I didn’t feel so “whatever it was” about it and he nursed and was that cute showoff from then on. Little stinker.

Accomplishing a lot has been my goal forever, but rarely do I see that happen, or feel like it has. Right now I’m a bit bogged down, the weather is dreary today (rainy and gray) and my cycle is near the end (a really bad combination.) The house is just so small for us, and things are so disorganized and our main living space is clogged up with baby toys, things that need to be put elsewhere (but where?) and a huge couch that is so depressive due to being dirty, broken down, and I just can’t stand it anymore, haven’t been able to for a long time, but I’ve made myself live with it, but I’m to the point where I’d rather take the cushions off of it and put them on the floor and throw the rest of it away.

It, the couch, was an IKEA purchase and it was the right thing at the time, but not bought for where it is right now. It was supposed to be in our “basement” and because of things here and there it has been moved up and down a couple of times and has been ruined by jumping children and things piled on it while it sat dormant in the basement for awhile in the past, and just basically the covers are needing replaced. No biggie really, to “refresh” this is not a bad thing, IKEA makes it to be laundered and also replacement covers in many colors and patterns are easy to get, not the price of a brand new couch. Unfortunately I could never convince my husband to get a different set of covers, so these are worn out, stained, the body cover is ripped where it connects to the couch with velcro, and because it was a pain to use since it got older (all the covers) it just sat in the basement and had full abuse from the children and stuff sitting on it and one arm is totally depressed/loose and the seat next to it is sunken, no support in the middle. The lack of support is bad, but the lack of the body cover staying on is way worse, it slides down into the front and pools on the floor, and seat cushions slide forward and hang over the front too far and it’s like a giants piece of furniture (sitting on it with feet to the floor is impossible, it’s too far “out”) and so the whole thing needs to be reset, and that is nearly impossible with the body cover, and any work put into it is wholly defeated once a round of sitting on the couch happens by the family. Not taking into count how dirty it gets, how washing the cushion covers only is nice, but they still look blah, and the body cover is past being able to be washed, so gets worse and worse and the cushions get so dirty so fast that washing them is just not what I’ll do anymore. So now that I’ve given up that for good (crossing my fingers behind my back) I’m having a hard time looking at the monstrosity in my “living room” and navigating around it, onto it, and blech, touching it. :rolleyes: I had tried to revive it by washing the cushion covers again and again in the last month, but when I got everything done and right away it was bad enough that one or two needed it again, and doing just those and getting them back on and then again more and more and again, and again, well, that is enough, no more.

We had considered a new couch from Costco, in the warehouse, and talked about it and talked about it, but ended up going with something else for our daughter instead, she needs furniture in her room and they had just a few of something I’d had my eyes on and so often that happens, when I see something I like there, and we don’t get it, when we do decide to get it, then we go and it’s gone. So I was seeing those things and hoping our chances weren’t going to run out, so it came down to “couch or daughter furniture” and we got the daughter furniture. The next time we were there, the couch was reduced and we hemmed and hawed over it and decided to forgo it, it would have been crunch to do it, and I knew it would mean we wouldn’t get it, and sure enough, though we were there again just the next day or so, it was gone. It was a couch that had grown on me, the style being so very modern compared to the things we usually have had. It actually made me think about redoing how I was approaching the living room, and so I probably will go ahead and try to find something similar in the future, and the hard part of that is the waiting and the “what do we do in the meantime” — sigh.

We had another couch years ago that we got rid of, it got ratty, but looking back, it was so much nicer, in many ways, and that feels like heresy to write. That’s how bad this IKEA couch has become.

All of this has just become so urgent feeling because the baby is growing up, time is moving along and four children in a not even 10′x10′ living room is outrageously annoying, and even a couch and wall mount TV seem to be too much there, let alone also having baby toys, an end table, and toddler table for play, Wii system, PS3 system … and all the junk that accumulates … it’s just too much. A couch that is just a couch is one thing, but in this case its a corner+2 couch, a corner with two seat on the right and two seats on the left. It’s a huge thing and I can’t take it anymore!

I wanted to write about birds this week, and now that I’m actually writing, I’ll make this post about it, briefly.

A few days ago I looked out on the front porch area through the sidelight to see the temperature on the thermometer and saw something moving out of the corner of my eye. I turned and looked and there was a pretty Carolina Wren with a piece of tissue-looking paper in it’s beak. It hopped around and then suddenly another Carolina Wren hopped onto the porch and immediately a male Northern Cardinal flew into the brush right in front of the porch, so I had these three birds super visible right there, where I usually don’t get such a treat of even one bird in view. It had a special quality about it, that event did.

A couple of days ago I was in the kitchen, me and the children were eating and I was actually standing up at the table and saw something out on the Bluebird box, and looked and there was a diminutive woodpecker hanging out.

I got a good look at him to memorize his features, then ran to get my Sibley guide and found that it was a Downy Woodpecker. I had never seen one in my life, and it was really cool to spot one so close in range. Of course I didn’t get any really good photos, my camera wasn’t around, and the other one that was around is a newer little Fuji digital that just doesn’t have the ommph in the bird photo taking department that my old canon digital rebel does. I’ve yet to download the pictures, so we’ll see what I get.

The Downy Woodpecker pecked around the Bluebird box, then got into the box and stayed inside for several minutes, then started peeking out, then finally came out, walked around the box again for a short time, then flew up into the maple tree that’s nearby and was near the top pecking on a branch then suddenly flew away towards the distant line of trees on the other side of the subdivision.

The next day I saw my supposed Eastern Bluebird couple checking out the box. Mr. Bluebird got in for a couple of minutes, while Mrs. Bluebird waited on a branch of the tree. The usual spring/summer sight, as they get ready to build a nest, except right now it’s November. I guess they are keeping tabs on their nest box and knew they’d had a visitor.

It’s noteworthy also that we see Blue Jays around frequently enough, in the front and even in the back more and more. (So many folks say they don’t like Blue Jays, but I think them beautiful and useful birds, feisty sure, but worth having around, and really, really handsome.)

I hadn’t had a decent birding day at home for so long, and I must say, it was a very decent birding week this past week.

I need to get a big bird feeder, like we used to have in the backyard, until it fell down in a thunderstorm and fell apart in a not worth fixing state. I love seeing the birds come to the feeder in the Winter, and also like supplying them with the food they seek/need. It’s been a few years since I have done so. Birding became a great passion of mine when we moved to this house in 1997. I hadn’t lived anywhere with much bird watching ability in my adult years.

He’s getting more into our meals, table food, family food. He loves some things, but nothing like sour cream. He won’t eat anything of substance if there is sour cream involved, he just wants the sour cream.

I’ve given him plain yogurt before, and I should do so more often, like every day, but I haven’t thus far.

Anyhow, here are some photos of him enjoying the yogurt, from July 5th (2008):

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Baby Q is growing up, not as much a baby, closer to a toddler now. I still BF him, he’s eating more food now though too. So poopy diapers are oh so much more different of late. :rolleyes:

Q is talking a lot now. Sure, only WE can understand what he says, but he says so much. Like a few days ago, he was being cute, running away from something, brother or something he was doing, and he fell down, and as he did that he looked up at me and his Daddy and said, “I fell down!”

One present we got him for his birthday is a Leap Frog musical table called the Learn & Groove Musical Table. It’s pretty cool, and he loves it. He makes things happen and stands there sort of bounce-sway dancing to the music. It’s a nice busy/learning toy that isn’t annoying to parents and siblings at all. We all love to play with him with it.

He can walk fast, and could run, no doubt, but chooses to usually walk, walk fast. He doesn’t crawl much at all either now. Pretty much just walks.

We got him a real pair of shoes after he started walking, and they are very cute on him. White and navy “saddle shoe” type from Stride Rite. He needed a couple of wearings to ‘get used to them’ and then was off and walking fine in them. We got a cheaper pair of shoes at Babies R’ Us after that, they aren’t real leather, but man-made to look kind of like a suede, camel color. They are cool looking (I’ll get him in some pictures sometimes, wearing both pairs of shoes) and he walking right off the first time he wore these.

He wears shoes when we go out … not in the house, unless we are about to go somewhere, or just came home. Bare feet are best for walking, little baby feet getting shaped for getting older and doing more …

Strong feet take you places.

Baby Q is really taking off. He’s a pre-toddler, practically one, talking a mile a minute, very cute, very much my same baby as always, just growing up a big step-up this past month.

He’ll be One Year Old on June 23rd. Time doth flee us fastly!

He’s growing up so fast now. He’s not an expert walker yet, but is walking most all the time he’s on the floor in the house, moving around. He rarely resorts to a crawl since the day he actually starting really walking, not just taking a couple of steps, as he did for a couple of days, then was off. (Mid-10 Months.)

On Saturday we were out shopping, it was a hot day, and it was really hot in one store we were at, and then going outside into our van it was even hotter for a long time. I, myself, was over heating, and for me it’s a serious issue when that happens. Our van A/C doesn’t work right, and only the front air works at all, the rear air only blows fresh air temp (we’ve had it looked at but no one, thus far, knows what is wrong.) The front air works, sure, but doesn’t put a dent in the “hot” days in the middle and rear sections of the van, and barely cools the front down “enough” to suffice.

So I wasn’t sure on that day whether or not the heat was affecting the baby, but on the way home he did get sick, Thanks be to God I had only breastfed him that day. He threw up a few more times in the next couple of hours, but then finally slept, and then seemed a lot better. I skipped one feeding, about one, and gingerly let him eat later when he seemed to want to, and he only nursed on one side, then about half an hour later, the other side, and didn’t throw up again. He was tired, obviously not feeling well, but not listless, just didn’t feel good.

He didn’t have a fever or anything, it was just curdled milk throw up, and never dry heaves, not seemingly dehydrated either. It wasn’t a full day event either, so, we are just glad he’s OK. That evening, after I’d finished nursing him he wanted to continue being held, then perked up and became his normal “aren’t I a cool and active baby” self

Baby Q continues to be a big talker, and he’s saying very clear things, to us, “brother” is a big one of late, referring to either of his older brothers. He calls them, greets them, and so on. He says many other things, I should write them down. Of course I wouldn’t expect anyone outside our immediate family to be able to understand what he says.

It’s “summer” here now. May is almost over, and it’ll be June, and then not long after that, Baby Q will be One. It’s less than a month away!

So we now have a “walker” – a human baby, walking, stepping his way toward toddlerhood.

He’s getting bigger, really advancing, so very, very close to “walking” but still “cruising” instead of actually taking own steps. He does pull up to standing from a sitting on the floor position, he can stand for a couple of minutes without losing balance and going “boom” — he’s just content to do all this and not “walk” … which is going to end at any time, sooner than later.

He “talks” all the time. Actually intelligible to me and some of our family here. It’s not really English, but close, getting there. Absolutely he mimics things I say often, and also says things for himself. He loves exploring sibling faces, with his fingers, and of course Mama and Daddy’s faces as well.

His [acronym title="Papa"]grandpa[/acronym] was here for a few days this week, just left yesterday evening. He was very shy the first day, and the second day he was A-OK with him. He saw his Papa the first time when he wouldn’t remember, he was just barely a month old, and this last meeting was his second, but a first for Baby Q the near-toddler.

That’s all I can write now, I’ll publish this so that I put something up, and hope to finish it more fully later.