Feast!

Little Eden has made a quantum leap in her diet and eating skills this past week.  She had been quite a reluctant eater of anything from her own fingers, or of anything with even the suggestion of a lump.  She liked her baby purees and cereals!  But, this week she shifted practically overnight.  Now she is an avid consumer of all things finger-delivered and is SO. EXCITED. to eat, eat, eat.  Mmmm girlfriend.  Take it from your mother, don't start an idolatrous relationship with food in your youth!!  She is also really ooching around on her belly, up on hands and knees all the time, and crawling sort of backwards, but not forward yet...I think it's *just* around the corner.  If we can get her some traction on the slick floors at Mommo and Daddo's next week, she might just maker move there.

Click below for Eden at her first all-finger-food, no puree meal last night (and my other two adorable children, if I do say so myself!):
https://vimeo.com/50415199

brotherly advice

Owen having executed a particularly disagreeable expression of temper...

Me: [stern mommy voice] Owen you are NOT allowed to throw things and slam doors if you are angry.  I will not allow that in this house.  I do NOT want to see that again, do you understand me?

In the background Asher has been standing and comes over..."Yeah Owen, you can just punch a pillow!  That's what you're allowed to do OK?  Just punch a pillow."

You can imagine how well that went over :}

Blogger's block

I have a case of blogger's block, and it has a name:  Having Three Children.  Hard to find extra time and energy to record these days!  It will return again when Eden is a little less high maintenance.  In the meantime, I cringe to think of the wondrous funnies, sweet moments and unbelievable events that go unwritten.  It is a rich time in our family of a 5,3 and 9 month old.  The joys!  The pains!  We are grateful.

Brain dump of scattered memories, so very incomplete.

Owen:  TERRIFIED of kindergarten screening appointment.  Had to peel him off of me, and when the teacher brought him back, she said he wouldn't answer a single question with his voice.  WHY???  Talk about feeling like a failure and wondering why your child is so fearful.  First day on the bus...got on!  But very full of anxiety.  Collected him off the bus at end of day...shell-shocked!!!  Second day of kindergarten, on the way home from an errand to get to the bus on time:  "Mom, are you going as fast as you're allowed to go?  Please push the pedal and go AS FAST AS YOU'RE ALLOWED TO so I don't miss the bus!"  Nothing but enjoyment ever since :)  Don't know how much a child can learn in 2 hours per day, but at least it's giving him a good taste in the mouth about school.  This is a boy eager to learn about EVERYTHING and be an adult yesterday already.  He is going to build a rocket that can go anywhere in the known universe carrying a human someday, and be a clown, and live on a ranch like Daddo and have a giant garden.  Along with a hundred other goals that persist quite remarkably!  I always think his statements will be short-lived and forgotten, but not so!  He loves order, structure and being able to predict what's coming.  Reminds me a lot of someone else I know very well.

Eden:  Starting to leeeeeean over into crawling posture, rocking on hands and knees, but not crawling!  Just on the tail end of what we think is a bout of roseola...miserable baby since Wednesday.  Fever for 3 days, then just irritable, extremely tired and today the rash.  Please let this pass soon!  I can't hold a baby all day every day much longer.  She has been so unhappy, never see her like this!  Now, back to pre-virus.  Sings along with me in a droning tone (while nursing or just while I'm holding her).  LOVES THOSE BROTHERS!  If eye contact and lighting up when one enters the room is a judge of bonding and attachment, the brothers (especially Owen) are her primary caretaker, they get the biggest smiles, laughs and excitement from her, no doubt!  Loves her food (when she's well).  Really loving baby rice crackers.  She is slower on picking up food and putting it in her mouth than the boys were.  No teeth yet!  The most complimented baby I've had (and that's saying something!).  She has an adoring public at the grocery store.  LOVES to swing.  I tell the boys to stop swinging her so high, and all the while she is squealing and giggling...not very convincing reason to stop from their perspective ;)  Loves playing sound games with me...she makes a sound, I mimic, and she explodes in giggles.  I can really get her going sometimes.  Absolute best part of her day is bathtime.  She splashes on command!  She splashes til she can't see for all the water on her face, then rubs it off with her fists.  What a joy to have this precious daughter.

Asher:  Something new every day!  A piece of supper pushed down the ear canal?  Yes!  Making up names of random imaginary beings who inhabit his made up planet?  Why, yes!  Standing at the table with artichokes from the grocery bag, pretending they are having conversations?  Of course!  Tasting anything that resembles food, whether it is or not?  Par for Asher's course.  The summation:  Creative and Exploratory!  That is my Asher.  He is quite adorable.  And sweet.  His manners are astounding!  (That is, please and thank-yous).  His grasp of being neat, tidy, clean or orderly...as appalling as his nature is kind.  We absolutely adore him.  He and Owen are however locked in a brutal game of sibling rivalry that never has a winner.  It is troubling!  You can't force kindness, merely try to model and teach it and put a stop to the meanness, but a heart change for both of them is needed.  Lots of prayer needed on this matter.  They truly love each other, but they both want to be top dog (esp. Owen) and both are good at pushing buttons.  Don't know what encourages things to develop quite that way, wish it was different.

Reuel:  is there a better man in the world?  Show him to me.  I don't believe it!  It is daily discouraging to me to know I am raising sons who will not equal their father in certain aspects. (Which is why I sometimes wonder if I couldn't ship my kids off to their grandparents for a year and solve some of our problems!!)  Here is a guy who tolerates a lot of whining from me as an often stressed mother of 3 young children at home without many breaks or help, and he has yet to move to the corner of the roof.  Instead, he pretty much just slathers on the love.  It makes me a better person.  Living with Reuel is, I feel, a taste of what it is like to experience God's grace, instead of just hearing about it and understanding it in a cerebral way.  I am daily supported and loved by him, with all my flaws, and this truly helps a person to not get stuck fearing they are a terminal failure, but to keep pressing on.  To be able to grow in my own ability to support him as selflessly is a deep desire.

Well, there are so many cute kid stories.  Can I remember them?  No!!!  Stink.
 

Yes we're geeks

Okay, so I am swallowing pride and letting any readers have a peek into the inner life of our house, and the lengths we the parents will go to in an effort to avoid unpleasantness!  Here, you will see our children being mildly caught off guard after nap/rest time by a medal ceremony following the successful completion of the summer's hall of fame program.  Which went as follows:  taste a new food, get a sticker on the "Taster's Hall of Fame" poster.  Eat a sizable portion of said food and get sticker in the "Eater's Hall of Fame."  We did not have a dramatic turnaround in persnickety eating, but we did have a lot of tasting and quite a few episodes of finding new things (esp. Asher!).  And it brought an upbeat quality to the age-old struggle of parents trying to increase the palette of regularly served foods.  The kids were quite excited all summer to get stickers and would remind us frequently of the little program devised one night on a whim, after we would have long forgotten it.  Children facilitating their own growth...FOR THE WIN!!!!

Click Here for the video!