Happy Easter!

Lucy

loves bananas.

Seriously. She loves them.

All About Bejabbers

Abbers Bejabbers, that is.

Before going into Pittsburgh, Abbie had her bi-monthly (or so) MRI. They knew that we were leaving town, so the oncologists graciously took the extra time to look over the scans while Chris and Abbie were still there, so that we wouldn't have to spend the weekend worrying about the results. No tumor growth! More of that "unremarkable" wonderfulness. :)

We were worried that her hand strength had declined veeeeeeeeery slightly, so the wait for this scan was more nerve-racking than usual, but it's looking like the apparent weakening is mostly due to Abbie being a lazy 3 year old who sometimes just doesn't want to pull up her own underwear. She was a champ at the hospital, though. As always. It's like she read all those articles about the stereotypical brave/plucky/saintly cancer kids and decided to make that her MO. She follows instructions exactly, never complains (even when it involves needles), and keeps smiling and laughing throughout. She even, when offered a stuffed animal, politely declined, telling the nurse that she has enough toys right now, thank you. (Granted, Abbie had a point. I could literally fill a walk-in closet with all the stuffed animals and various other toys this kid has been showered with at hospitals. People see that little cloud of golden hair and are immediately compelled to lay offerings of teddy bears and baby bunnies at her feet.)

I'm proud of this kid. And, too, I am so grateful for this time we have with her. She just gets sweeter, and funnier - so much funnier! - with every day. She is just the quirkiest little thing, and I am often awed by the privilege I've been given to be her mother.

I recently bought some pomegranate-scented hand soap for my bathroom, and for some reason Abbie is just in love with it. She generally uses the hall bathroom, but several times a day I will see in my peripheral vision a streak of naked toddler coming out of the bathroom, and hear a distinctive little hee hee hee giggle. It's just Abbie, "sneaking" into my room to get a shot of the smelly-soap. Once her hands have been washed (and her pants put back on, without help if she is feeling like a big girl, with help if she's in a hurry) she'll invariable make me smell the faint traces of pomegranate, and smile up at me, waiting to hear how beautiful she smells. And I tell her that she smells beautiful. I say it every time. And I thank God for this miracle, that my little girl is here, and healthy, and obsessed with smelly soap.

Happy St Patty's Day!

Last weekend we went to one of my favorite events in the world: the Pittsburgh St. Patrick's Day Parade! There are certainly fancier parades to be had, but in my mind you just can't beat a day spent watching dozens of mediocre high school marching bands, random groups of who-knows-who marching for who-knows-why, some of them wearing medieval garb, some of them wearing comfy sweats, some of them wearing chicken costumes.

I freaking loved it.

It was the day before my mom's 60th birthday (Happy Bday, Mom!) and thanks to Uncle Mike and his family, and Rach, we managed to surprise her on the way to the parade. The day began in the premium spots secured by Bobby and Margaret, drinking coffee spiked with Bailey's, and ended with a party at Uncle Mike's, drinking coffee spiked with Bailey's. Perfect.

I'm editing heavily here, partly because it's not possible to describe the awesomeness that is the Pgh St. Patty's Day Parade, partly because it's not possible to describe how happy and amused and heartsick I felt to spend an entire day with my family, something I haven't done in a long while. You guys will never totally know how much I love all of you, and how much the craziness that is the Chesters is a fundamental part of me. I might not join in on the most outlandish events (for instance, I kept my pants dry - and, ahem, on- all day) but I love you, too, for the rambunctiousness I've always envied in some (who am I kidding? most) of you. I really didn't need to see those pictures of Uncle Bob without his pants, though.

Anyway, here's a picture that I think sums up what I love best about Pittsburgh, and my family.

Thanks for a great weekend, everyone! And Happy Birthday Mom! I love you.


My favorite Irish cop (and Uncle Ron.)

I'd love to see a trained theologian tackle questions like these on a daily basis

We were listening to Gorecki's Miserere this afternoon, which led into a discussion about Christ's Passion.

"I know why Jesus was killed!" proclaimed Abbie. I asked her why.
"Because Jesus killed that other guy!" she confidently told me.
"Who?" I asked, trying to buy myself some time.
Abbie rolled her eyes at me and squinched up her face in that way that only she can do, "You know, that other guy."

I can't figure out who she means by "that other guy." It's all so very vague and toddler-ish. I think she may mean Lazarus, and I can kind of see why she thinks that, but I can't be sure. In any case, I tried very hard to assure her that Jesus never murdered anybody. Claire tried to help me.

"Jesus was nice!" she told Abbie. "It would not be good if Jesus was mean."
Abbie and I both agreed that it would indeed not be good.
"If Jesus was mean we would be in trouble!" said Claire.
"Yeah!" said Abbie, "Then he would kill that other guy!"


Later on, same day, Abbie suddenly yelled out, "God can hear everything we say! I know why He can - it's because God gots ears. He gots ears. Big ears! That's why He can hear me."

I told Abbie that God can indeed hear everything she says, but that He can also hear what is in her heart and mind.
"God doesn't just hear you like regular people - He can still hear you just fine even if you only talk to him in your mind."
She considered this a minute and then said, "Sure! But God still has ears!"

I am not going to tell her that God is not exactly some big Dumbo in the sky. I'm just going to hope that this one works itself out over time. But I can't help but wonder when we have these kind of discussions how in the world kids can up with such impossibly complex questions and misunderstandings. You can never be sure how well you really understand things like the mystery of the Eucharist until you try to explain it to your 5 year old, and realize how stupid you sound, and just how little you actually know. Kids are an amazing source of humility that way, although they are also an amazing source of insight as well.

Claire said, "It would not be good if Jesus was mean!" And she was totally right, in a crazy-profound way. It's pretty easy to take for granted the idea that God is good. What if He wasn't? What if He was mean? It shocked me how clearly Claire could see this : Jesus has to be good. Nothing - nothing in the whole world - makes sense if He isn't.

a letter to Beth from our neighbor

Dear Elizabeth you are my seckint best friend in the warld that I know. I like to play cats with you and Taylor. I hope you do to I like siting with you. I like you so much. I like working next to you You are nice to me. And I am nice to you. And that is how we get ulong. We both like each athar.

This letter cracks me up! It's not only adorable, it highlights what a sweet and selfless kid Beth is: it never occured to her that it was anything other than an honor to be Sabrina's "seckint best friend."

Katie's School Paper on New Year's Eve or How My Children Are Determined To Make Us Look As Bad As Possible In Public

Compare and contrast your New Year's Eve traditions with those in the story.

(I've put Katie's answer in descending order for maximum impact.)

My New Year's Eve Tradition

3. I stay up late
2. I stay home
1. I drink!


I asked Katie why in the world she wrote, "I drink!" She explained that she gets to drink all the pop she wants, and that it is her favorite part of New Years. She claims that she's never heard of adults referring to imbibing too much alcohol as "drinking." She claims that she figured her teacher would know that she meant, "I drink orange soda," and so she didn't feel the need to elaborate.

The fact is, though, that I drink=I like pop is self evident to nobody but Katie. I can only guess what her teacher must think.

In the car this morning

Abbie, to me: The stench in the air is what makes my breath so stinky!

Yes, she really did say, "stench."

My gift to you (sort of)

I believe that podcasts are one of the greatest gifts God has given to housewives (aside from grace, and children and that kind of stuff.) You can listen to them on headphones (so you can actually listen to them, because your children aren't trying to scream over the radio. They are talking in an excessively loud voice, but nothing unusual, and the younger ones still don't understand that the slight movement of your finger is you turning the volume way up to drown them out. Also, you don't have to worry so much about the content of your podcast. I once forgot myself and listened in the car to an entire interview on NPR with the creator of The Wire. Never again. The questions Claire spent the next three days asking me were way over my pay grade.)

Another benefit to podcasts are that they make cleaning fun! A dirty bathroom all by itself is a horror, but combine an amusing little show on headphones with a DVD of Bear in the Big Blue House for the kids, and you have an hour of actual enjoyment. The fact that it ends with a toilet that doesn't make you gag just seems like a bonus!

Finally, podcasts are (for the most part) free! A little sprinkling of fun, a dab of actual...you know, smart-making stuff, the headphones for privacy and peace.....and it doesn't cost a dime!

My only problem is that I burn through my favorite podcasts at an alarming rate. I was seriously bereaved when Penn Jillette (of Penn and Teller) cancelled his radio show - that was an hour of podcast a day that I could count on being amusing and sometimes even, um, you know....smart-making. I have discovered something that has just blown me away, though, and I feel the need to share. Dr.Peter Kreeft has a podcast!

I have a couple of his books, but I've never actually read them. His name vaguely makes me think of Kraft, and any association with mac and cheese at this point makes me slightly nauseous. I found his article about his daughter's brain tumor very helpful, I think I may have even linked to it from here at the time, but for some reason I never looked into the guy any further.

Well, his talks are a revelation. His podcasts are the recordings of live talks he has given around the country, and he is an excellent speaker. If you are looking for a mental pick-me-up, this is the place to find it. Check it out (you can also find these in itunes by searching for "Kreeft" under "podcasts." Please, you will be so glad you did.

(By the way, this guy is a philosopher. I hesitate to mention it, because I'm sure some people will hear that and think, "Eh." But he's easy to understand - even for a woman who has spent the past 8 years allowing her children to wear mismatched socks. He surfs! He loves CS Lewis and Tolkien! He's a Redsocks fan! Nothing scary here. :)

Insofar as we think about the method, we're not doing it. Insofar as you think about what notes you are playing, you're not playing them. Total self-forgetfulness, total honesty and total love is the most effective apologetic.
Peter Kreeft

Found objects

Discovered laying around the kitchen:

Beth's paper from school
Imagine you are at your best friend's house and he or she won't share a toy with you. Write a letter to try and pursuade him or her to share.

Dear Ehen,
Can I share a toy gun whith you? We could play star wares and pretend to shout bad guys. We could pretend to be in dinisor time and shout dinisores. We could pretend to be in a forest and shout pretend tigers and liones. It could be fun!
Your friend,
Elizabeth

Katie's notes to herself
QS for (her student teacher)
1. Do you have a pet?
2. How old are you?
3. Are you going to become a teacher?
4. Do you have an older sister?
5. Do you have a younger sister?
6. Do you have an older brother?
7. Do you have a younger brother?
8. How many is their in all including you in your family?
9. Do you like teaching?
10. Do you like answering questions?
11. Is their a pacific subject you want to teach?
12. Do you get to grade papers?
13. Do you like telling us what to do?
14. Do you like our class?
15. Do you like reccess?

(These questions, by the way, aren't for a school assignment or anything. Katie just wants to know. She's left plenty of space for more questions should she happen to think up any more. I hope the student teacher is provided with supernatural patience.)

Romance

Happy St. Valentine's Day! We are all sick here, so we kept things pretty low-key. I made chocolate-filled pastries for breakfast (which the kids hated) and a flourless chocolate-hazelnut cake with coffee ice cream for dessert (which the kids hated), and Chris whipped up some perfectly cooked delmonico steaks with a rosemary wine sauce for dinner (which the kids hated), so I would say that V-day around here was a success.

Claire began the day by inventing a song that has stuck in my head all. day. long. The lyrics are (frighteningly) as follows:
The girlfriends! And the boyfriends!
They love each other!
They love each other, and they marry each other!
Oh the girlfriends and the boyfriends!

Later that afternoon, Chris and I took advantage of a quiet moment to exchange cards. Every year we just write little letters to each other for Valentine's Day, so we both read our cards and then met in the middle of the kitchen to give each other a hug. As I went up on my tiptoes to give my husband a little kiss for Valentine's Day a voice suddenly piped out loudly from the bathroom beside us.
"I'm going to make a poopie!" yelled Abbie.
We paused, then smiled and rolled our eyes at each other before I went up on my tiptoes again.
"It's a big one!" immediately came that distinctive little voice, "Wow, it's pretty stinky in here!"

It was very romantic.

On top of everything else, poor little Lucy is very sick. She hasn't been sleeping well, and the poor thing has just been exhausted and frustrated all day. So here's a parting picture of tired little Lucy, asleep in her highchair just before dinner.

Notice, as well, how I've subtly managed to place that gorgeous flower arrangement in every picture? Chris very much so surprised me with that, as we usually really only do the card thing. (The flower delivery guy was impressed as well, I could tell, since he came to the front door: the door we never use because the path that leads to it was long ago reclaimed by the - muddy- earth, and the wooden steps that connect to it are, besides shedding half of the peeled white paint, warped and sagging, preventing the screen door from latching. So this man, in order to present me with this huge bouquet of flowers, had to stand on those rickety steps while I first had to kick all of the coats into the living room to access the door, and then had to un-do the bungee cord that we've tastefully employed to keep the screen door from flying away. I'm guessing that he was thinking the flower-money would have been better employed on other things, perhaps a bungie cord that doesn't clash with the decor. I was just happy with the flowers, though!)

Here you go, Andy!

Chris had his first cooking class, "knife skills" on Monday but he had to miss it. It was really a shame.

He missed the class because he sliced off the top of his finger while chopping herbs.

And actually, the herbs aren't supposed to be chopped at all - lightly pinching the stem and running your fingers down it cause the thyme to simply fall off in perfect little flakes.

So, it was a real shame that he missed that class.

The jury (me) is still out on whether he needs to go see a doctor or not. The top of the finger wasn't technically severed; it is still hanging on by a thread, like Nearly Headless Nick's neck. Part of his nail came off, but it is still attached to the flap of rogue skin hanging off of his finger, and that seems.....uh, not ideal, in my opinion. The attendant at the gas station claims that Chris doesn't need to see no stinkin' doctor, though, so what do I know.

In any case, his brother naturally wants to see the wound. Every single picture I took is fuzzy, for some reason, but it gives you the general idea. Hope you're impressed, Andy. As to everyone else, you might want to avert your eyes.

There is charisma, and then there is scary, sold-your-soul, mesmerizing charisma. You decide.

Beth loves words. She loves learning what big words mean, and integrating them into her vocabulary. She also just loves the way some words sound, and she'll often repeat new words to herself over and over as she is doing chores, just for the pure joy the sound makes.

Yesterday, as she was doing her homework she began to repeat something over and over. "Barack Obama," she said. "Barack Obama. Barackobama. Barackobama."

"Where did you hear that?" I asked her.

"On the news. I think it's the name of some guy. Is he the new president?"

No, I told her, he isn't. At least not yet. Beth lost interest and went back to her homework, until a few minutes later I heard it again. She couldn't help herself.

"Barack Obama," she said as she scribbled the answer to a math question, "Barack Obama. Barackobama."

She likes what she sees

Abbie, to her reflection in the mirror:

You are golden!

I am golden!

I love you, golden girl!

She then blew herself a kiss and wandered away.

There really is such a thing as too much self-esteem.

It's all over, baby

Lucy is officially walking.

She is nine months old.

Heaven help us.

Outside of the Castle of Miracles

Outside of the Castle of Miracles
Originally uploaded by moleshollow

Let's see if I've done this right.

If I have, these pictures should show you where we have been for the past week! Look for a huge old post soon detailing how wonderful the trip was, and in particular how wonderful both the Make a Wish Foundation and Give Kids the World Village are!!!!

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Time for a break

Things have been kind of crazy around here lately, so I think I'm going to take a break from the blog for a while. Check back in a month or two, hopefully I'll be back in form by then.

And I know it needs to be said: No, I am not pregnant. :)

trying to wink

Sometimes I can forget that she is still such a little girl!

On the way to school this morning, Katie and I had the following exchange:

Katie: There is something that I have been keeping secret, but I think I should tell you.
Me: (trying very hard to keep my voice neutral) Okay....
Katie: I don't want my friends to know this.
Me: Well, I can promise to not tell your friends, of course.
Katie: Okay. Well....(in a whisper) I think I can breathe underwater.

The healing power of Rock-n-Roll

Yesterday was a crappy day. I'll spare you the gory details, but it began with a roaring fight about a baby Panda bear at 7am, and slouched to a close with a defective diaper and a shirt, pants and socks (mine) drenched in urine at a public event.

Once the girls were in bed, however, and I dragged myself down the steps to exchange a few words with my husband (responsible for all of this, in a sense, because half of the genes that went into creating these little monsters came from him!) everything turned around.

Why? Because of this:




It is the best video game ever made!!! Anything that can take a tired, ragged housewife who faintly smells like baby pee and turn her into a Rock god is on the side of the Angels, if you ask me. I have no talent when it comes to videogames, and I bring Chris' scores down because I can't move out of the "easy" mode, but.......when the crowd starts singing along to the music I really, truly feel like I am making -- I am invincible.

The view from my room

This is my constant scenery these days: Lucy hanging on to my leg. She is really under the impression that baby-hood is for suckers, and she's determined to claw her way out of it as quickly as possible. She started crawling around 5 months, then quickly began to pull up on things. At 6 months old, she can already cruise all around the house, provided there is something to hold on to. Her favorite pass time is to seek me out, and then prevent me from moving anywhere by pulling up on my leg and then refusing to let go.

All of this precocity, however, comes with a price. Lucy's life is in constant danger, because my brain cannot keep up with her physical acumen. She fell down the steps three weeks ago because I misjudged how quickly she could make it from my side to the basement door. Yesterday, she again fell down the steps because it never, ever occurred to me that she could crawl all the way up them.

I was digging around in Katie and Beth's closet when it happened. The girls had all been playing in the living room, but suddenly - as a herd is want to do - they all moved upstairs. They closed the door to the steps, but I guess Lucy felt left out because when Beth opened the door she discovered the little thing almost at the top of the flight. Lucy was startled by the door, however, and she jerked back and fell all the way to the bottom. I heard the scream (both Lucy's and Beth's - who was almost as upset) and I somehow made it to the bottom to scoop Lucy up. I honestly don't know how I got down the steps - it felt like I just jumped down the entire flight, but something tells me that's just the adrenaline muddying my memory. My heart can't take much more of this, though, and I am pretty sure that Lucy's head really ought not take much more. So, back in the kitchen it is, acting as a human crutch for my baby who so desperately wants to learn how to walk. At least I know she's not in mortal peril when she's hanging onto my leg.

Walkin' in a Winter Wonderland

It is snowing today! Chris got a good crackling fire going around noon, Claire and Abbie and Lucy spent over an hour staring out of the windows just watching the snow falling, and Beth's teacher reprimanded me for not putting her in boots. * Winter has officially arrived!

The girls came up with an awesome game outside: they made complex mazes out of their footprints in the snow, and we spent a good long time trying to find our way out of them. I thought my maze was pretty cool - it took me a good 20 minutes to make it, and it wound all the way around our yard, but the girls told me that it was too easy. I will get my revenge the next time it snows.

*(Come on! Who needs to go through the hassle of boots in order to walk two feet from the door to the car, and another 10 feet on - shovelled!!-cement from the car to the school door. Her feet don't get wet. She hardly even needs a coat, she spends so little time in the actual outdoors.)

Is waterboarding at the Dentist's next?

I'm kind of weird about my eyes. I recognize this. I freely admit that a fear of ceiling fans (which could fall and slice your eyes apart while you sleep) and umbrellas (a dozen spikes hovering just above the level of your eyes??? Hello!!) is not normal. When the girls get pink eye the medication is administered by Chris, because I just can't bring myself to do it. If Chris is not available I drop the liquid near their eyes and then tilt their heads until it runs in more or less the right direction.

So. I'm kind of weird about my eyes. I've put off going to see the eye doctor because I know that they use eye drops to dilate your pupils, and I wasn't sure that I could handle it. My eyesight is not improving on its own, though, so it was time to suck it up and go in. On Wednesday I walked into an opthamologist's office for the first time in 10 years.

Initially, things went very well. I flinched and closed my eyes when the nurse put the drops in, but it only took four or five tries until it worked. (That may seem terrible, but I was just happy to have managed at all.) I asked the nurse how long it would take for my pupils to dilate, and she said, "Oh these drops aren't for dilation. It's to numb your pupils. Now hold still please and I'm going to push this little rod against your eye to see how firm it is."

Can this be possible? She was so very cavalier about the whole thing, as though shoving a glowing blue rod into your eye is no big deal, as easy and routine as reading those little letters on the wall. I literally jumped out of my chair and said, "Are you serious?" The nurse just looked at me as though I was being completely unreasonable. "Of course," she said, "How else can we check for glaucoma?"

I felt that it was unnecessary. I realize that I'm not all that knowledgeable about eye stuff but I didn't think it was a huge risk to assume that I don't have glaucoma, considering the fact that I am not going blind nor am I 80 years old. The nurse called the doctor in for reinforcement, and I suddenly found myself at the receiving end of the standard good-cop/bad-cop technique. The doctor, not to put too fine a point on it, was a jerk. I was stuck in that stupid plastic chair between the compassionate nurse and the evil doctor, as all the while a glowing blue rod was poised mere inches from my eye. I, as anyone who has ever watched Jack Bauer at work knows, had no chance.

Once I was done sobbing, they let me out into the waiting room while my pupils dilated. (Yes, I handled the dilation drops just fine, as they suddenly seemed very benign compared to the glowing blue rod of death.) There was another woman in the room who also looked like she had recently been crying. Once I sat down, I leaned over to her and said, "I didn't realize that a visit to the eye doctor came with a lesson in medieval torture." The woman laughed nervously, but just then the Evil Doctor walked past and shot me one of the most venomous looks I've ever encountered. I was completely cowered, and for the remainder of my wait the other prisoner.....um, I mean patient, and I sat in meek silence as we tried to make out the words in magazines through our distorted vision.

Moral of the story: there is no way in Hell I'll ever set foot in that office again. I have to wonder though: Is this really normal? Is it really a routine practice to take a glowing blue rod (the glowing and the blue is important) and shove it into the eye of every patient who walks in the door? Chris claims that his office checks for glaucoma using puffs of air, but I assure you that this was no puff of air. It was a glowing blue rod, and they put it directly INTO MY EYES. Please tell me that our society has not degenerated so much that everyone, everywhere should be expected to meekly line up and let some masochist in a white coat shove foreign objects directly into their eyes. Please give me some hope for the world.

Photo for Christmas card, take 1

Aaargh! I took close to 30 pictures yesterday, and this is the best I could come up with.
I don't think it is possible to get all of them to look at the camera, keep their eyes open, and smile without grimacing all at the same time. I need to up my photoshopping skills.

(By the way, Mom - the sweaters were a big hit!!!)

Thanksgiving by Beth

I am thankful for the trees. I am thankful for my sisters. I am thankful for my family because thay take care of me. I am thankful for my health. I am thankful for my teacher so I can lean. I am thankful for the car so I can go placeis.

Elisabeth

The cutest thing ever. Seriously

I really wish that I could upload home movies to our computer! I came downstairs yesterday right as Chris was putting a video on the t.v. for Abbie.



It's a favorite song of the family's right now, and I've heard it playing from downstairs many, many times but I didn't realize what big things were going on down there. Abbie has memorized the entire video. She follows along, and does every single dance move right along with the "1234 Girl." She even has Chris trained to swoop in during the scenes where the crowd picks the singer up, and he holds her in the air while she continues to dance. At the end, when the crowd dissapears behind the singer's back, Chris crouches down and pretends to hide behind Abbie.

It is perfect. And it was so freaking adorable that it almost made me cry. I love this kid! And I love this man, who has clearly done this hundreds of times while nobody was looking, playing this silly little game with this silly little girl and not caring even a little if it makes him look silly, too. It doesn't, of course. It makes him look like the best daddy ever.

they never understand that I really am in charge

Abbie really likes potato chips. So, today, she tried to wheedle some out of me before lunchtime. The strict rule around here is no snack-y things until after lunch. (Of course, had the email about her MRI come by then she may have encountered less resistance to her charms.) I kept firmly saying, "No."

Abbie was getting frustrated, and I could literally see the wheels turning behind those big blue eyes. She finally leaned in close to me and whispered very slowly and distincly, "If you do not give me a chip, I will not say please."

If she had been saying, "If you don't eat your meat, you won't get any pudding!" the tone would have been no different. I looked down at her and she had that don't-make-me-come-over-there Mommy Look, directed straight at me. Then she cocked her eyebrow. She clearly felt that she was fully in charge, and that withholding that "please" would punish me good and plenty.

No chips for her. But I hightailed it out there as fast as I could go, before she could see me laugh.

"Unremarkable"

"Unremarkable." It's a beautiful word! We got the official report today from Abbie's MRI, and they've seen no increased tumor growth, and less enhancement. The report ended with a sentence that made me so happy I laughed out loud:

The remaining spinal cord appears unremarkable with no contrast
enhancement appreciated.

After all that Abbie has gone through in the last year and a half, it is a miracle to think that her poor little traumatised spine is now "unremarkable." Do you know what that is? It's remarkable!

Why do moments like this seem to belong so particularly to the colder seasons?

Maybe it's the fire.

I am having what I used to refer, in my naive college days, as "an intrinsically happy moment." I was sitting on the floor, by the awesomely smoky and warm fire in the living room, flipping through a magazine to get ideas for Christmas. The girls were all playing in the hallway, perfectly in harmony: such moments are all the more sweeter for being so sadly rare. Lucy was sitting beside me, practicing her standing skills by pulling up on my knees, and all was quiet and cozy and right with the world. Chris came in to throw some more wood in the fire, and he brought me a glass of wine. Life could not possibly have been better.

I'm still sitting by the fire right now, on the laptop Chris gave me this summer, and I can't help but think about the different types of happy moment that come with each new season. For my money, nothing beats the cozy, rich warmth of fall and winter. It's chilly outside, and chilly in parts of the house; the warmth of the living room is so much more luxurious in comparison, and the crack and snap of the fire, the smell of the wood, the glow of the embers are so sensual (as in, they affect all the senses) that we are all lulled and mellowed. Even our Loudest (you know who she is) is quiet for once. (Well, quiet-er.)

I'm so blessed. I always know it, but moments like this help me to really feel it. Isn't that the way it's supposed to work, after all? Knowing a thing in our minds is never enough, not for the long term: we need to feel it through our bodies as well. And so God gives us, among other things, cold days. Cold days, and a fire for warmth.

(This happiness and relief, for the record, is due entirely to the cold/warm dichotomy. It has nothing to do with the fact that Abbie is in diapers today, taking a break from potty-training. Really, it's all about the fire.)

Because I'm sure you're dying to know how potty-training is going

Much better! That one horrible day seemed to be what we needed to get on track. Abbie has been doing great since.

She did backtrack some yesterday (with very good reason), though, and we had a very busy day today so I've kept her in pull-ups all day. Hopefully we won't have lost too much ground when we go back to underwear tomorrow.

Abbie had her routine MRI yesterday, and we haven't heard anything yet, so that's a good sign. She did amazingly well keeping her pull-up dry - she even kept it dry through the sedation! (Although the required fasting was probably responsible for that. ) She stayed dry throughout her recovery and the entire drive home, as well, though. She was very loopy and couldn't keep her balance after the sedation (perfectly normal), however, so we just kept her in a pull-up and gave her the day off.

Here's hoping tomorrow goes smoothly!

Go figure

I gave up today around 3pm.

This was the third day of potty-training, and by far the worst. For the past two days, Abbie has had very few accidents, but I suspected that she was just holding it all in until the evening when we put her diaper back on. So I stopped at the store this morning and bought a mega-jug of apple juice, and a pack of fiber-laced Pediasure.

It worked. It worked on the carpet, on a blanket, all over several outfits, and on those foam child-chairs with the cloth that can't be removed.

Abbie told me that she didn't use the potty because she didn't want to stop playing. At least she recognizes the problem. My (usually tried and true) method is to go straight from diaper to underwear (so no pull-ups) and make the child clean the mess themselves when they have an accident. I sneak in my own cleaning, of course, but the kid is given some paper towels to soak up the water and a bucket and scrub brush. They usually decide that it is less work to use the potty like a civilized human being, but it isn't working this time because Abbie thinks that the clean-up is fun. Meanwhile, I feel like I've been swimming in urine all day.

So I gave up after accident #umpteenth and put her in a pull-up. Not ten minutes later she jumped up and ran into the bathroom, executing her duties like a pro. Her pull-up was bone-dry.

I need a drink. (And I do not mean applejuice!)

I haven't been posting because

We are potty-training.

Pray for us.

And please avoid the hall bathroom.

More from All Hallow's Eve

Dorothy (from her school parade)
Sleeping Beauty (and yes, I know this is not the 'official' costume. The official costume is lame. This one actually makes her look like a princess, not some cheap shill for Disney.)
The Calico Cat (and Claire's second year as a cat!)
The Fairy ( I fixed the upside-down wings after taking the picture.)
The........uh, cute baby with wings. You don't need a coherent costume if you aren't actually getting candy.

Halloween, a photo essay in two posts

solving a mystery that has been bugging me

Abbie invented a song that she sings all. the. time. The crazy thing is that it is very catchy, and I'll often get it stuck in my head for the rest of the day once I've heard her singing it.

Here are the lyrics:

Puppy! Puppy! Puppy!
Do-da Botterini!
Puppy! Puppy! Puppy!
Do-da Botterini!

The lyrics had me intrigued, because it seemed like nonsense and yet.....Botterini really sounds like a name. I asked the other girls if they knew where Abbie got the idea for this song, but they were as clueless as I was. Abbie provided no insight, simply answering when asked, "Well, it means Puppy-d0-da-botterini, Mommy!"

This has been a mystery for weeks, until last night when we were talking about it over dinner. My father-in-law suddenly spoke and said, "That sounds like the last name of Mom's friends - The Botterini's."

!!!!! Of course!!! I guess Abbie must have overheard Grandma Mlinek talking about them, and something about the name must have tickled her fancy. How weird is that, though? I wonder if they have a puppy....

melodramatic, anyone?

Beth: "My two worst feelings ever are hate and crying."

Struggling to understand

I was asked to contribute a story for a Catholic book project, compiling stories from women with special medical diagnoses in utero or for small children. So, here's what I wrote:

They did not receive what had been promised
but saw it and greeted it from afar
and acknowledged themselves to be strangers and aliens on earth,
for those who speak thus show that they are seeking a homeland.
Hebrews 11: 13-14


When I heard the news I was sitting in the Pediatric Sedation waiting room, across from a terrible mural of sea-life. The painting was very colorful but the fish were all malformed, elongated and disproportionate. The shark’s fin had been drawn on a different angle from the rest of its body so that the fin lifted away, attached at only one corner. I remember thinking that the fin looked like it was going to escape, the shark on the verge of losing its most defining feature.

“Is she going to die?” I asked. I hadn’t meant to ask, but I was overwhelmed and frightened and it was the only thing I could think of to say. My eyes were still on the shark, his stupid floating fin making me angry. My 17 month old daughter was asleep next door, a large tumor having just been discovered in her spine and brain.

The radiologist was silent for a moment before answering. He was very earnestly and bravely trying to make eye contact with me, but I couldn’t do it. “I don’t have an answer for that,” he finally said. “She should not be able to move at all with a tumor that size. What we should focus on is the miracle that she can walk.” The tumor ran the entire length of her cervical spine and then up into her brain stem. The MRI images from that day are horrifying; to the untrained eye it looks as if her entire spine is filled with cement.

The staff called my husband, who was out of town, and then sent us immediately to Children’s National Medical Center in D.C. By that evening we were settled in a room on the Neuro/Ortho Surgery wing, where my husband eventually joined us. By the next morning, Abbie had begun to lose the co-ordination in her legs. She was no longer able to walk.

It had happened too quickly for us to fully process it. My memories of the days before her surgery are surreal. We rocked Abbie in her hospital bed and walked the halls in a bleary-eyed daze. I couldn’t sleep at night because I felt the need to savor every moment left to hold my baby. I don’t remember praying, but I am sure I tried. Prayer was very hard in those first few days, my mind was so overloaded and my heart so heavy that although I could turn my mind to God, I felt I had nothing to present to Him but a feeling sometimes of sorrow, sometimes of fear. I would hold Abbie in my arms and lift her to Him in my mind, but I did not know what to ask. I wanted her to live, certainly, and I wanted her to remain whole, and yet I felt afraid to ask for these things. The presence of God in those days was something I felt, but heavily, and with fear and trembling. In the sufferings of my child, I felt that I had encountered a side of God I had not really known, had heard of but not truly believed. My own suffering was a thing I expected, a thing just and deserved. But my child? This little baby on my lap, with her curly blond hair and her quirky little smile, and her innocence: was I expected to accept the suffering of this angel? How could that be?

On the day of her surgery I woke up curled around her, and just lay in the bed looking at her face. I held her, still sleeping, all the way to the prep area. My mind was blank; I did not, could not pray, I did not, could not think. The only thing I was capable of was soaking in my daughter and feeling my heart break with love for her. A nurse took our hands and said a prayer for our daughter’s safety, and we were grateful to her for initiating what we couldn’t. Then they took my baby away. We walked into the waiting room like zombies, and like zombies we sat for the 7 hours it took to rid my daughter’s spine of the tumor. I said one rosary, incapable of actually processing the prayer: it took me two hours. I had no words; in my heart was just one long wail to God, one long cry for help. I felt that for the first time I had some understanding of Christ’s cry of “Abba!” on the cross. I understood for the first time the anguish behind the question, “Why have you forsaken me?” When the surgeon appeared in the door, his eyes bloodshot and his face pale and lined, I thought I might collapse. My husband’s hands were shaking so much that he dropped his book and it skittered across the floor. I felt like Jacob on the mountaintop, poised to accept the sacrifice of my dearest one. An angel had saved Isaac, but I felt no assurance that Abbie would receive the same reprieve. The face of the surgeon said nothing but weariness, and the thirty seconds it took to walk across the waiting room to where he stood was the longest moment of my life. But mercy had prevailed, the news was positive. Abbie’s heart rate had given them trouble throughout the surgery but she had made it through okay. She was going to live. Time would tell if she would sustain damage, but he felt hopeful that she would eventually make a full recovery.

The surgeon had done his job well, and Abbie’s spine was almost entirely clear. There was still a large portion of the tumor in her brain stem, however, that would require chemotherapy and possibly radiation. We hardly had a thought for those hardships, however. We were giddy with joy, radiant with hope. Family came to visit her and was aghast at how weak she was, almost immobile, but all we could see was the hope in the faint wiggling of her fingers and toes. People assured us that they were praying for Abbie’s complete healing, but all we cared about was that she had lived. We were not looking for flashy miracles, healing our daughter through the gift of medicine gave no less glory to God In our eyes. We were so happy, so eager to help our daughter heal, and willing to open our minds to the mysterious workings of God. The question of why my daughter was allowed to suffer, now that she was safe, seemed a worthy academic pursuit, something we could ponder as she grew stronger day by day. Our mistake was in believing that we had approached the end of our journey.

Our God is a God of awe and majesty and mystery. These are not merely pretty words; it is a mistake to ever think that we know the plan of God, or that we can ever truly understand His ways. Two months after Abbie’s surgery, just as she was re-learning how to walk, she again lost control of her legs. The tumor, despite the weekly chemo treatments, had grown and she would again need to undergo surgery. When she had first been diagnosed with cancer we had been dazed and afraid, but now, after we felt we had put our trust in God and passed the test, now we were angry.

We admitted that the suffering of the innocent could bring about unthought-of graces. Abbie’s cancer had brought out the best in many of the people around us; family and friends, and even some complete strangers, had been so moved with pity by our daughter that the outpouring of love and support was truly overwhelming. There are many people who reached out to us in ways that will forever touch our hearts. Our other children as well had been moved to an Inspiring level of selflessness and bravery. We felt that the world around us was a better one for the influence of our little one. Now, though, now that the lessons had been learned and the faithfulness of those around us had been proven, why was our baby still called to suffer? Sure, her pain had brought out the best in those around her. Sure, it taught us lessons about our marriage, our family, our faith. Sure, it showed us how blessed we truly were. But still all of these lessons, all of this good fade to grey when you weigh it against the suffering of a baby, any baby, let alone our own darling one.

When Abbie was taken back for surgery a second time, the sedation did not work. She was awake, and terrified to find the strange doctor carrying her away from us. They assured us that she would have no memory of being taken away, but as she was carried out she began to cry, “Mommy, don’t! Please!” I walked to the waiting room with her voice haunting my ears. Over the next few hours her cries replayed in my mind over and over again until it was no longer her voice crying out to me, but me crying out to God. As she had cried out to me, so I was crying out to God with the sophistication of a toddler. I was grateful beyond words knowing that there were hundreds of people praying for Abbie at that moment, because I was again paralyzed in prayer. I felt that I was standing before God, and His Son, and even His gentle Mother whose comfort I had always sought, and I was lost in the weight of their purpose. My only prayer was a kind of sigh, a sigh of awe and fear and desperation. I felt like someone drowning, and I could only hope that the wave of prayers for my daughter would lift me up enough to catch my breath.
She again recovered better from the surgery than anyone could have hoped, and the rest of the year progressed much like we had expected it would. Abbie is walking again, and has just now been given a reprieve from chemo. To anyone who might see her in passing, she looks like a healthy, happy, sweet and silly little toddler. We are so grateful for her health, so grateful for her life. We have hope that her future will be a bright one, although there will always be a chance that the tumor in her brain will grow again. So mixed with our happiness is a sobering dash of fear. When I look back at our darkest days, I see the many blessings that have come from our crosses. Why the heaviest cross had to be carried by the weakest and most blameless among us, though, I will never understand. Abbie will probably not even remember her time spent recovering from brain and spine surgeries, but that does not lessen the memory of her suffering for those who love her. I carry a heavy question in my heart that will not, I think, be answered in this life, and yet my faith in God has not diminished. I am pained that He allowed my baby to suffer so much more than most people encounter over a lifetime, and yet I am thankful that in His mercy He did not take her from us. I suppose that I do not need to understand why it happened in the first place, anymore than Abbie understood why her parents allowed the doctors to carry her away. Perhaps there is some spiritual cancer hidden in me that could only be resected by the suffering of my child. Perhaps there is something greater at work, and Abbie’s suffering will right some wrong of which I will never know. It is perhaps not for me to know. I am simply called to believe, though I do not understand. Why would a God who is all-good allow an innocent child to suffer? It is a question I have no answer for. God allowed His Son, who was also innocent, to die on the Cross. That is the only answer I am given.

Good things!

I have been shamefully behind on here, and I have no excuse. Lots of good things have been happening, though, and it's time to talk about some of them!

First of all, Abbie is off the chemo! It was the best feeling to get the call from our pharmacy and be able to tell them that we won't be needing anything this month.

The scans of Abbie's tumor have shown no significant growth in the past year, so there is a good chance that the tumor is dormant. She'll continue to get scans every couple months, and as long as the tumor stays stable we will....just live a normal life. :) We are so happy to give her scrawny little body a chance to recover, and the break from the many hospital visits is a nice bonus. She continues to get stronger, and in fact was released from PT shortly before the end-of-chemo appointment. I could tell that the physical therapist was sad to discharge Abbie, and I felt like it was this all over again. This PT was a wonderful woman, and we liked the group therapy sessions but as the girls would say, see ya, sucker-john-suckers! With the end of each cancer-related activity it feels like we are slowly climbing our way out of some underground bunker, where each step brings us a little more fresh air. It is a good, good feeling.

Also, making all of the girls super-excited, we got this:

It is official! The Make-a-Wish Foundation is sending us to Disney World this winter! We still can't believe it!!! The Make-a-Wish people have been truly amazing, and I have been more and more impressed with this organization with every passing week. They've been sending little things in the mail to keep Abbie excited until the big trip, and they have been remembering the other girls as well. They really think of everything. It's hard to believe that we qualify for this, especially since Abbie is doing so very well. I'm grateful, though, because it has been so nice to see the girls this excited.

So - good things going on around here! I'm not particularly the hand-waving type but: Praise God, from who all blessing flow.

Too much girl power

Disturbing conversation today. While we were waiting for Katie and Beth to come out of religious ed, Claire and Abbie began to talk about God.

"Jesus doesn't know I'm a person," Abbie said.
"You mean, you don't think Jesus knows who you are?" I asked her.
"Well, yes, but then Jesus showed me her baby! It was very cute."

??? There were so many things wrong with this that I didn't know where to begin. I plowed through, though, and thought I did a pretty good job, considering the fact that I had somehow allowed my child to form the belief that Jesus is a girl.....who has a baby.

I thought I had cleared the air, but then Claire piped up, "Well Jesus is a boy, Abbie. Because God is a girl!"
"Um, no" I corrected her, "God is also a boy."
"No silly! God is a girl!"
"No, really," I told Claire, realizing that she considered it a matter of course that God is female. "God really is a boy. Male. I mean - God is the Father, Jesus is the Son." The sands were too precarious to even begin to explain the Holy Spirit here.

"Really?" asked Claire. "That's so strange."
"Yeah!" said Abbie, very emphatically beside her, "That is crazy."

Too much of a good thing

Chris brought some cupcakes home from a nearby bakery that just relocated near us. They have a great reputation, especially for cakes, and the cupcakes were.......well, much better than simple cupcakes should be.

Claire especially appreciated it. We knew this because she wolfed down her vanilla cupcake with chocolate frosting, and then she then proceeded to eat the paper wrapper. Chris asked her why her mouth was still so full, and she sheepishly spit the paper back onto her plate. Disgust and horror ensued.

They are good cupcakes, though.

I swear it isn't true, but there's no way I can dig out of this hole

Abbie to Grandma Mlinek, "My mommy said you are very, very old."

Thank God this woman has a sense of humor!

Renaissance Festival

Huzzah!

She torments me, but man she's cute!

It Figures

Remember that post I wrote about what a perfect baby Lucy is, and how she's so super-duper breezy-easy that I would looooove to have another?

Lucy hasn't slept a wink since.

Seriously, she has been taking 30 min naps instead of her usual 3 hr ones (just enough time for me to get Claire and Abbie settled, and grab my towel to hop into the shower, but not enough time to actually get into the shower.) She's also decided that it is fun to stay awake all night long. If I bring her into bed with us, she will giggle and pull my hair, kick Chris, nurse/stop nursing/nurse/stop nursing in rapid succession, and generally do other "awake" kind of things. If I actually get up and stumble to the couch to give her a bottle and re-settle her, she smiles and laughs at me and......doesn't go back to sleep. She's not crying during this or in any way unhappy. She's perfectly cheerful, but that isn't as cute as it can be when what I want is for her to be perfectly asleep.

So. I direct all of you to this blog, from a woman who is researching "The Five Stages of Exhaustion." I think she is really onto something; it describes exactly how these past 7 years have felt for me, but I am too tired to actually write something like that myself.

First day of school!

story later. for now, enjoy the pic!

Feelin' Groovy

For the record, this is not an announcement. I'll repeat it to make sure everybody is paying attention: This is NOT an announcement! But....

I heard somebody's good news yesterday, and I am very excited for her! (And her husband, I guess it's his news, too!) Something happened when I heard it, though, that took me by surprise because it never happens to me. I felt a teeny-tiny twinge of baby lust. Usually my reaction when others are expecting is to A) feel reallyreally happy for them, and B) feel reallyreally glad it isn't me. But this time I thought, "Oooooooh, babies are so great!"

Part of this, of course, is due to the fact that Lucy is the greatest baby on the face of the earth. No, seriously, she is. She's almost always happy, sleeps wonderfully (as long as I swaddle her tightly enough to keep her from rolling over), and smiles and giggles at us until we are all puddles of goo at her feet. Even Abbie, who is........feeling every inch of her two years, to put it delicately, is more than happy to lay any of her own needs or wants aside in order to keep Lucy's happy gurgles coming. It is easy to think about another baby when my current one requires about as much attention as Baby Zuttini Bread (who, by the way, isn't looking so hot these days.)

This is a weird place for me to be. I hardly expected to feel like life was getting easy enough to actually plan for another baby after struggling through five. But these kids just get more and more fun with every passing day, and I guess I'm finally feeling comfortable in my role as a mother - not just a girl with kids. This isn't to say that we are actually planning anything; we aren't. I don't know what God has in His plan for our family, and we aren't really in a place to figure it out right now. But don't bother asking me if we're done. I'm having too much fun to give any kind of definite answer.

Is this my life? Really?

Conversation overheard today:

Chris: Where is Abbie?
Claire: She's sitting on the steps, stinkin' up!
Chris (to Abbie, who just walked in) Are you poopie?
Abbie, nonchalantly: Yup. Sure am.

Later on, Beth warned me that Abbie had (again) taken her diaper off. I ran upstairs to find her, naked, sitting on her training potty. Directly across from her sat Claire, and before I opened the door I heard Claire say, "Just watch me, Abbie, and I'll show you how it's done!"

Mom, you are going to LOVE this

Alternate title for this post: What goes around comes around....

Cleaning the upstairs bathroom this morning, I noticed several toothbrushes missing.
Me, to Beth: Why aren't the toothbrushes in the cup?
Beth: Oh, we left them at Grandma's house.
Me, thinking you left Grandma's house on SUNDAY!: So everytime I asked you guys if you brushed your teeth, and you all answered, "yes".......
Beth: We were just brushing with our fingers.

Scary thing here is that this is a scene directly out of my childhood, Grandma's house, finger-brushing and all. The only difference, to my shame, is the amount of time elapsed before discovery. Luckily for the girls I couldn't flip out too terribly much, seeing how I once went an entire week under the same circumstance.

Lucky for them, indeed.

The truth laid bare

I hate potty-training. Hate it, hate it, hateithateithateithateit. It has been a cruel twist of fate, too, that every time I begin potty-training I always have at least one baby happily soiling diapers in the wings, reminding me that even if this experience isn't the shoot-me-in-the-head-now-and-end-this-agony kind, I only have a few short months before I'll have to do it again.

But Abbie is ready. She's been ready for a while, but I've had concerns about her small motor strength. I mean, she has a brain tumor and all; I should really give myself - I mean her, I should give her, of course, ha ha! - a break. Give her a chance to build up her strength, you know........ Unfortunately, her motor skills have improved enough that she has the ability to take her diaper off at will. And take it off she does, several times a day. She will keep it dry for a few hours and then suddenly soak it through, but instead of informing me that she needs a change now, she'll just take it off and wait until the panicked cries of her sisters alert me to the situation.

Sunday, though, is when I had to admit defeat. The time has come to pull out the old (disgusting, stinking) training potty. On second thought, the time has come to buy a new one so that we have at least a few days until it too becomes unbearable and un-cleanable.

See, we were at mass on Sunday, and the girls were all behaving beautifully. At one point Abbie began to stage-whisper to me about her diaper, but I shushed her quickly and she quieted down. It was all just going so well, even Lucy was being quiet and reverent. Abbie remained silent beside me, wiggling around of course, but I hardly even notice that anymore. I'm not sure what prompted me to look down at her, perhaps it was an impression that there was more flesh-color than usual in my peripheral vision. I looked down, and saw Abbie beside me with her rear-end bare for all the world (and all the back of the church) to see. Her diaper had been bugging her, so she just pulled it around her ankles, taking her skirt with it. Due to the nature of our five curious girls, Chris and I usually alert each other clearly if we need to take someone out of mass, but there was no time in this scenario. I grabbed Abbie, bare bottom and all, and hauled out of there as fast as I could. We were in the bathroom before my frazzled mind settled and I realized that I hadn't even tried to cover her backside up during our retreat.

Oh well. I'm sure some people were appalled, and some people amused. I'm mostly sure, though, that Abbie's diapered days are numbered.

too much of a good thing

I have become very good, masterful even, at sneaking zucchini into food. This past week we have enjoyed zucchini bread, of course, zucchini brownies (surprisingly delicious! You'd never guess it was loaded - loaded!- with zucchini), zucchini spaghetti sauce, zucchini omeletes, sauteed zucchini, zucchini-squash medley, and hamburger zucchini. So I guess the following exchange should not have taken me by surprise.

My mom is taking the older three girls for a couple of days, and she called to ask them what they would like to eat during their stay at her house. When she asked Beth this question, she responded, "Anything, really......well, not zucchini."

Not exactly like Nietzsche

Lucy continues to terrorize us with her rolling over. As I type, she is fussing and squirming on the floor, furious at her own physical ability. I cannot wait until she figures out how to roll back off of her stomach!

I guess Claire was concerned yesterday about Lucy's mental health, because she came up with a clever idea to keep her from rolling over. She was working diligently in the living room, where Lucy was stretched out, quietly for once, on the floor, when Claire proudly called me in to see her solution. She had surrounded Lucy with pillows, the idea being that Lucy wouldn't roll onto them, and would thus stay on her back. (This doesn't actually work, but it was sweet of Claire to try.)

As I was thanking Claire for all her hard work, we both looked down at Lucy on the floor, surrounded on all four sides by the pillows. It sort of had the general shape of a cross, Lucy spread out in the middle. Claire looked up at me and said, "Hey! Lucy looks just like the dead God!"

Uh-oh.

Three months old, and already this? Lucy is rolling over. Like, all the time. If I leave her alone for even a few seconds, I can be guaranteed that she'll be belly-down when I next look, those chubby little legs of hers kicking for all they're worth. This would be cute, adorable even, if it did not interfere with her heavenly sleep-all-night routine. She loves rolling so much that she is even doing it in her sleep, which wakes her up. This is Not Good. These first three months were a wonderland of ease - lots of sleep for everyone, making family life so fun and happy. But now we are tired. Tired and cranky.

It's hard to be angry at this little goof, though. Her response when I come to get her is always the same: when the hall light comes on, she stops crying, and when she sees my face over the rim of her crib she gives me a huge smile and a gurgle. Too sweet, too cute........but a little too often as well.

(As a note, I don't know that I have mentioned Lucy's eye on here, but I know this picture really highlights it. She has had a cyst on her eyelid since her third week of life, and it has been slowly growing bigger ever since. We are monitoring it, and hoping for the best. If it begins to damage her eyesight then we will need to consider our options, but for now it isn't bothering her so it isn't bothering us.)

Purty little girls!

It is nearly impossible to get all of the girls to take a good picture at the same time. Especially on Sundays before they've been allowed to eat their dougnuts. Here they are, though. Grandma Mlinek, you have really outdone yourself this time! We are all amazed at how beautiful these dresses are!

The life and times of Baby Zuttini

I thought we were making progress yesterday. Abbie came over to me and sensibly explained that the baby bunnies were hungry, and she thought it would be a good idea to set Baby Zuttini Bread outside so they could eat it. We didn't actually do it - our yard critters don't need encouragement to hang around looking for free meals, but I thought it was a good sign that Abbie's love affair with the zucchini was coming to an end.

But then an hour or two later the Make-A-Wish Foundation volunteers came over to ask Abbie what her wish is. The first thing she did - and I mean the very, very first thing - was to dash downstairs and grab Baby Zuttini Bread so that she could introduce it to them. They were, of course, very impressed with Abbie's beloved vegetable.

Her wish, by the way, was to go to Walt Disney World. Those of you who know me well may laugh at that, knowing my long, deep hatred of all things Disney - his fake "World" in particular- but.........the Make A Wish setup is pretty sweet, and I need to set my personal distaste aside because the girls will really enjoy it. We'll find out in a couple of weeks if her wish is granted (and it probably will be.) I'm just hoping, at this point, that come January we won't need to tote along a withered and mummified Baby Zuttini Bread.....

File under: my kids are weird

We are so surrounded by zucchini here that it is beginning to warp the girls. I had this coming, I guess, what with my childhood haunted by my lost beloved "Pet Pepsi Bottle." I should have expected at least one of my kids to develop a random affection for some inanimate object. But this? This I just didn't expect.

Here is Abbie with her new favorite toy. Her name is "Baby Zuttini Bread," and she now follows Abbie wherever she goes. It's been three days now since Baby Zuttini came into our lives, and I have to say that she's not exactly looking her best; we can overlook the many (many, many) scratches and nail marks now pocking her squeaky green skin, but her wilting top (head? hair? ) has me worried. Abbie is trying so hard, though, to take good care of Baby Zuttini. She feeds her, rocks her to sleep, admonished her when she asks for too many Pedia-Sures, and wraps her up in blankets to keep her warm. She also dances with her - Baby Zuttini really likes to dance.

If this lasts much longer, we are going to need to replace Baby Zuttini. I have enough replacements for sure, but let's hope it doesn't actually comes to that.

Dude, who puked in here?

This is a post I began a few weeks ago, but just got around to finishing today. So if you read this and think, "Hey, I was there for that -- this is old news!" bear with me please.

I walked into my bathroom yesterday and noticed something.....odd. There were little tiny orange-ish splatters on the side of the tub, and on further investigation I saw more little splatters around the toilet bowl and on the wall behind it.

My first order of business, of course, was to clean it up but while doing so I couldn't help but wonder, "Who puked in here?" and, "Why didn't he or she tell me?" Once I was finished, I went out and delicately tried to ask Chris if he had recently vomited in our bathroom. I don't want to give the impression that my husband is in the habit of sloppily puking all over the bathroom, but I couldn't quite see how one of the kids could manage without me knowing about it. Chris, as you may imagine, was surprised by the question and a little bit offended. So I went on, much like the little bird who is looking for his mother, the main difference of course being our questions. His was "Are you my Mother?" while I was asking, "Did you throw up in the bathroom?"

No-one admitted to it. After getting four individual denials, we rounded everyone up in the living room, hoping to tickle some information out of them in a group setting. Blank faces all around: no-one had any memory of recently throwing up. Looking into their little faces one by one, I saw not one trace of knowingness. I began to doubt myself; had I puked in the bathroom, could I have been the one who forgot?

The sorry truth, however, is that one member of the family had already been on a streak. She had taken a trip to Friendly's with her grandparents and turned it into one of her signature "quick, throw as much money as you can on the table and maybe they'll forgive all the vomit," exits. Two days later she puked in our yard because she was afraid of slugs. Then she went into the house in puked in the (other) bathroom. You know who this is, of course. Claire. And it is unfortunately entirely plausible that she would run into my bathroom, vomit, and then walk away as if nothing had happened. She's kind of a pro like that.

We'll never know for sure who the mystery-puker is. But I'll always have my suspicions. In the meantime I wonder: why is it that living with small children is so very much like living in a frat house???

End of an era

I finished the 7th Harry Potter book today. On first impression, I think it might be my favorite of the series. Right now, though, I'm feeling a little sad knowing that there will be no more news from the Wizarding World. I am going to miss the delight and surprise, the mystery and suspense that came with each new book.

However I suspect that there is still new joy to be found at Hogwarts, because this afternoon I found this:

Let the fun begin!

How much zucchini bread can one family possibly eat?

The bounty of the earth is stressing me out.

I totally know that it's bad to let the zucchini grow so big - the only thing it's good for at this size is bread. Lots and lots of bread. But I can't keep up with it! I swear, I'll go outside one day and see a few teeny tiny little zucchini-ettes, but the very next day they've grown so heavy that the girls can't help me carry them into the house. Aaaaurgh! Does anybody want one of my giant zucchinis? Anyone? Anyone?

I don't yet know the zucchini-bread-consuming limits for a family of 6 (or 5, really. Lucy isn't yet participating.) But I have a feeling that, by the end of the summer, that question will be solved.

Beth's first lost tooth!

Beth lost her very first tooth on Sunday! The only reason we even knew that it was loose was because Chris noticed how lopsided it had become. He called Beth over, wiggled the tooth, and realized that it was just hanging on by a thread. Beth was amazed, as she had not noticed it. Not noticed that her tooth, the one in the very front of her mouth, was about to dangle its way right out of there. So Chris, who is a serious wanna-be dentist, grabbed a paper towel and pulled it out. I was expecting a repeat of the hysterics we went through when Chris pulled Katie's first tooth (and her second, and her third....), but Beth was very stoic about the whole thing. That is, until it was time for bed.



I was outside swimming laps, when Beth apparently came sobbing down to the basement. After much eye-rubbing and gasping for breath, Chris finally got her to tell him what was wrong. The problem was that she was upset about the Tooth Fairy. The way she saw it, she had just lost her very first tooth, and she didn't want to give it away. In between sobs, she told Chris, "This is my....first tooth.....and I.....don't want to....forget it."



So Chris tucked her back into bed, a little baggie holding both her tooth and a note for the tooth fairy snuggled in her hands. The note, which I would scan in and post if I could figure out how, read:



Dear Tooh Fairy,

Pleas leave the tooh.

Thank you,

Beth



The Tooth Fairy was very kind to forgo her usual wages on this occasion. We're hoping that Beth will be able to bear parting with her next tooth.

Scary. Scaryscaryscary

Lucy's life is perpetually in danger.

I was setting things up in the basement so that I could work out on our elliptical machine. This is a somewhat painful process, as I have to make sure that all four "big girls" are settled in safe and comfortable activities where I can reasonably expect them to leave me alone for 45 min. (This never happens, actually, but I keep hoping. Someday they are bound to discover that they can make it through less than an hour without my direct intervention.) Then I have to make sure that Lucy is fed, changed, and in a safe place (usually right beside the machine.)

So I set Lucy on the couch so that I could use both hands to carry her little chair over to the elliptical machine. As I rounded the corner, not ten seconds later, what did I see? Lucy was not on the couch. Lucy was precariously (oh, so very precariously) dangling from the arms of ABBIE, who was trying to carry her across the room.

I don't know how in the world Abbie managed to muster the strength to pick Lucy up. I don't know how in the world she managed to get her off the couch. I don't know how in the world she was able to carry her halfway across the basement with those scrawny, malnourished little arms of hers. I don't know how in the world Lucy wasn't dropped on her head.

And I don't know when in the world my heart will stop racing. It looks like I owe Lucy's Guardian Angel big time.