Frankie is walking!

Frankie took his first steps at about 10 months old, which was the same age Charlie was when he took his first steps. Initially, he seemed to have a preference for walking outside on the concrete. Now he is practicing his new skill inside and out, much to our delight. He no longer spends all day trying to get one of us to hold his hands and walk him around. He still has an affinity for climbing things so the stairs have been blocked off, and we try to keep the step-stools put away to avoid a sprained arm like the one Sam got at this age from climbing up a stool and falling off.

Not to overshadow Frankie's accomplishments, but you can get a glimpse of Seth's latest work in this video as well (more pictures to come). He made the island out of a black walnut tree that one of his clients cut down a couple of years ago. I love that this island was not only built by Seth but was built from a local tree at that. It astounds me what he can envision and create entirely on his own. 

 And this from a man who didn't think he was smart going through elementary and high school because his strengths didn't lie in reading and writing, which translated to poor grades.  I find myself getting more and more frustrated with our school system that tests and rewards only a very limited type of intelligence, creating a constant struggle and false sense of inferiority in those whose strengths lie elsewhere. Too bad they don't test spacial or interpersonal intelligence on the ACTs. Seth might have gotten a full ride to college.

To see a "before" shot of what the kitchen looked like, here's a video of Charlie and Sam unloading the dishwasher that I shared on the blog 2 years ago:

 

"Squints"

That's what Seth calls Sam on occasion.  I have no idea why.....

Not only do Sam and the Sandlot character have the same glasses and prefer to wear their caps backwards, but they also both love baseball. I just hope Sam never pulls a stunt like that scene at the pool (although I honestly wouldn't put it past him).

Here are a few more snippets from his summer of fun on the baseball field with friends and two cousins:

What must the neighbors think....

Who needs pockets? 

For that matter, who needs pants?

(those are my sunglasses and a hammer, in case you can't tell)

In other news, Charlie had his first visit to the ER this weekend. It was nothing too major, but it wasn't the most convenient timing. Then again, when is a trip to the ER ever convenient?

We were at a wedding dance, and Charlie had asked if he could climb up onto the stage with the bridal party's table. I told him no, and he listened until he noticed some other kids crawling around under the table about a half hour later.  I guess he couldn't resist after that. Just as the dance was getting going, I heard a cry over the music and 400 voices in the room (it was a large wedding), and headed to the rescue. There I found Sam trying to help Charlie who was crying under the table, bleeding from his knee, and a bit tangled in the lights used for decorations. He must have scraped his knee on a nail or something sharp on the floor.  Several people looked at it and thought it would probably require stitches.  Since we only had the one vehicle and didn't know how long the ER visit would take, the entire family got to tag along.  

Charlie was a trooper and cooperated very well. The rest of the kids did as well, too, for that matter.

I think we gave the people in the waiting room some entertainment, and the nurses were impressed. They were able to patch him up just using glue, but of course we had missed the dance by the time it was all done. 

Having been a parent for 9 years, I've learned a thing or two and I was able to resist the urge to rub salt on his wound by scolding "I told you to stay off the stage!!" I did once ask if he remembered that I had told him to stay off, and he did, but I left it at that. I don't know that he needed the reminder, though. Several times at the hospital, on the ride home and before tucking him into bed, he said in the sweetest little voice, "I'm sorry for going on the stage. I didn't mean to get a cut. I promised not to go on the stage and then I did. I'm sorry, Mama." I was hopeful this would mark a turn-around point where he would start listening a bit better when we tell him not to do something. So far, this has not been the case: he still comes back with, "But I won't get hurt! See?" 

Oh well. The best I can hope is that the message is buried in there somewhere and will someday come to mind and prevent him from serious injury....

The "Messy Baby" Stage

Look who discovered the tupperware drawer. Oh happy day! (for the baby, I mean - not so much for Mom)

In addition to being an expert mess-maker on the floor, he has frequently been requiring multiple baths a day. This is what happens when someone says, "How big is Frankie??" while he's eating chili. The picture doesn't really do it justice, but his entire head and both arms are covered in chili. And yes, he has a "girly" high chair. Our blue one broke, and we are borrowing this one from a friend.

 Looking at all these pictures of Frankie, it has occurred to me that it might not be so difficult to identify whose baby pictures these are in the future. Most of his baby pictures contain glimpses of the ongoing construction in the background.

Yummy yogurt!

And this one is just for fun. We've been seeing a lot of Papi around here this summer. Between the house project and the busy baby, Seth and I have had very little time to tend to the garden. My dad has been kind enough to come at least once a week to make sure everything is harvested, watered and weeded. He's become such a regular, that all the neighborhood kids have started calling him "Papi" as well.

If only disciplining were always so easy....

Today Charlie was lying on the floor and kicking the new kitchen island that Seth recently installed. I forget why exactly, but he had a reason that made sense to a 3-year-old: he was make-believing something that required kicking the cabinets. Anyway, Seth got after him for kicking it and told him that if he damaged the island that he just put so much time into building, he would be in a lot of trouble and Daddy would be very angry. Charlie stopped and went off to do something else.

About 10 minutes later, I heard Charlie say from upstairs, "Mom, can I come out now?"

Me: Come out from where?

Charlie: From my time out.

Me: Why are you in a time out?

Charlie: For the island.

Me: I didn't realize you were in a time out. Did Daddy put you in a time out?

Charlie: No...I did.

Me: Oh. Well, yeah, then I think you can be done now.

I then heard him come out and apologize to Seth, who had also forgotten completely about the earlier incident. "Sorry for what?" Seth asked. "For the island." Charlie told him. "Oh...I forgive you", buddy."

Under Construction

I've been very thankful this summer that I generally have a pretty high tolerance for chaos. I'm very, very far from Type A. Occasionally, I wish I were more orderly and structured, but I think this summer would have pushed me over the brink if I were. As it is, we've just been going with the flow and having a wonderful summer together while making slow and steady progress on the house. 

 Since June, the road in front of our house has been under construction. And since we lack a back alley, that has meant parking a block away, which isn't a huge deal until I come home from running errands after dark with a sleeping toddler, a crying baby who wants nothing other than to be held by Mom, and a van full of groceries that need to be unpacked. Fortunately this has only happened twice when I didn't have Elena, Sam or Seth around to help unload. The inside of the van could also use a very thorough cleaning - not an easy feat to do a block away from the house. Plus, the grocery store, library, post office, etc. are all on the other side of that street.  I don't know which is more work: loading everyone up in the distant van to drive around the construction, or trying to get the kids and a stroller through the muddy canyon (it's been raining a lot this summer) on foot. Today we had to leave for Mass 10 minutes earlier than usual so we could walk around all the muck to get to the church across the street. It dawned on us as we were walking that it would be easier to drive to the next town and go to their Mass than it is to go right next door. You know it's getting old when the 3-year-old, who was initially delighted to watch all the diggers and construction trucks working day after day says to you, "Mama, I want our street to be black again." Even the retired men who would come to stand and watch the action along side the little boys back in June have seen their fill and stopped showing up (apparently watching heavy machinery holds an attraction that does not go away with age for males).

The road in front of our house

Our front yard (formerly a beautiful perennial garden and hedges) as they relaid the pipes. On the plus side, we now have less weeding to do...

In addition to the outdoor construction, we've also had ongoing indoor construction since February. Things are coming along nicely, but there is still a large portion of our house full of all the stuff that will eventually be stored in yet-to-be-finished cabinets and closets. This picture is of the clutter at its worst, but that's more or less what half of our home has looked like throughout the summer - just add a bunch of tarp and tools to the mix. One recent improvement: I think Frankie is finally starting to realize that those bits of sheetrock on the floor aren't that tasty. More pictures to come of Seth's beautiful wood-working skills. I'll wait until things are a little closer to finished before sharing.

Here's a shot of Seth sanding the floor to get it ready before installing the new island. Rather than cover everything with tarp, he taped down a "tarp tent," inserted the end of a shop vac underneath while he sanded, and shot the dust straight out the window. The things this man comes up with.... It sure has been great to watch his immense talent in problem-solving over the 15 years we've been together.

Motherhood: one big never-ending "brain fart"

I've been asked by a few moms who have fewer than 4 kids: "What's it like having 4 kids??!"

Well, for starters, you do things like go out in public dressed like this and don't even realize it until your daughter points it out an hour into running errands.

I can't believe that worked

At lunch today...

Charlie: I want chocolate milk.
Me: Sorry, you can have regular milk or water, but not chocolate milk.
Charlie: I want chocolate milk!
Me: No, you can have plain milk or water.

He continued to insist on having chocolate milk for another minute or two, when I remembered that he had had a small piece of chocolate earlier, so I  tried a new tactic, not really expecting it to work.

Me: Well you already had a piece of chocolate today, and it's sitting in your tummy. So when you drink regular milk, it will mix with the chocolate in your tummy and turn into chocolate milk.
Charlie:....OK!

Problem solved.

Sombrero

One of the things I love about Elena is that she has never been afraid to march to the beat of her own drum. She doesn't get too hung up on being like or dressing like everyone else, and she doesn't shy away from doing something that might make her stand out a bit.

This was exemplified earlier this summer when I had her go out to pick strawberries on a very hot and sunny day. She soon went back inside to get a hat and returned wearing 4 baseball caps on her head - one pointing in each direction to give her the maximum amount of shade.

I started to say she should invent something like that, when it dawned on me that someone already had: the sombrero. So she quickly ran up to the attic and grabbed a sombrero I used for Spanish class. It was big enough to shade almost her entire body.

A few weeks later, Grandpa Jim called to see if the kids could go pull weeds in the bean fields. He told them to get ready as early as possible and to wear a hat because it was going to be another hot day. Once again, Elena went out in her sombrero (although she took a slightly smaller one this time). I didn't get to see Grandpa's reaction when she showed up, but I'm guessing he got a kick out of it.

Summer Fun

The summer has been flying by with lots of mini vacations and outdoor fun. Last week we spent our annual weekend at the cabin with all of Seth's family - only this year we got a whole week of fun in the sun. We lucked out with the weather and created many more wonderful memories.

Frankie was teething or growing or getting over an earache or something, so he didn't allow me too much time to run around with the camera capturing moments on "film" (what's the digital version of film?), but I did my best. I'll share a few highlights:

Charlie and Reed once again had several "concerts" out in the back yard, joined occasionally by Noah. Fortunately the neighbors like kids and commented how much they enjoyed the music.-

The kids had so much fun swimming, boating, tubing, etc that getting them to sleep was quite a bit easier than it has been in the past (with the exception of Frankie, but we've never had good baby-sleepers). Charlie even napped most days and still went to bed with the other kids - a huge improvement from last year!

My favorite Charlie moment was one morning when he woke up, crawled in next to Seth and started talking quietly. He must have wanted to sleep a bit longer, but couldn't fall back asleep. It sounded like he was whispering "Eyes! Stay shut! Stay shut, eyes!!" I wasn't 100% sure I was hearing him right, so I asked Seth what Charlie was saying. Seth said, "He's telling his eyes to stay shut."

Here he is napping with Seth out in the lake:

I will also probably never forget the lip retractors from the weekend. After watching the "Watch Ya' Mouth Game" video on Youtube, of course we wanted to try it. (China is making a killing off of dental lip retractors now). The adults played a little bit, but the retractors were a huge hit with all the kids. I didn't think they would fit their small mouths, but as you can see, they had no trouble. Several times during the week, I looked out onto the dock to see kids casually fishing with their lips peeled back unnaturally far.

Sam also tried knee boarding and did impressively well.  He stayed on for quite a long time, and had a blast. The only problem was that he was strapped in good and tight so he wouldn't slip off the board, so when he finally let go, he flipped under and didn't know how to unstrap it. He was submerged with no way to get out for about a half-minute. Richie was driving the boat and whipped around immediately so Seth could jump out and get Sam, but I'm sure those 30-40 seconds seemed like an eternity to Sam, who couldn't see that help was coming, and was panicking under water. He managed to get his mouth above water once for a quick breath before going back under so he never swallowed any water.  The next day I saw him strap himself onto the kneeboard (on the ground) and practice unstrapping it over and over again - something we clearly should have had him do beforehand. I don't know when he'll want to try it again, but it looks like he's not going to shy away from it. I hope at the very least this usually fearless boy will now have at least a healthy fear for the water, which could serve him well in his "invincible" adolescent stage. 

And the fishing! At our friends' cabin 2 weeks ago, Sam was fishing on the dock when we heard him start hollering for help. Thinking Charlie had fallen in or something, Seth ran down as fast as he could to see Sam's fishing line bent over as he tried to reel in a bass. We ate this beauty up for supper, and it was delicious!