Boundless energy

We found an answer to dealing with the boundless energy of 4 boys (Ben is the 4th boy). Swimming. Constant swimming. We joined the local club and are now here at least three nights a week, as evidence by our pages long monthly bill of repeated items “chicken fingers” “fries” “sunchips”

The boys have swim lessons twice a week, while Lock wades in the baby pool, occasionally coming out for a single French fry at a time. And I’ll admit to trying to feed him in the pool. 

Group tennis is doesn’t seem to be grooming any serious skills, but we do see budding friendships (and perhaps even a romance)!

Sometimes mom can even sneak away for the steam room, although our kiddos really do require two actively attentive adults at most times. 

Lock at the club childcare center - they’ll take kiddos for 3 hours per day and it’s my only backup when preschool is (frequently) closed. 

Rachel’s Rule

 Today I’m grateful for Rachel’s Rule. I’m not sure how or why this is designated as Rachels Rule, but enforcing it seems to come up frequently: 

No naked butts on furniture. You have to wear something.

Our house of boys brings lots of random nakedness, so I often find myself explaining “Rachel says no butts on the furniture. Put on underwater, or pjs or pants. Anything really. Now.”

Thankfully, I can be 100% sure we’ve had no naked butts on couches. One of our littles has been doing a butt scratch and described the night time as “mommy, there’s a ghost in my butt at night”

Turns out bedtime itching is classic pinworm, which is pretty curable with one dose of medication (ghost butt poison) and laundry of anything that came into contact with the ghost butt. 

Thank you Rachel for ensuring there were no naked butts on my couch. It really saved  days of laundry and dry cleaning. 

Expanding our family

 After a 6 month wait, our newest addition has arrived! 

Ben traded his Tesla for a Toyota Sienna mini-van. These days (chip shortage, shipping and labor woes) you don’t get to choose any features or colors, you take whatever you’re offered. 

He signed without a test drive confident that the vehicle would probably fit in our garage. It does- by a couple of inches

My dad recommends this approach, like his garage. I’m working on it. 

We need a name! Karen suggested The Bus. I do like the idea of hauling kiddos, maybe something kangaroo oriented? 

I’m adamant this is Bens car. He was quite gracious today, day 5, when I needed to pickup 4 kiddos. I maintain the van is his - but sometimes it’s good to share.

College

 Picking Link up from school is my favorite time of the day. Although it’s way too early - California kids get out at 2:30, or 1:20 on Wednesdays! He looks for me as he leaves the gate and runs to me with a hug and “mommy!”

Usually on the way home, he chatters non-stop about video games through his mask, which he never remembers to remove. Today he turned me and asked 

“Mommy, are there any colleges in Manhattani beach?”

He has previously told us he wants to live with us forever. While I do hope he changes his mind, I can't help but to treasure these final moments of little kid left in my growing 8-year-old. 

Is this still working?

 The stereotype of no photos for child #3 is only a little bit applicable to our boy crew. While we do take tons of Lock photos, creating blog posts became more difficult from my phone, so we switched to closed sharing with family via iPhoto

Alas, when Ben dug up an old post I realized how much I enjoy re-reading the experiences that go with the photos. So I’ll try blogging again.

What triggered this? Lock was running last night - chasing or being chased is unclear - and slipped on the wood floor. When he pulled his sobbing two year old body off the floor he was limping with more tears. We had been there before. 

Link had a toddler fracture at an even younger age 

http://www.linkandlex.com/2015/07/i-goto-doctor.html

Reading the experience made me remember the reason we started the blog - as our electronic baby book. Scrap booking isn’t for me, but an electronic version? That I can handle. 

And just like that, a broken leg revived a blog. 

The good news is we knew exactly what to expect for a toddler fracture. We didn’t rush to the pandemicly overrun ER, we made it through the night (well, ben shared a bed with Lock overnight) and got Lock a morning appointment at the local orthopedic urgent care - yes ortho urgent care is a thing in the South Bay sports capital of California. 

Although there’s no visible break, they recommend  casting based on symptoms. He’s now the not so proud owner of a below the knee walking cast. 

That makes it almost 30 days since Lock was at preschool. He was sent home early before the holiday break with a fever, and preschool was closed due to staff having Covid last week. This was supposed to be his first day back. They’re welcoming him tomorrow, blue cast and all. 

How did we make it through 30 days? We’re getting really good value out of our Disney+ subscription. Mickeys Roadster Racer and Mickeys Clubhouse are replacement childcare. I’ve learned to work next to him with him laughing along. Most of my team has learned that Disney+ does not have the auto-play feature we’re all used to in our Netflix binge watching, so every 20 minutes I need to play the next episode with a little discussion around which one to choose. 

So our little guy got some Mickey shaped cookies tonight. And many, many episodes. Can’t wait to see our preschool teachers tomorrow! 

November at the beach

Just your typical November day

The schools have Veterans Day off so we had a cousin brother day. Link and Emet enjoy using their powers to defeat the waves. Who doesn’t love low tide?!

Link is memorizing phone numbers and I taught him how to dial numbers on our emergency phone. He was horrified to learn I don’t have uncle Eric’s phone number memorized.

Last weekend we took all three boys to the Long Beach aquarium, where the boys instantly parted ways and we spent the afternoon separated (lex and mom, link/lock with dad) 

Great FaceTime with great grandma 



And the baby!! Lock is 5 months old, starting to eat a little formula. He takes about three naps a day, wakes up once a night, and is currently transitioning from his amazing snoo bassinet to his crib. All in his very own room. He has full head control and can kind of almost sit in a high chair. He is our easy baby who will sleep anywhere. We couldn’t have it any other way. 

In other updates Link lost his third tooth. He was at school, and was sent to the nurses office. She gave him a pink tooth holder. He was so excited, dropped the tooth under my bed, and finally made it to under his pillow. He knows the tooth fair only comes if he learns the name of the tooth, so we looked it up and found out he lost his left lateral incisor. The tooth fair came with $1 this time, the tooth fuse forgot to come last time. The time before link swallowed the tooth, so we left a note under his pillow explaining the situation. 

Who wore it best?

Link at 2 months (really 1 month due to prematurity)

Lex at 6 months 

 

 

Lock at 4 months