Been in the 'burgh

First of all: Hi Patty! (waves!) At least I know you will read this. :)

The girls and I made the trek into Pittsburgh last week, taking advantage of the summer break to get a longer-than-usual stay in the land of my birth. We had a great time! It was very nice to not only get to see almost everybody, but to get to see some of them a couple of times! We fit in a trip to the zoo (to see the baby elephants), a drive-in (WALL-E - loved it), a day at Kennywood (the standard, for me, against which all other amusement parks are judged), an afternoon at South Park, a brunch at Michael and Colleen's, and lots of time over at Bobby and Margaret's pool. At one point, Aunt Margaret stopped in at my mom's house, and Abbie immediately ran upstairs and put her bathing suit on. Pavlov would have been proud. Chris also made his way in over the weekend, bringing Jasper with him (to the delight of my mom, who I can tell has really missed being able to say, "Becca, get your damn dog!")

So now we are all back at home, decompressing after such a busy and fun week. I am really, really glad that we were able to come in. I miss all yins guys a ton.

I'm going to finally put up some more pictures on flickr, just as soon as I can remember my password, but in the meanwhile here's a good picture to sum up this past week. My mom, in an act of extreme bravery, doing what anyone who knows her would consider unthinkable: conquering her fear of heights to ride the Umbrellas with Abbie:

Two Peas in a Pod

Lucy, who has been walking since before she was 9 months old, has taken to travelling on all fours again. The better to communicate with her new best friend, I guess..
Jasper declines his breakfast of dried-lamb in lieu of Cap'n Crunch, courtesy of Lucy's appalling table manners. (Note the chairs set in a circle around Lucy's high chair. I did that, thinking it might keep Jasper from reaching her. He's grown a lot more than I realized.)

I love this dog, although he is driving me crazy...but I love him (but he does drive me crazy.)

I broke into hysterical and not-entirely appropriate laughter the other day while talking to a group of women. I was talking about how similar training a puppy is to raising kids, and I said something like, "What I realized after getting the puppy was..."

One of the other women interrupted and finished my sentence by saying, "...what a mistake it was?"

Jasper is going to be a great dog. He is a good dog already, he's just.....rambunctious and still confused about where to take his bathroom-business. When he's great, he's a total joy. When he goes over to the window, scratches and whines once before immediately urinating all over the floor, then gets caught up in all the commotion (because the girls are all screaming) and runs through the puddle, leaving disgusting little paw-prints all over the floor.........and then jumps all over me with those paws while I'm trying to clean it up, desperately, you see, because Lucy also likes to run through puddles and leave footprints.......well, then he is not such a joy. Then, life itself doesn't seem like such a joy.

Right now, though? Lucy is sound asleep (oh thank you, Lord, for making that particular wild animal need naps!), the house is quiet (thank you, also, Lego Indiana Jones), and Jasper is curled up under my feet, fast asleep. He keeps shifting, but he always keeps at least a paw on my foot, and occasionally comes to just long enough to lick my hand. And I'm totally feeling good about having a dog.

Talk to me in another hour, however, and it could be a completely different story.

(As an aside for anyone who might feel like answering: Would it be reallyreally bad of me if, when Jasper bites onto Lucy's diaper and prevents her from moving, I took a picture instead of immediately removing him? Because, aside from the look of terror on Lucy's face, they look exactly like that famous sunblock ad.

Take that, Donna Reed!

102 As a 1930s wife, I am Very Superior Take the test!

I thought for sure that not marking the "is pleasant in the morning" and "is neat and orderly" boxes would do me in, but I guess Chris is luckier than I thought!

(I thought I'd add this picture for effect: it's a cherry pie I made last week! With cherries from our yard!)

Just a cute picture of a crazy little baby

I expected that the first few weeks of house-training the dog would be hard, but this I did not expect: Jasper is a very good dog, but he is a bad influence on Lucy.

We were out by the pool the other day, and I had the little inflatable one set up as well for Lucy and Abbie. Jasper kept trying to bite the plastic, but after re-directing him a few times he got the hint and left it alone. Not long afterwards, however, I looked up to catch Lucy flashing me a huge grin.......right before she bent down over the side of the pool and bit it. She even tossed her head from side to side, just like the dog. Re-directing works great with Jasper; with Lucy, not so much.

Jasper also likes to run around the yard a few times a day, and for the first few days it took some coaxing to get him back into the house. He would jump around when I opened the door, still wanting to play, and trot a few steps back towards the yard when I came to get him. He's getting much better, and more often than not will immediately run into the house now as soon as I open the door. Lucy, however, now thinks that it is the funniest thing in the world to start running for the hills as soon as I call her to come in. Luckily, those chubby little legs aren't conducive to a fast getaway but, for goodness' sake!! She has also taken to licking our hands as she passes by. How many bad habits can a baby pick up from a dog??

I know that right about now you are probably thinking about this post and giggling to yourself. I can't blame that one on the dog, but adding him to a mix like that could make things a whole lot....you know, I can't even finish that thought. I don't want to think about it.

As we have been reading up on training animals, we've come to the realization that Lucy is just like a problem pet: she begs for food, doesn't listen to commands, is loud and unmannerly...the list goes on. Well, if she's going to act like she's a little female Tarzan, living with the wolves, maybe I should treat her like one. I think I should train Lucy and Jasper together. He needs to learn how to live with humans and she......well, she needs to learn how not to act like an animal. It will be interesting to see who is giving me more trouble in a few months. Tune in for the results. :)

(My money, for the record, would be on Lucy.)

Life Wasted

Beth woke up at 11am today, which is actually pretty impressive given the fact that she didn't get to bed until 2am. I don't generally (read: never) let the girls stay up that late, but last night was a very special exception because Beth and I were at a Pearl Jam concert in Philly. Yes, that's right: I took my 7 year old daughter to a rock concert. And she freaking loved it!

We found a great spot on the side of the lawn, between the sidewalk and the retaining wall. We could see the stage perfectly but were removed from the bulk of the (increasingly rowdy) crowd, and we danced and sang our hearts out the entire time. This was my first Pearl Jam concert as well, and.......wow! Those boys can rock! Beth (as she always does) summed it up best as we walked out of the venue. She threw her hands up into the air and said, "That was stupendous!"

I had so much fun - it was a blast to see Pearl Jam, and it was a blast to watch Beth have the time of her life. She is just the coolest kid; I've never known any other little girl (aside from Claire) to love rock music as much as she does. She knew most of the songs beyond the super-obscure ones, and was just so funny and sweet and carefree as she danced around and sang and felt the music. It was.....well, stupendous!

I am stealing this caption from Uncle Mike

Sorry (yet again) for the long silence. There's been lots going on around here, what with the start of summer, a week-long visit with my Chester cousins while the grown-ups went on a cruise, my in-laws' long awaited move from Illinois to near-here, and a computer crash (it is still not working -I'm writing this from my laptop.) I'm finally back, though, to announce an important addition.

Life has been in danger of getting manageable around here, so we've done what we always do when we get to this point - we've added to the family! This time it's different, though, because.....

It's a boy!!!!!

The horror.....the horror...

Yesterday, I experienced something that I really didn't believe would ever happen to me. I've heard of such things happening, but I thought I was immune. For one thing, I am an excellent parent. For another, I have been told time and again that my children are filled purely with sugar and spice and everything nice. This sort of thing, I though, was for those "other people."

Well, yesterday was God's turn to have a laugh.

Lucy's diaper was wet. She wasn't at mission-critical yet, but I announced to my mom (who was playing with Abbie and Claire) that I was going to get her a diaper, and then I went upstairs to do just that. However, I ended up talking to my sister in the kitchen for a good half an hour. It was risky, I know, but Lucy's diaper really wasn't that wet.

Claire eventually came up to the kitchen as well, and as Rachel began to give her a haircut I took the diaper I had been holding for 30 minutes and began my descent down the stairs.

At the top of the stairway I heard Abbie announce to my mother, "Lucy is poopie!"

"Oh, okay," said my mom calmly, without looking up. There was.....something about Abbie's tone of voice, though, and I hurried my pace down the steps. I rounded the bend and encountered Abbie, who immediately said to me, "Lucy is poopie!" Her eyes were wide with horror. There was a split second where I noticed that a wet diaper had been wrapped up and set on the steps, but I didn't really have time to process it. I went around the couch, and called to Lucy. She ran up to me immediately, smiling in that adorably sweet way that babies have, and she lifted her hand to give me something.

I remember this moment as though it happened in slow-mo. It was like an exact reverse of that famous scene in Caddyshack. "She's holding a protein bar," I thought, as my hand sloooooowly reached down to receive her gift. In my memory, the voice in my head is even deep and half-speed, the way they do it in the movies. Imagine, if you will, my slow-mo voice saying, "Ooooh, proooteeein baarrrr," as my arm moves down towards my smiling baby.

But it was not a protein bar. Oh, no, it wasn't. There is no delicate way to put this, no way to sanitize this written account, just as there will never be a way to sanitize my hands to my satisfaction. It was not a protein bar. It was a gigantic chunk of poop. Once this realization hit my brain, I went directly from slo-mo to hyper-speed, shouting instructions to everyone around me like an emergency room doctor. "Wet wipes!" I yelled, "Plastic bag! Diaper! Somebody run the tub!"

Thank goodness Lucy has been eating so many bananas. Seriously. This whole scenario could have been a lot worse if she had been on a kick of, say, grapes or prunes. Still, I will never be the same. None of us will ever be the same.

What happened was this: my mom noticed a wet diaper lying in the middle of the floor at some point. We'll just ignore what this says about me: that she thought it was perfectly plausible for me to come down the steps, change the diaper, and then leave it lying there, open, while I gadded about the house. I'm not sure how long Lucy was enjoying the luxury of a fresh breeze blowing under her nightgown, but I'm fairly confident that we caught her at just the right moment. (Well, to be precise, we caught her right after what could have been the right moment, but before what could have been the very, very bad moment.) I scoured the area she was in, and found no......suspicious fingerprints or, ahem, schmears of any kind, so that was a relief.

Still, though, I don't want to ever have to go through that again. Ever. And I'd prefer not to talk about this - the scars are so deep, so deep. It is going to take a long time to mend. I'm thinking I'll finally be healed in eighteen or so years........about the time that Lucy starts bringing boys around. Heh. Payback is a.......well, it's not sugar and spice.

Beth loves her new cousin

The first time we took the girls to see baby Gabriel, Beth got to hold him first. He stayed quiet while she held him, but then got a little fussy as he was passed around to the other girls. Beth took to innocently musing - out loud, whenever her sisters were near, "I wonder why Gabriel cried with everybody but me? Hmmm."

This has been driving Katie nuts. To make it worse, the second time we went to see the baby he began by being fussy....until it was Beth's turn to hold him. He immediately stopped crying and just looked up at her calmly.

He has made a friend for life. This is especially galling to Katie, because she considers herself to be "excellent with babies, just like the baby-kissing Pope." (That would be the nickname JPII has around here.) Beth, not one to miss an opportunity to get on Katie's nerves, has been taking full advantage of this situation.

So, I laughed when this paper came home in Beth's folder. Katie heard me laughing, and came to look at it. Her response? A haughty, "She spelled his name wrong."

Abbie leaves me speechless yet again

Maybe all this religious talk is an indication that she has a vocation to the religious life? Or maybe it's an indication that she is someday going to start some kind of scary cult. I wish I knew.

Claire asked me if she could sit on the stools at the counter for lunch. I thought about it for half a second but knowing that Abbie, who still lacks enough balance and coordination to sit unassisted on a high stool safely, would insist on climbing up there as well, I said, "no."

"Come on, Mom!" said Claire, "It's not a big deal!"
"Yeah!" Abbie chimed in, "It's not like when Jesus was stuck in a tree!"

Well, if by "tree" she meant "cross" - and I'm really hoping here that she did, then I guess she has a point. It's kind of hard to top crucifying God when you are classifying what is and is not a "big deal." Still, though, they sat at the regular table.

Happy Mother's Day

It's hard not to have a great day when you are told that you are like a sunflower in the garden!

An apple a day...

Lucy has developed a weird habit for a baby: eating whole apples. And when I say that, I don't just mean that she eats it unsliced - I mean she eats the entire thing, core included.


Photo proof:

Before
After

I love found objects around here

Katie has been playing a super-involved game during recess this year. They are playing school, and she originally began as a teacher. She took this role so seriously that before leaving for Disney World she appointed a substitute and gave her a curriculum to follow throughout the week.

Well, she has since been promoted to Principle, but I suspect that things are not going well. Here is what I found in the basement yesterday:

Dear School,

I herby say that things are going so wrong and I'm very dissapointed so I say that I will need to stay longer weather you like it or not.

President Katie

Why didn't I take that Scott Hahn course in college? Why???

We had another disturbing theological discussion in the car the other day. These are becoming more and more frequent as Claire and Abbie, for reasons unknown, have become increasingly curious about the workings of God.

For instance, Abbie was insisting that Jesus could fly. God can do whatever He wants, right? Well, then, of course He wanted to fly. She then began to play super-heroes with Claire, with Claire playing the Green Latern (the current fave) and Abbie playing......Flying Jesus.

Sigh.

So back to the car. We were driving along happily when Abbie began explaining how she knows that God loves her. He gave her a nice mommy and daddy. Good one, Abbie. He lets her have enough food to eat. Yes, that's true. Also, God made it so that she can now swallow her throw-up.

Uh....what?

Yup, Abbie used to throw up sometimes but now she can just swallow that throw-up down. God made her do that! Because He loves her! At first I was alarmed - was Abbie about to puke in the car? She assured me that she wasn't, though. She had just been thinking. About the relationship between vomit and God.

Sometimes these kids are so crazy that it actually scares me. Am I raising a bunch of pychopaths here? What do you say to something like this??? In this case, I sputtered a bit and then just muttered in defeat, "Uh, yeah...well, God certainly loves you, I know that for sure."

Here's hoping He loves me enough to ramp up the old brainpower as time goes on (and these comments become increasingly hard to handle!)

Oh, baby!

Dante and Becky welcomed their first little one into the world late Monday night!

It does my heart more good than I can say to see these two so joyful with their son.

We here are just walking on clouds with happiness - We're so glad to finally meet Gabriel! And how fun that he's a boy! Beth said it best, as she so often does, when we told her the news Tuesday morning, "With all the girl power around here, I'm just shocked that it's actually a boy!"

It's a boy! Congratulations to the new parents, two of the coolest people I know.

This is even better than lilacs. :)

Chesterton and lilacs

I can't help but mention the lilacs again. I'm not by nature an exuberant kind of person, but I have been unreasonably, deliriously joyful these days and it is all due to the lilacs. They are so beautiful, and smell so much like heaven that I feel I can barely even stand it. They make everything good, if you can understand. Or maybe it's that they help me to feel the goodness that is already in everything, but often overlooked. In any case, all the sweet things in life are lately much, much sweeter.

My cousin Margie stopped by overnight, on her way to Ohio to see her family. It was great to see her - for one thing, I haven't had the chance to really talk to her in over 10 years, and she has two adorable kids I needed to get to know! For another thing, she has been living in Germany and she brought Milka! For anyone who has ever had Milka, no more needs to be said.

So between the lilacs and the family and the Milka, it's been a great morning.

After Margie left, I sat down to feed Lucy and flip through Gilbert Magazine while I drank my coffee. The coffee was better than usual, Lucy was cuter than she has ever been, and the magazine, while always great, was a delight. The subscription was a gift from my mom, and when I read this quote I laughed out loud. I've been devoted to CS Lewis for as long as I can remember, but I never knew much about Chesterton (other than that he wrote the Fr. Dowling mysteries, and I'm not a huge fan of mysteries.) Well, I'm finding myself succumbing to the charm of this man the more I read of him. He like a prior version of CS Lewis, only with more beer and impishness (and maybe a smidge more common sense, although I'm not really the one who could judge that.) So, here's my new favorite quote. Mom, I am sorry, but you have nobody but yourself to blame!

Nothing has contributed more to the impiety and inhumanity of our time than the exaggerated cult of cleanliness. The Pharisees had it; in the beginning they worshipped washing; and in the end they set about the slaying of God. GK Chesterton

It's comforting to know that I am not in danger of becoming a Pharisee!

It's spring!

Today was gearing up to just be......one of those days. I actually got almost 8 hours of sleep last night, but I still woke up feeling like I was trying to move underwater. Lucy dumped a bowl of soggy cereal (and lots of milk) all over herself and onto the floor. Later on, after bathing a milk-soaked Lucy, I discovered a tick on Abbie while rinsing her hair. After removing the tick (matches didn't work, but slathering the icky thing with Aloe made it retreat, thank goodness), re-washing Abbie's hair, getting everyone dressed and starting lunch, Abbie had a potty emergency and ended up wetting herself.......and me, as I crouched beside her pulling down her pants.



Just one of those days. But today it hardly mattered at all, because of this:

The lilacs have bloomed! I've opened all the windows, and the perfume from the lilacs has filled the entire house making it impossible to be grouchy, even when I'm soaked in toddler urine.

I had also been planning to post something about how these trees have impacted my appreciation of the Creator:

I have so many posts back-logged, though, that I don't think I'll get around to it. But they erupted into gorgeous white blooms the second the weather turned warmer, and later on they will sprout green leaves (they are already turning) and by early summer they will just look like standard trees. I've never before realized that there were trees that would blossom........for no reason. There is no fruit or anything, it's just a burst of beauty for no reason at all.

Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein: then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice Before the LORD: for he cometh...

Lucy is one! How did that happen?

Lucy was grateful for her presents, but she says that what she really wanted was a little cousin for her birthday. Looking at the time stamp, I see there's still an hour and a half to make it happen; here's hoping! :)

(And yes, by the way. This really was the best picture I could get of this little gorp.)

Mulch

Our plans for the weekend just arrived.

Next weekend is probably booked, too.

I can't wait until the slave labor we've been cultivating finally matures enough to help out with this kind of stuff!

I'm not ashamed to shill for these people!

Coming soon to a Rite Aid or Costco near you! (That is, if you happen to live in the DC/VA area.)

If I had realized that they were going to just copy the synopsis of our story that I thought was just for filing purposes, I would have spent more time making it sound better.

In any case, if you happen to see this around then #1 - let me know! and #2 - drop a dollar in the cup. This hospital is doing good stuff.

p.s. Chris says that if he knew they were going to use this picture, he would have cut the grass!