A gorgeous day for a...bulletin

Whew! Okay – here it is over 15 months later…and it is a day only like today that could get me to start my family bulletin. An achingly perfect temperature with a blue sky and no humidity, a delicious wind playing in the chimes on the porch…ahhhh! Can this be August??? And I will call this a bulletin because I SOOOOO don’t want to jump on this trendy train of blogging. I don’t think I have the time and I’m not sure I want the uplinked universe to have complete access to my family and our comings, cute things and trials. But, I think that this could be the link to my family and friends that I have been hungering to establish…we shall see.
So welcome to our Family File!
Miriam, who just celebrated her 6th birthday, wrote this in her journal
“I like to do the dishise”
And then she crosses all that out because she had drawn something that didn’t come out right below. She started fresh on the next page: “Monday August, 11, (both “1”s are backwards) 2008. I like to read Lehi win he had his Visin. In his visin he saw a tree of froot that fild his sowle up (the “p” is backwards) with ixsedinge jowee (the “j” is backwards, too). And he saw his family.” Then she drew what looks like a tree with four apples on it.
Supremely cute. And here is the real kicker: In our family reading we are in Alma 32. She is reading the first part of 1 Nephi by herself! And picked up that “ixsedinge jowee” (exceeding joy) stuff all by herself, too. What a kid!
Last week Gideon, who by all public appraisals is the most divine and sweet cherub of a baby, turned 8 months and we had a nice little chat. He says he has given up sleep for Lent, and I tried to convince him that neither are we Catholic, nor is it anywhere near Easter time. For six weeks he's been waking between two and eight times a night and I am near collapse. Mike is pretty droopy, too. Yesterday and today Gid decided that day-time sleep would be good to get rid of too (thoroughness must be one of his awesome character traits), so he'd be up stairs screaming and screaming - he won't stop for anything (except me holding him) - and I am close to tears.
I searched the house for a large stash (actually I only need two thick ones) of cotton balls for stuffing in my ears, but they were too puffy – maybe I just have small ears? Then I thought about some vodka? I didn’t even care if it was the cheap kind - I am soooo beyond being picky on this count. Maybe I will just head to the Library for some books on sleeping for babies. Do they sell vodka at the Library? Probably just have to borrow it for three weeks.
So, Tuesday, a week ago today, I just let him cry. I have hit the point of having “had it.” And Tuesday for naps he cried a lot. But he only cried ten minutes that night. And if he cried again that night I don’t know because I turned the monitor off. Yes, yes, I am devil mommie, I know. But it was too much and I just couldn’t do it anymore. I got up at 5 and to feed him – and behold! he was still safe and sound!
That has been my new routine with him: he’s gone back to the front room by himself and he can scream or compose sonnets to his heart’s content: the point is: I AM SLEEPING. And this morning I remembered a whole list of things that Mike asked me to do without writing it down! THAT IS SO SPECTACULAR! My mind returns as I sleep – incredible! The lack of sleep thing is still so hard – I feel terribly tired every day – still! So I will just keep trying.
Ack – this must be cut short as I have to rescue Gid from eating the beguiling trash. I thought I heard a strange rustling. You should see him, all covered by vacuum lint!

Monday of Allergies

Mike hasn't really slept well for days and days. Every morning he looks so wiped out. Finally today he is going to take one of his bzillion sick days and go see if he can get a doctor to talk to him about this - only that means he has tosee his primary car doc (who I don't think does allergies) or wait until he can change it...which could be days...and then see when the earliest appointment is that he can get...we may be looking at another week of dying from this allergies business. Yesterday he lost his voice from it and went about talking like the Frog Man of Philly.

Another fun thing: I'm PG! with baby number four. I vote girl, because I already have three and I know what to do with them! Miriam wants a boy, since she already has two sisters and she now wants a brother. Chanah want a sister because "I like sisters." And Alex (14 1/2 months) has yet to weigh in on the whole issue. What does Mike want? A healthy baby. And allergy medicine.

Opening Day of our family BLOG

Oh my goodness I have joined the world of blogging (the number one reason I have not done this before is that the name "blogging" really puts me off). Sigh. I have joined the parade of bandwagoneers. Double sigh. Actually, the real reason I started this is that I read Sarah Reeder's blog and she had links to about 15 other sisters' in our ward blogs - and they were all so cute...so here we are - just gimme a bell and call me cordero.

We are supposed to go to the library today, but we can't find this one book...an old Marice Sendak standby - it's in the house somewhere....arg!