I drove the five hours home on Monday with no older kids and no other drivers and a baby that wants to breast feed every hour or two. We stopped 3 times. One time we stopped for the bathroom. I pulled into a parking lot with a Lowes and a McDonalds and asked Arwen, Susan, and Sam where we should go to the bathroom and they all said Lowes. So we walked through Lowes to the bathroom. The trip took just over 6 hours and Gideon cried the last hour and a half.
The rest of the week, we worked and
worked and worked. We keep coming to points where things aren't going the way we think they should, and we have to change things or go to the store for more wood or supplies or whatnot, so the work is going very slowly. We are still on the roof and I know it will not be done soon. And this week we worked a lot on replacing subfloor near the front door. That will hopefully be done tomorrow. Then we can finish the floor and have our living room back.
Friday is our clean the whole house day. Since we did not have Ruth, Kate, and Rachel and since Johnny and Adam were working on the subfloor predicament, Joseph and Anya had to work really hard. They did a lot of the picking up. They vacuumed. They cleaned the kitchen. I washed the bathrooms, swept and washed the floors and did the laundry and some dusting. Then I let Anya and Joseph have free computer time for all of their help.
My mom and sister drove the girls home. They got here late Friday
afternoon. They came home happy with little treasures my mom gave or showed them how to make. Ruth made her first dress and it came out well. Rachel made some nice bracelets with help from my mom. Kate did not show me anything she had made, but she did say that she washed the dishes twice a day while we were there.
It's nice to have the family back together again. We had fun conversations on the way home from church and at home with all the older kids goofing around together. The little ones are happy to have the big kids to cuddle and play with.
Arwen started picking up books and reading on her own this week. She shyly asked me for permission to read the Complete Curious George book. Of course, I said yes, and she read it a few times a day over several days.
Sam continues to potty train. He has not pooped his pants at all. He has that down. But he pees on the floor more than the potty. I'm thinking that he'll have it down in a couple more weeks. Sometimes he cleans up his own mess, sometimes he just leaves it. We have all learned to become suspicious of anything wet.
We lost another chicken this week. That makes 3 of our birds dead this spring. We have a fox that has a den in our woods. He has killed two of our hens and our mother duck. It's so sad because these are our egg layers and our pets. The kids love them. Joseph particularly. He is always worried and carefully watching over our chickens. He tries to keep them in the fence and herd them back in when they fly over. We all know we are trying to move and that we cannot take all of our animals with us, but it is hard to lose our pets.
Joshua and Anya spent their free time building lego space ships. So legos have been out again. That makes for a tricky trap to get through our hallway, but I am glad that my kids like to build and create things.
Gideon grabs things, gets up on his hands and knees, growls at people, smiles at people, touches everyone's faces, and is beginning to sit without support for a few minutes, and he is just four and a half months old. It makes me laugh at my worries during the pregnancy. He is strong and healthy, alert and very communicative.
Suzy and Arwen got into our duck's pond (it's actually a little hole the kids dug that is usually filled
with rain water) and made big mud pies all around it. I was glad that I saw them before they came in the house fully dressed dripping with mud and duck poop. I stripped them down and sent them to the tub and hung their clothes outside.
John and I had our anniversary Friday. We have been married for 22 years now. I suspect, we will get that many more at least. The older kids were all home. I made fancy cheeseburgers with onion rings for all of us. Then the older kids took over and John and I hung out alone in our room. It wasn't what we planned, but it worked. And John and I enjoyed our time talking together.
Conversation with Sam:
Me: Are you Sam?
Sam: No!!
Me: Are you Johnny?
Sam thinking.
Sam: Yes.
Me: Okay Johnny. Are you going to fix he floor?
Sam: Yes, fix floor.
Me: You will need your tools. You will need a drill and screws and a saw.
Sam: Yes! My tools!
Kate's Conversation with Sam:
Ruth was holding Sam
Kate: Hello Sam
Sam: Hey Kate! I'm with Ruth. It's a girl.
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