Just don't call it a blog...

Apple Farm visit

2008-10-12T17:04:00.003-04:00

Here we are again.

2008-06-19T08:13:00.005-04:00

Libby is 13 - taller than I am, and our favorite girl in the world.
Colin is 10 - loves to read and shout and swordfight.
John is almost 7 - his life is a musical comedy. Goes to camp for the first time next week.
Henry is almost 3 - first dentist appointment yesterday. Cuter than is possible.

Cheryl and kids are visiting for a few days from NC. Mike's dad just left this morning after a second installment of working on Libby's room; it's been torn out for several weeks now and we're working on the boys room at the same time. We're all sleeping in the same 2-room area and it's much less hard than I thought it would be. I am a magician and I make things disappear. John is especially loving it because he has no room to clean and no bed to make to clean: fold up the cot and he's done. Ah, the simple life.

John is 6!

2007-08-02T08:26:00.000-04:00

Our Man John is six years old today!

I made the collage on the right for a mousepad for my dad and thought it was too pretty to not use again. We've got Colin at 9, Libby at 12, John at 5 (although he's 6 as of 2 hours ago) and Henry at 1.5, although he'll be 2 in 7 days). Everyone but Colin looks far more serious and introverted than usual, but it gives a good idea of how smashingly handsome they are.

And yesterday was our 15th wedding anniversary. (I love that man.)

Yay me,

2007-06-11T21:30:00.000-04:00

So I've lost 25 pounds. And I weigh 16 pounds less than my drivers license says. Anyone want to meet my mom and me on a cruise to Cozumel in late February to celebrate? (She's losing too, but you don't have to be changing in any way to come.) E-mail me for info...

2007-05-04T20:01:00.001-04:00

The ambushing Padawan rebels were no match for the cranky old Jedi.

2007-05-04T19:37:00.000-04:00

During dinner, John looks out window, sees clouds passing.
John: Hey! The earf is movin'!
Libby: No, John, we're just all revolving around you.
........................................................

9yo Colin: I love fractions so much, but I knew a lot more about them when I was six.

........................................................

John: Dad, is it against the law to break the law?

........................................................

Jenn: En pojke och en hund på ett flygplan - Thanks, Matt & Sarah!

Where was I?

2007-04-12T07:14:00.000-04:00

So Colin's Giant Treasure Hunt Birthday Party is over and the clue I left here yesterday did indeed lead them to Windows Movie Maker file I made with the next clue in it. The whole thing went well, the boys were pretty happy and Libby says I'm the coolest mom ever. It was a pretty great treasure hunt...

So here I am with no major project until June. Unless you count our week vacation in May (gotta finish my packing list and buy sandals for everyone), my schoolroom closet (80 square feet of mayhem/too much stuff), my attic (see schoolroom closet times 11), switching everyone's wardrobes over to spring/summer (8 inches of snow expected today - this project can wait a bit), the fact that our school year has screeched to a crawl...all sorts of things that need to be done right away. And won't I feel better when they're done. Yep. I guess so.

Anyhow, things have busy with quite a lot that excapes my memory right now.

God has been very good to me and has helped me stumble into managing to keep my house much tidier most of the time
and I've lost 7 pounds and I feel much better now that I'm below my Terminal Capacity Level
Mike's firm switch a year ago has changed our lives exponentially for the better on multiple levels - not that we were miserable before, but we get much more of him for ourselves these days
somebody apparently accidentally cured diabetes in mice in Toronto, so maybe Libby will have a IDDM-free adulthood someday
we're having a grand time with my cool parents who have lived nearby for more than two years now
we've been able to have people over more and it's been a blast (Hi, groovy!)
we found that Lost and Heroes are online so we can watch them at our convenience
our kids are hilarious and I need to write down what they say more
John has a loose tooth
Henry can say "Nana" (just not while Nana's around...)

That's all I can think of right now. Concentration hasn't been my strong suit for a number of years now...

Happy birthday, Colin!

2007-04-10T08:25:00.000-04:00

Henry's brushing up his Carter Scratch.

2006-10-20T20:06:00.000-04:00

2006-10-17T21:15:00.000-04:00

How many points on the leaf?

2006-10-17T21:13:00.000-04:00

2006-10-09T12:28:00.000-04:00

Hi, Mom!

I could do this all day.

2006-09-25T21:55:00.000-04:00

Google Earth has added newer, sharper pictures of places I know. We can now very clearly see our swing set from space. And the house I grew up in. And that the batter at Hadlock Field is probably a leftie. And that the hospital complex next to my church is very prettily arranged.

That was weird.

2006-09-25T13:09:00.000-04:00

It probably escaped your notice, but my site was misdirected to some strange info site for a few days there. After making a couple of polite inquiries, all is well. Although I am irked by not knowing how my forwarding went wrong or how it got fixed.

2006-09-20T09:14:00.000-04:00

I've added some more September pictures, but I wanted them to come in order of occurrence, so I backdated some of them. Just wanted to let you know so you can go check if you want.

I free-handed that sail.

2006-09-20T08:48:00.000-04:00

Hi -

My name is Colin. I am eight years old. I put this boat in the Kennebec River to see how far it would go. If you find it would you please let me know?

Thanks!
colins_boat@yahoo.com

Scroll down for more pictures - we had a posting problem yesterday, so we just had the one shot for a little while. You can see the message in the top bottle if you look closely.

2006-09-20T08:40:00.000-04:00

2006-09-20T08:30:00.000-04:00

2006-09-20T08:19:00.000-04:00

We never use our fireplace, so it's pretty clean.

2006-09-13T09:03:00.000-04:00

2006-09-10T08:58:00.000-04:00

2006-09-10T08:52:00.000-04:00

Sight reading

2006-09-04T20:47:00.000-04:00

On our first day of lessons this year, Colin took a first stab at "Egypt" and came up with "Egg-pit". Needless to say, that's almost all we call it now.

Mmmm...autumn...

2006-08-30T22:37:00.000-04:00

The weather has cooled a little, but it hasn't actually reached that point where you can smell fall in the air. No matter, because even though I'm from away, I have lived in Maine long enough that now I have a heightened sense of Seasonal Shift and this morning my head snapped up from what I was reading and I thought: soup. And sweaters. It's so fun living in a state with four seasons and actual weather. (That last line is a good one to recite repeatedly during February and March.)

Anyone who reads this and has kids: go here and buy it and use it right now! I am madly in love with a curriculum. We got it in the mail last week, tore open the box and decided that school would start a week early. Actually we're kind of doing a warm-up week to get used to the new rythym (a technique I highly recommend to all of you on your way to purchase it).

We've done three days so far. Major strong points so far:

All 3 kids are working on the same material at different levels. So right now, we're doing AncientEgypt (it's all one word when John (5yo) says it), so our History, Literature, Writing, Geography, Art, and who-knows-what-else is all centered around AncientEgypt so I don't have to have 3 different curricula for each subject.
We get to make a lot of things like boats and timelines and lapbooks. Colin can't wait for it to be weapon-building day. He has his eye on the battleaxe.
The curriculum is classically-based so each child gets the information appropriate for his own stage. And I don't have to lose any more sleep at night wondering how to make my dozen different school books line up with the Trivium.

Which leads me to another completely separate point about why Public Television can be so great. 1987 - Mystery! makes some of Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries into a series, I watch them, I look up Dorothy Sayers, I find The Lost Tools of Learning, I am convinced that I have discovered something no has ever found before. Much like when I found my parents' LP of Rhapsody in Blue and thought I needed to tell everyone about this wonderful old thing I had dug up. I was so young then. 1987 was such a good year for public television.."They say this town is full of cozenage, as nimble jugglers that deceive the eye..."

The most wonderful time of the year...

2006-08-21T11:39:00.000-04:00

Our humanities curriculum arrived Friday and the mailman brought our Spanish program today! Yay!

My first and second floors are mostly clean ("Very retreivable", we say) and I am dithering between starting school directly after Labor Day or waiting a week. It will probably depend on when our math books show up...

I love new books!

Henry loves spiders...Libby talks to horses.

2006-08-15T08:29:00.000-04:00

bing! < lightbulb over head >

2006-08-03T16:42:00.000-04:00

I don't have the energy or the desire to write a novel and I don't have the brain left for nonfiction, so I have long ago given up my previous plans to be a Writer of High-Quality Stuff. Imagine my relief when I remember that the whole short story world is still open to me. I must start taking notes.

This just in...

2006-07-13T13:19:00.000-04:00

Me: John, put this on the buffet.
John: Boofay? Is this the boofay?
Me: Yes. Thank you.
John (walking away): Boo-FAAAY...Boo-Fay...boofay...boofay

It's July.

2006-07-06T07:06:00.000-04:00

Mike is still working way too much, but there is no way around that right now. Once another person is hired and trained things should slow down, I think. We are all tired of this. I can be patient until the end of August (which will equal 1 year of craziness) and then I will have to insist that Mike abandon the law practice and start selling Amweigh. :P
Henry makes noise, but doesn't seem to be saying any real words yet. That's a boy for you. However, he is obviously brilliant and knows what quite a few words mean when we say them; he knows "cup", "pat", "toss", "kiss", "clap,, "yay", the family members' names (including grandparents) and "bite". And also "don't bite". I keep waiting for him to say "mama", but he calls us all "Ba" right now. He is so cool. He has a lot to say, presumably, and makes plenty of noise, but he's not currently focusing on getting his message across. I like it when he shouts at his food before he eats eat, possibly to stun it before he puts it in his mouth.
Henry has a cool new cup. What you can't tell from the picture is that the top tips down away from you, like the cup starting melting. It's looks crooked from the side, so babies don't have to crank their little heads back so far to get the drink to slosh to the drinking end of the cup. We could only find blue, though, so no cool frog on ours.
I think I've settled on the color for the dining room walls. If you've got Flash, here it is. "Gleeful" is not my favorite name for a color, but we were intially pretty set on Color #6422 known as Shagreen, so we'll take it. What could SW be thinking? It'll never to sell in Great Britain. And how would you even pronounce a word that? "SHAG-reen"? "Shuh-GREEN"? Maybe it's the some designer's concept of the French pronunciation for "chagrin", which is even more reason not to choose it.

Monsieur le Bebe

2006-06-05T19:29:00.000-04:00

Pre-bike trip. Note how fresh and rarin' to go we look. I actually have a really hot hairstyle, it's just smashed all up inside that helmet.

2006-05-20T22:57:00.000-04:00

I love this so much.

2006-05-19T08:59:00.000-04:00

Although it's probably not for little kids, maybe. And who knows what else Google is linking to on the side - it varies, and I can't be held responsible for any of it.

Ramblin' man...

2006-05-18T21:39:00.000-04:00

Eagle Lake - end of carriage trail bike ride

2006-05-18T21:37:00.000-04:00

See Jenn focus.

2006-05-15T11:14:00.001-04:00

Yes, I am being focused today and therefore have little time to type, but here is the micro update:

Vacation was great. Biked around Eagle Lake. Acadia is beautiful.
Unpacking stinks. The kitchen is clean. One. Week. Later.
Shallowness alert: Libby and I started watching American Idol last year and got sucked into this season as well. We are swearing it off forever after the finale but,before we go, Elliot must win.
Mike bought me this for Mother's Day. And helped me clean the house. He is My Favorite Person in the World. I shall decide what color to paint the dining room based on this painting.
The lilacs are out and will probably be in full bloom by Wednesday.
Libby lost a molar and Henry is working on two upper incisors, so two of my kids are teething.
Colin loves the computer more than anything. Giving him computer time makes him want more. Something must be done.
Hoodwinked is mostly funny. (Patrick Warburton does a lot of voiceover work and he is my favorite voice ever. Except Jean Smart as Mrs. Dr. Possible.) Mike loves the "Red is Blue" song, even though it is repetitive. Or maybe that is what he likes about it.
Must go sort laundry. That is all.

Aaaaaahhh.

2006-04-09T16:12:00.000-04:00

Colin's 8th birthday party (rock-climbing) is over (rockclimbing with 12 kids - sounds much more ambitious than it actually was, but I'm wiped out anyway - I'm especially proud of the geodes and PopRocks). Now we can focus on Easter for eighteen if you count Henry (ham, scalloped potatoes, cornbread, that raspberry Jello thing that has pretzels in it, - any other suggestions?)

Libby is busy making plans for her party in June. So many plans. Complicated plans. Plans that change every 36 hours. She loves a theme, but it's torture for her to have to settle on one. That is - torture for her and for the rest of us... John has a simpler view of things. This year he wants either a skunk party or a bunny party.

For my birthday we're (coincidentally) going to Southwest Harbor for a week. We haven't been on a vacation for 2 years, so it will be a welcome break for Mike and the rest of us.

Breakfast 1 of 6

2006-03-23T14:33:00.000-05:00

Breakfast 2 of 6

2006-03-23T14:32:00.000-05:00

Breakfast 3 of 6

2006-03-23T14:31:00.001-05:00

Breakfast 4 of 6

2006-03-23T14:31:00.000-05:00

Breakfast 5 of 6

2006-03-23T14:30:00.000-05:00

Breakfast 6 of 6

2006-03-23T14:29:00.000-05:00

I know I'm not posting...

2006-02-27T07:43:00.000-05:00

I'm keeping very busy while Mike's in the last two-week stretch before he switches from here to here. We're hoping the move will give him more margin. Maybe I'll have more time to tell about our interesting lives after that... Also, if you follow the link to the new office, Mike hates his picture. I think the wallpaper behind him makes it look like he's standing in the ladies' loo.

Eh.

2006-02-10T13:30:00.000-05:00

We are about 6 days into a 1.5-week chest/head cold that is very popular in Central Maine right now. Colin is all done, Libby is close, John is still pretty miserable and Congested Henry (aka Mr. Misty)is sleeping in little broken-up batches during the night. He is fine because he catches up with naps during the day. I am not faring quite so well; this morning I found the Cascade in the refrigerator. None of us get much sun during the winter, resulting I've got this natural paleness enhanced by exhaustion-induced pallor. It makes for a fetching contrast with the shadows under my eyes. But, praises be, I'm not sick, so yay!

2006-02-02T19:00:00.000-05:00

Went here following a link to the "Inside Out" film, which is good. I haven't seen them all yet, but I love the Sukkot one, too.

2006-01-31T11:19:00.000-05:00

Henry is cutting his first tooth - bottom front left incisor. Very cute. Very sharp. Very annoying for him. He wakes up very often (round the clock) and so I am always saying "SHhhhhhh!!!" to everyone else when he is asleep. Like right now. I am making my own eyes hurt from saying it so much.
Not getting much done. See above point re: cranky, sleepless child.
We've gone to a year-round four-days-a-week school schedule with every Friday off. It sounds very good in theory: one day a week for errands, no summer backsliding, no early fall remedial work, enough days worked into the year to satisfy the state Dept of Ed. with plenty of room for days off for whatever (illness, travel, mental health...). We'll see.
Got this biography of Thomas Aquinas a few weeks ago. I might even start reading it pretty soon. But Henry just woke up, soooo...

Colin - 4.16.05 - 7 years & 5 days old.

2006-01-18T23:16:00.000-05:00

Colin - 1.15.06 - 7 years and 9 months old

2006-01-18T23:13:00.000-05:00

Bullet list

2006-01-18T00:31:00.000-05:00

No time for paragraphs.
Got in groove with baby, baby found new groove, we are scrambling again. Not worried, of course, because we are pros at this by now. "This" being 'scrambling to figure out baby'... fourth time's a charm,right?
So many people I admire (read: bright, articulate, well-read Christian women) are Serious Bloggers. I don't know how they do it. I could pull it off if I ignored 1) my kids, 2) my household, 3) my husband, 4) my demanding parents (haha! just playing with ya, guys!), etc. but I'm still not sure that would give me the time I needed to learn all the code I would need to be hip and informative and read everyone else's blogs so I could link to there articles and comment on them and all that. I prefer to think of Serious Blogging as a fad (actual Jenn quote ca. 1992: "This e-mail thing is a waste of time!") and ignore all pressure to be well-informed and part of the larger conversation about much of anything. I just can't pull it off. Not that any of you (three) expect that. </rant>
LarkNews is sooo much fun! As is Ship of Fools, especially their "Organists Behaving Badly" thread in the "Ecclesiantics" forum.
I highlighted Libby's hair with blond(er) streaks today. All was well until Henry woke up and starting crying. Things were still mostly well until he started screaming, so I had to hurry and now she has three seriously light chunks of blonde on the top of her head. It's a little like this. Only no lowlights, so maybe we're okay. Anyway, she's happy.

Cousins - l to r - Colin, Libby, John, Michaela

2006-01-18T00:03:00.000-05:00

Phillips Boys

2005-12-28T22:17:00.000-05:00

2005-12-14T16:32:00.000-05:00

Ick. Feverish and sick. I think it's the ague. Last weekend and days up to it were frantic. One dress rehearsal, one choir performance, one piano recital and another (other) choir performance, all in two days. We are all about not overscheduling, but this sneaked up on us and ambushed. We are currently mostly wiped out. On a wonderful side note, though, my generous mother-in-law did all my laundry over the weekend. I am truly grateful, although I suspect that I became less and less fun to be around as the weekend progressed. Margin. I must have margin.

2005-12-12T13:46:00.000-05:00

They want me to fix hot chocolate for them when they come in. Playing in the snow is an Event. Frankly, it wasn't on my schedule for the day...

2005-11-23T13:18:00.000-05:00

2005-11-23T08:25:00.000-05:00

2005-11-23T08:24:00.000-05:00

2005-11-18T11:03:00.000-05:00

2005-11-18T11:02:00.000-05:00

John IS SparkMan.

2005-11-11T17:25:00.000-05:00

Libby, Henry, pal David, Colin, Dorie's hand

2005-11-01T23:32:00.000-05:00

2005-11-01T23:25:00.000-05:00

Costume madness: including our pal David, we had 4 Darth Vaders and Libby the Jedi Chick last night. John was too tired and cranky to have his picture taken, but he was actually there too. I love the whole light vs. dark motif Dave's got going on, sporting both 1) Dark Lord gear and 2) a "Life is Good" T-shirt. A gripping and gritty (yet wry) Semi-Pelagian representation of the tension, the balance, the inescapable yin-yang-iness between self-determinism and fate...<Ernie-laugh>...ahem...

Actually, David is a really cool kid with a cool shirt and a neat mask that includes the neck part so that, when he puts it up on his head in visor-position, he looks like a conquistador.

Pre-Costume: amazing Family Frenzy at church. Modeled after Amazing Race. Truly frenzied, yet well-organized. Halfway through, John says, "I don't want any more Frenzy!", so we bundled him off to play dollhouse and ponies in the nursery.

Henry: 5 big ol' shots today. Sad, sore baby tonight. But I love ibuprofen. The nurse says he's almost 15 lbs. now. The first of our children to figure out how to suck on his fingers, although John is picking the habit now that he sees Henry having such fun with his tasty little hands.

We started watching Season 1 of Lost Saturday night. To be precise, we watched the first 8 episodes Saturday night. Even with no commercials and the time change giving us an extra hour we were up until three. Two compulsive personalities in one marriage: it's an embarrassment of riches. We even managed to get through the whole deal without any snackage except hot chocolate we made out of sugar-craving desperation (both of us too exhausted to make a Ben & Jerry's run).

Libby found out about the drinks (since she's down at least once EVERY evening: "I feel low", "I feel high", "I'm a 214, but a hungry 214", "I'm not tired", "My finger hurts", "What are we doing tomorrow?") and since then has been asking for "hot cocoa". And not just regular "hot cocoa", but the kind you pronounce with this terrible blend of "oh" and "oo", so you end up with this twee little monstrosity that's almost "hot cuckoo". Flashback: freshman year gratingly cutesy-pie roommate. I've now outlawed the expression and my children are required to refer to the beverage as "hot chocolate". My mom had a list of scatological words we weren't allowed to say and a number of them still make me cringe. My goal is to render "hot cocoa" a wince-inducing phrase for my kids for the rest of their days or at least until I'm deaf. (I bet you're wondering if I meant "dead" and just slipped and typed F instead of D, huh? Actually either word would suit my purposes just fine...)

2005-10-29T14:00:00.000-04:00

Busy - must clean school room. Sunny day - must take advantage of good light and endorphins...

I feel confident that we'll hit some kind of schedule soon; we're closer, but I'm playing catch-up every day.

John (playing with his 'not real' money): "Dat'll be ten dollahs, sir...I mean...a fousand. Now I got alla da wich money."

2005-10-10T18:19:00.000-04:00

John = the next Richard Scarry

2005-10-09T22:18:00.000-04:00

Colin is desperately nuts about Henry. Someone gave us a stripey outfit for Henry that mostly matched one of Colin's shirt; they both wore them to church today. If you look closely, you can see what's left of Colin's tiger facepaint.

Oh dear.

2005-10-09T16:04:00.000-04:00

So I broke down and took one of those lame "Which ________ Are You?" tests. I found the link on braces-less Kerry's old page and decided I needed to find out which Disney character my alter ego is. Sadly, it's predominantly Goofy and the Beast. I wonder what that means?

Face Painting - Cat & Tiger

2005-10-09T15:52:00.000-04:00

John was ready for a full photo session, but one shot was enough for Colin. He looks a little like Tim Curry to me here... Also, Picasa2 rocks!

2005-10-06T23:48:00.000-04:00

Lovely Dawna came over today with John's little buddy "Eefin". That's what John calls him because John can't say TH yet. Colin still can't say Rs most of the time. Libby substitutes the non-word "hwan" for "hold on". Mike almost always mispronounces "particularly" and Henry can't talk at all. It's lucky for all of them I'm around to talk good.

Mike is still swamped at work and came home at 4:30 today to go to bed. He got up again at 7:30 and want back to bed around 10:00. This three-day weekend will be nice because he will be able to take most of Saturday off and make up for it Monday.

CindyU, I am amazed that you get so much good reading done. Is it easier with the kids away during the day, or about the same? It's not like your two are needing you to direct them much anymore, scholastically speaking. Is this year a better reading-and-pondering year than last year?

I hung up the whiteboard in the school room and was almost finished putting the sheetrock anchors in when my hand slipped just once and I put a hammer dent into the wall near one corner of the board. Now I have a piece of ivy draped over the top to hide it, but it looks a little too sweet, so I think we're just going to have to live with the vandalism.

Significant progress for Libby's tooth, but it's still there and driving her mad. (Which drives the rest of us mad. I am not over-gifted with Mercy.) Also, she's in some kind of MiracleGro phase and the change keeps her running into things like chairs and walls and doors. The result being that she's almost always in pain from some collision or from her tooth which actually does have a very pokey bit on it that keeps stabbing her. I've tried pulling it out several times (with her permission) but it's sooo loose but not ready to give it up yet, so my yanking has just made it hurt more.

Odd fact: Despite this October being fantastically warm, we have had very little giant-spiders-on-the-porch-lights activity. Maybe it's too early for that, and things will get nasty during the next two weeks, when the low temps aren't quite at the frost point. Spiders are bad.

It must be getting late, because this is too boring for even me to be interested in anymore. We'll try to do something more interesting tomorrow.

I've come up with an emoticon for my famous "pain-behind-my-right-eye" whining for any irritant I may encounter and here it is: ;(
I bet it will come in handy.

Hey! My 100th post!

2005-10-03T09:49:00.000-04:00

So this is post number 100, but that number will change as I continue to drag over old updates (for posterity's sake) from our old page. But yay! anyway. So here's a wordy and slap-dash update to celebrate:

Henry is big and bonny and is growing into the next size of clothes (3-6 mos.) except in Carter's because Carter's runs oh-so-big. He can now wear his farmer jammies with the blue cows and the red tractors. We have discovered that, strangely enough, Henry thinks the word "November" is hilarious. You gotta say it right for it to be funny: No-VEM-berrrrr with the second syllable about nine notes above the first and then drop to one below the original. And you have to start somewhere around high C. Weird, but true. Also, he loves lighting fixtures of any kind, but especially floor lamps (standard more than torchieres). The poor little guy has a minor case of the sniffles which is making him slightly uncomfortable (he hasn't learned to breath through his mouth on purpose yet) and making him sound like a very snorty piglet when he's getting tense and starting to hyperventilate about something. And he's having a really rough time staying asleep, so I am holding him while I type. Pobrecito.
John is completely busy with his big ol' Duplo Legos and his Lego Theyatahhh. Matt and I used to make hobbits out of a Lego 2x2 on a 2x3. John has done us one (or two) better in the imagination department by setting a Duplo 2x2 squarely onto two side-by-side 2x4s and calling it a Wookie. I'm not seein' it, but that's okay. Until a few minutes ago, he and Colin were under the kneehole of my desk (thankfully, it's a big space, because that's where my knees are, too) making up some unintelligible stage directions. Now, though, they've run off to the kitchen with Libby to skate around in socks sprayed with Endust. Quelle amusement! Quelle volume! Oh dear, quelle dommages; somehow, John just stepped on Colin's neck. [yeah, we homeschool...] Anyway, yesterday, John signed up to be a dancing sheep in their kids' choir production; I'm not sure what he's picturing, but I think it entails head-to-toe curly wooly a la a pre-shearing Boundin' get-up. We'll see. Last week, John performed the "Eat Vegetables With Every Meal" song for Mike's parents. They were suitably impressed.
Colin is going to be seven-and-a-half in 9 days and has ordered Ducky Food (what they call this ) and Fruit Coolattas. He and his siblings have very pedestrian tastes. We're really just simple, simple folk. Colin and Mike's dad built a workbench while we were up North last week. It is just Colin's size. Now he is ready to get started on all the orders he took this spring from the neighborhood kids, mostly for bunkbeds, swingsets and bookcases. How ready the rest of us are, I don't know. We may have to inflict some reality on him pretty soon and steer him toward something doable, like birdhouses or dominoes.

Libby can't wait until she loses her lower right eye-tooth. It is driving her crazy and it's very hard to dodge when chewing. Her blood sugar is nuts right now. I just had her dump a Novolog cartridge to see if cooked insulin was the problem. She's just hit 5 feet tall, so we know the growth hormone part of it (say it with me: blocks insulin absorption) is inevitable and nastily unpredictable [sigh]. Libby alternates between moaning loudly about how iritating her brothers are and playing with them so enthusiastically and well that a mother might wonder why she needs any other friends. That second scene can continue for 5 minutes or 2 hours, but it's good while it lasts. Right now, she and John are working up an ice-skating routine set to the music from their Christmas musical.

Well, I've done my job and bored Henry to sleep (Lili: "I haf dis powah"). I think I'll go see if there's any feeling left in my left arm...

2005-10-02T19:41:00.000-04:00

Hello.com is giving me grief, so I can't get pictures to post in my entries, but no matter, because I'll just toss them all onto my Flickr badge (stage left) and you can see them there. Like the picture of Kite Boy. Seek it out, for he is cute.

2005-09-26T09:40:00.000-04:00

[This should have a picture with it. I'm working on getting it to post.]

John couldn't find a string for the kite, so he put it on his back and ran around the yard.

2005-09-25T13:51:00.000-04:00

The boys went out to Cheryl's with Grammie and Grampie after first service and Mike and Libby and Henry (who is also a boy but not included in the previous group) and I went to second service. Libby got invited home with the Quirions, so it's just me and Mike and the baby here this afternoon. Mike is taking a nap before heading into work (to make sure things are ready for Cheryl to start Monday, among other things), Henry is asleep for the moment.

Henry wore his navy blue sneakers to church today. They are very wee and adorable. When we go actual places (read: church) I try to put him in clothes that don't look like jammies. It doesn't really matter at 7 weeks old, but soon he'll be old enough that those footed outfits will make it look like he just rolled out of bed. Which he might have done, but there's no harm in helping him get used to not wearing sleepwear to church. Because once he gets to, we'll have to let the other kids, and then everyone will want to...

Libby went to "The March of the Penguins" for Nicole's birthday. Lindsay came too, and it sounds like they had a good time whooping it up at Olive Garden afterward until super-late (around nine).

***Now it's Monday. This morning we put a blanket on Henry's head and dubbed him Sister Henry Immaculata. Colin started singing "How Do You Solve a Problem Like My Diaper". Now John is singing "I am Sixteen Going on Eleventeen".

Last night the kids and I re-watched most of the first season of Making Fiends. I am saving my allowance to get the Scissors Puppy purse.

From Ep. 2:
Charlotte:It's a rock. But it's no ordinary rock; it's a pretty rock with pretty speckles. Vendetta gave it to me!
Vendetta: I threw it at you!

Tomorrow afternoon the kids and I are heading up to the County for a few days. This will distract us from Mike's hellish schedule this week (i.e. come home only to sleep and change clothes) and reduce the "I'm ignoring my precious family" pressure on him. Homeschooling is so cool because we can just pack it up and bring it when we decide to R-U-N O-F-T.

2005-09-20T16:17:00.000-04:00

Henry is six weeks old!

2005-09-12T14:13:00.001-04:00

Things have been a little busy, but I decided to update just to shock my (four) faithful readers.

Henry is learning to smile. I'll try to get a shot of it sometime, but it's hard to catch and being ever-prepared could leave a person holding a camera all day with no success. Also, I put my floppy drive in a Safe Place and can't transfer pictures at this moment, but probably by this weekend.
We started school today in earnest. Libby's not done yet because Mike took her to her quarterly endo appointment this morning. Colin finished up his 2nd grade stuff while she was gone.
After checking Libby's math lessons she has been working on this summer, I realized that I have never sat down with her to explain long (or even medium) division, which might explain why she is so lost on the lesson I had for her today. I had Libby find the white board (stashed in the Closet of Dooooom), I'm hauling out the dry-erase markers (it's the beginning of the school year, so the 2005-6 markers are still all in the package (until John finds them, at least)) and as soon as I can get Henry to sleep, we're gonna tackle this bad boy...
John is fascinated with the whole nursing process and is alleging that he is using some similar process to feed Libby's dollies apple juice.

2005-08-21T20:27:00.000-04:00

Henry Telford Phillips - b. 8.9.05

Good times...

2005-08-15T12:10:00.000-04:00

Henry Telford Phillips is here now. We were shocked because he came 6 days early as opposed to the nearly two weeks late that we're used to. Labor is bad, but it was over in three (nasty) hours, so yay! He is very sweet and completely small compared to his siiblings, to wit he actually fits nicely into newborn-sized clothing with no straining. He looks like Colin with John's nose. Siblings are thrilled to have him (as are his parents). I am not bouncing back quite like I thought I would, but I'm older now, so that makes sense. Pictures will come as I can coax my camera to cooperate. Check comment on previous entry for a shot that my helpful sibling Matt posted. Thanks, Matt.
Our small group gave us 18 hours of 2 cleaning ladies (making 36 hrs., I guess). They came this morning for the first time and deep-cleaned three rooms in three hours. I am so pleased. We've been having a better time with the clutter end of things, so this should put us in pretty good shape for starting school the first full week of September.
I am reading Mike's copy of Chesterton's Orthodoxy. What a smart man; so articulate. So reasonable.
More to come when things settle a little. Henry is still acclimating to life on Planet Earth, and things are a little dicey some of the time. Ask my dad to define 'dicey' for you; it's a funny story.

More miscellany.

2005-07-15T07:59:00.000-04:00

Mike knows a lady who is starting a menu-planning business. Or is it a personal grocery shopping service? I'm a little fuzzy on the whole thing, but she needs some practice families, so she's coming over this morning to talk for a while. It should be very interesting.
On Monday, Colin alerted us to the fact that one of his eye teeth was "wobular". It came out yesterday. He doesn't believe in the tooth fairy anymore, so I'll probably just give him a dollar this morning.
Yesterday was Dad's birthday and were hoping he had a good time; all we can say is that the kids loved breaking in Mom and Dad's new pool and watching Dad spray Japanese beetles. Good times...
I am so late in touching up my dark roots that I look like a reversed skunk.
John will be four in two-something weeks. Tinkertoys are at the top of the list. We are still planning the big shindig to celebrate the Fact of John with the bouncy water slide and crowds of well-wishers. We hope this should make the transition to from being The Baby to Quasi-Middle-Child more bearable.

Everyone's leaving again this weekend.

2005-07-08T07:48:00.000-04:00

Mike's mom is turning sixty (which seems not so far off as it once did) this weekend and he and the kids are heading up to help celebrate. As with the Fourth of July last weekend, it is waaay to far for me to travel (go Google deep vein thrombosis) so I am hanging out here and finishing the sorting in the attic.

I made such impressive progress last weekend that the job should not be too involved or destructive (as in having to completely mess the place up to get anything done).

I picked paint for the bathroom and hoping that it matches the dark gray tiles we have chosen. I completely forgot about that while standing at the Martha Stewart Color display at Sherwin-Williams. I picked a light blue color called Shaker Basket. I have never seen a light blue Shaker basket, but whatever. If I am a good girl and finish my other jobs this weekend, I might start putting some up to see if I like it.

Have I mentioned how happy I am to live where I am? We seem fairly unlikely to be bombed any time soon...

I'm posting this quote here so I don't lose it again for six years like I did before:

When domesticity is called drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home... I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot understand how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? - G. K. Chesterton

2005-06-30T14:41:00.000-04:00

Today I am sorting the school room and the school closet (read:10 by 15 room with 3 sets of shelves and a wide 4-drawer filing cabinet thing). I had to go mend my compression hose before I even contemplated the project.

The closet has been my stash-and-ignore zone for several weeks, so I have three boxes/baskets of things that would go in a junk drawer if I hadn't dumped the entire contents of my two former junk drawers into one of them. So it's lots of nit-picky sorting. A hair pin. A tack. A pad of lavender Post-Its. A cough drop. A pack of little hinges. Two Go Fish cards. It's a tedious process, but the goal is worthy and an unforeseen bonus is that my tossing aim is improving from all of the sorting-into-containers-for-transport that I'm doing. So far I have a big second-floor basket with all the kids' stuff and stuff heading for the bathroom, and smaller basket of stuff that needs to end up in the school-room closet (I'm working on the desk drawers right now) and a big trash can.

I think the only other improvement I could make on the process (besides getting off the computer now) is to find an up-tempo Accuradio station to keep me moving at a good clip. I think I'm going with the Modern Young Vocalists subchannel on the Standards station. Funny, because the first song to came up is Rosemary Clooney. :) I guess we were all Modern and Young once...

2005-06-29T15:04:00.000-04:00

One really hot summer years ago, my mom took a big sheet and held the edges down with stacks of books and then put a box fan in one end to make a big balloonish tent. Sitting inside was like being in a giant marshmallow (I remember it being a white sheet). I tried to replicate the whole setup this afternoon and had to make some major adjustments. First, I think the king-size sheet my mom gave me might be heavier than the one she used. It didn't so much inflate as just kind of "ruffle" around. So we skipped the stacks of books, screwed teacup hooks into the sides of the windowframes and tied the corners up with waxed dental floss. I had to fasten a fifth (very long) piece of floss to the center and hike it up over and around the entertainment center (I despise that compound noun) and tie it to one of the corner hooks so that there's a peak to the tent.

The effect is somewhat dissimilar, but the kids don't know the difference and seem to be enchanted.

I am practicing being a New Yorker, just in case I ever need to know how. Today I am practicing having no vehicle, which is the only way to go in Manhattan, I hear. The van is still not running, although the mechanical people at the dealership told us it was all ready and to come get it this morning, but lo, it did not go when Mike tried to drive it away. I am feeling very hip being so non-vehicular, but I am beginning to suspect that the setup works better in a locale with more public transportation and more within-walking-distance shopping. Walking-distance for me being maybe two blocks.

I no longer have my longish (real) nails, because I got so bored during Star Wars 9 or whatever it was that I bit them all off.

John wants a My Little Pony party when he turns four. I think I liked his earlier requests (monkey party or carrot party) better.

Yesterday was my brother's birthday. I thought he was turning 31, but now I think it's 32.

Still not much progress on the name thing. Mike and I suspect that there is another name out there that we could like just as well as Henry (a great name which deserves more use), but we are just not sure what it is. So many people are mocking Henry that I think we might have to go with it out of pure spite. We're still taking suggestions, although we give the most serious thought to English names that have been around for a long time. So far we've got Elizabeth, Colin and John, so whoever is fourth will have to fit in with that. It's no time for a Hunter or Tyson or Bridger, if you know what I mean. Although they might be old and/or English, they're too hip for us now.

The thrill is gone...

2005-06-22T09:11:00.000-04:00

I am so bored by the internet. This could be because I have morphed into a boring person. Whatever the reason, I can hardly stand to sit at the computer anymore. That's one reason there have been so few updates lately. That and the shrinking of my brain that allows me to concentrate on only two things at once. Mom keeps bragging about her alleged 'cognitive deficit' but, at the moment, I've got her beat in the Lackwit Department. I read some of my updates from years ago and I used to be more funny and clever. Sorry, y'all. I am still just as happy as I was then; possibly even more so (if that can be imagined), so don't cry for me...

Colin wants to name the baby George so we can 'love him and hug him and call him...' - well, you get the idea if you've ever read Steinbeck or watched Bugs Bunny.

John will be four in a little over a month. We are going to rent a big inflatable slide thingie and have a big (to him) shebang to help with the "you're getting too old so we had to upgrade to a new baby" deal. I think we will also buy him a harmonica.

Vinegar is my new domestic obsession. (Last month is was Cold-Water Tide, which I still adore (Fresh Scent, not Glacier), but I am calmer about it now.) I have cut my favorite (and exceedingly expensive) fabric softener so that I'm using 1 part softener, 1 part vinegar and 2 parts water. It works reeaally well and makes the bottle last a month or more.

I also put vinegar in the dishwasher reservoir where the Jet-Dry goes. That works splendidly also.

See? I have become boring, which is fine with me, and usually passes a year or two after a baby arrives. So don't lose hope.

Spring: Late but we'll take it...

2005-06-08T12:24:00.000-04:00

It's almost halfway through June, but I'm just now getting to the deep-cleaning and furniture-moving that I usually do in May. I'm working on the schoolroom today. Tomorrow is going to have to be the cupboards and the refrigerator - two jobs that almost never make it to the top of my priority list, so they're both potentially kind of ugly. Maybe I should schedule a nap between them.

For all my previous pregnancies, I've dodged the need for the three-hour-long glucose tolerance test at the hospital to check for gestational diabetes. This time I failed the preliminary doctor's office test, so I went in Monday for the big one. I should probably have results any day now. Usually I only do whole-grains and crave tomatoes and basil, but I just ate two pieces of french bread that Mike brought back from small group last night and now I'm feeling distinctly shaky and fluttery. Or maybe it's my imagination.

Anyway, I was explaining to Libby why I needed to go in and drink 100g of carbonated orange-flavored glucose (the equivalent of five PopTarts at once, by the way)and have my blood drawn four times over three hours and she went pale and said, "Why are you telling me at this age?". It took a minute to understand that she didn't want to be dreading this test all of her life. I let her know that this was one test that she would almost certainly never have to have, since it would be completely redundant. It was very cute how relieved she was.

Assorted things

2005-05-12T07:48:00.000-04:00

The silly-looking acrylic nails did the trick and I don't bite my nails anymore. I took off the fake ones on the ride home from TN and have been learning what a lot of maintenance having nails is. Beauty has price, I guess.
I got the world's best Dustbuster for my birthday. I am so happy because now I can use it to clean my lint trap on my dryer without spreading lint dust all over my laundry room. This is a big thrill for me.
Can't wait for my copy of Fool's Gold?: Discerning Truth In An Age Of Error to come. Thanks for the indirect tip, Matt.
We're taking suggestions for boys' names. My current favorite is Henry, but no one likes that but me and my Czech neighbor. Although Colin thought it would be okay if we paired it with "Jimmy" as a middle name. My mom is threatening to call him Hank if we go with that one.

We're back.

2005-04-23T12:02:00.000-04:00

We are all very happy to be home.
The wedding was great and we love Sarah and her family.
Traveling with small children is fun but not a vacation.
Many thanks to Mike's parents who sent us off with 30 hours of Adventures in Odyssey CDs. We finished up about 30 miles from home.
Got no school done along the way even though I dragged the math book along with us.
We watched spring disappear bit by bit the further north we went. It was 80 deg. in Gatlinburg and it's 50 here, but that's okay because 80 was too hot.
John has gotten over his disappointment that Dolly was not at Dollywood. He had told us that he would meet her and "she will kiss me with her lipstick". I guess it's good to be friendly.
Had two fantastic visits with Our Dear Shelley and her kids in Arlington.
Took a picture of the "Roaring Fork Baptist Church" sign. I know it's geographically-named, but I can't help envisioning a carry-in dinner disaster...

Current shallowness.

2005-04-06T09:43:00.000-04:00

I got acrylic nail tips put on yesterday. My plan is that they will, in the next three months, help me to stop biting my nails and then I will take them off a month before the baby arrives. The trick will be managing to live with these things without going crazy in the meantime. They don't look like me and everything feels weird; I'm having to modify my technique for everything. Cracking eggs is now a competely unsanitary proposition. Also, I never, ever caught a nail on anything before, and it hurts a lot. And things are so much more doable without long nails. Well, okay, everything except picking up coins off of any flat surface, but I've always found a way to get the job done.

I keep reminding myself that I don't have to love how these look (they've got that weird built-up look and I managed to smudge the polish on the way out of the salon) for them to get the habit-breaking job done. Cigarettes I could throw away, fingernails I'm stuck with, so protecting them in this drastic way seemed like the best idea. Positive side of the whole ordeal: the nail person doesn't use MMA, so neither I nor our unborn child will be poisoned by "a poisonous and deleterious substance" in these silly things.

John is walking around with coins in his pockets for the rides at Dollywood. Every time we get in the van he thinks we are "goin' to the rides!". It is impossible to explain to him that it will be 2 more weeks before Fun in Pigeon Forge Day.

We found Colin's Gameboy (soli Deo gloria) and now we just need to find Libby's; it was around here somewhere just a week or two ago...

I have to go pack. And clean out my fridge. And I'm exhausted from typing in a stupid flat-fingered way because of my glamorous nails... >:P

Poor John.

2005-03-31T07:41:00.000-05:00

Libby is all better now (too busy to post that she was sick for 1.5 days) but now John has it. He wants me to sit in the TV room with him all day; we're trying out having Libby stay near him (against her wishes) so I can get some jobs done, but after I do a load or two of laundry, I think we'll all end up watching The Incredibles 5 or 6 times today. Jack-Jack Attack rocks.

Our homeschool group meets at our house on Thursdays, but not today. It's too bad, too, because it was my turn to teach and we were going to do an introduction to harmonizing by familiarizing them with descants and rounds. Some other day, I guess.

It's beautifully sunny outside, which is a total bluff, because it's going to be icy and snowy tomorrow. Most of the snow is gone now, but we'll see after tomorrow.

I sound like I'm whining about everything, but it's just how my typing sounds this morning.

More positively - I have everyone's wedding outfits picked out (including my new charteuse purse - go me!) and will probably start packing today or tomorrow (because readiness is good). I am praying hard that I will find the kids' Gameboys for the trip. I know they're around here somewhere... As you can see, we don't have high intellectual goals for this journey.

Still no progress on Colin's marigold, even after putting one of John's seeds in Colin's styrofoam cup. Last night I put about 6 zinnia seeds in and it's sitting in the sun right now. I'm thinking it will sprout just in time for us to leave. And when we get back it will be 2 feet tall, because that's what zinnias do. Which reminds me, I need to get someone to water my plants and feed the fish...

Eleven days until Colin is seven. One of Mike's title insurance agents gave him four tickets to Opening Day (Colin's actual birthday) at Fenway. The Sox will be installing the World Series banner, so the fans are sure to be hysterical, and they're playing the Yanks, so it should be good all around. Mike's taking his dad and the two oldest kids (baseball is nice, but Fenway doesn't appeal to me while with child) and then we'll head south from there the next morning. Colin doesn't know about this, so don't tell him.

Pretend spring

2005-03-22T07:51:00.000-05:00

It is so completely, snow-meltingly sunny that I could be convinced that spring had arrived, were I not an experienced Maine winterer. It can't be spring until after the middle of April, because there is always one last snow somewhere between Colin's birthday (the 11th) and the 16th. So we're basking, yet braced.

Colin and Libby have moved up to Level 2 Gymnastics, which is loads more fun because they get to use more of the equipment and the tricks are harder. They are in the dining room right now trying to do headstands against the wall with their heads on sofa pillows. John is trying, too. It's very funny to see a 3yo do a headstand. Heck, it's pretty funny watching the older ones, too.

Colin and John planted marigold seeds in styrofoam cups at church several weeks ago. John's is showing progress, Colin's got nothin'. When he wasn't looking, I carefully took all the dirt out to see if, perhaps, he had planted his seeds to far down in the cup. A careful search revealed precisely zero marigold seeds in his cup, so I transferred a few spares that were sitting on top of the dirt in John's cup. We'll see what happens. I may have to go buy already blooming marigolds and magically swap them out while they sleep one night soon. Maybe it could be an Easter miracle...

If you're here, you're patient. Or bored.

2005-03-03T11:46:00.000-05:00

Sooo long since I've posted. Sooo tired. Sooo achy. Sooo pregnant, in a graceless and inelegant way.

John is obsessed with maps. He can find all the rivers and train tracks by himself. And we never showed him how to do this. We are certain this must be some kind of super-power. Sing like Geo. Harrison: "Cuz he's the MapMan. Yeaaaah. The Map Maaaaan. He's amazing, cuz he's only three... "

We're gaining more daylight every week. It was really very bright yesterday at 4:30. This is such a thrill in March in Maine, because we're all getting a little cooped up and wombatish. We only believe that spring is coming because we are endlessly optimistic, while remaining grayish and mostly motionless at the same time; not an easy balance to maintain.

I really need a new haircut. (See how shallow my writing has become?) I am sick of being told The Choppy Look is the look for me. I take this to mean that my stylist is either unable or too lazy to take 40 minutes making perfect layers on extremely straight, light brown hair. I know it's hard because I have absolutely no curl in my hair, but isn't that why I'm paying them so much?

We're having fun rewatching all the Jeeves & Wooster stuff that Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry did on Masterpiece Theatre when I was in high school. We've Netflixed the first 2 disks and I'm pleased to say that the theme song is just as cool as I remembered it and that I've been humming it correctly all these years. The series is especially fun because Wooster is the absolute antithesis of House, so that makes it even more fun to watch right now.

Quick update

2005-02-18T10:19:00.000-05:00

Too busy/lazy to update lately.
Colin lost another front tooth and is even more cool-looking.
My brother is getting married in less than two months, so we get to take a trip to TN and we can hardly wait. CindyU, if you are reading this: What do I dress kids in at your latitude in the middle of April, except up in the Smoky Mountains?
Valentine's Day party at our house - 18 kids - head has just now stopped pounding, even though I was not responsible for much besides hosting it - my cool freinds did the games and crafts and everything else.
The weather is doing a big Fake Spring thing here - but I'm not fooled...
Reading Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire again - a needed smack-in-the-face.
My children are addicted to Runescape. And maybe I am, too, but we're only letting ourselves go crazy with it until the end of February.
My 8.5' x 8.5' complete-mess-of-a-school-room-closet will be clean before dinner tonight, by Grabthar's hammer (or maybe that should be with Grabthar's hammer...).

Recovering from shopping day

2005-02-03T08:13:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, my mom, Libby & I all went to Portland for the day. Now we are wiped out and needing naps today. Next time I will wear sneakers or Birkenstocks and not my cool knee-high suede boots with heels. Ouch. Libby is pleased because she finally got one of those canopy-things for over her bed. I am pleased because it cost $8 instead of $30 like we've seen before.

- We've got Moms' Group at my house this morning, so it's a short update.

Sunny day

2005-01-24T08:20:00.000-05:00

Libby is still way up north with her grandparents, the sun is shining, and I got a fantastic night of sleep thanks to Mike (who slept downstairs in case the grandparents called for some help with a middle-of-the-night blood glucose thing). So I am astonishingly awake and ready to prove this guy wrong.

Yesterday was The Blizzard That Wasn't for us (poor Boston...) and church was cancelled, which was a relief because I had Children's Church and was grateful for the break. The boys were thrilled to have a whole day with Mike, as was I.

I am having a fine time tearing up old magazines. I keep too many because I am reluctant to lose the Useful Information, so I've been ripping out the pages I need to keep (about 1 page in 40) and stowing it in a folder to read some other day. I am reclaiming much shelf space.

Mike's father gave Colin money to take the four of us (Libby's still away, remember?) to the movies but, sadly, there is nothing fit for small children within 30 miles of us. Everything is way too violent or creepy for our kids. We almost never get good TV network reception here (it's a bad antenna), but yesterday Mike found CBS so he and Colin could watch some of the Patriots game and (here's the point --->) Colin managed to catch part of an ad for Alien vs. Predator on DVD. Poor kid. He had to leave the room. Now we remember why we are glad we only get PBS. Bill Moyers may make us roll our eyes and make derisive noises, but at least he doesn't give us nightmares.

Brrrrrr

2005-01-18T16:54:00.000-05:00

Torpor - a state of lowered body temperature and metabolic activity assumed by many animals in response to adverse environmental conditions, especially cold and heat. The torpid state may last overnight, as in temperate-zone hummingbirds and some insects and reptiles; or it may last for months, in the case of true hibernation and the winter torpor of many cold-blooded vertebrates [and Jenn]. [Emphasis and addition mine] -Britannica

I know there are colder places to live, but today's high temp of 7 has my shoulders permanently raised up to my ears. And I'm talking about inside.

Colin and Libby started gymnastics today and liked it a lot. If they practice hard, they;ll be out of this beginner class soon, which will please Libby especially, since she's really much older than everyone else in the class. We warned her ahead of time that this would be the case, but that learning her forward and backward rolls, cartwheel and handstand reeaally well was reeaally important to start out with. She seems okay with that for the time being.

Check out the new book bar over on the side if you want to know what we're trying to wade through. Although it's too cold to read right now because it's hard to turn the pages with mittens on. And also too hard to type, so that's all.

Ignore the previous post

2005-01-17T14:52:00.000-05:00

I figured out which parts of Andrew's code to steal. Thank you, Andrew.

I need a picture

2005-01-17T14:34:00.000-05:00

I really wish I could figure out how to put links over there ----> like my smart Blogger friends have. The help site is just too annoying, probably because I'm reading it wrong, but I'm clearly not getting it. Which is irritating. I tried lifting the code out of Andrew's page, but just ended up making a mess. It's not like I have much to link to, anyway, so I don't know why I'm fixated on it.

Yay, yum and yikes.

2005-01-12T16:37:00.000-05:00

Today it snowed with ice on the way this afternoon and evening, so Libby's ballet school (for the first time I can remember) cancelled this afternoon's classes. So now she only has her assessment on Saturday and then she's all done. Yay Libby and yay us! Margin! I can already feel it!

My new absolute favorite snack is Gala apples and peanut butter (the no-bad-stuff-except-salt kind).

Today I had a Mount Merici Fantasy Morning until Colin really made some strides in reading and then my moment of despair was lessened and now I am a bit better. Lately I've been wondering what the heck I think I'm doing and how could my kids be learning anything, and also how much happier my kids would be in an enriched and stimulating environment with nice people like Mrs. Bosse. And how much more time I would have if my kids went away for a little while so that, not only would the teaching be off my to-do list, but then the house would be under (in the words of someone I know) "better management".

Homeschooling friends, speak sense to me; winter in Maine is no time to lose courage.

Take 4

2005-01-11T17:31:00.000-05:00

I've tried to get an update finished and lost it several times for one reason or another (site trouble, user error, kids delete my work while I'm upstairs...). So hang in there, all two of you faithful readers. I'll type something real tomorrow.

Watch out - mucho parentheses

2005-01-10T20:01:00.001-05:00

Gratulerar to Matt & Sarah! Libby high-fived me when I told her. Colin is pretty sure you've set the date in honor of his 7th birthday five days earlier...

I had forgotten how much I love this CD. When we lived in Portland, I heard Jacksons, Monk and Rowe on the local cool-yet-smart station (the same station where I first heard this (Bad Reputation was Thee Song of the Summer of 1995 (you know, Matt, when your bride-to-be was nineteen...) for Mike and me) and called to find out what it was and they sent me the CD). Anyway, The Juliet Letters is sooo clever and sit-down-and-listen-to-it-with-the-liner-notes-in-your-hand good. Go get it. Or borrow mine for just a little while.

Pony day

2005-01-04T15:47:00.000-05:00

Libby and Colin played ponies a lot today. Libby rejected the standard "giddyup" in favor of "Kick it, Homefly!" which seemed to work well enough. They used one of Libby's silver lame dress-up scarves for the reins/bridle and have been making jumps out of stacks of encyclopedias.

We did actually get some school done today. We started the first of their new Bible curriculum. I discovered that the Bible I ordered for Colin was actually NIrV (gack) even though the Halfdotcom description said otherwise. Grrr...time for a refund...

Libby has been having such terribly high BG in the mid-mornings (read:math time) that she becomes very easily frustrated and teary. This morning, I planned ahead and had the (very noisy) boys in another part of the house and we just very slowly and quietly picked our way through the problems at the end of one of her Saxon Math units. Even though her BG was not high to begin with this morning, she said she felt like she "could just scream", but it went quite well and she felt much better by the end.

I have a hard time knowing how much to accomodate what feels like simply a very sour mood. I can't wait for adolescence to really hit...what fun that will be.

Piano went well for both of them yesterday and they seem to be really enjoying their teacher. Libby is teaching herself to play "We Three Kings". I recognized it as my duty to teach her the "smoking on a rubber cigar" lyrics yesterday, so now we hear that pretty often.

We took the tree and everything else down yesterday and it's great to have the space back. I want to get rid of lots of our stuff, starting with the TV, but I want it back for Netflix on the weekends. I also want to get rid of all but three outfits for each child for, lo, I serve the god of laundry. Reading Better Off : Flipping the Switch on Technology, so I want to have a garden,too. And a push-lawn mower. For Mike to use.

Colin is having a blast with all of his new (and old) Medieval Imaginext (from this Christmas and last). It's cool because it's all component-based so everything can come apart and go back together another way. And hey, look, this year they're putting out Camelot stuff, so the collection can just expand and expand...

Better

2004-12-24T03:03:00.000-05:00

Aaaah. Not sick any more. Now I'm just starving because I hardly ate anything yesterday. So it's 3 a.m. and I can't sleep and am eating at the computer.

Libby is on antibiotics again just to be safe. A blood draw and X-ray of her knee showed nothing conclusive, but the doctors wanted to make sure we didn't let an infection go untreated, so here we are.

We lost all our power last night before bed. Perfect Redwall-reading atmosphere.

Waaah.

2004-12-23T08:06:00.000-05:00

We are sick. At least John and I are. (I hate throwing up.) We are trying to stay away from everyone else, but it's tough. Also, we're staying away from the presents so we don't infect them. We are hoping to be all better by tomorrow, because that would throw a kink in our Christmas dinner plans at Mike's sisters.

My parents are continuing their transcontinental trek across perilous Insterstate 80. We are hoping they take their time and don't rush in an unsafe way. Are you reading this, parents? Only rush in a safe way.

Libby is at the doctor with Mike because the front part of her knee is swollen for no good reason and also it's hot and painful. I marked the edges of the inflammation with a sharpie a day or two ago, and it doesn't seem to be spreading much, but her pediatrician is concerned because she just finished a course of Penicillin for strep and they want to make sure it's not infecting the joint. So it's not even 8:30 yet and our house if full of activity already.

I finished our Christmas letters and mailed a bunch of them, but will probably not be touching the others for a day or two, so they will be post-Christmas letters. If you want to read it ahead of time, the text is below. It makes riveting reading, I'm sure.

2004-12-23T08:01:00.001-05:00

Merry Christmas from Maine!
December 2004

For those of those of you who either 1) don’t keep up with our web page (phillips-six.com) or 2) can’t get enough of us, here’s what we’re up to:

Starting with the oldest of us, Mike is a very happy W-supporter and a heart-broken Yankees fan ("If we can’t depend on the Curse of the Bambino, what can we to depend on?"). He managed one of our church softball teams again this summer, and continued his tradition of refusing to wear long pants and tearing up his leg in a showy way while sliding into home. Despite threatening to quit and guide whitewater raft trips down the Kennebec River, Mike is still practicing law in Waterville and specializes in real estate and business work. He is reading Redwall, a story of good and evil by Brian Jacques with a cast of rodents, to the kids in the evenings.

I have all my little brain can do to try to keep house, teach Libby and Colin, and dodge John at the same time. I am working on my knitting and can make anything in a rectangle shape (placemat, bookmark, scarf) although experienced knitters (including complete strangers in waiting rooms) tell me that I knit backwards. I tried crocheting but can only produce trapezoids. My parents have lived in Oregon (where I grew up) for twenty-seven years, but they just miss me too much, so they’ve bought a house in Vassalboro (20 minutes from us) and are starting their drive across the continent on the 18th and will probably be here by the time you read this. We are nearly incoherent with joy and I’m sure my parents are equally giddy at the thought of being so close to me (and the others) forever and always. ;)

Elizabeth turned nine-and-a-half on the December 1st. She loves babies and puppies and little animals of all kinds. She would like to be a vet or a Olympic gymnast when she grows up. She is in the fourth grade and loves to write but hates to edit. She has a very snappy sense of humor and keeps us laughing a lot of the time. Libby just started piano lessons and loves her teacher because he always brings a standard poodle or two to class. Her favorite song to play is Joy to the World. She has opted out of pursuing ballet any further and wants to expand her involvement in drama and music. She and Colin are both in the children’s choir at the church that is practically in our backyard; this year Libby had her first big speaking role as one of several stars (the twinkling kind) and got to wear lots of glitter on stage.

Colin will be seven in April. He is in the first grade and is the King of All Math. His smile is a blend of primary and secondary teeth, so he looks a little crazed some of the time, but that fits his personality pretty well. Colin is also taking piano lessons (favorite song: The Water is Wide) and is in the kids’ choir with Libby. He had a really fun soccer season and can’t wait for winter (indoor) soccer to begin. He has perfected his dramatic, mud-slinging sliding kick which will be very useful once he works on actually aiming the ball. He still can’t say his Rs very well, so he sounds cute a lot of the time. ("Weally, Mom! It’s twue!") We call him "Gusto Boy" with good reason - he has two modes: intense and asleep.

John is a very blithe, self-assured little guy who turned three in August. He has stopped writing on my walls with permanent marker (a weekly occurrence early this year) and has moved on to more dangerous diversions, like climbing the outside of the banister railing and cutting his own apples. He is (mostly) extremely generous, loves an audience and is a shameless show-off. He can’t wait until he can be on a soccer team like Colin. These days John is fixated on wearing Libby’s dress-up clothes (especially the ballgowns) and swooping around the house with scarves. Now that my camera is fixed, I’ll have blackmail material for the rest of his days.
We pray that all of you are well and enjoying your Christmas season. Think of Central Maine when you are planning your next vacation; we would love to have you visit us and we make very good pancakes.