May 19-June 2

All words this time. Lots of them, since I didn't post any last time.

Matthias can identify many body parts, but ears are not among them. Eyes are usually misplaced, as well. Currently both tend to reside inside his mouth, which seems to be his catch-all "this is somewhere on my face" pick. He can reliably find MY eyes.

Everyone in our family finally has a Matthias name. Olivia has now become "Leah." Gretchen is "Tresh." Kaitlyn is "Tenny." And Matthias himself is "Fie."

Matthias's frequently used words: stop, garbage, more, piece, please, you're forgiven, here, are ready, do again, canna have bite, coming, train, track

Bryan decided that he was going to start running. Most people who know him would immediately wonder why he would do this to himself. Apparently he has discovered that he is in shape enough to play a pick-up game of soccer once a week, but just barely. His age is creeping ever older and he needs the cardio. So he runs twice a week, trudging his way down to the nearby subdivision and back (a little over a half mile round trip). When he first began, he figured he would wake up half an hour earlier on Mondays and Wednesdays, but he discarded that after the first day. He now runs at the much more Bryan friendly time of 9ish, when he takes his first break from work.

My own fitness efforts have not been nearly so deliberate. I did finally activate the fitbit that I got from Grandma a year and a half ago. I know that I take in the vicinity of 4500 steps per day on a regular basis. I get more when I run errands or have my Music Together class. And I fidget 400 steps worth during an evening church service (without children). I usually hit 8000 about once a week. All of this knowledge has done nothing to change my habits, but I'm pleased because now I KNOW. :) I was also reminded that jumping rope is a thing that I enjoy doing, so I have a weighted jump rope ready for me, but have not started using it yet due to pregnancy.

When the girls learned to talk, they all parroted the ends of sentences in our prayers. Matthias does a few ending sounds, but he mostly focuses on beginning sounds. His table prayer is "Bless...these...'bout...bounty...Christ...Amen...Sonny...Amen." By contrast, all three girls said "...Lord...gifts...receive...bounty...Lord. Amen...Amen." His Hail Mary is pretty funny, too, since his favorite word in it is "now." He gets Jesus, Mary, and naaoooow.

Kaitlyn calls fingernails "claws." She also like to call Matthias "Meefeeas." No one is quite sure why.

Gretchen had a birthday! April 24 came and went and now Gretchen is six. As is tradition, she got a watch and, as is also tradition, she was initially excited but has only worn it once since receiving it. Despite my best efforts, my children just don't care as much about watches as I do. Maybe once they get better at telling time...

Easter happened. We went to Sidney and visited for the weekend. We were actually there on Friday to watch Murry compete on Price is Right. She and her brothers (and all the spouses) went to LA in February and their episode aired on March 19. She got on stage and was hilariously overwhelmed by the excitement of it all. Sunday we went to church with Bryan's family. I don't get a sense of joy from Catholics on Easter (or on Christmas, now that I think about it). I'm chalking it up to the influx of C&E attendees who probably legitimately aren't joyful because those two days are more inconvenient family tradition than anything else. We were joyful, though, and I got to sing Easter hymns, so yay. :) Olivia immediately noticed the Alleluias in the titles and told me we weren't supposed to sing them (I guess they covered that in school pretty well) and I got to explain that we could sing them now, because it's Easter! Side note: She has not been at all bothered by the alleluia that the Byzantine Orthodox sing every week since giving up alleluia for Lent is not part of their tradition. Oh well.

Pascha also happened, one week later. Steve and Murry were at our house on Saturday, so we left a sleeping Kaitlyn and Matthias with them in the middle of the night. We woke up Olivia and Gretchen since I'd talked through the coming service with them and they seemed excited to witness it. Olivia made it twenty minutes longer than she's ever made it before, but still fell asleep before the lights came on. Gretchen didn't even try, just curled up on the floor immediately. So much for witnessing. They were both disappointed the next morning when they realized they'd missed the priest saying "Knock, knock" and the subdeacon replying "Who's there?" That is a wildly inaccurate description of what happens, but apparently that was the takeaway from when I explained the knocking on the door that happens. Actual words: "Lift up your heads, O gates, and be lifted up O ancient doors, that the king of glory may come in!" "Who is this king of glory?" "He is the Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle!" As a small consolation to them, the exciting part was quite underwhelming this year anyway, due to a downpour that began just as we were about to walk outside. Two minutes faster and we'd have been drenched halfway through our first trip around the church. As it was, we all stood in the entryway and the words were spoken in a slightly louder than normal voice rather than being shouted through the closed door.

We took a whirlwind trip to Chicago for Julian's baptism in the middle of bright week. Olivia missed a day and a half of school, and we drove to Chicago Wednesday afternoon and home Thursday evening. I believe we were in the city for a grand total of 24 hours. Both directions of our drive took longer than they should have, but I suppose that is to be expected in Chicago. Bryan and I reaffirmed our decision to live in small town Ohio several times, and at one point considered driving home just to find a parking space. The visit itself, car related inconveniences notwithstanding, was lovely. We got to see Jacque, Will, and Julian, obviously, but also Oma, Opa, James, and Jacob. Our family stayed with Jacque and Will, and I had a terrible time explaining to the children why they couldn't be stampeding banshees in the delightfully long hallway of a third floor apartment. Thankfully, they managed to find quieter ways to occupy their time. Wednesday night was the baptism, which was interesting to the girls, followed by a Western Rite Mass, which was not. I appreciated the chance to attend the service, though. :) On Thursday I took the younger kids to Jacque's Music Together class while the big girls played board games with Uncle James. I don't know if it was the time change, the quick turnaround of the trip, the late nights (we didn't get home until 12:30, but the kids slept in the car), coming off of Holy Week, or a combination of all of the above, but the kids took longer to recover from 24 hours in Chicago than they do after a week at Grandma's.

The big girls had their dance recital on Mothers' Day. Olivia was in four dances and Gretchen was in three. They are for sure part of the "must be related to watch them" crowd. Olivia's tap number involved actual working cans of hairspray, and watching twenty first graders try to use hairspray whilst dancing was pretty funny. I was impressed with the poise of the first graders in the opening number of the first show (which I went to alone while Bryan and his parents attended the second show). They are the first ones onstage, and they get there by running down the aisles in two lines. It's a four aisle auditorium, and they come down the center two. There was an older girl heading up each line, and then Olivia was the first one after the leader in the left most line. Despite the warning to be out of the aisles, people apparently didn't listen, because once the music started the right line made it down the aisle and onto the stage, but there was no sign of the left line. They finally came tearing down the leftmost aisle (led by Olivia (!) in the absence of the older girl, who apparently couldn't fit through the gap they found) and scampered onto the stage, looked around, and jumped in right in the middle of the dance. I asked Olivia later and she said the center aisle was blocked and they had to back up and come down the other one, which was also blocked, just not as much. Bryan's show was less exciting. He dreads going every year, though, and copes by sending text messages to all his male friends, reminding them why they should never have girls. I have secured the records from this year and last year, so look for a bonus post of dance recital play-by-plays in the near future.

I started some seeds inside this year and was all set to move them outside in mid-May, but then weather happened and they had to languish under the grow light for another two weeks while Ohio decided whether it was winter or summer. The broccoli and peas got planted and appreciated the extra time in the cooler weather. Now the tomatoes, beans, and cucumbers are finally out as well. The tomatoes look pretty good, the beans are all lying down on the job as they struggle to support their own weight, and I think the cucumbers have been eaten by a rodent. Fine. I'll probably go put some more bean and cucumber seeds out this next week and hope that they do better. Bryan commandeered two garden beds for his very own (it was just one originally, but I didn't need the last one and he hated to see it go to waste) and decided to fill both with zucchini. Given the success (or lack thereof) of previous gardens, we believe this will be the year of the zucchini.

The fridge was taken up by planting trays full of raspberry seeds for several months over the winter. You may have already heard this story, but I'm too lazy to go check. It is apparently less work to retype it. Anyway, for Christmas Bryan gave me 750 raspberry seeds (150 each of 5 different varieties). Seeds need to be winterized before being planted, but apparently actual winter is too much winterizing, so you put them in the fridge instead and watch people try to eat the little chocolate muffins for four months. Then, when the weather gets consistently warm, you move them outside. I think that's where you're supposed to start seeing little raspberry plants emerge, but we have not witnessed this development. It's possible I did the whole fridge thing wrong. Or moved them outside too early because I was impatient and May tricked me. Or perhaps they weren't great seeds to begin with. Whatever the reason, we are NOT up to our ears in tiny raspberry plants, and at the end of this growing season I will be sowing them directly into the garden bed and letting Ohio winter have a go at them.