Worker Men and Baby Lips

A few weeks ago the gas company replaced the gas mains on both sides of our street. Around that time, construction began on the new school building on the corner. Between those two events, the boys have had an endless string of digger trucks, dump trucks, cement trucks, pipeline inserting trucks, and worker men to watch. With all that building going on, it's no wonder they've been inspired to start a few projects of their own.

Gussie got out his tool belt and tools, and together he and Michael moved their table, chairs, and some scrap wood from the back yard to the front.

Then they got to work.

A few months ago Michael witnessed a pinewood derby ramp set up at church. It was a boy scouts event, and he's not in boy scouts, so he decided to build his own.

 I don't think they ever got to the racing part. They just built and unbuilt a ramp all day.

Random interlude for a picture of Edie happily gathering unto herself a collection of jingle blocks.

And for a quick lunch on the stoop.

And for a swing in the hammock. Stringing up hammocks in the living room is definitely one of their new favorite things.

Last night Edie fell asleep in my arms (like normal) but Catherine was desperate to snuggle her while she read at bedtime, so I slowly and gingerly tried to lay Edie down without waking her. Shockingly, she didn't wake up, and I think she snuggled Catherine to sleep rather more quickly than normal.

Squishy baby lips.

Edie was awake and fussy before long, but it sure was adorable while it lasted.

Hammocks and 22-Year-Old Mary

Apparently I accidentally published that half-finished t-ball post last night instead of saving it as a draft as I intended. Oops. It's done now (with pictures) if you want to go back.

My current babywearing stash (which is extremely minimal) includes a size 7 woven wrap, which translates into a really, really, really long piece of fabric that is specifically woven to be strong enough to hold children. I got mine used so the fabric was already nicely broken in, but when you get a new wrap, one fun way to soften up the fabric is to string it up as a toddler hammock. Whether or not you actually need to break in your wrap, stringing it up as a toddler hammock is an excellent way to distract the young ones on a stormy day when they're all stuck inside.

I started out with it really low so when Gussie fell out, he wouldn't bump his nose too hard.

He did fall out (obviously) and only bumped his nose a little, and now that he has a better handle on how a hammock moves Catherine usually ties it up a bit higher. I was trying to get everything ready for us to go to gymnastics yesterday morning and asked her to hold fussy Edie for a minute. Three minutes later I found them both like this.

She looked so comfortable I felt bad about having to shuffle her into the car! [Just in case there are any safety police reading, no, we do not leave the baby in the hammock by herself.] Now the kids get upset with me when I actually use the wrap to wrap the baby.

Very often when I look at the kids I find it impossible to imagine what they will look like as adults.

See - both of the girls could look like ducks by the time they're twenty - who knows.

But to me this picture looks like a portrait of Mary ten years in the future. I wonder if she'll still be creating fancy hair styles then? Remind me to come back and compare.

T-Ball

Michael had his first t-ball game this week. It was a lot more fun to watch than you are probably thinking. As far as I have observed, these are the approximate rules of pre-K and Kindergarten t-ball:

1. The whole team plays on the field, even if there are 20 players on your team.
2. #1 is not necessarily an advantage for the team on the field. Skirmishes among short stops were plenty.
3. Your half of the inning is over when your team gets three outs or every player bats, whichever comes first. In general, the latter comes first.
4. When you hit the ball and get tagged on your way to first, you are out. However this out might or might not count towards the 3 outs in your inning, and you might or might not be allowed to continue to run the bases.
5. You are only allowed to run one base per hit. Unless you are tiny and really cute and just take off running around all the bases regardless of what else is happening in the game. Then you are allowed a home run.
6. Given the number of players on the field, feel free to dance, dig in the dirt, do somersaults, or daydream.
7. Hitting the ball and finding your way to first base requires a celebratory dance on such base that almost always resembles moonwalking, even though I'm pretty sure none of these kids have ever seen moonwalking.

After the game Michael said his least favorite part of the game was hitting the ball.

But eventually we determined it wasn't hitting the ball he didn't like, but wearing the batting helmet, which he described as too big so that it fell in his eyes, too small so that it pinched his ears, and smelly.

After the game, he wore his uniform to bed, and all the next day, until I finally made him put on clean pjs for bed that night.

And the final rule: listen to your assistant coach. She already knows all of your names, and she means business.

Two Stories (Videos!)

Gussie is an accomplished narrator. He tells stories with passion, animation, and lots of hand motions and facial expressions. This is a typical "Gussie is telling you a story" face:

Sometimes it's hard to tell if his stories are relayed from real life or from his imagination. One time he told me about a man who threw a pizza at his face and tried to break the window. I immediately chalked that one up to imagination, but he was very insistent that a man threw a pizza at his face and tried to break the window, and it happened when I wasn't there, only Grandma was there. Grandpa happened to be listening at the time and confirmed that it was in fact true: they had gone out to a pizza place with the kids and the man tossing the pies behind a glass window was playing with them, tossing dough balls and flour at the kids, and the dough balls hit the window. So there you have it. Here is another of Gussie's favorite stories about the truck we saw turned on it's side on the highway:

 

I was hoping Edie would share her rolling over skills with you in this video. That didn't happen, but she does tell her own story using most of her repertoire of noises, if you're interested. There is also a very typical "I'm not sure why you're so crazy but I'm pretty sure I'm smarter than you" Catherine face at the end.

 

The Out Of Doors

Yes, this is my fourth blog post in roughly a day. I'm trying to catch up!

In addition to being behind on blogging, I'm also behind on work, and paperwork, and shopping, and cleaning, and my projected school schedule for the month. But apparently none of that is going to keep us from enjoying the nice Spring weather before it turns into not-so-nice Summer weather. Besides, I'm pretty sure a whole morning at a nature reserve counts as a morning of Unschooling, at the very least.

So one morning last week we joined two other families at Shaw Nature Reserve. It's a lot more driving than I like to do for any sort of outing, but it was definitely a fun visit and the kids loved it.

We spent all of our time in the kids' nature classroom and the wildflower garden, but there are miles and miles of hiking trails as well.

One of the first things they discovered was this climbing tree in the playground, which was blessedly free of primary colors and all things plastic.

They thought this spider web was pretty fun as well, until someone read the sign in front that said it should be used by one kid at a time, and then Gussie got all worked up any time more than one person even touched the ropes. He's a stickler for the rules sometimes.

But they soon discovered an array of paths that led out of the playground and took off running.

Maybe even sprinting.

There was a nice set of little trails and bridges in a relatively small area so I pretty much just let them go. Other than watching Gussie near the small pond, there wasn't too much trouble for them to get into.

Instead, they found a nice little fairy house for them to get into. They loved it. At one point after our friends arrived there were eight kids playing in this house and it nearly erupted with laughter. A worker at the reserve who had been driving a cart around cleaning up brush stopped and watched them for a few minutes, clearly pleased as punch that they were having so much fun. We talked to him for a bit and it turns out he designed and built the fairy house from an old sycamore stump from the property and reclaimed wood from the renovations to the Japanese Garden at the Botanical Gardens. It was very obvious that he was happy to see his hard work was worth it.

On our way to the wildflower garden we passed a series of small ponds, and one of them had this ingenious bridge: a series of old trees smoothed out and lined up and secured together, with some of the branches left for hand holds. It won the day.

[Side Note: Here's a math problem the kids might have been doing had they been in common core school instead of learning something or other outside: Ten children discovered a tree bridge across a pond. The sky might or might not be blue, and turtles or frogs might live in the pond. Based on that information, how many children fell in the pond?]

Catherine and Mary took off across it immediately, and Michael Jr followed once he saw them get about half way with no trouble.

They had great fun splashing their feet in the water.

Shortly after that Mary discovered that wet feet on a smooth stump can be slippery, and she was the first to find herself standing waste deep in pond water next to the tree bridge. But she made a quick recovery and complained very little about being temporarily wet.

At first Gussie was happy to watch the big kids, but then some friends arrived and after watching everyone skitter back and forth across the bridge multiple times he couldn't hang back any longer.

I honestly wasn't sure if he could do it and I wasn't that interested in getting all wet and pulling him out of the muddy pond, so the first time I held his hand and we went across together. I thought that might be enough, but once he saw that he could do it there was no stopping him.

I think he went back and fourth three or four times. There were at least half a dozen moments when I was sure he was going in the water, but he did great!

Seeing Gussie have so much success on the bridge inspired our similarly aged friend Ava to give it a try. She ended up being the second of our group to meet the pond water, but Mary was right behind her and managed to help her hang on to the log so she only went in up to her waste, and Catherine came from the other end and helped her get back up on the log and to the edge. They were so successful in their rescue that no mamas had to get wet. [Now you know the answer: 2 kids]

After they tired of the tree bridge (which took a really long time) we walked around the big pond, sending countless turtles plopping into the water from their sunning spots along the edge.

We also saw a goose that I can only assume was a mama goose sitting on some eggs, given her posture when we came around the bend. And we saw a very large hawk gathering tree branches for a nest.

And we discovered nature-made tree bridges in addition to the man-made one.

And more man-made bridges, which they like almost as well.

I don't think I'll be driving out there every week for a picnic, but it's definitely worth it for an occasional trip!

Even though exploring the nature reserve for four or five hours gave us a good dose of forest sounds, we got up the next morning and met Carrie and her kids at the Botanical Gardens. I have never seen so many tulips in bloom in my entire life; it was beautiful and is well worth a visit.

Catherine likes to bring her money to buy a bag of food for the fish and ducks in the Japanese Garden, so we all headed back to the far corner of the Gardens where the fish live. When we were nearly there the girls spotted this landing that we have never explored before, so they found the cobblestone path that led down to it and made their way to the water where they found hungry fish, a duck, and even a turtle swimming around and sneaking bites of food when the duck missed them. Gussie and our friend Daisy started down the path after them, and Lily (the youngest and least stable walker of the group) wanted to go as well. Carrie and I both had strollers full of phones and keys and money and cameras, so she suggested I walk down with Lily and she would stay with the strollers. I have no idea why, but I insisted I could stay with the strollers and she could go down and feed the fish with the kids. So she did, and I took this picture while she and Lily were headed down the walk.

And then Carrie broke her leg. I don't know if you know this, but wearing a baby wrapped on your front can be a little treacherous as far as tripping over things you can't quite see. Carrie was wearing baby Eli and had also picked up Lily to help her down the last couple big steps, and under that bundle maybe landed a foot on the edge of one of the cobblestones and tripped, and although she managed to protect the babes in arms while falling, she also twisted her leg in a way that fractured her fibula. Ouch.

I'm not gonna lie: more than once I have wondered to myself why I didn't just potter down the path after the kids instead of saying I would stay at the top. It's very unsettling to be reminded how a moment of seemingly no significance can change your (or worse, your friend's) whole day or week or month or more.

But thankfully Carrie's dad works at the Gardens and was working that day, so he was able to pick up Carrie with the golf cart while Catherine helped me get all the kids and strollers back to the Gardens entrance. Carrie says her injury could have been a lot worse and is thankful it won't require a cast or surgery, but caring for an infant and three other young kids even with just a "knee immobilizer" brace sounds pretty terrible to me. I saw a claim the other day that nature sounds can activate healing, so maybe an injury from the botanical gardens will automatically be subject to a quick recovery?

Although the kids have been asking daily how Mrs. Rife is feeling, they haven't been at all deterred from their nature loving ways; they just want to know when she'll be well enough to come back to the Gardens with us!

Michael Man

Michael had his first t-ball practice this week. He made the cutoff for being old enough to play this year by exactly 1 day, but he seemed to do just as well as the other kids and he had a lot of fun.

He is particularly proud of his team hat.

A couple days ago, Michael was eating lunch when he stopped and complained to me that there was something stuck in his tooth and he couldn't keep eating. So I looked in his mouth and there was indeed a piece of something stuck between his top teeth that a piece of floss quickly fixed. But what was much more interesting when he opened his mouth was the gaping hole in his lower gum line that had clearly housed a tooth a very short time before.

So he's two for two for literally lost teeth. This is the second time he had no idea his tooth was loose, did not notice when it fell out, and had no idea where it went after it fell out. Luckily for him, Catherine is excellent at writing letters from the tooth fairy that overlook the lack of an actual tooth.

We have been hiding away a big lego set someone gave us because it looked a bit too involved for Michael to handle at the age he was when we received it, but I brought it out for his 5th birthday. It was incredibly involved, but once I showed him how to follow the directions, he built the helicopter almost entirely by himself. Catherine and Mary saw how much fun it was and convinced him to let them build the rescue raft. Gussie clearly wants to be five also.

Edie Bug

I would have to write a post several pages long in order to properly catch you up on everything Edie is doing in the last few weeks. In short, we can say that the newborn stage is officially behind us.

She is very interested in the things around her. She can grab toys, hold toys, and chew on toys.

She discovered her toes and can grab her toes.

She can roll from her back to her tummy, but it still takes a great concentrated effort so she only does it when there is a toy off to the side that she wants to hold.

I don't know if she is officially teething, but she is gnawing on everything.

She talks non-stop. Squeals, raspberries, oohs and aahs, more squeals... she just keeps up a constant stream of noises.

She dominates tummy time, and has started the "rotating" precursor to crawling: very often when I put her down on her stomach, in a few minutes she has managed to spin around to be facing a different direction. I don't think it's on purpose yet, as it requires a large amount of rather frenetic motion and a series of determined faces to accomplish.

She *loves* watching the kids play. Whenever they are riding bikes on the sidewalk or when we go to the park, she kicks and squeals and laughs out loud every time a kid goes by. I sat her in the swing the last time we were at the playground and was surprised that, for all her new baby developments, she is still WAY too tiny for the baby swings at the park. I think her whole body could have slid out through one of the leg holes. So I just sat next to the swing and pushed her a few inches back and forth, which she loved.

Nom nom nom.

Since theses are all Edie pictures, here's a heart picture I didn't even know was on my camera, conceived and photographed by Catherine:

All of these new skills require a great amount of energy, and since the one thing that Edie has not outgrown at all is her inability to sleep alone, most of her naps look like this.

She's so intent on clutching everything that comes within her reach that she even fell asleep with her little fingers wrapped around my shirt collar. She is definitely a candidate for "cutest thing ever".

Happy Birthday, Olivia!

I am so far behind on downloading and editing pictures that I'm just getting to Olivia's birthday party from last week. The kids had a delightful time at the park, which was new to them.

This is Mary's "party" scarf hair do. She has one for work, one for play, and one for parties.

Once again, Edie enjoyed some quality time with Aunt Sunny.

And the birthday girl had a good conversation with Papa.

The park had a little pond open to catch-and-release fishing, and Uncle Chris brought several fishing rods and a bucket of worms so all the kids could have a turn. Mary was so excited!

And her excitement translated into catching two fish!

Gussie was very curious.

Michael also caught a fish when I was off somewhere else. Catherine gave it shot, even hooking her own worm, but she got bored after about thirty seconds and went off to play.

I think after she caught a couple fish Mary moved on to instructing.

Meanwhile, the Papas where hanging out.

I think one of Mary's students caught a fish also!

Hmmm... this picture looks familiar. Mamo always knows how to get a hold of the baby.

But Daddy arrived home from nearly a week out of town right as we were leaving for the party, so he got some baby time as well.

Olivia modeled her birthday crown well.

I love this picture. The first card Olivia opened was a singing card that played a song upon opening. Olivia was so surprised and delighted, and Grandma, being the excellent Grandma that she is, joined in Olivia's excitement.

Olivia got to celebrate with quite a crowd of princesses.

Gussie ignored the present opening and spent his time goading Uncle Chris into wrestling with him. It worked eventually.

And Gigi managed to steal Edie away for a bit. Edie was a lot happier about it than she looks in this picture.

Olivia didn't seem very comfortable with everyone singing for her, but she wanted that cake!

Finally she got to blow out the candles, and then...

A large group of her party friends showed up from the playground and sang for her again since they missed the first singing.

But eventually she got her cake.

This picture just makes me laugh.

One of Olivia's presents was a pair of skates so as soon as she was done with her cake she put them on and Grandpa held her hand while she found her balance.

I imagine she'll be joining up with Catherine and Mary soon!