I'm still pregnant after alllllll these years. (Sung in my best Paul Simon voice)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46bkXgxb66E

Baby Dendrite is staying put. He will be forcibly evicted this weekend if he won't come out on his own, but in the meantime I have been trying a few of the labor induction methods I used when I was pregnant with Eliza:

Peanut Butter Cups

Housework

One thing I will NOT try again is eating this concoction.

Blech!

Unfortunately I can't do what DID work to get Eliza going: planting perennials in our front flower bed. But we're supposed to get some snow tonight, so I could try shoveling the driveway.

That's sure to get me in the hospital, one way or the other.

I was cleaning up the kitchen after breakfast one morning and expressed my displeasure at a certain child's mess by saying, "Mercy!"

In response, Abigail chastised me: "Don't use the Lord's last name in vain!!"

I must be doing something right if my children think the Lord's last name is mercy!  

I'm still pregnant. I will probably still be pregnant for some time to come. Yes, I'm 39 weeks along and at 40 weeks Baby Dendrite is supposed to be fully cooked, but I'm pretty sure I'll be pregnant forever.

Thank you. Back to your regularly scheduled blog post...

----------------------------

Seven Things We Love About Lydia Jane

1. She's sporty.

Ever since she was a baby, Lydia has been naturally coordinated and good on her feet. As opposed to her mother (and at least one of her siblings!), who regularly falls down for no apparent reason.

She's playing basketball currently and also enjoys soccer.

2. She's a natural leader and teacher.

Whether it's helping Abigail with her preschool work or encouraging Eliza to walk, Lydia is a big help with her younger siblings. And am I ever thankful for that!

3. She is emotional and creative.

When Dorothy the goldfish died, she created this coffin. And eulogized her at the gravesite. She regularly writes funny stories and draws detailed pictures to go along with them.

She "gets" the news. All the recent coverage of the Haitian earthquake really touched her and she donated a significant amount of her allowance to Compassion's disaster fund.

4. She's a fun kid to teach.

I am totally spoiled having her for a student. She pretty much learns everything with ease, and greets most subjects with gusto.

Now don't ask her opinion on math flashcards. She says they are one of the "three hateful things in my life", along with cleaning up her room and sweeping the kitchen floor.

5. She's a very outgoing, friendly little girl.

This would surprise anyone who knew Lydia prior to our move back home to Kansas, but it is true. The same little girl who would hold onto my leg and cower in fear when we visited Daddy at work now talks the ear off of anyone in her general vicinity.  

6. She's a baby wrangler extraordinaire.

Did I mention how well she can entertain a one year old? :)

7. She just turned seven years old.

And she wants everyone to know it!

She is gaga about Hello Kitty these days. I guess that's the next logical step if you've mostly outgrown the Disney Princesses.

 Happy Birthday, sweet Lydia!

We've been keeping the Tooth Fairy pretty busy around here.

Lydia has lost 7 teeth over the past year and she has another one or two teeth that are loose enough to come out. She likes to hang on to her loose teeth as long as possible and seems to prefer to lose them in the most traumatic way possible. I think sibling-on-sibling violence is responsible for at least four of those lost teeth. Sigh.

It didn't take Abigail long to figure out that the whole tooth-losing business is a pretty sweet deal. She's been praying for loose teeth but alas all of her teeth are still intact.  

Last night, Abigail decided to take matters into her own hands. When Lydia lost tooth #7, Abigail wrote a letter to the Tooth Fairy.

Transcribed, it reads:

Dea Tof Fare,

I wat you to bac at mi tofs, not olal dam.

Translated:

Dear Tooth Fairy,

I want you to break out my teeth, not all of them.

Needless to say, Abigail woke up this morning with all of her teeth intact. The Tooth Fairy does not employ violence.

Her two sisters, on the other hand, would be happy to oblige, I'm sure.

It's just plain weird around our house these days.

Lydia tries to give the impression she is angelic.

Don't be fooled. Under that smock and halo, she's as ornery as they come.

Abigail thinks she is a Disco Queen (her words, I swear) and dresses accordingly.

She's preparing to be a contestant on "So You Think You Can Dance", specializing in disco and "flip flop".

And Eliza?

She's decided to help prepare me for Baby Dendrite's arrival by waking up in the middle of the night again. Kiddo, I haven't had a chance to forget what that feels like, so you can knock that off at any time.

Strangely, the children are even playing together in peace.

Sisterly bonding while weaving a potholder? Isn't this breaking some sort of union rule?  

Not to mention we've been snowbound for nearly a week after a blizzard piled drifts 4-5 feet high in our driveway. The wind was so strong, it even created a mini-drift inside our garage.

As a result of all this strangeness, much of the time, I have an expression on my face like this:

Due to a combination of pregnancy hormones and aching bones, however, I'm afraid my halo has been permanently recinded.

I've also been guilty of some questionable decision making, such as encouraging Abigail to ride her new bike in the house.

Hey, if Santa is foolish enough to bring a bicycle in the middle of a blizzard, we have to make allowances in our normal house rules.

But the most questionable parental decision of all? We got Lydia and Abigail a set of recorders for Christmas.

What was I thinking? Next thing you know, I'll be dressing up like a disco queen right along with Abigail and tooting a shrill version of "Stayin' Alive" on the recorder.

Some things, thankfully, have stayed the same, such as Lee's offer to watch the children so I can get dinner made.

Putting on a movie and promptly taking a nap... What a comfort that some things are still normal.

Lydia: "Mom's eating Diego Rivera."

While I do have a penchant for art, I was eating pasta primavera, not a deceased Mexican muralist!

We love Nutella around here. If you've never tried it before, I highly recommend it. Just be aware that it is a highly addictive substance, it comes in a tiny jar, and if you eat too much of it, you'll be as big as a barn in no time.

Eliza had her first encounter with Nutella the other day.

 Eliza, meet Nutella on whole wheat.

Nutella, meet Eliza.

Besides being highly delectable, Nutella also makes a lovely false beard if you want to impersonate your daddy.

I just can't stop taking pictures of Eliza, no matter what she's eating. You'd think I'd be over the whole cute-kid-eating-and-making-a-mess thing, but I'm not. I love me a messy baby eating spaghetti.

And Eliza?  She loves her some Brian Williams. Really. He draws her like a moth to a flame.

I prefer Nutella, personally.

This was the scene this morning as I gazed out of my (very dirty) living room window.

Haven't we done this before?

Yep. Same scene, November 2007.

The same two guys fixed our water line today. The baby-faced backhoe driver has grown a beard over the past two years, which is reassuring. When you have a man directing heavy equipment that near to your house, you like to know they've made it through puberty.

This time, we had not just one leak, but two. Apparently, we have some sort of strange soil chemistry that caused the brand new copper water line to corrode, pit and leak like a sieve. Lucky us!

The good news about all of this? After it was all over, we had easy access to lots of freshly dug soil to use for our "worm parfait" science experiment.

Hopefully the night crawlers will survive. They're hardy creatures, but you've got to wonder what is in soil that burns holes through metal.  

You'd best back away from the dirt, guys.

Since my only sister was seven years younger than me, I've always watched Lydia and Abigail's relationship with a sense of curiousity. Sure, I have a brother near my age, but it's not quite the same as having a sibling of the same gender. I never would have dreamed of shooting Legos at him with a crossbow, and he certainly wouldn't play Barbies with me. Now, had I suggested that he shoot my Barbies with Legos from his crossbow, we would have been in business.

Lydia and Abigail, however, are two peas in a pod. Abigail makes sure of that. When Lydia plays soccer...

Abigail joins in, too.

Unfortunately, they were on separate teams this year. Abigail was NOT happy, but then again her idea of playing soccer mainly consists of wrestling with her friends on the team. She got over it.

Lydia loves to read. She can read an entire 150 page book in one sitting.

So guess what? Abigail wants to learn to read, too. She's making great progress, with big sis helping along the way.

Naturally the sisters love to dress alike.

On multiple occasions.

Yep, Abigail tries to imitate Lydia in about every way possible.

And Eliza? She also emulates one of her big sisters. She'll crawl on top of anything and everything.

She'll attack from behind and give sloppy kisses and bear hugs.

And now there's the matter of a certain red monster...

I only hope Abigail will be as patient with this little mimic as Lydia is with her.

Abigail's lovely handwriting adorns art projects and pieces of paper throughout our house. This prize example:

is her attempt to phonetically spell "Jesus". Good job Christa and Kim!

Now for Halloween.

Abigail and Lydia were allowed to choose any costume they liked other than anything scary. We don't do scary Halloween around here. (If it were up to me, we wouldn't do Halloween at all, but I'm a party pooper. ) 

Abigail dressed up as Thumbelina, which is her favorite story in the Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales book from Core P 3/4. I can't count how many times I've read that story to her and now she has an outfit to match.

Plus this costume has the whole princess/fairy vibe that Abigail digs.

Lydia, on the other hand, thinks she has outgrown princesses. She's almost 7, you know, which is almost 10. When you're 10, you're practically a teenager and that is grown-up. So she picked a costume that reflects her desire to bend the rules.

Here's Daphne from "Scooby Doo."

"Scooby Doo is merely spooky, Mom. It's not scary."

And last is Eliza. She didn't get a choice and instead had to wear a twice-handed down costume.

"My mom made me dress up like this." Her expression says it all.

Miss Abigail created this lovely piece of artwork yesterday.

Here's a close-up of the title:

Any guesses as to the word Abigail was trying to spell?

Answer in an upcoming blog post.  

We need a name for Baby 4.0. No, not his real name. We've had a boy name picked out for at least five years. What we really need is a nickname to call him before he makes his debut this winter, just as we've done with the girls before him.

We didn't know whether Lydia was going to be a boy or girl. I think I got an ultrasonographer on his first day on the job. Either that or he got his diploma from one of those correspondence schools they used to advertise on late night TV. Basically all the ultrasound showed was there appeared to be an alien life form, of unknown gender, living somewhere in my abdominal region. So until Lydia was born, we called her the generic name of "Spud".

But what a cute little Spud she was.

Abigail went by "Spud II" until we found out her gender. We pretty much dropped calling her "Spud II" in favor of "Baby Abigail". This caused a problem since we were trying to keep her name a secret until she was born. One of the grandparents asked Lydia what the baby's name was. Lydia was two at the time and as loquacious then as now, so she spilled the beans.

Good thing she was still cute.

And so would be "Spud II".

Soon after we moved into our current house, I started teasing Lydia and Abigail when I tucked them in.

"Goodnight, Lydia. Goodnight Abigail," I'd say.

 As I turned off their light and shut the door, I'd whisper "Goodnight Sparky."

The kids had no idea WHY I was saying goodnight to someone named Sparky. Sadly, they have been deprived of a classic 1980s Sesame Street skit about a dog named Sparky that pretended to be an alligator after the lights are turned out. After we found out we were expecting Eliza, the name Sparky stuck.

We learned our lesson from the Baby Abigail incident and Eliza went by the name of Sparky until well after she was born. Sparky actually is completely inappropriate as a nickname for Eliza.  "Happy" would have been more fitting for a laid-back kid whose first two words were "hi" and "hug".

So what about the latest little one? I've been calling him Baby 4.0, but that seems a bit... clinical. Or at the least impersonal. No nickname really seems to fit.

I thought about using one of the girls' nicknames for each other for when they "play baby". We've had babies named Peto, Goulash, Burrito, and Bootiole. Lee, however, objects to calling his son "Bootiole".  I'm not sure why.

In some sort of medical inside joke, Lee has been calling Baby 4.0 "Baby Dendrite". The girls call him this as well, though they don't know a dendrite from dandruff.

What do you think? 4.0? Burrito? Dendrite?

She's adventurous.

That would be a sheep's rear end that she's trying to pet.

And this is a lorikeet she's feeding.

She's fun-loving.

She's an all-star in front of the camera.

No one else noticed I was taking a picture, but Abigail has a sixth sense for camera lenses.

She's tolerant of others, even big sisters who try to "help" her blow out her candles.

Our  little Abigail Grace is four years old.

Happy Birthday, Abs!

When she saw that Lee and I were looking at the headstone Lydia created for Dorothy's grave, Abigail shouted:

"I want to see Dorothy in the gravy!"

Sometimes people ask me if I ever get bored staying home with the kids. My answer is an emphatic "NO!". My friends from high school and college who have high-powered careers may not get it, but being a stay-at-home mom is both challenging and delightful. Well, sometimes it doesn't feel very delightful, but those times are fewer than you may expect.

Take for example the recent loss of our goldfish, Dorothy.

The little shrimpy thing took ill and passed on to her reward.

Lydia took it upon herself to handcraft a coffin and plan a funeral, complete with Bible readings and hymns.  

Traumatic, yes. Dull, no. Thankfully our other goldfish, Elmo, is thriving.

Speaking of trauma, who would have thought that watching a hot air ballon deflate would cause a child to have a serious case of the vapors?  

Abigail thought that the deflating balloon was dying and began to howl.

Luckily, Lydia was able to explain to her what was really happening.

And when all three girls get together?  There may be bloodshed, there may be tears, but it is never dull.

Lydia put Eliza in her toy shopping cart and wheeled her all around the basement.

They had a blast.

Watching your children grow and play together is priceless.

I had my ultrasound appointment today.  I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Life is about to change around here!

There is a downside to teaching your 3 year old how to write her letters:

She may decide to practice writing them

with marker  

on a wall

in a hallway

that is painted with flat, decidedly non-scrubbable paint.

Just so you know. The bright side is that she has admirable penmanship.

Posted in Homeschooling

We're a fairly science-y bunch of people around here. Lee majored in chemistry and human biology, plus he's got that whole doctor thing going for him. I managed to graduate college without taking any science classes, unless you count the classroom management class I took as animal science. Nevertheless, l value and enjoy teaching science to the girls.

We had been using Sonlight's  science curriculum. We really enjoy Sonlight in general, but their science program leaves me cold. For one thing, the experiments they schedule have absolutely no correlation to the readings assigned along with it. Each year's curriculum also consists of a sprinkling of many different topics, rather than a more focused exploration of a particular area of science.

I recently found the perfect curriculum for us: REAL Science Odyssey(RSO).

 We've really enjoyed the past six weeks we've used their Life Science curriculum. Why?

1) It is classical.

RSO follows the classical model and consists of a four-year cycle: life science, earth science and astronomy, chemistry, and physics. Each child will complete the cycle three times over their education, building on previous foundations and going in greater depth each time. RSO is a work in progress. Only the first three years have been published, but Pandia Press continues to add titles.

RSO makes a point to introduce scientific terminology, the scientific method, and mathematics even at the lowest level.  

2) It is easy.

It's a no-brainer for mom. I pull out our science notebook and we're off.

Ah, direct, fool-proof instructions.

It is a good thing that it is such a no-brainer, because I frequently feel like I literally have no brains. When you add in pregnancy hormones, I'm down right dangerous.

3) The experiments are relevant to the readings and are fun.

For example, when we learned about plant and animal cells we made cells out of jello. Recently we've been studying the circulatory system and one of our labs was making a jar of blood.

The blood actually consists of these items:

Once she made the blood model, Lydia colored and labeled the different components of blood on her lab sheet.

Easy, fun, and comprehensive. That pretty much sums up RSO.  

"I'm waiting for my Medicare."

-Lydia, playing "spa" with Abigail and trying to request a manicure.

Do you think she may be responsible for the Obama Health Care plan?

When Abigail met Elmo

The last stop on our vacation was Sesame Place, a Sesame Street-themed park in Langhorne, PA. Honestly, the park is a bit of a rip-off. It is very, very expensive and you don't get as much for your dollar as you do at the other places we visited. But when you have a child like this

reason goes out the window and to Sesame Place you go.

During the majority of our vacation we experienced great weather and managable crowds. The day we visited Sesame Place, it was both sweltering and very crowded.

I never could get my folks corralled to get their picture taken here. So let's pretend those random people on the steps are related to us somehow.

The girls really enjoyed riding this roller coaster. Can you spot Lee and Abigail above? 

There were a variety of other rides.

The highlight of the day for Abigail, however, was meeting Abby Cadabby

and who else? Prior to our visit, Abigail had asked me to get a carseat for Elmo so that he could come home with us. I guess she was too tongue-tied to ask him once she finally met him.

Abigail was so Elmo-struck that she forgot to adequately hug and kiss him. We returned for a second visit so she could get her fill.

One of the other highlights of the day was the "Elmo's World" show. Just prior to entering the theatre, Abigail, in her typical accident-prone fashion, wiped out and banged up her knee. I took her to the rest room to repair the damage while Lee took Lydia and Abigail into the theatre. Right after they took their seats, the ushers asked for volunteers and Lydia was selected to play a crucial role in the show.

Behold the "Fishy Friends" doing their best fish imitations. Lydia is in front of the piano.

She danced with "Mr. Noodle's brother, Mr. Noodle" as well.

Needless to say, this made Abigail just a wee bit jealous. She's still quite bitter about the subject. Bring it up at your peril.

The majority of Sesame Place actually consists of water rides. I was worn out by the heat, so Eliza and I sought refuge in an air-conditioned restaurant while Lee and the big girls enjoyed themselves. After a full day, we packed up and began the journey home.

The trip home took another two days and was fairly unremarkable. When we returned home, however, Lee loaded the photos from the girls' digital cameras on the computer and found these:  

OK, Lydia's entertaining herself by taking her own picture. Pretty straightforward.

But how did she take this picture? (And about 4 others where it is obvious she is not holding the camera.) Weird.

I've always said that child was scary.

So that's that. I'm tired of blogging about our vacation and I'm sure my readers are tired of reading about it! Next time I'll return to blogging about my normal random topics.