Helping With Laundry

The girls have trouble understanding that when I'm folding laundry, they are not supposed to unfold it and throw the clothes around the room.  So to distract them, I let them wear some of Daddy's shirts.

 

Baby Hutson 2.0 at 13 Weeks

Well, you officially get to look at fat pictures of me for the next while, so get excited.



Baby Hutson 2.0 is now 13 weeks old.  We have said good-bye to the first trimester as well as good-bye to the dizziness and late afternoon/evening sickness.  Baby 2.0 is the size of a peach and has a head, arms, legs, a beating heart, vocal cords, and even intestines.

Lila seems to be taking all of this very well.

The Best Kind of Neighbors

We have a very sweet older woman who lives next door.  Her husband died a few years ago, and her only son and daughter-in-law live in Texas with her grandson.  We've helped her out with a few things, but honestly, we haven't really done much beyond Christmas cookies.  She flagged us down the other day, however, and gave us this dress that she bought for Lila! How sweet is that?

So Lila wore it to church yesterday, and then she and Johnny went over to our neighbor's house to say, "Thank you."



Johnny also brought her some oatmeal cookies and tried to hand them to her as she stood at the door.  She told him to stop until she could come outside to take them from him because she's Russian, and it's apparently a Russian superstition that you shouldn't pass food over the threshold. Who knew?



Lila prefers to just hold food in her mouth.  Like the raisins she had in her mouth the entire time I was trying to take her picture.

 

 Delicious. 

Pinterest Envy

I rarely peruse the "kids" section of Pinterest because it makes me feel like my kids are under-stimulated cave children who eat anything they get their hands on (I mean you really let your 18 month old play in a "sensory tub" filled with beans and you're NOT doing the Heimlich every 20 seconds? And edible play dough?  Remind me why we are encouraging eating art media again?).

But today, while everyone was napping, I found myself bored with the "food and drinks" section, so I hopped on over to "kids."  I got all excited to do messless finger paint with the kids and to practice their fine motor skills by putting stuff into other stuff.  So this is what our fun play time looked like before they got up from naps.



Then Little Sister got up first and immediately tried to open the Ziploc bags full of finger paint.  I couldn't find any tape to close them with, so that idea ended right there.  She did enjoy, however, putting straws into a milk jug.

And then Lila got up.  The game quickly turned into how quickly can you dump all the straws out and then leave the room and go upstairs so that mom has to clean it up.

I think I'll stick with looking at Christmas decorations.

First Sentences

Lila has been talking up a storm lately, so I wanted to make sure that I documented some of her first sentences.



The very first sentences that she said were variations on "Bye bye" and "Night night" with a person's name added.  For example: "Bye bye Dada"  "Night night baby."  Thrilling, I know.

The first interesting sentence that she said, however, was when she and I were in the car, and she had been rewarded with one of those applesauce pouch things.  She was upset because she couldn't get any more to come out, so she loudly proclaimed, "Mama, sceez it!"  Asking me, of course, to squeeze more of the applesauce up.

Now much of her day is spent asking for "More cackahs!", saying "Sossy" when she does something wrong, making different animal noises (including snail which is kind of a slurping sound), and identifying every object that she knows (which is pretty much dog, book, and bug).

We love our little Lila Margaret.  She is currently sitting in my lap while I'm trying to finish this begging that we watch the "puhpuh!" on youtube.

Socks

Lila found a sock in the living room yesterday and begged me to put it on her foot.  Because it was one of Little Guy's, I told her that I would go get her one of her own pairs of socks to wear.  Being the smart mom that I am, while getting a pair for Lila, I also got a pair for Little Sister thus avoiding a major screaming match of, "Mine! Mine! Mine!"  Actually girls, Daddy bought these, so they technically belong to him.  I digress.



Anyway, the girls haven't really worn socks since maybe April or May, and once I put them on, it was like they had no idea what these foot coverings were.  They were slowly and tenderly walking around the first floor, pointing to their feet and laughing to themselves about these ridiculous "ocks."

I wonder how they'll feel about pants.

The Hutson Family Vehicle

Well, while Johnny was gone for two weeks for National Guard, I did what every wife does when their husband is gone: buy a new car!  I've been scanning craigslist for two months looking for either a Toyota Highlander or a Honda Pilot.  We had very specific criteria because we were planning to pay with cash (no debt makes life better, folks!), so I had been looking and looking to no avail.

But finally, last week I found a great deal on a 2003 Honda Pilot.  It can fit all of our kids plus our double stroller and our groceries, which was the first criterion, and it's not a mini van, which was the second.



Lila was also very excited to find out that it has a DVD player.  We don't watch a lot of TV, but the drive out to our foster kids' visits is an hour round trip, so I popped in Beauty and the Beast, and Lila about had a conniption.  She was kicking her legs and laughing and kept yelling "Mama!" and then pointing to the DVD player.

She stopped laughing, though, the first time that the Beast came on.  After that she just said "Mama" over and over with a worried expression on her face.  We might just stick with Winnie the Pooh for today's visit.

PS. I might add that Lila inherited this fear of the Beast from my sister.  Our grandma didn't have a lot of movies (Old Yeller, Fantasia), but she did have Beauty and the Beast.  However, we could never watch it because Jessie, even as an elementary schooler, was too afraid of the Beast.  Will I ever be allowed to watch it?!  Sheesh.

Baby Hutson Two Point Oh Update

If you're anything like me, you might have forgotten that I am pregnant.  But I indeed am, and as pregnant people are wont to do, I went to the doctor's office yesterday.  I read Entertainment Weekly from May, peed in a cup, and got weighed.  Usually I hate getting weighed as a pregnant woman because every month you just get bigger and bigger, but this time around I actually lost weight from my last appointment.  Oops.  I don't know how it happened; I mean my meals typically consist of Lila's leftover macaroni and a Luna bar and the Veggie Straws that I find on the floor.  Ok maybe it's not that bad, but you get the picture.

So for the last 48 hours I've been eating whatever I want, telling myself that I'm not allowed to lose anymore weight.  I mean when can you ever say that to yourself? (I did, however, get a spam text message today asking me if I was tired of being fat.  I did NOT go to their website thank you very much.) Johnny has been out of town for the last week and a half for National Guard, so I decided to order Chinese food for dinner.  I got some crab rangoon, sesame chicken, and BROWN rice.  We wouldn't want to go too overboard now would we?



Some more fun news from the doctor has to do with my due date.  I don't know if you remember Lila's crazy entrance into the world, but long story short, they broke her collar bone in order to get all nine pounds of her out.  My doctor said that this time around, it's likely that the baby will be even bigger and will have the exact same problem.  Wonderful.  Another ogre child.  Anyway, the good news is that the doctor wants to induce me and will do it as early as 39 weeks if it's a big ol' ogre baby.  No waiting around for 41 weeks this time, Baby Hutson 2.0.  That also means that I pretty much have to get an epidural, so no going back and forth about whether or not I'm a good mom or a strong woman if I get one.  Bring on the pain meds.

So here's my plan for the next 29 weeks: eat, find my box of maternity clothes that I literally just put away, figure out how to wear a Baby Bjorn while pregnant, continue to allow Lila to wave to the new baby and kiss my belly, and don't eat cold lunch meat or unpasteurized cheese.

Party at the DMV

So on Thursday I got stopped by a police officer because the registration on my car was a month overdue.  I pulled the whole "Thank you so much for telling me! My husband usually takes care of it, but he's in the National Guard and is gone for two weeks." shtick and didn't get a ticket.  That did mean, though, that early Friday morning the whole Hutson clan had to go to the DMV.

When we got there, I realized that not only did I not have our double stroller, but Lila did not have any shoes on.  So I strapped Little Guy into the Baby Bjorn, put Lila in the umbrella stroller, and had Little Sister walk alongside me.  It didn't take long, however, for Little Sister to decide that she was going to be in charge of pushing Lila around the DMV.



They were the hit of the DMV.  All the workers were laughing at them, and Little Sister was dancing along to the oldies music playing while Lila sucked her thumb and rubbed her belly button.  The best part of the whole situation was when Little Sister wheeled Lila into the middle of the room and then ran away, stranding her.  Unfortunately for Little Sister, we could not leave Lila at the DMV and had to take her home with us.

Fostering Update

The last time I wrote anything on here about our fostering situation was back in March when I let everyone know that we were going to take in Little Guy's older sister ("Come and Knock on Our Door").  I have to be careful about what I post when it comes to fostering.  I can't use their real names; I can't show their faces; we pretty much have to pretend that they don't exist when it comes to the internet.



But they do exist! And they are a huge part of our lives, so I wanted to give a little update on what's going on, especially with another Hutson on the way.

We got Little Guy on March 11, and then his older sister (22 months at the time) came along the last week in March.  The first month with all three of them was really, really hard.  Johnny and I obviously weren't sleeping well because we had an infant, and Lila and Little Sister were having a really hard time getting along.  They had to learn to share everything and to not hit each other when they're angry...which we're still working on.

Slowly, very slowly four months have gone by since we got Little Guy.  Things have gotten better because we've all gotten used to each other and gotten into a routine.  The hardest part of the situation is always being in the land of the unknown when it comes to how long we will have them and where they are going.  A typical case lasts six to nine months with the goal always being to send the kids home if it's possible and safe, and we're moving into month five without a lot of forward motion.  We're praying for patience, and I do think I'm being granted that request to some extent.

Now that another Hutson is coming at the beginning of February, I am very eager to figure out where this case is going, but it's possible that you might see me at Trader Joe's in January with a giant belly and three kids in the shopping cart.  If that happens, I advise you to turn around and go to another store so that we don't ruin your shopping experience.

Chocolate Cupcake Brain Decay

I made chocolate cupcakes a few days ago, and I never got around to storing them in anything.  Instead of putting them in a Tupperware container, Johnny and I would just stick them back in the oven at night.  I'm sure you can see where this is going.



I not once, not twice, but thrice, have preheated the oven to very high temperatures, forgetting about the cupcakes, and not remembering them until I wonder why the kitchen smells like chocolate.  Seriously people, three days in a row.  And I still put them in the oven every night.  They aren't even cupcakes anymore...they're just formerly known as cupcakes.

The Special K Challenge

The other day, I was really craving Rice Krispie Treats.  I had some leftover marshmallows from decorating gingerbread houses (marshmallows don't go bad, right?), but I didn't have any Rice Krispies.  I mean who does?  One thing I did have, though, was Special K (gross, don't ask me why we had it).  So I looked around on the good old internet and found a recipe for Rice Krispie Treats using Special K.

They were delicious!



And the best part is that Johnny and I ate the entire thing in less than 24 hours, which is the Special K Challenge, right?  I don't know why we didn't lose five pounds like they promise.

Los Frigoles Negros

For some reason Lila has been carrying a can of black beans around the living room with her for the last two days.