A pickle

I didn't have any dill slices on hand, so Luke got to taste a sweet pickle instead. Sadly, he didn't make many good faces, but he did look at it with great suspicion.

After it disintegrated, he nearly choked on some of the seeds. He was a good sport, though, and is now regularly begging for what we affectionately refer to as "real" food. As much as he wants to eat whatever you have in your hand (especially if it is paper-based), he is only authorized stage 1 and 2 baby foods at this time. He now has 4 teeth, though, so chunky solids can't be far away. Four teeth. How did this happen?

He is also "rocking". All you mothers of more than one child know what I am talking about here. It's one of the last steps before you lose all sanity and your baby starts CRAWLING. Tim has been encouraging this behavior. Tim is also going TDY next week, so it is likely that Luke will choose the first day Tim is gone to begin scooting around the house.

Unauthorized Yams

It might finally be fall here, as of today. When I ran this morning, I wished I had been wearing long sleeves and gloves. And that the wind would stop blowing. It's cloudy, and the temperature is only in the 60s. And the wind! We're having gusts to 70mph today, according to the weatherman.

We knew the weather was turning colder soon, so we took the kids to the park to feed the ducks on Sunday afternoon.

I love the golden hour. And the children loved throwing stale bread at feeding the water fowl. No one fell in the water, which is always my biggest fear. Tim was completely grossed out by the disgustingness that surrounds ducks and geese. But I was relaxed, knowing that it could be worse, like the week prior when Claire let a goose eat out of her hand. Ew.

Seriously? Stale garlic bread? Ohhh, yeahhhh. They aren't picky, those fowl water fowl.

Fighting over who got to have the next chunk of concrete-like bread.

And then they flew a kite.

And then it got dark and they called me repeatedly on my cell phone to inquire if I had finished grocery shopping and picked up the pizza yet.

I knew Luke and I would grow restless after the feeding of the birds, so I agreed to take him to the store and then to pick up dinner on the way back to the park. When shopping at our local grocery store, I generally go through the self-checkout lane. It's faster, and I don't have to talk to anybody. Every once in awhile, though, I mistakenly pick out produce with no code sticker on it, or I accidentally hit the button for 'celery hearts' instead of plain 'celery' and then I have to wait for the checker to come over and fix my mistake. My favorite incident so far, though, was the one on Sunday. I put my produce on the scale and typed in the code on the sticker. My machine beeped and a picture of a pharmacist came up on the screen. It read, "unauthorized purchase", in bright, shameful red letters. I finally got the attention of the supervisor, and she scoffed. "We really need to fix that code." Yes. Unauthorized yams, indeed.

In the midst of sickness: a pumpkin!

Last week I called one of my sickly babysitters to come infect my children with swine flu watch the girls for a few hours while I took Luke for his 6mo photo shoot. He wasn't as cooperative as he can sometimes be, and was pretty stingy with his smiles, but I think we got a few cute ones.

Coy boy in a gourd costume.

A smile! Pay no attention to the legs hovering over his head.

My favorite pictures always include drool. It's just so Luke.

Trying not to freak out

Last night, my babysitters' mom called me. Her two daughters, who babysat my children twice last week, have the swine flu. Kate was feverish and zombie-like all day on Thursday, but then made a miraculous comeback on Friday. All Luke wants to do is sleep. Claire is also acting out of sorts. There's no way for us to know without getting tested, but I'm guessing we're all infected. Luckily my rock, and the most mentally-stable member of the family, returned home on Thursday afternoon, so I have reinforcements. If you are trying to reach me and are unable to do so, it's probably because I'm at Target buying out their stash of Purell and Tylenol.

Oh, I almost forgot. Luke's 6mo stats: 19lbs 15oz (the size of an 11mo old), and 26 3/4". Hopefully his chub can carry him through this.

Will I ever learn?

After this and this and this (and this and THIS) you would think that I would double-think letting her play with stamps and an ink pad by herself. Nope. Not much learning going on here.

Third Child

Poor Luke. He's either in his car seat, eating, napping, or playing on the crumb-strewn floor by himself, probably in a corner. I've always heard people talk about the middle child; how the unlucky kid is always neglected, and is constantly drug around from older and younger siblings' events, never getting a chance to participate in anything on his own. For us, it's the youngest child who is overlooked.

This morning, for instance, it was a rush to get the misbehaving girls ready for school. Luke got fed, but not dressed. Same for me, actually. . . but I digress. After we dropped them off, we returned home and I changed clothes to go for a run. Luke sat cheerlessly in the stroller as I enthusiastically told him how we were going to See The World! He looked at me and sighed. Half-way through the short run, I noticed he had fallen asleep. Yet another nap out of his crib. When we reached the front door, I gently lifted him out of his stroller and carried him to the proper napping locale, and he fussed just a little before nodding off to sleep. About an hour later, when I was finishing my shower, he woke up. Yay! Time to watch mom do her hair. I sat him just outside the bathroom with a few toys, and he looked at me like, seriously, Mom? These toys again? Okay, mental note to switch out the doing-my-hair toys.

After that, it was a diaper and outfit change, and back out the door to run some errands. He might have cried when I put him in his car seat. Then, to pick up the girls. He flirted pretty heavily with Kate's teacher, basking in the attention he surely feels he's missing out on. Back into the car seat yet again to go home for lunch. . .aaaand straight into the high chair so I could yell at kindly ask the girls to take their shoes off already while I made lunch. Then the girls went down for their naps and he and I played for a bit before he got fussy and needed a nap of his own.

In a short while, we'll all head to the park, where Luke will sit in his stroller (or maybe I'll be able to hold him? It's always up to the girls, somehow, and whether they can obey or not) while the older siblings play. Someday he'll get his revenge by eating all their Barbies' shoes, I'm sure, but for now, I'm glad he's patient.

Enjoying a little breathing treatment before nap. Apparently decongestant is dangerous for little ones, but albuterol is okay?

First pears. The girls kept fighting over who got to feed him.


6mo old. Over 20lb. One happy, well-fed baby boy.

I am teh cyut.

The wiggles go to church

Here I sit at 8:45pm, with 6 seconds left on the clock in the Husky-Irish game, which, on my DVR, is tied 30-30. Funny, this is the same place I was at 4:30 this afternoon, except I was yelling at the TV and at the girls to get their socks on already, and muttering under my breath about the-things-we-do-for-our-children. I ended up turning the television off a few minutes into overtime, and rushing out the door to get to church. On the way there, I promised the girls we would go to Japanese food afterward.

A few times a year, the kids in pre-school sing at the Saturday evening service, and in an attempt to keep as busy as possible, I decided we would go. Also, it's so cute to see the children standing up front, trying to remember the words to their songs, and making muted arm motions.

Damn. Lost in overtime.

So we arrived with a few minutes to spare, and I wisely chose seats towards the back. At some point early on, I wondered about my sanity. I mean, who takes their three children, four years old and under, to Saturday evening church service, when none of the children are able to sit still for longer than 1.2 minutes, one of them is teething, and two of them find great humor in kicking the wooden pews to produce a fun hollow thud? Luckily, I was not the only one with unruly children, but even one of my friends mentioned later that she could hear us from her seat. Go on, ask me if I got anything out of the service.

Luke decided that tonight would be a good time to start practicing his banzai voice. Just imagine a lot of loud growling. I'm pretty certain we were turning heads, but I was too busy trying to entertain my bouncing boy to notice. After about 20 minutes of bellowing, song and prayer, the kids finally wandered up front to sing. The first thing Kate did when she got situated was to find me in the audience and wave with both hands above her head: "Hi, Mom!" They performed about 5 songs, and I was sad I didn't bring my camera. Claire was especially cute, singing with wide eyes and looking at all the kids next to her to see if she was doing it right.

After they had finished, we went back to our pew and I tried to calm the masses. The girls were pretty good, with only Claire tugging at me every few minutes, asking, "Are we going to Japanese now?" over and over again. It was Luke who ended up causing us to make an early break for it. He would not hold still, insisting on jumping on my bladder, and growling like a Tasmanian devil.

Sushi went surprisingly well. Claire even insisted on tasting my salmon and tuna nigiri, and both girls ate enough tempura to warrant a lollipop at the end. When I was getting the kids into the car, Kate was standing on the sidewalk, hands clasped, staring at the starry sky. I asked her what she was doing and she told me she was wishing on a star. She implored me and Claire to join her in singing the song one sings when making wishes. I asked her what she wished for and she smiled and said, "I wished that my Daddy would come home some day." Drama much? He'll be home in 2 weeks.

Within 10 miles of home

Windy Spice met up with Doesn't Want To Get Dirty Spice and went in search of the Great Pumpkin this morning. It's a smaller farm than the one we visited several times in Arizona, but it's waaaaay closer.

Someone is afraid to get her shoes dirty. Sadly, this attitude did not carry all the way to the car, and Clean Spice peed in her newly washed car seat on the way home. Never fails.

Sittin' on a pumpkin chair. We learned about rotting pumpkins today, and why we don't want to take them home with us. Also complained about the wind, and how she was cold. In her defense, it was only in the 60s. And her mother might have forgotten to bring coats for the children.

The boy one sat quietly and played with his toys.

Might be okra? They were huge. Kate tried to smell them and was disappointed by their lack of fragrance.

Corn.

At the end, Kate and I went in search of eggplant, and she asked, "Mommy, where are the eggs?" I think she thought it was Halloween and Easter. I showed her a small purple plant, and she looked adorably confused. Also, someone might have gotten a little over-zealous with the produce and purchased a rather large eggplant. What would you recommend I do with it?