A wild week

The shirts were too big, the days were too long, and, for Caleb at least, the music proved to be a little too much. But the four of us had a blast at our first week of Vacation Bible School, and survived mostly unscathed.

(I say mostly, because on day four Jacob brought home a fever and runny nose that he insisted on sharing with the rest of us, and Abby threw up all over her bed, which forced us all to stay home on day five.)

But the time we did have at VBS was well spent, and enjoyed by all. I worked the craft room for the younger elementary schoolers, because I love crafts, and I love kids, so it was an obvious fit. I spent my days trying to talk over the chatter of a room full of pumped up 4-8 year olds in bright orange tee shirts, and earned a new level of respect for my teacher friends.

Jacob slept whenever and wherever he could and tested the endurance of all the volunteers that attempted to feed him his bottle.

Caleb, not wanting to leave his sister's side, started out in the preschool class with the three and four year olds. But when they corralled the kids and brought them to the gym for a time of singing and jumping aptly named "The Rowdy Round-Up" he was in over his head. By day two, he was hanging out in the two year old class where he belonged, and seemed much happier when his surroundings were much calmer.

Abby was totally in her element. The singing, the hand motions, the crafts, the storytelling and the excitement of it all were a perfect fit for my exuberant three year old. She made a friend, and even remembered her name, which is a big deal for her. She loves her Bible Buddies, the little plastic VBS characters on a key chain that remind her of the verses they learned during the week, and insists on sleeping with them.

The kids came away from the week exhausted, but with a firm grip on the idea that God is wild about them. Special thanks to the volunteers and teachers that made it all happen. I see many years of VBS in our future!

Every week is Shark Week

Stuffed shark to snuggle? Check.

"Jawsome" shark pajamas to keep you warm? Check.

Shark sheets to lie on? Check.

Big boy bed to sleep in? Check!

After weeks of sanding, sawing, drilling and painting, Caleb's big boy bed was finally complete and in place in his room. I think he was a little relieved, after watching us work on it in the garage for so long, to realize that he wasn't actually going to have to sleep down there.

He took to his new sleeping arrangements like a champ, and became immediately territorial of his new space, gently reminding his sister over and over again, "This is Caleb's big boy bed. You sleep in Abby's big girl bed."

In a move I have since regretted, I put the baby monitor in his room so I could listen in and hear if he fell out of bed or had some other Big Boy Bed-related disaster. What I've found is that my son is a very noisy sleeper. There were no disasters, and instead, all I heard was the 45 minute conversation he carried on with his shark, his dog, his blanket and his quilt as he settled down for his nap.

"Hi Sharkie! This is my big boy bed. No, it's not a bed! It's a big boy bed!!"

"Hi blankie! This is my big boy bed. No, it's not a bed! It's a big boy bed!!"

"Hi quilt! This is my big boy bed. No, it's not a bed! It's a big boy bed!!"

"Hi Husky! This is my big boy bed. No, it's not a bed! It's a big boy bed!!"

He has maintained his insistence that we are to refer to it not as his new bed, but as his "Big Boy Bed." Any forgetfulness on our part is promptly corrected by a very proud two-year-old.

People Food

I remember the night it started. I can clearly remember the distress I felt the night my two-month-old screamed at the top of his lungs as I tried, unsuccessfully, to feed him for over an hour. In the end, we were both crying, and I put him to bed without having managed to get anything in him, certain he would wake up and let me know when he was hungry. But he slept through the night (because all my babies are awesome like that when it comes to sleep), and the next morning I set off on what would become a marathon of doctors' visits to figure out why the heck this baby wouldn't eat.

He continued to eat poorly, and throw up often, for the next few months. But gradually, so much so that I hardly think of it until someone asks how he's doing, he's been improving this summer. And whatever his issues were, they seem to be resolving themselves. All the prayers and food experiments are paying off, and now instead of a Bad Eater, I have, simply, an Eater.

A real Georgia peach-eating, pasta-loving eater. He enjoys fish sticks and chicken nuggets with his siblings, and frequently steals bites from his mom and dad's plates. Not only does he no longer like the lovely pureed vegetables I worked so hard on, but he insists on doing everything in his power to make sure I do not feed him, and that I eventually give up and hand him solid food that he can feed to himself. Flailing, flapping and blowing raspberries are some of his favorite food-mush avoidance tricks. And he's really, really good at them. He's not the cleanest eater out there (what eight-month-old is?) but he's got a pincer grip that works just fine and seems to be about 80% effective in getting the food into his mouth. His success rate improves if the food in question is a lemon cookie or an Oreo.

I'll take broccoli florets all over the floor and peach juice running down his clothes over the screaming and spitting up any day.

Luddites

We've been without a television set for over seven years. (We rely heavily on Hulu and Drudge Report to keep us in touch with reality.)

We have no Wii, no iPad, and no fancy entertainment system. (We played Angry Birds once, and we didn't really see what all the fuss is about.)

We've had the same old cell phones for years. They made phone calls, and did little else, and we loved them. So when we were told we had to upgrade, we weren't exactly thrilled.

The new ones aren't exactly smart phones (we both have no desire to receive email on our phones, although I'll admit the Find A Starbucks App seems pretty appealing) but they do have much cooler games than the technologically obsolete phones we traded in.

Caleb, in particular, totally has a knack for the touch-screen driving game, turning the phone and leaning into the curves like a pro. It's kind of impressive to see a kid who has never played a video game display such raw talent.

And now, anytime Justin pulls his phone from his pocket, Caleb begs for a chance to play the car game, and can hardly put it down when it's time for his sister to have a turn.

I dread the day this kid gets his hand on a real video game.

Going commando

Silly baby. You're supposed to keep the diaper on when you're napping.

When you take it off, you just end up making a big mess everywhere. And let's be honest here...when you pee, you tend to pee all over the place. Your wall, your crib bumper, your sheets, your blankie, your dinosaur, your face and your mom would be a lot happier (and drier) if you would stop taking the diaper off during your nap.

And looking all cute when I come in and find you naked at the end of a three hour midday snooze is not going to make me forget about what you did.

You're sleeping in shorts from now on, mister.

Morning nap

Shhhh.

They're not really asleep. They're just pretending. But they don't want me to know that.

"Get out of my room and close the door, Mommy," Abby insisted when I started taking pictures of their cuteness.

"We're having a sleepover," Caleb piped in.

Sure you are, kids.

But if you want to lay down and pretend to take a nap in the middle of the morning, be my guest.

No mom in the world would argue with that kind of imaginative play.

A little too flashy

Why did we stay up two hours past her bedtime? Because almost every night this summer she has made the same argument about why she should not go to bed so early, and she finally wore me down.

"But Mommy," she'll say, those tired pleading eyes peeking up at me from over her pink comforter, "there are fireflies outside and I love fireflies because they're beautiful. And I need to catch them and put them in a jar on my dresser so I can watch them light up."

So we waited for the sun to go down. I realized, as we made periodic trips to the window to see if it was dark enough, just how long those two hours seem to a three year old. Between the time we put her brothers in bed and the time the sun set, we stayed quiet, read lots of books, and prepared our glass jar for its future inhabitants.

When the time came, she slid her sneakers on and headed outside in her pajamas.

Thirty minutes later, exhausted, we returned home. With three fireflies.

Three.

We put a drop of water ("In case they get thirsty, Mommy.") and a few blades of grass ("Do you think they already ate dinner?") in the jar and she carefully carried her light-up treasure into her room. We placed it on her dresser, and I tucked her in and turned out the lights.

I had barely closed the door to her room when the screaming began.

"I don't like that flashing!" she yelled. I turned back into her room and reminded her that flashing is what lightening bugs do, and isn't that why she wanted them in the first place?

"There's too much flashing, Mommy," she replied. "You can keep them in your room tonight."

I think that might be the end of our firefly adventures for this summer.

Fighting the Philistines

It may look like a stack of blocks on the back of a toy truck to you, but in Abby and Caleb's world, it's the Ark of the Covenant being carried into battle.

Later they learned that if you want to avoid the horror of having the Ark knocked over and scattered into pieces across the floor, you don't leave it in the middle of the foyer.

Some kids play Cowboys and Indians.

Mine play Epic Old Testament Battles.

True valor

At first, he wanted nothing to do with the water. Being in the kayak with Daddy was okay, and throwing leftovers off the neighbor's dock to feed the fish was fun. But with its turbid water and critters that would occasionally brush past his ankles, the creek was just a little too mysterious for his liking. If Caleb wanted to splash, he'd wait for our weekly trips to the kiddie pool, where he could see straight through to the bottom and the only thing that brushed up against him would be another toddler.

But Abby desperately wanted a playmate. It was no fun swimming over to the sandbar and building sandcastles by herself. So she encouraged him, each time we'd trek down to the water, to go a little farther. She sat with him as he put his toes in and buried his legs. He held her hand and allowed her to lead him in until the water reached his waist, then bid her farewell as he headed back to shore, and to the safety of the familiar.

And then one day, he felt just brave enough.

"Will you hold my hand, Abby?" he asked his sister, when she invited him to go over to the sandbar with her.

She told him she would, in a tone that let me know she was going to take this responsibility very seriously. I warned him that it was going to get deeper, up to his shoulders at one point, but that his life jacket would hold him up, and his sister would not let go of his hand.

"I'll take care of my brother," Abby added.

So they walked, hand in hand, into the water. Their toes disappeared below them, and Caleb paused to get used to how far his feet would sink into the muddy creek bed. Abby tugged him gently and told him to keep going. They made their way to the middle, a few feet from shore, and a few feet from the sandbar, and fear took hold of Caleb as the water became chest-deep.

"Don't let go, Abby!" he yelled. And she didn't. She told him they were almost there, and she tugged at his arm until his feet found the shore of the sandbar.

Later, she took his hand and walked him back over to where I was sitting, through the water, and he wasn't as scared this time. They repeated the parade a few more times, until one time I looked up to see my little guy headed back toward me all by himself.

Now, when he wants to go to the sandbar, he doesn't think twice about it. He's tested out different routes, and found where the water is shallower and where the slippery rocks are. He goes back and forth, carrying dump trucks and shovels over to his spot in the middle of the creek for the mud and pebble excavation he's working on.

Sometimes you just need someone to hold your hand for a while.

Part of the action

It's happening again. Another one of my babies is growing up too fast.

Somehow, eight months has passed since they handed me that screaming newborn. And somehow, I can't remember what we life was like nine months ago before little Jacob came into our lives.

He's not content to sit on the creek bank and watch us have fun anymore. Whether we're splashing, or building, or reading, or dining, he's always right there now, always a part of whatever we're doing. Abby and Caleb still adore him, and still wonder when he'll be able to play blocks with them. Caleb is learning to share his trucks, and has even designated a few as "Jacob's trucks, and so he won't touch Ca-yub's."

My little guy is not so little anymore. Jacob was pushing 18 pounds at his most recent check-up, and he's finally starting to eat well. He still hates his bottle, but seems to be okay with chicken nuggets, olives, rice, pureed vegetables, bread sticks, animal crackers and homemade mint chocolate chip ice cream. He loves water, and loves sippy cups, but hasn't figured out how to make the former come out of the latter yet.

He's still a great sleeper, although his new skill of sitting up on his own is going to require us to adjust his crib pretty quickly. It catches me a little off guard to walk into his room to get him and find him sitting up staring at me over his crib bumper.

His efforts at forward motion are getting more and more focused, and I'm wondering if he won't bypass the commando-crawling stage altogether. On the rare occasion that an enthusiastic older sibling doesn't bring him whatever he's screaming for and he has to go get it himself, he seems to prefer to pull his knees up under him and push himself forward, as opposed to dragging himself on his belly like his brother and sister before him. He's also working on a pretty good seated floor-scoot that allows him to move a few inches in any direction by rocking his body back and forth while sitting up and sliding around on his diaper.

He knows his name, and always looks when we call him (unless he's chewing on something delicious). He also answers to Yacobi, a nickname given to him by the large Russian nurse who assisted in his delivery. After he popped out, she turned to us and said, "Is boy! He has name?" to which we answered that yes, his name was Jacob.

"Ah! We call him Yacobi," she replied, with enough authority that I feared they might write that on his birth certificate. "Yacobi is good name!" I was glad she approved. So Yacobi he became, except to Caleb, who likes to call him Yacobaby instead.

He's just as smiley as ever, and is still happiest when he's being held or played with. And I'm still just as smitten as ever with my youngest son, and happy to hold and play with him as often as possible.

He's still not walking, talking or using the potty yet, but I have a feeling the next time I blink he might be.

God made dirt

There were seven kids, ages 5 and under. (Six of them, boys.)

There were two moms, with coffee in hand.

There were a few large piles of dirt, and plenty of rocks.

We had three and half hours until naptime, and a backyard full of possibilities.

I'm pretty sure these sneakers were white when we left the house. Now I'll know to take my friend more seriously when she warns me to bring clothes we don't mind getting messy.

It was a very fun morning, indeed.

Wildlife refuge

Meet our new pet snail, Florabby Star Fisher.

Abby found it, so Abby had the privilege of naming it. I suggested that perhaps Florabby Star is kind of a big name for such a small animal.

Abby says we can call her Starry for short.

I've been asked to keep watch over Starry while Abby and Caleb are out scouring the front yard for the rest of her snail family. Apparently, they need to be rescued because they're too slow to get away from the more dangerous bugs on their own. Lucky for those poor snails, I've got some bug-loving toddlers that are just right for the job.

Just a little trim

It wasn't so much that the baby needed a haircut. It's just that everybody else was getting a trim, and the buzzer was right there, and I had noticed Jacob's hair was starting to get a little shaggy around the ears, so I figured I'd go right ahead and fix that.

If the finished product looked any different from what he started with, I'd have both a before and an after shot. But in reality, I'm the only one that noticed a difference.

And in the interest of full disclosure, the only reason we have any pictures at all is that I'm starting to feel a little guilty about my laziness in keeping track of my third child's milestones.

But if he had a baby book, I'd be filing this under "First Haircut."