In which Michael is again my hero

I have spoken before about Michael’s heroic efforts to make our home safe for toilet-loving babies.  Unfortunately, there were some problems with that particular solution to our toilet-hound’s addiction.  Since the new potty came, we haven’t had as much trouble, since the new potty’s water level is much lower than the old one, making it a far less convenient place to bathe. 

However, Sim will still make a beeline for the potty to check it out and see if the water level is higher today.  Also, there’s a stool in the bathroom so that the girls can reach the sink to wash their hands after they go potty.  Sim has discovered that he can climb stools.  He’s also discovered that the bathroom stool gives him access to things like the sink, the toothbrushes, and the liquid soap – all very desirable for a 15-month-old explorer.

SO…Michael fixed the door again so that it shuts.  This involved eBay – for the parts for the knob to actually speak to the rest of the closing mechanism (without mistakenly locking us in, of course) – and moving of the strike plate so that the new door parts (which were off by about 1/4 inch) could actually keep the door closed. 

It’s working again!  Yea!  And now we can close the door so that Sim won’t be playing with any of the fun toys in the bathroom. 

Endearing

Hannah:  Mama, you have a nice smell that reminds me of something I can’t remember and makes me feel at home.

On the ride home

I gave the local niece and nephew a ride back to their house last night.  Here are some quotes:

Niece:  I’m not crying right now.

Me:  No, that’s good.

Niece:  Yeah, I’m really smart!

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Nephew:  Watch out, Aunt Monica!  The car’s brain is oozing onto your head.

Me:  ?

Nephew:  If the car’s brain got into your brain, you would be the smartest person in the whole United States of America.

Me:  ?

We tried

with not too much success.  Each person has at least one picture in which he looks okay, but not one with all of us together…

Trauma for girls

I got my hair cut this morning.  It had been well over a year.  It was long overdue.  I was so happy to have it done. 

Hannah:  I don’t recognize you anymore, Mama.

Naomi:  I miss your hair.  I wish you brought it home so I could have it forever and ever amen. 

Simeon didn’t seem to care, and Michael likes it, but the girls don’t seem to.  I guess you can’t please everyone. 

Trauma for Mama

This morning brought a traumatic moment for this Mama of a little boy baby: first haircut. I have been really putting this off, because once little boys have their first haircut, they don’t look like babies so much any more…they look like little boys. While I know that Sim is rapidly moving from baby to little boy, I haven’t been ready for it. I still don’t think I’m ready for it, but his hair was getting in his eyes something fierce, so he was ready for it.

Here’s before:

Yeah, okay, so he looks a bit like a baby hippy. I was okay with it! Look at those cute little curls coming around his ears! But the big problem, and the main reason for the haircut, was those long bangs in the front. I was constantly sweeping them to the side, because he’s a boy, so I couldn’t put in a barrette.

My original plan was to just trim up the bangs a bit so they wouldn’t get in his eyes. But then I looked at him and thought I should clean up around his ears a bit. And then I realized that if I left him like that, he’d have a mullet, and I’m not about to do that to my baby boy. So I cut it all. But I tried to avoid the bowl cut look.

Here’s after:

I managed to avoid the bowl cut look, and his bangs don’t have that “chopped straight across” look that is pretty cute on Hannah, but not really the best for a baby boy. Well, that's not strictly true -- I've seen baby boys with that look, and it can be quite cute, but I was trying to go for a look that didn't look like he'd had his hair cut much at all anyway.

His sideburns aren’t anything like even, but this is his first haircut, so I didn’t try to be too particular. He wouldn’t have let me, anyway. He was DONE with it after only a few snips. Daddy’s coffee is the only distraction that kept him from having one side long and one side short in the back.

New words

“New…potty!” 

Sim is still very fond of the new potty, and quite amused at himself when he says it. 

Local cousins

are a blessing for our kids.  Naomi is only now starting to realize it.  Hannah has played with her local boy cousin happily for many years now, and they almost never have difficulties – any more.  There was a time when we couldn’t leave them in the same room without an adult because they would use the opportunity to whack, snatch, yell, and generally get each other all riled up.  This morning, though, as we walked through the Pike Place Market, they held hands and chatted about all the things they were seeing. 

Naomi and local girl cousin who is 3 months younger had a really rough time for a while – each girl would watch to see what the other one wanted and try to get it for herself (regardless of whether that little girl even wanted the item or ever paid any attention to it at any other time)…this was never a recipe for happiness.  There were other tricks that they pulled when together, but the main one was to try to keep each other from having fun. 

Lately, though, they have been playing together very, very well.  This certainly makes life much easier for all of us.  The other day, they were playing Husband and Wife.  Naomi was the Husband, and she spent a lot of time saying things like, “Come here, Wife.”  and, “Wife, that is so nice!” 

She also has started looking forward to their visits and weeping copiously when they leave.  Looking forward is a good thing…the copious weeping I could do without, but it’s a sign of a good thing, at least. 

This has even led to discussion of renaming St. Rose of Lima, Naomi’s favorite doll.  She and local girl cousin both got dolls exactly alike a couple of Christmases ago from Grandma Ellie.  St. Rose of Lima has had her name for a long time, and one doesn’t just call her “Rose,” or one risks correction from Naomi:  “Her name is St. Rose of Lima.”  Shortening this to “St. Rose” seems to be okay, but nothing shorter.

Local girl cousin’s doll’s name is Ellie.  Naomi came home from playing with Lgc the other day and said she was changing St. Rose’s name to Ellie.  Valuing the peace that has been forged between the cousins, I thought this might be a problem:  a doll that looks just like Lgc’s doll, called the same thing…Lgc could get the impression that Ellie, her doll, had somehow come to our house and needed to be brought back home.  I felt we might need a strategic intervention, so I mentioned the potential problem to Naomi.  Her decision is that St. Rose of Lima will keep her name, with the nickname of Ellie, but this nickname will not be used when Lgc is around. 

The intervention might have been unnecessary:  Naomi does not seem to remember that she gave St. Rose a new nickname.  But preservation of this newfound peace seemed like a good idea. 

My baby brother

and his fiancee are visiting from Texas.  The kids are very happy about this.  Simeon is taking advantage of having extra people to read to him.  Hannah is taking advantage of having extra people to talk to…and then ignore when her new issue of Highlights came in.  Naomi is taking advantage of some snuggling time.  Pictures to come.

Naomi’s comments on Uncle Rob are pretty funny, though:  “Uncle Rob, you are the sweetest boy in the world!” and:  “Uncle Rob, you are the cutest boy in the world!”  When asked to sit on the cutest boy in the world’s lap so I could take a picture, though, she declined. 

Simeon says, “Arob,” and “Atie,” for Uncle Rob and Katie.  Rob has a sign for his name that he developed when Gabe was a baby, and Simeon has been trying that out, too.  However, his rendition looks more like he’s trying to flick something onto someone than like the sign Rob does…

Sim loves books

a bit too much, apparently.   He just now came crawling in to me with a huge smile, babbling happily and giggling, holding a page from one of his favorite books.  Sigh.  It’s hard to explain to a 15-month-old that – well, anything, really, but especially difficult to say that it will not make his favorite book a good read if he tears pages out.  Luckily Hannah and Naomi are out.  I think I can get the page taped back in before they get home and discover it and begin to lament. 

Space saving ideas from our home to yours

I mentioned that we got some furniture to rearrange things in the house.  One reason is that we have to save some space in certain areas. 

The kids came up with their own space-saving ideas:

Bunk beds!  In size Small! Simeon has also opted for the size Small Playpen!

It’s wonderful when everyone in the family gets on board with a project; you get some many ideas that you might not have even thought of before!

Big day in home projects

This morning, the man to help rid us of our uninvited rodent guest in the basement came at 8 a.m.

This afternoon, a young man came and took our green couch.  The furniture Michael recently hauled made the green couch unnecessary and, in fact, unable to fit in the living room.  I put it on craigslist, and it got snapped up a couple of hours later.  The girls, who had been building forts with its cushions and playing on it for the past few days while it’s been on the porch, didn’t appreciate as much as I did that it was gone.

Here, by the way, are the children, showing off the new furniture.  Or, at least Michael’s chair and part of the star couch. 

 

Also this afternoon, our new toilet got installed.  I may be the most excited about this one.  The old toilet was not functioning very well, and occasionally leaking out of the handle.  Not good.  We are having lots of guests in December, and have one bathroom.  A not-very-functional-only-toilet is not a good thing ever, but when you add a lot of people to the situation, things start to get hairy. 

Hairy:  not how one wants to describe Christmas.  So, here’s our new toilet, which will help keep Advent and Christmas running smoothly (heehee):

 

The children, happily, approve of the new toilet.  Hannah watched most of the installation and apparently learned a lot about drains.  Naomi was a bit scared of it at first, but when she figured out that her potty seat still works on it and that the flush isn’t too loud, she gave it a thumbs up.  Simeon, predictably, loves it.  He cried when Michael took him away from it after his first time using it.  I didn’t have that strong a reaction, but I do think we’re going to be happy with this toilet. 

Whooooooooo it’s cold out!

This morning, it’s 20 degrees.  20!  Phew.  That is chilly.  I don’t know if Michael decided to take the car this morning to the park and ride, but if he’s biking, I hope he remembered his little ear covers. 

Yesterday we went to get Hannah some warmer outdoor clothes, because Naomi’s got the hand-me-downs (or Hannah-me-downs, as her cousin calls them!) of really warm outdoor clothes, and Sim has ones from cousins and friends, but Hannah didn’t have any.  And we need to be able to go outside, but when it’s in the 20s and 30s out…we need the really warm clothes! 

The forecast doesn’t call for snow anymore, though.  I haven’t told Hannah and Naomi, because the forecast isn’t always right, but given how our city handled the last snow, I’m relieved. 

Here are some pictures from last year’s snowstravaganza:

I went to the store last night and passed by the large digital thermometer display of a nearby store, which was reading 27 degrees at the time.  Brrrr! This reminded me of the time in September that I passed by that same digital thermometer and the readout was…176 degrees.  HA!  Did I mention we had a particularly warm September? 

Of course, the temperature was actually 65 or 70. 

More on the snow requests of Hannah

Hannah, this afternoon:  I hope it snows sometime soon, but not  tomorrow.  I would miss Girlchoir if it snowed tomorrow. 

The concert yesterday was fabulous, by the way.  Northwest Girlchoir is a wonderful organization that teaches girls from 4-18 how to sing.  The concert featured singing from all the groups, and it’s amazing how these girls can sing! 

Naomi can’t wait to start when she turns four in March so that she can start up, and Hannah loves Girlchoir – it’s probably her favorite activity.  Well, besides reading. 

It was pretty funny, though, because Michael, Naomi, Simeon, and I all sat through a concert of about 1 1/2 hours of very lovely music.   Hannah’s choir was towards the end, and then at the end I went and collected her.  I told her a bit about the other choirs singing. 

“Oh, did the other choirs sing?”  she asked.

Heehee.  Her choir had been in a different room, busying themselves with their various pastimes packed in backpacks while the rest of the concert was going on, and she didn’t even realize that others were singing during that time. 

Originally, the plan was for the members of her choir to sit with their families in the audience for the concert, but too many tickets were sold for that to happen – a good problem to have, but it meant that they didn’t get to hear the rest of the concert. 

A new twist on the Christmas story

We have a Christmas book called The Donkey’s Dream.  Naomi really has been enjoying it this year.  As we were reading it the other day, I said, “Naomi, who is that leading the donkey?”  I was reasonably sure that she would say, “Joseph!” because, of course, that’s who it’s meant to be, and she’s very familiar with the Christmas story. 

Imagine my surprise when she said:  “Raffi.”

I took another look.  It did look like Raffi, and Naomi has seen his picture on CDs and a book of his that we have. 

It changes the story a bit, though. 

Flip flop

Hannah loves it when it snows here.  She hopes for snow as soon as summer is over.  “I think it might snow tomorrow,” she’ll say on a day that’s cool – 50 degrees.  “I don’t think so,” I’ll reply.

However, it’s pretty cold here these days, and there are some days of possible snow in the 10-day forecast.  Hannah has noticed, and is hopeful again.  This morning as we were in the car on the way to Mass, she said, “I hope it tries to rain today so that it will snow!” 

Then I reminded her of her Northwest Girlchoir concert this afternoon:  “You won’t be able to go if it snows.”

She immediately had a change of heart, “OH!  I hope it doesn’t snow today.” 

Concerts cannot be rescheduled, you know, but snow days can happen any time! 

She likes chocolate

and play imitates life. 

Yesterday, as we were moving furniture, Naomi discovered the brown things we got at the hardware store to put under the legs of the couch and chair in order to keep them from sliding around and also to keep them from scratching the floor.  She collected them all as we were moving the furniture.  She placed them carefully somewhere, and then got distracted by a long-lost toy found under the couch. 

“Where are the chocolate bars?” she wailed, when she couldn’t remember where she’d put them.

We were mystified, since we hadn’t given her any chocolate bars.  She kept insisting on the chocolate bars, though, and then found them.  When she showed us that she’d found them, we realized that they do, indeed, look a bit like squares of chocolate. 

Then she put them carefully somewhere else, and when we’d gotten the furniture re-rearranged, we couldn’t find them, and she’d forgotten where they were again.  So the furniture stayed on top of the bits of cardboard we’d used while moving it. 

Last night as I was cleaning up a bit in the living room, I discovered the chocolate bars in between two pillows on the couch.  We are heartlessly reclaiming them, because we need them to put under the chair and couch.

But today is St. Nicholas’ Day, anyway, so Naomi got some chocolate in her shoe.  She hasn’t asked for the fake chocolate at all today, because, let’s face it:  real chocolate trumps fake chocolate every time. 

In which Michael’s heroism is greatly evident again…as usual.

We recently got some furniture.  We’ve decided on a few things about the home setup lately, and those decisions have made it possible for us to go ahead with some furniture purchases we’d been considering but putting off because we didn’t know how we wanted to set things up.

I found two pieces that we both really liked, and we ordered them from the one place in our area that deals with the manufacturer.  Then we found out that they don’t do home delivery.  Hmm.  So Michael took the seats out of the minivan, went down there, and brought back our furniture.  With some help from the local brother-in-law, it’s in our house.  (Incidentally, when we were looking at our house and enjoying its big porch and perch on a hill…we weren’t thinking about how we would have to bring furniture up all those steps…)

When Michael was off work the week of Thanksgiving, we went to Ikea to get a few more things.  Michael did most of the heavy lifting, and he’s done most of the putting together, too, much to the joy and delight of his young son, who discovered that he loves hammering.  He also loves screwdrivers and screw and nails and wrenches and pliers and…tools. 

Today, we had all the living room pieces in the living room and assembled, so we decided to try the setup we’d been thinking of.  This meant moving around some heavy furniture.  Even though I helped a bit, Michael did most of the heavy lifting.  We got it all set up as we had planned.  I didn’t like the arrangement.  At all.  (Michael admits that he didn’t, either.) 

So, we moved it around again.  Now we both like the setup.  And Michael, who did most of the heavy lifting again, not 10 minutes after the first set of heavy lifting, didn’t complain one bit. 

He’s my hero. 

Polite babies

Sim has learned to sign “please” and “thank you,” and he’s getting pretty good at using them at the appropriate times.  Particularly “please,” since it seems to magically make happen things that he especially desires.  He will often vigorously sign “please” when he’s asking for something, and now that he’s talking a lot more, he’ll say “please,” too.  The way he says it is “bizz.” 

Lately he’s also started adding a y to the end of words, so dog becomes doggy and frog becomes froggy.  This has happened to please, too.  Of course, he says “bizz” for please, so what he says for “please-y” sounds like “Busy! Busy! Busy! Busy!”  Meanwhile, he vigorously signs “please,” sometimes with both hands.  It’s very cute. 

More Advent play

Hannah has been playing “innkeeper during a census” lately.  She is in the present day, but, “there’s another counting of people, Mama.”

When I told her that we actually do have a census in our day, she was surprised.  Then she asked why we don’t go to our hometowns to register.  Can you imagine the government asking that these days?

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Naomi apparently took to heart Hannah’s opinion that Mary did let Joseph hold Jesus, because he’s being held by Joseph on a regular basis now. 

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Sim likes his little toy trucks.  He also likes the nativity set.  For the first time in our house, there were some trucks visiting the Baby Jesus.  I’m going to bet that’s a bit anachronistic.