Reinforcements have arrived! The children's Grandmom had to work the prior few days, but drove up and joined Pop-Pops on Sunday. Now I have her generous help cooking, doing laundry, dressing children, making beds, washing dishes, sweeping floors, and playing with the children so I can get off my swollen feet more. I am blessed!
Today John and Pop-Pops built a "log cabin" out of sticks in the back yard.
You Know He's a Southerner When . . . John is now saying after meals, "I'm as full as a tick!" I did not teach him that.
You Know I'm a Strict Mama When . . . John and Mary got to watch some television in the upstairs guest room this afternoon while I did tasks. At one point I stepped downstairs to get a glass of water. I heard John calling for me anxiously, "Mama! Mama!" I rushed to the bottom of the stairs and he stood at the top of the stairs. "Mama! We're upstairs watching television alone, and we don't know if the next show is appropriate for us!" I went upstairs, gave him a high five for checking with me, and, indeed, the shows I found on PBS and Nick Jr. were not my favorites, so I found him an edifying cartoon on EWTN about the martyrdom of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein). Much better!
Above is the view of my husband's hotel room right now: yes, that is Hawaii! I am very proud of him for earning this vacation from his company for his excellent job performance. He deserves it! The prize was for Chris and his spouse, but I wasn't in condition to travel 5,600 miles when 34 weeks pregnant, and there were no options to move the dates or accept cash. (The orange duck in the photo is one of the children's little toys, so Chris has been emailing photos to the children of their duck on his business trip.)
Chris went straight from his latest business trip to Hawaii, so this is an eight-day absence. The cavalry arrived a few days ago in the form of Chris' dad, otherwise known to the grandchildren as Pop-Pops!
Having Pop-Pops here has been a little bit like having a mama's spa day. He is so helpful! He patiently plays with the children so I can lay down throughout the day. He washes dishes, wipes down the counters, sweeps the floors, and cooks or orders take-out food. I've had to be conserving my energy and, specifically, how much I'm walking, so I haven't been able to do a lot of fun stuff with the kids. John has been so kind about it, but sad (which makes me feel worse, in a sense, than if he threw bratty tantrums). It sure tugged at me the other day when I had to say 'no' yet again to John's request and he replied wistfully, "Maybe when the new baby is born, you'll be able to take walks with me again."
So, with Pop-Pops here, he's taken the kids on a walk and to the neighborhood sandbox. We were able to go to the homeschoolers' Friday free play in the gymnasium because I could sit in a chair while Pop-Pops chased Mary around (keeping her safe). On Saturday we were able to go to a Civil War re-enactment because Pop-Pops could pull the red wagon with the kids.
Also, I've been able to get some alone time, which makes me a much more sane mama. Today I went to a children's consignment sale without two children hanging off me, ran to the drug store, had an uninterrupted phone call (what is that?!), and made it to Confession at church. All alone!
I am so grateful for this help! Thank you, Pop-Pops!
The children received their first sleeping bags! These were gifts from my dad and my aunt and uncle, but I got to select the sleeping bags. I wanted them to be sized for children (I really couldn't find any for the size of preschoolers!), made of cotton, washable at home (not dry clean only), and without licensed cartoon characters. Voila!
I actually chose the red cowboy bag for John and the green jungle animals bag for Mary, but the kids wanted to switch, so that is okay!
Thank you, Dad and Toby & Maureen, for the wonderful sleeping bags!
A friend just suggested offering Mary chocolate to use the potty. Not a bad idea, but in the past she's always rejected my offers of chocolate for performance. Perhaps I'm not offering a refined enough taste . . .
Since yesterday Mary has been asking me for "oranges." I kept telling her that I don't have any oranges in the house right now. This morning at breakfast, she was particularly persistent. Finally she explained, "No! The oranges Miss Rachel gave me!"
Miss Rachel is the kids' babysitter who yesterday brought over grapefruit as part of her own lunch and told me that she shared some with Mary (no sugar added!) and that Mary loved it. I guess that was no exaggeration since Mary has been begging for grapefruit since!
I'll have to add the bitter fruit to my grocery list.
The molasses bread turned out well. I still have no idea how it rose with only 1/4 teaspoon yeast in the entire two-loaf batch. It's a strong flavored bread--a mature flavor, one might say--but we all like it, including the kids.
We had great success a couple of days ago making little pizzas out of English muffins for lunch. Pizza is actually a newly "safe" (accepted) food for John. As he's accepted it increasingly over the last few months, at first he accepted only an exact kind of pizza crust cooked the right way, with the plain cheese removed. Slowly he's accepted more and more variations of pizza. I really thought he'd resist this little homemade pizza, but he thought it was great!
Also, he willingly ate cheese for the first time. We were making the pizza and he remarked of the shredded mozzarella, "I love cheese!" I didn't comment, but was thinking it was a strange comment for a child who has never willingly eaten cheese in his life. Then he popped some cheese in his mouth, remarked again that he loved it, and asked if he could eat a bowl of it. I said 'yes,' and he did!
Then today we made homemade granola (oats, wheat germ, brown sugar, butter, oil, coconut, vanilla, almond extract, raisins).
I set up the kids with Kumon workbook pages to occupy themselves while our granola baked.
The granola was delicious! The kids and I really enjoyed it (even though John picked out the raisins). I think next time I will add sliced almonds for protein. And just think of the cost savings: this one batch made the quantity in a large box of cereal, which would probably be $5 (or more for granola, which always comes in those expensive, itty bitty boxes). But these ingredients probably cost a couple of dollars. Yay!
Other than these little ventures, we've been spending a lot of time outdoors, me resting in a chair and supervising the riding of bikes, drawing with chalk, and endless digging in dirt. (By "resting in a chair," I mean hauling my huge pregnant body out of said chair minimally every five minutes to negotiate something or rescue someone.) I remain stymied about how to explain to John what an "echo" is, as he keeps asking me about it, but persists in believing it to be some kind of creature, instead of the effect of sound waves bouncing off of hard surfaces. In a potty training update, introducing stickers and prizes (prizes Mary really does want) has resulted in Mary reducing how often she stays dry in a day rapidly down to zero. Yes, zero, she is not making it to the potty at all now and she couldn't give a hoot except she asks every so often if she can have her prize now. And this is with me taking some mom-friends' advice to try giving her no reaction, positive or negative, in order to take away the power struggle. At least I know I can manage two in diapers, having done it last time!
Mommies, do you ever have the thought like mine tonight? I've been a mother for four years and I feel like I don't know how to:
Make children eat
Make children sleep
Make children be quiet when quiet is required
Make children come when called instead of running away
Potty train children
Etc.
I wonder if I'll feel confident in these little matters by the time my first born is grown and moving out of the house. Some days are just so hard. (Unlike the easy days when I lay around eating bon bons with my angelic children, right?)
Chris unexpectedly came across a really good sale price on a returned bicycle, so that is how John unexpectedly received his first bicycle with training wheels today!
Chris took the kids to our neighborhood "sand box" (volley ball pit).
Mary, with her lower legs buried
Riding in our driveway
Unfortunately, the two great videos I took of John riding like the wind all over our driveway were lost due to operator error: I was not filming when I thought I was, and was filming when I thought I wasn't!
Mary found another way to use the dolly stroller: we found her happily walking around the house like this.
Today was a busy day with hours of outdoor play time and Mary didn't take a nap. She was eating a snack at 3:40 when I saw her eyes drooping. I asked her if she was tired and she shook her head 'no.' Then I took this photo of her with her eyes fully closed.
Moments later, she fell forward onto her own lap, asleep! Unfortunately, when I transfered her to the couch in the darkened living room with a cozy blanket, she perked right up and was wide awake. And bedtime came to her no easier tonight! Why children resist sleep, I have no idea. I wish someone were encouraging me to sleep more!
Amazingly, for dinner I didn't solely rely on frozen products. I made a lentil barley soup that Chris and I quite liked. I was able to adjust it based on ingredients I had in the house and found it a flexible recipe. Tonight I'm trying a molasses bread recipe which I've never made. It's interesting because of the molasses, that it calls for only 1/4 teaspoon of yeast, and that it requires a 10-hour first rise and 2-hour second rise. I've never made a long-rising bread like that: it is now set to do its first rise overnight.
I had Chris pull down my bins of newborn boy and girl clothing this evening. Then I poked through the clothing and found myself grinning and getting all snuffly and emotional. I think it's quite funny that I'm simultaneously starting to feel some fear of labor (babies are so big!) and yet was looking at the newborn clothing and thinking no human being could be so tiny!
A few days ago, I put John's hand on the upper part of my belly for him to feel what is the very hard rear end of the baby. He asked, "Well, if that's the baby's bottom, where is his head?!" I showed him that the head was down low. He was shocked that the baby was upside down. (John and Mary were breech until a few weeks before their births, so I have been quite relieved that this baby has been firmly vertex for a while now.)
Well, this bit of information must have made an impression on him because today when Chris took John out to run errands, John informed him out of the blue:
"Daddy, the new baby is upside down, just like St. Peter who asked the soldiers to crucify him upside down!"
Pretty good associations for a four-year-old! Maybe we should add "Peter" to our list of names being considered.
Me and my two (three!) babies on our way to Mass this morning
I'll be 34 weeks along tomorrow, so two more weeks to go before the all-clear to have a home birth. There have been some cute baby moments with the children:
* John asked: "What does the new baby play with in there, if he doesn't have any toys?"
* Mary (27 months) has just started to clue in to the new baby in Mama's belly. At my last midwifery appointment, I was lying down, my belly being examined, and Mary knelt beside me, pushing and palpating my belly exactly like the midwife. Then she said, "I going to pop the baby out!" And she repeatedly pretended to "pop" the baby out through my belly button, with the sound effect 'pop!' followed by giggles. Often now, she pats my belly and asks about the new baby.
This afternoon the children and I spent two and a half hours in the back yard (me resting in a chair most of the time, except for breaking up fights, negotiating toy engagements, and pulling Mary down from the fence). The weather the last two days has been exquisite: sunny, around 75 degrees, with spring zephyrs!
Just a couple of days ago, the garden remained barren. Now the roses have sprouted tiny leaves . . .
. . . the wild onions have sprung up . . .
. . . and our lawn is alive with birds hopping about, eating all the bugs that are hatching.
The kids have been spending at least an hour a day digging in a new favorite spot in the yard.
Today the children were at odds while digging because Mary kept "patting down" John's "castle." He would create a dirt castle, she would pat it down, he would shout to me for justice to be done. I tried every angle I could think of. I tried punishing Mary so she'd stop patting down his creations. I tried telling John that he had to be patient because she is only two and she's not going to play as nicely as him. I tried distracting her. I tried ignoring them. Finally after an hour of this, I convinced Mary to dig in another spot, all by herself. I settled back into my chair with my book of St. Therese. Not two minutes later, I saw John walk over to Mary and ask, "May I please dig with you, Mary?" I couldn't believe it! I told John to leave her alone, that I'd finally solved his problem, and that if he dug in her new spot, she was going to pat down anything he would build. He said that was okay, he'd rather just dig with her. So I told her that next time she patted down his dirt creations, I was not going to try to help because I'd be busy reading my book!
Grand fun was had on the swings.
Mary enjoys leaning off of the fort whose floor stands five feet above the ground. I have learned over the months that if I say, "Mary, be careful! Hold on tight!" her first reaction is to lean out farther and then to hold on with only one hand. So I've stopped asking her to be careful and I just pray to her Guardian Angel. She hasn't fallen off yet.
Note to self: Have the children listen to the CD of Catholic children's songs more often. They have been watching so much "Barney" lately that they are often singing the basically benign pablum that are his signature songs (here, "Oh Mr. Sun").
Postscript: I have been writing this blog post while listening over the baby monitor to Daddy putting the children to sleep. Here I thought we had a basically very lovely day. I was doing the best I could while Chris was at an all-day men's conference, I felt like junk, and I have midwife's orders to rest a lot. I did all the basic chores of the day, let the kids watch some TV, took us on two driving errands, fed them good food, and supervised the kids in the back yard for two and a half hours. We have only a three-foot-tall fence and a two-year-old who is all too happy to hop over it, so any fun they have outdoors requires the sacrifice of my time sitting there, watching them. I thought I went to a lot of effort today (I don't even want to do things like stand up to push them on the swings, but I did it anyway) and that the kids had good fun. But I just heard John telling Daddy about his day and he said "Mommy said 'no' a lot today. Every time I asked to go to the sand box, she said 'no'" (because the sand box requires walking through the neighborhood and more exertion than pregnancy is allowing right now). He asked Daddy if he could please have some big adventures tomorrow with him. So I got all tearful listening to their conversation over the monitor.
Today John and Pop-Pops built a "log cabin" out of sticks in the back yard.
