Some people take in stray animals... some people collect stamps...

Not Me!  I take in and collect children!  So much more exciting than pets or stamps. 

I have my own four daughters, my grandson, another grandbaby on the way, and I also count in my "collection" several of my girls' friends who have stayed with us from time to time.  There are the neighbor girls, the kids we've hosted from Up with People and the exchange student we had for a school-year.  I still think about all of my little daycare kids (who are all in college now), and my DI and 4-H  kids.  They are all my kids. I have more kids in my little people collection than I can count. 

Gonna get one more!

We are going to host another exchange student. This one is a girl from The Netherlands. She'll be 17 when we get her, which isn't until August 2011.  A year away.  When we hosted Anna (student from Germany), we had a big whopping 20 minute notice and we kept her for 10 months.  Feels odd to have so much planning time, but that's probably good to have time to think things through. 

When I was in high school I was pretty good friends with one of the exchange students who attended our school in my senior year. Her name was Brigette  and she was so nice!  We kept in touch for a little bit after school, but like all of my other high school friends, I just quit making contact.  After I got into college, I shook off high school and didn't look back for a long time.  Too long.  Now with facebook, I've reconnected with many of my old high school friends and discovered how nice it is to have longtime friends back.  One of the friends I reconnected with is Brigette. 

Brigette's daughter is the exchange student we will be hosting.  How wonderful that I already know her mom and can communicate with her on facebook! In English!  We had a very big language barrier with the parents of our German exchange student. It would have been so nice to talk with her parents once in a while. Sometimes mom-to-mom is the best way to find out what our kids are doing.

We have already discussed some of the practical things about merging her into our family for a year, just to make sure she will fit in well.  Now we just need to do the official paperwork.  Looks like we have plenty of time to get ready. Sure looking forward to having another teenage "daughter"! 

The Blog Post that isn't

I have a lot to blog about! But, time is fleeting so I'm not going to - not just yet. I'm just letting you all know that it's coming, just as soon as I have my head together enough to spit out all of my stories.

I'll update you on the "Mama Wants Her Body Back" diet. So far, it's not getting stellar reviews from me, but maybe I'll adjust.

I'm sewing Snow White dresses - I'll tell you all about my adventures with the serger. Um, I'm learning!

Tomorrow we are going to Disneyland! Yay! And the weather will be cooler. It was 109 two days last week, over 100 every day. Tomorrow its only supposed to be 85 for the high and this morning the cool air feels so wonderful! Only 78 outside right now.

Libby's first birthday is tomorrow, the 30th. We're having her party (just us) on Friday.

My dog is almost out of thyroid pills, remind me to call the vet would ya?

Gracie has been saying some really funny things lately. The kind of things that make you stop and laugh and appreciate the innocence and wonder of a child. She's just a hoot!

I went to the DMV and spent an afternoon. Oh Lordy, have I got another DMV adventure to tell you about! That place is a looney bin for sure!

My husband remembered his keys yesterday and today! The signs are still up and they are working! Aren't I a good wife?

I've had some cell phone issues. I ended up getting a new phone, but its the same piece of crap as the old one. Can't wait for my contract to be up so I can upgrade my hardware. Next time, I'm getting the top of the line!

Spent an afternoon with Lexie, no rabbit or extra critters came with her this time. But she did dance in Gracie's ballet class. Can't wait to upload my pictures!

I planned and canceled a trip to Napa.

See, I have lots to tell you, but I don't have much extra time to sort it all out and type it up. Just a teaser for today! Now it's back to my sewing room to finish those dresses for tomorrow! I'm excited that the girls will look so cute at Disneyland!

I love these Pigs!

Since being sick for the past week, I've been watching a lot of tv. I am so in love with these cute little piggies on Nick Jr! Aren't they adorable! They've been keeping me cheerful while I had the sore throat and painful ears.

Olivia - she goes to school, plays with her brother and all sorts of things


Toot and Puddle - they travel and explore


And my favorite: Peppa Pig - A British Pig Family! They laugh and snort! Super cute!


By the way, I am feeling better. Took a long time for the antibiotics to finally kick in, but I'm thinking the worst is over. Finally!

A Very Long Day - The Good, The Bad and The Cute

This is gonna be long cuz my day was as long as a busy week:

I got to sleep from midnight to 4am and then Libby decided it was playtime. She never does that! Anyway, got back to sleep at 6am to 7am, when really I should have gotten up at 6 so I wouldn't have to rush, but I went back to sleep when I had the chance.

Got up and showered and changed everyone and nursed and pumped, etc. Gracie was extra hungry this morning and ate 3 bowls of oatmeal! And I was really rushing her along, but that child does not have "hurry" in her vocabulary!

Finally got out the door at 8:45 with the two littles, their two diaper bags, my school bag, my purse and of course, my coffee!

I took Libby to her sitter first, then I took Gracie to her sitter and when I pulled up I just knew something was wrong. There were 3 vehicles out front, one was her husband's car and he should've been at work by now. I had a bad feeling. So I took Gracie to the door and the paternal grandparents and the girls all came to the door. The sitter's mother suddenly passed away yesterday, so things there were in the hands of the grandparents. Gracie likes them (they’ve met before) and they offered to keep her for the day even though they didn't know she was coming, but I felt like that might be asking a lot since they most likely just threw arrangements together within the past few hours... I don't know but I thought they had plenty to manage already. I got back in the van and called Libby's sitter and went right back there with Gracie.

It had been 15 mins since I dropped Libby off and returned with Gracie, in that time Libby was settled into the swing with her blanket all snuggled up around her and she was fast asleep. Awwww!

I got a tank of gas and cussed at the pump cuz gas keeps going up. grrrr. And I hopped on the freeway! It was 9:35, not bad considering my goal is to be on the freeway by 9:30. Just when I thought I could make up that 5 minutes in the fast lane, the whole freeway plugged up and became a mile long parking lot. I’m lucky it wasn’t further because those tend to become 5 mile jams in no time! I finally got past the source of the problem, a mangled up mess but no ambulance, so it must have been a non-injury accident. I like to tell myself that.

After I got past that, the road opened up and I flew to the college. I dropped it down to 80 in that spot where I always see a cop or two. I cranked up a Boston cd and drove fast in the far left lane. I never do that! Got to San Marcos in record time! Parked and hiked up the hill to class, got there on time!!! Wow! How’d I beat the clock!!! I did it!! I’m like Mario Andretti in a mini-van! It was now 10:30am. Long day already and I was just getting started.

You know how when you are hurrying and hurrying and then you get to your destination and you still feel like you should be going fast? I did that. I was all caffeinated and had been rushing around for over 2 hours trying to get to this class and I couldn’t shake that hurry feeling. I sat still and listened, tried to learn about Jacques Derrida and his literary theory of deconstructionism. When we broke into groups and analyzed a short story, I totally aced the little project and felt great being a valuable part of the group discussion. Not bad since I only read ¾ of the story that we needed to pick apart; I fell asleep before I got to the end last night.

After class, the student union had a table set up just outside our classroom and they were giving out pizza. Score! Free lunch and it was good too! I have an hour for lunch, and today I decided to use my hour hiking back to my van to swap out my books instead of carrying them all. The college campus is on the side of a hill, so when I say “hike” I really mean it! It’s a long walk on an incline, or decline, whichever way you are going.

During my walk, I met up with a nice gal that I’ve run into a couple of times before. It’s nice to meet good people. Today we exchanged phone numbers and she showed me a picture of her baby. She mentioned to me before that she has one baby the same age as Libby; today I learned that her baby is actually her third, but the first two did not survive. I spent the rest of my walking time counting my blessings.

I also found out that she just moved to America last June and she only knew three words in English before she arrived here. I would have never guessed that she wasn’t a native to Southern California. There are some amazing scholars on campus, very intelligent people; I hope some of it rubs off on me. I am in awe of some of the students I meet. Sure, I can fake it a time or two, but there are students on that campus who amaze me.

Then I went to my Psychology class. Today’s lecture was all biology though. And I was totally lost. Genes, DNA, chromosomes, Mitosis, Meiosis, huh? Yeah. Wish me luck!

Now, at 2:15 pm I scurried on home and kept the driving to a reasonable speed. Kept the volume down too. No need to be Mario Andretti all the time. I saw three cops in “the cop spot”. They were all writing tickets too! I wanted to stop and do some birthday shopping for my daughter’s birthday tomorrow (just call me the last minute mommy) but since I started the day in a size C cup and I was now busting out of a DD, I decided shopping could wait until tomorrow. My boobs haven’t figured out how to handle school days yet.

When I went to pick up the Littles at Libby’s sitter, she invited me in for coffee. A mutual friend of ours and her baby were over visiting too. So I sat and fed stubborn little Libby (who only drank one ounce from her bottle all day) and visited with the mamas. It was great to get some caffeine in me again. Got my second wind!

When I got home, I carried Libby, two diaper bags, my school bag, my purse, hats and blankets. Gracie carried a rawhide bone as big as she is for Sandy. The sitter gave it to us for our dog; it was gag gift for her Chihuahua and she wanted to just get rid of it. I have a really happy dog! So we get in the house, and get all this stuff out of my arms while Sandy is wagging her tail like mad carrying a bone as big as Texas in her jaw smacking into everyone, and what is that on the table? A package? For me?

One of my internet friends sent me a package! I opened it and it was CHOCOLATE! A Big bar of chocolate, homemade brownies (more like fudge, mmmmm), princess snack cups for Gracie and a teething toy for Libby. A sweet card topped it! Too sweet! Thank you so much, Jen!

I decided it could be fend for yourself night for dinner. Gracie fell asleep, Libby wanted to be held, Keith finished off the leftovers from last night and Katie and Lexie were both working. Pretty easy to blow off cooking tonight!

I did put Libby down for a bit. She was happy and enjoying her exersaucer. And then, she started to fuss. So of course I scooped her up to see what the fuss was about and in doing so, I discovered what the fuss was about. Ewww! Poopies everywhere! In the exersaucer seat, on her blanket that I stuff around her in the seat because she isn’t really big enough for it, on her jeans, her shirt, and filled her onsie. It was even in her sleeve! She saved it all up for mommy! Gee, thanks, Libbers. I’ve got a very poopy load of laundry going right now. I might have to wash it twice. Not sure how she can get so much of that nasty stuff out of her little bitty baby body all at once. Amazing!

Katie eventually came home from work, she was pale and sniffing and clutching a bottle of orange juice. She said “I hab a code.” Poor girl. She went to change and she said she’d come back for some chicken noodle soup, but she didn’t come back out of her room. I think she fell asleep.

Gracie fell asleep too. I guess throwing a wrench in her day was exhausting. Glad she took it all in stride. And Libby is asleep. Otherwise I’d never be able to type this extremely long post (wordcount: 1,611). Lexie isn’t home, she’s busy working her fingers to the bone trying to make ends meet and pay her bills (car insurance, texting, and lost library books).

It’s 8:30 and time for a beer. Ok, half. I am breastfeeding, I can’t overdo it. Today was one long long long day! Seems like this morning was a week ago!

Meeting the Parents

What's the easiest way to do dinner for 7 (and a half) people? Eat out! Oh, but it wasn't so simple. We went out for the most complicated dinner ever.

The purpose of eating out was to meet Andrew's parents. Andrew is the boyfriend of our oldest daughter. Katie and Andrew really wanted us all to meet and have dinner together. They've been dating for more than a year and he is headed off to Navy Boot Camp in a week.

Getting all of us parents together was a complicated mess. His parents work and his dad is often out of town on business. I'm sure they have their personal obligations also. My husband works, and has an evening job too. Otherwise we don't really have a lot of things going on, except holiday parties and things like that lately.

For the past month, Katie and Andrew have been trying to find an evening that would work for them (they work too!), his parents and us. Finally, found one! Last Sunday. Lexie could stay home with Gracie and we'd take Libby along. She's portable. No problem...

Then we all got sick with a terrible cold. And Katie and Andrew both got called in to their jobs to work that day, so that didn't work at all. Which brings us to last night, ok, sounds fine.

But, Lexie had to work. Well, if Lexie works that means I don't have a babysitter for Gracie. I called two girls, neither one could sit for Gracie. Lexie working also brings up another problem: getting her home. She has a driver's license but doesn't have a car. So, I am her taxi. Her shift was 4 - 9, which means she starts at 4 and ends sometime between 4 & 9.

So if I find a sitter for Gracie and we go out to dinner, she'll call and need a ride home and I'll have to leave the restaurant, go pick up Lexie, drive her home (20 mins if there is no traffic), drive back to the restaurant (another 20 mins at least). Wouldn't that be polite to sit down to dinner, order a meal and then leave for nearly an hour? And pay a sitter for that?

I decided since I couldn't be at the restaurant, driving the mom-taxi and staying home with Gracie all at the same time - forget it! This is just too complicated!

I told Katie the bad news, we can't go. Lets try lunch tomorrow or something else. Poor kid acted like the sun would never come out again. She was so upset! Hmmm.... apparently this dinner is awfully important. After all, she said it was more important than anything ever. Ok, then. I'll continue to work on organizing things so that we can go.

Off to work she went. Upset and on the verge of tears cuz once again I am ruining her life. Sigh. Now I have one kid upset, one needs a ride, one too loud, and one needing to nurse - in public or not. Deep sigh.

ok... lemme think. If Gracie comes with us, she'll be loud and bored and fidget and distracting and cute. Well, cute works. She can just come with us and that solves that problem. The whole world is her playground, I'm sure she'll have fun driving us all nuts.

Now, how to get Lexie home from work. Wait a minute... who says she has to go home? She can just call us when she gets done working, and one of us will leave the dinner table, pick her up and bring her back to the restaurant turning a 45 - 60 min absence into a 15 min absence. She can sit in the restaurant wearing her Shakeys Pizza uniform, that's ok with me. Not ideal, but it'll have to do.

I'll bring a bottle for Libby. Lets hope she takes it.

My husband then had an idea. Lets cash in a favor with the neighbors. They owe us since we babysit their dog a lot, most recently, he was in our house for 9 hours being a big baby. So I called them and asked if they could watch Gracie while went out to dinner. Well, they were going out of town to pick up their son who lives with them every other weekend. Darn. Then they decided they could leave their 18 yr old daughter home and she could watch Gracie. Yippee! Its good to have your neighbors owe you favors!

Now, we have things arranged as best we can, let's go do this dinner! I'd been working on arranging the evening all day long! (not to mention trying to figure it out the day before too). Now it was 3:00 and time to get ready to leave to take Lexie to work, I have to leave by 3:30 to get her there on time at 4. We made it, I got everyone fed, diapered, and nagged at and out the door we went at 3:30. After I got Lexie to work, I decided to drop by Katie's work and tell her everything is arranged and we're good to go. Because she was still all upset that we couldn't go.

Wow, she was busy at work! She is a bridal consultant and she was working with brides. Apparently, it's been very busy since a lot of grooms proposed to their brides on Christmas Day. And the Valentines Day Brides are getting anxious too. Katie was super happy to hear that I got things organized for dinner.

She said meet up at On The Border at 6:30. Yikes, that's in 2 hrs! I still needed a shower and find something to wear, yikes!

Thank goodness for the baby swing. I got so much done with Libby napping in her swing. I managed to get a shower and find something to squeeze my post-holiday flub into. It wasn't easy, but I managed to get everything sucked in, tucked in and zipped up. Whew!

Now that it was 6:30.... how about if we meet up with everyone at 7? Lexie called. She's done with work. It's 6:30! Well, that works I guess, we'll pick her up and go eat. She doesn't like the idea of going anywhere in her work clothes with her hair up, you know, her world revolves around her hair. She had a shirt in her purse and I grabbed some shoes for her so she wouldn't have to go in her ugly work shoes.

We finally get there, with Katie and Lexie and Libby and Gracie is next door... whew! We got out the door! It took me 10 hours to get out the door for dinner! I tell ya, that food better be good tonight! We arrive at OTB and guess what. The place is dark and the parking spaces out front are empty. It's closed. Out of Business. El Fin.

Another change of plans. We'll go to Johnny Carinos.

Finally! We're there! We're out to dinner! We met Andrew's parents! Woo hooo! Mission Accomplished! Everyone sat around one table and had a nice meal together (except Gracie and their 19 yr old daughter). We ate, we had nice conversation about nothing in particular, Libby charmed everyone (and refused to drink from her bottle), and then everyone turned down desert because we were all too full. That was it.

All that preparation and worry and juggling of everyone's schedules. The kids are happy that we finally all met each other, I guess that is what was so important. You'd think going out to dinner would be easy. Not one bit. It only sounds simple.

I am not a "Pro", People just think I am.

Apparently, having baby #4 bestows "Pro" status on a mommy. People say things to me like "you're a pro". That's nice that they think so, but really, I'm stumbling through this whole mom thing just like everyone else.

But, since so many people think I'm a "Pro" I do get a lot of questions. And, funny, I am able to answer most - you decide for yourself if I really know the answer or if I'm just winging it. Pros never tell when they are faking it. Here they are, questions people have asked me and my answers:

When will my baby sleep through the night?
When she wants to, hopefully before kindergarten. Babies weren't meant to sleep through the night, they are little. 8 hours to a baby is a very very long time! Babies need to eat and get a fresh diaper once in a while, even if it disrupts your sleep. Just get up and do it.

Does your husband get up with the baby at night?
*speechless, I'm totally speechless*

Does your baby sleep through the night?
(more side splitting laughter on my part) No. Neither one of my babies sleeps through the night. One of my teenagers doesn't either.

Can I breastfeed my baby with my pierced nipples?
Ouch. Why do you think I would know this? I am not speaking from experience, but yes, you can nurse your baby. Just take out your jewelry.

Can I give my baby a bath?
Yes, after the umbilical stump falls off and the belly button heals you can use a tub of water instead of a spongebath.

What is a boppy?
it's a $40 horseshoe shaped pillow.

Oh, then what is a bumbo?
that's a $40 foam chair for babies who can't really sit up yet.

A bugaboo? Binky? Bob?
Stop it with the cute products starting with the letter B! And, that's a stroller, a pacifier and a jogging stroller.

Are cloth diapers better than Pampers?
Not if I have to wash them! Ewwww. But, really, a lot of people use cloth and if you think they are better for your baby and you want to wash them, then don't let me stop ya. But, I'm not the least bit interested in having a bucket of poopy diapers soaking in a bucket in my tub.

How do you know if you wet your pants or if your water broke?
Again, why am I the pro on this? Do I look like I've wet my pants so much I can be called an expert? I assume that you'd just know. And if you don't, I'm sure the nurses at the hospital will tell you and then smirk behind your back.

Can I eat fish when I'm breastfeeding?
I dunno. I never eat fish. But I do love those little goldfish crackers. Yum!

Four kids? Wow, how do you do it?
Do what?

Where do they all sit in the car? Does your whole family fit?
They don't all sit in the car at the same time. One has her own car and one needs her own car. But I do drive a mini-van so we can all fit at the same time. Including the dog.

My baby has a fever. Should I take her to the ER?
No, just call the pediatrician's office and they'll tell you what to do.

Are your baby's eyes open yet?
Yes. She's not a kitten. Humans can open their eyes right after they are born!

What do you do with your baby when you go to school?
I take her with me.

Do your teenagers help all the time?
No. They help when I threaten to end their social lives.

Are you gonna try for a boy now?
No. Why would I want a boy now that my entire house is pink?

There are a few of the questions people have asked me. What are some of the crazy parenting questions people have asked you?