First date

Caleb's been suffering from a wee bit of Middle Child angst lately. Sandwiched between an Only Girl big sister and a High Maintenance little brother, our second born often finds himself lost in the madness that is the family of fish. Jacob steals his trucks, Abby locks him out of her room so she can play with her doll house in peace, and mom and dad are far too often preoccupied with refereeing the skirmishes that come with having three kids under the age of 4 living in close quarters.

So to rescue him from the mayhem, and to remind him just how very special he is to me and to our family, I made reservations for us to attend Chick-Fil-A's Mother Son Date Knight. (The knights and dragons theme was a little lost on him, but he was pretty excited about the fair maidens, and couldn't wait to tell Abby about all the "princesses" he saw when we got home.)

He was thrilled about our special Mommy-Caleb outing, but in true Caleb fashion, was also very worried about what the rest of the family was going to be doing while we were gone. What would they eat? Would Abby and Jacob get to do something special too? Would Abby miss him? He's such a sweet kid. And while he loved having me all to himself for dinner, what he wanted most was to go home and play with his siblings and his daddy.

He was very much the gentleman on our date, and followed his dad's instructions to open doors for me and not wipe his hands on his shirt.

So what was the best part of the evening according to Caleb?

"I liked it when you shared your milkshake with me," he told me when we got in the car to leave. "And my balloon sword. And that cow didn't get too close to me." (He's never been a big fan of the giant cow.)

All in all, I'd say Caleb's first date went very well.

So what if I had to wake him up and pick his clothes out for him so we didn't miss our reservation? At least I got a good night kiss out of it.

Good thing he's cute

Shortly after breakfast, Caleb came downstairs in full fireman regalia, complete with his newly-acquired fire chief hat.

"Mommy, will you cook something so I can see the firemen again?" he asked. "I want to show them my fire jacket."

He's never going to let me live this down.

Who needs dinner when you have fire hats?

The way to a man's heart may be through his stomach, but the way to a kid's heart is to burn dinner so badly that a firetruck is dispatched to your residence.

Trust me. I know these things.

Adjustment period

For weeks now, Caleb has observed his sister's swimming lessons and begged to join her. I promised him I would find him a class as well, and was finally able to follow through on that promise this week when a spot opened up for him.

All signs pointed to a successful first swimming lesson. He had his shark shorts, his shark towel, and an early class with the same teacher that Abby has come to love.

But when the time came for my little water lover to put his toes in the pool, he made it very clear he had no intention of joining the rest of the kids. The creek in the backyard is one thing. A great big pool and no one but a stranger in a scuba suit to keep him company is quite another.

He wailed. He thrashed. He insisted he was not getting in.

His teacher didn't buy it. She explained that part of learning to swim is learning to get in the water. And with that, she took my very unhappy child from my arms and banished me to the viewing area so he wouldn't be able to bat those baby blues at me and expect a rescue from mom.

He made one feeble attempt at escape about halfway through the class by asking for a potty break. With instructions to bring him right back, the teacher let me take him to the bathroom. I bribed him with a cake pop to get him to leave, but eventually he found himself back in the water, and even enjoying it a little.

Later, there was little mention of his failed first attempts at swimming lessons when his dad asked how it went.

"I wore my shark shorts," he recounted. "And I blew bubbles in the water. But I didn't go down the slide because I was scared a little."

And then, apparently forgetting his fear, he asked, "When do I get to do swimming lessons again?"

Every week buddy. You'll be flying down that slide and splashing around that little pool in no time.

Play Ball

This boy loves his granddads. And, to be fair, people that look like his granddads. And other dads at church that are nice to him.

Caleb's just kind of a guy's guy. And the guys in his life love that about him.

And that special bond they have is reason enough for Papa to make a special trip to see his eldest grandson, just to spend a few minutes giving him his first lesson in how to swing a bat.

Life is good for my three-year-old.

Waitin' on Sprout: Fourth and three

I promise that once he emerges from my womb, I will stop ignoring him. But I'm finding it simply impossible to pay any sort of attention whatsoever to Little Fish Number Four with Little Fishes Numbers One through Three running around causing so much mayhem all the time. If you want mom's attention around here, you have to be noisy. And babies in the womb are awfully quiet.

Little Sprout's making up for it by doing his best to remind me he's in there. I'm fairly certain he has some sort of death grip on my sciatic nerve, since sitting, standing, walking, bending over and lying down are all activities I can't do without some measure of pain these days. It's the same stuff I've dealt with in other pregnancies, it just happened to set in a lot sooner with this one.

As I bid farewell to the second trimester and enter the third and final stretch, I'm hauling around fifteen extra pounds and a bunch of bonus inches in girth. Either this baby is enormous, or everyone was right and things just "pop" a lot sooner the more babies you have. What I know with certainty is that my dearly loved maternity clothes that have carried me into the final days of three previous pregnancies are not going to make it to the finish line with this one.

Abby loves to feel the baby kick and has to be reminded not to shove her hands into my belly in order to high five her newest little brother. She's constantly talking about how cute he'll be, how tiny he'll be, and how helpful she's going to be when he arrives on the scene.

Caleb is perfectly content for little Sprout to stay in there as long as possible, as he has figured out that a new little boy in the house is probably going to be more interested in his trucks than his sister's dolls. He's not so into sharing these days.

And Jacob is convinced that my belly is only good for two things: poking, and driving cars over. Neither of these activities are enjoyable for me, but he laughs hysterically every time he gets a look at my baby bump, usually lifting his shirt up and poking his own belly button before standing back to compare our tummies.

One of these days, little Sprout will have a name, and a place to sleep, and I might even take a picture of my profile like I did on an almost weekly basis with all my other children.

I still have three months to go. No rush.

Proud moments

The other moms warned me it would happen. I didn't want to believe it, but they were right.

She's growing up.

A few weeks back Abby asked me if she was four and a half. One of the girls in her ballet class is four and a half now, and Abby thought that was a pretty big deal. I did a quick count in my head, and sure enough, she is.

"Yep," I told her, "You turned four and a half in February."

And now, anytime someone asks, she tells them with great confidence: "I'm four and a half."

Six months may not seem like a lot, but I speak from experience now when I say that four and a half is very, very different from just being four years old.

At four, she set goals for herself.

At four and a half, she's well on her way to meeting them.

She's started swimming lessons, and once a week now she joins five little friends in the pool and learns to kick, paddle, put her head under water and generally stay afloat. She wanted to learn to swim by the time her fifth birthday rolls around. Her teacher tells me this won't be a problem.

She's still having a grand old time on her big girl bike, and with the encouragement of the big girls across the street to remind her how to keep her balance and to look where she's going (and a little help from Daddy running behind her just in case), she's managed quite a few trips up and down our street on two wheels. The skill is there, and now we're just in the confidence-building stage of learning to ride. When she gets bored with having to concentrate so hard, or when the big girls take off a little faster than she's comfortable with, we throw the training wheels back on and let her have a fun time. But even then, we catch her third-grade mentor reminding our daughter to keep herself balanced and encouraging her to keep those training wheels up off the ground. Peer pressure is turning out to be a very positive thing when it comes to bike riding.

But perhaps her proudest four-and-a-half moment to date came tonight. We've been working our way through the book Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, and I'll admit I was skeptical at first. Anything that purports to be able to teach my child something in ten minutes a day deserves to be met with some skepticism. But after what amounts to about 280 minutes of teaching these easy lessons, my confidence in this book's methods and my daughter's abilities is restored.

We read our bedtime stories, and then, as is our nightly ritual, I left her light on and told her she could look at a book for a few minutes before going to sleep.

"Why don't you sit right there," she said, pointing to her reading chair, "and I'll read a story to you. You can help me with the words."

She found a Highlights magazine and began to thumb through for a good bedtime story to read to mom. I sensed an opportunity and took it. I grabbed one of the first reader books that I have laying around, and suggested she read that one instead.

"You know all the sounds in this book, Abby. If you want to read this one, you probably won't need any help," I told her.

She liked that idea.

It was only a few words, a quick little story about Mom, Pop and Peg spending time in the sun and how Pop wouldn't have been so hot if he'd had a hat like Mom and Peg. We'd never read it before, and Abby was a little hesitant at first. She'd sound out a word, and then look at me to make sure she'd said it right. But then she began listening to herself, and picked up the story line, and realized that she was reading just fine. She went through page after page, smiling when Mom and Peg put on their hats, and wondering aloud why Pop didn't bring his hat if he knew he was going to be in the sun.

When she was done, you'd think she had just finished reciting The Complete Works of Shakespeare from memory. She was absolutely beaming with pride. And so was I.

I did what any mom would do. I praised her. I hugged her and told her how proud I was of her and how well she was doing. I called Daddy and interrupted his Bible study to tell him how awesome his daughter is. I called the grandparents. And I snapped a picture of her with her first book.

I think Fun in the Sun might be my new favorite piece of fiction.

The bear game

I still don't know what it is about this memory game that they love so much. Most of the time they don't even play it properly.

Known around here simply as "the bear game," it totally mesmerizes my children, and has done so for almost two years since it first arrived in the mail as part of my preschool curriculum package. It was great when we started preschool when Abby was 3 years old and Caleb was almost 2. It's great now that Abby's 4.5, Caleb is 3 and Jacob is almost a year and a half old.

Jacob's time with the bears yielded another addition to his growing repertoire of toddler babble: "beh" now means bear. (Not to be confused with "buh" for bird, or "beh-buh" for belly button.) 

I don't know if the makers of these little bears sprinkle them with some sort of magical pixie dust that renders my kids unable to fight or argue, but they played like this--calmly, quietly, and in very close proximity to one another--for almost an hour with little to no intervention from mom.

For a box of cardboard teddy bears, that's no small feat.

The World's Greatest Play Dough

They wanted to do school. I wanted to play. Fortunately for me, we've used play dough as a school activity in the past. So I broke my We Only Play Play Dough Outside rule and pulled out the box of dough and tools to see if I could fool them. And that's when I discovered the tragedy that had befallen my beloved go-to activity.

I had The World's Greatest Play Dough. It never crumbled, never got sticky, never dried out (when stored properly) and it was uncolored, completely eliminating any argument over who-gets-what-color or any potential color mixing that might offend my very particular four-year-old.

I know it was The World's Greatest Play Dough, because I remember the day my mother-in-law made it for me from a recipe I spent months tracking down. I remember the day, because my youngest son had just been born and she was there to help with all the things a new mommy needs. In our case, that included whipping up a batch of play dough.

That was 17 months ago. And every time we used it, the stuff was still as good as the day she made it.

But someone had the audacity to mix my homemade play dough with that awful name brand stuff you buy in stores. And my play dough doesn't play well with others. It needs its own bag, separate from the colorful, sticky, crumbly stuff that comes in those little plastic jars. And when the twain shall meet, my play dough is ruined.

So we did the only thing we could. We begged some salt off our neighbor and mixed up a brand new, fresh-off-the-stove batch of The World's Greatest Play Dough. We scrubbed all the play dough tools to eliminate any traces of the old stuff that might contaminate our new batch. And then we "did school" (apparently). Jacob learned not to eat it. Caleb built a C-130. And Abby collected all the dropped pieces and redistributed them to ensure that all parties had an equal share.

Very educational, indeed.

And because you know you want some now, I present you with the very simple instructions for creating your own batch of...

The World's Greatest Play Dough

Mix together in a fairly large saucepan:
2 cups flour
1 cup salt (put in blender for 1-2 minutes and blend to fine powder)
4 tsp cream of tartar

In a separate bowl, mix together:
2 cups water
2 tbsp cooking oil

Pour liquids over dry ingredients and mix well. Stir constantly for about three minutes over medium heat.

The mixture will be ready when it pulls away from the side of the pan. It will still be lumpy (like mashed potatoes before liquid is added) but will look dry. Allow to cool for about five minutes.

Knead by hand until smooth. Add food coloring while kneading if desired. Store in sealed containers or ziploc bags.  Will keep for a long, long time if kept properly sealed, or can be left out to dry for a project.

Cause for celebration

"Death cannot keep its prey, Jesus my Savior; 

he tore the bars away, Jesus my Lord! 

Up from the grave he arose; 

with a mighty triumph o'er his foes; 

he arose a victor from the dark domain, 

and he lives forever, with his saints to reign. 

He arose! He arose! Hallelujah! Christ arose!"

~Robert Lowry, 1874

I've often wondered what it would take for us to get a decent picture of the kiddos in something other than ripped jeans and muddy t-shirts.

Celebrating the resurrection of our Lord on Easter Sunday seemed to be just the right occasion.

He is risen! Christ is risen indeed!

Obstacles to learning

This warm weather is starting to seriously interfere with my kids' education. Who wants to do worksheets when it's a sunny 78 degrees outside?

My daughter does. She seriously loves Pre-K.

So I made a rule.

We'll do Pre-K, but first we're going to play outside. When we come inside to put Jacob down for his nap, you can do some worksheets. But when he wakes up, we're going back outside to play. And we're not doing your reading lesson until after our picnic lunch.

Who knew a four-year-old could love school this much? (Although in Abby's defense, the School of Mommy is incredibly fun, if I do say so myself.)

I spent an entire afternoon going through our workbooks and lesson plans, and managed to trim our remaining weeks of school down to a manageable six. Or fewer. It will depend on whether or not it rains.

Abby's breezing through her telling time curriculum, but I'm struggling with why in the world I'm devoting so much time to teaching her how to read a clock when we don't own a single time piece that isn't digital, and she can read a digital clock just fine. I've been told this is a valuable life skill, and she seems to think it's important, so I guess we'll just go with it. If all goes well, we'll be through our "o'clocks" and our "half pasts" by summer, and we can shelve this time telling thing until kindergarten picks up in the fall.

Caleb is not nearly as impressed with his learn-to-color-in-the-lines worksheets as I'd hoped. They're pretty simplistic, and he'd much rather draw a shark himself and color it in any day. He humors me, and scribbles where he's supposed to until I pass him something more interesting. I think he'll be relieved when we start preschool next year and he has some lessons and activities that are tailored just for him.

In the meantime, he seems to take the focus on his sister's education in stride, and enjoys the times when I give them a project or assignment to work on together. They still make great classmates, and it's fun to watch the way their different personalities attack a problem when they work as a team. They love to solve mazes and puzzles together, tasks that my four-year-old with the focused attention to detail seems to struggle with, but my three-year-old who is great at seeing the bigger picture excels in.

Abby, ever the perfectionist, wants to trace every possible route in the maze with her finger first, finding the ones that don't work and meticulously crossing them out until she narrows down the right path. Caleb seems to be able to take in the entirety of the maze at once, and can find the quickest path to the finish with relative ease. He wants to draw his path as he goes, having already found the winning route in his head. Abby doesn't want to make a mark on the page until she knows she's making that mark in the right place, and has physically traced it at least once with her little index finger to be sure. They make a great team, but the vastly different ways their brains work drive each other crazy sometimes.

It's okay though. With my new streamlined countdown to summer, we're just weeks away from carefree (and worksheet-free) days splashing in the backyard, and my homeschooling days will be over until next year.

If Abby will allow it, that is.

Sleep, baby sleep

I mentioned back in January, when my stinky little starfish had his cast removed, that his finger injury and subsequent healing period totally eliminated our morning nap. (I say our nap, because while Jacob was the only one napping, it was truly beneficial to the entire family that he did so.)

None of my children have given up their morning nap that early. He was 14 months old then, and he's barely 17 months old now. This is the time I would expect to see signs that he was ready to maybe try dropping down to one hefty afternoon nap. I knew he still needed the morning nap. (I consider myself an expert on all things Jacob.) So about a month ago, I began Morning Nap Boot Camp in an effort to give my baby what he needs: the gift of extra sleep.

And it worked.

It may be short lived, but for now, I have my morning napper back. It's a truly beautiful thing.

Hosanna!

Palm Sunday presented another opportunity for me to watch my eldest children display their two distinctly different personalities while singing for a large group of people.

Abby is the beaming face in the middle wearing the pink shoes and shouting "Hosanna" at the top of her lungs. That palm branch may as well have been a gallon jug of glitter the way she was waving it around. She was totally in her element.

Caleb, on the other hand? He's the angry green shirt in the front trying to get as far away from those screaming kids as possible, and primed to punch the next kid who whacks him in the face with a big ol' leaf. He managed to hang on until the end, but he was happiest when the processional was finally making its way out of the sanctuary.

And I caught the entire three minute ordeal on film. I'm sure they're all going to appreciate how well I've documented these precious moments one day.