Bonus Post: Sound Bites 62

Olivia: When Matthias is very old, like in his 20s...

Matthias: This is a slobbery baby. Maybe the Miroglios got the wrong one?

Gretchen: I'm making an office. Do you have a box as tall as a refrigerator and as long as a piano? Maybe I could just order a refrigerator attached to a piano. OR I could order a refrigerator AND a piano! And get free shipping!

Matthias: When I am 100, church will be broken, because 100 is very big.

Matthias: One hundred and one, one hundred and two, one hundred and three, one hundred and four, one hundred and five, one hundred and six, one hundred and seven, one hundred and eight, one hundred and niiiine, infinity! Infinity and one, infinity and two, infinity and three, infinity and four, infinity and five, infinity and six, infinity and seven, infinity and eight, infinity and niiiiiine, a thousand! A thousand and one, a thousand and two, a thousand and three, a thousand and four, a thousand and five, a thousand and six, a thousand and seven, a thousand and eight, a thousand and niiiiiiiiiine, dun dun dun, bajillion! Bajillion and one, bajillion and two, bajillion and three, bajillion and four, bajillion and five, bajillion and six, bajillion and seven, bajillion and eight, bajillion and niiiiiine, miles! Miles and one, miles and two, miles and three, miles and four, miles and five, miles and six, miles and seven, miles and eight, miles and niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine, dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun, GOOGOL! Googol and one, googol and two, googol and three, googol and four, googol and five, googol and six, googol and seven, googol and eight, googol and niiiiiiine, done.

Matthias: ...

Matthias: Done and one, done and two, done and three, done and four, done and five, done and six, done and seven, done and eight, done and niiiiiiiine... I don't know any more numbers.

Matthias: I'm not even going to get dressed today because I want to wear pajamas tomorrow afternoon.

Kaitlyn: The Lord bless you, keep you, and give you peace. Why give you peace?

Me: Because it's nice to be peaceful.

Kaitlyn: Not for me. I like it to be crazy.

Matthias: Mom, I wish you were dead and the kids were still alive because then I would get to play the cat game all the time.

Our current pest control deterrent: Theodore opens the back door and yells "No bees!" at the ants.

Matthias: It's too comfy and I don't want to be warm.

Gretchen: Why don't we invent chicken nugget spoons?

Matthias: There are two ways I should be at grandma and grandpa's house. One is it's fun. Two is I poop there.

Bonus Post: Sound Bites 61

(Is it really a bonus post still if this is the main content now?)

Matthias: The smoke alarm is beeping. Does that mean it will shoot fire at us?

Gretchen: That's mom's peach spoon that she uses to... stab peaches?

Matthias: Does water defeat spicy things?

Kaitlyn: 23.99. What is that? Cents?

Me: 23 dollars and 99 cents.

Kaitlyn: But I don't have 99 cents!

Me: Do you have 23 dollars?

Kaitlyn: What are dollars?

Me: Money.

Kaitlyn: Oh, the green flappy things?

Matthias: Mom, can we watch a movie? I'm not feeling well.

Me: No. If you're not feeling well go be in your bed.

Matthias: So we don't watch a movie anymore when we're not feeling good?

Me: No.

Matthias: Okay, then I'm feeling good.

Kaitlyn: Mom, I love you more than my special blanky.

Matthias: If I stick my foot in the water a frog might bite me.

Me: I don't think frogs bite.

Matthias: Then why do they have mouths?

Gretchen: If you didn't have a tongue, you'd still be able to say some words but not all of them. Like, you could say, "BaaAaaaAAaaaaAaaa."

Me: ...

Gretchen: Like a sheep.

Matthias, being a doctor: So it's banger then shooter then pokers and then you get your stuff.

Matthias: When I am grown up, I will be bigger than Kaitlyn.

Me, to Kaitlyn: Don't get offended, that's just a fact.

Kaitlyn: I'm not offended. It just means he will die first.

Garden News

We got fruit from our trees this year! There were a lot of tiny plums and pears starting, but the internet told us we needed to knock most of them off due to the size and age of our trees. We did so reluctantly, but Bryan left 4 plums and 5 pears to ripen. As the end of summer approached, we harvested our bounty and happily ate our 9 delicious fruits.

I am not a good gardener. This is known by everyone except Bryan, who keeps trying to convince me that if the conditions are right then I could be a great gardener. I will concede that if my beds grow no weeds, the rain falls predictably on schedule, and someone else picks the produce to bring it inside then he's right. Those are the conditions, though, and if they aren't met then I just grow beds overflowing with weeds and rotting vegetables. Bryan has decreed that next year he's taking over.

This year I planted cucumbers and, not receiving much in the way of care, they languished. I left them to their sad little lives while we went on vacation, and when we came back a week later the stars had aligned. There was enough rainfall at the right times that the cucumbers suddenly exploded, taking care of their own budding weed problem. My three (or was it four?) plants took over the whole bed and started eyeing the bed next door. Bryan gleefully picked them for me (that's the third condition!) and we had cucumbers. Now, the only reason I grow cucumbers is to pickle them, and the only way I know how to pickle them is with refrigerator pickling. I could learn to can them, but this year I did not. So we made refrigerator pickles. So. Many. Pickles. Jars upon jars that we took places and gave away and somehow kept finding in the back of the refrigerator. We did some experimenting with other spices (with the dill, not in place of it) and really liked the way our mint pickles turned out. Basil pickles, rosemary pickles, and cayenne pickles were good as well. Chinese five spice... not so much.

I also sprinkled salad seeds in one bed, parable of the sower style. I had several mixed greens packages to use up, so into the bed they went. We got a few varieties of lettuce and some swiss chard, enough to make a decent sized salad several times.

Bryan planted beets in his garden bed this year and after a modest harvest planted cantaloupe as well. The cantaloupe benefitted from the same neglect filled week as the cucumbers and set off to spread as much as possible. Bryan and Theodore have been eating a lot of cantaloupe since the rest of us don't care for it much.

The raspberry patch is flourishing, thanks in a large part to my mom weeding when she visits. There's a tipping point where the raspberries are able to hold their own. The kids and I have been happily stripping the bushes of berries whenever we happen past them, which means we don't ever save any to make things. There have never been enough in years past, but based on this year's bounty I think we could get a decent amount next year if we pick them and freeze them until fall instead of instantly popping them in our mouths.

Rhubarb is my kind of plant, and although this year was rough I fully expect next year to be better. Bryan and I split the rhubarb last spring, spreading it out along the front of the house. But then the basement guys bulldozed the place where we planted some of it, and Steve enthusiastically weed whacked the rest. So no rhubarb this year. I'm not worried about the weed whacked rhubarb coming back. The bulldozed rhubarb might be finished. Luckily for our rhubarb consumption, I have quite a bit in the freezer that I forgot about. It turns out that my pantry tracking skills are only marginally better than my gardening.

Catching Up

Matthias plays a typical childhood game by a slightly different name: Duck, Duck, Moose. He must have heard someone wrong and decided that this was the right name. Uncle Brad heard him, though, and told him that the moose part means he has to put his hands up by his head like moose antlers when he runs. So now that's an official rule when Matthias plays Duck, Duck, Moose.

At the beginning of the summer Matthias jumped on his bike and promptly fell over. This is the bike that he rode for 2-3 months without training wheels last summer. Suddenly he couldn't remember how to do it. We took the pedals off and after a day of balance bike training he was back to riding normally.

Theodore has been jumping for quite some time, according to an undated note I found on my phone. He particularly likes jumping on the trampoline. He also jumps as a way to display anger when we do something he doesn't like. Sometimes he gets the two confused and rage jumps until he lands on his bottom in the middle of the kitchen. Usually the shock of sticking the landing on the floor rather than bouncing comfortably back up onto his feet on the trampoline jolts him out of whatever tantrum he's throwing.

Other Theodore things of note, he weaned forever ago. Maybe back in March or April? I couldn't get headache medication until that happened, so it would have been back in the spring. He also has opinions about his place setting now, and requires a fork and/or spoon, although about half the time he still uses one hand to feed himself while the other one holds his utensil. He can drink from a real cup and does so most of the time, and he's getting much better and getting his cup on and off the counter without accidentally spilling the contents on his head.

Theodore has strong opinions about a lot of things, but one thing he's always done well is let me wash his hands after meals. The other kids didn't care for that part of mealtime, but Theo will happily hold his hands out to be cleaned.

Gretchen had a moral crisis about eating shrimp during Lent and decided she might need to be a vegetarian. Since the conclusion of Lent, however, she's decided she might like chicken too much to really commit. Kaitlyn has had similar concerns and recently decided that she's going to take care of God's creation by not eating the animals. She doesn't care for most meat, though, so it's been an easier stance for her. So far both of them tend to remember to ask if we're eating meat only about half the time and about a quarter of those times they'll be conscientious objectors to dinner. I'm waiting for it to be enough of an issue that I have to make a vegetarian version of meals.

Theodore had a birthday at the end of August. He turned 2 and proudly sang Happy Birthday and God Grant You Many Years to himself. We almost postponed his birthday at the last minute because he wasn't feeling well that day, but then grandma and grandpa came and we couldn't not have cake. So he got cake and got to open his presents from them, but as a result of the confusion and indecision he actually hasn't received his gifts from us yet. Maybe we'll give them to him on his baptism birthday tomorrow.

Bonus Post: Sound Bites 60

Matthias: I want to play the piggie game!
Me: What's the piggie game?

Matthias: It's where they do a trick and if you mess up you get peed on and spill pigs everywhere.

Me: ...

Me: You mean you get a P and if you spell PIG you lose.

Matthias: Just so you know, what's for lunch?

Theodore, pointing to a chicken: Meow.

Bryan: No, that's a chicken. It says bawk bawk.

Theodore: Meow.

Bryan: No. Bawk bawk.

Theodore: Oh. Bawk bawk meow.

Me: How come you girls get up and ready so much faster when dad wakes you up?

Kaitlyn: It's because we love dad more.

Gretchen: I want to have adventures, but we never go anywhere where there's a vine to swing on or a cliff that we have to get across with no bridge.

Matthias: Can we listen to "Dancing queen, Aunt Justine in the submarine"?

From Bryan:

So Theo is 1 and in his attempts at speech he says shoes as "yoosh" and socks is "ock." He also, being 1, is starting to have opinions about things, such as if he should be wearing shoes and socks or if he should be sitting still during the homily. He got both of those opinions wrong today but I, being his parent, enforced him keeping his stuff on and remaining on the bench. What this amounted to was me wrestling him into stillness while he yelled about shoes and socks. To the untrained ear, however, if you walked into St Stephens around 10:30 and looked left, you'd have seen an adult pinning a child to a bench while the futilely wiggling one year old kept yelling what sounded like "you suck."

Summer Odds and Ends

I am annoyed that my steadfast habit of posting a date range for the title has been broken, but that can't be helped unless I post more regularly, which seems unlikely at this point. Someday we will learn which of the children are annoyed by this inconsistency as well.

Printer wasn't working optimally. Checked inside, found two sequence pieces. Thank you, Theodore.

Baseball season went well for Gretchen. Her batting stance underwent some amusing phases and her throwing form leaves much to be desired, but she had a good time and got several hits in the last few games.

Summer gymnastics is over and fall gymnastics awaits. Olivia and Kaitlyn will be returning to their usual gymnastics program in October, once soccer season is over.

Gretchen and Kaitlyn are both doing soccer this fall. They are on different teams that tend to practice at overlapping times on the same days. We have a carpool arrangement with one of Gretchen's teammates.

Despite the optimism of my last post, Theodore is not potty trained. We will be attempting again shortly, because I'm tired of diapers.

Kaitlyn's tonsillectomy went well. She was sore for about a week, but had no complications. Her speech is slightly improved now that she doesn't perpetually have one giant tonsil. She did not benefit from popsicles or ice cream because she doesn't like cold things. She did get a lot of yogurt and juice, though, and lounged around watching TV until she felt better.

The basement is finished! Well... almost. It's practically done, with a working bathroom and a subway station entrance. There are a few touchups that still need to happen, but the contractor is coming tomorrow to take care of those and to collect his final check. We've started moving things down there and assembling shelves and beds.

Matthias turned 4 in July. He's very excited to be 4, although he didn't get as many perks with his age change as he had hoped. He did get a dinosaur cake and some dinosaur books and puzzles and dinosaur pajamas and a dinosaur punching bag. Do you see a theme here? He also got a fun race car thing from Grandma (yes, it has dinosaurs on it).

Olivia turned 10 at the beginning of this month. It is crazy to me that we have a ten year old. She's quite grown up and independent. She's been able to have several playdates with her friend, Elaine, this summer since Elaine's mom and I managed to schedule their piano lessons for the same days so that we could carpool.

Jacque, Will, and their boys came to visit in June. Julian, Theodore, and Matthias are beginning to play together more instead of all ignoring each other. Julian found a blue car that he loved, so we sent it home with him. It is quite large, so I was hopeful that it would replace his tiny, easily lost green car as the preferred companion. I think he just has two cars that he loves now. Will fashioned a new wheelbarrow handle for me after ours snapped as I was moving a pile of dirt.

Mom, Dad, and James came to visit in July when the downstairs bedrooms were done but the bathroom was not. They opted to sleep upstairs. We had a nice time visiting with them. I ended up driving them to Chicago due to car rental prices (well, actually, dad drove, which got us there much faster than if I had been driving) and then driving back the next morning.

Justine and her kids came to visit at the beginning of August and had the distinction of being the first overnight guests in our basement! It's amazing how much quieter the house is when it's twice the size. You could hardly even tell there were 10 kids running around.

I have a headache medication that seems to be working. The neurologist prescribed it back in April and adjusted the dose in May. I've spent the summer tweaking when I take it and I think we've finally got it. The downside is that it makes me very tired after I take it, which wouldn't be a downside except that I have to wake up in the morning to get things done.

School starts tomorrow! All three girls are attending this year. Kaitlyn is in 1st grade, Gretchen is in 3rd, and Olivia is in 4th. We met the teachers last week and everyone is very excited. St Charles is doing a staggered start, so the girls go Monday, but not Tuesday. Then everyone will attend together beginning on Wednesday.

Bonus Post: A Brief Update

I'm putting some things down because it's been forever since I posted and maybe I'll have a chance to flesh them out later...

-Gretchen turned 8.

-The kids discovered a unicorn bone in the backyard.

-Theodore has so many words. He only says two sibling names, though. Matthias is Fy-ish and Olivia is Yahbah.

-Mom and Jillian visited just after Mothers' Day.

-If all goes according to plan, Theodore will be 90% potty trained by this time Friday. We shall see if the magical book I'm reading works.

-Gretchen is doing summer baseball through the YMCA. After two rained out practices and two rained out games, they managed one practice and then played their first game the next day. She hit the ball during her first at bat!

-Kaitlyn and Olivia are doing summer gymnastics, also through the YMCA. That started last night.

-Gretchen was diagnosed with ADHD, primarily inattentive, near the end of the school year. She has a workbook that she's doing this summer to get explanations and ideas and we have a meeting with a psychologist in July to discuss what strategies might be best and whether or not she needs medication.

-Kaitlyn is having a tonsillectomy on Friday. She has one abnormally large tonsil that bothers her occasionally and the lack of symmetry is such that the ENT is willing to remove the tonsils before we're faced with an emergency tonsillectomy somewhere down the line.

-My friends Jill and Elesha are trying to convince me to run a marathon with them next spring. I was in, and then out, and now I'm half in again. So far this week I've run the most of the three of us.

-All three girls had well visits, so I have updated heights and weights somewhere.

-Our basement was going along well, but then stalled. The contractors had to be elsewhere for about a month. They're slowly working their way back to our house now. Walls are done except around the yet-to-be-cut egress window, but we still need ceiling, floors, and a bathroom.

-The Orthodox church in Lima has a priest! After nearly four years with no permanent priest (the last one was reassigned the day after Matthias and Dorothea were baptized), our regular substitute priest got a part time job in Lima and was assigned to our parish. He moved here from Indianapolis this last weekend and now our parish can hold all regular services again.

Bonus Post: Sound Bites 59

Matthias: Theo is awake. Can I get him out? Because Kaitlyn and me are on a team to get him out. I get in the crib and grab his butt and put him in Kaitlyn's hands.

Olivia: What's an inventor called?
Me: An inventor.

Matthias: When I am dead then I am going to move right away. If I can.

Matthias: I need a drink because my tummy is spicy.

Gretchen: 11

Olivia: Is that pancakes?

Gretchen: No. 12.

Olivia: Is that pancakes?

Gretchen: No. 14.

Olivia: Pancakes?

Gretchen: Yes.

Olivia: I knew it.

Kaitlyn is writing in her diary, but she can't spell, so she comes to me for help.

Kaitlyn: How do you spell "what if my mom and dad were nice"?

Kaitlyn: Did you ever do gymnastics with a hurt toe?

Me: I ran a cross country race with a broken hip, does that count?

Kaitlyn: I don't think so.

Matthias: Hey Aunt Jillian, wanna see what I can also do? *does a 310 degree turn jump on the trampoline*

Jillian: Oh cool! You're so talented!

Matthias: Do you know where I teached that at?

Jillian: No, where?

Matthias, enthusiastically: My mind! I made it up!!

Kaitlyn: When people get bigger, they get weaker.

March 21-April 11

Kaitlyn turned 6 a couple of weeks ago! She requested a birthday cake with “ruffles” and had a birthday dinner of spaghetti shells (shell pasta and spaghetti sauce) and brussels sprouts. Her cousin, Rudy, was able to come visit for the day, which made Kaitlyn very happy.

Now that Kaitlyn is 6, we’re thinking about how fast first grade is coming up. I turned in her application a few weeks ago and on Wednesday she got to have a shadow day at St Charles. She went to virtual church, watched half a movie, did a bunny craft, and made one friend whose name “is Sophia, I think… it at least starts with an S.” She was very relieved that she did not have to take a spelling test (apparently Gretchen shadowed on spelling test day and it’s just coming out now). Kaitlyn had a great time and can’t wait for fall to get here so that she can go to school every day.

The kids and I spent Easter weekend at the Bossards’. The girls were on Easter break, so we took the opportunity to visit the cousins and left Bryan in peace. He did his own Easter thing and ate all the meat he could before we brought back the vegetables and sadness on Tuesday.

And speaking of vegetables and sadness, Bryan thinks the meals haven’t been so bad thus far. We made it a full two and a half weeks before he decided it felt like Lent, and that was only because we had beans several days in a row. I just have to intersperse the vegetables with the sadness, I guess. Related, does this make beans “sadness”?

When we returned home on Tuesday, we were just in time to welcome Jacque, Julian, and Samuel. They stayed to visit for a couple of days before heading back home. Theodore and Julian enjoyed following each other around and played very nicely when no toys were involved. Kaitlyn took charge of entertaining Samuel and spent all of her time loving him -- more gently than she loved Theodore at that size.

Our basement is coming along nicely. The kids and I go downstairs almost every day to check on the progress after the workers have left. The electrical work days are not very exciting, but framing and drywall were both quite satisfying. Right now they’re taping and mudding the drywall and we’re waiting to see if painting will happen before the ceilings and floors or after.

Pictures:

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!”

Pictures: