August News

August means our month of July with Will is over, and it's time to acknowledge that the summer won't, in fact, last forever.  Fortunately, Will has a soft start back to work, and was still able to come home on the early side most days from work, and even took several Fridays this past month off as well.  But, the turning of the calendar makes it harder to deny that the real world can wait forever.  We made sure to pick concrete dates for friend get-togethers, to make a reality all of our summer fun ideas.  Below, on one of Will's off Fridays we went to the zoo with friends.  With the loss of their mom and my friend still fresh on our hearts, it was soothing to my heart to spend the day with Carrie's boys - at least two of them.  They are a delight and I am so glad that I can continue to be a part of their lives and help to carry on their mom's memory.

We went to the local ceramic studio and picked out items to paint with our friends.  We had a great morning, but had to laugh when the oldest kid amongst our brood went to the front desk and asked if they could turn on the air conditioning as 'the moms' were getting cranky.  Using my kids finger prints to make memorable art was much easier in my mind than it was in real life and unfortunately, the heat, and possibly the hunger, made my patience thread-thin for that part of the project.

We met friends for our annual splash pad gathering and met other friends for a garden scavenger hunt at our local historic mansion's gardens.  In the bottom right hand picture below, I captured a photo of Will walking Violet down an aisle set up for a wedding that was taking place there that evening.  I couldn't help but feel sentimental, but I can guarantee you that thoughts of the future didn't cross either of their minds.

We had play dates and birthday parties...

...and both my brother and my sister were in town from their various out of state homes.  Unfortunately they weren't in town at the same time, but we did make sure to live it up when they were in town.  We also celebrated my mom and sister's birthdays this past month and my sister is probably sick of me telling her and everyone else that I am now officially twice her age.  In the top, right hand picture below, is a picture of me and my sisters, each 9 years apart in age.  It is kind of fun and kind of wistful (for me being the oldest) to see how we age through each of the three decades represented.  Now that I think about it, I'd probably take wistful over scared, which is probably the emotion my younger sisters feel when looking at my representation of the future decades!

My kids had lots of opportunities to practice both their swimming and piano skills (but not at the same time) at our relatives house - they love swimming in our Aunt and Uncle's pool, and playing the baby grand piano at my parents house.

We decided to do an earlier start to school this year, in order to finish up at the same time in June as our friends in public school and not feel rushed.  This is our fourth year of "officially" homeschooling our kids, and it has become a tradition to give their new school books, a fun book, and an educational game to each of them, presented on the couch as a surprise for them to see on the morning of their first day of school. The kids seem to anticipate this with great excitement, and I'd say the excitement for the new year lasts a good full week.  Then, it is just work as usual.  In the right hand (top and bottom) pictures below, I had to go to a meeting for the homeschool partnership they are a part of at a local school district.  I didn't realize how long it would be, and so brought the kids with me.  Their boredom was obvious.

Our first day of school coincided with the solar eclipse this past month, so that also added some excitement to our day.  Unfortunately, the solar eclipse viewer that we constructed from online sources did not enable us to see anything, or perhaps it was the clouds or a combination of both.  Also, I was so worried about one of them looking directly at the sun and not being able to control where three sets of eyes were at all times, that I made them all stay in the house and come out with me one at a time.  Not the most fun group activity, but at least I can say that all eyes are still functioning as they were before the eclipse.  We did all experience the light dimming during the eclipse and that was enough proof that it was indeed happening.

With Will back at work, our laid back mornings with two adults to manage three kids, were no more. Some mornings when it is just the girls with me, it is a struggle.  Someone always gets up too early, and then wakes up the rest, resulting in crankiness and moods.  They do like to tag team their angst which is good and bad.  Good that I never have to manage three cranks at once, but bad in the fact that I never seem to get a break from their moods.  Every so often we have a beautiful morning where everyone is happy and getting along, and on those mornings I make homemade pancakes, and even mini, doll-sized pancakes for their baby dolls to enjoy.  Definitely a morning memory to cherish, and to help me through all of those other mornings where putting clothes on seems to be the hardest thing in the world to do.

Ah, real life.  The mundane and even tiresome, sprinkled with happy.  And sometimes funny.  To me, I can go longer without happy if I can find the funny.  Below are some real life moments where I tried to find the funny in clockwise order from top left: Will home from work and being manipulated by his three daughters, Will sitting in the Panera parking lot because our internet is broken and won't be fixed for another three days which won't help pay the online bill due THAT day, Emma sleeping with her head in the (empty, thankfully) puke bucket after going to bed with a stomach ache, our toaster on fire because I didn't realize there was a piece of wax paper stuck on the frozen homemade waffle I had popped in there, Violet's choice of footwear being noticed by me for the first time in the waiting room at a dentist appointment for her sisters, a spider I found in my bedroom that I took a picture of and sent to Will, trying to convince him it was an emergency and he needed to come home from work now to rescue us from it (I ended up taking a princess dress up shoe and killing it myself with a loud, warrior scream), and finally, a gem from God-know's what that was discovered up Violet's nose after she should have been sleeping for the night but kept coming out of her room complaining that her nose hurt.  We were just grateful that some nimble tweezer skills on Will's part got it out without a trip to the Urgent Care.

The girls earned free ice cream cones from completing the summer reading program at our library, Lucy and Emma biked to the Farmer's Market with Will while Violet and I took the car and met them there, the girls built a fort at the chiropractor's office, and Lucy and Emma had dentist appointments.

We visited my bee hives, picked up a shipment of glass jars for our upcoming honey harvest, shipped items sold in my Etsy shop and even enjoyed a day at Belle Isle Nature Center as a family where I had a table for the Second Annual Bee Fest.

We had such great weather this past month, that there was a lot of backyard play with highlights being frog finds and even a leaf bug that we kept finding around the yard.

One of my favorite parts of August is the peach harvest from our front yard tree.  This year was our best harvest yet and I think in total we had 5 bowls full of peaches.  We ate what we could, shared with friends, family and neighbors and froze the rest to be used in smoothies and maybe some desserts this winter.

 Charlie fell from social graces this past month when we saw a white worm crawl out of his backside. A text (with a pic!) to my sister-in-law a vet, and then some anti-flea and tapeworm meds later, he is back to his old self, but at least with his three favorite kids, he has not earned back his in-crowd status.  The bottom picture is of Will checking him for fleas, which he still didn't seem to have, but apparently you can get tapeworms from eating an animal who has fleas.  A possibility in Charlie's case.  Charlie loves getting his fur brushed, and so had no complaints about the multiple flea checks this past month.

 One weekend this past month, Will tackled building the kids a new and bigger swing set.  Ours was starting to show it's age, as we had purchased it used from another family at least five years ago and now that our kids were getting bigger we were starting to worry about the structural ability of it.

Will planned all summer for it, and priced out the 100% cedar wood (my request as I believe the last swing set was made with pressure treated wood and not good to have near the fruit trees we harvest from) and accessories.  His building went off without a hitch.

 We didn't plan this in advance, but it kind of worked out this way in the moment...

 ...to tell our kids that the bigger swing set was just in time for a new baby brother or sister!  Will hung their swings one at a time, starting with Lucy's, and then Emma's and then Violet's, and then he went and got the baby swing from upstairs in our garage.  The kids didn't get it and each wanted a ride in the baby swing and then asked who was coming to visit and listed off all of the babies in our lives.  Finally, I told them, no one is coming to visit right now, it is for your new baby brother or sister!  The disbelief, shock and awe was priceless and it took several days for them to believe us completely.  I think they started believing us when I started getting sicker and sicker and sicker.  This is my fifth(!!!!!) pregnancy, and I have never been so sick.  There are probably ten foods I can eat that don't make me violently ill, and I have absolutely no energy.  I take turns between being so hungry I can hardly stand it, to then eating, to then being so sick I can hardly stand it.  Hungry or sick but always tired.  That is how I spent my August which each week getting progressively worse.  I've met with a nutritionist to make sure that I am getting the nutrients I need, as my body refuses to accept vitamins.  She offered some food ideas that I hadn't tried before and like a brave sport, I tried making some dairy, gluten, egg and sugar free buckwheat pancakes and graham crackers.  I also attempted buckwheat cooked like oats or rice.  Buckwheat is supposed to be higher in protein, something I am greatly lacking.  When you are already nauseous, adding new foods is never easy, and after several tries, I have given up on buckwheat.  Violet has tried to cheer me up with Play Doh food options, and play kitchen food options.  Bless her.  In the top, center picture below, the girls and I found some baby fabric at the craft store that reminded us of Luke not long after they found out I was pregnant.  We bought the gender neutral fabric, and brought it home to compare it to some fabric we had kept from the outfit that Luke was buried in.  It is very similar and now I just have to figure out what to make out of it for the new baby.  It's details like this that are helping me get through to the day where I get to hold our new baby in my arms and eat ALL THE FOOD again.

Will and I always wanted four kids, and we do have four kids, one of them happens to be in heaven.  This baby, this is our bonus baby.  God-willing, we will have the privilege of raising four babies on earth now and as much as my anxiety is high during each of my pregnancies after losing Luke, I am taking as a good sign that our newest baby is due on the same day that Luke's planned c-section was exactly ten years prior.  If Luke had been born alive, I would have had a c-section to help protect his exposed spine from spina bifida during birth.  It was scheduled for March 17, 2008 which would have been a great day to celebrate a birthday these past ten years.  And although the odds are slim that this baby will be born on their due date, I think it is a positive sign, a kiss from Luke to his littlest sibling, that everything will be okay.