the sleppys

Skyler came over this evening. A Prairie Home Companion was in its second hour. Earlier this afternoon, Ty saw Abdullah, the boy who lives five houses down, riding his bike to our end of the street. Ty asked us if he can go out and play, but Abdullah’s parents were with him. We told Ty that he was taking a walk with his family. Ty remembered he had friends and couldn’t wait to play and race and talk with them. So he persistently asked if Skyler could come over. Daddy made that happen.The boys and girl were having a good, loud fun while playing with each other. After a while, the babies went to sleep, so I asked them to keep it down. Skyler saw that I had a wound on my foot.

Skyler: You have a boo boo.

Myself: A what?

Skyler: [laughing] A boo boo!

Myself: What’s a boo boo?

Ty: [laughing] It’s a wound.

Skyler: Yea, a wound.

Ty: A boo boo is another name for wound.

Myself: Then just say wound.

Skyler: You have blood.

Myself: [totally overreacting] I have blood!! Oh my goodness! [quietly] What’s blood?

Ty: Well, uhm, it’s when you have a wound, and it comes in all shapes and sizes. No, no. It’s wet and then it stops. It dries.

Skyler: Yea, it’s like water.

Myself: So it’s a liquid that appears when you have a wound. What color is it?

Skyler: Red.

Myself: So blood is a red liquid. But what’s blood?

Skyler: Well, when you have a boo- [laughs] I mean, WOUND, you get blood.

Myself: Oh, only on my foot? Sometimes I see blood on my knee or my fingers.

Ty: You can get blood any where you get hurt. On your feet, your body, your elbows.

Myself: [astonishedly] I can get blood on my chest?!!

Skyler: Yes! Well, that’s where your heart is, and you heart makes blood.

[Ty rolls his eyes because this sounds ridiculous.]

Myself: Your heart doesn’t make blood? Who told you that? Your BONE MARROW makes blood.

Skyler: Yea, your bone ma- what’s did you say?

Myself: Inside your bones, you have bone marrow, and it makes blood.

[They were all quiet and confused].

Myself: But if your bones make the blood, how do get blood on your foot?

Skyler: Because, uhm, you are shaking a lot. Like… [he gets up and jumps up and down quickly.]

[Ty shakes his head and smiles.]

Myself: In your bones, you have small tubes that take the blood to your heart. Your heart pumps the blood to your lungs to get oxygen. The blood then goes back to your heart to get pumped to your muscles and skin and other organs so that they can get nutrients. And you have blood under your skin.

Skyler: Yea!! I knew that! You have blood under your skin. I was trying to tell you that about the tubes!
Ty: Like the tubes in the cow bone?

Myself: Yes, they are arteries and veins. But… [clear my throat] What’s Blood??

Skyler: It’s red lquid.

Ty: I know! It’s a red liquid… that [slowly] takes the vitamins… and nutrients to your, no… it takes nutrients ALL over your body.

Myself: Right! It’s a red liquid that takes food to your cells. And it takes out the garbage.

Skyler and Ty [together]: Takes out the garbage?!

I’m really behind… on the laundry. It’s getting washed but not rinsed. It’s getting dried but not folded. I have two or three or seven loads (if you count the diapers) that are in different stages of being laundered. I’m really behind on the sewing and the straightening up after myself and the straightening up after the children. Their room is a bear pit… because I’m an expert on bear pits. Speaking of pits…

Kyle is constantly singing “Come Join Us.” He puts his fist to his mouth, pretends to hold a microphone, points to his crowd, and sings the song pretty clearly considering that I can’t keep up with the lyrics and that he speaks like a four year old. I’m just waiting for him to throw himself into the mosh pit that isn’t there.

The three older children and I made signs to hang from the doorknob. We made only one, “Shhh… Baby sleeping” on one side and “Boys Only” on the other. Lambs, trains, prams, and button stickers decorate the baby side. Helms, swords, flags, and shield stickers decorate the boys’ side. We hung the sign on the doorknob to warn perspective intruders from interrupting the babies’ sleep.

Kendall pulled herself up to standing on Thursday. Her feet were more than shoulder width apart. She was in the playpen, wanting to get attention.  As with our older children, we let her get frustrated and angry enough to push herself upward. She did it again on Friday in her crib, but she wasn’t nearly as angry as the first time. And all day on Sunday, she was crawling up to my pants leg and pulling herself to standing. Talon pulled herself up yesterday, Monday. A baby seem so big, so mature, so strong… until she stands! Then we realize that they are awfully short and weak and mostly helpless.

We started feeding them carrots a few weeks ago. It keeps them happy for about an hour after they wake up. Kendall seems to enjoy it more than Talon does. They started on rice cereal once a day on Saturday. Yes, they are a little old at starting solids (7 months), but their development can handle new gut flora now. We’ll wait a few more weeks before introducing another food. Rice and carrots are a good, safe start. Maybe peas, too.
It’s a shame that the Daytona 500 race got cut short. I’d rather see the trophy’s being won on a Monday night than seeing the race’s being called because of rain. We’ve seen races that were red flagged for hours before they continued.

This one has to do with work: I go to students’ homes to teach music. The second worst part about my work is the traffic. The very worst part about my work is getting through the guard gate of the closed-in communities. I have only one student who lives in a gated community. Sometimes, I have more than three. Sometimes, it’s a 20 minute line. I understand why people want to live in gated communities. I don’t approve of it; I think it’s a step backward… or several steps backward. We lived in gated communities when we founded Jamestown. Just a thought.

On Saturday night, Dad, Kendall, and I went into the van and sat. And sat. Talon was sleeping in her crib. Taylor napped on the couch. And Ty and Kyle were patrolling. Yes, patrolling. They put their boots on their feet. They hopped on their bikes. They turned on their flashlights (because the sun had set an hour before). They set their radios (walkie-talkies) to the right frequency. They patrolled.

First, I have to explain “patrolling.” It’s usually something that we do in the daytime. The boys get on their bikes, and Taylor walks alongside my pushing the stroller and carrying a baby in the sling. We take a walk around the neighborhood, paying attention to the cars going by, the cars parked in people’s lawns, the dogs that bark too much, and everything that’s in out immediate environment. The boys have their radios so we can communicate how far they can go. I don’t like not being able to see them when they go around corners. Or sometimes they go too far if there isn’t a corner. If they are too far, I cannot save them from attacking dogs (which I’ve done before… well, the dogs weren’t “attacking” but they were barking and running, and that’s enough!)

During our Night Operation, Dad and I sat in the van that faced the sidewalk, listening to “A Prairie Home Companion.” We maintained a line of sight on the boys and turned on the high beams when we saw other cars going up or down the street. Perhaps it startled the drivers, but it also assured them that the children on their bikes were being supervised. The boys rode to the fire hydrant, which is a little over a hundred yards away. Over the radios, we heard another party’s communication on the same frequency. It sounded like they were getting pizza… and something about a lady named Amy. Must have been code for something.

We would have taken pictures of the boys, but it was too dark. Only two specks of light would have been caught by the camera. They did go by houses that had their front porch lights on, so we could see them. And the air was so clear and still that we heard their squeaky wheels and high-pitched laughter from afar.

We were out there for half an hour. The last ten minutes, the boys dismounted their vehicles and went foot patrolling. I don’t remember if Kyle took off his (Dad’s, actually) hockey helmet for that (some would argue that it’s his security blanket). They both were so cute and tough-looking, wearing their weatherproof boots that they got for Christmas. Kyle wore a pair of my striped socks up to the top of his knees (those socks reach the top of my calves). They maintained communication of their radios. Ty told us that they had “reached the part of the sidewalk that makes the bikes go ‘tuh tuh tuh tuh tuh,’” which means that they were in front of the house that has a crazy paved driveway – like cobblestone or sampietrini but not as ordered.

At eight o’clock, we went inside and watched the car race.