Formerly known as

Baby Sasha likes things her own way. She's not one to just go with the flow. Right now Baby Sasha will only wear pink dresses, which, is actually better than her nightgown phase she was in last month. But, this might be more clear if I explain that Baby Sasha is the only name to which the toddler formerly known as Ally will now respond.

Spring

I've been studying photography a little bit in my spare (hahahahahaha) time.  As a result, I think my pictures are getting worse.  Seriously.  I now know the meanings of aperture, f-stop, shutter speed, and ISO, but in practical application... nope, it ain't happening!  I was way better off with the automatic setting.  But, my hope is I'll be able to do as well as automatic soon and then eventually get better.

Unfortunately, (or maybe fortunately) I don't trust myself to drag my expensive camera on most outings, not when I'm already dragging along a couple two-year-olds, all their supplies, and an exuberant puppy, so some of these pictures were from my iPhone anyway.

Foreign languages

I've always been fascinated by foreign languages.  I studied German for a combined ten years, high school, college, and then night classes for a few years.  But, even after I could read and speak it relatively fluently, I could understand next to nothing when I went to Germany.

I guess I did become fluent in a second language.  I'm not sure if it qualifies as foreign, but I do know when Luke asks for his dap he wants a bat.  I know when Ally says, "Lellow my faber," she's saying pink is her favorite color.  Although lellow sounds like yellow it, for some reason, means pink.

And, Anna, never stickler for detail, she's got a vocabulary of her own.  She calls salt sugar and, occasional, sugar salt.  She uses the words Chicago and Mexico interchangeably. When she asks for vaseline on her chili, she means sour cream.  And if she's talking about that stuff we put on apples, it's cinnamon.

All these things I do understand.  It won't do me a lick of good traveling in Europe, but it's very practical knowledge in day to day life.

Look like me

I love kids.  I love how they see the world.

During the chaos of trying to leave gymnastics.  Ally said, "He look like me."

I was curious how a two-year-old sees herself.  "Who looks like you," I asked.

"He do," she said.

I thought it was funny that she said "he," so I wanted to see this kid even more.

I saw a four-year-old with straight brown hair.  "Him?"  I asked.

"No," she said.  Then she pulled me around the corner and pointed to a 3-year-old African American boy with hair growing out to a little bit puffy.  "He look like me."

Okay... she sort of has a point.

It made me curious about what she focuses on when she sees herself, so the next day I google searched some pictures and asked her, "Does this look like you?"  The ones she picked really made me laugh.  She's really focussed on the curls in her hair, I think, because a Caucasian girl with red hair would get a "no" if her hair was straight, but an African American boy would get a "yep," if his hair were a little bit long.  Two examples.

"No."

"Yep."

Bailey, Bailey, Bailey

It was a tough first week with our new puppy. The timing wasn't the greatest, with us all having the stomach flu, and six days of rain. Dave, of course, was as patient as could be, but it was all I could do to not "accidentally" leave her at a park or something the last few days. (Why had I gotten her a microchip?)

But today was good! We got outside, she only had one accident in the house, and she has even been well behaved for a few minutes here and there.

Now, I look at her asleep while the kids take a bath. She just wants to be a part of the family. She's going to grow into a great family dog. I guess I'm falling in love with this incredibly time-consuming collection of hair and super sharp puppy teeth.

Stinker

Ally knows how to get to me.

When I tell her that I love her, she responds, "I lub Daddy."

"But, Ally, I love you so much."

"No," she'll tell me, "You lub Lukey."

Today at gymnastics, I picked her up to show her what Kate was doing.  In the process, I kissed her and I said, "I love you..." then, as I continued with my, evidently, predictable line, she mockingly said it with me, "I lub you tho much!"

When I looked at her, she just giggled.

Another "Oh, Anna!" moment

At lunch one Tuesday, Anna told Dave and me, "I know what we can get Kate for her birthday.  Turkey!  She keeps asking for turkey, and you never get it for her."

I just chuckled, ignoring the vegetarian/meat issue, and said to Dave, "Speaking of her birthday, maybe we should get Kate an American Girl Doll."

Kate has been asking for one for months.  I have been pushing it aside, refusing to spend that kind of money on a doll, but my resolve has started to weaken.

Hearing me say this, Anna started begging, "I want an American Girl Doll."

I just shook my head and said, "Well, we'll consider getting you one for your eighth birthday, too, Anna."

"I want one now."  Then she began  trying a method she'd heard Kate use (Evidently she didn't realize Kate had no luck with this approach.), "Everyone in my class has one."

"Anna," I said, shaking my head, "I highly doubt that."

"Yeah, Cheyenne, Francisco, and Yuwen have one."

She couldn't have picked less likely kids if she had tried.  For one thing, the last two are boys.

"Anna," I said, looking her in the eyes, "Do you even know what an American Girl Doll is?"

"Well...no."

In case two weren't enough

This dog cracks me up.  Usually around 4am I'm ready to give her back, because I can't fathom why I would have gotten something else to wake me up repeatedly all.  night.  long.  But, during the day, she's pretty funny.

Today Luke and Ally somehow got ahold of recorders at lunch, (I blame Kate.) and they were blowing them and blowing them and... blowing them, just piercing into my headachy brain.  But, I let them do it, because it was keeping them busy while I ran Bailey out to pee, several times since she wouldn't go,  got Anna more popsicles to suck on, because I thought she was less likely to puke those up than straight up juice which she'd asked for, and also tried to get something that Ally might actually feel like eating.

Just when I told Luke and Ally that was enough of the "whistles," as they call them, I looked around for Bailey.  Before I'd even realized she'd been gone, she'd snuck past the gate to the playroom and retrieved her own little whistle, and back into the kitchen she ran with, no kidding, her own little whistle hanging from her mouth.

Today's "Oh, Anna!" moments

Anna is recovering from her stomach flu and, although she won't eat, her mind is back in form.  Here's a few comments from her today:

She had some explosive diarrhea and she asked, "Woo!  Did you hear that?  It was a huge toot.  That was like a super hero's toot!"

With so many sick kids, we've watched a lot of TV.  It's all we could do to get through.  And TV inspired her other two comments.

She was telling me about a Handy Manny episode she'd seen, and she thought it was funny that Mr. Lopez (the neighbor) hides his door knob from Handy Manny.  "It's because he never wants help!  Not even from the best builder in the whole world!"  I teasingly said, "In the whole world?  What about Mr. Siefert (our contractor)?"  "Oh, well, Handy Manny is the best builder on Disney Junior."

Earlier today, she asked me, "Mom, do you think Curious George thinks before he does things?  He really should start thinking before he does things."

Even the puppy got the flu

It's been quite a week here, but I've had so many friends going through real struggles in their life, that a few cases of the stomach flu going through the house seemed like nothing to complain about.

The sicknesses began last weekend with Kate. Then Luke came down with it Tuesday. It's a long illness, not some 24 hour bug.  Kate had it for almost six days.  Luke for four.  Dave says it's likely some variety of enterovirus.  The lack of sleep I was getting staying up with the kids started triggering my migraines, but I was just grateful not to be vomiting.

By Friday, Kate finally headed back to school.  We were scheduled to pick up our puppy the next day, and I naively thought we may have escaped with only two kids getting sick. Then Friday afternoon, Ally started complaining her stomach hurt and all she wanted to do was take a nap.

Saturday we packed a sick Ally into the car, and drove the two hours each way to pick up Bailey.  We just made it home, when Anna got sick.

We didn't get much sleep Saturday night, with two sick kids and a new puppy who had to go outside twice.  The lack of sleep didn't help what would have already been a tough day, as we juggled two sick kids, two healthy kids, and a new, curious, not yet housebroken puppy.  I'd forgotten just how many things a puppy gets into, especially when it's new family is otherwise occupied.

Saturday afternoon, Ally started having severe diarrhea.  I counted my blessings that she was using the potty chair and not letting all that ooze out of a pull up, which could never have contained it, or even worse, underwear.

I was getting Ally ready for bed last night when she said she had to go potty.  When she finished, I was distracted by pajamas, teeth brushing, and a miserable Anna. Ally came over to me to wipe her bottom and pull her pajama pants up.  I was going just about to wipe her when and I heard Kate saying, "Ally, your poopy is really gross. Oh, no bailey. No bailey."  I looked over to see Bailey about to taste test the contents of the potty chair.

I was too far away to get there in time to stop her.  I yelled, "Grab her head, Kate."  Kate didn't quite prevent her.

And we've learned that dogs, too, can get enterovirus, and evidently it comes on quickly when directly ingested.

By ten o'clock, Bailey started needing to go outside at least every hour with explosive diarrhea... while I stood there, cold, half asleep, and, of course, in the rain. And at four she started vomiting, but the diarrhea hadn't ended either.

So, Dave and I each got scattered tidbits of sleep, 30 to 45 minutes here and there.  But, on the plus side, all four kids all actually slept through the night.

Bailey's home

She hated her bath, but she was clean and snuggly afterwards.

Blame the car

I've been a mom for over seven years.  And I spent a good part of those seven years listening to kids' music in the car.  And, as much as I love Sandra Boynton's writing, I simply can't hear her lyrics sung even once more.  And, if I hear Laurie Berkner "buzz, buzz" another time, I may not make the next seven years of motherhood.

So, I've taken to putting my own music on in the car.  One of my favorite CDs is Mumford and Sons' Babel.  It does happen to have a swear word in one of the songs, so I haven't played it around Kate.  But, Anna is so oblivious she never catches lyrics, and the twins are only two, so figured I was safe playing it around them.

Which brings me to last Wednesday.  I was sitting on the floor of the bathroom while Ally tried to poop in her potty chair.  She's singing various songs, and I'd join in when I figured out what she was singing.  After we finished the second song, she started singing, "It's not yoh fauwt but mine.  I weally fut it up this time..."  She had missed one sentence of the lyric, but she hadn't missed the "fut."

I just looked at her, stunned.  I could have giggled, but I was too shocked.

She looked back and said, "That's what the cah [car] theth [says]."

Yes, let's blame the car.

So simple.

I was driving with Kate and, since she was reading her book, I decided to listen to NPR, a rare treat for me with so many little kids.

They were discussing congress deciding on same-sex marriage.  I looked in the rear-view mirror and noticed she was looking out the window, so I knew she'd been listening.

I said, "Do you understand what they're talking about?"

She said she didn't.

I explained that a group of people were trying to decide about a law about whether or not people could marry someone who was the same sex, like if a man and another man loved each other, if they could get married.

Kate was quiet as she thought this over.

After a while I asked, "What do you think about all that?"

She said, "Well, what about two women?"

I clarified, "Yes, two women, too."

"Then," she said, "I think they should let them.  If two people love each other, they should be able to get married."

Animal doctors and herbivores

A while ago, Kate asked me, "Will Willow have to get check ups?"

I told her she would.

Anna got a funny little smile on her face and said, "I know who could give Willow check ups, an animal doctor, a vegetarian..."  Then her smile grew even bigger, and she continued, "Mom's a vegetarian..."  She looked around to see if we all got the joke, but we were all just kind of looking at her, so she continued, "because she doesn't eat meat..."

I realized she'd thought she'd found a homophone, and was trying to make a joke.  She thought both an animal doctor and someone who doesn't eat meat were really both called vegetarians.  So, she was like, Hahaha, so Mommy could give willow a check up.  Get it, people?  Get it?

I didn't want her to feel bad, so I said, "Those two words do sound a lot a like, don't they.  But, an animal doctor is called a veterinarian."

In true Anna fashion, she recovered in a heartbeat, and joked, "Ohhh, I'm so embarrassed..."