Worms in the microwave

I was at a family gathering on Sunday. My sister's son Mark was there, he is 5. To say he loves bugs does not remotely give you an idea of the passion contained in him. When I arrived he excited dragged me outside to see "a urprise!" He walked me out to my mom's back porch where she had an old dead microwave she had just replaced. Inside said microwave was... rocks. Great big rocks, a stick and a dandelion. The real surprise was.... "Look a snuggly worm!"  Of course that worm was snuggly with rocks in a microwave.

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When I was trying to teach Caleb how to spell his name I used the "Bingo" song and replaced the letters with Caleb's name. Caleb caught on pretty quickly how to say what letters are in his name ( we are still working on the writing it out part. ) Phebe also memorized this song quickly. Her letters fit very nicely in there too so I tried to teach her the letters that apply for her name. Sometimes she gets it, sometimes she doesn't. Sometimes you get songs like "P-h-l-e-b, P-h-l-e-b, P-h-l-e-b and Phebe is her name-o".

Yay! Another one!

In case you haven't been let in on the secret yet, I am pregnant.

Yes. Seriously. Baby number 5 should be joining us at the beginning of October. Our whole family is very excited. Since I have a boys and girls already I will not purposely find out the gender of this baby. I like surprises.

Phebe has declared it will be a girl and will be named "Monster Baby." Her other suggestion was "Cuteness".
Naomi squealed with joy and asked if she was allowed to tell Dad. Dad did a good job of acting surprised by the announcement.
Victor was the one who finally demanded to know why I was suddenly sick all the time.
Caleb just grinned a lot.

Here are some of my random thoughts on pregnancy. I thoroughly detest terms like "preggers","prego", "knocked up" and such. It just makes me cringe.

I also don't understand why the hardest part (at least for me) is the very first part where I am sick constantly, and yet that is when I am not ready to tell the world yet. It is hard not to look like a weirdo with no explanation as to why you keep being on the verge of vomiting.

Here is a bit of unsolicited advice. When dealing with a pregnant woman just tell her she is looking good. Don't say things like "You look huge", "They must have the due date wrong, you are much too large for that", "You look like you are going to pop any moment now, seriously." What on earth am I supposed to say to a comment like that? I have a smiled and mumbled many times, but I don't know how many more times I can muster a smile for dumb comments like that.

Another annoying thing to say is "You're done after this right?" Don't say it. It makes it sound like I am physically stealing the food from your table to feed this growing mob in my house that I am too irresponsible to take care of. Maybe I am done. Maybe I'm not. Maybe you should just be glad Phebe isn't packing lunches at your house. But without her packing lunches, you also miss out on her hysterical logic leaps and constant praise of how "cute you are" and how much she loves you. Kids definitely have their upsides... and their sticky sides.

I guess you could ask if there is a specific number of children we wanted if it means that much to you. The answer is "not really, we'll see where we end up."

I love my kids, I am glad that we have been blessed with them. They truly enrich my life. Though if you ever have a craving for baby love, or toddler love, or preschooler love, or grade schooler love, you are always welcome to come by and enjoy some.

Let's dance

Today is one of those days where I should accomplish something. However I can't say I feel like I have much to show for it. I worked on my lesson for Sunday. I snuggled a sick girl and survived a brief stint of babysitting. Then for naps and the chiropractor. OK, that list almost makes it sound like I did something. My house screams otherwise. Sadly, much of my feelings of accomplishment are tied to the state of my house. You would think it would be clean more often then....

Here is what I found and enjoyed while snuggling sick little Phebe (who by the way is much calmer when nearly unconscious.)

My husband shared this video with me. My kids and I have watched it about 18 times today. I catch new things every time. These guys are amazing. So fun.

I think there may need to be a seizure warning on this next video. It is incredible, but also very strobe
light-esqe.

Victor and I couldn't even figure out how many dancer there were for a long time. I'm still not sure we got the total count correct.

I love it when people work hard on their talents and share them. It makes me smile.

Just gotta move

If you haven't heard of her, let me introduce you to Caro Emerald. I love her voice and her style so much. Here is one of her latest songs that I just love to listen to.

Just take a minute

I needed this reminder. I guess I can hope you don't, that you are doing an awesome job on your own of enjoying the moments.

A little brag

I know that Phebe is really awesome. She gets a lot of screen time here. I do have other children. They are just much calmer and don't make for funny reading often. I am taking a moment here to let you know of my oldest two having some serious honors bestowed recently.

I received some paperwork to have Victor evaluated to be in the gifted program at school. I find this mildly amusing since he has participated all year long without the evaluation. But I am honored that they think he may qualify. Even if he doesn't, I am always impressed with how well he comprehends concepts and comes up with solutions. He really is very intelligent.

Naomi loves art stuff. Loves creating. I just got a paper from school saying that one of her pieces has been selected to be part of the art show at the high school in two weeks. I am very impressed. Of course one of my favorite parts of this, is that she can't remember what it is. She does do lots of art stuff. I guess there is just too much to keep track of.

Victor also followed a recipe and made pancakes for us all with very minimal supervision. As in, I wasn't even in the room for most of the mixing.

Naomi was very cooperative about putting dishes away while Victor cooked. I am so glad that I have such awesome helpers. They are smart and funny and I am glad that they get to live with me.

A spot of honey

The other morning I was helping kids get their rooms clean before school. Naomi had made a piñata for Caleb's birthday, so when Phebe wandered away I figured she was sneaking candy. I didn't really want her doing that but I was in the middle of something and eating a few pieces of candy isn't really that big of a deal.

Eventually she wandered back upstairs and informed me she had some honey in her hair. Um.. Ok. Well go rinse it out then... So she rinsed her hair out and I asked her how she got honey in her hair.

" I was packing my lunch"

Uh... You're three. Let's go see what kind of lunch you packed. She had taken a tupperware container, dumped nearly a pound of honey inside and then hid it in a pop up tunnel. Of course she can't really get the lid on tight and so it has spilled a bit in the tunnel. I guess my husband had warmed it up to use that morning so it was good and liquidy.  The kitchen floor was sticky. She was sticky. The computer desk was sticky. Ethan stuck to his chair when he sat down for dinner.

It could have been much worse. She constantly reminds me that she will never go hungry, she is far too good at taking care of herself for that.

Meet Max

I love my little Caleb . Today is his birthday. He and I had a fabulous trip to the library,just the two of us. On the way back we had this great conversation.

Me: Caleb, you are five years old. Why won't you wear underwear or socks?
Caleb: I don't like them. Why do you guys call me "Bubs" sometimes?
Me: it's just a fun nickname.
C: if I had a different nickname what would it be?
Me: um. I don't know. Do you have any ideas?
C: how about Max? I like Max. Maybe I would wear underwear if you called me Max.
Me: really? If I called you Max you would start wearing underwear? How about socks?
C: Socks?! No! I won't wear socks!

So Caleb named Max might give in on underwear.Maybe there is some ultimate nickname that will
inspire socks AND underwear.

Come back....

So Naomi (my 7 year old, 1st grader) gets lost sometimes. Not physically. She just leaves her body and her mind wonders off. (She is reading this over my shoulder and agrees with this statement.) Naomi just spaces out randomly. This can make getting ready for school difficult. In fact that is about the only negative comment her teacher has ever given me "occasionally needs reminders to stay on task.

My sweet neighbor offered her a ride to school a few weeks ago. She accepted. while putting on her coat she zoned out. She was gone. Finally the neighbor asked her if she was ready to go. When she comes back from these adventures she does a funny little shake to snap out of it. When she was shaking back to us the neighbor mistook it as Naomi telling her "no", she didn't want to go with her. I had to step in and explain Naomi had just been in a trance and was coming back.

Luckily this hasn't caused any serious problems as of yet. It makes me laugh most of the time.

Commenting

When you watch videos on line with Phebe you get comments like this-

"I don't like her boots."
"I don't like those pants."
"They have their nipples on."

Wrap it up

Phebe loves to pack bags. Book bags are pretty glamorous. Sadly I haven't learned to go through the contents of them yet. Maybe I will start today.

On Friday she hauled her giant bag up to her room to "take a nap". Sometimes she just sets things on her dresser to get them later. I guess it wasn't the case that day. When I came to retrieve her there was something odd. As I picked her up to snuggle her legs felt strange. That's due to the fact that she had wrapped them knee to ankle in masking tape. I guess I know what was in her bag this time...

Don't worry, she did not cut the circulation off to her feet. She did not enjoy the unwrapping process, especially where it was 6 layers deep and I had to cut it off.

She give a Godzilla a nice tape necklace too.