I have a giant 6'2" 17-year-old. How is this possible?
We did our usual reading of the birth story, followed by opening presented. Zari joined us by video call. I made an almond pound cake with almond buttercream and cherry jam inside the layers. It wasn't super fancy like Ivy's cake--Dio didn't have strong opinions about the decoration. So we dusted gold dust over letters spelling out his name.
School starts again and it's going to be difficult waking up 2 hours earlier than usual.
We had the usual reading of the birth story this morning, then opening presents (this year--a nice 3-piece suit, button-down shirt, pair of shorts, and short-sleeve shirt). Ivy and then Inga had games so half the family was gone between noon and 8 pm.
I went with Dio to change sizes on a few of the suit items, and Inga and Zari came along, too.
Birthday dinner and cake were a bit haphazard since Eric and Inga were still gone. But we all had time for a late move (The Amateur) and we just got home a bit after midnight.
I have TWO TEENAGERS! I don't feel old enough or qualified enough to be taking care of teenagers. I don't feel like I was ever a normal teenager myself--although what is normal, right?--so how am I supposed to know what to do?
Dio had a disappointing day. We had school and work and all the normal things, and I know he would have liked it to feel more special. Plus he didn't like his presents but he felt bad about not liking them. It's tough being 13.
We did our usual watching of his birth videos and reading of his birth story.
Obligatory link to his birth story & videos: http://rixarixa.blogspot.com/2009/04/dios-birth-story.html
Pictures comparing newborn Dio to 1-month Dio: http://rixarixa.blogspot.com/2009/05/then-now-1-month.html
And pictures from the month when he was born: http://rixarixa.blogspot.com/2009/04/
His super-popular breastfeeding video (4.9 million views): https://youtu.be/Jq5dWoOGJbM
Eric and I spent most of the day making Dio a scooter ramp, which he had been asking for and watching tutorial videos of for a while. Dio thinks it's too big so we're going to make a smaller one and then test them both out.
We celebrated Dio's birthday today with a group of his friends. (His birthday is in 3 more days.) Imagine a group of 9 adolescent boys all crowded into our apartment, goofing off and being 12- and 13- year olds. It was fun and noisy and great for Dio, who missed celebrating 2 birthdays in a row due to Covid.
We had planned an outing to the skatepark, despite rain the forecast. It wasn't raining when we headed out, but the rain started and didn't stop for the rest of the day. By time we arrived, the skatepark was closed but a little soccer field next door was open. Eric and the boys and Inga played for a while in the rain, then came back for lunch, cake, and presents.
Normally the party was supposed to end at that point (4 hours in) but then they all decided they wanted to do an archery combat game. It's a 2-team game, kind of like laser tag or paint ball, only with bows & arrows (safe ones, tipped with big pieces of foam). Inga begged to come along and had lots of fun.
Despite very little time, I was able to pull together a skatepark cake with a half-pipe, complete with graffiti. We would have covered the whole thing in graffiti but we didn't have enough time.
While the boys (and Inga) were away shooting arrows at each other, I walked to a furniture thrift store. I didn't find anything quite perfect but it's fun to look. My feet were soaked by time I got home. I'm ready for warmer drier weather! We're still having to hear our apartment and it's almost May.
Dio turned 12. He was so excited to get up early so we could open presents before school and do our ritual reading of the birth story. In fact, I heard him wake up at 6:30 and walk into the kitchen to check the time. Zari reluctantly had agreed to be woken up at 7:30.
We all gathered around and watch the 3 short videos we have from his birth, then Eric read his version of the birth story. You can read it here as well as see pictures and the 3 videos (one immediately after he was born, the rest once we were settled in bed). http://rixarixa.blogspot.com/2009/04/dios-birth-story.html
Then we opened presents: a wireless gaming mouse and a mouse pad. He was super excited. The mouse looks super futuristic and has color-changing LEDs.
I brought Ivy and Inga to school, then went running. I like getting back into our school schedule. I hate wasting half of the mornings, as happens a lot during school vacations.
I showered and headed downstairs to work. Since Eric was still getting ready, I did something super extra messy: I blew out the joints in the rock wall. It released an astounding amount of dust, and I couldn't see more than about 2 feet in front of me. It slowly settled and we both worked on cleaning it up.
We talked through the next steps, but it was getting close to lunch pickup time. I told Eric to go ahead and I'd keep on working. I attached a few pieces of 2x4s to the wall and then cleaned up in perparation for painting that section. (It will be a very shallow cupboard of sorts, where we'll hide the whole-house circuit breaker, the electrical panel, and the communication panel). Then I painted and left it for a while to dry.
I went back down after a late lunch and finished several framing jobs. I quite enjoyed finishing things that had visual progress. I forgot to take pictures, though.
I finished right when school got out...and realized that I hadn't put Dio's cake together. I whipped up a double batch of frosting and got the cakes out of the freezer. I was worried they'd still be frozen, but they thawed in time for dessert. Dio wanted a "surprise" cake that had M&Ms in the middle. And for decoration, I gave him the leftover M&Ms and told him to do whatever he wanted.
Meanwhile Eric did a quick shopping trip for Dio's birthday dinner. And wow, it was amazing!
We ate, in this order:
- octopus & caper carpaccio
- a salad (just for Dio) made partly from ingredients that Ivy picked at the school garden. She spent a long time chopping everything into tiny bits and arranging them just so
- escargots
- white asparagus in cream
- duck breast in balsamic, honey, & shallot sauce
- a really good cheese
- birthday cake
If you asked me, I wouldn't say that having 4 children is much more work than having 3...except my blogging frequency has decreased dramatically from when I had just 1, 2, or 3 children. I've been in survival mode this semester. Exercise? What's that? Sleep? Never enough. Polar vortex that had this Minnesotan quaking in her Sorel snow boots? I've finally come out of hibernation this month.
So Dio turned five. Five! He requested another Angry Birds cake, like last year's (at the end of the post).
Ivy turned 13 months. She has another tooth (#6), a few more words and signs, and is still completely crazy about dogs, cats, and birds. Especially dogs. She's started babbling in what sounds like sentences, usually ending with "dog" or "doggie."
Eating farm-fresh eggs...look at the color of those yolks!
There's something terribly adorable about matching shirts...
During Eric's house-hunting and Sabbatical research trip to France in early March, he found an apartment in old Nice. Fantastic location, good price, lots of potential, and small (officially 700 sq ft but with an extra attic bedroom not counted in the square footage) but still enough room for our family and for guests. Our offer was accepted quickly, and we thought everything was good to go...but the second owner STILL hasn't signed the purchase agreement. It's been almost 2 months.
We're starting to get really stressed because we can't apply for visas or enroll our children in school until we have housing finalized. And, if we don't get a signature soon, we won't have time to get a mortgage (it's a very long process in France, usually about 3 months). So yeah, we have plane tickets for August 1st but possibly nowhere to live.
So let's ignore our possible homelessness in France and admire my children!
Ivy pointing out a dog (it might have been a squirrel or a bird...no matter, she still calls it a dog)
Kind of hard to see with a dress on...let's take it off.
See? Not bad for less than 5 months old!
She can also rock back and forth on her hands & knees.
A quick movie of her today:
Inga
We're working on potty-training Inga. She goes naked bum all day long and has never had a pee accident when she's been naked. She has a harder time pooping, though. She's so good at holding it --because she's naked and doesn't want to have an accident--that she's started pooping only while she's sleeping. But we finally got her to poop on the potty today. She was super excited. "My faire poop on the potty! My did poop four times!" And so on.
Dio
Really good at being cranky, refusing to do things, then finally doing them. Also good at giving hugs and snuggles. Likes to make rocket ships and boats out of scraps from the recycling bin.
Zari
Made her own laptop the other day. The keys even go up and down. It locks shut with leftover pieces of 3M Command Strips.
Started 1st grade (or "grade 1" in Canada) on Wednesday.
Happy birthday Dio! Birth story here, birth photos here, newborn photos here and here.
We had a very low-key celebration with homemade cake and whipped cream. Our "party" consisted of going outside and playing in the yard. Eric and I cleaned up the garden and moved some bushes we'd pulled out with a truck. The kids drew pictures with sidewalk chalked, played with the hose, and "helped" as I planted red onions and lettuce. I didn't even buy Dio anything, since I knew he was getting two presents from my mom and that he'd be too busy playing with those to pay attention to anything more.
Dio has been obsessed with Angry Birds for several months now. It's strange, because we don't even own a smartphone. I have no idea why he's completely enthralled with Angry Birds. I make him Angry Birds items on a near-daily basis: slingshots out of tree branches and rubber bands, angry birds and pigs out of crumpled up paper or tinfoil balls or small pieces of tupperware, blocks out of old cereal boxes. I've even made some angry birds out of felted wool and stuffed with wheat. (Dio left it outside, and a squirrel gnawed it open and ate the insides.)
Dio is loving and silly and sensitive and intense. He can push our buttons quite easily, especially Eric's. My mom says I was similarly intense and overly sensitive when I was little, only much, much worse. Sorry mom. I don't remember any of it.
Now for some Ivy cuteness. She's wearing an outfit my friend Kristen gave to me when Zari was born. I love the little bonnet.
Ivy recently discovered her competition:
It's better to act preemptively.
I get to gaze at her sweet face all day long. Sigh...I will really miss this stage.
When I got back from the Home Birth Consensus Summit, Ivy lost her tiny newborn look. She is a plump, bright-eyed baby now. She's getting better at sleeping without having to be on or right next to my body at night. When she's done nursing, I can scoot her over about a foot away and not worry so much about a pillow or comforter being too close to her face. She's taken the occasional nap on the couch or bed, but mostly stays in the sling during the day. .
Dio turned 3 a few days ago. We just had his party today.
working on it...
3 years old!
He requested a dinosaur cake. I wasn't about to attempt anything like this, so we compromised on a dinosaur egg.
We decided that blue with purple dots was a great color scheme.
Ever since he was a newborn, Dio has had an intense personality. This goes for his happy moods as well as his cranky ones. He has an instant on/off switch, and we never know when he's going to flip from silly giggles into shrieks. As much as the intensity is challenging at times, he can be quite delightful to be around.
His language skills are quite developed now; I love hearing him verbalize his thoughts and observations. And he has the most endearing franglais. When he's trying to speak French, he usually starts out in English and then ends the sentence in French. It takes him a few words to get warmed up.
He's been full potty trained since he was 2 1/2, but he can now go pee all by himself. It's so nice not to have to help him every time! I still haven't switched him over from a crib into a regular bed. We've tried taking him out of his crib, but he's much harder to get down for naps (or to stay put in the middle of the night) when he can "escape." So for now, we're sticking with the crib. Zari hardly ever slept in a crib, except for naps or to start out at night before we came in. Then she went directly onto a twin mattress on the floor.
I think Dio's nursing days are coming to a close. I nurse him just once every 2-3 days. His latch is getting worse and worse, and he's hardly getting any milk out. We're going to be in France this summer, so I might have a nursing party for him like I did for Zari. He still really likes the comfort of nursing, though, and I worry about arbitrarily ending it too soon. I love how he says, "I want to nurse you, mama."
Happy 3rd birthday, Dio. We're so glad to have you in our family!
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