Three weeks ago we made a deal with some friends: Both of our families would stay home from everything including grocery stores for two weeks and if we were all healthy at the end of it then we would get together for a couple of days in person. This past Monday our deal ended and the Miroglios came over for half of Monday and all of Tuesday. They have a daughter in first grade at St Charles, a son who was in Kaitlyn's catechesis class, and a daughter about a year younger than Matthias. It was fabulous. The kids were all so happy to see each other and play together. The adults were also happy for in person interaction. We played board games, watched the kids play outside on the driveway, and chatted while we cooked meals. 10/10 highly recommend.
Matthias refers to the girls collectively as "your sisters" instead of "my sisters." He talks about playing with your sisters and going into your sisters' room.
Gretchen had a birthday! She turned 7 on Friday. We had pancakes with a square of butter for dinner and a chocolate mint cake for dessert. Her friend Leon from school had a birthday on Saturday, and he dropped off birthday cookies on the porch. We left him a piece of birthday cake. :)
Kaitlyn has been working on recognizing letters and now knows all of them at least some of the time. We've started working on letter sounds because she wants to be able to read.
Matthias knows about 75% of his letters. We have some of our foam letters out on the living room floor and he walks around the edge naming letters as he goes.
Last Sunday I reported that Theodore could not move forward, could not pick things up, and could not transfer things from his hands to his mouth. On Monday he achieved all three. By yesterday he was completely confident in his ability to go wherever he wanted and was (usually) not discouraged by distance.
Pictures:
26 April 2020
19 April 2020
April 12-19
Christ is Risen!
One thing this pandemic is good for... My blog is being written more frequently again. I'd have preferred to reach that goal without the fuss of mass destruction and death, but c'est la vis. I'll take what I can get right now.
Virus confusion is rampant over here. If we can't do anything, it's because of the virus (mostly true). Matthias thinks we should solve this by running very fast to our car and then driving to wherever he wants to go. Once we get there, we can again use our super speed to evade those laughably slow viruses. Kaitlyn knows this won't work, because everywhere we go there is a man (The Virus? Mr Corona Virus?) who will breathe on us and we will get sick.
Matthias is preparing for a life of crime. Last Saturday he began his efforts by burning off a couple of fingerprints. Bryan had just made popcorn and Matthias, being his nosy self, stuck his hands up on the stove to try to get some popcorn. Alas, he got a handful of recently turned off burner instead. He blistered two fingertips on his right hand. He's never been burned badly before; usually he grazes a pan that's been out of the oven for a few minutes, puts an ice pack on the sore spot for approximately 40 seconds, and is good to go. This time he couldn't understand why the ice pack wasn't working. "It still hurts! I need you to kiss it." I kissed it, and he looked at me with betrayal written on his teary face. "It still hurts!" And so begins the realization that mom's kisses don't actually fix everything. He suffered noisily through application of aloe and bandaids and more ice. He did eventually calm down and we let him stay up to watch a movie while the pain receded enough for him to sleep. By Sunday morning he was very focused on making sure he got PJ Masks bandaids, so we proclaimed him cured enough.
Update on Matthias's criminal preparations: This week he went into the bathroom, got some shampoo, and rubbed it in his eye. He immediately regretted his decision and tried to rub it out of his eye -- with his shampoo covered hand. Now retinal scans can't catch him, either.
Other Matthias things:
~He likes to wear his sisters' shoes. Those are the ones he can get on himself. He will choose boots over shoes, so he often clomps around in boots three sizes too big.
~He covers his eyes if he doesn't want you to look at him and his ears if something is too loud or jarring. If he is scared, he will try to cover both his eyes and his ears, which results in him successfully covering one of each and hugging his head with his elbows.
The girls have found a series they enjoy on Netflix (which we don't have, but they watch at Grandma's) called Miraculous. It's about normal teenagers who can turn into superheros with the help of ...little creatures called miraculas? Maybe? I'm unsure about the actual mechanics. There's one main bad guy who uses evil moths to turn regular people having a bad day into mini villains bent on wreaking havoc and stealing the miraculas. Once the superheros defeat the villains, they catch the moths and de-evilize them. Or something. Anyway, the girls (and Matthias sometimes) like to play games based on this show and they leap around on the furniture being the multiple characters and their alter egos. The interesting part is that they've started making up their own mini villains to defeat. Each one has a backstory for how he became susceptible to main bad guy's moths. Then they give him a name, a havoc wreaking purpose, and a costume. It's quite interesting to listen to.
Our fruit trees have blossoms! The apricot blossomed, but then snow came and it dropped them all. Please don't be dead, apricot tree. :( Three plums and the peach tree weathered the storm and are still flowering. The pears (presumably three) are still working on flowers. This could be a very tasty summer. :)
Theodore has three top teeth to go with his two bottom teeth, and I think I see the beginnings of a fourth top tooth and a third bottom tooth. If you're going to grow teeth, you might as well do them all at the same time. With both top and bottom teeth has come the teeth clicking. All of our kids didn't do this, but I remember at least Olivia having the habit of rubbing her teeth against each other to make a little clicking noise. Theodore does that as well. I think it's more of a tactile thing than a noise thing, but it is annoying regardless.
Lent is a good time for trying new foods. Theodore has tried pea soup, corn chowder, and the beans from Dominican beans and rice. They're basically flavorful refried beans. This is in addition to the beets and red cabbage that he'd already had. Oh, and the banana that he stole from me once. He now consistently swallowing his food instead of letting it dribble back out of his mouth. He also sucks on bread crumbs until they become nothing in his mouth. Theodore is of Gretchen's opinion about food: All of it is delicious and I need more now.
Other Theodore things:
~He's working on the closed mouth g sound (why do they all try that one?) as well as on buh. We hear a lot of buh in various registers.
~He tried to catch a sunbeam during church. More accurately, he tried to eat it when he saw it on the floor.
~He really wants to be able to crawl, but can't figure it out. He has learned how to get where he wants by rolling.
~He's not a strong sitter. I mostly put him down on his stomach, so he hasn't had much chance to practice.
I pulled out my high school art things to show Gretchen the other day. She was very happy to see the sketches especially. Unfortunately, I had to throw everything out after showing her because it all got wet at some point and there was mildew on everything. Many of the papers were still damp, I assume because they were stored stacked together in the portfolio. All my favorite pieces are framed and displayed around the house, and the few that weren't were salvageable because they were laminated. I was sad for the demise of my sketchbooks, though.
Head scarves have really taken off around here since we've been having church at home. The girls found my whole collection and enjoy picking out scarves to wear. Olivia favors the green one from Russia which she wraps loosely so that it can "look like a hijab." She read a picture book that explained what hijabs were and she thinks they're pretty. We've explained the religious implications and she doesn't care, as long as it looks like the picture in her book. Gretchen likes to get my dark red scarf and wrap it so that she looks like Mary. She is disappointed that it's not bigger because all of our icons of Mary have the red extending down almost to her waist. Kaitlyn usually tries to find the softest scarf and then wears it like a cloak. Matthias is jealous of everyone else's head gear and claims the brown scarf for his own. He looks quite beautiful in it.
We've let bedtime get away from us. Because there's no reason to get up early in the morning and because we're often playing games via video chat, we don't go in as often to settle things down and the girls don't wind down naturally on their own as quickly. Once we quiet them down they do alright, but both Olivia and Gretchen have been known to stay up reading way too late and then they sleep in the next morning.
The big girls are at the age where they spell a lot of things unnecessarily. The two most spelled things in our house are d-e-s-s-e-r-t and p-o-k-e-m-o-n. I'm not even sure they know how to ask for them without spelling anymore.
Pictures:
One thing this pandemic is good for... My blog is being written more frequently again. I'd have preferred to reach that goal without the fuss of mass destruction and death, but c'est la vis. I'll take what I can get right now.
Virus confusion is rampant over here. If we can't do anything, it's because of the virus (mostly true). Matthias thinks we should solve this by running very fast to our car and then driving to wherever he wants to go. Once we get there, we can again use our super speed to evade those laughably slow viruses. Kaitlyn knows this won't work, because everywhere we go there is a man (The Virus? Mr Corona Virus?) who will breathe on us and we will get sick.
Matthias is preparing for a life of crime. Last Saturday he began his efforts by burning off a couple of fingerprints. Bryan had just made popcorn and Matthias, being his nosy self, stuck his hands up on the stove to try to get some popcorn. Alas, he got a handful of recently turned off burner instead. He blistered two fingertips on his right hand. He's never been burned badly before; usually he grazes a pan that's been out of the oven for a few minutes, puts an ice pack on the sore spot for approximately 40 seconds, and is good to go. This time he couldn't understand why the ice pack wasn't working. "It still hurts! I need you to kiss it." I kissed it, and he looked at me with betrayal written on his teary face. "It still hurts!" And so begins the realization that mom's kisses don't actually fix everything. He suffered noisily through application of aloe and bandaids and more ice. He did eventually calm down and we let him stay up to watch a movie while the pain receded enough for him to sleep. By Sunday morning he was very focused on making sure he got PJ Masks bandaids, so we proclaimed him cured enough.
Update on Matthias's criminal preparations: This week he went into the bathroom, got some shampoo, and rubbed it in his eye. He immediately regretted his decision and tried to rub it out of his eye -- with his shampoo covered hand. Now retinal scans can't catch him, either.
Other Matthias things:
~He likes to wear his sisters' shoes. Those are the ones he can get on himself. He will choose boots over shoes, so he often clomps around in boots three sizes too big.
~He covers his eyes if he doesn't want you to look at him and his ears if something is too loud or jarring. If he is scared, he will try to cover both his eyes and his ears, which results in him successfully covering one of each and hugging his head with his elbows.
The girls have found a series they enjoy on Netflix (which we don't have, but they watch at Grandma's) called Miraculous. It's about normal teenagers who can turn into superheros with the help of ...little creatures called miraculas? Maybe? I'm unsure about the actual mechanics. There's one main bad guy who uses evil moths to turn regular people having a bad day into mini villains bent on wreaking havoc and stealing the miraculas. Once the superheros defeat the villains, they catch the moths and de-evilize them. Or something. Anyway, the girls (and Matthias sometimes) like to play games based on this show and they leap around on the furniture being the multiple characters and their alter egos. The interesting part is that they've started making up their own mini villains to defeat. Each one has a backstory for how he became susceptible to main bad guy's moths. Then they give him a name, a havoc wreaking purpose, and a costume. It's quite interesting to listen to.
Our fruit trees have blossoms! The apricot blossomed, but then snow came and it dropped them all. Please don't be dead, apricot tree. :( Three plums and the peach tree weathered the storm and are still flowering. The pears (presumably three) are still working on flowers. This could be a very tasty summer. :)
Theodore has three top teeth to go with his two bottom teeth, and I think I see the beginnings of a fourth top tooth and a third bottom tooth. If you're going to grow teeth, you might as well do them all at the same time. With both top and bottom teeth has come the teeth clicking. All of our kids didn't do this, but I remember at least Olivia having the habit of rubbing her teeth against each other to make a little clicking noise. Theodore does that as well. I think it's more of a tactile thing than a noise thing, but it is annoying regardless.
Lent is a good time for trying new foods. Theodore has tried pea soup, corn chowder, and the beans from Dominican beans and rice. They're basically flavorful refried beans. This is in addition to the beets and red cabbage that he'd already had. Oh, and the banana that he stole from me once. He now consistently swallowing his food instead of letting it dribble back out of his mouth. He also sucks on bread crumbs until they become nothing in his mouth. Theodore is of Gretchen's opinion about food: All of it is delicious and I need more now.
Other Theodore things:
~He's working on the closed mouth g sound (why do they all try that one?) as well as on buh. We hear a lot of buh in various registers.
~He tried to catch a sunbeam during church. More accurately, he tried to eat it when he saw it on the floor.
~He really wants to be able to crawl, but can't figure it out. He has learned how to get where he wants by rolling.
~He's not a strong sitter. I mostly put him down on his stomach, so he hasn't had much chance to practice.
I pulled out my high school art things to show Gretchen the other day. She was very happy to see the sketches especially. Unfortunately, I had to throw everything out after showing her because it all got wet at some point and there was mildew on everything. Many of the papers were still damp, I assume because they were stored stacked together in the portfolio. All my favorite pieces are framed and displayed around the house, and the few that weren't were salvageable because they were laminated. I was sad for the demise of my sketchbooks, though.
Head scarves have really taken off around here since we've been having church at home. The girls found my whole collection and enjoy picking out scarves to wear. Olivia favors the green one from Russia which she wraps loosely so that it can "look like a hijab." She read a picture book that explained what hijabs were and she thinks they're pretty. We've explained the religious implications and she doesn't care, as long as it looks like the picture in her book. Gretchen likes to get my dark red scarf and wrap it so that she looks like Mary. She is disappointed that it's not bigger because all of our icons of Mary have the red extending down almost to her waist. Kaitlyn usually tries to find the softest scarf and then wears it like a cloak. Matthias is jealous of everyone else's head gear and claims the brown scarf for his own. He looks quite beautiful in it.
We've let bedtime get away from us. Because there's no reason to get up early in the morning and because we're often playing games via video chat, we don't go in as often to settle things down and the girls don't wind down naturally on their own as quickly. Once we quiet them down they do alright, but both Olivia and Gretchen have been known to stay up reading way too late and then they sleep in the next morning.
The big girls are at the age where they spell a lot of things unnecessarily. The two most spelled things in our house are d-e-s-s-e-r-t and p-o-k-e-m-o-n. I'm not even sure they know how to ask for them without spelling anymore.
Pictures:
15 April 2020
Bonus Post: Sound Bites 49
Kaitlyn: Daddy, do you have a mustache?
Bryan: Yes.
Matthias: Can I eat a mustache?
Bryan: ...No.
Matthias: Well I have a beard.
Bryan: You have a beard?
Matthias: Yes! In my belly. I will show you. *lifts up shirt*
Bryan: Ooh.
Matthias: So I can eat a mustache!
Bryan: Do you want cookies for dessert? Or should we have something else so that we can keep testing Mommy's willpower?
Me: If you don't eat those cookies for dessert then I'm going to eat them tonight.
Gretchen: You can have my cookie, Mom, I'll take one willpower.
Matthias: The virus will come through the gate and get me!
Kaitlyn: ...That's the way the Mommy goes, pop! goes the weasel.
Bryan: That's the way the mommy goes.
Matthias: She's right there!
Grandma: What's that on your face?
Olivia: A tattoo.
Matthias: Well on MY face is dirt.
Olivia: How do you say hummer?
Me: Hummer.
Olivia: No, I mean like when something is funny or a joke.
Me: Oh, you mean humor!
Matthias: Do you want to hit the virus with your sword?
Olivia, discussing sparkling grape juice: Well, if you put more of that in then it will turn into... something. Probably.
Bryan: Yes.
Matthias: Can I eat a mustache?
Bryan: ...No.
Matthias: Well I have a beard.
Bryan: You have a beard?
Matthias: Yes! In my belly. I will show you. *lifts up shirt*
Bryan: Ooh.
Matthias: So I can eat a mustache!
Bryan: Do you want cookies for dessert? Or should we have something else so that we can keep testing Mommy's willpower?
Me: If you don't eat those cookies for dessert then I'm going to eat them tonight.
Gretchen: You can have my cookie, Mom, I'll take one willpower.
Matthias: The virus will come through the gate and get me!
Kaitlyn: ...That's the way the Mommy goes, pop! goes the weasel.
Bryan: That's the way the mommy goes.
Matthias: She's right there!
Grandma: What's that on your face?
Olivia: A tattoo.
Matthias: Well on MY face is dirt.
Olivia: How do you say hummer?
Me: Hummer.
Olivia: No, I mean like when something is funny or a joke.
Me: Oh, you mean humor!
Matthias: Do you want to hit the virus with your sword?
Olivia, discussing sparkling grape juice: Well, if you put more of that in then it will turn into... something. Probably.
12 April 2020
April 5-12
Life at home ebbs and flows. One morning everything is great and I feel like we've finally gotten into the rhythm of our new routine. Then Theodore wakes up early or Matthias falls off a chair or Kaitlyn gets spit up in her mouth (true story, eww), or all three at once, and suddenly the afternoon is a whiny cranky mess for me as well as the children.
Our church of choice during the shelter at home orders is St Michael's in Whittier. We tried a couple of different services and I think that's where we've finally landed. Of course, if you'd asked me this question each of the last three Sundays, you would have gotten a different answer each week. So we'll see.
Matthias loves to read books. When the big girls were still at school, he and I read most days for 30-60 minutes at a time, often multiple times per day. He would ask me to read one book and then when I sat down on the couch would run to grab more, yelling, "I'll be right back! I'm getting more books." Then he'd return, laden with as many books as he could carry saying, "I have lotsanough." Now that we're holding school in our dining room, my reading time with Matthias has suffered. :(
Another thing that has suffered is my viola playing. I had a good practice thing going, but now I just don't fit it in anymore. Some of that is because I have to spend time helping/nagging the girls. Some of it is because Theodore has finally come into his own with naps and is taking two solid naps each day -- in my room. Yay naps, but my viola is inaccessible during that time.
I have tried several times to move Theodore into Matthias's room, but something has always happened to make him end up back in the oratory. Most recently, Matthias has been complaining that Theo wakes him up. That's not strictly true. Theodore does not wake Matthias up if the latter is already sleeping, but he DOES keep him from falling asleep. The stoic distress of the two year old is quite apparent, so we decided to keep Theodore in our room until he goes to sleep better at night. Despite this, Matthias still gets slightly panicked if I bring Theo in the bedroom at bedtime, even if it's just for a new diaper.
We've been playing a lot of games over here. The big girls learned to play Mastermind and really enjoy it. They've also pulled out Forbidden Island a couple of times. I taught Olivia to play Bananagrams with marginal success. She likes it enough to play again, but she definitely struggles with seeing options and with being flexible enough to rearrange. Kaitlyn's game of choice right now is The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which is a simple game that ends when you build a butterfly out of puzzle pieces. Sometimes she plays the game and sometimes she just builds all the puzzles. Matthias has been enjoying Sequence for Kids, so those pieces are often scattered all over the floor. Other games that see a lot of use include Hullabaloo and Spot It.
Theodore continues to improve his purposeful movement. His current frustration is that he goes backwards quite well, which is not at all what he's trying to accomplish. He still hasn't mastered crawling, but he rolls and scoots and tries to capture bits of whatever he can find on the floor. Luckily for us, his pincer grip hasn't developed yet, so we have a little bit of time to up our keep-things-off-the-floor game. The older kids and I had a meeting during one of his naps to discuss how if it is on the floor, Theodore WILL eat it. I'm not sure if the take away was everything I wanted it to be, but I did get to watch all four of them simultaneously rocking on hands and knees to demonstrate how Theo tries to crawl, so there's that.
Theo is our worst teether. When his bottom two teeth were coming in his sleep suffered and I ended up having to use Tylenol to help him calm down enough to go back to sleep in the middle of the night. Now his top teeth are coming in and he's been waking up screaming again. Friday night was Tylenol again in the middle of the night and about an hour of walking and singing while he whimpered on my shoulder before I was able to nurse him and put him down. On Saturday morning his teeth were through, though, so maybe we're in the clear until the next set comes.
Matthias is over sistered and under napped. The poor guy just starts the day cranky and needs time alone to recover. If I catch him early then I can convince him to take some time alone in his room with his train tracks and he comes out in a much better mood. He could still use a daily nap, but he often doesn't fall asleep, so his regular nap has fallen by the wayside. He gets one once or twice a week when I can't handle the whining anymore.
Theodore's hair was in his eyes all the time, so I finally trimmed his bangs. 7 month olds are not known for their ability to sit still (or even sit, necessarily, especially when they don't get to practice much because they're much safer from older siblings if they're prone) which made it a bit of an adventure. That combined with my lack of confidence for little boy haircuts in general led me to decide to just quickly snip his bangs. Now he has a baby bowl cut and Bryan thinks he looks like a little girl from the 60s. :/
Pictures:
Our church of choice during the shelter at home orders is St Michael's in Whittier. We tried a couple of different services and I think that's where we've finally landed. Of course, if you'd asked me this question each of the last three Sundays, you would have gotten a different answer each week. So we'll see.
Matthias loves to read books. When the big girls were still at school, he and I read most days for 30-60 minutes at a time, often multiple times per day. He would ask me to read one book and then when I sat down on the couch would run to grab more, yelling, "I'll be right back! I'm getting more books." Then he'd return, laden with as many books as he could carry saying, "I have lotsanough." Now that we're holding school in our dining room, my reading time with Matthias has suffered. :(
Another thing that has suffered is my viola playing. I had a good practice thing going, but now I just don't fit it in anymore. Some of that is because I have to spend time helping/nagging the girls. Some of it is because Theodore has finally come into his own with naps and is taking two solid naps each day -- in my room. Yay naps, but my viola is inaccessible during that time.
I have tried several times to move Theodore into Matthias's room, but something has always happened to make him end up back in the oratory. Most recently, Matthias has been complaining that Theo wakes him up. That's not strictly true. Theodore does not wake Matthias up if the latter is already sleeping, but he DOES keep him from falling asleep. The stoic distress of the two year old is quite apparent, so we decided to keep Theodore in our room until he goes to sleep better at night. Despite this, Matthias still gets slightly panicked if I bring Theo in the bedroom at bedtime, even if it's just for a new diaper.
We've been playing a lot of games over here. The big girls learned to play Mastermind and really enjoy it. They've also pulled out Forbidden Island a couple of times. I taught Olivia to play Bananagrams with marginal success. She likes it enough to play again, but she definitely struggles with seeing options and with being flexible enough to rearrange. Kaitlyn's game of choice right now is The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which is a simple game that ends when you build a butterfly out of puzzle pieces. Sometimes she plays the game and sometimes she just builds all the puzzles. Matthias has been enjoying Sequence for Kids, so those pieces are often scattered all over the floor. Other games that see a lot of use include Hullabaloo and Spot It.
Theodore continues to improve his purposeful movement. His current frustration is that he goes backwards quite well, which is not at all what he's trying to accomplish. He still hasn't mastered crawling, but he rolls and scoots and tries to capture bits of whatever he can find on the floor. Luckily for us, his pincer grip hasn't developed yet, so we have a little bit of time to up our keep-things-off-the-floor game. The older kids and I had a meeting during one of his naps to discuss how if it is on the floor, Theodore WILL eat it. I'm not sure if the take away was everything I wanted it to be, but I did get to watch all four of them simultaneously rocking on hands and knees to demonstrate how Theo tries to crawl, so there's that.
Theo is our worst teether. When his bottom two teeth were coming in his sleep suffered and I ended up having to use Tylenol to help him calm down enough to go back to sleep in the middle of the night. Now his top teeth are coming in and he's been waking up screaming again. Friday night was Tylenol again in the middle of the night and about an hour of walking and singing while he whimpered on my shoulder before I was able to nurse him and put him down. On Saturday morning his teeth were through, though, so maybe we're in the clear until the next set comes.
Matthias is over sistered and under napped. The poor guy just starts the day cranky and needs time alone to recover. If I catch him early then I can convince him to take some time alone in his room with his train tracks and he comes out in a much better mood. He could still use a daily nap, but he often doesn't fall asleep, so his regular nap has fallen by the wayside. He gets one once or twice a week when I can't handle the whining anymore.
Theodore's hair was in his eyes all the time, so I finally trimmed his bangs. 7 month olds are not known for their ability to sit still (or even sit, necessarily, especially when they don't get to practice much because they're much safer from older siblings if they're prone) which made it a bit of an adventure. That combined with my lack of confidence for little boy haircuts in general led me to decide to just quickly snip his bangs. Now he has a baby bowl cut and Bryan thinks he looks like a little girl from the 60s. :/
Pictures:
05 April 2020
March 22-April 5
A scene:
Olivia is lacking in ambition. She will do exactly what is asked and not one single step more. Bryan says she gets that from him. She certainly doesn't get it from me. "Don't you want to take a few more Accelerated Reader tests? You've already read the books, you might as well take the tests." No. She does not want to, because she's already reached her goal. She also does not think it sounds like fun to fit as many spelling words as possible into one sentence. Some things about this child I can claim, but not this. I managed to fit all her spelling words (15 of them) into three sentences and she was merely tolerant rather than inspired. If I'd thought about it longer, I bet I could have fit them into two.
Gretchen is the opposite. She has loads of ambition. She always has ideas and is going above and beyond. Unless she gets distracted, in which case it doesn't get done at all. Oh well. Yesterday she designed her own sewing project. She was inspired by a piece of fabric, decided to make a crown, and set to work. She cut the pieces and sewed them. She accidentally cut one in half and modified her design so that it would still work. Then she realized that she'd forgotten to put the right sides together, and she learned the valuable lesson of how to use a seam ripper. She resewed them properly, flipped them, stuffed them, closed them, and... decided to turn them into a butterfly instead because that's what they looked like to her. So she sewed a butterfly. I did help tie two knots during the hand sewing process, but the rest she did all by herself.
School is coming along. We're officially out of school and locked down until the beginning of May now. Bryan and I prepared the girls for the probability that they would not get to go back to school during this school year, so they're taking it well. We have a routine now, and things get done when they need to get done. Tomorrow I have to go into the school to turn in their finished packets and pick up new ones. Kaitlyn sometimes does school with the big girls, writing letters and working on some color by letter sheets. Matthias plays a lot of Spot It, which is an I Spy kind of game. He also likes to put the pegs in Mastermind, which we pulled out and taught to the big girls. It's quite popular over here right now. Contrary to the news in my last post, Gretchen is not learning cursive. After her initial interest she forgot about it completely, and we have enough other things going on that I haven't reminded her. She does continue to be interested in sewing (see above). Olivia has done some sewing with me, but needs a new project in order to keep going. She's also done some coding with Bryan and has made a couple of levels in her very own video game.
We have been trying to set up one-on-one video chats for the kids. They've all gotten to talk to someone, although Matthias is really wanting a two-year-old to talk to. Maybe Dorothea will oblige. He's jealous that his sisters get to take my phone into their room and talk to their friends. We have discovered that even for talking to grandparents or cousins, one-on-one for about 15 minutes is ideal. Having everyone try to talk at once is just a noisy, silly mess.
Yesterday as I got some flour from our basement stash of food, I saw a mouse skitter across the floor. Great. The good news is that I saw the mouse, so we were able to set a trap and move all of our not canned food upstairs. We lost two bags of chips, a small bag of beans, and the chocolate chips that I was saving for Gretchen's birthday cake. Not too bad, except for the chocolate chips. I think I have enough sitting in the pantry to still make the cake she wanted, though, and she has backup plans upon backup plans if I don't. All the bagged and boxed food is upstairs now, and as an extra precaution I packed it into plastic tubs so that if a mouse should find its way into the main house there won't be any convenient smorgasbords.
Pictures:
Picture Matthias in the pink motorized jeep that we have. He sits in the passenger seat, water gun clutched firmly in his right hand. With his left hand he works the lever that changes the car from drive to reverse, preferring to keep it in reverse, but reluctant to believe that it will stay that way without his constant interference. One pudgy foot edges across the divider to press the pedal and (backwards) movement is achieved. He appears to not even consider utilizing the steering wheel, content to wave his gun and go where he may. But, what's this? The radio is right in front of him! The joy is indescribable. He presses the button, foot still on the pedal, water gun still in hand, and does a little dance as he careens backwards toward the basketball hoop. And then... His foot gets tired, he releases the pedal, and glides gently to a stop, reveling in the wonders of being two.
When Gretchen was two, I wrote a story about her being terrorized by a bug. Since then, we've had the occasional brief panic, but nothing too bad. Until Friday. I had just settled into my rocker to nurse Theodore and put him down for a nap. Suddenly, Olivia burst into the room. I asked what was wrong and she said, "Gretchenisalarmedbyabugonhersweater." Understanding nothing other than "Gretchen," I made her repeat herself. "Apparently Gretchen is very alarmed by a bug on her sweater." At that moment, panicked shrieks wafted into the bedroom. I informed Olivia that I was busy with Theodore, but that she should try to help Gretchen and I would be there as soon as I could. Olivia left and Kaitlyn came in. "Gretchen is screaming about a bug." Yes, yes, I could hear her now. The neighbors probably thought she was dying a painfully bloody death. Kaitlyn was sent to deliver the same calming message as Olivia. The screaming continued. Olivia returned, and I sent her out to use a stick to brush the bug off Gretchen. This was unacceptable to Gretchen, as then the bug might fall on Gretchen's feet. The screaming rose in pitch. I rushed Theodore through his routine as well as I could with the interruptions, deposited him unceremoniously in his bed, and left the bedroom to find an eerie silence. Gretchen was curled up in a ball on the corner of the couch, tears streaming silently down her cheeks. She told me she had finally screamed loudly enough that the bug fell off and then she ran inside. I calmed her down and we talked about bugs. Did she move around at all to try to get it off? No. Did she wave her arms at it? No. Did she flick it off with a finger or a stick? No. She just screamed and hoped. Oh, and looked at it, because if she had looked away then it might have disappeared to who knows where. We're working on bug coping strategies, but I have a feeling that the bug panic in her poor brain will overwhelm any solutions she might know.
Kaitlyn had a birthday! She turned five with little fanfare because of the coronavirus. She was handling it quite well, telling everyone that "You can't come to my birthday because there's going to be a VIRUS." On her actual birthday, though, she did say that it was a sad birthday because she couldn't see anyone. :( She got to video chat with a bunch of people, though, and I made her pizza and a tiered strawberry cake, and she got Anna and Elsa polly pockets as a gift. And now she's five, of which fact she is quite proud.
When Gretchen was two, I wrote a story about her being terrorized by a bug. Since then, we've had the occasional brief panic, but nothing too bad. Until Friday. I had just settled into my rocker to nurse Theodore and put him down for a nap. Suddenly, Olivia burst into the room. I asked what was wrong and she said, "Gretchenisalarmedbyabugonhersweater." Understanding nothing other than "Gretchen," I made her repeat herself. "Apparently Gretchen is very alarmed by a bug on her sweater." At that moment, panicked shrieks wafted into the bedroom. I informed Olivia that I was busy with Theodore, but that she should try to help Gretchen and I would be there as soon as I could. Olivia left and Kaitlyn came in. "Gretchen is screaming about a bug." Yes, yes, I could hear her now. The neighbors probably thought she was dying a painfully bloody death. Kaitlyn was sent to deliver the same calming message as Olivia. The screaming continued. Olivia returned, and I sent her out to use a stick to brush the bug off Gretchen. This was unacceptable to Gretchen, as then the bug might fall on Gretchen's feet. The screaming rose in pitch. I rushed Theodore through his routine as well as I could with the interruptions, deposited him unceremoniously in his bed, and left the bedroom to find an eerie silence. Gretchen was curled up in a ball on the corner of the couch, tears streaming silently down her cheeks. She told me she had finally screamed loudly enough that the bug fell off and then she ran inside. I calmed her down and we talked about bugs. Did she move around at all to try to get it off? No. Did she wave her arms at it? No. Did she flick it off with a finger or a stick? No. She just screamed and hoped. Oh, and looked at it, because if she had looked away then it might have disappeared to who knows where. We're working on bug coping strategies, but I have a feeling that the bug panic in her poor brain will overwhelm any solutions she might know.
Kaitlyn had a birthday! She turned five with little fanfare because of the coronavirus. She was handling it quite well, telling everyone that "You can't come to my birthday because there's going to be a VIRUS." On her actual birthday, though, she did say that it was a sad birthday because she couldn't see anyone. :( She got to video chat with a bunch of people, though, and I made her pizza and a tiered strawberry cake, and she got Anna and Elsa polly pockets as a gift. And now she's five, of which fact she is quite proud.
Theodore is working hard on his two top teeth. They are almost poked though the gums, but not quite. In an effort to encourage them, he bites everything he can get his little mouth on. He also leads with an open mouth for every encounter with, well, everything.
Theodore has achieved purposeful movement. He's been rocking on hands and knees for about a week now, but hasn't quite figured out how to get all his parts moving together. He HAS figured out how to do a rather spectacular face plant. I'm not convinced he can get exactly where he wants to get, especially in a high pressure situation such as desperately needing to traverse those two inches to mom so she can pick him up, but he will spin in circles on his belly to chase a toy and he will roll across the floor in an effort to catch up with a ball. He's quite good at going backwards in his attempts to crawl, and manages to cover great distances, albeit in the wrong direction.
Theodore has achieved purposeful movement. He's been rocking on hands and knees for about a week now, but hasn't quite figured out how to get all his parts moving together. He HAS figured out how to do a rather spectacular face plant. I'm not convinced he can get exactly where he wants to get, especially in a high pressure situation such as desperately needing to traverse those two inches to mom so she can pick him up, but he will spin in circles on his belly to chase a toy and he will roll across the floor in an effort to catch up with a ball. He's quite good at going backwards in his attempts to crawl, and manages to cover great distances, albeit in the wrong direction.
We've been melting wax this week. One day was spent melting down all our old candle stubs and pouring them into candle holders. I have leftover wicks from a beeswax candle rolling craft, so I've been using those in my new candles. They work much better than braided embroidery floss. The sight of the melted wax triggered Olivia's memory, and she hauled out our crayon melting machine. It came with two molds, one for crayon shapes and the other for ring shapes. You can guess which one is more popular. Conveniently, the more popular shape is also more durable. We now have a quite extensive collection of marbled crayon jewelry.
Olivia is lacking in ambition. She will do exactly what is asked and not one single step more. Bryan says she gets that from him. She certainly doesn't get it from me. "Don't you want to take a few more Accelerated Reader tests? You've already read the books, you might as well take the tests." No. She does not want to, because she's already reached her goal. She also does not think it sounds like fun to fit as many spelling words as possible into one sentence. Some things about this child I can claim, but not this. I managed to fit all her spelling words (15 of them) into three sentences and she was merely tolerant rather than inspired. If I'd thought about it longer, I bet I could have fit them into two.
Gretchen is the opposite. She has loads of ambition. She always has ideas and is going above and beyond. Unless she gets distracted, in which case it doesn't get done at all. Oh well. Yesterday she designed her own sewing project. She was inspired by a piece of fabric, decided to make a crown, and set to work. She cut the pieces and sewed them. She accidentally cut one in half and modified her design so that it would still work. Then she realized that she'd forgotten to put the right sides together, and she learned the valuable lesson of how to use a seam ripper. She resewed them properly, flipped them, stuffed them, closed them, and... decided to turn them into a butterfly instead because that's what they looked like to her. So she sewed a butterfly. I did help tie two knots during the hand sewing process, but the rest she did all by herself.
School is coming along. We're officially out of school and locked down until the beginning of May now. Bryan and I prepared the girls for the probability that they would not get to go back to school during this school year, so they're taking it well. We have a routine now, and things get done when they need to get done. Tomorrow I have to go into the school to turn in their finished packets and pick up new ones. Kaitlyn sometimes does school with the big girls, writing letters and working on some color by letter sheets. Matthias plays a lot of Spot It, which is an I Spy kind of game. He also likes to put the pegs in Mastermind, which we pulled out and taught to the big girls. It's quite popular over here right now. Contrary to the news in my last post, Gretchen is not learning cursive. After her initial interest she forgot about it completely, and we have enough other things going on that I haven't reminded her. She does continue to be interested in sewing (see above). Olivia has done some sewing with me, but needs a new project in order to keep going. She's also done some coding with Bryan and has made a couple of levels in her very own video game.
We have been trying to set up one-on-one video chats for the kids. They've all gotten to talk to someone, although Matthias is really wanting a two-year-old to talk to. Maybe Dorothea will oblige. He's jealous that his sisters get to take my phone into their room and talk to their friends. We have discovered that even for talking to grandparents or cousins, one-on-one for about 15 minutes is ideal. Having everyone try to talk at once is just a noisy, silly mess.
Yesterday as I got some flour from our basement stash of food, I saw a mouse skitter across the floor. Great. The good news is that I saw the mouse, so we were able to set a trap and move all of our not canned food upstairs. We lost two bags of chips, a small bag of beans, and the chocolate chips that I was saving for Gretchen's birthday cake. Not too bad, except for the chocolate chips. I think I have enough sitting in the pantry to still make the cake she wanted, though, and she has backup plans upon backup plans if I don't. All the bagged and boxed food is upstairs now, and as an extra precaution I packed it into plastic tubs so that if a mouse should find its way into the main house there won't be any convenient smorgasbords.
Pictures:
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