The slip and slide was defective....

...but they worked it out! Here's the before and after videos!

disturbing. disgusting. weird.

We've finally found potty-training nirvana.

Lucy hasn't had an accident in almost a week! She is using the bathroom for everything and hardly ever needs reminders to go. She is also using the big potty (hooray!) and doing all the clean up (both her bottom and her hands) on her own.

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!

The only thing is.......... she names her poop. Late last week, as she was cleaning herself off, Lucy looked into the potty and declared to me, "That one looks like Bob!"

"Who is Bob?" I asked.

She pointed to a specific hunk of poop. "That is Bob," she said.

A few days later, as I was toweling her off after her bath, she noticed a piece of construction paper that had been left on the floor, and was covered with wet splotches.

"That one looks just like Bob!" she declared.

"Who is Bob?" I asked again, really curious.

"My poopie," she said.

Today, as she was cleaning up after using the potty, Lucy glanced into the bowl before flushing it. "That one is not Bob," she said.

I have no idea where this is coming from. At first I thought - maybe Bob the Tomato? But, ah, the specimen she specifically said was not Bob was the only one that looked even vaguely tomato-ish. Bob the Builder? We really don't watch that show, though. ( Handy Manny has totally left Bob the B in the dust.) My father's name is Bob....but I'm pretty sure Lucy doesn't even know that.

It is an absolute mystery. A really gross mystery. But intriguing nonetheless. (Maybe that's just me, though.)

It's a girl! (Again!) (Of course!)

My thoughts:

1- Wow!

2- What are the odds? (Actually, pretty good and getting better with each girl that comes down the pike. It just feels like we are beating them. )

3- My Father in Law is an actual, honest-to-goodness prophet!*

4- It makes me sad that so many people are going to assume that we were "going for a boy," and will feel sorry for us. It's never been about that as far as we are concerned. People tend to think that having more than the standard amount of kids is crazy, so I guess they look for things to explain it to themselves in a satisfactory way. They ought to realize that we just happen to embrace the craziness, and feel some things (like having 6 kids in 10 years) are worth doing even though it might be hard.

5- I was not actually scheduled for a sonogram. The doctor, after an agonizingly long time searching for the baby's heartbeat, sent me over to the hospital for an emergency sonogram. When the nurse asked him what the sonogram was for, and I heard him quietly answer "viability," my heart lodged into my throat. During the 45 minutes between realizing that something may have gone horribly wrong, and seeing the baby's gorgeous fluttering heartbeat on the screen, I had nothing but time to reflect on how very, very desperate I was for this baby to be okay. The big news during this sonogram was not "It's a girl!" It was, "She's alive and well!" and nothing else mattered. Nothing.

6- A part of me secretly worried that, should we have a boy, I might lose my identity. That's ridiculous, right? It is. It is. Still, having a family of girls has been such a part of my life for so long that I couldn't help but wonder if I could hack a change this late in the game. I guess I don't need to worry about that right now!

7- I do mourn the potential to name this baby "Zeke," even though we knew that we would be accused of naming the baby after our favorite coffee. Zeke's may make the best coffee in the world, but that has no bearing on the fact that it is also a supercool name! I don't think a girl could pull it off, though, so the name is a moot point.

8- There is a different dynamic between mothers and daughters and mothers and sons. The same goes with fathers - it is just a different ballgame between boys and girls. Do we sometimes wonder what it would be like to experience that different dynamic? Sure. Do we regret that we haven't? No. In case you haven't noticed, we are take-things-as-they-come kind of people. We'll take the largish family, gladly. And we'll take the girls, just as gladly, though we may not have planned for either.


8- This is my nephew after only an hour or so at our house. He is an extremely boyish boy, too! He's always pointing stuff out to my girls for their edification - things like grills, dump trucks and helicopters. They smile politely at him and then look over at me with confused faces. Why would he care about these things? They ask me. I do not know. I do not know.



*I thought that I had posted before about "The Prophecy," but I looking through the archives, I see I haven't. Waaaay back, when Katie was just 8 months old and we had just discovered that I was pregnant again, Chris's Dad had an extremely vivid dream in which we had 6 girls. We laughed heartily at the thought, and then dismissed it. His family has always believed in the dream, though. When we couldn't determine the sex during our 3rd pregnancy, we felt positive that we were having a boy. Chris' Mom, however, went out and bought three dresses for the Christmas following the baby's birth. Those dresses have now been used many, many times!!! And now, nine years after the fact, it has become clear as can be that the dream was indeed prophetic!

Time to visit the Chiropractor

The joy of the sixth pregnancy: your body is falling apart around you, and the punks who began the destruction are old enough to mock you for it!

Perhaps a litter box is the answer?

How goes the potty training? Well, there are two distinct way of looking at it.

On one hand, it is going almost perfectly. Lucy never wets herself. We were out and about all morning, and worrying about whether she might wet herself or not never even entered my mind.

On the other hand, however..... it's not going well at all. She poops her pants just about every afternoon. At first, she just held in it. As the days passed, however, I started to worry about her little belly so I began spiking her orange juice with laxitives. It worked like a charm...but not in the potty. We've had some pretty horrific messes, to put it mildly. I've now stopped the laxatives, but that has only translated into firmer loads in her underwear. In fact, Lucy is sitting in the bathroom at this very moment, as filthy as can be, while I am trying with all my might to compose myself here in the living room before confronting her.

The killer is that she is predictable in when these incidents occur, but not too predictable. It's never in the morning but while today she pooped her pants at 7:45, two days ago when we stopped by a friend's house, she had her "incident" at 3. There is never any warning - in fact, she seems to be capable of waiting and watching for a chance to sneak off privately. Usually, it happens when I am distracted by something - dinner is burning, or someone has an urgent problem with homework, or I run the garbage outside....I've tried keeping her on the potty for long periods of time - but thus far nothing has worked.

I am at the end of my rope, and I really do not know what to do about this except ride it out, and hope that she eventually gets it.

So, there we are. I have planned to go into Pittsburgh for a quick visit this Saturday, and as the days tick by my concern about this whole potty-dilemma increases. I hope my family appreciates the hell that I am potentially about to walk into.

I hate this stage. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.

I really hate it.

Self esteem is not a problem

Abbie was playing near Chris the other day, and in a reflective moment he happened to look over at her.

"You have very pretty hair, Abbie," he said to her, "Do you know that?"

"Yes," she said, tossing her golden locks over her shoulder, "I do. I don't even have to brush it!"

Yardwork from Claire's perspective

Yesterday, Chris' Dad and brother kindly came over to help him saw up a tree that had split in half over the winter. Today, after mass, we mobilized the girls to help clean up the carnage.

As I passed Claire, who was hauling twigs up the steps to the woodpile, I asked her how she was doing.

She blew a strand of hair out of her face and said, "I'm feeling completely dominated, here."

backsliding on the potty training....

The title of this post can be taken literally, unfortunately.

I do not deal well with excessive amounts of uncontrolled feces in the house. (By "excessive" here, I actually mean any amount whatsoever that is not in a diaper or in the toilet where it belongs.) I don't do well with it. I recognize this in myself.

I'm afraid that recognizing my shortcomings does not always translate into....uh, controlling them. So, long story short: the hallway bathroom is now really, really clean but I was kind of a jerk while making it so. And nothing makes you feel more lousy that realizing that the person you were being a jerk to is three years old, and still wants a hug when you calm down.

Parenthood: mortification in every way possible, combined with the constant reminder that you need it, you idiot.

Why did you give that to me?

Chris was snacking on Jalapeno Pepper Doritoes yesterday when Lucy sidled up to him.

"Daddy share his chips!" she chirped, optimistically.

"No, Lu," Chris told her, "these are too spicy. You won't like them."

"I will like them!" she insisted, "I like spicy!"

She continued to hover around him, noting that the chips smelled good and repeatedly reminding him that she "likes spicy!"

Finally, tired of being harassed, Chris gave her one small Dorito. Lucy immediately gobbled it up and smiled at him, but as the heat kicked in she began to gag.

She spit the chip out and gave him an accusatory look, "Why you give that to me?" she wailed.

If you ask her what happened with Daddy's chips now, she will tell you: "Daddy made me eat too spicy!"

She's very convincing.

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!"