Life With Three

What is life like with 3 kids? Well, quite simply it is exhausting.
- Learning how to pay attention to all the kids is hard especially with a newborn that needs all of mom's attention.
-Diapers are everywhere!!!!!!!! Two kids in diapers is insane.
-Two kids who don't talk-- at times difficult- especially when you think if you just had the time then one of them would probably be talking more.
-Nap times are not synced at all so you go through the routine with one just to repeat two more times then have one wake up just as you finish. This equals= no down time.
-Or sometimes you get about 35 minutes and realize this is the only time you have during the day to wash dishes, fold clothes, put away toys, and etc.
-Having one child wish the baby were not there = constant vigilance or there is a chance new baby may actually be injured in someway.
-Having one child who can actually vocalize his needs is good but also makes you see that you aren't going to win mom of the year when he tells you that he just wants more positive attention.
-I have stopped drinking caffeine after 4pm so I can actually fall asleep around 9pm in order to get enough sleep.
-I have to drink two cokes as soon as I wake up and occasionally pop a few advil because I have a headache from lack of sleep.
- My husband insists that I have 1 beer with dinner to calm down.

Luke Happenings
- Luke may not talk but he is testing boundaries for sure! His big thing is the street or parking lots. He will walk to the end of our yard then look back and put the tip of his toes in the street to see what you will do.
-Luke hates holding hands. Hates it. He would much rather lay down in the parking lot and refuse to get up.
-When you say be gentle or don't touch the baby's head he will grab the baby's foot, look at you, and then squeeze as hard as he can.
-He takes his diaper off now.
-He put a whole roll of toilet paper in the toilet (at least he didn't flush)
-He knows enough to know that he doesn't want to say or sign sorry. After timeout we tell him to say sorry to Thomas and he shakes his head no.
-He has what we(Pete) calls the Becky Weigel temper. Sadly, it is true.
-We have noticed that when Jack isn't around Luke is much more willing to show us what he knows and even attempts to talk, so maybe having Jack in school and once the baby is a bit older, he will start talking and showing more of his interests to us. I have realized that he knows his shapes and many letter sounds, but I have only seen this when Jack is MIA.

Still we get out and have fun.

We Survived

I survived my 4 days of solo parenting. I didn't realize how tired I was until Pete came home- then I sort of crashed for a day, but I am up and at 'em today.

 We have been surviving the adjustment to baby pretty well. There are things that I wish would work themselves out a bit faster, but it is all part of adding a new person to the family dynamic. Luke NEVER just looks at the baby or gently touches him, it is ALWAYS a full assault of hitting, smashing, poking, pushing, prodding, and squeezing. Now any time Luke goes within 10 ft. of Thomas I automatically just say, "Luke no stop!" Jack has taken it a different way, sometimes he will just go up to the baby and scream in his face, but mostly he is very helpful when it comes to the baby, but has taken to letting his anger out on other people or through his 'babies'. The babies are these guys that are miniscule but do a lot of damage, violence, and just plain old foul mischief, and he either just tells stories where they do all this bad business or sometimes they get the blame when bad things happen. It is almost all he talks about anymore-- I am pretty tired of the babies.

 Pete thought the IAS campus was beautiful. He says it is set in the woods and is just gorgeous. He also walked through Princeton's campus and thought that it was something out of a movie. I guess we know where his aims are set for the future-- either place would do just fine. He was able to work through some part of his problem and that was very exciting and definitely worth the trip. He gets to go back in October for longer, so maybe there will be more math breakthroughs.

On day 3 we had a McDonalds picnic in the park

Adventurous Luke- he even managed to make it up the play structure and down the largest slide on the whole playground before I could get to him.

Jack making the bee go back and forth fast/hard- this was the only time Luke held on

Morning of Day 4-- a more laid back day.

Two Days Down and Two to Go

Pete went on a vacation to Newark, and can you believe it, he left us behind?!  Ha- ok so he really went to Princeton/IAS to study with his adviser, but the boys and I did stay behind. In order to remember things to tell Pete I thought I would write them down. Then I figured they would probably be pretty funny so I should share them with everyone so this is a combination of the two.

Day 1
-Decide to let L and J play in tub to waste away some of the morning. While I am blow drying my hair J says, "Mom look what L is doing." I turn and see that L has Pete's razor and is trying to shave his head. He was actually holding it correctly so-- Good Job?

-J kept pouring water on L while L was already putting his face to the water to blow bubbles. After being told a few times not to do this, and once I go back to blow drying my hair, I notice in the mirror L is trying hard to get out of the tub and has obviously been the victim of a water attack. I turn off the hair dryer ask J if he did this and when he confirmed it. I said, "That is too bad." As he had already let the water out of the tub I grabbed a large cup, filled it with COLD water, and just dumped it on his head. Let me say he was not pleased. I asked him if I had already warned him about doing that, I asked him if he was allowed to do that, and I asked him if he was familiar with our rule about payback-- he understood but he wasn't happy.

-J built a yard out of blocks and so excited to show me and just as we entered his room L began to destroy it. Mostly because he wanted to play with just the blocks J was using and not any of the extra blocks around him. J screamed NO!! and went to take the block back, but L grabbed J's hand and bit down HARD! I mean it was pretty ferocious- it left marks for quite awhile. Poor J- he got to sit on my lap while L had to go to timeout.

-After dropping J off at school and upon arriving at home L thought he would go for a little walk--only he didn't let me know. I got T out of the car and noticed L was about two houses away so I had to chase him down while carrying the car seat carrier.

After school I needed to find something for them to do so even though it was 60 the water bucket was brought out

They absolutely loved it

Day 2
- The morning wasn't too bad. Can you believe it? I think if you just stick in Dora/Diego things go pretty well. I knew it wouldn't last too long so we headed to the library. Things went pretty well but L didn't understand he wasn't supposed to take every single book he saw off the shelf. Then at the end L didn't want to leave; he decided to play chase instead. While I was trying to track him down J refused to stop playing with the automatic doors, and I heard the librarians remind him he couldn't leave without his mom.

-After naps I knew I had to get the kids out of the house so I didn't spend the next few hours just yelling  at them. I also knew that getting them all out of the house would involve some, well obstacles, in the course of our outing but in the long run it would be worth it. I wanted to have Jack ride his bike at the bog so off we went. However, our timing was a bit off and the traffic from the Purdue game was not going to let us go to the bog. Hmm....I decided that we would go to Cumberland Park instead and bike that path which would also take us to a very small playground at the end. The problem with this outing wasn't Jack at all it was Luke-- he can't quite ride a bike yet no matter how much he wants to. I knew he would have to walk but the question was how long could he walk? J was a pro on his bike I was so proud/impressed, I guess riding bikes at school every afternoon has really helped. Things started out well- Baby T in my Baby Bjorn, Luke walking, and J riding his bike. Then 1.) the kids were dressed for a midwest morning not a midwest afternoon so L got super hot! 2.) His ability to walk apparently wasn't very long. 3.) Pete called at just the break down moment. So it ended up that J kept riding ahead having to pause every so often, T stayed in his bjorn, L had to be carried on and off(mostly carried), and I talked to Pete on the phone all at the same time. The afternoon ended up being pretty warm so I had the boys take off their shirts half way through the walk/bike ride. Once we arrived at the playground L enjoyed the geese and J enjoyed the swings. Then we had to leave but J wanted to bike the loop by the playground first so we started off -well I should say J and I started off. J biked ahead, but L didn't want to leave the play area. I ended up carrying him until he was too heavy then he decided to walk in the yards of the houses surrounding the path. I got him away from there but he didn't want to walk and I wasn't ready to carry him yet so he threw himself on the ground every few steps. By this time J was already halfway done with the loop and we weren't anywhere close to halfway done. I then decided to entice him with the geese ahead, which worked kind of until they raised up and began flapping their wings. L was so surprised he fell down crying. I carried him for a bit after this but carrying him with the baby in the bjorn wasn't the easiest thing to do. We stopped at the shelters for water which I thought would help but instead made L even crankier. I ended up either carrying L over my shoulder or listening to him cry as he slowly made his way down the path. I will say thank goodness J and T were both very good during this whole thing. It made life loads easier.

This is how we have been eating dinner -shhh don't tell anyone

Just so you can see that Baby T is hanging out with us

A Family of Four No More

Our family got a little larger on Sept. 4th. Thomas Peter was born on Sunday afternoon and ended up weighing more than anyone ever expected- he came in at 9 lbs 2 oz.

I was induced because I was already 4 centimeters but not having contractions so the doctor worried about my water breaking at home and my not having time to reach the hospital. So off we went to the hospital Sunday morning. We got there pretty early but I was just monitored for awhile- it was in fact 3 hours before the doctor came in- Pete and I watched a lot of History Channel. Once he left they started the drugs, and we watched more History Channel. I had decided, with the help of my husband, that I would have an epidural this time. Since the contractions with Luke didn't really hurt but the whole actual pushing thing did, to the point I refused to continue, we thought it might be best to head this off at the beginning. Every 20 minutes they upped my drugs, and the only thing that I noticed was some back pain that was more irritating than painful. The nurse would ask every time if I was in enough pain for an epidural yet and I never was. Once I saw, by looking at the monitor, that the contractions were happening every 3ish minutes I figured it was now or never. The epidural lady was actually quite surprised to see that I was smiling and talking to her. Up to that point getting the epidural was the most painful thing to happen and it actually did hurt some. Pretty soon after that they broke my water- I am not sure what time maybe -12:30 or 1pm? Just tell us when you need to push were my instructions, but I worried I wouldn't know since I had an epidural, but really this epidural wasn't at all like I thought it would be -I could still move my legs and feel sensation. While waiting for the desire to push I began to feel faint and dizzy so I called the nurse in and she did some stuff with the epidural bag to help bring my blood pressure up. However, as soon as she left I felt this urge to poop/push. Pete told me to page the nurse again but I felt that would be rude since she was just in there so I waited some-partly wondering if I just kept waiting would I notice a baby's head just hanging out?  Anyway, about 5 minutes later I paged her and told her I felt like pushing. She was quite impressed that baby's head was in fact right there but I still about half a centimeter to go before I could push. Well again, as soon as she left I really really felt like if I didn't push I would explode. I let about two of these episodes happen before I paged her again. She confirmed it was definitely go time. Still we had to wait for the doctor to make it to my room so I was forced to reign in the pushing desire. This differs greatly from when I had Luke. I never really had the pushing desire instead I had the --I am in so much pain I want to die desire-- but that is different altogether and was combined with the I absolutely do not want to push desire. I guess the epidural was working and for once I was having a 'normal' birthing experience. Pete was actually able to be next to me and participate for the first time ever. He held my leg up and when the pushing began to hurt - like we knew it would- he was there for me to dig my nails into his chest. The pushing did begin to hurt but in a burning way. I just started yelling-- It burns! It burns! So they gave me a numbing shot which did seem to help some but it still really stung. The pushing desire was overwhelming and I was even asking if I could just go ahead and push. There was only one time when I said I didn't want to. I think it took about 20-30 minutes of pushing and out he came. His left shoulder got a little stuck, but no episiotomy needed, and he was born at 2:08pm. He was all bruised on his face and his left elbow, but he was just fine. People immediately began commenting on how big he was before he was even weighed. This was a bit of a surprise because at 36 weeks I had an ultrasound to try and determine his weight since Luke was 8 and a half pounds and got stuck, we didn't want the same thing to happen again. The ultrasound showed that he was around 6 lbs and 10 oz at 36 weeks-- I guess this goes to show you ultrasounds can be wrong. Either that or he just gained a lot of weight in two weeks. He was only 19 inches long but weight wise-- over 9 lbs!!! What??!!  Who would have thought a baby that large could come out of me?!

So here are some pictures.

The Weigel Boys

I feel I should note that we have only used a pacifier a couple times as we aren't really a pacifier family

See we are a thumb sucking family-- the tradition continues. He was sucking it immediately after birth-- as they were weighing him.

Just don't call it preschool

Today Jack started Montessori- not preschool-- Montessori. If you wish to talk to him at all about school you must get the lingo right or you will not be on the same page at all. I tried to gauge how he was feeling about going to school about a week or so before it started and was met with him telling me he wasn't going to go to preschool. I was devastated-- what were we going to do? How horrible was the first day going to be if he just simply refused to go? After us having the same conversation over and over I brought it up in front of Pete. I quickly learned that I was in the wrong-- I had been calling it preschool when it was Montessori. Once I changed the wording my son told me just how excited he was.

The Saturday before school started was Parent Work Day and we all went out to the school to get it ready. I say that we all went-- this is true- but only Pete and Jack did any work. For three hours they mulched and weeded. Luke played on the playground, then he and I left to go buy water, then we all weeded a little, then the boys and I left to go buy lunch, and then we swung back by to pick up Pete and went home.

Then on Monday we got to go and meet his teachers. There are 3 teachers in his classroom and the following animals: a guinea pig named Bunny, a fresh water lobster named Sheldon, a few fish, and in a couple weeks there will be a corn snake named Shaggy. The animals are, of course, Jack's favorite things. We got to play with some of the toys and learn how to do certain things, he got to see his locker, get his Montessori bag that will act as backpack all year, and find his cubby. It was all very exciting. That evening we had to go back for Parent Orientation, which was pretty much a waste of time since we were just there that afternoon, but Jack and Luke had a blast playing on the playground while I signed up for more work hours and went back to meet his teacher again.

Then today he actually got to go! We got there and he became a bit apprehensive, but luckily Pete handed Luke to me and took control of Jack. He was reminding Jack about all sorts of stuff and making jokes with him to put him at ease then he told me to just stay on the playground with Luke while he took Jack inside. This was probably a good idea. Pete said there was only a moment of hesitation before Jack went into the class. So yay!!!!! I was in charge of pick up so I got to hear all about the day. Knowing that if I immediately started driving I would not learn anything I simply sat in the back of the van with him and asked him questions and let him talk about his day. I learned that they played on the playground and he and a boy named David threw sand at each other, but Jack said he didn't get in trouble. (When he told the story to Pete later he did mention that David got in trouble for it, but he didn't so it wasn't a big deal). He said that he and his new friend swept up pretzels because they were all over the floor, but when I asked if he ate pretzels for snack he said no he didn't eat any. Hmm...
They also pet Bunny but once he nibbled a few boys he was put away.  Jack made me a necklace and said that he played for a second on the piano(keyboard) in the class. I don't think that we could have asked for more.

I of course took a few pictures of him before we went to school so here they are.

From Facebook to Blog

I have posted the following things on facebook but felt they should be written down for posterity on the blog. I go to the doctor on the same day and at the same time for every appointment then I head to the grocery store while Pete is at home with the kids. There is a cashier, a women probably in her 50s or early 60s, that I usually go to because she is faster than the kids. A couple weeks ago she started talking to me about the size and positioning of my uterus. It was uncomfortable for me and I sent Pete to the store the next time we needed to go. Then this week I go again after my appointment but go to a different cashier-problem solved right? No! She saw me and walked over to help bag my groceries and talk to me about when I am due and how dilated I am then she encouraged me to keep walking. Oh my!! I think I am done going to the grocery store.

Pete posted this on his facebook but not everyone is friends with him and it is pretty funny. He took Jack to throw frisbees near campus and a policeman was there in his car with his window rolled down. He saw Jack, nodded, and said, 'Morning'. Jack obviously feeling guilty about something responds with a loud-Yikes! This is following an incident a few months ago where he was throwing rocks near a car and Pete told him he better stop because there was a police car nearby and he would arrest Jack. Jack looked around and said- No he won't. Then stuffed the rocks in his hands down his pants.

In preparation for going to the hospital I decided to dye my hair because I hadn't retouched my highlights since January or February. I thought the box would be the best way to go because it was cheap and would be fairly quick. I bought a box called Natural Blonde- not too dark and not too light. I go home dye my hair and then wash it out. As I am combing it I notice that it looks kinda reddish. I get the hair dryer out to see if maybe this is just because it is wet. Nope. My hair is in fact a fake coppery red looking color. This is very sad. So for a week I had fake red hair. I ended up getting it fixed at the salon-- it is a lighter now than it usually is but she had to cover the red and I guess the best way was for her to make it blonder than normal.

It has been cooler lately so we took advantage of the weather to go to the little fake zoo we have here in town. It was a nice little break in our routine. Here are a couple pictures.

Pete has been teaching Jack about magnets and they have been doing a bunch of experiments and tricks. I posted a video on facebook about one of their tricks but thought I would post a picture of it on the blog.

Next week Jack starts preschool and in just a few weeks baby should be arriving-- lots to talk about then.

A visitor, a birthday, and a doctor's appointment

Over the past month things have slowed down to pretty much a stop as far as activities and outings. This is probably a good thing because in a few weeks preschool starts for Jack, school starts for Pete, and then baby arrives. Still we did have a visitor this weekend so that added a little extra fun to our days.

Pete's brother, Joe, came in for the weekend. It was quite a long trip as he lives in Korea, so the jet lag was pretty hard on him, but we are so glad we got to see him and hang out. The first day he was here it rained some, and it hasn't rained here in weeks, so it was an indoors kind of day. Jack really wanted to do science experiments, luckily Joe was game. They made a sunset in a plastic test tube using acids and bases, a volcano inside a test tube, and some type of non-Newtonion fluid. Jack thought all of these were pretty cool. Also, cool but not something we did with Joe, take off the shower head fill it with red Kool-Aid powder, put it back on, and wait for someone to turn the shower on-- it looks like blood!

Then the second day he was here it was back to sunny and super hot so we decided to take Joe to the fountains at school. We went to both fountains and played for awhile then we stopped for some shaved ice and ate it in our front yard. It was a pretty laid back time, but I think everyone enjoyed it.

Walking to the Engineering Fountain

Found a worm and decided to be animal rescuers and save it from drying out in the heat

Back home enjoying the shade and some shaved ice

Then it was my 30th birthday! The boys woke up pretty early, like they normally do, and as I was getting them some breakfast Jack heard that Pete was awake. This, to Jack, was crazy because Pete usually doesn't wake up that early since he studies so late. When Pete came into the kitchen Jack said, "Daddy woke up for your birthday. He never wakes up this early. He didn't even wake up this early for my birthday!" Haha. I thought it was pretty funny that Jack was amazed Pete would wake up early for my birthday and not his. It was a pretty laid back day. Pete took the kids for the morning and then that afternoon I wasn't feeling well at all so it was hang out on the couch while the kids watched a movie then played in the living room. Pete and Jack made me a delicious cheesecake and grilled steaks for dinner. So yummy.

Jack helping with the cheesecake

Getting ready to blow out the candle

Jack thought I needed help

Then today I had my 34 week appointment. I am measuring 35 weeks, so just one week bigger these days. As yesterday was so hard on me I asked the doctor to check things out. He said all looks good and stuff is starting to happen, but nothing too advanced to indicate alarm. Then he said if possible he wants to keep my cerclage in until 37 weeks, but realizes it may have to come out at 36 weeks.

All in all things are going well here. The next couple weeks should be pretty boring and laid back, but come the middle to end of August life will get pretty hectic again.