Update

1.  We’ve seen the sun!  I know everyone else is languishing in the heat and drought, but we’ve had an unusually wet and cool summer.  This week we saw the sun a couple of times!  Of course, we also saw heavy rain and 60 degree temperatures, but at least we weren’t at swimming lessons for that. 

2.  We got the first zucchini from our garden.  The zucchini is HAPPY.  Apparently, lower temps and filtered sunlight are what make it pleased to be alive, because it’s as happy as it can be. 

3.  We went to the recycled house stuff store this week.  The kids loved it.  I’m not kidding.  They loved this place, from all the stuff they thought they’d like to the bathtubs and toilets that were dirty and worthy of upturned noses to the resident cats, they had a fantastic time checking it out.  The most-repeated phrases were, “Mom, look at this!” and, “What is this?” 

4.  Hannah has come up with another explanation for the outfit on the woman in my exercise video:  “I think she’s from a different culture.  Maybe she’s Hawaiian.” 

5.  Hildy the bunny likes to play with Simeon’s toys, especially the little cars and trains.  She picks them up in her mouth and tosses them.  The one time this backfired was when there was a train track setup and she accidentally knocked down the bridge, scaring herself silly.  But in general, she’s a big fan of Sim’s toys. 

6.  My nesting instinct is kicking in.  This is part of why this week has been low on blog posts.  37 weeks is considered full term, and we’ll be there next Saturday.  Not that I think the baby will come that early, based on his or her siblings’ births, but one never knows. 

7.  Speaking of kicking, the baby in utero is VERY active.  As the doctor remarked, active babies don’t usually change that by being born.  Luckily I’ll have some help chasing this one when it gets old enough to run.

8.  The other day, Simeon held up his fingers about half an inch apart and said, “Quinque is this big.”  Apparently we haven’t talked about the size of the baby recently.  (If that’s how big the baby is, then I have been eating FAR too many doughnuts!)  So, we then had a discussion about how big the baby is.  Of course, that baby has to come out, so I find it’s best to not dwell on that too long.

9.  Naomi has decided that she’s not going to learn to read.  When asked if she wouldn’t enjoy it, she admitted that she might, but she also said, “But then you’ll make me read to Simeon.”  The thing is, she’s not really wrong about that.  BUT it’s not a great reason to choose illiteracy. 

10.  Simeon has embraced the word “hilarious.”  He uses it appropriately, too.  I must say, hearing him use it is…hilarious. 

Exercise critics

Hannah and Naomi have appreciated the pregnancy exercise DVDs I’ve been doing.  Hannah likes to compare and contrast:  “I like this one better because it has more people.  The other one has just one.  But look at the room she’s in.  It’s not nice like the other one.  And the music isn’t as good.”  Most of Hannah’s critiques are aesthetic. 

Naomi likes to do the exercises with me.  Then she likes to make up her own exercise routines, complete with descriptions of what she’s doing and how to do it yourself, just like the women in the video.  I would add a caveat about this:  Naomi’s exercises are not always appropriate for pregnant women.  In fact, they’re not always appropriate for anyone whose flexibility doesn’t approach that of an active 5-year-old girl.  But it is pretty cute to watch her.

Neither girl approved of the woman who had a bikini top as part of her outfit.

Hannah:  She didn’t dress very well for this video.

Naomi:  Maybe she didn’t know anyone would be taking a video of her.

Adding to the list of ridiculous things my kids fight over

Yesterday I had Hannah weeping – weeping! – in a huddled heap in the living room.  You might think, “Poor little Hannah!  What could have happened to her that she’d spend her time weeping in a heap?”

Naomi’s turn cleaning the toilet was too long.  CLEANING THE TOILET.  Hannah wanted her turn.

I could NOT believe that I was having to mediate this argument.  What does one say to that?  “Don’t worry, Hannah, there will be a lot more times that the toilet will need to be cleaned and you can do ALL OF THEM.”  Or perhaps, “Don’t worry, Hannah, I don’t mind if the toilet is rescrubbed after being scrubbed once.” 

It turned out that all I needed to do to relieve her meltdown was to show her how to clean the whole bathroom.

But not the Rhubarb Panic

I laughed at this post by Simcha Fisher.  She’s pregnant, too.  She has pregnancy insomnia, too.  She ends up thinking about totally irrelevant things in the middle of the night, too.  I have to admit, I haven’t had the Rhubarb-Related Panic, but I did have some pretty good times lying awake thinking whether we had enough strawberries for this or that project (…and if so, how was I EVER going to get all those projects done?  Would I need to freeze the berries first?  Would that affect how the jam turned out?  How could I find that out?  Without wasting a whole bunch of berries, if it doesn’t work?  Should I just be freezing berries for smoothies anyway?) 

And I’ve planned out all of the house projects we’ll need to do for the next 5-10 years.  Because sometime between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. is always the best time for things like that.  And the planning needs to be done now, of course.  Happily, the plans I’ve made aren’t completely insane (always a danger with plans made at that hour), so we may actually use some of them. 

So my question is:  why is pregnancy designed thus?  It seems to be a common thing that pregnant women experience insomnia at a time when you’d think that their bodies would be sleeping as much as possible in the hopes of starting off at a fairly well-rested point with a little one who will be awakening multiple times at night for an undetermined length of time.  Perhaps the idea is to train up?

Nesting

has begun in a big, bad way.  Michael and the kids are going camping for a weekend coming up and I already have FAR more nesting plans for that weekend than I can reasonably complete…Not to mention the plans that I need to complete before that in order to be ready for the projects that I want to do then!  This particular pregnancy nesting seems to be much stronger than the others.  I don’t know why, but maybe it’s because this baby is coming at the beginning of the school year and I want to be ready for that as well as for all of the new baby things. 

Vocabulary

Hannah was showing me a scrape on her leg today.  “What happened?”  I asked.

She replied, “I hit it on that dastardly pedal!”

More on swimming lessons

Naomi, after day 1:  It was great!  Fun!

Naomi, after day 2:  It was great!  Fun!

Naomi, after day 3:  It was great!  Fun!

Hannah, after day 1:  I thought I was a good swimmer, but now I know I’m not.  I can’t even side-breathe.  [Side-breathing had just been introduced to her in that lesson.]  But it was fun.

Hannah, after day 2:  I hope we learn something new soon.  We don’t even jump in.  But it was fun.

Hannah, after day 3:  My teachers are the best in the WHOLE POOL!  I like Max a little more than Ann.  He shows a lot of stuff, but doesn’t correct a lot.  I’m not very good at keeping my chin tucked when diving.  [Diving had just been introduced to her in that session.]  But it was fun.

Simeon, day 1:  Can I have my swimming lessons now?

Simeon, day 2:  Can I have my swimming lessons now?

Simeon, day 3:  Can I have my swimming lessons now?

Taking turns

is a hot topic in our house, of course, because we are a sharing family, you know.  What’s interesting is that now we have to take turns SINGING.  Sometimes it’s okay to sing together, but sometimes certain kids want to sing BY THEMSELVES.  This means that we end up having one singer joining in, only to have the original singer stop singing and yell (it’s always a yell when it comes to this particular situation, never a polite request), “STOP SINGING!  IT’S MY TURN TO SING!”  Because of this, singing time can quickly deteriorate into screaming time.  Really fun. 

Swimming lessons

began Monday.  Daily for 2 weeks, but just for the girls.  The place we’re going doesn’t have lessons for anyone under three.  Simeon is not impressed.  The girls were a bit chilly, but both had a great time and did very well. 

Fruit picking

Michael took last week off, so we used some of the time to pick fruit.  I’ve told you about the strawberries.  Friday it was cherries and blueberries.  We got 32 pounds of bing cherries, 14 pounds of pie cherries, and 11 pounds of blueberries. 

So now we just have to eat them or pit them and process them. 

Photos will be forthcoming. 

I can see the humor even now

As the baby’s due date approaches (August 28), posts like this make me laugh even more than usual.  Which is good, because I think that, with the first couple of kids they made me sweat and worry. 

9 years ago today

Really?  9 years?

Strawberries

We’ve finally entered strawberry-picking season!  It’s quite late this year, because the spring was so cold and damp, but we’ve picked, as a family, 27 pounds since last Friday.  That’s really just 2 farms visited and 11 pounds picked Friday and 16 yesterday.  Michael came with us yesterday. 

Hannah and Naomi are great pickers.  Simeon can readily identify the ripe berries and eats them with great vigor.  Yesterday, though, the farm had a dirt track next to the field, so Sim spent most of his time there, playing in the dirt.  Of course, since he’d been slathered with sunscreen before the excursion, and then had eaten several strawberries before the dirt, he was quite a sight when we finished.

I’ve made 2 kinds of preserves and a strawberry jam, and I’m looking forward to a couple more kinds of jam, as well as strawberry syrup and butter.  Hannah wants to make freezer jam, too.  And, of course, we’ve been eating strawberries plain, in smoothies, and in strawberry shortcake.  Mmmmm, summer!

More creations

A lot of what we’re creating these days involves the garden, but I haven’t taken the camera out there recently.  Yesterday would have been perfect, since the weather was absolutely gorgeous.  But I didn’t think of it.  Today it’s overcast again, so I think I’ll wait for another sunny day.  Hopefully it won’t be too long.

However, something I made recently was a book of felt saints for our goddaughter.  I got the idea from a website, as well as from our Catholic Craft Day group, which did a felt Last Supper during Lent.  The only problem with the felt Last Supper was that it didn’t stick very well, since we used glue.  The woman who made the website I found (which I can’t remember now…typical for my life these days!) used embroidery techniques to put together her felt pictures, so that’s what I did.  Then I made them all into a little book.  It’s very handmade (lots of fun mistakes!), but I thought it came out cute.

I asked my goddaughter’s mother what saints were their favorites.  Our Lady of Kibeho topped the list.

Saint Anne is supposed to be sitting on that bench.  It’s difficult to get felt pictures to look like they’re sitting.  Try it sometime.

I had a lot of fun with the iconography.  The lily is a bit funny-looking, but at least the saw is very clear.  I was doubly pleased that Naomi guessed who this was before I told her.  Hannah knew, too, of course, but I wasn’t sure if Naomi would recognize him.

St. Peter’s name is completely wonky.  But the keys, which Michael thought were hatchets on my first attempt at making them, came out looking mostly like keys, I thought.

St. Nicholas was the most fun, because he has all kinds of different iconography.  I had to be sure the little bags of money were in there, for the dowries, you know. 

I have a feeling more felt saints are in my future, because I had so much fun with this one.