Apparently, I didn't spend any part of my summer updating my blog. Years from now my children may wonder what happened this summer since I haven't chosen to record anything in over two months. Well, here are a few things that happened this summer...
Chapter Books - The twins started reading chapter books. Bear found (with my help) a really cool series by Dan Gutman. The first book in the series is called Miss Daisy is Crazy. All the books are hilarious and are a good fit for him. He can read them on his own:). Lou Lou began reading a series about princesses - girls who attend a Princess Academy. This is a semi-good match for Lou Lou's interests. Other options that we did not choose included several fairy books, which I'm not in favor of, and animal fiction books (horses, puppies, etc.). If we could find chapter books about girls who love ballet, that would be right down Lou Lou's alley. We did end up finding a series about children in Appleville Elementary School. The problem is...there are only 4 books in the series. We'll see how it goes for Lou Lou!
Birthday - Birdie turned 2! She is very social, very chatty, very copy-catty of anything Bug or Lou Lou say, and very loving. She loves kissing everyone and always sticks out her lips and her chin so much as she heads toward someone to give them a smooch:). The funniest thing that she did this summer...All the kids were playing in our kiddie pool, and, for some reason, the big kids were acting like monsters and saying, "Rah! Rah! Rah!". It must have bothered Birdie because she came up to me to tell me what turned out to be her first official tattle tale. She began with a few sentences of gibberish and then, imitating the big kids, said, "Rah! Rah! Rah!". We all laughed about that one! Today, I was talking with her about using the bathroom, and when I said, "When you have to poop out, come in here and poop in the potty," she said, "OH!" with a loud "aha" sound, like she was thinking, "What a great idea! I never thought of that before!".
Bug turns over a three year old leaf...Bug, my most laid back, sensitive, good as gold child has turned over a new leaf. I guess I should say she is exploring another part of her personality. She has become somewhat feisty with a bit of a sassy mouth. Although her feistiness is not to the degree that Lou Lou's was at 3 years old, it seems just as difficult to deal with because it still surprises me when she acts like that. Anyway, she is still very sensitive and reminds me of myself so much. She is very independent, strong but a little bit fragile at the same time. The monster-chasing game is the new thing at our house recently. Typically, Jimmy's the monster, but if he's not around, Bear is happy to fill in. Tonight, Jimmy was going around chasing and scaring and being a tickle monster. Anyway, all the kids were running all around the house as he turned lights on and off. By the way, this game is nothing I enjoy or participate in. Even as a child, I didn't like scary, run around like crazy games. When they play, I just keep doing whatever...folding clothes, sweeping the floor, etc. Well once tonight, when Bug ran past me, I could see that she was really distressed, way past the point of having fun. I so completely identified with her. It's a rather odd feeling to have a child that is natured so much like myself. I think she likes Monster Chase when it first gets started, but when it gets really cranked up or keeps going for awhile, she can't take it. It makes me think about her as an older child and a grownup, because being sensitive is tough sometimes.
Backyard...Jimmy cut down lots of trees in our back yard. We still have 10-12 and I think he cut down 7 or 8. He cut them down to make more space, to help the grass to grow, and to make space for a playhouse and swingset. The playhouse is set up, complete with a small flag from Mama C. The swingset is set to be finished Labor Day Weekend I hope. During the last part of the summer, it seemed to rain every single day, which held up swingset construction:)
New job...Prayers answered...The day before Open House, I found out that I indeed was moving to my "old" school as the Title I teacher. Title I teacher is nothing I would have ever picked, but with so much prayer just from me over the last two years, I felt that this was exactly where God wanted me. I have prayed for this move diligently, daily for the past two years. It feels like I'm back at home, and the twins are in the second grade there. I am so completely, immensely happy about spending my working time there:):)
New fish...We have two big fish decals and four small fish decals on our car, representing me, Jimmy, and our 4 children. We added two new fish this summer to represent Courtney and Trey, our babies in heaven. Courtney went to heaven in July 2004, when I was about 7 weeks along. Trey went to heaven in February 2009, when I was about 10 weeks along. Recently, the twins noticed the fish and asked me about the "extra" fish. When I explained it to them, they were excited about having a brother and sister waiting for them in heaven. By giving these two babies names and recognition in our family, it makes it easier for the rest of my children to (later on down the road) begin to understand openness to life, the culture of life versus the culture of death, and God-control versus birth control, which was God's plan all along. Thank God for Courtney and Trey:)!
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
Sugar
A few nights ago, I wanted to do something fun with Joey without all the other kids. It seems like it's harder to find one-on-one times with each child, so when I catch a minute, I try to make the most of it. I started pointing to different places on my face and asking her to name them. If she got it wrong, I tickled her, so she intentionally got some wrong. I asked her some easy ones (nose, eyes, ears) and some trickier ones (eyebrow, ear lobe). When I pointed to her cheek and said, "What's this?", she said, "That's my sugar!". I don't even know if she knew the actual name for her cheek or not.
Au Revoir, Chapel Hill!
So last night was Jimmy's last night of Chapel Hill forever. No more papers. No more problem sets. No more trips to Chapel Hill. When he got home last night, he told all the kids that he was really done. It still doesn't seem real. He walked with the graduates on Mother's Day but still had one more class to take. That really made NO SENSE to the children! Anyway, Yay Yay for us!
Vegetable Mixup
So we have found and bought into a local CSA to get some organic produce, fresh from the farm. Actually, it's not exactly local. The farm is on Powhatan Road in Clayton. How odd is that? My grandparents attended Powhatan FWB church on Powhatan road. You pass by the church and keep trucking and you finally get to the farm. We only bought half a share just to see how it would go. I didn't want to have lots of leftover food wasted, but I think next year we'll buy a whole share. We get a box of produce a week. So far we've gotten...collards, spinach, garden peas, cabbage, squash, zucchini, cucumbers, and basil.
Basically what I do is get the box, find out what we have, look up recipes in my cookbooks or on the internet, and then throw something together. We've had spinach lasagna, cabbage cooked with bacon, squash with nutmeg, and broiled zucchini. Things that I wouldn't have tasted before are now options for me because I spent time cooking them. Everything I've cooked has been pretty good. My children haven't fallen in love with any of it yet besides the spinach lasagna, but they have tried every new recipe. To me, this is a plus. At least they're getting a taste for all different kinds of vegetables. I especially love the fact that I'm getting fresh vegetables from Powhatan Road in Clayton, so close to my grandmother's house where I used to get fresh vegetables from :).
The first week all we got was spinach and collards. I got up early Sunday morning and began freezing the collards and making spinach lasagna. Later on that week we determined that I had actually made collard lasagna and frozen the spinach using "freezing collards" directions. Jimmy kept eating it and said it tasted pretty good. He was surprised that I had gotten it mixed up, but my grandmother never messed with spinach, and when she did collards, I didn't really help because there was no "before-the-kitchen" work to do. When she did corn, I helped silk. When she did peas, I helped shell. No ahead of time stuff was necessary for collards, so she pretty much did it all. Anyway, it gave us something to laugh about!
Basically what I do is get the box, find out what we have, look up recipes in my cookbooks or on the internet, and then throw something together. We've had spinach lasagna, cabbage cooked with bacon, squash with nutmeg, and broiled zucchini. Things that I wouldn't have tasted before are now options for me because I spent time cooking them. Everything I've cooked has been pretty good. My children haven't fallen in love with any of it yet besides the spinach lasagna, but they have tried every new recipe. To me, this is a plus. At least they're getting a taste for all different kinds of vegetables. I especially love the fact that I'm getting fresh vegetables from Powhatan Road in Clayton, so close to my grandmother's house where I used to get fresh vegetables from :).
The first week all we got was spinach and collards. I got up early Sunday morning and began freezing the collards and making spinach lasagna. Later on that week we determined that I had actually made collard lasagna and frozen the spinach using "freezing collards" directions. Jimmy kept eating it and said it tasted pretty good. He was surprised that I had gotten it mixed up, but my grandmother never messed with spinach, and when she did collards, I didn't really help because there was no "before-the-kitchen" work to do. When she did corn, I helped silk. When she did peas, I helped shell. No ahead of time stuff was necessary for collards, so she pretty much did it all. Anyway, it gave us something to laugh about!
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Birdie in May
Birdie as a baby was so laid back. She was a walk in the park kind of baby. Since about 18 months old, she has really come out of her shell. She doesn't hold back, and freely hits and fusses in her own gibberish to get what she wants or to express her disapproval. When she's on the red towel for one minute for time out, she sits there and goes through this sequence...
1) smiles while I'm putting her on the towel and smiles as I tell her why she's in timeout
2) cries when I walk away and sometimes moves off of the red towel while making "I'll show you" eyes - Then I move her back and tell her to stay there in timeout.
3) remembers about her thumb and her belly button and pacifies herself for a few seconds
4) takes out her thumb and begins saying, "Mama, come here!" over and over
Through all of this, I have to remind all the bunch to not look at her and not let her see them laughing. All the rest of us are laughing because she is so funny going through all of this in her one-minute timeout.
Finally, when the timer goes off, I go over to her and remind her not to hit/jerk/swat or whatever and then ask her to say, "I'm sorry." When she says I'm sorry, she says in the sweetest, about-to-cry voice, like she's acting upset when she's really completely over it. Then she gives me a hug, and she initiates putting the red towel back in place and out of sight. That's the funniest part of all! She's ready to get rid of that thing!
She loves to sing and dance, but once when me and all of the kids were singing some songs with her, naturally we wanted to quit singing and hear her sing. I told them that I would sing the song really softly so that they could hear her and they could just listen. She usually does good and sings along for the first few lines. Then, she remembers her thumb and belly button again. She pops her thumb in her mouth and begins forcefully nodding her head up and down as if to say, "Carry on with your singing:)!"
Since having a few red towel timeouts, she has mostly quit hitting (at least me anyway) and resorted to swatting with a cross look on her face. It's like she's still hitting me in her mind, but figured out a way to do it without getting in real trouble. What a character!
Future for Birdie: Who knows?
When it's time for family prayer, she's the one who determines who's not there and begins calling them loudly to tell them to come downstairs to pray. When it's her turn to pray, she just says, "Daddy, daddy, daddy!"
1) smiles while I'm putting her on the towel and smiles as I tell her why she's in timeout
2) cries when I walk away and sometimes moves off of the red towel while making "I'll show you" eyes - Then I move her back and tell her to stay there in timeout.
3) remembers about her thumb and her belly button and pacifies herself for a few seconds
4) takes out her thumb and begins saying, "Mama, come here!" over and over
Through all of this, I have to remind all the bunch to not look at her and not let her see them laughing. All the rest of us are laughing because she is so funny going through all of this in her one-minute timeout.
Finally, when the timer goes off, I go over to her and remind her not to hit/jerk/swat or whatever and then ask her to say, "I'm sorry." When she says I'm sorry, she says in the sweetest, about-to-cry voice, like she's acting upset when she's really completely over it. Then she gives me a hug, and she initiates putting the red towel back in place and out of sight. That's the funniest part of all! She's ready to get rid of that thing!
She loves to sing and dance, but once when me and all of the kids were singing some songs with her, naturally we wanted to quit singing and hear her sing. I told them that I would sing the song really softly so that they could hear her and they could just listen. She usually does good and sings along for the first few lines. Then, she remembers her thumb and belly button again. She pops her thumb in her mouth and begins forcefully nodding her head up and down as if to say, "Carry on with your singing:)!"
Since having a few red towel timeouts, she has mostly quit hitting (at least me anyway) and resorted to swatting with a cross look on her face. It's like she's still hitting me in her mind, but figured out a way to do it without getting in real trouble. What a character!
Future for Birdie: Who knows?
When it's time for family prayer, she's the one who determines who's not there and begins calling them loudly to tell them to come downstairs to pray. When it's her turn to pray, she just says, "Daddy, daddy, daddy!"
Bug in May
Bug has just recently gotten into picking out her own clothes. She always wants to wear out of season attire, such as sweatpants and sweatshirt in mid-May. She gets very upset when I tell her we can't do this because she'll "burn slam up". She always says that she doesn't mind being hot. Sometimes when we're on a stay-home day, as she calls it, I say yes to whatever she picks out, and then sometimes she'll say, "You're right, Mama. I'm too hot in long pants now!". When she can't wear long pants and a long-sleeved shirt, she wants to choose two short-sleeved t-shirts to wear, one on top of the other.
She was such an easy baby and toddler that I don't have any great big memory about her back then. Potty training and getting from the crib into a big-girl bed seemed to be overnight achievements for her. I try to snuggle her up and carry her as much as I can because I think she still really wants to be my baby. If Birdie sees Bug in my lap, she puts up a fight to get my lap. Bug is very patient with Birdie, always trying to say the nicest way what she ought to do or ought not to do.
So many times I've told her...
me: Bug, it happened again last night!
Bug: What happened?
me: You got even prettier and sweeter than you were yesterday!
Bug: (big smile and hug)
Also, she's starting grunting when she's really hugging me. She'll give a really tight squeeze and then make a big grunt noise. I tell her that's how I know she really loves me.
Last night she told me her own paraphrase of our recurrent conversation:
Bug: Guess what? (her two favorite words to say together - oh, she also likes to say "Look Mama!")
me: What?
Bug: Yesterday I was pretty and today I'm pretty too! (another big grin)
me: (big hug and a grunt)
Bug's future plans: Live in a house with Lou Lou in our neighborhood. She's not planning on getting married, but said she would have a boyfriend at 16 and eventually be a mommy when she grew up:).
Nighttime, the time when I'm programmed to think that everything should be calm and sweet and loving, is difficult for me. My unwinding time (time to sit down for usually the first time of the day) is after everyone is in their beds. Needless to say, my patience is not always long enough with uncooperative children. Typically, I can keep my cool, but if you know me, you can hear it in my voice that my patience is growing thin. The other night, as I answered Bug's question about her blanket for the third or fourth time, she responded by saying, "Mommy, you lose-ded your patience. Your patience is not in here with us." What made me feel good about this is that she was smiling as she said it, like it didn't really impact her and like she understood that I'm human and I don't have to be the perfect Mom for her each and every night.
Tonight, as Bear chose to play in his room rather than do as I had asked repeatedly, I said to him, "You can tell by my voice that my patience is running out. Please follow my directions." Bug piped in very matter-of-factly and said, "When will your patience be back?":)
She was such an easy baby and toddler that I don't have any great big memory about her back then. Potty training and getting from the crib into a big-girl bed seemed to be overnight achievements for her. I try to snuggle her up and carry her as much as I can because I think she still really wants to be my baby. If Birdie sees Bug in my lap, she puts up a fight to get my lap. Bug is very patient with Birdie, always trying to say the nicest way what she ought to do or ought not to do.
So many times I've told her...
me: Bug, it happened again last night!
Bug: What happened?
me: You got even prettier and sweeter than you were yesterday!
Bug: (big smile and hug)
Also, she's starting grunting when she's really hugging me. She'll give a really tight squeeze and then make a big grunt noise. I tell her that's how I know she really loves me.
Last night she told me her own paraphrase of our recurrent conversation:
Bug: Guess what? (her two favorite words to say together - oh, she also likes to say "Look Mama!")
me: What?
Bug: Yesterday I was pretty and today I'm pretty too! (another big grin)
me: (big hug and a grunt)
Bug's future plans: Live in a house with Lou Lou in our neighborhood. She's not planning on getting married, but said she would have a boyfriend at 16 and eventually be a mommy when she grew up:).
Nighttime, the time when I'm programmed to think that everything should be calm and sweet and loving, is difficult for me. My unwinding time (time to sit down for usually the first time of the day) is after everyone is in their beds. Needless to say, my patience is not always long enough with uncooperative children. Typically, I can keep my cool, but if you know me, you can hear it in my voice that my patience is growing thin. The other night, as I answered Bug's question about her blanket for the third or fourth time, she responded by saying, "Mommy, you lose-ded your patience. Your patience is not in here with us." What made me feel good about this is that she was smiling as she said it, like it didn't really impact her and like she understood that I'm human and I don't have to be the perfect Mom for her each and every night.
Tonight, as Bear chose to play in his room rather than do as I had asked repeatedly, I said to him, "You can tell by my voice that my patience is running out. Please follow my directions." Bug piped in very matter-of-factly and said, "When will your patience be back?":)
Lou Lou in May
Lou Lou has fallen so in love with dance, and she is sad that she won't be able to take lessons through the summer. I wasn't able to go to Bear's scouting event because I was at Lou Lou's ballet recital. She takes dance at Artistic Dance Academy and the recital was jaw-dropping. Not just Lou Lou's performance, but all the performances looked so professional and so breathtaking. I was so totally loving it that nearly every song was a contemporary Christian song. It was so amazing! Lou Lou did great in her dance. Her song was from The Prince of Egypt movie, "I Give to You His Heart." The whole song was from the point of view of Moses's mother as she decided to put him into the river in a basket to avoid his murder by Pharaoh's soldiers. I cried through the whole thing, thinking about Moses's mother and thinking about how we all should realize that in order to keep our children, we must be willing to realize that they are ours for only a short time, but they belong to God and are in His Hands forever. Entrusting them in God's care, just like Moses's mother did. In order to save her baby's life, she had to entrust him back to God. (When my sister YaYa reads this, she'll say, "Camille, you think too much!"):)
Lou Lou is artist supreme in her class. After her 1st grade teacher displays all the students' artwork (with their names written on the back), her third grade daughter is able to pick Lou Lou's work from the rest. She seems to have a natural gift for it. She doesn't even act like she loves art that much, but it just comes easily for her.
Her piano recital is coming up next Sunday. A few months ago, I decided to cut my help out cold turkey. Every time I was in there with her at the piano, she would become so easily and instantly frustrated if I told her one minor correction. I decided to act as if I knew nothing about music, and no matter how she played or what she played, I always said, from the kitchen, "That sounds good!". She didn't want me to leave her in there alone initially, and cried and fussed about how this didn't make sense. Now, she likes practicing by herself, and her confidence and independence have greatly improved.
What's in the future for Lou Lou? She wants to be a nurse or a dancer or a librarian. She wants to buy her own house and live happily unmarried with her sister Bug in a house in our neighborhood:).
A few weeks ago, Lou Lou and her cousin Necie were talking and laughing and talking and laughing. Lou Lou was about to take a bite or sip of something that Necie had already partaken of. Quickly, sounding alarmed, Necie said, "No, remember the swine flu!". Lou Lou said, "Well, they said on the news not to get all worried about it!".
Lou Lou is artist supreme in her class. After her 1st grade teacher displays all the students' artwork (with their names written on the back), her third grade daughter is able to pick Lou Lou's work from the rest. She seems to have a natural gift for it. She doesn't even act like she loves art that much, but it just comes easily for her.
Her piano recital is coming up next Sunday. A few months ago, I decided to cut my help out cold turkey. Every time I was in there with her at the piano, she would become so easily and instantly frustrated if I told her one minor correction. I decided to act as if I knew nothing about music, and no matter how she played or what she played, I always said, from the kitchen, "That sounds good!". She didn't want me to leave her in there alone initially, and cried and fussed about how this didn't make sense. Now, she likes practicing by herself, and her confidence and independence have greatly improved.
What's in the future for Lou Lou? She wants to be a nurse or a dancer or a librarian. She wants to buy her own house and live happily unmarried with her sister Bug in a house in our neighborhood:).
A few weeks ago, Lou Lou and her cousin Necie were talking and laughing and talking and laughing. Lou Lou was about to take a bite or sip of something that Necie had already partaken of. Quickly, sounding alarmed, Necie said, "No, remember the swine flu!". Lou Lou said, "Well, they said on the news not to get all worried about it!".
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