Dinner conversations

You know those kids who are horrified to find out at the dinner table that, once upon a time, their food had been a living chicken or cow. I hear some of these children even become vegetarians on the spot, though I haven’t met one.

Well, our kids are the exact opposite.  Tonight at supper we had beef ribs. Elena asked what they were so I was explaining to her where they come from. I started by pointing out our own ribs, and she interrupts with, “Are we eating a person?” To which we immediately replied, “No! It’s beef. We don’t eat people.”

But wait, it gets worse: One of the kids (I can’t remember which one) came back with, “Why not?”

I guess in raising children, I just didn’t expect to ever need to have the “why cannibalism is wrong” conversation. The things they fail to include in those parenting books…

This kept him occupied for a full 20 minutes.

Unfortunately, it was a one time event. It's rare for him to keep this busy with something that doesn't make a huge mess. This is usually more his cup of tea:

We lost our baby. Those are words I never expected to say. Miscarriages have been relatively rare in both of our families, which tends to give the impression that it won't happen to us.




I went in last Friday for a check-up around 11 weeks. Seth had offered to come, but I told him he didn't need to. As I was walking into the clinic, I had the fleeting thought that I should have brought him in case something had gone wrong.




When the doctor started to look for the heartbeat, I knew it was taking much too long. She couldn't find it and sent me in for an ultrasound, saying not to worry yet because at this stage it was not unusual to not hear the heartbeat. But I knew that it was unusual for me.




Before going to the ultrasound, I prepared myself mentally for what was to come: praying for strength and putting my trust in God, ready to accept whatever outcome lay ahead. As soon as the ultrasound started, I could see the baby. And I could see that there was no movement and no heartbeat as there had been at my 8 week ultrasound.




After she worked silently for a few minutes, I finally said, "It's not moving, is it?" And she mercifully shook her head "no" rather than giving me some crap line about not being able to say anything because she's not  the doctor. The baby probably died a few days after my first ultrasound. So the poor lady got to finish the ultrasound with me sobbing on the table. But I was at peace, too.




I don't spend time wondering what would have been. All we have is what is. And I will treasure the special place this baby has in our hearts and the special role she has as our baby in Heaven (we both have a very strong feeling that we were having a girl). I trust that we will be with our baby someday and that's enough. For now we have our own little saint watching over us. I will cherish the memories of the two happy months we had while the baby was with us.


For now, although we feel the loss, we have a greater sense of gratitude. There has been so much to be thankful for during this experience:
We have 3 healthy children. The miscarriage happened in the first trimester. We hadn't been trying for months and months to get pregnant. There is no reason so far to believe that we can't have more. Elena and Sam accepted the news very well (my biggest fear when I found out was that they would be devastated). We have had so much support from family and friends.


It also helps tremendously having a 1-year-old in the house whose main objective throughout most of the day is making the people around him laugh.


"For you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made." Psalm 139

Want to know what it's like to get a diaper on a 1-year-old?

Well, if this is one of those things you have often wondered but weren't able to find an answer to on Google, look no further! You, too, can experience this challenging yet important task.


Here's what you do:


1) Find and catch a wild animal of some sort (still alive and awake, of course - no tranquilizers allowed for this activity). If you have a cat handy, you can use that, but not if it's one of those fat and lazy cats who just lies there and moves only when absolutely necessary for survival. That would be cheating. If it's rabid, all the better.


2) Put a diaper on it.


And that's it! That will pretty much give you the exact experience we go through every time Charlie needs a diaper change (albeit hairier and with more claws).


(As an alternative to this exercise, you could just come over to our house change Charlie's diaper)

April Fool's Birthday

Elena turned seven yesterday. Seven! The age of reason. Long past being a little kid. It seems very strange to me to be the mother of a seven year old already - with a 4th on the way. Everyone told me when she was born that time would fly and she would be grown up before I knew it, and they weren't kidding. She's over a third of the way to graduation! (Seth hates it when I say that. I hate it when I say that, too.)


Anyway, she loved turning 7 and had a wonderful birthday. For her party we had over lots of girls and did lots of girly things. They made paper flowers. They had a tea party. Thankfully we had hot chocolate as an alternative. No one but Elena actually liked the tea (to quote my niece Faith, about 1/4 of the way through her tea: "You know how sometimes you're drinking something, but you don't really like it all that much...." and me:"Is that what's happening to you with that tea?"  "Yeah."). I even made the sweet, milky chai tea, but it was a no go.


Here are a few pictures of the party and a video of her opening a gift on her birthday.

We finally have a good eater!

One of the fun things about having multiple children is watching how they are all different from (and similar to) one another. So far, Charlie has been similar in many ways to the others as far as personality goes. For example, they have all been very busy, energetic and social. We have yet to get  - and I'd be surprised if we ever do get - one of those toddlers who just sits there quietly for extended periods of time.


However, unlike our oldest two children, Charlie's list of foods he dislikes is much shorter than that of foods he likes.




In addition to eating every meat, fruit, vegetable and legume that he has been offered, he also likes things like: guacamole, kefir, hummus and clams. Way to go, Charlie!


Here is a list of things he refuses to eat: macaroni and cheese, apple sauce, whipped cream. That's pretty much it.


In contrast, Elena and Sam would probably be very happy to survive solely on Charlie's list of dislikes for the rest of their lives.

Who knew a weapon of mass destruction could be so dang cute?

I wrote this post back in January, but apparently I never posted it. Funny side-note about my comments at the end: I was actually pregnant when I wrote this. While I knew there was a possibility of it, I didn't really suspect anything yet.

Charlie has reached the age where if he is not creating a mess and then dragging it around the house in order to spread his destruction across as much territory as possible, he is pulling some sort of Baby Evil Knievel stunt. He's already figured out how to climb my kitchen step stool - necessary for me because our kitchen was custom built for woman taller than I - so he can grab things off the kitchen counter. He seems especially attracted to knives and scissors. Luckily, there are 4 of us around to intercept him.

It's been a little tough on Elena and Sam, who don't fully comprehend the importance of remembering to shut the baby gates or to "Close the bathroom door!!!!!" Overall they do well, but if they (or more likely their friends) ever do forget the gate, Charlie heads up the stairs as fast as he can.

And the other day, after I had double checked that the bathroom door was closed, one of the older kids snuck in there to go to the bathroom and left not only the door open, but the toilet seat was up and the toilet was not flushed. When I found Charlie half a minute later, he had pulled a handful of the toilet paper out of the toilet and scattered it across most of the kitchen floor.

So if you call me anytime in the next year, chances are good I won't make it to the phone in time because I didn't make it over the 4 gates we have set up in an attempt to keep Charlie corralled. I love our house, but it was definitely, absolutely, positively not designed with small children in mind.

On second thought, make that ten to fifteen years because by the time Charlie has outgrown the gates, we'll probably have another one needing to be saved from his/her own curiosity. And No, that is not my way of announcing that we have another one of the way so just calm down. I'm simply referring to the obvious fact that I've got quite a few fertile years left.

All in all, though, Charlie adds WAY more fun than frustration around here.

Hello again

I blame Charlie for taking me away from the blog. And also the new baby. Every time I am on the computer when Charlie is awake, he spends the whole time trying to bang on the keys and chew on the screen and then crying when I won't let him.

And by the time Charlie is asleep I'm too exhausted to stay up and do anything.  It's pretty tiring growing a baby. I'm happy to report, however, that for the first time we have kids old enough to kind of watch the younger ones while I get other stuff done.  I was able to sneak in a 20 minute doze on the couch while Elena and Sam played with Charlie. They were in the same room so I could open my eyes every 5 minutes and make sure they were doing alright so it wasn't an ideal nap, but it was better than nothing. It's only happened once so far because normally Charlie comes over and bangs on my face, but I'm hoping for several repeats.

In other news, Sam was in the preschool wrestling program this year and loved it. We took him to a few nearby tournaments and he had a lot of fun. We are lucky that he has a good personality for it - he enjoys it whether he wins or loses. My favorite moment of the whole thing was the day after the last tournament, where Sam had gotten 3rd place (out of 4). The next day when he found out that his cousin hadn't gotten a medal at the tournament, Sam gave him his own medal. I sure hope he keeps that attitude in the future.

Here he is (in the gray) at another tournament.

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Big Brother Charlie

As the title of this post suggests, we're having another baby! We are expecting to meet him or her in October, and we are all thrilled. Elena and Sam are exceptionally excited. At first Sam said he wanted another boy, but now he says he "knows it's a girl." Elena is hoping for a girl but not getting her hopes up. Charlie is clueless. He and this baby will have about the same age difference as Elena and Sam had.

I found out for sure on Valentine's Day, although I had my suspicions for several days before. Seth had actually asked me the night before Valentine's Day half-jokingly if I could be pregnant because I was so tired.  I decided to surprise him so I got him a Valentine's Day gift (which in itself it unusual) and signed the card, "Love, your pregnant wife and your newest baby."

I also set up a camera to tape his reaction.

Warning: this video contains some smooching so if you don't want to see that, make sure you stop about half-way through. I know at least some of our readers (Craig) will appreciate the heads up.

If only...

Elena and Sam were playing nicely all evening when I overheard Elena say something to the effect of, "We've been playing really well together today, Sam. We should do this more often."


I came into the room to get them ready for bed a minute later, and Elena said, "Mom, guess what! Sam and me decided that we're going to agree on everything for the rest of our lives."


I asked if I could get that in writing. They said no.


I think it lasted another 3.5 minutes, but it was nice while it lasted.