Our Hazel

Hazel had a very sweet first birthday.  We celebrated on the real day with a cupcake and then had our dear friends, Mr and Mrs. V. over for a little party the following day.  Hazel loves our sand box and it took some training to get her not to keep eating the sand.  For her birthday I made her a dirt cake so she could eat away.  I think the pictures on this special occasion are worth a thousand words so enjoy the slide show at the bottom.

Just some fun things about our baby girl.  She is an official walker now (she did pretty good before her birthday, but still crawled a bit.)  Now she prefers walking and she looks like a little chunky marionette. Picture a soft-brown head of hair wisping while her body sways unsteadily, knees being pulled up and out and hands high in the air.

She has about a six word vocabulary, thus requiring her own category of “isms.”  Uh-oh is Aa-ooh. Thank you, is Ah-goo. Ball is Bah. Baby is ba-bah. Up is puh-puh. And of course Mama is Mama.  Oh yes, she just started saying Da-Da for Daddy, but she just keeps saying da-da-da-da-da and gives a coy smile in his direction.

She laughs whenever anybody else laughs which sounds more like a steady caw deep in her throat.  She loves to play with her brothers and sisters, patting them and nuzzling them frequently.  She loves going for their hair which is often pulled too hard (she is the only one who can get away with that!), they usually laugh it off, except for the time she had a nice good hold on Chloe’s hair and I suddenly got up when holding her, big chunk of hair still in her fist, big tears from Chloe. Ouch.

The children all adore her (even after she has inflicted pain on them).  Gabe is very protective and cautious of whatever she is doing.  I believe I remember him saying one time, “Mom, Hazel is not safe up there,” when I put her on the counter to sit.  He was right and I probably handed her off to him where he might have played happily with her for a good while.  Chloe speaks chipmunk to her and although really endearing it tends to drive me kind of batty, especially when she sings in chipmunk.  Sophie is her entertainer.  Hazel has gotten more laughs from that girl than from any of us, hands down.  Sophie just has a knack for knowing what will tickle her, she is often the one I call when I am changing Hazel and need some distraction.  Caleb is so sweet and so patient with her, I am continually amazed that he is only three.  Just this morning he had his cars all set up neatly.  I was following Hazel who was headed straight for them.  Caleb was not in the room at the moment and I called out, “Caleb, Hazel is headed for your cars.”  He yells back as he comes into the room,  ”It’s okay, Hazel can play with my cars. Here Hazel, you like this car, you can have it, oh you want that one, okay baby.”   One of my favorite things he says to her is, “Hi Hazlll, hi Hazll, hi Hazlll.”  Usually he does this in a tender high-pitched voice after she has woken from her nap.  She always smiles.

It’s not always smiles though.  When she was first making her acquaintance into our lives we often chanted, “Heil Hazel!” This was because she was naturally the smallest tyrant in the house being the one that put a stop to anything fun if she needed tending to.  This morphed into ”Happy Hazel.”  She has always been a very happy baby.  She has been known as ”Horrid Hazel” on occasion, but not very much.   ”Hair-do Hazel” is a good one since she has the characteristic ”do” that her sisters had at her age.  But most recently she has been referred to as ”Hurricane Hazel.”  She loves crashing down on anything neatly set up by anybody.  Chunky-monkey-marrionette style.

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Serious breakfast discussion

The following is the conversation that I had with the kids at breakfast.

Gabe:  Mama, do you think you would ever get married again if Daddy ever died?

Me:  That’s a tough question, because I can’t imagine ever being married to anyone but Daddy.  I would like to think that I would put all my efforts in to raising and loving you before I thought about getting remarried.  What do you think, would you want Mama to get married to another man?

Chloe:  No way!

Sophie:  I would just push him away and never let him hug me or talk to me.

Me:  Well, I suppose if lots of time had passed and there was a man who was good and kind and wanted to marry me I might think about it, but it just seems really strange to me to think about having any other husband than Daddy.

Chloe:  Yeah, and if you ever did remarry, you would never kiss him.

Me:  Well, kissing is what married people do, but you’re right, I can’t think about kissing any other person than Daddy.  You know what’s crazy is that many people think that it’s okay to marry and get remarried and have lot’s of different spouses.  So they kiss a lot of people.

Chloe:  That just sounds gross.

 

Childrenisms

I’m due for a post and am going to get in as much as I can. 

We’ll start with “isms.”

We don’t do juice too much around here, but one day we had orange juice for breakfast and we had some left over in the afternoon that Daddy poured for himself.  Gabe asked if he could have some and the answer was no.  John had put the glass on the table and walked away to get something.  Gabe longingly looked at the glass and said, “Poor juice, it’s sitting there with nobody to drink it.”

The kids have been getting into the cartoon version of Avatar.  As I understand it there are four types of “benders.”  Air benders, Earth benders, Water benders and Fire benders.  Tonight when Gabe was getting on his pajamas he passed gas that rumbled his loft bed.  I commented on the heartiness of it and he said something along the lines of, “just call me the great Air Bender.”

Gabe has such a sweet and caring heart most days, but sometimes he really can be nasty to his brother and sisters.  I have really tried to encourage him to be kind even when it’s hard.  One day I approached him about his attitude that for the last few days had just been mean and selfish.  I asked him if there was anything bothering him and told him how he has a big job in this family.  ”You can really set the tone for how the children get along.  Your brother and sisters are watching you and will emulate what you do because you are the oldest, whether it is good or bad. So, it’s really a big job for you to be the best example you can be.”  I said this to him and it struck deep in his heart and he started crying.  He said, “I wish I wasn’t the big brother, I wish I had someone to show me how to do it, it’s so hard.  Why do I have to be the big brother, Mama?”  I held him silently for a moment and said, “Because God knew you’d be the best one for the job.”  This gave him a bit of confidence and he wiped his tears and got down from the counter with a fresh start.   I can’t say that he has never looked back, but it has given him a lot to think about.

The kids like to call their seat when they get in the car and evidently the sweet spot is the middle seat, in the middle row.  They all call it, “in the middle of the middle.”  Poor Chloe never quite calls it in time and is always stuck in the back.  One day they were all clambering to the car and the winner of the call was Sophie, Chloe says half in jest and half in disappointment, ”Aw! Why does nobody show me any mercy!”

Sophie is our little dawdler.  She needs a timer set with specified consequences if not done in time to be motivated to get things done in a timely manner.  (I really need to search out more positive approaches to this behavior, but this is all I have “time” for.)  Anyway, I tried to talk to her about how she needs to be more immediate in her actions when asked to do something.  I was going to go along the lines of how we shouldn’t be lazy, blah, blah, blah. And when I asked her, “What does it mean when you don’t do something quickly when we ask you?”  She said, ”It means that I’m not honoring Mommy and Daddy.”  Yea, she brought me back to basics.  Of course, that was all that was needed.

This one was quite a while back and I’m not the one who should be writing it down because John was the witness to this, but I’ll try.  We had had a dinner of barbecued ribs one Sunday afternoon and later we had our family worship time with review of catechism questions.  Sophie was on the questions about Adam and Eve being made and must have had the picture of Adam giving God one of his ribs (barbecued) to form Eve out of.  Several nights later we had soup for dinner and she was asked the question, “How were Adam and Eve made?”  She answered, “Adam was formed from the dust of the ground and Eve was made from Adams soup.”

Hmm, I don’t have any post-it notes for Caleb.  He is just chatty.  He LOVES to talk about anything.  When we are at the table he will go on and on about whatever flows through his mind.  It might go something like this, “There was a big truck and he went down the road and he saw a monster and the monster said ‘STOP!’ so the truck stopped and he said, ‘Hey, why are you in the road.’ and the monster said, ‘hey you get off my road, your breath stinks, really bad.’  The end.”  That was actually a very, very short story for him.  I am now determined to record one of his stories and share it, he has the cutest little voice ever.

Hazel, well she is beginning to crawl, more like scoot.  I find myself surveying the floor for any potential choking hazards because she will go for it.  Thankfully she is very slow right now.  And she is just so sweet!  Sadly, I often forget that she is awake if I’ve left her to play in the living room by herself, she is so quiet and content.  She didn’t have Chloe’s disposition at first, but she has developed it now.  She just smiles and smiles when she wakes up and wiggles with joy when any of the kids smile or talk to her.  And she is so much more tolerant of the kids holding her than Caleb was.  I seriously fight the kids for her.  They want to hold her and play with her as soon as she is up and use up all of her sweet smiles and play time and when she is fussy they call me to come get her.  I’ve gotten to where I will ask, “Can Mama just hold her for a few minutes before any body snatches her away?”  I know Caleb was not like this at all. I remember distinctly wishing that he would play more with them instead of preferring me.  I suppose the kids are a bit older now and more capable of entertaining Hazel than when Caleb was a baby.  Gabe is convinced that she is the sweetest and cutest of all our babies, but I just read recently to him how he loved Caleb and Sophie just as much.  He just forgets when they start talking and messing around with his things!

I have been wanting to write this down for some time for my own personal records.  Hazel did not start going to sleep early regularly until four months old.  I was wracking my brain with her thinking that ALL of my other babies were sleeping earlier in the evening than her, but possibly having had five has made me forget.  Oh, yes, I also wanted to record that she was unusually fussy during those first 6 weeks and more.  I remember my others being very portable at that age and easily sleeping in the car seat for long periods and anywhere.  I didn’t really have that luxury with her.  And also for the record, she is still nursing at least two times in the night.  And THAT is a record.  I would have liked it with my others because it keeps my milk production up (one nice benefit of that is no monthly cycles……. or I could just be getting old.)  Anyway, she just may be my first nurse-till-two baby!  I’ve always had the goal of nursing my babies till at least the age of two because I know that there are significant health benefits such as added nutrition and getting my immunities, but my babies have always weaned themselves.  Maybe little Hazel will do it.  Heck, the others were sleeping through the night for months by now.  Yea, she is seven months old.  Blows my mind.

Well, I had more to write, but I’m pretty typed out and I still have to check for major grammatical errors.  Hmm, I may just do spell check tonight.

 

Updates, Mae Day and isms

I am currently working on a post that will be highlighting our Cumberland Island trip, but for now I have a few updates.

Today little Hazel will be going in for a pediatric urology appointment.  It seems that her enlarged kidney that was detected in utero may be causing some problems in her little urinary tract.  Last week she came down with a UTI and let me tell you a five month old with a UTI is bad news.  It was so sad, she nursed all night with her little body wiggling because she was so uncomfortable.  We pray for answers and treatment at the urologist today.

This year for school we started a little group called Mae Day.  A small group of us moms decided it was finally time to give our kids the enrichment activities that Charlotte Mason highlights in her method of education.  We created a blog to document this event and hope you will join us.

We were getting the kids ready for bed a few nights ago and Sophie came to me and said, “Mama, I know of a way to get my kids to brush their teeth when they don’t want to.”  She went on to tell me that after her children said no to her request a few times she would tell them they were going to play a game and she would say, “Simon says, brush your teeth.”  Then they would scurry to brush their teeth happily.

I told her that she will be such a sweet and fun Mama.  She said, “Yeah, and I would only have two spoons, one for cooking and one for scratching my back.”

We were reading our Old Testament reading at breakfast one day about Solomon and his many wives.  The children were curious as to why Solomon had so many.  I told them that he began to get very greedy about having for himself the most beautiful women.  He wanted only the best in everything including his wives.  Gabe asked, “Do you think you would have been one of his wives?”  Me: ”Well, I don’t know, why do you ask?”  Gabe: “Because you’re so pretty.” This, at breakfast, in my pajamas, I have done nothing at all to prettify myself.  AND he kept going.  “Don’t you guys think Mama is pretty?  I think she is so pretty, Mama is really pretty.”

You can imagine, that made my whole day.

 

Private Beach and Wild Horses

How about a private beach and a chance to see wild horses for your next vacation?

This is America’s best kept secret.

Among the wild horses there are crazy sea critters everywhere.  Crazy as in lots.  Chloe describes seeing hundreds of crabs scurrying the beach and sea stars everywhere.  Daddy and Chloe came here two years ago for Chloe’s “Five-year-old Trip”.  Hubby has been wanting to get the whole family back there since then.  And here we go!

We’ll be leaving soon for Cumberland Island and will be staying for five glorious days.  It’s the size of Manhattan and the Park Reserve only allows 600 people on at a time.  So there will miles of beach with just our crew combing them for shells, sharks teeth, sand dollars and so much more.  We are very excited.  Did I mention that we would be camping though?  Yes, for five days.  We will have a bath house, but no electricity and according to Hubby no chairs.  I’ve been trying very subtly to hint to him that we should at least bring one chair.  I’m a nursing mother, I should have one chair.  Heck, one of Pa Ingalls’ first pieces of furniture was a rocking chair for Ma when they moved to the Prairie.  And they were really roughing it!  The thing is, we have to bring all of our stuff in a ferry to the island and we’ll utilize carts like Home Depot has.  We also have to take all of our stuff off when we leave, including our garbage.  So, bringing chairs is a bit of a luxury, but I WANT one!!!  Oh well, I think we shall have a memorable time with or without a chair.  As my husband says, “It will be one of the most memorable times we have, hopefully on the positive side.”

I’m really wanting to journal while I’m there, hopefully I”ll have lots to share!

A few weeks ago Daddy was explaining to the kids about how much God loves us and how He knows everything about us. “Why Chloe, he even knows the number of hairs on your head.”  Gabe: “Does he know them by name?”

 

Baby Bliss

It’s really a shame that I have not posted for five months.  It seems so daunting now that I have so much to write about.  I need to get back to posting once a week.

Well, she’s here.  Little Hazel Marie.  I have been enjoying all the new baby feelings and marveling once again how this little being was formed in me and now I have her in my arms to caress and love.  She is already a joy to our family and we all adore her.  The children are in a battle every time I have her as to who gets to hold her.  She has been more aware lately and expressing her voice a lot more too.  I have a lot of “isms” from the kids, but I’ve got to share this one from Gabe now. 

It was the afternoon after my surgery and Gabe had crawled up on the bed carefully beside me.  He was amazed at the depletion of my belly and patted me gently.  I said, “Can you believe she came out of there, I don’t have a big belly anymore.”  He said as he looked over at the baby, “I just can’t believe we get to take her home, I can’t believe she is our baby.”  I just loved it.  He was making the connection that this little baby was a real live being and we have sole charge of her.  It really is an amazing thought, hubby and I felt it with Gabe,  it was neat to see our little 7-year-old have such strong feelings of love toward his little baby sister when she was only hours old. 

My recovery has been the most difficult this time than any of them.  I continue to have friends, family and professionals tell me that this was my fifth pregnancy, fifth major abdominal surgery and that I am getting older, it should be more difficult.  It’s hard though, when I have so many easy ones to compare it with.  During my pregnancy hubby and I had a few conversations about how hard this pregnancy was and now with this difficult recovery, hubby is ready to say we are done.  I’m not so ready to say that yet.  I know I’m wearing down and getting older, but I just have it in my head that we are not done quite yet.  Perhaps we need to start thinking about our adoption plans. 

I have already grown tired of typing and I have much more to share.  I think I will stop because if I make this too much of a chore I will not want to get back on for a while.  I don’t want that.  I will just post some of the cute things the kids have said in the past several months and call it quits.

I don’t remember what had happened but I apologized to Chloe for raising my voice to her and getting angry.  She replied, “I think it’s easier for you to yell because you can just get it out and you don’t have to spend a lot of time teaching us to behave.”  She hit it right on the nose, don’t ya think?  I spent time explaining to her that she was absolutely right and hopefully we can all chose to do the harder thing like keeping our voices low and sweet and taking our time to explain, rather than yell, which is truly much easier, but doesn’t show love, compassion, or patience.

Gabe was observing a wrestling practice with some friends of ours to see if he would be interested in joining.  He was chatting with his friends Mom about how he didn’t think he would care for it too much and it looked like stuff he could easily learn to do at home.  My friend said something like, “Well, what about Karate, would you like to do something like that?”  Gabe said, “Oh, that’s just a chop and a kick.”   

Upon returning inside from an unusually warm winter day Sophie said, “Guess what, birdies are perching everywhere out here.  It’s like summer, but flowers aren’t almost growing.” 

Caleb is so ready to be potty trained and whenever he dirties his diaper he says, “Please change my byper, Mama.”  Awhile back, I was changing an especially smelly one and he sniffed real loud and said, “Yuck, smells like eggs, Mama.”

Hubby made a comment that my last post was pretty funny at the end.  I asked him why and he said, “Because you were commenting on hoping the post was “legible”, but you put in “eligible” instead.  It wasn’t meant to be a joke at the time, just a mistake, but it’s pretty funny now.

Oh, there is always something I remember about each child that particularly sticks out to me when I first see them.  With Hazel I was especially struck with the thought that she didn’t really look like any of us.  She really just had her own look.  I think now she resembles the girls, upper half of the face, Chloe (minus the eyebrows!), lower half, Sophie.  She still has a distinct look all her own though.  A couple of other things I noticed later on, she has a large “stork bite” right between her eyes, doctor says it will diminish over time, but it’s still there after two and half weeks, maybe it will be a birthmark.  Also, her feet were so flexible, it was like her toes practically could touch her leg, just an effect of being so cramped up inside me.

Yes, it was brought to my attention that I need to edit my blog name, we are now House of Five + 2!

Until next time.

 

Pigs and School

The kids and I are together writing this post.  Here are some things that have been going on lately.

We bought a Guinea Pig.  She is a girl, her name is Bella. (Those lines were put in by Gabe.)  I have to write and say that I think she is the sweetest Guinea Pig I’ve ever known, but I haven’t really known very many.  She is also very pretty and I’ve never thought Guinea Pigs were very cute.  But she is.  I’d also like to say that I am very excited about cleaning her cage.  I’ll explain.  We started her in a cage kit which included recycled blue paper bedding.  It was mess, little blue paper chunks everywhere.  When I did a search on the best ways to clean Guinea Pig cages I found a few sites that talked about providing a soaker underneath a fleece.  Naturally, I was very drawn to this because I use cloth diapers with the same effect.   So Gabe and I went and picked out two prints of fleece.  One is a camouflage print and the other is pink with yellow and orange flowers (and both were 50% off!).   I lined the bottom with bed pads (I got them for night time accidents) and then put the fleece over the top to wick away moisture.  We’ll change her bedding when we change our sheets.   Along with their morning chores each child has a chore for Bella.  One sweeps her droppings with a mini handheld broom and dustpan.  One changes her water. And one makes sure she has fresh food and sweet hay.  We love having a pet. :)  And from what I understand of Guinea Pigs they are not very cuddly.  She is very much so and will just sit and let us pet her as long as she can bury her head into the towel she is on.  Okay, enough with Bella.

We started school today and it was fun.  Daddy did Reading and History.  I did the rest.  I’d like to record our schedule and subjects here because it’s just fun to look back on. (I don’t have to do the record keeping that some of my friends have to do in NY).  Here are the kids’ narrations from today.  Daddy accidentally read the wrong story in our Fifty Famous Stories which Gabe really liked so he told that one to me.  Chloe did the one that was supposed to be read.   I don’t know that I will do this every time, but yet again, it will be neat to look back on.

Narrations by Gabriel Aug 2010

King Alfred and the Cakes

There was a very good king and he was very good to everybody and he was very nice. A king has a very hard life because wars happen all the time. He pretty much always wins the wars because he is such a good king. The Danes were a very strong army too. They started to fight the good king. They fought and fought until finally Britain scattered the good kings men. And the good king fled and ran into a swamp. As he came out and walked he saw a woodcutters house. He knocked on the door and a woman opened the door and he asked if he could have something to eat. The woman did not know that he was the king. And the woman said he could have some food and water. She said, “If you will watch these cakes I will go milk the cow.” And as soon as she left to milk the cow he forgot all about his hunger and the cakes and started thinking about how he would put his army up the next day. As the woman came back and the cakes were sizzling and burnt into hard crust, she scolded him and said, “A lazy man who wants food should work.” And I was told that she actually beat him on the back with a stick.

Narrations by Chloe Aug 2010

The Sword of Damocles

There was once a king who had lots of riches but no one really liked him. And one day Damocles came to the palace. And he said to the king, “Will you give me all your riches for one day?” So the king took Damocles into the palace and he showed Damocles the gold. When Damocles sat down he looked up to see what the jingling was and there was a single horse hair that was hanging a sword. When Damocles saw the sword right above his head he could no longer eat any food or drink any wine. And then the king came in and he said. “What is the fright Damocles?” And Damocles said, “There is this sword hanging above my head.” And the king said, “I always have a sword hanging above my head.”

Charlotte Mason does not recommend children under the age of six to provide narrations, but Chloe has been doing them beautifully on her own since she was 3.  So I’m thinking there really is no harm to ask her, especially seeing that she thoroughly enjoys doing them.

One of the stipulations Daddy had in getting a Guinea Pig was that the children had to come up with five interesting facts about them.   We have yet to do so and Chloe is eager to now.  I better stop playing around and get our assignment done.

 

Growing in size and faith

I promised my Dad last month that I would get a post in before the month of November was out.  I hate not being true to my word.  And I hate that I missed a month.  It just upsets my whole plan.  I’d like to one day get to posting once a week, but I can hardly do once a month, which is my so-called plan. 

Our Thanksgiving was not the greatest.  We did have nice ‘after’ Thanksgiving so that’s good.  I’m doing a Jesse Tree with the kids this year and we are all enjoying it.  It’s sort of like an advent calendar, but with a biblical bent.  We read a portion of Scripture each day and a small devotional and then one of the kids hangs an ornament symbolizing the reading on our Jesse Tree.  It is a great way for us to anticipate the coming of our Savior and be excited in those ways rather than getting so caught up with the “gimmies.”  I think Gabe is catching on quite well.  Here’s the story.

We were reading a Christmas book, nothing with a Jesus message,  just a book about a bear who is sad because he peeked at his Christmas present when he promised he wouldn’t.  Pretty cute story about repentance and forgiveness.  Anyway, at one point in the story Nora says the best part about Christmas is being surprised and Gabe suddenly interrupts and says,  “That’s not true, the best part about Christmas is glorifying God and being happy that He sent His son.”  I told him that it is fun to be surprised at Christmas and it’s important not to peek when we’re told not too, but “Yes son, you’re absolutely right, the best part about Christmas is Jesus.”  

We were listening to the radio when the Mercy Me song came on, “I Can Only Imagine.”  It was just the girls and Caleb in the car and Caleb was sleepy so I just asked the girls to be quiet and listen to the song.  Right in the middle of it Sophie shouts out, “Jesus makes me happy!”  And our reflective Chloe questions me at the end.  “Mama, do you think that when Jesus comes it will be heaven?”  Here are some more questions from Chloe.  Remember I have said before she doesn’t seem to say the cutesy things the others say, she’s serious about getting answers to her questions.  She asked me one day why God loves people who don’t love Him.  I told her that that was a good question for Daddy and that she should ask him when he gets home.  She forgot until after we had put them into bed.  She was so determined to get her answer that she sent Sophie out to ask us.  (She knows that there’s trouble if you get up after you’ve been put in bed.)  Sophie, of course, didn’t remember the question and when Daddy went in to scold both of them for breaking the rules he got a sobbing question from Chloe.  “Why does God love people who don’t love Him?”  Daddy answered quickly, “Because God is a good God, it’s called grace.”  He gave her no other answer and shut the door behind him.  I questioned her in morning and she said, “It’s called grace, Mama, even though some people don’t love God, He still loves them because He is a good God.” 

Here is Soph when I ask her if she tried turning on the water herself to clean up after lunch (she’s just a bit too short.)  “I tried with all my mighty, but I just couldn’t.”  She’s also said this on more than one occasion, “I tried a little bit, then I tried medium-sized, and then I tried really hard, but I couldn’t get it.”

Gabe has lost his first tooth.  He discovered it was loose in the middle of the night and he came in saying, “Mama, I have a loose tooth.”  I was so groggy that I confirmed that it was loose and said something like, “That’s nice, now get back in bed, we’ll check it out in the morning.”  He stayed right by my side and waited a few minutes, I began dozing off.  “Mama?” 

“What son?”

“What if it falls out in the night and I swallow it, that’s what Katie Beth’s Daddy said happened to her.”

“You’ve still got a way to go before it’s that loose.”

He got back into bed and was very excited the next morning to inform his sisters that he had a loose tooth.  I found out later that day that he had prayed that God would help the tooth not to bother him in the night and that it would come out quickly. 

The next night he was brushing his teeth and it happened quickly and painlessly.  It’s so fun to see your little boy’s prayers answered.  Of course, we know that they won’t always be answered quickly and we won’t always get what we’ve prayed for but what a great comfort it was to Gabe.  To know and feel God in a real way in his life.  And to think He did it through a little tooth.   

Caleb turned one last month.  Wow, 1-year-old.  He did not dive into his cake like the others.  He didn’t know what to think of the sticky frosting all over his fingers.  I think he’ll be all about spoons and forks when he learns.  He got a little push toy and he is always going around the house with that thing.  His favorite thing of late is to go through Daddy’s legs, he squeals and hollers and his whole body convulses as he pushes it through.  He also loves it when the kids hide and jump out as he passes.  I’ll have to get it on video before it becomes old news.   I think he might have said “No No” to Sophie today.  She is always in his face and usually he squirms and yells if he doesn’t like it, but I turned the corner and Sophie had a guilty face and Caleb was saying, “Na Noo!” 

They are all growing up.

 

Funnies

We’ve been crazy busy with Gabe officially starting Kindergarten this year.  He is doing great and the last few days I have been feeling like we have struck a groove and things are running smoothly all around.  Ha, we’ll continue to take it a day at a time.

The kids are really coming up with some hilarious and sweet comments.  I’ve got my post-it notes piling up so I thought it would be a good time to share. 

I’ll start with Gabe.

 Gabe:  Mama, are there women presidents? 

Me:  There hasn’t been one yet, but there can be and probably will be one day. 

Gabe: Oh…..Well, you could be president Mama, you’re pretty enough. 

Watch out America!

Gabe:  (after a nice long hefty burp)  Hm, that was quite refreshing.

Last one from Gabe.  We were going through some catechism questions (it has escaped me as to which ones) but after some reflection and a long pause Gabe said, “Saying these things makes me want to love God more.”

Chloe has been as talkative as ever and part of the reason I don’t have anything from her at the moment is because she says some of the most profound things. I’m stunned when she says them and can hardly remember what to write down.  I have found a sweet little trick for her to show kindness to Sophie (who can be very difficult for a just turned five-year old who likes to play her own things at times).  I explain to her, “Sophie loves to play with you because you have such good ideas and she wants to learn from you.  You are also a very good teacher and she knows that you will be patient with her.”  Then I will turn to Sophie and say, “Sophie, if you ask Chloe very nicely that you need help knowing how she wants to play she will be glad to show you, she is a very good teacher.”  It’s like magic.  Chloe says, “Come here sweetie, I’ll show you what I was trying to do.  No, not that way, like this, now Sophie just watch me, I will help you, sweetie.”

I’ll warn you that this next one involves potty talk (as in things that we should do in the bathroom).  Sophie came to me the other day in a high pitched almost squeal, “Mama, I’m so sorry, but I just pooped in my pants.”  I was frustrated, we’ve been having issues with her of late with little pee-pee accidents.  I took her to the bathroom and very irritatingly asked, “Sophie, why did you poop your pants.”  She stammered a bit with her answer and I asked her again.  She finally said, “Because I was starving of poopness.”  Of course, it was God’s way of shining some humor on the situation and helping me to show compassion for her.  I cleaned her up and laughed it off.   A lot of times when the kids are really thirsty or really hot or really tired, anything to the extreme,  they are “starving” of thirst or starving of tiredness, or whatever.  I can only guess that Sophie was really having to go poo-poo, so much so that she couldn’t hold it anymore.  She was starving of poopness, makes sense. 

I believe Caleb is now at the age that he can have his own tag line of “Calebisms.”  This boy is already talking.  Hubby says Gabe was talking this early, but I don’t remember it, perhaps because the girls seemed such late bloomers.   His words so far; Mama, DaDa, nana (banana), ma (more) na-NA (no,no).   Okay, so he’s still got a long way to go, but what else in life do you need to know but those five words?

 

Enjoying those little moments

When my husbands sister came to visit a few weeks ago she let us go out together while she did bedtime duty with the kids.  As we were leaving Chloe gave me a kiss and said, “Mama, the next time Aunt Debra comes, she can watch us and you and Daddy can go mating.”  Yes Chloe, like the dragonflies we saw flying together the other day?

I sometimes like to do a British accent when we’re reading stories, ya know to spice things up a bit (and to keep me awake sometimes).  The other day the children were playing “Save the Baby Prince” I guess.  Gabe was doing all manners of swiping the sword and silly running around.  Caleb was quite amused, but to Chloe it was a threat to the dear baby prince.  In her best four year old British accent she said, “Don’t make the baby upset! Leave the baby alone!” 

Yesterday, I was reading a book to Sophie and it had a girl in it that needed a private teacher, only the word used was ”tutor.”  Sophie got a good giggle out of that word.  She would giggle every time I said the word ”tutor” when I was trying to explain to her what it was.  (Kind of like the word “butler.”  The kids used to get into histarics when we read that word). 

I sent Gabe on an errand of getting some cornstarch from our neighbor.  I told him to be sure to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’  When I heard his report when he came in the door I was a little disappointed to learn that he did not say thank you.  I told him that he needed to sit down now and write a thank you note and deliver it right away.  He really did not want to do this.  I told him that it would be a lesson for him to remember to be polite the first time.   He said, “Mama, I think I’ve aleady learned my lesson.”  (He’s getting pretty smart these days, in more ways than one.)  I still made him do it and when he came back we was all smiles.  “I thought I was going to be the one surprising them, but as I looked up she was standing in the doorway greeting me. I was talking to myself praying that God would help me to be brave.  And he did!”

Caleb is as fun as ever and on the move.  He is everywhere.  He hasn’t presented to be too much of a problem on all fours, aside from a tipped over plant and a few small items headed for his mouth.  He has already learned what “no” means and if said too harshly he pulls out the lower lip tremble.  He reminds me so much of Chloe in that way.  But not when I change his diapers.  Chloe would just lay there like a lump.  Caleb is really the wiggliest baby ever when I’m changing him.  Gabe was pretty wiggly, but he was mean wiggly and that was easy to correct because it was not cute.  Caleb squeals with delight to try and get away and even when I try to be firm he giggles even harder.  I cannot get serious about getting him out of this habit, but it really is so funny.