I love this

I'm dreading the day my babies are too big for mummy's hand. Mr almost 4 is already starting :(

Coping with 4 kids under 6 - "How do you do it?"

"How do you do it??"

Is something I'm asked on a regular basis.

''I can't handle this 1 (or 2)  and I often think of you with your 4, How do you do it??"

I do it because I have to. It's what I'm used to. It can be very hard at times, but there are things we do (and don't do) in order for us to cope a little easier..

My husband works the afternoon shift.
My husband is home during the day, so basically, I'm only on my own for 5 or 6 hours before the kids go to bed. This time is spent with kids naps, play, dinner/bath/bed routine, and unless we're having a particularly bad day, this time goes pretty fast. Granted that is the busiest part of the day, but more on that later :)

We're a team.
We help each other. We both do the housework and we both see to the kids. There are things either hubby or myself do the bulk of, for eg. I do the cooking, he mowes the lawns and does the yard work. Having said that, if hubby hasn't had time to mowe the lawn, I'll do it (I draw the line at the whipper snippering though lol), and if I can't be bothered cooking, he'll do it. We both know what needs to be done and do it (routines - see below)

We don't stick to a schedule.

Schedules don't work in our family. Not with an overactive toddler and a baby who doesn't know what sleep is. Maybe when the kids are older one may work, but at the moment, it's more of a headache trying to stick to a schedule.

Routines.

This is a must! We've had our fair share of failed attempts and disruptions, with the birth of our 4th bub, illness, 1st born off to school and life in general. But without a routine life would be much harder to deal with, especially when we're hit with major disruptions.

The older two know the routine. For eg. They know they have to play quietly in their room if they wake up too early, and to tidy their room and make their beds before breaky. They also pull out their bowls, spoons, cereal and milk (or spreads if they want toast) and set it up ready for us to make - this was their doing, we got up one morning to find it all out ready to be made, and they've done it ever since :) 

I'll do a post on our typical day and what I do to cope with the busy time before bed at a later stage.

Communicating with each other.

Another very important one. We tell each other everything. We need to stay one step ahead at all times, especially where Mr 2 is concerned, and in order to do so, we have to communicate. If we have an issue whether it be with each other or something totally unrelated, we'll say so. We give credit where credits due and we know what we both want out of life.

Friendship.

I'm throwing this one in, as we are best friends first and foremost and we share a great bond. Without it I really don't think we'd cope at all.

There are other things we do, but I think the above are the most important and without them I'd hate to think how our lives would be. We have our fair share of bad days, recently, more than our fair share, but we get through, we have to :) 

Worried about my family..

Since December last year, a week hasn't gone by where someone in this household has NOT been sick. Bubs has been sick with a nasty cough for 4 months, which the Dr thought might've been Pneumonia. We've been sent off for all different tests and X-Rays,  which thankfully ruled that out but we're still left wondering... to this day we have no idea what is wrong with him and it's killing me :( My other kids have passed it (cough/cold type thing but apparently lungs etc are clear) back and forth to each other for months, I've had it on and off for months and DH has barely had it.

Not only have we been dealing with that, but DS 3.5 decided to have a head on with the TV unit resulting in a trip to emergency and 3 stitches. Next, even before the stitches were removed, DS 3.5 broke out in a rash. We thought it was Hives at first, but found out it was a bad skin infection and was told to keep an eye out for Meningococcal. Thankfully this healed up.

We've had a Gastro outbreak 3x since February. Most recent being now. Bubs became ill late Monday afternoon. He wouldn't keep anything down, was lethargic and sometimes unresponsive. DH was at work, so my Mum came up to help. We called the Dr out, and he checked him over. He wasn't too concerned at the time as bubs wasn't dehydrated and looked OK but told us what to look out for and when to go to hospital etc. Well, he seemed to improve yesterday, but then started to have the runs (he didn't have diarrhea on Monday, just vomiting), and tonight he seems to be hit hard. He hasn't been keeping anything down and quite miserable. He's asleep at the moment, but if he has another session like he did earlier (won't go into details but it was very very messy) I'll take him to the hospital.

I know this is nothing compared to what other families go thru, but it's really hitting us hard... not only in the obvious ways but financial aswell, we've been spending $60-80/week on medicines, which I thought was bad, then this passed week the bill was already at $120 (for the one week) and I haven't got all the prescriptions yet.

I just wish they'd get better soon.

Under $15k mark

As of Friday 30th March 2012, we are officially under the $15k mark on our car loan. We're not quite half way yet, but I'm thrilled to have made it to this amount.

One of our financial goals for this year was to completely pay out the car loan.

We originally wanted to pay it out by the end of this financial year (30th June 2012), but we have now given ourselves to 31st December 2012. Reason being - our yard slopes towards the road, and no matter how careful or quick we are, toddlers, toys and sloping yards towards roads do not mix. So we have decided to fully fence the yard so our kids can play safely, in turn, the car will be paid out at a later date.

Update on the family

Little Miss just recently had her 5th birthday and has started big school. She absolutely loves it :) She loves coming home telling me about all the new friends she has made, and count how many she has :) She received a merit award the other day for 'always following the school rules' Awwww we're so proud :) :)

Mr 3.5 seems to have grown up a bit since Little Miss has started school. It didn't take him long to realise  (or should I say *think*) he's the boss when Little Miss is at school. He's such a great help, and loves to prove ''He's a big boy now" :) Oh yeh, On New Years Day he decided to potty train himself, and the past week has been nappy free at night and with only one accident on the 2nd night :) :) The poor feller decided to take on the TV unit only to come out second best and end up with 3 stitches. He had them removed yesterday my big brave boy :)

Mr 2 is our loveable little terror. He has recently started preschool one day a week. Normally we'd prefer to hold out until the kids are closer to 3, but this child was an exception. He needs it. He's starting to show interest in the potty, and lets us know when he has dirtied his nappy, but isn't quite ready. He's such a stress head and such a clown. He's a crack up :)

Bub is now 6 months old and has had a bit of a rough start to life. Nothing major thankfully, but still not nice seeing him sick or in pain :( When he was little he had such a bad time with pain in the bowels, thankfully that has now eased. When he was 4 months old, he came down with this virus which we thought was either croup or whooping cough (to this day we still don't know). He had the symptoms of each. The Dr put him on antibiotics to cover both illnesses. This lasted a month :( He finally got better only to come down with it again last week. It doesn't seem as vicious this time thankfully, but both times he got sick when he was due for his needles. He's still booby fed and has a bottle or two of formula a day if we're busy or out.

As for hubby and I, we're happily chugging along with the ups and downs of our crazy life :)

Still here

I've been VERY MIA the past few months, with the new bub (now 6 months old :)), sick kids, Christmas/New year, Birthdays and getting little Miss off to school, hubby and I haven't had much down time. I'm hoping now that things are starting to settle down a bit, we'll have some time to do some of the things we enjoy :)

Update on my journey

My two older kids are at preschool, and both the younger ones are having their naps. As much as I'm enjoying it, I'm a little lost lol.

As I stated in my post yesterday, the past couple of months have been rush rush and have quickly blurred past me.

For the first few weeks after having bub, I didn't continue with anything to do with my journey to regain control of my house and finances, in fact it was quite the opposite. My plan of being strict with money and paying out that car went out the window, the house seemed to return to the state it was when I was working and the clutter seemed to breed like crazy...

I wasn't too concerned with the house and clutter as I know life can be crazy with the arrival of a new bub and would soon be dealt with once things settle down, but I was really concerned about the money side of things, as with the arrival of bubs, we're even more desperate for extra space and another room.

We can in no way afford an extension on the house, or to move to a bigger place at the moment, so we decided to get built ins in the kids rooms to free up some storage space. This has been heaven sent. Miss 4's room is tiny, but since having the built ins has made her room look larger. We've also put some shelves up, and by doing so we were able to get rid of her little table which housed her pretty things. She has so much more floor space now.

We haven't yet removed the old wardrobes from the boys room yet, so I can't comment on how much space it has free'd up. But I do love the built in :)

Over the past few weeks, I've started getting back into decluttering. I've managed to get rid of about 7 bags from home. We also held a garage sale, and with the promise of not bringing the left over stuff back into the house, I filled more bags and actually got my mum, aunties and cousin into the decluttering spirit. Between us, we managed to fill bags and boxes the length and width of a massive 8 seater dining table (It was stored there until dad could take it to the op shop. He's the only one with a car big enough to fit it all lol). That's great considering my mum and aunties hold onto things until they finally sell. Which in one case was 8 years lol.

Even with the house looking like a bomb hit it, it's so much quicker and easier to return it to a state of order. So those months of decluttering and organising has definitely paid off :)

We're still paying extra onto the car, with a minimum of $50 a week. Most weeks we put a lot more on it, but I found when we pumped so much money into the loan, we'd fall off the wagon. We're now under the $20000 mark on our loan :)