Just saw these photos again...

...and wanted to share them (again?) with you. Robert was a big baby. Big, fat, roly-poly baby. I saw these this week and laughed out loud. He still makes all of those expressions, too. I just didn't know how much he looked like his 3-year-old self so early on.

In these photos Robert is 1 month, 2 months, and 13 months, respectively.

Another Story by Alice and Robert

Once upon a time there was a caterpillar in a nose, and a tissue tried to get it but it crawled down the tummy. a Bird tried to get it from the inside of the bird, and he ate his tummy instead. And the caterpillar tried to eat the bird, but he already ate the all.

Family History Breakthrough

This is it, ladies and gentleman, the actual evidence of a rumored deed that supposedly connects my GGG grandfather to his as-yet-unknown-to-me siblings and parents. I wouldn't have found it on my own for many, many, many years. Thank you, Ancestry.com and all your users.

Let's start connecting up families!

Bobby's Sunday Summary

Not too much new to report.  The last week before school starts.  The kids played fairly well together.  Alice has started to read a lot more books to Robert.  This helps a ton, especially on days when they both wake up early and the rest of us want to sleep in.  Hopefully everyone will adjust to school starting.

Epiphany about Alice

Ever since I found a painting that perfectly illustrates my feelings for Robert, I have been searching for something similar to describe my feelings for Alice. Yesterday, the search became an obsession as I looked through all of Brian Andreas' Story People prints online, ignoring my kids, getting more and more agitated that I couldn't frame my feelings for her. Mr. Andreas' work pinpoints quite a few tricky feelings for me, but nothing felt right when it came to Alice...

...maybe my feelings weren't normal

...maybe I was a bad mom because I couldn't exactly say all these other things about my experience as a mother, especially with Alice

...maybe I didn't actually have a clear picture of my feelings for Alice

...and that was the real answer. I didn't know how I felt about Alice.

So, I thought about that the rest of the day. I thought about my relationship with Alice. I can't say that I figured everything out, but I got this far:

She's my first, so everything she's experiencing is new to me. I feel like we're exploring together, but she's dependent on me, and I'm kind of dependent on her, but we're trying to learn independence from each other. And I'm insecure about all of that. Sometimes I'm even afraid of what Alice may say or feel or do in certain situations because I might not know how to respond.

I guess that could be said about any of my children. But Alice is old enough to see my mistakes and confront me. It's a new playing field.

And in all this thinking, I finally acknowledged to myself that Alice needs physical touch in order to feel and express love: hugs, kisses, sitting on laps, holding hands, playing with hair. I'm not much of a toucher. Her need for physical touch has actually been a source of anxiety for me. But once I recognized the complexity of my feelings for her, and how I had avoided physical touch for so long, I suddenly wanted to let her know how much I truly, deeply loved her. I scooped her up right there and hugged her tighter and more meaningfully than I had ever done before.

She means so much to me that it hurts to think about it.

I guess that's it. That's how I feel about Alice.

If you find a piece of art that illustrates this feeling, please pass it on :)

Spaghetti Recipe

My friend Liz sent this to me yesterday. It's a page from a class cookbook in elementary school. It's not my handwriting, so I suspect it was made in kindergarten or first grade:

Grog Sale

Alice and her friend N put together a small garage sale this afternoon, complete with a gorgeous sign (Alice recruited her cousin W to stand and attract attention at the sign):

There was no actual "grog" at this sale, which disappointed their only customer:

He left with a small bottle of bubbles instead. Thanks, Colonel Bob, for making this little girl's day.

A Silly Story by Alice and Robert: An Egg Who Loves to Eat Daddies

One day a dad was walking to his work and he saw an egg.  The egg was all brown but the inside of it was brown and its teeth were polished blue.  The daddy was surprised to see an egg with teeth.  He said "What are you doing here?, are you some kind of a funny Dog?" .  The egg responded "No I'm not I'm an egg.  What are you doing here this is silly world?".  The daddy said "This is not silly world.  No one is ever silly here.  Eggs are for eating not for being silly".  Then the egg said "Achoo, excuse me" and then said "Eggs? for eating? we eat scrambled Daddies for breakfast, not eggs".  "I'm surprised, You should eat eggs, not daddies." said the daddy, and sang a song "Red and Blue, Blue and Red, Thats the colors of my foot"  This secret song the Daddy know was supposed to kill all eggs, but it didn't kill this one, so he tried a different song.  "Green and Blue and Red, Blue and Green and Red" But the egg was still alive.  This made the daddy mad, because he was actually a wizard daddy, because he couldn't get rid of this annoying egg. His children were little wizards too. Then his wife came. She said "Umm Alice could choose"  Which was a very powerful magic spell.  But the spell only made the egg bigger.  Then she said it again, because she was blind and thought it made the egg smaller.  So the egg got even bigger and hungry.  The egg decided he wanted some breakfast, and all the other things the egg wanted to eat had already run away.  The egg tried to catch the daddy.  The egg took pepper juice out of his pocket and squirted the daddy in the eyes with the pepper juice and the daddy fell down. The egg said I love salsa. Then the egg squirted some more in his ear and then he fell down and then he eat the daddy.  The Mommy was very sad, because she thought the daddy was gone.  But Eggs are not that strong and the daddy just cracked the shell open with his special laser gun to boom him open and stepped out.  But he was covered in gooey egg.  Yuck. The daddy said "That egg was rotten"

The end

Bobby's Sunday Summary

A lot has happened since I last wrote.  I don't think I have time to go into all of it.  Suffice it to say that I had appendicitis.  Am more or less recovered now, and we had a great vacation.  Here are some pictures/Videos of the vacation.

First off we drove to Utah and stopped at many different rest stops on the way.

 We had a lot of fun surprises in the car for the kids too.

 

First stop was Idaho to visit my parents. There are no cousins there so we resorted to blocks and other activities like the zoo.

 

We Then drove down to Utah to see the Susan's side of the Family with all the cousins. This included a BBQ/Pool party. Hiking to Timp Cave, and having ice cream when we got back down. We also got to pet/feed some Lamas, and visit some friends we had not seen in a long time. And finally we went to a candy factory tour, a trip to a bounce house place, and playing at an odd dinosaur playground at a mall in down town SLC.

 

 It was a long trip when we finally got home. But it was a lot of Fun.

 

Mount Timpanogos Cave Hike

6,000 feet above our usual altitude

2 weeks after an appendectomy

3 kids 6 and under with ZERO hiking experience

1 awesome sister and her fam to make the journey a smashing success

We hiked to Timp Cave!

I made the mistake of telling the kids that the top of the mountain looks like a woman lying down. Robert couldn't let that image go. He asked what part of the girl we were climbing. I guessed her hair. Then we went inside the cave and he pointed out her lungs (the brown flowstone waterfall in Middle Cave). There is a 2-ton stalactite in the cave that they call the "heart" of the cave. Robert accepted that as literal fact. Then somehow he got stuck on the idea of the girl's bum. He wanted to go out of her bum. We got out of the cave and he was vastly disappointed, to the point of tears, that we hadn't seen her bum. Bobby and I tried all kinds of symbolic alternatives, but nothing would do. He did not see anything that looked like a bum to him, so it didn't count. He cried about it on the way home and still mentions it every time we talk about the cave. It was his favorite part of the trip, despite the disappointment, and I would do it again. But only if we're hiking with friends or family again.

Mama Molt

Any time you can compare motherhood to the life cycle of a unique and interesting insect, I'm in! But cicada metaphors aside, I still find this article singing to me. I just say, "Amen, sister."

Change is growth is necessary is not always the kind of growth one expects...click on the cicada shell to read the article:

Japanese Beetle Control!

My poor apple trees have taken a beating this year. Aphids, fungus, rabbit damage, and now Japanese beetles:

The beetle grubs have left their telltale signs in my lawn, too (dead rings where they've feasted on the grass roots):

There are chemical controls, of course, but the adults are notoriously difficult to manage because they fly from tree to tree with ease and follow pheromone trails from up to 2 miles away. They are also abundant because their favorite foodstuff is pretty much everywhere (e.g. roses, maple trees, fruit tree, crab apple trees, etc.) and there's no end to the expanse of urban lawn in which to lay eggs.

A small-scale organic farmer like me can use physical controls pretty easily. Just handpick those guys off the plants straight into a bucket of soapy water. My dwarf trees are still small enough that I can reach the highest branches.

Today, though, I decided to see if the chickens would eat them. A friend told me about her chickens liking Japanese Beetles, so I thought I'd give it a try. What a treat! Those horrid beetles made a terrific cracking, popping sound when the chickens crunched into them. Mwah ha ha haaaaa!

Broody Biddy

Roo wants to hatch an egg. We come home from vacation and suddenly she's keeping herself in the coop, sitting on the eggs of her compatriots, and just waiting. It's a hormonal thing. A bird can be perfectly happy to abandon her eggs every day for however long and then suddenly feel the uncontrollable urge to sit on a clutch and wait. She stops laying eggs. She just waits on the ones she finds.

Oh, Roo. I cannot mock your desire to nurture a brood. I have been there, chickie.

But Roo, you're not laying eggs. In another month or so, all of you chickie ladies will begin to molt* and then NONE of you will be laying eggs until spring. I am faced with a choice. Are you a pet, Roo? Or are you a means to an end?

I don't need pets.
I don't want pets.
I don't nurture lives just for fun.
I'm quite selfish that way.

But Roo, I like you. I like you best in the flock. You are the most pet-like of them all. I would consider feeding and caring for you all winter if only to have your personality around a little longer. With good care, you could live another 3-4 years! But I don't want to keep the rest of your flock unless they're laying eggs. I've pretty much decided that they have to go once the molt begins.

But one chicken gets awfully lonely on her own. And the owners of that lonely chicken get a little weird. I've seen it. Don't want it.

So sit on those eggs, dear Roo. I know you can't help it. I don't like to admit it even to myself, but your days are numbered. And your last day with me won't be an easy day for me, but I think that's a good thing. I don't want death to become easy for me...unless it's the death of a Japanese Beetle. Mwah ha ha haaaaaaaa.

*molt: "to shed old feathers, hair, or skin, or an old shell, to make way for a new growth, especially as a regular feature of an animal's life cycle." (thank you, Google)

James at 10 months

He wanders down the hall on shaky feet and stiff knees, teetering from one forbidden door to the next. Someone forgot to shut one! He speaks gleeful, curious babble as he discovers Alice's slipper, holds it high in one hand and stumbles into the hallway with a grin. Victory!

We visited the library today so James could practice moving on stairs. This boy is determined to walk forward down stairs just like everyone else. No reverse crawl. No bum scoot. No exceptions. Such an easygoing kind of fellow suddenly has such a strong opinion. I like to see him assert himself. He'll need that in this family :) His determination with the stairs has already resulted in several faceplants and a healthy respect for the edge of a drop off. I'll count that as progress.

I'm a sucker for his wheezy little giggle: