March 14-21

Theodore had a checkup a couple of weeks ago. He's 26 pounds, 5 ounces and 34.5 inches tall. He says yes (as an interjection, not as an affirmative), jump, big throw, drink, water, please, and something I can't make out that means "I need that food."

Bryan, in his usual early spring enthusiasm, has made gardening decisions. He’s planning to grow beets this year and has already planted them. We’ll see if they come up after the hail and sleet we had this week.

Gretchen had a book report to do this past month and it had a project component. The project choice was very open ended and up to her, and she tossed around several ideas before I showed her my little toothpick and embroidery floss dolls that I made when I was younger. Upon seeing them, she was sold, and she made two to go with her report. Having survived the experience, I have decided to reintroduce the concept in 3-5 years with the hope that she’ll enjoy making them again, this time without driving her mother up a wall. I forgot to take a picture of her finished dolls, but I’ll try to get one when they come home.

Lent has finally started for the Orthodox, so this week was a lot of church. The kids did okay, especially considering services didn’t start until 7 pm. We made it to every other day. Olivia and Gretchen are old enough to settle into the service quite well when they put their minds to it. Both helped me chant a verse during the canon. Their reading is good and their chanting is decent, but their volume leaves a little to be desired. We’ll have to work on that for another time.

Matthias is super into dinosaurs these days. He’s been into dinosaurs since just before his third birthday, but I’m not sure I’ve mentioned it. He has a small army of dinosaurs and they attack each other frequently. He also has a couple of books, one of which has sound buttons that name the dinosaurs and then roar. We’re getting quite good at long dinosaur names over here. Theodore has picked up on the dinosaur and roaring hype and carries around small plastic animals roaring softly at everything in sight. His roar is adorable and quiet and not ferocious in the least.

Matthias wants very badly to have his whole calendar of events planned out in his head, but he’s three so he’s bad at time. Several times a week we have to go through all the major events in our family’s life (birthdays and holidays mostly) until we get to Christmas. I am curious to see how far in advance we’ll have to plan once we pass some of the beginning milestones. Will he notice when Kaitlyn’s birthday drops off and make us continue through the next one, or will he neither notice nor care until we pass his birthday?

Olivia has been learning cursive in school and her handwriting is suddenly beautiful.

I’ve started saying, “No, no, not for babies” to Theodore when he gets into things he shouldn’t have. Bryan has picked it up as well and now Theodore hears “not for babies” all the time. He has, in his baby fashion, imitated this as well as he can, and now runs around the house hollering, “No babies!”

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Bonus Post: Sound Bites 58

Matthias: I don't want to be dead.
Me: So don't be dead.

Matthias: But I don't want to be FAT and dead.

Me: When will you be fat and dead?

Matthias: I don't know. Afternoon?

Playing Dr Mario.

Kaitlyn: Grandma, these extra viruses are coming down.

Kaitlyn: Grandma, are you doing that?

Grandma: Yes.

Kaitlyn: Grandma, that's not very helpful.

Grandma, laughing: It's helping you.

Kaitlyn: It's making me lose.

Matthias: My hand hurts.

Bryan: Why does your hand hurt?

Matthias: Because I accidentally eated it a little.

Bryan: Oh?

Matthias: But I didn't eat the whole thing, so I will be okay.

Me: Mommies can always break wizards.

Me: These boots are size 11.

Kaitlyn: I'm 11.

Matthias: No, you're 5.

Kaitlyn: I'm 11 feet tall.

Me: Your feet are size 11.

Kaitlyn: Yeah, my feet can count to 11.

Kaitlyn: Be careful because my throat is usually by my belly but today my throat is in my neck and it makes my voice crooked.

Bryan: It'll be done in eight minutes.

Kaitlyn: One, two, three, four...

Bryan: Minutes, not seconds.

Kaitlyn: Oh, oh. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi...

Kaitlyn, to Oma: Oh, just so you know, don't call me Gretchen. I'm Kaitlyn. Oh, but I don't want to boss you around.

March 7-14

We made our own maple syrup! Last year we attended the local maple festival in early March and Bryan came home determined to attempt this magical feat of producing syrup from trees himself. He bought five spiles on Amazon, put four of them in a safe place, and kept one out for the kids to use when playing doctor. Fast forward to this March… We have a friend who works for the parks department, which is probably how we ended up at the maple festival in the first place. Bryan invited Dan and his family over for dinner and dragged Dan outside in the dark to identify which of our trees, if any, were maples. The good news: we have five maple trees. The bad news: Bryan lost the four spiles that he put in a safe place. Not to be deterred, he tapped one tree anyway, rigging an old juice container with wire and a nail in place of a bucket. The next day he found his remaining spiles and tapped two more trees using an oil container and a small pop bottle. Note to our next March selves: we need bigger containers. Maple sap season, as it turns out, is very short, especially if you have silver maples like we do. Our containers collected sap for about a week and then the trees stopped flowing. I boiled down two large pots, each half full of sap, for a long time. Then I dumped the remaining liquid in the smallest pot I own and boiled some more. When it got all bubbly on top like hard candy, I stopped. And voila, syrup. Actually, I might have let it go a little too long, because our ¼ cup of syrup has some crystalized bits in it. Brimming over with enthusiasm, Bryan wants to buy half a dozen sugar maples to plant in our front yard, so I guess I’ll have time to perfect my method in the coming decades.

Theodore loves being outside. He’s a little bit of a problem about it, though, because he’s getting big enough to do things. He learned how to climb the ladder inside the clubhouse and proceeded to climb all the way to the very top rung and get stuck. This wouldn’t be so bad if the top rung didn’t happen to be only inches below the top of the wall. Also, there’s the whole gaping hole thing. Since Theodore is an acknowledged dum dum who frequently makes poor life choices, we decided something had to be done. Bryan built a trap door to cover the hole, and now, providing his siblings remember to put the lid back on after they climb through, Theodore climbs up as high as he can and yells while he tries to shove his head through the space where the ladder still exits the hole. Problem solved?

In an effort to encourage more frequent practicing, or, at the very least, more frequent touching of instruments, I’ve started having Kaitlyn and Olivia send Marco Polos of their progress to Oma. Grandma A recently downloaded Marco Polo, so she’s had a video or two as well. If anyone else needs/wants to be on the Marco Polo Practice list, let me know. :)

An unprecedented thing happened at card club last week: Bryan lost. Now, Bryan doesn’t always win, but he often does and when he doesn’t he’s at least in the top half. He doesn’t lose. Except this time. And whether there were extenuating circumstances or not (alleged misplays by partners who should have known better), the fact remains that he had the least number of points and this will live in everyone’s memory (or at least mine) forever. We usually deem ourselves ineligible to win our own prizes, but for the loser prize everyone agreed that Bryan could claim it. He is now the proud owner of a pair of fish flops that is a little too small. We have a gift receipt so that he can exchange them for the proper size, but when he saw how much the kids loved them he decided to just keep the too small ones.

Our basement renovation is officially started! We have the contractor, we have the loan, and "Mr Basement Guy" has popped in and out several times now. Lines have been drawn on the floor for walls and a lot of alarming noises have been issuing forth under my feet. I believe they've rearranged some of the plumbing pipes down there and we're well on our way to a dedicated HVAC system. Theoretically they'll be completely done at their previous job soon and then we'll see a lot more people a lot more often.

Jacque sewed some snuggets when she was here a few years ago. For those who haven't seen this completely made up product, it's like a Snuggie meets a chicken nugget. ... Kind of. It's a fleece blanket poncho. When we visited the Smiths for Samuel's baptism, I was reminded of the existence of snuggets and spent my entire time (except for the service, of course) wearing one. Upon returning home, I immediately set out to make my own. Well. First I bought too little fabric. Then I was busy doing other things and didn't get around to realizing my mistake for several weeks. By the time I went to remedy the situation, JoAnn was sold out of the original print. Bryan and I looked at solid colors to match, but decided that would be less than ideal. We scoured the shelves for a new Johannah-ish fabric. Bryan tried to pick the most "vegetables and sadness" looking fabric he could find, which turns out to be a surprisingly good benchmark for whether I will like it. Then I noticed that precut blanket panels were significantly cheaper than fleece by the yard, so Bryan had to summon all his energy and caring to look through all of those. He was less inspired by this point, and mostly just suffered through my enthusiasm. I found something okay, but then... I found fabric with a full size princess dress printed on it. It's almost the least vegetables and sadness print there is. After some debate between the okay print and the princess print, I decided on the princess. This was, apparently, quite the upset. I finally got around to sewing my princess dress snugget and it is fabulous. The dress print is my size, so I look like I'm wearing a ball gown when I'm really just snuggled into a pocket of warmth. And it's reversible, with a pink dress on one side and a purple one on the other. My children are so jealous. Now all I need is a couple of snaps on each side to bustle it up when I want to walk. Oh, and a tiara. I'll probably have to get a tiara. :)

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Bonus Post: The Absent Pictures

When I wait so long between posts, I have to separate out the pictures from the words. These appear to range from just before Christmas to midway through February. They're loosely organized from newest to oldest.

Pictures:

February 21-March 7

February started out very cold and Bryan despaired of getting his one basketball game in for the month. However, after a ferocious two weeks of winter, spring decided to start making itself known and we had enough consecutive days in the 40s to melt the snow on the driveway. A few brave souls bundled up (and one foolish soul (Bryan) wore shorts) and played a gratuitous game of basketball at 5:30 on a warmer-than-the-rest-of-the-week Thursday. Now it's a year round basketball league.

In the midst of the snow, school got canceled several times. There was one week where the girls only went two days, and one of those was a two hour delay. The school has used up 8 of its 5 allotted calamity days so far this year. To compensate, they've added three days to the end of the school year and have started having virtual learning days instead of canceled days. We've only had to do virtual learning once, and it went reasonably well. Third grade was very well prepared for this -- they have chromebooks on which they access Google classrooms regularly at school, so they all know what to do. Second grade was less well prepared, but Gretchen and I muddled through finding her assignments and getting them properly submitted.

Kaitlyn went to Rudy's house for a sleepover one day and then got an extra day as a bonus because of the snowstorm happening right when we were supposed to pick her up. She was very excited and told Keshia, "It's like I live here now!" We did get her back eventually.

Theodore knows a few more words than last reported. I don't think he's really acquired any new ones, I just forgot to record these: tickle, hot, ow, ball, open.

Theodore is in the shoes and buckles age. He spends much of his day wandering around in shoes several sizes too large and buckling all the buckles he can find (generally the two booster seats) as often as he can get someone else to unbuckle them for him. I dug out the buckles from underneath the changing table pad and he also buckles that while I change his diaper. He likes being outside, especially if it involves a basketball or soccer ball. Oh, and his answer to every question is, "Mmnope."

Kaitlyn has kind of sort of started violin. She came into my room one afternoon with one of our tiny violins and declared that she was going to practice with me. I showed her how to hold the violin (like I've showed three of her siblings before her) and rather than being discouraged and giving up (like the aforementioned siblings), she spent about 10 minutes practicing open strings with me. So I taught her the string names and told her which string to play while I put down fingers so that Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star issued forth from the instrument. This served to increase her excitement and now we try to work on a little bit every day. I ordered her a shoulder rest, a new set of strings, and a bow with all its hair, and we're off.

The weather has been in the 30s-50s most days recently. It tends to bounce back and forth. I was able to take the little kids to the zoo on Wednesday and we had a lovely time wandering around looking at animals. It was warm enough for spring coats, but cold enough for hats and gloves. Masks are useful for keeping faces warm in the cooler weather. :)

We sent the kids to Sidney this weekend. We get them back today and tonight is our Happy March card club.

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