Dear Mom,

I found an old email you wrote to me in November of 1997. It had been printed with an old dot matrix printer and was folded into fourths and tucked in a cook book I rarely use anymore. I had just moved to Montana and was attempting to cook my first Thanksgiving dinner. I asked you to send me specific details; recipes, ingredients and most importantly instructions on how to cook.
The list was long and the details were explicit. You were doing just as I had asked and every line of the letter was so very much from your heart. As I read it tonight it made me want to make a Thanksgiving dinner just as you had written it, even though it is nearly 6:00 in the evening and February.

I miss you. I miss you so much and I wish I could hear your voice right now. I wish you could know that Megan is here and we are a family together, even if Dad has a new partner and is so far away.

Anyway, all three boys are calling me. Arlo has been asking me to do a puzzle with him for the last 20 minutes and I should go be with them.

Send me an email sometime.

On a Lighter Note

Megan with Otis in December.

On a lighter note...my sister has moved to Lansing!

It all began back in late October or early November. Megan works for the American Cancer Society and organizes and executes Relay for Life events. After visiting here a handful of times over the last two years, she decided that she'd look into transferring to the East Lansing office. There was some communication with the office here and to our surprise, what we thought would take a couple years, happened very quickly.
A position came open and Megan applied for the transfer. Same job, larger salary...it seemed too good to be true. The interviews went very well and we had no reason to think she wouldn't get the job...and then she didn't.

I was devastated. It took me a week to get out of a funk that made me so sad. I had been dreaming about her being around for Otis' first birthday, Sam's soccer games, Arlo's first day of school, helping her move into a house, going for walks together....having my sister really in my life again.

Two weeks after she'd been turned down, she got a call from the ACS East Lansing office with news that the woman who had been hired for the position had resigned. She had not accounted for the job being so emotional and didn't want a job that was also a lifestyle. ACS had originally given the job to her because she lived here in the area and had connections here. She had no Relay for Life experience (unlike Megan, who has had the job for 2 years in Maine).
They did not offer Megan the job immediately, but said that they wanted to meet her when she visited for Christmas. Essentially they held the position for her.

Megan met with the woman that would be her boss during her holiday visit and after a casual lunch and a tour of the office, they officially offered her the position giving her 3 weeks to pack up and move here. She arrived on Thursday afternoon. Tomorrow is her first day of work.

We are thrilled. Each and every one of us. Megan is living with us until she finds an apartment or house and it is so wonderful having her here! The boys LOVE having her around and I love having her around. It still feels like she's here on a visit, but I know it won't take long for us all to settle in to a routine.

Megan and I were not extremely close when we lived at home. We had different groups of peers and being nearly 3 years apart in age, she was only 14 when I left home for college. We haven't lived in the same state since. As we've grown older we've grown closer and we've especially become very close since our mom died 3 years ago. Other than Matt, she is my best friend and it feels so complete that she'll be a regular part of our lives now.

An Era Has Ended

Otis at 1 month

I briefly mentioned this in a recent post, but as of about 10 days ago, Otis is weaned. The story is long and I am not sure I am ready to rewrite the whole thing now. I am feeling very torn by it all actually. It is hard for me to tell other people that he is weaned at 10 months and I wonder what they think. So many of the folks we know here, I feel, don't know me all that well beyond when we moved here and Arlo was 9 months then...my dedication to breastfeeding...I am still so submerged in the baby world with Otis being just 10 months. I see other mothers breastfeeding and I want to have those moments still. Like after Otis' naps, I want to nurse him. I want to nurse him first thing in the morning. My body still aches for those moments.
He is such a happy baby though and he seems to be very content with the milk he drinks (which is organic raw milk from a local dairy). In fact, he'll drink nealry 20 ounces of milk between 7 am and 12 noon. It is really amazing. He is sleeping all night and we rarely give him a bottle before 6 am, but during his waking hours, he packs it in!! We get 3 gallons of milk a week from the dairy and he consumes most of it!
I am mostly rambling about this. I wanted to document my feelings about it all and maybe I am just over-emotional about it because it is the end of an era! I will likely never breastfeed again. How can my child birthing years be done, when I feel like they just began?

Rediscovery

Matt took Sam and Arlo sledding this morning with another Dad friend and his three year old daughter.
I stayed behind with Otis. Besides the fact that he just had two immunizations on Thursday, he is also teething and that adds up a cranky baby...needless to say, I was hoping to get him to sleep and have some quiet time to fold laundry. Yes, you read that right, quiet time to fold laundry.

Things worked out as planned. Shower with baby. Give baby bottle (Otis hasn't nursed in 2 days. I think he has weaned. Not sure how I feel yet.) Put baby to sleep. Watch movie and fold laundry.

It was very nice...the quiet, that is. The quiet that lasted for 20 minutes when baby woke up and continued to be crabby.

Here is where the divine intervention occurred and I remembered our snow shoes in the basement.
I strapped them on and put Otis in his snow suit and into the backpacking kid pack and took off into Fenner Nature Center right out my front door.

The sun, cool air, exercise, quiet time in the woods did amazing things for me...and it put Otis to sleep.

I will be doing more snowshoeing. Pictures soon to follow.

Nothing is Safe!

Nothing is safe in this house anymore...Otis is on the move. Although is only army crawling, he is FAST! I absolutely can not assume he'll be safe anywhere unless he is in his high chair or crib. We knew it was coming and he is happier for it, but life is certainly different around here.

All the months of me warning Sam and Arlo that their toys would not be safe on the floor have come to fruition and Otis destroyed a balsa wood airplane yesterday. He can easily get to the Christmas tree and gravitates there first (I think we are taking it down on Friday!) My Dad brought Sam's old "Tot rider" (walker) and Otis loves it! He quickly figured out that he can move and while the bump in between the kitchen and dining room only kept him contained for a few minutes, he still only moves backwards!

Otis has three signs that he recognizably uses at this point, "all done", "more" and I am pretty sure he is using "poop/potty".

Otis' first Christmas was very sweet. My Grandma, Dad and sister were here and we sat by a fire and opened gifts, had a lovely and large Christmas dinner. We went sledding, we made candy...we did all the usual holiday celebrations and though I am usually feeling down about this time of year, I feel pretty good these days.

December was a busy month for us with parties every weekend and school events and I am just glad that it all went so smoothly! I feel like I was was orchestrating a huge holiday event called, "Family Life". It is a lot of work creating a month long experience for three kids! My office looked like Santa's workshop for weeks and now it looks like a department store that just had its going out of business sale, with strips of ribbon and little pieces of wrapping paper strewn on the floor and empty boxes haphazardly piled in the corner. I'll get down there and clean it all up once my motivation returns from its vacation. I think that will happen when Sam returns to school.

I did loose my mind momentarily when I signed Sam up for a swim class at the YMCA for Tuesday afternoons. As it works out I will be taking FOUR kids to the Y for swimming once a week for 6 weeks (Sam's friend from school will be joining us)! Yes, like I said, I lost my mind momentarily. By the time it returned, the damage had been done. I think it will probably be crazy, but worth it and I never really liked my life much when it wasn't crazy anyway, right?

Arlito Turned Three!

Matt asked me recently if Facebook had taken the place of my blog and I said no, but after sitting down to post about Arlo's birthday and realizing that it has been a month since my last post....maybe he is right! I guess look for me on facebook...or don't and help me reconnect with my blog. I really want to.

So my sweet middle son turned three on December 5! It really is amazing how fast they grow up. It seems like yesterday I was writing about his birth.
Arlo is such a darling boy...when he wants to be (which is most of the time)! We went through the potty training haze a few weeks ago and shortly before we made the plunge and just did away with the diapers, Arlo was a monster. I think it was a developmental "bump in the road". He was so disagreeable to everything and had tantrum after tantrum, but once he made major progress his behavior changed. I feel like I can safely write that he has officially learned!! It is really nice to only have one child in diapers...the first time for me since Arlo was born. He is very proud of himself and we are so proud of him.

His favorite thing to do right now is imaginary play with Sam and they will do it for hours! I am not kidding. I have been feeling like the luckiest mom lately with my two older boys entertaining themselves in an imaginary world all day and a baby who sits and watches it all happen happily. There are some days when I just can't believe it is true...then someone screams or gets hit with a light saber and I remember that I do have real kids!

Arlo will wear a red cape pretty much every day and sometimes that is all he wears! He and Sam are really loving anything Star Wars related. Matt and the boys along with Uncle Andy and Grandma watched the first two Star Wars movies during Thanksgiving break. They LOVED them!! I was a little dubious about the movies and the boys' ages, but they did fine and really have been "in another world" with their play since then.
I can't think of any better than watching them pretend they are in an imaginary place! Yesterday they were telling each other that they were best friends. It was so sweet.

Arlo wears a size 3T, but just barely! He weighs 35 pounds and I am not sure of his height. He still needs to have his 3 year check up which will likely be after Christmas.

Right now he has a sinus infection and is coughing all the time. He is on amoxicillan and a nasal spray. I was able to convince him to use the neti pot in the shower with me last night and he seems to be doing better today, though he is still pretty mellow and tired. Kind of a nice change for me, but I feel bad for him because I know he is not up to par.

Arlo really wants to go to school and because his birthday falls 4 days after the district cut off date, he'll be home for 2 more years before he can start the Spanish Immersion program Sam is in. We may look into something for him part-time next year, but it is very expensive. I have been trying to participate in other activities for him on a regular basis, but with Otis and Sam (or Arlo) getting sick every other day (it feels like), we haven't been able to maintain much of a regular routine aside from going to the YMCA 2-3 times a week. He does enjoy the tot-watch there and there are lots of other kids his age, but there is no organized play and sometimes the TV is on the entire 90 minutes I am working out. However, I know we'll figure something out eventually and most days he is happy to just be at home all day (as am I, when we can actually do that!)

Perhaps I am just biased, but Arlo is a very clever 3 year old. He will ask questions or make statements that astound me. For example, yesterday we were in Target and he said (a bit louder than I would have liked), "Mommy, I have a birthday because I came out of your vagina, right?"
Yeah, like I said, clever.
He is also extremely polite saying "thank you" after everything!

He's been climbing into our bed every early morning lately and he snuggles up right next to me and goes back to sleep. Some mornings I don't even notice that he has climbed in until we wake up for the day. I am really enjoying it as he has never really been a cuddler, like Sam. I am trying to absorb all I can while I can.

I was afraid after I had Otis that Arlo would get lost in the mix, but so far he is holding his own and I am so thankful. He is really becoming a big helper with Otis too and wants to feed him and get toys for him. I love my days with him when Sam is at school and the days when we are all together.

And a Month Passes By...

It seems when the week begins I dread the early mornings of school drop off and nap time fights, then I blink and it is Friday afternoon and a weight has been lifted from my mind...then I blink again and I am dreading the week's beginning again and before you know it a month passes by.

I remember my mom telling me that once you have children time seems to pass faster and I think that the more children you have increases that sensation exponentially!

Here is what has happened in the last month in the form of a list:

• Otis cut2 more teeth and now has 8 total. He is still sitting-ish, trying to crawl, but falling on his belly and spinning in a circle! It is very cute.
• Sam has made at least one drawing a day, if not more and can draw so well! I love being involved with him making art.
  
• Arlo is making it closer to being potty trained, though he still fights it most of the time. We've tried all tactics at this point and the next step is to simply stop using diapers. Cross your fingers for us.
• I read all 4 Twilight books in two weeks and started seeing vampires everywhere I looked. I really enjoyed the escape and it has started me on a reading binge, which is really, really nice!
• Matt tried to ride his bike to work one morning, only find that the pine squirrels in our garage had filled his saddle bag with munched nuts! HA! He proceeded to try to kill the squirrels, but failed.
• I set the yard on fire with the lawn mower trying to mow up the leaves. I am now banned from mowing when Matt is not around to help put out fires. No kidding.
• Our friend Nik shot two bucks in our back yard with his bow. One was a 7 year old, 9 point buck weighing 240 pounds dressed. We will have venison in our freezer soon.
• Otis woke with a nasty fever that kept rising until it spiked this afternoon at 104.5 degrees (rectal). Both Matt and I are still a little worried, but out pediatrician assures us we're doing all the right things and the ER is not necessary yet.
• We clebrated Halloween for the first time in our neighborhood. Sam was a knight, Arlo was Superman, and Otis was a lamb.
• Matt and I dressed as 70's disco studs and went to an adult Halloween party. It was a lot of fun!
• The leaves have all dropped here at our homestead. The chickens are ready for winter and the yard is mostly ready.
• This weekend was unseasonable warm so we spent it trying to finish up last minute "get-ready-for-winter" tasks including scraping and painting the front door frame. It looks nice now.
• My sister applied for a job transfer to East Lansing, had two rounds of interviews and will hear the final decision this week. We are on pins and needles wondering if she'll move here.
• Sam has a loose tooth.
• The cat killed a mouse in the basement and then put it in her empty food dish. She has a great sense of humor.
• We had 25 turkeys wander through our yard this afternoon. That is the most yet at one time. I was thinking about Thanksgiving when they walked by.
• I no longer have a cell phone for the first time in 7 years. We now have a home phone which Sam will answer if he can get to it first. If you don't have our number, email me and I will give it to you.
• I am still knitting a sock I started in June.
• I have been going to the YMCA 3 times a week and am beginning to notice a difference.
  
• We had mold removed from our basement and now I have an office space again.