Yogurt

Adventures of baby led weaning continue...

Still Here

Oy, sorry I've been neglecting the blog. Gussie is suddenly super active: he can crawl as fast as the other kids, stand up by anything, and climb stairs, so even when Catherine volunteers as a second pair of eyes on him, he'll eat half the house if you leave him unattended for a moment. The kids are also being surprisingly slow at grasping the "don't leave it on the floor if you don't want Gussie to eat it" rule, so I'm spending a good portion of the day interrogating him about what happens to be in his mouth. Gussie also wants to be outside anytime the rest of the kids are outside, but he's not satisfied with being confined to a stroller or any kind of toy, so him being outside means me standing by regulating the amount of rocks, dirt, sticks, grass, bugs, flowers, mulch, leaves (you get the idea) that go in his mouth. On the upside, he's still extremely pleased with himself and totally adorable when he has a clod of dirt in his hand and a mud mustache from chewing on it, so, let's just say it makes him stronger. He's also interested in real food, of course, but this is no less messy than him eating dirt, so every meal usually requires a head-to-toe cleanup when he's done.

Catherine, Mary, and Michael Jr spent their first weekend with Grandma and Grandpa on their RV last weekend. I'm pretty sure I missed them more than they missed me! They appear to have thoroughly enjoyed themselves and had no problems. Good kids. I had great expectations for catching up on house work and work work while they were away, but if you read that first paragraph again you'll realize, like I did, that me + Gussie doesn't exactly equal free time. Since he also won't sleep on his own for more than about ten minutes, accomplishing anything other than sitting after he goes to sleep is also pretty much impossible. So I feel pretty good about the fact that I managed to fix my washer and do a dozen loads of laundry over the weekend. I think I ate once also.

I just dug my camera out and it appears that this is the only picture I've taken in about a week:

It's our park. I like it. Too bad it's 40 degrees and raining again - yikes! I don't know if I'm ever going to turn my heater off, let alone get my garden starter plants in the ground.

So besides Gussie and kids and homeschool and cooking and that other job I have, the thing that's been keeping me busy is trying to start a company. It's kind of a long story, but back before Easter I was looking for some cute stainless steel cups to replace some of the kids' old plasticware, and I couldn't find any, but eventually I did find some and they were made by a company in Australia (Ecococoon) who wanted $25 to ship them from Australia, which I didn't want to pay, so I kept searching and discovered that a company (Little Modern) had just that week started importing those cups from that company in Australia to distribute in the US, and now that company is getting the US e-commerce site up and running and I started a company (Leave Happier) in order to be the local distributor in the St. Louis area. See, I told you it was a long story. It would be exponentially longer if I told you what one has to go through in order to start a business in St. Louis, so let me just say that it is enough to drive one to lying, bribery, and exploiting cute baby smiles in order to obtain the necessary licenses. But I think Gussie and I have it all straightened out now and I'm just about ready to start contacting local retailers, so if you have any ins with any managers/purchasers in the area, well, I'm clearly not above exploiting personal relationships.

My other new goal is going to sleep by 10pm every night, which I ignored in order to write this little catch-up blog, but now I'm going to sleep.

I promise to start taking pictures of children again. Sometime.

Easter Feast

This is way behind - I forgot these pictures were even on my camera!

Since Michael Jr's birthday and party fell on Easter this year, we postponed our family Easter Feast a week. Although Gussie has been nibbling on table food here and there, he's only in the last week or so been really excited about it, demanding to eat just about everything he sees. I think it might have been the lamb at Easter Feast that set him off. He started off slowly (and clean).

But he's a very enthusiastic eater.

 I don't blame him - it's appropriate to be awed by rack of lamb.

Daddy agrees.

Mary... well, Mary told me she'd rather have Keema.

The next time I make lamb, that girl is getting ground beef Keema.

Catherine at Sunset

The weekend was busy. The weather has finally turned, the heater is off, the trees are budding, we did some planting in the garden and started some seeds, there's a big pile of mulch in the backyard, and we had our first Spring thunderstorm this evening. Try as I might to make sure we spend time outside over the winter, it's a big pain and the kids don't like it that much (especially Michael Jr who apparently has no tolerance for being cold), so now that all we have to do to go outside is open the door, it's almost impossible to make them come in. If I had an outdoor kitchen, I might never come in myself.

These pictures are from one of the first warmish days a week or so ago. I usually try to take pictures of all the kids, but it often turns out that one of them is just feeling a bit more camera cooperative than the others, and this happened to be Catherine's day.

Maybe it's because she's the oldest and therefore most things we encounter with her are still new to me, but very often watching her has the effect of making me marvel that these little people have been entrusted to us.

Any morning that you wake up and feel you should pray that I don't screw the kids up too much that day, please don't hesitate; you can be sure that your prayers are echoing mine, and, well, the more the better. They deserve it.

Gussie On The Move

And just like that, Gussie is mobile (and happy about it).



He's had the ability to crawl for at least a week or so, but it's just in the last couple days that it occurred to him that crawling can take him places, any place he desires, and gain him access to things heretofore out of reach.

Shiny things. Tiny things. Tasty things.

The number one thing on his "must chew" priority list is paper; cardboard will do in a pinch, but if paper is in sight, all else fades away. And he knows already that one place he can always find paper is the coffee table (he's been pulling himself up to standing at the coffee table for a while).

See this fun little predicament? He orchestrated this himself, just as I started to type this post.

I had moved all the books and paper to the other side of the table. I got up for a moment, and he climbed into Mary's little armchair, stood up in the seat, leaned over the arm, grabbed the edge of the table, and pulled his elbows onto it, then stretched his little fingers out...

Success!

Do you think my bank will excuse a late mortgage payment if I tell them my baby ate the payment book?

I pulled him down and put him back on the floor, and he immediately did it again. So he's a crawler and a climber. Bar the stairs!

Easter and Birthday Extravaganza

Easter Sunday started at Epiphany for us. Daddy was serving at the altar so it was me and the four kiddos on our own in the pew. The girls don't require any attention at this point during Mass, but sometimes dealing with Michael Jr and Gussie at the same time can be a little tricky. This morning Gussie slept almost the whole Mass but Michael, for some reason, was in no mood to be there. At every single tiny little pause in the liturgy, starting after the opening hymn, he looked at me and asked, "It is done now, Mama?" I guess it's funny when you're not the mom.

But we made it through and Daddy said he wasn't even loud enough to be heard at the front even though we were sitting in the third or fourth row.

And by the time we took this picture, Gussie was the one that was ready to get away!

Then we had a little rest and lunch at home before heading to Grandma Kim's for an Easter feast and birthday party for Michael Jr with the family.

Before we got crazy with the Easter celebrations, Michael got a birthday present from Grandma and Grandpa: shiny, fringy, tricycle/hot rod.



It has a little platform on the back that Catherine was using like a scooter in order to push him, because even though these pedals are imminently reachable, he still won't use them.

Grandma had organized a serious egg hunt, complete with multiple stages; first, the front yard, with a few special prize eggs for each kid (one of which we never did find - thanks, Daddy, for hiding them so well). There were fun toys involved, like bubbles and kaleidoscope eggs.

 This is Mary, still looking for that final egg that should have belonged to her.

Then it was off to the back yard that was simply packed with smaller eggs with little prizes and candy. Daddy and Grandpa and cousin Matt made sure this was an actual hunt, not just a pick-up.

Grampy T had to help with a few high ones once the kid spotted them.

And while that was fun for all, the opening is of course the most anticipated part. Some of them were a little stuck, but I think we got them all in the end.

And then it was such a beautiful day outside that we got to play with all the fun toys. I think we had enough bubbles that they could be seen through the whole neighborhood. (And I don't know exactly why, but I love this picture of Catherine).

Gussie was really enjoying the sunshine and walking around in the grass. Between Sunday and us spending most of the day yesterday outside, he actually has a little sun pink on his head and face today!

And after all that, we still had a birthday to attend to. Catherine and Mary are so generous with their present-opening help.

Here's Michael holding his new umbrella, wearing his new car-carrying sash/sling (I have no idea what to call it, but he likes it), staring at his new cars. That's a happy birthday boy.

And we can't forget the cake! (Although we did forget to get out the ice cream - oops.)

Happy Third Birthday to Michael Man!

The Art of Discovery

More Easter and birthday pictures coming soon...