Freddie Fridays (With a Lucy Bonus)

And in honor of my cousin's wedding tomorrow, which Lucy, Maggie and I will all be participating in, I took Lucy for her first pedicure. Here are the adorable results:

Have a fun weekend! I know we will!

No Cure For the Green Thumb Disease

Even though I just had my fourth kid and we have about sixty-eight things going on at any particular moment, I can not help but dream about some freshly picked tomatoes or a salsa made from my home grown tomatillos. So even though we've barely had time to even think about where to plant the garden, I've started my seeds...

And they're taking over. We've got beans, three types of tomatoes, tomatillos, and carrots. None of my poblanos sprouted, so we'll have to try again.

Plus, we have two cherry trees in the yard that are in full bloom, which is exciting! I hope they fruit.

And as a precaution against the deer, we've planted some peas on the deck:

And some strawberries, which are in one of those upside down planter things. I was skeptical, but it was on clearance, so I figured what the hell. Well, guess who has some baby strawberries growing on her back porch???

With everything sprouting and growing and blooming, it's kind of hard to hate on West Virginia these days.

Taken From the Window

This pink dogwood tree is right outside of our living room. Lucy is convinced the blossoms will turn into butterflies.

Easter 2011

Freddie Fridays

Amy Versus the Garage

Things were a little quiet in blogland the past few days. Besides having my brother here for a visit, we had a kee-razy wind storm on Saturday that knocked the power out for most of the daylight hours. Luckily, my parents had the girls, so I only had to entertain Sammy and Freddie during the outage. Fred is easily pacified with a boob full of milk, but keeping Sam happy required a little more thoughtfulness.

It was ironic, really, that the power went out all day Saturday. On Friday Sam asked a ton of questions about where electricity came from and how it was made and how it got into our houses and what uses electricity and what did people do before there was electricity and and and. We answered the questions as best we could, and then told him that this summer we'd camp in the backyard and see what it was like to not have any electricity!

Less than twelve hours later, we found ourselves in the ideal situation to discuss what things use electricity and what things do not.

I felt bad for the kid, because he had just started playing a new Wii hockey game that he been waiting all week to play, when the lights went out. Luckily, in addition to Wii the kid loves the card game UNO, so we played that until I couldn't stand it anymore. And then we got a battery powered lantern and used it to look for things, like coats and shoes, because by lunchtime, we were a little stir crazy. I figured we could go out to Chick-Fil-A for lunch, since they have a pretty awesome indoor playground, and then go and mill around at Target, where I had some things to return. I was hopeful that by the time we returned the power would be restored.

One little problem, though, were our plugged-into-the-wall electric garage door openers.

Now most electric garage door openers come with a pull cord that, in case of a loss of power, you can use to manually open the door. Unfortunately for me, SOB skipped this step when installing my garage door opener in the interest of saving time, thinking he would come back and finish it another day. In his defense, the only reason he was trying to save time was probably because I was standing at the door tapping my foot with a baby on my breast, a toddler wrapped around my leg and two other kids screaming and yelling behind me. However, at that moment when I realized that my garage door was essentially locked shut, well, my memory wasn't so clear. And there may have been some quiet cursing of SOB's name.

After a few frantic phone calls to my husband (who was working) and my dad (who was wrangling my girls) I did get enough information to figure out how to open the door. This would require the use of a ladder, though, which was up on a hook on the wall, just out of my reach. Luckily, I also have a step stool, but it wasn't quite high enough for me to reach the garage door mechanicals. But it was high enough for me to reach the bottom of the ladder hanging on the wall. With great care, I was able to lift it off of its hooks and set it down where I needed it. After jiggling a few parts and pulling out a peg, I was able to deactivate the locking thing and open the door!

All the while, Sam is watching me intently, and occasionally fetching me my phone so I could send irate text messages to my husband.

So now I could get the door open, but for some reason it wouldn't stay open. Later SOB determined that it had something to do with how the doors were hung 21 years ago. GREAT. I tried to think of a way to prop the door open safely enough that I would feel comfortable driving my car under it. Looking around, I saw shovels and brooms, but none of them were tall enough. Then, in a dark alcove, I spied a cluster of things that had been in our yard back in Philly, including an eight foot tall shepards hook that we used to hang our bird feeder on! After some clever positioning, I had this:

I loaded the boys into the car, tucked in my side mirrors, and very slowly, very carefully, began backing up. The last text message I sent to my husband that day said only one word:

VICTORY!

Dan the Man

So my brother was here over the weekend. I didn't get a chance to mention that he was coming last week. Something about parenting four kids or something.

He is getting married on June 3rd, and naturally we'll be heading down to Florida for the big day. However, knowing how weddings are, we don't anticipate spending a lot of quality time with him then. Besides, he should probably be spending most of his quality time with his new wife, right? But since he didn't come home for Christmas this year, it's been a good, long time since we've seen him. After some discussion, we all decided that he should come visit! And so he did!

He got to meet Freddie, or as he likes to call him, Froederick. (Name that movie reference for 5 points!)

And spend the day being the most awesome uncle in the universe!

There was a great deal of laughter and horseplay, literally.

He was only here for about 36 hours, but we managed to do about ten times of what I do on a normal day. We went to Eat N Park, the guys brewed beer, and Dan gave Sammy some hockey lessons.

He read stories, dangled the kids by their feet (having an uncle about 74 feet tall has some big perks), ate some leg of lamb, drank some beer, hugged, snuggled and generally loved on all of the kids.

He also shared some fashion headgear with his nephew.

If there is someone out there who can figure out how to make Florida and West Virginia closer together, they could make a bunch of people, both little and big, very happy.

Losing It

I've never been one of those girls who has lost the baby weight because of nursing. I know several other mamas who practically melted after their babes were born, but my body seems to be programmed to hold onto weight after birth. I guess it's to protect us from starvation in case of a long winter or something. Evolutionary WIN, but pants size FAIL. Plus, breast feeding makes me absolutely ravenous. It's like, as soon as milk starts flowing, my tummy starts rumbling, and if he takes his time feeding, my fingers start looking pretty appetizing.

In the past, I've never had any major motivation to lose my baby weight by any particular time. After Sam was born we moved to Atlanta, and I was so busy packing and unpacking that dieting was the last thing on my mind. Then once Lucy was born we moved back to Philly, and again there was so much going on that I couldn't really focus on losing weight. After Maggs was born I did start going to Weight Watchers again, but then I got pregnant and, well, now here I am with a one month old and a bridesmaid dress to wear in sixteen days.

Yes, I am in a wedding at the end of this month. Talk about motivation!

My dear cousin Laura is getting hitched, and I agreed to be in the wedding before I was knocked up. I ordered my dress early in the second trimester, but I knew it would be dicey. The dresses are from J Crew, and I ordered the largest size I could, but my bust measurements were already pushing the limits. After Freddie was born, I gave myself one week before I even attempted to try on the dress.

You can probably imagine how that went.

Luckily, two weeks later, my boobs had gone from having their own gravitational field to simply humongous, and I was able to get into the dress. Not that it was comfortable or anything. And wearing a bra is pretty much out of the question, because even the thickness of the fabric makes it not fit. I took it to a few tailors to see if I could get it let out a little on top, but there isn't any extra material in the seams to give me some (literal) breathing room.

So drastic times have called for drastic measures.

I've reverted back to my pre-Sam-pregnancy eating habits, which is when I was at the thinnest I've ever been in my adult life. It's been tough, and I frequently feel like eating the coffee table seems like a delicious idea. But after only a week, I am seeing some fairly promising results. So I'm hoping that by the times this wedding rolls around, I'll be able to not only wear my bridesmaid dress, but wear it without crying.

Wish me luck!

Freddie: Month One

Dear Freddie,

Please help your dear mother out. Don't grow anymore. I can't believe that this is the first installment of the last installment of monthly letters. As you can imagine, this is difficult for me. What makes it even more difficult is that you seem to double in size every four days or so. Here is you when you were first born:

And you are the other day, smiling at your mama like it's no big deal:

You're still a little leery of my bigger camera, so a cell phone photo will have to do for now! And while these photos don't quite capture the growth you've achieved recently, everyone who sees you on a semi-regular basis has noticed. My father even though you grew between last tuesday and friday!

Your fingers and toes are insane. Random people comment on how big your hands are. And you have monkey toes for sure. You will even try and grab onto thing with your long toes! Your nails grow at the speed of light, which is horrible, because you don't enjoy having them cut. However, when I don't cut them you scratch the hell out of your face. No fun!

You've had the chance to meet most of your relatives by now. None of my grandparents ever got to meet any of your siblings when they were as young as you, and it was a really special occasion for my grandmother, who beat cancer last year.

You're playing a little here and there. And by playing, I mean staring intently at stuff, looking vaguely amused. It's super cute.

You are a sweet, sweet darling boy. I can't get enough of your little squeaks and grunts, and it melts me inside when you clutch onto my hair, so that when I lay you down you have a few strands in your fists. You smell like baby, and sometimes I almost want to lick your head to see how you taste!

March 23

April 4

You could be sleeping more at night, but you're only a month old, so I'll forgive you. Because I just love you so very, very much, my forever baby.

Love, Mama

Some Signs of Spring

Can You Hear Me Now?

Rump Shakers

So our house came with a whole house sound system. Which totally didn't work. Something about being twenty years old and hardly ever being used. For months SOB inspected, prodded, pulled and poked and the various wires protruding from our walls. After some research, some ebay-ing, and some swearing, he finally got the system working.

And now? We dance!

Tenacious B(elly Button)

Of all four of my children, Freddie's belly button scabby thing persisted the longest. Previously, Sam held the record at three weeks exactly, but Fred's lasted three weeks and four days. This photo was taken yesterday, and today the little brown stump finally fell off.

And guess what? I was sad.

Young Fred is going to be my last baby, and because of that I have been cherishing all of the fleeting newborn things. His little squeaks, the milia here and there on his face, and yes, even the belly button scab.

So even though I've never done so before, I'm contemplating keeping the stump. Gross, true, but my hormonal sentimentality doesn't care. Do you?

New Discoveries

When Freddie was born and SOB went back to work, my parents helped out by taking the kids to stay with them. They took Lucy and Maggie for two days, leaving me with the boys. Then they took Sam, leaving me with the girls and the baby. During this time, Lucy and Maggie discovered each other, and it was amazing!

I think that because we had always referred to Maggie as "the baby" Lucy never considered her much of a playmate. Yes, there were times when they played in the same area, but those were situations where Lucy simply tolerated Maggie. But now? They are becoming friends!

My aunt and uncle bought the kids Despicable Me when Freddie was born, and the kids love it. Earlier this week I put the movie on after dinner, and Maggie and Lucy snuggled up together on a chair. For about fifteen minutes. Then Maggie decided that she needed to be ON Lucy's lap instead of just next to it:

And she stayed there until bedtime.

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Freddie discovered the gymni this week!

And clothes other than pj's!

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Maggie has discovered the power of positive reinforcement. She's been super-sweet with Freddie, and since we often praise her when she's gentle, she takes every opportunity to kiss and hug him. Lovely.

Yesterday, I kept finding her laying on the floor next to a box of diapers. Because I am a busy mother of four, since she wasn't crying I didn't pay much attention to what she was doing down there. Finally, after noticing her down there for the sixth or seventh time, I took a closer look at what she was doing: she was kissing the baby on the picture. How freaking cute is that?

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My older kids have discovered the joys of bowling, thanks to a school field trip.

It was kind of awesome, and all six of us attended, which was even more awesome!

It's been a busy week...How about you?