Another Post About Gussie

I don't think the rest of the kids are hiding from my camera per se, I think it's just that 22 months is a very active age so Gussie is currently stealing the show with the most developments and antics.

First of all, he slept through the night in his own bed last night. I know, for most kids that are almost 2, that is old hat (in fact I have vague, blissful memories of Catherine sleeping through the night from about 3 months, but the trade-off was her screaming at me for four straight hours in the early evening), but for Gussie it is brand new. He has been in his own bed for a while, but he usually wakes up and stands in the hall wailing "Maaamaaaaaa!" at least three times a night. All I have to do is get up and put him back in bed and he goes back to sleep (except for the 4am wakeup when he usually demands a drink of water), but it's not as easy as it sounds. So him sleeping from 9pm to 6am for the first time in 22 months? Big deal.

But he's up to lots of other stuff also. Like this. Who does this kid think he is?

I'm getting lots of laughs right now because Gussie has decided that he and Daddy are "buddies". Seriously, he sits next to Daddy and says, "Daddy. Gussie. Buddies." This also means they do lots of fun things together. See, doesn't Daddy look like he's having fun?

And since Gussie's language skills are really improving, there's no mistaking what it is you are supposed to do with him.

"Fly. Daddy. Fly. Gussie!" (translation: Daddy, pick me up and throw me into the air until your biceps burn!)

"Wress me. Daddy! Wress me!" (translation: Daddy, wrestle me!)

"Run Daddy! Run!" (that one's pretty self-explanatory.)

"Book me, Daddy. Couch. Book. Daddy." (translation: Daddy, come sit on the couch and read this book to me.)

"Schtick! Daddy, schtick!" (translation: Daddy, turn on the music so we can dance, and by dance, I mean stomp my foot repeatedly!) (I have no idea why "music" is "schtick", but it is, every time.)

This goes on all day. "Daddy, swing!" "Get me, Daddy!" "Side, Daddy! Outside!" "Watch, Daddy!" "Come, Daddy!" "Go, Daddy!" Until it's bed time. Then it's all about Mama.

Speaking of bedtime, Michael and I went to a dinner reception for a friend who was ordained last weekend and Grandma came down to watch all the kids for dinner through bedtime. We came home to see this:

Grandma knows just what to do when neither kid wants to go to sleep without Mama in the house.

Actually Gussie's getting pretty good at sleeping in general. For naps now he usually just climbs up on the couch and goes to sleep.

Or he pushes the stroller to the front door, declaring all the while, "Stroller. Nap. Stroller. Ride. Sleep. Stroller." I tell him to climb in while I get ready for a walk, and at least half the time, he is asleep before everyone is ready to go. Yesterday, he forgot to sit back before he fell asleep. Thankfully the rest of him is big enough now that the weight of his head did not make him topple out of the stroller.

And he still likes helping in the kitchen (particularly with cupcakes). 

Have you seen pictures of this bowl hat before? It's been his favorite hat for months and months. He is going to be really sad when his head outgrows it (and this is happening rapidly).

The growing rapidly... I have no idea how big he is at this point, but he discovered that when the kids leave a swing down on the lowest chain that he can sit on it and push himself a bit.

He can also climb the ladder to Catherine's top bunk, climb to the top of the chicken coop, and he's determined to run up and down stairs without holding on (that one terrifies me). And he wants to ride his tricycle to the park when the rest of the kids are riding their bikes, but I haven't given in on that one yet. It already takes us about 30 minutes to make it just over a mile with all the kids on bikes. I'm pretty sure if Gussie was on his tricycle we'd literally never make it.

Ballet Recital Pics and Videos

Do you remember Catherine and Mary's first dance recital, when they went to a week-long dance camp and had a little show at the end for the parents? Remember how Catherine and Mary lasted about ten seconds and then bolted from the lineup? (In case you forgot, recap here.) Well that was nearly three years ago, and this time they've been preparing in their weekly classes since last fall, and thankfully the results were much different!

They got to try out the stage and their outfits at the dress rehearsal on Friday. They were seriously focused.

Mary had an extremely loose front tooth at that point. "Mary, what are you going to do if your tooth falls out on stage while you're dancing?" Reply:

They learned two things at the rehearsal: 1) they did not like their hair and 2) they were ready for the stage!

So we revamped the fancy dance hair and they were all set for the recital on Sunday.

Ready to go...

I don't have any pictures of the recital because I took a full-length video of each of their dances for those who wanted to be there but couldn't. Yes, the videos are longish and you can probably get the idea in the first few seconds, but... oh well.

Tap dance (keep an eye out for Mary's vigorous arm rolling - I love it):


Ballet dance:



And after! The girls both did really great -- they were prepared because they worked hard in class -- and I think they were even having some fun!

And thankfully, Mary's tooth fell out Saturday so we didn't have to worry about it coming out on stage.

A Very Long Saturday

Last weekend (two weekends ago? no idea - still catching up) we had our normal Saturday morning errands of market and milk, followed by two parties. We were basically out of the house from 8am to 10pm, but it was a good day!

The first party was Kali's 4th birthday party. She had a Sheriff Kali (apparently a character somewhere?) party, and played her part very well.

The kids all had fun swimming in a super cold pool (no pictures of this as my hands were busy guarding Gussie), swinging, and eating hot dogs and ice cream cake.

I think Kali appreciates the pun: a "Frozen" themed ice cream cake.

Happy Birthday!

Sadly, we had to make a quick exit in order to make it out to Columbia to be very late for cousin Spencer's graduation party. The kids love hanging out at Uncle Greg and Aunt Ann's house. Catherine tends to pout for a bit that she's not allowed to touch the cats, but she finds plenty else to amuse her (as evidenced by the total lack of pictures of her - I'm not sure I saw her most of the afternoon).

The kids ran in the tall grass trying to get close enough to see the neighbor's horses. I subjected them all to thorough checks for ticks afterwards and surprisingly (happily) didn't find any.

Gussie tried to join in the running but it was too tall and he kept falling down. I thought that could make for a fun "baby sitting in the tall grass photo" but he kept leaning forward (always his first move in standing up) and poking himself in the face with tall grass. Short story, he wasn't pleased so I carried him out.

Cousin Dane, known by the kids as "Googly Eyes", tried to show Gussie how to catch a football. It was entirely unsuccessful.

He was much better at throwing the football. One guess as to what happened right after I snapped this photo:

They also have a fun dinner bell in the backyard. Gussie is fascinated with bells. When we're playing in the front yard we can hear the bells at St. Margaret's that go off on the hour, and this pleases him almost as much as seeing a bus or large truck go by. There is also a specific -- and otherwise extremely quiet -- part of the Mass where a special set of bells is rung. This is to call attention to that part of the Mass, but in our church, just in case anyone misses the bells, Gussie helps them out by jumping up and screaming "BELLS! [GASP] BELLS! BELLS! MAMA, BELLS! DADDY, BELLS!" It's super helpful.

Anyway, it took him a bit of effort to figure out how to get this bell to ring, but he was successful enough that I eventually had to tie the string up out of his reach.

I guess I mostly have pictures of Gussie - he must have thoroughly enjoyed the evening.

Then at 8pm I put all the kids in pjs and put them in the van. I watched a huge lightning storm a ways off the whole drive home, thankful that it was far enough away that I could enjoy the lightning show but wasn't driving in the rain. Then that thunderstorm caught up to our house at 5:10am and woke up me and all the kids who had gone to bed late after a long day. I wasn't so enchanted with it at that point. But it's ok; Gussie helped me pay attention in Mass by screaming out all the things he recognized.

Local Waterfall

We have a friend whose company builds landscape waterfalls around the area. By default, he is a master landscaper, but he is also interested in sustainable gardening, aquaponics, and backyard chickens. Clearly, we needed a field trip to his house.

This is a pretty good summary of the afternoon: lots of clambering with stops for posing when a new spot was reached.

Gussie spent most of hist time walking around in circles behind the dog. When he finally got up the nerve to actually touch the dog on his own, he was simultaneously very pleased, and very concerned about his own sanity (I think).

Meanwhile the girls found a little hiding spot. "Mama! Come outside and see if you can find me!"

The aquaponics setup is very neat, and if we weren't almost inevitably going to be moving out of this house in a couple years, I would start working on it. There is a small pond with a few coy fish in it, and next to it a gravel bed. A simple pump system pulls nutrient-rich water from the pond (yes, by "nutrient-rich" I mean "full of fish poop") and brings it up to the level of the plants in the gravel bed, then lets the water drain back into the pond. You never water the plants (the pond does it), you never feed the plants (although you do have to feed the fish now and then), the plants never wilt at the end of the day because they are getting a constant but intermittent supply of the perfect water, and the gutters drain into the pond so you never fill that with water either unless there is a super drought. And the plants could not be happier, grow faster, or produce more. Genius, I say.

Meet the super fish: growing food, nibbling toes.

The kids had so much fun. Every day I think they get a little closer to convincing Daddy they should live on a farm.

Easter!

First of all, no tsk tsking... it's still the Easter season, so it's perfectly reasonable that I am just now recapping our Easter weekend. Of course I blame it all on the new baby (see the new little ticker on the right to keep up with the weeks) and the fact that he/she prefers my bed time to be between 7 and 8pm, and if I try to go over baby's head and set my own, later, bed time, there is apparently some little button in utero that triggers immediate waves of nausea and dizziness that only stop when I lie down. But overall I feel good. Michael observed that each pregnancy seems a little tougher, but in reality I think each pregnancy is just a little busier. When I was pregnant with Gussie we were still living at my mom's and Michael had no evening work, so it didn't matter if I went to bed at 7; between Daddy, Dema, and Grampy T the kids still got food, baths, and bed time books and the kitchen still got cleaned and the laundry done while I slept a blissful 11 hours. And before that when I was pregnant with Michael Jr, I was still feeding the kids boxed cereal for breakfast and peanut butter crackers for lunch. So this time around between cooking everything from scratch and schooling the older two and extra hours at work and the other work and four times as much laundry as before and no one to pick up the slack at bed time... yeah, I guess it seems harder. But we're coming up on 10 weeks and a home school hiatus - hopefully I'll feel human again soon.

But this post was about Easter! Kristin and Brian and their boys spent the weekend with us which was really nice, especially because they're on their way to their new home in Miami next week so who knows when we'll see them next. Julian and Gussie were funny together. They formed a little tricycle gang and the whole block had to be on watch for the safety of their toes and shins all weekend.

Saturday we had the annual Easter Egg Hunt at church. This year there were either a little less kids or maybe more eggs, because the kids had several leisurely minutes to potter around picking up eggs before the field was cleared. Gussie figured it out pretty quickly.

Some of the eggs had tickets in them that allowed the kids to go up to the prize table and pick out a prize (all things that wouldn't fit in eggs). Last year the kids didn't get any of these, but this year they each got several. When we first arrived Michael Jr's eyes were glued to a very large fire truck on the prize table. There was only one, and there were several other kids eyeing it before the hunt began. I tried to temper Michael's expectations, knowing that the chances of him coming away with that firetruck were between slim and none. But as soon as the eggs were collected, he sat down and started popping them open, and his first or second egg had a prize ticket in it. He immediately abandoned the rest of the eggs in his basket and sprinted to the prize table with his ticket. A minute later he was skipping back with that huge firetruck clutched in his arms and the biggest grin I have ever seen on his face. I wish I had a picture of it!

Sunday was a busy day of course. We all went to Mass fairly early. The kids all enjoyed the copious Alleluia's they got to sing, except maybe Julian; he wasn't much impressed with the morning. We came home after one Mass to prepare our lamb lunch feast while Michael stayed to help with the second Mass. I'm pretty sure this is the only picture I have of all of us (or even all the kids) from the whole day. Thanks, Brian, for snapping for me!

After lunch we went out to Grandma's and spent the afternoon playing outside, hunting eggs, flying kites, swinging, sliding, eating, chatting, and generally enjoying the glorious day.

The cousins had a difference of opinion on how best to use the slide.

Christopher and Michael took their egg hunting jobs very seriously.

Blooming trees, bow ties, sunshine (and a kid's head in the frame?)...

Grandpa wrote a bunch of clues for a kid-collective treasure hunt. I don't think Olivia was very interested until the prizes at the end.

Julian refused to smile at me the entire weekend, but he's still adorable.

And... that's all the pictures I have from the whole day. Pretty spotty, but we did have a lovely day!