And baby makes five

Baby Jo joined us today. For the first few weeks she will be with us for two days a week, then for three days a week, and then in May will join us for four days a week. Of course, these are ten hour days. In any case, so far so good. We even made it out to a playdate at a friend's house today. I managed to work it so the three youngest ones are upstairs napping right now and A and B are having "quiet time" on the couch. Not bad. Plus I have dinner in the crockpot, a load of laundry in the dryer, breakfasts and lunches made for tomorrow, and the table and counters wiped off. I'm feeling almost cocky - I'm sure now that I said all this, the afternoon is going to be long and painful. Seriously though, I am exhausted, so I'm really glad for this opportunity to sit right now. I might even need to pull out the caffinated tea bags for a little jolt soon. Hopefully I will get to bed on time as I kind of did last night (was in bed on time but started reading a new book, so . . . ) but actually go to sleep by 10.

Last night I got a little caught up watching Super Nanny at 9. Did you see it? The family had SEVEN kids, and the dad was being shipped to Iraq in a few weeks for at least a year. These kids cursed and called each other names like you would not believe, but after watching the mom curse at them later ("Open the @#$% door!") I could understand why even the little ones were cursing. One of the strategies that Jo consistently implements in every household is a posted schedule. It really got me thinking about how that could help us, especially with the baby here. If nothing else, I MUST get up at 6 to shower and dress, and start getting the kids dressed when they wake up (usually around 6:30). That way that would be downstairs and done breakfast by the time DN-A and DN-J arrive at 7:30. That makes a HUGE difference. We did it today, now I have to work on getting to bed on time so I can get up on time so it continues. Oh, what a tough cycle.

On a completely different topic, my boys are huge milk drinkers. We actually had to limit their milk intake when they were younger (and still do) to 16 oz (two sippy cups worth). I didn't really understand when my sister said that DN-A doesn't seem to like milk. J drinks a lot too, but recently has started protesting, requesting "juice" (water with a splash of apple juice on top). To ensure that my three get their two cups of milk in each day, we start with milk every morning. This morning J grabbed her morning cup of milk as usual. After two sucks from her sippy cup, J pulls away and looks at me accusingly as she shouted, "There's milk in my apple juice!"