New Car!

Adora purchased her first ever vehicle - a 1997 Mercury Villager. Now she has her first Mom Mobile - if only she had her license she could drive it! (ok, we're working on it...)

Independence Day

Betsy finally managed to get those training wheels off her bike! She did extremely well, rolling off alone after just a very few attempts with me clinging to the backside of her seat. Here she is enjoying her new-found freedom.

She calls this a deep turn...

John Michael and David are *not* ready for no training wheels!

Adora's First Riding Adventure

Adora has joined the ranks of horse back riders in our household. Here she is atop of Blondie enjoying her first real riding experience. She's pretty good at grooming too! Meanwhile, Strider was babysitting the wee ones. I put a blanket on the ground for Nathan and Nehemiah and Strider decided it looked like a great place to take a nap. He didn't leave much room for his charges and he wasn't very good at keeping track of them either....

And as soon as the twins learn how to use those crops, they'll be on the back of a horse too...

Jr. LAX Dude

Davey wants to get in on the sports action in the worst kind of way. He decided to try out the lacrosse gear while he waits for his gymnastics class to begin in a few weeks...

Aviary Adventure

JR T-Ball

John Michael finally got in the sports fray with his first official sports practice - t-ball. He's now in a YMCA t-ball clinic for 3 and 4 year olds and, let me tell you, I had forgotten what fun this age can be at these things! The sport was all new to them and I'm not sure who was more fun to watch - the tots or their 20-something moms.

They started off the practice with a little glove work. JM got very frustrated very quickly when he realized he couldn't throw the ball with his left hand because he had a glove on it. I have since rectified that and bought him his very own lefty glove. The right-hander glove lasted all of about 3 and a half minutes before he threw it on the ground in frustration. Having a left-handed athlete is all new to me!
After about a million and a half whacks at that tee he finally sent the ball sailing about 8 inches across the grass and got to run. He was one of the few who actually knew to run to first base. Most of the other wee ones were told to run and run they did - on and on and on and on......

T-ball can get tiring and sometimes it's more fun to just sit and play with the cones. I missed a great shot when they were both wearing them on their heads...

T-Ball!

The girls have started t-ball. They are all on the same 5/6 league team. I figured Miriam would be happiest playing with her sisters and she is really enjoying it. They are the only 3 girls on the team, towering over their male 5 and 6 year teammates. I think they have decided the best thing about t-ball is wearing UNIFORMS! They love those matching orange socks and clunky shoes...

Betsy at bat. Her first swing at the ball only clipped the top third of the tee - pretty good, huh?!

Ruth's idea of playing 2nd base. She learned this technique from her teammates and then actually improved upon their methods. You might note that she is in an upright standing position and there is no dirt pouring out of her glove!

Miriam in the outfield is another step in the right direction. She is actually watching...well, something.

I'd say I'll keep you posted about their standings this season but they don't exactly keep score in this league. They get as many swings as they need, no walks or outs and when they hit 5 runs it's time to move on in the inning. You gotta start somewhere and I forgot how much fun this league is to watch!

In praise of A Little Cow Music

My brother-in-law has done it again. Alden has come out with his second self-produced album of children's songs and this one is fantastic! He struck a deal with the local dairy stand which sports a large fiberglass cow in the front. He would write a song just for the dairy stand and they would play it on endless loop and sell his CD's at the counter. It's a wonderful marriage of music, ice cream and plain silliness. His tunes are so singable I've been singing them in my sleep...ad nauseum...I actually have video of David sitting on his potty singing:

My Mommy's a pirate

oh what can I say!

She's out on the high seas

almost every day

She may be a scoundrel

and a flea biting scum

but I still love her

because she's my Mum!

The actual words are "sea-going bum" but we all know by now that David has his own take on life. My favorite moment with the album though was the day I was driving down the road talking to Alden on my cell phone at the very moment his voice was belting out:

Blah Blah talking

at the wheel or when she's walking

We need towing

oh please watch where you're going

.....my mom was talking on her cellular phone

The almost Twain-esque social commentary found in songs like Video Games All Day and Daddy's Got a Tattoo is completely lost on Philip who does a very funny muppet-like dance as he hears video sounds ringing in his head and dreams of the day when he can actually play video games all day. As far as he's concerned, Uncle Alden is his biggest ally in the video game war he's waging with his mum (in which she really does seem to him to act remarkably like a vicious pirate).

All 3 of the big boys suddenly take on that competitive edge around their eyeballs when the title song comes along. Each one is mysteriously compelled to become the first one able to recite every word of the long list of ice cream flavors and add-ins with the same remarkable speed with which Alden plays and sings. Listening to that song always creates a frenzy of competition with lips flying and ears glued to the speakers. We can never play that one just once - we have to repeat it again and again in hopes of increasing the number of words per second escaping from their lips at each go 'round.

Oh, I could go on and on about this album. We love everything about it. But for now I'll stop here and post his website as soon as he gets it up. That way you too can do what we do - buy 10 copies at a time and hand them out to every poor kid who invites one of our brood to their birthday party....

What a Treat!

We've had a really rough month or so what with the puke plague, Ruth experiencing her first sickle cell crisis and, most recently, a complete mental health breakdown for one of the children all of which has Philip so out of whack he doesn't know what's coming and going...I've been ready for something really good to happen and tonight it finally did! Two weeks ago I went to the charity auction and got myself four tickets to any show at one of the local colleges. I decided to take the girls on a date to the Celtic Festival and...WOW! What a fantastic event!

The evening was emcee'd by a fellow named Charlie Zahm http://www.charliezahm.com/Home.html who is obviously a regular on the Celtic music circuit. His performance highlighted his beautiful baritone voice and his two sidekicks, a fiddler and a percussionist. I really enjoyed that, while he obviously has a lot of performance experience, he lead the audience through the evening with a tremendous amount of humility and joy. It's refreshing to see truly gifted individuals who aren't full of themselves. He was the perfect choice to play at host and his little trio really had Ruthie tapping her toes and clapping her hands.

The girls got their first look at a couple of new instruments as well. A 20 piece harp symphony graced the upstage area. They played an independent performance and were then joined by Charlie Zahm's singing and served as instrumentalists for one of the two dance troupes there. The first dance troupe brought along a piper so the girls got to hear some bagpipe music as well.

The dancers were wonderful as well. There were two groups - one Irish and one Scottish - and I must say we were most impressed by the Scottish group. They featured a boy about Ben's age who is the National Grand Champion and recently won 6th in Scotland competition as well. These kids were fantastic! They were so quick on their feet, in perfect synch with one another and I can't imagine the amount of discipline and hard work that has gone into their training. The girls enjoyed the dancers the most.

It always does my heart good to see good art and this truly was art at its finest. It was really wonderful that the whole event had a sense of local and ethnic pride which usurped the usual self-aggrandizing pride of most perfected performing artists. I was sure ready for a little break and this evening was a very pleasant surprise!

There's Always Tomorrow...

John Michael seems to have waged philosophical war on the Potty Training process. I know he knows how to do it. He has all the signs and wonders - dry at night, tells me when he poos, can control his bladder, shoot he's even changed his own diaper. He began to tell us in the evening "I will use the potty tomorrow!" The next morning we would wake up and announce "John you said you would use the potty today!" He would get a glint in his eye and a smile on his face and say, "No, I said I would use the potty tomorrow. This is today." So yesterday's tomorrow is always today and never actually tomorrow...and he knew it all along! Stinker.

The other day I took off his jammies and put him in underpants under great screamings, whinings and protestations. "I don't care! Scream all you want! You are going to use the potty!" A couple of hours later he came to me and said that he was cold. I knew what that meant. I've walked through grocery aisles before with the chills while trying to cross my legs, push a cart and select the right grade carrots all at the same time. I didn't give in...Two hours after that he began to scream and cry. He'd been holding it for so long that his belly was sore. I got him to sit on the potty, then I got him to stand in front of the potty, then I got him to sit on the training potty but nothing could get him to stop screaming, relax and let loose. We read books, chatted, paraded the Philip Movie Lines show in front of him but all to no avail. Finally I pulled him off the potty and put a diaper on him when I began to seriously fear for the health of his bladder. John Michael curled up on the sofa, stopped screaming, fell asleep and managed to...relax.... Oh well, there's Always Tomorrow....

DOD

David got some sunglasses in his Easter basket which he just loves. He wears them everywhere. Last night he put on the Batman mask and then the glasses over it and announced, "Hey! I'm Vacation Fatman!" (for some reason he's always referred to Batman as Fatman). It was too cute - I had to take a picture!

DOD - An Easter Moment

We were sitting at the dinner table on Easter Sunday happily sharing our ham and yams when David suddenly lifted up his shirt, reached into his pants, pulled out a foil-wrapped chocolate egg and announced, "I found one!". I asked him if he laid that egg for the occasion and he said plainly, "Yes" then unwrapped it and ate it.

Happy Easter!

A Blessed Easter Season from our household to yours!

(Hey, it was freeeezing cold! That's the best I could do...)

Play Ball!

Ben's flying solo in the boys' baseball this year. JT's doing lacrosse and Phlip is signed up for basketball which is much more his sport. Ben had his very first practice of the season today. He's getting geared up for some fun and Adora is putting her softball experience into practice with daily catch sessions in the yard.

A Day in the Life

Saturday

8:15 AM Fr. Joel arises and rouses JT for his first lacrosse game

8:30 Fr. Joel leaves the house, drives Adora to the college and gets JT to the field
Mary rouses herself out of bed and showers

8:45 Both babies are being fed while the rest of the crew forages for breakfast

9:00 Mary gets 9 children in the van and they travel to cheer on JT's game

9:15 Mary circles the parking lot looking for a place to beach the big, red dog. Fr. Joel jogs up from the field, unloads the van (2 babies in the double stroller, a couple of toddlers and a gaggle of older children) and rescues Mary from Parking

10:30 The game over (we Won!), the family splits up between two vehicles and heads home

10:45 Mary throws together a snack, distributes two pieces of cheese to each child for a road snack and everyone re-shoes and heads back into the van

11:15 We're off for an hour drive to the day's entertainment

12:15 We arrive at the UPS Millenium Celebration. Back out comes the double stroller, an umbrella stroller for one toddler while the other perches on Daddy's head and the gaggle of older children follow along. 12:15 - 2:15 A couple of hours of fun involving posing next to Dale Jarret's 44 car, making UPS paper airplanes and a painful wait for the balloon sculpturers to craft something for 4 out of 10 children. Mary takes 12 meals tickets, JM and JT into the free food line where she scavenges for something on the family Diet. The three make it out with 9 plain slabs of hamburger, 5 bags of Utz pretzels, 4 bags of Utz potato chips, 3 sodas and a bottle of water.

2:30 The family travels the hour home while snacking on slabs of beef, pretzels, lollipops and water

3:30 We are greeted in our lawn by a neighbor bearing a chain saw. Said neighbor agrees to cut down anything resembling a bush he can find around the house while Fr. Joel strikes up a deal with his son - hard labor filling holes with dirt in exchange for a computer upgrade.

3:35 Mary showers and dresses for the evening. Fr. Joel heads off to Lowe's, taking the van and leaving the chain-saw weilding neighbor, his dirt-digging son and Adora spoon-feeding two babies.

3:36 Mary runs out the door to leave for a charity event and realizes her purse is in the Van...drives to Lowe's, fetches the purse and drives on to said charity event

4:30 Mary arrives at charity event where she spends the next 6 hours on her feet (in heels - bad choice!) convincing people to donate money so her children can continue to ride horses for another year. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Fr. Joel plants some grass seed and checks off a few projects from his "Honey Do" list

6:30 - ?? Fr. Joel and Adora feed, bath and jammy 10 children, get them to bed

10:30 pm - Mary arrives home to find Ruth reeling in sickle cell pain. A series of text messages on the ride home kept her up to date on the treatment given so far. Fr. Joel gets a call from Fr. Rob who has been stricken with the plague and asks Fr. Joel to take over his sermon slot tomorrow.

11:00 - The sickle cell vigil begins as does the sermon preparation. A call is placed to the hematologist who agrees to allow us to handle the pain management at home.

2:45 am - Ruth is finally settled and sleeping, sermon and Sunday School lesson are almost prepared

3:00 am - Both make it to bed

5:30 am - Nathan awakes and is nursed, Ruth gets more pain meds

8:15 am - Fr. Joel awakes and realizes he is an hour late in getting up. He heads for the shower while Mary rallies the troops

8:30 am - Fr. Joel and 3 children make it out the door to church

8:45 am - Mary and the remaining members of the household make it out the door (Note: that's 13 people dressed for church, fed and out the door in half an hour! I think that's a new record for us!)

The Plague's Last Stand

We got it...the plague, that is. It hit last Thursday afternoon just as Fr. Joel and I were preparing to head out for a quiet weekend alone and leave Adora with half the kids while the rest were scattered about here and there. In the midst of packing up 3 girls, 2 adults, an autistic boy and a baby, David threw up on...well, something. I chose to smile at Adora and go about my business. I really didn't want to lose this bonus trip away and I figured as long as she wasn't complaining too loudly I would just pretend everything was ok and ignore the pathetic little figure on the sofa huddled under a pair of receiving blankets and sucking on a popsicle. We finally managed to sneak out and all went well until the next morning when the calls started coming in. Ruth had a stomachache...(well, she did recently swallow a quarter for Pete's sake and she has been sickling into her abdomen lately...), David was sick again and he had a play date with Deacon's kiddo-s and, the call to beat all calls at 3:00 am - Nehemiah is in the ER puking his little guts out and trying to stay hydrated. Just as we sat down and began to pray for some direction about whether we should return our own selves into the fray, the phone rang yet again. Adora called to say that she and Nehemiah were headed home, some church friends had helped cared for the children and all would be "o.k.". I love that woman!

We had a wonderful weekend away and got lots of time to discuss a pet project of ours. The only drawback was that Nathan didn't seem to understand he was only along for the ride so that he could follow the food source. He seemed to think that we had forsaken all the other children and driven him to this parent paradise so that we could both spend untold hours entertaining...him...Ah well, it was a nice change and equally as nice to return home and see the kids who we actually did a miss a bit after 3 days away from it all. Unfortunately by the time we returned we had managed to infect Deacon's family, the wonderful couple who helped Adora get Nehemiah to the ER at 3:00 AM and a couple more of our own progeny. Nothing like a bit of healthy guilt to finish off a wonderful weekend!

We all seemed on the mend but we were out a sitter by Tuesday and we had been hoping to go on a field trip to the local Jewish Heritage Museum for a Passover Study. The boys were disappointed the night before that we had gotten our sitter sick and they were going to miss the opportunity to create their own plague as part of the museum's planned activities for them. Somehow that sounded like a great idea. Well, I got up in the morning full of optimism. "I can do this!" I said to myself. "I *can* take 10 kids (so what if 4 of them are 3 and under) into the city on a field trip at a moment's notice. This can *work*!" I marched myself down the steps and made my announcement. "We can do this people! Let's go!" I barked out orders like a military captain and my troops jumped into action. This one was packing the baby's bag, this one feeding the toddlers, this one packing lunches and another spooning mushed bananas into Nathan. We were running like a well-oiled machine and my optimism grew. "We *can* do this!" I repeated to myself and to my troops as a hope-inducing mantra. It was all coming together. The day was going to be a glowing success....until Betsy walked down the hall, leaned over and vomited all over the rug. Ok, so we can't do this. Our production line came to a screeching halt. By mid-day Fr. Joel informed me he wasn't feeling so well either and he arrived home 3 hours early looking rather green about the gills. He straggled up the stairs and buried himself in bed. I marched in and asked him to do me just one favor. He groaned that he wasn't up to any favors and I asked him to kindly at least *attempt* to hit something porcelain. "Well you better get me a trashcan then" was about all he could reply.

By Wednesday evening the plague had burned itself out and claimed as many victims as it was going to get in our household so I decided to make an all-out attack on the germs which had been marching through my house uninvited since the week before. All kitchen, dining room and bathroom surfaces were going to get a good scrubbing. It was like traveling through a time capsule, that scrubbing. First I came across about a pint of ice cream which had splattered on the wall and door and clung there in drippy strands, remnants no doubt of some Sunday dinner gone by. There was a nice round, sour lump of goo under the china cabinet. I wiped down a substance smeared on the wall which resembled bloody poo and actually *spoke* to me. "Don't even ask, " it proclaimed, "you just don't want to know." I found a small puddle of dried puke under David's chair. He must have forgotten to inform Adora of that one... On the hallway walls a series of blobs of bluish sticky stuff dotted with bits of paper reminded me that I had never thoroughly wiped down the walls after John Michael decided to glue his artwork to them. Apparently tape just wasn't going to get that job done for some reason. The hallway rug was still flecked with remnants of Betsy's untimely spillage and I could feel the germs jumping off the bathroom hand towels as I tossed them into Mt. Laundry. By 11:00 that night the cleansing was complete and I felt like a new woman. My household was restored, I had battled the Germs and won! The next morning I completed two final tasks. We ordered some nice flowers for the lovely couple who had born our infection like a badge of honor and Adora earned herself an iPod. That done, I finally felt I could put the whole ugly thing behind us and move on...to whatever the next day may hold for us!

Two Headed Baby!

We sighted this odd sight on the lacrosse field this evening...watch out, that's double the drool!

LAX!

It's finally begun. JT had his second Lacrosse practice today and it's going quite well. Turns out, he's almost as good with a lacrosse stick in his hands as he is with a soccer ball between his feet. His speed is definitely an advantage in this sport and he's learning to handle the stick well. Eventually I'll learn all the new vocabulary so I can yell from the sidelines without embarrassing him too much. I think he looks so athletic in all those pads... And I also think the word check is a rather weak word considering its actual meaning seems to be "license to use a stick to beat the doo-doo out of your opponent." Yeah, check - this isn't your usual chess game, baby!

Rub A Dub Dub

Three Men In a Tub!

Is that a....CURL?!

UP there, to the left...Some of you may think I'm pushing it here but there is more bounce to this boy's bangs than all of our white children put together. I'm thinkin' on a rainy day he may even be called a bit curly-headed! Of course, he needs a bit more HAIR to really be able to tell but I think Aunt Great can break out the Someone-finally-takes-after-me dance!

World's Best Parents!!

We won! We won! Fr. Joel found this sign tacked to our bedroom door when he came home from work last night:

For those who can't read the fine print, the front of it says Winner Winner Best Mom and Dad In The World see back for details. When you turn this fine document over you find this: Come downstairs and pick a prize! No Purchases included Prizes: ball, pen, mint, hard candy and chocolate, or party popper.

I picked the hard candy and Fr. Joel got himself a heart-shaped piece of chocolate. There's nothing like the sweet rewards of parenting....

DOD - What's a Mom to do?

With Fr. Joel off teaching seminary class today, I took the whole crew to Wal-Mart - that's two carts, each with a baby and 6 tag-alongs. We were going through the store looking rather large familyish, if ya know what I mean, and Miss. ADD was being particularly troublesome either wandering off in the wrong direction or forgetting to move anywhere and so I was rather preoccupied with her while David, the 2 1/2 yo, was running about being basically good in a twoish sort of way. I headed off to find myself a pregnancy test (don't get excited - these are part of my regular shopping list - see "Why We Let God Plan Our Family") and everyone was sort of milling about me causing a bit of a traffic jam when I looked down and noticed that David was thoughtfully turning over a box in his hands which he'd pulled from the shelf. About this time, a woman came around the corner with her three teens, took in the whole scene and her eye landed on David's box the same time mine did. We both noticed together that he was holding a box of condoms. I sort of sheepishly took them from his hand and replaced them on the shelf all the while grinning at this woman and wondering *what* she was going to say. She chuckled at us, looked at me and exclaimed, "He's trying to say no more brothers and sisters!"

Normally I would have been very offended by that comment but she was so good-natured about it and, really, that one *is* kind of hard to get around gracefully...

This, too, shall pass

Fr. Joel ran out the door this evening with 5 of the kids in tow (well, 8 if you count the neighbor kids who went along) for their Wednesday evening church class. I decided it would be great fun to have a wagon walk with the remaining crew and they were more than happy to join in. John Michael had his neighborhood bike-riding debut and was so thrilled in his stunt man helmet, riding on the street where the big kids ride. David thought he might venture the trip on his tricycle but after he tip-toed 20 feet down the driveway, he ditched his helmet and trike for a seat in the wagon. Adora pushed the twins in the double stroller and Betsy zipped along on her bike. We got about 4 houses up the street when Pooka suddenly realized we had left without HER (surely this was a mistake on our part) and she came busting out of the door and running down the street after us. I managed to rally the dog and left Adora standing in the middle of the street, collar in hand, wrangling the rest of the crew while I ran home for a leash - dog 1, humans 0.

The leash hangs on the side of Sydney's table who squawked at me when I came near and it took me a moment to convince him that birds just don't go on wagon walks....

Once we finally got it all together we must have been quite a sight as all the neighbors had the usual comments to make at our passing "You have your hands full", "that's quite a crew tonight", "Can't the dog pull the wagon?" (well, no, because that would actually be helpful...). I was sorry I hadn't brought the camera - if for no other reason than to permanently record the determined joy on JM's face as he maneuvered his bike from one curb crash to the next. He's such a boy...Then, as if we weren't having enough fun, I got a call on my cell phone from my dear husband. The conversation went something like this...

Hi

Hi

Um, apparently Ruth swallowed a coin.

Where did she get a coin?

I don't know but she swallowed one. She's standing here not telling me much about it.

What do you want me to do?

Um, I don't know but I'm in the middle of teaching 10 boys how to make scrambled eggs.

Ok, tell her to sit down somewhere and I'll come get her...


Fortunately I had my super secret crisis weapon right there with me - her name is Adora. We managed to get JM, the dog, the stroller and the wagon back into the driveway where I ditched all of my responsibilities into the hands of my most capable Crisis Manager to go rescue my daughter from the coin lodged somewhere between her tonsils and her bowels. I put in calls to both her pediatrician and her hematologist (hey, how am I supposed to know if coin swallowing can trigger a crisis?!). The hemo called back first so we went to his ER, at the suggestion of our parish nurse (who at one point worked in our local ER and we had long ago discussed that this was no place for a child with sickle cell to receive any kind of emergency care). An hour of driving and two and a half hours in the ER later, we were told that the coin had made it past the esophagus and into the stomach. This was a good thing as now she won't require surgery and this, too, shall pass....

(Now please pray with me that she doesn't remember to flush the toilet for the first time in her life over the next five days!)

In Defense of Icecream

When I was a kid one of my favorite family times was Sunday evenings. We always had icecream for dinner and we got to watch tv (a rare event) while we ate it at the "stack tables". We always watched the Muppet Show (my sister went on to become a professional puppeteer for a season..) and Marlin Perkins' Wild Kingdom (thought it was soo cool when my dad got to have dinner with him one night on a business trip in Vegas! lol).

So...fast forward to many years later with our own family I've decided to keep up the tradition and no one is complaining. Since we follow Feingold strictly, we can only have Breyer's icecream which is $$$ so I watch for sales and stock up when it's Buy 1/Get 1 Free. We have a freezer full of Breyer's most of the time. We make homemade chocolate fudge sauce and sometimes homemade whipped cream and pile it high! The really neat thing is that we've been able to use it for some great fellowship. Since my dh is an associate pastor at our church, we often will invite different church families over on Sunday evenings for "dinner". It is sooo easy and it's been such a blessing. Just tonight we had our neighbors over who have 4 kids and we didn't even notice the extra mouths and we got to have a long overdue grown up conversation with the parents.

I occasionally have a small niggling guilt about one thing. My mom would have icecream for supper because *her* time for hospitality and fellowship was always the afternoon meal after church. She would put on a big roast and invite folks over for a meal after church. So we always had a nice, big healthy meal at lunchtime (not to mention got to hang out with some really neat people over the years). The lunch tradition at our house, however, is "bunny noodles" with cut-up hotdogs which dh always makes (and which I call Dude Food - yuck!). So, not so healthy or substantial but...oh well, I'm over it! And that's my 2 cents about Icecream For Dinner. I wouldn't call that being a bad mom - I would call that winning the motherload of cool mom points. My kids are certainly the envy of all their friends on Sunday evenings....

DOD

I have a new title for my posts - DOD - Davidism of the Day. I figure he's just so funny I may as well give him his own category of posts here. So....here is today's D.O.D:

Philip was emptying out all the trashcans in the house and he had left the bathroom trashcan with the lid separated from the can while he went to fetch a bag. This is how David found it when he wandered into the bathroom. I heard him call out, "Ooooh Philip!!....the trashcan....you broke it in half!" He then put the whole exclamation to song and wandered off through the house singing his Philip broke the trashcan in half song...

Rockin' and Rollin'

Nathan is 7 months old now and he's mastered rockin' and rollin'. Here's some pics to let you in the fun!

ROCKIN'!



ROLLIN'!

New Do

I don't know what I was thinking but I always had these wonderful dreams of having a little black girl with that fun nappy hair to learn to braid and put into a thousand wonderful creations of hairy nappiness and my adorable child would skip gleefully about, happy to have a head full of colorful plaits topped with rows of beads and fun barettes. It's not like that at all. For those of you with similar delusions, let me set the record straight. It may eventually look right cute with even rows of braids and colorful doo-dads, but the process of getting there is a mother-daughter rite of passage which every black woman looks back upon still smarting from the thousands of stabbing pains to her scalp over the years. Ruth is no exception. "Doing her hair" is a dreaded phrase in our household and involves several hours of, well, great pain, great wailing and moaning and a lot of hair grease. Adora and I decided on the spur of the moment yesterday to solve that problem for the discernable future and bought Ruth her first Perm. Adora applied perm to scalp today and we are all quite pleased with the results. I was amazed with the ease with which her hairbrush ran through her hair today with NO WHINING, crying, crocodile tears or painful fidgeting and scratching. Alleluiah! Here's the pictures of Ruth's Great Perm Adventure and the resulting New Do (notice, if you will, the broad smile on Ruth's face).

SPOP!

S.P.O.P. - noun. 1. acronym which stands for Small Pieces of Oriental Plastic 2. the sound SPOP makes when sucked up in a vacuum cleaner

Before and After

Well, it's time to answer the question everyone wants to know...

How is Philip?!

Philip is great! And to prove it, I'm posting his before and after pictures. Thanks to the prayers of our many, many friends and family his recovery has actually gone remarkably, miraculously perhaps, well. His surgeon is truly surprised at the lack of bleeding, oozing, swelling and bruising (and boy are those four words fun to say all together in a row like that!). He had some stitches on the outer part of his lip where the lip revision was done. Those were removed on Monday and a little bit of swelling, redness and scarring can still be seen in that area. The inside of his mouth where the fistula was repaired and the bone graft put in is full of the nifty dissolvable stitches which are still quite prominent. The place on his hip where the bone was removed for the graft has about an inch and a quarter long scar which was actually glued together. There are two layers of stitches internally and the outer layer of skin was, well, super glued back on. Ask Philip about it, he'd be glad to show you that scar. After all, not many kids can say a doctor removed part of his hip bone and glued him back together!

Mobility-wise he's doing fantastic as well. He limps now only when he's trying to elicit sympathy and he's been pain-free since a few days after the surgery. So the biggest problem is that he is not allowed to engage in any activity that may result in a jarring of the graft site for another 4 1/2 weeks. He looks fine, feels fine but is very limited in what he is allowed to do and is stuck on a soft diet.

Well enough of the gory details, now for the gory photos. This is a picture of his lip before the surgery. Notice the right side has a bit of a peak left by the scar from his prior surgery. I had a great picture of Philip smiling but it just didn't capture that peak as well so you get his serious look here.

And in this picture the peak is gone. There is a bit of redness where they removed the stitches and it is still a wee bit swollen but there is a discernable difference in the shape of his lip.

Here is the before picture of his palate. If you look closely you can see a thin scar running all through the middle of the palate. That was from the first surgery which closed the original cleft which ran all the way from the front of his mouth to the very back of his palate. This picture shows the fistula - or small hole - left by the previous two surgeries. It's barely discernable behind that tooth. The crooked little tooth under my thumb is the site of the bone graft.
Here you can see that they pulled that tooth out (it was just a baby tooth and they gave him a buck for it). The brownish spot in there is the bone graft site and the brownish stuff is the stitches. The hole is also now closed. You can see the thickness of his lip in that area which is slightly swollen but is still much thicker than the rest of his lip due to a build-up of scar tissue from the previous surgeries. This was the one thing they were not able to correct this time around and will require one more very short little surgery (10 minute procedure) in a couple of month's time.
He has an adult tooth poised in his gums to come down right into the graft site. The tooth will actually complete the binding process of the graft into the surrounding palate and gums and it is what determined the timing of this surgery. I'll have to add in a picutre of his glued together hip but, believe it or not, I don't seem to have any pictures of that. I'm sure Philip will be happy to oblige me tomorrow...

As you can see Philip certainly was more than happy to show off the scar:

And here's a close-up of it. The white-ish stuff is dried up glue that is flaking off.

More Davidisms

David finished brushing his teeth the other evening and came downstairs. He announced to me, "Well, I brushed my teeth" and then continued with great disgust, "They are *always* in my mouth."



Last Sunday Ben overheard this conversation between John Michael and David:

JM: I want some milk! Get me some milk!

David: No, John, that's not how you ask. You ask like this. May I please have some milk?

Guess who got the milk?!

I Love My Lips!

It's a lip, it's a lip, it's a lip, lip, lip! Well, it wasn't Larry's lips but Philip's that got a complete overhaul today. Today was the big day of his 3rd surgery to correct the cleft in his lip and palate. It was a big day all around as Adora went to court this morning to meet up with Nehemiah's dad who was a no-show (boo hoo on him!). While Adora was in court, Muffy showed up to help out. Fr. Joel arrived home from work shortly before noon - just in enough time to load Philip and Nathan up in the car and get us all to the hospital. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Theresa picked up Miriam and took her to her dentist appointment, Adora arrived back home and Muffy took the girls back to her place for a couple of days. The hospital called this morning to ask if we could get there a couple of hours earlier than scheduled - NOT!

We arrived at the hospital and Philip went through the usual formalities. He sat around in a hospital-issue gown, 2 cheeks to the wind, while getting his vitals, Mom and Dad did paperwork, he visited with the anesthesiologist, a child care worker showed him the "medicine mask" and hooked him up with a handheld Playstation (he died and went to Heaven before he even hit the surgery table!) and the surgeon came in, chatted him up and wrote on his face, complete with his initials.

Dad accompanied him into the surgical room where some guy named Charlie talked him up until he fell dead asleep and they kicked Fr. Joel out. Then the waiting began. They called us about 40 minutes later (around 4:00) to say that they had just begun the surgery and all was going well. Three chapters of a Patrick O'Brien novel and too many episodes of Divorce Court later his doctor appeared on the scene with Philip's tooth in a little sample cup with a dollar taped to the top. The surgery went well, he said and all but one goal was accomplished. Here were the goals, just for the record:

1. Repair aveolar cleft in the palate (this involved removing the baby tooth in the gap of the cleft, taking a piece of bone out of Philip's left hip and using it to build a bridge across the gap caused by the cleft).

2. Close up the fistula (aka hole) running from the roof of Philip's mouth into his nostril (never again will he spit stuff out of his nose).

3. Revise the lip where a previous surgery had left a small peak on the top edge of his lip.

4. Remove scar tissue from a previous surgery.

Goals 1-3 were accomplished with flying colors. Number 4 will require a brief (10 minute) second surgery in a couple of months.

We were able to go in and visit with Philip in the recovery room where he remained for about 1 1/2 hours. This was also our first clue that the evening was not going to go as planned. We had brought Nathan along as he still requires milking every few hours and the plan was for me and little Naters to spend the night nursing Philip back to health in the hospital. This being flu and RSV season, no children under the age of 16 are currently allowed in the hospital areas where there are patients so...we had to take turns alternately visiting with Philip and bouncing Nathan on our knees (although Charlie did volunteer to babysit briefly so we could both go into recovery together at first..what a guy!). This also meant that Mom and baby were going home while Dad stayed behind to fill the nursing role....no skin off of Philip's teeth, he's definitely a Daddy's boy anyway. It was a bit problematic for Fr. Joel, however, when we realized the extra socks and undies I had packed weren't exactly going to fit him comfortably...

So here I am at home, very late at night, typing this out for all the world to read while Fr. Joel tries to get comfy in a pull-out chair and make Philip pee in a container (apparently he's decided to compete with his little brother, Bladder of Steel who, incidentally, has completely reverted back to diapers since his great pottying victory nigh 6 days ago).

Somewhere on my camera are before pictures. I'll take some after shots and try to get them up here on the blog.

But for now, I'm turning in!

More Rules to Live By

Sometimes I find myself saying the durndest things....


You may not make noseprints in your cornbread.

You may not hide your food in the Advent wreath.

If you find yourself licking your plate, you are *not* having good table manners.

Saying goodnight does not involve the word dupa.

You may not wear your veil to the dinner table.

Do not put your foot in a hot oven.

You may not boss people around when you are only wearing your underwear.

Success!!

Well, John Michael decided today was the day to become a big boy. Adora convinced him that only babies wear diapers and if he's going to be a baby then he can only eat baby food...and she made a big kid only Valentine cheesecake. That did it. The diaper came off, the underpants went on and the wait began to see if Bladder of Steel could make it to the potty in time. About half-way through supper he got a funny look on his face, announced that he was about to have wet pants and ran to his little potty (conveniently placed within eyeshot of the dining room table). About a minute later the little potty was full! John took care of his business and returned to the table only to sneak off and back to the potty a few minutes later. As soon as we realized he was missing (hey, with 13 bodies in the house it's not hard to misplace one once in a while) all eyes were on the potty where John was sporting a determined look and proclaimed that he would also be pooping. Sure enough he was right. I asked him to empty out his little potty and after a few too many minutes in the bathroom, I walked in to find him scrubbing the small potty receptacle with the toilet brush - by golly if he was going to be a big boy, he was going to go all out! Well, Bob the Builder was so pleased to hear about John Michael's accomplishment that he once again called him personally to congratulate him. A couple of other sibs got in on the Bob action and Ben swears his voice is a dead ringer for Deacon Jeff but maybe that's just a funny coincidence...Big Boy to the bitter end of the day, John insisted on taking his first shower as well instead of a bath. He did don a night-time diaper with promises of dry, clean pants all day tomorrow to earn him the privelege of wearing underpants to bed too! ....sniff....sniff...my baby's growing up!

Animal Sounds

I was running through animal sounds with David the other day and got these responses:

David, what does a dog say?

Woof! Woof!

What does a cat say?

Meow!

What does a lion say?

ROAR!

What does a chicken say?

QUACK! QUACK!

What does a bear say?

Go RAVENS!

That's my boy...



Just now I was rounding up John Michael and David for naps. I asked John if he was ready for a nap and he replied to me, "No, I am not ready for a nap but only say the word and I shall be healed." I got a big chuckle out of that and related the story to Fr. Joel but admitted that I was pondering which exact words would heal him from this anti-napism. He suggested, "Behold the nap of John. Blessed are they who nap until Supper."


We had some friends over the other night and John brought along his guitar while Fr. Joel was jamming on his recorders. When they ran out of songs to sing, they asked the kids for requests. John Michael begged them to play "Tinkle, Tinkle Little Star" which, we decided after trying out his version, begs the question where *does* rain come from?

HAIR!

Three Princesses and A Prince

Another local church sponsored a Father/Daughter Princess Dance. A few of the families from our church decided it was a worth-while event and a whole slew of happy girls prepared for their big night out tonight. Our girls made themselves tiaras, picked out their princess dresses and donned their prettiest jewels. Then they anxiously awaited Daddy's return from work.
Daddy came home with flowers for each of the girls. They, meanwhile, had carefully selected his blue suit and the handprint tie (he was opting to be "Daddy" for the evening rather than wear his usual formal "Father" attire) and thus they sealed his fate as the father of daughters. His fashion sense will never again go unnoticed... The event was a brilliant success. The hosting church is a large, well-organized body who really knows how to throw a nice party. They joined hundreds of other young princesses and their dads, danced the night away, had a sit-down dinner and were treated to a presentation about Queen Esther and her love for her Lord. It was a night to remember for many years to come!