We have some endangered species around our home. Some things that used to be abundant but are now on the brink of extinction are: clean laundry, leftovers, the absence of crying, quiet, clean dishes, time, brain cells (of the mother), and wits (of the mother).
Most of the time I don't think too much about 8 kids being a lot, this is our normal after all. Other times, 8 feels like a whole lot. Like the time a whole gallon of milk was consumed at one meal. Usually the kids are restricted to one glass at breakfast only. One day I thought, "Why not? Let them have as much milk as they want." So they were given an "all access" pass. Uh, yeah, great idea Mom.
I didn't know exactly what to blog about, so I thought I'd give an update on each kiddo along with their "yearbook picture." Our homeschooling group puts out a yearbook each year and includes kids at every stage, including the "up and comers." Here is the rundown beginning from oldest to youngest:
Here is my first-born, now 14 years old. He loves all things military and wants to serve and go to college (no influence by his mother there, sarcasm, sarcasm). He is a very good oldest brother who is a rock star in the eyes of the littles. He's taller than his mom, which his mom enjoys because she doesn't have to get the stepladder nearly as often.
This guy goes by the name "Bob." His current obsession is with hair combs. Other than that, he likes superheroes and Legos. He is also a great helper and is adored by the littles as well. He may take over his mom's job someday of writing the yearly wrap-up poem that gets sent with Christmas cards. He has quite the gift of rhyming. Also taller than his mom.
This is our "mom in training" as she likes to put it. She has recently volunteered to change diapers, as long as they are not "stinky." She is going to be an excellent babysitter as she genuinely loves playing with the middles and littles. She is friendly and very chatty. We're still trying to figure out which parent she takes after. That's a joke.
Behold the oldest of the "Furious Five." Notice that I didn't say "leader" of the FF, that kid comes next. Little Miss Kimiko loves to draw, especially dragons. She would much rather do that than her school work, hence little dragons scrawled around her numbers and letters. She loves music and loves to dance. She does this very interesting dance that looks kind of like a horse rearing up on its hind legs and kicking its front legs vigorously. I've asked her not to do that in public.
This guy never ceases to amaze us. He is the perfect blend of smartness and naughtiness. Okay, I guess I would appreciate less of the naughtiness, but the smartness trumps it every time. The other day our friends, the Ronans, came to get something. Monkey boy here didn't see them and asked who had come over. When I said that the Ronans had come he asked, "Was Caesar with them?" Thinking that Caesar was one of their animals I asked, "Who is Caesar?" The reply was "You know, Caesar and the Ronans." And then it dawned on me. I said, "You mean Caesar and the Romans!" Score one for homeschooling. When he doodles, he likes to write Greek letters. When I asked him what kind of cereal he wanted one day, he responded, "I presume Life cereal."
This guy can't take a bad picture. Life with him still presents lots of challenges, but he amazes us at times with the things that he remembers. At breakfast we have "calendar time" during which we go over the day of the week, letter/number of the week, weather, etc. For the older kids, we are going through landmarks, Greek letters, Roman numerals, Presidents, etc. The middles love to participate as well. For some reason, Malachi remembers certain presidents and gets them right every time (we use flashcards). He doesn't remember where he put his pajamas (which are always on his bed), but he pulls out "James Madison, James Knox Polk, and Franklin Pierce." He has all the letters of the alphabet memorized too along with their sounds, but can't write any of them yet. He has come a long way in learning how to be a big brother and seems to enjoy helping the littles, when they aren't threatening him. Here is a shot of him helping Lydia:
Now for the littles.
This girl amazes us with her language acquisition. She has increased her vocabulary by leaps and bounds. She is so smart and I go to her if I have a question regarding what belongs to which little. I tried to do that with Lydia the other day to no avail. I held up two sippy cups and asked her which one was hers. She said, "Deh" and nodded her head. I said, "Can you take the one that is yours?" She said, "Blexoinbeo" and pointed to her tray. Thinking third time's the charm, I asked again holding both cups out, "Can you put your water on your tray?" To which she smiled, said, "egoeheojtge" enthusiastically and clapped her hands together. Sighing, I walked over to Naomi and asked, "Which one is yours?" She pointed to hers, pointed to the other one and said, "Lydia."
I've lost track of all the things Naomi can say. Some of her more helpful phrases are: "Escuse?" (when she is finished with her meal and wants to be excused), "Help", and "I'm stinky,"
Not so helpful are her attempts to still boycott vegetation. We've gotten to the point where we will serve her her fruits and veggies first, so she has to finish them before she gets the rest of her meal. Wow, you would not believe how long that girl can take to eat a few pieces of orange (grimacing with each bite I might add). Then when she gets the main part of her meal, she plays the part of the magician and makes it magically disappear. I have seriously asked the kids to watch her to see how she does it.
Last, but certainly not least, is child #8. This little one is full of life and energy and spunk. Before I left for China to get the girls, I bought two blankets, one with woodland animals and one with a cute monkey on it. I decided that Lydia would have the monkey blanket. Wow, was I spot on as she is the female version of her brother, the monkey boy. She still has her bow legs and trips over her feet, but I think she is going to be an athlete. She kicks balls well and has quite the throwing arm. Her language, well, it is not nearly as advanced as Naomi's. Still, you'd better believe she makes herself known. If she wants to sit on your lap, she'll make one of her utterances and turn her back to you while looking over her shoulder at you with great expectation.
Here's proof of her mischievous side...
That little stinker was preventing her sister from exiting the office.
And here she is after attempting to give herself a tattoo or two or three...
And just to finish off this blog entry...some outtakes of our yearbook photo session.
I love love love this picture of these two. Out of all my kids, they look the most alike.
And of course these two insisted on taking pictures together. Micah looks like he's doing an impersonation of a mafia boss.
And finally...hang loose everyone until next time!
Saturday, March 22, 2014
Sunday, March 9, 2014
2 is not 8 and other math realities
You've heard of "new math," well, this is "big family math." You may think I am stating the obvious by saying that 2 is not 8. I'm not trying to trick you here. No, I am just putting to rest something I used to tell other moms.
Back when I only had six kids to corral and manage, it would be inevitable that some young mom would see us in the grocery store or in a restaurant and exclaim, "I don't know how you do it, I have so much trouble with my two!" At which I would smile and in my "experienced Mommy voice" say, "Oh, it doesn't matter how many you have, parenting is always challenging. Two is just as challenging as six." Well folks, two is not eight.
When that scenario happens now, I am first of all, grateful that the deception worked and the woman actually believes I have it together. Then I will smile and in my "just glad to be surviving Mommy voice" say, "Parenting is certainly challenging, isn't it? Oh excuse me while I deal with the two cups of spilled milk, the toxic diaper, and the two year old who has just learned how to repeatedly say, 'Hey Mom!' "
Yeah, life is a little different now. Here's another math reality, you ready? Five is more than eight. Yup, five is sometimes way more than eight. How's that so? Well, it takes much more effort to get the five youngest out of the house and into our beluga whale of a van without the three oldest. Thankfully the two oldest "middles" know how to buckle themselves in their car seats, so I only have to buckle the youngest three, but boy do I feel the outnumberedness when I am solo with the "Furious Five" (also known as "the middles and the littles").
So I'm sure you are asking, "How are the littles doing?"
They are amazing, full of both joy and trouble. One of their favorite pastimes is playing with the laundry, especially after it's been folded. The particularly like underwear, which is what they are wearing on their heads in the pictures (at least it's clean). Of course I would only post the pictures of them with their brothers' underwear and not their mother's.
Here's the older of the littles practicing being a big sister.
I'm not sure who was enjoying this scene most... I think it was probably me. Yes, the girls are our chief source of entertainment. The middles keep us laughing as well, but they are increasingly wanting to be seen as bigger kids. Well, at least the two oldest middles, that is.
Malachi is actually getting better at interacting with the littles. He is less threatened by them and will actually try to help them now which is a very positive turn. We've worked hard on training him how to be an older brother. He's getting good at, that is, when the little girls let him.
We didn't watch any of the Olympics, mostly because we get about two channels on our television, and neither one was broadcasting the games. No matter, we held our own Olympics since we were studying Greece.
Only the oldest six participated and were divided into three teams.
We had Israel (unfortunately is was so bright outside you can't really see their flags, chosen because the oldest child admires its superior military.
Sissy and Monkey boy represented the Motherland of four of our family members by choosing China
Another Motherland of the family, Japan, was chosen by Bob and Kara
The littles were the mascots who had lots of fun watching the events.
We had rigorous events that would result in the thrill of victory for some and the agony of defeat for others.
We had bocce ball first and then the horseshoe toss
(You can see the Monkey boy wearing his horseshoes for good luck perhaps? Except that we don't believe in luck...)
Next came the thrilling water run and fill
The middles were amazingly good at this event and wanted to keep doing it over and over again.
Our last event was the tower build in which each player had to place a block down one at a time to build a tower in one minute. Each team had three tries and we took the average to yield a score.
So who won? Our ally, Israel, received the gold, our other ally, Japan, received silver, and the other motherland received bronze. Fun was had by all, and we took advantage of the warm weather we've had all "winter" (aka "spring eve").
One Saturday all the bigs were with friends, so I took the Furious Five for a walk. There is a school near a friend's house that houses various animals and is located by a walking path. I thought that would be a good choice, an easily "corralable" area (I know I be making up words). Usually I consider an event "blog worthy" if something crazy happened. These days I deem something blog worthy if nothing eventful happened, because that is a rarity. Here are some pics from our walk.
Here Lydia is pointing to some strange animals called "people." I think she thinks she is supposed to know them.
Not sure what kind of dance she's doing here, but her brother looks like he's pretending he doesn't know her. He'd rather converse with the sheep.
I found this scene to be quite interesting. Lydia had just run down this small sloped hill, while Naomi stood there, uncertain of how to proceed. I felt bad as she just shifted her feet back and forth, but would not move forward. She is more of a "wobbler" than a "toddler." I finally coaxed her "down," but would not hold her hand. I'm a coach, not an enabler.
In reality, the physical therapist surmises that much of Naomi's life was spent depending on others to help her get around. Having heart surgery at such a young age, her movements had to be restricted. That would account for her upper body weakness, as she may have not been allowed to crawl. In addition, we were given these leg braces on Gotcha day that I only discovered once we were back at the hotel. No one, even at the orphanage, could explain why she had them. Once we got home, we found a CD that had pictures on it. In those pictures, Naomi is wearing the leg braces that go from her feet all the way past her knees and she is in a completely different place than the orphanage I visited. When the PT saw the braces, she was horrified and told me to burn them. She could not figure out why anyone would have put Naomi in them. Wearing the braces, she would not have been able to get up from a sitting position very well and would have been dependent on others to help her up. This made perfect sense to me, as she was always wanting someone (okay, Pam)to hold her hand when we were in China. Even when we got home, we had to break her of that habit and force her to get up and walk on her own (we are so mean). The result? Her upper body strength has improved greatly. Add to that, she wants to get herself in and out of her high chair, which requires upper body strength.
Naomi's language skills are coming along wonderfully. We have to remind ourselves to stop and really listen to what she is saying as she really is saying something (as opposed to her little sister, who pretty much speaks her own language). The other day she was sitting at the dinner table next to James and was saying something to him. He asked, "Are you all finished?" and made the sign for "all finished." She repeated what she had been saying before, and James realized that she was saying, "Be excused?" Her favorite things to say are, "Okay" and "Mom" (what kid doesn't like to say "Mom"?). As I said before,
Lydia seems to have her own language, but she definitely knows how to make herself known. She does a lot of strategic pointing. One day we had this conversation: Lydia: "ghiernmeoongoje?" Mom:"Yes, you can put away the wipes." Lydia: "eirongoehortoen?" Mom: "No, it doesn't go in that cabinet." Lydia: "roingoinghong?" Mom: Yup, that's the right drawer." As you can see, communication is not lacking.
This is a great shot of my kiddos and my sister's two kids. I don't know, 10 looks kind of nice...wait, did I just say that???
Back when I only had six kids to corral and manage, it would be inevitable that some young mom would see us in the grocery store or in a restaurant and exclaim, "I don't know how you do it, I have so much trouble with my two!" At which I would smile and in my "experienced Mommy voice" say, "Oh, it doesn't matter how many you have, parenting is always challenging. Two is just as challenging as six." Well folks, two is not eight.
When that scenario happens now, I am first of all, grateful that the deception worked and the woman actually believes I have it together. Then I will smile and in my "just glad to be surviving Mommy voice" say, "Parenting is certainly challenging, isn't it? Oh excuse me while I deal with the two cups of spilled milk, the toxic diaper, and the two year old who has just learned how to repeatedly say, 'Hey Mom!' "
Yeah, life is a little different now. Here's another math reality, you ready? Five is more than eight. Yup, five is sometimes way more than eight. How's that so? Well, it takes much more effort to get the five youngest out of the house and into our beluga whale of a van without the three oldest. Thankfully the two oldest "middles" know how to buckle themselves in their car seats, so I only have to buckle the youngest three, but boy do I feel the outnumberedness when I am solo with the "Furious Five" (also known as "the middles and the littles").
So I'm sure you are asking, "How are the littles doing?"
They are amazing, full of both joy and trouble. One of their favorite pastimes is playing with the laundry, especially after it's been folded. The particularly like underwear, which is what they are wearing on their heads in the pictures (at least it's clean). Of course I would only post the pictures of them with their brothers' underwear and not their mother's.
Here's the older of the littles practicing being a big sister.
I'm not sure who was enjoying this scene most... I think it was probably me. Yes, the girls are our chief source of entertainment. The middles keep us laughing as well, but they are increasingly wanting to be seen as bigger kids. Well, at least the two oldest middles, that is.
Malachi is actually getting better at interacting with the littles. He is less threatened by them and will actually try to help them now which is a very positive turn. We've worked hard on training him how to be an older brother. He's getting good at, that is, when the little girls let him.
We didn't watch any of the Olympics, mostly because we get about two channels on our television, and neither one was broadcasting the games. No matter, we held our own Olympics since we were studying Greece.
Only the oldest six participated and were divided into three teams.
We had Israel (unfortunately is was so bright outside you can't really see their flags, chosen because the oldest child admires its superior military.
Sissy and Monkey boy represented the Motherland of four of our family members by choosing China
Another Motherland of the family, Japan, was chosen by Bob and Kara
The littles were the mascots who had lots of fun watching the events.
We had rigorous events that would result in the thrill of victory for some and the agony of defeat for others.
We had bocce ball first and then the horseshoe toss
(You can see the Monkey boy wearing his horseshoes for good luck perhaps? Except that we don't believe in luck...)
Next came the thrilling water run and fill
The middles were amazingly good at this event and wanted to keep doing it over and over again.
Our last event was the tower build in which each player had to place a block down one at a time to build a tower in one minute. Each team had three tries and we took the average to yield a score.
So who won? Our ally, Israel, received the gold, our other ally, Japan, received silver, and the other motherland received bronze. Fun was had by all, and we took advantage of the warm weather we've had all "winter" (aka "spring eve").
One Saturday all the bigs were with friends, so I took the Furious Five for a walk. There is a school near a friend's house that houses various animals and is located by a walking path. I thought that would be a good choice, an easily "corralable" area (I know I be making up words). Usually I consider an event "blog worthy" if something crazy happened. These days I deem something blog worthy if nothing eventful happened, because that is a rarity. Here are some pics from our walk.
Here Lydia is pointing to some strange animals called "people." I think she thinks she is supposed to know them.
Not sure what kind of dance she's doing here, but her brother looks like he's pretending he doesn't know her. He'd rather converse with the sheep.
I found this scene to be quite interesting. Lydia had just run down this small sloped hill, while Naomi stood there, uncertain of how to proceed. I felt bad as she just shifted her feet back and forth, but would not move forward. She is more of a "wobbler" than a "toddler." I finally coaxed her "down," but would not hold her hand. I'm a coach, not an enabler.
In reality, the physical therapist surmises that much of Naomi's life was spent depending on others to help her get around. Having heart surgery at such a young age, her movements had to be restricted. That would account for her upper body weakness, as she may have not been allowed to crawl. In addition, we were given these leg braces on Gotcha day that I only discovered once we were back at the hotel. No one, even at the orphanage, could explain why she had them. Once we got home, we found a CD that had pictures on it. In those pictures, Naomi is wearing the leg braces that go from her feet all the way past her knees and she is in a completely different place than the orphanage I visited. When the PT saw the braces, she was horrified and told me to burn them. She could not figure out why anyone would have put Naomi in them. Wearing the braces, she would not have been able to get up from a sitting position very well and would have been dependent on others to help her up. This made perfect sense to me, as she was always wanting someone (okay, Pam)to hold her hand when we were in China. Even when we got home, we had to break her of that habit and force her to get up and walk on her own (we are so mean). The result? Her upper body strength has improved greatly. Add to that, she wants to get herself in and out of her high chair, which requires upper body strength.
Naomi's language skills are coming along wonderfully. We have to remind ourselves to stop and really listen to what she is saying as she really is saying something (as opposed to her little sister, who pretty much speaks her own language). The other day she was sitting at the dinner table next to James and was saying something to him. He asked, "Are you all finished?" and made the sign for "all finished." She repeated what she had been saying before, and James realized that she was saying, "Be excused?" Her favorite things to say are, "Okay" and "Mom" (what kid doesn't like to say "Mom"?). As I said before,
Lydia seems to have her own language, but she definitely knows how to make herself known. She does a lot of strategic pointing. One day we had this conversation: Lydia: "ghiernmeoongoje?" Mom:"Yes, you can put away the wipes." Lydia: "eirongoehortoen?" Mom: "No, it doesn't go in that cabinet." Lydia: "roingoinghong?" Mom: Yup, that's the right drawer." As you can see, communication is not lacking.
This is a great shot of my kiddos and my sister's two kids. I don't know, 10 looks kind of nice...wait, did I just say that???
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