Quick Takes

Taking it all down, real quick-like.


ONE

Septimus finally made it in to the doctor for his 4 month checkup/shots.  Here's a little secret about our family: we never go to the doctor. Most people think it's because Rob treats the kids, but that's not it.  Yes, it's nice to have a doctor on "staff" who can give the thumbs up or thumbs down to the doctor visit, but honestly, I am usually the one making the call about it anyway.   Plus, our doctor's office is 40 minutes away so it's like a small expedition to get all the kids there.

Our kids' checkups are always late,  I haven't had a postpartum checkup since Sally (!!! bad, not recommended, but in my defense, I was usually going in for a prenatal checkup so I figured I could skip the postpartum one), and when the kids are sick we have the 4 Day Rule.

If they are still lingering with a high (like really high) fever (or other persistent, strange looking ailment like a rash or cough) after 4 days then we'll take them in.  Otherwise, they just stay home.  In almost 14 years of kiddies we've only had to observe the 4 day rule twice: once for pneumonia and once for Lyme disease.

I wouldn't say my kids are extraordinarily healthy; they have normally functioning immune systems for which I am grateful.  I will admit to being extraordinarily anti-hot-mess-in-the-doctor's-office, though. I think it's because Rob works there and I hate going in to face his partners like a crazy combo of Mrs. Rochester/the old woman who lived in a shoe. I just can't deal.

TWO

I've started using an all natural kind of deodorant because the skin under my arms has become ridiculously sensitive in the past 2 years.  I don't know why, but I get all rashy and itchy with regular old deodorant, even the unscented kind.

As I was reading the back of the stick, I saw this: "For your health, no perfumes, dyes, or flavorings added."

Is that a problem with other deodorants?  Flavor additives?  I don't think I want to know.

THREE

I enjoy a great blog/texting relationship with Nicole from As Many As We're Given. I think we've "known" each for 6 years now (!!!), and it is a dream of ours to meet up one day. Well, a dream of mine.  She might want to duck and cover.

Anyway, we were involved in a text-versation during lunch the other day, so my text chime was going off frequently.  Finally, Bun was overcome with curiosity and we had the following exchange:

"Mom, who are you talking to with all these texts?"
"It's someone that I know from the computer. I'm texting Mrs. 'Smith'" [I can't remember if she's shared her full last name on the blog or not]
"Oh, I know her!  She's the one from Massachusetts and we met at the hotel and then went bowling!"
"No, honey, that's Mrs. Martin."
"Oh. How many friends do you have in the computer?"

Between Facebook and blogging, sometimes it feels like they all live there.

FOUR

Rob and I have been saving money for a while for a certain home improvement project.  We had a contractor come out this week to price out the project, but it turns out we were off on the amount the project would take. Way, way off.

So off, in fact, that when I got the estimate I gasped and started to cry a little.  It was a completely ridiculous reaction which I blame partly on my screwy hormones (yes, still simmering down postpartum), and partly on the fact that I had my heart really set on one course of action.

I do our household budget and bill paying, so it is not often that I am this wrong about what things cost. We have saved a pretty good sum and it's not even half of the estimate total.  We don't want to borrow any money for the project, so we are tabling it for now.  Probably for a long time, actually, and we are setting our sites on much smaller projects around the house that we can now afford to do.

(And I know we can get other estimates, but I don't think the news would be much better unless they let trained monkeys do the work.  I basically have trained monkeys here, so forget that.)


FIVE

It's been a long time in the waiting room, but finally The Doctor Is In.

on Sally's desire to join cheerleading for the CYO(Catholic Youth Organization):
Me: "The squad is not affiliated with any team.  I mean, who are they even cheering for?!"
Rob:  "Jesus!"

on Bun holding up two crayons and asking which was better for his picture:
"This is really not the question to be asking your color blind parent."

on having 7 kids:
"When I was younger, I always thought if I got married I'd end up having 4 daughters. Maybe that was God's way of preparing me.  If so, he forgot to mention the 3 sons He was planning to sneak in there."

SIX

The state obsession continues unabated.  Bun has now officially freaked out at least one parent at the preschool by reciting the states and their capitals on the way to the May Procession.  Thanks to his scarily accurate memory, this woman is now thinking her daughter is woefully behind.

Honey, this is the kid who walks around with his hand down his pants 95% of the time and tells his brother to punch him in the arm as hard as he can.  Don't sweat it, your girl is lovely and normal.

Besides, Bun has crazily competitive older siblings who drill him on the U.S. atlas just for kicks and giggles. Not everyone has that kind of training staff.




SEVEN

I had all the kids except Francie at Bun's baseball game this week.  Happily, we were at our home field, which is  2 minutes from the house and the weather was great.  Cool temps, but no wind, which is crucial out on that open field.

Fiver and Sally spent the whole time in the adjacent park and the little girls played in the grass while Septimus slept in the stroller.  Once the game was over, I packed everyone back in the car for the quick ride home.

As I was driving, the sun was setting and throwing golden shafts of light on the cornfields passing by the windows.  The cool air was rushing through the car, the kids were chatting about school and baseball, and it suddenly hit me that I was right where I've always wanted to be.

Sometimes I am blessed with moments of extreme clarity.  It is a sort of detachment on my part, and I wish it happened more often than it does.  During that car ride home, while I watched the light playing on the fields, I was filled with the knowledge that I was perfectly at home --  right down to the grass and the air and the people and the chatter and the work and the struggle and the joy.  

My cup runneth over. I'm beyond grateful.

What a Mom Wants

I still don't know how I feel about Mother's Day.  I'm not super comfortable with people making a fuss and asking me all the time, "what do YOU want?," even though I pretty much always want people to actually do what I want.  I just don't want them always asking me.  I feel the same way when people call me a "super mom" because I have seven kids.  Just because you wear the cape doesn't mean you can fly, you know.  I am muddling through like everyone else, I just have to make more food.

But, I do know this.  My kids love Mother's Day.  Like lu-huuuve it.  They also love Father's Day and Valentine's Day and Groundhog Day and Arbor Day and National Hot Dog Day (July 23rd) and Talk Like a Pirate Day (September 19th) and so on and so forth.  They like to have little commemorations of the things they love through the year.    Don't we all?  Isn't that what we Catholics do with our feast days and holy days?  On a much less secular level, of course, but the party's still there.

So because my kids love it and they want me to be excited about it, then I'm excited about it.  There is so much I am curmudgeonly about, I figure I can take on for the team on Mother's Day.

I had a quick takes post halfway finished for Friday, but then a well-baby checkup with immunizations happened and grumpiness ensued.  Septimus wasn't too pleasant either, so the post got derailed.

No matter, though.  I'll save the draft for another Friday and in its stead I'll do The Mother's Day Wrap-Up List.

Dear sweet Sally was a major architect of my Mother's Day festivities.  She left me a note under my pillow and she wrote and performed a song, a duet with her father, in which she extolled my virtues.  This song declared, among other things, that I was more precious than a diamond and better than television.

She also made me this card in school and carefully hid it in her room until the appointed hour.  This is my favorite kind of Mother's Day gift.

One day, this kind of focus will serve him well.
Or land him in on some kind of watch list.

Bun did not give this to me specifically for Mother's Day, but I do get something like this from him nearly every day.  He taught himself to read and write and he never looked back.

He is currently teaching himself the states and their capitals, and he likes to write "songs" about them. His sense of humor is so zany that the results are often hilarious.

In case you don't have Superman vision, here is the translation (invented spelling intact, of course!):

The Olklahoma Song 

Olklahoma the capatl is Salt Lake City.  No that is the capatl of Utah. OLK-La-homa newest city ever. You no what? Olklahoma has a lot of trains. No it doesn't. What is the capatl? The capatl is Jefersin City. No that is the capatl of Mossori. Ok the capatl of Olklahoma is Olklahoma City.   OLK-la-homa! Salt Lake City is the capatl of Utah.  I already said that is correct to-day. olklahoma star of the united states, all of the united states.  olk-la-homa, olk-la-homa, olk-la-homa.  city's, city's, city's.  plain's, plain's, planes.

He's a little nuts about Oklahoma.  I showed him the "Oklahoma" song from the musical and blew his mind.  Now he wants to know if all the other states have their own musicals.  I've created a monster.

We also had the school May Procession.  I love May Procession and the crowning of Our Lady.  It was one of my favorite nights when I attended school and I love that my kids get to do it as well.

The first communicants.  I don't even have one in there this year
and I couldn't take the sweetness.  I will be a mess next year
when it's Sally's turn.

Sal (and her bff, K), processing to church.

Fiver, finally realizing that I was standing right next to him
with the little ones.  

Francie, the May Queen.  All the 8th graders wrote essays, and the author
of the best essay about the Blessed Mother got to crown her at the
May Procession.  Francie was so excited.

Crowning Our Lady (at Queenship of Mary Church)
 while the student body sang
"Bring Flowers of the Rarest (Queen of the May)."
Yes, I cried.

Yours truly with the people who have allowed me to
celebrate Mother's Day.  They are the best.

Theme Thursday: Mom

I'm joining Cari at Clan Donaldson for Theme Thursday this week.  Because, in spite of copious evidence to the contrary, I still blog here.  Just look at the ten half-finished posts in my drafts folder.

This week's theme is "Mom," and it turns out I have quite a few pictures here on the old hard drive that fit the bill.  I'm no great shakes photographer, but I figure I have the wherewithal to post some maternal pictures.  You know, as an early Mother's Day shout out and all.

First, the beautiful classics.  The role models. These ladies are unsurpassed in my life.

My grandmother with her first baby, my mother.  I love the way she is nuzzling
my mother's cheek.  Mothers and babies never change.
This is our first mother's day without my grandmother. I miss her.

My pretty, pretty mother, in high school.
Don't be jealous of her awesome hair and naturally thick
eyelashes.
I still think my mother has the prettiest green eyes
I've ever seen. 

Who wears short shorts?  My mom.
Seriously, why can't I look like that after I have my babies?
Genetics only gets me so far, I guess.
(That's one of my mom's best friends, Aunt D, holding me)

My mother, rocking the fashions of late '76.  I actually love her coat and
brown boots, but she was so dainty that I would never fit into her clothes.
And I mightily wish we still had the coat that I was wearing.
My parents called it my "Joseph Coat."

My fantastic mother-in-law and Baby.  They share the same name, first and last.
Very cool.  I'm so blessed to have a mother-in-law who dotes on my children.
Some can't or don't or won't for whatever reason, you know.  Not mine.

And now, me. Mother of 7.  When in the heck did that all happen?!  It is the biggest privilege and blessing of my life to have these people call me "mom."

This is my Mopsy belly.  
Yes, I have children the size of 2 month olds.
Also? I really miss the good hair hormones of pregnancy.

Riiight before they cranked up the pitocin with Mopsy.
If this had been taken 10 minutes later, you would have seen me trying to knock
myself out with a hammer.  I'm sure it would have been less painful.

Not too shabby for having an unmedicated, pitocin-fueled labor.

And this is my Baby belly.
Yes, she was even bigger than Mopsy.
Still miss those awesome pregnancy hair hormones.

What you can't see is not-quite 1 year old Mopsy sitting on
my huge belly housing her baby sister.  That's what happens when
you have babies less than 14 months apart.  Instant baby shelf.

Another induced labor, this time for Sally.
Why am I always looking so jazzed to get induced?
It's really not that great.
Except for the baby at the end, of course.

My Sally-girl.  The calmest, sweetest baby ever.

Mr. Bun gettin' his Catholic on, baptism-style.

Francie and me, then. Not so long ago.
See?  Nuzzling never changes.

Francie and me, now.
(courtesy of a photo booth in NYC)

Happy Mother's Day, my friends!

(BTW, I think this post officially contains the most pictures of myself I've amassed in one place. Ever.  Makes me feel weird. It will most likely never happen again. But it does make me realize I have no picture of me with the Magnificent Seven.  I need to fix that.)

Snaps and Snippets

Spring is kicking my butt.  Dancing, baseball, school musical, and looming end-of-the-year projects and pageants are keeping me hopping.

I want to write about lots of different things, but for tonight I still have three baskets of laundry to fold.  So you get an exciting melange of old photos that I pulled off of my iPod.  I have largely turned the iPod over to the kids, so I was surprised by some of these shots.

Plus, there are two movies!  One is an 11 second movie that one of my children took when I was hugely pregnant with Septimus.  And the other is Baby in her beloved exersaucer.

I love finding these kind of candid pictures.  There is nothing better to remind me that although my days are long, the years are very short indeed.

Name that baby . . . It's Mopsy!

Francie practically looks like a toddler here. 

Suuuuuper closeup courtesy of Bun -- thank goodness it's blurry!

Fiver, sans glasses

Rob and Bun, avec glasses

Bun and Mopsy in a crib.  It feels like eons have passed since either
one was in a crib.

The one and only Bun

Look deeeep into my eyes

Peter Pan and Tink

Bun and Sally

Baby as a baby!!

Baby was such a chub - I always forget that!

Thousand mile stare

Darth came over for Christmas dinner
(this was all the fun I missed in the hospital)

Baby is not happy --
she should call me maybe.

This shirt is Mopsy all over, little and fierce.
Got to love Shakespeare.

What?  I'm just chilling out.

Trying to eat my hands . . .

Oh all right, I know you're dying for a smile.
Don't say I never gave you anything.

And this is one of my favorites.  She used to do this all the time:

Genetics Much?

Since we lived in North Carolina when Fiver was born, not many of our current friends here in PA knew him when he was a baby.  So it's understandable when they say they see a lot of Bun in Septimus  since they knew Bun as a baby.

But, well, . . . let me just present you with Exhibit A:

Or how about Exhibit B?:

But don't forget Exhibit C:

And in case you aren't sure, here's Exhibit D:

My crazy OCD side would really love to know if they are the same blood type.

Flashback to high school biology:  Rob is AB+ and I am O+, so that means all of our children can only be either an A or a B.

I know everyone's blood type except Fiver's, so I'll just have to bide my time until Fiver's old enough to give blood and they type him.  So far, I have three As and three Bs among the children. Fiver's the tiebreaker.  A or B?!  


All my twitchiness aside, I thought I'd see how closely they resembled each other.  So I showed the pictures of Baby Fiver to Sally and Bun and I asked them to identify the baby.  They both said Septimus.

I think we can admit that Fiver's got a brotherly doppelgänger.

 

What He Needs To Know

Bun loves baseball in general and the Phillies in particular.  (And he's a true fan because he even loves them this year.)  He's been learning a lot about the game through his baseball practices, and he's doing his best to pass that passion on to Septimus.  He is starting by reading his "Phillies' ABC" book to his little brother.

I don't know if Septimus will love baseball, but he sure loves his brother.  Look at the way he smiles and wiggles while Bun reads to him.

Brothers and baseball are the best.

Two Worlds Collide

In my mind, I've posted several times since Wednesday.   Then again, I have a rich interior life so a lot of things happen in my mind.

But one thing that didn't happen only in my head?  I had my first meet-up with a friend I've met through blogging.  We traveled through the wilds of the Pocono Mountains and we met the Martins!

Actually, it wasn't really the wilds of the Poconos.  We were only about 40 minutes from home, tops, and the Martins were stopping on their way back home from vacation.  Totally doable.

I told the kids we were going to meet some new friends for dinner.  Bun wanted to know where I had met them, so I told him I met them on the computer but I hadn't met them in person yet.  He stared at me while Sally said, "Let me get this straight, you know them but you haven't seen them in their face yet?"

Yep.  That's about the long and short of it.  We were about to see them in their faces.

And oh Lord, did we get all up in their faces.  They were powerless to keep from being sucked into the maelstrom of the whole clan.  We are sort of  like the borg that way.

I don't know if it's possible to simultaneously underwhelm and overwhelm a family, but I'm pretty sure we did it to Colleen and Phil.  We've got the numbers to overwhelm, but the rest is pretty average.

I think Maggie was delighted to meet a family with 4, count 'em, FOUR daughters.  Maggie told me that she's the "only girl unless she counts her mom and her cat," but in one fell swoop, she got an older friend, a friend the same age, and two little friends who adore older girls.  Score!

Girls rule!

Sally, Maggie, and Mopsy - who needs tokens when you can
hang out with a bunch of girls and make your own fun?

My boys were beyond thrilled to meet a family with a boy majority.  They all huddled together at their table for dinner, talking about boy stuff.

This boy is delightfully cute.  He even got Baby to chase him
and Baby usually don't play that.

Bowling maniac

And Septimus made me look like a complete liar as he snuggled up to Colleen and never cried. Not once.  Not a peep.  Little stinker.

I'll just be totally casual and hang out here quietly in my seat if you need me, 'kay?

There was a bowling alley/arcade at the resort where they were staying, so Phil and Rob took most of the kids bowling so Colleen and I could chat.  They left us with Xander and Baby, who are both almost 2 and are only interested in running, running, running.   I'll let you guess how much casual chatting we got to do.

So which one of these do I get to throw?

Once we joined the guys and the rest of the kids in the bowling alley, it became pretty clear that all parties involved were dog tired.  How did I know?  Well, Sally lost it over a soft pretzel and Bun just up and fell asleep on a bench.

Partying with the Martins takes stamina, and he's tapped out.

Sally, pre-pretzel breakdown

Phil and Colleen are as adorable a couple as they are on the blog, and their children are super friendly, very cute, and well-mannered, even after a long car ride.   I really wish we could have talked a little longer, but they were probably relieved to escape the wake of craziness that follows us.

Maybe one day we'll meet up and again and it will be calmer.  Like when we're 80.  

The universal sign of exhaustion:
Mospy starts sucking on her two middle fingers.

(And Colleen, I hope you are ready for a visitor this summer because Francie told me that she'd love to come and babysit for you.  I'll let her bring Sally along for Maggie.)