The Fair and Six Months

I had every intention of posting an entry last night but then after the horrendous night I had with Colby on Thursday night, my bed was calling me at 9:30 and that was that.  This evening I have a headache but after drinking a caffeinated tea at 10:00 pm (probably a huge mistake on the sleep front), I'm plodding on.

Our highlight this week was the Central Florida Fair which kicked off on Thursday afternoon.  It goes for 10 days or so but the first day is really the only day we can afford to go since it's $1 to get in with a canned good and the rides are only $1 a piece as opposed to $3 - $4 a piece otherwise.  If you have three kids at those prices, well, I'm sure you can do the math.  You can get a wrist band for $25 for unlimited rides but seriously, do people spend $75 just for their kids to go on rides?  Nuts, I tell you.  Of course, I suppose in our case it would have only been $50 because as it turned out, there were no rides that Brady was technically allowed to go on.  There was a height minimum of 36 inches and poor kid is only at about 34 inches.  I found it quite ridiculous that some of the exceedingly tame rides wouldn't even allow a kid under 36 inches to go on the ride even with a parent so I told Jennifer (before Duncan arrived) and then later Duncan to just pick him up and carry him on the ride and maybe they wouldn't say anything.  It did work and thankfully he got to do a few things.  I felt so bad because we had been talking about the rides for weeks and then for him not to be able to go on them while the rest of the kids did...so sad.

Getting ready to ride the roller coaster....or at least the fair version of a roller coaster.

Poor Brady could only watch.  Look at that little face.

He did get to ride a motorcycle at least.

Anywho, the Bergherm crew joined us for the fair festivities and we had a good time.  It seemed less crowded than the year before but maybe that's because the weather was somewhat questionable although it turned out just fine.  We went to a sea lion show, a circus, and the pig race and then obviously the rides. The most fun I had was when I was nursing Colby and I got to watch and listen to the dude that tries to guess people's birth month, weight, or age.  He was terrible at it and people were winning prizes left and right. I did notice that no women tried to get him to guess their weight. Shocker!  I did think it might be interesting to try and have him guess my age just to see what a stranger would guess.  But then I was like, what if he guesses older than I really am?  That would be majorly depressing.

Watching the sea lion show.

The acrobat performs in the circus.  It's hard to tell but this lady was at least 200 pounds.  I was a little astounded since I thought circus performers of such events were usually smaller, petite people.  I guess not.

Watching the pig race.  I thought it was funny that all of their mouths are slightly agape.

Petting a baby hen.

Earlier in the day, it was off to Colby's six month appointment.  Yup, my little guy is half way to one, that magic age if only in my mind.  I had weighed him last week and noticed that he wasn't gaining as much weight lately. I'm sure this is partially due to the fact that the milk factory is now closed in the middle of the night.  It turned out that he had gained exactly one pound in the last two month which apparently is normal since he's still in the 50th percentile for weight. The doctor noted that he was sitting up very well and he predicted that he would be walking before a year.  I am curious to see how that turns out as none of the other three did.

Six months

Before long they'll be playing together.

I also had him look at Calleigh's eye...she still has a lump on her right eyelid that she's had since at least Christmas.  He diagnosed it as a chalazion which is a cyst caused by inflammation from a blocked gland.  It doesn't hurt her or bother her in any way fortunately.  We're hoping it will heal itself with a little rubbing and some warm compresses (which we haven't done!) but if it doesn't help, they may have to do surgery to fix it. We shall see.

        Colby                         Brady                            Aubree                         Calleigh
W    16 lbs, 13 oz (50th)     14 lbs, 0 oz (5th)         14 lbs, 8 oz (25th)        14 lbs, 5 oz
H      26 inches (50th)          25 1/2 inches (10th)    25 3/4 inches (50th)     25 1/2 inch
Hd    17.5 inches (75th)       16 3/4 inches (25th)    17 inches (75th)           17 inch

Colby had some shots at his appointment and while he acted fine during the rest of the day, I can only attribute the shots to the truly horrible night he had that evening.  I rank it in the top three of worst nights in his short six months.  He went to bed as normal but then around 10:30 he started crying out every little bit.  I made a few trip in to put back the binky.  Then, I went to bed myself around 12:30 and that's when the fun really started.  He couldn't seem to go more than 30 minutes without waking up.  I nursed him at 12:30 because I felt so bad for him (thinking he hadn't eaten much when I nursed him at the fair and knowing that he had the shots) but that didn't really seem to help.  At about 2:00 I gave him some Advil thinking he must be in pain.  That didn't help.  Finally after about my sixth trip up the stairs, I decided I had had enough and I was going to go sleep in the guest room...only to quickly recall that the fire alarm at the top of the stairs needed a new battery and was literally beeping every 60 seconds, and we had no new batteries.  But when you're REALLY tired, you can almost get past it. I eventually had to just bring Colby into the bed with me (which I am adamantly opposed to after kicking that habit) but I was out of options.  He didn't really want to nurse and the only way I could get him to stop crying was to lie him on my chest like he was a newborn. Boy, it was a long night.  I obviously must have dozed off from time to time because I awoke with a start and looked over at the clock.  It said 7:53 and I forced myself to get out of bed because we had a bunch of yard sales to get to and I like to leave the house by 8:30.  I was kind of surprised the other kids weren't up yet but considering they went to bed late from the fair, apparently they were tired.  I went in to Colby's room and plopped down on the rocker, looked over at the clock and it said, 6:55.  Son of a gun!  Somehow the clock in the guest room was an hour fast!  I was so disgusted.  I have no idea how that would have happened because I am almost disturbingly particular about my clocks being EXACTLY correct.  The only good thing about the rough night is that he at least slept for a good portion of the yard sale outing.

Other things we've been up to...On Sunday Calleigh, Colby, and I (the three "C's" as I like to call our trio) went to a birthday party for Lindsey Hazen who was turning eight.  It was a little shop that has painting classes and such.  It was closed for the day but the owner does birthday parties there and so all the kids were able to paint a picture.  The theme was Disney's Frozen which was mostly lost on Calleigh as she hasn't seen the movie.  But she enjoyed herself.  On the way home, we made a stop at Hoover's which is a health food store.  I was on a mission to get some Worcestershire sauce without anchovies.  That's right folks. Unbeknownst to me, I have been eating fish for years.  Your run-of-the-mill Worcestershire sauce that you get from the grocery store has anchovies in it and every time I've been using it to make homemade Caesar salad dressing, I've been eating those nasty little buggers.  This really throws my story of the times I've eaten meat by accident (that I know of) into a lengthy story as we move from two times to countless times.  I did find some anchovy free sauce so never again!

What color should I do next?

Finished product.

The birthday girl.

Another gorgeous Jennifer cake.

Face painting

A few conversations with the kids:

We have been enjoying a box of chocolates that Aunt Wanda gave us for Valentine's Day that the kids get to have every now and then.  One evening as I was preparing supper...
Brady:"What are we having to eat?"
Me:"You can either have Quinoa chickpea burgers or some choplets." (These were leftover from the day before.)
Brady:"I can?!!  Choplets!"

And with that, he climbs up onto the table, opens up the candy box, and starts taking one out.  And then I realized he thought I was talking about the "chocolates." Poor kid!

One afternoon we were driving in the van and Calleigh says to me:
Calleigh:"If I do something that I'm not supposed to, don't spank me or put me in time out or take something way from me.  It's my brain that is doing it.  It's not me."

Home schooling at it's best!

Then there was this evening as I was changing Brady's diaper and putting on his pajamas.
Brady (with his hand on his private part): Daddy has one of these."
Me:"Do you know what it's called?" (I am one of those people who likes to teach the proper names)
Brady:"Bingo.  Because see, (demonstrating with his hand as he flicks it around), it goes 'Bing, bing, bing.'

I hear it's normal for little boys to play with this body part.  Right?  Right??

Here are a few more things we've been up to:

First time in cart at Publix.  We've started on the Mum Mums!

First time in cart at Costco.  Aubree now has to walk.  Look at Colby's feet.  Love it!

We've still had a few chilly nights here.  Not sure who Calleigh was pretending to hold on to.

Someone was selling a bouncy house at a yard sale yesterday.  No, we didn't buy it but she let the kids jump in it.

Braelyn feeding Colby his bananas last night.  They had us over to meet some new neighbors that have six kids which they home school!

Cooking hot dogs

Last week at church with the triplets and Sarah Hazen.

This week at church playing around with Price.

Girls did the offering today.

We finally had the Ottatis (who live in our neighborhood) over for a meal.  They now have two girls and a boy but apparently are stopping there.  Boo!

Duncan took the three older kids to Chik Filet on Tuesday night since they were having a special family night. Meanwhile, this little guy stayed home with me and played blocks.

This is what I had to do one evening to cook supper...put him in the backpack.  He wants to be held every evening between 5:00 - 7:00.  So it's cook listening to screaming or wear him on your body.  Usually it's the Bjorn but tried to go a different route this time.  My back was killing me after about 15 minutes though.

Allen took the girls on a bike ride this afternoon.  Photos courtesy of Allen.

These two get pretty silly.

A few weeks ago I mentioned all the yellow pool stains on Colby's clothes I couldn't get out.  I had read to put them out in the sun.  By golly, it worked!  I soaked the clothes for a few days in cold water, put them in the wash (without any stain remover on them), and then laid them out in the sun for about 24 hours.  It was a miracle!