Guess Who Is Three!

Green beer, shamrocks, leprechauns, it’s all rolled in to St. Patrick’s Day for most people.  Not for us.  It’s Violette’s Birthday.  She won’t wear green, she wants purple and pink, “those are my favorite colors!”! 

Our little girl is now three years old.  Three, for her, is big stuff.  She is NOT a little girl, she is now a big girl and will correct you if you even remotely refer to her with any synonym of little.  She must do all things by herself and tries with all her might to keep up with Noelle and Max.  She has even learned to write her name mainly because she wanted to do it when Max learned. 

Determined and stubborn along with sweetness are perfect ways to describe her.  She can throw a mean tantrum and hold a major grudge when the situation presents itself.  Most of the time she is sweet.  Violette adores Zane and is always there to help him, even though he does out weigh her and is quickly catching up in height.  When Zane is upset she sings to him, tickles him, and does all she can to ease his discomfort.  I found her teaching him to blow bubbles just the other day.  It made me melt!

Max is 14 months her elder and the biggest competition for Violette.  They fight, All The Time!  It seems there is a constant battle between the two.  Sometimes, on rare occasions, they do get along and Violette shows great admiration for her big brother.  He’ll guard her and protect her, I know it. 

For awhile now she has been talking about wanting a big girl bike for her birthday.  We delivered with a pink and purple one.  She lit up the morning of her birthday and couldn’t wait to get out and try her new wheels.  The transition from tricycle to bike was made with ease.  She had no problem taking a walk, over half a mile, without tiring! 

Grandpa Roehrig joined us for Violette’s celebration this year.  The weather was irresistible and we spent most of the afternoon soaking up the sun. 

Time came for cake.  We will continue on with the tradition of a two tiered cake.  The children love seeing their cake and we surprised Violette with a pink and purple one!  She loved it, of course.  She is a very girly girl!

It was a great day and start to Violette’s third year.  This year I have a feeling will bring with it a growth of stronger spirit and much knowledge.  She will hold her ground and make herself known to her older siblings.  She’ll teach them she is a big girl that can run with the big dogs, as they say.  I can’t say it out loud anymore, but she will always be my little girl!

Spring

Spring is in the air.  The warm temperatures have brought out of the spring jackets and need to be outside, but before this draping of warmth there was the winter.  Snow was lacking this season.  When it fell the kids begged to be suited up and joyfully snow angeled it up, threw snow balls with fury, and ate mitten-fulls of the delicate white powder. 

Sadly, in Noelle’s inaugural year of school not once did she experience the pleasure of a snow day.  I wasn’t able to wake her up and excitedly tell her she would get to spend the day home, with me, and play in the newly fallen snow.  It was something I was really looking forward to.  I’m hoping next year we have a bunch of snow days to carve our own adventures out of. 

Here are some pictures of the past winter and the fun the little’s enjoyed.  Our small hill is always a great place to sled!:

 

        

   

I look forward to a bit of warm weather and a break from the children.  I can send them ALL out in the beauty of a fenced in yard and watch them interact, fight, and hopefully get along for a short period.  We can take plenty of walks, visit multitudes of parks, and enjoy having my Noelle home, all the time! 

Meeting Maizey May

Finally I got to surround myself with the delicate, intoxicating freshness of a newborn!  Born on January 23rd (Uncle Alex’s birthday) my sister and her husband welcomed in to this wild and crazy world a beautiful baby girl.  As previously mentioned, we were riddled with sickness and kept our distance from Little Miss Maizey May.  Finally, the sickness haze lifted and we were able to meet this precious addition. 

She’s soft, and sweet.  She smells like a newborn and I had no problem inhaling her scent.  It’s amazing how quickly you forget just how small newborns are.  Zane became the giant baby, walking around preforming such big kid tasks as Maizey was held and slept peacefully in our arms.  The girls adored her and loved holding her.  Noelle liked being the experienced one and guided her arms around Maizey easily. 

We all loved having another little one in the house and Maizey was passed around lovingly.  We were even about to get a picture (Noelle had put on pajama’s at this point and Zane had taken off his pants) of all the Goodhue Grandchildren. 

It was a great visit, only made better by the presence of a new little soul.  The next time we see Maizey see will have grown by leaps and bounds, but for now we will remember our first meeting and the sweet innocence that was her newborn perfection! 

Another Growing Great Post

Validation

“Dude, I’m Sick"

All the kids are sick.  A mean, angry virus has invaded their little bodies.  Temperatures have crested 104 degrees with a wickedly bad cough.  The fever surrounds them and overtakes everything.  Their skin burns my hand when I caress them.  I can feel their tiny hearts beating rapidly and feel their chest rise and fall in deep shallow breaths. 

They lay around, drained and tired as they try to fight it.  Food is hard to get down and energy is gone.  Their eyes are tiny slits and pale skin dons rosy cheeks.  Bodies are surrounded in blankets from the chill then quickly shed as sweat breaks out and the fever comes down.

Medicine eases the fever and some energy will return for a bit.  I wonder why I can’t seem to contain the virus, but then find three children perched on the kitchen table.  Max, Violette, and Zane are in a circle, coughing in each other’s faces trying to see who is the loudest.  I can almost see the flying germs and try to quickly separate this weird display of sibling enjoyment (seriously, they were giggling and enjoying themselves during this).

Nights have been long as their fevers peak and sleep doesn’t come to their tired bodies.  They just want to cuddle and be held.  Tom’s arms seem to provide the most comfort and Max seeks them at all costs.  Zane finds comfort in me.  He is still very much dependent on nursing and I gladly give in multiple times during the night, hoping to supply him with all the antibodies my milk can to aide in the fight against this ugly thing.  The girls are more easily comforted by me laying with them until they finally drift off into a light slumber.  I crept out of their room, desperately seeking my own bed and satin pillow.

We keep doses of medicine on our dressers, ready to doll out to the children.  Staying on top of the fevers seems to be the only way to keep a bit of sanity.  When we lapse, they spike. 

This will soon pass, but until it does the days will continue to be long and nights ever longer.  “Dude, I’m sick” as Max puts it. 

Besides sickness on Sunday we had our first experience with the meeting of scissors and hair.  I noticed, after bathing my dear, sweet Violette, that as her hair dried it stood straight up in the front, and was much shorter than I remember.  I took a closer look and sure enough an obvious assault of baby fine hair.  I grilled Violette and my sweet little one completely tossed her sister under the bus saying, “Well did it!, she cut my hair yesterday.”  I knew better and after some more questioning Violette admitted she did it.  Oh that little one is trouble with an adorably expressive face.  Now she looks like she has some bangs to adorn that cute face!

Evolution

I wrote another post for the blog Growing Great, I am really enjoying writing for them. Evolution of a Mom

Camera Down

My camera is broke. I miss it. I have realized I take a lot of pictures, almost every day at home.  The boys being cute, or Violette dancing around and then striking a random pose is nice to capture.  It works, just no flash and sadly the winter lends way to a lack of natural light and therefore leaves dark, grainy pictures.

Tom and I talked, discussed and decided to embark on an exciting adventure.  This adventure (I’m referring to it as this otherwise I just get overwhelmed and start to panic with fear of the unknown) will consume a lot of our time.  Closets will be cleaned, lots of stuff purged, you know, work.  As far as details go, until things are final I will leave it as it is. 

There seems to be a lull in exciting things going on around here.  Noelle continues to enjoy her inaugural year of school, making friends and expanding her little mind.  I volunteer once a week in the library, serving as her class’s librarian.  I am able to meet her classmates and be involved with the school.  I really enjoy the energy of 26 kindergarteners and their fidgety ways.

Max starts up his own extra curricular activity tomorrow. The local community center is offering basketball for three and four year olds.  Max is stoked and seems to like bragging to his sisters that he will be the soul basketball player in our house.  Although, his outbursts are continuing, some days draining all patience from me.  Other days they are nonexistent.  Max has become a gentle and compassionate big brother to Zane.  He wrestles him down with great ease, displaying genuine tenderness and love while encouraging some typical brotherly behavior.  They laugh and giggle and bring smiles to my face.

Slender and tall, our Violette keeps us on our toes.  She can throw down a wicked tantrum.  Screams expel from her throat that are high pitched and shrill.  As soon as we pick her up to put her in time out she turns it off in a dramatic fashion.  She wraps her little arms around us and says, “I stopped.  I love you.  I’m sorry”.  Oh, she can play us well!  When not being dramatic she loves herself some makeup.  She will put her hands on her hips and say, “I need to put makeup on” as she runs into her room and shuts the door.  A few minutes later out emerges a little clown.  Bright eye shadow is plastered all over and she is beaming with pride.  “I look beautiful” she will state in a matter of fact way.  If you try to remove the hag like makeup she puts up a big fight. 

Oh my baby boy is growing.  He’s tall.  I mean really tall for a mere 14 months.  2t clothing fits him perfectly.  He plays me.  He plays me like a fiddle at night.  This boy can scream and he does until he gets, “boooob” as he calls it.  The screaming wakes up all the children and I give in.  This isn’t a one time a night thing, but 4 to 5 times a night.  He knows that I’ll give in!  His vocabulary is expanding too.  Boob is a favorite word, one I’m not so found of as he bellows is out, in public and yanks at my shirt.  Others that have been added to his vocab are up, cup, love you, down, stuck, car, are you (meaning, where are you).  The older children encourage him by asking him to repeat words.  This is helping a lot.  Hence learning the word, “boob”.  Zane can give a devilishly handsome smile and knows just when to flash it, when I’m at my wits end.  Chubby and snuggly, I’ll keep him my baby forever.

That’s all for now.  We’ll keep on keeping on, as I try to wrangle the troops.