Chris' Masterful Mojitos + Rock Band=

More fun than you should probably have on a Tuesday night.

But, man! It was fun. I am telling you people, if you don't have Rock Band yet go get it! It's fun for the whole family, it's fun to force your guests to play along, and it is a fun, fun, fun way to remind yourself - after a day changing diapers, arguing with tiny people incapable of seeing reason, cleaning crumbs off of the floor - that yes you could have been a rockstar. You are a rockstar!

That's all. I just felt the need the share.

First fire of Fall!

How's that for alliteration?

There are two seasons that always find the Mlinek family obsessed with fire. We love our cozy, warm, crackling fireplace in the winter, and we go crazy over our (admittedly, very primitive) fire pit in the fall.

The fire department behind our house was holding a bluegrass festival last Friday and the day was cool and crisp, so we hauled some logs down the hill and roasted ourselves some hot dogs (and apples, and marshmallows) for dinner. The music from the festival was fun, although the girls really enjoyed the s'mores more. We'll do this quite a few times before it gets too cold, but last weekend was just magical. It was the first fire of the season, and just so much fun.

Roasted marshmallows and sandboxes, however, mix just as badly as you'd think they would:

Better late than never, right?

Here are the pics from the girls' first day of school.

So far, this year has been going well! I was the most concerned about my little Larry, but she has taken to kindergarten like a fish to water (or like herself to water!)

At one point during the summer, Claire came over to me and exclaimed (does she ever say anything that isn't an exclamation?) "I cannot wait to start school....well, except for the learning part."

And that, ladies and gentlemen, sums up nicely why I worried about this year.

Of all the girls, Claire definitely has the least amount of patience, and I was concerned that all that sitting-still and listening-to-directions stuff would be hard, hard, hard on this impulsive little thing. But she is so very happy to finally be a 'big girl,' to finally be in school like her sisters, that she's turned the full force of her energies into being the best kindergartner possible.

There's a lesson in here somewhere about channeling our talents (Claire=energy) into whatever tasks life gives to us, even if those tasks aren't exactly up our alleys. Lucy is crying upstairs, however (I should not have told my friend yesterday that she is a good sleeper. This is your fault, Monica, for goading me into saying it!!!) and I need to cut this short. Long story short - I'm pretty darn proud of Claire. She brings this intense little jolt of happiness into our lives that I am so grateful for. And she has layers of abilities that constantly surprise me. All of the girls do, but today I'm particularly lookin' at my brown-haired moppet, and that bright eyed little thing is making me smile.

A first for me

It has taken me almost 9 years and five children for this to happen, and it was every bit as unenjoyable as I imagined.

I had to call poison control.

Yes, you guessed which child occasioned it.

The funny thing is that earlier in the day I was talking to my mom on the phone, and mentioned that we have been spending most of our time outdoors because Lucy gets into less mischief there. Not ten minutes later I was desperately trying to pry a bright red berry out of her mouth. I did not succeed, and she swallowed it with a shudder.

The good news is that the berry was only a little bit poisonous. Lucy will hopefully wake up from her nap fully revived. The bad news, of course, is that I have no safe place in which to seek refuge from her tyranny. Oh Lord, please give me the grace to guide this child (relatively) safely through her childhood; well, that or a padded cell.

It must be nice to have no inhibitions

Abbie was playing in the kitchen while I was clearing the table after lunch. All of a sudden she stood up, headed for the bathroom, and declared, "This girl has got to poop!"

My back wasn't even turned

I made a major mistake this afternoon: I gave my full attention to the pan I was washing. I know, I know. I should have known better. I should have kept my head in the game. I should have bolted every cabinet in this joint closed before turning my face to the sink.



Here's what happened in the time it took me to wash one (small!) pan:

Flour. Everywhere. We've seen this before, haven't we? But now we have a dog. In the initial scuffle, Jasper's water bowl was up dumped, turning the flour on his paws and nose into glue.

I'm not even going to talk about the floor. The kicker, though, was that after I had scolded Lucy thoroughly, cleaned up the mess in the house, placed the remaining flour into a plastic bag and knotted it shut, and then taken the dog outside to beat the flour out of him as though he was a dusty carpet....after I had done all of these things, I came back into the house to find this:

She did it again.

As it turns out, pastry flour glues up just as easily as regular flour. I guess that's useful information to have. However, if you happen to be seized with a sudden desire to bake while at my house, be prepared to add an additional 20 minutes into your prep time to access the now heavily guarded flour. And pray for me.

complete surrender

Yesterday was a perfect day to live in a house full of girls: TCM was running a Katherine Hepburn marathon. A couple of the girls wandered into my room while I was folding laundry during Bringing up Baby, and they were immediately hooked. Katie and Beth in particular loved it, so we decided to tape A Philadelphia Story* and I let them stay up late last night to watch it with me. Chris stayed in the basement for all of five minutes after we started the movie, when he loudly declared that he couldn't take it and was going upstairs to watch football.



I love it when he tries to assert masculinity in the face of all the pink-fluffiness of this place.



So, fast forward to this morning. It has been chilly here the past few days, and although the weather is warmer today the water in the pool is pretty chilly. Chris and I were discussing just how cold it might be, and whether it would be worth it to swim this afternoon. (I am notoriously wimpy when it comes to cold water.)



"It's going to be pretty chilly, "he said,"so you might want to start getting in the pool now so that you're finally used to the water by the time we girls get in."


He stopped and looked at me, but it was too late. "The girls and I!" he said, "I meant the girls and I."



I probably laughed for five full minutes. And while swimming this afternoon (it was very cold), I couldn't help but giggle from time to time. He tries, God bless him, but this boy has no chance. No chance. All the football in the world can only do so much against the tide of estrogen washing over us every day.

*As it turns out, A Philadelphia Story is way racier than you might think. We ended up turning it off.

Are you wondering why I haven't been updating lately?

Here's why:

Lucy climbed up on a kitchen chair and then tipped it backwards onto the floor, barely escaping breaking her neck. She then climbed back up onto the table and dumped a cup of milk onto the floor. Then she crawled into the dog's crate, ate a handful of his food and started to gag. After holding her over the sink (in case she puked) for a few minutes, she immediately went back into the crate and grabbed yet another handful of dog food. When I took it away from her, she bit me on the arm. When she was done crying (ahem), she climbed onto a bench and tried to push a box of wine bottles that we've been too lazy to recycle onto the floor. Luckily, it was too heavy and I had time to intercept. I set her back onto the floor, and she ran to the drawers where I keep bills and dumped the entire thing onto the floor. The dog was delirious with joy and immediately began to shred the paper. As I was picking up the bills, Lucy opened a cabinet door and dumped a bag of dog treats on the floor. (You can see why Jasper is so fond of her.) As I was cleaning up the dog treats, Lucy opened the liquor cabinet and pulled a large bottle of Maker's Mark off the shelf. I put the bottle back and pushed a stool in front of the door to deter her. She pulled the stool away and grabbed the bottle again. She was enraged when I would not allow her to play with the whiskey, so to vent her frustrations she reached out her hand and was about to rip out a handful of the dog's fur when I stopped her. She then screamed for ten minutes.

This all occurred between 5 and 6pm.

Chris wondered why dinner was late.

The only thing atypical about this evening was this: Lucy usually messes with the dog's water bowl as well.

I'll report back when I can, but I don't know when that will be. It's hell out here.

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