Why Quiet Is Bad

Yet sometimes, we're so tired that we notice the quiet and ignore it hoping for the best.

Our First Act of Thievery

But a quick side-note this morning. Alida. When I put on my new, tan wool pants this morning with the smart heels and wool sweater (read dry clean only, which generally means I don't purchase them but this was such a good sale), I had it in my head to be careful not to make any messes today. When I was walking to the car with you in my arms before I put on my coat and my heel stuck in the cuff of these wonderful new pants sending me dancing across the driveway, you rolled with it girl. When I somehow managed to dance my way across the driveway, fly into the air and perform a mid-air barrel roll to save you from being hurt when we landed in that snow in the yard that I managed to fling myself and you in to, you laughed. Then your dad laughed and took delight in telling everyone he could find at daycare to be careful because it was slippery today. That was our morning. Let's hope our days go better.

Now. Nicholas.

This is the carryout container from dinner the other night. It had used ketchup smeared all over the inside when you stole it from the table and started stashing toys in it. This son does not keep your toys safe; it keeps your toys nasty.

And. When we all six went to the grocery store the other day, you insisted on having some tomatoes, which we certainly aren't going to discourage. Well, actually we are going to discourage it now. Because at check out when you started handing out all of the items from the cart, we didn't really imagine that you had stashed back the tomatoes. And later in the car, we found you holding those tomatoes, and right or wrong we determined that we support Schnucks enough that we weren't morally obliged to go back (but don't think that when you are capable of understanding the lesson, we won't march right back in that store and apologize and pay out of our allowance. But right now, you get a pass for stealing tomatoes.) So. We promptly forgot about those tomatoes until a couple of days later when I remembered them while at work and tried to remind myself to dig them out of the back of the car later. But I forgot. And then a day or so later when your dad was looking through your stashes for something you were screaming for, he ran across your tomatoes. Again son. This is not keeping your toys safe; it is keeping them nasty.

The Scene This Morning

The Conversation:

"It's Christmas?"

"No. It snowed."

"Santa Claus is coming?"

"No. It just snowed."

"No. It's Christmas. Santa is coming."

And so came the ice storm of 2009 that really wasn't, but they did manage to close down the city schools after the buses had picked up and took off with some of the kids. County schools weren't much sooner than that. Daycare however, as open as it could be.

The Friday Outing: Well Visits for Everyone

The one, singular moment of calm during our let's-go-ahead-and-take-four-kids-to-the-doctor-at-once afternoon.

After that Nicholas slammed his finger in the door and screamed. Alida just screamed. Elaine played in the trash. Everyone needed suddenly and with great urgency to wash their hands. And Benjamin suddenly needed to go potty five different times. Five times because each time he got there he had a bout of performance anxiety and refused to actually go potty.

Thank you Dr. Snapp for agreeing to do this. We will never, ever do it again. The nurse came in and started handing out stickers about 10 minutes into our appointment in an effort to shut everyone up because I'm sure we were scaring every poor child in the city with our fits.

She smiled the entire time as we discussed eczema, spotty skin, weird forehead marks, whether or not we were all drinking 32 ounces of milk a day. 32 ounces?!

The stats

Benjamin

31 pounds

37 1/2 inches

Nicholas

28 pounds

37 inches

Alida

22 pounds 7 ounces

31 inches

Elaine

22 pounds

32 inches

Meltdown

Can you see how red his neck is?

His face is redder.

Perhaps son, you should not stick your head through an entire set of hopscotch tiles.

Just a suggestion.

What Are You Doing?

Whatever the size he has to fill it to capacity with what he considers his toys. These back packs were on a $2.50 clearance the other day, and I couldn't resist giving him the challenge of walking around with that thing full of toys.

Here he got the shopping cart so full of toys that he had to use the girls' popper to hold up the basket to keep it from crashing to the floor. An invention he came up with himself.

Another back pack. A favorite stashing place. Other stashing places: the drawers in his room, which everyone know to stay out of. The girls will look up at me like they're in trouble if I run across them digging in those drawers. There are play purses--three to be exact--that are stuffed to the gills. The storage container in the bathroom that serves as a stool as well is currently holding his airplane jacket. The airplane jacket pockets are stuffed full of toys. And on and on. He ran up on me in my closet last night and found the candy that I had confiscated. After pausing, he looked at me seriously and said, "That goes in my pack pack." No, he doesn't really want to eat it, just hoard it. If he is looking for a toy, we start going through all of the different bags in the house until he remembers which one holds the treasure.

The question: What are you doing Nicholas?

"Keeping it safe mommy."

Of course.

Strangely, I understand. I do the same with my things.

In Order of Success

Good Job Elaine! What a sweet picture.

Oh Nicholas. You are such a good sport.

Alida. Alida. Alida. Alida.

No Ben, I didn't really expect you to participate.

The Saturday Outing: Furniture Shopping

Ashley Furniture, you are brilliant.

We stayed here the longest on our search.

And the children did not mind furniture shopping a bit.

I surprised this thing wasn't full of children out "shopping" with their families.

But I guess when they get to know us by name even though we've never bought anything there, they may ask us to stop coming to play on Saturday mornings.

But frankly, whoever was in charge of decorating was making my head hurt with all of the stuff they hung on every single last piece of furniture so that you couldn't even really see the furniture.

We did consider buying this. But we decided to check out a few more stores before making a decision. And we did wind up choosing something a bit different.

We did decide that bunk beds were not a good idea no matter how cute when Patric had to dive behind a display to save Alida as she hung from the top by her finger tips. But the balloons hanging up there? We liked those.

For Jacque

Brothers.

Yes. This was the best one.

Little guy managed a smile.

Dance Ben Dance!

Well, if you see some food on the floor you should stop and pick that up and eat it. Then dance on Ben. Dance on.

Thanks for the videos grandma and grandpa. I now wake with the Larry Boy song in my head. If you watch this enough times, you will too.

And yes. If one child is entertaining us, we do ignore all wants from any other child. Sorry Nicholas, but you should have just danced.

Randomness: The Alida Version

On Christmas day, you could have played with these as well as anything else in the house the entire day.

When you are aware that I want to take a picture you currently stop. close your eyes. wait for the flash. then you open your eyes and smile.

At the boys' Christmas program, you made it through Jingle Bells, then your dad had to take you out to play in the lobby.

Your scab has come off and you have a bit of a mark left on your nose. The first of many I suppose.

You're increasingly independent. At home you want someone to cart you around everywhere. Once you are in public you don't want to be held and you pitch a fit when we try to hold your hand. It makes public outings a bit hard without the stroller, which you are really getting too big for.

Your smile is huge.

You are the first one to the bath every night--you love it.

You love it there too.

Daintiness doesn't appear to be one of your natural qualities at the moment.

But you are a good sport and let your dad put pull-ups on your head and you go on about playing peek-a-boo from behind the curtains with us. And really, what more could we ask for?

We Lingered There

After lingering in the driveway last night, we decided to all go in the backyard for some fresh air. Seriously, we unloaded the car and everyone kind of just stood there. Alida would wave and say "bye" and then just kind of stand there. I just kind of stood there and stared at her. The boys and Elaine stood and looked at the minivan engine for an excuse to stay outside. The weather wasn't that great, but it was like we knew it really wasn't going to be great today so we took what we could get.

Blast From The Past

Benjamin at 17 months enjoying warm weather and a new hat.

Elaine at 17 months enjoying cold weather and a new hat.

Why again do we ever buy toys?