Parade

We had an hour or so to kill while Noelle was at softball practice. How about a walk on the bike trail? Great idea Mom! Or so I thought. On the way out the procession was as follows:

• An eight year on her purple bike
• A five year old who doesn't quite understand the concept of staying to the right
• A three year old on his trike, eyes glued to the trail
  
• A twelve year old who is "helping" to guide the...
• ...22 month old who wants to walk all by herself
  
• A big pregnant Mommy, waddling along while pulling...
• ...an empty red wagon with googly wheels

What a show we were. Or so I thought. It got even better on the way back. Now the procession contained:

• An eight year old riding her purple bike way, way, way up ahead
  
• A five year old who still can't contain his desire to ride down the middle of the trail
• A three year old riding in the googly wheeled wagon
• A 22 month old trying to climb out of the moving googly wheeled wagon
• A 12 year old carrying a trike that is now missing it's back wheels
• A big pregnant Mommy, with a pocket full of washers, nuts, and bolts who is pulling...
  
• ...A googly wheeled wagon containing two trike wheels and an axle

Good times.

Actually it really was a good time. The weather was beautiful, there were no bugs, and we only got grease on our hands, not on our clothes. Gemma did manage to get some on her nose. Don't ask me how I don't want to know.

All Your Bass Are Belong To Us*

Tonight Noelle and I attended the informational meeting for prospective orchestra participants. I was kind of dreading this meeting. Not because I don't like stringed instruments, I play the violin myself. (I use the term "play" very loosely.) I was dreading the meeting because of the instrument that Noelle had her heart set on. The string bass.

She told me, "I like big, low instruments Mom." Before the demonstrative concert, I tried to talk her into the violin. We already HAVE a violin. She just couldn't get past the lure of the string bass. Her eyes were glued to them during the whole concert. I persuaded, I begged, I pleaded. I stopped just short of bribery. Then I sat quietly, pondering. I'm sure she could see the creases in my forehead as I weighed my options. I knew, KNEW, that she would be crushed if I forced her to play the violin. But I also knew that "what the heck are we going to do with a string bass?" The brochure from the music rental store listed the prices of rentals, in increasing order. Last was the string bass with the words. "Ask about pricing". That couldn't be good.

And then I pictured a middle aged Noelle, laying on a couch in the office of a therapist somewhere explaining, "It all started when my mom wouldn't let me play the string bass in the 5th grade." I gulped and walked over to the orchestra teacher to discuss the situation. It turns out that the school rents the instrument for a very, very reasonable price. Noelle would leave it in the orchestra room most of the time and bring it home on the weekends to practice. The instructor asked if we had a big enough vehicle to transport it to and from school. Why yes we do.

I signed the sheet filling in the blank for the instrument of choice. String bass. The grin on Noelle's face confirmed my decision. Bring on the blues baby.

*The title of this post is dedicated to my techno nerd husband. If you understand it, you are officially a techno nerd too.

Update

How about a good old update post? Fun times.

The fish are still alive. Can you believe it? It's been 23 days. I can't claim that they always enjoy the cleanest of living conditions. For awhile I think I was over feeding them and their water got to be pretty cloudy. It cracked me up one morning when I caught them gasping for air at the surface of the water. That's not a sight you see every day. I cut back on their food, I hope I'm feeding the enough now or I may wake to see little goldfish skeletons at the bottom of the bowl.

We are taking a stab at National TV Turnoff week. I taped a sign to the front of the tv to remind the kids not to turn it on. In an attempt to completely milk the situation as much as I possibly can, I also pulled the plug on the Game Cube, the Nintendo 64, and all computer games. I'm running for the coveted title of Meanest Mom Ever. I have yet to decide how to handle the issue of American Idol and Lost. Not sure if I'm ready to give those up or if I need to go the way of the hypocrite.

A certain little five year old will be attending Kindergarten Round-Up today and tomorrow. Yee HAW!

We are slowly making progress in the dental visit arena. Six Laundry Pile members have been in for their long overdue checkups. (Gemma is exempt and I will go after the baby is born). These six initial visits have resulted in the discovery of nine cavities amongst the patients and these cavities will require five more visits. It's a lesson in multiplication. And subtraction. As in subtracting the money from the bank account.

I'm 35 weeks today. Yay!

In Touch With Thier Inner Child.

I'm not sure that little brothers ever really grow up.

22 months

Dear Gemma,

I have spent the last two months fighting the urge to just sit and do nothing but watch you all day long. I know there is plenty of laundry to do and floors to be vacuumed and dishes to be washed, but you are much more fun. I tend to get so caught up in stupid things, (like those listed above) things that will be there tomorrow, that I don't take enough time to just stop and enjoy each of you kids. It has taken your older five brothers and sisters to teach me that. With you I take more in. I have learned the hard way that although the chores will be there tomorrow, the 22 month old version of you won't be. You will move on and change and have new tricks up your sleeve.

It's like you were just toddling along and one day, you suddenly turned into you. Not that you weren't you before, but now personality started to just pour from your whole being. You had new expressions and new words and it was just too cute for us to handle. As a baby you weren't much of a laugher, you hardly even giggled. Suddenly you have a belly laugh that is ever so contagious. Your siblings bring it out in you in the most unexpected moments. A certain expression or noise that they make will suddenly set you off, often just when I need to hear it most. You and I have this stupid little game we play. You growl at me, I scream, and then you laugh hysterically. Then we repeat it over and over and over. I'm not exactly sure what you find so funny about that.

You still call everyone whose name you can't pronounce "Lala." They few people who receive the privilege of being called something unique are, "Mom"( I would hope so), "Dad", "A-Well" (Noelle), "Jatch" (Jack), "Yiah Ya", (Mariah), "Ah-Pa" (Grandpa) and "Lizzie"( your favorite dog). As much as we coach you to pronounce other names, you just won't have anything to do with it. You have decided who has a real name, and who is a "Lala". You have all kinds of other jabber that we don't understand. Some things we are able to decipher, especially your attempts at good manners. Out of the whole crew, I think you may be the best at saying thank you. For everything. "Kee-Koo Mom." It brings a smile to my face every time.

Although it is highly annoying, your clothing habits crack me up. You are bi-polar when it comes to clothes. You either want to be nudie, or clothed in multiple layers. The duct tape supposedly prevents you from getting past your diaper, and recently putting your dresser in the closet has prevented you from emptying all the drawers in search of the perfect outfit. The perfect outfit may consist of a pair of capris with a skirt over top and your pajama shirt. Or maybe you will change your mind after an hour or so and want jeans, boots, and two turtleneck onesies, one over the top of the other. It is futile to argue with you about your choices, you know what you want to wear. Thus the dresser in the closet. Out of sight, out of mind. This also carries over to your choice of shoes. I make special efforts to keep all but one or two pairs put away in the closet or you want help switching footwear multiple times a day. Who am I kidding, multiple times an hour or even every five minutes. I can't blame you though, shoes are amazing and you have some great ones.

Today you somehow managed to get past the duct tape on your diaper. You wriggled and pulled and took it off. I'm not sure how you did it, but you are a little Houdini. Then you laughed and ran around naked, only stopping long enough to step into my laundry basket of clean folded clothes, and then pee on them. I really appreciated that. Thank you. From here on out, the duct tape is going to be much tighter.

I can foresee that you are going to be my biggest challenge this summer. Just like your siblings before you, you have a great desire to be outside playing with the big kids. I can be heard yelling hundreds of times, all day long, "SHUT THE DOOR". No one listens. Our front storm door doesn't completely latch and it didn't take you long to figure that out. You only need 1.2 seconds and you are out the door and running toward all the action. As long as everyone shuts the big door, you are contained. Again, I can't blame you. Outside is much more fun.

I can't believe that in less than two months you will be two years old. And in less than two months you won't be the baby anymore. You will be big sister. That thrills me and terrifies me at the same time. I'm not sure that I'm ready for you to grow six feet over night. That's what happens you know. I leave for the hospital to have a baby and you look like this tiny little person. When I come home with a wrinkly little newborn, all of a sudden you are a giant. I'm not sure how that works, but I know it has been true every single time. So remind me like you do by grabbing my face in your hands while repeating "mom,mom,mom,mom" until you get my full attention. Because I want to enjoy every minute of you.

Love, Mom

A Lesson in Obscene Gestures

Let's not beat around the bush. The weather has been pretty crappy for April. We all have our weather opinions and I have held my tongue so far, but that's it, I'm drawing the line. We just had a snowstorm a few days ago. It's April. That is just wrong. I have been battling closets full of winter and summer clothes for a few weeks now. You teased us with summer temperatures in March and then threw more winter storms our way. The kids' drawers are stuffed and over flowing with a combination of corduroy pants and capris. Sweaters and tank tops. If the weather would just make up it's mind! The hooks by the front door are laden with winter coats and hoodies. Scarves and jackets. I have had enough already. Winter, I *bite my thumb at you. I'm fed up and I'm taking action. Yesterday I washed all the snow pants and packed them away. So THERE! Take that! I'm giving you another week and then I'm putting away the hats and mittens. Be warned, I'm watching you.


*Biting one's thumb:

Biting one's thumb was an old rude British gesture. It is comparable to the Finger in modern terms. In William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet, Sampson bites his thumb at the Montagues (Act 1, Scene 1).

An equivalent gesture still persists in Italy.

I learned that useful info from this website. You can't say that I don't do my best to be educational.

Success, If Only For a Moment

Yesterday something glorious happened. At approximately 5:00 pm, I closed the door on an empty dryer and surveyed the situation; every single piece of laundry that we own was clean and folded and every bed was now draped in freshly washed sheets. I don't think that has ever happened before in the history of our family. I fully expected the sky to open and a ray of golden sunlight to shine down upon me while a choir of angels sang the Hallelujah Chorus. If not that, at least a marching band and streamers. But nothing happened except that I was really, really happy.

And then the family disrobed and put on their pajamas, filling my dirty clothes baskets with yet another load. And of course last night a little person wet their bed. So my moment is over, but for that short window of time, I felt deep peace. The planets had aligned and all was right with the world.

Excuse me, I need to go throw a load in the washer.......

Yawn

Another sign of the third trimester: When you wake up in the morning hitting the snooze button, your mind is already strategizing about how you can get a nap that afternoon.

Disposable

This is our second attempt at being goldfish people. We were given two little fishies and surprisingly, after a week of living with us, the two little orange guys don't have names yet. We are very casual fish owners. They sat on the kitchen counter in a ziplock bag for a good day or so before I put them in a temporary holding area. That would be a tupperware bowl. Finally I remembered to pick up a real true fish bowl. I think they were happy to have a permanent home complete with a purple and black pebble "sea bed". They were probably also wondering what kind of fate they were in for, being neglected so early in our relationship. You know, watching the nameless fish swim endless circles around their bowl takes me back. Back to our first attempt at fish ownership........

We inherited a goldfish from my little sister a few years ago. I was new to the whole fish thing and I didn't know the first thing about changing the water in the bowl. You can see where this is going. About a week after we took the adoptive fish under our care, I dumped out the water, rinsed out the bowl, and filled it back up with new water......tap water. Sure enough, within a few minutes our little buddy was belly up and floating around the surface of his underwater home. The kids were mad at me. I appeased them with a fish funeral that we happened to capture on home video. I watched that video recently and made a note to myself. "Next time it might be a good idea to thoroughly scrub the toilet before documenting it for all of eternity." Each of the kids took a few moments to say their farewells to the deceased fish in the plastic dixie cup. Noelle's speech was especially dramatic and full of sorrow. She handed the cup to the previous fish owner and Mariah then said her goodbyes. Again with the drama, and then a small silly smirk revealing her true feelings toward her pet . At the very moment, she squeezed the cup a little too hard and dead fish water splashed up onto her face. The fish had the last say. All solemness was thrown out the window in exchange for "eeeews" and lots of laughter. The fish was quickly flushed down the dirty toilet and that was the end of that.

This time I am hoping we can improve our record by at least a few weeks. Dare I hope for months? I am armed with a bottle of chlorine neutralizing drops for our tap water and a jar of fish food that should last us a year or two. Now if we could only think of some names or they will be remembered as John and Jane Doe in their inevitable eulogy. It's really only a matter of time.

There Are Some Questions I Wish I Had Never Asked.

"Has anyone seen the sponge?"
I spent a good twenty minutes searching for the sponge I use in the kitchen.


Then I found it.

My Return to the Land of the Living

So there I was, skipping through this pregnancy like it was a field of daisies. Feeling amazing, the sun was shining down on me and I breathed deeply the aroma of the fresh, third trimester air. Suddenly from out of nowhere, I was tackled by a sweaty, grungy, 300 pound linebacker. Aka: the sinus infection. It pinned me to the ground, beat me to a pulp, and left me whimpering and moaning.

I should have expected it. I catch two killer colds every pregnancy, one is the tell tale sign that I am pregnant, sometimes even striking before I see the two pink lines. The other comes at the end and brings me to my knees. I have felt absolutely amazing this whole pregnancy. I say things to Nate like "I don't even really feel pregnant except for when I try to tie my shoes". But then this cold hit and I felt like I was 42 weeks along, not the 32 weeks that I am. It brought fatigue, congestion, and the overwhelming sense that my face would explode every time I bent over. Good times. Isn't it so much fun to hear someone whine about being sick?

Today I was saved. I have been suffering from the wrath of this beast for a week and I kept telling myself, "I have a doctor's appointment scheduled for next Tuesday, just hold out until then Heth." And today was that appointment. After the regular routine of peeing, being weighed, having my blood pressure taken, and having my belly measured (only fun when pregnant), I finally got to see the doctor. I begged for drugs and he prescribed me two. I have been on the glorious antibiotics that were sent straight from heaven for a mere 8 hours and I feel like a whole new woman. I can breathe. I finally have more energy than a napping sloth. My eyeball isn't threatening to burst at the first sign of a change in elevation. I may even be able to distance myself from the box of kleenex. Bring on the last eight weeks baby!