Bathing Baby

How does a little girl learn how to bathe her baby?  By watching her mother of course!  Because I have been tending baby Raegann for several weeks now, there has been a few times when her diaper explosions have called for a bath.  So this is what little Rue has learned:

First, you hold baby high above your head and plop her right in the tub.  Making a BIG splash-which really is quite funny if you ask Christopher Robin!

Then brother wipes the water out of baby's eyes.

Then you test the water with your wrist to make sure it is not too hot.

And since it is just right

 you

 dunk baby face down and swish her all around until she is completely clean.

Then you take her out all sopping wet, which surprisingly gets Mommy very wet too!

Then you wring baby out and hang her up to dry!

Plugging along

Here in Iowa we are just plugging along.  There is nothing really exciting to report from our neck of the woods.  March 1st is this week, and surprisingly, Ryan and I will be a little sad to see his 4 months on general surgery go.  With the new regulations that hit the medical field a few months ago, life on this rotation has been predictable.  He usually worked 12 days is a row, getting every other weekend off.  His shifts were 12  to 16 hours long, then he came home.

Oral surgery is the only residency that is not regulated, or really changed by the new rules.  So back to the old grind we go. He will now work 3 weekends a month and take call for 24 hours at a time.  But  since Ryan loves sleepless nights fixing mandible fractures on drunks who get into bar fights, he really is just mostly looking forward to the excitement.

Jace is really excited to start pre-school on Thursday.  He is enrolled for 6 weeks.  I didn't think I would feel emotional about it, but I do.  It is hard for me, and especially hard for Ryan, to let him go off into the big world.  Kindergarten registration is this week too.  So Ryan and I have been having late night discussions on what to do about school for him next year. (For those of you who didn't know, Ryan was home schooled.)

And Gracie, she is at a marvelous age.  She just spends her day not worrying about anything at all.  Everything for her is a new adventure or discovery.

Her latest thing- is thinking she should be allowed to wear a plastic bag on her head.

Now what could be the harm in that?!!

Meeting Miss Erin

Yesterday, Jace and I had a little outing together. We went to meet Miss Erin. She is absolutely wonderful. We spent about 30 minutes with her, and fell in love.  

She has been teaching pre-school for the past 8 years.  She just had an opening in her class, and she offered it to Jace. He was so excited.

I think the real draw draw for him was the bin or cars he saw peering out at him.

Annie took his picture to put in his "cubby."

Then he took a look around the room.

When he was done looking he declared,  "it's really neat, but I wish I could bake a cake all by myself." 

His response totally made me chuckle.  Where did that come from?  

So I guess starting March 1st, my little man will be having an "adventure" a few afternoons a week.  I am not totally sure how I feel about it. 

 

Missing in action

The Dr. should be writing this post because he took all these pictures of Robin and Rue, but since he is off being the breadwinner, I will have to suffice.  On Saturday, when I woke up, I felt trashed.

Ryan, being the nurturing husband that he is, took the kids for the morning/day, and left me to rest --and my sweet Dr. gets so much less sleep than I do, but that is the caring man I married. 

He bundled up Robin and Rue and off to Willow Creek park they went.  He agreed to take some pictures for me, (for this blog really) he was reluctant, but I am so glad he agreed because he took some great pictures.

Gracie is our dare-devil. Ryan calls her "spunky-lady."  She is not intimidated in the slightest by those tall slides.

 Ryan said he was really impressed with Jace's ability to kick around the soccer ball. 

So maybe Jace will be starting soccer this year!

They threw big rocks in the creek which shattered the ice and made impressive splashes, then they came home a few hous later,

 to find me still in bed!

But since Dad is so much fun, the kids didn't even notice that I went missing for the rest of the day!!

A series of unfortunate events

On Valentine's Day, awhile after we had gotten home from speech therapy, I set Robin and Rue loose to play while I tended to the needs of the baby. I was downstairs for about 20 minutes and could hear them playing Gracie's favorite game called "Ding-Dong, Daddy's home."  Jace says this phrase in a sing-songy voice then they run and hide in the couch pillows.  Oh, she loves it!!

This time they had gotten carried away, and when I came back upstairs I saw this mess!  I felt so many emotions flood through me when I saw what they had done.  While I knew they were having a blast, I also immediately felt dismayed, and overwhelmed, and angry.  I was just to the point in the day where I needed to put Gracie down for a nap and get started on the baking so that I could have the cookies made in time to deliver by 7:00PM.  Most of  Jace's friends are in school and in bed by 8:00PM. 

So Christopher Robin got an earful.  He had actually emptied the couch pillows last week which had resulted in me, Ryan, and himself spending an evening on our hands and knees cleaning up.  So I thought that he had learned that it was too much work to play "clouds" again anytime soon.  

So my little man spent the rest of the day cleaning while I was baking in the kitchen.

He was still at it after the sun was down and the windows went black.  My heart still feels heavy when I look at these pictures of him cleaning. I feel that I could have handled the situation better. I was probably too harsh, letting my anger take over.

  

He loves making sugar cookies so I saved him some dough so he could make his cookies after the mess was cleaned up.

 We then had a quick dinner and set out by 7:15 PM to deliver the cookies.

We delivered them to 6 different families, and

Jace had so much fun with his Dad.

He made sure to wear his hood so no one would recognize him!

He snuck slowly up to the doorstep and rang the bell then

away they flew, Ryan with Grace in his arms.

Do you like Gracie's bare feet?

Then unfortunately, right as we were about done for the evening, Christopher Robin slipped on some ice while running back to the car and took a nasty fall right on his tailbone.

He couldn't sit down without pain until the next day.

And that is how our Happy Valentine's Day went.

So here's to hoping that next year will be better.

Lucky woman

I was looking through the pictures I took yesterday and I came across this one. Here are my 3 loves sitting all in a row- Ryan, Jace, and Grace.  I have much to celebrate on this Valentine's day. 

I woke up early this morning to get ready for baby Raegann and of course I saw a card left on the counter for me from my sweetheart.  He is such a good man.  I really am a lucky, although I consider myself a blessed woman.  I had to wait awhile, (I was over 29 years old when we got married) and I had to go through a lot of sorrow before I was prepared to have him enter my life. And now when I look at him I feel so happy and so grateful and so blessed. He has given me 2 beautiful children, and would love to give me even more!

Today, our plans include going to speech therapy (aka  school) at 11:00AM, then I am going to come home and try to gather the strength I need to spend the afternoon baking. In carrying on my family tradition, I want to make heart shaped sugar cookies with pink frosting. Then this evening the Dr. and Jace will do some doorbell ditching.  Last year it was such a blast- Jace loved it!  So hopefully a few lucky people in our town will get some delicious cookies left on their doorstep! 

I am also wishing that we could go to Virginia and Utah today to drop in on our loved ones there: the Ramsey's, sweet Pat, Ms. Burke, and our entire family, but we can't, so we are sending you our love via this blog.  

Happy Valentine's Day to each of you!

Love, Ryan, Bronwynn, Jace and Grace

Tot Time

On Friday morning I actually packed up 3 kids and hauled them to Tot Time.  Tot time is held at our community recreational center.  It is a gym filled with outdoor play toys and bounce houses.  Jace and Gracie love it. 

This Friday we arrived at 11:27AM. It ends at 11:30 AM.  So for a wonderful 3 minutes Christopher Robin was able to drive his favorite truck.  He gave it a quick inspection then took it for a spin. (I love to watch his big flat feet shuffle as he drives it across the floor.)

He usually tracks down a basketball to haul around in it's bed, but this time he didn't have any luck catching one.

They were already putting them away.

He of course signals for every turn, because that is what a responsible driver would do. 

And Miss Gracie loves the slides. 

So that is what she did over and over again, for a  whole 3 minutes.

Then Christopher Robin helped haul all the toys into the closet, and we went home a much happier bunch.

It probably was worth the drive across town.

Thirty-eight to eighty

I have seriously aged from thirty-eight to eighty this week. It feels awesome. Let me just tell you, it is something to look forward to. 

By Wednesday this week, the coke came out of storage. We all needed it. I was so exhausted and I ached from head to toe. 

Gracie had worked herself to death trying to tend our new little baby, and I had worked myself to death trying to keep her from tending the baby.

And Jace loves Coke like his Grammy, so he was more than happy to see it come out of the basement. They didn't know they were getting the caffine free stuff, but mine-- was the real deal.

But now that it is Friday tomorrow, I think we are in a good place.  My two babies can now sit on the couch together and watch Sesame Street with out touching each other,

and that is a huge accomplishment!