Seven.

Today is my Merrick Wilder's SEVENTH birthday. I really cannot wrap my mind around that. I so vividly remember so many things about being pregnant with him, and labor and delivery, that it seems like yesterday. I remember the first time I saw his face...that odd mix of feelings about this tiny person who grew in your belly, and their being so familiar and yet still a stranger. And then they gave me morphine and I didn't remember anything for a week. ;) Emergency c-sections will do that to a person.

Before I make myself cry and get too terribly sappy...here is his birthday interview!

1. Who is your favorite person in the whole world? That's easy...YOU!

2. What is your favorite color? That's easy, too...it's blue.

3. What is your favorite TV show? Shark week. (He's petrified of sharks.)

4. What is your favorite outfit? Jeans.

5. What sport do you like best? Sport...hmmm...soccer.

6. What song do you love? Yes. It's "Sailed". (He means Sail by Awolnation.)

7. What is your favorite cereal? Tony's! (That means Frosted Flakes.)

8. Who is your best friend? Caden. (His cousin.)

9. What do you want to be when you grow up? I wanna be what Luke and Jesse are...workers. They paint and work. (My uncle is a contractor.)

10. What is your favorite book? Narnia.

11. What are you really good at? Jumping. I mean climbing. (That's a no brainer.)

12. Where do you wish you could go on vacation? To the beach.

13. What is your best memory? The time where we went to Nanny and Pop's and had a sleepover and watched Superman.

14. What would you buy if you had a lot of money? A motorcycle. (I've seen him ride his bike. Heck no.)

15. What food do you hate the most? Pineapple. I don't like it. It's crazy.

16. If you could have one wish, what would it be? I would wish for an iPad. (You can tell we don't do many electronics around here.)

17. Who is your biggest hero? What you mean my favorite superhero? Uh...Captain America. 

18. What is your favorite dessert? Ice Cream. Vanilla Ice Cream.

19. What is one of your favorite things to do? Help dad work and fix stuff.

20. What is one thing you hope you'll get for your birthday? Army men. (It's the little things.)

This kid. He melts my heart. He has the sweetest heart, the most boundless energy, the shortest attention span, the fewest front teeth, the most awesome hair, and gives the best back scratches and goodnight kisses. I love watching him grow, and hate it all at the same time. You're so precious to me, baby boy...I'll probably never get over how blessed I am to be your mama. Happy 7th birthday!

Entertained

This pretty little thing is growing up so fast! We have been able to enjoy her company so much more these days, as well as watching her start to enjoy the world around her a little bit. She has even decided that she doesn't absolutely hate these things called toys, and that her playmate actually isn't a means of torture.
She's been spotted playing and chatting with that baby in the mirror. Also grabbing at her toys and kinda looking a little shocked when she happens to snatch one. It's awesome to see her entertaining herself a little bit. And let's face it, if you can't manage to find entertainment around this place you're gonna lead a pretty boring life.
Love seeing you happy and playing little girl!

I Miss My Camera

I don't get to spend nearly enough time with my camera as I'd like. It always seems like if I pick it up, someone else who will remain nameless but we all know who she is, wants to be picked up. She's our pet diva. Except we already had one diva in this house...so here's to doing double diva duty for the foreseeable future. I'm trying not to imagine my home when these two girls are teenagers.

I can occasionally trick her into letting me take pictures by handing her to Merrick. (Unfortunately...her diva sister is too prone to spaz attacks to hold her and keep her calm.) Merrick is really good with her, though, and loves to hold her and help feed her. So if it seems like there are a lot of pictures of Merrick holding Amaryllis, but not Tirzah holding Amaryllis, now you know why. ;)

I so love photography. It's fallen to the back burner like so many other things...this blog, and sleeping, and eating, and having any type of free time, or showering. I know these full days are exactly the thing I want to document, though...so I'm going to make an effort to pick up my actual camera as opposed to my phone more often. 

Granted a lot of times by the time I get to the camera, whatever was happening isn't happening anymore. Like last night when we were having another daddy-works-all-night induced movie night, and all four kiddos were lined up on the floor and content. By the time I got the camera Amaryllis had lost her mind and was about to be voted off the island by all the siblings who now couldn't hear the movie.

Even though I didn't actually capture it in my camera...I know that image is going to be burned into my brain for the rest of my life. No, not the one of Amaryllis screaming...although that is definitely going to be burned into my brain...but the four of them, as little as they'll never be again, together and happy.

There are some things I am looking forward to hopefully catching with my camera again. But there are also the things, like that moment, where I know I just wont be able to capture just how precious this time with these kiddos really is, or how fast it's moving.

Picking Pumpkins with my People

Last weekend we had some pretty great weather. The hooligans have really been enjoying the cooler weather, and even without my asking, spend hours outside playing. (Even Tirzah, who is notorious for NOT wanting to go outside.) Tonight I had to tell them to come inside, because it was completely dark and they were still in the backyard.

We took advantage of the cool sunny weather, and went to pick pumpkins. Last time we did this, Jericho was a baby. Billy and I took turns carrying him in the carrier...and it was probably more of a workout than carrying all those pumpkins around. Amaryllis is a much more manageable load to carry through a pumpkin patch.

The patch we go to has an "all you can carry" deal for $20. I usually like to take full advantage of this, at Billy's expense. This year we ended up with 10 pumpkins...so I got my money's worth, and Billy got an arm workout. Win win.

I don't do anything fancy like cook anything pumpkin-related with all the spoils. (I ruin frozen pizza, remember?) These pumpkins will live a long and healthy life on the front porch, free from the fear that I will cook and eat them. I'm sure a kiddo or two will trip over them, but that's about the biggest worry they'll have.

I know everyone knows I hate cold weather...and I do. But I definitely don't mind spending a sunny afternoon with my people, and a bunch of pumpkins, celebrating this gorgeous season called Autumn. Ya know, the season before that one season we don't speak of in this house.

Fix It

So as you're probably aware...I recently had a baby. Well, it kinda seems like forever ago honestly. But she's only 3 months old. It also feels like forever since I was able to fit into my own pants. (And I'm not counting the stretchy kind.) Such is a day in the life of a mother of 4.

I've been blessed with good genes (thanks, mom!) and an odd love of exercise, so thankfully I've always been able to lose all the baby weight with each kiddo. (And for all you goofballs who wanna say I don't gain much while pregnant...I do. My hips -and their lack of ability to wear my pants- don't lie.) This time around finding the time to workout is the problem. Four kids make a person kinda busy.

I admittedly haaaaate eating healthy. I'd rather workout for hours than skip dessert. I realize this is setting a terrible example for my children, however. As well as my husband and his fragile will power when it comes to burritos the size of a baby, and cookies as big as his head...somebody's gotta say no around here. I've tried detoxes and random things before to get us on a better track health wise, but it never lasts for long. I had determined once Amaryllis was here I was going to change our eating habits (more for health's sake than weight) once and for all.

I have a friend and old college roomie who is a fitness coach. I remember seeing her talk about the 21 Day Fix. It was easy to say 'that is what I'm going to do once I have this baby' BEFORE I had this baby. It's not so easy once you've been 10 days without your beloved soda and you dream about cake at night. But we've committed, and I think one of the things keeping me going is committing and buying the program. The tightwad in me has currently got the junk food addict in me by the neck saying, "We paid for this and we are gonna finish it. Ya hear?!"

I'm totally sure that I will probably always dream about cake and love diet dr pepper...but I do want to take care of myself so I can take care of these four reasons I can't fit into my pants. They are a busy group of people. They take no prisoners. So I've gotta be on my A game. And apparently that involves occasionally eating your veggies. Who knew?

Sitting Pretty.

Amaryllis is doing really well sitting up in her bumbo these days. She likes to be in a sitting position, even when I'm holding her, so Im glad she's learning to sit on her own. (I guess it probably really helps out with her reflux.) I love being a mom, but it's hard being a chair, too.

Only problem is, there are several risks involved in being a baby in this house, specifically one who can now sit. In the floor. In the middle of a pack of wild animals. Who have very crazy imaginations.

I do think they were trying to help? Building queen Fancy Pants a little fort. She didnt seem to mind too much, either. Mommy was a little concerned, however, that the fort would collapse.

I removed the fort much to everyone's dismay, and next time I looked I realized they decided she needed a hat. Can't a baby just watch TV in peace?

Bossy Pants

Amaryllis is starting to find her voice a little more these days. She has been relatively quiet in terms of making noises besides crying. I specifically remember Jericho babbling at 6 weeks...he ironically he went on to not talk for a very long time.

As loud as it is around here, her little babbles kind of get lost in the shuffle. I recently caught her squealing at Merrick and Tirzah, though. She had their undivided attention and they were both loving it. I guess maybe you don't have to always be the loudest to get people to listen to you.

She does kind of seem to have all of us right where she wants us. Like the other morning when she woke up sooo early, and then finally went back to sleep right as I needed to get up but was sleeping ON me so she kind of won more snuggles. I only minded a little.

One of my favorite things about my kiddos is their big personalities. I think this little miss bossy pants is definitely working on finding hers.

That's Fair.

This past Saturday we took the hooligans to the fair. Contrary to what you might think, they weren't on display in the prize-winning animal section, even though they could pass for bear cubs. We have taken them the last several years, and the older they get the more fun we have taking them. The littlest Barron missed out on the fair fun, but next year she can be a prize-winning animal too.

We went with the unlimited ride bands this year...which was the first time we did that. Definitely the way to go. (Especially when you have three hooligans and a husband wanting to ride everything in the fair.) It was well worth it to watch them having a blast. I was impressed with how brave they were this year. Merrick in the past has been a little scared of rides, (he takes after his mother before him, who won't set a toenail on a roller coaster) but this year he rode several roller coasters and random machines designed to make you dizzy and sick, or make your mama have a little panic attack when you spin and rattle off into the sunset. He even held a good sized baby alligator at an alligator wrestling show. His only comment was, "that alligator was heavier than I thought it would be".

Tirzah is kind of the opposite of her mother...she spent a good few minutes sobbing hysterically when she was too short to ride The Fireball. I didn't even like looking at the fireball, much less want to cry if they told me I couldn't ride it. (It's one of those deals that goes up on side of a circular track only to come back down, over and over until you finally go completely upside down and come down the other side.) She also cried because she couldn't ride The Viper. (Sidenote: Who names these things? Certainly not a mother.)

Jericho was still a little scared of some of the rides, but he rode most of the same ones the older two did like a trooper. He loves the flying elephants and the merry go round. He also loved his new slingshot, which he seems to have misunderstood the operating instructions of, since he hurled the whole thing at his sister's head shortly after we bought it. We also were reminded of his cotton candy phobia. He didn't even want the bag sitting in the stroller with him, and punched Tirzah when she tried to give him some. (The fair brings out his violent side, obviously.)

All things considered (height problems and terrifying candy corn aside) we had an awesome day. It was good to spend some time with just the older three...since this has been the summer of Miss Fancy Pants. I've missed hanging out with these guys. Merrick wanted to know if we could go back to the fair next Saturday...which I think was a pretty good sign that it was a good day. :)

So...Prevacid expires.

So every time I've tried to blog recently two things happen. 1) Someone is crying (not necessarily Amaryllis. But usually Amaryllis.) 2) I'm so brain dead by the time bedtime rolls around (my typical blog writing time) that it hurts to try to think coherently about anything other than Candy Crush and what is on TV. And sometime even Candy Crush is too much. There had been a lessened amount of screaming and crying around here recently. That is, until we realized after about 5 days of straight screaming, that prevacid definitely has a shelf life. And it is not a month.

We had gotten a prescription for a month's worth of prevacid from Amaryllis's gastroenterologist. (Which would have been fine, except we get the compounded form...which has a shelf life of about 15 days max. But not to hear the pharmacist tell it.) The pharmacy filled her prescription for a month, and the farther away we got from that two week mark the madder Amaryllis got. I finally got really desperate and we called her doctor. He immediately said "oh, well it's because her prevacid loses it's potency after about two weeks."

Cue the freak out. My very fragile sanity kind of rests on a bottle of prevacid stored in the fridge and guarded with my life. And you're telling me it's expired? We quickly called the pharmacy and begged for a replacement since, in our minds, they definitely should know this information and shouldn't have given us that much at once. They argued with us, saying there is no evidence that it loses potency after 2 weeks. (I did much googling after that, and read that many pharmacies only dispense compounded prevacid for two week periods because of this shelf-life, and many moms noted this problem as well.) I kind of wanted to drop off my screaming baby as evidence...but they finally conceded to give us a replacement.

Literally a different baby once she got the new medicine...which was all the evidence I needed that the last bottle had expired and wasn't doing the job. Today we got a letter in the mail from the pharmacist including a study he must have googled about how prevacid doesn't lose it's potency. If this wasn't the only pharmacy in the city that our insurance managed to work with I would never set a toenail in there again. (DON'T go to Westbury Pharmacy for me, k?) Either way, I'm just so glad we got it figured out.

We will now be getting her meds in 10 day intervals. (I don't even wanna get CLOSE to that two week mark. I start having flashbacks when she starts screaming. I'm only kind of kidding. I met a hygienist at the kids' dentist the other day who is going through the same thing with her baby. It was like we were kindred spirits, and so nice to talk to another reflux mom about the symptoms of mama-with-refluxy-baby: fear of leaving the house cuz baby will scream, pacing the floor and crying while baby is screaming, multiple trips to multiple doctors, random medicine droppers all over your house making it look like you yourself are doing drugs, twitching of your eyelids, etc. We maybe should start a support group.)

One thing about this reflux nonsense...it has made me appreciate SO much every tiny little smile this girl gives us. Every little coo and every moment she sits content just melt my heart. I would put up with infinite screaming just for one of those precious smiles. (Sometimes I think Amaryllis is trying to help me with missing her twin by requiring the attention of two babies. Oh, kiddo...if only it was that simple. I know we both miss her, and wish she was here screaming right along with you. Well, maybe not screaming per say...but ya know what I mean.) She and her refluxy little self are an irreplaceable part of this family, and I can't wait till life gets a little easier for this precious kiddo.