More from Williamsburg

Every time we go anyplace, I like to hang back at least one to look at this. I love to watch Chris walk down the road surrounded by little girls, it's so adorable and it does my heart so much good that I can't resist it. The little white bonnets bobbing along just made it that much more adorable.

I also love it when the girls run to meet their Daddy. I love the relationship he has with them: they adore him, and he adores them. It's just so very right.

Claire's got a little snaggle-tooth action going. That tooth is going to go any moment now.

The girls enjoyed interacting with the people in Williamsburg.

I couldn't resist taking this picture on a random staircase.
Colonial Williamsburg is just a good place for pictures.

I am going to brag. You can't stop me.

Can you believe that these gorgeous creatures are related to me? I can't....

Weekend Away

We decided, kind of on the spur of the moment, to go away this past weekend and I am very glad we did. We are finally getting to a point in our family where weekend-getaways can actually be just that, instead of periods of prolonged frustration and occasional agony. The girls were angels in the car (no puking, even!) slept like logs in the hotel and we were all able to enjoy every excursion fully. I realized that a new day has dawned for us when we woke up that first morning in the hotel (at 9:30, amazingly!) and were able to get ourselves dressed and out the door in less than an hour. The only person I had to dress besides myself was Lucy, and the only teeth I needed to brush were my own. It was heaven. Heaven! Remembering vacations past, with the frantic dressing, diaper-changing, teeth-scrubbing, shoe-finding, toy-stashing....to have our very first easy morning while away was a vacation all in itself for me.

So it all began with a trip into VA to have dinner with some old friends, and their adorable, adorably chunky, and whip-smart little boy:

From there we went on to Willamsburg. We spent the first day at a public beach along the bay, and it was a perfect day. The girls swam,

played in the sand

and in general just enjoyed themselves. Chris and I even had a few free minutes to sit back on our towels and just soak in the peace, the quiet, and the contentment of a day at the beach.

The next day, we went to Colonial Williamsburg.

Where, first of all, we bought these ridiculously adorable hats, and secondly, we had a great time. It was super hot, and by the end of the day Abbie and Lucy had decidedly had enough, but the older girls loved it (naturally) and the younger two still held strong even when things were maybe a little over their heads.

A great time was had by all. And I cannot emphasize enough how wonderful it was to take a trip that was not soul-crushingly exhausting. Ahhh! As I said, I feel like we are entering a new phase in our family and I, for one, am loving it!

catchphrase

Kids pick up on all sorts of habits and idiosyncrasies you don't even know you have.

We were at the Raven's camp, watching from the sidelines when Abbie asked me if she could do something or other, and I said vaguely, "I'll consider it."

She sighed in frustration. "Why," she said pointedly to me, "do you have to consider everything?"

First rule of parenting: never ever ever ever ever ever, NEVER assume anything

I'm afraid this blog is becoming nothing but "Hey watch us swim!" and "Can you believe the disgusting things I have to deal with?"

I apologize, but this is my life.

So I woke up early this morning (yay me!) and took the dog for a walk before everyone else was up. With the way things go around here, though, I didn't get the chance to hop into the shower until 11:30. Lucy had a loaded diaper so I changed her and then sent her upstairs to play with her sisters. They were all playing happily up there when I made the fatal mistake. I assumed. I assumed that Lucy was all taken care of, I assumed that the next 20 minutes could safely be used for personal hygene.

I was in my bathroom getting dressed when I heard Claire's high-pitched scream from the floor above. I could hear the progression of her frantic voice as she made her way down the steps, through the kitchen, past the dog, and into my room. "Something really bad is happening!" she told me.

It was Lucy. Lucy and her diaper. Again.

Luckily I caught her very early on, so the cleanup was much easier. As I was scrubbing her off, she was crying, "I icky. I sorry. I sorry."
"No touching your diaper, you know that, Lucy!" I said to her, "Why did you do that?"

Through her tears, she sighed deeply and said, "I don't know."

I believe her. I think she really doesn't know why she does these things. I think she's compelled on some primal level that none of us could ever fully understand. So, the name of the game needs to be constant vigilance, and by that I mean constant vigilance. Someday this green-eyed little gem will be all grown up and we will sit around over coffee and laugh at her feral childhood. On that day I will really enjoy that coffee, too, because it will most likely be the first time in years that I'll have the chance to actually sit and savor something.

Summer

Why should I bother typing out some long, boring post when I can just upload a video that will show you exactly how the girls are doing?

The answer is: I shouldn't! Enjoy the video.

(Oh, and note Beth's comment at the end. It's scary how these kids have me all figured out.)

Jam Manifesto

Have you heard the expression, "You can't bottle happiness"? It's true. I've looked into it.

I have a secret for you, though. A secret formula:

First, you need wake up early one summer morning (anything before 9 is early for us in the summer. Don't be jealous, I've paid my dues.) Then you need to meet your mother-in-law and head off to a farm.

(Look, it's okay if the morning doesn't go perfectly. This formula will work even if you have issues getting out of the house because your dog thinks he is entitled to come along. It will work even if you also stop for gas and end up, in some bizarro-spastic move, spraying yourself with the gasoline nozzle, Zoolander-style, and then needing to rush to the nearest Wal-Mart to grab a new outfit because you are uncomfortably close to spontaneously bursting into fire. Trust me on this one. If you end up in a similar scenario, don't let it deter you.)

You then need to spend a hour or so picking blueberries with your Mother-in-law and your indentured servants...I mean, your children. It's lots of fun, you'll love it! If you want, you can let your Mother-in-law treat you and the serfs, I mean children (sorry, I can't stop myself!) to fresh berry-topped ice cream. This step is not necessary, but I highly recommend it.

Then - listen carefully - you need to go home and put some of those fresh, ripe blueberries into a big pot. Heat it up and throw in an apple (a good source of pectin) for good measure, if you're so inclined, then add some sugar so that you can enjoy the fruit of your labors all winter long. Cook it until it's nice and gooey, until it coats your spoon and runs off of it slowly like molasses. Making jam is easy! Honest! Then you need to ladle that hot, tantalizingly sweet syrup into jars, and boil it like crazy for about ten minutes.

When you're done, you'll know the secret. You can't bottle happiness.....but it is absolutely possible to can it.

There it is. Happiness in a can.

I think my camera lens was smudged, but I was so high on jam that I didn't notice until it was too late. Sorry.

Guess what else?

You can also can sunshine.

Mine was more sunset-y sunshine, because I used brown sugar in the peach jam instead of white. It's not as iridescent, but it's delicious.

I'm all about the taste.

It that doesn't convince you, here are a few more reasons why you need to make jam:
1- Your kids will think you are super-cool
2-Your house will smell amazing all day long
3-Stirring the bubbling pot of goodness really does feel like magic. It's the one scenario in life where it is not only acceptable but fitting to mutter aloud, "Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble..."
4-You will feel like Meg March, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Anne Shirley, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, and the Boxcar Children all at once.

And the most important point:
5-It's yummy.

Her middle name is not Esther, but it should be

Take a look at my little fish!





And did you catch that "I'm so neglected, poor lil' ol' forsaken me, nobody takes my picture" drama going on in the background? Girls are so much fun.

No word yet on the MRI

It's a good sign, though, honestly! The radiologist knows immediately, even if they don't send the official report for a few days, what the score is. Every time we've had bad news through the MRI, they haven't let us leave the hospital.

Abbie's doctors are a busy bunch, treating kids from all over the world. If they haven't returned my calls yet, it is because they are busy dealing with some other kids who are in immediate and acute danger. Trust me, I'm more than glad to wait if that means my kid isn't on that list.

That being said, of course, I'm calling them again tomorrow. But I'm not worried.

I heartily recommend taking in a show with your morning coffee

Poor Puppy

This picture was taken before we went into Pittsburgh, when Jasper was feeling very poorly due to an ear infection. He was incredibly lethargic and despite the fact that he frequently drives us crazy we were all very sad for our sick puppy. A week of antibiotics seemed to cure him, though, and as the girls and I left, Jasper was jumping up at the window like his old self.

Well, it looks like the infection never fully left because he's getting mopey again. I have such a strange mix of feelings for this dog: on the one hand, he often feels like that very last straw that's about to break my back, on the other hand he is such a sweet and loving dog that he melts my heart into a puddle.

As much as I want to throw him through the wall (a feat he has made easier to attempt since he's chewed half through it already), the site of him like this makes me go all gooey and greenpeace-ey. Caring for an animal is a weird thing. I hope mine is back to normal soon, even though that means more chewed up toys and movement underfoot.

Our day, part II

Once Abbie has fully woken up, and downed her popsicle, the nurse takes her IV out and I help her dress. Abbie never even bothers to look at the IV.

Then we wait for about half an hour because I need to sign one more paper.

Once we have said goodbye to everyone who has been nice to us (and that's just about everyone) and exited the recovery area, I ask Abbie how she is feeling. I am carrying her, because she still can't quite walk, but she is finally awake enough to talk.

She says she is starving, so I take her to the cafeteria where she eats...

And she eats....

And she eats......

Two gigantic slices of pizza and one adult-sized cup of pudding later (pudding comes first, because it is easier to swallow) she is finally fully recovered. We make our way down to the lobby, and Abbie still needs to hold my hand but can otherwise walk on her own. We have been in the hospital for seven hours. We bid goodbye to the rainbow colored hot-air balloon (our favorite one) and then we are ready to go back to our normal life.

Normal life is wonderful.

Our day

I have been taking way more pictures than usual lately because I have been so overjoyed to have a camera again. In that spirit, I decided to document this morning and afternoon (plus I realized that I have very few pictures of Abbie in the hospital, and we should have at least a few to show her when she gets older.)

Blogger will only let me attach 5 pictures to each post, so this will continue on to the next post.

Here's what happens when Abbie gets an MRI.

First, we get to the waiting room an hour early. They insist on our being there an hour before the scheduled MRI, and usually this means that after I've signed about a dozen papers we sit for an hour and a half. Today we were lucky, and after I signed some papers and Abbie played with the fancy sticker the nurse gave her (because she is so adorable), we only had to wait half an hour. Hooray!

Once we are in the back room, Abbie changes into a hospital gown. She began, when this all started, by wearing the peach ones, then graduated to the green ones. Now she is in a blue one, and I can't believe how big she is getting.

Abbie asks, "How many pictures are you going to take?"


She is weighed and measured and they ask me about five million questions and have me sign a few hundred pieces of paper.

Then we wait for about half an hour.

The nurses give her a toy because she is so adorable.
Then we wait for another half an hour.

Once we are good and settled in our little hospital cubicle, a nurse arrives to escort us to the anesthesiology room. Abbie is given sleeping-gas (she usually chooses the bubble-gum flavor) and she quickly falls deeply asleep. Today, she immediately began to snore which made us all laugh.

(I was too busy holding her to take pictures of this. Plus, those anesthesiologists are a nervous breed.)

Once Abbie was settled into the gurney, I ran to the cafeteria and downed a quick cup of coffee and then sat in the waiting room alternating between re-reading The Brothers Karamazov, peeking at the other people in the room, and dozing with my head in my hand.

Exactly two hours later and three minutes later, I was called back to sit with Abbie while she woke up.
When I first came into the recovery room, she looked like this:
I hate seeing her like that, and I only took the one picture.

After twenty minutes or so, she finally woke up. She was groggy and couldn't sit up straight, but she immediately began to pull on her nose tube. She hates the nose tube.

The nose tube was already out when the nurse came in, so she disconnected it and removed the blood pressure cuff and the glowing oxygen monitor, and then I was able to lift Abbie out of her bed and sit with her in my lap. She is heavier than she used to be!

We sat there for about half an hour, just rocking, and then the nurse brought Abbie a popsicle and some applejuice to check her swallowing. They won't let us leave until they are sure she can swallow, and once upon a time this was an ordeal. Abbie had so much applejuice during her two long hospitalizations that she refused to drink it for about a year afterwards. So when they would bring her the carton of applejuice after an MRI, she wanted nothing to do with it. But they wouldn't let us leave until she drank it. Chris once waited until the nurse wasn't looking, and drank it himself.

Today, though, Abbie slurped that juice down in under thirty seconds and reached for the popsicle.

She was extremely groggy, tired and dizzy. But it was 1:00 in the afternoon, and man was she hungry.


She devoured that popsicle before she even knew where she was.
The nurse gave her another toy because she was so adorable.

Cont'd in next post!

Pray for our girl, please

Abbie is having an MRI tomorrow. We feel pretty confident about it as she has been getting nothing but stronger, but these things are always wrought with at least a little fear. Please say a prayer for our wonderful and quirky little girl.

Pittsburgh-palooza

We met my dad for lunch, then hung out at the park with him for a while.
I love this picture. It's very "Abbie."
Rachel's fiancee, Josh, tried to impress us with his domesticity by making us waffles one morning.

It totally worked.
And here is Abbie with her cousin Sara (actually, my cousin, even though I'm old as dirt.) They were inseparable this past week. Abbie tried to hide Sara in my mom's closet, so that she could stay with us. On our last day, they fixed their hair identically and wore almost identical outfits. No-one could tell them apart.

To my family - I had a great week! Thank you so much for all the meals, the entertainment, the chasing after Lucy when I was too exhausted to do it anymore, the only laughing a little bit when Lucy showed her most, ahem, intense colors, the love and attention you showered on the girls and on me. I love you all so much! Nothing is as soothing to my spirit as sitting around watching you interact, and admiring you all.

More from Pittsburgh

We really had a busy week, but it was all a ton of fun. Here are the girls at a park with their Grandma.
We went swimming in my aunt Margaret's swanky pool. Here is Lucy looking at my cousin Ryan with adoration. Ryan introduced me to his girlfriend as his "Aunt." I felt about a million years old. Thanks, Ry.
We went to the zoo even though it was raining buckets. Miraculously, the rain stopped as soon as we got there. Lucy insisted on wearing her rain poncho anyway.

Look how big these kids are. These are my "little" cousins. The babies of the bunch. How did this happen?

Uh-oh. I'm sorry, Chris. They made me do it.

I doubt the girls will ever grow enough to hit the "Ben Roethisburger" marker. (I bet I spelled that wrong, even though it is right there in the picture above. Oh well.)

More pictures from the Children's Museum

They had a giant maze built into a wall. It was pretty cool but the most amusing thing about it was....
This old man. What is he doing in there?
They also had an actual puppet from The Dark Crystal. This is one of the Mystics, my favorites. I almost died of happiness.

They also had a really cool art room, but I ended up being too busy to take pictures of most of the stations. You can see my cousin, Emma, painting here while in the distance my aunt, Colleen checks out the rest of the room.

A week in the land of my birth

The girls and I went into Pittsburgh this past week, and it was a busy, crazy, fun, exhausting weekend. The above picture is of an old-fashioned shaved ice stand that has been around since the early 30s. The old man in the picture shaved the ice for us by hand.
It was delicious!
We also went to the children's museum, which was seriously impressive. This thing was my favorite - a screen with dropping letters that could be manipulated by your image. You could "catch" letters with your body to spell out words.

The kids loved it.

More pictures in the next post!

Guess what?

My new camera just arrived in the mail. Hooray!

And now a word to our sponsors:

Dear Credit Card providers,

You are all evil. Thanks for the camera, though.

Blood of my blood

We let Katie and Beth stay up late last night, and we all watched Stardust - a fantastic movie that you need to put in your Netflix queue right now.

We've had the book for years (it's a little too mature for the girls to read yet, but the movie is more family-friendly) and I have loved it for years, but this is one of those rare, rare cases where the movie is every bit as enjoyable. We all absolutely loved it (yes, including Chris. His surprising ability to locate quality films regardless of genre is one of the first things that attracted me to him. Still does.)

After the movie, Katie and Beth helped me clean up the pie plates and glasses before going to bed. As we rinsed the dishes, Katie made me very proud. She said, "I wish more girls my age would see that this (meaning Stardust) is what is really, really good. Not something like," with extreme disdain, "Hannah Montana."

Man, I love this kid.

My heart just about burst. I was, at that moment, the proudest mother in the world. Enjoy your millions Miley Cyrus, you spoiled rotten vacuous brat, but you haven't sunk your talons into the hearts of my children. They see right through you.

Progress, I guess

As I was making lunch this afternoon, Lucy came up to the baby gate and announced, "I poopie 'gain."

I checked, and yup, she was. As I leaned down to lift her over the gate, she extended her right pointer finger up at me and proudly said, "Look, clean!"

Yes, her finger was clean. Meaning, she had restrained herself from shoving it up into her diaper and slatherng it in feces. An accomplishment of sorts, I guess, considering last week.

I debated on how to respond, but in the end I gave her what she wanted. "Good job!" I said, and kissed her on the cheek.

As much as I hate to face the fact, this is the sort of restraint we need to encourage with this kid.

The Zen of Pie

I had a Jonah day* yesterday.

I was cranky and irritable for no real reason; I snapped at the girls, I rolled my eyes at the dog, I sniped at Chris and huffed and puffed all over the house. I was unbearable.

I was driving myself crazy. Then, in the early evening, it was time to slip on my worn and flour-y apron and prepare to make pie dough.

As I cut the cold and creamy butter into little slices, I could feel it. My tensed hands began to relax. I sprinkled the butter, along with frozen bits of shortening, into the flour and my fingers slid along the pieces. My breathing began to slow as I cut the fat into the dough, focused on finding the exact right moment when it blended, secure in knowing when that moment would come. I added just the tiniest amount of cold liquid to hold it all together and then quickly incorporated the dry into the wet before pouring it all into the little squares of plastic I had prepared for it.

I could feel the back of my neck and my shoulders relaxing. The frantic flutter in my chest slowed, and for the first time that day I was aware of the quiet house around me. All of a sudden it was clear to me: I had been a colossal jerk! Why had I been so nasty? I couldn't remember.

I gingerly wrapped the dough in the plastic and slid it into the back of the fridge to chill. Then I took off my apron and searched out my family to give them a hug and apologize for being such a pill. They hugged me back and gave me forgiving smiles, and crowded into the kitchen to chat while I finished baking. All was right with the world.

And it was because of pastry dough.

Happy Fourth of July!


*Five points to anyone to catches that reference!
*Old picture of last year's cherry pie. This dough was destined for maple-blueberry. Mmm!

Horror Show

You people have no idea how fortunate you are that Jasper ate my camera. Had he not, the picture I would have posted this morning would have haunted you forever. If you don't have children, your reproductive organs would have shriveled up and died from fear. If you do have children, your reproductive organs would have been just fine, knowing as they do that all sorts of horrors can be lived through so long as its done in the service of someone you love.

Lucy is a lucky girl to have a mother who loves her.

I woke up this morning to the gentle sound of Lucy cooing over the monitor, so I quickly ran up the steps to get her before her sisters woke up.

I opened the door, and peered into the room quietly. Lucy was sitting on a foam chair (with non-removable fabric), naked except for her diaper. I tiptoed closer, trying to lure her out of the room before Abbie and Claire woke up, when I noticed that she had strange markings all over her body. Then I realized that the same markings were covering the chair she was sitting on. And the chair beside her. And her sheets. And the walls. And the plastic baby-doll crib.... And the marks were brown. A deep, dark brown, much like what I imagine the floors of hell must be covered in.

I should have seen this coming, right? I mean, who am I to think that I could breeze through five children without having one of them smear poop all over the place. The truth is, though, I really thought we would avoid that particular horror.

What I wanted to do was collapse on the floor and cry for a few hours.

What I actually did was lift Lucy up by her armpits (and if you think her armpits were a safe place to touch, think again) and carried her down to the tub, where she promptly soaked for a good long time. Then I drained the water, and she soaked some more. Then I hauled a bucket up the stairs and washed everything, and I do mean everything. Then I took bleach and bleached the heck out of all hard surfaces. Then I cursed the makers of non-removable covered foam chairs.

Then I told my husband that if he valued having a wife in the house, he would let me take a long shower before he left for work. Actually, I didn't say that. Chris sized up the situation on his own, and made the offer himself.

And now I share the joy with you. Aren't you glad I don't have a camera?