In The Absence of TV

We had a (non-mom) friend over recently, and when she noticed that we don't have a TV readily available and when we talked about how the kids don't really watch TV (with the exception of the occasional musical, ballet, documentary, or episode of MasterChef Jr), she was happy but confused. She really wanted to know what it is the kids DO all day when they don't spend any time watching TV.

And I realized just how good our kids are about playing imaginatively, independently, cooperatively, and without too many brawls, because it has never really occurred to me that keeping them from being bored could be difficult. They don't get bored.

They get messy, yes. Riled up, tuckered out, sure. And we all regularly find ourselves buried under mountains of their playtime aftermath. But they're not bored.

For the girls, and even Michael and Gussie to some extent, hours a day are occupied with reading. But there are only so many "kids reading on the couch" pictures you can take.

And then there's building. So much building. The giant box of Tegu blocks is still one of our most used toys.

They often turn the entire house into a tent city, and they each have their own house and they arrange parties and visits to siblings' houses.

Or they read or build in their tents.

The winter has been tough, but we have had a few of those January winter breaks that come once in a while, and the second it hits 50 degrees, they're all outside for hours. Two bubble wands are clearly better than one.

And those couple days where it hit 60 degrees, they all immediately changed into shorts before going outside. [Side note: this is why I do not worry AT ALL about keeping the heat at 65 in the winter.]

Chasing bubbles.

An elaborate restaurant kitchen is set up on the porch. Apparently Catherine is the official taster.

Oh, and dress up. Obviously dress up. Here Catherine and Mary are dressed to attend a Town Meeting at which they discussed the problem of crop thieves.

And you can't forget wrestle time. At least a dozen times a day, Gussie sidles up to Daddy and says, "Daddy, will you wrestle me?" Then he runs to one side of the living room and counts, "One, two three, four, six, eighteen, GO!" As soon as he gets trapped (which is immediately), he starts calling out, "Help me! Help me, Michael!" And so begins the pile-up (assuming The Guys aren't already busy with an important Town Meeting).




And there aren't even any pictures of play dough or play sand or cooking or school or crafts or cars or baby dolls or puzzles or books they've written or singing or playing with Teresia or sewing or magic tricks or blogging or games.

Nope, not bored.

Teresia at 2 Months

Since all three girls were born on the 23rd of their birthday months, Catherine's birthday is Mary's half birthday and Teresia's monthly birthday. So on Catherine's birthday, Tereisa turned 2 months old!

She's pretty happy about it.

Teresia weighs 10 pounds, 10 ounces and is about 22 inches long, which puts her at about the 50th percentile on the growth charts for both. So my suspicions were correct: she's not off-the-charts giant like a couple of her siblings (being a few weeks early she'll have quite a bit of catching up to do to make that), but she's growing just fine.

For the most part she is happy happy happy, giving us lots of smiles and coos and wiggles. Any time I put her down on her tummy, she rolls right over to her back. She apparently knows how awesome that is.

But in the interest of honest reporting, she's not all smiles all the time. In fact, Daddy often wonders aloud if she isn't the most emotionally unstable baby we've had, as her ability to switch moods in an instant is quite remarkable. We have all seen her turn a wide mouth grin directly into an unsatisfied scream with no transition in between. And Catherine caught a glimpse of how I spend about half of my days/nights: sleepily bouncing, patting, and snuggling a cranky Teresia while she gives me the stink eye.

No matter. Two minutes later she was all big blue eyes and smiles once again.

Most of you will not be very interested in this video; it's just 60 seconds of Teresia hiccuping, wiggling, making faces, and waving her arm around. Extend this video into 6 hours and you can see how about a quarter of her days/nights are spent. (I spared you a 60 second video of Daddy flying her around the house or me doing lunges around the circle to keep her from yelling at us.)




And we can't forget Mary's half-birthday; she may be on her way to seven, but both her eyelashes and her baby caring skills are far more mature than that.

Eight is Great

Catherine wanted to do two things for her birthday this year: play at Pump It Up, and have a family party with ice cream (not cake and ice cream, only ice cream, specifically homemade ice cream, specifically homemade eggnog ice cream). Done and done.

We gathered all the siblings and Grandma scooped up a couple cousins and met us for an open jump session at Pump It Up. They love nothing more than exhausting themselves with two straight hours of running, jumping, climbing, and sliding. They each had their own style on the giant slide. (I somehow missed a picture of Mary on the slide. Oops!)

Gussie surprised me because even though he was technically too small to tackle much of the obstacles on his own, he climbed everything anyway without a second thought. That actually worked out well because I was feeding Teresia most of the time we were there so I couldn't help him much (and I don't think she's ready for bounce houses anyway, even wrapped up in a carrier).

Other than the slide, I think their favorite thing is this game where you have to try to run up a really steep hill and slap a velcro flag on the highest target you can reach. Catherine and Mary did pretty well after some practice, but it was also really fun to watch Kali. She tried and failed for about 30 minutes to reach those targets, but finally got one at the end. I think she just had to master her warm-up technique and her game face first.



When our legs were about to give out, we went to Grandma's house to meet the great-grandparents for ice cream and presents. I couldn't get 8 candles in quickly melting ice cream, so I stuck four together in a clump so they made a giant flame.

We all had a lovely afternoon, but the lack of pictures is a reminder of how difficult it is to wield a camera with a wiggly 2-month-old grabbing at your face.

I don't remember much trepidation about having and caring for babies when Catherine was born; I was pretty confident in my ability to handle that part. The terror set in when she was a few months old and I realized she was inevitably going to grow into a not-baby, that I would soon be responsible for raising a toddler, a preschooler, an elementary kid, a pre-teen! I was 100% convinced that those things were impossible tasks for a mere human and we would all be best off if I could find a way to be the one in charge only while they were still babies; what to do after that point was a serious black hole of a mystery.

Thankfully it seems parents can grow right along with the littles (and not-so-littles) and getting to this point hasn't been the least bit terrifying. In fact, I can't really imagine anything better.

And even though Catherine is 8 and super duper cool now,

I love that she still really enjoys holding her (adoring) sister's hand and climbing into an oversized chair.

Or pulling her brothers down the sidewalk in the wagon at roller coaster speed.

And snuggling the baby in the family.

Happy Birthday, Cat-Cat!

Gussie Translation Files

Gussie talks up a storm right now and (I'm guessing) has a pretty good vocabulary for a two year old. As he picks up more and more words, obviously there are going to be some initial missteps here and there. It's one of my favorite things about two year olds.

If he tells you he wants "Grandma Eggs", what he really wants are scrambled eggs.

When he asks if he can have pepper in his milk, he wants you to put a drop of peppermint extract in it.

Of course my favorite is when Gussie asks me to come "nuggle" him at bed time. I can't resist a nuggle request from him.

Although it's also pretty great when his baby comes "unwaddled" and he asks me to "waddle her back up".

They Just Don't Stop Growing

Well, after a nearly month-long visit, Dema and Grampy T have made it safely back to their boat home. While a cancer scare is one of the worst possible ways to extend a visit, the kids are pretty immune to that kind of thing (after all, their only experience with it at this point is knowing Uncle Tommy fought and recovered full Dominating status) and therefore found the extra time to be nothing but fun. And once the "scare" part was over and we were on the the "thankful it was only a scare" part, I think the adults enjoyed the extra time as well.

That kind of thing can sometimes make it feel like time and everything else goes on by while you stand still for a bit, but since every day is pretty much a new phase when it comes to a newborn, it's impossible to miss the growth; there's a big difference between a 3-week-old and a 7-week-old!

She barely looks like a newborn anymore (and Catherine, a week shy of 8)!

Those first few weeks are all sleeping, eating, eating while sleeping, dozing, dozing while eating, and more eating. Since I'm pretty sure the eating hasn't been cut down at all, Teresia must be sleeping a little less because she has tons of awake and alert time now, which the kids love. And she smiles at all of them! But she doesn't smile for the camera. Once she sees the camera, we only get quizzical or furrowed eyebrows.

I put Teresia back in her baptism dress last week to try and get a picture to print because I failed to do that on her actual baptism day. I pretty much failed again, but I did get this lovely face. Catherine and Mary saw the picture at different times, and both said she looks like she's singing (and Mary added "like an angel").

I'm pretty sure I've only purposely put her on her tummy once before this, a couple weeks ago, and when I did she promptly rolled over onto her back. The experts say being carried upright in a wrap or sling works the same muscles as "tummy time", so if your baby doesn't spend an inordinate amount of time lying on her back, then you don't need to force tummy time in order to develop her core and neck muscles properly. She looks like she's doing fine to me. (cue quizzical eyebrows for the camera)

Oh, and I did weigh Teresia last week. She was well over nine pounds, so clearly her occasional projectile spitup is not impeding her growth (although it has managed to disable my laptop mouse pad). I'm not sure how long she is now, but her toes stretch against the tips of her newborn sleepers that used to be a little big, so I'm just going to go with "longer than she was". Her legs are getting stronger also; she likes to be held standing up and if she's lying on your lap with her feet towards you, she could easily launch herself off with a good kick.