Towards the start of this school year (a couple weeks in) I had been taking my kids to breakfast at school. One day we were just minding our own business, kids eating their breakfast and me just hanging out with them.
This kid then made some comment about Ari's nose.
Ari had a cold at the time that this all started so I thought maybe he was just grossed out by Ari's runny nose (I was wiping it continually because it grosses me out too when kids have boogers all over).
Well the same kid has continued to make comments about Ari and it has been weeks. I have just been ignoring it hoping the kid would finally just give it up. I mean, ignoring it is what you are supposed to do right?
Wrong.
Today I walked in and immediately I hear "Oh no! It's the 'something inaudible' baby". I ignored it... While the two oldest were eating, I was talking with Mrs. C (One of the teachers who has worked with Judah and Ora) and the kid says "That baby is so disgusting!".
Mrs. C was appalled and with a look of shock on her face she said "What did you just say?? WHY would you say something like that?"
Kid replies "well, because his nose is like, falling down..."
Mrs. C and I were equally confused as to what he was talking about and what he meant. She asked him "What are you talking about? I think he is a beautiful baby!"
Kid says "well his nose........... uh...... um...... I really don't know."
Well.. DUH... you don't know, you are talking nonsense!
I guess even though Ari is a baby, not a student and has no idea what is going on in the school takes it seriously as it lines up with their anti-bullying.
In other news, this stomach flu/bug has been kicking our butts! My word.
Thanksgiving day Jonathan was sick. He stayed in bed all day.
Thanksgiving night Judah and Ari got it.
I was feeling a little off Friday-Sunday a little nauseated and what not.
Monday I got pretty bad. I thought for sure I had hit the worst of it then.
Boy was I wrong, Tuesday my stomach was cramping so bad I felt like someone was ripping my intestines out. I had the really gross parts of the stomach flu. I had chills, my muscles and joints just ached and my joints had occasional shooting pains in the joints.
I could barely move. It took every little ounce of energy I had just to get to the bathroom on time.
I was not comfortable unless I was laying down, but I was running to the restroom so often I didn't lay much in the beginning of the day.
OH YEAH!! AND Jonathan was at work and I had all three kids home (Judah was sick and it was impossible to get O to school.)
Wednesday all was well. Everything was returning to normal.
Again I was wrong.
Today Jonathan came home early because he is getting it a second time and Ora was home sick.
It feels like it's NEVER going to end!
Sleepy man.
Cute BEBE foot.
I love it when he crosses his sweet chunky monkey legs while sleeping!
And my sickies today :(
The beginning of the day was not so hot.
I slept until about noon because, well I was exhausted.
Jonathan woke up sick with a tummy bug of some sort, so that threw our original plans for the evening out the window.
My dear friend Toni invited me and the kids over for dinner since we weren't going to be doing anything.
Of course I took her up on the offer as I love her and don't see her nearly enough. She is also an amazing cook ;)
So we had roast, mashed potatoes, green beans, delicious made from scratch stuffing and for desert we had delicious sweet potato "pie".
Toni described it as sweet potato casserole since it didn't have a crust.
It was all gluten and dairy free and it was amazing!!!
While we were over there Ari attempted to kill himself.
He crawled up and down the stairs a lot as we were right there.
Well, he got upstairs and decided he wanted to crawl/slither backward to try ang go under the railing.
I got under him but had no idea how to catch him because he was coming down feet first!
I yelled "SOMEONE HELP"!
Luckily Judah wasn't in lalaland like he normally is and ran over and wrapped his arm around Ari's bottom and pulled him back up.
No more going upstairs anymore over at Toni's because of this. At least not without an adult right there to follow him around.
The problem is, is Ari is completely FEARLESS!
Nothing scares him. He will climb everything and do so many things that a baby his age should NOT be doing yet.
He takes after my husbands cousin Peter.
Peter was born premature. He was a micropreemie baby, born at home.
He should not have made it, but his momma wrapped him in foil to help him maintain body heat and they rushed to the hospital.
Despite all the things that happened he lived! He was a survivor.
Peter, like Ari, was fearless.
Peter later in life took up rock climbing.
One day he and two friends went up to do some rock climbing.
Peter was belaying his friend when rock began falling.
The friend who was not belaying or climbing ran for cover.
Peter too could have run to protect himself, but he knew that if he had done that, his friend climbing would have been killed.
Peter gave his life for his friend that day!
Peter made the ultimate sacrifice for his friend.
"Greater love has no one than this,
that he lay down his life for his friends."
- Jesus Christ
If you would like to read more of Peters story click here
Well I am quite sleepy and I have another Thanksgiving Celebration tomorrow so I should get some rest, but here are some photos from today!
My gorgeous and amazing friend who was a great host tonight. Miss Toni Kaye:)
Ari Patrick says "jfesgkjfvhhdstunfdyuvphpga" I am pretty sure that means "Happy Thanksgiving"
Happy Thanksgiving!!!! From Ora
Dreaming that he is saying "Happy Thanksgiving"
(This part I wrote back when Judah was still nursing) "I always knew I wanted to breastfeed my children. My mom breastfed all of her 4 girls. My mother in law breastfed my husband up until he as 10 months old and her milk dried up. She then breastfed my sister in law until she was two years old.
So when I found out I was pregnant it wasn't even a concern in my book. It never crossed my mind.
Breast is best and that is what my son was going to get when he was born for at least a year.
My son was almost two months early. He was born on May 26, 2006 even though he was due on July 17, 2006. This caused a few complications in my plan to breastfeed but I was determined to do it no matter what it took. Judah was in the NICU for two weeks and two days and I went up to the hospital everyday and we tried and tried to get him to nurse but my nipples and boobs were just too large for for his little preemie mouth to latch. So we started him on a preemie bottle with expressed breast milk.
The bottle seemed to work fine so we decided that it would be best to keep him on the bottle with EBM for as long as it was needed. Also we were fortifying the breastmilk with the extra caloric formula just so he would gain the weight that was needed. What we did was just added a scoop of the formula to a bottle full of EBM. Judah came home drinking from the bottle and I continued to put Judah to the breast at every chance I had. When he wanted to eat it was breast first then a bottle, when he wanted to just suck on something he was at the breast, sometimes randomly between I would encourage him to nurse so that he could get all the practice he needed.
During this time of pumping and attempting to get him to nurse I got more plugged ducts than I could even start to count. I got a nursing blister and the plugged ducts led to recurring mastitis. I suffered from mastitis three times in 3 months. These were the most miserable three months of my breastfeeding experience.
During my third case of mastitis I remember calling my mom telling her that I want to give Judah the best and that I felt I just couldn't keep up with this whole breastfeeding thing because of the recurring mastitis. I felt like I was going to be a failure if I quit. I knew deep down in my heart that I did not want to stop. I did not want to give up and give Judah formula. I KNEW that my milk is what was best for him, and with him being premature it made me want to breastfeed even more because of his fragile immune system.
The first three months were the worst three months because of the continuous pumping, nursing blister, engorgement, plugged ducts and mastitis. Over the next two months Judah actually started nursing more and more. He was getting bigger and stronger, and even though he would get tired more quickly at the breast he was enjoying it just as much as I was.
Around the 5 month mark he actually came off of the bottle and started nursing exclusively!
I was thrilled and overjoyed that I could experience that sweet mother to child bond that I had been missing out on the first five months of my sons life!
Judah is now 21 months old and is still nursing.
I plan to nurse him until his little brother or sister is born in August of 2008.
Nursing while pregnant isn't too much of an easy task when your breasts and nipples are so sore from the pregnancy. I also plan to tandem nurse when this baby arrives. I will update this post once baby #2 is born to keep track of how my nursing is going once baby is here!"
I ended up weaning Judah at 22 months as he was only nursing at night and was waking up every couple of hours to nurse and my milk was already dried up.
Ora was born August 22, 2008. I was going to breastfeed her no matter what. It was not easy the second time around. It took Ora 3 months to latch to the breast.
So I was pumping regularly and putting her to the breast every chance I got.
It was pretty similar to my experience with Judah except I never got mastitis.
I nursed Ora until she was 15 months and stopped because she was waking up several times a night.
Ariah was born May 10, 2011.
Due to medication I had to take I was not able to nurse him. I felt awful and felt like he got the short end of the stick, but he is happy and healthy :)
Today has been a pretty crazy day with Jonathan volunteering in Judah's class and my father-in-laws book release party.
After several long months of being slightly irritated that my 18 month old was not walking, it all changed tonight.
While at the book release party there was a foyer with the most gorgeous chandelier (I got some pictures of it) and on the floor there was a sort of maze.
As we were waiting for everything to get set up I was letting the kids run around and try to figure out the maze.
Well, guess who decided he wanted to keep up with his brother and sister FINALLY!
That's right. My Mr. Ari Patrick.
I was lucky enough to get it on video!
