Morning

Katie was having a friend sleep over, so I woke up early in order to make them a coffee cake for breakfast. (I had realized, just before going to sleep, that we are almost out of cereal and only have 2 eggs. I don't mind making the girls scrounge for their breakfast from time to time, but I thought I should provide something a little nicer for our guest.)

When I came into the kitchen, Jasper was acting strangely. He usually jumps up and rushes over, tail wagging, but this morning he was laying perfectly still. He thumped his tail when he saw me, but he didn't move so much as a muscle. I knelt down beside him and then I realized why he wasn't moving. Smack up beside him, on the other side of the baby gate, Lucy was curled up asleep on the floor, a beach towel pulled up around her like a blanket.

Lucy has been night-prowling for a few weeks now, but this is the first time that she didn't knock the gate down and come into our room. I complain quite a bit about this kid, I know (and she does cause a good deal of trouble) but the truth is that Lucy is the light of my eyes; she is a wonder to me with her spunk and her humor and her crazy sparkle. As I stood there looking down on my sleeping baby in the hallway, my heart just about broke.

I don't know what to do about this night wandering. I've considered getting those toddler doorknob locks. I'll probably even get some today. I'm not sure it is going to work, though, because I doubt that Abbie will have the fine-motor strength to turn them herself, and she needs to be able to get out occasionally to use the bathroom. I've looked into crib-tents, but they are pretty pricey. Something's got to happen, though, because I can't possibly sleep soundly knowing that Lucy might, at any time, be doing who knows what alone in the house.

In the meantime, a prayer goes up to her guardian angel. And Jasper gets a special treat for guarding her so well. Every time that dog gets on our last nerve, he does something like this to make me love him.

Lucy, meanwhile, gets a lot of hugs and a lot of random kisses from Mommy. And every few minutes or so she gets to hear a toddler-sized lecture: Lucy goes night-night in her bed. Stay in your bed, Lucy. Please, please. My heart can't take it.

I'd be willing to loan her out, for just a small fee

Lucy has developed an incredible little habit that (almost) makes up for all the sleepless nights she causes.

The past three or so times that I've taken Lucy and Abbie with me into a dressing room, Lucy has piped up, very loudly and clearly, "Mommy! You beauty!"

I can hear the other women in the changing area giggle whenever she says it. She says it for every single thing I try on, without fail. It's quite a confidence booster, even when the reflection in the mirror is showing me what looks like an overdressed garden gnome.

If she is complimented on her own attire, Lucy will often respond casually, "Yes. I beauty." I couldn't possibly begrudge her that confidence, though; of course, because it is true, but also because she makes such a great cheering section. She's more than happy to spread the praise around. And I can tell from the smothered laughter whenever we're in Target that she's spreading a little sunshine around, too.

Misunderstood

Chris and I dropped the girls off at the in-laws Saturday morning, and then we went on to check out the farmer's market in Lancaster.

It was pretty impressive and we came away with some good stuff. They had amazing goat cheese, and the baklava the little old Greek lady was selling was absolutely legit. The herb stand had us the most excited, though, and as we drove back home I dug out the bag of herbs to look at it some more.

I bought a couple of vanilla beans, and opening the little plastic bag that contained them unleashed a heavenly smell into the car. I've wanted to get my hands on some vanilla beans for a while. I'd like to attempt homemade vanilla extract, which I understand to be very simple. I've also been messing around with making eclairs, and I found a vanilla cream recipe that I think might be just what I need to get it right, but again I needed to find those beans first.

Chris also found something he's been searching for: smoked paprika. That stuff is hard to find, but opening the bag in the car was confirmation that it was worth the wait. It has a very rich, deep, smoky aroma that makes regular paprika (especially the grocery store junk we usually use) seem like a joke.

I also opened up a bag of something Chris got called herbs de Provence, and I was surprised to find such a strong, gorgeous scent. It has some dried lavender and a bunch of green things I can't identify, but it smells like the spice of the gods.

Chris asked me to hand the bag of herbs de Provence over to him, and he immediately loved it as well. We were kind of tired and punchy, and Chris started to mess around, inhaling deeply from the bag and then shivering as though he was having an out of body experience. It's always hard to explain moments of silliness to anybody, because these things are never really funny except in that specific moment, but in any case Chris was messing around with bag of spices and I was laughing my head off when Chris realized that we had attracted the attention of the car beside us.

An older lady was leaning across the seat and gesturing very pointedly towards us, and Chris saw the driver say to her, "Mind your own business." He looked down at the little bag of dried herbs in his hands, and he realized what the woman thought was going on.

It wasn't the mature thing to do, but Chris looked directly over at the nosy lady and took a big whiff of herbs de Provence. I was laughing so hard, I'm sure I did nothing but reinforce the lady's mistaken belief.

The thing that really made me laugh, later, is what this woman must have thought when she realized that these big old stoners were driving a minivan literally filled to capacity with car seats. I hope she didn't lose any sleep over it. Although - what does it say about her that she saw a bag of dried green things and immediately thought drugs? Maybe she doesn't cook.

I don't like to think of it that way

The girls were talking about age as I cleaned up the kitchen tonight, and Claire asked me how old I am.

"Thirty-two," I said.

Her eyes sparkled and grew big as she gave me an excited hug and said, "Wow! You're almost 40, Mom!"

Rachel Alexandra needs to make way for Elizabeth Agnes

The mom of a friend of Beth's sent me this series of pictures from last Friday's Play Day. Looking at them almost makes you feel like you were there! (I was not, I was watching Claire -who also had an impressive showing in the races, so I'm doubly glad to have these pictures.) It was quite an upset.

I can't fit all of the pictures in one post, so the series will continue in the post directly below this one.

Beth is the one in the white shirt and pink shorts. Enjoy!!!

She'ss coming up from behind. She's moving up....here she comes from the outside!

She did it! Beth-a-boo-lazy-bum pulls ahead for the win!!!

And the crowd goes wild!

Yesterday was a good day

It's hard to pinpoint why, though.

Katie needed to get to school early due to a field trip, so I took the rest of the kids to Dunkin Donuts for breakfast while we waited for the school doors to open. Lucy took a screaming fit about five minutes in (she wanted her milk in the carton instead of her cup, but I've been down that road before), and we had to make a desperately hasty departure while all eyes were on us. The girls were mortified. So was I.

A 3 mile walk with the younger girls and the dog took a whopping hour and 20 minutes (due to the need to mark everything in sight, flowers and baby dolls dropped, fights over the water bottle, and once a dog who took advantage when I bent down to unhook the leash from around his leg and tore off down the trail, prompting a cranky old man who happened by -as I debated whether I should leave my two small girls unattended in the stroller to run after the dog, or to just wait and hope he came back on his own- to scold me for having a dog off-leash), and found me with two blistered ankles, walking the last 1/4 mile barefoot, my socks soaked in blood.

I packed a picnic lunch and hauled the girls to the elementary school, where Claire and Beth were having their Play-Day, only to get there just in time for a deluge of rain and to hear that the rest of the Play-Day was canceled.

Katie came home from her field-trip horrified by the 3 ticks she had removed from herself. By the end of the evening, we had removed 6 more and Katie was jumpy and frazzled. She came into my room around 3am, sobbing, because she couldn't sleep out of fear that more ticks would surface.

Claire bumped her head on my bed and ended up with the biggest goose-egg I've ever seen. It was seriously enormous, and she also had a hard time sleeping because the back of her head was so tender.

But....
Dunkin' Donuts egg-white flatbread is pretty yummy!

I got a lot of errands done in the morning (including the purchase of an awesome new $9 wine that we've been loving).

Running around in the rain is fun.

The girls were otherwise very well-behaved, especially considering all the running I made the younger two do.

The house was eerily calm, because Beth was having a sleepover at her grandparents. I wish I knew why, but take just one kid away, no matter which one, and peace and tranquility ensue. It's a mystery to me why this happens.

Katie and I stayed up late and made cookies for school picnics next week, and chocolate-cheesecake covered strawberries. (They are gigantic strawberries stuffed with cheesecake, then covered in cheesecake, then dipped in dark chocolate. This was the first time I've attempted this and the results are......amazing, if I may say so myself. Were my camera working, I'd post a picture so you could eat your heart out. :) )

We then split a strawberry (they are that big, especially when you've been snacking on cookie dough, marshmallows and melted chocolate all evening) and watched Edward Scissorhands, a movie that never stops being awesome.

(Lucy just came to me holding her stomach and said, "I'm dying. I'm hungry." I guess that's my cue to wrap this up.)

I often struggle with the amount of chaos and work there is to accomplish around here, but the lucky thing about having such a full life is that even the bad days come with enough opportunities to turn things around. Yesterday was a good day.

Two down...

As things get fixed around here, other things break. That's just how it works lately, for some reason. So our new dishwasher is finally installed and working after a long, drawn-out, painful process, but the next day (literally, the very next morning, before I had even run the new dishwasher) our hall closet was flooded with water because the air-conditioning broke.

My laptop is fixed, but my camera is officially dead. (The $###*&%@ dog jumped up and grabbed it off the kitchen table.) That camera was almost brand-new, and I really loved it. I'm feeling alright about it right now, though, because of my relief over the laptop. I fixed it all my ownself! Now I'm going to go give myself a pat on the back and maybe have a lollipop.

Aristotle was smarter than that

I noticed an "Aristotle quote of the day" application a few weeks ago, and added it to the bottom of the blog on a whim. I've been watching the quotes, though, and I have to say.......I think they are faking it. Some of those quotes, like today's : Change in all things is sweet seem......well, a little too dumb for Aristotle to have said. I mean, change in all things? Really? What if the change was in the position of our planet to the sun? Or if the change was the love a woman has for her spouse? That's not so sweet. It sounds more like the "deep thoughts" of an eighth grader who just read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

I'm leaving the app up, partly out of curiosity and partly out of laziness, but I just wanted to make it clear - I'm pretty sure it's a fraud.

A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words

Thank you to my in-laws, who emailed this to me. It is one of my favorite pictures, ever.

Abbie-isms

I'm just glad this didn't turn into a why-does-he-have-that-thing discussion:
We were taking a walk with the dog on Tuesday when he stopped to use the bathroom. He stops more often than I would wish, and as I sighed Abbie, from the front of the stroller, piped up, "He's just making water, not poopie. I can tell because of his position."

It's good to know she isn't pining away whenever we're apart:
Yesterday, I took the younger two girls up to my in-laws before going in to volunteer in Claire's classroom. As we were on our way, Abbie said, "Mommy, are you going to just drop us off?"

Yes, I said.

"Do you know what dropping off means?" she said.

I knew that this was weighted somehow, so I replied that I wasn't sure. What does it mean?

"It means" she replied, in that forceful way she has, "that when we get there you open the car door, you wait until we are far enough way to not get runned over, and then you drive away."

Silence again....

This time, I haven't been updating because Lucy somehow pried the T and the I keys off of my laptop, and I can't figure out how to get them back in. Do you know how many Ts and Is were in that last sentence??? Too many.

This is absolutely true!

http://thelobers.com/?p=620

Ha! You beat me to it, Vanessa!

Ah is tired

We had a busy morning and afternoon today. Abbie and Lucy were very well behaved as we ran from store to store to place to place, and I promised them that when we got home, I would let them watch one of the DVDs we got at the library this morning.

So we went home, and after lunch I settled them into my bedroom and put the DVD on. Then I switched out the laundry, which took about ten minutes. When I popped my head back in to make sure they were settled, I thanked my instincts because Lucy was nowhere to be found. No, she was in my bathroom, sitting happily in the tub which she had just half-filled with water. She was fully dressed.

As I stood in the doorway in silence, because of the shock, she looked pertly up at me and said, "Ah wash, Mommy."

There is nothing this kid can't or won't get into.

I miss naps.

Fun with Popery

One of the fun things about being raised Catholic is the opportunity it gives you to find some really twisted takes on life.

Case in point: My mom had a minor eye surgery this morning, and my sister called me later to let me know that she was out and on her way home.

"How does she look?" I asked.

There was a pause. Then Rachel said:

"You know those Mary statues that weep blood? She looks like that."

I immediately knew exactly what she meant, and if you grew up reading "The Wanderer" and stockpiling bottled water and blessed holy candles, you know exactly what she meant, too.

We may have been laughing, Mom, but at least you can be sure that we are praying as well.

How could I fail to have an awesome Mother's Day when this kind of thing is going on?

I love the cheesiness of holidays with little kids! Katie, this morning, gave me a coupon good for complaint-free showers from now until May 30th. (Yes, all her coupons came with very strict time parameters.) Claire gave me a card that said, "I like to klen with you!" Beth gave me a personalized plate she made in school, complete with home-made wrapping paper and a card signed, "love, your loving daughter Beth."

It is just all so much fun.

The best was the little song they made up and performed after dinner, and it was awesome enough that I've decided to figure out how to post videos on here. So here goes, I hope it works. If it does, enjoy! I sure did.

Dufflepud

Yeah, okay, she should technically only have one foot. Still, Dufflepud was what immediately came to mind when she hopped down the stairs like this.

On typos

I've noticed that I've been making a ton of typos and various other errors on here.

Sorry about that.

It's just that I am almost never typing this stuff out in an environment of peace and quiet. My situation is closer to that of those army guys who have to talk over those telephone-things during battles -- there are loud screams and flying debris, and I often am forced to change positions to a more secure area mid-sentence.

In fact, as I am typing this out now, Lucy is pretending that the floor is water, and every few seconds I have to stop and rescue her. Except for just now, when I had to stop because she was about to hit Abbie in the head with a drum stick.

The dog whines, the kids yell and whirl around and ask me impossible things, like can they eat a bowl of cereal in my bed? Well, why not?

So if I'm not always coherent, I apologize. Someday I may look around this living room and miss the chaos, but right now I'm just trying to document it as best as I can while shielding my head from a flying Goodnight Moon.

Pleas and Praise

First of all, I'd like to make a plea: if anyone has any pictures of Beth's communion, could you please email them to me? Our camera, due to stupidity on my part, ran out of batteries early on, so I only actually have three decent pictures from the day.

Now on to detail the fun part:

This past weekend was lots of fun.

My wonderful Mother-in-Law took the human wrecking crew (I mean, Abbie and Lucy) off of my hands so that I could feverishly clean the flu-ravaged house from top to bottom. Cleaning when no-one is interrupting you is fun! This ended up being not only convenient but life-saving as well, as my dishwasher broke yet again.

No! It didn't! Oh, yes. It did. About three hours before my family came in.

My mom, sister, sister's boyfriend, and three of my younger cousins all made the trek up to celebrate with Beth, and we were so glad they did.

Between the ever-present flu and frugality concerns, we haven't been out and about much this winter and spring, so it was doubly-fun for us to visit our local roller-skating rink while the cousins were visiting. The high adult-to-child ratio also helped, because my kids are not exceptionally coordinated.

I will say, though, that taking a 4 year old to the bathroom while the both of you are wearing roller skates......not easy. Not easy at all.

We also made an appearance at my parish's Hibernian Tea, which was oh-so-awesome. I have to admit that, deep down, I have a real love for kitsch and the Hibernian Tea delivered on many levels. Plus they had an insane amount of food there. I especially loved the very Irish madeleines and bagels with cream cheese. Food was served on actual china, and every table had two adorable tea-pots filled with hot water, and an assortment of teas. It was just super-cool, and it was fun for me to do something like this with extended family.

My childhood was spent going to things like this - parish fish fries, spaghetti dinners, those awesome and terrifying peirogi ladies, always in the company of a large and loud mob of family, and I've missed it. At one point, I looked over at Katie, who was running back and forth from the table to the buffet with Sara, delivering food and drinks, and it reminded me so strongly of my childhood that I couldn't help but smile.

It's good to have these kind of memories, and even better to watch my kids build more.

Beth's First Communion

Beth made her First Communion last weekend!
She was very nervous about the technicalities - where to stand, where to walk, etc., but as these things always go, once she was there it was all perfectly easy.

There was a moment earlier in the day when Beth and I were talking about things and I said, "when the bell rings, do you realize that Jesus will actually be there, in the church, and He will be there just for you?"

As I said it, she looked at me with shining eyes and the weight and wonder of it all sank into my own heart as well. There are so many things in life that too easily become afterthoughts - or things you do or encounter with no thought at all. I'm grateful for moments like this, when the whole church is filled with people who have come together specifically because it is such a Big Deal. It's not just a rite of passage, it is, as our Pastor quoted from St. Therese, "The first sweet kiss of Jesus."

Wow.

God Bless you, my crazy little Beth. I hope the awe and excitement of this day stays with you always.