Hair's the Scoop

It was the week before Christmas. I was making a list of things to be done before the holiday, trying to make the house presentable, and figuring out how to feed a newborn a bazillion times and still keep to a normal schedule. I glanced over at the Beast and added another thing to my list - cut that boy's hair! He (and the Spud) were getting dangerously close to mullet territory, and while I may allow my children to run around sporting Spiderman costumes and gaudy tie-dyed T-shirts that don't match anything, I draw the line at redneck hair. :)

I dreaded actually completing that item on my list. The Beast is terrified of getting his hair cut, and every time I do it, I pray that the neighbors don't call CPS on us. He panics, screams hysterically, and I usually end up cutting it as fast as I can. (which has basically meant a buzz-cut every time). I promise his favorite TV show, ice cream, candy, a combination of all three - but it doesn't lessen his fear. (He has sensory issues related to his autism).

So. To recap, I had just had a baby, Christmas was on the horizon, the lower level of our house had flooded, and my kids were driving me crazy. (Oh, I didn't mention all that?) The impending haircuts were sure to add a lot of stress to that dynamic. Then dear Nerd suggested that we take all three kids to this hip little kid salon, Little Clippers, and pay whatever astronomical fees the kiddie stylists demanded. I was dubious as to whether some stranger would be able to handle the Beast and his haircut meltdowns, but hey, I was more than willing to let her try!

When we first walked into Little Clippers, we were greeted with an assortment of video game systems, motorized kiddie cars, play houses, and lots of toys. Our kids were immediately directed to a folder where they got to "sign out" the DVD they wanted to watch while their hair was being cut. Each of the offspring chose a fun vehicle to sit in, and they happily munched lollipops while staring at the TV. Well, all except the Beast, of course. However, he was not screaming or panicking - he was just very anxious and tense. The stylist assured me that she worked with kids like him all the time and would spend as much time as needed with him to get a good haircut. She was amazing - not only did she produce a nice layered haircut, but she also managed to convince the Beast to let her use scissors (something he would never let me do!) The Drama Queen also got to choose glitter and little clips for her new bob. It was such a stress-free experience that the Nerd happily shelled out the $16 per kid (I know, crazy right?!)

No, this is not an advertisement for Little Clippers - although if you have one in your area, as a mom friend, I would definitely recommend it. Nope, I was just thrilled to have someone else be able to work with my autistic boy and do so well at it.

That, and I was just a bit jealous that my salon didn't offer all those amenities. Maybe, if I were sitting in a sparkly pink car, eating my favorite candy and watching some reality TV, I wouldn't feel so awkward and obligated to make polite conversation with my stylist.

Just sayin'.

Sibling Love

Angry Birds Cake Pops: A Quick Tutorial

We made Angry Bird cake pops for the Drama Queen's sixth birthday. They were my first attempt at cake pops, but I thought I would share how I decorated them for any Angry Birds fans that wanted to make their own. I had plans to make all the different birds as well as the pigs, but as the night wore on, it became clear that that wasn't a realistic goal. So I settled on making the yellow bird, the red bird, and a pig.

First, I made the cake balls. It's super easy - you just make a cake mix in a 9x13 pan and then crumble it into fine crumbs when it has cooled. Then take a can of frosting (chocolate fudge for us!) and mix about 3/4 of it into the cake crumbs. Combine it well and make sure to not add too much frosting, or the mixture will be too soft. Then mold the mixture into nice round balls for the pigs and red birds. Mold some of the mixture into flattened triangles for the yellow birds. Put all of your balls and triangles on a parchment paper covered baking sheet, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for several hours or freeze for fifteen minutes. You don't want them in the freezer for too long or they will be too cold, causing the candy coating to firm too quickly.

For the yellow bird, I melted vanilla candy coating and tinted it with yellow candy coloring. I inserted a lollipop stick in the coating and then into the base of the triangle cake ball. I dipped the triangle ball into the coating completely and gently tapped off the excess. The eyes were made from vanilla chips with the tips cut off to make them flat. The eyebrows were simply orange sprinkles, and the hair and wings were cut pieces of black licorice. I made the beak with melted orange coating on parchment paper. All decorations were attached with more melted candy coating used as "glue", and the pupils on the eyes were done with black decorator gel.

The pig was dipped just like the yellow bird, only this time the candy coating was tinted with green candy coloring. The snout was made from a lifesaver hard candy dipped in green candy coating and the ears were made from smarties candy dipped in green candy coating. His eyes were also made from cut vanilla chips and decorated with black decorator gel.

The red bird was dipped in red candy melts and had a beak made just like the yellow bird. His eyes were the same as the pig and yellow bird, but his eyebrows were made from cut pieces of black licorice as well as his wings.

I ended up making six of each character, and my daughter (and family) loved them. Be warned that they do take quite a bit of time to make. Since candy coating does not stay fluid for long and tends to firm up pretty quickly, you do have to have time to work uninterrupted. Unfortunately I had a very cranky baby that night and tried to both decorate Angry Birds pops and soothe the poor baby. (picture me rocking her in her car seat with one foot and balancing a bottle in her mouth while trying to precariously attach a sprinkle eyebrow at the same time. yeah. not so fun.)

On Crazy Kids and Angry Birds

The Drama Queen turned six on Friday. Six going on sixteen, if you ask her. Suddenly my little girl wants to be treated like a grown-up. Still, she did not hesitate to put her new rainbow hair clips in and jump around in a circle to show me how high the curls could bounce...

She requested an Angry Birds cake. I had received a Cake Pops book from my mom for my birthday and had wanted to try my hand at them for a while now, so we decided on Angry Birds cake pops.

As usual, I ended up staying up way too late to try to make them perfect and agonizing over every crooked eyebrow and beak askew. The Drama Queen liked them just the way they were and gave me her Angry Birds face in approval.

We took the cake pops to John's Incredible Pizza and happily ate a variety of pizza and pasta while watching Curious George and Inspector Gadget in the cartoon room. And of course, our Drama Queen was showered with gifts from us and her grandparents.


Then we braved the noise and crowd chaos of the game room, playing game after game and trading in our tickets for silly little prizes. Totally worth it when a beaming, not-so-grown-up-after-all face looked up at me and said, "That was the greatest birthday ever, Mom!'

One Month

Well, I forgot how much a newborn changes the routine and schedule of a family. I forgot how many times I have to stop whatever activity I'm engaged in to feed her and change her. Homeschooling and housework and kid time have to fit in around her schedule. So suddenly, computer time is not so much a priority. Still, I have to find time to make sure all the important moments are recorded. So, a week late, I present to you our one-month-old:

Like her big brother Spud, she is very much a morning person and quite cranky in the evenings. She is already developing her own personality, amusing and delighting us with the cutest facial expressions. Little Sprout weighs a little over ten pounds at one month old and is filling out 0-3 month clothing well. Sadly all the newborn outfits have been already tucked away.

I am trying my best to relish every moment of the "littleness" as I know it will fast be replaced by toddler chubbiness. :)

Six

Yesterday I posted the birth story of our newest addition to the family. Today I am thinking about the time six years ago that we headed into the hospital to have our first baby girl.

It was the day I first became a mother and the day I truly realized what deep unconditional love was.

Today we are celebrating our firstborn's sixth birthday. She is incredibly excited!

She woke up to find a bunch of Hello Kitty balloons from her daddy tied to her breakfast chair and a whole set of Disney Princess school supplies from mommy.

She chose rainbow sprinkle pancakes for breakfast and played happily with her brothers all morning. ( no school on your birthday in this house!)

Tomato soup is her all-time favorite food so it starred for lunch.

The afternoon promises some fun at Grandma's, and the evening will be spent at John's Incredible Pizza with several varieties of gourmet pizza, Angry Bird cake pops, and lots of arcade games.

This girl is so grown-up lately. Sometimes she amazes me with her maturity and profound thoughts. She surprises me often with her offers to help and her "second mommy" role in our household. She has become Daddy's favorite video game buddy and my favorite artist and crafter. She still retains a lot of child-like enthusiasm and giddiness over the smallest of things, and for that I am grateful.

May God bless this next year with our beautiful daughter!

Hosanna Joy's Birth Story

Okay, so it took me a while to get this posted - a month after the sweet baby girl was born, in fact. But here it is - the story of the arrival of baby number four to our family.

When my estimated due date came and went, I posted this picture on Facebook. I was so ready to have that baby! The nights were miserable with painful Braxton Hicks contractions, and the days were endless. I had not been able to make any firm commitments to attend any of the various Christmas functions we had been invited to since we had no idea when Little Sprout finally would make her appearance. The day after my due date, I attended a Ladies' Christmas Ornament Exchange Party for my church and stopped counting how many people asked, "Oh so you haven't had that baby yet?"

On Friday evening (December 9), after doing several laps at the mall and Target and only ending up with swollen ankles and an aching back, I saw online that there was going to be a lunar eclipse in the early morning. Not only that, but a full moon was scheduled for that Saturday night. I'm by no means superstitious, but both of my boys had been born during a full moon - so I was hopeful. Unfortunately, it was entirely too foggy in our area to view the lunar eclipse that morning. I had even set my alarm for 4:00 am to see it! That morning, I could barely move because I was experiencing some intense lower back pain. I had had this pain off and on during the pregnancy. I was bummed because I wanted the pain to at least be productive contractions! We decided to go out with the kids for a little while, but I was exhausted and hurting. The back spasms kept coming and I just wanted to go home and sleep. Our Sunday School class had a Christmas party scheduled for that evening. We had not planned on going because we thought Little Sprout would have arrived by then. I didn't really feel like going but thought it might be distracting and help keep my mind off the whole "when is this baby going to come?"

While dropping the kids off at childcare before heading to the party, the back spasms started getting much more intense. I could barely breathe when they came, nearly doubling me over with pain. A friend suggested that I might be in labor, but since I had never experienced back labor with my other babies, I was reluctant to think this might be true. I was also really tired of false labor! At the party, everyone was merrily eating and talking. I could barely take a bite before I would feel that "stabbed in the back" pain, and I would have to sit there and force myself to breathe through it. The Nerd convinced me to start timing the back spasms, in case it really was labor. They started becoming very regular, about ten minutes apart and lasting forty seconds to a minute. I still insisted on staying at the party for the gift exchange :) At this point, I was having trouble focusing on anyone or anything. We left the party and went to pick up the kids. Although I was against it, the Nerd called the hospital to let them know I was in labor. By this time, the contractions were 8 minutes apart, but I was sure the nurse was just going to tell me to wait it out until they got closer together before coming in to the hospital. However, she told us to come in right away.

My in-laws came and got the kids, and we headed in to the hospital. While walking to the labor and delivery floor, I had to stop every couple of minutes and work through a contraction. I remember thinking that I had never experienced such painful contractions in either of my previous deliveries. I looked out the window while we were checking in and noticed the full moon. It wasn't long before the nurses had me settled in a room and hooked up to the monitors and IV. The Nerd started setting up his cot and letting people know I was in labor. We knew from previous babies that my labors were long, so there was no need to rush things. The midwife came in to check my cervix and announced, to my great shock, that I was 8 cm dilated and would be delivering the baby within the next couple of hours! Everything started happening so quickly at that point. I asked if I could still get an epidural to help with the back pain. The anesthesiologist told me that he could give me an epidural but that it wouldn't be able to take full effect since I was so close to delivering. It took him two tries (ouch!) but he finally got it in. At that point, any relief from the back pain was welcome! Apparently Little Sprout was positioned right up against my tailbone and the pressure was causing the back spasms. At midnight, I was ready to push, and after 45 tiring minutes of pushing, this adorable little girl came into our lives and stole our hearts instantly:

I wasn't able to hold her right away. Her lungs had a lot of fluid in them; so she had to lay flat in the warm bassinet for a while in order for her muscles not to work so hard to breathe. But oh! When they finally placed little Hosanna Joy in my arms, my heart swelled with happiness as I looked at my brand-new daughter.

She looked just like a girly version of our Spud. Her head of dark hair amazed and delighted us.

The Nerd was instantly smitten - another Daddy's girl has joined our family!

When the siblings were able to come visit later that morning, the Beast would not leave her side. The others got distracted by flashing buttons and curtains and nurses that gave them ice cream. The Beast held his little sister with great pride and showered her with kisses.

The Spud was pretty excited too! Look at that face!

We had an amazing stay at the hospital - our nurses were wonderful and everything went so well. But we were more than ready to take our newest addition home that Tuesday morning. She fits into our family like a glove - now just a month later and none of us can imagine our family without her.

Welcome, Hosanna Joy! Our family was not complete until you arrived, and now our lives are even more full of joy. :)

Newborn Sweetness

Sometime between one sleepy feeding and another stealthy diaper change last night, I looked down at our sweet Anna and realized that the newborn look was starting to fade away. At that moment, I groggily determined that I would find some time the next day to capture that "new baby" look before it disappeared. (Now if only there was some way to capture that new baby scent!) After a long morning nap, Hosanna was in a good mood; and I quickly pulled out the camera for a photo session:

I honestly can't get enough of her! She has been kissed and cuddled endlessly by all the members of our family, although I am pretty sure Daddy would win the prize for person-most-infatuated-by-the-new-baby. I am so glad I was able to catch some of those cute little newborn expressions on camera!