Beth's brush with fame

Beth had an exciting time at her friend's birthday party tonight. The brave parents took all the party goers to a Japanese steakhouse for dinner, and got an added bonus they were not anticipating.

Shortly after they arrived, Joe Flacco showed up to meet Todd Heap for dinner! The girls were all a-twitter with excitement, and the parents asked Joe if he would be willing to put up with a crowd of giggling girls for a few minutes. He very kindly agreed, and even posed for a picture! So, here it is!

To my dear relatives, I have to say that I am glad this happened in Baltimore and not Pittsburgh. It's nice to have a quarterback you can safely ask to pose with 8 year old girls. Not every city can boast as much.....

I'm on T.V!!

Yes,I am.But hold on, because my name is Katie. I'm the oldest child.
On Tuesday my music teacher, Mrs. Jacobson, walked into the classroom.
"I have a surprise for you ," she told us,"On Thursday the Education channel is coming, and they are going to tape your class!" I was overly excited. But 5 minutes later I was more than excited. Mrs.Jacobson then asked if she could see me for a second. I walked outside with with her.
"I was asked to recommend someone to be interviewed and I recommended you. Can I have your permission?"
"Of course!" I replied. One other kid would be with me. Her name is Makayla, she's really nice. So finally Thursday came(after a field trip!). We went to music 3 minutes early on purpose. A guy was there,his name was Mr. Walker; he was really nice. We did our normal thing. Makayla and I were pointed out. I dropped a mallet in front of the camera! I was asked to be taken out of class near the end. I let Makayla go first. Then I went. I was asked to say what made Mrs.Jacobson a great music teacher. I said that when we learn new things she lets us explore it and find the answer ourselves instead of her telling us the answer. And, I get my own DVD of it!

some catching up to do....

The girls during the blizzard
Originally uploaded by moleshollow

We finally have our camera working again, so if I did this right it ought to link to our flickr page, where I've added a bunch of photos from the past couple of months. Check it out!

Best field trip ever, by Beth

I went on a field trip today. Our tour guide was named Mr. Bill, he was the first shortstop for the Baltimore Orioles. Mr. Bill showed us around and he showed us a lot of amphibians. I got to hold a lot of tadpoles. I got to hold baby tadpoles, big tadpoles, and salamander eggs. The eggs felt like jello. There was a beach there, but its more for wading not much for swimming. You can touch baby tadpoles there but not bring them home. I saw a snake, and figured out that frogs do not go "ribbit ribbit" in the East. But there are frogs that go "ribbit ribbit" in Hollywood. I got to hear frogs and go on a big nature hike. There was also a playground there and there is a nature center.

In the nature center you can see turtles, cockroaches, snakes, bees, frogs, and other artifacts. On the hike you can go to a place called Turtle Island. I didn't see any turtles, but there are a lot of turtles and fish. Be careful, because there is poison ivy! There are picnic tables and chickens and roosters. Mr. Bill asked someone in my group to scream to see if Tom Turkey was there, but he wasn't. Tom Turkey will normally answer back if a girl screams.

This field trip was awesome!

Opinionated little girl

Potty training is continuing to go well. She's had a few accidents, but nothing too terrible. The biggest problem, really, is her attitude about the whole thing. I can tell that she has put some thought in to this whole situation, and has come to the conclusion that diapers are just a better way to go. So while she is does well with running to the potty when she needs to go, she'll often argue with me about putting her in a diaper. It's an issue every morning when I take her nighttime diaper off, and it's an issue several times a day, whenever the mood strikes her and she wants to relax her vigilance. We're going to a little festival at the school this afternoon, and she is already trying to convince me to put her in diapers when we go. (For the record, she is going in underwear.)

Meanwhile, here's an insight into the mind of this kid:

For years and years, I have put the kids to bed by saying a little prayer over them and then repeating the phrase my mom used to say when my sister and I went to sleep, "Dream about the angels!"

It is one of those things that the girls now "need" in order to feel fully tucked in.

Last night, as I turned out the bedroom light and was about to close the door, Lucy's little voice suddenly piped up.

"You can't choose my dreams!" she said.

At first, I had no idea what she was talking about.

"I choose my dreams!" she went on, "I am dream about Daddy or the new baby in Mommy's belly."

"Uh, okay," I said, still not sure what she was talking about it. But then she clarified it for me.

"I am NOT dream about angels!" Lucy said, "I choose my dreams!"

Training Day - day 2

We are almost at the end of Day 2 of our potty-training boot camp, and so far so good. Lucy has only had 1 accident today, and by the early evening she seemed to finally be getting the connection between feeling the need to go and going.

Yesterday, she was clearly afraid to poop on the potty and she was clearly holding it in for a while there. After I put her in a diaper for bedtime, she ran downstairs to kiss Chris goodnight. He became suspicious when she instead went behind the couch and he asked her what she was doing.

"I think I will make poopie now," she told him.

Today Chris brought home three very cute-looking chocolate candies, to be eaten only once Lucy made "poopie on the potty." Low and behold, about half an hour later, things began to (ahem) move forward.

Lucy was doing so well by this evening that I let her run around outside some and she stayed out there for a solid hour without any accidents! I am hoping that I will be able to relax my vigilance tomorrow (I have literally done nothing all day but track her around the house, and for most of the day we were spending 5 minutes out of every 10 in the bathroom.)

In just a few minutes I will begin the nightime routine, and as long as nothing disastrous happens I will declare this day a victory. I don't want to count my chickens before they are hatched, but so far this has been a relatively painless process. Don't get me wrong, I would still rather do almost anything else other than potty-train, but.... if we can continue on in this vein, it will be entirely liveable. I never thought I'd even be tempted to refer to potty-training in those terms.

We are potty-training today

Gah! I hate this. If I had known that raising children would include having to house-break them, I never would have....

Well, okay, I guess I did know. But if I am honest, my internal dialogue every time I discover that I am pregnant again goes something like this:

We are going to have a baby! Hooray! But, crap, that's one more time I'm going to have to potty-train.

Well, here we go again. Thus far today, Lucy is not taking this very seriously. She thinks it is kind of funny. I am increasingly of the opposite opinion. We'll see who wins this round.

When being cavalier about the weather is a big mistake

The girls had a half-day on Friday, so we decided that it would be fun to walk to the little playground that is about a mile down the road. The neighbor kids showed up and asked if they could come along, so we packed up some water and headed out.

We met another family at the park and had a great time. The kids were all playing well, it was a gorgeous day, and the hours just sped by. Some time around 5, however, the neighbor kids' Grandmother suddenly showed up in her car and informed all of us that a tornado warning had just been issued for our area.

I looked up at the sky, which was darkening in the distance, and the wind was picking up a bit, but it didn't look like anything terribly serious. I mentally dismissed the Grandmother's panic, and declined an offer from my friend to drive us home. The walk to the park had been nice, and I could see no reason why the walk back wouldn't be as enjoyable.

About 2/3 home, however, things suddenly took a very, very bad turn. The sky became purple and the wind began to howl. Rain came from nowhere and literally drenched us all to the skin within a few seconds. The girls were completely panicked. It all happened so fast that I can't remember who was doing what, but somebody took off running in pure fear and it was nearly impossible to shout at her over the wind. I finally gathered everyone around me, and decided to call Chris for rescue and then find a place where we could wait. As I dialed my phone, however, the wind ripped a FOR SALE sign off of the house across the street, and whipped it directly at us. The girls were screaming, and I tried to simultaneously shield Lucy (who was on my back) and deflect the sheet of heavy metal from the girls. Honestly, I can't remember how we avoided getting hit by it -- whether I did something, or whether the wind just diverted it in another direction, but as soon as we were clear from that danger, I shouted for the girls to run with all their might for the Post Office ahead of us.

We made it inside without further incident, all of us soaking wet but otherwise not hurt. The Post Office matron very kindly gave us all towels to dry our faces and after a few minutes Chris showed up to bring us home.

Later that day, Katie - who has been living in Middle Earth for a while now - told me that she no longer feels as eager for adventure as she had been. "Being in danger wasn't exciting at all," she said, "it just felt scary."

The Art of Leisure

On Monday, I clocked in at 4am to the bakery for the last time. On Tuesday, Lucy had her much anticipated, greatly hyped 3rd birthday. On Wednesday, I chaperoned the 5th grade field trip to Philadelphia.

Today, I am doing nothing.

Chris tells me that he has finally solved our picture-uploading problems, so tomorrow I plan to dig out all of those pictures I have been promising to post for the last four months.

Right now, though, I am going to tuck Dicken's Dombey and Son under my arm and go sit outside while the girls play kickball. I'm going to listen to the birds chirp, and feel the warm breeze, and beyond the swing-pushing that I will most likely agree to, I will enjoy this day of not doing a blessed thing.

Expecting

The sound below of laughter boisterous
Together now, then scattered, singular
As the small one creeps up stairs to sidle near,
Too new a branch to burn long unassisted.

The silent fluttering within
Gives the sweetness of her tousled head
Against my arm a kind of salty tang.
She warms with quickened ease now,
A touch, a shift, the blaze renews,
Straining for embers more rarely
The light less borrowed or shared,
Smoldering from fissures unseen.

So soon to be her own and not of mine!
And while this quickening draws,
Stirring and pulling at the frame,
Yet still the yearning it drafts
Clings again to the earlier branch
And is the more consumed.
Too bright for pain, the mesmerizing flames
Mine, less so with every flare.
The searing dear to yield such wonder.

The other "stuff"

The two younger girls and I went to Target this afternoon.

The corner counter top in the kitchen has been bugging me lately, because it tends to be the dumping ground for all sorts of junk. Chris has a habit of scrawling vital and irreplaceable information on little pieces of scrap paper and then dumping them on the pile of junk mail, and after accidentally pitching a few important scrawls I have washed my hands of the pile altogether. This means that the mountain of scrap paper (interspersed with business cards, surgical tidbits, and reciepts) grows and grows and grows....and takes up the entire counterspace. I have tried multiple times to impose order via various wicker baskets, once I even tried a bread drawer, but the pile always ends up overwhelming whatever container I was hoping would...contain the stuff. So naturally I have come to the conclusion that I just need a bigger container.

I was browsing the "storage" section, looking over the baskets and canvas boxes, when Abbie asked what I was looking for. I heard her right away because she tends to speak in an only slightly subdued yell whenever we are in stores.

"I'm just looking for something to put Daddy's stuff in," I said.
"Oh," Abbie responded in her signature screechy-yell, "You mean beer!"

The children's dreams come true

Chris was in the middle of prepping his famous fish and chips for dinner tonight, when there was a disaster with the cod. Don't ask what it was, because now that the girls are reading this blog I have to be careful, and I want them to stay enthusiastic fish lovers. It was bad, though, so although Chris was already halfway done with the french fries he baled on the fish and ordered pizza.

When the girls came up the stairs to discover a dinner of pizza and french fries, they were understandably stoked.

Katie eyed the table in surprise, "Are you sure Easter isn't tonight?" she asked.

Ephiphany in preparation for Easter

This is not nearly as profound as it sounds.

I ran to Target after work today to pick up a few extra things I still needed for Easter Baskets....one of the "extras" being the Easter baskets themselves. Earlier this year, when Chris and I were cleaning out the basement, I threw away all of the old Easter baskets. They were in lousy shape, and I figured that it would be better to just buy new ones.

So, in Target, I made my way to the Easter section and found myself appalled at how expensive those stupid things are. There is no way that I am going to shell out $20 per baskets for the nicer, sturdier ones, but at the same time it felt wrong to spend between $7-12 on the cheap baskets that I know won't last more than a few years.

What to do? Suddenly, it hit me and I made my way to the other side of the store. The purse section. And there, hanging prettily from hooks in a variety of bright colors were the perfect bags - big and roomy, with plenty of space for presents and a deep enough so that they can be tied shut. (The Easter bunny often brings our gifts in themes, and it can be a bummer for some girls to stumble upon someone else's basket and then basically know what their own baskets hold long before finding them.)

These bags are perfect! Easy to store, sturdy, well-made and $10 a piece! Hooray! It felt good to leave the store knowing that I won't be dropping another $60+ in a year or two for new baskets. Plus, when I got home, the girls were just as ecstatic as I knew they'd be; what girl can resist the lure of a cute new purse???

And in light of Katie's post below, for the curious: yes, I did buy six purses. But just in case, the last one was blue.

Guest post by Katie

Hello, my name is Katie. As being the oldest of 4 others, things can get pretty hectic. Also, with me being in 5th grade, I have a lot of projects and homework "To get us ready for Middle School" as the teachers say. I do write a lot of books, half of the ones I think of I write. And yes, I am an elf. My address is 5116 Apple Tree. Look at 5116 closely, and you might figure this out. Give your guesses in the commment box. J.R.R Tolkien is my favorite author. READ THE LORD OF THE RINGS!!!! It's great, unless you HATE fantasy( shame on all that do).
I sometimes get breakfast for the girls, watch them on the bus, play with them, etc.

Now for my big annoncment.

October 13, or around then, welcome kid number 6!!!
WOOHOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lots of activity for one day....

...considering the fact that I have been updating this so infrequently lately. The reasons are:

1 - I didn't work yesterday or today, which means I'm fully rested (aka coherent) today
2 - I'm sick, so lazing around more than usual
3 - I'm feeling alive because I just quit my job! (Well, mostly. I'll still be working until mid April, but at least there is an end in sight to the 4am-4pm shifts of doom.)


Also, you'll notice the new twitter feed to the left. I know that it is ridiculous for a woman to have a blog AND a twitter account when she has nothing to say, but it was the only way to enter a "meet Conan O'Brien" contest. So, there you go.

Unpredictable

We were in Target today when Lucy, suddenly and with no warning, began to publicly humiliate a random woman who happened to be walking slightly in front of us.

"Look!" She yelled out, pointing, "It's an old lady! That is a OLD LADY!"

I would guess the poor woman was in her mid-forties. At the most. She looked pretty spry to me.

"Look at that OLD LADY!" Lucy yelled out again, just as I clamped my hand over her mouth and swooped her into a side aisle to get her out of sight.

"Lucy," I whispered frantically to her, "we don't talk about people like that. It's bad manners!"

"Oh," she said, furrowing for a moment. "I'm sorry."

We began to make our way through the store (far away from where the woman - who may or may not have noticed the commotion Lucy was making towards her) when Lucy, who must have been thinking it over, piped up, "Mom!"

"Yes?" I asked.

"But that lady was old!"

Back to the drawing board with this one. I wish I knew what it was about this poor woman that left such a strong impression on Lucy. I also wish I knew how to predict and stop these kinds of outbursts before they happened. I have a feeling, though, that this is but a small hint of the unpredictable nature of Miss Lucy Anna.

Another mystery, another potential horror

Does anybody remember the time somebody puked in my bathroom and nobody would fess up to it? You can relive it here, if you wish.

Thank the laptop gods that I still can't upload photos, because we had another mystery last night and this one was of horrific proportions.

A very suspicious brown smear appeared directly in front of the toilet last night. There was also a partial brown handprint on the wall by the light switch.

Disgust, horror, and wild accusations ensued. Everyone was questioned, everyone claimed complete and utter innocence. Just about everyone also had their own suspicions about who it might be; it was kind of like playing "Clue," actually, except that the "weapon" was biological.

The investigation reached the following conclusions:

1 - The hand print actually appeared the previous evening, and is most likely attributable to the chocolate mint souffle we had for St. Patty's Day.
2 - Nobody used the upstairs bathroom yesterday. Not no body, not no how. The various people who were all seen either entering or exiting the bathroom were in there for reasons other than using the facilities. They'd like to see anybody try to prove any different.
3- The girls spent a lot of time outdoors yesterday, and parts of the yard are still very muddy. Thus, although no one admits to being anywhere near the toilet, if somebody had, the smear could have come from muddy shoes.
4- No matter what it was or who did it, it needed to be removed and there was only one person qualified to get the job done.

As I scrubbed the floor, wondering if I should be grateful for having a cold and being unable to smell or if I should be frustrated at my inablitity to use that sense to determine if I was cleaning up mud or....something much worse, Beth stood near the door watching me.

"When I see you doing things like this," she said to me, "it makes me think that maybe I don't want to ever be a mother."

You and me both, kiddo. You and me both.

Guest post by Beth

The girls have suddenly gone blog-crazy, so I am allowing both Beth and Katie to write their own posts. Here's Beth's:

Hi! I'm Beth.Rebecca Mlinek daughter.(#2 out of 5.) Sometimes I pull Lucy around in a basket. One time I was cleaning my room. I put Lucy in the basket. Then I went to put clothes in the landry basket.When I got back Lucy was in the basket but sideways. "DADDY!" she cried.Yes,daddy.I've been known as daddy latley. When we play house I'm the dad.I found Lucy sideways alot.Finaly, I went dowstairs to put a toy away. Guess what? Lucy follwed me. Luckily, Katie was there so Lucy cried "MOMMY!" Yes, mommy. Katie is the mom when we play house.Lucy went with her. Free at last. Free to clean in peace! Only bad part is I don't really like to clean. I just like to play.(P.S When I wrote this so mom could approve it I was watching Dad and Uncle Andy play Modern Warfar 2 on the Xbox. Uncle Andy's broke.)

How Lucy dominates her father

Chris kindly let me sleep in this morning, and he most likely regretted it the moment he stepped foot outside our bedroom.

He found Lucy in the kitchen, meticulously strewing toilet paper around the table and chairs.*

"What are you doing?" he (sensibly) asked her.

She replied, "It's Lucy Anna's birthday!"**

Looking at his face as he surveyed the damage, she added, "It can be your birthday, too!"


*She also "decorated" the toilet paper with pink fabric glue
**It is not Lucy Anna's birthday

Irrepressible

Chris heard feet pattering in the kitchen after the girls had gone to bed. When he went to investigate, he found Abbie, who claimed that she couldn't go to sleep because Lucy was being, "crazy."

So Chris went upstairs to see what "crazy" meant.

Lucy had tossed her blankets around the room and was sitting on her bare bed, holding a clothes hanger and pontificating to her toys.

"Lucy," Chris thundered, "what are you doing?"

She turned calm and unconcerned eyes to him and replied, "Tomorrow, I need you to buy me some candy!"

She was actually surprised to find herself in trouble after that.

I've said it before, but it is really, really true: a worry and a wonder is what this kid is. In that order.