Daley Ponderings

I'm definitely feeling the baby now!  Movements are most noticeable when I am lying down.

9/14 - Jon had mentioned that the next time Jonathan got sneakers, they should have laces.  Jonathan had never learned to tie his shoes because he never had tie shoes.  At almost seven years old, we figured it was time.  It took him an afternoon to get the hang of it and now he's an old pro.

9/17 - At a friend's house, Noah found a small pedal, no-training-wheels bike and successfully made a large circle without falling down!

9/18 - Despite our not being too into sports, Jonathan knows at least something about Pittsburgh.  We were visiting our friends who live on Mt.Washington and the mom turned on the baseball game on TV to see when it ended so they could go up and watch the fireworks.  Jonathan's comment, "The Pirates are winning?!?  That's weird!"

Sometime in the middle of September, Faith added the /k/ sound to the end of "milk".  Now we can distinguish between "more" and "milk"!

9/23 - Faith said "poke" sounding like "boke"

Faith hurt the pinky toe/right side of her right foot on the evening of 9/22 while running around.  She continued to limp and cry about it until 3pm the next day.  I considered calling the doctor, but she was walking on it without complaining that evening.  She still needs to be careful of it because several times since then she has mildly re-injured it.  It was rather strange to me to watch her crawl around after she has been walking so long.

9/24 - As I was falling asleep for my nap, I could hear Jonathan humming to himself - an eclectic mix of hymns, praise songs, Christmas carols, and the Imperial Death March.

Today, Noah asked me to check his shoes to make sure he put them on the right feet.  When I told him they were not, he let out an exasperated sigh.  He had tried really hard and still gotten it wrong.  Poor guy.  But I encouraged him that he'd get it soon.

8/31 - The boys were making octopuses out of their banana peels. Jonathan called his a "cinctopus".  It had five legs.  His reason, "Because uno, dos, tres..."

9/6 - Faith's second birthday!  When you ask her how old she is, she will answer, "Dew!"  She also answers that for what her name is, and other questions, so we have fun asking things like, "Faith, what's one plus one?  What's four divided by two?"  She opened presents in the morning and we had our church picnic in the afternoon/evening.  It was a fun day for us all and she enjoyed all the festivities, singing, opening, blowing out, etc.  But she only ate the frosting part of her cake. (More)

This post is long overdue (I have two separate pocket papers kicking around) but as you may have noticed, we've been pretty busy around here.  We are leaving soon for another vacation and so I really want to get these papers out of my pocket!

When Noah had his 4 year appointment (over the charts in height and weight, ears and eyes are good, everything is fine) the nurse called him "pal" and he has asked me to call him that several times since then. (More)

We arrived at the Fitzkees' house on Thursday night, and Nick said we could stay as long as we wanted.  We ended up extending our trip by a day and coming home on Tuesday, which was a good decision.  I think we spent the right amount of time for the whole family to enjoy the sight-seeing. (More)

We cooked bacon and pancakes (I found a nifty plastic pint jug in Walmart or somewhere that you simply pour water into the jug, shake it up, and pour it on the griddle) for breakfast, and then packed up and planned to meet for lunch at Great Falls, 15 miles away.

Heather went back to the store for bread and bandaids (I cut myself doing something, and Heather thought we might run out of bandaids) and also to a McDonalds to sit in the air conditioning while she looked up directions to the Fitzkee's house where we were going to stay for the next couple days.  Heather bought smoothies for Faith and herself since they were pretty hot. (More)

As I looked at the maps for the third day, we were going to be biking near various battlefields and other tourist-type places to visit, and so in the interest of resting a little, I decided we should drive for a ways and then maybe bike in the afternoon.  (More)

I've wanted to bike to DC for a while, but there never seemed like a good opportunity to do so.  Once we purchased the tandem bike, and started thinking about the possibility of biking all over the country, the Washington trip seemed like a good first step.

The trip did get shorter over time, and originally other people were going to come with us, but everyone backed out at the last minute.

I thought it would be best to start at the highest point of the trail, rather than biking all the way from Pittsburgh, in order to avoid the uphill climb, and also shorten the trip from 334 miles to 207 miles.  And to avoid Heather having to drive in downtown DC traffic, I shortened the other end of the trip by 8 miles as well.

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As Heather mentioned, it did take us a while to get this post written, but I thought it would be good to have a record of it, so here goes...

Each year for the last several years, Paul has organized a two day bike trip for the kids of BCF.  This year, we drove to Rockwood, PA and biked to Cumberland, MD, and then to the Paw Paw Tunnel the second day.

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This is going to be woefully brief.  The bike trip was adventure after adventure, lots of fun, but lots of work.  Among the things you'd normally expect on a bike trip, it included four tire blowouts on the triple-tandem, a torrential downpour, a tent with no stakes, Jonathan riding on someone's back carrier platform for seven miles (and two others each wheeling an extra bike those same extra miles), lost-off-the-top-of-the-car gloves and found again, new tires but now the brakes broke, little or no cell reception, a young man left behind, a purse left in a restaurant.  More details?  Maybe never, because... (More)

6/28 - Noah's fourth birthday!  New nephew born!  Faith says, "yoo" (balloon)

Some more Faith words: "adj-yih" = chocolate; "nah-nih" = napkin; "ow-dih" = towel; "yeh" = leg

7/2 - Jonathan, "Know what I want to be when I grow up, Mom?"  "What?" "An inventor.  Actually, I already am an inventor, I just don't have all the right parts."

7/2 -Jonathan, "When Magic Shell ges on a bowl it's stuck like a barnacle."

Two weekends ago when we went camping and sailing, we also got to go on a friend's 25-ft sailboat.  It has a cabin and a motor.  The wind was lovely that day, but I learned that Noah is our Roger.  "When can we use the motor?  Let's use the motor!  Can we use the motor yet?"

7/4 - Faith, flipping through Go, Dog, Go! : "Ay ha?  No!"  That is, "Like hat?  No!"  She repeated this for every page.

7/6 - Faith opened the public bathroom door with her paper towel.

6/11 - We planted more seeds in our garden.  Faith helped me plant beans and she very carefully placed the seed in the hole and gently covered it with soil.   It was so sweet to see her tender care.

I discovered a robin's nest in the bush outside our bathroom window.  We watched mama diligently sitting on her eggs and papa guarding while mama took her breaks.  On 6/12, we saw the babies had hatched!  We watched the parents feed them a few times.  But then on the morning of 6/14, I saw the nest askew on the branch and stuffing falling out.  Bad sign.  I took the kitchen stool outside to closely examine - all inhabitants were missing.  Papa robin scolded me from a high branch of a nearby tree.  Interestingly enough, Faith was the only one to ask about the birds after that.  (More)

6/1 - Noah's use of /f/ in everyday speech has increased immensely and he now uses it in a substitution.  3 = "free"

6/1 - Jonathan cut Faith's bangs "because she asked me to."  Forgot that part about asking Mom or Dad...  He actually did a good straight job of it, so I didn't feel the need to fix it.

6/2 - Faith now says apple with two syllables, "ap-uh"

6/3 - Noah, laughing, "When I first saw Joshua's umbilical cord, I thought it was a raisin in his bellybutton!"  (More)

Noah has discovered convertibles and really wants one.  In a parking lot one day, we watched a man put up his roof and that was really cool.  When I explained the reasons we wouldn't get one (too expensive, not enough seats for our family) Jonathan decided on our next car.  A "convertivan"!  Enough seats for the whole family, and the whole roof folds down into the back.  He didn't try to work around the expensive part...

Faith's new words just keep coming.  5/13 - "Mom"  finally!! 5/14 - "two" and I'm pretty sure she understands the concept, though she'll also say it for three.  5/15 -"ap" = lap.  5/17 = "up"  she used to leave off the p and now it's complete.  5/18 - "hou" = house.  5/19 - "ep" = step.  5/21 - "lou" = loud, when describing the waterfall on our camping trip.  5/23 - "uht" = dirt, also on our camping trip.  5/27 - "ip" = drip.  "drip shirt" when she spilled some water on her shirt.  "nah, nah" = knock, knock; when the boys were telling knock knock jokes. 5/28 - "uht ow" = foot out (of her slipper).  5/29 - "ap" = apple; "doll"; "buhb" = bird; "ahb" = strawberry.

5/24 - We discovered that at noon, Jonathan was six years, six months, six days, and six hours old!

Faith likes to sort laundry with me and if I tell her what the name of the article is, she can put it in the right pile.  This also goes for silverware.

5/27 - The boys had spilled some liquid on the counter and left it there.  Faith went to the drawer and got a fresh towel and wiped up their mess, on her own initiative.

5/27 - Jon: So, how about selling our house and car and biking around the country together?  Noah: Yay!!!  What, Dad?

5/28 - Noah was talking about when he was sick last week and he said "fever" with the correct /f/ and /v/ the first time!!!  Hooray!  This was his first spontaneous use of these sounds.  Later, he said "Faith" to me with the /f/ correct.

5/29 - Jonathan and Noah invented a game called "chuck socks" where they throw their socks at each other.  They think this is hilarious and Faith also joins in "uh-ah" whenever they say "chuck socks!"

Noah had a fever on Wednesday afternoon, and was better by Thursday.  Faith had it Thursday and was better by Friday.  Jonathan got it yesterday and is mostly over it now.  This morning his throat still hurt so he asked for a cough drop.  Then later, with his mouth bulging, he got out a piece of paper and wrote to me, "Can I swallow the flewed [fluid]?"  Poor guy!  He's so used to his floride rinse (and the medicine probably tasted enough like it) that he thought he wasn't allowed to swallow it.  He was much relieved when I said he could.

5/1 - Noah continues to update his pronunciation of words.  That day it was, for battery, "baddewy" instead of "badeedee"

Faith's okay is now "o-tay".

5/4 - Faith stayed in the Bible study babysitting the whole time.  Jonathan and Noah were there with her.  They had a great time.  When I went to pick them up, she was happily stomping around the tables with the other "dinosaurs" - when she saw me, she ran up and gave me a big hug, and then went right back to what she was doing.

Jonathan's favorite color is yellow.

5/4 - The plastic cover on the middle back seatbelt had come off and gotten lost.  Noah found it and put it on all by himself.

New words for Faith: guy = "die", juice = "jew", seat = "eet", cheese sounds very close, maybe "tseese"

5/9 - Noah, rubbing the inside of his hand, "This is my palm tree."

We're not being quite as ambitious with the garden this year, so the only thing I started inside is marigolds.  I planted the seeds in vermiculite inside on 5/1 and they sprouted on 5/5.  I transplanted the baby seedlings to individual pots the next day and now we are waiting for after last frost to transplant them outside.

Jonathan and Noah did this a long time ago, but I don't think I ever wrote about it - how to make your own miniature lightsaber.  Take a plain ballpoint pen and remove the ink.  Break a hole in the end of the cap.  Stick a colored paintbrush brush end down the pen tube.  Slide the cap over the colored end and there you have it!  A lightsaber that retracts and extends, pocket size.  (I'll try to remember to take a picture)

Faith now says: sock - "ot", peekaboo - "deet-a-doo", let me do it - "Do!", "dough", that - "at", trash - "ash", okay - "o-day"

4/27 - Noah had his first piano lesson with Grammy and loved it.

4/28 - Faith had her first haircut.  I only trimmed her bangs to be out of her eyes, and left all the rest as it is.  She does not like to keep the clips or ponytails in and it was down to her nose and always in the way.  When she is older and more ready to keep clips in during the awkward stage, we'll have her grow her bangs out.  It looks good and I'm very happy with that decision.

Noah is starting to say "I" instead of "me" in the right places.