Ups and Downs

A, J, L

This week of home life has hardly held anything monumental (unless you count the piles of books, papers, and laundry I have yet to get to!). But I've found myself more attentive to the details of the daily tasks, spats, play, frustrations, and fun of life with my three children, perhaps because I passed the 30-week mark of this pregnancy last Tuesday and feel more palpably the shortness of time before we add the fourth! November is closer now that we've entered September.

He requested a haircut one of the nights he was feeling a little better last week

Antibiotics kicked in for Josiah and meant a night of decent sleep for all of us to start off the week! After he (and thus I) had been up many times a night with coughing fits for days, this was a welcome break. Monday he seemed much more himself--no more lying on the couch, no more fever, less coughing, return of appetite, and interest in play. But he was pretty ornery Monday through Wednesday. We dealt with lots of meltdowns, pouting, tantrums, and incessant bugging of the sisters. I remember last year's Fall of Strep involving lots of this behavior when he was on antibiotics. I'm not sure if it's part of recovery for him (getting over an illness, over-exerting himself, crashing, etc.) or actually related to the antibiotics. But it's no fun for anyone.

Thankfully Thursday he finally woke up fairly cheerful and played nicely with the girls for more than five minutes at a time! He napped more this week than normal, so that is a benefit of the recovery period. Unfortunately his sisters did not cooperate so well with nap time.

Abby on left, Lydia on right

Recent nap time antics? Well, mostly the usual: they got into the diapers and wipes in order to "change" their baby dolls. One afternoon Abby removed her pee diaper and attempted to wipe herself up. They often kept to the letter of the law (stay in bed) but carried on animated discussions. Josiah complained they kept him awake--and they certainly made it difficult for me to rest!

They have no conception of "quiet." I hushed them and demonstrated a quiet voice (or instructed them not to talk at all), and by the time I walked back to the kitchen, they were back to loud conversation.

Abby is obsessed with socks this week, and she continually climbed atop her tall dresser during nap time to access the sock drawer. I don't know how many pairs of "baby socks" she's split asunder (and misplaced), but I may need to purchase more for her new little sister!

 Lydia on left, Abby on right

Yesterday (Thursday) all three made up for the lack of naps with the cuteness of their imaginative play together. Oh, the pretend! The overcast, windy afternoon made the heat more endurable, and they ran all over the yard with their PVC pipes, swords, sticks, and other weapons. Josiah usually carried both a stick and a PVC pipe, and he sang a snippet of "Froggie Went A-Courtin'" as he pranced across the grass--"Sword and pistol by his side! Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm."

Josiah with "sword and pistol"

The girls pretended to be Robin Hood (Lydia) and Little John (Abby, though she pronounces the "J" more like the Arabic letter jeem--"Zhon" is the closest English transliteration I can think of). Josiah was at times Robin Hood himself, too.

Lydia skipped 'round the lemon tree singing, "Robin Hood and Little John walkin' through the forest . . ."

Josiah alerted the girls to danger: "Prince John is over there! He stole all my money! C'mon, Robin Hood and Little John! Help me fight him!" Then they'd all descend on the imaginary Prince John with their implements of war.

Lydia

The game somehow changed to Lydia being a shepherd (with a PVC pipe staff) and Abby being a lamb. Lydia picked handfuls of grass and threw them down in front of Abby to eat. Sometimes the roles switched or both became lambs--Abby the "baby lamb" and Lydia the "mama lamb."

When it's been too hot outside, the kids like to travel the house. They pack their backpacks with Duplo or play food and congregate in their bedroom for a picnic. They like to build large Duplo "cakes" for the occasion. Or they pull out our blue mats to use as "boats" and "sail across the ocean"--sometimes as far as Dubai. They usually fish off the side with blankets. Abby caught "mackerel" the other day, she reported to me.

Abby

We've had plenty of fights inside and out, too. Ornery Josiah likes to turn everything into a gun (sticks, Duplo, cleverly connected train tracks, etc.) to shoot at Mom and sisters. He also likes to try to "trap" people with Daddy's belts or a rope 'round the ankle. He hooks the back of his sisters' shirts with his Duplo crane, hoards all the prime building materials, jumps out and roars at them, nudges them with his feet at meals, and devises all manner of other means to annoy them. At times we have intervals of only a few minutes between episodes of the girls screeching and crying in response to brotherly bugging.

Abby

The sisters are not angels with each other, either. Their newest indoor hobby is puzzles, which they often complete together. (They're far beyond peg puzzles now! They like the Lauri rubber puzzles my mom gave us, but they've also taken off with jigsaw puzzles Great-grandma Neuman got for Josiah--even up to 64-piece ones! They like to do them over and over, to the extent that they've memorized the position of some of the pieces.)

When they break up a jigsaw puzzles to start anew, they sweep as many pieces under their legs as they can, hoping to get more than Sister. They often work nicely together for a time, but once they're down to the last few pieces, the competition is ugly. Perhaps one sister has three pieces and the other has only one left--oh, the misery! Whoever has the last piece provokes a terrible outcry of injustice from the one who has none. Sometimes they claw and bite each other for the final piece--or for a particularly coveted one. And sometimes we have to shelve the puzzles for a time to restore unity and peace at home.

Lydia

Our new outdoor playset has gotten a good bit of use, despite the heat. But the swing of sin is still much desired and hotly contested. The other day both girls made a bee-line out the back door at the same time. One went under the fort and the other around it in order to get to the swing. Well-matched contestants, they collided as they both dove for the swing and ended up bumping heads. It was hard not to laugh as I consoled and counseled them in the aftermath.

 Abby on left, Lydia on right

 Lydia

On top of the chaos of daily life, I'm trying to potty train the girls. If I enforce a potty trip every half-hour or so, I can usually ensure dry/clean undies for the morning, at least with Abby. But it's hard to stay on top of this, so if they don't tell me when they need to go (which they do--sometimes), we usually end up with at least a couple accidents. Thankfully we've only had a few mornings in which Lydia pooped in her undies three times in a row, and that was a couple weeks ago. But yesterday both girls pooped their pants within about 15 minutes of each other--I was just finishing  Lydia's clean-up when Abby presented herself at the bathroom door: "I did poo-poo!"

Other times I hear a flush or water in the sink and find a girl taking care of business on her own. This is both wonderful and dangerous--I never know exactly what I'll find on the floor or on the bum! Lydia traipsed out to the kitchen naked this morning to announce, "I did poo-poo on the potty! I get raisins?!" Often she reports her accidents quietly. She comes up and does a little awkward sway while whispering, "Pee-pee in mine undies," as if it just happened to appear there all on its own.

Lydia

The other day when she pooped her pants, I said, "Oh no, Lydia! We don't do poo-poo in our undies!"

She replied, "No me like you say 'Oh no!,' Mama!"

Abby

Despite sister-fights and nasty underwear accidents, I sometimes think two-and-a-half is the cutest age ever. I love overhearing the girls' conversations as they play (when they're getting along). They're often so sweetly polite to each other. "Here, Li-ya," Abby says as she hands Lydia a puzzle piece. Lydia appropriately responds, "Tank-oo, Abby." And Abby says, "You're welcome!"

Lydia

Of course, you know this is Josiah :)

 Abby

Abby props her babies on her lap to "read books" to them before they nap. Lydia tells me daily how much she loves Grandma--and sometimes me, too. Abby apologizes every time I reprimand her for a naptime misdemeanor--"I'm sorry, Mama"--and wraps her arms around my neck. Both like to pretend to be Pa and Grandma: "How you doin', Pa?" "Feelin' well, Glala! How you?"

Yes, they're probably double the fun!

Of course, Josiah is part and parcel of the joy. The other night Jeremy taught them Duck, Duck, Goose. They love playing this and have done it with him several times of an evening, but they only partially grasp the rules. When the person who's "it" tags someone as "goose" and starts running, everybody jumps up and down and runs around excitedly. They just can't contain themselves--so each round Jeremy reminds them where to sit, when to run, where to run to, etc. But the exuberance is infectious and the chaos inevitable. And it's so cute to watch.