Santa Claus came to town!

We were able to go the Christmas party at school! Ethan seemed so much better today! I was even able to get all 4 kids and myself ready (I even showered and did my hair & makeup -- HOLY COW!) and the kids ate breakfast in the van. We arrived on time -- that's a first for me! We had fun seeing our old friends and meeting lots of new ones too. The kids made cinnamon ornaments to hang on the Christmas tree and then Santa came. Addison was unsure but as you can see she did sit on his lap. Caden told Santa that he wants "a Spiderman Web" and "pirates". Ethan didn't want to stop playing to see Santa but eventually we got him up there and little Reese didn't have one problem seeing Santa at all. It was really fun! I hope I get a chance to scrap some of these fun photos soon! I love

Oh the joys of being a mom!

***Please note this entry has graphic descriptions of children's bodily functions -- do not read if you have a weak stomach***

My new baby poops more times in one day than 2 of the triplets combined. We changed the trio's diapers every 3 hours right before we fed them. I don't remember ever having to change them in between so that's 24 diapers a day for the 3 of them. One day last week by 3:00 in the afternoon she had already used 12 diapers that day. I swear she cannot poop in a dirty diaper she needs a brand new fresh one so she can poop again! As soon as I get the last snap fastened on her outfit then I hear her go again. Breastfeeding saves you money since you don't have to buy formula but I think you make up for it in buying 3 times the amount of diapers! The other day I was changing her and she started to poop and I caught it in a wipe -- I thought what a great save that I didn't waste another diaper. Yesterday as I was changing her the same thing started to happen and since I didn't want to "waste" another diaper I thought I'll just catch it in a wipe again . . . little did I know she was going to pee and poop at the same time. I also didn't know her bladder was bigger than mine and she must hold it while sleeping and that her poop was going to shoot out at me like a missile. Let's just say a wipe wasn't going to work and I had to change her clothes and mine -- I won't be trying that again!


Today I had another great moment in momhood. Ethan threw up all over me at least 4 times in a row. He woke up not feeling well and I didn't feed him breakfast but gave him his morning milk but he hadn't drank much of it at all. He had already thrown up a little bit earlier so I had to change his clothes once. After the second time both he and I had to change again. I just put him back in PJs and I put him in his crib at noon so I could feed the other 2 kids since they were hungry and I knew Ethan would try to eat even though he was sick. I just hope he makes a speedy recovery by tomorrow morning since it's the school Christmas party. If he's still sick, we will all have to stay home; it's not fair to take two of them and leave Ethan at home, at this age they just don't understand things like that.



Well something that is a joy is the kids and how they are helping with the baby. Addison will get me a diaper and wipes when she needs changed and occasionally she will throw away the dirty diaper. They all tell me when the baby is crying because I must not be able to hear her. If I am busy when she is crying, I will often find them trying to comfort her by gently rocking the swing or softly patting her or quietly saying "shhhhhh". The other day when she was crying, I was in the middle of something and by the time I got to her someone had put her paci in her mouth. They love to hold her and ask quite often if they can. They also like to talk to her and I think when she gets a little older and really likes the attention they will be great at keeping her happy when I am busy. They have not shown one bit of jealousy but I didn't think they would as they only know what it is like to share us. She just fits into our family so nicely!


The Christmas cards are now mailed. I feel like such a slacker this year as I usually make our cards myself and add a "cute" photo of the kids. When you get our Walgreens' (I'm appalled that I did it this way) card this year, you will see that I didn't have much luck with a "cute" photo" so I ended up picking 2 "not so cute" photos. It's hard to get 4 kids in the photo so you can see them all when they are just crazy and the baby wasn't cooperating and time was running out. I'm disappointed that it wasn't better, but next year I can start earlier and hopefully get a better photo to use on my homemade cards!

Recovering

It's been awhile since I blogged . . . I hate writing such a negative entry like I did last time and not getting back to another one but we don't seem to have an abundance of time here lately. First, Reese did gain weight at her last doctor appointment. In 3 days she put on 9 oz to weigh a total of 6lbs 11oz and that was a week ago so I'm sure she weighs even more now. I'm feeding her about 8 times a day. It really isn't too bad at night -- she eats before I go to bed then about once in the middle of the night and then usually about 5 or 6 when Aaron is getting up. She sleeps pretty good for the most part with usually one fussy time that results in me holding her while I'm sleeping for an hour or two. I swore we'd never have a baby in our bed again (after the 1-1/2 year fiasco with Caden) but with a newborn it's different (for all you worriers, we are careful and she sleeps in a special newborn wedge pillow that keeps her and us in our separate places and no blankets or pillows are by her face) plus her crib has become a new storage area for all kinds of stuff I need to put away it's more of a danger to put her in the crib than our bed at this point.

I haven't been recovering as fast as I thought I was. Every night for about the last week about 6:00 I start feeling so tired and weak and feel like I have the flu. Then in the morning I would feel fine again. Well, I went to my OB to have my incision checked and he reminded me that basically I should be just resting and taking care of the baby and slowly adding back in activities. Well not that I have been doing a lot but I was trying and not resting much at all. I've had to lay down at 8:00 every night but no chance of going to sleep at that time since the wild monkeys' room is next door to ours and they are CRAZY at bedtime and sometimes it takes about 2 or 3 hours for them to go to sleep. Poor Aaron he has been doing EVERYTHING (or so it seems). He doesn't complain much but I'm lucky he will do it. He put up the Christmas tree and lights, he addressed Christmas cards, he made a cheese ball to take to his niece's birthday party, he loads and unloads the dishwasher, he bathes the kids, he picked up the entire downstairs last weekend because he couldn't stand it anymore (so you know it was bad), he's been cooking most meals when he's home . . . I can't even remember all the other stuff but I know there's lots more. I am trying to rest more during the trio's nap time but unfortunately I think Addison may be done napping as the last 2 days she has not napped even though she was in bed for about 2 hours each day. But even just me sitting down for a while helped today. I have to remember that.

The kids are just wild but they don't get out of the house much. Today I had to go to Walmart to pick up a prescription and I thought they had a pharmacy drive thru and they do but it's not working yet. So I had to take all 4 kids in by myself. Thank God, we own that Choo Choo wagon and I carried the baby in her carseat. Now it's not like I want to go shopping like that because that's a lot of work but I made it just to pick the prescription. I have to take all of them to an appointment tomorrow and Friday we were invited to our preschool for their Christmas party. I think I can get them there but I'm worried about doing it ON TIME -- I have enough trouble with that sans kids so having 4 with me if I leave 45 minutes early I should only be 5 minutes late! Hopefully the outings will help too -- they just aren't used to be home ALL the time.

The day before Halloween our black cat, Joe, died. He was 16 years at least and he had been sick for a while and we knew he wasn't going to make it. We never really said anything to the kids about him dying. We have another indoor cat, a Siamese cat named Bunny. Today I had to put Bunny in the bathroom because she was howling so much it was driving me crazy and Addison asked what the noise was. I told her and suddenly she said "Hey, where's the other kitty? One, two kitties" I said the kitty died and she of course didn't know what that meant. So I told her he went to Heaven and she said "in a tunnel? Now one kitty". Funny that it took almost 2 months for one of the kids to notice that he was no longer around and Joe was the cat that they played with the most. Not sure what the tunnel comment but it's interesting.

Caden has been going around telling us that he wants Spiderman Web for Christmas, Addison wants a dollhouse, and Ethan wants Pizza Elmo. So I asked him "What does Reese want from Santa?" He said "A paci" duh . . . which according to him is also the kind of birthday party she wants . . . makes sense she doesn't like anything else yet. We will get to see Santa at the school Christmas party on Friday, we'll see if he'll tell him what he wants then.

Overwhelmed

I'm feeling a little (okay a lot) stressed out. It's not just the new baby and the triplets but the million of other things combined that is driving me insane. Our house is a mess and no matter how hard I try to get it picked up (not cleaned, just put things away) I can't do it. Piles just keep getting moved from one place to another or something slowly makes it way toward the room it belongs in but then takes several days or weeks to get put completely away. I swear our house is being taken over by clothing. It seems to be everywhere . . . clean, dirty, kid, maternity, outgrown, growing into, hand-me-downs, waiting to be put away, arrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggghhhhhhh. . . Christmas! Every year I say I wish it didn't exist. The shopping, the decorating, the money, it drives me insane. I wish I would plan ahead and I never do. We finished putting up the tree today -- that and the stockings was pretty much all we did for decorating. I feel bad that I didn't do more since the kids are really aware of Christmas this year. We usually have outside lights and decorate our porch, then I decorate the staircase, doorways, and lots of smaller trees in addition to our big one. But since we got started so late this year it seems silly to put it up for 2 weeks. On top of all this I have about 1 million things I need to do: Ethan's glasses are broken and need to be fixed (eye doctor is an hour away), Ethan and Addison need eye appointments made, Ethan needs to get his hearing aid checked again, all kids and me need haircuts, I need to pay bills, file insurance papers, etc. On top of all this I just feel in that yucky stage of just having a baby -- no clothes are fitting maternity too big or regular too small. I feel like I will never fit in any of my old stuff again although I know it's only been 2 weeks just seems like I feel about 5 months pregnant still.
In addition to all these major problems, I've had 3 sick kids this week and my dad and I had to drag them all 4 of them to the doctor yesterday. Turns out they just had some virus even though Caden was tested for strep(it came back negative). They are doing better today except for Ethan but he came down sick later than the other two. Reese lost 2 ounces at her checkup and the doctor was not happy. It upset me too. Doctor said her eating every 6 hours was not enough and she thinks that Reese may be a "lazy baby" so I have to aim to feed her 8-11 times a day. Yesterday I got in 7 and I almost made it to 8 but she wouldn't wake up at 11pm no matter what I did and I was super tired too so I just went to bed. Today I'm pretty sure I will get to 8 times. We go back on Thursday to make sure is gaining and not losing. I was so scheduled with the triplets: every 3 hours around the clock; now I got too laid back with her but everyone who has breastfed before said go with her cues and I was but now I have to be more "scheduled" with her.
We had a big ice storm here and Aaron stayed home with us today. We did get a few things done but there's always more. Calgon take me away!

Adding to the Nightly Ritual

I referred in my last entry that the kids use a bunch of stall tactics to keep from going to bed at night so what do I do but add one more thing we will probably have to do every single night until the end of time. Now I have Reese lay in each of their beds for a few minutes. Really it's actually very sweet. They love it especially Ethan -- as Daddy says "he's a professional at it". They are very careful with her and I can even trust them to be alone with her for a few seconds. Now I'm not leaving her alone for any period of time but to run to another room to grab something but I was worried that they would try to pick her up but they haven't.

Also I figured out that Reese eats a million times better if I just let her decide when she is ready. I was aiming for every 3 hours during the day and every 4 hours during the night but the 10-15 minutes I spent trying to get her to latch on was more than frustrating for both of us. The hospital told me not to go longer than 4 hours to feed her but if I wait until she "cues" me then she latches right on and eats well. Most of the time it's every 5 hours but sometimes it's 3, 4, or even 6 hours at night. She has another doctor appointment on Monday so if this isn't okay with our pediatrician or she has lost weight I will have to change the routine. This is so much different than feeding the triplets. They had to eat every 3 hours around the clock, whether they wanted to or not. Of course since they only weighed between 3 and 4 pounds and were preemies when they came home is a big difference compared to a full-term baby that weighs 6+ pounds. I was such a schedule freak before so maybe I am just going to have to be a little more relaxed with one baby. I am a pretty flexible person so that shouldn't be a problem.

"I want to lick it"

This is what Addison said the minute she and Caden looked out the window and saw a dusting of snow. They were very concerned that it was on our van too. They wanted to go out so bad but that's probably not going to happen today. They will have to wish for snow when both Daddy and I are home or if Papa Ronn volunteers to come over and play with them in it.

I don't know if I will ever get sleep again! Really it's not the baby's fault but a combo of all the kids. First I "tried" to go to bed early last night. After the baby ate at 8 I thought we would go to bed when the older kids did. I got one set of PJs on and Aaron just had to dress the other 2 kids well by 9 they were ready. Bedtime consists of a bunch of stall tactics such as going to the bathroom, needing books and toys, asking for socks and slippers to be put on (which they are pulled off 3 seconds later), crying, asking Daddy to do the "banks" (we have 3 money banks with push buttons that make animal sounds -- Daddy is sorry he ever started this). After this 15 minute ritual then we manage to get out of the room. Our bedroom is next door to the triplets' room. I think Addison went potty about 3 more times in 15 minutes and there was a lot of laughing, jumping, and running around. They yell and scream at each other, then someone is crying. Aaron and I both went in there at least 2 times each. At 10, Caden must have conked out but the other two were still going strong. I think I fell asleep at least 3 times by 10:30 only to be awakened by them again. I was losing my temper. Next thing I know Addison is in the bathtub talking about a spider or something. That's when she went to bed for the last time but not happily. Addison got up once and had a potty accident -- sometimes she remembers to potty on her own, sometimes she gets out of bed goes on the floor, and sometimes she doesn't wake up. Whenever this happens, this is Aaron's department since he was the one who decided without consulting me into switching her into a toddler bed 3 days before Reese was born. Let's just say he's not so happy to get up and deal with Addison in the middle of the night but he has no one to blame but himself on that one. So Reese sleeps well but by 12:30 she ate again then at 4. Now I can handle the feeding part especially if it only takes a half hour but the problem arises when the older kids get up super early. I wish they would sleep in until 7 or 7:30. The last 2 days they have been up around 5 or 5:30. So you would think by 1pm they would be exhausted and they are until they get into the party room upstairs then I experience the whole fiasco again only I have to do it by myself instead of tag teaming with Aaron. Everyone says "sleep when the baby sleeps" well that wouldn't be a problem if the older 3 would just sleep a little without a 90 minute transition period!

My friend, Alyce, came today. It was nice to talk to an adult for a while. She vacuumed and went and got some groceries for me. She played with the kids and made them lunch. She didn't even care that I was still in my PJs when she got here. I tried to be dressed about half of us were dressed and half weren't. That was a major accomplishment. I got some laundry done and made a few phone calls while she was here. My dad drove me to the doctor yesterday, then bought us McDonald's, and played with the kids some. My MIL, Patti, came over to watch the older kids while we took Reese to the doctor. They love playing with Grammy. It's so nice to have some help!

Check out my sister's, Keely, blog. After about a 2 month hiatus she updated it. She is pretty funny and takes really great photos -- my kids are on their a lot since she been here so much lately. I don't know how she gets good shots of 4 kids when it seems I can't get 3 of mine to be in the photo let alone smiling or being cute!

Now Reese and I are going to nap!

Packing on the Pounds . . . well ounces

Reese had her first doctor's appointment. I was kind of worried that maybe she wasn't gaining weight . . . think it's part of the preemie mentality I have (it took Ethan almost 3 years to gain 22 pounds) and the fact that although I like the breastfeeding she has been a booger to try to get her to latch on sometimes it can take 10 minutes per side but once she's on, she eats well. Last night she had me in tears cause I couldn't get her to eat, once Aaron helped me calm down it worked out okay but the fact I was really tired and it was 12:30 probably had a lot to do with it too.

At discharge time last Friday at the hospital she weighed 5.7; today she weighed a whopping 6.4 pounds. Now I think that's a little off because I can't believe she gained 13 ounces in 4 days. Probably the difference in scales but I think she has gained weight. So I can put my "preemie mind" at ease. The doctor was really pleased. She said babies don't normally get back to their birth weight until they are 2 weeks old. She said I must have "super milk" -- at least something about my body right now is "super". She goes back next week to check again.

Big Brothers and Big Sister Report

Everyone is curious on how the triplets are handling being a big brother or sister. Really they are great with her. I thought they would be but you never know and when they came to the hospital to visit Reese and me, Addison was the only one who was really interested in her and held her. Ethan rubbed her a little but Caden didn't want anything to do with me or her. Even a couple days later when Aaron said something about Mommy and the baby he said "NO BABY" so I was a little worried. But when I got here they act like they have always had her around.

They want to hold her and are interested in her especially when she is awake. They tell me when she is crying and try to give her the paci and her blankets. They know some things are "hers" and aren't jealous about it. I wasn't sure how they would react to breastfeeding but they aren't too shocked by it and have asked lots of questions and I think are still unsure of what is exactly going on. Addison thinks the baby is "eating my tummy" like through my belly button. The kids seems so much older to me now. Just being away from them for 4 days was huge. They seem physically bigger and just so much more mature. It's kind of sad in a way but they do have to grow up and they aren't the "baby" anymore.

This was my first day at home alone with all 4 kids. So far it's okay. Now I haven't done much but feed them and play a little. It's 1 pm and I haven't gotten out of my PJs or taken a shower or really eaten a "meal" although I've eaten lots of whatever I could get my hands on. Tomorrow Reese has her first doctor's appointment and my MIL, Patti, is watching the kids and my dad will drive me. My friend, Alyce, is coming over Wednesday morning to help so it shouldn't be too bad to ease back into some sort of routine. Keely offered to stay one more day but she had stayed 7 days already I figured she was ready to get the heck out of Dodge even though she said she wasn't.

Introducing the newest Murray . . .

Here SHE is . . . Reese Payton Murray born at 7:50 am on Tuesday, November 27. She weighed 6 pounds even and measured 19 inches long.

Everything went great during the c-section and my recovery went so smoothly! This was nothing compared to the triplet c-section. I was even up walking the halls the same night we delivered. I enjoyed my stay at the hospital . . . it felt like a mini vacation well sort of with surgery included but it was nice and I missed the kids but they were having a great time at home with their aunt and cousins.

We came home on Friday and things are going pretty well so far. We're both learning about breastfeeding but getting the hang of it. Now I just need to get her to sleep better at night and less during the day.

My sister, Keely, has been a godsend! She came Monday with her 2 kids and stayed with 5 kids all 3 years and under and she is still mostly sane. Aaron came home every night although sometimes after the kids went to bed. She has helped us so much! I owe her BIG TIME! Her husband even drove down Friday to join us all. They are going home tomorrow and we will be on our own.

The best part of it all? We got our "take home baby"!