After Lauren’s nap in her bouncer chair this morning, she spent a good deal of time pooping while I dressed.  I left the room for a couple minutes to load a few dishes into the dishwasher, knowing my arms would likely be full for awhile after I changed the baby.  Lauren didn’t seem like she’d be done any time soon,  and I’m tired of changing her only to find that she hadn’t finished yet, so I gave her another minute and ran to the kitchen.

Peyton had been playing nicely in his room when he came into the kitchen carrying a tiny pair of underwear from his learn-to-use-the-potty Elmo toy. 

“Oh, look!  You found a baby diaper!” 

Yesterday Peyton was distraught because we don’t have any other clothes or diapers for his babies (Dylan & Wendy – see the previous post).  We solved the clothing issue – Lauren shared some of the newborn clothes that don’t fit her anymore – but the diaper problem was left unsolved until now. 

Peyton disappeared into the hallway and I finished washing a few more dishes.  A few minutes later, Peyton arrived in the kitchen, doll undies in hand.  “Oh, man, Mommy – Dylan pooped in his diaper.”

I looked at Peyton’s hands, recently washed…still wet, in fact.  The diaper itself also had a few droplets of water on it, apparently from Peyton’s hands.  But there was something else on the diaper that caught my attention.  There were a few drops of something else.  Something remarkably close to the color of actual baby poop.  No way that could be crayon or marker.

“Peyton, is that real baby poop?”

“Dylan pooped.”

“Dylan isn’t real – where did the poop come from?”

Then Peyton started talking about Dylan and diapers and some other unrelated things, dodging the qestion.

“Peyton, where did the poop come from?”

He looked at me, knowing I wouldn’t buy whatever lines he dropped, and cringed – “From the real baby.”

Wow.  In his efforts to make caring for his babies as real as possible, he may have overstepped the line here. 

Well, at least he washed his hands.

Lauren’s diaper definitely had a surplus so I don’t think she minded sharing with Dylan, except that Peyton had re-stuck her diaper with the skill of a 4 year old.  The inside of her sleep sack (the pink jammies in the disco-boogie picture on the previous post) was more yellow than pink…especially on one side.

Peyton and I had a brief hygiene discussion, but the easiest way to prevent this from happening again was the natural consequence – “Dylan’s diaper is dirty and needs to be washed.  Go put it in Lauren’s hamper, but I just did laundry, so it’ll be a while before Dylan gets to wear a diaper again.”

I hope it doesn’t backfire…”Mom, Dylan didn’t have a diaper on, so he pooped on the carpet…”

Maybe I should have potty-trained Dylan instead. 

From left to right: Dylan (female), Peyton (male) and Wendy (male)

Lauren doing the disco-boogie in her crib while her mobile runs.

Peyton in his Van Maanen shirt from gpa vm long ago.

Lauren’s new valance..info on its creation soon.

Snow.  Probably two inches of it covering the ground before we woke up, and more snow falling throughout the day.

Who’d have guessed it?

Lauren also gave me a wonderful birthday present – 5 1/2 hours of uinterrupted sleep.  We’re getting there!

But my birthday fell apart when I left to tutor.  Lauren and Peyton didn’t behave themselves for Daddy while I was gone.  Daddy says I’m not tutoring for SATs anymore.  We’ll see.

Well, Lauren’s passed the 11 lb. mark – that means it’s only a matter of time before she’s sleeping through the night.  In the mean time, however, she does great at soothing herself to sleep.  Every morning, about an hour after she wakes up she’s ready for a nap, so I put her in her bouncer chair in the bathroom and she falls asleep while I shower.  On several occasions she’s also put herself to sleep in her crib while watching the mobile.  The first time she did this, when the mobile’s music turned off (after 10 minutes or so) she woke up again.  I hit the button and she fell asleep…until the music stopped.  After several rounds of this she’d had enough sleep and decided she was finished being in her crib.  Since that time, however, she’s put herself to sleep in her crib three or four more times, and she even continued to sleep once the mobile quit.

We’ve been working on bottles with her.  She doesn’t like them.  Not from mommy, not from daddy, not from the sitter and not from a friend.  She does not like them.  Not in my arms, not in her high chair, not sitting, not standing, not walking.  Not warm, not cold, not fresh, not frozen.  Perhaps I should write a Seussian knock-off and make myself some money in the midst of the heartache   Any tips?  We’ve already got the breastbottle and we’ve tried every other bottle in the house, but none seem to be good enough for her. 

Her smiles have increased in number, especially for the men in her life.  Daddy came home from work for lunch today and Lauren was so very glad to see him.  She also loves to follow Peyton’s movements, grinning to stop him and grab his attention.

Another milestone reached: the first cold.  Peyton brought it home, probably from school.  Daddy caught it, too, and then Lauren had a low-grade fever and started to sound really stuffy.  She doesn’t really like having her nose sucked out with the aspirator.  No, she really doesn’t.

Another aspect of our growing family – Peyton has twin baby dolls that require a lot of care.  “Oh, they’re cryin’ again.  I’ll go get ‘em.”  Making Lauren’s size 1 diapers fit a preemie size baby is hard work.  We also have some clothing issues.  Each doll only came with one outfit, but if they sleep in those jammies, then what will they wear during the day?  Lauren’s newborn size onesies made lovely little “dresses” for them.  Oh, and of course the burp rag problem…Lauren barely has enough of her own burp rags, so Mommy didn’t really want to share with the babies…luckily we’ve got two of the little tiny strips of cloth known as burp rags, which are probably made for babies who don’t spit up (which makes them perfect for Peyton’s twins…although he has informed me that Dylan spits up blue.  I’m not sure how that came about, and he hasn’t really explained the science to me yet).  Peyton has one other problem – he doesn’t seem to be making any milk.  He tried pumping (on his ribs…it was quite comical) and he just couldn’t seem to produce anything.  I guess the babies will have to take formula.

Good thing his babies take bottles.  In fact, Peyton showed me today that they can even hold the bottles on their own.

His care is adorable, though.  I can hear his musical rocking chair after I tuck him in.  I went to check on him before I went to bed myself and found that he had one of his babies on each side of him.  Sometimes he’ll be playing, then he’ll suddenly look at me and sweetly ask me if I’ll go get Wendy, who, it seems, has started to cry.  He tucks them into their little nest on his bookshelf, prays for them and sings them a lullaby, then he kisses them goodnight.

Maybe we’re doing an okay job with the kids.

(the last time Mommy & LE took pics was in the hospital, so mommy finally convinced daddy to take a picture!)

And the only way to get a nice smile out of Peyton is to promise a silly one…and he matched Lauren’s silliness here.

These are from the day the camera died.  But I also have more pics to upload…watch for updates coming soon!

Oh, and by the way…our sweet little L.E. (Ellie) girl has her first illness…she’s had a low grade fever for a few days, so we went to the doctor this afternoon and she’s got a bit of conjunctivitis…pink eye.  I think it might be from Peyton’s nose bumping her eye when he kisses her, since he seems to kiss her every 5 minutes…

This post was originally half-written on Thursday, but as you’ll see, finishing it was somewhat interrupted.

—– 

Yesterday was awesome.  It was the kind of day that reminds me why I want to be at home more.

Peyton asked on Tuesday if we could make pancakes.  Lauren was napping already when he woke up, so we pulled out Auntie Sandra’s recipe and went to work.  As Peyton dumped the last ingredient into the mix, we heard Lauren wake up, so Peyton ran in to talk to her (“it’s alright, don’t cry, mommy’s coming…”), then he watched 1 show while I nursed her.  After her belly was full, we rolled her high chair into the kitchen and she watched Peyton and I cook the pancakes.  She was quite entertained, smiling frequently for her big brother.  Since I haven’t taken any pictures of her lately, I grabbed the camera and snapped a few shots.

Then I realized the pancakes were probably burning.  I put the camera on her high chair tray and promptly knocked it to the floor, shattering the UV lense and jamming it into the real lense (which is reminiscent of when I knocked my mom’s nice camera off the bleachers with the exact same result). 

The pancakes were burnt.  So I dumped those few into the trash (after sweeping up the broken glass from the lense) and poured a few more pancakes.  My mood wasn’t shaken, and the pancakes didn’t burn. 

After eating our pancakes with the fresh, home-made from Grandma T’s recipe syrup, Peyton helped me clean the table, and I cleaned up the entire kitchen counter.  With a smile on my face!  With time on my hands, cleaning up isn’t so bad! 

After breakfast Lauren fell asleep in her bouncer chair while I took a shower and Peyton had a bath.  Peyton dressed himself; I enjoyed having two kids occupy themselves while I had time to get myself dressed. 

We did laundry; we cleaned the house; we got ready for Grandma Patty to come.  We had a very productive morning. 

We had lunch; we had long naps.

The sun came out, and I watched Peyton blow bubbles outside while I made dinner. 

It was a good day.  Broken camera, burned pancakes…eh.  It was still a good day.  Thank you, Jesus, that I can be home! 

My favorite milestone- the smile.  Now Lauren has started to interact with us, flashing her gummy grin to see how we’ll respond.

Other news: She’s not a big fan of the bottle.  I hope that changes by Saturday, when I start teaching the 2 hour SAT class in Bellingam (30 minutes away).  She’s gonna need tuh eat. 

Peyton & Lauren went in for their first portraits on Friday.  You can view the results here.  Some of the highlights:

And you can’t pass up the rock fingers -