Cute kids

Sasha and Brookelyn both woke up at 6:00 am this morning. I hate 6:00 am. I really wouldn't mind it as much if they would lay onthe couch and watch tv quietly. Brookelyn and Brayden will, but Sasha has to eat. She wants to eat as soon as she wakes up and all through the day until she goes to bed. This morning she ate a piece of string cheese, scrambled eggs, a piece of raisen bread, and a small bowl of cereal. When we got to her class she opened her lunch box and wanted to eat part of her sandwich before chosing work. She is no longer painfully thin anymore, but she is still thin and probably always will be. I do think she may have an eating issue. I am hoping she grows out of it as she gets older and sees that she has fod available whenever she wants it. Right now she is always getting into the pantry and eating pretzels, cereal, crackers...and the last week or so she has been getting Brayden and Brookelyn to open the refrigerator for her. It is very fun to watch the three little ones have conversations, especially Brookelyn and Sasha. They have started playing dress up together and they both really like it. Sasha always wears a pink poodle boa and carries a dog purse. Brookelyn wears princess dresses and takes care of some doll or stuffed animal. They also like to dance, color, and play with play dough together. But their favorite thing is going through closets or drawers together. It doesn't matter whether it has locks or inaccessable. They are in it and carrying whatever they find to the opposite side of the house. After four days of rain and trying to get everyone healthy by staying home and relaxing, my house was a wreck. Luckily I knew it was useless to really clean until the weekend was over so it didn't make me crazy.

Sick Days

My little kids have had a rough time this winter. Brayden and Brookelyn got sick with some bug at the beginning of January. Both were pretty wiped outfor a few days even when they seemed better. A couple of weeks ago Brookelyn got a high fever (103.2) for a few days. I tried to drop her off at her classroom the Wednesday before last and she didn't want to let go of my hand. It sometimes takes her a minute or so to let go and find something she wants to do in the classroom, but this felt different. So I kept her with me while I did a bunch of laminating in the teacher's workroom and then we went home and spent the afternoon on the couch. The next day she had the high fever and she was attached to me all day. So we sat and watched tv or slept and I didn't even try to get anything done. The next day I kept Brayden home too because he wasn't acting himself and by the end of that afternoon he was laying on the couch and Brookelyn was feeling better. We spent the weekend trying to relax and get better. Luckily, Sasha has been fine and just has a runny nose. It has been raining A LOT. It's great because it's nice to lay around on rainy days, but a bummer because it is kind of chilly too. Anyway, I thought we were all better and then Tuesday Brayden developed a bad cough. The kind where it sounds horrible to listen to. He coughed so hard and so often on Tuesday and Wednesday nights that none of us got much sleep. It's hard to get him to take any medicine, but we would force the issue so he could get some sleep. I finally brought him to the doctor on Thursday evening because it didn't seem like it was getting better on its own. I usually wait a few days to go to the doctor because there usually isn't anything they can do. But his cough was really bad. He coughed all of the way there and all of the way in the elevator and waiting room. We waited a very long time for the on call doctor and he chose the minute she walked into the room to stop coughing. Seriously. He didn't cough again until we got to the car and were driving away. Of course, his temperature was normal there too, so I just looked like a crazy, overprotective mom. The doctor (not our normal doctor, but someone who was on call that night) really did treat me like I was being over the top to bring him in on a rainy night when he was obviously fine. I asked her what she would have told me if he had been coughing like crazy and she named a cough medicine. We picked it up at the pharmacy downstairs before we left. When we got home I asked Ray to give him some since Brayden was coughing again. Brayden smelled it and refused to take it. Ray told him that if he didn't take it he would have to bring him back to the doctor who would give him a shot. Brayden put on his coat and went to the front door and said he wanted to go to the doctor because the medicine was disgusting and he wasn't going to take it. He wanted the shot instead. I was upstairs at that point putting the girls to bed and heard this happening. I just smiled to myself because I am always telling Ray not to threaten Brayden with things if he wasn't willing to follow through. It turned into a loud scene with Brayden yelling he wanted a shot and Ray finally saying he didn't want to go out in the rain. They settled it by compromising on Ray putting the medicine into a little apple juice and Brayden took it. It worked, he hardly coughed for several hours and we were able to give him another dose with apple juice in the middle of the night. He got enough sleep that he seemed much better the next day.
I had had a bad toothache for weeks, but hadn't been able to see my dentist because of the kids being sick. I had been taking pain medicine for a couple of weeks. They were all well on Thursday so I called and got an appointment at my dentist that day. I needed a root canal and crown. Nice.

Sasha has clothing issues

Sasha has decided that she doesn't want to wear diapers. Ever. She will take off her pants, take off her diaper, and then put her pants on again. Or she will just pull off all of her clothes and run around naked. Luckily it has been pretty warm here lately, but there are dangers to her not having a diaper on. They all involve me cleaning messes I don't want to clean off of the floor, couch, bed, rug...WHen I try to put her diaper back on she says, "No, Mamma!" with such a desperate sound that I feel awful when I put them back on. She will run from me and struggle while I do it. At first I just put the diapers on backwards to see if that would fool her or at least get her to loose interest in it. That diaper lasted about a second longer on her than the others. Finally my husband suggested we try to start potty training her instead of fighting it. I talked to her teachers today and they seem willing. They know that she has a strong personality and does things on her own timeframe. Two weeks ago we stopped giving her a bottle. I know, she as too old to be drinking from a bottle. But I had read that babies who were adopted should not be weaned from the bottle at 12 months. We gave her the formula for 9-24 months so she would get nutrients. I know she is supposed to give up the bottle and eat more, but she eats a lot. She was really thin until about six weeks ago though. Anyway, we just didn't give her a bottle for a few evenings and then one morning we stopped that one as well and she was done. She never cried for it, which amazed me. Last week while I was at a meeting for Colton's track and field team, Ray put her to bed without a pacifier. He said she went to bed without a problem. So that night I collected all of the pacifiers around the house and threw them out. I was nervous all the next day that she would have a hard time going to sleep at school, but they said she went to sleep without a problem. So now my baby doesn't use a bottle or pacifier. Kind of great and kind of sad. I think she talks more now. She really only used the pacifiers when she slept (or it seems when I took pictures of her since she seems to have had one in her mouth for a lot of pictures). Maybe it is just that she seems older to me now. She does ask for more things. Today she asked me to put on Dora. Luckily we tivo'd (?) several of them because she was pretty adamant and I was pretty tired at 6:00 am. I hate 6:00 am. Sasha is always full of energy and fiesty or funny and I am a bleary eyed mess. She wants me to feed her and play with her and I want her to sit on the couch with me, watch tv, and eat dry cereal and string cheese until the other kids wake up. Neither of us win. Well, lately she wins because I can't be relaxing on the couch while she runs around naked so I eventually get up. Did I mention I hate 6:00am? Right now it is 12:17 am, and she is upstairs power sleeping so she can wake me up in less than six hours. I should go to bed, but I am a night person and always have a few things I need to do before I go to bed. I am doing laundry, bills, emailing about the Preschool Information Night I am running tomorrow night, making work for Brookelyn's class, orgainizing paperwork, and writing in this blog. How can I fall asleep with so much to do? My days race by and I never get as much done and I need and want, so I seem to sleep less and less. Is that my age or personality? It has to be age because I was great at sleeping when I was younger. I loved to sleep in. Or spend the day in bed reading.
I took Brookelyn to the doctor for her three year check up last week. She is 29 inches and 29 pounds. What a sweet girl with her blonde hair and big brown eyes. She was so happy to be there. She really likes going new places and meeting people. She says hello to everyone we see until they say it back. She is in a very big princess, pink and purple, my little pony, and dress up age. She has a great imagination, is very sweet, soft, and nurturing to her toy animals, dolls and Sasha, and is such a great little girl. Every night after we read books and I am rocking her she says, "Mommy, you're the best in the whole wide world." Where did she learn that? She will play with her daddy, do fun things with him, and cuddle with him, but if she is hurt, sad or tired, she wants her Mommy. How great is that? And she has another great quality. It doesn't always seem great and I knwo it will make me crazy in the future, but she is never in a hurry. She enjoys everything around her without racing or hurrying one little bit. She even runs a little side to side and up and down as if getting wherever she is going is not important. It already drives me crazy in the morning when it takes her ten times as long as Brayden to get ready. It's not that she can't do it quickly, it is because she is focused on whatever she is doing or singing about. Luckily I can see it is a good quality to have even when I am late.
Sasha is more like Brayden. It is surprising to me how much they are alike. Brayden used to wake up very early when he was younger, they are both really smart and funny, they are very active, both are thin, both have very strong wills, both can be sweet and cuddly, both of them love playing with balls and climbing...it's a lot of things. They both do things to make the other one laugh and have a great time together. When Sasha plays with Brookleyn she is calmer and quieter.
I better finish this later. It is 12:30 am and I still have a lot to do before I go to bed.