Another Week

This week has been very quick and filled with our typically business. I realized that it's been an entire week since my last post. I've spent very little time on-line this week and most of my time on the computer has been working on taxes. Usually I try and get Rod to do them, but I decided that I would do them this year since Rod is so busy with work. I was hoping to get them in earlier this year than we usually do, but so far it's taken me more time than expected. It doesn't help that we like to try and do them two different ways (married filing joint and married filing separate) to see which way gives us the most back. The state taxes are the ones that usually make the biggest difference. Hopefully this won't be an issue next year since I won't have worked at all. One would think that an accountant wouldn't mind taxes, but that is far from it in this case!

Between school, dance classes, library story time, a birthday party, and lunch at McDonald's play place this week has been busy and fun for the kids. Rod is still working some over time plus playing basketball two evenings a week so it makes for a pretty crazy mommy. Since Rod had his truck out of the garage, Leah asked if I would leave my van out so that they could ride their bikes in the garage. Good idea or so I thought. I closed the garage door and left them down there to play. Our garage floor is very dirty with dirt, oil and everything that the cars bring in and for some reason Leah and Caleb decided to take their shoes off. In addition, they also found a bottle of bubbles which they decided to open and spill all over the garage floor turning the dirt into mud. When I went down to check on things, I found two very muddy dirty pairs of socks and was not very happy. Also during the half hour that they were down there Leah's bike ended up with a missing petal and the fishing line to Caleb and Leah's fishing poles where strung all over the place and tangled up. Playing in the garage will probably be unlikely to happen again for a very long time!

Alissa is very mobile these days and she is pulling up on everything and is in everything and going everywhere in the house. However, even with all this mobility if she ends up on her back, she refuses to roll over and get back up. Rod calls her a turtle. If she somehow ends up on her back she will just lay there and cry until someone sits her up. I think this is called laziness. I usually send either Leah or Caleb to do this job.

A Crawling Baby

It’s so true that a crawling baby changes the whole experience of having a baby around. I am so happy that Alissa is crawling now. It’s a great milestone and it makes her happy to be able to get around, but things are so much different now. We had to get the baby gate out. And of course as soon as I put it up, Leah and Caleb ‘need’ to go downstairs! Not to mention that Caleb loves to play with the gate and he puts in the hallway where everyone is always tripping on it.

Alissa's first offical crawling on December 21st

Baby proofing is also a completely different ball game with having two older ones. With the other two, we didn’t have to deal with all the toys with choking hazards. Leah and Caleb were so close in age that when Caleb started crawling Leah’s toys were safe for him to be around. This is not the case with Alissa. Leah couldn’t have anymore toys that include tiny little accessories just the right size to choke on. We’ve been trying to keep Alissa out of Leah’s room, but Leah loves for her to come in there and play.

And wouldn’t you figure that Alissa just happens to love all of Caleb’s toys the best! She loves his tractors and cars and crawls herself right to what she wants. This makes Caleb very angry. He gets so mad when his toys get wet. She has to put everything in her mouth and tractor wheels apparently make very good teething rings!

Jackpot! Caleb's tractors lined up and he's napping!

The worst and grossest thing is what Rod calls scavenging. Alissa loves to crawl into the kitchen and go under the table and see what she can find. At our house, it is inevitable that there are going to be crumbs on the floor. Between Leah, Caleb and now Alissa all eating at the kitchen table, we always have an array of food crumbs under the table. I do try and sweep regularly, but it’s nearly impossible to keep up with. I think that Alissa considers this a bonus and tries to take advantage of it. Because I think it’s very disgusting, I am trying to keep the floors even swept up more often. Although I have also found that Alissa thinks it’s great when I get the broom out. She wants to get right in the middle of it and finds it even more exciting that I have put all of her ‘snacks’ into a pile. She gets very frustrated with me when I will not let her eat it!

The biggest challenge for me is not dealing with the problems above, but it’s accepting the fact that my youngest baby is growing up so very fast. She is already crawling and getting more and more independent. Can’t I keep her a baby forever? In conclusion, Alissa’s crawling has become a bittersweet milestone for all of us.