March

Maybe these two look alike?

In the above photo, Mighty Mouse (lower photo) had just finished making a play-doh car. Well, I'd made the car under his direction while I was reading a history text with my other eye (apparently I can separate my eyes for separate tasks these days!), and he had added a trailer on the back and then plopped another play-doh toy on his trailer and announced, "There's the dead deer!".  Notice how proud he is?!

Sometimes it is just too much being the youngest of this crowd.

I'm not sure where my tiny baby went.

And by the look on his face, he's not sure either!  These pictures show his personality so well. He's such a sweet, tender little fellow. Gentle, most of the time, and easy-going and loving and snuggly and pretty much content to watch what the rest of the tribe is up to.  We have been so blessed by his presence the past 11 months. He is loved beyond belief by every single person in this household.

This is one happy child. Happy, happy, happy.  He has missed the outdoors, craved the outdoors, salivated for mud and slush and fresh air.

He is sooooooo very much his father!  I would honestly have been content with a few more weeks of under-blanket-afternoon-snuggly-reading-books-aloudness.  Not that I'll turn down this gorgeous weather, but it does almost feel unnatural up here in the Northland so early in March!  It's an interesting observation I've found in the past couple of years, that I'm more content now in each season to just absorb that particular season instead of aching so badly for the following one. I attribute it to the kiddos' presence - I treasure their delight in the holiday seasons from Halloween through New Years; I love watching them write out their love for each other in homemade Valentine's; I love snuggling and board games and reading aloud on long, dark, snowy afternoons; I love watching them make project after project, even when it means you can't step for the stray perler beads on the basement floor; I love spring gardening with them and hosing them off before supper; I love long summer afternoons in the sprinkler and on the swingset and following them on their bikes and carting the smaller ones around on my bike "train system" and harvesting the garden and enjoying produce and the rhythm of our learning year, teaching new subjects in time and diving deeply into particular subjects that spark their interest and breathing prayers for patience and peace as I coach and encourage an emerging reader to sound out c-a-t just one more time. Aaaahhh. There is nothing like this life.

So, it's either my children or that I'm just getting old, but winter doesn't seem nearly so interminable now as it did ten years ago.

  Here's my little proofling that I had something to do with our children. She looks so much like me....just better.

 Our 8-year-old scientist. She was feeding the birds. She was horrified that day that I had forgotten to buy the lard she needs for making bird cakes; we had actually both completely forgotten that our homemade recipe calls for it in the first place. She's insisting on making them all.by.herself. including the use of the stove for boiling the yucky things. I'll hover, but she's so responsible, she'll do fine....as long as I make sure she turns the stove OFF when she's done!

There's the finch feeder that she had just topped off. I couldn't crop it out of all the pictures, or they just didn't seem completely natural!  She had also just finished shoveling snow around the yard in an effort to make it melt faster. Mighty Mouse helped her. Sunny just swung and swung. She learned how to pump effectively, so swinging is her new favorite pastime. She had previously known the correct movements, just not how to use her muscles well enough to make it effective. She sure does now!

Dance

Thursday nights are our hectic ones these days, and, really, compared to a lot of families I hear talking, ours aren't all that hectic at all! I shuttle the girls to three different dance classes, but it's not too bad since they are close to our house. I've gotten spoiled, too, since fairly often our neighbors will watch the non-dancers so that I can run with the dancers. On nights they aren't around, Mike often is. However, there have been a couple nights where I've needed to load up the whole crew to go for the late-pick-up. It's not bad, but it's a fair amount of work to feed the masses, wash the masses (some nights - it's not every Thursday that everyone in the house gets a "wash"!), semi-clean up the dinner mess, pajama everyone left in the house except myself, and load us all up alone only to arrive at dance, unload my workbeast of a stroller, and haul us all in to reclaim our dancer.

Well, the first time I did it, I actually enjoyed it; Manly Mouse, who has been teething seemingly since the day he was born (no, basically this fall is when he started), hadn't slept all day and finally fell asleep on the way to dance pickup, stayed asleep while the girls performed for us parents, and stayed asleep while I did bedtime with his older siblings! It was pretty fun to have done pickup that night with my little company of kiddos. Sometimes things like that get lonely alone when one is used to being surrounded by warm little bodies! Anyway, it was a fun night until Manly woke up from what apparently was a "nap" and stayed awake until 2 a.m.

Fast forward to last Thursday night. I was left doing pickup alone again; I had high hopes of not turning it into a 2 a.m. bedtime this time (that was way back before Christmas), and I was concentrating on appreciating the fact that I can physically load and unload my workbeast from the van (even with the deer-hauling-trailer still attached!).  I'm being quite serious in appreciating that fact. If I weren't able to lift and haul that thing around, the girls could not have signed up for any dance class where I might have to pick them up with their siblings. It's a true blessing to have the strength to be able to lift heavy carseats and heavy strollers. I don't take that for granted.

But I do sometimes feel sorry for myself.

And I almost started to that evening.

My new little niece was born on Wednesday, and I want to snuggle her fuzzy, little curls and kiss her scrumptious little chin so bad I can taste her baby cuteness from these 400 miles away. My Mom and Dad were (thankfully!) meeting her that evening.  And I was alone, hauling my cute-I-like-to-nibble-and-kiss-them-kiddos to dance pickup at bedtime. Alone. I was feeling alone.

And starting to feel sorry for myself....but just barely starting. It was sort of just a little "itch" in the back of my brain.

It started to become a little more evident of an "itch" as I realized Manly needed to eat but that I wouldn't have time to feed him before we needed to be there. My heart broke a bit as I strapped him in his seat, crying for food. I told myself I'd offered him lots of solids that he'd refused. But I felt that mama-guilt kicking in....telling me how I wasn't enough.

His sad little cries as I loaded them all in the car reinforced that guilt. And that guilt is always what lets the pity party out of its cage.

Until.

I heard a sweet, soft little girl voice from the back singing to her sad brother: "Brother, Brother, I love you".

And then I heard a sweet, soft little toddler boy voice try his best to chime in: "Wuv You. Wuv You. It okay. Wuv You".

Melt.

Immediately, the pity party was re-caged; the mama guilt evaporated; and I thanked God for the moment.  Certainly it would have been easier to leave the siblings home for pickup with Mike or our neighbors. They'd have had a better time; it would have been easier for me. But, would it have been better necessarily? The easier route would have meant we wouldn't have shared that moment.  I appreciate all the weeks where we can enjoy the "easy route"; honestly, we wouldn't do this dance class if I had to take them all for pickup every week. But sometimes there are vistas and high points on the hard route that make it all worth it. This was one of them.

A really neat addition is that I remember Miss Mouse being the same age Mighty Mouse is, and I was on my way to a friend's wedding - alone with the girls - and when Baby Sunny began fussing, Miss Mouse sang her the same "Wuv you" song as Mighty had chimed in on now for Manly Mouse. It's precious to me that I now have a companion memory of even more sibling love.

Who We Are These Days

Fun times abound around here with a toddler just bursting with language development and a baby trying desperately to increase his mobility along with their two schoolgirl sisters.

Mighty Mouse is speaking in short sentences and two word phrases these days. He says things like "garbage can", "Mommy bed", "Daddy bed", "Baby fweeping (sleeping)", "sooting, dead deer (shooting dead deer)",

Mighty came up with a game that he plays with any of us who he can catch at the moment. It is called "Ice Cream". I'm wondering if Grandpa Bob had anything to do with this. We are supposed to knock on his door (or dresser or wall - anything wooden) and ask for ice cream. He then says, "Yeah!" and runs over to his ice cream store (behind his chair in his bedroom). Then we ask "What flavors do you have?", and he answers with "Yellow!" or "Green!" or "Hot!" or "Fork!".  I suppose yellow and green are obvious, though I'm not sure what they taste like (lemon and pistachio?), but the 'hot' ice cream I have yet to figure out. "Fork" means that I'm not supposed to lick it like a cone but instead eat it with a spoon.  We do this over and over and over.

Mighty has another game. He takes the longest Lincoln Log he can find at the moment and announces, "Sooting!". Then he goes to find either his giant giraffe/goat (it depends on the moment what the kids decide it is) or one of his brother's little duckie stuffed animals. He lines himself up with the animal of choice, points his "weapon", and says, "pht!". Then he stops for a moment, runs up to the animal, checks it, and announces, "Got it!".  He's started dragging Gertie the Giraffe Goat away....he says she's "sweeping" (sleeping). So I know he doesn't completely understand the hunting idea yet, but it certainly is hilarious to watch him play it.  He did see Mike's deer in the shed this year. Hanging. He hugged it and said, "oooooooh".  Oh dear.  Yeah, he hugged it repeatedly. And then I washed his sweatshirt.  It is so easy to love this little, tiny man.

Did I say "little, tiny"?  Hm. We've started calling Mighty Mouse "Thor Boy".  Tonight he was in his room while I fed Manly Mouse in the rocking chair in there. Thor Boy stood on his bed (his mattress is on the floor) and then fell down on his face in a plank position. He did this repeatedly, giggling everytime his head would hit his pillow. A few times he'd get too close to the wall at the head of his bed, so I'd tell him to move back. Soon that became part of the game with him purposely standing too close to the wall and laughing as I said, "Noooo, move back!".

Sunny won the number game today (pick a number between one and ten, closest to the one I chose gets her wish), so she got to make a receiving blanket with me tonight. The girls were both so very excited. We bought flannel fabric on Sunday; I try to refrain from shopping for anything other than groceries on Sunday just because I don't like it to become just another day where we run around all crazy-like, but this time I made an exception. So we bought the fabric, and the Laughing Lumberjack who appears every morning in December now (think Elf on the Shelf, but with a Toomey twist) announced this morning that the sewing would begin tonight. We are making blankets for newborn kits that the church is packing up for mamas throughout the world who have nothing. Literally nothing. Not nothing the way we over here have nothing. But honestly, truly, having their baby on a dirt floor with no blanket to wrap him or her in - that kind of nothing.  The girls are horrified that babies face those circumstances (we should all be), so they were ridiculously, amazingly, over-the-moon excited about sewing these blankets with me. Sunny's turned out quite nicely; not perfect, but it's soft and sturdy, and some baby will feel loved wrapped in it. Miss Mouse will hopefully get to do hers tomorrow, and then I have one to "whip up" (we hope) myself....my sewing skills and the words "whip up" don't necessarily always go together.  But it was fun tonight sharing my semi-skill with my daughters and knowing we are doing something loving for a mama and baby who might not feel much love or softness in their lives.

Manly Mouse is desperately trying to get more mobile than he is. He's quite good for 7.5 months - he can sit sturdily, although he does do a face plant if he gets too distracted and his head overbalances his body; he can flop to his belly purposely to get closer to a toy or object of desire, and then he can sit himself back up from his belly. This works best in one of the carpeted areas of the house; I'm sure if he could he would tell us we could have waited on our kitchen project a bit and left him some nasty carpet for traction.  I think he'll forgive us.

Manly has outgrown his little teething bracelet. I didn't know children did that. I definitely didn't know they did that at 7.5 months. My chicken-legged little boy has become a "Thor Baby" reminiscent of his big brother. He's going through a very mommy-oriented time, which can be tiring on the one hand, but I will eat up every moment of it. Soon he'll be running off to explore, and these days of sobbing, sad baby comforted simply by my picking him up will be memories. And my arms will be weak and flabby then (tongue in cheek there....).

Anyway, we've almost finished our first semester, and those are just a few of the activities that have been going on at our house-o-fun.  We're so enjoying our new kitchen/living area; there just aren't words to describe how functional it is now. We're enjoying each other's company even on these long, dark winter days.

Ten Years in the Making

Ten years ago, Mike and I bought a framed, baby/child backpack. We bought it because we were expecting a baby, were super excited, and planned that we'd be taking that baby with us on our hikes, even if that meant our hikes had to decrease in length a bit. We totally expected to include that baby in the activities we enjoyed together.

And then we didn't get to include that little baby in anything.

And somehow, as I wrote in Hope's baby book about all the things we had planned to share with her....I packed away those plans on a shelf in the back of my mind. Filed them away in a box and let the dust start building.

With excitement and joy we welcomed and brought home Miss Mouse, and then Sunny, and then Mighty Mouse, and now, lastly, Manly.  But in all those years of enjoying babies and toddlers and preschoolers and schoolchildren, some of those dreams of mine stayed in that box on the shelf in my memory. We didn't have much of a chance to just enjoy Miss Mouse as a baby - we were focused on the move we'd made, Mike's new job, my loneliness in my new(ish...."new-ish") community. And as I fully enjoyed learning who these little people were, I forgot that part of why we'd wanted these little people in our lives in the first place was to be able to share who WE are with THEM.

Surely, we've done that in other ways. Mike hunts; the kids know all about hunting. Mike has done running events; the girls remember jogging with me in the jogging stroller. We share stories of our childhood, our grandparents, our memories. But for a long, long, long time, we just didn't have time to do much "fun" extra activity. Mike was head over heels into his work; I had the bright idea to start a home business (I don't recommend this to stay-at-home moms whose husbands work as many hours as mine does.....at least not if they have more than one child, anyway). There was literally hardly time to breathe let alone shake the dust off that framed backpack and even think about using it.

Well, today was the day.  We (I) couldn't stand the dust in our house project anymore, so after bare bones schoolwork was completed, after our morning walk, after our lunch-on-the-patio, we packed up and headed out.

See that smile? This poor girl was so beside herself about not being allowed upstairs in her own house this morning that she pouted all the way out to the state park we visited. And then she quickly got over it and enjoyed herself.

They enjoyed themselves thoroughly!

Very thoroughly.

Sunny wanted to pose for a fancy picture. No, I asked her to let me take her picture, so she proceeded to the fancy pose. Oh, fancy girl.

Can you tell how pleased Sunny is to be photo-bombed?!

There we go.

My handsome young gentleman.

Miss Mouse took our picture to prove that I really was here!

Go Bison (hat)!

How I wish this were in focus. I'm afraid Manly's face says his opinion, but he was just a sweet, little trooper. I attached a little turtle toy for him to chew on, and he just chewed away the whole hike. Sweetie.

She dances.

They were skipping - sometimes hand in hand.

Sunny: "Take a picture! Take a picture! I found a cat-tail!!!! By the side of the road! I didn't do anything wrong to pick it or anything! I found it! I found it! Oh, look, it's exploding. Take a picture anyway!!!!"

Miss Mouse: "Yeah! Take a picture, and we'll threaten Grammy with it!"

Apparently they've gotten the idea that because Grammy does not want a cattail in her house - because she's constantly afraid it will explode while sitting in a vase on her kitchen table, which it potentially could - that she's somehow afraid of exploding cattails a.n.y.w.h.e.r.e.

Yet another attempt at a photo of all four. I love this one for the personalities that are shining through.

I love this one because it's pretty good of everyone. My sweet girls, my busy, funny little boy, and my sweet baby boy.

And then this is what happens when you try just about three photos too long. At least Manly's still pretty content!

What a great day. Manly cried on the way home - fairly hard after we hit our second detour of the evening, too. We stopped and gave him a break. We re-routed ourselves. We arrived home tired to a dusty house. But I've already promised another trip out next year, a longer hiking trail, and a picnic, and I'm told they "can't wait"! Ten years. I'm sorry I waited so long, but this afternoon was fully worth the wait.

Delicious Bragging

So, I'm going to spend this post shamelessly bragging about the delectability (if that's even a word) of my youngest. He's yummily deliciously sweet.  This little guy's baby book is less filled out than his siblings' books; he sometimes has to cry while I get someone else a drink or some food; in some ways I feel like he's getting the short end of the family stick. Then I realize that while he's crying, waiting for Mama to get done with someone else's immediate need fulfillment, he's generally attended by at least one older sibling. He's drooling like a sieve, and his sisters and brother think it's hilarious when he bombs them with a big glob of drool!  Especially Mighty Mouse thinks that is the funniest.  I don't read to him as much as I read to Miss Mouse, but he has three readers in the house all day with him whereas she had only one. I think he's getting a different type of family experience than his siblings did, but he's one happy, sweet, loving little baby. Hopefully that means he's reflecting what he feels in his life because we love him like crazy!