Doggone

That is what happens when the screen door is not fully latched.  Fly slipped out the door and was gone faster than you could say Jack Robinson.  All five kids were screaming, shouting, and crying hysterically.  The boys were running down the sidewalk and out in the field (in their socks, no less) waving dog treats and calling the dog's name with tears streaming down their cheeks.  The dog was gone for maybe an entire four minutes, then she came running back around the corner of the house just as quickly as she had disappeared, and leaped into Paul's arms.  Dang sneaky dog.  She looked just a little too pleased with herself after all that; I'd swear she was smirking.  

A little light reading.

Cute, huh?
That is The Annals of Imperial Rome, in my four-year-old's bed.  She has been "reading" it every night before bed this week.  She'll actually lay there with her little reading lamp on and flip through the pages, very seriously, for a good 20 minutes.  Who needs Mother Goose when you can read Cornelius Tacitus?  Not my Elena!

If you are the mother of small children, you've been the recipient of many bouquets that probably look very much like this.  Every time a new tulip opens up out in my gardens, it is immediately picked and presented to me.  I guess I didn't really want any flowers cluttering up my flower beds anyways.  Although, if the children insist on picking my flowers (which is, still,  far better than picking the neighbor's flowers) I would appreciate if they could leave more than a half-inch of stem attached.  And of course the dandelions add just the right finishing touch.

Sweet Ride

A good way to draw attention to oneself is to ride around town on a big, ugly monster of a bike with enormous chrome pannier baskets and a noisy toddler in a trailer behind you, all the while screaming at four children on bikes in front of you dodging and weaving in and out of traffic.  Do this often enough, and townspeople start to recognize you and call you "that family with the bikes".  It's hard not to look cool cruising around on a rig like this here, I tell ya.  This, hopefully, is how we will spend many happy days this summer.  

Replacing the divots

They've been treasure hunting with the metal detector again.  Now that they are feeling better, it's time to fill in all their holes.  Looks like we'll also be planting some new grass.
Time to set up the playhouse again.  It was a $20 garage sale find.  It kept blowing apart over the winter, so we put it in the garage til spring.  The girls have spent the morning fighting over it; it's come to blows a few times already.  By the end of the week, no one will want to play out there anymore, but for now, there are some major land battles going on.

Things can only get better from here (I hope)

My morning walk with the dog.  A nice way to start the day, because you never know what'll happen around here.
Here's Naomi at her gymnastics parents' day.  I brought Wawa and all the children to see her.  Midway through, I had to hastily escort a vomiting child from the building, which is always one of motherhood's most exciting events.  We loaded quickly into the van, and made it home for Round 3 of the stomach bug.  Matt and Paul came down with it shortly after Joe, who was the one we had to rush out of gymnastics with. Oy.

Making it all worthwhile

A few years ago, the boys bought a metal detector with their own money.  The plan was to use it  to find all kinds of money and jewelry that other people lost, and become rich in the process.  A flawless plan in their eyes, almost as good as Joe's idea to print money off the computer's printer, and get rich that way.  Always thinking, those boys.  Today, all their scheming has come to fruition.  Pinched between Joe's dirty little fingers is a genuine nickel.  Yes, you read that right, they are now five cents richer than when they woke up this morning.  Paul just about tore the front door off its hinges running in to tell me what they found.  We'll just nevermind the big hole in my front yard, and the big pile of dirt on the sidewalk.  Right in front of the house, the house we are trying to sell, with the yard already full of brown grass and dog poop.  I'm sure we can find some way to sell all these new hole as a feature- maybe we'll call them petite inground pools, or convince people to pay extra for the mining rights to the property.
And this is how we spent our Easter weekend.  Yup, emptying more barf bowls.  Two more children woke us up Friday night with the unmistakable sound of vomiting all over their beds.  The sound of a kid puking in the middle of the night could probably wake me right up out of the grave.

Don't let this happen to you!

Yes, the baby fell asleep on the coffee table.  Wood.  No pillow.  Dried nacho cheese around her mouth still.  When you're two, taking  a nice nap in your comfy bed with lots of pillows and dark quietness is not as appealing as when you're, say, 33.  Especially when Uncle Todd is on his way over bringing Taco Bell.  A better mother might have tried to move the sleeping baby on to the comfy couch or even up to her bed.  I ran and got the camera, and am blogging it up as she sleeps.  Besides, small and cute as she appears, that is not a hornets' nest I want to poke.

Boys go to jupiter, to get more stupider.

So says my darling four year old daughter during  lunch today.  Boy, the nuggets I pick up when I'm half-listening to my children's chattering.  At least now I know where they go to get so stupid.

And happy birthday to Paul.  Ten years, sheesh, where does the time go.

Learning All The Time

Our poor little Renee is still not feeling good, and combined with the cold rain outside, it was a good day to stay at home and actually do some home schooling.  The ornery little wretch pictured below has been poring over his math all day, in between harassing the dog, harassing his sisters, and giving his mother attitude.  Note the 'State Capitols 500 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle' spread out underneath the paper he is working on- that's multi-tasking at its finest.  Joe typically takes a long time to do just about everything.  Just getting his name on his paper can take up to an hour; there are just so many interesting distractions, it seems.  This table is the third spot in the house he has been sent to work today in an effort to maximize his productivity.  

Elena has been learning how to read, as well as learning things like her full name, address, birthday, days of the week, etc.  These are all things we have practiced before, but I almost laughed out loud during today's lesson.  When I asked if she knew her address where she lived, she very earnestly replied "Right here."  We practiced a few more questions that she answered correctly; when I asked her when her birthday was, she said, "Next summer."  While technically correct, that was not the answer I was going for.  Guess you had to be here, it was much funnier in person!  And as you can see, her do-it-yourself home haircut is finally starting to grow back.

Awwww...

Doesn't this picture just warm your little heart?  A little boy in rubber boots, floating his little toy boat in  a puddle.  If this scene doesn't deserve to be immortalized, my friends, than what does?  Joe is far and away the squirrelliest kid I've ever known, but sometimes he's just so cute.  To testify to his squirrelly-ness- about a half hour before I snapped this shot, Matt had to yell at him to put on his rubber boots, because he was standing ankle-deep in ice water in his only (formerly)  good shoes.  I went out last spring and bought all of my children knee-high rubber boots, specifically for romping around in mud and puddles.  I've been in this business long enough to know there is no way on earth to keep a kid out of a good puddle; my best bet was going to be in damage prevention.  If anyone knows a good training method to get kids to put their boots on their feet before going puddle stomping, drop me a line.
The Dog Who'll Eat Anything has been on the prowl again.  She has become so bold as to hop right up on to the table now to see what's for supper.  We have to keep her in her cage during mealtimes, as she's cultivated the habit of stealing food right off the kids' plates.  The kids, for their part, encourage this behavior by feeding her under the table.  Fly was begging at my feet while I prepared dinner last night.  I was making salad, so I tossed her a piece of lettuce, figuring she wouldn't be terribly interested, but she wolfed it down and looked up at me for another piece.  Someone told once me that dogs don't like bananas, a theory which our dog has disproved several times.  Maybe most other dogs don't live in a house with such a large number of unattended bananas lying around.  Last week Fly also ate a can of neon orange Play-Doh.  It was very easy to see those piles in the front yard.  Speaking of which, Paul just finished his chore of scooping up all the dog piles in the yard.  He was very pleased to show me a penny he found in one of the piles, which he was washing in the sink.  I don't know if I should be shaking my head at a dog who eats pennies, or a boy who thinks they're worth fishing out of the 'end product'.  Now, if that dumb dog starts plopping out $50 bills, she might be worth keeping around.

When a regular airplane just won't do...

My boys like paper airplanes.  A lot.  They make them everyday, by the dozens.  They have several airplane-making books.  Joe, especially, has become quite good at it, too.  Other kids come to him to have him make airplanes for them, because his are just so darn good.  The only problem (and it's a big one) is that the boys cannot seem to part with any plane they have made.  Planes fall out of my bookshelves all day long; they fill the spaces under their beds and on top of their dressers.  Too many times I've gone to print something off the computer and can't, because all the paper has been made into airplanes.

So it seems, this afternoon, my oldest son has outgrown the simple 8.5 x 11 airplane size, and he has started taping multiple sheets of paper together to make a bigger, better plane.  I expect to be out of paper and tape by dinner time.

Not the best week ever

Poor Renee, she barfed in her bed this morning.  It's always such an awful thing; it's hard to know where to start cleaning up the mess.  Bigger kids (hopefully) tell you when they feel sick, and can be directed towards the appropriate receptacle before disaster strikes.  Little ones just open up and let it fly with zero warning.  Kids have a knack for throwing up in bad places.  If you have washable tile or wood floors in every room of your house but one, kids will go into that room to throw up.  Or have a bloody nose.  Or a potty accident.  Or spill their juice.  Pets abide by this same principle, and seem to prefer peeing, pooping, and puking only on clean, white carpeting.

If you are what you eat....

Then this is a portrait of me.  I love donuts.  However, they do not love me back.  I'm sure I'd feel lots better if I ate better; moderation is just not one of my strong points.  Many a day I have gotten out of bed swearing off all sugar and junk food determined to eat healthier.  This lasts until I get hungry again, then it's donut time.