I'm Drowning and There's Nothing You Can Do About It

With the holidays over, no more daily radiation, and Henry not being a newborn baby, I began to feel like I was finally getting back to a normal life.  I felt like I was finally coming up for air and even the January blues weren't getting me down.  But yesterday I realized that I hadn't showered in three days {I'm embarrassed to even say that} and my positive outlook on life was a coping strategy and a denial of reality.  Life with five kids while doing the single parent thing a lot {because Randy is gone being an awesome provider/endodontist/business owner/scoutmaster} is just going to be busy and hard and exhausting and basically makes me feel like I'm constantly in survival mode.
I am making a conscious effort to get back to regular exercise and the reason I hadn't showered in 3 days was because I kept telling myself I could shower after I had exercised.  Yeah, that was a bad idea.  Daily exercise is a pretty lofty goal for now so I'm going to settle for exercise whenever I can and hope it's more often than not.  For now, I'm just taking things one day at a time and throwing any plans of mine out the window because any planning on my part will most definitely get interrupted by an unexpected need from one of my kids, or Randy, or fate. For example, I had planned to go grocery shopping last Friday because our cupboards were bare but then Henry had been awake all night with a fever and once he finally took a nap the next day I was not about to wake him.  So my shopping opportunity was gone.  That's why I found myself at the grocery store at 11pm on a Friday night.  It was actually quite lovely.  It was quiet, I didn't have any kids with me, and things were good for a few minutes.  Then I attempted to pay for my groceries and there wasn't enough money on the debit card and my only credit card was at the office so I had go back home and get Randy's credit card, drive back to the store, then purchase all my groceries.  By this time it was midnight and the novelty of my late-night grocery trip had completely worn off. {Don't worry, Dad.  We have money for food, we just needed to transfer funds.}
So I've got a lot of catching up to do on this blog but at least the craziness of daily life has made January pass by in a blur because who needs January anyway?  It's the worst month of the year!

Henry's first dip in the hot tub.  The boys were soooo excited about this.

Henry alwasy sits in the bumbo like this which totally reminds of the guy on Seinfeld.

 Don't let the sunshine fool you in this picture.  It was 37 degrees on January 1st for the annual polar bear swim at our friend's house.  When I took this picture there were about 20 kids sitting in the hot tub behind me trying to get warm after they took the plunge.  The coldest part of the swim is the long run back from the dock on the icy ground.

 Here is Parker celebrating his almost-graduation from speech therapy.  I'm pretty sure I've never mentioned he was diagnosed with a speech delay when he was 2 years old and we've had weekly speech for the past 3 years.  That's a long time!  In Rhode Island, the therapist came to our house but when we moved here I've had to drive him to an elementary school 20 minutes away {18 minutes if I'm driving!} Now he's mastered the art of talking so we are in the process of completing the paper work to have him be done forever!  I'm so excited about this I can't even begin to find the words to express my joy.

I've hardly taken any pics of Henry lately and I'm not ok with that.  Cuteness must be documented!

I made Marcus make bread sticks for dinner and this is what I got....a nasty teenager without a shirt wearing a crown.  Whatever.  The breadsticks were good though.

I drank this liter in one day in hopes of making it through the day after another sleepless night with Henry.  It's sooo good!  But I'm too cheap to buy it in mass quantities and I don't have time to run to the grocery store anyway so this good thing was over almost as soon as it began

5 Boys + their friends = a loud house and big messes.  I'm ok with it because we got new neighbors next door and they're Mormons with 6 kids!  It's so awesome because now I'm not the only crazy person with too many kids.  Plus, their kids play with my kids and it's heaven on earth.  Plus the mom is a runner!!  I'm so happy I could sing!  But I'm also not much of a runner these days but the future looks bright.

 I took the boys to Seattle on a Saturday while Randy was working so we could use our new family pass {Thanks, Dad and Kathy!} to check out the Pacific Science Center.  I realized my little boys haven't done things like this or they were too young to remember so it's time for some more adventures with the younger Ball boys.  Note:  Landon said museums were for nerds and didn't want to go.  I'm happy to report that after much scolding he had a good experience and changed his mind.

Henry sits up!  And he looks cute doing it, naturally.  He's 6 months old and I'm not happy about this milestone in my baby's life.

He's also sitting in a chair at the counter while eating solid foods.  You can see he's thrilled by this new adventure.  So far he hates peas.

Landon is playing basketball again.  He's the smallest kid on the team and the top scoring player.  It's so awesome!  Hmmm, maybe I should take a picture of Landon next time but this one of Henry at Landon's basketball game will have to do.

I strategically placed Henry in front of the window so he could watch the boys playing outside.  It bought me 20 minutes of peace.

He loves his new toy which our friends lent to us because their granddaughter didn't need it yet.  Yes, I'm so old that my friends don't have babies anymore so I borrow baby things from grandparents instead.

If you made it through that long update then I applaud you!  And if you're slightly worried about my mental state then don't be.  I've decided that people with large families who look like they have everything under control and have a clean house are just fooling you.  At least that's what I tell myself...