sister security detail

This morning is the first morning of enrichment classes at our web academy.  The school offers optional, on-site classes twice a week: PE, math support and writing plus semi-monthly science labs and additional electives for the high-schoolers.  It gives the kids a chance to meet other students, get some energy out and interact with the teachers face-to-face. It also gives me two mornings a week with just Nolan and Evie.  Our kids are regular attendees. 

As Mason was eating his oatmeal, he remarked, "There is this boy named Evan who kept bothering Sarah last year.  He's my age, and I am going to tell him to leave her alone."

Puttering in the kitchen, I answered "I love it that you want to protect your sister!"

To which he replied, "She doesn't want me to protect her, so I am just going to have to do it in secret."

My heart swelled with pride.  I love the nobility of character that leads my son to protect his sisters.  I love seeing the sibling love shine through, especially since it is hard to spot some days.

Disbelief

Bryan and I were having a quiet, end of day conversation when there was a soft tap on the door. It was so soft that, when I opened the door just to check, I was almost surprised to see Mason standing there in his pajamas.

"Mom," he said, "Nolan just peed on his pillow."

My mouth dropped open and I just stood there, speechless.  Mason must have felt that I needed confirmation because he nodded his head briskly, as if to say "Yes.  It's true,"  before pulling the door closed.

To help you understand my complete disbelief, you should know that Nolan was tucked into bed wearing a pull-up under his footie pajamas.  The amount of work required to accomplish the stated misdeed would be considerable for a not-quite-three-year-old who can't always get his elastic-waist pants down in time.

Finding my voice, I pointed at Bryan, "Tag. You're it."

He graciously went to investigate the pillow and returned with the report that the pillow was indeed wet, but did not smell of urine.  (Bryan has the most sensitive nose on earth.) A upturned cup nearby seemed to justify his theory that the wetness was harmless.

An odor of urine in the room warranted additional sniffing.  This further investigation revealed a puddle in an old army helmet.  When questioned, each boy pointed to the other, but the circumstances (see aforementioned reference to pull-up, footed pajamas and toddler dexterity) suggest that it was NOT Nolan.  Which leaves me wondering, why did the guilty child bring the topic of pee to our attention in the first place?

many hands make light work?

The first weekend of October, Bryan was home for a visit from Arizona. It was to be his last visit, although we didn't know it at the time.

The house, car and family were all in need of desperate attention. The budget dictated that he spend some time fixing Vanilla Bean's brakes. Our savings were dwindling after a week requiring repairs to both Pickle and Vanilla Bean totaling a couple grand.

Thankfully, Bryan is great at working with little helpers and Saturday morning found half our crew watching and "helping" Daddy fix the car.

Madelyn, 11, holding Evelyn, 8 months.

Mason, 5, driving. Nolan, 2 1/2 "working".

Nolan repeatedly tried to push Daddy out of the way, saying "Me do it. My turn."

He is actually quite dexterous for a toddler, operating the torque wrench was no problem. Well, except for exerting enough torque!

In the end, Vanilla Bean was repaired for a budget-friendly $9.97, with the added bonus of building relationships with Daddy-starved kiddos.

Back in the day, Bryan and I watched The Red Green Show, where a common refrain was "If she can't find ya handsome, she should at least find ya handy!" I am exceedingly blessed to have a man who is both. Besides fixing Vanilla Bean, he replaced an electrical outlet that was shorting out and magically fixed the bath tub drain lever in the front bathroom.

Before Arizona, I would have taken all these for granted. The experience of being handy-husbandless for 3 months gave me new eyes to see and appreciate all those little things that I can't take care of, things other people have to hire a professional to fix.

I am not sure that the work was accomplished

more efficiently with these many hands,

but it was accomplished more joyfully.

house of chaos and contagion

Here we are on day 2? 3? 4? of chaos and contagion.

This is the current view in our living room.

The curtains are drawn to enhance the movie theater feeling.

Madelyn holding today's accessory- the cup. The cup is a definite upgrade from yesterday's accessory- the bowl. Yesterday, I barked at any child seen without their bowl buddy.

All of my large, easy-to-hit bowls were pressed into service, starting with the mint-green tupperware barf bowl of yesteryear up to and including my nice, deep pasta pot.

Panning to the right we have Sarah, who has escaped unscathed thus far, eating breakfast.

Continuing the living room tour, Evie in her swing. She loves the swing, a fact that saved my sanity yesterday when it was just Gavin and I tending the puking hoardes.

Mason also wanted breakfast. This may be a rather optimistic move, only time will tell. He is wearing mismatched jammies because everything else he owns is stained with evidence of sickness (from one end or the other).

Gavin, the hero of yesterday, has finally succumbed. Let me tell you- I would be bald and in a straight jacket if not for his noble help yesterday. He changed nasty diapers and dealt with even nastier, sickness-covered loads of laundry. Loads and loads and loads of nastiness. Plus, he got up in the midnight hours many, many times to change Mason's bed linens and empty his bowl. This heroic deed gave his mother a few, precious hours of sanity-saving sleep.

Now that he is one of the sick, we have given him the entire couch plus control of the movie choices. It's only right.

Last stop in our living room tour- Sirena and Nolan cozied up on Sirena's mattress in the middle of the floor. Sirena decided that trying to make urgent, midnight bathroom trips from the top bunk was a hazardous proposition. So, she prudently relocated her bed to a location that allowed for easier and quicker exits. Thankfully, she is on the upswing and may even eat later today.

It all looks so peaceful and cozy, yes? I won't traumatize you by photographing our laundry. I will say that the bathroom has never been so clean.

My routine yesterday went something like this:

1. nurse the baby

2. change the baby

3. change the toddler

4. empty the bowls

5. bathe the child

6. clean the bathroom

7. transfer the laundry

8. clean the carpet/floor/chair

Repeat

Anything else accomplished was a miracle. Today, however, is a brighter day. Only one child is hugging a bowl, and he, most thankfully, has good aim.

a one minute photo shoot

Although the weather was cooperative, the children weren't especially interested in sitting still for photos. I snapped these off in just under a minute, without even checking the settings on my camera. Thankfully, there is an angel somewhere who has mercy on frazzled, sandy mothers who *just* want a photo of all their children together.

Mason, Madelyn, Gavin, Mara, Sirena, Sarah, Nolan

All smiles...because this is the last picture!

Tools

I apologize for my prolonged absence from the blog. October was busy with the Holy Days of Rosh Hoshanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot. November has been a whirl of sewing. I can't believe it is already Thanksgiving! If I really wanted to bring on the excuses, I could add that I spend my nights with a cranky baby who is cutting 3 teeth and my days with a few cranky children who are cycling and recycling this year's virus. The truth is that while I have several blog ideas a day, I haven't found the time to record them. When someone designs a usb port for my brain, you will see more blog posts. Some of my brain waves are quite brilliant, too bad they never make it into the spoken or written word.

Now that my blogging guilt has been assuaged, I will proceed to today's story.

Mason is now the proud owner of a hard hat. This morning he swaggered into the kitchen wearing his new headgear and announced, "I could really use some real tools, Dad." Well, what is a tool-using daddy to do? GET HIS SON SOME TOOLS!

Let sleeping boys lie...

More photo editing.

The little boys were both crashed out on our bed last Saturday night. We had partied hard at an open house to celebrate my brother's wedding and everyone was T I R E D. Well, they were just so cute, lying there asleep, that I HAD to snap some pictures.




Then it occurred to me that Bryan doesn't really like his boys to be associated with anything pink. Aha! GIMP to the rescue! (Have I ever mentioned that I love open source software?)

And so we have...

"Mason and Nolan Sleeping on man-colored sheets"

blog bites

I wanted to call this post sound bites, but since you are reading instead of listening that didn't seem quite right. And now to the news...

1)Nolan is growing bigger and more delightful each day. Sirena and I weighed and measured him this morning: 14 lb 7 oz and 26 in long. He is not quite 2.5 months.

2)Mason is also growing. He's a big boy now as I had the "diapers are just for sleeping-time" talk with him about a week ago. He gave me a lot of grief the first day but now loves running around in his McQueens (Lightning McQueen underwear). Today he is quite fetching wearing nothing but McQueens and a pair of tap shoes from the dress-up box. He doesn't sound fetching as he stomps around the house, but he looks cute in a crazy sort of way. I would take a picture for future blackmail purposes, but I haven't the least idea where the camera is.

3)It's $5 Quilt class this weekend and, as usual, the girls and I will spend today sewing in order to be ready. At the moment I am procrastinating through blogging. It's a proven method around here.

4)I've read some fascinating books lately and am trying to find time to review them here.
Final Salute, by Jim Scheeler
The Omnivore's Dilemna by Michael Pollan

5)Through an amazing gift, I was introduce to the art of Katie M. Berggren. Her painting, "Love Affair" now hangs in my bedroom. It is perfect for this midwife mama of many. Someday, I would love to hang it in my midwifery office (as in, when I have a midwifery office.) Thank you, Kaley.

That's all the news that's fit to print...or all the time I can justify printing it.

we've got trouble, right here in river city

*The management begs your pardon for the indelicacy of this post.*

We have had trouble all week with the... well, the toilet- to be blunt. It has repeatedly backed up, spilling its nasty contents all over the floor of the front bathroom. No amount of plunging or snaking has been able to clear the problem, and there was a rumor among the children that the situation wasn't due to "natural causes," if you know what I mean.

Today was the designated "deal with the problem" day. Bry bought a new wax seal last night in preparation. This morning, I confessed that this was one of those moments when I am glad I am a woman, happily ignorant of toilet mechanics and lacking the strength needed to muscle the porcelain throne off its pedestal. Bryan confessed that he would rather cozy up to a plugged toilet than face labor. We ended the conversation pleased with our respective gender roles.

So he drained the thing. Unbolted it from the floor and began investigating the depths.

He snaked it. He shook it. He prayed and pryed and finally retrieved this:

a ballpoint pen


It would appear that the rumors were true.
Ballpoint pens are not a naturally occurring phenomenon in toilets.


This leads us to the culprit:

He has apologized, but I am not convinced that he won't try again soon.

As I type, a sense of triumph prevails.


The plug is cleared. The throne reinstalled.
Three cheers for Daddy!
Hip hip hurrah!
Hip hip hurrah!
Hip hip hurrah!

I do so love being married to a man who can fix almost anything!

So close

It was a pleasant hour-and-a-half at the local social security office yesterday. Peoples of many diverse enthicities, speaking many forms of English were united in a common ordeal. We exchanged jokes about who had the better number and commiserated about how long
we had been waiting. All in all it was a lovely melting pot experience, but I wasn't the least bit sad when my number, C313 was finally called. By some strange coincidence, the same woman who helped me last time was the one who called my number. She didn't know me from Eve, but her compassion last time made me more at ease as I presented the documentation- his birth certificate and the new, proof-of-existence letter from our family doctor. After a few questions, a close examination of my photo ID and a signature, I was a handed a significant piece of paper.

It is with amazement and joy that I announce that Mason's application for a SSN was accepted. Now, before you celebrate prematurely, let me explain that just because the application was accepted does NOT mean that they will issue him a number or card. First they have to verify that difficult-to-obtain, delayed-filed birth certificate. If, and only if, all the information matches, they will most likely issue the long-awaited number, this is what that precious and significant piece of paper promises.

There are many people who choose not to acquire a SSN for their children, for one reason and another and they have my understanding. We have chosen to comply with this farce simply because we hope that if we follow these rules they will leave us to live in peace. It may not be fair, but I am not necessarily interested in fairness, not believing this to be an inalienable right. That newborns must apply for a tax id number for a system they will not be contributing too for at least a decade is ridiculus. That we must use this tax id as proof of identity in order to claim our children as deductions for income tax purposes seems more ridiculus still. There must be a better way but until there is a legal alternative, we will stay within the system.

Proof of Existence

Mason, 18 1/2 months
Bath time!

Mason is 2o+ months old and barely exists.

Due to some bureaucratic brilliance, his birth certificate was not filed until Dec 14th, 2006. This is a slight problem since he was born April 25th, 2005. It has been a long, frustrating road to make my son's existence a legal fact. We were unable to claim him on our taxes last year because he didn't have a social security number or SSN. This cost our family approximately $700 in lost refund plus pain and suffering for the tax preparer (me).

He still doesn't have a SSN which brings me to this blog post. Wednesday, with his long awaited birth certificate in my hands, I drove to the local Social Security Administration office determined to wait as long as it took to get that blasted number. An hour and forty-five minutes later, my number was called and I made my way to booth 6. The application was in order but you must prove age, citizenship and current identity with at least 2 documents. Birth certificates prove age and citizenship but are not considered ID.

Current ID for a 20 month old? He doesn't have a driver's license or a passport. Our family doesn't have health insurance, which means that we don't have a health insurance card. He is too young to have a student ID and we homeschool, so that is meaningless in any case. At this point I began crying. It was beginning to look as if my son would never have a SSN when the kind lady helping me said that they can accept health records or a statement from our family physician.

"When was he last seen by the doctor," she asked.

We don't usually take the kids in for well child visits since we don't vaccinate and I am generally able to tell if a kid is thriving or not. I sat there searching my memory and realized that Mason hasn't been to the doctor for anything since he was a brand new baby.

"Not since he was a newborn," I answered.

"That won't do. It needs to be recent."

So, I left the office without a SSN for Mason and drove straight to the doctor's office to tell my favorite receptionist the whole, sad story. She scheduled him to see the doctor this Friday afternoon for a "proof of existence" appointment. That has got to be a new one for the back office. Thankfully even with healthy kids, we are still in the office often enough to have relationship with the staff. After all, there are six of them and we get our share of broken bones and strep throat.

I just want to add that while my other children all have birth certificates and SSNs, they don't have current proof of identity either. We are considering getting state nondriver IDs for them, since they don't have any other acceptable proof of identity. I want to avoid this kind of headache in the future. Consider this a "heads up."

Beach Photos 2005

Bryan and I with Mason, our youngest, at the beach last August.

Not my best photo, but at least I am in this one! More often than not, I am the one taking pictures. A few photos of the kids from our trip to the coast this past summer. We spent part of the day at Battery Russell, Fort Stevens. August is just before the "fall birthday season" at our house, so the kids whose ages are listed as almost are now officially the ages listed. (This is very important to Gavin and Sarah, especially. Sirena isn't too excited about 8, but Gavin loves being 10, and Sadie tells anyone who will listen that she is two.)

Mara Anne, age 11 going on 25

Gavin, almost 10! (in this photo)

Sirena, almost 8 as of this pic

Madelyn, 6 1/2

Sadie Eleanor, almost 2 (in photo)

And finally, my favorite picture of the family from the weekend...