Naomi lost her first tooth!

She’s very excited.  And the tooth fairy remembered to come!

Tess smiles!

Teresa is getting more and more interactive.  When my parents were here, she’d look at you and occasionally smile.  When Michael’s parents were here, she had increased the amount of smiling she did.  Now, she’s started cooing and smiling a lot, and it’s all kinds of fun.

Family Movie Night

We’ve been having family movie night on Friday nights for several weeks now.  The kids really enjoy it, and it’s a great incentive for cleaning the house and getting showers done.  It’s a pleasantly relaxing way to end a hectic week, too. 

Except when it becomes family suspense/horror movie night. 

In my defense, I think that Naomi could turn almost any movie into a suspense/horror flick.  This time, though, I picked The Muppet Movie, and it appears to be singularly suspenseful.  I’m not sure what she thinks is going to happen, but she freaks out about Doc Hopper, even when he’s not around.  When the muppets are at the fair, enjoying themselves and watching Miss Piggy win the beauty pageant, Naomi is convinced that something terrible is going to happen, “I’m worried.  What’s going to happen?  Are they going to get Kermit?”  Again, this would be appropriate for a scary movie, but Naomi is not familiar with movie genres, so assuring her that it’s a comedy goes nowhere. 

Then there’s Hannah, who has turned it into a tear-jerker.  “Mama, I don’t think you should have shown me this movie.  I’m too sad for the monster who wanted to go to Hollywood and got left behind.”

Simeon, on the other hand, is Kermit the Frog.  He spent the few minutes between the end of our movie time (we didn’t watch the whole thing, just 45 minutes) and lights out reminding us, “I’m not Sim, I’m Kermit.” 

“Okay, Kermit, get in here and brush your teeth.”

At least he likes the movie.

Math

tends to be Hannah’s least favorite subject.  This is too bad, because she’s really good at it.  One of her math problems yesterday was to divide a rectangle in half two different ways and find the perimeters of the halves.  She did this in her head, even though it involved adding fractions, and she got the right answer for both of the perimeters.  In about 30-60 seconds for each of the problems. 

Hannah likes to deny that any math that she likes doing is actually math.  Geometry, graphs, word problems (!), and money all fall into this category.  “Well, that’s not really math.”  I sometimes have the feeling that she uses the term “math” to mean, “schoolwork I don’t like to do.”

Whoa!

I’m not mentioning any names, but someone doesn’t look like a newborn any more. 

Tess is cute

…in case you needed reassurance.  And here’s proof:

It’s a flavor, too!

Sim:  What flavor is that gum?

Naomi:  Pink!

Update

Tess is in size 2 diapers and has started outgrowing her 0-3 month clothes.  She doesn’t look like a newborn any more.  That was quick!

Everyone still loves her. 

Our kids are now sometimes doing a kids’ exercise video in the morning, since it’s getting to be not such great weather for biking and their mom isn’t up for loads of exercise yet.  It’s totally cute.  And they often can be found wandering the house saying things like: “Left hand to the sky!  Right hand to the sky!  Wiggle down, waving hands to the ground.  Stand UP!”

This also led to a very unintentionally funny moment this morning.  I looked out to where the kids were supposed to be doing their exercise, and Hannah was sitting on the couch, reading.  This led to me calling out to her (I’m not kidding, unfortunately), “Hannah, stop reading and do the video!”  Of course, I was on the phone at the time, and my friend laughed at me and said that I had a problem that most people don’t…

Laundry.  I don’t know why someone under 20 pounds doubles the laundry around here, but it’s true.  If you need me, I’m feeding the laundry machines.

Peter Pan is the most popular game in our house right now.  We watched a film of a stage production for family movie nights (we watch in 30-40 minute increments, so it took 3 family movie nights), and all the kids heartily approve.  The only drawback to the Peter Pan game is the crowing.  I’ve had to ban it from the house – crowing is an OUTSIDE activity.  Let’s just say that roosters aren’t kept outside only because they’re stinky and messy and peck everything. 

I ordered all the new fall wardrobe items needed for my kids online.  This includes shoes.  And the shoes ALL FIT.  This hasn’t ever happened to me before, and I am thanking God that this is the time it did happen!

Having people bring meals when you have a new baby is awesome, and I can’t seem to figure out how to appreciate my thanks appropriately.  Just saying, “Thank you,” doesn’t seem to cover it.  In any case, I’m starting to be able to cook again, but I am TOTALLY grateful to everyone who brought us meals!

People have been emailing about our plans.  Haha!  We don’t make many plans when we have a baby of this age.  We’ve learned that much by our fourth child.  And the plans we do make are conditional – we’ll be there unless we can’t be there, and maybe we’ll all be there, or maybe it’ll be a contingent.  It’s a good lesson in holding lightly to things, because one never knows…

After Simeon’s nursing days, I thought I’d really gathered a lot of ideas about plugged ducts and mastitis (if you don’t know what that is and aren’t of hardy constitution, just ignore this paragraph and move on), but I have a whole bunch of new things now!  A meeting with a naturopath and a discovery in the comments on someone’s blog have added to my arsenal.  It’s good to have a lot of ammunition.

Don’t take that last sentence out of context!

Both sets of grandparents have now met Tess, and they seem to really like her.  They still like the other kids, too.  :)

One of the luxuries of a new baby

Okay, so new babies are fantastic.  We love them.  But they’re also a lot of work.  There’s a ton of laundry that wasn’t happening before, there’s waking up at night,  there’s the person who is usually the household runner not able to actually run the house very well for a long time, etc.  These are sacrifices that are totally worth it, as far as we’re concerned.

There are some luxuries of having a new baby, though.  Lots of them, of course.  One of them is this:

The nap with a sleeping baby.  Michael especially looks forward to this with each new baby.  Hannah, for a long time, wouldn’t sleep EXCEPT on someone’s chest, and we both got used to the joy of sleeping like that.  It’s a short-lived luxury, but there’s something about a nap with a baby – their new-baby smell, their sweet weight, their total relaxation, their sleep pheromones enhancing your own nap (okay, that’s not scientifically proven, as far as I know, but I’m not sure how else to account for the overwhelming sleepiness that holding a sleeping baby produces, and for the deep, deep sleep that napping with said sleeping baby induces) – it’s a really satisfying experience. 

I have to admit, I love catching pictures of Michael sleeping with the babies on his chest.  He laughs, because each of their baby picture books include multiple pictures of these naps.  He says they’re all going to think that’s all he did.

Welcome to the Church, Teresa Anne!

She’s Catholic now!  It was a beautiful, blessed, and tiring event!