Tales of a Fulltime Mom: Duncan's Birthday & Sleeping "In"

This past Sabbath was Duncan's 36th birthday. The original plan to celebrate was for Ron and Elaine to watch the kids while we went out to Indian but after seeing Colby's outburst when I left him at their house last week, I quickly revised that plan. No way would I enjoy an outing as I was sure to be thinking about whether Colby was screaming his head off at home. I was going to just let Duncan go with Bruce, Jennifer, Allen, and Tangie but he said he would miss me too much (awww!) so in the end, we ended up leaving the three bigger kids at the Bergherm's house with the babysitter and took Colby with us. What a little bugger. His being there scared me for a second though. When we arrived, I went looking for a highchair with him under my arm when an older gentleman with a British accent stopped me as I walked by his table. "You can't have him in here!" he said. I stopped quickly thinking to myself, "Is there some rule about babies being in here in the evening??" But then he continued on, "He's too young to get hooked on curry!!" Whew. You got me.

Fortunately Colby was very good and now that he eats solids, at least we were able to pass some of the time feeding him. Meanwhile, I had something called malai kofta which is sort of like a meatball made out of cheese and vegetables. I'm always so nervous about ordering something and not liking it but honestly, I've been dreaming about having it again ever since. It was so good. After the meal, the guys left to go back to our place to watch a movie while the ladies came with me and we were off to the consignment sale which was ending that evening with the 50% off portion. I found a few good deals and then later that evening checked my account for how much I sold...looks to be about $125 so I sold more than I bought. I'm happy with that. The maternity stuff was a dud though. I only sold like 5 out of 45 items. Clearly people aren't looking for maternity items there.

Colby is strategically hiding behind Jennifer.

Not the greatest picture but let the record show we did give Duncan a birthday cupcake and sang happy birthday.

Saturday night was the start of Daylight Savings time so I was curious to see how that would all play out. When Colby awoke, I joked that it was the first time he had ever done so with a "7" as the first number. Right after that, I thought to myself, what if I don't tell Colby that the clocks sprang forward an hour? Maybe he'll just sleep until 7:00 every morning. Intriguing thought. Usually I start the going-to-bed process (changing him and nursing him) at 7:15 because frankly, he's grumpy and tired by then. But that timing is sometimes a hassle because we don't really eat dinner until between 6:45 - 7:00 and I feel rushed to get the kitchen cleaned up before putting him to bed. And plus, we are sometimes out and about on the weekends. Putting him down at like 8:00 works out better anyway. So that is what we've done and it's worked out quiet nicely. We had another 7:00 wake up on Monday but now it's gone to about 6:40 but I'm still happy. The other three adjusted just fine back to their 8:30 bed time/7:45 wake up. It's all hunky dory until we have to fall back (or when we go to Canada in August and go forward another hour).

This week my big accomplishment was getting my taxes done and filed. I actually had them done weeks ago but when I ran the error check on TurboTax, it came up with an error in the charitable contribution section where I had listed everything I gave to Goodwill. At first, I spent a bunch of time trying to fix it thinking I had indeed made an error. But after about 20 minutes, I gave up and did a search on whether other people were having an error and sure enough, it was a known error....with no solution. I had recently joined Twitter, basically for this exact purpose - - to contact a company when I'm having a problem. So I tweeted a message to TurboTax asking them when this would be fixed. The next day they tweeted back and said "It's been fixed!" I was all impressed with their speed of resolution until I clicked on how to fix it and it said "The software has been updated. Please go to the charitable contributions section, delete what you put in, and re-import it." Uh yeah. I didn't import anything. I entered it all by hand. So the only solution was to delete and re-enter everything. What a pain. I literally had hundreds of lines I had to enter because each and every clothing item (of which there are many) has to be put in. Thanks a lot TurboTax! My feelings of ill will towards then were at least tempered by the fact that we are getting a nice refund this year after having to pay last year.

We had a pretty quiet week this week. School is going decently. Calleigh has finished memorizing the Old Testament books and has moved on to the New Testament. She makes me chuckle though. She can get through all of those Habbukuk, Haggai, Obadiah, etc. books with the such ease but we're a few books into the New Testament and each time to start out with, she has to sit there for a minute and think "What's my cousin's name? Oh yeah. Matthew!" Apparently easy ones are harder to remember. We are in week 22 of 34 for school and as I project it out, we will be done in mid-June assuming we don't take any breaks. I was thinking we would be going until July so that is good news!

March is one of my favorite months when it comes to yard sales since the weather is just about perfect and people really start to get going with the sales. Today was one of those days. It was 75 degrees out with no clouds...a perfect day to be driving around. For all the complaints about Colby when we take long trips or sometimes even ones over an hour, he actually is really good in the car during yard sales. He sleeps for an hour at the beginning and then once he wakes up, I usually get him out at each stop. He doesn't usually cry as we drive from place to place. Anyway, at one stop this morning, I had him under my arm and I noticed a slight odor coming from him. Time for a change when I finished up. A minute or two later, an elderly lady who was running the sale stopped to admire him and asked if she could hold him. I happily handed him over...and then, as I was now looking at his back, noticed the shadows of something on his shirt. A big shadow. I looked down at my WHITE sweater to see it covered in yellow poop. I hastily grabbed him back mumbling an apology over my shoulder as I dashed to the van. I took down his pants and poop pretty much went all over the place..him, me, the van, the pants I was about to change him into. You name it. You couldn't have done this at home, big guy? I used up my very last wipe getting it all taken care of although a bit later when things still smelled I did notice more poop on my pants and no wipes left. Oh well. That's having a baby for you! Afterwards, I went back to the lady to say sorry again but she was wearing all black and I don't think any got on here and regardless, she scoffed and said "I'm on old grandma. Don't worry about it." And as luck would have it, she was selling a bunch of Gap boy pants size 6 - 12 months for $0.50 so I guess it was meant to be. I bought a bunch and threw a pair on him.

Part of our route today took us to a the Boutique for a Week consignment sale where we ran into Magally Putt with her boys Mateo and Cruz.

A few quotes...

Duncan had taken the kids down to the pool on Wednesday for a quick swim but they came back after a few minutes because our key card wasn't working for some reason. This was the conversation on their way back.
Duncan: "Sorry guys. I guess it wasn't in God's plan that we go swimming today."

Aubree: "If only Adam and Eve hadn't sinned."

Calleigh was miraculously helping me in the kitchen (this is usually Aubree's forte).

Calleigh: "I can't wait until I'm a teenage and I can do everything for you."

Me: "I know. Me too! That will be so great."

Calleigh: "You'll be old then."

Well, at least I'm apparently not old now. So there's that.

There was one thing of Brady's that I forgot to put down in last week's post. It's what he says when he doesn't know an answer to something.

Me: "Brady, how old are you going to be on your next birthday?

Brady: "You do it."

Me: "Brady, what color is this shirt?"
Brady: "Say it."

At first, you would think he's being polite and letting you give the answer but then you realize the he doesn't know. He never,ever says "I don't know." It's always one of the answers above and he says it with a little smile on his face.

Some closing pictures.