Tiger Boy? Tiger Boy????

1.
This is a scandalous way to start things out, but I can't help it.  It's just too funny not to share.

On the Fourth of July, I was doing something or other when I realized that my brother-in-law was turning a deep, deep shade of red as he talked to 5 year old Lucy.  So I began to listen in.

"I don't understand what you're saying, bud," Andy said to Lu.
"Basically," answered Lucy, using her favorite word, "my Daddy sometimes makes his wife call him Tiger Boy."

Andy could not look at me in the eye. 

Let me back up real quick and mention that Lucy was, in fact, explaining something about the videogame Skyrim (in which the main character looks like a tiger.  Chris went ahead and named his character "Tiger Boy" because Lucy really, really wanted him to.  In Skyrim, Tiger Boy has a wife, and she sometimes calls him by name.)

Andy, of course, had no way of knowing this at the time.  Luckily for me, I've reached the age where I find it unequivocally hilarious.  Unluckily for my barely-out-of-childhood brother-in-law, though, he probably doesn't.

2.
We found out that we are going to be audited by the IRS, our pool sprung a leak and Chris' iphone was submerged in water all on the same day.  Why is it these things always happen in threes?  At least, I really hope it's in threes because we're about as tapped out as we can get.  (And if you are wondering why Chris' cellphone is in the "disaster" category, it's because everything Chris needs to run his business is on there.  Why do we never back these things up?  Because we are lazy and stupid.  How did it end up fried? Chris left it in his swimsuit pocket and then jumped into the -not yet leaking- pool.)

3.
What the (bleep) am I supposed to do with a housefull of kids in 95+ degree weather when we can't swim?  (I know, I know, this is totally a first world problem.)  We went to the park yesterday, and after pouring out buckets of sweat we left after about an hour, leaving me with eight long hours to fill until dinnertime.  I hadn't realized how dependent I've become on the pool for entertainment.

4.
Chris and the girls have been watching a lot of pawn and antique-themed shows lately.  Claire found a penny from Nambia in the couch cushions the other day (yeah, I have no idea where it came from, either) and Beth decided that she absolutely had to have it.  Negotiations ensued, and Beth ended up paying Claire $7 for it.  I had no idea that this was going down, until Beth (proudly!) told me about it at bedtime.  What blows my mind is that I really don't think Claire (who is a year and a half younger than Beth, remember) meant to scam Beth out of money.  I think Beth was so excited to have something to barter over that she jumped at the chance and forgot to actually...you know, make it fair.  Claire is not complaining, though!

5.
Related to #4:  I've realized that the girls really have their own world going on, a world that intersects with and is irrevocably joined to my own, but completely independent.  There are times (and it is happening more and more) when I hear the back-and-forth between them and have no idea what they are talking about.  I remember feeling that way as a child, as though my life was covered in fairy dust that the adult world could not see.  I love seeing it in my kids, and I love the bonds that are growing up between them.  I am, also, kind of proud of the fact that I don't feel any jealousy about this.  Actually, maybe "proud" is not the word so much as "grateful."  For so long, I have been the center and summit of everything the girls do, and to suddenly find myself at times outside of their goings-on is somewhat disconcerting, but so far it has not been painful.  I can't chalk that up to anything but pure grace.

6.
I still don't have a camera, but here are some pictures I stole from my aunt:

7.
I had such a great time visiting with family in Pittsburgh last month!  It reconnects something in my soul to sit around and listen to that unmistakeable burst of crazy-loud laughter when my family finds something funny (and if they find it funny, you always know it really is.)  There is nothing like a party in Pittsburgh.  Nothing.  I love all of you so much!!!

Thanks to Conversion Diary for hosting 7 Quick Takes! 

Love Songs for Weirdos

Ruth has been screaming since 6:00 this morning.  Couldn't tell you why, teeth maybe.  She can be an extremely moody baby, and I'm about at my wits end.  So, when I saw one of my favorite blogs running a Love Song Link Up, I thought: Sure!  Why not spend some time thinking about the songs that have inspired the love that created this little monster who is (no joke) at this moment biting my leg.

1- Slow Show by The National

I realize that The National is not an obvious choice for my #1 love song, but I love the way they manage to convey the anguish of being in love while still somehow making it seem worthwhile.

This song has particular meaning to me because Chris always tells me that the part "You know I've dreamed about you....for 29 years..." always makes him think of me.  Lucky us, though, since we only had to dream for 19 years. 

2- Lover of the Light by Mumford and Sons

Love this song.  I just love it!  Can't wait for it to be officially released.

3- Shake it Out by Florence and The Machine

This is another less-than-obvious choice, but it couldn't be more relevant for me.  Every time I manage to shake off my own dead horses, this kind of elation is always what follows.  Unfortunately, I also like to "keep my issues strong" so the hope in this song is so, so good for me.

4- Wagon Wheel by Old Crow Medicine Show

This one is pretty self-explanatory.  I love the longing in this, plus going to our first OCMS concert marked the, "hey, we love music and need it in our lives" phase of family life for us.  For some reason, this was a fundamental element we forgot in those first few years of marriage.


5- Ode to Joy by Beethoven 

 This is really what love feels like to me.  I mean, I like the swaying, gushy feeling that comes, too, but it's the almost-too-much-intensity of joy that really gets to me.  I can't believe I am so lucky as to feel this way about another human being.

And now, since I can only ignore this teething baby for so long, I'm done.  I kind of deliberately did not put down the songs that are really, truly "our songs" because......you know:
Twere profination of our joys
To tell the laity our love

But these are all songs I think illustrate some of the aspects of love I find beautiful and inspiring.  I hope it makes some kind of sense to someone other than me! 

And check out the Love Song Link Up to see what other people are listening to!

Facebook is killing my blog

So, I basically stopped updating this when I joined Facebook (ostensibly to keep an eye on Katie, but the truth is I probably now spend more time on there than she does.)  After my initial FB enthusiasm, though, I also stopped putting updates on there. 

So, sorry.  I'm still not sure how to handle my kids getting older and reading over my shoulder constantly.  Plus, getting older seems to mean that we are much busier, a phenomena the other mothers of pre-teens wisely kept from me when I thought I couldn't be busier with all the diaper-changing and Little People playing I was doing.

Here's a quick story about Ruth before I go back to brooding over what I should post and then not posting it.

Ruth is very attached to the blankets I used to swaddle her as an infant.  We have three of them and they are a light, airy, soft fabric that she just loves.  She always needs one when she goes to sleep, and she will often carry one around with her for big chunks of the day.

So, last Sunday we were all in mass when Ruth began to squawk.  Loudly.  I tried to assess the situation, wondering if she was hurt, and Claire leaned in and whispered to me, "I think she wants my skirt."  Ruth was increasingly getting frantic, though, so I ended up just grabbing her and heading to the back.

I didn't put any stock in Claire's idea.  Ruth is still in the, ahem, learning phase of mass attendance so needing to haul her out of the church is pretty standard.

Once she calmed down, I tried to bring her back to our pew but she immediately started to yell again.  I noticed, as I frantically swooped her up and left, that was in fact pulling on Claire's skirt.  I couldn't figure out what her problem was.

Fast forward to the moment after communion, when I tried once again to rejoin the rest of the family.  Immediately, when I set Ruth down, she began to pull on Claire's skirt and yell, "My blanket!!!"

It was then that I really looked at Claire's skirt for the first time.  It was a pretty, delicate swirly sort of skirt, layers and layers of a thin white material.............a material that looks exactly like Ruth's swaddling blankets.

I grabbed Ruth and set her on the other side of me, as I finally processed what was happening.  Ruth thought that Claire was wearing her blankets like a skirt, and like the wicked stepsisters in Cinderella, Ruth was determined to get back what was hers, even if it left Claire in tattered rags. 

And I started to giggle.  The idea that Ruth thought it was plausible for Claire to take her nasty, milk-sodden security blanket and wrap it around herself for an afternoon on the town was just too much for me.  I could not stop laughing.  Ruth, toddler-like, became distracted by something and finally settled down, and the one causing a disturbance was now me as I tried to bite back giggles and ended up just snorting and gasping for breath.

So:  I looked pretty bad.  Claire managed to keep her skirt intact, though, so here's hoping we will manage to curtail Ruth the next time she wears it.

Still working on it...

I put up a post yesterday about Lucy's misunderstanding of the common phrase She who smelled it, dealt it, but what I didn't put up was the long, drawn-out conversation we had wherein I tried to explain her mistake.

Somewhere along the way, it occurred to me that Lucy was forming the impression that any talk about smell whatsoever really just means that somebody passed gas and is trying to hide it.  So I started to backtrack, and then found myself getting tripped up, and by the end of our 15 minute long exegesis of She who Smelled it, Dealt It I knew that Lucy still had no idea what the phrase really means.

So today I was sitting at the computer when Lucy came up to me wearing a shimmery costume.  She ran her hands over the silky material and then asked me if I knew why she was doing so.

"Does the fabric feel nice on your hands?" I asked.
"No, Mom," she said, exasperated.  "I'm feeling my dress."
 I still couldn't tell what she was getting at.
"Mom," she said, slowly and very patiently, "I'm doing this because she who felt it, dealt it."

I give up.  I just give up.

Straight from the source

I went down to the basement to check on Lucy after putting Ruth down for her nap, and as I got to the bottom of the steps it became pretty clear that the air there had recently been polluted.

"Can you smell that stinky?" Lucy asked me.  I nodded.
"Do you know who did it?" she asked.
"Well, Lucy," I said, "You're the only one down here."
She shrugged her shoulders, as though that was not the answer she was looking for.
"Also I knew it must be me," she said, "because...you know, 'She who felt it, dealt it.' "

Update on Ruth....

She did manage to eat one actual food item today: a piece of pumpernickel bagel. 

Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure she was only willing to put it in her mouth because it was a similar color to chocolate....

Hunger Games

Ruth is refusing to eat.

It began on Sunday, when I (as I always do, because I believe fully in the feasting aspect of Easter!) let the girls eat candy out of their baskets before breakfast.

Ruth is kind of a choco-holic.  I mean, she really really loves chocolate.  When I make chocolate-chip pumpkin muffins, she very carefully mines out all of the chocolate chips and eats them, then throws the rest of the muffin on the floor.  I switched to those tiny little mini-chocolate chips in an effort to thwart her, but she has her pincher grip down pretty good and just takes the extra time to excavate those teeny little nuggets of chocolate.

So now that she knows there is chocolate in the house, she is refusing to eat anything else.  On Easter, she refused the delicious ham, homemade bread rolls, marshmallow fruit salad and candied carrots that her Grandma had so lovingly set out.  At home she has refused oatmeal (with chocolate chips, no less, because I'm getting desperate!), bananas, grapes, cheese, peanut butter sandwiches:  all of her favorite foods are being laid  before her, and she is stubbornly resisting it all. 

If any of the girls foolishly leave a basket laying around we can be sure to find Ruth, with a stealthy silence that would amaze an elf, carefully picking out and unwrapping chocolate eggs. 

If I had more time, or was a better writer (or maybe a better mother) I would find some way to connect this to the tendency we all struggle against, to pass over the joys laid before us in our anxiety to reach for some other good that exists only in imagination.  Or something like that. 

Instead, I am going to use the remainder of bath-time (the one time of day, aside from glorious nap-time, when I can do stuff around the house unhindered) to hunt down and hide every last trace of chocolate.  And I am going to hope that eventually Ruth's need for real food will overpower her disordered desire for chocolate, and she will again be in a position to appreciate the feast set before her. 

I believe the technical term for recognizing the value of what is in front of you is virtue. 

Feasting is awesome, but you ruin it when what you're pining for is not what you've been given but the one you've set your heart on.  Or something like that.

Seven Quick Things that Have Been on my Mind

No pictures, because I broke my camera.  (Yes, again.  What?  It's perfectly normal for someone shuttling six kids around all day to have trouble keeping her grip on her camera.  It is! Have you been talking to my husband or something? )

1- I may have inadvertently solved the issue of the girls obsessing over this blog, because it has now been so long since I've updated that they have stopped checking for new posts.  I am thinking that I may forbid them from reading it, for the near future.  My plan has always been to let them read it when they are older (and removed from whatever situation is at hand,) so I may just stick to that and make them wait until the time is right.

2- We were blessed with something of a miracle a few weeks ago.  It has been 18 months since the birth of Ruth and the inability for the Dusty Camel (our beloved and filthy minivan) to fit our entire family.  This has made long trips very tricky and has in general been a huge nuisance.  The problem was - big old vans are kind of expensive, especially since we recently had to replace Chris' old car.....Well, heaven smiled down on us in the form of two families from our parish - one who noticed a 15 passenger van for sale and contacted us, the other who then sold it to us in ridiculously good condition for a ridiculously low price.  To illustrate what a big deal this van is to us and how excited the girls are about it:  Beth recently asked me if, in lieu of a birthday party at our house, I could pick up all of her friends with the new van and just drive them around.

3- Lucy has been insisting that we should refer to the new van as "The BUS."  It is imperative that you say it exactly as written - with major emphasis on "BUS."  I'm inclined to go along with this.

4- Now that it is Spring, the reality that Lucy will be starting Kindergarten in the Fall has really hit me.  I'm going to miss her a ton.  She is a hilarious companion these days, with her confidence and her straightforward pronouncements on life.  At the park the other day a little boy took a shine to Lu and began shadowing her every move.  She was intent on "ballerina training," which mostly means she swans around, doing twirls and fancy leaps off of the equipment.  Finally, in exasperation with the boy she turned to him and said, as gently as she could, "Look.  You need to find your own life."

5- Ruth, these days, is a quirky ball of trouble.  Her favorite activity is to run away from me : in stores, at the playground, dropping Lucy off at preschool...The moment she gets her chance, I will hear her giggles as she starts to run away as fast as she can.  Obviously, this is about as dangerous a pastime as a baby can have, especially when said baby has no fear whatsoever of passing cars.  I am glad for two things:  one, that Lucy is reliable enough to stand still whenever I have to rush off in a panic after Ruth, and two, that I am past the point of caring if people stare at me while Ruth, confined, screams bloody murder.  And believe me, she has the power to shriek like nothing I've ever encountered before.  It nice to be so liberated, mentally.  It's one of the great perks, I think, of being in your 30s.  (Maybe, as well, it is related to the 12+ years I've already spent hauling screaming kids out of stores.  So this one is louder.  Blah.  Who cares.)

6- Beth and Claire both recently had artwork selected to be displayed in a local art exhibit.  We were so proud of them!!!  I really enjoyed it, and there was a surprisingly large number of really great art (all from elementary through high school.)  Beth had her picture taken by a newspaper cameraman, so we are on the lookout to see if she makes it in!

7- I recently had my first comment from a stranger on the streak of grey hair I've got going on in front.  Should I be glad about this, or upset?  I hate the comments I get (especially from Katie's teachers etc.) on my age, as though I'm too young to take seriously....On the other hand, as the mother of an 18 month old I'm not exactly hoping to be taken as a grandmother quite yet.  I kind of like my streak of grey, I kind of like the fact that I am (I think) starting to look more like an adult and less like an overgrown baby.  I kind of did not like having a stranger comment on it, though!

Bonus #8 - We are doing a Walk for Wishes for the Make A Wish Foundation in two weeks.  This organization is so wonderful, and had such a profound effect on us after Abbie's ordeal that I can't even begin to do it justice.  I don't even like Disney, and yet our trip to Disney World was magical, carefree (which, when you are dealing with cancer or any serious illness in a kid cannot be overestimated) and, believe it or not, healing.   Not just for Abbie, but for our entire family.  And we were not - by far! - the worst-off family we encountered.  So many families are dealing with heavy, heavy burdens that consume every day and will never go away.  I don't know that there is anything they need more, really, than a chance to experience a little relief.  If you have any spare change, why don't you throw it their way?  Here's the link to our "Team Abbie" Make-A-Wish page.  I'm not much of a fundraiser, but these people are taking heartbreaking situations and infusing them with a little bit of joy.

Bonus#9 - Just for fun, here's a video the girls made my Mom for her birthday:

FYI, Jen over at Conversion Diary is where 7 Quick Takes comes from.  Her blog is hilarious and profound, and her posts about being an introvert have made me realize - hey!  I am also "An Introvert," not just a socially awkward semi-hermit who sometimes hides in the bathroom because I so desperately need to be alone.

If you ask "What time is it?" in this house, this is the inevitable answer:

Despite my last post full of uncertainty and angst....

....one of my kids just said something that has me laughing too much to keep to myself.

So a dirty little secret of mine is this:  I can't remember anybody's actual first word.  There are certain words that each of my kids, as babies, uttered that have stuck in my mind (like Katie saying, "What's that?" but pronouncing it "Whaaaatsssssuuuuuupp?" right when it was a catchphrase due to those commercials.)  So when my kids ask me what their first word was, I just make something up.

Well, this was the topic of conversation yesterday during breakfast.  I told Claire that her first word was "Dup" (meaning "cup" - something she demanded constantly.)  I told Beth that her first word was "jump!" which I actually think might be true.  When Lucy asked me what her first word was, though, I paused for a moment to think something up and instead of waiting she declared that she could remember herself.

"Really?" I said.
"Oh, yes," she said.
"So what was it?" I asked.
She looked at me with her blunt, frank little face and confidently announced what her first word was.
"Beer!" said Lucy.

On my lack of posting

I've basically used this blog as my memory book for the past few years, which has worked out well since I gave up keeping up individual books, oh, somewhere around Katie's 1st birthday.

I'm running into a problem now, though.  The girls, as they get older, love to pour over past posts, laughing at the silly things they used to do.  I'm glad they like it, but it poses a bit of a dilemma for me.  For one, I self-edit very heavily now, maybe too much so.  I find that I often start a post only to abandon it after editing out all the best parts.

Another issue can be summed up with the exchange I had this morning with Lucy.  She asked me for an orange, but when I began to peel it she flipped out.  She wanted to cut it with scissors and suck the juice out instead.  This comes from a video I posted about a year ago, when she had done that very thing.  The problem is, at the time it was funny and silly and just a one-off.  But because I put the video on the internet, suddenly Lucy views it as the thing to do. As a parent, I believe that part of my job is to not take the mistakes of my children too seriously- sometimes I really just need to keep a sense of humor and laugh it off.  But my children shouldn't view their mistakes that way - it is one thing for me to laugh at Lucy playing with scissors, it's another entirely for Lucy to think that it was such a funny thing to do that she should do it again!

So, I don't know what my game plan is going to be.  I may keep the blog up and running, and just tell the girls that it is off limits until they are a little bit older.  Or I may try to find the balance between kid-appropriate and boring.  Or I may do some other, third thing that I haven't thought of yet.  I don't know.  I'll let everyone know when I figure it out!