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Powered by LifeTypeToday, I had to call the library to ask them to tell Jonathan it was time to come home for dinner. He had left me a note while I took my nap. He was there for about five hours.
Definitely one advantage of living in this small town!
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.
How do I begin? Not really at the beginning.
June 15, we sold the house we were living in and drove to New Hampshire in two moving trucks and a minivan. (A very hearty and grateful "thank you!" to Ron and Ron for driving the trucks!)
The days preceding that day were extremely full, including two funerals for people from families dear enough that we felt it necessary to carve out the time to spend with them.
We did not technically buy our new house for another couple of days, but it did eventually work out.
We are staying at Jon's parents' house while renovating our new house. This is for the very most part a good thing. The only disadvantages we've found so far involve having things in two places.
Renovations are right now at the "rather overwhelming" stage. There's a lot of work to do and we wonder how it will all get done.
At the end of June, we took a break to spend a week at the Maggie P with lots of family, including the Swiss cousins, and Noah and Joseph had their birthday together.
After we got back, Jonathan, Noah and Faith had two weeks of swimming lessons at the lake. Jonathan started learning official strokes, and Noah got to the confidence level Jonathan had last summer. Faith made progress in being comfortable in the water as well, though she still wouldn't put her head under by the end of the sessions.
For the past week, Jon and Noah have been in Pittsburgh finishing the fixing up of Carroll St, and getting some work done for Lime Daley customers.
I've been meeting with a bunch of contractors - plumbing/heating, painter, plasterer, chimney guys. A local college student has been coming over nearly every day for a few hours to scrape wallpaper. It turns out when you start taking down wallpaper, it just goes and goes and soon you have two whole hallways including staircase of wallpaper to take off. About four layers of it, too, a hundred years' worth.
Speaking of a hundred years. Jon took off part of one wall in preparation for building a built-in bookcase, and he found a treasure! A Mother's Day postcard from 1912, from the Sunday School of Smith Church (Jon's parents' church). It is really neat. We're going to copy one side and then frame it with the copy so you can see both sides.
Time to start getting ready for bed. I will try to post updates more frequently, but it's hard to find the moments. Tonight, I found myself alone with the computer while all the kids were outside playing with the neighbors. After some grueling looking at curriculum stuff, I thought I'd have a nice little blog time. (:
Pictures from April till now are posted. (See link on the sidebar)
5/24 - I don't remember the context, but the quote from Jonathan is, "Well, the definition of 'Mom' is basically 'tired person'."
5/25 - Noah showed me his newfound skill of pumping a swing from standstill to as high as he wants. To me, it is one of those things that is an "all of a sudden". Just the week before, I was thinking it was about time he could do it but it just didn't seem like it was happening. Then it just clicked and he can do it.
5/25 - Faith has said this for a while but I thought I'd record it. "Company" has the "an" and "y" switched, plus the sub /c/ for /t/, so it sounds like "tumpyan." Very hard to understand if you don't get the context, but still kind of cute.
5/26 - Noah called the boat fender the "defender".
5/30 - I got up early to go to the bathroom. When I was washing my hands, I heard a clear, distinct, "Mommy!" coming from the bedroom. I thought it was strange for Faith to be up so early, but when I got in, I saw Faith sound asleep. It was Joy who was sitting up and waiting patiently for me to answer her call! Since then, she calls me by name a lot and it is so sweet.
Certain relatives might be interested in knowing that Jonathan's list of books he wanted to keep out until the last minute are D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths, his children's Dictionary, one Calvin and Hobbes book, and one Asterix book.
4/11 - Jonathan likes to be creative with lunches. He made dill pickle and mustard sandwiches that day. He liked it.
As I was keeping track of rainbows I was struck by how many days were sunny. April 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 25
4/14 - Faith's first time successfully saying her name to a stranger. A major victory! Even still, she doesn't like to do it.
4/16 - Joy's bottom right molar came in
4/18 - We had a very fun afternoon playing family soccer in the back yard. It started out with rather evenly-numbered teams and then progressed to all of us against Daddy only kicking with his left foot. He still beat us. But when we switched goals we managed to get half his score instead of zero. Then we played "ball soccer" which is basically do whatever you want to get the ball to the goal. It was a super fun time! (More)
I like knowing when my software updates, but I do like the software to automatically check, and I generally update as soon as possible. For this specific example, my answer would be to disable javascript, and avoid the entire exploit altogether.
Last catchup ended on the weekend of the fire company banquet. That weekend was also the beginning of the new adventure. Two different people called up to ask about looking to buy our house. No, not the one we're fixing up to sell. The one we're living in. Well, ok, I guess you can come see it, but we're not really thinking of moving. That weekend, Jon is also showing the rental house to someone who might buy it before we finish fixing it up. Jon ramps up looking online at houses in Hillsboro.
3/12 - Noah and Faith are supposed to be doing chores. Faith says her hair is getting in the way. So Noah cuts it for her. They are both very happy with the results. I try to remain serious while explaining why this was not a good idea, but have a hard time not laughing. I think I succeeded. For a five year old, Noah really did a good job. We did go to a place to get the back straightened out a bit. And maybe next time I'll try it myself and save the money (not too much doubt on my part that there will be a next time for somebody.) It is very cute, anyway. (More)
2/6 - Joy went down a whole flight of stairs successfully. She slides down forwards on her bottom. Faith was with her this time. By now, she's an old pro at stairs.
I bought some mini hair clips for Faith. They are the normal clear, brown, black, swirly brown that hair clips often are. But as soon as Faith saw the swirly brown ones, she said, "Cool! Camo hair clips!" Then she does that macho guy stance that the boys do when they're being or doing something heroic. (:
2/21 - Faith said her whole name with all the correct sounds. (More)
Grandma, whose time is quite full with two grandchildren, is still itching for a blog post about the others, so here it is.
I found an old piece of paper witih some notes on it and just searched our blog - I did already post it and it was from 2008!
Ok, here we go:
12/22/2011 - Faith, after listening to the Hallelujah Chorus. "That did be a lot of hallelujah!"
12/23 - We were visiting an older aunt and uncle (more like great-grand-aunt really) and Aunt Doris was playing with Joy's toes. She asked me, "Do the piggies still go to the market?" As in, do young mothers these days still play that game? But Faith answered her, "No, only the big one does."
12/29 - Looking at an old wedding photo. Noah asks, "Who's being weddinged?" (More)
11/18 - Jonathan, when meaning to say cylindrical said, "cylindicular"
11/23 - Joy took her first step, accidentally.
11/26 - Joy climbed up a whole flight of stairs. This was the first time she had done more than one small step. She was so thrilled with her newfound skill that she did it three times that day.
12/1 - The next first is Joy fell down the stairs. But now the older kids are better at making sure someone is behind her when she climbs.
12/5 - Noah was partitioning 6 out loud during breakfast (5 and 1, 4 and 2, etc.) Then Jonathan asked him how many 5s in 20. Noah thought it was too hard (so did I) but Jonathan was patient and gave good, constructive hints. He asked how many 5s in 10, then how many 10s in 20, and Noah got those, then was able to make the jump to solve the original problem correctly. Then he got how many 5s in 40. So cool!
12/9 - It seems Jonathan has been reading too many spy books without current historical context. It just so happened that a Russian company hacked into a merchant's credit card swipers and stole our (and a bunch of other customers') information. Jonathan overheard our calls and frustration in working it out and then said, "I always knew there was something funny about those Soviets." So I updated him on our political status with Russia and also reminded him that people from everywhere can be good and bad.
12/10 - Joy started climbing over thresholds even when there is no change in height.
12/10 - Joy took two steps to Mommy
12/11 - Four steps
12/16 - Joy went from sitting to standing without pulling up on anything.
I received a free "embedded" light from Microsoft a number of years ago. I put "embedded" in quotes, because I think it is funny that Microsoft considers a lightbulb connected to a USB power source an example of an embedded device. I guess I haven't looked that carefully, but I expect there to be two wires in the device, and so not all that exciting from an engineering perspective.
But, the other day I happened across the instructions for the unit (plug into a USB port, flick the switch) and noticed that there is a message on the back of the piece of paper, and I have no idea what it means. Anyone know?
Here are the last ones to share, I'll try to be more careful in the future to link to posts properly when I "share" things, so you can actually see the content regardless of whether facebook or google or the original poster make it difficult...
Statistics in science: I don't quite understand the difference between statistically significant and practical importance, or rather, how does one make a study that accounts for this problem.
Statistics was one of my two worst courses in college. In both cases, I went to the professor during office hours when I didn't have a shot of completing the homework and said, "I'm really not getting it," and the professor, assuming I couldn't really mean that asked what parts I wasn't getting. I pulled out lecture number 1 and said, let's start here...) I did manage to pull off a B in both courses, which convinced me that grading on a curve is horrible, particularly when I could have pulled off an A in the statistics class had a worked a little harder on the final, but I hadn't realized how far the course was going to be curved, so didn't think it mattered, and I wouldn't have remembered anything after the final anyway, so I wasn't studying for learning, but just a grade. If anyone got lower than a B in my statistics course, you must now know less about statistics than when you entered the course.
And lastly, an interesting disparity between what members of churches want (or at least say they want in a poll) and what pastors think is a good idea to preach about.
More than a month's worth of notes...
10/3 - Joy's diaper was dry all night long. She went in the potty three or four times. This was exciting to me and so the next night I prepared to be diaperless. I spread a waterproof pad, with towels on top. But she and I are so wiggly during the night, it was hard to keep the towels straight and then she was cold without anything on her lower half and when she did wet the towels, changing them was a pain. So, we're not ready to go diaperless yet, but we do have success with pottying in the night. However, recently (read: several weeks) Joy has been screaming in the night, whether it's changing her diaper or putting her on the potty. I found that if I'm aware of more subtle movements I can nurse her before she screams (but that is her first vocalization) but I am at a loss for the hygiene part. Do I just put her in a paper diaperand undo all the work and awareness of needing to go? Or do I persist in hopes that she'll stop screaming before we both go insane with the sleep interruptions? I need to go look at forums for suggestions.
10/5 - Joy got her uppder left lateral incisor.
10/5 - Jonathan, "I don't feel like Dad-o is a grandpa, 'cause he still goes up on roofs and stuff." (More)
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.