the sleppys

Taylor was spinning on her heel. “That’s great, Taylor! Can you spin on your toes?” And she spun on her toes like a ballerina! It was so cute. She was happy and laughing, and that got the boys to spin. I suppose the natural way to spin is on the heel first because the boys were doing it that way rather than on their toes.

Ty and Taylor both spun to the right, clockwise, on their right heels. Kyle spun the opposite direction on his left heel. He looked like he noticed that he wasn’t doing it like his siblings, and he was clumsy at his attempt to spin on the right. While Taylor’s attempt on her left was more graceful than Kyle’s attempt on his right. Ty didn’t notice the change and kept right on spinning on his right heel until he crashed into a foot locker nearby.

So I learned something about each of the older children today. Kyle prefers his left over right for some things (I wonder if he’ll be a lefty shooter like his Mommy), and perhaps that is why he has yet to decide if he wants to hold the crayon with his right or left. Taylor demonstrates a level of grace and physical aptitude beyond her years except when she’s doing everyday sorts of things such as walking down the hall or getting into her chair. She’ll fall down almost half the time. And Ty, gosh, for as intelligent as he is, he didn’t notice that the other two were changing their directions. Maybe he was just having way too much fun getting dizzy. He can be too silly and too immature for his age sometimes.

Well, I can be grateful that they weren’t growing extra arms.

I read in Wondertime Magazine that babies babble differently when exposed to different languages. A baby who hears French all day has French rhythms and vowels in his babble while a baby who hears Mandarin would have Mandarin rhythms and vowels. I suppose this is true. But for the most part, it’s babble. Well, anyway, Taylor is really starting to talk. She has been talking for a several months, but she articulates now. Obviously, she repeats what she hears most, and all that practice makes it sound like she really knows what she’s saying… albeit she’s the last one to put her pajamas on and declares to the boys, “I beat you!”

Kyle has matured greatly since he turned four. He sits for at least an hour during homeschool. We go over the same tens of pages in his workbook, matching and comparing. He still whines a little more than he ought to, but its less than a few months ago. He puts his pajamas on with more ease. He even helps to clean up in the evenings, picking up and putting away his toys. Up until a few weeks ago, he would just suck his thumb and play with a toy car while Ty was the only one picking up. I would take him by the hand and get him to pick up toys, but he’d start to cry and throw a fit. He is still distracted by his toys when picking up, but I have to remind him several times to continue working. And he’s okay with that.

Ty is learning piano. Good thing, too. What kind of piano teacher would I be if my own son didn’t learn piano? He knows where to put his hands when in Middle C position. G major position is still a bit tricky. He usually ends up in A minor, and his music sounds modal, like a Gregorian chant. Maybe he wants to be a monk. He reads most of the music pretty well. “Old MacDonald” and “Yankee Doodle” are his favorites.

Thursday and Friday (which is what we dubbed the babies) are moving and growing and getting heavier by the day. Thursday turned head down. Friday is in breach position, but how else would two people fit in a uterus? They should be gaining 5-7 ounces per week from now on to end up more than six pounds at 37 weeks. They are each less than two pounds right now at 26 weeks.

Ty, Kyle, and Taylor were all at least one week late and were all bigger than the average newborn. So I can hope that Thursday and Friday will be heavier and come at least one week later than the doctors say that they are at term, ready to be born. A single baby is at term at 38 weeks. Twins are at term at 36 weeks. Do twins mature faster than singletons in the womb? This is what I can conclude when doctors tell me that twin babies can come out sooner – or “be taken” as I hear talk of surgical birth at 36 weeks!

*headdesk*

*headdesk*

*headdesk*

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Ty and Kyle built a cyclops dog out of their Mega-Bloks.

Monarch caterpillar on our milkweed.

Dad bought a few milkweed plants some months ago. They attracted a monarch butterfly who laid eggs which later hatched. We had a total of four caterpillars munch, munch, munching on the leaves, leaving nothing but twigs. The milkweed grew seed pods (the caterpillar is on one of the many pods) that matured, opened, and let the wind carry the seeds away. They have silky, feathery wings that help them glide with the wind. One milkweed plant was discovered in out side yard, which was the coolest sight ever. I remember you when you were still inside your mommy!

The milkweeds grew back their leaves and flowers and are now hosting a whole new bunch of caterpillars. I was oblivious to any of this nature stuff mainly because I didn’t pay attention in school which was located in Suburbia where everybody pulled their weeds and threw pesticide on their lawns.

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After a doctor’s appointment last week, we had to wait about an hour and half for Dad to get out of work (we had dropped him off). So we hunted around for a park and found a great nature trail. It was full of dragonflies. We saw a cardinal, some squirrels, and lots of spiny back orb weaver and banana spiders, all waiting in their webs for unsuspecting prey.

Front to back: Taylor, Kyle, and Ty.
It was unusually cool last week. Lows were in the 50s, highs in the 70s. Very pleasant and weird for mid-April. (The week before that had a low of 74 and a high of 90.) It was cool in the morning. It warmed up just before noon, but the shaded areas were 10 degrees cooler than sunlight areas. The children spent an hour on the playground. Taylor embarrassed a 4-year-old boy by climbing to the top of the monkey bars after the boy chose to climb down the second rim, telling his mom that he was scared. Perhaps the boy doesn’t have older siblings. Ty was afraid of heights at that age.

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Dad and his mom share a birthday, and we had their party here at our house. I made the cake. I made two cakes and layered them with chocolate in between. Then I frosted the whole cake with chocolate. Then I put 99 candles on it. Yes, ninety-nine. The birthday boy and birthday girl were turning ages whose sum was 99. This year, Grandma Kay, Dad’s maternal grandmother and matriarch of the clan, would have turned 99 just three days before.

I didn’t know that one could put 99 candles (and light them!) on a simple 13″ x 9″ cake. It *can* be done, in case you are wondering. Just plan it: 9 ranks by 11 files. Begin lighting the center candles, work your way outward. Get two or three people to help. Use a candle to light the candles, not a lighter.

At the Greenleaf School

Ty is just about to finish his first mathematics workbook, which introduces one-to-one correspondence, addition, and subtraction. We began with a workbook from a different publishing company which was way too involved. Ty needed my help every minute. So now that we are almost finished with this simpler workbook, we’ll try the complicated one. See if that one works.

Kyle has started a preschool workbook that Ty used. I’m not a fan of teaching preschoolers to hold and use a pencil, so he does a lot of pointing and explaining: More and less (and sometimes fewer), big medium small, counting, recognizing capital and lower case letters.

Taylor colors. We have two coloring books with pages of large, solitary objects, and few lines. I put a page down in front of her, and she shreaks in glee of seeing a sheep. Then she proceeds to experiment with colors, asking which color she is holding, and using every crayon in the Zip-loc bag to draw rain on the poor, sleeping sheep. Meanwhile, she tears off the paper that covers each crayon. How else is she supposed to learn what a crayon feels like?

Ty asked a question that I didn’t know how to answer: “How does the crayon put the color on the paper?” If he asked that about a ball point pen, I could have helped him out. So instead of making something up, like, “It’s magic,” which would have been so much easier, I responded stupidly with, “The same way a pencil writes on paper.” He looked at me. “Mommy, you don’t know.”

You’re right, I don’t know. It just happens. The same way birds fly and bees make honey.

Speaking of Birds and Bees
I was flipping through A Child is Born when the Ty the Inquirer asked what all those pictures were. There comes a time in every parent’s battle for their child’s innocence to decide where their loyalties lie. Is it the Stork who brings the babies? Or do babies grow in Mommies? Well, our loyalties lie in empirical evidence. Never has a stork brought me a baby.

So I was honest with Ty. I pointed out the yolk sac of a tiny embryo. I explained how the baby got the nutrients he needed. He asked how the baby is supposed to come out… Through the birth canal, of course. I told him that I had a baby. “Can I feel it?” I put his hand low on my abdomen, and he was satisfied to feel something hard and sort of round.

“Mommy, how did you swallow the baby?” I answered that the baby wasn’t in my stomach. With the help of the book, I showed him where the baby actually was. “How did the baby get there?”

“Uh… Uhm…. Well, uh… I… uh….”

“Daddy put it there!” exclaimed Dad.

Whew. Ty was happy with the answer. Afterward, he and Dad had a similar discussion, man to man.

Taylor carries a doll around and calls it Baby. When I’m sitting on the couch or lying in bed, she brings the baby close to me so that I may nurse it. She doesn’t nurse her doll. She gives it the bottle.

Ty held up his right hand, formed a circle with his thumb and four fingers, and said, “This is an O.” He held up his left hand, formed a circle the same way, and said, “This is a zero.” He joined his hands together, held them toward his face, and said, “And these are binoculars.”

“That’s great, Ty! Where did you learn that?” I asked.

“Daddy has binoculars to look at the moon.”

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The children were watching “Curious George” on the public television station. I asked, “What are you learning about today?”

“Tampons!” answered Kyle.

“Oh,” I said quietly. Tampons? What the crap? Even public television has been ruined by liberals. I watched one of the characters pointing at a pond and saw some tadpoles *Whew* Okay. Much better.

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Taylor opens the “wuhfiduduh” and demands “appa dootz” with her “bethas.”