Guest Post: Gretchen 1

  Hello, dear readers! I’m afraid this will be a short post because I’m new to this, and I’ve only thought of one thing to write about. That thing is: *drum roll* Car rides!

 Yes, readers, I’m writing this post to explain what the average car ride is like for the Barhorsts. Below is my explanation:

A Car Ride with the Barhorsts:

 While the Barhorsts were in the car, they began to converse, as is the way of people. Somehow, they got on to the topic of songs. Specifically, Stop in the name of Love.

 Mom/Johannah: *singing* Stop!

 All of the girls in the car: *singing* In the name of love! Before you break my heart!

 It was at this moment that Matthias decided to kick the back of Gretchen’s seat, to show his disappointment in the song choice.

 All of the girls in the car: *singing* Stop! In the name of love! Before you break my heart! Think it o-o-ver. Think it o-o-ver.

 This went on for a short period of time, when finally, Matthias got so fed up that he accidentally changed the song.

 Matthias: *shouting* I JUST LOST THE GAME!!!

 Olivia: *singing* Oh no! Soon as I thought the name!

 At this point, everyone seemed to realize that the song had changed.

 Everyone: *singing* Too slow! Now I gotta say it out loud! Make the whole world lose it! I just lost the game! You too! Tag I’m dragging you! So true! If it’s in your brain, you’re done when you don’t think you’ve won!

 This also went for a short amount of time, until at some point, everyone switched to a new song.

 Everyone: *singing* I think I heard it! It’s coming on! You lost the game ‘cause it’s so fun! Some people hate it! Some people don’t! But you can love it! Don’t try and block it out when it’s 9:00! Oh yeah, love and lose the game! SO GREAT! Try and keep it all straight, it’s the game! Don’t wait! 15 minutes, that’s too long, just lose it all day off and on!

 Gretchen: *singing* Don’t shout and point at a person! Because that is not how you win! Have con-

 Gretchen: *cough cough hack cough wheeze cough cough cough*

 Gretchen: *singing* Have conversations that are normal! And if you hear a word that makes you think of it, laugh out loud and then go say…THE GAME!

 Everyone: *singing* Try and keep it all straight, it’s the game! Don’t wait! 15 minutes, that’s too long, just lose it all day off and on!

After that, the song ended and Kaitlyn decided to sing her own song.

 Kaitlyn: *singing* Coco coco *something about coco maybe*

 This lasted for about three seconds, until Olivia decided she wanted something different.

 Olivia: Kaitlyn wants Olivia’s log!

 Olivia, Kaitlyn, and Gretchen: *singing* A fake wood chest, it’s not a real log! A treasure trove that holds her dreams! Kaitlyn’s eyes got that scheming gleam!

 Eventually, everyone got bored of this, and Gretchen tried her own song.

 Gretchen: *singing* Purple elephants are cool! Always breaking all the rules!

 No one else sang with her, so she stopped.

 After this everyone contemplated what to sing next. Someone said something about how they should all know the words. This gave Olivia and idea.

 Olivia: *singing* Back at last,

 Everyone: *singing* we won the fight. Peace restored the world made right. Subtle changes, that’s okay. This will be a brighter day. Now I’ve got a true best friend. Mom and I are home again. And we’ll be better that we’ve ever been.

 At this point, mom remembered something from her childhood, and proceeded to tell her children about it. While I can’t recall her exact words, I know it was something about how her family had 12 seats in their car, and their friends only had 6 seats. Because of this, the children in her family called their van the Fenton Frigate, and they made a song about it.

 Mom/Johannah: It went like this: *singing* We are the Fenton frigate warriors! We will fight our enemies! We will prob'ly lose 'cause we are small! But we won't lose real quickly! We are enthusiastic warriors! We will gladly fight long and hard!

 After this, she forgot the words. Then we arrived home.

Now, dear reader, you know what takes place in the Barhorst car when everyone is happy. I won’t get into what happens when they are unhappy. Now, I am done writing, and have decided, against my better judgement, to not look over this, and to instead just send it to my mother to get posted. Please correct any errors I have made while typing this. Also, if my mother allows it, I would like to award 15 unimportant bonus points to anyone who knows what the rest of the lyrics are to the Fenton Frigate song.

Also, pictures that are totally unrelated to the post (because blogs are always better with pictures):

October 1-11

Note to my children: If you want something documented, make sure it happens in the first part of the year, when I'm still managing to update regularly and haven't succumbed to the overwhelm of life and the perceived futility of ever catching up.

October begins the loosening of our busy schedules. Theodore played his last fall soccer game. He's been loving it, so we are looking for an indoor winter option for him. Matthias played his last fall soccer game as well, probably. His team was undefeated in the regular season, and there are rumors of post season opportunities. 4th grade soccer has been very last minute, though, so if there are more games we'll find out approximately 24 hours before they happen. Kaitlyn's cross country season ended with a 16:29 PR on the hardest course of the season (our home course). Sixth graders do not compete at conference. Gretchen has one more race (conference), Olivia has at least two.

Olivia ran a great PR at our October 3 meet -- 22:57. She also placed second on our team that day. She and her friend, Elaine have been back and forth between second and third. They push each other well. Gretchen has been chasing a PR all season, eking out season bests by a few seconds at each race, but missing that elusive time from last year. On October 3 she finally managed a 16:15 for a PR, and then three days later at our home meet (the hard one), she crushed her goals and ran a 15:44. Also at the home meet the junior high girls got second place! There are only four of them, so normally they can't score as a team, but only two schools at this particular meet had full junior high teams, so we all agreed to alternate scoring -- teams of 3 instead of teams of 5 -- and I spent the high school race running the junior high numbers by hand.

School has settled into a routine. We are accustomed to getting out the door early enough to get Gretchen to Spanish class, which is this year running as a zero hour class at the grade school. Last year Olivia's Spanish class was first hour at the high school and then they bussed the students back to St Charles. We've figured out the pickup routine as well, and head over to pick up Olivia from a back door after being released from our row at St Charles. Olivia and Theodore have their homework bases covered and have adjusted to the demands of their new grades. Gretchen and Matthias are relatively on top of things. Kaitlyn is disliking middle school thus far and does not appreciate the amount of homework that is assigned.

LCC had homecoming last night and Olivia went! A small sliver of Bryan in that decision, but the rest of the night was mine. She quite happily went shopping in our basement and wore one of Jacque's old homecoming dresses. She warmed it up with my lace sweater and a pair of leggings, but did consent to fancy sparkly heels -- borrowed from my closet. Her plan going in was to text us when she was ready to come home, which she did at 10:00. On the drive home, she happily told me about her night: I went inside with my friends and we walked to the gym. I joked, "Okay, I did it, let's go now." The room was dark and the music was loud and we couldn't hear each other. There wasn't really anything to do, although people were jumping up and down. I guess that was the dancing? I went and found a quiet hallway and read my book for an hour and a half, and then I texted you. I had a lovely time.

Bryan and I also got all dressed up last night. We went to a wedding with a formal dress code that was actually formal, so I wore my senior recital dress and Bryan bought a suit that fits. We fit in fine, but he maintains that the suit jacket was unnecessary since dinner was a buffet on foam plates and drinks were bottles of beer. It was a little bit of a juxtaposition. How often to I have an excuse to wear my fancy dress, though? Never. The ceremony was quick, the food was tasty, and the company at our table was pleasant. We knew exactly one person there (the bride), danced a line dance and a slow dance, and came home in time to take a picture of Olivia before she left for homecoming.

Bryan got tired of having holes all over the backyard, so he designated the side of the house as a place where Matthias and Theodore could dig with abandon. They've been industriously working on it (with the help of some friends) and have quite a sizeable hole now. Unfortunately, it's closer to the house than is advisable. Bryan took a picture of them with their hole and we are going to put it in a jar as a one item time capsule and fill the hole back in. A new spot, further from pipes and foundations, has been marked for their next hole.

Pictures:

Playing Catch-Up: July

Summer is the worst. It's also the best, but the things that make it the best contribute to it being the worst. We get to sleep in, but our days are packed. Not predictably packed, though. Randomly, inefficiently, new-adventure-every-day packed. We get to take trips, but we have to prepare for, endure, and recover from those trips. The kids have activities, but someone has to get them there. And back. I'm glad school has started again and returned us to predictable schedules.

I believe I last left off in July. Jillian and Caleb had an engagement party. We got to see my whole family (almost all at once, but not quite) at camp and then at our house. Things were settling down a little bit. For a moment.

The Sunday after everyone left (actually on the day that Jillian and Caleb left), I piled Olivia, Gretchen, and three other teenagers into my van to drive them to St. John's Camp. It's a little over a four hour drive one way. The trip was quite pleasant. After depositing five teenagers at the doors of four different cabins, I began the trip back home. I had a new audiobook to listen to and there was a Culver's along the way. :) I actually didn't need to stop at Culver's for anything because that's where we'd had lunch on the way to camp, but my phone battery was dying, so I stopped to plug it in for a while. It was on this trip that I discovered that my backup battery charger no longer worked. By the time I got near St. Mary's, my phone was at 2%. No big deal, I thought, because two of my children were born at the St. Mary's hospital, so I should remember the way home from there. Unfortunately, I did not start at the hospital. I got off at the exit for St. Mary's and started having regrets just as my phone died and the sun began going down. I pretty much never travel into Lima from the southwest, so I began zigging and zagging along country roads, hoping to eventually hit one I recognized. When the moment came, I almost missed it because it turns out that Fort Amanda is named something else once it crosses a certain point. Luckily, that point was the exact road I was on, and I had a feeling that I should check the street signs going both directions. I made it home and put a new battery charger in my Amazon cart.

Monday began the boys' week of Safety City, which is a free program offered each summer. The kids go for two hours a day and learn various types of safety: bike and road rules, fire and tornado safety, how to yell loudly and run away if someone tries to grab you. The big draw is the scaled city of Lima with business sponsored model buildings along a bike road. There's one stoplight and also a train crossing. Theodore did not love the bike days, though, because he can't ride a bike yet and we don't know where the training wheels went. He works on it sometimes, but he's not excited to try.

This was the second year in a row that had mornings when I was home alone with Kaitlyn. As is our custom, we learned a tiktok dance. This year we picked a harder one, so we started with the simplified version of Stateside and moved on to the harder official version. I've already forgotten a lot of it, but we did have a chance to pull it out and dance it at Jillian and Caleb's wedding.

On Friday after Safety City I took Kaitlyn and the boys to Grandma's house so that Bryan and I could go to a friend's wedding in Michigan. The wildfire smoke that was bad in Lima was even worse in Ann Arbor, but the wedding was indoor so it didn't matter much. The reception was fun -- pickleball instead of dancing. Everyone was warned and brought clothes to change into. Only a few people already knew how to play pickleball, so the groom ended up teaching everyone so that he could beat them. Bryan and I had a good time. Saturday morning we stopped by to visit the Sledges before heading home.

The next week was VBS at St. Stephen. I'm in charge of that, and my helpers are usually whatever teenagers I can coerce. This year I had another adult, which was pretty exciting. Not that the teenagers aren't capable -- after a few years of helping they're old pros. My favorite part of this year's VBS was the homemade Hullabaloo game that I put together. Our categories were churches, crosses, feast days, and saints (the saints being the ones we focused on this year) and in transition times when we were waiting for a few people to finish up we would head out to the parsonage garage and play a few rounds of Hullabaloo. The very first time we played we tried being outside instead, but I immediately dropped St Basil's Cathedral through the slats in the front porch and we had to play without it until I printed another one. It landed face up, so all the kids just flopped down to look at it through the cracks. Kaitlyn helped part of the week and Olivia and Gretchen helped the other part of the week. The times they were not helping were spent at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

On that Friday we all headed to Sidney to visit. On Saturday Bryan and the kids attended Lincoln's birthday party at the park. I met up with some friends and drove down to Cincinnati for a day of puzzles. We did the regular pairs and teams divisions, but I opted for the casual division solo puzzle -- only 300 pieces instead of 500 -- and have zero regrets. My puzzling days are few and far between at this point.

On Sunday we woke up, went to church in Dayton, and then headed to our now annual trip to Great Wolf Lodge. The kids loved it, as always. I'm happy that they are old enough that they pretty much take care of themselves. I think I got in the water 4 times total, and once was to help an unrelated child across the lily pads. My book and I had a lovely time sitting by the wave pool and checking in on people.

I will have to find the pictures from this month and post them later.

Ted

This is the story of Ted.

As with most stories, it begins before Ted, and actually has very little to do with Ted until the end, when Ted becomes all that matters. 

A few years ago, in a house perhaps very much like your own, there were five children. They'd grown up a bit, as children tend to do, and were safely out of the baby stage and had relaxed into the confident deciders of their own path stage. Or something like that. Whatever the stage, these five children felt empowered to make their own decorating decisions in family rooms. They were no doubt helped by active imaginations and unsupervised access to craft supplies.

Posters began to pop up on the walls. These children lived in a kingdom of their own imagining (heavily influenced by their entertainment choices), and so the posters were all to do with the political workings of said kingdom. Long live the queen, wanted for stealing potatoes, etc. As with any imagined kingdom, there were disgruntled peasants and underappreciated second sons daughters who had a bit of a rebellious streak. This manifested mainly as vandalism. 

An important side note: it is quite possible that in the ever shifting allegiances between the children, each of the five ended up on both sides at one point or another. It would appear that the constant, undisputed Queen of Hearts was Olivia, although it is unclear whether she made any posters herself. I would not be at all surprised to learn that the original posters were made by the same people who vandalized them.

The posters went up, the posters were vandalized, and the posters remained, becoming part of the fabric of family life. No one noticed them anymore. The political strife was forgotten, and the children moved on to more mundane things like homework and yelling at each other.

Until a pot-stirrer arrived on the scene. Some may call her a hero, for without her Ted does not exist. But her original intention was just to throw a little grease on the fire and see what happened. Enter Mrs. Hodges. She had been visiting quite regularly, as often as once a week, to play cards with the other adults in the evenings. As one does. But in between hands, her artist's eye noticed that the posters were old and no longer updated. One night, Mrs. Hodges decided to fix it. She added new vandalism to some posters and put up new notices with interactive artwork that encouraged collaboration.

Oh, the uproar that occurred the next morning when the children awoke. How could they have been so lax in the decorating of their own kingdom? A flurry of creative activity ensued. Old posters were removed. New posters were hung. The queen is still despised, but she has new nemeses at every turn. The vandals came out in full force, even offering classes (with pull off contact tabs!). Of course, the guards are prohibited from investigating. A few new posters invite Mrs. Hodges to contribute again, and overnight new life has been breathed into the adventure.

Mrs. Hodges is delighted to comply. There follow a few weeks of friendly artistic repartee. No peaceful scene can last forever, though, and our hero (?) decides to strike again.

A new poster is displayed. More a proclamation than a poster, really. There's a rascally villain on the scene, craftily coming in and hiding 17 diamonds all over the house. The children have to find all the diamonds in order to discover the newcomer's true identity. They find nine diamonds very quickly. They put up a retaliatory poster requiring Mrs. Hodges to find scraps of paper as well. They find five more diamonds, and all the scraps of paper they hid for Mrs. Hodges. Unfortunately, at this point Grandma comes to stay for a few weeks and rearranges the furniture. Whatever hope there was for the last three diamonds is lost.

This wrinkle hardly matters, though, because the children think they know that the newcomer is Mrs. Hodges, even though in reality Mrs. Hodges is just the creator of the newcomer and now the children may never know the identity of this challenger to the power of the Queen of Hearts. What does matter is one sentence on the proclamation: Where is your night watchman?

We do not have a night watchman. Obviously. Or should I say, we did not have a night watchman. Gretchen and Kaitlyn set out to remedy this. They found poster board somewhere -- probably in the unsupervised craft supplies -- and traced Matthias. They cut and drew and colored and eventually produced a quite good Matthias-sized night watchman. Sleeping, of course, with drool coming down his chin and a teddy bear clutched in his hand. His name is Ted. 

A retaliatory note was composed. Of course we have a night watchman. How could you think we did not? He's obviously very dedicated to his job and will catch you if you dare to try any tricks again. Carefully balanced next to this note was Ted. Asleep on his feet.

At this point in our story, we reach another lull. Summer is in full swing, families are busy, and Mrs. Hodges has not returned to play cards. She has not been able to see and appreciate the wittiness of the note or the presence of Ted or the failure of the children to find the remaining diamonds. And so it remains, dusty but waiting, a shrine to a game cut short.

Ted grows bent. He falls over and is propped back up. He sleepily guards board games and dinners and homework and messes. He gets tucked between shelves to help his posture. He gets moved around the house on adventures and tries out some of the beds. They must not be that comfortable, because he always returns to sleep at his post instead. There is talk of letting Ted go -- not in front of the children, of course, how could we be so callous?

And then one day, Ted is on the ground with a pair of scissors nearby. Gretchen and Kaitlyn are performing surgery. The parents notice. It must be time, they decide. The children are giving up Ted on their own. Questions are asked. Vehement denials are returned. We are NOT getting rid of Ted, oh no, we are improving him. The surgery was just to remove the teddy bear. 

This might seem unnecessary to you, as to the parents. That is only because you are lacking in imagination and vision. Of course the teddy bear had to be removed, because how else would you put new clothes on Ted?

The teddy bear was removed. New clothes were acquired. Since Ted is modeled after Matthias, Matthias's clothes fit perfectly. Dressed in off duty loungewear, Ted can finally take a break. He reclines in the easy chair, head and feet draped over the arms in such a good imitation of his progenitor that the unwary parent might be tricked into wondering what Matthias is doing in the chair instead of getting ready for school. Not that any parents in this house would do that. Nor would they be surprised every time they come around the corner. The parents in this house know that Matthias is definitely doing what he is supposed to do and that the creature napping in the chair is Ted. Obviously.

Pictures:

An Excitingly Eventful Friday

On Friday we had new internet installed. For years the only option in our area was Spectrum and they would raise the price every year and could never do anything about it if you called. A policy that they had, which just seemed like rubbing salt into the wound to me, was that they didn't have promotional prices. Fair enough, except that if you went to their website they DID have promotional prices that were half the cost of the regular prices, but only for new customers. Lots of companies do that, but it's extra annoying when they tell you they don't. Anyway, we finally have options in Lima, so I asked around and we switched to Brightspeed. Faster internet and a whole home extension for under 3/4 of the price. The tech came out to get everything installed, but didn't do the whole home part. He told us to try out the base internet and let him know if we really needed the extender or if we could skip it and save money. As a result, I was wandering to different points in the house with my phone to test the connection. 

When I was in the furthest corner of the basement watching a video, I heard a dripping sound. There, in the middle of the playroom, was a giant puddle. How I managed to walk past it without noticing or stepping in it is beyond me. A glance upward revealed a ballooning ceiling tile. The biggest mystery was what was above the ceiling tile. Generally a water spot on the basement ceiling is directly correlated to a bathroom on the main floor. This tile was not under a bathroom. I ran upstairs, decided it must be under the washing machine, grabbed a bunch of towels and a bucket, and ran back to the basement. The boys followed me, eager to see what was going on. Our ceiling tiles are difficult to move because they are so close to the I-beams, but I managed to get a nearby tile out so that I could see that there wasn't actually any water in the balloon, just a very wet, very saggy tile. I knocked it down and the boys helped me pile the broken wet pieces onto the firm dry half and then they carried it outside. We wiped up the puddle on the floor and positioned our bucket. I called a plumber and was told that they could be out on Monday. Our bucket is large and we can empty it, so Monday seems fine.

The rest of Friday was busy. I baked several loaves of prosphora for upcoming services. I took the girls school supply shopping and they picked out everything they needed. We loitered in the auto center for about 15 minutes waiting for an employee to help us get a car battery (a story for another day) before giving up on said employee and heading toward the checkout with our purchases. Then we went to pick up a couple of Wey kids to come play at our house. The boys told me that while they were playing downstairs they had to move the bucket because the drip was in a slightly different spot. More towels and some minor bucket adjustments. After dinner it was off to church for a service (and returning the Wey kids). I tried to pick up a prescription for Gretchen after church, but CVS had run it with our insurance instead of with our GoodRx discount card, so I had to go inside to wait while they rebilled everything. I was able to get them to redo Kaitlyn's prescription as well, although for some reason her notifications go to Bryan's phone number instead of mine, so I was only guessing that it might be ready. When I finally made it home, I noticed that the basement light was still on.

When I went downstairs to turn off the light, I remembered my bucket. I headed over to check that everything was okay. The bucket was not too full, which was my primary concern. As I got closer, intending to double check the placement, I discovered a new primary concern: There was a mouse in my bucket. I panicked, I looked at the ceiling for an army of mice waiting to jump on my head, I panicked, I texted Bryan to come downstairs, I panicked, I sent a Marco Polo to Justine (which is really the best way to experience this whole story). I watched the mouse happily paddling around in my bucket. Or perhaps not happily, perhaps it was stuck. Who can say? Kaitlyn's hamster can scale vertical surfaces pretty easily, but one would think that if the mouse could get out then it would... But also, maybe it was enjoying its swim. I looked around the basement for evidence of mice. We haven't had any indication that there are mice in the house. Except for, you know, the mouse in our house. Tiny details. Bryan was equally surprised. He did not expect a mouse when I summoned him to the basement. He took the bucket upstairs and dumped the mouse onto the driveway (Side note, why? Won't it just come right back in?) and then brought the bucket back. I sent more Marco Polos to Justine. Now every time I go downstairs I very cautiously peek over the edge of the bucket in case there are more mice.

We looked it up Friday night. Apparently mice in buckets of water placed beneath drop ceilings are more common than you might think. Mice get into the ceilings, look around, find nothing worth staying for, and leave. But if you remove a ceiling tile, there's a hole in their exploration. Mice aren't completely stupid, so they don't fall through the hole. But they do try to cross over it using that very conveniently placed pipe. Unfortunately, the pipe is wet and slippery, so they lose their grip and fall. Right into the bucket. So probably that's what happened. Bryan placed some traps just in case, though, and we've caught two more ceiling mice (not counting the one in the bucket) since Friday. Boo. We are telling ourselves that they just really like coming in and looking around, but that they always decide to leave afterwards.

The mouse that Bryan dumped on the driveway shivered in his puddle for probably 15 minutes. We examined it from a couple feet away and decided it really couldn't get out of the bucket, because it looked quite exhausted. I showed the boys the videos and they wanted to see the mouse, so we went and looked at it through the window. I showed the girls the videos and they wanted to see the mouse, but by then it was gone. Probably back into our ceiling tiles.

The best way to experience this story:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/LwagtPtu9dg?is=-IXx6VvnNlo2qtdn

Mouse in a bucket:

June 29 - July 12

We got to see everyone in my family over the last few weeks. I picked up Jacob and Rachel and kids from Josef's house on Tuesday (the 30th) and then we all set out for KOA camping in Indiana on Wednesday. Everyone was able to make it except Jillian, and we also saw Grandma, Aunt Jan and Uncle Greg, and the whole Ted Aufdemberge clan. :) It was miserably hot for the four days that we were there. We were very grateful for the pool, the air conditioned cabins, and the little spray bottles that Donna handed out to toddlers. Olivia managed to harvest that toddler energy to keep herself regularly misted (picture below). Despite the heat, we had a good time and it was wonderful to get to see everyone.

After camp ended on Saturday, most of my family came back to Lima to visit some more. Jacque's family had to go home, and Josef 's family popped in and out, but everyone else landed at our house. Jillian and Caleb joined us on Monday morning and got to see the NorCal Fentons and Grandma for a couple of hours before it was time for me to drive that contingent back to Columbus. A lot of musical cars were involved in the whole experience to make sure we had enough seats for everyone.

Tuesday had kickball games in the morning. Dad took the kids while I helped Mom and Justine prep food for an engagement party (?) for Jillian and Caleb. They are engaged. There was a party with cake and singing. Anything else that typically happens did not. We went to a park with a shelter, a playground, and a shaded field. The Hodges relations joined us and everyone was able to find something age and ability appropriate to do. Wedding meetings were held, singing happened, conversations were had. The cake was delicious.

On Tuesday night a few people headed to Pittsburgh and on Wednesday midday the rest of the contingent followed. Before leaving, Mom took Matthias to kickball for the championship game (he won!) while I taught a Music Together class (with guest attendees Justine and Margaret). Jillian and Caleb remained for the rest of the week, splitting their time between us and his family.

Matthias turned 9 on Saturday. He wanted "Dad's homemade pizza" -- cardboard pizza -- for dinner. He had multiple complicated dreams for dessert, but after some negotiation we settled on a mint chocolate chip ice cream cake with mint oreo crust and whipped cream frosting.

Other items of note:
- We came home from camp to a broken sunroom window. There is no obvious point of impact, so it was probably an imperfection in the glass. We have a warranty, and they will be out to fix it in the next one to two months. No big deal, Champion, we definitely aren't worried about it shattering onto the ground in that time.

- Theo had some suspicious circles on his arms. Jillian spotted one on Thursday morning and I took him to urgent care. Our Ohio doctors have improved slightly on the subject of Lyme disease since Olivia had it several years ago. They did not have to google the rash, although they did still try to tell me that seven individual bullseye rashes meant that we had somehow not noticed seven simultaneous ticks. Importantly, they are now very willing to give appropriate antibiotics just in case.  Theo is medicated for the next two weeks.

-Bryan and Theo had a Christmas present trip to Great Wolf Lodge on Friday. They had a great time. Theodore did the lily pad obstacle course (floating lily pads that span a pool and float around a little while you try to get across) approximately 300 times. Or thirty. Bryan is unsure. They took zero pictures, but did enjoy swimming, splashing, fighting waves, racing in the (not so) lazy river, riding water slides, and playing basketball in the kid pool. Also, Theo wants you to know that they did the lily pads.

- I resurrected the meal calendar that we used to use in Springfield. When we moved to Lima I couldn't find a good place to hang it, so it languished in a corner of my bedroom for nearly 12 years. I found a place for it recently, updated the meal cards, and showed the kids. Gretchen loves it. The others seem not to care.

Pictures:

June 7-28

It turns out that when I am extremely busy no one writes my blog for me. I did offer to publish guest posts written by the girls, but thus far no one has taken me up on it. I think Gretchen did write a newsletter or something. I will see if I can put that up soon.

Way back on the 8th, Bryan and Matthias had their Christmas present video game day. The other kids and I went to the Fort Wayne Zoo to be out of the way. This happened last year as well, so I purchased a membership then, and we went twice (once for video game day and once for Bryan and Olivia's staycation). One of those trips was the hottest day of the entire summer, but we were committed and only whined a little as we wandered around the zoo with water soaked towels draped around our necks. I needed to get this year's trips in before the zoo membership expired. Happily, the weather was much more cooperative this year and our zoo trip was quite pleasant. We touched the stingrays and brushed the goats and saw the alligator in several different spots in his enclosure (although we didn't get to see him move). All the animals were out and active and the orangutangs even knocked on their glass for us. We were slated to return on Friday of the same week (staycation day), but then Murry decided to take the boys for the weekend and Theodore was really the only one who was excited about the zoo. Gretchen, Kaitlyn, and I made ourselves scarce locally instead.

The boys spent a happy weekend at Grandma and Grandpa's house and came back in time for Matthias's final baseball game of the summer. Hooray. 

Kickball has been moving along, although a few games have been cancelled for rain and/or exceptionally muddy fields. There are five teams this year instead of the usual four, so they added some Wednesday games to get enough playing time in. Three mornings of kickball a week seems a little excessive, but it is what it is. I didn't have to deal with most of it due to my trip. Bryan and Murry took care of ferrying the children.

On the 13th the girls and I ran a 5k in Findlay. It went well enough, although I don't think there were any really exciting times. It was Kaitlyn's second 5k ever and I ran with her in an attempt to avoid straining my hamstring further. She thinks maybe hills are her favorite part.

Two weeks ago I abandoned the family for a Kodaly intensive in Bloomington, IN. Kodaly is a method for teaching music to children (particularly in schools) and there are three levels, each completed in a two week block. Last year I went to North Carolina and completed level 1. This year was level 2. Bryan and the kids made it through again, and I think this year his mom was more available to help than she was last year.

While she was here, Murry painted and redecorated the girls' bathroom and the boys' bathroom. She folded a lot of laundry, put up a shelf in the laundry room, and rearranged the living room. She also managed to get the boys to clean their room. Not a bad deal to come home to. My favorite thing, though, was the message I got from Gretchen four days into my trip: "grandma is here. she has made changes to the laundry room and girls bathroom. next she is going to do the boys bathroom. she has plans."

After the final concert on Friday, I drove to Hocking Hills to meet up with my family. They were attending the wedding weekend of a friend (except for Kaitlyn, who had been dropped off at Rudy's birthday on the way through Columbus). We spent Friday night and all day Saturday hanging out and playing board games before making our way back to Lima. I'll fetch Kaitlyn on Tuesday when I'm in Columbus picking up the NorCal Fentons for our family campout that happens this week.

Pictures:

May 24 - June 7

I forgot to mention that we have a new priest! One of the priests that subbed in a couple of times during Lent liked our parish's sense of community and asked the Bishop to assign him to us. He officially started May 1 and he and his wife have been commuting down from the Cleveland area each weekend while they tie up loose ends and finalize local jobs and housing. They are hoping to be fully transitioned by the end of the first week of June.

Theodore discovered drawing books at the library. He loves drawing books. He's very good at following the instructions and drawing his own pictures. He can also follow a youtube video, although he has to pause them frequently and he's more likely to bail on videos when he thinks they are too hard. His biggest problem with following drawings is that he gets frustrated if he thinks they are not perfect. A few weeks ago, he branched out and started creating his own step-by-step drawing books and making Bryan follow them.

Bryan has started playing group games with the kids just before bedtime. I don't know yet if this habit will stick, but it's been fun to see them all able to do something together. I came home from a meeting one night and they had learned teledraw (even Theodore) and had a great time.

May 24 was the yearly recital for our piano players. Olivia and Kaitlyn were both nervous, but did well. Olivia played "I Won't Say I'm in Love" from Hercules and Kaitlyn played "Queen's Minuet."

Answers to last week's questions: Four (of 31) third graders want to be youtubers (lower than expected, honestly). Two students, one boy and one girl, want to be herpetologists. I had to look that one up and thought maybe they had someone come talk to the class on career day, but it turns out these two students just really like snakes.

School has ended! We spent a couple of days sleeping in and doing nothing, but then we got busy again.

Well documented information: Olivia's brain ceases to function once summer vacation arrives. Last year she forgot how to spell "movie" (her defense: "I didn't forget how to spell movie, my brain just started talking.") and repeatedly read "wildlife" as "wildfire." And she told me I looked like someone she knew. So far this year she has tried to use a fork to eat cereal. And she told me she didn't know how to wash her dishes. I rest my case. And also might need to add a washing dishes seminar to this summer's events. She is reading this over my shoulder and preparing her defense for the comments.

Of course, with the end of school there is a need for summer schedules. I was quite happy with last year's schedules, so I kept the format the same and then tweaked it a bit. We are working towards independence that also accomplishes the things I need them to accomplish. Last year Theodore got pictures with his checkboxes, but this year he's just going to have to read words.

The first week of June was (Catholic) VBS which meant we were back to waking up early. The three girls were helpers and the boys were campers. This meant that drop-off and pick-up times were inconveniently offset, but luckily our friends the Miroglios had a split as well, so we were able to share the staggered drives. There's also a playground right next to the church building and we utilized that while we waited for the helpers to finish tidying up each day.

Now that summer is here we've added colors to hair. Kaitlyn got her hair trimmed and thinned and then asked for a no-bleach blue strand. It is unfortunately already fading out. Gretchen got a haircut and then I added no-bleach purple all over her head using a 17 ponytail method. The purple is dark but visible and she's happy with it. Olivia opted for the usual bleaching of the bottom inches of her hair and we turned those red. At the end of the summer we'll cut all the bleached ends off. I got my ends trimmed off and asked the hair salon for peek-a-boo purple. It was incredibly hard to see, though (possibly because they don't color very many strands of hair), and I ended up supplementing with the same purple Gretchen used. It's much more visible now, but only when I lift the top layer of my hair.

Kaitlyn got a second piercing in her ears this week. She's been wanting one for a while and I finally took her to get it. She is annoyed that school only allows one earring per ear at once, so in the fall she will have to choose which piercing to use each day, but in the summer she can wear all her earrings at once.

Gretchen and I went garage sale-ing for our (most recent) Christmas mom and Gretchen day. There's a large subdivision nearby that has a community garage sale every year, so we marked our calendars for June 4. Unfortunately, June 4 was rainy. As it poured, I checked the weather and saw that it was supposed to clear up by 11. But then at 9 it stopped and the new clear up time was noon, so Gretchen and I decided to risk it. We grabbed books for the car and umbrellas for the walk and set off. Our first garage was offering free stuffed animals, and who can pass that up?! Not Gretchen. We helped them move things inside as the rain started and after Gretchen bargained for a pair of shoes we made our slow way back to the van. She carried a box full of stuffed animals (and shoes) and I held both umbrellas over us. We made it to the back of the van, cowered under the roof for a moment while she put the box in, and then climbed in the trunk, closed the door, and shimmied up to the front, much to the delight of the watching garage sale family. We read our books until the rain let up a little and then continued on our merry way. There was more driving than I envisioned, but otherwise it was a grand adventure. Once Gretchen had amassed enough treasures, we drove home (just as the sun came out, of course), dried off, and played a game of newly acquired Monopoly.

Discord conversations with the girls:

Me: 

1. What dinner are you going to learn to cook this summer?

2. What fasting dinner are you going to learn to cook this summer?

3. You are going to learn to make bread this summer.

Olivia:

1. Macaroni and Cheese (which I might already know how to make now that I think about it).

2. Sweet Potato Tacos

3. Okay.

Gretchen:

1. Mexican Chicken

2. Vegan Taco Salad (we've had it before)

3. 😆

Kaitlyn:

1. I don't know

2. I don't know

3. WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!!!

Real life conversation with Bryan:

Bryan: What are we taking to the Miroglios'?

Me: I don't know. I am open to suggestions.

Bryan (zero pondering required): Baked Alaska.

Pictures:

May 17-24

A problem with taking a blogging hiatus and then resuming as if it never happened: people miss important details. For example, last week I referenced Lil Lilly as if everyone would know what I was talking about. It has been brought to my attention that some people were less than certain what, exactly, Lil Lilly is. She is a dwarf hamster that Kaitlyn received for her 10th birthday. Hamsters are generally smallish to begin with, but dwarf hamsters are the smallest ones, only slightly larger than a marshmallow. Lilly is quiet enough to not be noticed by the main pet hater in the house (surprise, that's me) and Kaitlyn takes full responsibility for the feeding and cleaning and socializing schedule.

For Mothers' Day the children all bought raspberry shoots and we expanded the raspberry bed a little bit more. Last year we had enough for a pie, plus a few for eating. :) They also designed a puzzle, which is a yearly custom. Bryan has been refining over the years and his ideas for good backgrounds have improved. He has also learned that if he gets me a 200 piece I'm more likely to do it in a timely manner.

Olivia and Gretchen were both in the school talent show. The event itself was organized by yours truly and went, I thought, very well. The girls did great.

Matthias's class made a book about what they each want to be when they grow up. Out of 31 students, how many do you think want to be youtubers? And how many want to be herpetologists?

Third grade at St Charles has this wonderful tradition of doing something called Market Day. The students learn about economics (and advertising) and have to produce, promote, and sell a product. There's a poster and a commercial for each product, and each student has to decide what they are making, anticipate supply and demand, determine pricing, and be willing to adjust costs if the day isn't going the way they'd hoped. They earn Market Day dollars in class and all go shopping at each other's booths on the designated day. It's a whole thing. When Olivia did it, she made perler bead items. Gretchen made little flower pot fairy houses. Kaitlyn made glitter calm down bottles (where you shake them up like snow globes and watch the glitter settle). Matthias decided to make slime. Important proud parent note before we get to the meat of my rant: Matthias did clearly think through the marketing aspect, and put a dime in exactly one slime container. He then made sure to note in both his poster and his commercial that most of his slime was normal, but one came with a dime. End note, back to my rant. Of course, as a way to test his product, he first made himself approximately four cups of slime. And Kaitlyn made some. And Matthias generously made some for Theodore. And then he made the slime to sell. Were we careful about our proportions? Don't be silly. We did try. The scale was used. The teaspoon was used. The liquid value of food coloring was not calculated. The measuring of baking soda was done by an 8-year-old on a quest to make "super sticky slime." Some slime is exceptionally sticky, some is suspiciously damp, some is fine (if you like slime). Our house has been so full of slime paraphernalia (not to mention actual slime) for the past week. This might be my worst life. Finally, though, it is done, and we only have one more Market Day in our future.

Olivia's last day of 8th grade was Wednesday. She had a moment on Tuesday where she realized that it would be her last day in St Charles, and she wrote a poem to commemorate the moment. I will let her post it in the comments if she wishes to share. Graduation was Thursday evening -- Mass, awards, and diplomas. It was a standard graduation. We are proud of Olivia and all the children are sad that they have 4 more of these (not to mention the high school graduations) in their future.

Years ago I remember being excited because I found a way to take photographs and turn them into coloring pages for the girls. It was putsy and not perfect, but they enjoyed coloring a few pictures of themselves before I forgot it existed. More recently, Theodore has been asking for coloring pages. He has this idea that we should be able to look up and print any coloring page he can conjure in his mind. I do a lot of looking for specific dinosaur battles only to find yet another t rex. Bryan had a thought, though: Why not throw it in AI? Copilot is Bryan's AI of choice, and it rose to the challenge magnificently. Theodore has any image he can dream up. He also has images Bryan can dream up, which means we have a coloring page of Theo riding a spinosaurus into battle. The kids got into it as well, and there are pictures of Matthias with his own pack of dogs, and one of Kaitlyn riding a scooter with her very own golden retriever at her side. Copilot makes a pretty decent Theo. Its rendition of the older kids is less good, but still recognizable. On a related note, Theodore's coloring skills are quite impressive. I'm not sure how he manages shading with markers, but he does.

Pictures:

April 19 - May 17

A forgotten story from last post: On the Friday before we left for Columbus Bryan went down to the basement for work at 8 am and nothing was amiss. At 9 am I also went down to the basement to get ready for Music Together. The little landing area at the bottom of the stairs was puddled with water. We had been having a lot of rain lately, so I grabbed some boards to put down as a bridge and moved on with my morning. As my class came in, they laughed at my solution to the aspiring moat. By the time everyone left at 10:30, my bridge was floating. The water had not yet crested the door lintel, but it was creeping ever closer. I went to check the sump pump and water was oozing out of the hole. Our worries about actual flooding were low since there's a high concrete wall around the sump pump hole, but the signs were not good. AI and I brainstormed quick checks and I was able to discover that the float was not stuck. I was not able to joggle the sump pump (or backup) back to life. I got out the shopvac to drain the landing area and called a plumber. On my fifth trip to empty the shopvac, I had an epiphany: we own a pump for draining the hot tub! I quickly abandoned the shopvac angle, fetched my hot tub pump, rolled the very long hose up the basement stairs and across the driveway, and dropped my pump into the sump pump hole. Victory. As an added bonus, the small taped up leak in the hose rested in the landing area and not in the basement, so that spray of water only landed in more water. I got all the levels down to a more comfortable baseline and waited for the plumber. He ended up replacing our sump pump and recommending that we check the battery backup because they go bad every 3-5 years. Everything has been dry since then.

Near the beginning of April, I saw a Lima News article that a popular restaurant, The Met, would be closing on April 25. This caused me to remember that I had a gift card sitting around somewhere waiting to be used. I found it and Bryan and I left the kids to their own devices for dinner on Pascha while we went to The Met. As it turns out, they are closed on Sundays. We ended up at dinner somewhere else and had to reschedule our Met date. We did manage to make it about a week before they closed.

We have two teenagers in the house. Gretchen had a low fanfare birthday on April 24 and our lives have continued as usual but with the knowledge that we have two teenagers. We got her an old lady bicycle with a basket (Olivia got a similar one last year) which she happily rides down to the nearby subdivision on nice days.

Every two or three months the Adrian (MI) Symphony Orchestra emails to see if I'm available to play with them and about once a year I am able to rearrange my schedule to make it work. The last week of April was one of the times that worked, so I drove to Adrian and back every evening. It's a long week because all the driving turns my 25 hour work week into a 60 hour work week, not to mention how many of those hours are after my preferred bedtime. I do very much enjoy playing with them, though, so it's worth it once a year. If only they were closer. I did learn on this trip that although the Culvers up there closes at 10, the drive thru is open until 11. I would swing by after rehearsal for a second dinner to eat on the drive home. I also finished three audiobooks over the week. :)

The first week of May at St Charles is Positive Addiction Week. They have a lot of activities and bring in speakers and workshop leaders and talk to the kids about being positively addicted to all sorts of things. At the end of the week there is a race. One mile for fifth graders and 5k for middle schoolers. The two other Catholic grade schools in Lima bring their students over to participate, and the high school sends over a contingent as well. Parents and community members come to run or cheer. Gretchen has been trying to get a sub-30 5k on the books for a while now, but last year she fell at the beginning of this race and missed the whole thing. Subsequent road races have either been very unfavorable weather or so twisty that her tenuous sense of direction failed her (she's run more than one 4 mile 5k). This was her chance and she crushed it. She finished in just over 25 minutes, the second 7th grade girl, and the 14th St Charles student over all! Olivia came in shortly behind her (what an upset!) in just under 26 minutes, the second 8th grade girl, and the 18th St Charles student over all. 

I posted in discord that during Holy Week I made 18 loaves of bread. I started making rolls at some point just before that and the kids and Bryan very much appreciated having rolls available pretty much always. Then there were extra loaves of prosphora and Pascha bread to make. During all of this, my mixer developed a clunk. The head started bumping side to side with the bread dough. I can hold it mostly still, but then the motor is very unhappy. In an attempt to not ruin my mixer beyond repair, I backed off on the dough making a little bit and called KitchenAid. They gave me an email address to contact for a repair kit and told me I would be mixer-less for 2-5 weeks. After dragging my feet a little, I did finally email the repair kit place. They told me that they no longer service my mixer model. Fine. I bought a mother's day present for myself and it it sitting in its box in the living room until my faithful red mixer finally gives up the ghost. I hope the new one can handle forever rolls.

Track season is finished. Depending on the meet, Olivia and Gretchen ran the 4x800, the mile, and the 800. Maybe they can comment with their best times, because I am not sure I know them. I only made it to the first half of one meet. We would not make it during track season without our village of families who all take turns transporting athletes.

Baseball games have just begun. This is Matthias's first year in kid pitch, so games are pretty light on hits and many runs are walked in. Matthias played in a coach pitch league where they swung at everything last year. He is working on remembering that he should only swing if the pitch is good. In his most recent game he did get on base because after two swinging strikes he got hit by a pitch.

Gretchen and I went duck pin bowling on Friday as our Mom and Gretchen thing from Christmas 2024. I may have gotten a little behind (only on that one, though, now I'm all caught up). We are very evenly matched as duck pin bowlers and spent an enjoyable hour posting mediocre scores.

Garage sale season is upon us. The kids are quite excited to go peruse the sales. Olivia is a window shopper and doesn't even bring money. Gretchen and Kaitlyn bring cash just in case. Matthias and Theodore promise to pay Gretchen and Kaitlyn back if they buy something. On Friday and Saturday a bunch of people near us all had garage sales, so on Friday we all wandered down Stevick Rd to see what there was to see. The boys and Kaitlyn were ready to enter Seven Oaks, so I went with them while Olivia and Gretchen finished up at one more sale. As we were walking, I got a call from Olivia: "Gretchen bought a dresser. We didn't have a way to move it, so they let us borrow a wagon and we left our bikes with them. We're walking it home now in their wagon and then we're taking the wagon back and getting our bikes. So that's why we're so far behind." Gretchen's dresser is actually quite small, more of an end table. They managed just fine. On Saturday the three girls went out again despite the light drizzle and came back with a few more things.

There was some talk of joining the community garage sale at the last minute, but we didn't manage to get anything together and besides, it was raining. I do think that if we are going to have a sale we need to talk about realistic expectations a bit more. And have a plan for where we are taking the things that inevitably don't sell.

Kaitlyn built a maze for Lil Lilly in the garage using 2x2s and some discarded screens. The outside frame is set and lifts up so that she can move the inside walls around to change the maze. I didn't get to watch Lilly do the maze, but the stories were entertaining. She is very good at smelling out where her food is and is also a big cheater and crawls over the walls if she finds a weak spot.

Our last Healthy Kids race of the spring is this afternoon. There is also a parent mile (used to kill time while they tally final scores). I am not running due to a pulled hamstring. Bryan is running because he promised the kids he would. We are both sad.

Pictures: