Bennett was climbing into my lap and he said, “MAMA!” As many of you know, he calls me “Daddy” and we’ve been working on him for months to say, “Mama” or “Momma” or “Mommy” or ANYTHING that signifies I’m his mother. SO hearing him say, “Mama!” made me cheer and yell and snatch him up and hug him and say, “Mama, you said, it! Say ‘mama’, who am I, Bennett??” He laughs and leans back in my lap as I beg, “Who am I??” and he says very clearly, “HEIDI!” WHAT?? I laugh even harder and ask him, “Am I Mama??” and he says, “Heidi!” Well, I’ll take what I can get.

And Kit wants me to remind you that Bennett can identify and name almost every letter of the alphabet. This child is perfectly capable of saying, “Mama” - he’s consistently saying, “Dare you go!” when we hand him something. But he won’t say mama. Fine, I’m happy he’ll say Heidi.

I told Moira no to more juice. She’s now chanting at me, “Mommy, I hi-ated! I hi-ated!” Can you guess what she’s saying?

“Mommy, I’m DEHYDRATED.” (Her justification for more juice. I told her to get some water.)

Emy’s 9 month check up was today - she’s 16lbs 1oz and 27″ long. She’s anemic, but so was Mo at this stage. Both girls prefer (past tense for Mo!) nursing over solids but breast milk runs low on iron after 6 months. And both girls hate that iron fortified baby paste but we’ll see if we can sneak it in, or some other iron source.

Emiline is at this cute stage - she knows when I’m getting ready to nurse her and she starts bouncing up and down while kneeling and squealing and clapping. You have to love that kind of adoration, even if it’s because I produce her favorite beverage.

(You know it’s a rough day when I blog 3 times. It’s how I get my objective distance and remind myself my kids are cute. Really.)

Christopher was reading Moira a storybook when I walked in - saw the video camera and grabbed it to capture this, the oh-so-sweet moment, click on the photo to watch:

Yes, that would be Christopher sitting on his little sister while reading her a book. He decided the word “strong” was too hard to sound out. We’re working on that reading thing still, he’s doing great.

Emiline apparently things Christopher rinsing and spitting after brushing his teeth is one of the funniest things in the whole wide world. He requested we capture the show - again, click and you’ll get video:

The only explanation we could come up with is this his way of regaining all that lost time in the womb. We keep finding him crawling around UNDER the sheet on his bed.

And this is to show his cute hair is finally growing! I take it as a good sign, must mean his lungs are willing to share the calories. (See me grabbing his arm as he dashes away - wait, wait, just one more picture!)

While watering plants in the kitchen I heard Emy start crying then Christopher yell, “Emy got her head stuck!” I run in to see Emy on all fours backing away from the couch and Christopher LIFTING UP THE THE COUCH! Emy had somehow gotten her head stuck under the front edge of the couch frame and Christopher had lifted the frame to let her escape. He sets it back down and says, “I’m strong like that.”

Here are some prior pictures of the super pair:

(He says the flash hurts his eyes - even super heroes have a weakness.)

(The Super Big Brother and Adoring Baby Sister.)

Edit: Today was Bennett’s due date. And my sister’s birthday - HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JENNY!

I just heard laughter and yelling. I discovered Christopher, Moira & Bennett all jumping on the bed, squealing with laughter. Emy tried to join but isn’t quite big enough, so she was pulled up on the side of the bed grinning. It brought tears to my eyes and the thought that immediately jumped to my mind was, “Bennett can keep up. He’s okay.” Not just in a physical sense, though it’s a miracle he has that ability - to run and jump and climb and that his muscles and bones cooperate, that his lungs can make that possible, that his heart is strong enough to keep up with him! But that in so many other ways - socially and emotionally and mentally, that Bennett is racing with his siblings in EVERY way. Learning from them and with them and challenging us all and reminding us to not take this for granted. The miracle struck me again so forcefully while watching my children jump on the bed. I have four healthy children. Four funny and bright and beautiful and generous and thoughtful and sweet and wild and energetic children. Now I have to run because Bennett’s trying to jump on the bed while holding the cheese grater and that just can’t end well.

To show you how similar baby Emy looks to her new cousin, baby Max:

Now, to show you how dissimilar they are in size!! Emy’s 7lbs 7ozs and 17.5″ to Max’s 10lbs 2ozs and 22″:

Thadens help produce very cute babies.

Emiline is standing more on her own. She’ll say “mama” when I say it, but isn’t saying it to actually mean me. Still, nice to hear SOMEONE say Mama sinces I’m Daddy to Bennett. He refused to stay in nursery on Sunday so I took him to Relief Society with me - he lasted about 10 minutes before we had to leave (he ran for the front of the room) and a friend in the hall offered to chase him while I attended class. She said the whole time they were doing laps around the hallway while he said, “Daddy? Daddy?” She thought he was looking for Kit until I came out and he ran to me yelling, “DADDY!” Then I picked him up and he immediately started saying to her, “Bye-bye!” But I think it’s a great sign he was willing to let someone else take care of him for awhile.

Emy also learned to clap this afternoon, quite suddenly. The funny thing is she claps all the time - when she’s tipped over and is laying flat on her back crying, when Bennett’s knocked her off a toy she was playing with, when Kit’s leaving and she’s sobbing for Daddy. It’s such a strange contrast - the weeping while clapping.

Aunt Jenny & Uncle Sean are in town so we’ll post pictures and video and adventures later, they leave tomorrow and it’s been wonderful to see them.

Or, A Child’s Imagination

Snowflake is a kind and long-suffering pony, and Moira loves her very much.

Here is Snowflake (real).

You may not be able to tell, but Snowflake is barely awake in that picture. Snowflake plods, stumbling along during the lesson, and she’ll dutifully trot, albeit reluctantly, wheezing and panting all the way. She was certainly a much more energetic pony in her youth, but Snowflake’s pushing a quarter-century if she’s a day. None of this matters to Moira, however, who loves her pony unconditionally.

Moira received a lovely calendar from the Mealers featuring horses of all sorts frolicking majestically, leaping across things, manes streaming behind them, and looking generally like something out of The Man From Snowy River.

October features one of these horses — a snow-white number with muscles flexing as it tears effortlessly across a field. Moira sees this picture and announces enthusiastically, “That’s my Snowflake!”

This is how our daughter sees her beloved pony, Snowflake (ideal).

And so is the transformative power of love.

Emy is playfully smacking Christopher’s face and he’s laughing. I tell her “soft” and hold her hands and Christopher says, “It’s okay, she’s just a baby and doesn’t know yet, I don’t mind.” I remind him that we need to teach her soft and someday if we have another baby we want her to be soft to the new baby. He says, “I want another one… And Mousetrap.” So having another baby is ranked right up there with his desire for the game Mousetrap, which he’s never played, never seen played, but thinks looks really fun judging by the box he saw. I asked him which was more fun - a baby or Mousetrap? He said he doesn’t know.

That just made me laugh. I know Christopher loves babies, and I know he loves board games, but I have to chuckle that he requested both in the same statement. I suggested to Kit that when the next baby arrives home from the birth center, it might be good for that baby to be accompanied by Mousetrap.

Bennett has been carrying around a fridge magnet letter “O” today and saying, “Oh, oh” to everyone. I had a cookbook down and he pointed to the “O” and said the letter name, and just for fun I asked if he could find the letter “C” - much to my SHOCK he pointed and said, “C” and then did the same for “B” and my jaw hit the floor. I was just nursing Emy and Bennett came running in with another fridge magnet and said “I” (it was) and I asked, “Bennett, can you go find the letter “E” but didn’t expect him to really do it. (Me, little faith, I guess…) We hear him playing around on the fridge with the letters and he comes in clutching two letters - he hands me the “E” while saying, “E” and then gives me the “H” which he is holding sideways - and he’s saying, “I!!” He did the same thing with the “Q” - he hands it to us and says, “O?” with a perplexed look.

I’m in shock. Lately he’s been hooked on the “Leapfrog Letter Factory” DVD which has that catchy (annoying) tune of “The ‘B’ says ‘buh’ the ‘B’ says ‘buh’, every letter makes a sound, the ‘B’ says…” You get the idea. Now repeat that for EVERY LETTER because we have the fridge phonics magnet set and the kids all love to press it over and over and over. We know our phonics!! (And if any speech therapist is reading this, I know the ‘B’ doesn’t say ‘buh’ because there is no ‘uh’ in “B” but I don’t know how to make the sign to explain it’s the sound not the name. Any way to do that on the computer? )

I’m rambling. BENNETT IS NAMING LETTERS. And IDENTIFYING THEM from various options. He won’t say “Mommy” but he’ll do the alphabet??

And did I mention Moira is reading? I’ve lost track of how many words she’ll sound out. A painfully large amount of her speech is unintelligible to us, let alone to strangers. She can’t pronounce the letter “J” but she can read the word “jug” - she just pronounces it “dug” and only this semester has she gained that final “g” sound. It’s heartbreaking to see her struggle with speaking and more often these days I see her pausing and it’s as if she’s trying to make her mouth cooperate with what her mind is saying. She KNOWS what she wants to say, but her muscles just won’t let her get it out. But seeing her read is thrilling and the confidence and excitement just radiates from her. She’s so creative about communicating when she can’t verbalize - like when we didn’t understand her saying “square cheese” so she picked up a book and pointed to the four corners saying, “dare! dare deece!” AHH, you want a slice of the square cheese! Or now she’ll sometimes draw us a picture of what she wants. She’s so bright, and working so hard. I wish I knew better how to help her through this.

I’m proud of my little ones. They always amaze me.

Today you just get cute. I finally posted pictures from May. I was told the firstborn has tons of pictures & video taken and then it slowly declines in volume with each child. We are an example to the contrary. With each child we take more and more and more… I think we’re getting better at the photo thing with each kid. I think we’re getting better at the parenting, thing, too. At least I hope so! There are so many moments with Emy that Kit and I look at each other and laugh and go, “Gee, it only took us four kids to figure this out??” But let me tell you, next baby we’re going to have this down!

The 2.0 megapixel digital camera we bought when newly pregnant with Christopher has been dropped oh-so-many times that we finally admitted defeat and Kit bought me a new one for mother’s day. 4.0 megapixels (and we had to search for something under 6.0!) and at less than half the price we paid for ours 6 years ago, it’s a steal. We love it as a point and shoot, to complement the REALLY nice digital SLR Kit inherited from my parents. The latter is great for beautiful portraits but the new one is good for quick snaps of cuteness. And it’s tiny so I can carry it around in my purse. Which means now we’re going to take even MORE pictures!

Kit and I decided that for the foods we consume daily, we want to see if we can make them at home. Obviously this doesn’t apply to produce because I’m not planting apple trees. Though we do want to try to grow tomatoes and some herbs, I’m just not that ambitious yet. And we’re going to try yogurt soon, several friends have recipes for that. But for things we can make and eat a lot - bread, tortillas, granola bars, muffins, cookies, pizza, soups, etc - we want to try at home.

It’s always an experiment to see if the kids will reject the homemade version - so far we’re doing well. They love our homemade bread and now we rarely buy bread. Kit’s tortillas are MUCH more popular than the store bought ones but he can’t quite keep up with demand yet. Luckily my sister found us a tortilla press and that speeds things up. Even the granola bars and carrot muffins are a huge hit with the kids’ friends. Oh, but my homemade tomato soup, while popular with adults, was soundly rejected by Christopher.

Especially with baked goods, I like that we can control the fat content since so much store bought stuff has trans fats to keep things moist while sitting on the shelf. I can also sneak in healthy alternatives like veggies and applesauce and wheat flour. With canned stuff I’m concerned by the super high sodium content of canned soups, pasta sauces, beans, etc. At home we can control the seasonings - like the pizza sauce and dough recipe we got from my sister. The kids LOVE it, even more than restaurant pizza. Part of it is we want to avoid processed foods when we can, part of it is we feel better about less packaging from instant foods, and part of it is everything has been less expensive when homemade.

Moira’s currently addicted to instant oatmeal packets so I went searching for a homemade alternative. Today’s experiment was a success! She’s chowing down now and I’m excited to see what varities we can make.

Here is the recipe for microwave instant oatmeal packets:

Blend 1 cup quick oats until powdery.
Combine in snack size bag or storage container 1/4 cup quick oats (we used regular oats blended just a second in the microwave) with 2 T of the oat powder, pinch of salt, dash of cinnamon, 2 t powdered milk, 2 t or so of sugar, and whatever goodies. Craisins, raisins, dried fruit, chopped nuts, coconut, etc.

To make combine packet w/water, we’re finding 2/3 cup is good for Mo’s consistency. You can also add a dash of maple syrup, applesauce, jam (leave out sugar in that case) or vanilla.