He is....

He is the Happiest baby around!

The doctor said so! Said he hadn't met a happier baby.

Happy Happy Happy!

Six months old!

Height 25.25 inches (17% for those interested)
Weight 13lbs 8oz (0%)

Meeting all his social and behavioral milestones.

Charming everyone he meets.  Happy and content pretty much all the time!

This was Doodle's response to the doctor telling him to put on some weight, "who me??"

So he happens to be about the size of a 3 month old. Everyone he meets is impress with how alert he is! That is, until they find out he is quite a bit older than they guessed.  He looks proportional, healthy, and of course alert. As I told the doctor, it is only when trying to put him on some dumb chart that there appears to be any concern. The doctor did humor me and we tried a couple of different charts, one for breastfed babies and even checked to see if he was better on target if he was a preemie -which he wasn't born premature- and no luck getting him to register on the chart. Sigh, I'll play along and see if I can squeeze some more calories into him. I am grateful the doctor wants a weight check in a month, not in a week.

Saturday morning fun

A quick and (I think) funny story.

This morning, this beautiful Saturday morning, one more day of gymnastics at blessed 8AM.  The younger three kids and I headed to the grocery store. I had been there the night before, but forgotten one item, so when it was time to check out, I could NOT go to the 15 or less line because, naturally I had more items.

The infant carts were not accesable, so I relented and agreed to a green car cart. I squished all 3 in so it really looked more like a clown car.

Especially once Kman decided that on top or hanging off the side was much more fun. I really hate car carts.

It has been a long week, and today had a lot packed into it as well. So as my body protested being awake, I decided to treat myself to a chai latte at the coffee store inside the grocery store.

-As a side, isn't it crazy how much we can now buy and do inside a grocery store?!?!?

I parked the clown car the cart at the end of the counter and joined in line. The kids were staying with the cart which is about all I was asking for at that moment. After a couple of minutes the kids in the cart started, loudly, asking, "Mom, what are you doing? Mom, what are you doing?" repeatedly.

After several questions and realizing they are probably not talking to the man ahead of me or behind me, I replied, "Pretending I don't have children."

Chuckles from the men. However, it satisfied the children. Had CJ been a part of the crew, she would of responded with a, "Mooommm, you can't do that!" in her all knowing 8 year old way.

The man in front of me made a comment that he had 6 kids. The man behind said he had none.

It was now my turn to order. I gave my order, I pulled out my cash and loudly (because right now he only has one volume, loud or extra loud) the 4 year old proclaims,

"Mom, I have to go potty."

Of course you do I think in my head. I turn and gave him the signal to be quiet and told him he'd have to wait.

This tired momma was getting her chai latte NOW!

Sweetness gave a presentation at school on porcupines. One of her favorite facts: They often fall out of trees and occasionally impale themselves with their own quills. She did use the word poke for the tender kindergarten ears listening to her report.  WAY TO GO!

Last week

Last week was a long one.  This little guy had a rough night Monday -No foolin' and on Tuesday I found his ear to be draining. Wednesday he got on antibiotics and is feeling much better. At this point it is assumed that his ear drum ruptured as well, but there was too much drainage to see at the time of his appointment.

But look at what a big boy he was to leave the warm, wet, lavender infused wash cloth at his ear.  He's also a tiny peanut! Milking the "baby" status, and I'm enjoying every minute I can!  Since his last check up, he had only gained 4 ounces. That would be 4 ounces in 4 weeks. At this age, this is not the rate of growth he should be having.  The antibiotics however, have caused a bit of tummy issues for him and he has had diarrhea. No fun! So I am happy to say, that at this time, he seems to have maintained his weight, 12lbs 15oz. I know the doctor would like him to gain before his 6 month appointment, in about 2wks, but I will be happy if he has just kept the little bit that he had gained before getting sick. He has started to eat bananas. I hoped it would help with his tummy a bit. He is starting to get into the bananas!

Doodle next to "big baby".  He still has some catching up to do.  With all the love his siblings shower on him every day, he is a happy and content baby.  Rolling around, starting to scoot a bit while on his back. His latest "trick" is grunting. He likes to grunt when Kman is around, since he grunts back. Oh the brothers are already "Grunting"...I see hours of stimulating conversations with these two.

Speaking of his big brother, Kman managed to do a bit of damage to Daddy's car this past weekend. After climbing to the top, on the way down, he explained, his bum hit fast.

GAH! In his growth spurt, his listening ears have not kept up. We are working on that this week.

Garden

How does my garden grow?

Surprisingly, it is doing quite well. Surprising, because it is not normal for anything except tumble weeds to grow here. Surprising, because I may or may not have on one or more occasions forgotten to turn off the water and attempted to drown all plants. Surprising because I might have thought the plants had enough water only to find them all laying on the ground trying to dig their way to find their own water the next day.

In fact, it has been so pretty and doing, over all, so well, I might have enjoyed the color too much and missed harvesting something.

Like the broccoli -see the pretty petite yellow flowers? And the cauliflower.

However, look how well others are doing:

 The Romaine Lettuce looks refreshing

 The kale is nearly out of control and we are anxiously waiting for the peas to be ready.

At last count, I have 29 potato plants. These are blue potatoes. When the sprouts first come up, the leaves are a rich purple color. We also have red potatoes coming.

 Squash from seed is coming too! I planted 4 varieties and I think we have 12 plants. They are spread out enough, I think we got all 4 varieties coming even! Spaghetti and summer squash, zucchini and pumpkin!

The tomatoes are beginning to form fruit. The peppers and cucumbers are doing well also.

Before I had a large area to plant, I had a couple of containers and planted onions.

They are doing well!  I have approximately 30 onions of 3 different varieties planted. In the middle are iris's, which I'll transplant to the big permanent garden later, when one does that, I don't actually know.

It's not all just green though:

 The daffodils are blooming and I have several colors of my favorite Gerber daisies.

This weekend we picked our first fruits of our labor:

Spinach, kale, romaine lettuce, and a little bit of cauliflower we could save. I trimmed back the broccoli, maybe we'll get some small shoots, maybe not, it's pretty warm now.

I know my North Dakota friends got more snow this weekend. Here is my sharing of spring and nicer weather to come!

Spring

 We found grass.

 And a slight hill.

 And rolled and rolled and rolled!

We also fed fingers to the ginormous turtle.

Twister

Twister, a game for all ages!

 Put my right leg where?

That was fun, let's take a nap.

March

March really did usher in some nice weather for most of the month.  We took advantage of it!  The next couple of posts will show you all we have been up to!

And in case you were wondering, and I know you were, this post was written while nursing the baby and directly the older kids on toy room clean up. Yup, I'm pretty talented.

 Half day kindergarten, sometimes, allows us to do some fun adventures afterwards. This day we took friends and went to the zoo.

 Chillin'

 Elephants!

 Checking out the baby Anteater and momma

 The each took turns reading the map.

We all had fun.  I know I have said this before, but our zoo is a really small, but nice sized zoo. It kills a couple of hours and animals are easy to see. Little legs can manage it on their own and there are opportunities for hands on experiences too. We don't get there often, but each time is a lovely walk in the park.

Hiking

We took a day of spring break and did a serious hike.  It turned out to be very serious.

What a way to celebrate 5 months! In his first back pack hike!

Lunch break and a time to cool off by the falls.

 Kicking and stretching and enjoying the shade.

 Ready to head back, refreshed.

 

We hiked with friends, a group of more then 20! Since I had the baby in the back pack, I didn't carry extra water as I normally would. I actually ended up not carrying any water, and the kids drank most of theirs on the first half of the hike. The hike ended up being about a mile longer than I thought, it was 6.5miles. It has about a 2000ft change in elevation -both ways remember! And instead of being a perfect 75-78* it was 90* as we got off the trail. The last half mile was rough.

I think the coyotes were waiting for us to decide to sit down and let them eat us, and the middle two might have volunteered for that if they thought it was an option. Thankfully, Wendy appears to have decided to keep us friends after that last half mile, and for that, we're all grateful!  Once everyone was re-hydrated, all wanted to go again.

CJ actually went to gymnastics right afterwards for 3 hours. She got her stretching done after the hike and felt good. Sweetness and I should have also stretched, oops!