Track, development, and Christmas leftovers

Track season has begun.  Love. It.  Our big kids are participating in the Body In Training Track Club this spring.  Practices are underway and spirits are still soaring.  Anna is training for high and long jumps as well as the 800 meters.  McKenna is training for the long jump, javelin, and 100 meters (what?  sprints?  good thing she has technical coaches other than mama...).  Samuel is training for the long jump, javelin, 100 and 400 meters.  He's a hoot.  In fact, he hoots after each practice jump or throw.  And he's been leading the other sub-bantams in their workouts.  It's a fun time for Caitlin and I to watch...as long as we can stay out of the wind!

A developmental update:
*On 3/19 Caitlin cut her first two teeth--the bottom middle teeth.  Incredibly cute.
*This week she has started scooting.  She does this by doing what looks like a push up and flopping down about 3 inches backwards to where she started.  She gets herself around the room but often ends up stuck against furniture that she didn't see coming!
*Caitlin absolutely loves veggies.  Green beans are by far her favorite.  She likes her fruits, too, but definitely not as much as the veggies.
*She loves the shower.  She will sit on the floor of the shower until the water runs cold if we let her.
*Another favorite past-time?  Being balanced (with help) on the head of Pops or Daddy.  She just howls with laughter.
*Naps!  We've got it!  She's taken 5 naps in 7 days in her crib!  I thought the day might never arrive, but we've gotten ourselves into a nice afternoon routine!

And because I keep forgetting...
At Christmas Samuel was talking about *something* (perhaps I could write the details if I'd logged this story earlier...).  Bennett asked him if he knew *that* from experience.  Samuel replied with heart, "No!  It really happened to me!"

Toast on Jam

I worked last night so Chris was home with the kiddos. All four healthy kiddos. At least, that's how I left them.

I got a text at 0307 that read, "Nothing like getting woke up at 3 am to 'dad sam just threw up in his bed'. The girls were great, by the time I got down stairs he was all set up on the chair with blankets, a pan, and a glass of water. Oh yeah, he wants to talk to you."

So I called home at at 0315 I talked to Chris. And Samuel. And Anna. And McKenna.

Thankfully it was a quick bug. He was fine today, but he amused me (as he always does) with his words. I slept through his lunch which he described to me as "toast on jam". If he prepared it, I'm pretty sure that's more accurate than jam on toast.

Will it work for me?

We had a visitor last night. Actually Samuel had a visitor. The Money Fairy came to see him while he slept. Anna concocted and implemented a plan last night to please her brother. She told Samuel that if he left pennies under his pillow that The Money Fairy would come during the night and exchange the pennies for coins of higher value. He was game. He left two pennies under his pillow and went to sleep promptly.

About an hour after we had put the kids to bed, we could hear Anna walking through the house. She snuck into the family room to tell us that **wink, wink** The Money Fairy had come and gone. She exchanged Samuel's pennies for dimes **wink, wink**.

This morning, much to Samuel's delight, he awoke to find a penny and a dime under his pillow. He was thrilled! Anna was confused, though. Where was the other dime? Why was there still a penny? She finally realized that perhaps she isn't quite as adept at identifying coins in the dark as she thought she was and that she must have exchanged one penny for another.

It was a cute interaction. Chris and I considered exchanging the dimes for quarters under Samuel's pillow after Anna had gone to sleep. We didn't, but we might in the future if this Money Fairy continues to make appearances.

(Anna also told us that the Money Fairy is the Tooth Fairy's boss. She lives in New York. A backstory. This girl's been thinking! She had answers ready for all of Samuel's unasked questions...)

(Spoiler alert!) Magnolia is safely home.

Today I did not spend an hour chasing a chicken through the bramble behind the barn. Nope, I spent two hours trying to catch poor Magnolia and return her to the hen house.

I have learned that the kids are helpful in pointing out that I cannot reach the chicken. They are not so helpful in actually catching the chicken. Well, the girls anyway. Samuel was the one who finally scooped up little Maggie.

The result is that I will never again make fun of the players on Survivor who are trying to catch chickens in their camps. And I'm glad that CBS has no reason to have a camera crew at our house.

Just another day in paradise

This week the big kids painted like Michelangelo. Minus the fresco style and Sistine Chapel. Plus the paper taped to the underside of a card table in the yard with water-based paints.

Caitlin got more fresh air than she's had in a given week of her life. It turns out that exersaucers are great for basketball watching babies. She loves the driveway games that Samuel plays. (For the sake of remembering, Samuel is always "Cody Zeller" and plays for IU. He frequently hits from beyond his 3-point line, a line about 8 feet from the basket. IU lost Friday night to Kentucky. What a season... Sweet 16 this year... I digress.)

Samuel told Pops this morning before church that his favorite color was plaid. This is not a high traffic blog, but if it were, I would take a poll. What is your favorite outfit dysfunction here? Is it the underturned collar? The cat-stepped buttons? The unbuttoned top button while wearing a clip on tie? The mis-matched plaids? The plaids combined with the patterened tie? Is it the star wars light up shoes?

Or wait?! Is it the gaping head wound that happened toward the end of church? Who said Sunday school was safe?! Apparently, we play a mean game of hide and seek at Castleview. Mean enough to give a nice "Y" shaped wound to the posterior scalp, complete with confusion, desire to sleep, and pale to gray pallor. Thankfully, an uneventful trip the the Riley ER confirmed that Samuel will make a complete recovery. His Happy Meal with a transformers toy was probably the tipping point. Samuel is, as I type, Yoshi on aMario v. Sonic Olympic game on the wii. He's a wickedly good javelin thrower on the wii. (And apparently at home, too. Samuel made his own javelin a couple days ago. It was old-school. Wooden with a red tip, thanks to a crayola marker. On his first attempt he threw his home made javelin half the length of his ice rink. Without getting a splinter. How many kids can say that?)

We've flown the coop

The last 8 days have provided quite the memories for our kiddos. We started out with 6 chicks. We now have 12. The original 6 are leghorns and have been named Bailey and Chelsea (Anna's), Donna (renamed Pip because she's the smallest) and Brooke (McKenna's), and Obi Wan Kenobi and Quaigon Gin (Samuel's). (Carrie, feel free to let me know what the correct spellings are. I'm feeling too lazy to look it up.)

The work of converting the old barn that sheltered Sahib into a chicken coop commenced today. McKenna went to Lowe's with Pops to get materials. All of the kids "helped" in the prep of the area construction of the floor. Samuel got the working child gold medal today, though. He worked with Pops for a solid 4 hours, even skipping dinner to continue working. The floor is done and the east wall is almost framed.

Anna's new favorite thing, next to the chickens, is her pair of bib overalls. She wears them every day and regularly has a chick in the front pocket. For example...

The leghorn in the front is a week older than the two varieties in the back. I'm not sure what the kids picked out. I did hear that Samuel requested that the Tractor Supply worker pick out the fattest one for him and Anna wanted the smallest one. Naturally, the chicks were afraid of the worker and there were about 18 in the bin. I'm sure he did his best.

February

This has been another busy month. Not so busy that I couldn't have taken a few moments to document (and therefore remember) things, though.

Daily wrestling matches continue. Chris still wins.

This week Caitlin has been VERY busy. She's mastered sitting tripod-style for long enough for me to scoot away and take her picture. She doesn't do it much longer than that, and she doesn't look up and keep her balance at all.

Caitlin has also developed some crazy rolls on her legs. Yesterday I noticed that at her hip her leg is as wide as her femur is long. She kind of looks like cube blocks--cute ones--her head, her body and her legs. She also has a fantastic crease around her wrists and ankles. She's been well fed. :)

Speaking of well-fed, we started giving her rice cereal this week. She's had it for the last 3 nights and is a total champ. Tonight she did it as if she'd been doing it for months. This a her first rice-face picture.

She's a squealer, she is. A squealer and a scooter. She's started in the last couple of days scooting on the back of her head, using her heels as leverage. So much for getting rid of the bald spot. Looks like it will get bigger before it goes away.

Samuel has learned to dunk. Generally, Pops helps.

Chris took the big girls to their first Daddy Daughter Dance. The girls had a great time. (Anna has since learned the Macarena. She's just too cute.

In other news, Samuel has this reading thing down. I took the kids to the library to read aloud to some dogs. Apparently that's all it took for Samuel to turn the sound-it-out-corner and be on his way to legitimate sight reading. He started his first long-ish book on Saturday and finished it today (Monday). He was so proud of himself. I was so proud of him...