jumbles

Baby turned three on Sunday. I'm thinking of calling her Elsbeth. I really like Ermintrude but 

Matt hates it. He really likes Euodia but I don't. Clearly she needs a name because a Baby she isn't, nor Fat. Woe is me. Her little baby shape has changed into a little girl. She uses words and has fine motor skills. Sob.

She got a Pair of Shoes and a sparkly butterfly skirt and wings and a wand.

When I mentioned that her birthday was coming up she said very clearly and pointedly, "Marigold broke my crown." So I bought five crowns and we're all still wearing them.

I'm not much of a believer in every little girl being a little princess bit, but I found it surprisingly pleasant to spend the whole afternoon in a crown myself. It gave me that extra push to just keep going.

She looks sweet but she's pretty bossy and loud. After posing with her new Bunkey she turned and smacked Marigold for trying to touch her Tiny Special Owl. What a beautiful moment.

Elphine has been sewing all the time as if her life depended on it. I haven't had the will or ability to teach her anything so she's been figuring it out herself--threading needles, stiching, everything. She made a dress for Elsbeth's (see, that sounds pretty nice doesn't it?) Unicorn.

Was so so worried that The Bully Elsbeth wouldn't express true gratitude but she was really delighted and Elphine was extremely proud. Elsbeth even hauled it up to bed and slept with it. 

Elphine has also made me a cover for my basically destroyed bible and a tiny purse for Marigold and a purse for herself. It's so amazing. She figured out that if you sew something and then turn it inside out you can't see the seam. Felt guilty for not telling her but she was so thrilled to have discovered it herself. So Binghamton, who amongst you can devote some summer moments to Emma? I even have a sewing machine. And I'll give you a pie for every hour you spend with her.

So now we have a break from birthdays until April, just around Palm Sunday if my calculations are correct. My third quarter for school ends this week and then, if God is nice to us, I think we'll be able to push through and finish all our curriculum before Holy Week. I keep saying that and not believing it, but every time I look through everything it looks like it might really be possible. Of course, Matt is sick, and I  feel terribly unwell, and the kids are all pale and pokey, but that's no excuse to not get into a little extra spelling....and math....and maybe just a little more history.....and some handwriting.....nobody is sick enough to skip handwriting.

Onwards and Upwards!

the party never ends

Gladys is six today.

She seems far too complicated a person to be only six. 

There will be a little surprise Tea for her today to which her "best" friend (this friend is significantly older than her, a person who would likely by you be identified as a Young Lady and who, possibly, has other closer friends nearer her age although Gladys will not countenance this possibility) and other very favorite friend and, sob, all her sisters, have been invited.

Then later we will all eat Salad 

[On Thursday we attended a lavish and abundant Farewell Party in the middle of which was a table laden and groaning with Salad and All that in there Dwell--I know the technical name for a table of this kind is Salad Bar, but that does not indicate the Majesty and Beauty of this Table. Gladys arranged for herself a Salad of such Beauty that she could not, then, eat it. She danced around it. She chattered and laughed about it. She showed it to everyone. But she could not eat it. Instead she gathered it to herself to take home, in the back of the van, necessarily letting it fall face down to the floor.

"Why," I cried out to Matt over the sound of Gladys weeping inconsolably, "on Earth did you let her hold it in her lap in the back?" 

"She asked me if she could," he said, as if granting such a request is perfectly normal and right, as if he hadn't made thirty or forty speeches about the children never being allowed to eat in the car ever.

"Life is a veil of tears, a well of loss, but if you would like such a kind of Salad for your birthday, we could probably do that," I said to her later that night when she was crying again.

"Why is she still crying?" Matt wanted to know.

"Because her soul was in the salad," I said, "just like the unpainted wall at church is an outward and visible picture of the state of my own life, this salad represents all of her."]

for supper 

and cut into a large cake the shape of a Lamb for dessert.

I know. A Lamb? Really? Not the Heart or the Holly Hobby or the Star or the Flower?

No, a Snow White Lamb with Snow White Icing.

Happy Birthday Gladys! May the Lamb make you his own lamb and may you follow Him wherever he leads you.

monday birthday haze

Our big tree out front is not as glorious as it was last year. It seems to be settling in for yellows and browns with only hints of orange and red.

When I sit at my desk in the sun school room I can look through the open front door at the light filtering through and feel like maybe there is a god (just kidding, I know there's a god. Sorry God.)

But I couldn't get a picture that really reflected the light the way it really and truly is so I gave up and just went outside and took two hundred pictures in the way that one does now, fingers barely registering the fact that a picture is being taken. Sometimes I do miss the old formality of taking a real picture, setting it all up and being so careful, because it used to be, in Africa with actual film, that 'there wasn't more where that came from, so be careful'. But then, when I'm trying to just snap one. single. solitary. stupid. little. stupid. picture of a child, I'm grateful for the insane ease and speed of a cell phone camera. 

And I'm grateful that the little bit of orange on my tree faces the window so that as far as I know, sitting at my desk, the whole tree might as well be this beautiful, even though it isn't this year.

And I'm grateful for Matt whose birthday is today. Every year I'm so grateful that he survived his wild and foolish youth and that he's so sensible and alive now. I've been asking for the last week what he'd like to do, you know, for 'fun'. So far he's agreed to eat a whole second egg for his birthday breakfast. Every other day he limits himself to one egg for breakfast, and a tiny cold piece of chicken for lunch. So I can see that today is going to be a day of riotous and unbridled living. Happy Birthday Sweetums! May this be your best year yet!

one luxury and another

Romulus turned seven yesterday.

And so I worked on a contribution for cake wrecks. This is called The Wave.

And then we trundled heavily out to the beach one last time to say goodbye to the spectacular view.

And then we went swiftly to bed so as to be able to be in the car by 4:30am for the 12 hour drive to San Antonio. So here I am, in a really cool and lovely hotel room with a massive tv which has stopped the agonized crying of the children dead in their throats. After this mug of tea I am going to have a glass of wine and ponder the interesting week ahead of me. As for Romulus, he is going to be drinking coffee in the morning because now he is a man. Happy Birthday to him!

7 quick takes, maybe

one
I'm sitting in front of the computer watching a live stream of local Boston news waiting for them all to find the second Boston bomber. The babies are crashing around shouting at each other. Everyone else is asleep, except Matt and Alouicious who are at Bible Study. The anchorette is trying to figure out what would happen to send these two young men over the edge to commit such a desperate act. Seemed like the man next to her wanted to gently tell her not to be stupid, but instead he changed the subject. He's probably married, sensible man.
two
We have watched coverage of this on and off all week and never once have any of the children asked how or why such a terrible thing could happen. Did read the long Auntie Leila post which was very good to tuck away and have on hand. So far there is no real confusion about evil in this house. We know that evil resides in all our own hearts, let alone other people's, and it takes the cross and Jesus to get rid of it. So none of us wonder how such terrible things could happen. But also, they all have the attention span of a flea.
three
Knowing that human beings are sinful is such a restful blessing, don't you think. There's never a reason to cry out to your child as she is sprinkling a whole gallon of sugar all over the kitchen and school room floor, and inside your slippers, 'Why are you doing that!?' Or 'What would possess you to touch the sugar when you've been told thirty times not to!?' Carrying around the idea of a good and righteous human person besides Jesus is too big a burden for me to lug around.
four
On the side of good, though, Fatty Lumpkin has taught her own self the use of the loo. No one wanted to cope with this idea right now, but she seems generally self directed, so there you are. That is my 'potty training' advice. Don't bother with it, it's too much trouble. Just have children who will eventually get fed up enough to figure it out on their own.
five
She is very pleased with herself. She is also trying to keep up with all the talking and language going on around here. She can say ' I don't want it!' and 'mine!' and 'Oh No!' and 'sorry' after sinking her sharp teeth into your upper fleshy arm. Marigold, on the other hand, is learning the glorious art of manipulation, 'I just want to be with you today, Mommy,' she said on Sunday, her eyes wide, her fake smile fixed. Yesterday she came in and announced 'Baby is pouring sugar on my own daddy's floor.' Then she said, 'Let's take my own dog for a walk now Mommy.'
six
I can't believe how the week got away from me. It was one of those spin around in a circle accomplishing nothing kinds of weeks. Are we supposed to go forward in a line towards something? I hope not.
seven
Alouicious did turn nine last Sunday. He got his birthday prayer and sticker at church and then had lots of friends over after for pork and crepes and salad and then cake. It's hard to believe he's that old. I suppose by the end of the year he and Elphine will both be taller than me. Stupid children, growing up.
Have a great weekend and pray for Jen and her family!

pictures of ermentrude

  

Ermintrude received 'skinny jeans' for her birthday. She got all ready to go out and then lay herself down on the bed and shrieked for ten minutes or so.  

Then she was mad at me for taking a picture.

Aren't her boots  cool? 

And here is her cake. Chocolate with pink icing and kisses on the top. Basically she licked all the frosting off and then ate the candies and then got down and threw her new blocks around the room.

ermintrude turns two

Shocked by the horrific cold brought about by dressing up in a huge puffy pink snow suit, boots, hat, mittens and scarf and standing in the true nightmare that is a foot of snow for three and a half minutes, Big Fatty Lumpkin is this moment siting on my lap piercing the otherwise relative quiet with shrieks and trying to shove both her plump fists in her mouth to warm them up. I agree with her. Going out there is a bad idea. The wind, the ice...it's just not that pretty.

Instead maybe, once she's recovered, she can help me do laundry and then have a lie down while I bake some kind of cake.

I'm fairly ambivalent about this birthday moment. On the one hand, the sooner a baby stops being a baby the better, otherwise we would all die from never sleeping ever. On the other hand, it would be nice if she would slow down for a few minutes and not rush from one stage to the next. She's trying to keep up with the others. She doesn't want anyone to do anything for her. The moments of sitting on my lap sucking on her fists are becoming more and more rare. She weighs the same and is nearly as tall as Marigold. Only her fat cheeks and fat neck and cry give her away as a whole year younger.

So, congratulations to you, baby Ermintrude. This may be the year we stop calling you baby and start calling you by your name. Or, perhaps not. Perhaps one more year of being Baby.

happy birthday to me, I'm 100 and 3

So starts a ghastly song made up by the children last year. It goes on

And I'm still in pre-school
And I want my Mommmyyyy.
But my Mommy's at work
And she gave me cheese pizza
And I want my ice-cream.

All sung to the tune of 'Happy Birthday'. They sing it loudly all year. Fortunately for me, I haven't heard it once today, even though it is my birthday, because Five, read FIVE, whole Kennedy children are up swimming themselves silly at a little cottage on a beautiful lake. The baby only remains to me for the rest of the day and she is napping.

And so, to celebrate the quiet and the occassion, I'm going to make

jam

bread

pie

and

cake.

And then I expect I will be so exhausted I'll have to have a lie down.

Here is me, having lived through another year.

Clearly, to maintain my girlish figure, I won't be eating the jam nor pie nor cake nor even the bread, but I will smell it and look at it feel sad about the impermanence of life due to the terrible ravages of sin in the world. That's the sort of thing I like to do on a birthday. Given an empty jar and a dead balloon, I will happily put the balloon in the jar and take it out again and help everyone around me to see that life should be taken seriously. A foolish man jumps about and sings and eat cakes, but the man who mourns on his birthday isn't surprised by anything. Isn't that in the bible somewhere?

elphine turns ten

Elphine turns 10 today and has been up since 4:30. She is the one child that sleeps till at least 8am, sometimes 9. It breaks my heart to find her banging around singing and smashing up the general peace and its not even 7 yet.

Matt looked reproachfully at me just now as I screamed for the seventh time, "stop kicking me in the head! If you can't be still go back to bed!"
and whispered, "when I was a child and woke up at four on my birthday my mother got up with me and gave me whatever I wanted."
"Well she's not here is she!" I gurgled in despair.

Now, at least, I've had that vital first cup of oolong and can begin to emerge from the shattered recesses of sleep. After I post this I have to begin to shove us in the car to go up to a small lake for the day. I've made what looks to be awfully like Hot Pockets but they taste a lot nicer. "Call them Satchels" said Matt, ever helpful. Ham, Cheese and Potato, Pepperoni and Cheese, Ham and Tomato. And then a lot of little tiny fruit pie bites--blueberry and nectarine.

"We need to make brownies," said Elphine surveying the vast array of bread and pie after we had put everything away.
"!! What!?" I said.

She's being given a bike and some dishes and a black skirt and shawl (! I know, I have no idea!). Yet again she goes without An Old Fashioned Doll because none of us can figure out what she means and sort out a way to acquire such an object.

And now, if I don't arise, there will be no hope for my child and I will loose my mind. Pip Pip.

quick birthday takes

one
If I was going to start a new blog (which I'm not going to do) I would call it My Obese Cat. But then I would have nothing to say because everything is contained in the title.
two
Today is my Mother's Birthday!
Happy Birthday Mother!

Earlier in the week she made a gorgeous dinner for us and my aunt and uncle from Norway.

 The salads were beautifully abundant enough to feed us for a whole week. 

But we ate them all and then ate Zanzibar Chicken (unphotographed) and finally chocolate pots.

 

 And Elphine made brownies AGAIN!

 The dogs lay about hoping for food to rain down, upon the place beneath.

 

three

And then, because... well....when Landers gather together inevitably the subject of my late grandmother's unfortunate habit of crochet rears its startling head, my mother put on the famous purple teacozy? or is it a hat? And she and my aunt talked Lander Legs, Lander Arms and Lander Hearts.

Anyway, today, in furtherance of the festal birthday, we're going to go to a local park with a lake to pray against the scattered thunder showers. Elphine made brownies YET AGAIN for our lunch and we'll probably have some other nice things. And while we do that
four
the fence will be going in!
The wood is here, the cement mixer is here, the massive post hole digger is here. And we will be here except for when we're picnicking. SO Exciting!
five
Also very exciting and wonerful, albiet boring to all those whom I love, is that I got my quarterly and end of the year home school reports in on time. Not only so, but I've put serious time and energy into next year's plan, both calendar and curriculum. The glow of well being and accomplishment is only slightly softened by the large pile of other work sitting on my desk and in my heart--like going over our Sunday School program with a fine tooth pen.
six
Also, I need to wrest out of the grubby grasp of the baby some horrible birthday card that, when you open it, sings 'Winnie the Pooh, Winnie the Pooh, tubby ol something something'. She was rewarded in her twice daily dig through the waste paper basket ("STOP THAT BABY" the whole world yells as she hones in like a remotely controlled Obama drone) by finding this card which sets us back days and days in the breaking of this vile habit.
seven
And that, dear friends, is the substance of my life. If I don't get up and start finding sunscreen, hats, umbrellas and food, these children will rise up as one and fling me into the Susquehanna.

Go check out Jen!

happy birthday alouicious

Alouicious is eight today. Bless his heart.
He's been up since 6 bouncing around our heads whispering in our ears that he should be given a present. One whole present. An expensive terrifying present. A present that's going to need parental controls and probably a heavy duty protective case so that when his nasty little sister picks it up and flings it on the floor it has a chance of survival.

That's right, the only thing he wanted for his birthday, and the only thing he's going to get (just kidding, he's being given a bike too, blast his incessant growing) is a
Kindle Fire.

May God have mercy on my soul, and his.
So, obviously, I can't sit here and describe for you all my feelings and thoughts and insights. If I don't get a move on and wrap that sucker, this child will have some kind of break down. And I guess I need to bake a cake, and for supper he's requested 'Fancy Pancakes', in other circles known as 'Crepes'.

Happy Birthday Alouicious. Now that you have your own internet connection you can probably read this. (sound of weeping, sobbing and general distress as I take another inch forward into a life where my children are sentient and ever more involved in my life)

Lady Elaine

I'm here to announce the blog name of The Baby. She's over a year old now, gasp, and fat fat fat (for us) fatty fat fat and fairly thuggish in her manner and sense of entitlement. For many weeks I have been hovering over the 'publish' button to announce that she would be called Honoria, in honor of that solid outdoorsy girl itching to do Bertram Wooster so much improving good. There's just something about this jowl cheeked baby that whispers "solid, thick ankles, pushy", the belligerent gleam in her eye, perhaps. But as everyone knows, 'Honoria' does not begin with the letter 'E', and so we would have been breaking a long standing and deeply held tradition up here in grey-skied Binghamton.

And so, as one looking to the future in which it might be expected that this solid child will slim out and become more delicate and nuanced in her management of all the people in her life, I am picking a name she might possibly love, or at least the romance of which she will love.

I hope you will join me in congratulating her on finally having a named place in the blogosphere!

Cake

 Unwrapping a great big doll.

 Elphine and I, blowing out her birthday candle.

 ribbons and pretty paper

 deep deep concentration

a month in pictures

October was really horribly busy. As usual I always think we're going to be so calm and happy at the beginning of every month, and then we end up doing an insane number of things.
Early in the month, a very wonderful friend came from church to do a little bit of Chinese drawing.

 Romulus worked very hard the whole time.

 So did Gladys.

 It turns out to be rather difficult to control the brush. Especially if you talk more than draw.

 And then you have to work very hard to unlearn how to hold the brush.

Then, we did have at least one bath over the course of the month. Really grateful for the double sink.

 And Marigold continues to climb and get into absolutely everything she's not supposed to, like the kitty food, or my makeup, or spices in the kitchen, everything in the bathroom etc. etc.

 And the baby learned to climb up stairs this month. And to stand alone.

 And then Matt had a birthday. Here we all are waiting for him to blow out all 40 candles.

 It took a long time to light all the candles.

 You can see he was excited to have a thrilling party.

 And then Gladys turned FOUR mere days later.

Here she is waiting to go out to lunch with her dad.

 And then we had more cake and ice cream.

(A la Kim Kardashian, she changed her dress for each event. #ThingslastinglongerthanKim'smarriage This party. BWHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.)

 After cake princess dress. Note the beautiful pink icing.

 And then we painted the school room. It's NOT mustard. Its saffron.

 How saffron it is.

 Or maybe turmeric.

 Then Marigold turned TWO!!!

She was given some lovely hair clips which she wanted all in right away.

 And a princess dress, and a whole lot of dolls dug out of the doll bin downstairs wrapped dubiously by her adoring brothers and sisters.

 And then she was SO pleased to have candles to blow out! 

Honestly, she looks so sarcastic all the time, it was surprising for her to be so obviously happy.

 

 Gratuitous baby.

 And then it was Halloween, or Reformation Day, whichever you like better. We celebrated the German Reformation Day on Sunday with Sausages and Saurkraut and beer. I hope next year we'll celebrate the Swiss Reformation with fondu. Anyway, we didn't take pictures because we were just eating a lot. The next day was an endless day of costume finding and general freakouts.

 The traditional Chili Pepper. First you're a chili pepper, then an Angry Bee, then whatever you can find out of the dress up box.

 In this case Romulus was Peter from Narnia. He is nearly every day.

 Alouicious was Batman, with hot chocolate and a large bag.

And then we had a lovely visit from one of my college roommates, of which I totally neglected to take any pictures. But that was technically November. Gasp.