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.

"A hit, a very palpable hit!"

The quote is from Hamlet.

The post concerns a groundhog.

Warning! The bottom of this post contains a picture of a dead animal. A very dead animal.

You've probably guessed by now, if you've followed our groundhog saga, that.....he did it! Chris shot the groundhog! I have been planning two posts about how weird my kids are, but this is big news and needs to take precedence. Plus, it kind of fits into the "my kids are very strange" theme.

I have been worried about how the girls would react when Chris actually killed the groundhog, or rather, groundhogs since we discovered that our unwelcome visitor procreated sometime this spring. But I completely underestimated how bloodthirsty these girls are. They were absolutely thrilled by the whole thing, and not only were they not upset, they actually fought over holding the bag containing the dead groundhog. And they clearly thought very highly of Chris' gun-totin' skills. We are not raising a passel of shrinking violets here.

So the funeral was held yesterday evening for "Little Groundhog." It was a very casual affair with little fuss. The grave is marked by a treestump, located convieniently on the edge of our property. And there is plenty of room for more graves.

So here are the promised pictures! I am aware that Abbie is really trashing-up the joint, what with the no clothes thing and the sagging diaper. I actually don't even know where her clothes went, she had been wearing a very pretty little sundress, and as for the diaper - well, we were distracted by all the bloodshed going on.

Notice, though, the size of this groundhog. Yes - it is the small groundhog. The big, clearly diseased one is still at large. But not for long. There is a new sheriff in town, and he's totin' a brand-new childsize rifle from WalMart, so watch out!

We've been busy growing things

Sorry about the long silence here. I'll be putting up several new posts in the next few days.

Abbie wakes up too early

Abbie has been waking up aroun 6:30am since the daylight savings change. This is most often a painful wakeup for Chris, as he's taken over monitor duties since Lucy's birth, but last night's conversation over dinner suggests that he is not the only one suffering from the early morning sunrise.

Said Abbie, "When I wake up in the morning it makes my body hurt."

You know you've gone over to the dark side as a mother when -

You realize that you actually just said:

"If you don't go downstairs right now and watch TV, I will send you to your room!"

Crazed rant

Um. It looks like I need to just keep this space blank. When you need to revise the revision, it's time to admit that you have a problem.

Prayers for charity, which I seem to have in short supply, and direction would be appreciated.

Happy Mother's Day!

To my Mom, my Mother-in-Law, Grandma Lamb and Gram Campbell -- thank you all so much for all you do. We love you! We really do, despite the fact that we haven't acknowledged it in any way (except for here, but blogs don't really count.) Thank you for putting up with idiots like us. The cards will be in the mail on Monday, I promise!!!

Side note, to highlight the unorganized mess that is me:

We went to the noon mass today, because the 1st Communion class was invited to participate in the May Procession. So we had plenty of time to get ourselves together -- I even curled my hair! I was proud of how well we were rolling on Mother's Day: no dirty faces, every head brushed, baby clean and fed. There we were, putting our best foot forward for Mother's Day!

Getting out of the car, though, I realized that Beth had her dress on inside out. Oh well, too late to fix that, I thought. Then, as Katie left to join the other kids in their Communion clothes, I realized that I hadn't put her veil on quite right, so that a big chunk of hair was sticking up out of the crown. Just let it go, I told myself, nothing you can do about it now. Sitting down in the pew, Lucy started to fuss so I picked her up out of her carrier realizing as her cold, wrinkled little feet hit my arm that I had forgotten to put her socks on.

What is amazing, even to me, about this is not that three out of my five children were not properly dressed for mass. It's that I not only did not notice these things until after leaving the house, I was actually congratulating myself for having them so well put together! Add this to the Alzheimer's that I will almost certainly contract in my old age, and you're looking at a scary picture.

So, a happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. May you deserve the recognition more than I do!

When good groundhogs go bad

We loved our groundhog. Last year, I really enjoyed watching the little guy waddling around in the mornings, nibbling on the flowers. It gave our yard a cozy, country-ish feeling, and I really felt like the groundhog and I had a real connection, especially in our shared desire to never, never, ever actually encounter each other face to face. If I so much as tapped the window, the groundhog would dart back into his hole. We never heard so much as a rustle when we were outside. Those were nice days.

Last weekend, we noticed that the groundhog had grown bold after his winter hibernation. He mosied around the yard undisturbed while we tapped on the windows at him, and when we went outside he kept his little head poked out of his burrow entrance, watching us. This seemed strange, but we weren't really alarmed. That is, until things got creepy.

In the late afternoon last Saturday, after everybody who had come over for Katie's Communion had gone home, the groundhog decided to pay us a visit. I was upstairs, and heard Chris yell urgently for me to come down to the basement. What I saw there forever shattered my little love affair with the groundhog. He was standing in front of our basement door with his nose pressed against the glass, looking in at us. His eyes were beady and evil. Worst of all, he was covered, covered in fleas who swarmed around him as though he were the decapitated pig's head from Lord of the Flies. Chris pounded on the glass, but our sinister visitor only backed up slightly, keeping those light less eyes fixed on us. It was seriously one of the freakiest things I've ever seen. I just know that this image is going to figure in my nightmares for some time to come.

Once again, our "fake country" feels a little too real for comfort. In a move that really pushes us towards hillbilly-hood, Chris ran out to Wal-Mart to buy himself a critter-shootin' machine. He spent most of yesterday afternoon sitting in the kitchen with his shotgun, waiting for the groundhog to make his appearance. Of course, now that the groundhog has asserted his dominance of the yard he probably won't feel the need to wander in full view for a while. But when he does, Chris will be waiting.

Last summer I considered naming this creature. What a novice I was back then! This summer, I'm plotting out an animal graveyard.

This puts a whole new spin on an old family joke

Chris and I often joke about selling off one of the girls, since we have so many in reserve. But we had no idea just how lucrative the concept could be...

Chris' sister Becky needed to come up with something to auction off for her school's fundraiser. She often talks about "the neices" to her students, so she decided to put up a picnic, hosted by herself and attended by the winning student, with our four older girls attending.

Now, I suspect that Becky is a popular teacher. I know she really loves her students, and I think it's pretty mutual. So I don't necessarily attribute the bidding war that ensued purely to the attraction of spending an afternoon with my kids. But there was a bidding war, and the winning bid is.......impressive. How impressive? I'm not going to tell you the exact amount, but if you guessed a thousand dollars, you are waaaaaaaaaay off.

These girls are no cheap date.

So now we're a little nervous that this kid won't get her money's worth out of our girls. On the other hand, though, after hearing this exchange between Claire, Abbie and Grandpa Mlinek I think I should be nervous that she will:

Claire: Grandpa?
Grandpa: Yes?
Claire: One time, I fell off the swing and hurt my vee-ginia.
Abbie: BE-GINIA!
Claire: No, Abbie. It's "VEE- GIE-NEE-AH." It really hurt, Grandpa. Right here. I was so sore!
Abbie: BE-GINIA! BEE-GINIA!

What's a Grandpa to do in this situation? Chuckle a tiny little bit.
And look nobody in the eye.

Katie's First Communion

Happy First Communion, Katie! We are so, so proud of you and how well you "get" the mystery of the Eucharist. God bless you, little one.