Bonus Post: Sound Bites 56

Me: Say "please mom."

Matthias: Please Mom.

Me: "I love you madly."

Matthias, looking sad: WHY?!

Kaitlyn: How did you decide which ones were girls and which ones were boys?

Me: We could tell when you were born.

Kaitlyn: How could you tell?

Me: How could we tell?

Kaitlyn: Because the girls had long hair?

Me: No, all babies are born with short hair or no hair.

Kaitlyn: Oh, because the boys were wearing pants!

Olivia: Everyone point at Daddy and say, "Fixer Man!"

Everyone: Fixer Man!

Olivia: Everyone point at Mommy and say...

Olivia: ...

Matthias: Washer Lady!

Everyone: Washer Lady!

The teller at the bank gave the kids Spongebob stickers.

Kaitlyn: Wait, are these cheese persons?!

Me: Good night, boys. Sleep well.

Matthias: Don't tell me to sleep well. I won't sleep well because I don't like oatmeal.

Bryan did a card trick for the kids.

Bryan: Kaitlyn, is this your card?

Kaitlyn: Yes! How did you do that? 

Gretchen: Is the card warm because Kaitlyn touched it?

Bryan: No, that's not it.

Matthias: Maybe you put your eyeball in Kaitlyn!

Gretchen: Are we cleaning up because people are coming over?

Bryan: Yes. It's called shame cleaning.

Matthias: Mom. Don't watch.

December 20-27

Merry Christmas! Christ is born!

We did not go to Sidney last weekend as originally planned because of covid complications. No one we know has it, but they're working with people who are exposed so... We've rescheduled for January. This left us with several unplanned for days at home (and Bryan was off work). It was quite calm and lovely.

We had lots of church on Thursday and Friday. Royal hours at the Orthodox church on Thursday afternoon. Mass at the Catholic church on Thursday evening (not midnight, though, because they offer a 7:00 that is much better for our kids). Liturgy at the Orthodox church on Friday morning. And then, finally, presents. The kids did great. Except Theodore.

An amendment to my observation that Theodore needs to be held all the time: This does not apply in church. In church Theodore would prefer to be down and running around.

Theodore has a word for when he's excited to see a parent: "Dada!" He has another word for when he's whining or yelling at a parent: "Mom!" Both words are used for both parents, depending on his mood.

When the kids grow up with no sense of time, it's because I say "You have twenty minutes" and then forget to come back for an hour.

I make ginger beer now. Will graciously walked me through the steps for my first batch and now I'm comfortable enough with it to feel relatively confident in my abilities. It's good enough to drink straight but also works well as a mixer. I did try to branch out one time into something of a mulled ginger beer, but that was a failure. I'm back to good old reliable plain and perfectly happy about it.

Two thirds of Theodore's Christmas presents are squeezy pouches. We're a little worried that he'll start raiding under the tree whenever he needs a snack.

Josef and Angelina arrived on Christmas afternoon and stayed for the weekend. Then Josef went back home today to work for a week and Angelina decided to stay and party with us. The Bossards arrive tomorrow sometime.

Pictures:

November 15-December 20

Features that will exist on Gretchen’s ideal house when she’s ready to buy one:

A star
A porch
A chimney
Stairs
A fancy front door

Just before Bryan and I left for our anniversary trip, Kaitlyn cut her hair. She was trying to get rid of her bangs and regretted it immediately. Unfortunately for her, she'd cut off rather a large amount. She resolved to not go anywhere where she might have to see someone. Since keeping her hands over her hairline for the next six months was not a viable option, I suggested that we invest in some stretchy headbands. She has, over the past few weeks, come around to the idea and embraced the headbands. I am hopeful that they'll keep her growing bangs out of her face long enough to avoid another haircut.

Theodore needs more adult attention than our other babies. Actually, it probably just seems like he needs more attention because he has to fight so many other people to get it. Regardless, he often wants nothing more than to be held by whichever adult is willing while life carries on around him. The fastest way to become Theodore’s best friend is to never put him down.

Kaitlyn has mastered short vowel sounds and is now in the second set of readers working on long vowels. She's picking things up quickly and doing very well, but she still despises the suggestion that she should maybe read today. I half remember Gretchen going through these growing pains as well, so I guess we'll see when it gets easy enough for her to be excited about reading.

I took the younger kids to the zoo one beautiful day in early November. Kaitlyn insisted on wearing her bunny ears. This turned out to be a fabulous decision, because the river otters were quite interested in playing with the ears. Of course, they couldn't get the ears through the glass, but that didn't stop them from trying repeatedly.

Gretchen might be a procrastinator. She is constantly distracted from the task at hand, but she had a book report due on Tuesday and after all the other kids went to bed she finally buckled down and finished it. She required no nagging or assistance, and her finished product was beautiful. On second thought, maybe she’s just a hermit.

Olivia got to play a piano piece for the Ribbon Festival, which is a series of little recitals put together by the local chapter of the Music Teachers National Association. Since she’s only been playing for a few months, her teacher gave her a melody to learn and then played a harmony with her.

Thanksgiving saw the Bossards, Jillian, and the JA Fentons visiting us for most of a week. We were supposed to meet Austin, but he had to cancel his trip due to covid. :( The week was as calm as it can be with 17 people sharing a house. The weather was beautiful and the kids quite a bit of time outside.

We had a surprise visit from Tom last weekend. He dropped in on his way from Valpo to Cleveland and managed to catch Zach's visit at the same time. Matthias and Theodore greatly appreciated borrowing Gwen and Silas's grandpa for a weekend.

The night before Thanksgiving, Gretchen came out of her room while the adults were playing games. “Mom, I can’t sleep in my bed because of the feathers.” “...What feathers?” “From the hole in my pillow.” “Did you help the feathers escape?” Gretchen nods. “Did you help the hole exist?” Gretchen nods again. “Bring me your pillow.” Her once stuffed pillow is now only half full, and a four inch gash can be seen in one corner. I send her back to bed and sew up the pillow. When it’s finished, I go into her room to give it back, but not before securing it inside three pillowcases. The carpet by the door is barely visible beneath a pile of feathers. “Here, Gretch,” I say, tossing the pillow on the bed. “Go to sleep.” Pooof. A small explosion of feathers erupts from the bed. “I’m on the floor, mom. There are too many feathers up there and they keep poking me.” I snag the pillow and toss it across the room towards her. Pooof. A feather geyser appears as the pillow sails overhead, ruffling feathers in its wake. I set her up in a sleeping bag in the corner on the room furthest from the feathers and promise to survey the damage in the morning. Thanksgiving morning dawns and, after breakfast and a quick survey of what needs to be done before lunch, Gretchen and I return to the scene of the crime, vacuum in tow. The feather spread is impressive. “Why, Gretchen?” “I just love feathers. Can we maybe keep some?” Request denied. I decide to empty the vacuum canister before we begin. We vacuum feathers out of two full plastic shoe boxes. Gretchen tells me that she and Kaitlyn collected them as they fell the night before so that they wouldn’t bother Edward and Walter, who were sleeping below the beds. We vacuum the floor in front of the door. I leave Gretchen in Angelina’s capable hands and together they vacuum under the beds. Then Angelina notices the feathers on top of Gretchen’s bed. I return, and together we shake feathers off of everything and hide the clean things in the closet. We strip Gretchen’s bed completely and Kaitlyn’s halfway. The floor looks like we haven’t even started. After a second run over everything with the vacuum, the feathers are nearly vanquished. Eventually, we declared it good enough. We emptied the canister 6 times over the course of that morning. Our backyard looked like we’d plucked an entire flock of turkeys for the Thanksgiving feast. Even as I write this, there are still pockets of resistance, hiding among toys and nestled in corners, reminding us of what happens when you love feathers too much.

Pictures:

Bonus Post: Sound Bites 55

Matthias: I am a dinosaur with lion moves and fire in my mouth.

Jillian: Hi!
Olivia: What? Oh, hi!
Gretchen: Aunt Jillian, I thought you were my dad!

Kaitlyn: Wait, why am I the one who has to go get all the supplies?

Angelina: Well, you live here, so we're asking you where things are.

Kaitlyn: But why can't Gretchen go?

Gretchen: I'm too artful for that.

*car brakes suddenly*

Me: Who lost their stuff?

Gretchen: Matthias.

Me: What did you lose, Matthias?

Matthias: I losed everything.

Gretchen: If I convince everyone in Pennsylvania to leave and then I move monsters in, it could be Transylvania!

Matthias: Are we in California?

Me: No.

Matthias: Are we in October?

Me: No.

Matthias: Are we in Sunday?

Me: No. It's a Tuesday in September in Ohio.

Olivia: We're there already? You said it would be 8:30. So your estimate was wrong?

Me: Yes, we got here earlier.

Olivia: Yeah, you were way off.

Gretchen: Are you a mom?

Angelina: Do I have any kids?

Gretchen: No. But you live in your own house.

Angelina: Where should I live?

Gretchen: With your mom!

Gretchen, in front of her godfather while about to receive communion: Wait, MOM! Am I Orthodox?

How Kaitlyn doctored a stuffed dragon back to health:

First I broke his body. Then I took all the fire out and threw it in the garbage. Then I closed him and poked some nails in. Then they dried and now he's all better. Well, he's still a little bit dead. I don't think I was supposed to use nails, but I'm still learning. That's why I'm a little girl.

Bonus Post: Recent Pictures

Pictures:

November 1-15

Words since the end of September. Pictures to follow.

Brad and Shantelle came to visit at the end of September. They worked in the basement during the day and we were able to play games and visit in the evenings. Shortly after they left, Jacque and Julian came to visit for a few days. Julian has seen quite a bit of us over the past few months and doesn’t take long to warm up to his cousins anymore.

We’ve also seen a lot of Josef and Angelina since they moved to Columbus. We spent the first weekend of October visiting them at their apartment. We squeezed four kids into the guest/workout/office room and let Theodore sleep in with Josef and Angelina. Then Bryan and I slept in the living room and I went to fetch Theodore when he woke up. It was a fun visit, but quite crowded. A lot of Saturday was spent at a couple of local parks just to get the kids out of the apartment. More recently, Josef and Angelina came to our house and Josef helped me paint the playroom. We did a Jackson Pollack light splatter wall which turned out quite well.

Bryan has started throwing a yearly Halloween party and this year was the second year. He has candy/prize stations around the yard and basement and sets the kids loose to find all the treasures. A highlight is the basement path where they can collect pennies to spend at the clubhouse store. The party gives Bryan an excuse to decorate and lets our kids get their Halloween fix without the hassle of trick or treating. Or in addition to trick or treating. Double Halloween is a big hit.

I took the kids and went to visit the Bossards over a long weekend. Coincidentally, we managed to hit their trick or treating weekend (it worked out that way last year as well), so our kids did get double Halloween after all, despite missing the Lima night. Trick or treating in the Bossards’ neighborhood has both times been more pleasant than our route we usually end up taking in Lima, so perhaps we’ll just have to plan to be there every year. The kids enjoyed playing together and it was a pleasant visit.

In mid October I had my yearly vacation with my friends. We were supposed to go to Chicago this year, but coronavirus made that impractical. We went to Mansfield, OH, instead, and visited Mohican State Park. On Sunday we were able to attend liturgy at the nearby monastery. Then we stopped for lunch at a local restaurant that served an amazing giant Bavarian pretzel. We decided to hike out to see a “low flow” waterfall and arrived at an 80 foot dripping faucet. The hike was nice, but the waterfall was not much of a payout. :)

Bryan and I celebrated 10 years of marriage in September. We delayed our trip for a couple of reasons and, having divvied our kids up among various households, set out for ...Toledo on October 21. We were planning to go to Niagara (the American side) since that’s where we took our honeymoon, but Ohio got put on New York’s travel ban list a week earlier. When I called, the hotel said it had a one week grace period, but if we were still on the list on October 20 then they would cancel our reservation. We were and they did and we threw together new plans the night before we were supposed to leave. Luckily, hotel rooms aren’t too hard to come by midweek, so we didn’t have much trouble once we decided where to go. We had a lovely time in Toledo, visiting both the zoo and the casino twice. Bryan won at craps and then we lost all his winnings at roulette, but we had a good time doing it. I even won once which let us keep playing a little longer. :) After a few days in Toledo we came home and enjoyed our quiet house for three days before retrieving our children. 

Theodore walks. He’s been playing around with the idea for months now, but he didn’t really take off until about a week after 14 months. If I’m remembering correctly, that puts him at about the same age as Olivia, and a hair younger than Gretchen. He now chooses to walk everywhere all the time and is steady enough that he only sticks his left arm up for balance sometimes. I write so infrequently these days years that I can’t remember what I’ve mentioned and what I haven’t. Theodore has been sleeping relatively reliably through the night since before he turned one. He has the occasional rough night, and he has a tendency to wake up with my alarm in the morning and not go back to sleep. We finally bit the bullet and moved him from the oratory to the room he’s supposed to be sharing with Matthias. After a rough few nights, he has settled in well. He is still likely to wake up around the time my alarm goes off, but I can usually nurse him and put him back down so that he can get a little more sleep and I can start my day without him immediately underfoot.

Kaitlyn has been practicing her cartwheel and is good enough now to do one pretty much anywhere. It’s a common occurrence for her to be walking through the house or yard and decide to throw a cartwheel in just to mix things up. She’s been working on reading and writing with me. Progress through the first set of readers is always agonizingly slow and I have to fight her for every page. When she decides to read, though, she does great, and I’ve assured her that the books will go faster with practice. Her writing is also improving. She’s through all the letters and has moved on to copywork. I’m trying to monitor her writing a little more than I did her sisters’ since I’ve noticed that Olivia’s handwriting slants funny because she doesn’t angle her paper and Gretchen makes all her letters from the bottom up. Clearly I let them down in the handwriting department.

Gymnastics continues to be popular in our house. All three girls are in the same Thursday evening class, which has been quite nice logistically. We have a tumbling mat in our living room now that they can pull out to practice cartwheels and handstands. Kaitlyn has the cleanest, most confident flips, but Olivia and Gretchen have improved noticeably in the past month. We got all three of them sweatsuits to wear over their gymnastics clothes and they think they’re so cool. :) Sometimes both boys stay with Bryan while I take the girls to class, and sometimes one or both of them comes with me and we check out the local park. Matthias knows that gymnastics day is the day he gets to go to the park with mom, so he often does his best to come along. He’s going to be out of luck for a while now since it’s pretty cold and dark by 6:00 these days.

Kaitlyn and Matthias have started Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. This year we have both the youngest and the oldest in the program. Matthias slipped in a couple of weeks before the deadline and Kaitlyn stayed in on a technicality -- she’s not enrolled in kindergarten anywhere. Kaitlyn took this once a week class last year and loved it. Matthias is enjoying it now, as well, although he does wish he could do the work available to the older kids.

November has been very mild thus far. Actually, it’s been downright summery. The little kids and I took of a 75 degree Monday to visit the zoo while the animals were likely to be out. The highlight of the trip was the river otters. Otters tend to be friendly and exciting anyway, but this time they were especially interested in Kaitlyn. Or rather, they were especially interested in the bright pink bunny ears Kaitlyn was wearing on her head. They kept coming right up to her at the window and then jumping up and swatting at her ears.

I finally managed to get in to see a neurologist about my headaches. They’re mild right now, so it feels a little silly to be having appointments while I’m not really bothered, but the past three years have taught me that they will return. I’m supposed to get an MRI in the coming weeks to make sure that there’s nothing alarming going on inside my head and then we’ll talk treatment. They said more options will be available to me once Theodore weans, which is to be expected.

The end of this week saw our kids in Sidney while Bryan and I drove up to Cleveland to visit Brad and Shantelle. They had a Friendsgiving that we attended as the resident old fogeys. Saturday was dinner and video games and then this morning we went to church early and then made breakfast before everyone else woke up. We had time for a couple of board games before heading back to Sidney.

September 27-November 1

Pictures from (mostly) October.

Bonus Post: Sound Bites 54

Matthias: You buckle the down low and I'll buckle the up low.

Gretchen: This one has five kids and they are giving him a lot of trouble. His daughter keeps making babies so now he has to take care of those kids, too. She made a lot of babies and now he has, like, 100 kids to watch.

Bryan: I'm going to go out to the garage to build a unicorn hoof print.

Matthias: Mom, you're a big fatty. It's because of the two bumps on your belly.

Kaitlyn: Why did you make me try on those shoes if they didn't fit Rudy?
Me: Grandma asked me to have you try them on.
Kaitlyn: But you know we are the same age!
Me: Don't yell at me about it. You should be yelling at Grandma.
Kaitlyn: ...Why would I yell at Grandma? I like Grandma.

Matthias: Did the sun turn off?

Kaitlyn: Do we have any hanitizer?

Me: I'm so cool.

Gretchen: You are 50% cool.

Matthias: Can you snuggle me up?

Me: Can you count to 10?

Matthias: No.

Me: How high can you count?

Matthias: Shark.

Bonus Post: So Many Pictures

Here are several months worth of pictures. You can imagine the stories that go with them. :)

Pictures:

August 23-September 27

Theodore words: Mama, thank you, more, boom, uh-oh, bye, amen. He will repeat most sounds, but these are the words he uses consistently. He calls Bryan "Mom" very consistently, much to Bryan's chagrin. Despite an apparent willingness to repeat words back to us, Theodore refuses to use "Dad" for Bryan.

Theodore had a swimming crawl for a long time, but he did finally figure out regular crawling. He now uses that almost exclusively, although if he needs to get somewhere while holding something in each hand then he will revert to the swim. He can stand fabulously and cruises quickly along furniture, but is too chicken to actually take independent steps. His current attempts at walking are really just forward trust falls.

Kaitlyn has started learning to read and is doing quite well. She can sound out any three letter short vowel word now. She's also breezing through writing practice. Soon she'll have covered proper letter formation for all the letters and will be on to copy work of some sort to hone her skills.

Matthias is happily tagging along with Kaitlyn's school. He can identify all his capital letters and some of his lowercase letters. He knows that the letters make sounds, but is only correct on three of them (M, R, and S). He's been listening to Kaitlyn sound out words, though, and seems likely to catch on fairly quickly when his turn comes.

Kaitlyn and Gretchen started gymnastics and they are loving it. Kaitlyn has a beautiful cartwheel now and is hoping to learn something new soon. I bought some tumbling mats to put down in the living room so that she doesn't crack her head open trying to do handstands. Gretchen has a less beautiful cartwheel. She has been working on it, though, and the improvement is obvious to those of us who saw her first attempts. She gets both feet off the ground now.

Soccer season is almost over. Gretchen's pickup soccer games ended this past Thursday. Olivia has another week and a half. Olivia's team has been playing very well. I believe they have tied or won every game so far. Olivia had an assist once, although it sounds like it may have been an accident. Bryan says her aggression is lacking. Actually, what he said was, "I love her, but as a little girl soccer player she could be replaced by a traffic cone. But only if the traffic cone was afraid of the ball."

School continues to be held in person. Gretchen did get sent home one day because she had a headache, a sore throat, and a temperature of 98.9. The nurse said if I gave her any medication at all then she would have to stay home for 24 hours, so I did not treat her headache. It may not have mattered anyway, because she complained of neither a sore throat nor a headache all day. She returned to school the following morning. Other than that hiccup, everything has been fine.

I don't think I've mentioned yet, but we have new and improved back steps. Sometime over the summer Bryan took it upon himself to rebuild the steps (again; he's done this before). This time he made them extra long and extra wide. They are wonderful and I don't have to worry about Theodore falling out of the door or sitting down too close to the edge of the step.

Another rather inconsequential thing I haven't mentioned: We have an apple corer. This normally would not be noteworthy. However. Matthias refers to the hole in a cored apple as a tunnel. Now everyone asks for apples with tunnels. The kids don't normally finish an entire apple each, so I've been cutting the cored apples in half. This lends itself to two options: two halves with short tunnels, or two halves with half tunnels (halfpipes? perhaps we should have gone the skateboarding route...). Originally there was great debate over which kind of apple was best, the short tunnel or the half tunnel. We gradually started calling the half tunnel apples rainbow tunnels, because they look like rainbows. This of course increased the desirability of the half tunnel apples. And then... Uncle Will's band sings a song called Rainbow Tunnel and now, because of our apple corer, all the kids have heard this song and sing it when they ask for rainbow tunnels. No one ever chooses short tunnel apples anymore. And there's a lot more Rainbow Tunnel in all our lives.

Theodore had a birthday. Our baby is 1! He was probably our best cake smasher to date. After a very tentative check of the frosting, he was all in. With both hands. I used my springform layers that Bryan got me to make a three layer cake, so I was able to just remove the small top portion and let Theo have a grand old delicious time.

Brad and Shantelle got married on September 5 and the whole family was in the wedding. Everything went well and we all managed to pull of our respective reception dances. We did not manage to get a photo of just our family, but we are all in some of the group shots of the wedding party.

The boys had check-ups. Matthias is 36.5 pounds and 38.25 inches tall. Theodore is 21 pounds, 7 ounces, 30 inches tall, and has 9 teeth.

We also had eye doctor appointments. Kaitlyn and Matthias still look good. Gretchen's prescription improved slightly and the doctor said she could wear her glasses just for reading. I said that if it wouldn't ruin her eyes to wear them all the time then she was still going to do that. All I need is for Gretchen to have multiple reasons per day to remove her glasses. I'd spend a fortune on glasses. Olivia was ecstatic to learn that her eye drops are no longer necessary. Her lazy eye has been corrected enough that they are content to just use glasses to keep it in line now. Both girls got to pick out new frames which should arrive this week.

Olivia has started piano lessons. We got a real piano because her teacher said that better habits and technique will be formed on a real piano than on the weighted electric piano we already had. So now we have two pianos. She is enjoying her lessons and thus far has been very willing to practice.

We've seen Joe and Angelina a couple of times since they moved to Columbus a month ago. It's been very exciting. Jacque, Will, and Julian also made it down to visit for a week, which was quite enjoyable. Since everyone is working virtually, longer midweek visits are suddenly a possibility. :)

Bryan and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary on Friday! We thought about getting a sitter and going out to eat, but then decided it would be more pleasant to stay home and watch Brooklyn 99, so that's what we did. We are planning to take a trip to Niagara (the American side) at the end of October.

I have pictures coming soon, I promise. I'm on Instagram now and post pictures there periodically if you don't want to have to wait.