A shortfall

I cannot believe that I am blogging three days in a row. But I had nothing short of an epiphany today.

As the kids and I were watching this Heroes of the Bible story about Jesus's birth, I realized that I wasn't doing my job in raising them in a Christ-centered environment.

I think I'm still in survival mode. They get fed, they have clean clothing, I read to them, sometimes I play with them, I take them to swimming lessons and other activities. But at a cost to my own being. Its not always fun, its usually stressful, but its necessary.

I realized the triplets had not been to church since the middle of October. Or at least thats what I last remember. I have been to church several times with Jacob, but I don't take them. Its too much work, I don't have enough hands, and I don't hear the sermon at all.

Things need to change. Christ is the center of my life (or should be) and it should be theirs also. I need to take the time to take them to church, sing songs with them, go to sunday school. Now that they are mostly potty-trained I can sign them up for Sunday school. They'll get the interaction they need with other kids and learn about Christ.

For a good cause...

My friend Michelle is having an auction. She's adopting a daughter, Lily, from Eastern Europe. Lily is a twin who was given up at birth because she has down syndrome.

Michelle and her husband Brian have three children. Karly is 14 and two years ago was diagnosed with a rare form of ovarian cancer and is now cancer free. Braden is in Kindergarten this year and their youngest is Ruby who is 2 1/2. Ruby is a twin. With no words to describe the situation, Lydia was stillborn at 38 weeks. Ruby and Lydia are identical twins and have down syndrome.

Michelle and Brian have opened their hearts and home to another child and I hope that you can support them emotionally and maybe even donate to their cause. Keep Lily and her new family in your prayers.

ahomeforlily.blogspot.com

Is it done yet?

Where has the time gone? There are a few reasons why I haven't updated the blog. 1) Facebook. Much easier and quicker. You can put a one or two liner on and be done with it. 2) Projects - I've been sewing a bunch and also working on library stuff for Jacob's school. 3) this one is important, I've been lazy.

I think of things, but don't take the time.

For instance, I'm not sure anyone really wants to hear the ins and outs of potty-training. Its not fun, its TMI and really that's what consumes my time. I spend hours with Matthew on the toilet coaxing him to poop. I feel like a labor coach. I actually think I could deliver a baby now with my experience and advice on getting the kids to poop. Poop. Whoever thought I'd be actually blogging about it. But I think that the kids are doing really well and are probably 80-90% potty-trained. Hopefully by Christmas there will be no more accidents.

Secondly, the boys needed something else to sleep on besides their crib mattresses. We got them low rise loft bunk beds. The beds are perpendicular and John sleeps on top and Matthew actually sleeps at the foot of his own bed on the bottom. Why John on top? He doesn't move at all when he sleeps and has a really good compass when it comes to where he is and how to get around at night. On the other hand, Matthew falls off his crib mattress several times a night. I don't think he's fallen out of his bed though. But he still does cry out a lot. Not sure why.

So tonight at the football game is on, I heard whining/crying. I went up to find John laying on top of Matthew, half asleep, crying. I don't know if he tried getting off the side of the bed and fell on Matthew. But Matthew didn't notice a thing and John was crying. It was really funny and disturbing at the same time.

Fall Pictures III

Fall Pictures II

Fall Pictures

Jacob's school is closed due to sickness. So we had some fun outside instead.

Chchchanges

I just keep putting this off. Well, because I'm a facebook fanatic now. And I usually blow off my steam on there.
Updates:
Since September 3rd I have been sick. It started out with a migraine, then pneumonia for three weeks which immediately followed by a sinus infection. Can I catch a break? I'm just hoping I'll get all this over and have a happy and healthy winter. One can only hope.

The kids got a cough in mid september and Brooke has not shaken it yet. Jacob had it too and on Sunday he came down with a fever. Due to the heightened awareness of the flu virus and H1N1, many schools are taking a lot of precautions. Like sending out notices about having kids in with fevers. A big no-no.
So I kept him home monday and he was acting like normal, except for a little bit on the quiet side. Last night he climbed into bed with me and he had a fever. I gave him medicine and he was fine and spunky. So I sent him to school. He fell asleep when he got home for about two hours. Then he threw up the yogurt I gave him. I think it was due to him not wanting to eat it and my policy of "you'll eat if and I don't care if you vomit it up." But with him falling asleep and having a slight fever tonight, I'll keep him home tomorrow.

And speaking of being sick of things, I need a good night's sleep without kids coming in and out of the bed all night. Mostly I've put up with it because they don't feel well and I think its just my maternal duty to cuddle with them a bit more. Sometimes I take them back to their beds and just lay with them. But their beds are very small so its not very comfortable.

I have seriously considered drugging them so that they sleep 8-10 hours or more and not get me up at 2 and 3 in the morning. I'm hoping for a peaceful sleep without children tonight.

Jacob seems to be liking school. He really has taken off with reading and I'll read books to him too. He can memorize really easily. Makes my job easier. But we have at least 1/2 hour of home work each night plus any additional reading.

I dread when the triplets get to school and trying to manage all of this. I know by then I'll have come up with a system, but its just overwhelming. I guess that should be a little lesson reminder to me to just take one day at a time. Maybe it will be easier teaching three kids at once. I'm glad that they will be in the same classroom. Makes it easier on me and less confusing.

Potty training is going really really well. Its just getting them to poop in the toilet. They still hide on me and its doesn't seem like incentives are working for this one. Maybe they are afraid, maybe they don't want to give up control, maybe they realize its one step towards independence.
I'm not putting them in underwear because we just got a new couch and I really don't want to be cleaning that over and over again.

What is really nice is that I bought diapers in the beginning of September (176 of them) and we still have over 1/2 left. I bought a small pack of girl pullups and a big pack of boy pull ups in 6 weeks. I need more pullups now, but the nice things is that I've probably spent $80 in the last 6 weeks versus spending $200 in that amount of time.

School's in session

Its been nearly a month since I last blogged. A couple of different reasons. I forgot my login and password and got sick of guessing. And secondly I've been sick for two weeks.

New stuff in the Callaway household... POTTYTRAINING

I started about two weeks ago with all three children. I didn't want to do all three at once, but I wasn't having much luck with Brooke on her own.

So I got about $50 worth of little toys, stickers and a reward chart and gave them stickers every time they tried to go potty. It only took a few days for the boys to catch on. Matthew is even dry at night about 1/2 the time. John is probably the most ready for underwear now, but can be just stubborn.

Brooke is another story. It took her a very long time to figure out how to use her muscles to go potty. She does have a few accidents during the day, but has done really well with improving how many times she goes potty. I don't think she's ready for underwear just yet.

The only problem is that the kids are potty-trained, not poop-trained. I think if I can catch them a couple of times trying to hide to go in their pull-ups, I can get them to go on the toilet.

Jacob started school two weeks ago. He doesn't really want to go to school. He's still got his shy problems from last year. He doesn't want to make a mistake. And then there is the whole, "they already have friends and I don't want to ask them to play with me" thing. I just wish he could make one or two friends instead of wandering around at recess by himself. It breaks my heart.
He's doing very well academically though. I was surprised to find him reading a level 1 book all by himself.

Matthew started Early Childhood two weeks ago. He's a good role model in the class as there are new boys in his 3 year old class. He even asks to go potty at school.

John started his speech class today. His teacher said he is doing so wonderfully and must have had a growth spurt in his speech over the summer.

The other thing we are doing is going to "school" otherwise known as library time at the Neenah Public Library on tuesdays when Matthew is in school. Its for 3,4, and 5 year olds without a caregiver. The key word is "without". John wouldn't let me leave him so I sat through story time, dance time and puppet time.

Tranvestite in the making????

The old saying, a picture is worth a 1000 words applies here.