Daley Ponderings

Pocket Notes

joyful — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 17:16:54 -0400

Oh, yes. It has been half a year since my last pocket notes post...

9/6 - Joy says "yum" and "yummy", "all done/gone" (sounds like ah-doh), "where shoe?", and "mine" (sounds like my)

9/25 - Faith reading the Bible to Joy: "When you want Mommy to cuddle with you but she can't, you aren't alone because God is with you."

Faith also reminded herself of this as she went down to put tools away in the basement.

9/28 - Noah let me listen to his piano practice and I was impressed with his progress: both hands, dynamics, steady rythmn

10/2 - Noah lost his upper left second incisor. It had to come out to make room for the new first incisor. That is, he lost three baby teeth to make room for two adult teeth. As of March, he has not lost any more.

10/12 - Jon felt the baby move

~10/12 - Joy says, "'kay" for ok

10/14 - Faith felt the baby move

10/14 - Joy says, "two, three" sounds like "do, wee"

10/17 - Joy says, "hot" sounds like a breathy "ha"

10/21 - I turn 33.

10/24 - Joy says, "thank you" sounds like "tha tchoo"

10/31 - The almost-went-to-the-doctor day. Joy put a bead up Faith's nose (I think she was lying down). After much distress in attempting extraction, I finally got it with a toothpick. Later that same day, Jonathan cut his ankle on a piece of broken tile. He was very dramatic about it, which we have started to treat as the boy crying wolf, but when I actually saw it, I agreed that it was pretty impressive. But a butterfly closure did the trick and we did not need to go get stitches.

11/1 - Joy put on Faith's shirt, underwear, and shorts - she wants to be just like big sister!

11/1 - Joy said, "Faith" sounds like Thay.

11/18 - Jonathan turns 9

11/21 - Isaac would be 10. Wow.

12/8 - We move into our own house!

1/18 - Joy poured her own milk by herself (with the last of the gallon).

1/9 - I was looking for electrical caps. Joy said, "dap!" and handed me the jar of caps.

1/26 - To Joy, every animal says "roar"

1/28 - Jonathan had a bad math day. The worksheet would say "what's the difference..." and Jonathan's answer was "one's longer".

2/2 - Jon's birthday party/Housewarming party

2/8 - I was using a measuring cup to scoop batter out, and Joy said, "me do cup please"

2/9 - Jonathan: "Nobody can argue that Mrs.Lull is a good teacher." Faith: "'Cause she is!"

Joy likes giving high fives. She'll say "fie!" and hold her palm up.

2/11 - Jon turns 36.

2/13 - Jeremiah is born.

2/15 - Joy, heading down the stairs, said, "Bye. Love you, Mommy."

Three of Joy's two year molars came in after I last brushed her teeth before Jeremiah was born and before I first brushed her teeth a week later. The slow one is the top left.

2/23 - Joy turns two.

3/10 - Joy sees Jeremiah spit up on my shoulder. She says, "Spill." and then goes and gets me a sponge.

3/16 - Faith reads! She reads the first several stories in I Can Read It! Book 1.

Pocket Notes

joyful — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 08:24:35 -0400

9/19 - Joy has been telling me when she needs a new diaper (patting her bottom) but this day, she got out the changing pad and wipes, set up the pad on the bathroom floor, put a new diaper on top of the wipes box, lay down on the pad, and called for me.

9/20 - Noah is definitely our hands-on guy. He asks for crafts related to what we do in school. When we read a book about archaeology, he immediately wanted to go dig in the back yard. He got a trowel and a sieve and a container to hold his treasures and happily dug and sifted for a long time.

~9/20 - Joy can say, "ow".

9/25 - Joy put on her own socks all by herself. Before this, she had successfully put on mine.

9/27 - Joy says "please" to go with her sign. It sounds like "wee".

9/27 - Sounding the same, but in a different context. When she plays with the abacus, she says, "wee, wee, wee" as she movs the beads. 9/28 - She also "counted" "wee, wee, wee" when playing with the corners cards.

9/28 - Faith really wanted to play Corners with me, so I made up a version she can do. (The "real" game involves finding numbers that add up to 5, 10, 15, or 20.) We played where we had to match the color and the numeral. Faith loved it!

Now Joy's "please" has some gentle consonant in front, similar to "fwee".

I am now 19 weeks into the pregnancy, which means we are almost halfway there! I started feeling movement around 15 weeks, which is a little later than I have felt the couple of most recent others. But there is definitely no worry about that now - baby's moving plenty!

As with Joy's pregnancy, I'm experiencing extreme sensitivity with nursing. For a while, (likely due to transition and sleeping in someone else's house) Joy was nursing every two hours or so during the night. It was really wearing on me, and after one really horrible night, Jon took her for the whole next night and proved to us both (Joy and me) that she could get through the night without nursing. The next night, she slept next to me as usual, but I was as firm as Daddy and told her to wait until morning. That worked, too! And now she sleeps through the night barely even stirring (there was a transition period where she would cry when I said no, gradually decreasing) This is such a sanity saver for me. And now sometimes she doesn't even nurse in the mornings, but we just get up and go have breakfast.

I'm still debating within myself whether to wean her before she's two or not, since I think it's quite likely I'll be tandem nursing again if I do make it until she's two. But that, I think, we will take one day at a time and see what happens. She's only nursing one to three times in a 24 hour period, so I can manage to handle it for now.

Work on the house is progressing and it is encouraging. We have pictures in the camera, but I am so behind on uploading that it will be a while before they're posted.

The weather is definitely fall and the house is getting chilly. But the plumber is not coming to hook up the boiler until next week. That means cold water and only space heaters, but it's not really cold yet. It felt worse when it was two weeks, but now one of those has already gone by!

Jonathan continues to live at the library when he can. He's been reading multitudes of Animorphs and Warriors (about cats.) He LOVES writing in cursive and this is the motivation for writing now. He's going to participate in the Book-It program this year because he can write down the titles in cursive. (Last year he chose not to participate simply because he didn't want to write down the books he read!)

School is going well overall, but the definition of "going well" may mean differently to you than it does to me. And that is my next post.

Pregnant While Moving for the Third Time

joyful — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 20:29:11 -0400

I thought this deserved its own post. I am pregnant! The baby is due right around Joy's second birthday, the end of February.

So far, I've been feeling pretty well. I get a bit queasy if I don't eat something every couple of hours, and I do get tired a lot (especially when Joy wakes me up a lot in the night, but that's a different story...) We are excited, but not sparing much time to think about it much so far.

I do prefer moving at this stage of pregnancy than later. I can still lift boxes and go up and down stairs reasonably and ride my bike.

Well, now I really have to get the baths started. Good night!

P.S. Faith thinks it's a boy.

Rest

jondaley — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 08:57:56 -0500

I think Heather generally does a good job (though I think she might not be taking as many naps as she should be at the moment) of getting rest, and happy to have people come cook and clean for her, but it is always a good reminder to make sure we get enough rest.

Joy Ellen Daley - Born This Morning!

jondaley — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 18:03:33 -0500

Heather will surely write a more detailed post for those wanting those details, but for now, a shorter post will have to do.

We got home from a friend's birthday party last night, and Heather was having some contractions, but since the due date was still a ways away, figured it couldn't possibly be labor, so didn't tell anyone, and we all went to sleep.

She woke me at 12:30 or so saying that she couldn't sleep due to the contractions. Once I saw her have a contraction, I could tell that it wasn't a "regular" contraction (she gets contractions that are different than the Braxton-Hicks contractions, but happen regularly before labor starts), but was a "real" one. She insisted that it was too early, and she wasn't [mentally] prepared, but we called our midwife and asked for some advice. Since Heather wanted to sleep, and no other signs of labor had occurred, she recommended some calcium to see if that slowed anything down. Within five minutes, there were some other signs of "real" labor starting, so we called back to say we were on our way, and started getting things ready.

We got to the birth center in 80 minutes, which is about what it always takes to get there, and her water broke 4 minutes later, and Joy was born one minute after that! It was sort of surreal how quickly it all happened.

We stayed at the birth center for a couple hours, and then arrived home at around 6:30. This was the fastest labor, and fastest baby naming we've had so far. A number of people have asked, but Ellen has no family significance, but the baby name books said the name means "light".

When we got up for breakfast at 9:30, Heather's mom said, "I had the strangest dream last night, that you had a baby." It did kind of feel like that, though I noted that when Faith opened her eyes in the morning and saw Joy, she wasn't at all surprised at having a baby in our bed.

The pictures I took at the birth center didn't turn out that great, but Jonathan took a bunch at home, so I'll post those shortly at the usual place.

Notes, Haircut

joyful — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 09:58:00 -0500

1/20 - Jonathan, as usual, singing while he plays and works. This time it was, "Come, Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadil. Come, Tom Bombadil..."

1/22 - When boys have a tea party: Noah, Faith and I were playing with Faith's tea set. Noah said he couldn't eat his soup because the bad guys had poisoned it. It was such a deadly poison we couldn't even touch it and I had him call 911 to send a squad out to take it away. I never remember anything like this happening at other tea parties...

1/24 - A poem that Jonathan made up spontaneously. "Growl like a lion; growl like a bear; growl like a little little, little little pear!"

1/24 - Faith started the night sleeping with the boys in front of the fire. Then she came back to our bed at 5am.

1/27 - I was in Target with Faith and this lady (who interrupted her cell phone conversation to talk to Faith) asked her how old she was. Faith's reply, "eight."

1/29 - Faith had a pretty bad cold. In the car at some point she said to me, "Mommy, my eye fall down." Her eyes were watering from the cold and the cold.

Faith knows most or all of the basic colors, including green, blue, red, yellow, pink, purple, white.

2/1 - Jonathan singing again, "People think I"m crazy, my wife thinks I'm a chump - I love that word! - 'cause I do my Christmas shopping at the dump!"

2/2 - Coleman Richard Bloss Daley was born! This is the third boy cousin for my children. The labor was very very long and hard and ended in a c-section. We were discussing this at dinner, and then later Noah came up to me very concerned. "How do they cut the baby out, and how do they put Aunt Cinnamon back together?" I explained about surgery and scalpels and stitches and that they do it very carefully. He seemed much relieved by my explanation, but immediately asked me how they do it without hurting her so I got to explain about anesthesia as well.

2/2 - My first more-than-a-trim haircut in eighteen years! I donated about 13" to Locks of Love (minimum is 10" but I knew my ends were in pretty bad shape so wanted to make sure they had enough to work with.) It ended up a bit shorter than I was expecting because of having to even it up, but I really like it! I've left it down most of the time since then and it doesn't get in the way! (I can change a trash bag without getting my hair in it.) I think it's shorter than Jon wanted it as well, but last night he said, "It's cute."

Pocket Notes, 33 Week Appointment, Boys at the Dentist

joyful — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 19:00:47 -0500

12/23 - Noah: "Tomorrow's tomorrow is Christmas!"

Both Jonathan and Noah were sick in the car on the way to New Hampshire. Blessedly, they both managed to get everything in the bowls and nothing on anyplace else in the car. By the time we arrived, they were fine and the rest of the visit was sick-free.

12/27 - Jonathan and Mommy were discussing dollar amounts of Christmas presents and what was even thinkable to ask about. I had said that a $200 set was out of the question. He then said, "[A particular lego set] is in the question."

12/30 - We went to the Boston Children's Museum with Grammy and I was with Faith at the bubbles section. She played a long time there and I got to observe other kids as well. This note is a quote from a young girl next to us, with obvious glee in her voice, "Science is messy!"

1/2 - Jonathan repeatedly referred to an english muffin as a "swedish muffin."

1/8 - Faith, counting fingers. One hand: "one, two, three, one, two." Other hand: "One, two, [skip a finger] three, [go back and continue in order] one, two, three...nine!"

This vacation, Faith didn't take long to warm up to Grammy and Papa. It was neat to see her warmed up and playing games with and hanging out with her grandparents. She even was just as excited as her brothers at going out to McDonald's with Grammy without Mommy. On our way home, we spent the night with family friends of the Daleys and she took to them quickly as well.

We had a midwife appointment the day after we got back. This is 33 weeks. The baby had been doing somersaults the whole vacation, turning head down and then coming back again, several times. (S)he finally turned head down a couple of days before we left and stayed there! Faith was so excited when I told her (and had her feel the little feet at the top) that she ran outside to tell the hot tub swimmers, "Baby head down!" All stats look good. I'm still measuring big as usual but the baby might be slightly smaller than the others. C said she's not so good at estimating pounds before birth but that this one might be an eight-pounder instead of more. That would be ok with me. Baby is slightly posterior but she said she thinks winter babies often are because it's warmer that way, and that they turn for the birth.

We started school again this Monday after a pretty long break. Of note is that Noah's writing comes much easier for him and it's smaller and more consistent. He may even be ready for preschool lined paper now. He still likes to copy off of his sandpaper letters but will also copy something I've written.

1/18 - Faith said "love you" to me for the first time. It is always so sweet to hear your children say they love you. It sounds like, "yuhd you."

Today, Jonathan and Noah had dentist appointments. Their insurance changed dental plans and so their old dentist is not covered anymore. But we all really like this new dentist, so that turned out well. Jonathan got the panoramic x-ray this time and it was really cool to look at. We could see his permanent teeth underneath his baby teeth ready to come through in a few months. He was inquisitive and talkative as usual and the hygenist thought he was great. She was wonderful, answering questions and happy to have Noah and Faith watching the process (except for the x-rays of course). Jonathan did great, with only a slight admonition to floss more, and she gave him some sample flossers. This is good news, since he now is completely responsible for brushing his own teeth. Noah and Faith brush their own teeth in the morning, but have Dad or Mom brush at night.

Noah, true to himself, was much more serious about the business. He gagged at the flouride which was supposed to be in this foam thing in his mouth. She quickly took it out and painted it on instead. He did really well, though I could tell he was unhappy about it - he did not panic or cry at all. They did no x-rays for him I think because he's still young. She said they may or may not try next time because of the sensitive gag reflex. Noah had no soft spots at all, though there is some pitting of the enamel, which Jon had noticed and thought were cavities. Jon and I got thumbs up from the hygenist. After the first three years, we've figured out how to brush our kids' teeth!

Faith with have her first appointment in six months, the next time the boys go in. All the kids got toothbrushes and a prize, and the boys got toothpaste and flossers. They all did great and we had a good experience. Hooray, a dentist we like!

Midwife Appointment, 29 Weeks

joyful — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 20:46:45 -0500

12/16 - Headed up in the snow for another midwife appointment. I gained more weight this time, but Thanksgiving was in between visits... My iron was low again, despite diligently eating that horrible molasses, but she was suspicious that her hemoglobin tester is off calibration. All other stats are on track. The one concern was that the baby was head up, which I had suspected for about a week before. Since this one and Isaac were the only ones to be head up at this stage, I was tempted to worry and imagine scenarios. But I kept repeating to myself, "Do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and petition make your requests known unto God and the peace of God that passes all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus."

C gave us some ideas for turning that I had not heard before. The one we tried a few days later was placing an ice pack up on top of where his head is and a nice warm compress down low where it should be. Our baby definitely moved a lot in response to the ice but did not seem to turn all the way, we think he liked his feet warm. Then yesterday we prepared to try it again and as I was feeling around, it seemed that he had turned! This morning, I definitely felt little feet kicking on top. Praise God! Those who pray for us, we would appreciate if you continue to pray that this little guy stays head down.

Very Busy November

joyful — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 11:56:46 -0500

Actually, the only thing written in my pocket notes from all this time is that on 11/16, Jon solved the mirror cube with his eyes closed.

Jonathan's 7th birthday was a very fun time. He got a lot of cool presents and had a lot of cool people over to play. Grandma and Dad-o were there for the occasion and the next few days were also busy with fun.

Three days later was Isaac's 8th birthday and he was not forgotten. Here is something I wrote to Grammy on the day: "It's amazing how fast time flies sometimes. 8 is the age that I imagined him, just a few days after [his death], running up to me with a big smile on his face, saying, 'Don't worry, Mommy, it's fun up here!' and running off to keep playing. I always thought that he was so old in that dream. And here he would be..."

As we prepared to head to Philly for Thanksgiving, Dad recommended that we get a car-top carrier for all our stuff, as all the seats in the van would be full. That turned out to be a very good idea, especially because of all the presents we brought back home! As usual, the time with family at Thanksgiving was full of feasting, games, little sleep, and lots of fun. Noah made a good friend in cousin K, who played whatever he wanted very patiently. It was a blessing to see little Faith Isabella, who has had many health issues in her short life and for whom we have been praying through her many surgeries and struggles. Our Faith, when asked the baby's name, or when referring to her, calls her "Me" or "Baby Me".

Faith made great strides in potty training - I'm so glad I brought her little potty. She now consistently goes in her potty for all manner of needs and has not had an accident in a while. Also, her nighttime diapers had been dry for about two weeks, including during our stay away from home, so when we got home I decided to try putting her to bed in underwear. There has only been one bedwetting accident since then, and that was when she fell asleep during a movie and I did not have her go to the bathroom before putting her down in bed.

We came home on Sunday and Monday was the last full day at home with Grandma and Dad-o. We had a mini-Christmas with them on Monday morning and that was fun though rather chaotic. Adding to both the excitement and the chaos was the arrival of birthday presents for all from Auntie E.

Tuesday, we all headed up to help our former pastor's family get unpacked into their new house. It was very rainy and muddy, but the truck got unpacked by the end of the night. We got enough beds together that they could sleep there that night, but Jon left all his tools there so we could come back Wednesday to finish up some projects.

Wednesday morning, the rain had turned to snow! Happy December! It was sticking, about an inch, though the roads were fine. I brushed off my parents's rental car and we said good-bye. Mom was going home and Dad was going back to Thailand.

Then the Daleys headed back up to Indiana. I helped get shelf liner in the kitchen and Jon continued to work on plumbing for the washer, dryer and utility sink. I went to Lowe's three times - reminded me of when we moved! It was a long but productive day and the washer was ready to be used when we left.

The next few days were spent in catching up on home things and recovering from the very full past couple of weeks. It has continued to snow and be very Christmas-y. Some friends gave us a sled and the boys have had lots of fun playing outside. There was a snow penguin at some point but I think he is now just a large ball on the front walkway.

Today is full of jackhammering in our basement, as we finally decided to have people come in and put in drains and a pump to keep our basement dry. We'll see if Jon wants to make a more detailed post when the job's all done.

A Full, Crazy, Fun Week

joyful — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 17:57:59 -0500

11/6 - Noah and I were making rice krispie treats and Noah was stirring. He asked for a marshmallow, but I said no, they had to go in the recipe and he could have one of the finished products. Well, he decided to snitch and got a natural lesson. I, only a few feet away in the kitchen, heard him screaming. He had dipped his finger in the melted marshmallow to taste it! I rushed him over to the sink and after a while of running it under the cold water, I made an ice bath in a bowl for him. His finger turned out fine after a few minutes and he had learned a good lesson.

11/6 - Faith put on her own pants from start to finish all by herself.

11/7 - We could not find Jonathan's wallet and figured he had lost it when shopping with Daddy the Saturday before. This was a hard loss because it was filled with hard-earned money. We now have this system where Jonathan clips coupons and if I use one, he gets half the value in cash. He had earned $5 this way and he was very sad to lose it. We prayed that we would find it, but that was not answered right away. It was quite troubling also for my mother-heart. I really wanted to just replace the money for him, but I knew it would be a better lesson for him if I did not. Grown-ups do not magically get their money returned if their wallets are lost. Jonathan even called the grocery store to see if they had it in their lost and found. They did not. We finally gave it up for lost and a hard lesson learned. Then at evening clean up, Jonathan rushed downstairs - he had found his wallet under some other random thing! I reminded him of our prayer that we would find it and he happily thanked God for helping him find it. Then we put a little card in it with his address and phone number and he is more careful to keep track of it. Whew!

11/9 - Our zoo membership expired on the 11th so we decided to take one last trip after women's Bible study this week. We almost did not go because the kids were so crazy and not listening during lunch before we went. At the entrance, they ran ahead to the elevators and I told them that they must ask before running ahead. As soon as we emerged at the top, Jonathan ran ahead. Noah ran four steps and then stopped and asked if he could run ahead to the bathroom (which they both knew was our destination.) I told them that Noah had saved the day. If he had not asked, we'd be turning right around and going home. That incident did the trick and they were fine the rest of the trip, asking to run ahead and staying when I said no. I wasn't so sure at first, but we did end up having a grand fun time at the zoo.

The day was gorgeous, cool and sunny. The animals were active. We spent a lot of time at the lions because both male and female were walking all around. Usually they're just lazing on a rock. The male roared a few times. We had a great view at the window and got to see just how really big these cats are.

The elephants were outside and one of the babies (who is not really such a baby anymore) was playing with a stick.

A lot of the monkeys were asleep, but the young orangutan came up right to the window and was playing with some girls - that was pretty neat!

At the aquarium, it was penguin-feeding time. That was really neat! Two keepers were throwing little fish to them. The water was churning with the happy penguins swimming fast and furiously, jumping in and out and thoroughly enjoying their meal.

Next we discovered that the octopus was off exhibit. This was very disappointing to Jonathan because that's his favorite part of the aquarium. Then he went ahead down stairs and Noah, Faith and I discovered a zookeeper feeding the pearl stingrays and other fish and turtles in a small tank along the ramp. We stayed there so long that Jonathan came back up to see why we weren't coming down. It was really interesting! She had bits of shrimp and squid and other seafood - sometimes she'd just hold it down in the water a few inches against the glass, and the stingray would slide up the glass and you could see the food suck right into her mouth! (The zookeeper told us both stingrays were female.) Sometimes she'd put it in a long grabber stick and tap the sand with it and the stingray would slide over it and eat it up. It turns out they are trained to come to the food when she taps the sand, it's not a wild feeding habit. The turtles were mostly fed by the time we got there. The fish made big snapping sounds as they caught theirs. Noah then remarked that he'd like to be a zookeeper. I told him that they do have summer programs that he could take to learn more about it and he seemed excited about that. So we'll have to see if he'd rather have a zoo membership or the children's museum. I did not bring up that choice at the time. We also learned from the zookeeper that the reason the octopus is "off exhibit" is that it died. She said they are considering getting another one but it's not guaranteed.

When we left the aquarium, Jonathan asked if we could make an elongated penny with the penguin design and I actually said yes. (: But unfortunately, Noah put it in his pocket as we moved on and then when we got home it was no longer in his pocket.

They were also feeding the polar bear but that wasn't as interesting as the other feedings. The sharks were active, swimming all around the tube. Faith was a little nervous when they swam right by her with all those teeth!

There is a new baby sea lion, very cute. I saw the river otters for the first time, somehow I never went off to that side - they were feeding them also.

The kids played at the kids' kingdom playground for quite a while (I think that's where Noah lost the penny) and then it was closing time. It had been a great day at the zoo!

On the way home, the check engine light started blinking at me, and I called Jon to ask what I should do. Pretty much right when he said I should pull over, I noticed that the car was no longer accelerating, so I pulled into a restaurant parking lot, but I didn't really park. I used the computer diagnostic to find out that the error was "random misfire detected". Jon looked it up and found it could be anything. The people I had parked in came out from their dinner but were able to get around me without having to push me.

Jon said to go ahead and try coming home, but the car stalled right after starting and then wouldn't start. So I called AAA and Jon borrowed the neighbor's minivan and headed down. They both arrived at about the same time - we barely had time to transfer all the kids/seats/stuff before it was time to put our car on the tow truck. Then Jon drove with the tow truck and I drove behind to our mechanic (back to Pittsburgh!). Then Jon drove us home and returned the neighbor's van. We had a quick late dinner and the pretty much just collapsed into bed.

The next day, it turned out that the real problem was that the car had run out of gas! I was planning on getting some on the way home, but did not think we were that low. (Our gauge is broken and always says full, so we have to go by mileage.) The restaurant I stopped at was just yards from a gas station. If I had not had that check engine light, I might have figured out right away that it was a gas problem. So it cost us a bunch of money and a lot of time (and borrowed car juggling). ):

Thursday, 11/11, was a midwife appointment. As per my usual, I measured 4cm above my 24 weeks. My iron is still low, but I had not been diligent about my molasses. So now I am working more at that. Everything else was just fine.

It turned out that that day was chicken processing day at the midwife's farm. We decided to make a field trip of it and stay to watch. C (the midwife) had all her kids out helping, and two teenage neighbor boys who had done it before. We got to watch the whole process: boy catches live chicken, head down in cone, head off, plunge in rinse water, plunge in hot water to loosen feathers, plucking machine, finish plucking by hand, gutting, hold in ice water, weighing, final rinsing, and finally to freezer bag.

I now know first hand what it means about the chicken running with its head cut off. Though I'd call it jumping rather than running. Most of the birds stayed in their cones as they convulsed, but a few were small enough to slip through and go fluttering and hopping all around the yard. The plucker was kind of neat, a small drum on a motor attached to the side of the picnic table. The drum had little rubber fingers that rubbed off the feathers as it spun around. Feathers went flying all over when they used that. Jon and Noah ended up helping with that part at times. Jon did the plucker and Noah finished off tail feathers with pliers.

We got a little anatomy lesson, but C was not so sure on some of the organs. She cut open a gizzard for us and we saw the little gravel pieces that help grind the food. The windpipe looked to me just like the neck of a clam.

We stayed for lunch (Noah wanted the chicken, but it was not ready yet!) and did a lot of talking and playing during the process. It was a very interesting and even fun time, though I'm glad I didn't have to cut any heads off.

In the car on the way home, Jonathan's other front tooth came out. So now he has the big gap! It does make him talk a bit funny and I was wondering if the slight lisp he had before will go away once his big teeth come in and can hold his tongue back more.

11/13 - Jon helped church people rake leaves and take down a tree. In the evening, we went to another bluegrass jam. The boys had a blast in the barn - they went in the upper part this time and got to jump down into a pile of hay. Someone had made a strawberry rhubarb pie, oh yummy! Elaine said I could take it home at the end, since amazingly there was some left. (I guess some people aren't so hot on rhubarb.)

11/14 - Faith said, "Noah" clearly and correctly. She also had clean underwear all day long, with a major success in the potty.

We also went over to our former pastor's house to get a bunkbed and freezer they had offered us (they're moving to where he got a new job.) We ended up getting several other things that they were just planning on putting in a dumpster. The bunkbed is very sturdy and will be great. It's a double on the bottom and a single on top. It does take up a lot of room upstairs but it fits and it will be great as our family grows.

Today, the kids got a letter/package from Grandma in the mail. In it was an old photo id card of Dad's. Faith saw it first and immediately said, "Dad-o!"

These next couple of days and weeks will be busy with Grandma and Dad-o's arrivals and Jonathan's birthday and Thanksgiving. Probably you will get more info on the happenings at Mom's blog. (link on sidebar, Lift Up Your Hearts.) But my pocket will be filling up with notes and they will get posted eventually. (: