Daley Ponderings

Faith had a blast at Star Island with Grammy and Papa.

7/25 - JDD, explaining why he likes to use a certain spoon for his breakfast cereal, "That spoon
is special to me, because Grammy gave it to me for Christmas last year."

7/28 or 29 - Joy had a cold and I gave her 1 or 2 nebulizer treatments. (Putting this in so I can
keep track because now I wish I had written in other ones.)

7/30 - Noah lost his upper right 2nd incisor.

8/3 - F: "I like brothers, I just don't like when they're annoying."

8/3 - Joy got pinworms.  Everyone except Jon (who was out of town) and Jeremiah (who is too young)
took the medicine.  No recurrence so far.

8/3 - Joy said, "more milk."  I replied, "Excuse me?" meaning, you need to ask nicely, but she
took it literally and rephrased it, "Excuse me, more milk."

8/4 - Faith said when a boat tips all the way over that it "baptized"

Joy says "blue-blee" for blueberry.  But later, she said "blue bear"

8/6 - Jeremiah sits up for several minutes.

8/7 - Jeremiah grabs a raisin with his fist.

Joy says "baby suit" for bathing suit; "libby" for little bit; "slide out" for inside out;
"shammy" for sandwich

8/9 - From an email to my mom: Jeremiah had a restless night.  He finally settled at 3:30am, and I had just started to fall back asleep (4am) when Jon needed help evicting bats.  That took an hour, and I could see the beginnings of daylight coming through the window as I went back to bed.  Then I was really keyed up (bats flying around your head for an hour will do that) and just as I was finally relaxing again (5:30) Jonathan got up with a bloody nose that had gotten all over his sheets and pillow. He was doing a great job of cleaning it up himself, but I helped him when he got to the laundry part. At least that and Jon coming to bed were at the same time (6am) but then I still had to wind down a bit before dozing about 45 minutes until it was time for Jeremiah to wake up. The plan is to do Joy's potty training today, but since it's raining, I don't think the kids are going to do the planned blueberry picking.

I ended up doing the potty training anyway, and it was mostly successful, though she still had several days of messy accidents until she got the hang of it.

8/11 - Jeremiah says "mamamamamam"

We went to the Maggie P for a four day visit.  It was different without everyone around, but we still had plenty of fun. Jonathan caught some crabs, and he and Noah and Aunt Prudence caught shiners.  The Langdons came for a day and we played 7 Wonders and Beach Bocce.

Faith had an abscess in her mouth, on her gum above her upper right front tooth.  It was really painful so she couldn't eat, so Jon and Uncle Jay took her to the ER.  The doctor there cut it and drained it and put her on antibiotics.  After she got home, Jon took her back again because it had re-swollen and gotten red, but they didn't do any more cutting.  We had a follow up with her regular doctor at home, who said if it got worse to see and ENT.  After a couple of weeks of it looking better, it got worse, so we saw the ENT and he said it was related to the tooth and to see the dentist, and also put her back on antibiotics.  Our dentist took an x-ray and confirmed the pocket of infection and referred her to an oral surgeon.  That appointment is next week.  They will do an evaluation visit and then likely extract the tooth later.  Faith is disappointed that this is the way she will be losing her first tooth.

8/21 - Jeremiah pushes up to hands and knees.

8/21 - Jonathan, playing with legos and humming, goes from Funniculi, Funnicula to Christ the Lord Is Risen Today seamlessly.

8/22 - The older three go Cousin Camping in the White Mountains with Grammy and Papa and cousin R.  They saw a moose walking through the next campsite!  We joined them Saturday, and G, P, and R went home that afternoon.  That dinner was late, so we made sure to have an early dinner on Sunday.  We were sitting around the fire roasting marshmallows, when Faith pointed to the next site and said, "Look! Look over there!  Mom, what's that black thing over there?"  It was a bear.

I grabbed Jeremiah, the marshmallows, the sticks, and the trash bag, and told the kids to go get in the car.  I had a bit of confusion trying to get in with my hands full, but eventually we all made it in.  Jon stayed out for a few minutes to try to get a picture of the bear.  Then it started heading for our site, so he came in the car, too.  The bear was on the other side of the camper from the car, and then we saw the camper shaking!  When it shook a second time, Jon turned on the car and moved it a bit so that he could shine the headlights at the bear.  That startled him away from the camper, but then he only ambled away.  We could hear his progress through the sites as we heard exclamations and screams (that was when he was near the women's bathroom) and car horns.

It turned out that he ripped one of the screens when he leaned on it.  We went to the bathroom nervously but without incident.  Then when it was teeth brushing time it was really dark and no one wanted to go through the woods, so we brushed at the water spigot which was in a grassy lawn area.  Jon got his phone ready with a bright light and siren app, and we opened the emergency exits in the camper just in case.  Jon, Jonathan, and I did not sleep very well (Jonathan got nervous every time I moved with Jeremiah because it shook the camper.)  But we did not see any evidence of it.  However, when we were eating our breakfast, our neighbors came over and said it had walked back through their site.

We did some hiking and we went to where the Old Man of the Mountain used to be.  Noah said, "There he was!"

8/24 - Jeremiah waving, but I'm not sure if he was really greeting people, or just experimenting with the arm movement.

8/26 - Jonathan, before he even opened it, "Any present from Dad-o is super awesome."

That camping trip was the last event of our crazy busy summer, and we started school with the public school that week.  (I had planned on doing school through the summer, but not much got done.)  4th grade, 2nd grade, and Kindergarten!  And Joy is working on learning to write the alphabet with the sandpaper letters. (Her own idea to write, mine to get out the letter cards.)

08/28 - Noah, "Mom, why isn't there a West Pole?"

8/30 - Jon took the older three sailing and Joy wanted to go, but I needed to stay home and take a nap with Jeremiah.  I expected her to throw a fit about not being able to go, but she came up to me and camly said, "Daddy say me going not."

8/31 - JPD goes from sitting to crawling position.  JDD says he did the opposite that week also. Definitely (confirmed by Mom) by 9/12.

9/8 - Joy zipped her jacket all by herself.  That first part is hard!

9/12 - JPD pulled up to standing.

He's trying to do everything at once, crawling, creeping, and standing. He can make progress flat on his stomach, or on hands and knees, and he sure wants to get UP!

The only thing he has yet to do along those lines is roll from back to front.

So now the fall schedule is getting filled up, but it is all fun things, of course! 

Jonathan is joining Faith and Noah in taking piano lessons and he really enjoyed his first lesson.  "Piano just makes SENSE now!"

We'll be trying out karate this semester, which Jonathan has patiently waited for for a year.

There will be a women's Bible study in our house Wednesday mornings, and handbells again on Thursday nights. I've joined the Fire Department Auxiliary, but they understand if I can't do much in this stage of life.