Tales of a Fulltime Mom: Winslow Eve Brace

This week the big excitement was the birth of my niece, Winslow Eve. My brother Shawn and Camille had their baby girl in the wee hours of the morning on Monday (26th), a few days late. She weighed 8 lbs, 13 ounces and was 21 1/2 inches long. Everything went very smoothly and Winslow is perfect. My parents now have seven grandchildren with four girls and three boys. And the ten cousins now have sixteen kids between them although, alas, nobody is currently pregnant...at least that I am aware of. Who will be next?!

Going back...we had a nice Sabbath last week that culminated with a trip out "west." By out west, I mean that we traveled west about 10 or 15 miles to Clermont. During Duncan's bike rides on Sunday mornings, he has passed this lovely park/beach next to a lake in Clermont and wanted to take us over there to see it. I don't like to take many leisurely drives because of Colby but we went for it. We haven't explored very much to that side of us so it was nice to see some new things. And believe it or not, there are actually hills/small mountains to be found in Florida.

This contraption went up and down like an elevator and Brady couldn't get enough of it.

Sunday morning we had to be up and at 'em. The girls were participating in the Miriam Kittrell 5k and Fun Run event at Forest Lake Education Center (FLEC). Their race (which is for like kids ages 4 - 7) started at 8:30 and then the 5k which Duncan participated in started at 9:30. The girls had to line up by ages and sex and then started about every 60 seconds with the second grade boys going first and then the pre-k girls (which would be Aubree) started last. I was very pleasantly surprised to see that Aubree did it all by herself. I was concerned that she would want one of us to run along on the side or stand with her at the start line or something but nope. Hopefully this means she's getting over that - -she's actually stayed at Sabbath School by herself for the last few weeks so we're making progress. Their run was only about a third of a mile or maybe a little more. I don't think they ran the whole way but they were definitely running at the end and really enjoyed themselves. They give them a number at the finish line in the order they finished and Calleigh was # 69 and Aubree was # 133 out of 142 I believe.

Lining up to start the race. She was number 56.

Duncan did great in 5k...way better than he had done in it two years ago when he last ran it there. He's been running a lot over the last year so he's gotten a lot faster. He did it in about 22 minutes and finished 40th out of 442. Some of those kids amaze me though. It's amazing how fast some little kids can run. But the real tough thing to swallow was when we saw a lady running in pushing a stroller...and VERY pregnant. That was very sobering for this non-runner.

Waiting for Daddy to come by.

There he is!

Uncle Ricky came to watch and that added to the fun. The school had a $4 breakfast which we enjoyed before hitting the playground for a bit and then heading to Costo for a few things. We ran into Rob and Lisa Deininger there after seeing them at the race and chit chatted for a couple of minutes before they moved ahead of us to go into the store at which Brady exclaimed "They're going to beat us!!" Apparently he had racing and winning on his mind.

Brady didn't put up a fuss about not being able to run with the girls but he was a disappointed. As if to prove that he is fast enough to participate, he's been running non-stop all over the house all week. This is how our first conversation went:
Brady: "Want to see me run really fast?"
Me: "Yes!"
Brady: "Okay, do to the count of three."
Me: "1-2-3, Go."
Brady, "NO. Say on the COUNT OF THREE."
Me: "O-kay. On the count of three."
And off he went.

We told him yesterday that he'll be doing a fun run up in Maine during campmeeting and now he's running with more gusto through the kitchen, dining room, and living room.

After some shortened naps, we were off again this time dropping the three kids (you didn't think I'd actually leave Colby somewhere, right?) at Ron and Elaine's while Duncan and I attended a baby shower for a friend of his at this boss's house. We had a nice time talking to Duncan's colleagues whom I really like. Duncan was lamenting to one of them about how difficult the swimming portion of the triathlon is that he's doing when the colleague's wife piped up that she had just recently done a 12.5 miles swim around Key West. A few minutes later when I was getting some food, I was standing next to the lady and happened to look down to see a prosthetic leg. So even more impressive!

Colby sitting with Melissa Keller, who coincidentally was the organizer of the race earlier in the day. Look at his face. You are NOT my mommy!

Awww, man. Wouldn't you love to have this pool?

Sitting with Daddy. Much better!

Wednesday evening found me attending Adventurers with the girls. Normally Duncan goes since I have to put Colby to bed but this was our week to teach the honor for Aubree's Little Lamb class. I had put Duncan down to teach it but he really didn't want to so I finally relented even though it would mean I would have to pump which I hate. I already had some milk saved but of course since I missed nursing him before bed, I had to pump that evening. Inevitably, I'll always forget and then at about midnight I'll remember. Ughh! Anyway, I teased Duncan that he can speak before big wigs at work but he doesn't want to talk to a few 4-year olds? Wimp! But I actually enjoyed myself. The topic was health which is really easy to find stuff to do. At one point I was talking about eating sweets and having a sweet tooth and one boy commented that he didn't have a sweet tooth, he had sweet teeth which I thought was pretty cute. I also come to the realization that Aubree is much better behaved than most of her class although maybe it was because I was there. Lest you think I'm tooting my own horn, I'm pretty sure I can't say this same thing for Calleigh.

Thursday morning we had to head over to other side of town for Colby to get his second part of his flu shot. Half my trip was pretty disconcerting. I couldn't get my seat belt to buckle. I didn't have time to stop and fiddle with it since I didn't want to be late for our appointment. Have you ever driven without it on? It's a very, very weird feeling. I kept looking in it to see if something had fallen in there but didn't see anything. Meanwhile, Aubree was freaking out in the back seat although I wasn't clear if her concern was for my safety or that we would get pulled over and given a ticket. While I was driving, I made a call to the dealership to see how easy it would be to get a replacement. While I was on hold with them and at a light, I looked over at the passenger seat belt and saw a little plastic piece in the holder portion that I didn't see in mine. So I wiggled the release button and voila!...the plastic piece popped into place. Phew. I was already imagining having to skip yard sale day to take the van in. A nightmare for sure!

On Friday I took the three older kids - -I need to come up with a catchy name for the three of them so that I don't need to keep calling them "the three older kids" - - to Ron and Elaine's. Elaine was taking them to the see the play "Busy Town" at the Orlando Repertory Theater. Jennifer and some other home schooled kids were going and they were able to get a cheaper rate because of being a school group. It was somewhat crummy weather so there weren't many yard sales on the docket. Fortunately since I only had Colby, I was able to go to the Salvation Army when I ran out of yard sales. I picked up a couple of Safari themed items for his room which is still largely undecorated. Poor fourth kid. Actually, sometimes I wonder if I should even bother because I figure in a few years he'll be in Brady's room and then Colby's room will be up for grabs for something else. But then, I feel bad looking at the blank walls so we shall plod on.

This week, a miracle happened. Seriously. Brady ate a vegetable other than a cucumber. We have cabbage planted in our garden and over the last month or so have been enjoying it in my favorite soup recipe. But then a distant relative of Duncan's posted a recipe on Facebook for roasting cabbage in the oven like you do with broccoli, cauliflower, etc and it looked fantastic so I made a batch of it up. I pulled it out of the oven and set it on the island to cool. The kids all flocked over to see what it was and you could have blown me over with a feather when Brady took some off the tray and started downing it. All three of them did, in fact. Just wow. Here's the recipe in case anyone cares to give it a try.

Garlic Rubbed Roasted Cabbage Steaks

1 (approx 2lb) head of organic green cabbage, cut into 1″ thick slices
1.5 tablespoons olive oil
2 to 3 large garlic cloves, smashed
kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper
spray olive oil OR non-stick cooking spray

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 400F and spray a baking sheet with non-stick cooking spray. Pull outer leaf off cabbage (it’s usually dirty and nasty looking), cut cabbage from top to bottom (bottom being root) into 1″ thick slices.

2. Rub both sides of cabbage with smashed garlic.

3. Use a pastry brush to evenly spread the olive oil over both sides of the cabbage slices.

4. Finally, sprinkle each side with a bit of kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper.

5. Roast on the middle rack for 30 minutes. Carefully flip the cabbage steaks and roast for an additional 30 minutes until edges are brown and crispy. Serve hot and Enjoy!

He really seemed to like the parts that were burnt looking.

Sorry Colbs. All you get is a single leaf to suck on.

For at least the past week, I've been having problems with Brady waking up a lot earlier than I"m accustomed to. Typically the kids wake up about 7:30 - 7:45 but for whatever reason, Brady has been getting up at 7:00 and it's been getting progressively earlier. This morning it was 6:37. Now, I'm already up with Colby so it's not like he's waking me up but I usually I'm still half asleep sitting in the rocker in Colby's room nursing him and I'm jarred back to consciousness when I hear Brady yelling "Get me out of here." It's those same five words every morning. And then what to do with Brady because it's still dark out and I'm not about to turn the light on in Colby's room. He doesn't want to stay in his room and plus, I don't want him to be loud in there when Calleigh and Aubree are still asleep in the next week (although Aubree wakes up pretty much every time anyway). This morning with the 6:37 wake up was particularly bad because he got upset about something on the way to church and literally cried the whole way there. So that was fun. He ended up starting to fall asleep next to me during the church service so Jennifer took him and he slept the whole time on her lap. Anyway, this evening I decided we had to have a serious talk about this problem.
Me: "Brady, you need to stay sleeping until it's light outside. No getting up while it's still dark."
Brady: Just looking at me.
Me: "I don't want to hear you yelling 'Get me out of here.'"
Brady: "Okay, Mom. I'll just say "Don't get me out of here!"
Oh boy. But seriously, I think I need to put that light up clock I had gotten for the girls in his room.

Some other kid comments this week:

Me: "Brady, go get in the shower with Daddy."
Brady: "I want to take a tub with Colby."
Me: "No, Colby is going to go in the shower with me."
Brady: "Oh, a baby shower?"
I thought this was funny because we had gone to the baby shower and I wasn't sure Brady knew what we were talking about.

Brady: "Can Colby have one of my fish?"
Me: "No, he isn't big enough to have that yet."
Brady: "Yeah, Colby eats baby food and I eat guy food."

Aubree comes downstairs after quiet time while I'm working on something.
Aubree: "What can I do?"
Me (in a distracted voice) "I don't know. Why don't you go twiddle your thumbs or something?"
Aubree (in a serious voice): "Can you show me how to do that?"

A few other pictures...