As I'm trying to have my quiet time before the kids get up this morning (that elusive goal), Rosie comes padding down the stairs and climbs up into my lap and wraps her arms around my neck, breathing her fragrant morning breath into my face:
"Mommy, I wike you. You are my girl. You are cozy."
pffbbtt (fart sound)
"I'm poopin' on you."
I rapidly, but gently, push her off my lap and she bends over to inspect my thighs.
"Are you poopin? Is there any poop on you?"
And so vanishes my morning quiet time. We'll have to try again tomorrow.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Puke-fest 2010
Timetable, Friday morning - wee hours:
1:10 am...Mommy starts "eliminating" from both ends.
2:15 am...Rosie "frows up" every .5 hour or so.
5:00 am...Anthony throws up all over the bathroom floor while eliminating from the other end.
Repeat, repeat, repeat...
Thomas, thankfully, had this same illness earlier in the week and so was out of the competition for this round.
John, thankfully, was healthy enough (except for a cold) to keep the 7-up and jello flowing and bowls within easy reach. We plan on taking care of him later this weekend when he inevitably gets his turn.
CeCe is a regular spitter anyway but had a bad enough night last night that I think it's possible that she had a turn last night too. Hard to tell in those breastfed babies.
In their own words:
Rosie: Last time daddy gave me a red bowl when I was watchin' Peter Pan and then I frew up in my mouf. I frowed up on my pjs. It was a long movie.
Anthony: No. I'm sure I don't want to say anything about it.
1:10 am...Mommy starts "eliminating" from both ends.
2:15 am...Rosie "frows up" every .5 hour or so.
5:00 am...Anthony throws up all over the bathroom floor while eliminating from the other end.
Repeat, repeat, repeat...
Thomas, thankfully, had this same illness earlier in the week and so was out of the competition for this round.
John, thankfully, was healthy enough (except for a cold) to keep the 7-up and jello flowing and bowls within easy reach. We plan on taking care of him later this weekend when he inevitably gets his turn.
CeCe is a regular spitter anyway but had a bad enough night last night that I think it's possible that she had a turn last night too. Hard to tell in those breastfed babies.
In their own words:
Rosie: Last time daddy gave me a red bowl when I was watchin' Peter Pan and then I frew up in my mouf. I frowed up on my pjs. It was a long movie.
Anthony: No. I'm sure I don't want to say anything about it.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Snow-pocalypse 2010
Our town takes the "removal" part of "snow removal" very seriously. This picture was taken from the kid's bedroom window.
She lasted for about 3.5 minutes
Please ignore the pink fur-lined boots.
Anthony and neighbor, Dodge, scaling the face of the mountain
(this post began a week ago and is being posted belatedly because better late then never)
You may be tired of hearing about our big snow storm out east here but it's pretty awesome. So I thought I'd share some pictures. We have been ordered by the State and the County to stay off the roads yesterday and today and since there was also a big snow last week I've left the house for a total of 6 hours since January 30th (that includes Mass). A little cabin fever has set in but really, it's so hard to do anything with all four kids that I might not have left the house anymore then that anyway and at least there's a pretty view from my windows.
I'm so grateful for neighbors with snowblowers (although I'm puzzled by why they invest in snowblowers when this sort of weather is so unusual here). I'm also thankful for our other neighbors who are FOCUS missionaries and came over in the middle of the blizzard last night to share a bowl of chili and break up the monotony.
I have just finished rereading The Long Winter by Laura Ingles Wilder which makes me basically grateful for everything in my modern, cushy life.
UPDATE: We did manage to get out of the house (to an indoor McDonald's playplace) for an evening of wild abandon before the puke-fest commenced. Also, I feel a bit sheepish for all of my complaints about our south of the Mason-Dixon line winters here, one mile south of the Mason-Dixon line. This is a real, for serious snow situation. In fact, there's been so much snow that the kids can't even play in it. Anthony was waist-deep in the backyard. Our swings on our swing set had no seats anymore. It was awesome. Now I only have to wait about 10 years to see something like it again. In nine years I'll have to remember to go out and buy a snowblower - I wouldn't want miss out on another opportunity to join the snowblower brigade.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Bringing us up to date
[Also known as, "I don't have the time to figure out how to make the darn pictures work today. Grrr.]
Since I haven't been regularly posting since June
I'm going to brief you as to how we've spent our last 7 months. In June we travelled to Michigan for our annual trip to "Len's Cabin". There was no destroying of neighbors ponds or anything so I apparently didn't feel the need to take ANY pictures?! Can this be right? Weird.
My family came down in August for a 24 hour visit - what sacrifice!
And the next day we took off for our week-long vacation with John's family at Rehobath Beach, Delaware. "Gricky" is the celebrity word I would use to describe that week. It wasn't that is was terribly hot - just a lot of melting ice cream (sticky) mixed with sand (gritty) resulting in a general feeling of grickiness.
The beach with Gussy is...shall we say, trying? A fully mobile 11 month old is just about the worst type of human bean to take to the beach. I tried to let him learn the lesson by letting himtaste the sand and draw his own conclusions about it but this didn't work. At least he wasn't as bad as Rosie at his age, she actually intentionally dipped her food into the sand before eating it. But after realizing that he wasn't going to stop eating sand I spent my time trying to intercept all of the cigarette butts before they made down the hatch with the sand. Really gross.
We ended up staying a whole extra week due to an unfortunate tennis accident that forced John's grandparents back to the city with an extra week booked at the beach house. It was such a wonderful treat for us (sorry, Betty!) and a wonderful break from all of the home improvement/moving/gardening that occupied us all summer.
John started up the semester immediately. This time he only had one new class and two classes that he had taught before so it was vastly different then last fall when he was a new prof., all new classes and a new baby 2 weeks into the semester. Isn't wonderful that we don't ever have to repeat the exact same things? You couldn't pay me enough to go back to that year.
We also started homeschooling Moses in September for Kindergarten. Such FUN! I love it. I don't love that it isn't my sole occupation though. The cleaning, cooking, laundry doesn't seem to care that I would so much rather be researching curriculum and finding "living books" for my son - it just continues demanding attention. I actually enjoy all of those other things too but the novelty of using my brain for more then cleaning lists and menu plans is sort of addicting.
Moses is doing very well - learning to read and add and subtract. Plus enormous amounts of information about Knights and Castles, Trains and (of course!) Dinosaurs.
Sometime during our study of Knights and Castles, Rosie became enamoured with princesses. That continues to be her all-consuming story of the year.
Thomas has fully enjoyed himself for mom's group and library story time because he's such an extrovert. He runs around in the middle of the kids at story time while the other two kids cling to me like we're on a sinking ship. There's no accounting for temperaments, I suppose.
Let's see - in September he also turned one. No one could have been happier with all the attention, believe me.
Fall went by with all the usual things, picking apples, Halloween, etc.
Anthony turned 5. Oh my goodness. For a certain amount of time it gave him great courage. When people asked him how old he was he would actually say, out loud, "five". Now we've languished to just raising one hand but there was a burst of courage following such an important birthday. It's OK, Rosie tells everybody she meets how old we all are, including me and daddy.
The morning of his birthday we woke up and had this conversation...
Anthony: Am I five right this moment?
Mommy: Yes, today is your birthday!
Anthony (with a puzzled look at his hands and arms): But I don't look 5, I just look 4.
Later in the morning he showed me a picture he'd just drawn, saying, " So...I guess this is what a picture by a five year old looks like."
Also in November I was 34 - 38 weeks pregnant. Therefore we did not travel for Thanksgiving but stayed here in the south and spent the day with John's extended family at the big gathering in D.C. November and December were spent with me in a FRANTIC state trying to get everything ready for Christmas before the baby came and then she came, right on cue.
Born on
her due date, the feast of St. John of the Cross. We had Christmas at our home with some of John's family stopping in for a very pleasant visit.
My family and dear friend Reenie came down for a week after Christmas where we (by we, I mean John and Reenie) successfully replaced a toilet, a faucet, a stove, put hardware on the cupboards, and finished the window seat. Phew! It was fun for me - I got a very nice upgraded
kitchen and a wonderful visit all in one!
Since John started the semester life has been one big blur, just trying to figure out how to handle this...situation (the one with me and many young children alone is a house in the winter). But that's a post for another day.
Since I haven't been regularly posting since June
I'm going to brief you as to how we've spent our last 7 months. In June we travelled to Michigan for our annual trip to "Len's Cabin". There was no destroying of neighbors ponds or anything so I apparently didn't feel the need to take ANY pictures?! Can this be right? Weird.My family came down in August for a 24 hour visit - what sacrifice!
And the next day we took off for our week-long vacation with John's family at Rehobath Beach, Delaware. "Gricky" is the celebrity word I would use to describe that week. It wasn't that is was terribly hot - just a lot of melting ice cream (sticky) mixed with sand (gritty) resulting in a general feeling of grickiness.
The beach with Gussy is...shall we say, trying? A fully mobile 11 month old is just about the worst type of human bean to take to the beach. I tried to let him learn the lesson by letting himtaste the sand and draw his own conclusions about it but this didn't work. At least he wasn't as bad as Rosie at his age, she actually intentionally dipped her food into the sand before eating it. But after realizing that he wasn't going to stop eating sand I spent my time trying to intercept all of the cigarette butts before they made down the hatch with the sand. Really gross.
We ended up staying a whole extra week due to an unfortunate tennis accident that forced John's grandparents back to the city with an extra week booked at the beach house. It was such a wonderful treat for us (sorry, Betty!) and a wonderful break from all of the home improvement/moving/gardening that occupied us all summer.
John started up the semester immediately. This time he only had one new class and two classes that he had taught before so it was vastly different then last fall when he was a new prof., all new classes and a new baby 2 weeks into the semester. Isn't wonderful that we don't ever have to repeat the exact same things? You couldn't pay me enough to go back to that year.
We also started homeschooling Moses in September for Kindergarten. Such FUN! I love it. I don't love that it isn't my sole occupation though. The cleaning, cooking, laundry doesn't seem to care that I would so much rather be researching curriculum and finding "living books" for my son - it just continues demanding attention. I actually enjoy all of those other things too but the novelty of using my brain for more then cleaning lists and menu plans is sort of addicting.
Moses is doing very well - learning to read and add and subtract. Plus enormous amounts of information about Knights and Castles, Trains and (of course!) Dinosaurs.
Sometime during our study of Knights and Castles, Rosie became enamoured with princesses. That continues to be her all-consuming story of the year.Thomas has fully enjoyed himself for mom's group and library story time because he's such an extrovert. He runs around in the middle of the kids at story time while the other two kids cling to me like we're on a sinking ship. There's no accounting for temperaments, I suppose.
Let's see - in September he also turned one. No one could have been happier with all the attention, believe me.
Fall went by with all the usual things, picking apples, Halloween, etc.
Anthony turned 5. Oh my goodness. For a certain amount of time it gave him great courage. When people asked him how old he was he would actually say, out loud, "five". Now we've languished to just raising one hand but there was a burst of courage following such an important birthday. It's OK, Rosie tells everybody she meets how old we all are, including me and daddy.
The morning of his birthday we woke up and had this conversation...
Anthony: Am I five right this moment?
Mommy: Yes, today is your birthday!
Anthony (with a puzzled look at his hands and arms): But I don't look 5, I just look 4.
Later in the morning he showed me a picture he'd just drawn, saying, " So...I guess this is what a picture by a five year old looks like."
Also in November I was 34 - 38 weeks pregnant. Therefore we did not travel for Thanksgiving but stayed here in the south and spent the day with John's extended family at the big gathering in D.C. November and December were spent with me in a FRANTIC state trying to get everything ready for Christmas before the baby came and then she came, right on cue.
Born on
her due date, the feast of St. John of the Cross. We had Christmas at our home with some of John's family stopping in for a very pleasant visit.My family and dear friend Reenie came down for a week after Christmas where we (by we, I mean John and Reenie) successfully replaced a toilet, a faucet, a stove, put hardware on the cupboards, and finished the window seat. Phew! It was fun for me - I got a very nice upgraded
kitchen and a wonderful visit all in one!Since John started the semester life has been one big blur, just trying to figure out how to handle this...situation (the one with me and many young children alone is a house in the winter). But that's a post for another day.
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