Rutabaga Dreams

Nathan is one month old today!  He’s a big little guy, much bigger than Emma or Gregory at this age.  I moved him into 3-6 month clothes a couple days ago because his onesies and sleepers were already getting too small for him.  It never ceases to amaze me how Matt and I could have one child who was in 0-3 until she was almost 5 months old (and she wasn’t even a preemie!) as well as one this big!  

Nathan is really starting to notice his siblings and be fascinated by them.  Emma and Gregory love an audience of course, and are very happy to sing and dance for him as well as show him toys, build him lego creations and such.  I took some really funny videos last night, one where E & G are both trying to read to Nathan at the same time, and another where they are singing and dancing for him.  He looks rather perplexed but intrigued the whole time.

Gregory loves to be read to and he will sit for long periods of time and listen to book after book after book.  He also likes to take a line from a book and repeat it at various odd times during the day and I always find it fascinating to see what he latches onto.  Right now he’s saying “High flippers, high flippers, we’re okay!” from Three Cheers for Tacky (well, actually it comes out as “high flippers, high flippers, we otay!” which is even cuter) and “hugs and kisses!” which comes from the end of Richard Scarry’s Great Steamboat Mystery.  

He seems to have a very good memory for this sort of thing and it makes me hope that perhaps memory work will be a little easier with this one.  :-)

So here’s the scenario:

I’m driving along down a fairly narrow and windy country road with my children, going at or a little above the speed limit (and right at my comfortable speed on this road) when someone in a red pick-up zooms up behind me and proceeds to ride my tail, honking occasionally and trying to pass over the double-yellow when even the slightest opportunity presents itself. 

Should I:

a)  slow down and try to find a place to pull over (which are not particularly common, and have little to no warning of their presence) but also risking enraging him further by the decrease in speed

b)  Speed up and probably still not get out of this person’s way to the extent that would get him off my tail, and also cause me to drive at a speed beyond what I felt comfortable doing

c)  Continue on, and hope he doesn’t try to do anything stupider than what he is already doing

d)  Something else

I picked c), which gained me quite a bit of honking and also some profanity when I was able to make my turn.  But it seems like a lose-lose situation, no matter what.  I did find praying for him quite helpful for me though - praying that he wouldn’t try to pass us and have an accident right in front of us, praying that he wouldn’t hurt anyone else with his reckless driving - which at least helped me keep calm.  I really hate situations like this though!!

Yes, we’re all still alive here!  I survived my first full week home with the kids without anyone else around, and on Thursday night I even made it through my first evening without Matt around.  I got all the kids to bed and the dishes done, and I was still in bed a little after 10, so I counted that a success.  Emma had swim lessons last Monday through Thursday, which made every day seem like two days…  we’d get all ready and go out to to the pool, then the kids would play at the park for awhile then it was home for lunch and a little rest.  Then we’d all get ready to go out again and head up to the property to feed Jos, water the garden, and let the kids play.  Then it was back home to make dinner and do all the evening routine stuff.  It made for some long days, but Emma enjoyed her swim lessons, and now we have some things we can practice when we’re visiting my Mom. 

I’m getting close to finishing my homeschooling planning for next year.  I still have some more materials to buy and some of the details to figure out in a couple subjects, but I think I’m in pretty good shape overall.  I called the charter school to scope that out a bit more, and the more I think about it, the more I think that jumping through their hoops just is not going to be worth the $1000/yr in lessons and materials it would offer…  especially since you have to give back anything non-consumable.  If I could just figure out a way to get together with some other homeschooling families occasionally!  It isn’t like we don’t get to see anyone ever, but it is mostly after church and in faith formation - either it is too structured or not enough time to really play much.  Come to think of it, social stuff through the charter would probably have the same problems…  although it would give us another area to try and meet people that we could get together outside of the structured events.  Anyways, I guess I’m just thinking out loud here, sorry.

Nathan is doing really well.  He’s sleeping well and is already noticing his siblings and all their busy-ness.  He likes the bouncy seat, especially when placed somewhere where he can watch Emma and Gregory.  They like having him around too, so it works out well all the way around.  He weighed in at 10 lbs, 4 oz. on Wednesday, and is already outgrowing some of the 0-3 outfits I have.  He wore a 3-6 month outfit yesterday and it fit him quite well.  Gregory has been very, um, two recently.  For example, yesterday I made him a hard-cooked poached egg for breakfast.  He ate part of it, then went to play for about 30 minutes.  He then started asking for a yogurt, and I told him he needed to finish his egg first.  He proceeded to ask for a yogurt for the next 40 minutes at which point I decided that he was a) probably very hungry and b) the egg was probably dried out and gross - so I gave him the yogurt.  He had one bite and then asked where…  yes, you guessed it, the egg went.  *sigh*  At least I could find it moderately funny at the time, even though it is certainly frustrating!

This is probably a boring post (and really, which ones aren’t) but it seems to be about all I can do at this point.  It is about time to head out to the property again so the kids can play and such…  and Nathan’s awake because Gregory started to scream because Emma wouldn’t give him some stickers.  *sigh*  Even with all this though, I love having three kid and having a baby around again.  

Emma:  I’m really looking forward to winter…  just think, Christmas, Gregory’s birthday, my birthday and soup!

Ah, that’s my girl.  :-)