Tee hee

A girl after my own heart

My first two girls are not big eaters, not really even with sweets.  Anna does love chocolate, but if someone tries to give her another kind of candy, she'll practically gets offended, explaining with some hostility, "I don't like candy!"

But then there's Miss Ally!

I'd bought a bag of Reese's peanut butter cups for Dave's lunches.  Yesterday I was holding Ally, and I couldn't resist anymore.  I went to the cupboard and got myself one.  After I unwrapped it and took a bite, Ally reached frantically for the rest.  I let her take the piece so she could try a bite, but she shoved the entire remaining three-quarters in her mouth. As soon as she tasted it, a look of ecstasy crossed her face.  I smiled, thinking, "Yeah, Sweetpea, I know!"  But, then her look changed to one of distress.  She realized there was more she could have had, and she began reaching between my lips, determined to pry the bite that she didn't get out of my mouth!

Fine!

Anna is stubborn.  I can say that with authority, because I am excessively stubborn.

This morning, Anna and I had a twenty-five minute battle over whether she was going to wipe herself after she peed.  (She didn't want to, and I said it was time she started.)  Although I wouldn't back down, her hysteric howling from the bathroom, echoing though the house despite a closed door, had me ready to snap.  Finally I got Dave, and within two minutes Anna had wiped herself.  I'd like to believe that I'd "loosened the cap," that she was about ready to back down and that was why it was so easy for Dave convince her.

This afternoon we had another stand off.  It has been a battle to get Anna to take her vitamins for months.  We even let her pick out a different brand when the giant bottle of Tinkerbell vitamins she'd picked out in spring were finally gone.  So, today, after lunch, when she asked me to play Toy Story and her vitamins were still untouched from breakfast time, I said I'd play with her just as soon as she took her vitamins.  This resulted in the usual:  Anna repeatedly yelling variations of, "No!  I want you to play Toy Story with me now!"  Me responding once with a calm, "We'll play right after you eat your vitamins," and then some forced ignoring.

I was positively radiant when I heard Anna stop yelling her repetitions and yell a fierce, "FINE!"  Unfortunately, when I went to watch her take her vitamins so I could play with her, I discovered it wasn't a "Fine.  I'll take my vitamins."  It was a "Fine.  I'll play by myself."

Bath time for babies!

One down...

We finished Anna's costume today.  Just three more to go...

Anna wanted to be Ladybug Girl, from the book series by David Soman and Jacky Davis.

We bought the boots and shirt but made the rest..  Anna even made some of the tutu by herself!

Please take away Mommy's sewing machine!

"Another bowtie, Mommy?"

"You don't really think I'm going to wear this, do you?"

Question of the day

We have two playrooms for the kids to play in, not to mention their two bedrooms, the living room, and, heck, even the kitchen.

So, why is it that, while I tried to make dinner, all four of my kids decided to play in the downstairs bathroom, which is barely bigger than a port-a-potty?

The perfect afternoon

I don't know that I enjoy anything more than spending a fall afternoon in an apple orchard.

Pickle Recipe

Nearly every time we visited my Grandma and Grandpa Hertel, my sister or I would drop a not-so-subtle hint about how much we loved pickles, and my grandpa would obediently fetch a new jar from the basement and my grandma would slice them onto a plate for us.

Many years later, when Dave and I were first married, I grew cucumbers and dill in the garden I'd made from tilling up the small plot of grass we had as a yard.  I called my grandma, asked her countless questions, and wrote this onto an index card:

I will now share the recipe in a way you can understand without having had a phone call with my grandma.

Grandpa Hertel's Pickles

Jars

Lids

Rings

Medium Large Pot

Very Large Pot

Pickling Cucumbers

Whole Heads of Fresh Dill

Brine

1 Qt. Vinegar

4 Qt. Water

1 Cup Salt

1 1/2 Tsp. Alum

1.  Sterilize jars, lids, and rings.

2.  Wash dill and brush cucumbers.

3.  Pack jars with dill in the bottom and center of the cucumbers.

4.  Boil brine in medium-large pot.  Boil several inches of water in a very large pot too (hot water bath).

5.  Pour brine over cucumbers and dill to the very top of the jar.  Wipe rim of jar, put on lid and secure with ring.

6.  Put jar into the hot water bath.

7.  Repeat with all of the jars.

8.  Leave pickles in hot water bath for approximately 15-20 minutes until pickles turn color.

9.  Remove from bath and allow to cool.

10.  Wait two weeks before eating.

This amount of brine makes about 9 quarts of pickles.

From the mouths of babes

I finished venting in that last post and began giving the kids lunch.  Luke was doing his "screaming thing," which I can best describe by asking you to picture what a pterodactyl would have sounded like while getting brutally attacked by a tyrannosaurus... but not just a regular pterodactyl, a really, really loud, really annoying one.

As I took a deep breath and turned to get Anna some milk, Anna said something I didn't hear... you know, because of the screeches. I asked her to repeat herself, and I heard, "I'm losing my mind with all this screaming!"

Allow me a moment of therapy

I'm struggling.

Luke and Ally...  They...

Well, Kate... she's...

And, actually, Anna...  Well...

It's a little of everything.

Kate's having a hard time adjusting to full days at school, and she comes home a complete mess.  She cries at the drop of a hat, picks fights with Anna, and she's even been defiant with me at times, something that is completely not her.

Anna's been acting out.   It's not that bad, really.  But it makes me worry, probably illogically, that she's going to become extremely difficult again, like she was when I was pregnant.

My biggest struggles, by far, are issues with Luke and Ally.  About a week ago, I decided that I'd wean them.  It was an incredibly hard decision.  If the situation allowed, I could definitely nurse them until they were two.  But, I realized a couple things.  First of all, when I offered them cuddles and cups (of breast milk) they usually didn't miss nursing.  Considering that along with everything I've read confirming it's much harder to wean a child over 18 months, it doesn't seem right to make it eventually harder on them just so I can nurse a little longer. Secondly, it was getting hard to nurse them, because any time I tried to nurse one, the other would become incredibly jealous.  Even if I nursed them at the same time, they'd usually push at the each other.  Weaning has been hard on me.  Luke and Ally have been really... for lack of a better description, grumpy, and, although I logically know it started before the weaning did, I feel I'm causing their unhappiness because I'm not nurse them.

Their grumpiness alone would be enough to make me slightly crazy.  One or the other is crying most of the day.  They both want to be held constantly, and they often both want something else, which they usually can't have and which they, especially Luke, express with loud, piercing screams.

The other thing that's going on is their fighting.  They both always want what the other has.  I've put aside the notion of teaching them to share just yet and I've located two of just about everything.  This has done nothing to help, since they now both want two of everything.  When one of them had something the other wants, it used to just cause a lot of screaming and crying, but now it's gone a giant step farther.  Ally began biting Luke a few weeks ago.  Although she left temporary marks, nothing lasted.  But Luke has now began taking revenge, and he's making his bites count.  Poor Ally!  She's had some pretty bad, lasting marks.  He bit her on the elbow Monday.  I actually caught him in the act on camera while trying to get a picture of how cute they were on the slide together.  Then he bit her just up the arm Tuesday.  And, yesterday...  First he bit her on the ear, leaving it a big, red, swollen sore.  When I decided to nurse her, because she was just inconsolable, he crawled over and chomped on the foot.  I swear he needs a muzzle.

Okay.  I feel better after spewing out that long list of complaints.

The wai-ai-ting is the hardest part

(I used to love Tom Petty!)

Two weeks is way, way, way too long for a three-year-old to wait to try the pickles she helped make.

In truth we tried one jar while they were still warm, after two torturously long hours.  Those weren't really tasty.

But, I'm proud to report they're quite delish after one week!

Growth charts

They had free growth charts at the library.  I got one for each of the kids and hung them in the basement.  Anna was pretty excited to keep track of how tall she was.  After I labeled them with their names and hung them in the laundry room, I told Anna the charts were ready.  As we headed downstairs, I said, "Let's go downstairs and see how tall you are. How tall do you think you'll be?"  She didn't respond right away, so I asked, "Do you think you'll be 100 feet?"  That's when she told me, "I think I'll be the same tall as I am right now."

Current obsession

A couple days ago I saw the most adorable picture of my cyber friend Alinh's son wearing a homemade bow tie on her blog.  That did me in; I was hooked.  While running errands yesterday I picked up a few pieces of fabric and constructed one for Luke.  Now I just need to get him a dress shirt.

My last hour

In the last hour, Luke woke up from his nap screaming, covered in vomit with a diaper full of poop... poop, which I got all over myself trying to carry him to the tub.  While Ally was in the hall while I bathed Luke, her diaper shifted and she peed everywhere.  Then, since I stripped my poop and vomit covered clothes off, a newly weaned Ally saw my breasts and threw a 15 plus minute screaming tantrum, and Mason snuck out and trampled all over the tile the contractor had just laid in the mud room.

Camp Melbye

We'd planned with our friends next door to have the dads and kids camp out in the back yards on Friday, a beautiful late summer day.  Since there was rain in the forecast, we rescheduled for last night instead.

We had a fun dinner off the grill, but just as we were about to light the campfire the seemingly clear skies began to drop rain on us.  

We made the best of it, enjoying a beautiful rainbow between rain showers, and each downing our share of slightly soggy s'mores.  And then Dave and the girls toughed it out, undeterred by the rain or the 49 degree weather!

Celebrating Kate's first day

Kate poses with her first day cupcakes.
That's her first day meal of ziti still running down her chin.

And, so Anna didn't feel left out...

YUM!

No, I *don't* want to come to your "party"...

...but I will, because I like you.

Let me preface this sure-to-be rant by saying that I have absolutely nothing against the people who have these parties or sell these products.  Some of my favorite people do both.  This is just my personal opinion about the parties themselves.

It happens every month.  I open a piece of mail that, because of the return address of a friend, looks promising and I see the line.  Or I get an email from a friend and see the line in the subject.

"Come to my (insert direct-sale company here) party!"

Oh, that's f&*%ing terrific!  Of course I'll come.  Why wouldn't I want to come to your house and feel forced to buy something I felt no need for just hours earlier?

The first direct-sale party I attended was Pampered Chef.  I was barely 20 years old at the time, and I didn't have a dollar to spare.  Understanding I was expected to buy something, I bought one of the cheapest things in the catalog, only to be hit with a shipping charge that was nearly as much.

Since then, I've learned that Pampered Chef is actually one of the better parties to get stuck attending.   It's better than the jewelry parties where you pay over $45 for an item that would be priced $15 at Kohl's, and that's before the 15% off coupon.  That's not to mention Tastefully Simple and Wildtree.  You'll want to avoid those unless you've been looking to buy boxes of bread mixes that cost more than a fancy bakery would dream of charging for the actual bread.  The newest one to reach my group of friends is Thirty-One.  That's perfect for you if you've been waiting for an opportunity to buy a lunch bag or purse for twice what nearly identical ones would cost at Target.  But if you want to feel real pressure, be sure to find one of the companies that play off a mother's insecurity.  And to think, before Discovery Toys, Usbourne Books, and Simply Fun, I was going to let me kids remain stupid and understimulated with just the games/books/toys we already had falling off the overloaded shelves in the playroom!

The whole home "party" thing, and it's ridiculous they're called parties, is just greed wrapped up in an uncomfortable social situation.  There's the company who sucker people into selling their product.  These consultants are then forced to sucker other people into having parties.  The people having the parties are either doing it because they feel obligated to do it for a friend, or they're doing it to get free stuff.  If they're doing it out of obligation, as I recently did, it epitomizes the uncomfortable social situation, because the person having the party then has to invite (read: sucker) more of their friends who feel obligated to come and then feel obligated to buy.  No matter how many times I insisted people didn't have to come or didn't have to buy anything, most of them did.  And if the people having the party are doing it for free stuff... that's nothing but greedy.  We all have to pay too much for things we probably don't want so a friend can get free stuff.

So, as I said, of course, I'll come to your party.  I want to sit around feeling uncomfortable with a group of people I don't know and listen to someone I have never met preach about why my life is incomplete because I don't have the items in the catalog on my lap.

Would it be horrible to just get together and talk instead?

First day

Today was Kate's first day of kindergarten, her very first day leaving for anything "all day."

She was incredibly excited.  I'm proud to report that I dropped her off with a hug, kiss, high five, and a big smile.  I held back the tears until after I walked away.

It's already been so different around here without her.  No one to play with Anna while I care for the babies, no one to help me in a pinch.  It's going to take some getting used to.  But, I know she's having a great time!

Waiting for sister's bus

My one-year-olds