Author - Lorri

That’s One Fat Baby!

Bip had a well baby appointment today.  Our Very Fat Baby is now 24.5 pounds at 8 months old, definitely our all time fattest baby.  He’s in the 96th percentile for weight.  Boo has never even gotten out of the 10th percentile, LOL!  So what are we feeding him?  It’s all breastmilk, baby!  Ok, a little bit of bananas or avocados at dinnertime.  Which is really funny to watch.  The avocados are usually cold from being in the fridge so he makes the funniest face when he gets his first bite.  But he comes back for more!  Feeding him during dinner has made our dinnertime much more pleasant.  He had been fussing and whining during dinner.  I guess he wanted his share.  Now I give him a bite, let him work on it for a bit while I eat, then feed him some more.  I also give him cheerios to play with.  He has yet to get them in his mouth, but they keep him busy.

 

Looking back over all our children, it is funny to see have we have grown and relaxed as parents.  I followed the perfect solids feeding timetable with Boo.  With each subsequent child I have delayed solids a little bit and each child has been easier to feed.  I never would have given Boo a cookie until after his first birthday, but Becca so enjoyed having a vanilla wafer with her siblings during snack time.  We also gave her shredded cheese when we ate at Taco Bell.

 

And Bip actually missed his 4 month and 6 month well baby checks.  I just got busy and he’s perfectly happy and healthy that it just fell through the cracks.  That’s also a difficulty of homeschooling, especially when your children are young.  Making an appointment for yourself or one child requires dad taking some time off, or dispersing the kids to the neighbors, many of which also homeschool.   But we made this appoinyment so we could do a weight check and adjust his meds (for VUR) according to his weight.  He’s right on track, even has stranger anxiety.

We Didn’t Get Tickets!

I woke up this morning around 5:30 and Phil was getting into bed. I literally did a double take, looking from him to the clock and back.

“What are you doing here?”

“They ran out of tickets.”

“What do you mean, they ran out of tickets?”

“The Park Police came by, handed out numbered programs and then they ran out. The last guy to get tickets arrived around 2:00, I got there at 2:45.”

The others in line around him were amazed, too. They had arrived at the same time in previous years and had gotten tickets. We got a great entrance time in 2002 when Phil got there at 2:30. What had changed this year?

We were very disappointed, of course. We’d already told the children about the Easter Egg Roll, had shown them the website, told them about Curious George…We never dreamed we wouldn’t get tickets. I had prayed it wouldn’t rain overnight while Phil was out there, I prayed for his safety, but I never thought to pray that we’d actually get tickets. As I was going back to sleep, I prayed, “Lord, why don’t you want us to have tickets for this?”

I got up this morning and did a google search, looking for an explanation. I found this:

We didn’t get tickets!!

I am so angry!!!

It’s not just the particular people involved. God loves them and sees them in a way I don’t. But they are trying to take over this very nice, non-political event in order to push their agenda. This event is open to everyone. Yes, it’s difficult to get tickets, so it’s ok to send a proxy, someone who is available to be in line over night, if you need to. And while it is legal to use modern technology to organize a group to stand in lines for others, it is definitely NOT COOL!!!

Phil and I were talking, at with even just 100 volunteers standing in line as proxies, that would have pushed him and others back enough to not get tickets. 100 people in line equals 500 tickets to the event. Even 20 volunteers in line in front of him would mean 100 tickets gone.

There are a limited number of tickets being given out on Monday, so we may try again.

But next year! We are going to sign up with these people and say we need tickets! Then we’ll show up, claim our tickets and t-shirts from them, toss the shirts in the trash and go roll us some Easter Eggs.

Is it very wrong to hope they get rained out on Monday?

Philip’s On a Mission

Tonight’s the night.  Philip is going to spend the night outside the White House.  It’s not job related and he’s not protesting anything, nor is he holding vigil.  He is on a Mission.  A Mission to Obtain Tickets to the 2006 White House Easter Egg Roll.  Now that we are back in the District, we have been looking forward to attending the annual Easter Egg Roll for several months.  We went in 2001, but it was cancelled because of rain. In  2002 we tried again and great fun was had by all.  The event is so popular that parents line up in the wee hours of the morning to get the free first-come, first-served tickets.  It’s surprisingly safe and the lined-up, cold and uncomfortable parents actually form a comraderie, an esprit-de-corps if you will, bonding through the night as they wait to get the highly sought after tickets.  At some point in the night, the Park Police usually show up and start handing out numbers to avoid late-comers trying to cut into the line.  Once the actual handing out of the tickets begins, the line moves quickly and the bleary-eyed, triumphant parents return home through rush hour traffic.

 

The actual Easter Egg Roll will be on the Monday following Easter.  There will be many free events open to the general public on the Ellipse.  Free Krispy Kreme donuts, all you can carry, is one of the highlights.  I’m hoping they are there this year!  Ticket holders line up according to the time on their tickets and are admitted to the White House South lawn.  In addition to the Easter Egg Roll itself, there are usually people like the First Lady and White House Chief of Staff there reading stories to the children.  There will be live entertainment (this year they are having AJ and Aly) and crafts, too. I read that Curious George, Clifford and Sasha Cohen (the ice skater) will be there, too.  I hope I don’t make a fool of myself trying to meet Sasha Cohen.  (It’s a good thing Michele Kwan won’t be there.  Young children might get hurt as I plowed through the crowd to see her.)   Once you’re on the lawn, you can stay as long as you want.  As you leave, you get handed a goodie bag and a poster.  The White House Easter Egg Roll poster is a collector’s item -we have ours framed and will get around to hanging them some day.  But the most highly sought after item in the bag is the wooden commemorative egg.  Watch for them on ebay – these free little eggs go for around $30.  How in the world somebody could sell his child’s egg on ebay…well, we won’t go there.

 

Anyway…tonight’s the night.  I hope it doesn’t rain.

Some Thoughts About the Girl

Pumpkin Girl  is so like me in ways that I don’t always care to admit.  She is a free spirit and very much has her own mind.  I certainly don’t want to change her, but I know from experience that those traits will sometimes land her in trouble.  Right now we are working on her accomplishing her chores.  Boo, who is a very task oriented, get the job done so we can move on to better things kind of guy, is doing will with his ChorePack. Pumpkin on the other hand, flits through her chores like a little fairy, a little bit here and a little bit there.  Instead of turning her chorepack in when it’s finished, I have sometimes found it on her bed, still on chore #2, even though she claims all the chores are done.  I have reviewed with her how the chorepacks work and how she’s supposed to use them.  She completely understands and can show me she knows what to do.  But then the next day, she’s flitting around again, not getting anything done.  So now I wear her chore pack.  She finishes one chore, hands the chore card to me and I give her the next one.  It’s an inconvenience for her, especially when her chores are upstairs and I’m downstairs.  Our goal is to ultimately wean both children off the chorepacks.  I think Boo is almost there, but I bet he’ll want to keep using his – he likes the check list aspect.  When Pumpkin can demonstrate that she can accomplish her chores correctly in the time alloted,  I will be able to loosen up a bit.  I want her to be able to accomplish her chores in her own way, as long as the end result is her chores being completed.  Someday she’ll be able to go in to her room and put her things away in what ever order she chooses.  It’ll be good for her to have that responsibility.

 

Training our children to do chores is such an important responsibility for a parent.  Children need to learn to be productive members of a family and to take care of themselves and their home.  The goal is to raise responsible adults who can function in the world.  Chores aren’t always fun, but they don’t have to be.  Everyone in the family has their own jobs to do to keep the home running.  At the ages my children are at, I insist the chores are done "my" way.  Soon enough they will find their own ways of doing things and that will be ok too.  As long as the floor is swept, it doesn’t matter to me if they start in the kitchen or the entrance way.  We are also learning that a job done quickly but poorly takes much longer because it will need to be redone.

 

My desire is that by training my children early, good habits will become second nature to them.  They will see the benefit of doing their work consistently and well and become used to an orderly, peaceful environment.  I hope they carry these lessons with them for a lifetime instead of having to learn them as an adult the way I did.

Our Cup Runneth Over

My children have too many toys.  I have tried and tried to help them manage their stash but to only limited success.  We have 2 shelving units with toys bins, brightly labeled for their convenience.  Most of the time this works, but the bins are all full, almost overflowing.  A large trashcan holds a hobby horse, swords, and "boom whackers" (fun noodles cut in half to whack each other with – thanks, Phil!).  They have a little kitchen, complete with a whole box of play food and dishes, 2 boxes of legos/mega blocks, a box of dress up clothes, a bin of crafts, puzzles, dress up jewelry and on and on and on.  We won’t even address the plethora of stuffed animals living in my daughter’s bed.  That’s a whole ‘nuther problem.  So what to do?  We’ve tried purging the toys.  That didn’t even make a dent.  It’s time to be creative.  When all the broohaha from Phil’s upcoming promotion is over and all our guests have gone home, I’m going to tackle this problem.  My plan is to empty out the closet in the playroom and move one of the toy bin shelves in there.  The children will be able to select which toys they want to play with each week, those will stay in the room.  The others will go into the closet and the closet locked up.  Each week they can "check out" the weeks’ toys from the toy library.  For a toy bin to come out, another toy bin must go in.  I think I may even stick a post it note on each bin in the closet with the date on it.  Toys not checked out in 4 weeks will be moved outside for another 4 weeks.  At the end of that 4 weeks, any toys not asked for will be donated.  This will make more room to play in, plus give us a better perspective on which toys are really played with.   

 

I sound pretty calm about this whole thing don’t I?  Dh just sent me downstairs after we saw the mess each child made of their rooms during the quiet time.  I took one look, started to say something and he said, "go downstairs, I’ll handle it."  This is because I already spent the greater part of the day helping my daughter find a dress.  She came down for breakfast wearing longsleeves and I told her to change to short sleeves today.  She said she didn’t have any and I asked her about her new "bee happy" dress.  She said it’s not in her drawer.  The last time anyone saw this dress was when she had gotten it wet by playing outside after it rained.  She came in to change and the dress hasn’t been seen since.  That was a laundry cycle and a half ago.  We turned her bedroom upside down looking for it today.  I told her no more new clothes until she finds it.  Dh thinks she should still be allowed to wear her Easter dress on Sunday.  I disagreed because this is just another lost item in a long line of her things.  But I gave in and decided instead to charge dd the price of the dress, plus no new clothes until the dress is found.  I already knew a big box of Hannah Andersson clothes was being delivered today.  Cute stuff, too, including the sandals for her Easter dress.  Until she can learn, I’m just going to keep confiscating the toys she leaves out or puts away incorrectly. Last night she lost a whole bag full of toys and just now I took away a pair of shoes, 2 pairs of socks and book after she insisted that all of her things were out of the living room. She knows what to do, it’s just disobedience or laziness on her part. Sometimes I feel like taking Dr. Phil’s suggestion and just stripping their rooms down the bare minium, sheets, pillows and a blanket and make them earn every single thing back.  The only problem is, where to put it all in the meantime.

 

Sigh.  I’m going to check the mail.  Maybe my Sonlight catalog will finally be here.  I think I’m the last person in the US to get one.

Catching Up on the Weekend

Whew, busy weekend. Bip hasn’t been sleeping well since we changed the clocks.  Could it be teeth?  Hunger?  Approaching a new milestone? Whatever it is, he’s not telling.  But we’re beat.

 

Saturday was a rainy day.  We haven’t had a good all day rain in a while.  We needed it. Phil took the kids out while Bip napped so I could get some work done.  They went exploring and found a mama goose sitting on a nest of eggs while the daddy goose, I guess that would be the gander, floated in the Potomac, chasing off other geese.  I got my guest/craft room closet cleared out again and ready for guests.  I also cleared off the bed and a good portion of the floor.  When the Phil and the children came home, we all headed out to go bowling.  We had lunch there, too, making for a good "adventure."  The kids meal now have  new french fries which are shaped like happy faces.  Boo brought one home because he couldn’t finish it but didn’t want to throw it out.  "I like it.  It’s smiling at me!," he said.  Back home for some rest and then to church. Bip and I got to go this time since he was awake.  He flirted with the lady behind him and took off his sock which he chewed on happily.  After church was the annual parish Seder meal which was a new experience for us. Pumpkin Girl started falling apart when it was 7 o’clock and we still hadn’t eaten.  They’d provided bread and butter for those who couldn’t wait and so we let her have some. Bip fell asleep in the sling, which then energized him for the rest of the evening at home.  He sat happily playing with his toys while Phil and I watched "The Two Towers."

 

Sunday afternoon we went shopping at Andrews AFB.  Picked up dress shirts for Boo and then hit the garden center.  I bought two tomato plants for Pumpkin Girl who loves tomatoes, some basil, a geranium and some petunias for the front yard.  We planted the tomatoes and basil in the back in the full sun.  Charlotte didn’t believe me that the tomatoes weren’t going to be ready for a while.  She said she would have to ask grandpa about it.  She talked to him on the phone today and he explained to her that she had to wait for the plant to get flowers which would then turn into tomatoes.

 

Then as a fun end to the day, we decided to give Bip his first solid food.  I mashed up a banana for him.  I gave him his first taste and he looked at Phil, who was manning the camera, as if to say, "Daddy?  What’s Mama doing?"  Then he started moving the banana around in his mouth and he got a good taste. I loaded up the spoon again and as I moved it towards his mouth, he grabbed the handle to help me.  He is our first baby not to spit back out his first food!  He was so happy about it.  He kept leaning forward for more bites and even grabbed the bowl from my hands to see if there was anymore left in there.  He ate about an inch of banana.

Tatting

As I was unpacking and rearranging my crafting room/guest room I came across some things that I tatted when we first moved to Korea. Yes, I tat and no, it’s not a dying art. I remember an episode of the show “Homefront” called “the Lacemakers” and being intrigued by the thought of actually making lace. Lace can be made my knitting, crocheting, using bobbins or by tatting. Tatting uses a shuttle and a ball of thread to make knots. Years and years after the “Homefront” episdoe, I learned to tat. I am completely self taught and have never met another tatter in person. Right before moving to Korea, I wanted to make a baby bonnet for the baby I was expecting . The problem was, all the patterns I could find called for a very fine size thread. The finer the thread, the harder it is to tat and I was a beginner. So I systematically set out making projects, each one using a progressively finer thread. I started with this doily:

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I couldn’t fit the whole thing on my scanner.

 

I also made a hanky:

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Then I went to work on a bunch of snowflakes. The one with the strings hanging out gave me such trouble that I never finished it.

 

 

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Then I was ready for the baby bonnet. I used a varigated thread with mostly yellows, some blues and pinks because I didn’t know if the baby was a boy or a girl. Working on the bonnet was very satisfying at a very emotional time. The rythmic, repetitive motion was calming and being able to do some crafting helped me feel more at home in a strange place. I remember sitting in our living room in Korea, filled with functional government furniture, longing for all my stuff. I had tried to bring with us the things that made our house a home, but we had a weight limit to adhere to and many things stayed behind. A lot of what I gave up was my crafting supplies. But the sum total of all my tatting supplies fits into one medium basket and any currant project will fit entirely into a makeup bag. So the tatting came along. I remember sitting in a camp chair, watching Boo and Pumpkin Girl play, happily working on the bonnet.

 

Then Rebecca arrived. I had promised to knit Boo a hat, so the bonnet was put aside and then the tasks of everyday life with 2 small children and a baby just got in the way. I picked the bonnet back up in the Spring of 2004 when Becca was about 4 or 5 months old. Now I happen to tat even slower than I knit and this bonnet was supposed to fit a 6 month old. I had visions of Rebecca wearing it to church during the summer. I worked on it during the older children’s nap time while Becca sat and played with her toys. The only problem was that she preferred to play WITH me, not just near me. I realized then that I was not going to finish the bonnet while she was still small enough to wear it, so I put it aside. I figured I would finish it another time and give it to her first baby. I would tell her how I was making it for her, but knew she needed me more than she needed it so I put it aside – but now here it is, all ready for her baby to wear. I felt no regret about it. (This isn’t a sad story, by the way.) Well, now our sweet Becca is hanging out with Jesus in heaven, just waiting for the rest of us to join her in our own time. I am glad I chose to spend my time with her.

 

 

I brought the bonnet with me during our move back to the States. I was pregnant again (because it’s no fun to move if I’m not pregnant!) and needed something small to bring on the plane and keep my mind off how uncomfortable I was getting. I worked on it all summer until fatigue and stress took over and I chose to nap during my free time. You know, that bonnet is still not finished! I’m not sure which child will get it now, but that’s a decision for another time. I have every intention of finishing it someday. I’ve been trying very hard not to have more than one work in progress (per craft!!!) at a time. But it has to get in line behind Pumpkin Girl’s poncho, Boo’s sweater and Bip’s sweater. And I’d like to learn to knit socks. Plus there are the 22 Easter cards and 4 birthday cards I’m making this week for 2 different exchanges I’m in.

 

I do need to take a picture of the bonnet on our lifesize doll. I’d put it on Bip, but he’d pull it right off.

 

So there is the story of the bonnet and how I taught myself to tat. By the way, this is actually not the work in progress that I mentioned in my earlier entry called “Knitting.” That’s something else entirely, which I finished last night. I’m washing and blocking it tonight then sending it off as a gift. When it is received, I’ll post pictures and the story here. Some of the people who read this blog know the person it’s going to and I want her to see it first.

Cleanliness is Next to Godliness

Yesterday in the Clean Heart Clean House challenge, we were supposed to be working on the front yard.  Well, it was cold and rainy, so I put it off til today.  I’ll be heading out there to weed the flower bed, change the garden flag and see what else needs doing.  Boo and Pumpkin Girl discovered that our mystery bulbs were indeed tulips, like I thought.  I once read a poem about the life of a military wife and it said, "we plant flowers that we will never see bloom."  I fondly remember thedaffodils I planted in Kentucky and the one grape hyacinth that someone planted in Korea.  I am thankful that one Fall, some other military wife planted pink tulips in her flower bed and now my family can enjoy them.  Next fall, I will add daffodils, irises and hyacinths.

 

The Flylady Zone this week is the kitchen, but mine is so tiny that it is not cluttered at all.  It has to have clean counters out of sheer necessity.  So I’m doing my 15 minutes a day in the dining room instead.  But it’s almost done, too, so I’ll move on to the living room for the rest of the week, which is where we are in CHCH challenge anyway.

 

I’m not sure when I got so domestic.

 

Speaking of which, I have discovered the wonders of microfiber cleaning cloths!  I order the 12 pack from Don Aslett at CleanReport.com.  Boo has the polishing cloth for glass and chrome in his cleaning bucket along with a duster and his spray bottle full of club soda.  That boy can shine him some sinks!  He also likes dusting his trophies. Pumpkin has a microfiber cleaning cloth and a spray bottle of Sal Suds and water to wash the marker, crayon and pencil marks off the school table.  She does a great job, too.  I’ve been keeping a cleaning cloth in the kitchen and it does wonders for our dining room table.  Our table is very glossy and in the 7 years we’ve had it, I have never been able to wipe it down with a sponge without leaving spots.  I’m too lazy to go back and actually dry the table, so alas, the spots stayed.  But no more!  A damp microfiber cloth not only gets off those spots of dried on food you missed from like last week, but leaves my shiny table spot free!  As my friend Maggie would say, "it’s a beautiful thing!"  I also have a polishing cloth in the kitchen to shine up my sink.  Our master bathroom has a sink that collects water behind the faucet and along the flat part of the bowl, so I keep another cleaning cloth up there.  I wipe up the water twice a day and shine that faucet and wipe up the mirror.  The magic of the microfiber is that is actually aids in removing gunk that you would normally need to attack with a lot of chemicals.  And with young children in the house, that’s not cool.

 

I really don’t know when I got so domestic.

 

The nice thing is, with a shiny, uncluttered kitchen and bathrooms, my whole house feels a lot cleaner than it really is.  But the whole thing is getting there.  And most importantly, I think, is that my children are learning to take care of a home.

Knitting

Amy has asked all us knitters and crocheters out there to share their Works In Progress, so I’ll share my current knitting project.

This is my WIP in blue and cream.

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This is a sweater out of Debbie Bliss’ book, Baby Cashmerino. I love Debbie Bliss! The sweater still needs sleeves, but the hood is already there, hanging down the back. I did a totally amateurish job finishing up the shoulder seams, but hopefully anyone who actually looks at them will not comment or even better, offer to show me how to do a better job. My friend Shanti made Nicholas the same sweater, in green and cream, which he has been wearing all winter. I just love it and I knew I needed to make him one, too! She did a great job on the seams! She is in the Navy, about to take command of some sort of ship (I know she’s just rolling her eyes at me), but maybe she’ll have some time to come up to DC and show me how to do the edge around the hood. I have read the instructions and I understand the words, just not too sure about how to actually accomplish it.

This is the sweater Shanti made for Nicholas. Didn’t she do a great job?

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Shanti and I go w-a-y back to 1987, I think. We were Civil Air Patrol cadets together, perhaps the 2 shortest full grown cadets ever. She’s the only person I know who is as into crafting as I am. One summer when I lived in San Francisco and had a car, we were able to spend a lot of time together and be crafting buddies. Even though she’s in the Navy and we’re Army, we have been attempting to follow her around the country and live near her. She was actually at Annapolis while we were in the DC area the last time. Then she moved. Then she was at the Pentagon until like 2 weeks after we moved to DC. Maybe she’s avoiding us. Hmm.

I do have one other Work In Project, but I’m not prepared to share it right now. It has a story to go with it which will need telling. First I have to finish the project. It should be done by the end of the week and then I’ll share.

Rose the Crab

Pumpkin Girl has a hermit crab named Rose. Before she came to live with us, Rose was named Larry and belonged to my cousin Mallory. Mallory is stationed in Norfolk and so were we last summer. We got to see her quite a bit which was a lot of fun. She took me to get a pedicure on my poor preggo toes and I let her do laundry at our house. She brought Rose, then called Larry, over one day for the kids to see and Larry, now Rose, stayed. Pumpkin Girl loves him, uh, her so much! Rose is the perfect pet because she is so low maintenance. Since we have been working on chores with the children, Pumpkin’s weekly Sunday chore is to take care of Rose. With my help, Rose gets a bath, fresh food and water and her cage rearranged. While we work on her cage, Rose soaks in a baking dish full of water. We found that she prefers something you can’t see through. I think she feels safer that way, and then she will come out of her shell. Today I could see that she was attempting to climb out of the dish, but I was in a hurry, having lost an hour to Daylight Saving Time and had to go bathe the children. I left Rose to soak as usual. Forty minutes later, I am changing the baby and seeing if he’s sleepy yet (hah!) and I remembered Rose. I just prayed that if she did get out, that she wouldn’t fall off the counter or into the sink and down the drain. As soon as I was able, I went to check on her. This is what I found:

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Silly crab. The children thought this was tremendously funny. So now as I type, she is back in her bath and I can hear her shell hitting the dish. I’ll put her back in her cage soon.

As you can see, Rose is a very big hermit crab, so is probably very old. And she is quite the crabby crab. She gets a burst of energy after her bath and cruises around her cage, rearranging things to her liking. She does this until about Wednesday then curls herself back into her shell and sleeps until the next Sunday.

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