Teaching Four Little Smarty-Pants

Lee and I didn’t have a lot of money when Lydia was born. That’s not surprising, since the combination of my occupation as an untenured public school teacher and Lee’s as a medical student wasn’t very conducive to obtaining riches! As a result, we were exceptionally thankful that we received so many gifts for the baby in the months before Lydia was due. One of those presents was a hand-me-down crib, the very crib that my sister-in-law had slept in as an infant 20 years previously. We have put that crib to use in three different residences, in two states, and with four babies.

Here’s Lydia at 23 months (2004):

 

Abigail at 3 months (2005):

 

Eliza learning to pull up at 10 months of age (2009):

Just look at those dimpled arms!

And finally, sweet Caleb at 18 months (2011):

Yes indeed, our kids have put this now 28 year old crib to the test.

Caleb recently figured out how to climb out of the crib and since I’d like to avoid a trip to the ER for a cracked skull,  it was time to transition him to a toddler bed. I wasn’t sure how it would go, so we set up the toddler bed in one corner of the room and left the crib assembled.

 

As you can tell from the picture, Caleb loves his new “big boy bed”. He won’t be returning to the crib.

 

 

I can’t believe that we are done using this crib. What a bittersweet moment. I can still picture Lydia lying in that crib as a tiny infant. Now she is nearly nine years old and we will not be having any more babies.

We will return the crib to Grandma’s house and perhaps some day she will have other grandbabies that will sleep there. They won’t be my babies, but I think once I can consistently sleep through the night without interruption from a toddler, I’ll be OK with that fact. Sleep is the cure for the bittersweet!

A Birthday Bunny

Lee and I went a little crazy a couple of months ago. I’ve always claimed that I have too much mess from our four children to add a pet to the mix. We’ve thoroughly enjoyed our pet-free status for several years (goldfish don’t count!). Abigail, however, has bunny fever in the same way she used to have Disney Princess fever and Elmo fever previous to that. Her love of rabbits is all-consuming and she has asked for a rabbit pretty much non-stop for two years.

I have a hard time not fulfilling the dearest desires of my children when it is in my power to do so. So Lee and I caved and told Abigail she could get a rabbit for her 6th birthday. We took Abigail bunny shopping and came home with an adorable mini lop.

Here’s the little guy exploring his new home the day we brought him home. Abigail christened her golden-brown bunny  ”Goldie Butterscotch”, but he pretty much goes by “Bunbun” nowadays.

Then something strange happened.  I also fell in love with the fuzzy little fellow. He is just so stinking cute! He is quiet, sweet, and, as my nephew Keaton said, “His fur is as soft as an angel!” When I caught Lee cradling the bunny in his arms and gazing down at it with an adoring look on his face, I knew he had caught bunny fever, too.

So we bought a large habitat extension for Bunbun’s cage so he has more room to hop around on his own. And after he is safely litter-trained, he will be given even further room to roam without a human chaperone.

 

Such cuteness is why, after Bunbun is safely neutered, we are planning on adding a female rabbit to the mix. A word to the wise – don’t buy a bunny unless you want to catch rabbit fever.

Here’s the girl that started it all at her birthday party. She’s six and up to lots of tricks.

A Bit of School

In between bouts of bunny love, we managed to fit in some fun science experiments.

 

This might look like an ordinary pizza, but it is also a model of the earth.

 

We also harnessed the sun’s energy to bake a variety of items in a solar oven. The whole wheat bread you see above was delicious! That’s my kind of science.

Lydia started piano lessons this fall. She is doing pretty well and would be quite the prodigy if she would practice more! Her teacher is pleased with her progress, though.

No piano lessons yet for Miss Abigail. To her dismay, the piano teacher doesn’t start lessons until children are seven years old. She is such a cheerful student in all her other subjects, though, which I very much appreciate.

Hollywood Kids

Eliza seems to be training for a career in modeling.

 

Strike a pose!

 

Here I think she is practicing for a role in a Fiber One commercial.

“Fiber One bars.. So good you’ll give them a bear hug.”

Lydia and Abigail, on the other hand, are more into singing and dancing.

 

This was a spirited performance of the group “God’s People”.

The Requisite Sleeping Caleb Photo

Our resident mischief maker got all tuckered out after a bout of naughtiness. I took this photo long enough ago that I don’t exactly remember the circumstances, but apparently it involved taking off his clothes. At least he left his diaper on!

 

Best friends and mischief mates.

The Never Ending Chicken Run Build

We are getting chickens in the spring and decided that it would be prudent to start building our chicken run now. Lee designed a pen that encircled the garden, which would both contain the chickens and keep marauding horses, cows, and cats out of our garden. It seemed like a simple enough project at the time. Little did we know that it would require three (sometimes four) adults a combined total of 24 hours over 3 days to build the chicken run.

Lee and Grandpa Jerry worked very, very hard. They had the blood and blisters to prove that pounding that many T-posts into rock-hard clay isn’t child’s play.

 

 

Lee says he worked hard. I’m not so sure I believe him. I think he was faking all those sore muscles.

 

 

A view from inside the chicken run. The chickens will be in this double fence, the garden on the inside.

 

A view of the mostly finished project. We left one end open so we can put the coop in and afix the fencing to it.

Halloween People

I haven’t been a fan of Halloween for a long time, but even I had to admit that this year was fun.

 

Elmo, Abby Cadabby, a Southern Belle and Renaissance Princess. But that was not all:

 

That would be “Super Lee”. The nurses at work convinced Lee to dress up as a super hero with them. Thankfully, he skipped the underwear on top of his pants that the rest of the group wore.

Lydia is the devil

The choir group that the big girls are a member of did a “human video” – acting out the words of Mandisa’s song “Not Guilty”.  My darling oldest daughter got to play the role of Lucifer.

 

I was proud that she was chosen to play that part, but a little disturbed at the gusto she put into her role!

“My name is Lucifer D. D… as in DECEIVER. I will show that these seven people are GUILTY as CHARGED!”

 

“Lucifer” freaking out when “Jesus” proclaims the sinners not guilty.

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It may be crazy, busy, and messy, but I will never be able to say that my life is boring!

August first is the beginning of our school year. Lydia started third grade and Abigail is finally a full-fledged kindergartener.

Our tradition is to give some presents to the kids on the first day of school. They are nothing fancy – paper dolls, coloring books, etc. – but the kids really look forward to them every year.

The above picture may seem rather random, but these, my friends, are zombie green beans. Our green bean plants died in late July due to the end of their life span and the searing heat. Lee left them alone for a week or so and behold! They rose from the dead. The plants greened back up and produced more beans. Zombie green beans taste just as good as the regular kind.

One night, Lydia and Abigail put on a play called “Estrella and Ellie”. They set up their theater in our exercise room, complete with concessions and comfy chairs for the spectators. Estrella, played by Lydia, is a bad witch who has it out for sweet Ellie (Abigail). I don’t remember the exact plot permutations, but it was quite an entertaining show.

Lydia’s witch face.

Ellie won at the end.

Eliza and Caleb are quite the dynamic duo. I think they call this maneuver “synchronized drawer hopping”.

Do you know how you can tell you are letting your grass get too long? When you finally mow it, you find someone else’s siding and shingles underneath the grass. Lee found this on the south side of our property and we’re not exactly sure where it came from.

We didn’t know where this thing came from either. I was washing dishes one morning and spotted Bossy here traipsing through our yard. We didn’t know who she belonged to or who to call. Is there a lost cow department at the Sheriff’s office? We may have lived here for four years, but we’re still figuring out this whole “living in the country thing”.

 

Token photo of a sleeping child. I can’t resist!

Abigail became Lee’s right hand girl in the garden. She tore out the old corn stalks like a true pro.

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So that’s August in a nutshell. One more blog post should get me caught up to the present day.

 

I’ve been absent from my blog for so long that tumbleweeds were starting to blow through. I thought it was high time I remedied that!

Let’s see… What did we do in July? It was hot, that much I remember!

 

Abigail had a very loose tooth that did all sorts of crazy things before it finally came out. She loved to sneak up to me and try to gross me out with her smile.

 

This next photo may appear pretty mundane, but in many ways, it is an apt illustration of my life.  You can tell that Caleb is redecorating the living room since the pictures hanging to the right of the entertainment center are awry. He probably tried to pry them off the wall and smashed his finger in the process. Now he’s standing on a chair to climb on table so that he can continue his decimation of decorative objects. Lydia has stolen the remote control and is hoping I won’t notice that she is looking for something besides the news to watch. Now that I look at this photo closely, it appears that she’s considering either “The Newlywed Game” or “Love Triangle”.  Oh my. In the center of it all, Eliza is sweet and cute as always.

And Lee wonders why I’m tired all the time!

 

Not long after that first tooth came out, Abigail lost another one. Without any front teeth, she sounded a lot like Daffy Duck for much of July.

July was also full of lots of gardening. Abigail and Lydia took an active part in the garden and were responsible for their own little garden bed.

Proud carrot grower

 

The hornworm was the scourge of our potatoes, tomatoes and peppers. Lee paid the girls for spotting them. Strangely enough, they refused to kill the little buggers. I wonder where they got their fear of caterpillars?

 

Ab’s teeny weeny – but very flavorful – strawberries.

A proud pepper grower. Lydia’s peppers were the best ones out of the 18 or so plants we had.

 

Our blackberries produced huge amount of berries this year. I coerced Lee into helping me make jam.

Lee took a picture of the finished product – spread on bread I baked made from wheat I ground myself. Home-ground whole wheat flour is such a revelation that we’ve stopped buying store-bought bread completely.

 

July was hot, remember? It got so hot one day that I experimented with baking cookies in my van. A mere two hours later, we enjoyed cookies fresh from the minivan.

 

My food and conversation put Caleb to sleep.

Lydia and Abigail had swimming lessons. By the end of the summer, their swimming skills had greatly improved and they both felt confident enough to jump off the diving board. Abigail even tried the high dive, but unfortunately did a bellyflop. That was the end of that adventure!

 

That pretty much summarizes what we did in July. Breathtaking, groundbreaking stuff, I know.  It’s hard, but I hope you can contain yourself and wait for Part II of my blog update.

 

 

What a busy month this has been! Lydia’s playing softball, we finished our school year, Eliza turned 3, and Lee turned 33. There’s been both a wedding (Jacob and Holly) and an engagement (Kayla and Nate). Plus, Lee and I have been gardening and working on getting our new basketball court installed. Whew!

Here are some of the pictorial highlights:

Eliza had a Minnie Mouse themed birthday party.

Caution: Semi-disturbing photo of child covered in cake ahead.

I guess it’s probably only disturbing to me because I had to clean up afterward. Oh, the horror!

Needless to say, she liked her birthday cake.

She liked her presents, too. We got her a water and sand table.

She wasn’t exactly sure what to do with it at first. Do you climb in and swim in that water?

(Is it just me, or does Buddy look like Charlie Brown from behind?)

She figured it out pretty quickly.

Buddy would rather play with the neighbors’ cat. His real name is Lucky, but Lydia christened him “Orange Florange” when she was four, so that’s what our family calls him.

Daddy taught him how to pet a cat gently.

I would never have believed it from his indoor behavior (Buddy is notorious for sneaking up on me and biting tender portions of my anatomy), but he was actually gentle to the cat. Lucky Orange Florange!

Okay, maybe Caleb can be gentle indoors, also. 

Abigail lost one of her front teeth. This was a good thing since it was beginning to hang low enough to interfere with her eating. The timing was problematic, though, since she knocked it out right as we were supposed to be heading out the door for one of Lydia’s softball games. Blood and chaos ensued.

 

Now she speaks with an adorable (for the moment) lisp.

Our garden, after a slow start, is doing well.

We’ve been blessed with more romaine lettuce and mesclun than we know what to do with.

We had a few peas, some delicious cabbage, beets, and radishes, too. Everything else is growing well.

Our blackberry vines were absolutely coated with blossoms, so we expect a mega harvest in a month or two.

You can start putting in your orders for blackberries now.

June is only half over and I’m pooped. Can I have a vacation from summer vacation?

Things are growing in our garden! Well, Lydia’s stuff, anyway.  

This is Lydia’s cabbage, beets, pod peas, and romaine-type lettuce.

Today, it was time to start harvesting the lettuce.

Look, it’s a bouquet of lettuce! Lydia ran inside and got it ready to eat all by herself.

Taking the leaves off to wash them

Spun dry

And torn up, ready to eat in a salad. (Side note to Mom: That’s the table and chair set I bought on clearance from Pottery Barn.)

Now Lydia knows how to make a salad of lettuce, from seed to garden to plate.  

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We’ve gotten that pesky little rodent problem in our garden under control. Skip the next photo if dead rodents make you queasy!

Abigail said, “Oh no! He got it right on the chin!”. She wasn’t upset, just making an observation.

 

 We’ve caught somewhere around 15 mice. We haven’t noticed any more rodent damage, but we’re keeping the traps out, just in case. I figure any mouse we catch in a trap in our yard is one less that can find its way inside our house!

Lee has to go to CME conferences every so often to maintain his board certification. This is a good thing because it gives us a chance to go on a family vacation that is partially reimbursed by the hospital. The bad thing about it is that many of the conferences Lee is interested in are located in places that aren’t terribly family-friendly. Or at least not friendly to a family with a couple of little children. 

Exasperated by his latest suggestion of a dermatology conference in a location best known for its challenging white water rafting,  I asked Lee, “Why don’t you see if there’s a conference in Orlando some time?”

Lee found an endocrinology conference that was going to be held in May at Disney World. We immediately decided to book it and to keep the vacation secret from the children. There were just two problems:

1.  I’m horrible at keeping secrets. We had to keep this vacation a secret from the kids for seven months.
2. Our last Disney vacation, while magical, was also a bit stressful. Lydia was four and Abigail was 17 months old when we took our first vacation to Disney World in 2007. You can read about it here, here, and here. Abigail wouldn’t ride in the stroller and threw tantrums the likes of which I’ve never seen before or since. We swore we would never take a child under the age of four to Disney World ever again.

Eliza would be 35 months and Caleb 15 months old at the time of our vacation. Were we in for the same trouble, only double?     

The day we were to leave for Disney World finally arrived. Lee and I packed the van in secret the night before and the kids went to bed thinking that tomorrow was just like any other day. We woke them up about 6 AM and told them to quickly get dressed because we had to “go to town”. Click on the link to watch what happened next:  

Surprise! We’re going to Disney World

Not exactly like they show in the Disney World commercials, is it? They were far more excited about returning home at the end of the trip than they were about going. Sheesh. If we had known that, we could have saved a lot of money and stayed home!

Once we hit the road and it began to sink in, Lydia got excited. She brought along a reference book about Disney World and read up on all the rides.

It took us two solid days of driving, but finally we made it.

This time we stayed at the Polynesian Resort.

We really enjoyed the tropical theming.

We spent a lot of time swimming in the volcano pool.

Abigail was delighted that there was a beach where she could make sand castles.  

Lydia loved roasting marshmallows and watching movies on the beach.  

In my book, the best part about the Polynesian is that it is right on the Monorail.

The Monorail is your best friend when you have two crazies in a stroller.

We spent the most time at the Magic Kingdom. We met all sorts of fun characters.

Abigail told the White Rabbit a secret: rabbits are her favorite animal. Anyone who knows Abigail knows that isn’t a secret!

Of course, we had breakfast at Cinderella’s castle.

Buddy is already a ladies man and flirted with all those princesses.  He liked the princesses nearly as much as the carousel.

Caleb got really upset when the carousel ride was over. Eliza? Not so much. She’s not much of a fan of rides, though she loved “It’s a Small World”.

We had the Disney Dining Plan again, so we ate at lots of different kind of restaurants.

Abigail liked trying to eat rice with chopsticks at Teppan Edo.

I’m not going to post any more of the hundreds of pictures we took. Vacation pictures aren’t terribly interesting unless you went on the vacation yourself! We had a good time and the babies behaved themselves for the most part.  I’d be up for another Disney vacation in another four years.

Lee and I changed our garden over this year from a traditional row-type garden to a square foot garden. Check out this post if you want to know why.

This is the master plan for 2011. Click on the image to enlarge it.

We have  already run into a few problems. Some things haven’t sprouted like they should, but mostly we’ve suffered an onslaught of rodent damage.

You see those holes? They mysteriously appeared throughout all the garden beds that had peas planted in them.

At first Lee didn’t believe that mere mice could cherry-pick ALL our pea seeds out of the ground. When a mouse popped out at him while he was planting potatoes, he started to believe it.

We’ve set traps in our garden and have caught 5 mice. Hopefully we’ll get the rodent infestation under control before we plant corn!

Lydia thinks she’s a gardening genius. She harvested her first teeny-tiny radish.  

According to her: “It’s spicy!”

Hopefully we’ll soon get a lot more out of our garden than marble-sized radishes!

This post was written by Lee. I guess I’ll let him make a contribution to our family blog!

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Real Dinnertime Conversation at Our House:

Emily pulls out gray hair from Lee’s head.

Emily: “You had a gray hair.”

Abigail (very upset): “Oh no, Dad. You have a gray hair! You’re getting old! You’re going to die!”

Lee: “I’m not going to die, Abigail.”

Abigail (still frantic): “Dad, why do people have to die?”

Lydia: “Remember, Abigail, how Adam and Eve disobeyed God?”

Abigail: “I hate Adam and Eve. They made my dad have gray hair!”

How quickly time flies when you have little children. Just yesterday, Caleb Nathanael was born.

And now my sweet, silly�boy is one.

He was born on Super Bowl Sunday and this year’s Super Bowl was held on the�day�of his party, so naturally we had a football themed birthday celebration. �

Time lapse of Caleb eating birthday cake:

“I can’t believe Mom let me do that!”

Happy Birthday, sweet Buddy! You are a delight!