Boys in the Bath

I just had to include this cute shot of all four boys in the bathtub the other day. (Do you think we'll be able to fit another little boy in that tub in a few months? I don't know . . . it'd be a pretty tight squeeze).

Pictures of the Boys

So, I had to post a few more cute photos of the boys from this weekend. The first one is when they decided to put on a “parade,” which meant that they went in their room and got on their parade clothes, about 7 layers each, including sweaters, swim shorts, and even a pair of underwear around Camden’s neck. I thought it was pretty cute – especially that the older two boys could help Camden put on so many layers, but I did make them help fold and put away all the clothes when they were done.

Then I had to take this picture of all four boys after I got them all dressed and ready to go to the church Christmas brunch Saturday morning. I trimmed Kolby’s and Eli’s hair that morning and I thought all the boys looked so cute all in their cozy sweatshirts.

Funny Things the Boys Have Said Lately . . .

Camden: I opened the back door to take the trash out the other day, and Camden said, “Makai outside?” (Makai is my parents’ dog that they brought with them when they visited for Thanksgiving a week and a half ago). I told him that Makai wasn’t in the back yard, that she went home with Nana and Papa. Camden tilted his head to the side (he does this when he’s not happy) and said, “No Nana and Papa, Makai outside!” He just didn’t understand that the dog wasn’t still in our back yard, since that was the last place he saw her.

Eli: I was giving the boys a shower the other night and Eli looked at my belly and asked, “Is Courtland going to pop out right now?” I told him that my belly wasn’t going to pop, and that Courtland wasn’t ready to come out yet. So he asked, “Why is your tummy so big then?” And I explained that the baby is growing, and that he will keep growing bigger until he is ready to come out.

Kolby: When we went to see the Christmas lights at Temple Square with our friends, the Barkers, Kolby had to use the bathroom. So I took Kolby and Eli and Miriam brought her two little girls inside to use the restroom. I always take the boys into the women’s restroom with me since they aren’t old enough to go into the men’s by themselves yet. On our way out of the bathroom, Kolby asked what the tampon dispenser on the wall was. Thinking that I would just be matter-of-fact and answer him clearly so as not to make a big deal out of it, I just told him it was for tampons. He asked what tampons were, and I told him that they were for girls and that he didn’t have to worry about them. Kolby can get pretty frustrated when he feels like we are not answering his questions to his satisfaction, and he started to get frustrated with me, asking me again what tampons were for. So I told him that they were for periods, hoping that would satisfy him. Of course not. He then demanded to know what periods were, and for the life of me I couldn’t think of a good, simple, quick explanation of a menstrual period that would be appropriate for a 5-year-old boy to hear (and for me to be telling him, in front of all the other kids, in a public restroom). Miriam, of course, was just laughing through this whole conversation. So, after Kolby asked me a few times what a period was, and I delayed (hoping that he would forget his question), I finally just told him that I couldn’t think of a good answer and I’d have to think about it and talk to him about it later. Luckily that seemed to appease him for the time being. We’ll see if he remembers to ask me about it again in the future.

Baby Names

So, I was just reading the blog of a friend who is having a little girl soon and asking for ideas on baby names. And even though I think we have some good ideas for names for this baby, I thought I’d just see if anyone could think of any other baby names that we might like better. We are pretty sure on the girl name we have, and we have a boy name we like, but could possibly be up for suggestions. So, any ideas?

If you care to know how I decide on a baby name, here are some things that I take into consideration (yes, I know I am pretty picky about baby names). I don’t like names that are really common (like John, Mary, Joshua, Kathryn, etc.) [and then there are some more common names that I quite like, such as Samuel or Benjamin, but I just don’t want my kids to have to be Sam B. all through school because there are 3 or 4 other kids in their classes with the same name], but I don’t like names that are so weird that you can’t pronounce them either. Michael is more likely to lean towards names that I consider more common than I am. And I have to think that the name goes well with the other kids’ names – like all of the boys have two syllable names (I know, Elijah is 3 syllables, but he goes by Eli most of the time), and I wouldn’t choose a name that sounded too similar to one of the other boys’ (I like Levi, but it’s too close to Eli, and I like Caleb but it sounds kind of like Kolby). And then you have to consider nicknames – I love the name Jeremiah, but dislike Jerry or Jer, and I think Miah sounds a little girly. Or Ezekiel (many of you know that this was almost Camden’s name), but almost everyone’s first reaction to the name was “Oh, Zeke the Geek.” (I know that kids can think up a mean nickname for most any name, but if that’s the first thing that people think of, it’s probably not the best idea). And then there are a few names that I think are really cute, but Michael automatically vetoes (for some unknown reason) J like Easton, Weston, Riley, Franklin (but I don’t like Frank), Harrison, Quinn, Lincoln, Keegan, etc. Oh, and Michael usually doesn’t go for names that are used for boys and girls, except for Aaron (because everyone knows that Erin is a girl and Aaron is a boy). [As you can tell, I am mostly thinking about boys’ names – we have quite a list of possible girls’ names, and are kind of running out of boys’ names we agree on.]

Yes, I know, I put way more thought into this whole baby naming business than most people probably do, but oh well – I’m going to have to be saying these names for the rest of my life, so I guess I’d better like them.

Yep.

So, yes, I am pregnant. And the guesses from the last post were right – 15 months between Kolby and Eli, 20 months between Eli and Camden, 13 months between Camden and Isaac, and now 15 months between Isaac and ?????? (actually, it’s closer to 15 ½ months, but I think rounding down is always a better idea than rounding up when it comes to pregnancy). So, baby Bradshaw #5 is due on February 8th. I am 12 ½ weeks along now, and am looking forward to when the morning sickness totally goes away (although it has been better lately than a few weeks ago).

One thing that has been giving me trouble this time around that I haven’t had to deal with before is a really bad gag reflex – actually, that has always bothered me a little bit in past pregnancies, like I couldn’t stand to hold a pencil in my mouth or anything like that, but it has been much worse this time – I can’t swallow pills. I can usually get by if I have to take a little tiny pill, but prenatal vitamins always seem to come in the horse-pill size. Even if I’m not feeling nauseous from morning sickness, if I try to take medicine it will make me gag and throw up. Any suggestions? My midwife gave me a prescription for liquid prenatal vitamins the other day, and I have been to two different pharmacies and got a call yesterday from the second one that they couldn’t find anything like that available anywhere. I know there are also chewable ones, but have heard that they taste really terrible, and I don’t know if I could handle that when I am feeling morning sick. Well, I guess I’ll get past this.

So, we will find out in about 6 weeks if the baby is a boy or girl. Ideally I would have liked to wait until we knew the baby’s gender before announcing to everyone that we were pregnant, but after you’ve had 4 kids things start to become obvious a little earlier, and I thought people would be able to tell I was pregnant before then. So, just so everyone knows, we are excited to be pregnant, and we would be happy with either a boy or a girl, really. I know that lost of people I talk to think I am secretly wishing for a girl for the last one, but I think 5 boys would be great. I think this one will be a boy (although I’ve been wrong on that every time with the last 4 kids, so who knows). So, we’ll keep everyone updated when we find out if this one is a boy or girl, and we’ll let you know then what name we’ve decided on.

Boy Oh Boy!

A couple weeks ago we babysat for the Kearls and the Hedgecocks because we owed them both for watching our kids more than once. It seems like it is harder and harder for Michael and I to ask anyone to babysit for us anymore, because we have a couple of good friends who we know we can always count on to watch our boys for us if we need them too, but we don’t want to take advantage of their kindness and ask them too frequently. And then most other people we have asked to babysit for us have never asked us back to watch their kids for them, so we don’t feel like we can ask them again. We just have more kids than many of our friends do, so it’s hard to ask people to take on so many little boys all at once. And I guess people don’t ask us to babysit for them because they think it would be too many kids for us, but these photos will lay those fears to rest. So, to all of our friends who read this, please, ask us to babysit – we are always looking for opportunities to trade babysitting with friends.

Anyways, coming back from that little tangent – we watched the Hedgecocks’ and Kearls’ kids, and the Wellses happened to come over that night and brought ice cream, so we ended up having ice cream with all the kids. With our boys and Marie Wells, there were 9 kids total, but it made it a lot more fun to babysit with friends over while we did it.

And the video at the end is from a different night, but it shows a typical game night at our place before we round up all the wild children and put them to bed so that the parents can enjoy some games. The boys (and Katie) will often run back and forth from the bedroom to the living room, and lately they have started yelling things while they run, like “Fire!” or “Tornado!” But a bunch of little kids age 4 and younger yelling “Tornado” sounds a lot like “Tomato,” so I had to grab the camera and catch that on tape. Pretty cute! But, of course, it didn’t take them long to realize they were being recorded, and then they all stopped running to pose and act silly for the camera. Isn’t that always the case – when I want to catch something on video, they stop whatever they are doing and pose for the camera, but if I wanted to take a cute picture of them, they would probably start running around the house.

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New Decorations

This Christmas I asked Michael for some nice frames with a big picture of each boy in them, and I found what I was looking for after going to several different frame places (we waited to get this Christmas gift until we were back in Milwaukee because it would have been a pain to try to pack the frames while out of town). I found these frames and had the pictures printed for them, and I love how they turned out. I also used some birthday money to get some candles to go in one of the candle chimneys that my Grandpa Carl made for centerpieces at my wedding reception -- it is really nice to have something of his displayed in our home now. You can also see in one of the pictures my Christmas gift to Michael: I framed a copy of an important church document, The Living Christ, and made a matt with pictures of Jesus all around it for him. And the last one is of the flowers that Michael got for Valentine's Day -- they ended up lasting for over a month before they started to wilt, which was really nice to have something bright and summery in our house while it was so cold out.

February Photos

Here are some fun photos and video clips of the Bradshaw boys from last month. The video clips show Isaac laughing, Kolby playing the harmonica, Isaac eating rice cereal for the first time, and a fun game that Kolby, Eli, and Camden play. (I love this little game that they came up with -- it's kind of a mixture of Hide-and-Seek and Chase -- Kolby and Eli run into one room and hide in a corner or behind the furniture and Camden runs in and as soon as he sees them, they run into a different room to hide again and he follows, it's so fun to watch them play together).

The photos are of the boys playing with their train set, Eli on his first day of preschool (and Kolby's first day of school for this winter session), Eli with the trains that he got for his birthday from Grandpa Dick and Grandma Debbie, Isaac in his jumper, Daddy and the boys singing Eli's favorite song, "Wheels on the Bus," Kolby showing off his new favorite possession: his CTR ring from church [CTR stands for Choose The Right], Isaac after he fell asleep on the living room floor, and a few of all four boys together. It's so fun to see these pictures, especially the ones of all of my boys together, and think of what good friends they are (and will hopefully continue to be) as they all grow up together.

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Portraits of the Boys

We had these photos of the boys taken while we were in Boise in December.

A Run-in with the Law

So, we had a little excitement at our place last night. After Michael took the boys to swimming lessons and I returned home from visiting Amy Hymas and her new baby, Faith and Tyce Kearl came over to play some games. Michael got a phone call from his sister, Mel, in Utah telling him that there was a lunar eclipse and he and Tyce went out to look at it. They came in and said it was pretty cool, so Faith and I went outside to see it. We were standing in front of our apartment building looking up, and it was kind of cool – you could see a brown spot on the moon from where the Earth was blocking the sunlight. We stood out there for a few seconds, and then I said that the eclipse was cool, but that it was too cold to stand out there any longer to look at it.

So we started to walk back inside, and as soon as we did a lady came into view down on the street in front of our building. It was dark out and she was yelling at us to stop, using profanity, and pointing a gun at us. So we ran inside as fast as we could. I think we startled our husbands when we ran in and locked the door. We told them what had happened, and I said that the lady yelled “Police,” but Faith hadn’t heard her say that. But I have heard enough stories of bad cops hurting people or bad people impersonating police officers, that I wasn’t going to wait around outside while someone was aiming a gun at us to see if she really was a police officer or not. So, when we heard four officers come into the hallway outside our front door and they were yelling, when Michael went to the front door, I didn’t want him to unlock it. I thought that it would be very strange for a police officer to aim a gun and yell profanities at two people for no apparent reason, so I thought that if it really was an officer, and she did want us to come out of our apartment she could calm down, explain herself, and show us her badge before barging in.

We soon realized (by watching through the peep hole in our front door) that the officers in the hallway were not calling for us to open our door, but they were calling for someone to come down from upstairs. We kept watching as the teenage boy from upstairs came down and when they asked him who else was upstairs he said that it was just him and his mother and sister. I then overheard the officer say that they don’t mess around when they get reports of a gun. We kept returning to the door to peek out, and first they had the boy handcuffed, then later on the mom and the girl were there handcuffed too and they were reading them all their rights.

At this point I started to feel bad because I didn’t want the officers to think that the mom and daughter were the ones they were chasing outside and have them get in extra trouble for running away from the officers when it was really us. So I cracked open the door, and the officer told me to wait inside. After a while the mom and daughter were no longer in the hallway, it was just the boy. The officer knocked on the door and came in and I apologized for running away. She said that there were reports that the boy was shooting a gun out of the upstairs window and that there were two females with him, so we had really bad timing for going out to look at the moon, because she assumed that we were those two females from the report. She made it seem like we were pretty dumb for running away when she told us to stop, although I still feel justified for running from a person screaming and swearing at us in the dark and aiming a gun at us, even if that person did say they were the police. So, the officer took our names and information, just to note in their paperwork that neither Faith nor I were the ones with the gun, and then she left.

We were talking after that, and commenting that we didn’t think the boy could have actually been shooting a gun out the window above us or we would have heard it. I can tell you that both Faith and I, and probably Michael and Tyce too, had an adrenaline rush after that. (I had never had a gun pointed in my direction before).

I was rather concerned that the boy living in our building could possibly have been waving or shooting a gun, and wondering if we needed to be concerned about our family’s safety, so today I called the police department and asked about last night’s incident. I was told that after all that, they found out that it was not a real gun. She said it was a soft air gun and we didn’t need to be concerned. (So, because the boy upstairs wanted to play with fake guns, Faith and I got a real gun pointed at us). That was quite a little adventure. And it is a relief to know that the boy upstairs is not some kind of psycho.

Family Photos

So we had our family photos taken in November and we just picked them up before we left Milwaukee.

Random Unrelated Topics

So, I’m wondering if I started to feel Braxton Hicks contractions yesterday. You would think that by the fourth kid I would know for sure, but each one is different. It felt like the pain of contractions, and they were spaced out like Braxton Hicks, but instead of being a pain down low like with cramps, it was painful all over my belly. And they happened every once in a while all day yesterday. So, we’ll see. It’s interesting that I haven’t felt anything up until now – except with my first pregnancy, I felt the Braxton Hicks contractions much earlier on in the other pregnancies.

On a different subject, I think there is something seriously wrong with our VCR. We have a nice VCR-DVD player combination machine that we got when we were married, and we have really liked having the ability to play both types of movies. The DVD part of the machine is working fine, but the VCR has started having problems the last couple of days. A couple days ago I taped a show from tv and when I went back to watch it, every time I tried to fast forward through a commercial, the tape paused and wouldn’t let me hit play. If I stopped the tape it would let me rewind or fast forward, but even if I only hit the button for a couple of seconds it would quickly jump through most of the tape all at once. I figured that the tape was done for – we must have just taped shows on it over and over so many times that we needed to use a fresh tape. We tried that last night, but found that the machine had the same problem with a different tape. After messing around with it for a while, we finally found that the tape would only play correctly if Michael sat on the floor a foot in front of the VCR – if he would get up or even shift his weight a little, the tape paused. So, he sat on the hard wood floor last night for an hour while we watched our show that we had taped. It was actually rather comical to watch, although I’m sure it was less than comfortable for him. We have never heard of a problem like this before – any suggestions?

And on an entirely different topic, I had to mention something that happened to me yesterday. The other day I wrote a lengthy post about always getting negative comments from strangers about having all boys. So, I was getting all the boys out of the van yesterday morning to take Kolby into his preschool class at the YMCA, and a middle-aged man walked by and very jovially announced, “Three boys – you are so lucky! And probably another boy on the way. That is great!” I smiled and he just kept on walking by, and I felt like that nice comment from a stranger maybe (in some small way) redeemed all the other strangers who have said such thoughtless things when they saw how many boys we have.

Oh, and I just wanted to mention a cute thing Eli said last night. We went out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant last night to celebrate Michael finishing one of his Step 2 Board exams, (Pedros is quickly becoming one of our ‘favorite’ restaurants. Not so much because of the amazing cuisine – we like the food fine – but more because they keep sending us buy-one-get-one-free dinner coupons. They serve tortillas and chips and salsa and we usually take sandwiches and some snacks for the boys, and then Michael and I each order a meal and one of them is free with the coupon, so it ends up being a pretty cheep dinner for our family. No, we have no shame, we are not to proud to take sandwiches to a restaurant for our kids – but kids can be picky sometimes and not eat the restaurant food anyway, so why waste the money? We are just wondering how old our kids will get before they start demanding ‘real food,’ I guess when it gets to that point, we will just have to stop eating out altogether). :)

Well, I was going to tell about the funny thing that Eli said. We were at the restaurant and at one point in the meal the boys noticed a painting of a rooster hanging on the wall behind them. I said something about the rooster, and Eli said, “No, it’s not a rooster.” (I just assumed that he thought it was a chicken, and that maybe he wasn’t familiar with the word ‘rooster.’) Kolby told him that it was a rooster, and he said, “No, a moose.” I smiled and Kolby corrected him and told him it was a rooster again, and Eli said, “No, a mooster.” I thought that was pretty cute.

Ok, last thing. While I was writing this, Michael just called and said that he got another interview for a transition year program here in Milwaukee. It is at St. Luke’s Hospital, which is supposed to have a nice transition year. He set it up for November 16th. It has been nice to get a few invitations already. We’re just waiting until next month to start hearing back about dermatology residency interviews. Hey, here’s a question for any of our fellow medical students, residents, or fellows that may happen to be reading this: As you may know, most of the interview invitations are done by e-mail, and with many of the programs it seems that if you don’t respond to the e-mail invitation immediately, all the interview dates may already be full by the time you call. We heard of another student setting it up so that she receives a message on her pager when she gets a new e-mail (so she doesn’t have to worry about checking her e-mail every 20 minutes each day). Does anyone know how to do this? Is this something you do through your e-mail settings, or something extra that you have to pay for through your pager service (or both?) If anyone knows about how to set that up, that would be great, thanks!

Living With The Boys

On Having All Boys

So, whenever I go anywhere, I get the same questions and comments. The most common comment I get is, "Wow, you have your hands full, don't you?" (I get this one even when Kolby is at preschool and I only have Eli and Camden with me). Although I’m a little tired of that one, it’s ok – I figure most people are either sympathizing with how busy I am or they are little old ladies remembering their own days as young mothers with several little ones. But if I had a dollar for every time I heard the “you’ve got your hands full” comment, we could probably have paid off Michael’s medical school loans by now.

The comments that do bug me a little are the ones about me having all boys. Since I am obviously pregnant and usually have three boys age 3 and under in tow, I am constantly getting variations of the question, “So, what are you having?” When I answer that it is another boy, I get a variety of responses. Every once in a while someone will say something like, “Oh, that’s great,” or “All boys, how fun!” But I’ve actually only gotten those comments a few times. Most people follow quickly with, “Do you want a girl?” My standard answer has become, “We would be happy either way – we wouldn’t mind having all boys.”

I really would be happy with 5 boys (5 is the number of kids that we want). I wouldn’t mind having a girl either, but I’m not waiting and hoping for a girl. And we are definitely not going to continue having children until we ‘get a girl.’ Really, I think it would be a lot of fun to dress a little girl. Whenever you go into a store, there are always way cuter clothes for girls – all you have to do is add a little pink ruffle to any plain t-shirt and it is cute – and most stores have a much larger selection of girl’s clothes than boy’s clothes. But beyond dressing her up, I don’t really feel any big void in my life right now without a girl. If we end up having a girl, that would be great, but a pack of rowdy boys is a fun adventure, and that’s what I’m expecting at this point.

Michael and I both like to know what to expect, and we have always been anxious to find out the genders of our babies as soon as possible. Before I had the ultrasound with Kolby, I had a feeling that it was a girl. Don’t know why. And then before the ultrasound with Eli, I didn’t really have a specific feeling either way, but I just assumed that it was a girl – we had a boy, so a girl was what would come next, right? Wrong. And during my pregnancies with both Kolby and Eli I was morning-sick in a similar way, but with my third pregnancy I was sick at different times, and I was sick on and off, instead of it just getting worse until it went away. Anyway, I remembered my mom (who had three girls and then two boys) telling me that she was sick in one way with all the girls, and her sickness was very different with her boys. So, before we had the ultrasound with Camden, I thought it was a girl because of that. Nope.

This time around, before the ultrasound, I wasn’t going to make a guess – I didn’t have any strong feelings either way, and I knew I would be happy with a boy or girl. And then we were told that there was a possibility of twins because of dates and measurements, so that was a lot to think of before we had the ultrasound. [If we had twins, I was thinking of naming them Isaac and Aurora “Rori” if it was a boy and girl, or Aurora “Rori” and Avagial – after my great grandmother – “Avy” if it was two girls, but I hadn’t come up with a second name yet if it was two boys.] Anyway, it wasn’t twins. (For two out of my four pregnancies they told us there was a chance of twins, and then we had to wait several days before an ultrasound, going crazy not knowing – I think from now on I’ll tell them not to tell me before the ultrasound if they think there might be twins, because if it is twins we will find out at the ultrasound anyway and won’t have to go crazy wondering. But this pregnancy was just one, and he was a boy, and now we are expecting Isaac in about 3 weeks – that sure is coming up soon!

With this pregnancy, we decided to wait a while to tell anyone (other than our parents). Since I had an early miscarriage with my first pregnancy (before Kolby), we have always waited until we had the first doctor’s appointment and heard the heartbeat before making any announcements, but this time I wanted to wait even longer. I wanted to wait until we had an ultrasound to know if it was a boy or girl first. I guess it is kind of a good thing that they thought it might be twins because they did an early ultrasound to check on that when I was 13 weeks along. That’s when we found out that it was probably a boy, and we started telling people we were pregnant after that. That was probably a good thing, because if we had waited until I had my regular ultrasound scheduled later on, it wouldn’t have mattered if we were telling anyone because I was starting to show by then. I guess that’s the thing with having all these kids close together – with each one I show sooner and my stomach expands more – just like a balloon that has been inflated once and never returns to its original shape again. But I can’t get down about how I look if I’m choosing to have kids so close together, there’s just no time in between to get ‘back to normal.’ My goal is to reach ‘normal’ again by the time kid # 5 is 2-years-old. But that is another topic entirely.

Anyway, one reason I wanted to wait so long this time was because I didn’t want to get a million questions about if I wanted a girl. I just wanted to know what it was and to be able to answer confidently, “It’s a boy, yes we’re happy for a boy, no we weren’t wishing for a girl,” or “It’s a girl, yes we’re happy for a girl, Yes, I’m sure she’s going to be tough with all those big brothers.” So, it was nice to know beforehand.

One thing that took me a while to get used to, though is the comments I got from random people anytime I went to any public place. Little old men at the grocery store, young couples in the doctor’s office waiting room, women at bus stops (I don’t even ride the bus, I just get comments from people as I walk by on the sidewalk), students at the medical school, moms at the library, teenage store clerks, etc. are all curious to know what this one is going to be. And I don’t mind that – I have asked many other pregnant moms what they are having before. But after they find out that it is a boy, some people make the rudest comments. “Oh, I’m so sorry!” or “Are you going to keep trying until you get your girl?” or “That’s too bad,” or most recently, from a girl who worked at Wal Mart, “Oh, that sucks!” I mean, what are people thinking? I’ve decided that most people just aren’t thinking, because you wouldn’t say something like that if you were. Either way – if someone is very happy that they are having their fourth boy, they don’t want to hear all the negative comments from everyone who thinks they need a girl; or if someone really wanted a girl more than anything else in the world, how would that make her feel to have people make comments about her inability to do so thus far?

So, lately I have really gotten over being annoyed by these comments most of the time – I just smile, nod, and say something quick like, “Yeah, we like boys at our house,” or “We’re really good at boys,” before walking away. But I have had this conversation so many times, I figured I’d just write it all down. I’m sure that if we do end up having another boy after this one, I will get so many more of these comments, but oh well. (If that does happen, though, I will need some suggestions for more boy names -- I am running out of ones that both Michael and I like). People can think what they want, we really do love having our little pack of boys!