Poop-splosion

Matthew started eating baby cereal in earnest last Friday. Up until that point, he would have 3-4 messy diapers a day. After his first real bowl of mush, that all stopped. I kept feeding him more mush every day and lots of nursing to try and work it through. Oodles of wet diapers, but no poop. He's been fussy and sensitive, increasingly prone to fits of hysteria, producing a little streak of mess in his diaper once or twice, but nothing I would call a bowel movement. Until today. It's Thursday.

I turn around to look at him fussing in the baby bouncer and what do I see? His legs like windshield wipers in a pool of poop. I took the whole mess into the bathroom and proceeded to clean cups of poop from his legs, his clothes, and that poor, poor bouncy seat (sorry, Marie). After a bath and some fresh clothes, he's a much happier fellow:

My happy little dude!

Looking up to his brother, Robert.

James

I don't blog enough about James. I don't take enough pictures of James. He's at this very interesting age where each day is an adventure with boundaries and social skills and just plain silliness. I wish I could take it all in... he's growing up faster than I can keep up. I'm missing some important insights into his character.

Just the other day, he spent quiet time with a bucket of Duplo blocks and came out with this little treasure. He was beaming with pride! And he gave it to me.

I love my James-y. I look forward to more 1-on-1 time with him this fall.

Strawberry Picts

Memorial Day strawberry harvest!

The three eldest and I selecting our share of today's strawberry bounty. Bonus points if you can identify who belongs to each hand :) Clockwise from top: Alice, James, me, and Robert.

Bountiful Harvest

A few weeks ago, when the garden was sprouts and dirt, Alice looked it over with a faraway gaze and quietly breathed this sighing wish, "All I want is a bountiful harvest."

As if our very lives depended on it.

So far, so good, Girly :)

The flowers we planted are just blooming now: marigolds, violas, zinnia, petunia, and nasturtium. We've harvested a couple Easter baskets of strawberries and three whole cocktail cucumbers. The kids ate the cukes before we even left the garden, but Robert let me taste his. Mmmmmmm. Fresh baby cukes, right off the vine. They were sweeter than the strawberries!

Robert sneaks a bite or two of sugar snap pea leaves every time he's outside, and I just showed him how delicious his purple carrot tops can be (carrots are in the parsley family). I'm picking green onions and cilantro for our dinner tonight.

Anyone have a good recipe for rhubarb pie? No strawberries included.

The blueberries are done blooming, so now it's just a waiting game until they're ripe.

Blackberries are just starting to bloom. The corn and green bean plants are about 6 inches tall.

I love gardening with/for my kids!

Fun with Hose and Dirt

In Bobby's Sunday Summary, he mentioned that Robert has been having fun with the hose and dirt. Well, there's more to that story. Remember when I planted 3 new fruit trees for my orchard? And then remember that Robert got a shovel for his birthday? Well, Robert LOVED the big tree holes and wanted to dig one of his very own. I said "yes", of course!

We call it "Buddy's Birthday Hole."

Our neighbor John calls it a "Leg Breaker."

Buddy and Alice dug it out a few weeks ago, but only recently did Robert think to fill it with water. What a development!  He played all stinkin' day in it like this:

Bobby's Sunday Summary

I know I have not done this in a while, but here are a few pictures and videos of things that have happened recently.

Robert has been learning to play the Ukulele

Buddy has been having a lot of fun lately with the good weather, the hose, and the dirt

He also graduated from preschool.

Alice had a piano recital.

And alice learned about photo bombing and decided to teach her siblings.

Sweet Potato Boy

Matthew enjoying some sweet potatoes. He's taken well to both solids and purees.

Touch-A-Truck 2015

Touch-A-Truck is an annual event for us. It's put on by the park district at the end of every school year. All kinds of trucks, buses, cars, and emergency vehicles are gathered at the park and opened up for kids to climb in and explore. James likes to point out every kind of truck, bus, and emergency vehicle he sees while we're driving. I thought this would be a dream come true for him.

Nope.

Well, not at first. He's so noisy and impish at home that it's hard to remember how shy he can be in public. He looked like this the first 45 minutes we were there:

I kid you not! The boy is being lifted by an actual firefighter into the driver's seat of an actual "firefighter truck", and that's all the joy he's got.

Well, we discovered a shaved ice truck that was giving out free treats. That got him to crack a smile. After he sat down a bit, had a chance to look around, and got used to the noise, he perked up. He decided to see the dump truck next. When the driver showed him how to honk both horns, James was sold. He put on his shy little smile and actually started enjoying himself.

He honked truck horns until the cold rain finally convinced me it was time to go. I tucked the boys into the stroller all snug and put down the rain cover, then ran towards our car when James started tossing and yelling from inside the stroller. I opened up the cover and he bolted out towards the bounce house.

The exact bounce house he was too terrified to look at only an hour earlier!

Fine. If he wanted to jump in the rain, I'd wait with the stroller under the pavilion and watch. He came out when he was done and we went home. Wet. Cold. Happy.

Final Fling

Today is Robert's last day of preschool EVER. It feels like my last quiet freedom until school starts again in the fall.

*sigh*

So, I was scrambling this morning trying to think (last-minute, of course) of something, anything to do today that would properly celebrate and mourn this last wisp of a quiet morning with the two smallest Evanses. I decided to bike the boys to Meadowbrook Park and take a brisk walk along the sculpture trail there. This outing was made possible by a new double stroller of mine that not only supports an infant perfectly next to his giant 2-year-old brother, but also provides a smooth, all-terrain ride by foot or by bike. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's my dream vehicle.

We rode there, we walked the path, then I rode around the neighborhood a little more. It only took me 7 minutes by bike to get to the grocery store. Not bad!

The boys found it a comfy ride:

Snoozing in the trailer/stroller. Success!

The sculpture path is close enough that Alice and Robert could easily bike there with me, but they wouldn't enjoy the walking as much, and they would mutiny if we didn't stay to play at the playground for an hour afterwards. Nothing I can't handle, but it's nice not to have to handle it :)

Grouching

Some ladies I barely know were nursing their babies at the same time I was at church today. We were all in the "Mother's Lounge." They were talking about engorgement when I walked in, sat down, and proceeded to feed a very loud and appreciative Matthew. There was a break in the conversation and one woman turned to me asking how things were going with my husband as bishop and such.

Let me tell you now that Sunday afternoon...when I'm tired and hungry and minutes away from wrangling all the kids home by myself for a half-lunch and a shortened quiet time...is NOT the best time to ask me about my life. Even if you're just trying to be polite and find something to chat about, at that moment, in that frame of mind, I don't chat. I grouch.

So, I probably gave them too realistic a picture.

Then they turned the conversation to toddlers and sibling spacing! I was happy to stay out of it, but the same woman asked me my thoughts on the matter. I don't have an easy answer for those kinds of questions. All I could think was, "I never want three kids 5 and under again." So that's what I told them. And then I told them I was relieved that my baby wasn't as young as their babies anymore. Why on EARTH did I say that out loud?!

Oh dear. Those ladies probably think I'm seriously depressed. And perhaps on Sunday afternoons, I am.

Catch me on a rainy day in my backyard when my big ones are knee-deep in mud and my smallest one is peacefully asleep in his crib and I'll have a completely different conversation for you. Then we can wax philosophical over things we can't control.

But on Sunday, it's probably best to leave the grouch alone :)

"Hey, Mom! Let me get a picture of you." *click* Then Robert puts it in a frame to give me for Mother's Day.  Just.what.I.wanted.

Apartment Envy

Every once in a while, I'll be driving around town and see a For Rent sign or two. I start reminiscing about the days Bobby and I lived in an apartment by ourselves. No kids. Eating meals quietly together. Way less laundry and housework. Way less house. Just us.

It wasn't perfect, just like now isn't perfect, but it's a world apart from my life right now...so refreshing to visit for a minute or two.

First Tooth! and Garden Happiness

Matthew, my dear little baby, has a tooth! His first. A sharp first. And he's a chomper, no doubt about it. The teething itself didn't seem to bother him too much this time, which is why I'm so happy right now. He's also finding an earlier bedtime and trying to consolidate his naps. I couldn't be prouder ;) At his 6-month appointment last week, he weighed in at 18 pounds 4 ounces. That's 4 pounds heavier than his female counterpart who is now crawling, doing push ups, using furniture to pull herself up, and easily going from crawling to sitting. Sheesh. Matthew, um, arches and flops to follow interesting sounds. And he has a tooth.

I'm also happy about a gigantic pile of mulch on my driveway. I realized that I'm ready for the front of our house to look pretty and cared for. I planted flowers. I tidied the bramble patch. Now I've got mulch keeping the weeds at bay. For now. I've checked out a few books on landscaping design *groan* Finding my "style" is more difficult than I thought. Hours of research and touring neighborhoods has shown me that I like crisp lines and geometry. Years of experience tell me that I'm far too lazy a gardener to keep any sort of line crisp or angle sharp. Hmm. Maybe that's why I appreciate it so much in other people's yards. The bigger boys LOVED the mulch pile, but I was too busy with it to let them play in it like they wanted to. I've missed the luxury of sitting back and enjoying the present lately. I feel like much of my life is running from one thing to another, never knowing how much time I'll have to finish any of the stuff I've got to do. Part of it is Matthew's age. Part of it is just having so many lives to look over and clean up after.

I'll need another gigantic pile of mulch for the garden paths and under the cedar tree. And I still have to mow the lawn. Gonna be an exhausting day tomorrow. Cool.

And there's more happiness is coming from the 7 baby peaches growing on our peach tree. My friend tells me old nylons kept the squirrels off her tomatoes last year...was it the texture or the smell that kept them away? I've got nylons that will do the job either way :)

And maybe, just maybe, there's a blueberry or two forming on our flower-laden bushes. I check those little ovaries every day to see if they've grown any fatter...or bluer...or berrier.

The strawberries are turning orange-pink. Oodles and oodles of them. Please oh please oh please stay away, you squirrels. My rhubarb is getting fat, too.

The yard and garden have been stressing me out a bit, but only because I don't know when I'll get around to working in them. And this is the first year I might get something from the perennials and fruit trees. It's a big year.

A couple of my favorite pictures from the last few weeks:

Robert and Matthew sharing the baby mat. Robert will play here even when Matthew isn't on it. He pretends he's a baby.

Alice, Robert, and James along the sculpture garden path at Meadowbrook Park. Yes, I know, you're not supposed to climb the sculptures, but this one didn't have a sign explicitly forbidding it, and the kids are just so darn cute riding a bunny.

Pardon My Language

Life kicked my butt today.

I've never been so close to screaming at Robert so many times in one day. I think he and James earned a record number of timeouts.

Not what I want to remember about these days.

Time for bed.

But not before I show you this...

Robert, asleep in the hammock at Quiet Time, with his finger up his nose. The boy had not slept well the night before due to a stuffy/runny nose. I believe his finger was stopping the flow when he accidentally fell asleep here. He's cradling a mason jar containing one big, shiny, green fly he had just managed to catch almost entirely on his own during Quiet Time.