New pursuits

Hannah has really liked books for a long time. She loves to have us read to her, she loves to listen to books on tape, and now...she's discovered the love of reading to herself. This has introduced Michael and I to the joy of monosyllabic or grunted answers from our usually-talkative 5-year-old. We figure it's payback for our childhoods, when we both really loved to read and answered our own parents in monosyllables and grunts. Naomi can't understand why Hannah isn't reading to her, because she doesn't really see the interest in sitting silently with a book...at least not one that doesn't have pictures!

Naomi, on the other hand, has discovered a love of her tricycle. We have a big porch where she rides for usually at least 30 minutes a day. It's wide enough that she can ride a turn and change directions on it, so she doesn't have to stop and turn the tricycle, she can just keep riding. We went to the park today, and Naomi requested that we bring her tricycle. She spent the entire time at the park riding on the tricycle, except when she was eating lunch...she stayed on the tricycle, but consented to hold still and eat for a few minutes. When we got home, she asked if she could...ride her tricycle.

Simeon has moved into mobility -- he can roll both front to back and back to front in either direction. It's not fast or particularly accurate, but it gets him somewhere else, and when your sisters have all kinds of fun toys, that's all that matters! He's started objecting to being put down in a container -- the bouncy seat and jumper are no longer much fun because he can't go anywhere in them. The other day I set him down on the rug and watched as he rolled all the way across the room, including over the folded laundry that I was working on. When he's not rolling, he's on his belly, waving his arms and kicking his legs. One of these days he's going to figure out how to get up and go...and then we're in trouble!

Candyland

has been a favorite for entry level boardgamers for a long time, and my children are no exception. Hannah has now moved on to more skill-based games, but Naomi still loves Candyland. There's a character in Candyland called Mr. Mint -- he's the guy by all the peppermint sticks -- and you can get his card and travel to his spot on the board. Naomi is a big fan of Mr. Mint. Or Mr. Lint, as she likes to call him. Michael finds this very amusing; he's laughing about the possibilities of places Mr. Lint might be: "This is Laundry Land, where Mr. Lint lives." I suppose that makes Candyland a lot truer to life.

She's listening

apparently. Hannah's been studying how to tell time in math lately. It's all very fascinating to Hannah, who can't wait to be able to ALWAYS use the "round clock," as she likes to call it, to tell time.

This afternoon has been quiet and we're playing some games. Hannah has a game that has a little spinner on it, and one side has an arrow. Naomi was spinning the spinner, enjoying watching it go around, and enjoying the power of spinning it herself. Then, something struck her. "What does this say, Hannah? What does the hour hand and minute hand say? What time is it?"

Food

Sim's a third baby, which means that we're using knowledge gained from #1 and #2 to inform our raising of him. Which means that I'm not going to bother with baby food, because #1 and #2 both disliked it. Which means that I'm giving him tiny, itsy bites of "real" food cooked good and soft. And also, things that he can't get big bites of yet since he doesn't have any opposing teeth, like watermelon rinds with a bit of watermelon left on them.



He loves watermelon rinds with a bit of watermelon left on them. He ends up scraping little bits of watermelon off.



One of the few things you can do to make Sim cry is to take away his watermelon rind before he's finished. When he smiles at you when he has a watermelon rind, he doesn't even bother taking it out of his mouth.



It's that good.

More on Heaven

Hannah: I think there's beer in Heaven. And naps.

More speculation about the future

Hannah: I think in Heaven, you don't have to pump on the swings. I think they just automatically go as high as you want them to.

Sunny days

The weather in Seattle today is low 50s and rainy, BUT for the past many days, it's been sunny and warm. It's been in the 70s. It's been lovely. Yesterday, in celebration of the sun, I took the kids to a playground in the morning. We were there for quite a while and had a spectacular time.

(As an aside, when I said we were going to the playground, Hannah was very excited. Naomi began to cry, "No, I don't want to go. I want to stay in my HOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMME!" And she kept it up for quite a while. See how much I torture my children? I make them go to PLAYGROUNDS on BEAUTIFUL DAYS! Of course, she then proceeded to have a fabulous time at the playground.)

At one point, Hannah, who is very good at scoping out the crowds, said to me, "I'm going to check on Naomi, and then I'm going to introduce myself to that little girl. She looks like she's about my age."

It turns out that the little girl was Hannah's age, and they had a great time playing together for quite a while before the little girl's mom said it was time to go.

While we're now back to some rain, we have a lot of hope that the next sunny spell isn't too long from now. Everything's blooming and we're working on our vegetable garden, so we're pretty sure spring is here and summer won't be too far behind...we hope!

Smiling Lessons

My children are not what one might call camera shy.









They, in fact, love having their pictures taken.





Michael, on the other hand, really doesn't like having the camera pointed in his direction too often. He is armed with a "photograph smile." This is not the same smile that I really love to see on his face. I've often asked him to just smile his usual smile for photographs. It doesn't work. We usually end up with Michael laughing uncontrollably as I laugh and try to get him to smile his usual smile.





Hannah decided that she would give Michael smiling lessons this evening. She was very patient.









She was not pleased when I failed to catch the smile she wanted -- the camera took a while to focus and I missed the exact moment of smile. Whoops!



Here's what we've ended up with at the end of the smiling lesson.

Yum. Toes.

When a baby is on the changing table and his mother has removed the feet of his outfit from his legs so that she could change his diaper and his toes are available...what's a baby to do?

Our porch

One of the things we love about our new house (wait...we've been living here a year -- is our house still new?) is the big ol' front porch that runs the whole width of the house. It's got a swing and it's fantastic. We used it extensively throughout the summer last year and then we used it (not quite as extensively) in the winter, too, believe it or not. It's perfect for riding a tricycle on cold, wet days. It's great for hula hoop rolling and racing back and forth with your sister. Now that the weather is warming up, Hannah often reads on the swing out there and Naomi LOVES to ride her tricycle out there. It's great for days when Mom's busy inside and can lend an ear, but not her whole presence, to outside activities. We love having a porch -- it's a contained space and it's outside at the same time.

Hello, Dolly! again

One of the things in the girls' Easter baskets was the soundtrack of Hello, Dolly! This is a gift for them to share. And it turns out that it's a gift for me, too. They both sat on the couch and listened to it straight through on Monday. It's Naomi's Quiet Time companion this week, which has meant that the popping out of Quiet Time has decreased about 100%. In fact, yesterday I had to go in and get her out against her will because I wanted to take the kids outside.

Also, it's absolutely priceless to hear your two daughters singing the It takes a woman song with Walter Matthau. And it's REALLY funny to hear your 3-year-old singing the Louie Armstrong parts right along with Louie. Hannah still contends that he needs to clear his throat before singing. She recognized his voice on the soundtrack, because we also have the soundtrack for The Five Pennies, and he's a prominent singer in that show, much to Hannah's dismay. Personally, I'm a big fan, but she doesn't approve.

Spring

The kids are very excited about spring being here -- of course, the weather comes and goes, but the flowers are blooming, so they consider it spring. I told them what forsythia is, and Hannah has taken to calling out "Forsythia!" every time she sees it when we're in the car. This was irritating to Naomi (who was trying to get Hannah to stop saying it; the car sounded like this: "Forsythia!" "Stop saying that!" "Forsythia!" "Stop saying that!") until I suggested that she start pointing it out, too. So now the car sounds like this: "Forsythia!" "Forsythia!" "Forsythia!" "Forsythia!"

Happy Easter!

Alternate lyrics

We've all heard the Spoonful of Sugar song from Mary Poppins, right? Well, Naomi has some alternate lyrics.

Alternate lyrics set #1: A spoonful of chicken makes the medicine go down, the medicine go do--own, medicine go down...

Alternate lyrics set #2: A spoonful of Vaseline makes the medicine go down in the most delightful way!

Compost Party 2009

Friday we got a delivery of 6 cubic yards of organic composted dairy manure and yard waste. On purpose. It made quite a pile, and is a lovely black color. I don't think our garden is going to know what hit it.

Saturday, we were helped by family and friends (to whom we are forever indebted) to spread said compost around various areas of our yard. We have big plans for planting this spring, and we're off to a great start with all this compost. We made several new beds, enlarged some old ones, and beat the grass back off of some trees.

Earlier in the week it was cold and rainy, rainy, rainy. Friday morning we awoke to a very light dusting of snow. I was not really excited about the prospect of spreading compost in the cold and rain, but praise God who had mercy on us and provided a GORGEOUS day yesterday for yard work!

We got off to a good start because we were pleased with the lovely weather, but ran into a couple of snags right away. First of all, Hannah equates sun with warmth, and it wasn't that warm early yesterday morning. So for the first hour or so, she asked every 5 minutes whether she could take off her jacket. Then, someone told Naomi that compost comes from cow poop. This, in itself, did not faze Naomi. However, when she got some on her PANTS, she became very upset and demanded to change. Of course, we were looking at several hours spent outside dealing with compost -- we could quickly work through her entire wardrobe. I told her that she could change AFTER the compost party...after a few minutes of testing to see if I was serious about waiting, she settled back down.

Naomi, upon exiting the house yesterday: Outside is stinky.
Naomi, upon being asked how she liked the compost party: Compost is stinky.

Hannah, at bedtime: I wish every day was compost party day.

We actually got the compost all spread by about 12:30, then had a leisurely lunch, then had some naps and enjoyed the outdoors a bit more. Now we're itching to get planting in all the beds. I, of course, have been planning them out in my mind for a long time...now I just have to make sure Michael's on board!