Mudpup: Abstract artist

Mudpuupy does love his painting at ECFE.  We get a masterpiece every time.  I'm planning to submit one to the Walker (just kidding...mostly....).

The late January update

While the weather encourages hibernation (at least to us Southern transplants), we never stop.  A few things going on of note:

Bear got third place in individual and group kata at his first karate tournament!

Really, he's happier than he looks.

He also did an internship (more like job shadowing) for two days as a required project at his school for 7th and 8th graders. So his internship--at his instigation--was to shadow theology professors. My colleagues were very kind (he couldn't do it with me per se) and he really enjoyed it. He liked the college classes and mentioned he thought he could do the work. ;) He also interviewed a priest at our seminary on campus and the Dean of Campus Ministry. Last I heard, he wants to major in Theology, and double minor in Math and Communications. That's...creative....I guess we'll see.


 Mouse is a cupcake baker!

She got some cupcake tins and a decorating kit for Christmas and we have had quite a bit of cake since. Good cake too! This mixes in with a cupcake recipe book and a series of girls books on a group of friends who make cupcakes for fun and money. Her first cupcakes were pineapple upside down cupcakes. Yum.

Jubilee Girl got a haircut! Pictures coming soon!

The Music Man has all kinds of things going on...more at the Adopting Alex blog!

Sporting Rachelle's knit hat!

Mudpuppy is three and bored. Well, not all the time, but he is a bundle of energy and taking it out on our living room. Yikes. Beyond that, he showed us he is learning to read. He began picking out words and reading them, and pointing to letters and doing the appropriate sound. He isn't full blown reading, but clearly he realizes that those words mean something, and he is determined to figure out what.

Matthew sporting his knit hat from Rachelle!

Finally, we had a great visit from Joanna and her family. Joanna is a person we had only met online but extensively that way!)--a young woman who made it her mission to get the Music Man a family. She and her family live in Canada and were in MN visiting relatives--and swung a little south to meet us. We had such a pleasant visit! And we were thrilled that Joanna got to meet Music Man, and he got to meet her.

Joanna and Alex.

We'll try to get more cute stuff up soon. Its all crazy around here, but there is an abundance of cute too....

Starling

First sentence!

For the past couple weeks, Starling and I have been eating dinner fifteen minutes before the older children so that we can get some time to connect (and eat) without constant interruptions. We figure we put in all the time making the food -- we're tired, we're hungry, we deserve to eat it in relative peace before taking on our nightly waiter/waitress shift. It works out pretty well, because then when the kids sit down, we're able to focus on their needs in a more cheerful frame of mind. I highly recommend it.


Mudpuppy, however, does eat with us -- just to keep him out of trouble. And it was while he was eating with us this past Wednesday that he said his first (real) sentence:

"Dada eat pizza!"

Made it up all on his own. Starling and I stopped in mid-pizza bite, looked at each other, and then started praising him. He just went back to eating his pizza, apparently unfazed. Maybe he's been thinking sentences for a while. Anyway, it is an honor for him to make my homemade pizza the object of his first sentence, since it is so very delicious!

We even took a picture to mark the occasion (see above).

He has also been singing variations of the "Alleluia" pretty nonstop recently -- often at the top of his lungs in various public places, and when he's sitting in his chair. I think he gets enough attention for it that he's kind of addicted to it now. He is actually pretty on key, for a two-year-old. So I am officially changing his nickname on this blog from Mudpuppy to Alleluia Boy.

First haircut

Mudpuppy had his first haircut today...long overdue. Jaybird went first, so he could see that there was nothing to be afraid of. Here's how it went:

And here is how the girls look with their new, shorter hair...prompted in part by their desire to avoid all the tangles and hassle of brushing out long hair:

Aren't they cute?

Veterans Day

This past veteran's day, Mudpuppy and I went up to the Saint Mary's University Veterans Memorial for some quiet prayer observing the day. We were joined by a few friends. This has become something of an annual ritual since the memorial was erected. We prayed for all veterans...especially those we know personally, who are cherished friends and family members...and we prayed for peace, so that this little one and all children might never know the horror of war.

And we once again read the words of the Church, from the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, #497:

The Magisterium condemns “the savagery of war” and asks that war be considered in a new way. In fact, “it is hardly possible to imagine that in an atomic era, war could be used as an instrument of justice”. War is a “scourge” and is never an appropriate way to resolve problems that arise between nations, “it has never been and it will never be”, because it creates new and still more complicated conflicts. When it erupts, war becomes an “unnecessary massacre”, an “adventure without return” that compromises humanity's present and threatens its future. “Nothing is lost by peace; everything may be lost by war”. The damage caused by an armed conflict is not only material but also moral. In the end, war is “the failure of all true humanism”, “it is always a defeat for humanity”: “never again some peoples against others, never again! ... no more war, no more war!”

"Amazing Grace"

Lately the kids have been singing "Amazing Grace" to Mudpupp -- don't ask me how this started, I'm sure I have no idea. In any case, he really likes it, and demands that they sing by repeating, "Song! Song!" until they do.

Stranger still, he has started learning the song himself. A few times now, he's sung the entire first verse all the way through -- although only when we're not paying direct attention. If we ask him to sing, he just looks at us silently, smiling. His pronunciation lacks a great deal, but he gets the basic shape of the words, as well as the melody: "Amazin' 'ace, sweet ah sound, ah save ah wretch lie me!" and so on, all the way down to: "...was los', now ah see!" It gave me goosebumps the first time he did it -- while I was changing him!

Mudpuppy likes to swing on the big-kid swings

Picking pumpkins last weekend - he was a little intimidated
at first by all the pumpkins, but enjoyed seeing a real cat
close up.

Helping with the pizza dough. He believes in being VERY liberal
with the spices!

Mouse and Jaybird carving their own pumpkins. Bear is
"too old" for such things.

Grandma hanging out with the kids on a sunny fall day by the lake.

This afternoon we were prepping the kids for our All Saints party at church -- Bear went as Paul Miki, Mouse as Elizabeth of Portugal, and Jaybird as J8ulia Billiart. We helped them find symbols of their saints to use as hints in the "guess the saint" game. At one point, I asked Jaybird to pick something up in the bathroom, and as she did, she cheerfully said, "Well, I am going to be a saint someday."

"You think so, huh?"

"Yeah, 'cause a saint is just someone who loves God a real lot and is dead. And I think I will love God a real lot when I am grown up!"

That's the hard part, isn't it -- the loving. The dead part, not so much.

Mudpuppy at ECFE

Here are some random shots of Mudpuppy at Early Childhood Family Education:

Playing in the sand table.

And so absorbed in his book at the end of class that he
doesn't even notice it's time to go home!

No child's career in our family is complete without this classic shot!

A magnificent fall

This autumn has been pretty magnificent, if you ignore the rather cold and dreary weeks we had in the middle of September. Some highlights:

This afternoon we got out and raked leaves. It's a bit weird to be throwing
leaves into the compost while we're still harvesting basil and tomatoes,
but there you go.

The littlest kids enjoy being pulled to the compost pile in back. Their job is
to keep the leaves from blowing away en route. Jaybird is ready to roll in
the wheelbarrow (background); she enjoys being dumped in the growing
pile of leaves at the end.

Here's where all those leaves come from. They glow on the trees on sunny days.

Every noon, before his nap, Mudpuppy insists on going on a walk by the lake.
This is his favorite park bench (actually a bench swing).

We've taken quite a few fall color walks as a family lately. Last weekend,
we walked along the creek at Moyer Park in Bloomington. Here's Jaybird.

"Uncle Andy" on the same walk.

And the kids on a walk in the bluffs the week before that.

And today we went to the Bluffview Fall Festival, which was held on a farm.
See Jaybird (Dalmation cape) on the hayride?

Meanwhile, the older kids spent most of the time jumping around the haystacks
piled up to the rafters in the barn.

And besides the fall color, we've also been enjoying a profusion of Morning Glories--finally!

Mudpuppy's birthday!

Mudpuppy had a great birthday last Friday! Of course, he was mostly oblivious to what was going on, but everyone enjoyed the festivities on his behalf. Starling came home from work early, and then we all went on a walk in the bluffs--the fall has been gorgeous, very unlike what the weather was two years ago after bringing the baby home.

Mudpuppy is ALMOST big enough to keep up on these long walks...he still
gets to be carried part of the way, though!

C'mon, give us that famous smile! Okay, a smirk will have to do.

He tolerated the Birthday Hat, unlike his older sibs, but didn't want to blow out
the candle!

Mudpuppy needs no persuasion in the chocolate cake dept.

Among his favorite gifts: One of those push-popper things
(the kind with the annoying balls that pop around in a bubble),
this little racetrack, some nesting boxes, and a wood puzzle.

Stacking the nesting boxes is fun--but not as much as knocking
them down!

Almost two...but not quite

Recently, Mudpuppy has decided that it's fun to climb into the play fort on his own...
even if he can't quite get down by himself yet.

It's time for a Mudpuppy update! Here's his typical day, now that the kids are in school:

Normally, he sleeps through the night -- although we just realized (about a week ago) that he has the same cyclic vomitting issue that Mouse developed at that age, so once in a while, he wakes up earlier because of nausea. When he wakes up, he sits up and looks around; sometimes he will come to the gate at the bedroom doorway and look out and shout, "Hi!" Eventually someone (usually Starling) comes in to change him. He's very enthusiastic about greeting everyone in the morning!

Then it's downstairs for breakfast -- typically a sliced-up apple with peanut butter, a banana, or maybe some cereal and milk. He can say "cereal," "banana," and "drink," but beyond that he typically just watches the other kids, occasionally supplying an interjection or exclamation to the conversation. This morning, he actually started pointing at the people sitting around the table and naming them. He does “Mama,” “Dada,” and the oldest kids’ names pretty well, but he hasn’t quite got the hang of Jaybird’s name yet. He sits there pointing at her and staring, like it’s going to come to him any minute now.

Breakfast ends when he starts saying "Down" or when he starts throwing his food, or dumping it out all over the place.

Then it's into the car to take the other kids to school. "Car!" he announces, over and over again. "Car! Car! Car!" He points to the back door and leads the charge.

In his car seat, he likes to read the morning paper (just kidding) or a book that one of the kids has left around. He’s actually very interested in books, probably because he sees all of the “big” people around the house reading them. He "talks" with the other kids, sometimes. If music has been playing and a song finishes, he will sometimes say, "Yay!" and clap his hands.
In fact, he will say “Yay!” for anything that he is excited about now. Announce a snack and he’ll clap his hands (or raise them in the air) and exclaim, “Yay!” with that trademark grin on his face.

As the kids leave the car, he may wave goodbye to them and say, “Bye-bye!” He does that a lot now, especially to store clerks. If he sees a bus drive away, he will say, “Bye-bye bus!”

Then it’s usually off to run errands. If we go to the store, he will tolerate sitting in the cart for only so long before pointing down and saying, “Down! Down!” I usually let him down, if possible, on the theory that the more stimulation and exercise he gets, the sooner he will go down for his nap. (My motives are pure, I tell you.) I am trying to teach him not to touch, but it’s hard when you’re dealing with a young toddler who has very little impulse control, in an environment that is constantly presenting new and interesting things, and on top of that, every single adult in the store is picking things up off the shelves. Toddlers really do want to do whatever the big people are doing; I think it’s a hard-wired survival instinct (“Learn as fast as you can!”). He walks through any store like he owns the place, bustling along, head down or swinging side to side. As he goes along, he says “Hi!” to absolutely everyone he meets, raising a hand in a casual greeting. He turns heads, as you can imagine.

He occasionally stops and tries to take things off the shelves; I tell him not to touch, and then eventually he ends up back in the cart, begging to get down again, which I may let him after a few minutes.

At the checkout, his job is to help me empty the cart, a task he performs with relish. A few items tend to sail overboard every time.

If we’re not shopping, we’re probably going to a class somewhere. These days I’m swimming at the YMCA on Mondays and Wednesdays to get in shape, so he stays at the Kids Corner childcare room for an hour or so while I do that. (I’m taking adult swim lessons in the early evening on Fridays.) He has not been liking that one bit, but he only fusses a little bit; then he’s fine, and he always seems happy when I come back. On Tuesdays we go to Parenting with the Spirit at church; for some reason, he seems to be better about staying in the childcare room there, maybe because he is so familiar with it by this point. On Thursday mornings, we go to Early Childhood Family Education classes. When it’s time to separate, he goes toddling off after the other kids into the Zoom Room with nary a backwards glance. I think he’s okay with it because I spent the last half of last year staying with him in the kids’ room for half the class; he knows the routine. (See the picture below of him painting at ECFE!)

If we end up staying home to do chores, he is my shadow, generally undoing whatever I am trying to do. Or making a new mess somewhere else. The other day I finally tackled cleaning out the refrigerator; with a chore like that, my choices are to either 1) strap him into a high chair for an hour, or 2) try to integrate him into the job and just minimize the damage as much as possible. In the case of the refrigerator, he had a blast pulling bottles and containers out and putting them on the floor, in cabinets, on the table, etc., and then putting them back into the refrigerator, haphazardly. He looks so proud of himself!

I need to stop here in order to head to bed, but I will try to post part two later this week.

(Part two follows below the pictures.)
 

He insisted on riding the saddle swings, just like his big sister.

Ah, yes...the venerable wooden toy train set, now being
enjoyed by a fourth generation of small hands.

One of his first paintings at ECFE.

Part 2

Lunchtime comes around 11, sometimes earlier. He adores apples, which he will eat whole or halved; potato chips (none of the other kids got potato chips at his age, but he sees his sibs with them, and they like to share!); and—ketchup! He really likes ketchup. If the refrigerator door is open, he will take it out, hold it up, and say, “Yum!” He likes ketchup with his French fries or with hot dogs. He will also eat grapes and bananas and pears and other fruit. When he’s full, or if he can’t swallow something (apple peels), he spits out whatever is in his mouth.

By 12:30, it’s time for “night night.” I have three strategies for trying to get him to sleep. One is to take him on a walk in the stroller; that works sometimes, but not usually. Still, the weather has been so beautiful in the last week or so (highs in the 80s every day!), we’ve been taking a lot of walks by the lake. He REALLY loves that. If we’re in the garage, he will pull out the stroller and beg to “walk, walk!” He likes looking at the passing scenery. We have our own park bench—a swinging one, near where our street runs into the park—and we sit there and watch the ducks and the passersby. He comments on every dog that passes: “Dog! Woof! Woof!” (He learned this from a Sandra Boynton book.)

A second strategy is to take him somewhere in the car and hope he falls asleep on the way home—tricky, because sometimes he falls asleep on the way to wherever you’re going. If he does fall asleep in the car, I can pick him up and move him to his bed without him waking up, which is a new experience for us.

A third strategy is to simply put him in his bed, read him a few stories, and lie down with him until he goes to sleep. I use this option when I need a little nap myself. He is possibly the only one of our kids who doesn’t resist taking a nap; he is enthusiastic about getting into bed. He likes flopping backward on the bed. He likes reading the stories (lots of simple board books). And he likes tickling. Lately, I have occasionally put him to bed, kissed him good night, and then closed the door and walked away. I know, this is not novel to you guys who have been doing the same thing since your kids were babies, but it’s breaking new ground in our house.

Once he is asleep, he’s down for at least an hour. During that time, I can talk, walk past his bedroom, vacuum, run heavy machinery, blast rock, etc. with no effect on his nap. After that initial period, I do try to be more quiet. He generally sleeps for a couple of hours, getting up at about 3.

At that point, Starling takes over. She changes him, feeds him a snack, and generally tries to keep him out of trouble while simultaneously preparing dinner and managing the other three kids, which I DEEPLY appreciate! (No, I do not feel the least bit guilty, since that has been—and will be—my job when she’s teaching. A year off from the afternoon grind every ten years or so is not too much to ask, is it?)

Sometimes in the late afternoons he will go outside with the other kids. He climbs up on the play equipment—which is pretty high for a kid his age, and probably not safe, so we try to spot him. He can climb up but he can’t get down by himself. He will slide down the slide (saying, “Whee!”) if someone spots him. He also likes swinging in his swing very much; he can do that for half an hour, if he has someone with that kind of patience to push him.

Another thing he does outside is play with a basin of water that we set out on the picnic table (which is on the deck). He likes using buckets and cups to pour water back and forth, and works very intently for a long time. Sometimes we will give him the hose, which we turn on just enough so that it drips. He ends up completely soaked most of the time, but when it’s warm out, who cares? It’s the one thing that keeps him occupied for any serious length of time.

Another thing he likes to do is to load and unload the dishwasher, which is one reason why we now let the dishes pile up until he’s not around. He also likes to drag out all the pots and pans, and the kitchen utensils, and pretend to cook. The funniest thing he does is to take the oven mitts out of the drawer, put them on, and stand by the oven door, pointing at it with his oversized hands. “Hot,” he says, very seriously. “Hot!” He knows not to touch it now.

Suppertime is generally a disaster. He’s usually not hungry, so he picks at his food, or throws it, or is constantly demanding things he can’t have. A little later in the evening, we have family prayer, which lasts about half an hour. He tears around the living room playing with the loudest toys possible, climbing on people’s laps, kicking them (accidentally), talking, singing, taking things out of the desk drawers, etc., until I pick him up and hold him on my lap, over his protests. On the up side, he REALLY enjoys singing, and will try to join in when we sing a song together. He also follows along with all the major prayers; he can’t say the words, of course, but he mumbles a decent approximation, and says “Amen!” loudly and enthusiastically at all the right places. At church, too, he seems more intent on what is happening up front than any of our other children at this age.

Bedtime is a long, drawn-out routine. Starling usually lies down with him. She reads him three or four books, sometimes more than once. Then she sings songs to him, which he enjoys greatly, smiling and saying, “Again!” And then he spends about half an hour tossing and turning before he falls asleep for good.

And that is a good thumbnail sketch of Matthew at age two!

When he's ready to go to bed, he says, "Nye, nye!" before embarking on an
elaborate bedtime routine that involves several stories, three songs, and an adult
(usually Starling) staying with him until he falls asleep.

Goodbye to summer!

Well, it's officially fall now, and the jackets are hanging on the hooks by the back door. Time to catch up on how we rounded out our summer!

Mouse and I went on a bike ride by the lake one day -- she was having a rough day and needed some alone time with a parent. We sat on this bench and watched the sun set. As we biked along the path, she commented on how "romantic" various spots would be. She liked the idea of having a date under a willow tree, but thought that the bugs might be an issue. This bench made an acceptable alternative. We also talked about all the types of jobs she could possibly have when she grows up -- all the different types of writing and artist jobs, and other possibilities, too.

Here is a great shot of my mom with Mudpuppy. We took this picture during our visit to the Cities (at the same time we visited the state fair). This shot required multiple takes!

 

I ask you, would summer ever be complete without a lemonade stand picture? No, it would not. Jaybird and her friend sat out on the sidewalk for more than an hour and got three (non-family) customers. God bless people who stop for little kids' lemonade stands; they are nurturing the nation's future Job Creators (as our Republican friends would say). It's a patriotic act, I tell you. It's too bad I didn't take video -- they spent much of the time marching up and down the sidewalk yelling, at the top of their lungs, "LEMONADE! ONLY 25 CENTS!"

Bear enjoyed kayaking on the lake, but he really enjoyed...

...this paddle board. You stand on it and use a long paddle to get around. Park rec had a couple for "rent" (for free) this summer, and they were very popular indeed. Bear couldn't stop talking about it for a few weeks.

Icee pop on the deck...pretty much speaks for itself, doesn't it?

Last weekend was really warm...the perfect day to go canoeing on the lake with friends!

This summer, if Mouse has not been reading, she's been scootering, back and forth down the sidewalk in front of our house. She pretends that she's flying, which she almost looks like she is.

Making honey! One of the great things about this town is connecting with so many people who are connected to the land -- including some friends of ours who not only raise chickens in their (urban) backyard, but also keep bees. We visited them as they extracted the honey from the combs -- I have a video of this that I will post if I have time.

Bear also got to go out on the river a few times with his good friend's family. Once, they went jumping into the river from this rope swing on an unnamed island. Here's Bear jumping in.

No garden tour this year! I think I have to deem the garden a bust this year. Our harvest of everything from tomatoes to carrots to peppers and apples and berries was really disappointing, nothing like previous years. I put this down partly to the bizarre weather, and the hottest summer on record (peppers and tomatoes don't set fruit when the nighttime temps are too high); partly, to some basic mistakes on my part (for instance, interplanting carrots and lettuce too close), partly to dumb luck. However, there's always a silver lining...and in our case, that lining comes in the many colors of our bumper crop of fall flowers. We have morning glories for the first time this year, as well as dozens of these stunning sunflowers.

And that seems an appropriate way to wrap up this post!