happy girl

Almost 8 months.

another day, another bag

I can't remember what day it is, and simple subtraction eludes me. Anyway.

Today's bag, modeled by the lovely Faith, who mustache you a question. It's diapers - cloth ones, of course - which I am giving away instead of trying to sell. Trying to sell diapers makes me insane. Giving them away makes me happy. It was an easy choice.

death rocks from the skies

Asteroids! Meteorites! PANIC!

Today's bag o' stuff. All trash today, rundown cardboard and irreparable books.

 With bonus Gilbert.

But it did remind me that we need fire ladders for the new place, since it's two story. If anyone has any recs, please do tell. They will probably be deployed by children, if that makes a difference.

thoughts on plenty

I have some. But the crying baby makes it impossible to write them down. Watch this space!


So, cleaning things out makes me feel ashamed. Not of my clutter and disorganization, that's just who I am, but of my overconsumption of STUFF. And then, I buy more STUFF, maybe because I feel bad. And then, Tabitha pointed out, maybe because I want to feel bad, because then I'll be ashamed again and so I get to punish myself.

Which brings me to my Lenten point: shame is not a particularly good penitential emotion for me. It's so self-directed, selfish really, where I'm concerned. It quickly moves into a more comfortable self-deprecating mess of pity, and self-loathing. Not good! What is good? Repentance, which is other-directed. So there you go.

Look at all my plenty, that I don't even want! Why did I get it to begin with? Why did I purchase it? To assuage some inner emptiness? Because I was bored? (likely.) Because I thought, right then, that I needed it? Things for the kids, I get because I love them and think the thing will make them happy. But mostly things just make them unhappy. They fight over things, want more things right after getting them. They agonize over getting rid of things even more than I do. And yet the things they have slowly grind into shreds of paper and tufts of polyester fur, little shards of plastic. Nobody wants the things they have - they want to want, and not to have. Sometimes they want to have, but really they want to make another child want! And they always, always want to GET.

Am I different? Not so much.

40 bags: bag 2

Passing on some baby clothes, toys, and a DVD player. Keeping Dorothy.

40 days, 40 bags

I'll be doing this.

I have 3 bags in reserve that just got donated yesterday, and a big box of books that just went. So I get 4 days "off".

Today's bag:

(Trixie Gleeson added for visual interest. I'll be keeping her.)

Today's bag has an outgrown coat, some tee shirts, and some unused crib sheets and blankets.

Snow

getting to the point

I can't draw. Like, at all. Nor do I feel called to learn how to draw. So I really don't care what kind of pencil I use, if I use a pencil. But I married an artist, and bore him seven children, and quite a few of them are also artists.

And one of them is Very Particular about pencils. And it's not Bede, or Abby (they don't care.)

It's this kid. The bigger one.

Her favorite are Dixon Ticonderogas, but they stopped manufacturing them in the US and the quality has really tanked. Off-center lead, broken lead, etc. Also they put Microban on or in them, which, no. So we've been looking for an alternative for quite a while, and I am happy to say she is satisfied with Palomino Prospectors from pencils.com.

A gross of them are on the way. Now to find her a better sharpener, which she also does fuss about...

Cookies, a love story

Dorothy likes...

CHOCOLATE!

(Her first chocolate!)

Thanks Baker Faith! You're my favorite not-quite-13 year old.

Roof! Oh, roof!

The addition has a roof and walls! With shingles, and glass windows! Pa Ingalls would be impressed.

It really is coming right along.

We were too sick for Mass this morning. We probably could have gone but we didn't want to share our germs. Sean went and stood in the back... with Bede, who really, really doesn't like to miss Mass. A far cry from the boy a year ago who never wanted to go. They went to a closer English Mass, and Sean said Bede was a bit put out by their persistent use of English. Sean said he seemed to think it was all one really long epistle. The second or third time they changed posture, Bede asked "When is it going to be the Latin, Dad?" and sighed when he was told it wasn't a Latin Mass. Then every time they stood and sat, repeatedly, yet with no Latin, he sighed again. Afterwards he said "I like St. Damien and the Greek and the Latin, Dad."

(Me too, Bede!)

I wrote this on Google+ but I'll write it here too: Abby's assessment was last week. Her official diagnosis is ADHD-PI. That's a lot of alphabet soup to say Dreamy Creative Writer Girl. (Really Smart Dreamy Creative Writer Girl, actually. Her IQ is quite high. I don't have numbers until I get the full assessment in the mail.) So that means we'll be playing to her strengths and compensating for her deficits. I'm re-reading The Edison Gene. Here's an excerpt.

I sure am tired of our endless low-level illness this winter.

Cowboy up!

Today's adventure was visiting the parents of our future puppy! This is Cowboy.

Cowboy is a chocolate Labrador Retriever. He fathered the litter that our puppy will be selected from. Here's a prettier shot of him from last fall:

Here's the dam, Montana. I couldn't get a picture of her today because the other dogs kept getting in shot.

If all goes well, they'll produce an even-tempered black female who will join our family in April.

They were both such good dogs. Cowboy's tail was wagging so hard and broad that I was afraid he would injure himself. His owner said he had been known to, in the past! Happy to a fault. Montana was sweet and easygoing.

We're pretty excited!

Seven months of Dorothy Rose

How big is Dorothy?

SO BIG!

Dorothy has two teeth, weighs about 20 pounds, makes an assortment of noises, including pbbbthbtht, goo, bay, hey, buh, dit dah, and mmm. She sits unassisted, drags herself around on her belly but briefly rocks back and forth on knees and elbows, and has been trying to pull herself up to stand, but not quite getting there. She's very vivacious around her family, not at all around anyone else - she's not one of those smiley extrovert babies. She likes to eat solid food, especially bananas and banana based goods and of course nurses throughout the day. She sleeps in large chunks at night, with the longest stretch from 1AM to around 8AM, still occasionally waking around 5 or 6. She has the family tendency to an inward turning eye but we're keeping an eye on it, ha ha. She loves and is loved by her siblings, who compete for her smiles and laughs. 

She is a delightful child. 

Post Oak Exsílium

It's looking quite structural, no?

This is my backyard. My sticks are sticky!

Faith relocated several very impressive spider egg cases to the woods. They were on the house, where I really didn't want them to hatch. But anything that eats mosquitoes is to be encouraged, so best to you, spiders!

Tomorrow the internets come to the woodsy woods, in the form of ViaSat satellite service. That was the last thing we were waiting on, so now we can MOVE. Hot dog!

The day

Gilbert is in Teaching Textbooks 3!

Dorothy eats two cookies AT THE SAME TIME, YALL.

Trixie and Gloria assemble something with craft foam, LEGO and ponies.

Bede is working with the Cuisenaire rods.

Abby is drawing in the messy Bigs room while she waits for her turn on the computer. 

And Faith is doing math as well.

A laughing baby

Whole lot better around here. Here's some cute for you.

Dorothy laughing

a complaint list

Not the best day here.

The teething baby - first tooth on Sunday - is unhappy, for the last four or five days. My not-quite five year old, Gloria, is in a very fragile way, emotionally. She's difficult to understand when she's upset, she mumbles, and she's upset A LOT. She is also at odds with Trixie the not-quite seven year old, who can be very difficult to get along with.

Gilbert is at an impasse in math, trying to get multiplication, and I am impatient with him. As he gets less and less sure of his answers they get more and more tentative and I get more and more irritable. I stopped today before I got mad, but biting it back made me mad internally for an hour or so.

Abby is s-l-o-o-o-w at school today. She has been doing a twenty minute history assignment for about two hours. I have an appointment for an assessment for her soon. I am certain she will fit the diagnostic criteria for SCT. What will that mean for her and us? She's my daydreamer, my girl on her own planet. I want her to be able to play to her strengths and compensate for her deficits, and a clear course of action will help her with that.

I have to pack for the move, which is okay, but the baby won't let me. I'm a little out of sorts about that. My house is a mess and it's not getting cleaner.

Yesterday, I was on the phone with my friend Tabitha in California and I said "...my brother Jonathan was at my parents' house this weekend and..." and I realized I no longer need to specify which brother is doing something because now both of my other brothers died.

I fucking hate cancer.

I think that's all.

Just a few photos

A goofy baby and a bunch of kids waiting for milkshakes and a not quite 5 year old girl with her baby sister.

We went out to the house today and there is further framing going on. Yay!

warm, muffiny goodness

Faith and Trixie made muffins. I knew there was a good reason to have them!

a day like many others

It's grey and cold today. The light has that unchanging quality it gets, and I can't tell what time it is when I look outside. Earlier I was thinking it was later, and now I'm surprised it's past 3.

This weekend we have a Trip planned. We're going to Guthrie to visit Mark's Drugstore, an old-fashioned drugstore with a fountain. This is due to Bede, who asked to go to a drugstore last week. Knowing he couldn't mean the local CVS, I figured he must mean a drugstore like he'd seen in old cartoons, with a soda fountain and a lunch counter. There is no such thing in Oklahoma City, but I knew there had to be something in historic Guthrie. Guthrie is only a few miles from our new house - we're between Guthrie and Arcadia.

Because blog posts look nicer with photos, here is Gilbert scrutinizing his pony collection.

Make your mark

Dorothy is utilizing her newfound slithering skills to Swiffer her way around and Find Things She Shouldn't. Like uncapped black Crayola markers.

"Dorothy has a mustache, Mom. You need to clean it."

I'm on it, son.