The Amazing Nicholas...

Nicholas Joseph at 12 months


Sophia - Nicholas - Will

Before I forget any and all of the amazing things my little 12 month old is doing, I had better blog them.

1. He has figured out how to slide off of my bed on his tummy, feet first to the floor.

2. Next are the stairs - I fear. He likes to walk up to them - if the gate is not up - look at the stairs going down and sit down. This is usually when I scoop him up & carry him down. He wants to go down by himself!

3. Our "new" old-fashioned school desk with attached swivel chair is in the kitchen next to the table. Nicholas loves to climb up on the school seat to "stand" at the table. This is one thing I can not baby proof. It is too heavy to move around, can't gate it off and covering it would do no good. He is pretty good at it, so keeping my fingers crossed & hoping his Guardian Angel is doing overtime for him.

4. He remembers that the Thomas the Tank train toys are kept in a storage box under the gecko's table. So he crawls behind the tablecloth, pulls out the box and dumps it out all over the floor!

5. His most ingenious acrobatic act is pushing the couch cushion up, so he can get a knee up on the couch to pull himself up and stand triumphant on the couch. Now, neither Sophia or Will did this because we used to have a couch cover. After many washes, it's seams finally gave way. S&W didn't even know we had couch cushions! Now, I have to keep a blanket tucked into the couch and anchored under the feet of the couch.

As I am writing this, he is sitting on top of the little picnic table. AAAGGHHH! But he is very good at it. As long as we doesn't STAND on it, he will be fine.

He is beginning to say Mama, demands his own banana if he sees the big kids eating them and has his 8th tooth coming through. My baby is getting to be a big boy.

I haven't cut his curly blond hair yet though:)

Beth

My older sister died when she was 25. Her name was Beth. She was a stay-at-home Mom with two little kids, Zach & Tori (4 years & 22 months respectively at the time of her death).

She was 7 years my senior, but was a totally awesome sister. I know people always say that about people who have died, but truly my sister was.

The birth order in my family is Dan, Beth, Gretchen, Emily & Aaron. As we girls were were "book-ended" by two brothers, we were always very close. Throughout my childhood and teen years, Beth was a fun, loving friend. As I was entering the teen years, Beth seemed to have a revolving closet door. Gretchen, Beth & I used to borrow each others clothes all the time. Never had a disagreement. She was always very generous with the money she earned working at the local bakery.

She was married with little ones when I was in high school and only lived a block and a half away from us. I often spent long hours at her house playing with the kids while she did other stuff. As a Mom now - what I would give to have a little sister living so close to me ... willing to play with my kids so I could finish some housework!

I was in my second semester of my first year of college when she died suddenly. On my Mom's side of the family, a "fast" heartbeat condition is prevalent. Basically, the heart speeds up for no reason. Electrical hay-wire. On January 27, 1992, Beth's heart went hay-wire. She died suddenly at her home with her little children and a little guy she babysat around her. Her husband, Craig, on duty at the fire station, called home to chat. Zach answered the phone saying, "Mommy's dead." Gretchen rushed to the house. Beth couldn't be revived.

I didn't find out about all of this until I got home from college classes some two hours later. A neighbor drove me to the hospital, but no one prepared me for anything serious. My poor Dad met me in the parking lot in tears with, "She's dead." WHAT!!??? I got to see her body, we all clung to each other.

Then the week from hell was upon us. She died on a Monday and was buried on a Friday. I don't think any of us ate anything the entire week. We were all shell-shocked. I remember feeling a million miles away from God that week. I kept asking myself, "Why her? Why not me?"

It has been 17 long years since that day. I'm not the same person that I was before she died. I was changed forever.

Here are some things about Beth...

- She loved the WSU Shockers! My Dad & Beth held season tickets during the glory years of Xavier McDaniel. Go SHOX!

- She loved watermelon. We swore she could smell it from her room in the basement.

- She and her best friend Julie liked to eat Chinese food. She always brought home the left-overs, which we all nibbled on.

- She was a La Leche League Leader. She was a successful VBACer. Zach was born via C-Section. She was adamant about delivering Victoria vaginally. She did it.

- She knew what she wanted.

- We use to go to the mall every Sunday to window shop. Always had to check the baby clothes department at JCPenney.

- She had great taste in clothes and home decor.

- She couldn't spell to save her life!

- Her birthday was December 31st, New Year's Eve. She was born sunny-side up:)

- She was a devoted mother (I'm sure better than I am), and a good wife.

- She was plain fun to be with.

- I miss her.

My daughter is named for her, Sophia Elizabeth. I have her picture displayed at home and mention her in our everyday conversation in hopes that my kids will learn something about her.

The moral here is don't worry about the end of the world. The Lord can come for you any time, just like He did Beth. Be ready to meet Him.

Two Funnies from the weekend...

On Saturday, Nicholas awoke from his very long nap, crawled out of (my) bed without a peep or a plop, and I found him sitting at the top of our short staircase to the living room. I don't know how long he had been sitting there. Looked like he was contemplating crawling down the stairs. More amazing than funny - I guess. I even had the baby monitor on - and still didn't hear him. Usually, when he wakes from any nap, he lays crying in bed until I come to get him.

On Sunday morning, I tried to have Will put a quarter in his pocket for the collection at Mass, but he didn't want it. Later, I heard him talking in the other room about quarters, so I assumed his Daddy had given him a quarter. As the collection basket neared us at Mass, I looked at what he was holding - foreign currency! I have a collection of foreign coins from pre-children trips. Sophia likes to play with it. He found one & put it in his pocket! I knew we would have major melt-down if he was not allowed to drop it in the basket, so in went the Queen's money! Good thing Michael is on the collection-counting-committee at Church. He was able to retrieve the coin without too much suspicion;)

If you give a Mom a Muffin...

If you give a mom a muffin, she'll want a cup of coffee to go with it. She'll pour herself some. Her three-year-old will spill the coffee. She'll wipe it up. Wiping the floor, she will find dirty socks. She'll remember she has to do laundry. When she puts the laundry in the washer, she'll trip over boots and bump into the freezer. Bumping into the freezer will remind her she has to plan supper. She will get out a pound of hamburger. She'll look for her cookbook. (101 Things to Make With A Pound Of Hamburger.) The cookbook is sitting under a pile of mail. She will see the phone bill, which is due tomorrow. She will look for her checkbook. The checkbook is in her purse that is being dumped out by her two-year-old. She'll smell something funny. She'll change the two-year-old. While she is changing the two-year-old the phone will ring. Her five-year-old will answer and hang up. She'll remember that she wants to phone a friend to come for coffee. Thinking of coffee will remind her that she was going to have a cup. She will pour herself some. And chances are, if she has a cup of coffee, her kids will have eaten the muffin that went with it.

by Kathy Fictorie
based on "If you Give a Mouse a Cookie" by Laura Numeroff

"I" Week Books

2nd Quarter - Week 6

"I" Week Books

The Iguana Brothers by Tony Johnston. Cute story with great illustrations. A little hard to read aloud as the two main characters are Tom & Dom. I found myself stumbling over their names all the time.
It's MY Birthday by Pat Hutchins
Inch by Inch by Leo Lionni
Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Others we are also reading this week

Wilderness Cat by Natalie Kinsey-Warnock. Nice illustrations, but the story doesn't flow very well.
Tikvah by Patricia Polacco. Of course a well-written story about some neighbors, Jewish Sukkoth (?), cats, and fires near Oakland, CA in the 1990s.
Zella Zack and Zodiac by Bill Peet. Loved this story written in rhyme about an abandoned ostrich chick and friendly zebra.

Stupid...

Have you ever done something stupid? You know, like as soon as you say it or do it you regret it? I seem to do this every day. It must be somehow in my genes. I can't seem to shake it.

So, if I have offended you ... I'm sorry.

I'll probably be saying it again tomorrow.

Back to School

Today was our first day back to school since the Christmas break. I'd like to say I have all sorts of additional things already planned, but I'm not quite there. Schooling between Thanksgiving and Christmas was very difficult. We just did the important items like Math, Letters & Handwriting and let the rest slide. Oh yes, Sophia did learn several Christmas songs like Joy to the World, Silent Night, Away in a Manger, and the ever-popular Go Tell It On The Mountain. Maybe we should have really called that Phys Ed because every time we sang Go Tell It... she thought she needed to skip & run in circles!

I am very happy to report though that we are back on track with our phonics study. Slowly but surely. We took a break from it in October as the text we were using just was not working for us. My DD would "fight" me every time I got it out. It was like pulling teeth! My consultant at St. Thomas Aquinas Academy suggested laying off of it until after Christmas. In the meanwhile we concentrated on a Letter a Week program, which is going very well.

Now, I am going to follow Ruth Beechak's A Home Start in Reading text. Basically, she'll be learning the sounds of the letters using homemade flashcards. We'll move on to blending the sounds, then proceed to the Bob Books, a cute little first reader set.

I do want to extol the virtues of some awesome Leap Frog DVDs, Letter Factory, Word Factory and Math Circus. At the suggestion of one of Michael's co-workers (former homeschooling Mom), we bought the Letter Factory DVD. It boldly states, Teaches Phonics, on the cover, so we thought for $10 at Wal-Mart - what could it hurt? WOW! It is only a 30ish minute video, but after watching it a few times, Sophia had learned the letters sounds and was teaching them to Nicholas!!! NO JOKE! It's just a cute little story about a beginning reader, Tad, who is touring a "Letter Factory." Great music too! The Word Factory shows how letters build words and Math Circus teaches beginning math (number recognition, intro to addition and subtraction). Both Sophia & Will really enjoy watching the movies. They even request them!

So today when we started back to our new phonics program, I whipped out my colorful homemade flashcards and Sophia whizzed through them. I am eternally grateful to Leap Frog!
Other items in the works post-Christmas include some fitness stuff I'm working on (got to read that book), continuing our Letter a Week along with the phonics, and some more Music study (from the library). Maybe even a gymnastics class...

Later this week, I'll post our "I" week books that we are reading....

Happy 1st Birthday, Nicholas!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Baby Fever....

Hold on - I can feel baby fever is setting in.

I know lots of new mommies and expectant mommies right now. In fact, my church playgroup is made-up of four moms - 2 just had babies, the other is expecting twins soon, and then there is me. I've been telling myself I want to wait until May 2010 to have another baby. Lots of good reasons why: we need to upgrade to a mini-van, we need to pay off some debt to get into said mini-van, we need some more spacing between children (22 months was a bit hard for me), I'd like a summer baby instead of a winter baby, I need to wean Will, on and on. But then the other part of me says - you are getting older not younger, why wait, we can handle it....

I think Sophia was nearly 18 months old before I felt I was ready to even consider having another baby. She was a pretty high-strung, needy baby. She was about two when we conceived Will, who was 14 months old when we conceived Nicholas. Big difference in age. Nicholas will soon turn 12 months.

I guess the point here is that we know we would like to have more children. With our past infertility, I just don't want to miss the chance to have more for frivolous reasons.

With all of this said, I guess I need to be ovulating first.... Perhaps the Lord has a plan for me after all.