. . .because otherwise she’d be in a lot of trouble right now. . .
This evening, Nicole followed me into the bathroom and sat on the little potty pretending to go. I handed her a piece of toilet paper which she used to “wipe†her diaper. After putting the kids to bed, I discovered this:
That’s right. It’s the entire roll of toilet paper unrolled and filling up the toilet with the empty roll on top. Thanks, Nicole!
I joined a gym this month (Fort Sanders Health and Fitness) and so far I’m loving it. I’ve joined gyms before, but I always feel guilty leaving my kids in the childcare so I’ve always quit going after a short while.
What really sold me on this gym is that the childcare is great. They put a bracelet on my wrist and on my children’s wrists (except for Ila who gets one on her ankle). The bracelets have each child’s name, a check-in number to help them quickly locate info like my phone number and where I said I’d be, and the time that they came in.
They’ll take kids age 6 weeks-6 years in KidCity. They have multiple rooms including a separate room for coloring, a movie room (which I’ve never seen my kids go into), and a main play area. I know they also have bathrooms, but I’m not sure if they have more rooms than that. They don’t allow parents to go back there for safety reasons. The play room has a variety of toys, a line of baby swings, exersaucers, rocking chairs, and other such things as well as big plastic castles that the kids can climb in. The staff is friendly and kind and they recognize all of my kids and know them by name, plus they change diapers and feed babies. At least they would feed my baby if she’d take a bottle. They have a place for you to list feeding instructions including bottle warming instructions.
The rule is that they’ll take each kid for up to two hours, then after a break of three hours or more, they’ll take the kids for another two hours. Although I’ve taken the kids twice in one day a few times, I usually only use the first two hours.
KidCity provides classes for the kids. I love watching the classes, it distracts me more than anything else while I exercise. Here are some pictures of the kickstart class:
They set up an obstacle course and do a variety of fun activities. In the picture below, the kids are sitting on boards with wheels and maneuvering around obstacles.
They gather on the rug in the middle to sing songs and receive instructions. They have some games and activities that they do each time and a few activities that they rotate. 
They take the kids to and from classes using a rope which the kids hold onto.
They have several other classes, but kickstart is the only one that I took pictures of. Nicole attends a class for 2 and 3 year-olds called “Bouncercize†where they do various activities with hula hoops, balls, and other things.
Fort Sanders has a separate area for the kids who are 6-11. Six-year-olds can choose which group they want to be in. The area for the older kids is called KidFit. KidFit has activites designed for older kids. They provide computers, air hockey, ping pong, foosball, a climbing wall, and other such activities. They also offer classes that are different than the ones offered for younger children. Isaac really liked the air hockey on his first day.
We’ve gone to the gym every weekday since we joined, with the exception of Isaac’s birthday. I was worried about giving up my mornings to go to the gym because that was typically my most productive cleaning time. The kids were calmer and much less needy in the morning. Going to the gym, however, has changed our day. Since they’re able to get some of their energy out in the morning and participate in a variety of activities at the gym, they are less restless and crazy in the afternoon and I find that I have a similar amount of cleaning time.
The childcare at the gym has also allowed me to start doing some tutoring with my older children. I drop Ila and Nicole off at KidCity and then take Isaac and Charlotte to another area of the gym where we practice reading, writing, and math. Then I drop them off so that I can exercise and shower.
Fort Sanders has 4 pools and with the free childcare I can actually take my kids swimming whenever I want. Our favorite is the baby pool because my three oldest children can walk around the entire pool without getting their faces wet. They have lifeguards on duty that will come sit by the pool and watch the kids too. This was particularly nice the day that Nicole started wandering away from the pool and I was able to follow her without leaving my other kids unattended (my kids happened to be the only ones in the pool on that occasion, so we had our own lifeguard). 
They also provide lots of extras like a towel service (they provide clean towels for showers or the pool or for just wiping away sweat), shampoo, body wash, shaving gel, hairspray, lotion, and aerosol deodorant. I love the towel service since it means that I don’t have to bring our own towels for swimming or showering.
We’ve even started having Zach take the kids to the gym on Saturdays. He exercises, sits in the hot tub, and showers while they watch the kids and I get some much needed kid-free time that I can use to clean the house and prepare it for Sunday.
I was starting to worry one day as I brought my kids to the gym that they were going to hate me for bringing so many kids so often, but when I walked into kidcity, a girl said “oh Ila, my favorite!†She told me that she thought my kids were the best siblings there because they took care of each other. It made my day and helped me feel good about the people taking care of my kids. One time when my cousin Natalie and I had arranged to go swimming with us, Natalie got to KidCity first and asked if Ila was there yet. The girl responded with “oh, Ila’s coming? I love Ila.†It was probably the same girl, but it still gives me great peace to know that she’s not screaming and miserable while she’s there.
And that’s the other great thing. My cousin Brent’s wife Natalie is a member of the same gym and we see each other several times a week and our kids go to classes together.
This blog is way too long. Thanks for reading.
THE END
After the birthday party we had some time before our evening activities. I took Isaac and Charlotte to the library, then helped Isaac build a Lego set (Ila supervised in her Bumbo). Isaac and Charlotte played Uno with grandma Bunny and uncle Bryan as I unloaded the dishwasher and prepped for dinner.
My Aunt Dee and my Cousin Brent and his family joined us for dinner, presents, cake and games. Isaac was pleased with the large stack of presents.
We tried to slow him down and remind him to be grateful, but for some reason he seemed to act like he was in a race to open every one.
Here’s a shot of some of the family that was there for his birthday:
The kids ended the day with movie night. Charlotte and Jackson made beds on the floor in Isaac and Nicole’s room and watched Shaun the Sheep until they fell asleep. The adults played games until almost 11:00.
Isaac requested a chocolate cake with a picture of the inside of a machine on top. My mom and I created this the night before:
After failing to make little broken wires to go in the broken cable we just put the cable back together. It was suppose to be a water pipe, but the store I went to had black food coloring, but not silver, so it ended up looking more like cables then pipes.
Isaac wanted a birthday party. He wanted to invite his entire kindergarten class with the exception of the two “naughtiest boys.†He thought maybe they could come, but they’d have to pay him $100. We debated numbers and decided he could invite his 6 best friends. I called one of his best friends to make sure that she could come on that date and time so he’d have at least one of his really good friends there.
Unfortunately, none of his school friends came. The one who said she could make it, canceled the day before because they had some family come into town. We called another boy who said he could come, but then woke up with a cough and stayed home. Isaac was a little disappointed, but he did have his friend Adam from Church and my cousin’s 3-year old son, Jackson came as well.
As I started writing up a schedule, I couldn’t decide where to put each activity. I knew I wanted the Airblox first as people were arriving and an open ended activity at the end in case the other activities went quickly. So I listed all the activities, laminated the paper, cut them up, and had the kids draw the next activity.
It was a hot day. We started out with Airblox. Isaac was quite sweaty when they came in afterwards.
The kids wrote their names with Twislers Pull ‘n Peels, and then they ate them.
They drew cake next, which was just as well because some of the kids were impatient for cake. The first cake I made was not cooked completely in the middle (I know, I should have used the toothpick test—I did for the second cake). We cut the outside ring of the undercooked cake into pieces which we decorated for each kid. The mini-cakes had the first letter in each kid’s name and a gear.
For the next activity, they had toothpicks, marshmallows, and gumdrops that they could use to build structures with.
After opening a present from his friend, we started the Kikko building races. The kids were shown a demonstration and then given a model Kikko structure to build. The first kid to complete the model got a small candy bar. The models got increasingly harder. After some races, the kids built their own designs for a little while.
After playing, we built lunch. The kids each got to build their own pizza on a pita bread with sauce, cheese, and pepperoni. Each kid left the party with a helium balloon and a gift bag.
Name: Ila Jane Cochran
Age: 6 months, 8 days
Weight: 12 lbs 15 oz 5th percentile
Length: 24 1/4 inches 5th percentile
Head Circumference: 43 cm 60th percentile
Last well check (4 month) comparison:
Age = +2m 1wk, weight = +1 lb 11 oz, length = +1 1/2 inches, head = +2 cm
We’ve got this great new family scheduled to be baptized into our church. Their names are Jerry and Taina and they have a son who will be 2 next month (also named Jerry).
In order to be baptized, they first had to be married and luckily, the church offers this service for free. We’re very excited to be having them join the church because they love the gospel and are excited to become members. They have great developing testimonies.
Taina is 9 months pregnant and is scheduled to be induced tomorrow morning (her due date is Thursday). I was a little worried that she’d miss the wedding in order to have the child, but luckily that didn’t happen.
Zach let Isaac take a few pictures with my camera. Isaac was very shy, but he managed to take this picture of the cake:
A picture of the kitchen:
and a plant:
Little Jerry (pictured below) will be 2 in July and on the day of the wedding he was running around hugging everyone. Ila was his favorite person to hug. He’d run right up and hug her and she’d laugh and pull his hair, yet he was patent with her and didn’t get mad.
Here’s a picture of Zach trying to become invisible so the kid behind him could see better, it didn’t work.
I think the cake was their favorite part. In fact, when I told them about the wedding they weren’t too thrilled till I mentioned that there’d be cake.
Charlotte decided that she’d been photographed enough, she was probably right.
For some reason, Nicole has had a rough time sleeping the last few nights. She usually sleeps all through the night with no trouble (except for maybe a little trouble falling to sleep sometimes).
It started with her crying in her bed at 1:30 AM two nights ago. That night I went in and calmed her down, but it wasn’t 5 minutes before she was crying again. I spent the rest of the night trying to help her go back to sleep. She’d seem to nod off to sleep, only to wake up after only a few minutes crying and needing to be consoled again. Finally morning came and I gave up trying to help her fall asleep and gave her breakfast. 
The entire next day she seemed sleepy, but wasn’t able to nap. She had moments of being fun and perky, but she kept laying her head down on the couch or on my lap. When she did nod off, she’d wake up crying after only a few moments. She walked slowly, her lids seemed to droop, and it looked like she was developing dark circles under her eyes. When bedtime came she went to her bed and just stood there staring at her bed as if unable to muster the energy to climb in. I tucked her in to bed thinking she’d happily sleep the night away, but she didn’t. Soon she was crying again. Zach and I both went in to calm her at different times. I even said a little prayer next to her bed. Zach took her to our room with her water bottle and Curious George. I slept on the couch (I was exhausted from being up all night with her the night before). I was hopeful in the morning because I hadn’t heard her cry, but later that evening, Zach reported that she woke up repeatedly.
She spent the second day similar to the first. She was tired the entire day, but couldn’t really nap. She fell asleep briefly at Kid City (child care at the gym) and when I looked in the windows I saw her in someone’s arms, not playing with toys. The entire day she wanted nothing more than to be held and read to and she was cranky.
When dinnertime rolled around she was so exhausted and grumpy that she refused to eat dinner and laid on the floor crying. Zach picked her up and put her in her bed to calm down, but when he looked in again, she was sound asleep. It’s now 5 1/2 hours later and she’s still sound asleep.
Could she have been having nightmares? She doesn’t seem sick in any other way.
Here’s a little Nicole clip to go with the Ila clip that I successfully posted moments ago.
For some unknown reason, Nicole just started saying “oh, man†and I thought it was cute so I got out my camera. Maybe she was saying it because she was really tired from waking up repeatedly last night, who knows what happens in the brain of a 2-year-old?!
This is my first attempt to post a video that I uploaded to YouTube. In the video, Ila is squeaking, smiling, and “talking.†I think she’s adorable, but you can see for yourself.
Problem: After a bite or two, a child has decided that (s)he no longer wants to eat a banana. 
Solution: Chocolate Syrup.
Most of the time that my kids ask for a banana, they eat it with no problems, but on occasion they’ll decide they don’t want to finish a banana. I found that if I cut it up into slices and pour a little chocolate syrup on top they’ll eat the rest of the banana and ask for more. While this isn’t the healthiest snack, it could be considered a slightly healthier bribe alternative or dessert. You do run the risk of having the child think (s)he needs chocolate syrup on every banana, but somehow I’ve avoided that. I think I told them that it’s a special treat.
I’ve also added left over whipped cream instead of chocolate for a banana treat.
Nicole’s favorite show is Curious George, and by favorite I mean it’s the only show she’ll watch. She hands me the remote and says either “George, where are you?†or “Ready, Set, Go!†I can’t decide which I like better. The last few days she has been carrying around Curious George books constantly. She doesn’t just carry the books around, she sits in my lap and says “hands†so that I’ll hold the book in my hands and then flips through pages, only sometimes allowing me to read each page completely.
This picture is great because in it she’s watching Curious George, with her stuffed Curious George next to her, and she’s holding two Curious George books. 
She insists on sleeping with the plush Curious George every night. She lays right on it and often carries it around during the day, it’s already needed to be mended twice!
Problem: Child doesn’t want to eat anything good for them.
Solution: Make boring food exciting by letting them cut their food into a shape with 
cookie cutters. You can look into jonsmithsubsfranchise.com if you are interested in opening a sandwich franchise or other food-related businesses.
My story: Ok, so I know I’m not the only one who has ever done this, but I felt pretty brilliant when I did. Here’s my story: For anyone who doesn’t know, Charlotte can be very stubborn. One day she had decided that the only thing she was willing to eat for lunch was candy (or something sweet, but I think it was candy). She descended into a kicking and screaming fit over my unwillingness to give her candy as her lunch. I insisted that she eat something good for her first. I don’t remember how long it went on, but she spent a considerable amount of time crying before I had the idea to get out the cookie cutters. I got them out and asked her if she’d eat a Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich cut into a shape, then she could have some candy. As I remember, she actually stopped crying and ate the entire sandwich, crust and all and forgot about the candy completely. I remember feeling like I had just won a hard fought battle.
Charlotte: Sometimes Ila looks like me. She looks like me when we both wear our kitty pajamas. Do you think you might not be able to tell us apart when we are both wearing our kitty pajamas?
We joined a new gym this week and our membership came with some free classes. Tonight we thought we’d try out the Karate.The age range was 4-13 so, as you can imagine, Isaac and Charlotte were possibly the smallest kids in there, but there were a few other small kids. I don’t think they knew what was going on for much of the class.
I took this picture from outside the door, before I realized I could go in and sit in the back.
They did kicks and then turned to all face a different way. Charlotte didn’t seem to understand. She was facing the wrong way the whole time. 
Maybe it was because they were afraid, but Isaac and Charlotte held hands for much of the first part. It was really funny to see them trying to do kicks while holding hands. They asked the students to pick a partner and their was no doubt who they’d pair up with. 
They did this activity where Isaac held Charlotte’s feet and Charlotte walked with her hands.
They also did leap frog. I think I was the only one taking pictures so I didn’t take too many. I wish I had gotten a few better shots.
They lined up and got a chance to break a board. Here’s Charlotte breaking one with her foot. I didn’t get a picture of Isaac doing it. I was mostly trying to stay out of the way. and sit in the back.
I asked them afterwards if they liked the class and they said that they did. On the way home Isaac asked me if I had any boards that I didn’t need. He also announced that after three more classes he thought he could break a board as hard as a brick.
My girls love to help me bathe their baby sister. If Nicole hears me mention that Ila needs to have a bath, she’ll run into the kitchen and pull a chair up to the counter by the sink. 
I love this idea because it solves two problems: 
1.) impatient, hungry children and
2.) getting kids to eat more vegetables.
Problem: It happens all too often when I’m preparing dinner and the children suddenly decide that they’re starving and they can’t wait another minute. I don’t want to feed them their dinner early and miss out on having dinner as a family when their Dad comes home.
Solution: Give them their vegetables first. I tell them something along the lines of: “we’re going to eat the rest of our dinner with Dad, but if you’re too hungry to wait, then you can eat your broccoli while you wait.†My kids do like vegetables, so they usually don’t complain and they eagerly eat the offered vegetables. If they do complain I usually tell them something along the lines of. “That’s ok, if you don’t want to eat broccoli, then you can just wait till Dad is home and eat the rest of the food when we eat as a family.†I just leave it at that and don’t allow any bargaining.
It works great for me. The kids stop complaining and they eat more vegetables than they would have if the vegetables were served along with the rest of the food. Today they finished all of the broccoli and cauliflower before dinner even started and bargained with each other for who got to eat the last bite of broccoli.
Other applications: It also works great for lunch or snack. I serve them a progressive lunch or snack starting with the healthiest thing and progressing through the offerings in order of nutritional value. Sometimes they’re full before I even get a chance to make the less healthy main course of Mac N Cheese or frozen pizza. It sounds complicated, but it’s really not. It can be as simple as giving them carrot sticks or apple slices to munch on while you make their peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Every so often I come up with an idea that I think is brilliant. It’s probably not that amazing, but I get excited about it and think I’m really smart. So I decided to post my “mom tips†as a celebration of the awesomeness that I feel when I had an idea that ended up being successful. I don’t have these strokes of genius very often, but I’ve been saving up a few so I may start off strong and then taper off dramatically.
(Also, I have this secret goal of trying to write a post almost everyday—now it’s not so secret, but I’ve been doing well so far—knock on wood).
For some reason, Charlotte likes to hint about what she wants rather than just ask for it. Most of her hinting is about food or candy. She’ll say something like:
“what is that? Is it chocolate? I like chocolate. Chocolate is brown.â€
She’ll keep describing what she wants, but never really ask for it
until you ask her if she wants some. Then she’ll sweetly say “yes!†My favorite instance of this was our last Sunday in Orem when Grandma and Grandpa Cochran came to see the kid’s primary program. Charlotte was visiting with her grandparents when I heard her say:
“that candy is not in my mouth.â€
I think it was last week that we had the following conversation as I was sitting in my rocking chair feeding Ila.
Charlotte: “Mom, do you know how to spell Tom and Jerry?â€
Me: “Yesâ€
Charlotte: “That’s the grey remote.â€
Charlotte: “You can skip with that remote.â€
Charlotte: “how you skip is, you push on the dotted arrow buttonâ€
Me: “Charlotte, would you like me to turn on Tom and Jerry?â€
Charlotte: “Yes!â€
Nicole had so much fun swimming yesterday, that she really wanted to go again today. She put her arms in this swimsuit and walked around the house crying “water, water†
It was a clever communicative idea, but even falling to the floor crying didn’t get her to the pool. 
Poor little thing, maybe I’ll take her tomorrow, I’m thinking I might join a gym with a pool that can babysit my other kids while I take them swimming one at a time. 
