The Cat Who Loved to Play Baseball

A story by Ernie Wonder


a cat Loved to play basedall.  but one day she found out that half of the game was on Sunday.  She was so sad.  She talked to the Coch about it the nexet day the Coch said. We changed it to one Sunday.  Nobody wants you to come to that one.  So you can play.

the end

(Bears a striking resemblance to a story we read together last month in the Friend magazine, about a little boy.  Heeehee)  

Feburary 28th

We were hardcore home schoolers last week- so hard core, that we barely saw our home!  Haha, it was wonderful.

• Monday, we drove out to see Northwest Trek
• Tuesday, we spent the morning with my Grandpa (hi Grandpa!  Thanks for the mint starts!)
• Wednesday, I made a fool of myself in my sister's Zumba class and LOOVED IT, and we took the kids swimming afterwards.  
• Thursday, I took the kids out to the aquarium.
• Friday was our weekly Grandma Day for the girls.  In fact, Wonder Daddy and I even got a little crazy and dropped Cocoa off in the evening to have a night on our own.  We ate way too much indian food, and then went out for ice cream.  We drove in the truck.  It was absolutely perfect!  (THANKS Mom and Dad!)  

Coming back to book learning was a bit of a shock this week for Ernie, but she's doing really well.  (She's learning cursive- it's hard!)

In fact, Mimi is doing well too!  Behind my back, she's been learning tons from her sister!  She can count to 30...she can sing her ABC's...she knows all her colors and shapes...it's wild.  I pulled out her workbooks again this week, after a hiatus- she's powering through and loving every bit of it.  THIS is what I love about home schooling- having the joy of watching the kids, waiting for them to be ready, giving them a bit of knowledge to go on...and watching them reach the stars.  On their own.  

Ernie is loving piano still- her new books finally arrived in the mail, and I told her she was free to play as much as she wanted.  I'd be listening, and would correct her and give her help, but she didn't need to wait for me to sit down with her and give her permission to move on to the next song.  She loves the autonomy, and I love hearing her love that instrument.  She's so funny, she sits down and tries to teach Mimi to play the beginner books she's just recently finished.  Mimi is determined to learn too- she asks permission to practice, to get ready for her "piano wessons."  I know M is just banging around, but it's so darn cute.

Ernie learned a bit about slavery and the abolitionists this morning, in her social studies book.  It was merely a few paragraphs, and then we read a poem about "following the gourd."  (Instructions given to runaway slaves to find freedom in the northern states- head towards the Big Dipper, aka "Drinking Gourd."  And now I'm having flashbacks to middle school choir, and all of us in our bright blue sweat shirts ending a song with a flourish, pointing to the ceiling and bellowing "Follow the Gourd!"  Wow.)  BUT, I've been wondering when to introduce Ernie to the American Girls books, and handed her the Addy collection this morning.  Addy is a little slave girl, and she runs to freedom with her mother.  Quite a bit darker than the Berenstein Bears books E loves so much, but my gosh.  I've completely lost her today.  She's never read a book that large- she looked at me with big eyes before lunch and said "May I read all of this??"  Sure honey- knock yourself out! Read as much as you want!  She's had her nose stuck in the book for hours- her grandpa came to visit tonight, and she snuggled next to him on the couch while we chatted, and just read and read and read.  I could see her glance up at us, pick up the book mark and start to put it in....and her eyes would catch the words again....and the bookmark would drift back down to the couch beside her...I love that she loves to read.  My goodness.  

OK, I had to snap a picture of Ernie's outfit yesterday, too.  She's just so gosh darn logical.  She wants to wear her adorable new dress- great!  She wants long sleeves- sure, she just puts a shirt underneath!  She needs something on her legs- why not wear electric blue shorts, with old candy-striped leg warmers?  (You can't see it, but she's wearing black socks with orange dots and a big glittery pumpkin at each ankle.)  I adore this girl.  And we did the laundry today.

Fun Stuff

We've come out of the woods of the week-long grumpies, and have some super fun stuff going on right now.

• No school this week for local kids means no piano lessons- we're living it up!  
• Today was Ernie's 100th day of school.  Quickie test lesson today, but way exciting to be so far along- 60 more lessons to go, and we'll rip into the huge 2nd grade curriculum box that's sitting in my school room!  
• I accepted a request to accompany a rather large musical shin dig at Easter time (local folks, please hit me up for details, it's going to be amazing!)  It's an Easter presentation at my sister's church, with full choir and symphony.  I'm the pianist!  The binder of music is huge, but this is a good sort of challenge.  I'm pretty excited!  Wonder Daddy will be in the choir, so that the Friday night rehearsals can be "together time"....kind of.  Well, it's our normal date night, and we'll be in the same building....he's a total gem for letting me divert this much time into a project I'm so excited about.
• The Berninger (one of my daughter's and my good friends) is celebrating her mumblty-ninth birthday tomorrow, and took us all to Northwest Trek to celebrate today.  (A concatenation of member pass privileges and a weekly special for "kids are free" got us all in the door without a cent exchanging hands.  That rocks.)  My goodness, it's far away from us, but so much fun!  The land was donated to the city in the 70's and made into a wildlife preserve- we saw beavers, raccoons, fishers, mink, and otters, bald eagle, golden eagle, bison, caribou, mountain goats, long horn sheep, moose, skunk, trumpeter swan, black bear, brown bear, grizzly bear, owl, lynx, cougar, coyote, wolf...such an amazing place to see local wildlife!  All but the "deer family" were in enclosed habitats- we took a tram ride to see the four legged grass eaters in their 435-acre habitat.  All three kids had an amazing day, and this surprise outing was just what everyone needed to break our funk and reward the kids for being the amazing people they are.  E and M got up this morning and played quietly, M watched cartoons while E started independently on her math...they really are such, SUCH good kids.  We stopped at Sonic on the way home- the kids have a new favorite place to eat!  Now, if only there was one closer than 90 minutes away haha.  The kids were rock stars in the car, we were driving for over three hours today!

And, I don't have a single picture for today!  The Berninger is an amazing photographer, I can't wait to see what she snapped today :)  

Backwards and Forwards

Backwards.  We're going backwards.  This normally means someone is getting ready for a huge leap forward, either developmentally or in height, but still.  Sigh.

• Ernie dumped her breakfast down the drain, and rinsed her cup and spoon so she could load them into the dishwasher and hide the evidence.  We're estimating she lied to me 7 times, so she's lost screen time privileges for 7 days.  OH MY GOSH, the tantrum when she figured out I wouldn't let her get on the computer to do her math games.  First, she loves those games.  Second, she will now be unable to check off every box in her academic manual each day- I'll let her catch up next week.  She spent at least half an hour raging in her room.
• Mimi peed on the floor of the bathroom, and then went to her room to get ready for her bath like I'd asked her to.  WHY!?!  Why not just get in the tub, like we always do, and peel clothes off there?  (Mom, I promise she'll be wearing a diaper tomorrow.)  She had...2 wet accidents, plus a dirty diaper before she changed out of it in the morning yesterday.  BACKWARDS.

I need to admit that I have been completely hardcore on meals this week.  Much, much stricter than I've been before.  Ernie is getting sick again, and I'm taking part of the blame in not serving enough fruits and vegetables.  At the end of our unemployment, I was in full panic mode, not knowing when we'd find a new job, and I think I went to the grocery store about twice a month.  We were working with storage apples, onions, potatoes, and carrots, plus green salads.  And the kids don't eat lettuce willingly.  Eating seasonally always sounds so great, until February, doesn't it?

But, back to the strict: I am serving vegetables this week.  And fruits.  And they will go on your plate, and you will eat them if you want more of anything else.  This really isn't a new rule, but Ernie has reached epic levels of not-gonna-do-it.  She's ALMOST at that fantastic level where she can will herself into throwing up just by looking at a meal.  I kid you not, her eyes were so red at dinner she looked like she'd been punched.  Big puffy red bags underneath, red all around.  The issue?  She begged for lemons today, to make lemonade for lunch.  She didn't drink it at lunch, I put it at her place at dinner.  I looked up, and she'd transformed into Big Red.  Her dad laughed at the face I made, till I said "Ernie, look at Dad."  "WHOA!  What happened to you!?"

The breakfast issue was over a banana+ice smoothie, with milk, and spinach, and oatmeal.  The oatmeal was the real issue, she's tried one of my smoothies before with lots of raw oats (how I like it) and she didn't.  So, she stared at that cup for about 20 minutes without even trying it, before disposing of it while I was showering.  I gave her Cocoa's leftovers at lunch, she was less than thrilled.  Well, she finally drank it, it wasn't so bad, and she got lots of pesto pasta.  She ate strawberries.  But by this time, she is seriously missing calories, because we've been playing this game all week and she's missing a lot of meals.  

I took pity this afternoon and made a big batch of hummus- the girls ate about a half cup each, with corn chips, and then ran around the house dancing and singing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" at the top of their lungs.  E and I did a bit of school, and I turned them all loose to do whatever they wanted.  I spent the afternoon writing.  Unstructured seemed to be the answer.

I know our steps forward are coming!

Growth

It's a good thing Ernie has a good brain.  She called to me from across the house this morning "Mom?  Doesn't Cocoa have a doctor appointment this morning?"  Oh...SNAP!  It's in 20 minutes!  Mimi found her shoes, Ernie got dressed, I got dressed, and we were in the car 4 minutes later.  THAT, folks, is a record!

Oh, and yes Cocoa is growing nicely.  27 pounds.  32 inches.  Totally normal for a 2-year-old.  That's my boy!  (Actually, yeah, because ALL of our kids have been normal for kids double their age, when they were young.)

Lunch was anticlimactic today- I served the girls their chicken noodle soup from last night, they decided they weren't hungry anyway, and they went down for naps.  (Heh.  Their faces at dinner, when I sat down to a big plate of pesto pasta and spinach salad, while they looked sadly at their chicken noodle soup again.... priceless :)  Both humbly requested MY help in spooning their noodles and carrots and onions into their mouths, they didn't have the will power to do it themselves, but my oh my did they want pesto pasta!  They both ate half a plateful of spinach salad, after small servings of pasta, just to get MORE pasta....and then Mimi ate three rolls...hungry much?  :)

When Cocoa woke up, I pulled everyone out of bed.  We are GOING OUTSIDE!  Cocoa chilled on a blanket, I attacked the bushes that swallowed my side path (seriously, it was GONE, under a barrier at least 6 feet high.)  The girls dug in their garden box and played on the swings.  I love these little sun breaks in February that we get!  It was cold, in the 40's, but gorgeous.

My bush clippings yielded berries for my favorite yearly wreath-






I really don't know what these bushes are, and I whack them back every year, but I keep them around just for these berries.

I saw some major signs of growth this afternoon, too.



Spring is coming.

(Oh, and guess what?  He's doing this like it's no big deal.  Like we haven't waited 1 year and 2 weeks for him to stick a toy in his mouth.  Mom?  I admit I was a bit shocked to find my baby in your lap, drunkenly sucking on a lollipop, Saturday night.  But you're like some kind of evil genius- you totally broke the barrier for him.  Thanks.  Nothing lollipop-shaped is safe from him now!  Score!)

Happy Valentine's Day!

So, did I tell you the news?  I've SLEPT?  Cocoa goes down around 9:00, and gets  up around 11:30 and 6:00.  I will totally take it.  Since I put an extra blanket on the girls' bed, they've been sleeping like bugs in a rug too.  I should just turn the heat up- the girls have three quilts on their bed, and I sleep under 4 quilt layers.  But it's cozy for Winter, right??

We spent our morning with the cousins, playing and decorating cookies.  I love that we live so close to family, and that the kids have cousins to play with.  (So excited to have them meet their other cousins this Summer!)  We came home a bit after naps- Ernie insisted the entire way home that she was NOT tired.  NOT.  (In between sobs at having to leave her cousins' house.  She was SO tired.)

So, she slept about three hours, woke up at 4:00.  It's 9:30 pm, and she's sitting on the couch reading, haha.



The kids were all excited about dinner- biscuit nights are not taken lightly around here.  (Yes, biscuit nights- they only pay enough attention to the soup to eat what I give them so they can ask for another biscuit!)  Heart-shaped cookie cutters pretty much made me Mom of the Year, sa-weet.







After dinner, the girls cleared the dishes so Ernie could pass out our Valentine's bags.  I had fun this afternoon writing up Wonder Daddy's cards- this is our tenth Valentine's Day together!  There was a card for each year, with a little about what happened that year, and a little something mushy.  There are so  many things to love about that man.  We've come a long ways in the past ten years.



I had a little something extra made up for Wonder Daddy, too- the kids were mightily impressed!


(chocolate covered marshmallow, chocolate covered marshmallows with coconut, and chocolate covered peanut-butter-smeared marshmallows.  Om nom.  I anticipate he will share heavily, since I made four of each kind.  Or not.  He likes chocolate a lot...there's a reason I call his son Cocoa.)

What fun to have a day just to tell my family how much I love them!  Last year, Valentine's Day completely slipped by me- I was so grateful that my fantastic mother-in-law left love notes for everyone as she left for the airport after her long post-baby visit.  It means so much to the girls to have special days.  (Nana...the girls send hugs!)  My mom slipped the kids their Valentine's last week when she saw them- they've been wearing their special necklaces ever since.  It's just little things.

A Lunch Snapshot

So, I went to bed just ON FIRE last night.  I had great one on one time with E yesterday, everyone had a fabulous and happy day, we were going to start this week off perfect.  Cocoa even SLEPT last night, just getting up at 11:30.

I kind of forgot that my kids still have the choice to wake up grumpy, mumbling, crying, and whining.  Whoops!  They were better after breakfast, but school was a no-go this morning.  After getting through math and reading, I let the girls goof off with playdough and card games, Ernie and I tried again after "nap" time.  Science, handwriting, and spelling weren't a big deal then.

I got the camera out to mess around with the new lens- it's a fixed lens, I can't zoom at all.  The lowest F stop is 1.8, which is pretty low- it lets in a ton of light.  It's amazing for indoor shots, especially here in the gloomy PNW.

Muffin tin lunches for the girls- tried to get a rainbow in there.  (Ernie's native diet is white on white, no matter what I serve.  She finds a way to only eat the white parts.)  Red apples and ketchup, orange carrots, yellow cheddar cheese, green broccoli, and dried plums stood in for all the blues.  Quartered ham sandwiches for E, and bread fingers with honey for dipping for Mimi.  The apples weren't a big hit- I think it's time to cook them, they're getting a bit mealy.  They've been stored since last November.


Cocoa kept himself busy while I made lunch


Of course, it was something I just threw together.  No big dill.  *Sigh*


The girls have been loving the easel lately- I'm loving this little town they drew together.



The classic Ernie smirk.  She pretty much loved that her sandwiches were on sticks.



Poor Cocoa is teething fiercely...by the end of the day, his face was fairly shellacked with goobers, tears, drool, bananas, and whatever part of our frittata he ate at dinner tonight.  One head of broccoli, one onion, a couple handfuls of crimini mushrooms, lots of garlic, lots of pepper, and a goodly amount of spinach, sauteed and bound together with eggs.  E had 3 helpings!  Score one for mom!  E is getting sick again....is it just an end of winter Thing?  Probably has a lot to do with our grain-heavy diet in the winter- they're mostly whole grains, yes, but still.  Girl needs some veggies in her life.  We're working on it- definitely need to get better at including produce with snacks and lunch.  Dinner is normally pretty good in the veggie department, but that doesn't count if she doesn't eat it, right?  Summer is good for her- she loves berries, loves fresh green peas, loves fresh tomatoes.  They just don't taste as good when they're flown in from south america, my kids don't LOVE them like they do in the summer!  My dad's been slipping us huge boxes of California strawberries now that they've hit the stores, the girls have loved that.  Spring IS coming!