Babyland

It is very bittersweet to have all my big kids gone.  I know they were ready and needed more challenges and are going to have a fabulous time at their new school.  I also really do like having a tighter age spread and doing only baby things- I feel like I'm able to focus more closely and serve my babies better when I'm not trying to do preschool at the same time.  I miss my big ones though.  Merryweather is my oldest one now- I've got nobody here who walks or talks.  It's such a big change from just a couple weeks ago.

Here are a few pictures from before Alice left.  I made green smoothie for breakfast one morning and she and Merryweather both liked it.  Kinda surprised me- I was expecting more fuss about it, but they sucked it right down.  It actually is pretty good- for sure the only way I'm willing to eat spinach or kale.

Then we walked over to the elementary school to have lunch with Duchess.  Now that I have a new quad stroller, we can actually get inside.  The last one I had was about two inches wider and it wouldn't fit through the front door.  Super annoying.  Now we can travel!!  My kids are always so excited to see the babies, and they like it when I bring them cookies too.  I figure I better do this while they still are happy to see me, right?

I packed a lunch for Alice so she could sit with Duchess like a big girl.  She was pretty impressed at the time, although later when I asked her if she'd had a fun day she told me no.  :)

One of Duchess's friends fell in love with Merryweather and kept her company while Alice was busy eating.


And here is Melody.  The Disney reference is a little more obscure, but in the sequel to the Little Mermaid, it's Ariel and Eric's daughter.  This satisfies my silly rules, since she remains in the mermaid universe with her siblings, and it's pretty close to being a merrybaby too. Close enough anyway.

What? I wasn't gonna touch the baby, I promise!

Maid Marian has slept a lot this week and I haven't gotten too many good pictures of her yet, but I'll put up some more of her soon.

And as far as updates on getting help, my friend is ready to give two weeks' notice at her job as soon as I need her.  If I stay by myself, I'm comfortably full- I have three full time babies and a part time.  If I get two more babies who want to start, then I'll bring in help.  I'm just having to play it by ear and wait on the phone to ring.  :)

Friday Focus: Alice

Look, it's Alice!  I like this picture of her.  It's the current one on her cubby. She's very excited about "hair pretties" these days.  Her mom brought me a whole bunch so I can continually put little piggies in.  Makes everyone happy.

She really is pretty happy most of the time.  This was a rare sad moment I caught and it doesn't even look too sad.  More horrified, or possibly constipated.  :)  Mostly she just plays and talks and makes cupcakes and talks and reads and talks.  Oh, and also talks.

This post has been sitting in draft because she has SO many awesome one-liners that I get bogged down and overwhelmed when I come to write them down.  She makes me laugh out loud every single day, and her vocabulary is pretty amazing for her age.  She's spending the night tonight.  I was sitting at the table eating mac and cheese with her while my iTunes played on shuffle.  Some song by Material Issue came on, I don't even remember which one.  She starts bopping around in the chair immediately.  "OH!  Ms Kelli, do you like this song?  Will you rock out with me?"

Rock out.  I could die from the cuteness.  And then other days it's like still having Kanga around.  She'll follow me around and say really grown-up sounding things like a coworker would.  "Oh, are you pouring Perdita milk?  That sounds like a good plan."  FOR REAL.  She says things like that all the time.  "I think actually we ate pears last week Ms Kelli."

And I'll say, "would you like some more milk?"  And she says, "That would be a yes."  She kills me.

She got super huggy awhile back- this picture is kind of old since Mater was still here, but it was a really fun morning.  They all went around and took turns hugging, and she was orchestrating it all.  "Okay, now I will hug Remy.  Lady, you hug Mater.  Now I will hug Mater.  Remy, you hug Lady."  It just went on and on and then they started spinning around till they all fell down. 

Right now she's enjoying cupcakes and dinosaurs.  Oh, and the Three Bears still.  Officially we've finished the unit, but we still talk about it and read the book at least a couple times a week.  I eat pretend cupcakes probably 30 times a day too.  And she still loves anything blue.  Cracks me up.  "This is blue!  Blue is my color!  I like it!  It is pretty like me!"

And it absolutely is.

Park Love

One day last week it was not very hot (or so it seemed to me from my air-conditioned house) so we ventured out for a walk.  Now that I've settled into keeping five, only one has to actually walk, and my kids are there to take turns holding hands too so it makes it really easy. 

Usually Alice walks.  Duchess and O'Malley like walking with her, until they get tired of answering all her questions.  Then she helps me push the stroller and tells me things for a few minutes while their ears rest.  :)

I still am not entirely sure why I love pictures of kids walking so much, but I continue to take a ton of them and they make my heart squish every time.

We walked around the block and my kids were bugging to go home.  I had the brilliant idea to stop at the park instead.  The Merrybabies stayed in the stroller and I alternated between pushing it up and down the sidewalk in the shade while pushing the swings a few times.  It was a nice change of pace.

The blue swing, OF COURSE.  Alice's love of all things blue borders on obsession at the moment.  Duchess loves that about her- makes them kindred spirits.

Remy, serious and pondering as usual.  He's such a quiet little guy most of the time.  "Are you having a good time?" I ask with a big smile.  "Yes." he tells me very emphatically but with no smile.

Duchess and Perdita working through the mechanics of the big girl swing.  Didn't last very long but it was cute.

We only stayed about ten minutes and then we all were very hot and tired.  I walked back home pushing the quad stroller and herding Alice, who was dragging behind and wanting to sit down.  Finally I put her on my shoulders so I could walk faster.  I'm sure I looked like a crazy person, pushing the huge stroller and holding on to Alice with my other hand.  She didn't trust me a bit and was quite sure I was going to let her fall.  She kept putting her hands over my eyes so I had to stop and adjust.  We made it almost a block before she begged to get down.  So I put her in the stroller and gave Perdita a chance to run.  Girl can book it with the promise of ice water and Mickey Mouse.

It was so fun!!  But I don't think we'll do it again until October or so.  The back yard is about all we can handle these days in the heat.  :)

Show Off Day

Ms Mimmie did a show off day this week for the parents to come and see what we've been doing in class.  Predictably, some of them were reluctant to show off and spent the time huddled in mom or dad's lap.  I took a bunch of video and pictures today during class to try to get a more accurate representation of the day.  They all love it- it's really fun to see them marching around and blasting off. 

You can tell the minute Remy sees me filming him.  All moving stops immediately and he just stares at me suspiciously.

Some more fun blasting off shots.  This whole month they've been grooving to the space music from an old Mother Goose Time theme.  It's actually one of my old CDs.  I ripped them all to my iTunes and gave them to her so she could use them in her classes.  The kids are somewhat familiar with the songs since they hear them when we play music during meals and it's been fun to keep the same theme going all month.

Merryweather wanted so badly to be dancing with the big kids.  She was singing and kicking so much that Mimmie decided to give her a turn with the log roll.

SUCH CUTENESS I CANNOT STAND IT.

Catching Up

All the tutorials about blogging always say that you should never start out a post with an apology for how long it's been since your last one.  So I won't apologize.  But I'm thinking about it.  It's been a month!  I haven't even done Friday Focus or anything.  Oh well... real life is happening, and I guess that's more important than documenting it.

My Merrybabies are getting so big.  They're sassy and fat and happy and oh my I love them.  Merida is actually shaping up to be a possible redhead, I think, although it could certainly change.  She doesn't have a ton of hair yet and it's still in that state where it could go either way.  She's gotten super smiley lately and is a joy to be around.  She's rolling and scootching a pretty good amount these days too and sometimes is five feet away from where I laid her down in a pretty short time.  Pretty great for four months old!  Her grip is amazing too.  I can't find the post, but I know I've talked before about how if you take something from a firstborn, they may cry, but they give it up easily.  A second child knows from day one that the older sibling will try to take stuff away and they hold on TIGHT.  We refer to it as the second child grip, and pretty much every second child really does have it.  Well.  Miss Merida is a third child.  The other day I went to pick her up out of the exersaucer and she lifted it off the floor with her.  The girl is serious. 

Merryweather is a champion sitter and loves to play the piano.  She doesn't care much about rolling just yet- she might do it once if she feels like it, but at this point she would rather use her newfound loud and shrieky voice to see if I will bring her things instead of working on getting them herself.  Can't say I blame her much on that count.  It gets quick attention and it's easier.  :)  My current favorite thing about her is her fierce love.  When you pick her up, she lunges at you with both arms, wraps around your neck and hugs you tight, all while trying to kiss your face ferociously with her wide open drooly mouth.  It's sometimes a tiny bit startling, but it is very awesome.

Only two weeks left before Mater and Lady go off to their new school.  It's definitely going to be different.  I've already started rearranging the playroom a little and trying to figure out the best toys and space for my new crew.  Well, not new, because I don't have any new ones starting right away, but it makes it feel all new whenever I add or subtract anybody from my mix.  I got a new braided rug for the playroom and Mater spent a lot of time diving onto it and rolling around today.  It was pretty cute.  I'm glad they are enjoying it- I love it.  Makes it seem much more cozy and we spent most of the morning all lying on it and playing.



Remy has learned to take off his pants.  He takes them off sometimes during his nap, and most days I can tell they've been off because they're a little twisted, but it's not too bad.  The other day though, he was magnificent in his inability to fix his drawers.  It made me laugh a whole lot and then he got his feelings a little hurt.  Lots of pant-fixing and hugging after this shot.  :)



Ms Mimmie is still coming every Friday and the kids are really enjoying tumbling time with her.  I think she wants to do a showoff day soon so all the parents can come watch.  Should be fun.

 They're doing pretty well at sitting in a line and waiting for their turn.  Sometimes they wander, but they're getting the hang of it.

And not to be left out or undone, Alice and Perdita love my Viking hats.  They call themselves "Fakings" and they run around wearing hats.  Perdita usually makes me sing songs about it too.  And when I took this picture I may possibly have been wearing the tall pink hat from Duchess's Mad Hatter costume.  Maybe.

Stream of Consciousness

My little people chatter all day long.  Some of them never stop talking- not while they eat, while they play, or while they're in bed- right up until they fall asleep mid-sentence.  I like to talk too.  Most of the time this works out nicely.  They tell me things, I ask more questions, and life carries on.  Other times I'm in the middle of something and not paying 100% attention so they trail along behind me talking and talking.

Today I was trying to get dinner going.  It takes all day and I forgot to rinse the beans last night so I was setting them up for a quick soak.  I had help.

"Kelli?  Whatcha doing?  Those are beans?  What beans?  Pin- TOE beans?  Oh. You put water?  You cook them?  Is that a clock?  oh, a scale?  You get beans?  I have nipple!"

At that point I did a double take and stopped my bean patter.  Sure enough, she's standing there pointing at it.

"Actually, you have two of them."  I mean really, what else is there to say at that point?

"Oh!  Yes!  I have two nipples!  I cook beans with you?"

And we're off and running again.

Playtime

There's not been anything especially new or exciting the past couple weeks- but every day is fun.  We've been working with Mr. Potato Head more lately- they are all enjoying it a lot, even Merryweather, who can sit up on her own for a couple minutes now.  She's been thinking she's one of the big kids now that I have Merida.  It's really amazing how fast kids get skills.  She loves to sit in the living room with a bucket of toys to practice her grabbing and sitting.

And really, Mr. Potato Head just never gets old.  We spent a large portion of the morning discussing body parts and making real faces and silly ones.




Alice is convinced that she is Doc McStuffins. It pleases her greatly. She wore that stethoscope all morning.



Merryweather watches the boys with wide-eyed interest.  They move too fast to even take a clear picture.

I also was able to take them out a couple days last week in the new stroller.  I love the view both looking down and looking out.  :)  My kids are teaching the walking ones what to do.  (I used to call my big kids the walkers, but after the Walking Dead I just can't do it.)  Only as far as the next mailbox if a big kid is running with you, otherwise stay with the stroller.  Freeze your feet when a car comes.  Don't touch dogs.  All that good stuff....

Alice, on her way back to give me a high five.  Mater and O'Malley stomping acorns up ahead.  All is right with the world.

Baby toes!  Best thing ever.

And as previously mentioned, here's Merryweather hanging out in the living room with her own personal toys.  She's getting pretty good at the sitting thing.

One of the most fun things about Mr. Potato Head is trying to wear the glasses on your own head.  It never works well, but it continues to be super cool to try.

Caterpillar Wrapup

Today we are finishing up our Very Hungry Caterpillar unit.  It's stretched out for six weeks or so and everybody has really enjoyed it.  Tomorrow we'll begin some Dr. Seuss things and then next week will be full-on Seuss week.

I've tried to record our wall reading of the book before and usually somebody starts yelling about other stuff or falls off the couch or what have you.  I was pleased that today I finally got the whole thing on tape, so to speak.  It's 3 minutes so I don't know if it will even upload, but this is what we do every day.  I read the actual book during circle time while they're sitting, and then some days they like me to use the pointer for the wall pictures so that they can retell the story.  As you can see, they all have it memorized, even though some are more verbal than others.  :)  I'm looking at you, Miss Alice who isn't even two yet!!  You have to turn the volume to hear her, but she lists off ALL the foods that the caterpillar ate on Saturday when he got a tummyache.  It's kind of impressive.

Then for lunch I served as many of the foods from the book as I could find in my kitchen.  We had apple, strawberry, orange, tiny piece of chocolate cake and a smidge of ice cream, pickle, swiss cheese, and salami.  I really, really enjoyed watching Perdita's face while she ate her pickle.  She ended up spitting it out and I couldn't catch the twisted expressions.  She looks way too normal here.

All the gang, ready to eat!

 Digging in amidst discussion.

 Lady inspecting the cheese.

Here's a closeup of the plate.  I didn't allow seconds of the chocolate, even though it really was tiny bites.  They don't need it.  A couple of them didn't even touch it anyway.  I think only Alice and Mater ate it.  They all loved the fruit, of course, and several of them really liked the salami and cheese.  Alice and Mater chowed down on thirds and fourths of pickles too.

It's kind of an unorthodox lunch, but they all had a wonderful time and it initiated lots of fun lunch discussion.  I like that.

Sending home copies of the caterpillar book today for those few who don't already own it.  Green eggs and ham for breakfast tomorrow!!!

Christmas Baking

We did some cut-out cookies this morning.  I said to Alice, "HEY!  You wanna help me bake some cookies?"  Oh yes.  She did.  "Yes!  Cookies!  Alice eat cookies!  Alice help!  Alice roll!"  The guys are much more go-with-the-flow when it comes to helping out.  They sort of fade in and out and do what they feel like, while chanting COOKIE! COOKIE!  Not so much like Cookie Monster, more like Animal from the Muppets.  The girls tend to want to be right there the whole time and stick their noses in every part of the process.

So we had a big discussion about keeping fingers out of mouths while we work with cookies.  I knew that would be my biggest challenge.  Several of my friends very seldom have an empty mouth.  And it was true.  We washed hands at least five times during this.  Quite an ordeal.

I did each child's initial, and then some assorted shapes.  B!  B for Alice!  Well no.  That's not B, and your name doesn't start with B.  But A for effort!  All the kids know some letters, and some can sing the ABC song, but it's still a crapshoot about whether they'll call the right one at the right time.

 So Alice helped.  Alice rolled.

 Alice pressed.

 And then Mater rolled.

 Mater chose cutters.

 Remy rolled.

And Alice cried piteously at my betrayal.  After all, I asked HER to help bake.  The boys weren't even in the kitchen at the time.  This was our special thing and we were going steady and how DARE I let those stinky boys have a turn.

And then we washed hands again.

And rolled and pressed more cookies.  Stars.  "Star!  Alice eat the star."  Well, maybe you can give this one to your mama!  "Oh!  Mama eat the star!  Mama bite.  Mama eat.  Star for mama."

I let them eat the tiny bits that I cut out of the middles of the letters- the A and B and P and all those.  They're annoyed that's all they get right now, but hey!  Cookies for families!

Merry Christmas.  I love and appreciate all my families so much.

The New Normal

So it's just me again, the way it used to be, except it's totally different now that I've had Kanga here so long.  I miss her, for so many reasons.  The companionship, the humor, the shoulder, and oh my, the cleaning.  :)  Having her leave right at the time Merryweather started has been extra challenging because I'm getting used to having a newborn again with less help all at once.  It's not overwhelming in terms of the kids- six is not a problem for me.  But the toddler and infant schedules tag team each other and most days there is very little time for straightening up.  Things are not neat and tidy at 5:30, and I'm a lot more tired at the end of the day and hate to face my kitchen for dinner when it's messy. 

And there are less crafts.  I like doing crafts.  I miss doing them with the kids, especially at holiday time when I feel like I should be sending home reindeer and snow and fun treaty goodness.  But we're cooking a lot- they're helping me with meals a lot more since there's not a second person to keep them busy in the playroom.  It's a lot of fun to answer questions and tell them all about our food.  I'm sitting on the floor in the playroom a lot and just talking with them, and singing, and building blocks and reading books and what color is this and what letter is that and what sound does it make and and and....  we're definitely having fun.  I'm still figuring what things to switch around to make it work more smoothly, and I expect to be back in the craft groove soon.  Hopefully Merryweather's schedule will be a bit more consistent at that point too.  Right now she does whatever she likes- you get to do that when you're two months old.  Not knowing when she might be awake or hungry changes our schedule daily, but it's all good. 

 O'Malley is crazy in love with her.  He's about the same age now that Duchess was when big sister Aurora was here, so it's funny to have this relationship again- one of my kids and one of the Sleeping Beauty clan.   He was beyond proud when I let him feed her for a minute the other day.

Then she farted.  And not only did it shake the couch, the stench would make you flee the county.

 So he's yelling, "MAMA!!!  Come get Merryweather!  She tooted and it is SO STINKY!!"

I was right there, of course, but I was laughing too hard to rescue him immediately.

I was telling my hubby one day last week that I needed something exciting and somewhat physical to do with them since we're not venturing outdoors these days with a tiny one.  He reminded me that we own a parachute.  OH YEAH!  I completely forgot about it.  They had such a good time.  Alice especially loves it.  We sing songs and shake and push and pull.  

 Of course they kept wanting to sit on it and hide under it too, which is fun.  We also bounced balls on it, and worked lots on the gross motor skills with holding the handles and how much to move your arms to make it do different things.  Remy was funny- he kept wanting to wear the handles around his wrists like bracelets and then they would slide right off as soon as the others started to shake.  I couldn't get a picture because it was happening so fast.

 Merryweather approved.  She's just starting to give me regular smiles.  LOVE that I caught one.

Alice and Lady are starting to be excited about clips and bows.  Alice calls them "hair pretties", which is a term that we've all appropriated very quickly.  This morning she was quite pleased with her purple sparkly flower, and I dug one out of Lady's box for her to wear too.  Consequently, Mater hit the floor in a full body tantrum.  The man needed a hair pretty.  He wasn't buying the argument that most boys don't wear them, so I found him one too.  I figure it won't kill him.  A pink hair clippie is good for improving the soul of every boy, right?

And then all was right with his world, and the three of them chatted and patted each other's heads and praised their loveliness.  He wore it about ten minutes and then it disappeared.  I still haven't seen it.  I'm putting my money on the couch cushions. 

Feast Preparations

I had such a good time with the kids yesterday, getting ready for our Thanksgiving feast today.  Alice, Lady, and Mater got to be the big kids for the first time and they SO enjoyed it.  It took all morning to do just a couple things, but I really loved having them help. 

The first thing we did was wash the potatoes.  Everybody wanted a turn with the stool and the water.  Very exciting.

 Mater takes his job seriously.

 All nice and clean.

 And into the pot they go.

Once we had them cooking, the next task was to smash gluten free graham crackers so we could make our pie crust.  I put them in a bag and told Alice to jump on them.

 I'm sorry, you want me to do WHAT?

 Clearly you have lost your mind- we don't jump on food.

Mater had no such concerns.  He leaped in with both feet.

 Then Lady decided it was okay so the two of them jumped.

 Alice is still not really sure why I'm asking them to break the food.  It just doesn't seem right to her.

After the crust was done, we started in with the apples for the filling.  None of them could really get the hang of turning the corer, but the girls both wanted a turn up close to it to watch.  Mater got bored of cooking and went to play trains.  I think he was pleased to have the playroom to himself for awhile. 

Then we sauteed the apples with butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon.  They were thrilled to be able to actually stir real food on the real stove.  And nobody got burned, which is especially nice in my opinion.  :)

Later on after the potatoes were done, I mixed them and then had beaters of mashed potatoes up for grabs.  I offered one to Lady.  I'm pretty sure she was expecting frosting.  Potatoes throw your wheels off real bad when you want frosting, it turns out.

 She told me very seriously, "NO.  Don't like it."

And then after that nobody else would even try it.  They ran from the beaters like I was offering poison.

 Remy doesn't usually talk to me, but he yelled NO! at me today.

And Perdita barely licked it and then scurried backwards with her mouth open, wishing she could scrape her tongue.  She looks like she's happy here, but really she's drooling and trying not to taste the potatoes in her mouth.

Silly children.  Mashed potatoes are so good!

Last night I made jello salad, there's pumpkin pie in the oven now, and we'll have the rest of the sides done by noon.  Excited to see everyone!!