Legos

Last winter, Sunny and I tried to join the parent-child preschool club that Miss Mouse and I had participated in when Miss Mouse was three-four. Well, Sunny got all dressed up in her "fanciest" clothes and held my hand so proudly as we headed to the children's museum.....and then we both ended up walking away with sagging shoulders. Three times we tried to join. Once, the doors were locked, and the "closed" sign was still in the window. When I called the museum later in the day, no one seemed to know why I would have thought the preschool club started before the museum opened (I pointed to the advertisement in our local public parks magazine for starters). We were supposedly lined up for the correct time the following week. Sadly, when we arrived, all dressed up and chipper and excited again....they had no one to teach the club and had, supposedly, no idea that we were coming. By that time, I was getting suspicious since we were seemingly the only ones who hadn't gotten the secret memo that the little club was no more! Still, we tried a third time, and, upon being told, yet again, that no one knew anything about why we were there, I explained that I'd called, tried to bring my little girl three times, and didn't know how else to sign up for the club. That day they let Sunny play around the museum for free as long as she wanted - before it was even technically open - and gave her a sucker on the way out. The poor guy manning the till felt horrible, and the woman doing the cleaning was nearly in tears. 

Anyway, Sunny has needed an outlet for being a "big girl". Desperately.

So, the other day, when I noticed there was a lego building contest at the fair, I jumped on the idea as a potential activity for Sunny. She is quite the builder, so I thought it might be right up her alley. I've tended to shy away from having the girls in "contests" too much because I want them to learn the love of creating, of working, of trying without tying it directly to a reward. I want them to love learning and working and playing and creating for the sheer joy of doing it, rather than just for the carrot on a stick at the end. So, I crossed the lego contest out of my mind for a few days. A few days too long since the registration was supposed to be done on July 8.

But.....I reconsidered this morning. And....I called the fair office to see about late registration. They told me that we could come and just see if they could squeeze Sunny in.

Sunny and I talked a lot about the possibility that we'd haul all her legos there and end up just having to come home if there was not space for her. She still wanted to do it, though. We talked about how she would have to answer the judges when they came and asked her questions about what she was building. She still wanted to do it. We talked about that she'd need to answer them loud enough for them to hear her and not in "baby talk" (which is her default, I'm-feeling-shy-and-so-I'll-be-silly voice). She still wanted to do it and solemnly told me, "I would never do that. I would answer nicely." 

The Most Convenient Baby in the World woke from his nap right when he needed to, ate when he needed to, and was popped into his carseat and then stroller right on schedule for us to make it to the contest. Miss Mouse had initially thought that she should probably do the lego contest, too, but it would have pretty much entirely thwarted my goal for Sunny feeling like the 'big kid of the moment' if they had both entered, and Biggest Sister had come out with a ribbon and Sunny none. So, I explained to Miss Mouse that since she had participated in t-ball yesterday, it was her little sister's turn to be able to be in an activity. The excitement that Miss Mouse had for her little sister was sweet enough to eat right up.

She's smiling here. Well, she's really trying anyway!

So it began.....

She's right in the front there. There is a little boy behind the large, red bin of legos, too. One older lady mistook Sunny and him for being twins. Poor little dude could have cared less to be there. The little guy on the far right is pretty serious, though.

Here she's trying to build from the top down. She tried several times, and it fell off several times. So, she readjusted her plan and built from the bottom up for the second "side" of the tower.

She had the choice to build whatever she wanted. She told me that she had not decided what to build before the contest and just decided during the contest.

Mighty Mouse was pleased with the youth exhibit.

See her concentration? She never cracked a grin. She says she had fun, but she was working seriously hard!

Look at the little guy next to her. Doesn't he look a bit envious of her tower? Cracks me up! Can you also see the cold-fish-face going on with Sunny? Yep, that was her face the entire time - 20 minutes - she worked. She had to sit there 30 minutes because that's the time they had, but I told her whenever she was done, she could just sit and watch the other kids.

I think this did look like a bit of a real smile here. She had finished the tower, though she realized later that she had forgotten to put the top on (that's the red thing in her hand in this picture). I felt kind of bad for awhile that we had shown up with our regular legos while the boy in her same age range down the table had the fancy build-a-car legos. I like the kids to start out with the plain ones because it forces them to think of what to build with their own little minds rather than to follow instructions (though that certainly has its place, too!), but sometimes I feel like maybe I'm a real little "country mouse" in the midst of a whole bunch of smarter "city mice"; maybe I'm behind the times and backwards; maybe I'm scarring our children! I guess our toys are working just fine, though, because little-car-boy down the table took third, and Sunny.......

WON FIRST PLACE!!!!

She got a blue ribbon (when her name was called, I took her hand and ran her up to the judges to collect her ribbon; she was confused and asked, "Where are we going? Why are we running?"..."Because you WON, honey!!!!"....."Oh! Yay!"), a bag of candy (you can see the tootsie roll blocking out her front teeth, yes?), and a gift card to Toys-R-Us!

Most importantly, she participated in a 'big kid' contest; she answered the judges in a 'big kid voice'; she did something she is naturally good at; she was rewarded for it; and she is proud of herself.

PK's

A while back, my sister posted a beautiful writing about growing up on a farm as farmer's (and farmer's wife's) daughters. It was great - the writing and the doing so, both.

Mike and I, however, are raising pastor's kids. Well, pastor's and pastor's wife's kids. Just like I have fond memories of my childhood that have a lot to do with my Dad's occupation, I hope that our children will have fond memories of their childhoods, and I hope that those memories are, in part, attached to their Dad's occupation.

Here is one of our latest conversations:

Tonight at bedtime I sang Sunny "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam", but after her song, while we were still waiting for Miss Mouse to join us, I pointed out that the reason we are sunbeams for Jesus is not to make Him love us more but to point others toward Him. She seemed to understand pretty well, and then I moved onto doing songs for her sister. Well, partway through Miss Mouse's first song, which happened, by Miss Mouse's choice, to be Sunny's "I love you" song (they both have one, but we're working on Mighty's yet), Sunny leaned down and said, 

  "So, some of the people we want to show sunbeams to are those people who invite us to go to that thing that we say we'll try to make it to but won't go to because it's not about Jesus, right?" Um, huh?! Thankfully, I recovered pretty quickly and agreed with her that, yes, we should be kind and nice to the Jehovah Witnesses. This spiraled quickly into an all-out plan to evangelize the next, unsuspecting Jehovah Witnesses to show up at our door. Miss Mouse pointed out they always come in twos. Sunny asked how we could know they are coming so that we could give them cookies (I had said we should be nice to them and not rude and that we could even offer them a cookie....Sunny ran with that one). Sunny also pointed out that they perhaps wouldn't know we aren't at their meeting since they "might just think we are way in the back where they can't see us".  So, that developed into me confessing to them that we are sort of lying if we say we'll try to go because we won't go and won't try to go. That's when the girls decided we really should tell them that we aren't going to go because we know Jesus loves us, and we have faith in Him and want them to, as well. Oh dear. Mike visited with a young man who came to our door one time for 45 minutes. Apparently his daughters learned well (though one of them wasn't even born yet at that time!). The best part about the whole thing was Sunny's theology. They were chattering about whether the Jehovah Witnesses know Jesus or don't know Him, and Sunny said, "I think they KNOW Him, but they just don't BELIEVE in Him." I gave her a high five. Miss Mouse, of course, has been in Sunday School where they use cool words like "BFF", so I knew she was trying to configure something in her head about them not knowing that Jesus wants to be their BFF.  It was a pretty great statement to hear from a four-year-old, though.

They seem to have gotten over their obsession with Satan coming after them. That was last summer and was sort of upsetting. We did a lot of talking, though, and they really just seemed to want reassurance that Jesus is stronger than Satan. We did a lot of reading last summer. Pregnant over the hottest summer in many years equated with lots.of.reading.time.  After countless times through their children's Bible, they decided that King Herod must be in Hell (yes, we talked about our not being able to decide those things, but they decided anyway), and that King Herod must love Satan even though Satan doesn't love anyone but himself. They decided King Herod must be Satan's wife. Yeah. That was last summer.  On to the evangelism of the Jehovah Witnesses (I guess I won't tell the girls that I always hid from them when they stopped at the farm? I was a pretty worthless evangelical!)

On a non-religious topic, Sunny told her brother the other day, "If you were a dog, I think your name should be Cupcake."

Let Them Stay Little

There's a song out that brings tears to my eyes whenever I hear it and reminds me of the fleeting nature of these hectic, harried, crazy childhood days.  I thought of this one when I was going through pictures this spring, some from the Daddy/Daughter Dance - Sunny's first, terrified experience there - some from just regular playtime around the house.

"I can remember when you fit in the palm of my hand.

Felt so good in it, no bigger than a minute

How it amazes me,

You're changing with every blink

Faster than a flower blooms,

They grow up all too soon....

So let them be little, 'cuz they're only that way for awhile

Give them hope, give them praise, give them love everyday

Let them cry, let them giggle, let them sleep in the middle

Oh, just let them be little

I've never felt so much in one little tender touch

I live for those kisses, prayers, and your wishes

Now that you're teaching me things only a child can see

Every night while we're on our knees, all I ask is please....

Let them be little, 'cuz they're only that way for awhile

Give them hope, give them praise, give them love everyday

Let them cry, let them giggle, let them sleep in the middle

Oh, let them be little

So innocent, a precious soul, 

You turn around

It's time to let them go

So, let them be little, 'cuz they're only that way for awhile

Give them hope, give them praise, give them love everyday

Let them cry, let them giggle, let them sleep in the middle

Oh, let them be little."

--I've seen this credited to both Billy Dean and Lonestar, so I'm assuming both recorded/performed this song. In my immersion into children's music, I've been away from the contemporary scene long enough to know I like the song but not who to credit with it!

He's a bit shocked at all the floofiness at the Daddy/Daughter Grand March.  Actually, he cheered for the ladies here, too, just like he did at their dance recital.

Mike introducing his terrified and oh-so-excited four year old. Miss Mouse has that exact same expression at her first Daddy/Daughter dance two years ago. Precious.

Miss Mouse reminded Mike all.day.long that she wanted to introduce herself. When it came down to it, we thought she might get too nervous, but she took the microphone and clearly stated her name and her age with such gusto that she got a spirited round of applause (everyone got applause, but hers was more spirited with quite a few chuckles interspersed). What a difference two years has made!!!

They played "marriage". I was the pastor. Mighty Mouse was the congregation and the ring bearer. Miss Mouse is wearing one of Mike's old bowties and also has her second-prize-cooking-contest ribbon attached to her sweater as a boutinier (no idea how to spell that and too tired to look it up). She's wearing a Mr. Bubble shirt on backwards to double as her tuxedo shirt and a pair of Hello Kitty pajama pants on inside out for suit pants. Sunny goes with much explanation since she is the bride in the fancy dress. Mmmmm....I don't know exactly how to explain how much I love breathing in this beautiful "littleness".

  

Because it just terrifies me that suddenly we'll have blinked, and these little girls will be posing for wedding photographs.....

Not looking all that different than Sunny does here...

With big goofy smiles like their mommy's on her wedding day....

Thankfully, for now, the background is still our lowly screen door and our ever-faithful neighbors' blue house.

Incidentally, I've been working on a post, mulling it around in my head, to more openly explain why we homeschooled Miss Mouse for her kindergarten year and why we are going to continue on next year. It's going to come down to probably just listing all the benefits we have seen of this educational method for our own family, but this is definitely one of them. It's been such a privilege to be able to witness these kiddos grow in love and patience and understanding and care of and for each other over this past year. Not having to give up six hours of Miss Mouse's time with her family has been a huge benefit for our family in that endeavour - and for her, too, we believe. We deal, of course, with rivalry and jealousy and nastiness that comes apparently with certain ages of human beings, but it's been a blessing for us to just let her "be little" for a little while longer. She can read well; she understands some pretty advanced math concepts for her age; she placed in a writing and illustrating contest (more on that in another post sometime, too), but she also spends the afternoons in activities like planning a wedding for her and her sister. She deals as a six-year-old can with adult issues like infant death, loss of a sister she never met, serious illnesses in people she dearly loves....not "little" things by any means. We've talked about cigarette smoking and alcohol use simply because it's come up in conversations about other kids' parents' choices or television commercials....not "little" things, either. Yet, some of the harder things of older childhood haven't hit her close quite yet - bullying, cliques, etc. She's still "little", and that's so nice.

Strawberries

We've been clearing out our strawberry patch. The poor berry plants are nearly strangled by grass invading their cozy, little bed. I've been digging the near-sod up and then gently separating the twisted grass roots from the remaining strawberry plants. It's fairly delicate surgery for some of the berries. Their roots are nearly rotten - brown, dried, dying - choked.  The grass has invaded and is trying to choke the life out of those roots.

It's my Grandma's birthday today. We called the nursing home where she lives and got ourselves transferred back to her special care unit. The nurse put her on the portable phone that gets shared when residents get phone calls. The girls got the cue and sang their little hearts out. Grandma perked up a bit when I told her it was me and repeated my name with a hint of happy emotion in her voice. A hint. Emotion is one of those areas, I think, that has been attacked by disease. She asked where I was and just said nothing when I told her I was at home in town here. I could tell that it didn't make sense that I was somewhere other than my farm home. I'm a little girl again, the girl she remembers from so many years ago. Laura and I are "the little girls" and will probably remain that now. 

The strawberry roots reminded me of her mind, how the grass wrapped around those roots just like dementia has wrapped around her mind, her memories. It sounds sinister, and, in my mind, it is. I'm convinced that Satan loves it. He laughs at our tears, smiles with glee at her confusion and struggles. Not because of anything my Grandma did or did not do - no sin of hers - but just our fallen humanity. I think about my Grandma's life; it has not been easy. From watching an infant sister die, to losing a younger brother years later, beginning marriage in a grainery, and then losing the home she and Grandpa thought they had finally built to retire in to a failure of a governmental project, very little of her life was easy. I'm humbled to know Laura and I have been bright spots in there. All of her children have been - caring for others, though not always perfectly, I suppose, has been her life.

Each year these weeks are solemn ones for me, in my mind anyway.  In the weeks between Mothers' Day weekend and the anniversary of Hope's birth and death, I'm struck this year by all the problems I cannot fix. Sometimes the sadness of it is overwhelming; I sit rocking my sleeping, teething son, wondering, wondering, wondering about all that I cannot fix.

Alzheimers. Dementia. Cancer. Veins in a baby's heart. Parkinson's. 

So much that none of us can completely, really, totally fix.

And so, and Mike reminds me, we cling to the One who has fixed it all.  Who, regardless of the outcomes down here of diseases and disasters, has fixed us a place free of all of this - f.o.r.e.v.e.r.  The One who, as Satan salivates over our pain, walks with us through all of it, holding our hands, holding us up, walking straight through death with us as the best friend we could ever imagine. The One who gently untangles all those choking, nasty grass roots from around our tender, bruised selves, dusts us off, and replants us where we really belong, in the spot He's been preparing for us from the beginning.

Rub-a-Dub-Dub

Rub-a-dub-dub, who's this in a tub?

And where is he bathing?

He's on the front driveway, and ssssssshhhh....he thinks he's in a kiddie pool.

We just had to get out and celebrate this second over-ninety-degree day, so the girls dug out their play swimming suits (as opposed to their nice ones that will be worn in public). We slathered on sunscreen, and I watched the girls wiggle in the excitement of getting back out in the sprinkler again after a long winter.

Then Miss Mouse asked the obvious question: How are we going to play in the sprinkler since our hose burned up?

Hmmm....You've got a point there, my dear.

Thank goodness for our wonderful neighbors! We're currently borrowing their hose.

I also realized a problem with putting Mighty Mouse in a kiddie pool while the girls ran through the sprinkler: the kiddie pool hit the dumpster last week, too.

You can see, I solved the problem with ingenuity. Or maybe I just solved the problem. Or maybe I created more of a problem. I don't know, but we had fun.  I put out Mighty's baby pool, filled it with water, heated it up on the hot pavement, and when he woke from his nap yesterday afternoon, it was perfectly heated for him to take a dip.

While he dipped, the girls and I polished off an entire carton of strawberries. Normally I am pretty cheap with the fresh berries and ration them carefully. This time, though, they had been on a really good sale, and they were really good berries that demanded to be eaten. I figured three of us gorging on strawberries for $2.00 or so wasn't really all that expensive of a treat! Each little berry was a pop of summer. Yum!

The not-so-perfect part of this was all the pine needles. You can see them in the photos. With the strong wind we had, and really with any hint of a breeze these days, the needles were blowing from our poor, now-deceased evergreen tree in the back and raining down all over the yard, perhaps our neighbors' yards, as well. Ick. I had to take Mighty Mouse out so that he wouldn't eat them. I even had to dig one out of his mouth. Youch. So, Mighty Mouse's first "pool" experience was in a tub filled with evergreen needles. Very masculine of him, yes?

Oh, we have so much fun with this little guy. The most fun thing, though, for me is seeing how much fun everyone else in the household has with him. My heart gets all warm and melty and mushy when I see how much they love each other. Notice in this picture where I had stood up to get a better view of Mighty, Sunny can't keep her hands off him? She didn't want me even that far from her brother while he was in water - our little rebel middle child is a rule-follower when it comes to some things (though with some of the ideas she comes up with I still can't say I'd trust her any farther than I could throw a stick....). But she was definitely determined to keep him safe - and touched - at all times. He's so sweet and squishy, I didn't really mind having to take him out and wrap him in a giant beach towel and then snuggle him while the girls finished up in the sprinkler. It's hard to be too upset about a snuggly boy with bare feet begging to be rubbed on your lap. Though the evergreen-needles-in-the-pink-swim-diaper-because-that's-what-we-had-on-hand were sort of sad.

Welcome back, Summer!

Sewing for Idiots

Despite my Auntie Linda's patience and impressive teaching abilities, I cannot read a pattern to save my life. If she could be here to hold my hand the entire time I sew, I'm sure I could use patterns and understand them even. Seeing as how she lives 400 miles away, I had to come up with a different plan.

What I found is that I can follow instructions (even though I typically will not read them for appliances until I've royally messed up the whole setup first), and that a "pattern" makes sense to me if it is presented as a set of instructions.

So, here it is. My first matching-girl project. They are square-shaped circle skirts (think square-shaped poodle skirt pattern) made from knit fabric (teehee...I didn't even finish the bottom edges; they're just raw, though at some point I may try my hand at finishing them off with a fancy little scalloped edge - for now I'm sitting on my laurels a bit before jumping into deeper water).

The girls were ecstatic to see them on the table when they came out for breakfast on Wednesday. So fun! The met with approval from both girls, which was exciting. What you can't see in the picture is the super-soft, 1.5 inch bright pink elastic waistbands. I ordered them online, and they are so fun and cute! Over the summer the girls will be able to wear their shirts out or tucked in and look equally adorable either way.

See how well they twirl? Yep, I did that on purpose, too. Apparently there is this great secret to making the fabric waist a bit bigger than the elastic and then pulling the elastic as you sew and, hence, creating sort of little "puckers" (Linda and Kathy would have better words for that) that create "spinn-a-bility". And I did it? Shocking, I tell you! Shocking! 

Seriously, the girls have seen my 8th grade home ec projects.....I don't think they really expected these skirts to turn out.

It's a bit windy in these pictures, so you can't really see how the uneven hem of the skirt hangs.  We had just returned from a field trip to a local stringed instrument store. Miss Mouse has now added the cello to her long list of instruments she wants to play. I would love that. She tried a 1/2 size out at the store, and it sounded nothing like a beginner on the violin (teehee!). She also tried out a violin/fiddle, and Sunny plucked a bass. It would be impossible for me to pick our favorite field trip because they've all been awesome, and this one definitely continued that trend. They even got to listen to a luthier (sp?) explain how he repairs violins and other strings. I don't know how much they picked up on that, but they stood there and paid attention. So I know they gained something from even that more detailed presentation.

And Mighty Mouse? 

Well, he did his pre-field-trip event of having a blown-out diaper (he does this before each and every field trip we go on - this time I at least was able to get his diaper changed before we left - the previous times he's been on the floor of the minivan - these times are, interestingly, mainly the only times he has blow-outs....), and then he hung out contentedly in his front pack until just before the presentation was over when he got a little too tired to hear much more about the sound pins in violins. He's such a sweet little trooper.

I look like Mommy's family.

I look like Daddy's family.

I look like myself mostly, though!

Anyway, I already have more fabric and thread ready to go for more instruction-based sewing projects, and I can't wait! Thank goodness for all those hours I spent at Linda's and 4-H learning - who knew it was all in preparation for being able to follow tutorials from other people's blogs?!

*The tutorial I followed can be found at www.makeit-loveit.com 

Belated Easter Pictures

On Easter we had three handsome sweatervested young men in our house. They posed admirably for pictures.

Notice Grandpa Bob and his mini-me are both shocked by what Matthias is telling them.

Matthias, now contemplative, and Grandpa Bob and Mini-Bob continue to mirror each other.

The mirroring by Grandpa Bob and Mini-Bob continues while Matthias wonders how long this photo shoot will last. Wasn't there some mention of ham?

I could have posted about ten pictures of Grandpa Bob and Mighty Mouse with the same expression. Mike and I were going through them tonight, and it really is hilarious. They aren't always flattering expressions, though, for either party, so I chose to leave them off even though they are treasures (and will be included in scrapbooks for sure!).

Grandpa with his hands full.

Grandpa Bob's got things under control. Notice Mighty Mouse has his sleeves rolled up? Yeah, that's because his sleeves were too short on him. The cute outfit from my friend's little guys barely buttoned in the back, but I was determined it was his Easter outfit (it was 9-12 months, and he was only 6...). He wore it that day; I washed it and packed it away, but it was a great sweatervested day!

Matthias is ready for ham. Or squash baby food with oatmeal. Whichever.

 

Auntie Laura and her boys.

The girls and our boys.

*I did get some pictures of the girlies, but the boys won't be part of the Daddy-Daughter-Dance post. So I figured they would be happy to get their own post. There's also a post titled something like "Even Idiots Can Sew" coming soon showcasing some little skirts I sewed that actually turned out!