The Ferens Farm

This year flew by so fast, I have no idea where the time went, but what I do know is that my baby is turning one year old on the 27th.  Crazy to think that a year ago right now I was so sick and no one knew what was wrong with me exactly, or if Austin would be okay when he was born, or really what to expect, but he was born and I was healed and life moved on, fast.  Now one year later it feels like a distant memory, but one I don’t want to ever forget. (For some details about last August click here.)

In the last three months Austin has “come into himself” making his mark on our family.  He brings joy to our family, his face lights up a room, the smile and those checks suck you in and you just want more!  He is silly, looking to make us laugh and snag the attention of his siblings.  What a busy boy he is, getting into everything and on the move!  Now we can say, there are definately 4 kids in our family, 4  to keep track of, 4 to feed, 4 to cuddle, 4 to care for, he is now, one of the gang.

Here are his stats @ 1 year old:

Weight: 24.5 pounds, 75th percentile for weight and height, 18-24 month clothes

Teeth: 3 (one top tooth barely poking through the gums and two bottom teeth all the way in)

Sleep: 11.5 hours at night (straight!), 2 naps a day, about 1.5 hours each

Movement: not walking, but walking along everything.  He crawls like a madman, at supersonic speed!  He loves to crawl through things, like a tunnel or under a blanket.  He will do it over and over again.  He loves to jump in his crib holding on to the side rail, or on the small trampoline.  Even though he is a very skilled mover for a non walker, he still loves to be carried or worn in the Ergo.

Nick names:

• A man
• A-ster
• Au-dee (made up and called by Ally only)
• Little Man
• Baby Boy

Food:  His boy LOVES to eat!  He screams in anger if he doesn’t get to eat before everyone else.  He likes pretty much everything but loves: fruit, yogurt, watermelon, bread, string cheese, frozen peas, ice cream, berries, anything sweet, nursing, and whatever his brother or sisters are eating. He loves water from my water bottle, he will be getting his own for his birthday!  (Really, there is nothing I can think if he doesn’t like to put in his mouth and swallow!)

Talking:  He “talks” all the time.  Constant noise is coming from him and I can tell he is talking, I just can’t tell what he is saying!  He does say a few things such as: “that?” (while he points),  ”uh-oh”, and “DaDa”.  He also waves, lifts up his arms and says “yeah”, claps, and kisses (only open mouth style!)  I also think he says Zac sometimes, but it sounds like “that” so it is hard to decipher.

Toys: he still loves to put things in his mouth, but has calmed down a bit, thank goodness!  He seems to have a special liking for balls, chasing them around the house.  He also likes to play with anything he knows he shouldn’t play with, like the toilet water, small legos, toilet paper, the washing machine, the dishwasher…you get the point!

Skills:  Austin excels at opening cupboards and drawers and pulling everything out!  He can make a mess and empty a drawer in less than 3 seconds.  His best skill is throwing things over his shoulder, usually his right shoulder.  He LOVES to empty clothes out of dresser drawers, throwing everything out as fast as he can.  He also likes to crawl to my piles of laundry (especially when they are already folded) and throw them all over the room.  He can do this at hyper-speed!  Austin has a special liking for piles of clothes and towels, I wonder if this means anything!??

Austin, you have been the perfect “last baby” for me.  Sweet, cuddly, full of love, full of smiles, fun, playful, spunky, just everything I love!  I can’t believe you will be one on Friday, if I think about it too much I tear up and start to cry.  I remember when you came out and how perfect you were, despite all the worries about if something was wrong and how sick I was, together we pulled through and it was all good, Praise God!  When you get older and I tell you the story of the month leading up to your birth, you better thank me for hanging in there…

Everything with you is bittersweet.  I get so excited when you enter a new stage, but I get sad, knowing you are growing up and I won’t get to experience this again.  Your  Daddy says I can’t baby you too much, but how can I help it?  Every time we are in the rocking chair together and cuddled up I think, how quickly this will fade, thanks for indulging me now.  One of my favorite things about you is your energy and desire to explore and learn.  You have a zeal for life and I love to watch you process how this world works.  You like to watch your brother and sisters do things and then try it yourself, I have a feeling this won’t fade in you.

You have one of the most expressive faces, I can tell how you are going to respond verbally to something before a sound comes out, just by watching your face.  You light up when someone walks in the door you like, such as Daddy, GG or Pappy, it is so sweet.  You are making a real impact on this family now, I can tell I have four kids, you aren’t just sitting back, but participating in our life and you keep me on my toes!

Thank you for a wonderful year that I never want to forget.  I am excited to get to know more of who God made you to be in this next year.  I love you more than you will ever know or understand, Mama.

As long as I can remember the importance of family has been instilled in me.  It was obvious in my family growing up that nothing came before family.  It was expected that I would choose a family event over something with friends and, for the most part (besides a few times in high school), I made this choice.  It is not just my immediate family that feels this way, the Haskins’ family as a whole places a high importance on family.  Because of this we have an annual family reunion where nearly everyone is present, nearly every year, and there are around 100 of us by now!  We spend the weekend on family property camping along the river in Rochester, WA.  My kids play with my Dad’s cousin’s kid’s kid’s!  Since I began going to this reunion around 5 years of age I have never missed it, I think this is the only thing I have done every August of my life for the last 25 years!

Every year the reunion looks a little different, depending on which family (we are broken into 3 groups based on which if the 3 brothers your family originated from) is in charge that year.  But there are a few things that are consistent: family golf on Friday; community breakfast, river float, softball, and BBQ on Saturday; community breakfast, worship service, egg toss, candy in the hay, family trivia, and community lunch on Sunday.  As you can guess when 100 get together  there is a lot of diversity and not everyone does everything, but that is okay.  We don’t have any major family arguments or tension.  We are all fairly accepting and very loving and it is fun.  I am so thankful to be part of such a “functional” family and pass on this legacy to my kids.  I LOVE my family, all parts of it, and so do the kids, it is a special blessing to be part of this kind of family here on earth.

This year’s reunion was HOT, around the mid 90′s all three days!  We spent a lot of time in the river and the shade, doing a lot of  trying to stay cool.

One “extra” thing we did this year was the kids tie-dyed shirts, here are my 4 kids sporting their shirts at home.

We set the first weekend in August aside  to explore and enjoy where we live.  Too bad the weatherman didn’t get the memo that it was our “outside” weekend because it rained/drizzled most of the time, but we didn’t let that stop us!  The Little Family was generous enough to let us enjoy their rustic cabin in Quilcene so it felt like we “got away” despite the fact that we were less than 30 minutes from home.  On Friday night and Saturday we enjoyed the cabin, complete with tire swing, roasting hotdog and marshmallows in the rain, an inside dance party, and lots of good family time!

We had planned to spend Saturday hiking and exploring the Quilcene/Brinnon area, but the weather kept us close to the cabin.  We decided Saturday night that regardless of the weather on Sunday we were going to hike and explore.  Sunday morning the weather had improved, slightly, so we dressed for rain and set out.  What a great day we had!  The kids LOVED being outside and hiking and Brandon and I were astonished at some of the amazing things God created on our backyard!  We visited Rocky Brook Falls (130 ft. waterfall) that I had never seen, even though I have lived here nearly 25 years!  We then visited some of my old hiking stomping grounds, the Dosewallips River.  Several years ago the river washed out part of the road to get to my old camping grounds, so we didn’t get that far, but we did hike around the slide and get down to the river to throw rocks and enjoy!  What an amazingly refreshing weekend of family time.  We can’t let it be so long again before we get out and hike!

At the base of the falls.

Last week I posted about boys and “B’s”, well we added another “B” to the list today, bees. We went blueberry picking today, it was our last picking trip of the season. We kids were playing around when a group of them got into a yellow jacket nest in the ground. Their screams of joy and laughter quickly turned into screams of terror. The noise was horrible, I can’t begin to explain it. All of us moms went running and the boys were just covered on bees. They were not only stinging them but biting them too, it was horrible. Zac was running to me and they were swarming him. I took his shirt off and five were on his back biting him. He was screaming and crying and asking for Brandon. I felt so awful, it is the worst feeling when there is nothing you can do and they are in so much pain. He continued to cry and relive it in his mind for about an hour after. I could tell he was trying to process what just happened to him. I got some Benadryl in him and IBprofen and he took a nap, waking up much better.

I really have no idea how many stings/bites he has, all I know is they are in his hair, on his ear, on his hand, on his back, on his face, and on his legs. I am so thankful the girls were a few rows away and ran when everyone started screaming. When we we’d in the car driving home I had the sickest feeling in my stomach, the whole thing was like a nightmare. Zac is asleep for the day now but I know this is an experience we won’t soon forget.

Sometimes in the midst of child rearing I can forget how intimately involved God is in my daily life. He is watching, listening, interceding, loving, disciplining, and protecting (among many other things!) I pray throughout the day and read my Bible, and think about God, but I forget that He is actually with me and He loves and cares about me and my kids more than I do. He reminded me this week that He is here, watching over us…

On Wednesday the older kids were outside playing. We had just finished eating lunch outside and I took Austin inside to lay him down for a nap. I had only been inside a few minutes when I heard Zac crying and calling mom. I did not run immediately because they were just playing “mom” so I thought he was talking to one of the girls, and his cry didn’t sound real. Then a few seconds later it came again, but this time much stronger. I quickly made my way to the door where I met Zoey crying and telling me Zac was hurt, my heart started pounding. I quickly found Zac, laying on the ground, next to our small excavator, not moving. I could tell from the large indent in the dirt that he had fallen from high above. I immediately knew this could be serious. I remembered not to move him and started asking him what he could move and feel. He told me he couldn’t move his arms or feel them…I needed to calm him down to really assess his potential injuries so I began asking him questions and calming him. In less than a minute I was relived to find that he could indeed move and before long he was sitting up, shaken up, but not a scratch on his body. I held him and we began talking about what happened. Apparently he had climbed up to the top of the excavator, tied a rope to the top and tried hanging on it. The knot did not hold and he fell backward, landing on his head and back from a height of about 8-9 feet. Praise God he was kept safe. So many things could have happened, thankfully there were no rocks to hit, poky sticks to impale him, etc. I thank God for keeping him safe and cushioning his fall. The next day he told me his body was sore, but he is safe and physically unharmed. I think from now on he will remember to not play on the excavator.

Yesterday evening I was in the kitchen, Brandon was sitting at the computer in the kitchen, and Austin was playing on the floor.  We were talking and playing with Austin.  Suddenly, in a way only a nearly one year old can do, he had stood up, opened the cupboard and pulled 4 pyrex glass bowls out and onto the floor.  They were all stacked together and one of the inside ones shattered.  Thank God Brandon was sitting only inches from the scene and immediately grabbed Austin up and out of the glass.  I starred at Austin in amazement, not a scratch on his body, even though there were pieces of sharp glass all over the floor, right where he was sitting.  I took him, rinsed him off, and Brandon cleaned up the mess.  Reflecting back on this I was amazed that nothing bad happened.  What if we wouldn’t have been right there and he crawled right through the glass and all those millions of glass slivers went into his little body?  What if the outside bowl would have broken, instead of an inside one, and all the glass would have been on the floor?  What if the 4 bowls would have landed right on him?  What if…

Two days in a row, two potentially horrible situations averted.  These are just a few of the litterally hundreds of times I feel like one of my four kids has been protected from a horrible accident or death.  I could sit here all afternoon, evening and night typing story after story of God’s protection over my kids.  It is a miracle they live past 3 years old, and not becuase I am a horrible, neglegent mother, I am watching and trying my best to protect them, but God knows I can’t do it alone, He is their protector.

God forgive me for my lack of faith, for forgetting to give you all the credit and glory.  I pray that I can remember to look to you in EVERYTHING, constantly, because You will give me all I need.  Thank you for all that You are, especially for your protecting hand over my children.  Help me to trust you more…