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.

Back to school

Today we're back to homeschool. We've been off for a month, a bit longer than planned. I cared for my niece's (also homeschooled) children quite a bit in the weeks before my brother died, and was happy to be able to do so. One of the reasons we homeschool year round is to be able to take breaks when we need to for things like

One of the first photos of Dorothy

and

One of the last photos of Troy

Today we jumped right in, history and math. Messy and imperfect Life keeps going, you know? And we're pretty happy with it.

Abaigeal the Glad

the flu

We has it.

A wan Bede.

Happy new year

So long 2012!

Bede went to Mass this morning with Sean, Faith and Abby while I stayed home with the other kids. He wanted to go, so of course I let him go. It was his first time at English Mass. Sean said he kept shushing people. I guess it's noisier than the Latin Mass.

He's very much interested in the Eucharist. Our priest wants all first communicants to make their first confession prior to receiving first communion, so that's my plan. Loyola Press makes an Adaptive Reconciliation Kit which I'll get. They also make an Adaptive First Communion Kit, but it is keyed to the English liturgy and largely inapplicable to the Latin.

A few weeks ago, he was loud in the sanctuary. I stood up and left with him, which he did not want, and sat down with him in the narthex. He was crying as we sat down, and I said he could go back in once he was quiet. This started a new burst of moaning and weeping, mostly incoherent, but then he pulled his face up, tears on his cheeks, and said "But Mom! Am I Catholic?"

I said he certainly was.

He quieted down rapidly and we went back in.

My Catholic boy.