Summer 2022... kind of.

I have gotten really bad at being a blogger and have not been great at updating literally anyone. Ever. 

Sigh. 

I'll get better. Someday. At least I'm pretty sure. Until then, let's talk about what has been happening around here lately. I feel like it's so much that it is hard to keep up but I'm really trying. 

1. Kindergarten Graduation

Lucy officially graduated kindergarten and she was so excited. She had a pretty good school year and could not love school more. She's starting to read books, mastered her sight words, is a whiz at addition and substraction, enjoys art, has adorable handwriting (though she writes her 'y' backwards and it's the cutest), cannot rhyme anything to save her life, and make great strides in speech therapy. 

This was also the year that she started physical therapy and has been doing such a great job. She has some progress to make, but she LOVES going to 'exercise class'! She will continue with speech therapy next year and already misses her kindergarten teacher, her speech teacher, and her friends. 

2. School is out.... for summer

I don't post about the bigger kids much because 1. they hate it and 2. they are literally busy all the time and I don't always get pictures. I need to really try harder because I'm finding my memory is starting to slide a little more. 

But.. Olivia finished 10th grade with amazing grades. She did so great in AP World History, she loved biology, but her journalism class was by far her favorite. She learned a lot from her teacher who I hope becomes a mentor for her because that was a great last minute change to her schedule back in the fall. She's working two jobs this summer, flying through books at breakneck speed, and getting her license as soon as we have time to do it. She even managed to go to Washington D.C., New York City, and Boston for school. Jackson finished eighth grade and is literally chucking deuces at the hell hole that is middle school and is heading to the high school next year. He learned to crochet, play Dungeons & Dragons, and is literally the funniest kid of our bunch. He has my sarcastic personality and I always have a good time hanging out with him. Him and I are doing the DC/NYC trip next spring break (same one I did with Liv), so we at least have that to look forward to. Penelope finished first grade like a boss and is an amazing reader and is excellent at math. She's hoping for "harder math" in second grade. She gets that from her dad because math is the absolute worst. And we already talked about Lucy. 

3. We all scream for ice cream

You know summer has officially started when the ice cream truck starts it's weekly visit. We planned last week entirely around it coming and it was worth it. 

4. Plans?

Normally I have some kind of plan for our summer, but this year I'm stumped. I really WANT to go on a roadtrip but honestly, we need to work on paying down debt and putting money away. I'm really struggling with the "be a responsible adult" versus the "we only get 18 summers, they grow so fast, life is short so take the trip" argument. In my head, of course. I haven't settled it and I really need to make a decision soon so we can appropriately plan and people can take time off. 

If we don't do a roadtrip (which really would be a bummer), I guess we can do some short day trips on the weekends or something. I don't know. I just hate being the only one really delegated to any of this because of our group, I'm literally the last person who should be in charge of anything. I can't make decisions, I can't organize thoughts, and god knows I can't remember anything. The thing about cognitive impairment is that learning to live with your newly acquired shortcomings is really hard and incredibly frustrating. It's like running into a table as you walk by, multiple times and knowing full well that if you just move over a little you would be fine, but you continue to run into the table and it makes no sense. 

So that's my life. 

Hopefully yours is going better, or you at least have any kind of idea of what's happening next. That would be nice. 

Penelope is FIVE.

I don't remember a whole lot from my pregnancy with Penelope, but I remember being so excited she was coming. The last couple of weeks were rough, but on the day she was born I was ready. And at 10:52 p.m. Penelope was here.

She was the largest (and still is) baby I've birthed but I think her birth was my favorite one. I had the most fun during that, which is odd to say, but its true. I know I had post-partum depression and really struggled being alone at home with her. By the time she was six months old I was already pregnant with Lucy and that was really tough. 

Penelope is easily, hands down, the hardest child I have. She isn't bad or anything, she just challenges me in way none of the other kids do. And that's OK. By the time she was one year old she was absolutely certain what she would and would not eat, cupcakes and other baked goods were always acceptable. She was walking, babbling away, and had the softest hair. 

Age two was rough but she really developed her personality. I think this was a hard year for her because just when she really needed a lot of attention and support, Lucy was born and kind of stole her thunder. Penelope has always made sure we knew she needed love too, and even now she will say, "I need some loving, too." and I love that about her. I love that she is always able to tell us exactly what she needs. 

By three we learned she is for sure left handed, loves art, and is incredibly smart. She started a 3K program and did so very well. We also learned that she is terribly shy, which was bizarre for us because she is the exact opposite at home. She's bossy and demanding here, totally quiet at school. 

Four was a pretty great year for her. Challenging a lot of the time but man. She is such a neat kid. She always brings me to the brink of insanity but always makes me laugh, too. She really is so stinking smart, and it's obvious her brain works differently. I feel like she really is the classic middle child a lot of days but when she gets in the zone, she's a dynamo. 

She doesn't listen worth a dang at home though. She tests boundaries far more than any other kid and when she decides she wants to do something, she will do it. Traits that will be great as an adult, but also really awful as a four year old who has no issues running into a road. This was the year a fence went up in the yard. Ha! 

She looks like me so much and it's so great to really have a mini-me. My mom says I was just like Penelope and if that's true I'm so sorry, mom! But also, how lucky were you to get me? ;) 

Her favorite things are candy, swimming in the pool, being outside, jumping and running like a maniac, 

Trolls, princesses, playing dress up, and UNICORNS. In 4K this year she got to pick one of the animal units and she picked unicorn. Her teacher is so amazing that she absolutely went with it and Penelope was so incredibly happy. We also learned that what we thought was just normal shy is a bit more. She's really painfully shy and it was heartbreaking to see her on the playground at school, in tears, holding her teacher's hand. Her teacher said it seems like it is really a fear of rejection that holds her back. Which bums me out because she's such a cool little kid. 

Having her turn five seems so weird to me. A lot of the times I feel like I missed so much with her because I'm trying to treasure my time with Olivia and Jackson, but also Lucy because she's my absolute last, and Penelope gets shuffled along. I don't know how parents of more than four kids do this and feel like everyone is getting an even amount of attention.

I tell Penelope every day that she is my favorite Penelope in all the land, that if there were a million Penelope's, she would be my very favorite. I give her lots of hugs, snuggles, and kisses. I am trying so hard with her. I hope she knows that. 💗

Penelope in September

You didn't think I'd share a bunch of pictures of Lucy and forget about Penelope, did you?

Being two is really hard and I sometimes forget that. She's got big feelings in her little body, is just learning how to really communicate and behave, social expectations, all of this and more.... and it leaves me exhausted. The downside to such a big gap between kids is that I've lost a lot of my patience and I'm out of practice of all of it. Add to that all of my medical setbacks and I'm just so tired every day. She really tires me out.

But she's the sweetest little love bug. 

She sometimes forgets she's only two so she tries to things the big kids can do. 

Sometimes it works out. Sometimes she falls right off and bangs her head on the ground. 

She's trying to swing on her own but some days she wants to be little like Lucy again. 

She always hates the word no. Strongly. 

My favorite thing this month was my dad taking the dog out for a walk for me, and Penelope also demanding to go. The look on his face when I handed him Penelope's leash was pretty priceless! But this girl normally runs and doesn't listen worth a damn, so unless she's in the stroller, you really need it. So I snapped a quick picture of my dad holding two leashes on a walk!

Some days Penelope refuses to nap. That's always fun because I know by 4 p.m. we are going to be in full melt down mode for the next four hours until bed. Always a fun time. 

Her favorite movie this month is "Moana" and  we watch it a lot. On this day she was totally scared of the lava monster at the end, even though she knows how the movie ends because we've seen it well over 500 times this month alone, I'm sure of it.

The hour or so before lunch time is TOUGH. Penelope and Lucy are both getting hungry and tired, nobody wants to play nice, I can't handle watching anymore Daniel Tiger,  and it's just prime for crying. My solution has been to find some sensory things the girls can do together and this month was noodles and rice. I don't have room for a big table or box to put it in so I'm making do with bowls.

I sweep a lot. My mom vacuums my house a lot.

Oh! Both Penelope and Lucy absolutely love the My Pillow commercials. A lot. It doesn't matter what they are doing they will always stop to watch the entire thing.

Penelope is an absolute goof ball. She's like 75% potty trained, too! She only needs a pull up for times she goes to bed and when we go out but we don't have accidents. I forgot where we were and she told me she had to go potty and off we went to the public bathroom and she totally went! I was really surprised but thrilled. I just need to take her out more to get used to no pull up all day. 

This past weekend the big kids were gone to their friend's birthday parties so Matt and I took just the little girls out to eat and to get some ice cream. This was the first time Penelope got her OWN, not sharing with me and she was totally thrilled! After I snapped this picture I had a memory of a picture of me around her age and I thought we looked a lot alike.

My cute self at age 2. I don't know where this picture was taken, what was going on, nothing, but Penelope looks a lot like me. Lucy looks like me in a different way so I'm kind of thrilled these two have some traits of mine- Olivia and Jackson favor their dad.

So that was September. I'm hoping in October we can do some more family things together and that I can get some pictures of all of us.

Waterboarding with babies.

When we found out we were going to have Lucy everyone said, "Oh, it's going to be so fun to have two close together! They'll be best friends!". I had no idea if that was going to be true or not or if this was just something people said to be polite to your face but then they really say, "Oh man, they are so screwed!" among themselves when they walk away.

Now that Penelope is two and Lucy is almost one, I suspect it's the latter because they are anything but best friends. Most days it's chaos in here now that Lucy is cruising along furniture, so close to walking on her own. Penelope doesn't want her to play with anything, must less touch it. Lucy has quite the temper and Penelope is twice as bad.

Thankfully it's "summer" in northern Wisconsin which means for one day a week it's nice enough to go outside and, if we're lucky, the girls can go in the play pool. I only have a rather small pool for the girls because when I bought it, I only had Penelope and had no plans for a fourth kid. I'm not buying another one because I know I'm not going to use it beyond the few weeks of summer that we have for Wisconsin so we're just going to make this tiny pool work.

When Olivia and Jackson were little, they played so nicely together in the pool so I just assumed Penelope and Lucy would as well. It ended up not being the case at all. You can see early on Lucy knew it wasn't going to go well for her. 

She knows from bath time that the key is to take a wide stance with her legs and brace her arms on the bottom because then Penelope can't push her all of the way down into the water. Otherwise her sister tries to drown her. You can take your eyes off the girls for even a second. She feels total joy when she's on her own and her sister is busy running through the yard.

Then she comes back and Lucy is looking for a way out.

This was after her sister dumped a large bucket of water over her head (cold water, no less) and Lucy is having none of this, is telling us all about it because we clearly did nothing to stop this. She's demanding answers.

Lucy took the toy away in retaliation and now Penelope is angry and coming to tell me about it. Apparently sitting a foot away isn't enough.

I ended up telling her to go play with Jackson because some days she's just TOO MUCH. She's a mama's girl and she's too clingy. I feel like the problem is I don't leave the house enough. But I also don't really have anywhere to go. I don't have money or anywhere really to go. Anyways.

So we brought the sprinkler out and let her run through that which was freezing cold water and she had no idea what was going on.

But if Jackson was doing it, she was all about it. She thinks he's the coolest kid ever and she's under the delusion that she's a much larger kid than she is (the clear downside to this major age gap) so she is much braver and more fearless than Olivia and Jackson ever were.

Poor Lucy though. She's going to be the toughest baby on the block only because she has Penelope for a sister. Penelope is so rough and tumble. Her latest thing is "hug time" from the movie Trolls (her absolute favorite) and she tackles Lucy in her attempt at hug time. She will tackle and do a choke hold. Lucy, for her part does her best attempt at playing dead in the hopes that hug time stops. Poor Lucy. She's such a trooper. Maybe she'll end up in the Marines or something.

Penelope is two. The terrible two. Surely you've heard.

I used to always say that two had nothing on three. Two was EASY compared to three. You could still reason with two, you could bribe a two year old, you could still pick a two year old up even when they took the limp noodle tactic in a parking lot.

But you haven't met Penelope.

Penelope is a beast all her own.

When I got pregnant with Lucy, my grandpa jokingly said that one in four become a serial killer. I don't know if that's true but at the minimum, Penelope is the one to put your money on if you were placing wagers on which one of my children will grow up to lead a prison gang. I'm not saying I'm giving up, I'm just saying that you can nurture all you want but genetics have gone wrong I think. Most mornings we start the day with her whipping her door open and screaming at us that she's "happy". She goes to bed almost every night in full tears screaming that she's "happy" as well.

It's really awesome.

But, our little darling has turned two and despite not feeling up for anything, we whipped together a really haphazard party. Fortunately enough, our local PBS station had their Kids Club Circus event the same day as Penelope's birthday so the plan was to do that in the morning, poop her out enough for nap time, and then party for dinner and hopefully have a decent bedtime.

She got to meet George. She loves George, not that you'd know that by her obvious lack of enthusiasm.

Lucy was totally excited.

Penelope played games. And when I say "played games" I mean she blatantly cheated and demanded prizes.

My niece Adriana was able to come up for the day, so that was really fun. Her and Penelope are only a few months apart so I thought they'd have fun playing together. Adriana mostly had a great time playing with the big kids.

Penelope had more fun showing the characters her new Rosita stuffed animal than taking pictures.

She didn't like Nature Cat touching her but she did look to see if he had a tail.

Fortunately all of the running around and jumping DID get us a solid nap from both Penelope and Lucy, so that was nice. I had underestimated how exhausted I was going to be so by the time the party started I was kind of over it. I was pretty grateful I didn't invite that many people and of the few I did invite, some couldn't come, because I was pretty tired.

I had purchased this bounce house thing on Amazon on some one day super sale for $40 months ago and it was basically all I had planned for entertainment. Unfortunately, it was absolutely freezing so the kids didn't get to play in it for too long.

Just long enough for me to get only one picture, but not of all four.

Matt grilled up burgers and hot dogs, Matt's mom had helped us with food and his sister brought fruit and veggies.

If you know Penelope at all, you know she's all about a meal.

She's also all about dessert. I bought cupcakes and little ice cream cups- which basically was the greatest part of her day. She would have eaten "cream" all night if you let her.

Then, of course, presents.

All kinds of presents.

She got a tricycle, which she enjoys sitting on and wants you to push her on, but she doesn't totally get it.

And this phone... oy. Lucy gets a turn every once in awhile with it! She also got an Elmo that talks (and says her name!), some Play Doh, new bed sheets, a big Poppy doll for her bed and a Troll blanket, a stuffed bunny and a cool kickball, a Minnie Mouse with snap on outfits, lots of cute new outfits for summer, and I got her a new book. Not a bad haul for being two.

It's hard to believe this kid is two. Already. She's got all of the personality in the world. She is SUCH a handful, but she's such a love bug, too. She says lots of words, can identify some colors and some letters, loves to read, her favorite movie is Trolls, her favorite show is Super Why, she loves to rub soft things in her ear for comfort, loves the color purple, she runs 100 mph, she's bossy, sassy, hilarious, loves animals, and has big feelings. She's going to be the one to give us a run for our money. That's for sure.

Adventures with four: month seven

Everything from this post is from March, which ended up being a HARD month for me mentally. I didn't realize turning 35 was going to be a "thing" for me because I'm not that person who cares about their age at all. I went on a trip with my friend Tammy (more on that later), and I.... I don't know. It was hard. Here were entries out of my journal: 

Came back from my trip. I'm in pain, absolutely everything on and in my body hurts and this is what I come home to. It only affirms that if I died, everyone in this house would be dirty and naked. The level of pissed off cannot be measured. The entire house is a freaking wreck. I can barely keep up as it is and now they want me to perform miracles. Sometimes I hate my family.

Penelope is so... tough. She's an absolute love bug some days but others she is so emotionally and physically draining. I'm not equipped to handle this. Lucy is great, though. She's pretty easy and that might be because she knows full well I can't handle everyone in melt down mode at once. Bless her little heart. But we have officially given up on thinking Lucy can share a room with Penelope. We've moved the crib into our room and it's just draining. I just want a solid night of sleep.

Penelope is the family animal whisperer. At least she thinks she is. She mostly hugs them a lot and tries to stick their tails in her ear. They don't enjoy it but they know surely she can't keep up with this forever. Right?

Lucy is starting to enjoy food. I gave up around month six for her and we're slowing starting back into it. She seems far more eager for the foods that smell the worst. Lucky us.

She also gets excited so easily. She'll shake her little hands, give us this face, and sometimes try to bounce on her bottom. She's officially too big (and heavy) for the swing so Matt moved it out of the living room.

Sometimes in the morning, on the days when I have the hardest time actually becoming mobile and getting up and at 'em, I just bring Lucy into bed with me and try to doze off. It never works as I'm paranoid I'm going to roll her off the bed but I try anyways.

Oh Penelope. You're lucky this poor dog is as tolerant as he is. Truly.

Nobody loves ice cream like Penelope does. She'll keep saying "eat" and "more" as if she's yelling at herself to shovel it in faster.

My friend Cassandra had her birthday. I tried to send a birthday greeting, this was the best I got. Lucy eating cardboard and Penelope saying "cheese" with her damn eyes closed. Sometimes you just accept that terrible is the best you're going to get.

Weekends are the hardest. Matt goes to work and I am here with all four on my own. I'm not in any way qualified to do this. I don't work in a day care for a reason, and I never wanted four kids for a reason. I can't even call it controlled chaos anymore.

Sisters.

Don't let Penelope's face fool you, she was just excited about this walk as Lucy was. It's still chilly here, I don't care what anyone says, but I'm trying. I've discovered even simple walks, which used to be so great for me, are so hard. I always feel like I'm going to just collapse and then I hurt so bad I can barely move the next day. It's tiring to be falling apart like this.

Check back tomorrow when I talk about the Duluth Mommy Blog Awards and how I walked away with one.