Sometimes I write blog posts while I'm waiting at gymnastics for the girls to be done. I have to write them in Google Docs (offline) and then transfer them at home. Here's one that I wrote back in mid-May and then forgot to transfer. Some of the information will be things you've already seen, but presented slightly differently. Some might be new. Enjoy.
Matthias calls blinking lights “beeping lights.”
On the Monday after Pascha, I managed to drop an entire pot of freshly made Mexican Chicken on the kitchen floor. To add insult to injury, the floor had been newly mopped only an hour before. On Wednesday the little kids and I were slightly late to a picnic lunch because I was busy packing our basket and didn’t get out the door on time. Somehow in the confusion of getting out the door I managed to step right over the basket and so we arrived at our picnic with no lunch. It’s been a good week.
Our fruit trees are old enough that they’re setting fruit! Bryan and I wandered around and located the beginnings of peaches, pears, plums, and apricots. Sadly, the internet tells us we have to prune most of the new fruit off so that our trees don’t break and to encourage more growth next year. Bryan went through our tiny orchard on Thursday and ruthlessly pinched off fruit until he deemed the crops thinned enough.
And since we’re discussing garden things… Bryan planted a bed full of beets this year. He decided to take the worst bed we have and is regretting it now that the weeds have arrived in full force. I started peas, which have come up, and Brussels sprouts, which have not. I also sprinkled lettuce seeds in one bed, very Parable of the Sower-esque, and have had unsatisfactory results. Guess I’ll just have to sprinkle some more. We split our rhubarb crowns last fall and now we have six good rhubarb plants coming up, which is very exciting. Rhubarb is my type of plant.
Ever since his maple syrup experiment, Bryan has been set on filling our front yard with maple trees. He mentioned this to our parks department friend, who brought over 15 saplings for us to plant. We got a few more from the girls’ school when they handed out trees for Earth Day, and now we have somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 tiny maple trees doing their best to survive in our heavy clay soil. A few got hit by rabbits and now they’re all safely fenced and I’m wondering if I need a hunting license to set out rabbit snares. Bryan is wondering if I’d actually go through with snares or butcher the animals should the snares work.
Olivia’s friend Isaiah has a golf cart that he is allowed to drive around his spacious backyard. When we were all over there for a cookout, Isaiah was giving rides to all the kids and got permission from the parents to let anyone 9 or older try driving. And that’s how an 11 year old taught Olivia to drive a golf cart. She did pretty well, actually, although I didn’t watch too long.
Theodore can jump. He’s been able to do a little toe bouncing “jump” for a while now, but in the last couple of weeks he’s perfected getting off the ground. He loves jumping and will demonstrate pretty much anytime. He also utilizes it when he’s mad, jumping in adorable little angry circles around the room. In his rage jumping he gets a little carried away, though, and generally ends up landing quite hard on his bottom before he calms down.
Gretchen decided she might be a conscientious vegetarian. She had a moment mid Lent when she realized that shrimp were animals and had an internal struggle because she likes shrimp but doesn’t want to eat animals. After that point, she informed us that she wasn’t going to eat animals anymore and very diligently checked with me about any food that she suspected of being an animal. Fortunately, during Lent those foods are relatively rare. Unfortunately, my brain doesn’t count shrimp or clams as animals because we can eat them even when we’re mostly vegan, so she had to pick around seafood several times. As soon as we entered into Eastertide, Gretchen hopped off the vegetarian train. I think that since the usual meats don’t resemble actual animals as much as their seafood counterparts, she didn’t realize what all she’d be giving up. For a day or two, she thought maybe she’d be vegetarian except for chicken, but now even that has fallen by the wayside. She’s grown annoyed by me asking if she’s eating this meat or that meat right now and has just resumed her normal eating habits. We’ll see what she does with her next shrimp experience.
Theodore is officially weaned. He made it 19.5 months before I cut him off. Now that he’s done, the neurologist has medications for me to try for my headaches. I’ve been started on amitriptyline, which is supposed to be preventative but also takes up to six weeks to begin working. We shall see. It’s also used as a sleep aid, an antidepressant, and an anxiety reducer, which I learned from the pharmacist when I picked it up. I think she was trying to be reassuring, but it was a little off putting when she kept naming things this might fix and none of them were headaches. When I mentioned that it was prescribed for headaches, she said, “Well, it has a lot of uses.” Perfect.
Theodore is our best hand and face cleaner, by which I mean he is most patient (sometimes even excited) during the after meal wipedown. He makes up for it by being our worst car seat buckler and diaper change endurer. Both of those have improved significantly in the past two weeks and he now suffers through them relatively gracefully, provided I let him do the buckles. He even willingly walks to his changing table in his room when I tell him it’s time for a new diaper. He does not willingly get in the carseat, as there are so many more exciting things to do both on the way to the car and once he’s inside.
Theodore has reached an annoying milestone: he must have a fork. He cannot use said fork, and so is much more frustrated during mealtimes because he knows the fork is important but can’t manage to use it to transfer food to his mouth. And since he’s been feeding himself (with his fingers) for months now, he doesn’t want to let me help him. Mealtimes are now a noisy battle during which Theodore alternately loves and hates his fork.
