Big girl bed!

Tess now sleeps in a big girl bed in the room Hannah now shares with her!  It’s all very mostly exciting.  Hannah (who, by the way, liked this idea a lot in theory) entertained second thoughts on days one and two of the transition.  She’s settling into it now.  Tess doesn’t mind one bit, and she feels she’s merely expanded her territory, not changed it.

Tess:  “That’s Simeon and Naomi’s room.  That’s Hannah and Tessie’s room.  That’s Mama and Tessie’s room.”  Not sure where Daddy fits into the equation…

Admittedly, this transition was much easier because she already slept on her big girl mattress, just on the floor at the foot of our bed.  When we realized that one of our other mattresses had mildew on it, we also discovered that mattresses do better on something with slats so that they can breathe (at least latex mattresses, like we’d gotten for Tess) or they risk mildewing, just like that other mattress had.  SO…the move to Hannah’s room became slightly more urgent because nobody wants to deal with even one mildewy mattress, not to mention two.  Having learned our lesson, we applied what we learned.  It seems that Tess was pretty ready. 

The only down side is that she wakes up somewhat earlier than she used to, which makes for some…loud…dinners.  We’re putting her to bed earlier, to see if we can counteract the earlier mornings.  (And by “we” here, I mean Michael, who now puts Tess to bed.)

Michael and Hannah spent a good part of Saturday morning (when we made this transition) doing a bunch of clean up and clean out in Hannah’s room.  Which is now Hannah and Tess’s room.  Michael expected some trauma with this process, but Hannah’s come a long way since she used to save candy wrappers.  There was very little angst, except about putting away the things that belonged in other rooms of the house.  She definitely still collects things, just not candy wrappers any more!

We’ll have a few months of our room to ourselves (Tess’s claim on the room notwithstanding) before the next little one arrives to claim his or her spot for a while. 

{pretty, happy, funny, real}

Joining up with Like Mother, Like Daughter for their weekly capturing of daily life.

{pretty}

Hannah.  She’s pretty.  And she’s having a much easier time with her hair, now that it’s about 9 inches shorter.

{happy}

We’re starting seeds in our basement this year!  I’m so excited!  Here’s some spinach and romaine.  (Michael, on hearing that I was getting grow lights, told me he’d make me a Green Cross sign.  I looked about for a link for those of you who don’t live in our area and might not know what that stands for, but decided against a hyperlink to Cannabis Delivery here on our family blog…)  Michael was instrumental in getting the setup up and going, and he kindly plugs the lights in when he goes down to do his workouts in the mornings. 

Borage.  {real}:  The celery next door has yet to crack the surface.  We’ll see.

Tomatoes and peppers. 

{funny}

Naomi is a little heat-seeking device, and has figured out that the registers are the warmest place in the house.

Then she figured out that if she put up one of our white boards, she could funnel all the heat to her in the corner.

Tess, wearing Hannah’s tankini.  It’s 47 degrees outside, and the bottoms of this suit absolutely do not stay up when she does anything besides sit.  But she loves a good bathing suit!  Sim and Tess are playing together and singing things like the Imperial March from Star Wars.

 

{real}

I’m now working on some gluten-free baked goods at home.  I had a crazy flop the other day with a crumble.  The topping wasn’t the problem, though – I had also experimented with the filling, and that didn’t work out – so there’s hope for that topping.  These scones were…fine.  They look like they’re made of sand from the sand box, because I’m using a whole grain flour mix.  I have a couple of cookbooks and websites that I’m experimenting with, and from what I’ve read, this will take time and practice.  That means patience on my part.  But if you have any suggestions for great gluten-free baked goods, I’d love to hear them!

Shorts

No, we’re not wearing shorts yet here.  Although the natives’ habit of putting on shorts (with sweatshirts and socks and sandals) when the temperature hits 50 degrees is somewhat amusing.  I just have a few quick things to say, so these will be little shorts.
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Technology often makes me feel dumb these days.  I’m getting old, I guess.  The new systems are not intuitive to me, and I find myself getting frustrated because I’m trying to download an audiobook for the kids for history, and CAN.NOT.DO.IT.  Poor Michael is the real sufferer, though, because he has to field my irritated (not at him) phone calls, talk me down, and explain the thing I have to do, which turns out to be simple but not intuitive. 
****
Naomi tends to be our pickiest eater these days.  The other day I made a new dish and then insisted that she actually put some of it on her plate and taste it.  “Hmmm.  It’s actually good!”  Moments like these are good for humility.
****
We started some seeds last week, and now I feel like Toad in the Frog and Toad story about the Garden:  NOW SEEDS, START GROWING!  Some of them are!  And I find myself wondering about the other ones – Were the seeds bad?  Should I start them all again?  Maybe they don’t have enough heat?  Of course, we’re nowhere near the 2-weeks mark that ends the possible germination time for most of them, it’s just that the overachievers who have started early are giving the others a bad name.  Isn’t that just the way of overachievers?
****
Some of my kids are competitive, some are anti-competitive.  Naomi wilts under competition, and for Hannah, it is her life’s blood.  At their homeschool PE class, they had a fitness test, and Hannah got the most jump-ropes in 45 seconds (68, pretty impressive!), but she did NOT get the most sit-ups.  So now she will be practicing sit-ups.  Simeon may have the competitive drive, too.  He wants me to buy him a jump-rope (“the thin kind, Mom”) because he didn’t get as many jumps as others and he wants to practice.  Healthy competition is good…I just hope I can help them keep it balanced on the “healthy” side!
****
Somebody brilliant thought up the idea of making freezer-to-crock-pot meals and then others started posting their own recipes.  Why have I not thought of this before?  On Saturday I put together 6 meals to put in the freezer and then transfer to the crock pot on the appropriate day.  I got the idea from this woman, who put up her five favorites on her blog.  Once I figure out what ones our family likes, I will be making many more of these! 
****

We have a crisis brewing.  Lima’s head is coming detached from her body.  I think I’m going to have to get a new body and put it on her, I’m just not sure if that will totally wreck her in Tess’s eyes.  St. Rose of Lima, pray for us!

More Chesterton to ponder

…a reminder, a challenge, a perspective.  This one is also from Tremendous Trifles, from the essay Topsy-Turvy Land.  So many great parts of that one!

I’m linking up with Amongst Lovely Things Lovely Things again – head over for more food for thought from Chesterton.

{pretty, happy, funny, real} joining late edition

It’s been busy around here this week, so I didn’t get to the computer much yesterday…hence I’m joining the party at Like Mother, Like Daughter pretty late!

{pretty}

She’s pretty, the piano’s pretty, and the music she’s producing is pretty.

For a while, she was preparing for a piano competition.  Hannah loves competition; it puts a spring in her step.  Naomi would rather have her hair pulled out piece by piece than do a competition.  The only reason she was going to do it was that, when I offered her the choice, she said she wanted to.  I signed her up.  She changed her mind.  Michael and I decided that she needed to go through with this one.  We also told her she didn’t have to do another one, but this one she’d already decided to do and signed up for.  (This part is the {real} behind the {pretty}.)

  The thing is, she is a very talented player and plays beautifully.   She would have done really, really well at the competition, but she was running a fever that day, so she didn’t go.  And now she’s so much happier practicing, it’s almost comical.  “Mama, I love playing now that I don’t have to prepare for the festival!”  So maybe this could have been the whole {pretty, happy, funny, real} post on its own.

{happy}

Sim now can spell Psalm, can write numbers, and can write his name, so he’s very happy that he can prepare his own paper for our daily Psalm illustration.

I made Blubarb (blueberry rhubarb) jam today.  Yum.  And they all sealed.  Look at the color!

I also salted some Meyer lemons to make preserved lemons.  We’ll see.  (Those guys were fresh.  The blueberries and rhubarb for the jam were frozen.)  I’ve never made them before, so I’m not sure if I did it right.  But I was pretty happy about getting it done.

Okay, I’ve said before that it’s worth letting kids “help” in the kitchen, because after a while, you get kids who can actually do things in the kitchen.   Don’t misunderstand me:  I don’t mean that it’s easy to let kids “help” in the kitchen, and there are quotes around that for a real reason – their help is often not helpful.  But, I’ve put in my time with Hannah, and she’s now doing things like making granola bars for a family who is struggling with a tough second pregnancy and making corn muffins (above) all by herself! I can suggest that she make something, and she can make it with only occasional questions and very little assistance.  This is absolutely magical, and well worth the previous effort to deal with the “help” she gave me when she was much younger.  WELL WORTH IT.  For her, too – she loves making things that people like to eat.

More {happy}: 

*The kids decided suddenly that it’s really important to them to get all their schoolwork done before lunch.  That is very, very {happy}.

*Listening to the morning prayer podcast at the breakfast table (from www.divineoffice.org) has helped with Tess’s most cranky time of the day…and mine.  (Big thanks to Amongst Lovely Things for pointing us to that winner!)

{funny}

Who knew that a pencil sharpener could make her day like this?  Pencil sharpeners aren’t the best toys for toddlers, I know, but we were all there for this usage, and it makes enough noise that, even were she to try to sneak it away to use, we’d hear her. 

{real}

Real this week: 

*Mattress with lots of mildew.  Irreparable. 

*Toddler waking up 1.5-2 hours before she should for several days in a row – and then being cranky (go figure!). 

(Here she is, refusing to smile for the camera because of the crankies.)

(Almost unheard-of!)

({happy}:  Sister who can make her smile, even when she’s cranky.) 

*Another cold for me.

*Evening meetings.

*Gluten intolerance for me.  Okay, that happened a couple weeks ago, but it’s still quite real, and learning to deal with it is going to be a long-term project.

Despite some challenges this week, I’m actually feeling fairly good about how it all went.  Glad it’s the weekend now, though!

St. Anthony and Tess come through for us

Sometimes when I’m in the middle of something else, I see things happening that I might normally try to head off – nothing dangerous or terrible, just things that I know can lead to life being much harder – and I just can’t get it together to prevent the difficulties ahead. 

For instance, when I was both on the phone and making dinner the other evening, I noticed that Tess had my Zune.  Amusingly, she was walking around talking on it like it was a phone.  Cute, right?  Yes, but I immediately thought, “She’s going to set it down somewhere and lose it, and I will have trouble finding it.”  Years of experience, my friends, years of experience speaking right there.

So the next day, when I thought, “I should listen to my audiobook while I [fill in whatever chore I was going to do right then],” and went to unplug the Zune from where it charges, I saw…no Zune.  And I remembered.  I was right, too, in that I could not find the thing anywhere.  I asked Tess (because even though I didn’t really think it would help, I thought I’d at least try).  She brought me to where my Zune usually charges, and pointed to the earbuds that she’d thoughtfully left there for me.  “There’s your Zune, Mama.”  Ah, well, it was worth a try.  Nobody else had seen it, either. 

I prayed to St. Anthony and looked around at about Tess height throughout the main floor of the house.  I looked in the finished basement, and I looked in the kids’ rooms upstairs.  Nothing.  I thanked God that Tess is at least temporarily out of her phase of throwing away everything she can get her hands on and resigned myself to a fairly long wait for my Zune.

The next day, Tess expressed that she’d like a particular CD at Quiet Time.  Tess is a bit tyrannical about music at Quiet Time (among other things) – she like what she likes, and Quiet Time is not quiet if she’s forced to listen to something she hasn’t requested.  Eventually we’re hoping she’ll become more reasonable, but for the sanity of the family, we humor her right now.  The CD she requested for that day is one that’s on the digital player we use for her bedtime, and it’s hooked up to a travel speaker that we have, which zips open to reveal a place to store CDs and a little pocket for accoutrements.  When we travel, we put the digital player in that pocket, zip it closed, and have a handy travelling music system. 

Hannah generously fetched the digital player and speaker.  Tess opened the zip pocket of the speaker, reached in, and pulled out…my Zune.  “Here’s your Zune, Mama.”  She was a bit surprised at my level of excitement about that Zune, but the surprise was pretty amazing.  I hadn’t actually entertained the idea that my 2-year-old would find the thing she’d lost, nor that it would be in a place where she used to see us put it often, when we had used the Zune for her bedtime digital player. 

So, thank you St. Anthony and Tess for finding my Zune.

On taking Tess to a funeral

No pictures for this post because I don’t actually bring my camera to funerals in general and I don’t have a good phone for pictures.  (That is not a complaint.  I do not want a new phone, however far behind I am with my old one.) 
Our pastor’s mother died recently, and last Friday was her funeral.  I took the kids, because it was a noon Mass, and Michael was at work.  I don’t have a problem with taking kids to funerals – they’re part of life, after all.  I even had the presence of mind to feed them beforehand, because going through a noon funeral with four hungry kids seemed like the height of folly to me.
Tess was on her game.  In the peaceful quiet that enveloped the church while the 15 Dominican priests who were concelebrating lined the center aisle as the family said their final goodbye before the casket was closed, she fell off the pew.  It wouldn’t have been so bad, but her face hit one of the feet of the kneeler, and I knew it was going to be a loud one.  I picked her up and began hurrying to the back as she was beginning her cry – you know, that ominous, silent intake of breath before the real screaming begins. 
Happily, it wasn’t actually too bad an injury and she recovered quickly.  We made our way back to our pew, only to have Tess announce loudly, “There’s Fr. Boniface!”  Of course, she was right.  He was there. 
I’ve been trying to work with Tess on her whisper voice at Mass.  She loves using it other places, stopping me to whisper something in my ear multiple times in a row – same whispered message which for some reason takes on extra meaning for her when she gets to whisper it to me.  This enthusiasm dies at the doors of the church, though.  Hannah shushed her as she prattled, and Tess’s next contribution to the delight of those around her was a loud, indignant, “Don’t say SHUSH to me!  Don’t say SHUSH to me!”
For while after that we had relative peace and quiet, but the Mass was a long one and there was a short talk at the end.  We were seated farther back than usual in the church because we got there a bit late (although it started later than we got there), so we couldn’t see very well.  I let Naomi and Sim head up the side aisle to find a seat on the floor where they could see – a beautiful funeral, and all those Dominicans in the sanctuary, they definitely needed to be able to see. 
Towards the end, Tess wanted to join Naomi and Sim.  I stepped into the aisle to watch her go, because even though the choir director (who knows my kids well) was between her and the altar if she joined them, he wasn’t necessarily expecting to do any child-wrangling, so I wanted to be sure that I’d have at least a chance to stop her if she made a break for it.  Talking and crying are one thing; storming the sanctuary during Mass is another.
I needn’t have worried.  Part of the way to her siblings’ strategic seat, Tess noticed the St. Therese shrine and decided to pay a visit.  No…no, she didn’t actually want to visit the saint.  She wanted to enact a safe-cracker, jiggling the handle of the safe in the corner of the shrine, the one where people place the money for the candles they light.  Nothing says “Solemn Funeral” like a 2-year-old pixie in a Valentine’s day dress trying to get the candle money out of the safe in the saint shrine. 
I hope nobody minded the minor distractions Tess made at the funeral.  I was so glad to go, and her antics didn’t distress me (although that’s probably because she’s my fourth, not my first) or keep me from entering into the Mass.  The beauty, the loveliness of the send-off of a son for his mother, of the Church for her, in the context of the Mass eclipsed any craziness that might have been added by a tiny one.  Our pastor has repeatedly told us that children belong at Mass, so I take him at his word, and trust that eventually she’ll sit quietly like her siblings, even if it takes quite a while. 

Weekends with Chesterton

I’ve been following this link-up because G.K. Chesterton is awesome, and finding ways to work more of him into my day is refreshing, though sometimes I truly don’t get him.  Even at times like those, though, his perspective and interest in things – often just truly ordinary things – have been inspiring and thought-provoking, and they make me more appreciative of my life, just as it is. 

I haven’t actually been linking up, because I’ve been listening to audio recordings of What’s Wrong With the World, which is plenty quotable, but I’m usually in the middle of a workout whilst listening.  Or doing laundry.  Or driving somewhere.  Hard to make note of quotes at times like those.  But this week I’ve been reading Tremendous Trifles on my Kindle, and I’ve highlighted 17,000 awesome quotes.  I’m not going to share them all, but in honor of the just-passed celebration of St. Valentine’s Day, I give you this:

“It is definitely true that the stronger the love of both lovers, the stronger will be the happiness.”

-- G.K. Chesterton

It seems obvious, but I don’t think that’s how I think about love most of the time.  Lots to ponder.

If you’re looking for more Chesterton, lots of quotes here. 

7 Quick Takes -- Germs, Fake Introverts, Valentines

Joining Jen today for Quick Takes.
1. Our girls have matching Valentine’s Day dresses!  Sim has a new Lego t-shirt, because he doesn’t actually want to wear pink and hearts for some reason.  None of this is due to me – Grandma Ellie made them their gear and sent it along.  They all love their new clothes, although in the photo session this morning, they were more intent on showing their irritation with each other (for some reason everyone is irritated by everyone else this morning).  I did manage a few good shots.
       
2. Simeon threw up yesterday.  Back to being the House of Germs.  Although I’m hoping it’s actually House of One Child Who Ate Something That Didn’t Agree With Him.  Poor kid.  He did not enjoy the experience, although I think he was more upset when I told him he couldn’t have dinner.  Crying and asking, “WHY?  WHY?” repeatedly – not fun for either of us. 


3.  We used the wallbed that Michael installed!  A priest friend of ours is in town for a night and stayed with us.  It’s great to see him. 

4.  We love our priest friends, and I like to tell myself that they don’t like hanging out with us only because it confirms them once again in their vocations.  Nothing like having a kid throwing up in the other room just as we’re about to sit down to dinner to remind a guy how happy he is that he took those vows and dedicated his life to the Church. 


5.  Michael is a fake introvert.  I began suspecting this a while ago; every time we go out places, he voluntarily and needlessly speaks to people he doesn’t actually know.  Here’s the thing:  I will certainly speak to people if it’s necessary, like a clerk at a store.  And I’ll be polite.  And I may even add things to the conversation that aren’t strictly necessary.  What I’m almost certain not to do is seek random people out and talk to them when I’m out and about.  I’m not a misanthrope, it’s just that I almost never think, “Hey, I should go talk to that person!”  Usually I think just the opposite.  In certain situations it might happen, like when I went off to college and wanted to make new friends, but not every time I go grocery shopping or take the kids to the park. 

6.  The reason I finally decided Michael is a fake introvert is that he told me about a training he had yesterday at work.  The training involved very little lecture because the person leading the training holds to the theory that adults learn better with application rather than lecture.  Not that I disagree with this.  Probably a strong case can be made that everyone, child or adult, learns better through doing than through sitting and listening to a lecture.  However, this theory leads to trainings like Michael’s yesterday.  The participants had to write a goal down, then find someone in the group to share it with and discuss it.  I get squirmy insides just thinking about this.  I share my goals with almost nobody, and looking around a room full of strangers to find someone to share a goal with sounds like torture. 
More fun was to be had, though!  They were each given a pad of sticky notes to write down a problem on the top sticky, then they passed them around the group.  Each person had one minute to write a brainstormed solution to the problem on one of the stickies below, and all the pads were passed around the whole room.  Again, if I have a problem, I do not just broadcast it into a group of people I don’t know and presume that people will help with it.  I think carefully about who might help me and approach that person – or those people, generally one at a time. 
I’m not saying my way is right in either situation.  What I am saying is that this particular training would have been completely tortuous to me, and so I was saying things to Michael like, “Oh, man, that’s terrible!  I’m so sorry!  Boy, what a horrible three hours!”  I may have been pouring it on rather thick, because he came back with this:  “Oh, it wasn’t too bad.  I got to meet some new people.”
Fake introvert, Your Honor.  I rest my case.

7.  For a while we’ve been doing Family Movie Night on Friday nights.  It’s generally fun, although there are some challenges in finding movies that don’t scare our children – they’re apparently very sensitive to movies.  We’ve had a couple of really good ones lately, though.  The Sword in the Stone was a big hit (despite Madam Mimm, who freaked Sim out a bit).  Last week we watched Robin Hood, the version where Robin is a fox.  The kids laughed so hard during that movie – it was really amusing. 

Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real – Snow!

Joining the lovely ladies at Like Mother, Like Daughter again this week.

{pretty}

This plum tree in our back yard is spectacular in spring and lovely in summer.  In winter, it usually just gets to be branches against the sky – picturesque in its own way – but with the snow over the weekend it turned into a beautiful piece of the landscape once again.  You almost don’t notice the toys underneath it.  I guess this is both {pretty} and {real}.

{happy}

Since we get almost no snowfall here, the kids are always ecstatically happy when it comes.  The snow began falling Saturday night at dinner, and it was too dark and not plentiful enough to enjoy then, but Sunday was a different story.  Tess likes to go out in the snow because it mostly involves the other kids pulling her in the sled while she orders them around. 

{funny}

Naomi plays dentist, complete with reclining chair for the patient.  Yes, her dental tools are pens.  Yes, she explained about what she was doing to the stuffed animal as she did it. 

{real}

 

I was a little too excited about getting my garden started, I guess, because that trellis that’s halfway built between those two beds has peas planted along it.  In my defense, I still think they’ll be fine, and I’ve planted peas this early with no problems before.  It’s just that it’s somewhat funny to look out at what should be my bed of peas and see…snow.  Also, our plan had been to finish the trellis this past weekend.  It turns out that we did NOT finish it in the snow.  Strange.

Can we use a different verb?

Tess:  When the baby gets big enough, she’ll come bursting out!

[We don’t know that the baby’s a girl, but Tess assumes so.]

Quotable

Saturday morning, when Tess woke up, she heard Michael’s voice downstairs.

T:  Who’s that?

Me:  That’s Daddy.

T:  [with great enthusiasm]  Oh!  I like Daddy!

Snow!

We got 2-3 inches of snow Saturday night, which led to some excitement Sunday.  We got to Mass, the doughnut shop, and the library, but other than that we stayed home (one must have one’s priorities, of course) and played in the snow and/or had a relaxing afternoon.