Sorry I’ve been absent from the world of blogging for about forever, and anyone who ever used to check my blog has probably stopped, but I am resuming anyway. My updates will likely be infrequent, but a once a month update is probably sufficient to see what’s going on in our home anyway. I’m just POSTING right now. Hopefully I’ll break these up and add photos later? We’ll see.
Here are the headliners: New Parenting Approach Saves Sanity, Heiselt Homeschool Reaches New High, East Coast Swing Makes a Comeback, Spiritual Journey Brings Peace, and Falling in Love all Over Again. I would love to take lots of pictures and make a post for each of these, but that is unlikely, so let me sum up.
I realized over this wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday that some of my own family members don’t know this about us so I thought I’d share why (and how) we don’t do Santa at our house. Well, at least I don’t. Please don’t read this if you will be offended by someone who doesn’t really like the whole Santa thing. Cuz you will probably be offended. But you will get to learn a little something more about Melissa and her crazy ways. It’s your call. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya…
First off… I was the kid who showed up at Kindergarten literally never having heard of Santa before. There we were there coloring our little coloring sheets of some fat guy and of course I was coloring him rainbow stripes or something, just like everything, until my peer told me I was coloring him wrong… “whaddya mean WRONG? It’s MY picture!” was my response, until several informed me it was some guy named “Santa Claus” and he’s red and green. SO I colored his suit green… no no, the suit is red, the mittens are green… Okay… weirdness. So I ask my Dad when I get home about this Santa Claus deal, and of course he informs me that he was Saint Nicholaus and he went around paying the dowries for poor girls to marry and he traditionally wore green and rode on a goat. I really think I could have done without the green and goat part, though it was probably for the best as I shared my new-found knowledge with all my friends and they just thought my dad was either crazy or pulling my leg.
I started this post in early November, but couldn’t get the photos to load until now. This post is about a Saturday that was one of those rare days where everything seemed in harmony and our family was in a blissful state of balance. We had a lot of work to do, as is always the case in these winding up autumn scenes before winter… gathering leaves, mulching the gardens, weatherproofing the house… and we didn’t get everything done that was needful, but we did do everything that was possible, and we worked together as a family and it was a joyful experience!
Just wanted to test and see if it’s working. This was my hair at the beginning of the year. It was supposed to be permanent, but it didn’t last a week! So sad.
So, Evangeline refuses to believe she is a baby. Conan was kind enough to help her climb the stairs one day and by the next she was a pro. We’re still working on going down, but let’s face it, there’s nothing cool to do downstairs. Unless you count eating dirt out of all the houseplants.
She has also started talking. It is surreal. I tried to convince myself it was a coincidence, but I really think she’s getting it. Besides Mommom and Daddad and Bruhbruh which she’s been saying for awhile, she has said cat/kiki in proper context several times. When we change diapers I often have to put my foot on her tummy to keep her from crawling away so we play the toes game: I wiggle my toes and say “toes,” then ask where her toes are and she lifts her foot and I kiss her toes and say “toes.” Yesterday she reached for my toes and said “toes.” Clear as day. What!? At a friend’s house she learned about dogs as she chased their sweet-tempered collie-mix kind of dog around, loving it, she said “dog!” More than once! Then, the real kicker, while at another friend’s house she started to climb the stairs. I said “Where do you think you’re going?” She simply replied, “up.”
She is still a dainty little peanut, but she is LONG. The other day I bought warmer jammies, theoretically for this upcoming fall/winter. 12 month size seemed like a good bet for a tiny 10 month old. “She’ll grow into it,” I figured. She already fits it REALLY well. We’ll need to upgrade before the winter’s over for sure!
About 3 days before we went on vacation, Keane decided the potty was a good thing.
Mom: *sigh* Ok Keane, underwear or diaper this morning?
Keane: Um, underwear.
Mom: Are you going to go pee in the toilet then? You know pee and poop belong in the toilet and not anywhere else, right?
Keane: Yeah, I’m big.
I was more than a little apprehensive about what this would mean for our travel plans and immediately began plotting whether we would be doing the pull-ups gig (which I hate, it’s a total cop out and kids know it) or whether I would be bringing every pair of pants/ underpants he owns and lots of spare grocery bags.
To my surprise, he had very few accidents the first day, one the next, and none after that. He’s got it. He went pee in every potty the entire week and a half we were gone, including on the airplane! He had one or two accidents the entire vacation. That, I can handle.
Eve is officially 8 months old and counting, and I figure I really oughtta do an update. Again, sans pictures
She is:
crawling on hands and knees
pulling up on everything and anything
cruising (clumsily but determinedly)
talking constantly (momom, brubuh, baba, dada)
such a happy little cutie!
She has:
8 teeth
auburn hair (peach fuzz)
hazel eyes
eyelashes up to her eyebrows
the sweetest baby laugh ever!
