Babywearing and Blogging

The one question I get most often from people is, "How do you manage 5 kids?" I will not even pretend that I do manage all 5 all the time. Hence the name of this blog (chaos reigns more than calm.) However, if I had to sum it up in two words, they would be patience and multi-tasking. Once we jumped from one to two, then two to three kids, I often wished I was an octopus. Seriously, if you could buy an extra hand, what do you think it would go for? The common man (or mom) probably could never afford it. It would be priceless. So, until I stumble upon an extra hand, I am always looking for ways to free up the two I do have. My magical and miraculous solution this time around is called the Peanut Shell. Quite possibly, the best thing ever invented, yet so simple. I had the Baby Bjorn with the other kids, but this is a pouch-style sling that is so easy to use and Scout loves to be in it. It makes sense, as she's all snug in there like she was for 9 months in me. First , the homeopathic remedies and organic foods, now the earth mother sling. I'm feeling so crunchy these days! But seriously, its the only chance we have at getting lunches made, breakfast served, kids dressed, homework signed, and kids to the bus stop in the morning, not to mention that dinner would never get made without Scout in the sling. Thats just how she rolls :-) Thank God, because amidst the requests of, can you help me wipe, can you make me another chocolate milk, can you find my night-night, can I have a snack, can you play ponies with me, can you watch me play monster trucks on wii, and can you button my pants, I'm happy to have a free hand or two.

April Showers (and Baths!)

You know you're a parent of a newborn when the most exciting event in your life is "the falling off of the cord!" For some reason, Scout's umbilical cord remnants have been extremely interesting to her siblings, especially Finley. The first thing she asks every morning is whether Scout's cord fell off during the night. The presence of this little shriveled up brown bit on her baby sister's tummy apparently occupies her little two year old brain much of the time. It took a good week or so to convince her that is was not, in fact, poo on Scout's belly. Now we use it as a calendar of sorts - as in "We'll go on Spring Break after Scout's cord falls off," or "The Easter Bunny will come after Scout's cord falls off." Hey, whatever works... So of course last night was the much anticipated "First Real Bath" in celebration of no more cord. It fell off on Wednesday, and Trace asked me if I was just playing an April Fool's joke on him when Finley announced it as he walked in the door after school. Though I realize I spend most of my time with the under 9 crowd, I like to think I could've come up with a better April Fools joke than that, had I been so inclined. I am a college-educated woman after all, though there are many days I wonder why. My class load from college translates roughly into:

Mass Media (aka "The Overwhelming Frequency of Ads for Bendaroos and Blendy Pens on Nickelodeon") 

Radio 1 (aka "How Quickly can Mom Turn Down the Volume Before the Kids ask what it means to be "Bringing SexyBack")

Religion (aka"The Divine Mystery of How One Hour in Church with 5 Kids Feels like a Month")

American Lit (aka "The Joy of Reading Dr. Seuss Six Times and how even Toddlers Know When You're Skipping Pages")

French (aka "Oui, I'd Love to Watch Another Annoying Episode of Caillou")

Logic (aka "Peaceful Negotiations In Regards to the Division of Marshmallows in the Breakfast Cereal")

All this just to have my 8-year-old tell me last year that her teacher knew better than me about how to wiggle a loose tooth because she was a teacher and I was "just a mom." When I tried my rebuttal, I was told it was true, that she had in fact "gone to special school." I think I went there too, but heck, what do I know???

So anyhow, April looks to be bringing us more snow before anything else, but it can't last forever,right. Hope everyone has a great weekend! Here's a few pictures of Scout's first bath, and Piper snuggling her afterwards. The towel that Scout is wrapped in is the same one we used to wrap Piper in! And look at her now- she's such a big helper!

A Room for Scout

Here's a sneak peek at Scout's room. One of the bonuses of knowing gender was being able to take our time in preparing the "perfect" girl's nursery for our little peanut. The diaper cake you see was handmade for us by my talented sister-in-law, Scout's godmother, Paula. Not only is is beautiful, but useful - the diapers are usable, the flowers are actually hairclips, the big flower on top is a little hat, and the "blinged out" S is hanging in her room now.

The Saint Bernard and the Green-Eyed Monster

We have discovered a few new things in our household since the birth of our sweet Scout. 

1.  I like to sleep. I don't require the highest-thread count sheets, a perfectly silent and dark room or silk pajamas. I do however enjoy longer than a two hour stretch at a time. 
2. Seven pounds is heavy. It's heavy when you're lugging it around like a basketball strapped to the front of you for the latter half of your pregnancy. Carrying it in your arms for hours at a time hurts your back in ways you never knew it could hurt after delivery. 
   
3. Having kids closer together is easier. If you wait almost three years between them, you see the emergence of the "green-eyed monster." Finley has become a master at doing the exact  opposite of whatever we ask her to do in hopes of getting attention. She likes to talk baby talk again and "tests" Scout's pacifier by sucking on it. Needless to say, Daddy is very busy reassuring his little Fin that she's still Daddy's girl and nothing has changed.
4. All of Carter's pretending to be different animals has really paid off. He is now the resident Saint Bernard in our family. If I am feeding Scout on the couch, he's right next to me, if I'm in the bedroom, he crawls in next to us. I can wake up in the middle of the night and he will be curled in a little ball right next to us. Not like he doesn't have his naughty moments, but he is so protective of his baby sister, it can melt your heart!
5. We have the best friends and family - the invitations from our neighbors for our older kids to come over and play, my mom helping with the kids all day long and cooking us lunch and dinner almost every night, my sister-in-law Paula bringing pizza and nachos and washing all our our dishes and cleaning our kitchen, our friends Angie Zopf and Carrie Wills both bringing us over amazing homemade meals so we didn't have to think about what to cook for dinner.
6. We are so very blessed!!

Due Date Schmue Date

Well here we are on March 17th, which was my "official due date." I told my doctors all along that my due date was actually March 8th, and they smiled nodded and finally agreed to induce me on the 11th. As soon as this was set, I told Tim that this little girl was not going to wait until the 11th. Never before have I been so stuck on a gut feeling. I guess there is something to mother's intuition. On Tuesday the 10th, I was just puttering along, folding and putting away laundry,packing up some eBay packages to be mailed, doing some light cleaning and hanging out with Carter, Fin and Trace who was home from school with a fever. I started to take notice of some contractions that were a bit more painful than normal. About 1 pm I called Tim to tell him he might want to cut out early in case they turned into something. He made it home about 3 o'clock to find me still working on eBay stuff, with no hospital bags packed and not really sure if we should go or not. For me, the next 20 minutes were definitely the most amusing time of the entire labor process. Lets just say my sweet husband is not cool, calm and collected under pressure. He was sweating and pacing and finally told me to put down the hairspray and blush brush, put anything at all in my damn hospital bag and WE WERE LEAVING! I think part of this nervous fear when I'm in labor has been projected onto him by my dad, who watched my birth take place on his own kitchen floor because my mom "primped" too long and was unable to make it to the hospital, or even out the front door for that matter. Anyhow, long story short we made it to the hospital shortly before 5, dilated to 5, and rearing to go. Once my doc finished a c-section on another patient, got me an epi and broke my water it didn't take long for our sweet little Scout Virginia to make her grand entrance. My mom and Dad along with my sister-in-law and close friend Paula (and also Scout's godmother) were there for moral support during labor and were able to meet her shortly after she arrived. We are all adjusting well, though her arrival has coincided with a fun virus making its way through the older kids (and Nana.) High fevers and nasty coughs have had Piper and Trace out of school for a few days and it is hitting Carter and Finley now too. Ahh, the life of a big family. And to think my mother-in-law had 7, six of whom were like stair steps in age. There's definitely a place in heaven for her!

It was so nice to have Tim off work for a few days, and he's working a shortened schedule this week to ease us back into things. Scout is such a good baby, she's happy to nurse and sleep, and we usually get at least one good stretch in the middle of the night. She had her check-up yesterday and has regained her birth weight, she's now 7 lbs. 3 oz. (one ounce more than at birth.) To answer the most asked question - the name Scout came from the book To Kill a Mockingbird. You may remember me mentioning that Tim has a true aversion to reading. That is one of the only books he has ever read, mush less liked and he remembered the name Scout and loved it. Virginia is in honor of Grandma Johnson who I like to think looks down on little Scout :-)

I apologize for my tardiness in blogging this big event, my mom said she's actually received threatening emails about me updating the blog. Cut me some slack people, I did just give birth!! I will continue to post lots of pictures, Lord knows I've got a ton. 

On a final note, Happy St. Patty's day!

3,2,1 ... Baby

Just a little update to let everyone know that we will be welcoming our new little girl less than three days from now! I am being induced Wednesday morning, the 11th. As Nana says, "Watch out Mom and Dad, this little girl is going to be born on the second day of a full moon!" The kids are so excited to meet her. They had so much fun visiting with baby Isla this weekend, who is just 6 weeks old and a little peanut. The boys loved holding her, Carter was especially fascinated with her. Finley just kept asking if it was Tiffany's baby I was holding, like maybe I just had her baby sister and forgot to mention it. 

Aunt Paula gave us a belly casting kit to help preserve the memory of the last Johnson to join our family. (Sorry Mom, any more grandchildren will come from Ryan and Rory!!!) So, the kids got to get their hands dirty last night "casting my belly." Though the kids did a great job and plan on painting it beautifully as well, don't plan on seeing it hanging on our wall or holding chips and dip at our next party. Just not my style. 

Tim is very nervous that I may make him to contribute to this blog as I recover. I'm not really sure how we're going to handle that. But please know that if you see the old their/they're/there or too/to switcheroo going on, it's NOT ME!! 

Hope everyone has a good Monday, in spite of losing one precious hour of sleep. I know one second-grader who will be burrowing even deeper under the covers come 7 am, when her body tells her its only 6 am.

March Madness

If you've read the title of this blog entry and are thinking I've finally jumped on the bandwagon and become a sports fan, seriously?????? I do have to say the one thing I love about March madness is that my husband is more than willing to have all the kids running around him while I scrapbook or shop as long as there's a game on the TV. 

But the March Madness happening in our house these days is one of a much different sort. Obviously, there's the preparing for the arrival of our newest family member. Which from day to day varies in intensity from "Oh my God, there's no way we're ready to bring a new baby into this house" to "There's nothing else we could possibly do, every blanket, onesie and crib sheet is washed and ready." Every morning Finley asks me if the new baby "got bornded yet." Dear Lord, I'm sure hoping that my stomach doesn't look like this once she has been "bornded." Piper asks every morning on her way to the bus stop what will happen if I have the baby while she's at school. Trace and Carter have just decided that for every day questions or situations that require my attention, poking my belly button like they're ringing  doorbell is a perfectly acceptable way to get me to listen. Poor little sister is gonna come out with a dent the way this belly is getting poked!!

March is also off to a busy start with preparations for Piper's upcoming First Communion, what with dress shopping, religious ed classes and sacrament prep sessions, and party planning. Then there's the winding down of the basketball season for Piper, Trace and Coach Daddy, which just happens to overlap with the starting up of Trace's spring baseball. I think of my parents and my sisters-in-law Ann, Patty and Sally who have older kids and have been running this crazy extra-curricular hamster wheel for years on end now. You are some amazing women to have made it through this. My tour of duty has hardly begun, and I'm already exhausted looking ahead. Any tips for me??

We recently had some family photos taken before the new little one arrives. I've posted a few here. Enjoy this beautiful weather and much-needed taste of spring...