Fun with Alleluia Boy at Home

Alleluia Boy is in preschool two to three mornings a week, and at other programs the other two days...but on those long winter days when he's home all day, here is a little snippet of how we roll:




For all of the drudgery of staying home with kids all day, it's times like these that I think I will savor when they've all gone. Love you, little guy!

Banana Baby, two years on

On March 11, 2011, we uploaded this video of Alleluia Boy falling asleep while eating a banana:



Now, some two years later, that video has been viewed more than 113,000 times. It's a minute long, so that means we've been accessories to all those viewers wasting a grand total of 1,883 hours.

Also, a Danish television station is in negotiations with Banana Baby's agency to purchase the right to use the video in a new TV show called Klipfiskerne...literally, "Clip fishermen."

And Banana Baby is also now listed as one of Ellen Degeneres's favorite videos (of many) on the website of the Ellen Degeneres Show.

Now we just need an endorsement from Pope Francis....

Here, there, and everywhere

Down the street.  Even Minnesotans are sick of this winter.

Mouse, Jaybird, and a friend reading at the CW.

Alleluia Boy and Jaybird at the Children's Museum in LaCrosse.

Jaybird at play at the museum.

The Music Man at his preschool's Spring Sing concert.  He's securely latched, don't worry.

Alleluia Boy got to try out the dental chair when we went for teeth cleanings.

There's been so much going on, this is going to sound somewhat random.  Oh well.





The above video is Mouse's short duet in her school's "Almost Spring Sing."  She got to first the first couple of lines of the Beatles' Yesterday with her good friend Kaia.  She was so excited about and did very well, saying she wasn't nervous, just excited.



Alleluia boy is a handful. Well, he's three! Sometimes he talked in ways that sound almost adult ("We're going to the store today. And we're going to buy bananas and milk and cereal. Oh yeah, that's right.") and other times he points at things and whines like a puppy for it. He has the energy of a tasmanian devil but it basically very sweet--just READY. TO. PLAY. NOW! Right now, he's in ECFE on Thursday mornings, and St Mary's Preschool/Educare Mondays and Fridays. Honestly, he's ready for school. He loves it (at least at two hour stretches); its all about new adventures for him and when he has to stay home in the morning, he has this attitude of "let's blow this popsicle joint."

Jaybird has been writing little theological treatises about Easter coming up. I guess she is getting filled with more catechesis than normal since her first communion is coming up too. So this weekend I got one page long songs or just statements about how God loves us and sent us Jesus and Easter is great because he rose from the dead! With lots of exclamation points!!! Anyway, after getting the third one, I said "My goodness, Jaybird. You're writing all kinds of theological treatises these days!" And she said, "Well, Mommy, I want to be you!" (sniff sniff)

Bear is busy. In good spirits, but busy. He is getting a lot more homework now that he is in Erdkinder (middle school for Montessori), and he is doing very well. He is involved in chess club, just tested to advance in karate, created (!) a debate club, is part of a string quartet, and is in orchestra. He did a piece for his school's recital on violin, and did well...but mom didn't do so well and forgot the camera. He's also an altar server and is planning to serve at Easter Vigil.

The Music Man is pretty cheerful. He has botox shots on April 8 and we're hoping that will kickstart his walking again. He's still doing it but now we have a more freestyle reverse walker in the house he should be using more, and we're borrowing canes (!) from school--where clearly the first thing that needs to happen is that he needs to learn to stand with them. We have (at long last) a wheelchair ordered which he may get his hands on in...8 weeks? And his own walker, rather than a borrowed one from school. His school OT and the two of us have been trying to think how to get him more potty trained...they got an adaptive seat at school and darn it, its too big. Plus he freaked out a bit. So, that's in process. We're seeing the IAC (International Adoption Clinic) doctor for the last time Wednesday, to followup on various pediatric issues. He's enrolled at a new school for next year, not Bluffview. More on the Adopting Alex blog....

Favorite quote from Pope Francis so far....

Staying, remaining faithful implies an outgoing. Precisely if one remains in the Lord one goes out of oneself. Paradoxically precisely because one remains, precisely if one is faithful one changes. One does not remain faithful, like the traditionalists or the fundamentalists, to the letter. Fidelity is always a change, a blossoming, a growth. The Lord brings about a change in those who are faithful to Him. That is Catholic doctrine. Saint Vincent of Lerins makes the comparison between the biologic development of the person, between the person who grows, and the Tradition which, in handing on the depositum fidei from one age to another, grows and consolidates with the passage of time: «Ut annis scilicet consolidetur, dilatetur tempore, sublimetur aetate».
--from an interview with 30 Days

This Pope just might be awesome. :) Another great quote, from his address to journalists today, during which he explained his choice of the name Francis. Immediately after his election, Cardinal Claudio Hummes, archbishop emeritus of Sao Paolo, had urged him: "Don't forget about the poor." This statement sparked the thoughts that led to his choice of a name:

Immediately with the thought of the poor, I thought of Francis of Assisi. I thought of wars--while the vote counting continued, until the end of all the votes--and Francis, the man of peace. That was how the name came into my heart: Francis of Assisi. And for me, the man of poverty, the man of peace, the man who loves and guards creation--at this time when we have a relationship with creation that is not so very good, right? And the man who gives us this spirit of peace, this poor man. How I would like a church that is poor, and for the poor!

 It is no coincidence that our first three children have middle names associated with Sts. Francis and Clare. :)