Two nights ago when I was making a list of e-mail addresses and preparing to send out our Christmas letter to all of our family and friends I accidentally hit the wrong button and deleted all of my e-mail contacts. How frustrating!!!
I am glad that I keep an updated “address book” excel sheet, so I still had many of the e-mail addresses saved, but it took me several hours over the last couple of days copying and pasting addresses and names to fill in all my contacts again. I finally finished making the new e-mail list, and got the last of the Christmas letters sent out today. I’m just hoping that I didn’t lose anyone’s address in the process.
If you did not get a Christmas letter from me, that means I lost your e-mail address, so please, please, please send it to me if you didn’t get our letter. Thanks so much!
Showing posts with label E-mail. Show all posts
Showing posts with label E-mail. Show all posts
18 December 2008
12 November 2008
A Little Frustrated
Ok, so I’m getting a bit frustrated here. For quite a while now I have been using this website, FeedBlitz.com, which basically allows you to subscribe to get any new posts e-mailed to you from your friends’ and family members’ blogs. At first I was happy with this free service – I set it up so that I received one e-mail with new posts from my friends’ blogs and a separate e-mail with new posts from my family’s blogs. Then I had all the new posts right in my inbox, in two neat lists, and I could look at them when it was convenient for me, without having to worry that I might have missed something if I hadn’t had time to check out everyone’s blogs for a while. So, this service is still working well, the only problem is private blogs.
Once a blog goes private, even if I am an invited reader of that blog, FeedBlitz no longer has the ability to send me an e-mail when a private blog is updated. I checked with FeedBlitz to make sure, and they said that it isn’t possible. So, I have been getting these e-mails that have a few new blog posts from friends’ and family members’ blogs, but they have a lot of blank entries that just say, “Blogger login to read,” and then I have to click on the link in the e-mail and go to each private blog and read the post there. It seems that this wouldn’t be too big of a deal, but with so many of my friends deciding to go public lately, I am getting e-mails from FeedBlitz that end up having more links to private blogs than posts. So, there’s not much reason to get those e-mails anymore – I have a list of links right on my blog, so I don’t need those e-mailed to me all the time.
I decided that there must be a better way around this. I mean, I really like the idea of keeping up to date with friends and family who have blogs, and with our stage in life right now we are doing a lot of moving around the country and so our friends and family are spread all over the place. I love to be able to catch up on their lives easily. But with so many blogs to read, if I only took the time to read through the new posts on each blog once a month, it would still take me quite a while to do so, and I would probably miss some posts here and there. That’s why I really liked the option of having all the new posts sent right to me so they were all there, waiting for a time that was convenient for me to read them.
I have several friends who have used Google Reader to keep track of blogs and other websites, so I decided that this would be a nice alternative. I could have a list of all the blog posts in one spot, and it would show me which ones I had read and which ones were new. And I have generally been pleased with Google applications, so I figured this would be a good one to use. I started to enter in all of my family members’ blogs on my Google Reader list, and then when I got pretty far down the list, I had one that wouldn’t work. It said that there was no feed for this blog. I realized that this was the first private blog that I had entered in, and that was the problem. Apparently you can’t even follow private Google blogspot blogs that you have been invited to with Google Reader. So, I’m a little frustrated that I wasted my precious time when all four of my boys were napping entering a list of blogs into Google Reader, only to find out that it’s not going to work any better than the e-mail blog subscriptions that I already have set up.
Does anyone have any suggestions for me on this. At this point I’m thinking that my only two options are to regularly click on the link for every blog and see if it has been updated since I last read it or to just decide not to be so OCD and not care if I miss a post here and there (I could do that, but I wouldn’t like it). Aargh!
11 November 2008
Family Portraits
So, we just got the e-mail with the previews of our family portraits. I was so pleased with how they turned out (especially since most of the other times we’ve gone to have pictures taken of our whole family, we have ended up with only one that looked half-way decent, but this time I felt like there were a few that we could have chosen from). The last three are the ones that we ended up ordering, so I’m excited to go pick those up at the studio tomorrow.
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03 July 2008
"On Call"
It’s 11:30 at night, and there really isn’t any good reason to be up anymore. It’s not especially late yet, but I’m sitting at the computer, the blog updated with the latest photos of the kids, my e-mail checked (and re-checked, just in case someone wrote me while I’ve been sitting here tonight), my blog feed subscriptions updated (yes, I have all of my friends’ and families’ blogs e-mailed to me, so I don’t have to go look at them all the time to see if they’ve posted anything new or not), and I have even checked on eBay and think I may have found the perfect Halloween costume for Kolby – yes, for October. My problem: Michael is on call at the hospital. [For those of you who have not lived through medical school, internship, residency, etc., “on call” is a deceptive term. No, it does not mean, like it sounds, that the intern is at home, enjoying time with his family and waiting to be paged and rush into the hospital if needed. No, “on call” means that the intern is in the hospital, waiting to be paged for the next possible surgery case, at and time, day or night.] It’s really not been that bad of a month – surgery has been a nice enough schedule, although Michael is more tired from having to get up early in the morning, but most nights have not been late. Except he’s on call (overnight) every few days. Which isn’t all that terrible, either, really. I just can’t go to bed at a normal time when Michael’s not home at night. I mean, I can, but what for? With the kids all in bed hours ago (counting my blessings), there’s no one waiting for me to say prayers, no one wanting me to go lay down with them for the night (well, technically Kolby is waiting in my bed – this is the second time Michael has been on call and I have let Kolby sleep with me for the night). Kolby got really sad earlier when Michael wasn’t home to say goodnight, and after a long explanation of what “on call” means, how the doctors have to take turns staying overnight at the hospital to help the sick people, that the doctors don’t have to wait in line to take these turns, what surgery is {note to self: an explanation that doctors cut into people, fix them up, and then sew them back up is probably not the best idea for a 4-year-old, even if you try to make it sound less scary by saying that the doctors are helping, and this only happens to people who are really, really, really, really sick or hurt. Oops, I guess you learn as you go, as with everything in parenting}, and that doctors who perform surgeries use special tools from the hospital and not the tools that Grandma keeps in the garage for gardening; I was able to get Kolby to go to bed by telling him he could sleep in my bed tonight. Why not? Anyways, it’s now 11:48, and I am starting to get that faint sick feeling that I used to get when I would pull all-nighters to finish procrastinated homework assignments in high school (it’s really not all that late yet – what happened to those days when we were dating and it was an early night if we got in by midnight or 1am?) Anyways, good night.
13 April 2008
Double-Swaddling and Other Baby Sleeping Tips
The other day my friend who has a toddler and a baby Isaac’s age e-mailed me for suggestions on how to get her baby to sleep better. I have been thinking for a while now that I should share our “tricks” to getting our babies to sleep on the blog, especially our swaddling technique, which is rather uncommon. So, instead of re-writing what I wrote to her, I will just post part of the e-mail I sent her, and add a few photos. Hopefully this can be as helpful for you as it has been for us:
I am not the type of mom who cancels activities for kids' sleep schedules -- I do try to plan doctors' appointments so they don't fall right after lunchtime (when my kids take their daily nap), but I won't stay home from something because my kids will miss their nap or get to bed really late at night, and I know that doesn't work for lots of other people. Also, when the kids are babies (like with Isaac now) I don't have them on a certain sleep schedule during the day. When they are happy, I let them lay on the floor, sit in a swing, jump in a jumper, or hold them, and if they get fussy and they're not messy or hungry, I try to put them to sleep -- no matter what time it is. And they may not sleep at a regular time during the day, but as long as they sleep through the night (and sometimes during the day) I'm ok with that. The other thing I do with Isaac is try to feed him every 4 hours in the daytime, not at certain times of the day. So, if he wakes up at 7am and he takes a bottle, then I'll give him another one at 11am, then if he happens to be asleep at 3pm I'll wait until he wakes up to feed him (I NEVER wake up a sleeping baby [unless the baby is underweight or has some health issues and needs to be fed on a schedule in order to gain weight]). So, then if he were to eat at 3:30, and then at 7:30 he is acting happy and not hungry yet, I will wait until he acts hungry and give him a bottle then. That works better for me, because I'm not trying to make him eat or sleep when he doesn't want to, and if he takes a longer/shorter nap than usual it doesn't throw off the whole schedule.
So, here are some things that we do that I think really help with the sleeping -- you may have tried some of them already, but this has worked for us. We swaddle our babies. All of our boys have been swaddled, and it has helped them hold still so they can sleep longer. And then when Camden was a baby my friend showed us another way to swaddle that we'd never seen before, and I love it so much that I show all the parents/potential future parents that I can. We call it double swaddling. I will post pictures with this description of the swaddling, because it is kind of hard to understand if you can’t see it (thank you, Kolby, for taking many of these pictures for me – this is the first time I’ve let Kolby use our digital camera). So, basically I take two blankets -- usually lightweight cotton blankets, and it is easier if they are square. I've looked around a lot, and the best ones I've found are at Wal Mart (or at least they were there when Isaac was born), they come in packs of four and are rather cute designs/colors. They are 40x40 inches (rather than the more common 30x30 or 30x40 inch ones I find most places). The 40x40 is the perfect size for a little baby, and now that Isaac's getting a little bigger a 50x50 or even 60x60 inch blanket would be nice, but you might have to make them. And they need to be thin, or they will be way too bulky once you get them all wrapped up.
So, I lay out one blanket with a corner pointing up, and fold that top corner over, then I lay the second blanket on top of the first, folding the top corner over on that one too. Then I lay the baby down with his head off the blanket at the top where it has been folded down. I take the top blanket on the left and wrap it over his left arm, then lift him up by his legs and wrap it under his back, then do this on the right too. Then I use the bottom blanket to swaddle like normal -- wrap over the left side, up over the feet, and then over the right side. I swear this technique adds an extra few hours of sleep because they can't get out and whack themselves I the face as they flail their arms about -- Isaac has only gotten out of this swaddle a handful of times, and that's usually when we are lazy and don't wrap him very snuggly. I know people who think our kids would be too old for swaddling, but why stop something that works so well? I continue to swaddle as long as I can keep them in the blankets, and once they grow out of it I have never had a problem with the baby transitioning to sleeping without being swaddled. I swaddle him to sleep every night, and off and on through the day to nap. One thing I have noticed, though, is that since I've done this type of swaddling with my last two boys, they seem not to roll over, crawl, or walk quite as early as the other two did, but not really delayed -- like Camden walked at almost 12 months as compared to Kolby walking at 10 months and Eli at 9 months, but I don't know if that's just the different kids or if it has to do with being swaddled so they don't do as much tummy time or rolling over as early on. But either way, they haven't been delayed later than the norm.
The other sleeping aid that I swear by is our swing. We were given a Fisher Price Aquarium Swing (it has a fish design on it, and fish hang from the mobile) when Kolby was born, and we use it so much that we are now on our second one with baby number 4. It is the kind of swing that goes from side to side or can be turned to swing from front to back (my kids have all preferred side to side, although sometimes it does calm them down to switch the direction of the swinging if they get fussy and change things up a bit, although Isaac has only ever swung side to side). I think the type of swing is key -- we have visited family several times and they have borrowed normal swings, and I don't like them at all (they do sleep better in those than just in a crib, but not nearly as well in a side-swinging swing). The old ones just swing front to back, they usually sit up pretty straight, so they can't lie back at all (which really doesn't work for newborns), and some old swings have to be wound up, which would not be nice to deal with. Our swing goes through batteries every couple of weeks or so, but our sleep is worth that to us. And they aren't too expensive -- I think this swing was around $99 new, but that was almost 5 years ago, and I got our second one at a garage sale for $30. I saw one that looked brand new the other day for around $60 at the Once Upon A Child store near our house, over by Kohls on 124th Street. Anyways, our kids sleep in the swing all night long, and nap in it during the day. I swaddle Isaac and then lay him in the swing (this works because the seat reclines enough so they are more laying than sitting). And I don't worry about buckling him in yet, because he never gets out of his swaddling, so he's not going anywhere. And again, I haven't had problems with our kids transitioning to sleeping in a crib later on, when they grow out of the swing/swaddling. My kids stay in the swing for months -- which also saves room because the swing takes up a lot less room than a crib. The only problem is when going for extended stays to family when they are still babies and used to sleeping in the swing, it is hard to get them to sleep as well without a swing, and can be difficult to find a side swinging swing to borrow while out of town.
Our kids also use pacifiers. Isaac mostly uses his now to fall asleep -- he doesn't keep it in his mouth well, and we hold it in while we put him to sleep, then it always falls out while he is sleeping. Sometimes, if he is in the swing, swaddled, trying to fall asleep, but I don't want to sit there holding his pacifier in, I take a flap of his swaddling blankets, a burp clothe, or another small blanket, and bunch it up behind the pacifier so it can stay in place until he falls asleep all the way. He uses a Soothie, just because that's what they gave him in the NICU. The other boys used ones from the grocery store, and Kolby never really took one at all.
I think those are about all of our sleeping "tricks." Oh, and I guess I should mention how we actually get Isaac to sleep. If he doesn't happen to fall asleep on his own, and we know he's tired and ready to go down, we check his diaper, swaddle him nice and tight, feed him a bottle, give him his pacifier, and then if he starts to wake up a bit before we lay him down this is how I get him to fall back to sleep (and it has worked pretty well with our other boys too). I stand up and hold him almost horizontal in my arms (and since he is swaddled I don't have legs and arms moving all around), and I hold him facing me (so his pacifier stays in his mouth), and then I make little tiny jiggling movements, kind of like jello. I know that's a weird way to describe it, but that's what it makes me think of. He usually can't last too long awake when I do that. If we really starts to wake up and starts fussing, I make loud shushing noises close to his ear (I guess that's more for a little baby, but I still do it).
Also, if you haven't read The Happiest Baby on the Block, I would recommend it. Lots of the things I do are covered in that book. (Although the author gives some pretty ridiculous reasons for why he thinks his suggestions work, the suggestions do work). He suggests the 5 'S's: swing, swaddle, shush, shake (jiggle), and suck. And the more of these suggestions you use all together, the better they work. I was already doing many of these things before I read the book when I was pregnant with Camden, but it gave me a few extra suggestions I hadn't been trying.
So, does anyone have in good suggestions for potty training? (Especially for helping kids that have been potty trained successfully and then regress later on?)
I am not the type of mom who cancels activities for kids' sleep schedules -- I do try to plan doctors' appointments so they don't fall right after lunchtime (when my kids take their daily nap), but I won't stay home from something because my kids will miss their nap or get to bed really late at night, and I know that doesn't work for lots of other people. Also, when the kids are babies (like with Isaac now) I don't have them on a certain sleep schedule during the day. When they are happy, I let them lay on the floor, sit in a swing, jump in a jumper, or hold them, and if they get fussy and they're not messy or hungry, I try to put them to sleep -- no matter what time it is. And they may not sleep at a regular time during the day, but as long as they sleep through the night (and sometimes during the day) I'm ok with that. The other thing I do with Isaac is try to feed him every 4 hours in the daytime, not at certain times of the day. So, if he wakes up at 7am and he takes a bottle, then I'll give him another one at 11am, then if he happens to be asleep at 3pm I'll wait until he wakes up to feed him (I NEVER wake up a sleeping baby [unless the baby is underweight or has some health issues and needs to be fed on a schedule in order to gain weight]). So, then if he were to eat at 3:30, and then at 7:30 he is acting happy and not hungry yet, I will wait until he acts hungry and give him a bottle then. That works better for me, because I'm not trying to make him eat or sleep when he doesn't want to, and if he takes a longer/shorter nap than usual it doesn't throw off the whole schedule.
So, here are some things that we do that I think really help with the sleeping -- you may have tried some of them already, but this has worked for us. We swaddle our babies. All of our boys have been swaddled, and it has helped them hold still so they can sleep longer. And then when Camden was a baby my friend showed us another way to swaddle that we'd never seen before, and I love it so much that I show all the parents/potential future parents that I can. We call it double swaddling. I will post pictures with this description of the swaddling, because it is kind of hard to understand if you can’t see it (thank you, Kolby, for taking many of these pictures for me – this is the first time I’ve let Kolby use our digital camera). So, basically I take two blankets -- usually lightweight cotton blankets, and it is easier if they are square. I've looked around a lot, and the best ones I've found are at Wal Mart (or at least they were there when Isaac was born), they come in packs of four and are rather cute designs/colors. They are 40x40 inches (rather than the more common 30x30 or 30x40 inch ones I find most places). The 40x40 is the perfect size for a little baby, and now that Isaac's getting a little bigger a 50x50 or even 60x60 inch blanket would be nice, but you might have to make them. And they need to be thin, or they will be way too bulky once you get them all wrapped up.
So, I lay out one blanket with a corner pointing up, and fold that top corner over, then I lay the second blanket on top of the first, folding the top corner over on that one too. Then I lay the baby down with his head off the blanket at the top where it has been folded down. I take the top blanket on the left and wrap it over his left arm, then lift him up by his legs and wrap it under his back, then do this on the right too. Then I use the bottom blanket to swaddle like normal -- wrap over the left side, up over the feet, and then over the right side. I swear this technique adds an extra few hours of sleep because they can't get out and whack themselves I the face as they flail their arms about -- Isaac has only gotten out of this swaddle a handful of times, and that's usually when we are lazy and don't wrap him very snuggly. I know people who think our kids would be too old for swaddling, but why stop something that works so well? I continue to swaddle as long as I can keep them in the blankets, and once they grow out of it I have never had a problem with the baby transitioning to sleeping without being swaddled. I swaddle him to sleep every night, and off and on through the day to nap. One thing I have noticed, though, is that since I've done this type of swaddling with my last two boys, they seem not to roll over, crawl, or walk quite as early as the other two did, but not really delayed -- like Camden walked at almost 12 months as compared to Kolby walking at 10 months and Eli at 9 months, but I don't know if that's just the different kids or if it has to do with being swaddled so they don't do as much tummy time or rolling over as early on. But either way, they haven't been delayed later than the norm.
The other sleeping aid that I swear by is our swing. We were given a Fisher Price Aquarium Swing (it has a fish design on it, and fish hang from the mobile) when Kolby was born, and we use it so much that we are now on our second one with baby number 4. It is the kind of swing that goes from side to side or can be turned to swing from front to back (my kids have all preferred side to side, although sometimes it does calm them down to switch the direction of the swinging if they get fussy and change things up a bit, although Isaac has only ever swung side to side). I think the type of swing is key -- we have visited family several times and they have borrowed normal swings, and I don't like them at all (they do sleep better in those than just in a crib, but not nearly as well in a side-swinging swing). The old ones just swing front to back, they usually sit up pretty straight, so they can't lie back at all (which really doesn't work for newborns), and some old swings have to be wound up, which would not be nice to deal with. Our swing goes through batteries every couple of weeks or so, but our sleep is worth that to us. And they aren't too expensive -- I think this swing was around $99 new, but that was almost 5 years ago, and I got our second one at a garage sale for $30. I saw one that looked brand new the other day for around $60 at the Once Upon A Child store near our house, over by Kohls on 124th Street. Anyways, our kids sleep in the swing all night long, and nap in it during the day. I swaddle Isaac and then lay him in the swing (this works because the seat reclines enough so they are more laying than sitting). And I don't worry about buckling him in yet, because he never gets out of his swaddling, so he's not going anywhere. And again, I haven't had problems with our kids transitioning to sleeping in a crib later on, when they grow out of the swing/swaddling. My kids stay in the swing for months -- which also saves room because the swing takes up a lot less room than a crib. The only problem is when going for extended stays to family when they are still babies and used to sleeping in the swing, it is hard to get them to sleep as well without a swing, and can be difficult to find a side swinging swing to borrow while out of town.
Our kids also use pacifiers. Isaac mostly uses his now to fall asleep -- he doesn't keep it in his mouth well, and we hold it in while we put him to sleep, then it always falls out while he is sleeping. Sometimes, if he is in the swing, swaddled, trying to fall asleep, but I don't want to sit there holding his pacifier in, I take a flap of his swaddling blankets, a burp clothe, or another small blanket, and bunch it up behind the pacifier so it can stay in place until he falls asleep all the way. He uses a Soothie, just because that's what they gave him in the NICU. The other boys used ones from the grocery store, and Kolby never really took one at all.
I think those are about all of our sleeping "tricks." Oh, and I guess I should mention how we actually get Isaac to sleep. If he doesn't happen to fall asleep on his own, and we know he's tired and ready to go down, we check his diaper, swaddle him nice and tight, feed him a bottle, give him his pacifier, and then if he starts to wake up a bit before we lay him down this is how I get him to fall back to sleep (and it has worked pretty well with our other boys too). I stand up and hold him almost horizontal in my arms (and since he is swaddled I don't have legs and arms moving all around), and I hold him facing me (so his pacifier stays in his mouth), and then I make little tiny jiggling movements, kind of like jello. I know that's a weird way to describe it, but that's what it makes me think of. He usually can't last too long awake when I do that. If we really starts to wake up and starts fussing, I make loud shushing noises close to his ear (I guess that's more for a little baby, but I still do it).
Also, if you haven't read The Happiest Baby on the Block, I would recommend it. Lots of the things I do are covered in that book. (Although the author gives some pretty ridiculous reasons for why he thinks his suggestions work, the suggestions do work). He suggests the 5 'S's: swing, swaddle, shush, shake (jiggle), and suck. And the more of these suggestions you use all together, the better they work. I was already doing many of these things before I read the book when I was pregnant with Camden, but it gave me a few extra suggestions I hadn't been trying.
So, does anyone have in good suggestions for potty training? (Especially for helping kids that have been potty trained successfully and then regress later on?)
31 March 2008
A New E-mail Address
Just so you know, I changed my e-mail address. It’s now stephanielbradshaw@gmail.com.
The Next Survivor Series
I got this e-mail from my friend, Emily Christensen, and thought it was very cute -- this is a reality show I might actually watch:
The Next Survivor Series
Six married men will be dropped on an island with one car and 3 kids each for six weeks. Each kid will play two sports and either take music or dance classes.
There is no fast food. Each man must take care of his 3 kids; keep his assigned house clean, correct all homework, and complete science projects, cook, do laundry, and pay a list of 'pretend' bills with not enough money.
In addition, each man will have to budget in money for groceries each week. Each man must remember the birthdays of all their friends and relatives, and send cards out on time. Each man must also take each child to a doctor's appointment, a dentist appointment, and a haircut appointment.
He must make one unscheduled and inconvenient visit per child to the Urgent Care. He must also make cookies or cupcakes for a social function. Each man will be responsible for decorating his own assigned house, planting flower s outside and keeping it presentable at all times.
The men will only have access to television when the kids are asleep and all chores are done. The men must shave their legs, wear makeup daily, adorn himself with jewelry, wear uncomfortable yet stylish shoes, keep fingernails polished and eyebrows groomed. During one of the six weeks, the men will have to endure severe abdominal cramps, back aches, and have extreme, unexplained mood swings but never once complain or slow down from other duties.
They must attend weekly school meetings, church, and find time at least once to spend the afternoon at the park or a similar setting. They will need to read a book and then pray with the children each night and in the morning, feed them, dress them, brush their teeth and comb their hair by 7:00 am.
A test will be given at the end of the six weeks, and each father will be required to know all of the following information: each child's birthday, height, weight, shoe size, clothes size and doctor's name. They will also need to know each child's weight and length at birth, time of birth, and length of labor, along with each child's favorite color, middle name, favorite snack, favorite song, favorite drink, favorite toy, biggest fear and what they want to be when they grow up.
The kids vote them off the island based on performance. The last man wins only if . . . he still has enough energy to be intimate with his spouse at a moment's notice.
If the last man does win, he can play the game over and over and over again for the next 18 to 25 years, eventually earning the right to be called ‘Mother.’
The Next Survivor Series
Six married men will be dropped on an island with one car and 3 kids each for six weeks. Each kid will play two sports and either take music or dance classes.
There is no fast food. Each man must take care of his 3 kids; keep his assigned house clean, correct all homework, and complete science projects, cook, do laundry, and pay a list of 'pretend' bills with not enough money.
In addition, each man will have to budget in money for groceries each week. Each man must remember the birthdays of all their friends and relatives, and send cards out on time. Each man must also take each child to a doctor's appointment, a dentist appointment, and a haircut appointment.
He must make one unscheduled and inconvenient visit per child to the Urgent Care. He must also make cookies or cupcakes for a social function. Each man will be responsible for decorating his own assigned house, planting flower s outside and keeping it presentable at all times.
The men will only have access to television when the kids are asleep and all chores are done. The men must shave their legs, wear makeup daily, adorn himself with jewelry, wear uncomfortable yet stylish shoes, keep fingernails polished and eyebrows groomed. During one of the six weeks, the men will have to endure severe abdominal cramps, back aches, and have extreme, unexplained mood swings but never once complain or slow down from other duties.
They must attend weekly school meetings, church, and find time at least once to spend the afternoon at the park or a similar setting. They will need to read a book and then pray with the children each night and in the morning, feed them, dress them, brush their teeth and comb their hair by 7:00 am.
A test will be given at the end of the six weeks, and each father will be required to know all of the following information: each child's birthday, height, weight, shoe size, clothes size and doctor's name. They will also need to know each child's weight and length at birth, time of birth, and length of labor, along with each child's favorite color, middle name, favorite snack, favorite song, favorite drink, favorite toy, biggest fear and what they want to be when they grow up.
The kids vote them off the island based on performance. The last man wins only if . . . he still has enough energy to be intimate with his spouse at a moment's notice.
If the last man does win, he can play the game over and over and over again for the next 18 to 25 years, eventually earning the right to be called ‘Mother.’
25 March 2008
Four Things
I got this e-mail from two of my friends, Jill and Christina, and thought I’d post my answers here. For any of my friends who happen to read this, you are all now tagged and you can answer these questions about yourself now.
Four things about me that you may or may not have known in any particular order:
Four jobs I have had in my life:
1. File Clerk at a law firm
2. Caller at a telephone interview call center
3. Collections Aid at the Museum of Peoples and Culture
4. Sales Associate at a scrapbook store
Four movies I've watched more than once:
1. The Princess Bride
2. The Client
3. Frequency
4. The Fugative
Four Places I have lived:
1. Milwaukee, Wisconsin
2. Provo, Utah
3. Nauvoo, Illinois
4. San Diego, California
Four T. V. shows that I watch:
1. Extreme Makeover Home Edition
2. The Big Give
3. (nothing else, regularly)
4.
Four places I have visited
1. Chicago, Illinois
2. Hawaii
3. Palmyra, New York
4. Washington D.C.
Four People who e-mail me (regularly):
1. Michael, my husband
2. my Grandma Faun
3. (most of my friends leave comments on our blog instead of e-mailing)
4.
Four of my favorite foods:
1. Pasta
2. Homemade Whole Wheat Bread
3. Pastries
4. Cookies with Milk
Four Places I would like to visit:
1. Israel
2. Hawaii
3. The Czech Republic
4. Africa
Things I am looking forward to in the coming year:
1. our first real paycheck
2. finishing a move across the country (not really looking forward to the actual packing or moving process)
3. visiting with family
4. hopefully visiting with some of our Milwaukee friends again after we move
Four things about me that you may or may not have known in any particular order:
Four jobs I have had in my life:
1. File Clerk at a law firm
2. Caller at a telephone interview call center
3. Collections Aid at the Museum of Peoples and Culture
4. Sales Associate at a scrapbook store
Four movies I've watched more than once:
1. The Princess Bride
2. The Client
3. Frequency
4. The Fugative
Four Places I have lived:
1. Milwaukee, Wisconsin
2. Provo, Utah
3. Nauvoo, Illinois
4. San Diego, California
Four T. V. shows that I watch:
1. Extreme Makeover Home Edition
2. The Big Give
3. (nothing else, regularly)
4.
Four places I have visited
1. Chicago, Illinois
2. Hawaii
3. Palmyra, New York
4. Washington D.C.
Four People who e-mail me (regularly):
1. Michael, my husband
2. my Grandma Faun
3. (most of my friends leave comments on our blog instead of e-mailing)
4.
Four of my favorite foods:
1. Pasta
2. Homemade Whole Wheat Bread
3. Pastries
4. Cookies with Milk
Four Places I would like to visit:
1. Israel
2. Hawaii
3. The Czech Republic
4. Africa
Things I am looking forward to in the coming year:
1. our first real paycheck
2. finishing a move across the country (not really looking forward to the actual packing or moving process)
3. visiting with family
4. hopefully visiting with some of our Milwaukee friends again after we move
22 December 2007
Christmas Letter
So, I finally finished our Christmas letter for this year and got it sent out to everyone. Since we can't afford postage to mail it to everyone, we just sent them by e-mail this time. (If you didn't get one from us it because I don't have your e-mail address -- so please give me your address if you'd like me to send you one). Anyway, here it is:
Isaac is such a good little baby. He spends a good part of each day and the majority of each night napping and sleeping in his swing. He loves to be swaddled in several blankets to keep warm. He is very content to be held, and he loves his pacifier that we brought home from the hospital. And all of our friends tell us that he looks like his big brother, Camden – his dimples are starting to show up as he smiles more often, his eyes look like they will probably stay blue, and his hair is the same color as Camden’s was as a newborn and already looks like it might be a little curly.
December 2007
Merry Christmas! We hope you and your family have had a wonderful year. Our year has certainly been exciting, busy, and fun. Our most exciting event this year was the recent addition of our new baby, Isaac Steven Bradshaw, on 23 October 2007. Isaac came one week before his due date and ended up being the second smallest Bradshaw baby boy so far, weighing in at 8 pounds 13 ounces and measuring 21 inches long. Stephanie had a good, quick delivery, but the day after Isaac was born we found that he was having some trouble breathing. He was diagnosed with Congenital Nasal Pyriform Aperture Stenosis, an uncommon condition where the nasal airway is too narrow. When Isaac was two days old he had surgery to remove some bones and put tubes in his nose so that he could breathe better. After a rollercoaster 18 days in the neonatal intensive care unit, Isaac was able to join the rest of the family at home. We were pleasantly surprised when the NICU staff told us that we would be able to bring him home without any monitors or suctioning devices, which they had previously thought would be needed. One week later at his follow-up appointment with the ENT doctor who had performed his surgery, we were told that the surgery had been successful and that Isaac should be treated like any other baby his age. We are very grateful for Isaac’s full recovery and continued good health.
Merry Christmas! We hope you and your family have had a wonderful year. Our year has certainly been exciting, busy, and fun. Our most exciting event this year was the recent addition of our new baby, Isaac Steven Bradshaw, on 23 October 2007. Isaac came one week before his due date and ended up being the second smallest Bradshaw baby boy so far, weighing in at 8 pounds 13 ounces and measuring 21 inches long. Stephanie had a good, quick delivery, but the day after Isaac was born we found that he was having some trouble breathing. He was diagnosed with Congenital Nasal Pyriform Aperture Stenosis, an uncommon condition where the nasal airway is too narrow. When Isaac was two days old he had surgery to remove some bones and put tubes in his nose so that he could breathe better. After a rollercoaster 18 days in the neonatal intensive care unit, Isaac was able to join the rest of the family at home. We were pleasantly surprised when the NICU staff told us that we would be able to bring him home without any monitors or suctioning devices, which they had previously thought would be needed. One week later at his follow-up appointment with the ENT doctor who had performed his surgery, we were told that the surgery had been successful and that Isaac should be treated like any other baby his age. We are very grateful for Isaac’s full recovery and continued good health.
Isaac is such a good little baby. He spends a good part of each day and the majority of each night napping and sleeping in his swing. He loves to be swaddled in several blankets to keep warm. He is very content to be held, and he loves his pacifier that we brought home from the hospital. And all of our friends tell us that he looks like his big brother, Camden – his dimples are starting to show up as he smiles more often, his eyes look like they will probably stay blue, and his hair is the same color as Camden’s was as a newborn and already looks like it might be a little curly.
Camden is now 14 months old, and he is such an adorable little guy. We constantly get questions about where he got his dimples and blonde curly hair. Camden started walking a few months ago (to Stephanie’s relief, who was dreading the idea of having to carry two babies around). And in the last month he has perfected his climbing skills, conquering chairs, couches, dressers, kitchen tables, and even standing on chairs in order to reach objects on high shelves. Camden is a big boy – he weighed 26 pounds at his one-year check-up and is also quite tall for his age – he rivals some of his two-year-old friends in size. He is an affectionate baby, offering us frequent hugs and wet kisses. He is starting to be able to keep up with his big brothers, and we think that the three older boys will be great friends, especially once Camden starts to talk and is old enough to play pretend with Kolby and Eli. Camden is becoming a great big brother too. Although he didn’t seem too interested in the baby at first other than to give him an occasional hug or kiss and then bat at his head or ‘point to’ (poke) his eyes, Camden has recently started to give Isaac his pacifier and help mommy hold his bottle. And for the last few months Camden mostly only used his favorite word, ‘Hola,’ [‘Hello’ in Spanish], which he used to tell us ‘hello,’ ‘goodbye,’ and ‘I want some food.’ He has recently started to increase his vocabulary, which now consists of ‘bye bye.’ ‘por favor’ [‘please’], ‘mama,’ uh-oh,’ and a three-syllable sound that somewhat resembles ‘I love you.’
Eli is our little sweetheart. His favorite thing to do is dance along with music playing on the radio or a movie. It makes us laugh to see him kick his foot in the air and spin around the room as he dances, but the best part is the huge grin he has on his face because he is so proud of himself and he knows we enjoy watching him dance so much. Eli is two years old, and he is looking forward to turning three next month so that he will be old enough to attend preschool classes with his big brother and start a new swim lesson class without his parents in the pool with him for the first time. He is a little fish – you have never seen a two-year-old who loved the water as much as Eli does. He likes to jump into the water to us, do ‘bobs’ (dunk his head under the water), blow bubbles, and float on his back with help. Eli has learned to recognize letters and can count, which is due to the fact that Kolby has been learning these this year and he hears them so often. Eli likes to play with puzzles, have stories read to him, and listen to his favorite tape of animal songs on car rides. And Eli’s favorite thing to do is play with his big brother, Kolby.
Kolby turned four on October 31st. He is getting old enough now that birthdays and holidays are becoming more exciting for him, and he was eager to dress up for Halloween. We had quite a little pack of wild animals this Halloween: Kolby was Tigger, Eli was a dinosaur, Camden was a lion, and Isaac was a teddy bear. Kolby also started to comprehend the idea of Santa Claus for the first time this year, and when asked what he wanted for Christmas, he told us that he wanted Santa to bring him money so that he could buy some toy trains. Kolby has really been enjoying his preschool classes at the YMCA. He takes a class in a classroom setting followed by a class in the gym three mornings a week, and he is so excited to bring home art projects and tell us about his teachers and friends and the games they play. Kolby also likes his ‘sunbeam’ class at church and he constantly surprises us with his understanding of gospel topics. Kolby is so creative, imaginative, and he loves to learn. He likes playing trains with Eli, asking us how to spell words, singing songs, playing with puzzles and board games, and playing his own version of chase/peek-a-boo with Camden. Kolby recently got his first big boy (spiked) haircut, and is very proud of it.
Eli is our little sweetheart. His favorite thing to do is dance along with music playing on the radio or a movie. It makes us laugh to see him kick his foot in the air and spin around the room as he dances, but the best part is the huge grin he has on his face because he is so proud of himself and he knows we enjoy watching him dance so much. Eli is two years old, and he is looking forward to turning three next month so that he will be old enough to attend preschool classes with his big brother and start a new swim lesson class without his parents in the pool with him for the first time. He is a little fish – you have never seen a two-year-old who loved the water as much as Eli does. He likes to jump into the water to us, do ‘bobs’ (dunk his head under the water), blow bubbles, and float on his back with help. Eli has learned to recognize letters and can count, which is due to the fact that Kolby has been learning these this year and he hears them so often. Eli likes to play with puzzles, have stories read to him, and listen to his favorite tape of animal songs on car rides. And Eli’s favorite thing to do is play with his big brother, Kolby.
Kolby turned four on October 31st. He is getting old enough now that birthdays and holidays are becoming more exciting for him, and he was eager to dress up for Halloween. We had quite a little pack of wild animals this Halloween: Kolby was Tigger, Eli was a dinosaur, Camden was a lion, and Isaac was a teddy bear. Kolby also started to comprehend the idea of Santa Claus for the first time this year, and when asked what he wanted for Christmas, he told us that he wanted Santa to bring him money so that he could buy some toy trains. Kolby has really been enjoying his preschool classes at the YMCA. He takes a class in a classroom setting followed by a class in the gym three mornings a week, and he is so excited to bring home art projects and tell us about his teachers and friends and the games they play. Kolby also likes his ‘sunbeam’ class at church and he constantly surprises us with his understanding of gospel topics. Kolby is so creative, imaginative, and he loves to learn. He likes playing trains with Eli, asking us how to spell words, singing songs, playing with puzzles and board games, and playing his own version of chase/peek-a-boo with Camden. Kolby recently got his first big boy (spiked) haircut, and is very proud of it.
Michael and Stephanie have both enjoyed this fourth and last year of Michael’s medical school. Although some rotations have had very difficult schedules that keep Michael away from home a lot, most months have been quite nice this year compared to his third year rotations. Our family has had the opportunity to sample some of the fun things that Milwaukee and the surrounding areas have to offer including making good use of our zoo pass, swimming at Lake Pewaukee, playing at the children’s museum, driving to the temple in Chicago once a month and trading babysitting with our friends on these trips, enjoying the numerous parks and playgrounds near our home, swimming and going down the water slides at the YMCA in Menomonee Falls, taking advantage of the ‘kids eat free’ nights at Dennys, and attempting to get five or more children to sleep in our three-bedroom apartment in order to have fun game nights with our friends. We are thankful for the close friends we have been able to make in Milwaukee while being so far from family these last few years.
Stephanie has kept busy with her family history work, taking Kolby to preschool and attending swim lessons with Kolby and Eli, editing and organizing our family photographs on the computer, going on walks and enjoying the outdoors with the boys during the summer, planning birthday parties for the kids, attending church activities, attempting to build our family’s food storage, organizing our apartment, working on a family website, and taking care of our four little guys (a full-time job in and of itself). And Michael has done a good job of balancing his monthly rotations for school, studying, spending time with his family, church responsibilities, and having fun with friends. His research paper was published a few months ago and he was accepted into Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA), a competitive national medical student honor society.
This year Michael finalized his decision to pursue a career in dermatology. He is interested by the patient continuity, surgical procedures, and the breadth of knowledge necessary for this specialty (and Stephanie was glad that Michael was interested in a specialty that should eventually allow for a ‘family-friendly’ schedule). Although dermatology is currently a competitive specialty, we are grateful that Michael has been offered several invitations to interview with residency programs around the country. It will be a challenge to rank our top choices of programs because most of the places he has interviewed so far are very appealing to us. In March we will find out where we will be moving for the next four years, and on 16 May 2008 Michael will graduate from medical school and he will officially be a doctor. We are grateful to all our family and friends who have supported us through this process so far. We hope that you will have a wonderful Christmas and New Year. Our thoughts are with you and your family this holiday season, and we would love to hear from you too.
Stephanie has kept busy with her family history work, taking Kolby to preschool and attending swim lessons with Kolby and Eli, editing and organizing our family photographs on the computer, going on walks and enjoying the outdoors with the boys during the summer, planning birthday parties for the kids, attending church activities, attempting to build our family’s food storage, organizing our apartment, working on a family website, and taking care of our four little guys (a full-time job in and of itself). And Michael has done a good job of balancing his monthly rotations for school, studying, spending time with his family, church responsibilities, and having fun with friends. His research paper was published a few months ago and he was accepted into Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA), a competitive national medical student honor society.
This year Michael finalized his decision to pursue a career in dermatology. He is interested by the patient continuity, surgical procedures, and the breadth of knowledge necessary for this specialty (and Stephanie was glad that Michael was interested in a specialty that should eventually allow for a ‘family-friendly’ schedule). Although dermatology is currently a competitive specialty, we are grateful that Michael has been offered several invitations to interview with residency programs around the country. It will be a challenge to rank our top choices of programs because most of the places he has interviewed so far are very appealing to us. In March we will find out where we will be moving for the next four years, and on 16 May 2008 Michael will graduate from medical school and he will officially be a doctor. We are grateful to all our family and friends who have supported us through this process so far. We hope that you will have a wonderful Christmas and New Year. Our thoughts are with you and your family this holiday season, and we would love to hear from you too.
Love,
Michael, Stephanie, Kolby, Elijah, Camden, and Isaac Bradshaw
(414) 258-7901
Michael: mbradsha@mcw.edu
Stephanie: stephanielbradshaw@hotmail.com
http://www.bradshaw-family.blogspot.com/
(414) 258-7901
Michael: mbradsha@mcw.edu
Stephanie: stephanielbradshaw@hotmail.com
http://www.bradshaw-family.blogspot.com/
09 October 2007
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!
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!
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