Green hair

Junior's soccer team wears green and yesterday, the coach brought green hair spray. Not a surprise to me at all, Junior refused to get his hair sprayed and was the only kid on the field from our team without green hair!

Chicken-hair saw their heads and started begging for it. One of the girls on our side got the can and sprayed his head. Kidney Boy saw that and wanted in on it too! I thought it would be cute to do it to Bucket too. LOL Here are the three of them on the slide... by the way, even after Junior saw that all 3 of his brothers had green hair, he still wasn't going to let anyone spray his head! I don't know why but he has always hated stuff like that!

Junior, the altar-server!

Oh my goodness... it was the cutest thing ever! 4th grade goes to church on Fridays and Junior begged me to come today because he was going to try to get a turn to be altar server. I went and sure enough, he got a turn today! He and a classmate (who is wild and crazy and adorable -- I love her!) had their first try today, with a 6th or 7th grader to guide them. The older boy's parents do a lot around the school and we always talk to them. We like them a lot.

Anyway, Junior was so cute -- you can imagine. He was making all of his cute little Junior-boy faces. He kept looking at me to see if I was watching. He would give me a tiny little wave with his hand down by his side so he didn't get caught. He would give me his cute little smile ("Don't you just love my cute little smile?" he said to me once, while showing me his Kindergarten school picture). And he would look nervously at the older boy, waiting for him to tell them where to stand, when to walk, what to carry. His little nervous ticks -- the scrunching up his nose and blinking hard -- he would do that when it was his turn to do something. It was just so cute and sweet, I wanted to giggle and cry all at once. But I sat in the front row to see and I didn't want Father Tuan, or the stern-looking priest behind me to think I was going to cause trouble LOL I am 34 and still scared to death to get into trouble in church!

When it came time for the consecration, each kid got to take a turn ringing the bells. They do it three times, once to begin, once for the bread, and once more for the wine. His classmate got to go first and she did a fine job. She passed the bells to Junior and the older boy held his hand out, signaling him to wait. When it was time, Junior gave such a gentle jingle, the older boy had to encourage him to ring them a little harder. He did it JUST a tiny bit harder and set them down. The older boy was last and I thought it was SO adorable that even being the big kid -- he looked just as excited for his turn LOL And boy did he ring them! He gave them such a good hard long shake and Junior whirled his head around and stared, as if to say, "Shoot! I could have done it THAT hard???" I am sure that the next time he gets a turn, he is going to give them such a shake... cars outside might screech to a halt! LOL

Anyway, I wish I could have gotten it on video because it was so precious. I have been so stressed out lately and it was just what I needed. =)

More thrush stuff

Dr. V said NO MORE MINIS for Bucket. He said that is what is making him get thrush over and over. I asked why now after 6 weeks of nothing -- he has had his mini all along. He said that it builds up from very little until it gets to the point that we can see it. I went home and decided to go for it -- no minis. Naptime was a challenge but we did it. That is pretty much the only time I ever give him a mini during the day anyway.

Night came and we got ready for our "first bedtime" which is about an hour before his last feeding of the day. He gets all wrapped up and we put him between us on the bed. We watch TV and he dozes off or just looks at us. Sometimes he wants to be unwrapped. Anyway, we got him all ready and he was looking all over for that mini. It was making me so sad. He wanted it so much and couldn't figure out why he wasn't getting it. I told Gama that I think part of the problem is that Gama had gotten way too easy with the mini. He was giving it to him all day long. Any time Gama is home, if he has the baby, he gives him his mini, whether he is going down for a nap or sitting in his swing or we are getting in the car. Gama agreed. So I asked him what he thought about letting him have his mini for 5 minutes to fall asleep and then pulling it out of his mouth and that is the only time he gets it. If he wakes up when it isn't feeding time, we can try it again at that time too but always taking it out once he is asleep. That is what we had planned on doing after the last case of thrush but it just never quite stuck. Gama thought it sounded like a good idea too.

I felt bad for caving so quickly and going against what Dr. V said. We like him so much and really trust his advice. But I think sometimes you have to trust your own instincts more. I didn't even care about losing sleep. I would stay up all night if I had to. But I just felt so bad taking it away cold-turkey like that. Dr. V said it is a habit like any other and he'll get used to it. I think that is true but he isn't old enough to understand that he has to give up this habit. Maybe we will be able to get rid of it altogether, doing this. Already he has taken a few naps where he went to sleep without it. I just can't take the stress of wondering how much it is upsetting him to not have it at all.

As far as the thrush, his mouth is totally clear and was within 24 hours. I am a different story... unfortunately, my skin looked worse yesterday. I was really scared that it wasn't going to go away quickly for me this time. Today I am trying to think that it is looking better. I can't decide. My left side is not that bad at all. But my right hurts a lot. I *think* the last feeding on my right side was a little better but I don't know. I really don't. I latch him on and think, "Oh... it isn't as bad as the last time." but then by the middle of the feeding, I am thinking it is still just as sore. I went to church this morning -- it is Junior's church day and he told me he was going to try and get a turn at being altar server, which he did and I will post about that next -- but I just prayed so much for this thrush to pass again.

Bucket's 4 month check-up

I have fallen behind here. Bucket had his 4 month doctor check-up on Oct. 2. I am just going to copy and paste what I sent to my mommy email loop:

He is 13 lb. 15 oz. and 24.5 inches long. The doctor said he looks perfect and I can start solids if I want. I was surprised because I have always waited until after the 6 month visit. He usually says "keep on with the breastfeeding and we'll start solids next time" when I go at 4 months. I asked him about it and he said it is great to wait too. But I admitted to him that I was actually thinking of starting earlier this time. None of my other babies have seemed interested in food before 6 months. But Bucket keeps leaning towards my food and staring at it LOL I swear, he seems like he wants it! None of my boys have had any kind of tummy trouble so the doctor said when I feel right about it, go ahead and start with simple cereals and see how he does.

He got 4 shots plus the oral rotavirus. He didn't have any issues at all with his shots at his 2 month visit so I wasn't concerned with them this time -- same shots again. I have questioned my doctor about vaccines and trust his confidence in them. He is big on breastfeeding and always slow to medicate when the kids are sick. He doesn't strike me as one of those "just go by the book on everything" doctors so the fact that he trusts the vaccines makes me comfortable. And none of my kids have ever had problems with them. Chicken-hair would get a mild fever (like 99) after his shots when he was under a year but that was it. I always think a lot about the vaccines every time we go, because of talking about it here and in other mommy loops. But I always end up trusting my doctor and going ahead with it.