Plagiocephaly

That is what Addie has. 'Crooked head'. She is going to be wearing one of those helmets that will re-shape her head. It's a little lopsided on one side. Her skull bones aren't closed up yet, which is good, so it was just a placement issue. I really think it is because we didn't have that little clip thing on the seatbelt for the first 3 months and so her carseat was tilted up one way. Who knows though. We noticed at a few months old and we did everything we could to keep her off of that one side. Bumbo, laid her down on her other side, put the clip on the car seat, and soooo much tummy time. (I think that is why she crawled way before our other kids.) But nothing worked. It's not super noticeable unless you're looking straight down at the top of her head. But we want her to have a normalish head shape when she is older. She has to wear it for 6-8 weeks, the doctors said. My sister Sinika had one for her little boy so I kind of know what to expect. But his was a solid color and Addie's is going to be clear plastic. That was the only kind they had for Addie. I've seen other babies with the clear kind on and you can see their little hair all sweaty and stuck to their head. That is going to be Addie. :( I'm going to miss her little fuzzy soft head! We just got her head cast into a mold today. She didn't really enjoy it so much. I couldn't take any pictures because I had to hold her arms so she couldn't grab at her head. It's going to take about 2 weeks for us to get it. I asked if most babies cry for a few days or so to get used to them when they first start wearing them and they said usually for the first few hours they cry about it and then the first night when they go to sleep they cry for a while because they have to get used to sleeping on something so hard. Oh, it's so sad for little babies! Anyway if you see her in the next few months she might look all sweaty and uncomfortable but after, hopefully, she'll have a nice round head!
Here is a picture of the view from above. Boy that's a hard shot to get! She just wanted to look up at me and she loves the camera so she had to see what I was doing. In this pic she is looking right at Ben, so you can see how one side in the back is weird shaped.

Not enough hands...

Addie loves to put something in her mouth and then let go if it with her hands so that she can use her hands for other things like crawling or filling them with more toys:

This one looks a little scary, I know, I took it right out.

What Addie is learning

For journaling purposes I wanted to list all the recent things Addie learned in her 7th month:
She loves to clap, and will do it if you just say the word.
She can wave with her hand, she doesn't know what she is doing but loves to copy it.
Her favorite things to say are: La, la, la - with her tongue all the way out and: Da, da, da - she loves to say this out loud and to whisper it.
She learned how to get to her hands and knees, then sit herself up, then started crawling and pulling herself up to stand one right after the other.
She growls. It is so cute! She has a little stuffed animal lion and she growls while she eats its face. (Of course, I always growl as I am giving it to her, he he.)
She is starting to roll away during diaper changes. You think I was stronger than a baby but it's hard to hold her! Here come the speedy changes with the crooked diapers!
She is starting to pick up cheerios, etc. with two fingers instead of a fist.
She somehow learned how to be cuter and cuter every day.

On Elli's door right now...

Dancing with the siblings

Sorry for all the videos but this one makes me laugh so hard. Whenever I see those kids dancing on "Dancing with the Stars" I tell Elli and Ben to come and watch so then they start dancing together how they think the kids are doing it. Anyway, last night I looked out the window and saw Elli and Ben spinning around outside so I started recording and it changed from spinning, to their version of ballroom dancing. Ben looks like he's being tossed around like a ragdoll. I stopped recording just minutes before a head/nose bonk (Elli's head, Ben's nose). By the way, we do not watch "Ultimate Fighting" if you hear that in the background. Star Wars had just ended and we were about to turn the TV off.

CRAWLING!!

For the past few days, Addie has been crawling to something she wants. If I tell her to come to me, she just cries but if we put something that she normally can't have a little ways away, like paper, legos, or, in this case, I tempted her with a Q-tip, she can crawl to it!

Hair update

Well, I did it. I cut my hair off. I was so ready for a change and I should have done it sooner. This really isn't the best picture of it but that's all there is for now.

Childhood faves

I tried adding a playlist here but it wouldn't work so I put it at the bottom of my blog. In this list are some the earliest songs that I remember loving. Probably between ages 5-10 or so. The thing is, I still LOVE hearing them! I'm so excited to get them all together so I can listen to them anytime. Some of them are a little interesting. (Dionne Warwick?) But I really love all of them. Go ahead and listen if you want. (Sorry, you'll have to pause the other player.)
My sister, Sinika and I got a radio for Christmas one year and we were so excited. I can still remember what it looked like: it was a brown rectangle about 12 inches long and maybe 6 inches high. Turny knobs. No tape player, just good ol' AM/FM radio. None of this fancy, cute colored, 3-in-one players like there are today for kids radios. But we still loved it. So these songs that I put in my playlist are totally from hearing them on THIS radio.
When I hear some of these songs, I can totally see me and Sinika in our room with multi-hue yellow carpet playing with our plastic charm necklaces or else cleaning our room for 8 hours straight. Why did it take us that long? I don't know but it would seriously take us an entire Saturday. I remember my idea of cleaning was putting anything small into something bigger. Like a sock, along with any number of small items into a purse or a box.
One year we had a season pass to Super Sliders water park. EVERY time we were there we would hear "Take On Me". So that became "the Super Sliders song".
I loved singing Whitney Houstons "How will I know". I thought I was a pretty good singer back then. I found I was pretty good at memorizing lyrics which I have carried on throughout my life. (I still know a lot of the lyrics to these songs, even without hearing them for years.)
It's amazing what memories music brings back. My music taste has definitely changed over the years but these songs will always be special to me.

Mothers' Day

I always forget about Mothers' Day. Then a few days before when my kids start bringing home the little 'seed in a pot' (which I love every time) I always think, aww, I don't need any presents or anything, and I just try and not think about the holiday and then I remember, oh yeah, I need to get something for my mothers!
Well, Elli's teacher did the cutest thing for the kids to bring home for Mothers' Day. She had all the kids tell her how to make their favorite meals. Elli had asked me how to make it and I was wondering why she wanted so much detail. (I was really worried that she was going to try to make it all by herself!) But then when I opened this present it all came together. It was so cute. I think you can click on the picture to make it bigger if you can't read it. One girl in her class told how to make her favorite meal: "Hot Pockets". It made me laugh so hard!! She was like, "You take it out of the freezer, and put it on the plate, then put it in the microwave for 2 minutes." Oohhh, so funny.

The race

Well, I did it. And I realize now that I had nothing to be scared about. I don't know why I was so nervous. Even that morning on the way up to Salt Lake I was nervous. So here's the thing: I didn't even actually run it. Well, I walked it. I went with my mom and my sisters Sinika and Michelle and her two daughters and her husband Mike. I pushed Addie in the stroller. I wanted to stay with my mom so she would have some company. As we started going it was so slow at first that I actually felt a little antsy and I wanted to start running but by then I couldn't find Sinika and her running friends and so I just stayed with my mom. (Yes I could have run by myself but it's just funner when your with other people.) There were so many people that you couldn't even walk fast you just had to walk the pace of everyone else. By the time we passed the actual starting line the race had been going for 15 minutes or so and the first (really fast) runners were actually coming back. Every so often there would be an empty pocket with no people and my mom would run up into it and me and Stacey would follow. Anyway, it was fun. Elli really wanted to come but I discouraged her because I thought it would be too hard and long. But now I know that she would have loved it. I guess we'll have to go again next year. Here are Stacey, my mom, and Addie - my walking buddies. No, I don't know that man on the right.

This is just a picture to show how many people there were. As far as you can see - to the skyline - was all people. It looked like that in front of us and in back of us. Sooo many people!

Left to right in the back: Stacey, Michelle, Anikka, Mike, Me, Sinika and my mom in front

After we all went out to breakfast to Mimi's Cafe. It was so yummy! I probably added more calories than I even burned in the race with my cream cheese stuffed french toast. But it was fun to hang out with the fam.

A third of life

Lately I have felt so blah. Like I'm not doing enough in my life to make any kind of difference. I feel like I'm just trying to get through another day and another. I feel like when I'm 60 I'll look back on my life and just see a messy house, forcing kids to eat their dinner, paying bills, and bad hair days. Is this what a mid-life crisis feels like? Do people have those at 30? I don't know. Maybe it's this forever long winter we've had. Maybe I need to get outside more now that the weather's getting nice. Maybe I need to go and do some kind of service. Maybe I need a new hobby. Maybe I just need a new hairdo. Seriously doesn't hair make the biggest difference? Usually the 2 times per year that I get my hair done I feel pretty good for a while after. Maybe when schools out and every day isn't just a re-run of the day before, then I can be more spontaneous with my kids and it will be different.
Sorry for all the 'maybes' in this post. Maybe I need to start using a thesaurus.

Addie's abs-ies

I guess this means you're too big for the bouncer chair when you can sit yourself up and dodge your head around the toy bar.

Reading update

Waahoo! I finally finished my book 'The Pillars of the Earth' and it only took me two and a half months. Ha ha. I had to read mostly at night. Every once in a while I would try to sneak in some day reading but that would never last very long as soon as the kids found me. It was very good. There were some graphic sex scenes but I feel like they were true to what life was like during that time. It was a perfect picture of a twelfth century life. It asked a question that I had never thought about before. Back when the catholic church was so powerful in England, was the church above the kings or were the kings above the church? Who had the final say in discipline? Interesting. There were so many characters that it followed through a period of 50 years and they were all so real that it's hard to leave them now. It was fun to go back in time to that era in history. Well I guess it's on to the next book. If only I could put this kind of energy towards reading 'The Work and the Glory' series. I've been at book two for 5 years or so. I know I'll love the whole series but just knowing how many books there are makes me a little aprehensive to start. Sorry this is probably boring and I won't talk about all my reading adventures but I thought I should update since I talked about it earlier.

Procrastinator

I am so scared. I have signed up for the Race for the Cure 5k on Saturday May 10. I haven't been running. I am in so much trouble. I need to just get myself out and start running. Tonight I will. Now that I have said it out loud (or typed it quietly) it means I have to do it. Even if it is freezing outside today and it's snowing. And then I will keep doing it every day until the race. I have only run 1 other race in my adult life. It was a 5k too and I hated it. It never ended. Why did I sign up for this one? I don't know. Maybe it is from my inablilty to say 'no'. When I was asked if I wanted to do it, I couldn't think of an excuse not to so I said 'yes'.
No really, I want to get in shape, and this is just the thing to kick me in the pants and start doing it. But I really am scared that I my body is going to give up at 1 mile. So why did I only run once last week? Because I am the biggest procrastinator on the planet.

Hooray for peas!!