Charmed, I'm Sure!

 Bobby is already using his youngest child charm to get things done around here, but I'm onto him.  After being told he needed to get ready for his bath.  He says, with his voice dripping with sugar, "Mommy, you are so good at picking out my clothes and always pick the coziest pajamas.  So can you go upstairs and get my clothes for me?"  I was charmed, but not fooled this time.  What a sweetie though!

Another funny story about Bob happened when he was learning place value in Math.  I was explaining how to tell how many tens and ones there are in a two digit number.  After explaining it once, the next number in his lesson was 11.  I laid out the manipulatives.  When I asked how many tens there are in the number 11 he said, "None."  I told him there was one ten in the number 11.  Then I asked how many ones were in the same number.  He answers two and it took me a second to see where the problem was.  There are two "1's" in the number 11!  I don't know how that's never happened before.  This is the sixth time I've explained this.  Maybe we never chose the number 11 as an example early on.  

This is where we frequently do our Morning Time for school.  Brian is still working from home; he came downstairs for lunch and caught this scene on camera.

Sweet Bob

Bobby is preferring the name Bob more and more these days.  I call him all three names, Bob, Bobby, and Robert.  Sometimes I call him Roberto too.

Bobby brought me his erasable tablet because he had written me a message all by himself.  "Mom I Luv You" with the L backwards and random capitalization which made it all the more special.  Unfortunately, one of the boys told him he messed up the word love and so he erased it soon after this and started over.  Then he added the word "DAD and" at the top and started over again when the boys kept telling him things were misspelled.  I try not to squash the efforts of a kindergartner by all that spelling because it has made a few perfectionists not want to even try to write over the years, but I guess it doesn't matter because now all those perfectionists are calling it out before I can stop them.

 Bob and I were recently all alone in the van which is rare because the other boys went camping and we were going to pick up the girls.  Our memory work CD was in and so we were listening to it.  I was saying the poem with the lady on the CD, when Bob says in his tiny voice, "Mom, I really like your voice better for this one."  It may not sound like much, but those kind of comments are the ones that just melt my mommy heart.

Astronauts

One night putting the boys to bed, Bob told me that Judah had nightmares about astronauts.  I thought that was interesting and inquired of Judah if it was true.  With an emphatic No! he explained, "I just don't like anyone to say the word 'astronaut' when I am trying to go to sleep."

Okay then.  Good to know.

We think this is in light of the space shuttle and anniversary of the moon landing happening on Bob's birthday that brought this strange aversion to the word astronaut at bedtime.  Brian knew one of the guys going up to the space station and he expressed a little nervousness as it took off.  We'd been reading all about the moon landing and space stuff too.  Armstrong was one we read altogether about a mouse that lands on the moon and proves it's not made of cheese.

"Mom Stuff"

We cut out early on school one morning, the week before Christmas, to do last minute shopping.  I was looking at something in a department store, and we were near the underwear section.  Bob says, "That's a mom."  And I turned to see who he was talking about.  It was a manikin with just a bra and underwear on.

I asked him, "How do you know that's a mom?"

"She has mom stuff."

His brothers and I shared a good laugh over that reasoning and the term.  Oh, the mind of a three year old boy!

Bob's First Movie Quote

At dinner one night, Bobby turns to me and says with the biggest dimple smile ever and a twinkle in his eyes, "Hey Mom, listen to this.  I've been a baaad boy!"  I then asked him what that was from and he told me it was the man in black from the "Mingon movie" (Translation= Minion movie.)  It was so cute that I've been having him say it for me all the time, although nothing can top the first time he said it with such feeling and expression.

What does love look like?

I have a few quotes and Bible verses posted around the house.  I've been practicing my hand-lettering with some of them.  I was taking one of them down and read the first part of it aloud as I was doing so.

"What does love look like?" I asked

From the other room, I hear Judah nonchalantly reply, "A heart."

The rest of St. Augustine's quote is, "It has hands to help others," but Judah's answer was precious.

Funny Catechism Lesson

This boy!  Drew is fiery, all boy, and great at math and science.  He can be super sweet, but it's in his own timing.  He's funny and always lands on his feet.  I can hardly wait to see what becomes of him, but I also am savoring this time when he wants mommy to tuck him in and "hug him out."  (FYI  "Hugging out" is what we do when his clothes feel all itchy and uncomfortable, particularly when layers are involved.  I hug and rub him down all over the itchy parts.)

I was trying to get him ready for a slightly early First Communion in Florence next September, but when we were recently informed that the Army is moving us this summer back to the states, that plan was squashed.  Our Italy trip was moved up to this January and there wasn't enough time, or maturity, to do it then.  But we are still working on his preparation during our homeschool time in the afternoons.  

One day we were talking about confession and how one of the requirements to go to confession is that you resolve or intend to not commit that sin again.  He said, "See this is why I need my own phone."  When questioned just how that means that he needs a phone, he replied that he forgets a lot and he needs to tell Google to remind him."  

I asked for clarification, "You want a phone so it can remind you not to sin?"

"Yeah, would that work?"

Oh, how I wish it were that easy!  What a creative guy!  I love to laugh with these little people.

The Boss Baby

Somehow this post was written after getting back from the states, but I forgot to post it.

I have a theory.

I watched Boss Baby on the plane ride with Bobby, and I now have a theory that he is the "Boss Baby."  He is super cute and seriously running this house.  We would all do just about anything he asks because he is so stinkin' adorable.  Here are my supporting facts for my theory.

Supporting Fact #1
Bobby started saying, "Turn your face,"  when he wanted you to listen to him.  It was sometimes accompanied with actually turning your face with his cute tiny hands.  How can one resist such a request?

Supporting Fact #2
"I'm busy doin' som-in'" is another common phrase from him.  It sounds so grown up to be coming out of his cute mouth.  That one simple phrase has us "Ooohing and Aaahing" over him and we forget whatever it was we asked him to do.

Supporting Fact #3
Hannah wanted to carry him somewhere and get him out of his car seat and he wouldn't let her.  He insisted that "Mommy get me."  She said teasingly, "Shame on you!" with a wag of her finger and he replied without missing a beat, "No!  Shame on YOU!"  Laughter filled the van and he now loves to say, "Shame on you!" to wrap us all tighter and tighter around his little finger.  No wonder Judah has been throwing such fits!  His dethronement has been rather rough with such tough competition.  The big kids always favor the baby, but this may be a bit excessive.  It doesn't help that Judah's new plan to get negative attention has left him looking rather un-cute.

The Bidet

And yet another out of order post!

One particularly chaotic evening while Brian was gone the week following Mother's Day, we were in the bathroom (most of us anyway) brushing teeth before bed.  I was helping Drew with his teeth brushing and he was standing on the bidet.  Normally, we have a stool in there, but someone had borrowed it for the Foosball table upstairs.  So he's standing on the bidet.  He finishes up and turns to hop down, but he looses his balance and falls flat across the bidet and the toilet.  The bidet gets turned on full force and is shooting buckets of water all over the bathroom floor while Drew screams in agony.  I thought he'd hit his head on the toilet and his shins on the bidet, but he caught himself enough to not hit his head.  I am frantically trying to turn off the bidet so the floods will stop, but it took me a second because I don't actually use that thing and wasn't sure how to turn it off.  Once I got it off, I threw towels down on the floor so no one else slipped and got hurt.  And finally I was able to attend to the screaming child.  He had quite the bruises from this and a giant bump on one shin.

Notice the stool is back!

I felt like it was a scene from Cheaper by the Dozen, only our movie would be called Cheaper by the Half-Dozen, I guess.

The Hut

Our village hangout in the summer is only open on Sundays.  It is a collection of huts with a small menu, a playground, some picnic tables, and some bathrooms.  I'll have to take better pictures of it next time we go.  If we are home on Sunday afternoons, then we always go to up to the hut.  The walk is somewhat long because we have to walk all the way down our steep hill and then back up the other big hill that I see the horses on out my kitchen window.  I can almost see the hut from our windows, but for the trees in the way.  So one might think it is a short walk, but it's a decent walk away.

Brian's godson (and the rest of his family) can with us to the hut the day after our Pilgrimage to Otterberg.  The girls were not in the mood for more sausage and kraut so they stayed home with a sleeping Bobby.  It was a lovely and restful afternoon.  We had beers, brats, and frikadelle (a kind of breaded meat patty) and chatted about all sorts of things.  I embarrassed myself pretty good when I made an off the cuff comment about how I am a sleep Natzi with babies in an entirely too loud voice.  My face proceeded to turn ten shades of red.  References to Hitler or Natzis is something us Americans are normally careful to avoid.  

Judah had insisted on wearing a superhero costume to the hut.  He came over a few times to take care of the baby in his gentle manner.

Our House

Our house is full of fun, full of reading, full of playing, and full of boys.  I am so outnumbered here. 

Boys Playing Trains

Three Bibliophiles

Pan out... Daughter folding my laundry!  Thank God for girls!

Brian brought home four balloons that normally bring much joy to the house.  However, since there were only four and we have six children that desperately desire to hit around a balloon it just brought endless fights.  Two were popped by Judah, who was not a very popular guy for that.  I took a knife to one in a fit of overzealous passion because there had been one too many arguments that day over it.  And there is one remaining.  Somehow it hasn't needed to be popped yet, but I figure it is only a matter of time.  This back story leads me to the time Drew was hiding the balloon from his little brother, Judah.  He hid it behind the couch and then told Judah that he probably didn't want to go behind the couch because there was a "dead body behind the couch."  It actually worked like a charm too which is more concerning since this only reinforces Drew's trickery.  It makes for yet another funny story though.

First Trip to the Dentist for Judah

First off, Drew is getting radiographs (well, blurry ones anyway) and we are sitting outside a couple rooms with the doors open.  Judah walks away from me a little and then walks right back to me.  He says in a toddler whisper, serious as can be, "Mom, I think they killed someone."

I laughed and said, "No, they didn't!  Why do you think that?"

"There's a head in there," he answers with a look in the direction of the first door.

I lean way over to see what he is talking about, and, sure enough, there is a rubber head laying on it's side on the counter.  I think he was nervous about his first dental appointment.  What do you think?

Next, was Drew's turn in the chair.  He told me later that the machine taking the pictures of his teeth was the one moving, not him.  I tried to explain that the machine is supposed to move, but he also must have moved or the pictures wouldn't have been blurry.  He kept trying to re-explain how it was the machine's fault and not his.  Super cute!

Can you see Bobby trying to nab the star glasses?

 Judah watched Drew and the dentist so closely and silently.  Bob played with his cars in the corner.  Then when it was Judah's turn.  He had already decided that he wanted the blue star sunglasses to wear while she cleaned his teeth.   (Drew had picked the plain blue ones.  They are so different.)  When Judah put the star glasses on, Bobby went over and pulled them right off his face.  He is completely obsessed with stars at the moment.  When the dentist walked back in and saw Bob wearing the glasses, she offered the purple star glasses to him so Judah could have the ones he wanted.  Bob cares not about colors, so problem solved.  He wore those glasses the whole time we were there.  When he did take them off he immediately walked up to me saying his trademark, "Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom."  You get the picture.  He says my name a lot, mostly to show me things.  I'd put them back on and he was happy again.

I think I might die from the cuteness!

Only other news about the dentist is that Judah's teeth don't meet because I have been putting off taking away his pacifier (AKA "Bubba") at night because he loves it so much and he is actually excited to go to bed because that is the only time he can have it.  We're starting the talks about giving his Bubbas away to another baby and picking out a toy with mommy at the store to replace it.  Hoping to do it soon, but he just came down with an illness so we'll see.

Pizza in Judah's Bed?

I was woken up at 2:30am by Isaac who said, "Mom, Judah needs you.  He says there's pizza in his bed."  I roll out of bed and about the time I get to the top of the stairs it registers in my sleepy mind what I had just heard.  Then as I open his door I realize what he means by pizza in his bed as soon as the smell hits me.  He threw up in his sleep.  He didn't eat pizza the night before, he wasn't hungry for his dinner so he just ate some veggies and hummus.  Red bell peppers and carrots, to be more specific. Hence, the smell of pizza came from the bell peppers.  Judah was adamant that he didn't throw up.  Someone must have put the pizza there.  So sweet!  After a bath and making him a bed on the floor in my room with a trash can, he was wide awake.  He threw up about once an hour for the rest of the night and by 8am was feeling pretty good.

Two nights later I awoke to the sound of puking.  It was Judah in my bathroom.  The sweet boy has never ever gotten out of his bed in his life without someone telling him he could.  If he needs to go potty he always calls for me.  I had stressed the night before that if he ever wakes up and needs to throw up that he can get out of his bed and go to the potty without waiting for someone to come to him.  I was so insanely proud that he made it to the potty before throwing up.  On the other hand, I was concerned about why he'd have thrown up again when he appeared to be better and over the stomach bug that I thought he'd had two nights before.  That was the only time he got sick that day.  What's worse is that he did it again two nights later, this time in his sleep again.  It was much messier and he had to be sprayed down with the shower head.  He hates that even on a good day, but in the middle of the night he was hysterical.  Poor thing was pitiful.  This ended up being the end of it all, but I was worried about him.  We cut out dairy for a week again to give his stomach time to settle and recover.  He was not happy about that.  I am thinking maybe his stomach couldn't take the dairy when it was already inflamed from the virus.  He gradually started back up with dairy about a week or so later and has had no more trouble.

Judah says some pretty clever, if slightly misguided, things these days.  His new thing to say when he doesn't want to do something is, "I'm three.  I don't understand."  Unfortunately, he heard this from me tell the older kids not to argue with him about dumb stuff because, "He's three, and he doesn't understand."  Oops!

Randomness

Bob's in love with his sisters.  He's been diving for them, calling for them, although he still calls them both Hannah unless we remind him to pronounce that "G' sound.  Sometimes he even wants them over me.  I think it's great, and they do as well until they can't get away from him to do their work or read their own books.  He especially wants them when we are out on trips and he is locked in the Ergo with me all day.  The first chance he gets, he goes to one of them and does not want me to take him back.  Problem is they get so tired carrying him that it doesn't last long.

Guess who got these smiles?  Hannah!

Drew told me the other day in the van that he wants to be smarter than Isaac, Hannah, and Genevieve.  I told him that he'd have to learn to read first.  Reading unlocks all the knowledge in the world.  He is on around lesson 35 in his 100 Easy Lessons to Read book.  He's doing well.  I just though it was quite humorous that he wants to be smarter than his big brother and sisters.

My Judah Budapest, My Hidden Treasure Chest

Happy birthday to my Judah!  He turned three when we were driving back from Gent, Belgium.  So the day itself was a lot of car riding, but we stopped in Tongerin and Banneaux (an approved Marian apparition site) and had cupcakes when we got home.  He opened one present that morning that I brought with us, but saved the rest for the next day since we didn't have time to open gifts and enjoy them that night when we got home.  The gift he opened in Belgium was the Curious George jack-n-the-box that he had asked for us to get him.

This was at lunch in Tongerin after a morning of flea market shopping.

More on this in a later post, but here is our birthday boy in front of the healing springs in Banneaux.

Horrible picture, but this is his water table gift.  Everyone is enjoying it thoroughly, even Bobby.

His 3 year old privilege was to get out of the crib, but since his room isn't really big enough for a full sized bed we decided to take the rails off the side of the crib.  It has been a very easy transition for him.  He knows the rules are that he is not allowed out of bed unless someone comes to get him and he has only once broken that rule.  He got out of bed to get a story to read because he couldn't fall asleep one night.  I happened to be watching on the monitor and I used the intercom to tell him to get back in bed and it scared him half to death.  He jumped and ran back to bed crying.  Otherwise, he just hangs off of the bed sometimes in the morning before he calls for me, but never gets all the way out.

I am going to have a small "party" for him and Drew after Drew's birthday which is coming up here pretty soon.  We have a very busy fall ahead of us, so it's been hard to find a free weekend to do it.  

Judah is good at staying at the table during dinner now and I am letting him sit on the bench and not in the booster/high chair seat anymore.  Plus, he gets to start German kindergarten (AKA preschool) in October and so far he is looking forward to it.  I am hoping Drew will help him out and make it an easy transition for him.

These are best buddies.  

During prayers the other night he asked me, "When Bob dies, can we have a hamster?"  Um, yeah.  At first, I was appalled, then came the uncontrollable laughter, and then Drew corrected him.  "No Judah!  It's 'When Trinity dies can we have a hamster?'"  Trinity is our cat, so that is much more palatable to hear.  It shouldn't be funny, but I couldn't stop laughing writing this post.

All joking aside, Judah truly loves his baby brother and kisses and hugs him so much that Bobby (who is quite the cuddler) pushes hime away and hits him sometimes when he keeps doing it.  Judah is like Genevieve and just can't help himself.  He can't stand the cuteness and must hug and kiss him, no matter the consequences.

Here's a fun little interview with Judah I took a couple weeks before his birthday...

When asked by a friend if he does three with his first three fingers or his thumb and first two fingers, he replied incredulously, "There's no thumb in threes!"  He is a hoot, for sure.

Funny Tail Tales

The girls (who may be my biggest blog fans) told me these two stories were blog worthy.

Funny story #1:

This morning I was getting ready while Drew and Judah played across the hall in Bobby's room.  I heard Judah suddenly say, "No, Drew!  I don't have a tail.  I have a penis."

Funny story #2:

Last night, I was nursing Bob around 3am in his rocking chair.  When I stood up to put him back in his bassinet, I heard a jingling that sounded like chimes.  I tried to look around in the dark to see if I hit a toy or something.  I couldn't figure out where it was coming from, but it just kept jingling.  I turned around many times thinking it was coming from behind me, but never seeing anything.  I thought maybe Brian had hung wind chimes outside his window or something and was about to lay him down when I saw my shadow on the wall, and I had a tail!  My tail was jingling!  I laid him down and removed the little toy monkey with a chime inside from my cozy, fuzzy pajama pants.  Someone had left it in the rocking chair and the Velcro had attached itself to my pants.  Even as exhausted as I was, it gave me a chuckle.

P.S.  Another funny thing that happened was Drew called the frigerator the "frozener" which I love!

And since this post is all funny stuff...

Judah used the dot markers and somehow got it all over his face.

My Adorable Little Pirate

On Thursday at daily Mass, I had Judah in the sling and Drew had walked on ahead to be in line behind Genna on our way up for Communion.   He was bumping into to her with his head (apparently for the fun of it) all the way down, but he was out of my reach and Genna was ignoring it. Well, I ended up right behind him in the line for the blood of Christ.  When it was Genna's turn to take the cup, Drew goes in for another bump.  I grabbed him just in time.

Later on, we had a talk about why it is a bad idea to bump people when they are receiving Holy Communion.  The next day, he brought it up again.  I can't remember what made him think of it, but he told me that we don't bump people in Mass.  I asked him why that was to see if he remembered my explanation.  He said, "Betause somebody might spill Jesus' boo boo on the floor."  Priceless!

Totally unrelated pictures!  This was a week or so ago.  He found these pirate tattoos and wanted the whole shebang on his face.  I let him, but, boy, I had to bust out the baby oil about 5 days later to get them off.  They were some good tattoos.

A Tasty Version of the Gettysburg Address

The girls are memorizing the Gettysburg Address for Classically Catholic Memory.  Isaac says to me one day, "I kind of want to learn the Spaghetti Burger Address too, Mom."

Two year olds are just plain funny.

Drew.
Drew, Drew, Drew.  He's a mess.  He's been my hardest toddler, but, boy, is he charming.  Just the other night Brian called to talk to all the kids.  While Drew was waiting for his turn, he says, "I not know where I'm am."
That's not a typo.  He really talks that way.
I told him he was silly because he is obviously sitting on the couch.  He corrects himself and asks what he was really meaning to ask the first time, "I not know where Daddy is."  Then he gets on the phone and says, "Are you at home, Dad?"  Then he says, "Are you in the phone?"  (Brian must have told him he was at work.  He takes the phone away from his ear, and looks at it all confused.  "How'd you get same phone at work dad?"

Later I tried to explain about the phone.  "Drew, did you think Daddy was in the phone?"
He said that he did.
"Then you probably think Mimi lives in the phone too, huh?"  I asked.
Yes, he did.
I explained about how phones work and everyone has a different phone, yada yada.  His response, "Oh."  (pause) "My band-aid is wader poof.  Hannah toed me dat."
Again, not a typo.  That's my boy.

He's been calling Judah, Babe.  Super cute.  And one of my favorites is when he says, "To the Batcave!" when heading to the bathroom or to his room.