Ten Things I Love About Gussie Right Now

I figure I should jot these little things down before I forget them. My brain is highly unreliable these days.

1. He has trouble with any word that starts with an "s" and usually just drops the leading "s" when talking. So about a dozen times a day he comes up to me and hugs my leg or climbs in my lap and asks, "Will you nuggle with me?" "Nuggle" is pretty much the cutest word I've ever heard.

2. He will put on a show for anyone. Laugh at something he does, and he'll do it a hundred more times just to hear you laugh some more.

3. He apologizes at the drop of a hat, to his siblings or anyone else. Any time I hear an "Ouch, Gussie, that hurt!" from another room, it is immediately followed by a little, "I sorry" with no hesitation.

4. Goodness, he loves to tell a story.

5. As soon as he wakes up in the morning, he asks for "dinner". Never breakfast, always dinner. And by "dinner" he usually means chocolate pudding.

6. He loves his Daddy. He loves to make things for, save things for, and share things with Daddy. If Daddy comes downstairs while he's eating breakfast, Gussie insists, "We made some for choo, Daddy!" (even though Daddy has likely not eaten breakfast for Gussie's entire life). If we buy something at the store for Daddy, Gussie can't wait to burst through the door and show him. "We buyed chocolate milk for choo, Daddy!" If we're going somewhere, it's "You drive in our van with us, Daddy!" He cried for about 15 minutes the other morning because he forgot to give Daddy a good-bye hug when he left for work. He cried a whole lot longer when he wasn't allowed to ride in Daddy's car to soccer practice with the big girls.

Here, Gussie was playing kitchen and served all this to his favorite customer.

7. When he's tired, Gussie will climb up in my lap and start kneading my neck or arm with his little hand, like a cat kneading a pillow before it settles in for a good nap.

8. He's just a happy kid. Sure, he takes about a thousand opportunities each day to ask where his boundaries *really* lie (he is 2, after all), but he's happy and enthusiastic a whole lot more often than he's unhappy or bored. And he's not easily discouraged. This is probably the 30th time he tried to catch that ball, and his 30th miss only made him laugh more.

9. When he wakes up in the middle of the night and needs help getting back to sleep, he wanders to his doorway and stands there loudly sleep-whining, "I wanchoo, Mama! Mama, I wanchoo!" It's not something I generally love in the middle of the night, but it's so genuine and he hugs my neck so hard when I manage to stumble out to pick him up that I usually get over it pretty quickly.

10. Gussie only uses the word "also," never "too." He also uses the word "actually" when he thinks he needs to make a point about something or he's very serious about wanting it. So if I pop a bottle of spicy juice and he wants some, he looks at me and says, "I actually want some your juice also." If the girls sit down to school and he wants to join them, he "actually need a pen also." And when I tell him I love him, it's always, "I love choo also, Mama." I can't explain exactly why, but there is something about a toddler that still pronounces "you" as "choo" but uses the word "also" that would make a grinch's heart grow a few sizes.

Boys In a Field

I think this is the last batch of pictures I have from September. I'm not sure if I've even mentioned it, but the girls are more than halfway through soccer season already. I think Gussie likes going to the soccer games as much as the girls do, because he and Michael can always find a hill or a field to run around in.

This happened to be one of Catherine's evening games. She and Mary both still spend a fair amount of game time running behind the action, but they're getting better!

And this was the game Michael and Gussie were playing. I'm pretty sure it's "chicken".

Gussie was so happy that evening just to be running around.

I'm pretty sure they were hiding from some other kids here? Or spying? Actually I have no idea what they're up to.

I don't know what they're up to here either.

Gussie was pretty much just really happy the whole evening (until Michael came out of no where and bear-hug-tackled him to the ground after a running start, but I don't have any pictures of that or the aftermath, so we'll go with "happy the whole evening").

Unfortunately when the boys are acting like that I tend to miss a lot of the game time action, but I don't think Catherine minds. She likes to tell me all about it afterwards anyway.

Apple Picking

In current news:

1) Mary, Michael Jr, and I all still have the cough that won't quit. It's really starting to get on my nerves. And making my head hurt.

2) Thanks to everyone who has checked in after reading the news the last couple days. So far, the neighborhood protesters are keeping their shenanigans confined to a main street bordering our neighborhood; I think they get to block the most traffic there and therefore annoy the most people, which makes them happy. This is fine with me as it it means our immediate street (and home and family) are not damaged and not threatened for the moment. If everyone would just pray that it continues to rain all weekend, I think we'll be in the clear (people have a surprising lack of resolve for their cause when it means standing out in the cold rain). Also, it would be helpful if all the out-of-towners who were planning to come from around the country to stage protests this weekend would stay home, but I don't think putting that on this blog is going to get the message to them. Also, if you have a way to blot this week in St. Louis from the memory of any potential house buyers in a couple years, please let me know.

3) This new baby girl is at least as active, if not more active than her predecessors. I'm pretty sure her wombly gymnastics are starting to give me vertigo, it's so constant. We're all assuming she's going to stay put for a couple months at least, but some days I'm convinced she is testing the walls to see what would be required to bust out early.

So how about another catch-up post?

A couple weeks ago Grandma came with us to the apple picking farm. There's a huge u-pick farm just over the river in Illinois, but we like to drive 2 miles past the huge u-pick farm to a smaller u-pick farm because they make apple cider slushies and apple cider donuts, and it's not very busy and the farmers are really nice and there are tons of apples.

Michael was waiting for the kids to stop poking the rabbits and come jump on the trailer so we could ride out to the apples. I'm pretty sure the look on his face is pertaining to my camera addiction, not to anything about the apple picking adventure. He likes apple picking adventures, especially when they end with apple cider donuts.

When I say there were tons of apples, I am not exaggerating. There were still lots on the low branches so the little ones could pick without assistance.

This picture is purely for the glory of the socks-and-sandals. It is unclear whether he is wearing two different socks, or it is actually a matching pair and one has slid down a bit.

Gussie could reach apples on every tree, but he kept insisting on trying for the ones higher up.

So Grandma gave him a boost!

The apples were so abundant that after four minutes of following around the little kids while they picked the low branches, I looked over and Mary and Catherine already had their bags full and were just pottering around waiting for the tractor to come back for us. So we all plucked a last apple and had a snack while we waited.

Forty pounds of apples, just like that.

After our tractor ride back to the barn (during which a bee kept insisting on landing on the apple Gussie was still eating - ask him and he'll tell you all about it), we paid for our apples and picked up some slushies and donuts to go with our lunch. Then it was play time - the farm has a kids' play area that includes this pedal tractor, except Gussie wasn't strong enough to pedal it so Michael gave him a hand (and Catherine is in the background, scraping corn kernels off a cob).

It also has these fun bouncy horse swings.

And a pretend farm stand that Catherine spent most of her time re-organizing each time a group of school kids on a field trip came through and messed it up. It makes my head reel if I try to contemplate why she cannot put that type of organizational effort into her room.

And then we packed up our apples and our donuts and a bale of straw (for my strawberry patch) and headed home.

There is still straw in the back of my van.

We are still snacking on the apples we picked.

The donuts are long gone.

visiting the orangutan

[Guest Post by Mary]

when  we were at the zoo one day we saw
the orangutan he was sleeping so when
we walked over
he put a blanket on his head!

Ices Plain and Fancy

Some manner of respiratory virus sneaked into our house last week and pitched a hacking, head-slitting tent for each of us. Catherine was the first to go down and is now pretty well, but Michael Jr and I weren't far behind her and are still a day or two away from "recovered" status. Gussie has the cough but apparently not the headache and earache to go with it (or at least he's not complaining as loudly as everyone else), and Mary just picked it up yesterday so she's in the worst of it now. Daddy, like usual, held out the longest but succumbed in the end.

So while we're all doing nothing exciting, maybe I'll actually catch up on some posts.

Some time long ago when it was still summer, Gigi came down and treated us to a trip to Ices Plain and Fancy, a new ice cream shop that opened in our neighborhood, within easy walking distance. This could clearly pose a very big problem for our ice cream loving family, but (luckily?) it costs about $25 to take the whole family for ice cream there and the budget overrules the cravings nine times out of ten. But it's still a fun and delicious (very occasional) treat!

They serve what they call Nitro Cream. They make all their ice cream bases at the shop, and when you order your flavors, they freeze the ice cream on the spot using liquid nitrogen. So it's a show and a treat!

They pour liquid nitrogen right into the cream base in a stand mixer, then hit the bottom of the bowl on the outside with a blow torch while it's mixing so the bowl doesn't crack from the cold and all the ice cream gets mixed together.

Then they scoop it out into a homemade waffle cone. The super quick freeze time (about 30 seconds is all it takes) means the ice cream is extra smooth and creamy. Michael-approved.

Mary-approved.

Gussie-approved.

Yeah, we all think it's the best ice cream to come out of a shop. Sorry Ted Drewes. It might not be wide-spread knowledge yet, but you're number 2 (at best) in St. Louis.

Thanks for the ice cream break, Gigi!