the sleppys

I don’t know when they started doing this. It was either during or immediately after blinking. Both Kendall and Talon, who are two and a half, climb up the “monkey bars,” which aren’t your normal playground equipment but are metal bars and poled fixed in concrete. They stretch their arms up to the second bar while standing on the first bar, which is only about two inches off the ground. They each climb in unique ways but both end up with their feet on the second bar and hands on the third. It does scare me, but I recall Taylor’s ability to climb those bars when she was about that age, maybe even earlier.

Taylor is among the population here that can maneuver straight across the bars at the top. Originally, the structure was a shed, with canvas draped around the bars, so the top is the roof. Sometimes she cries for me when she finds herself stuck at the top, but I simply tell her that she has to get down. She always finds a way down where I don’t have to touch her, not even guide her steps. She just needs encouragement, and she finds a way.

She has also acquired the beading bug. Well, the arts and crafts bug. She’s always been a pretty good artist, in my opinion, chosing crayons over colored pencils. She once drew herself walking with Daddy, holding hands, toward the van, and looking at each other. One can clearly tell that she was looking up while Daddy was looking down. I think that’s pretty amazing. She’s now into beading and jewelry making. I finally found a good elastic material that doesn’t fray as the bead is inserted.

Kyle is playing the piano behind me. He’s using the book that my brothers and I used for piano lessons, the book that Ty used. The same exact book. My name is in it along with the dates that I learned the pieces. My brothers’ names and dates are written in, too. Ty, well, I didn’t write Ty’s name. I’m thinking I should have. Anyway, he’s preparing for a recital in the spring. He’s going to play “Hunting Song” and…. well, I’m still not sure what else he’ll play.

Ty is learning the “Star Wars” theme on the piano. He reads music better than I did at his age. He doesn’t practice as much as he should, being that it’s a difficult piece, but when he does play it, it sounds about what it should.

He’s also teaching himself third grade maths, including equivalent fractions and mixed numbers. I never know what to give that boy to challenge him. His cursive is perfect. His narrative paragraphs are descriptive. His knitting is a little tight, which is his only current flaw. That, and he likes to take initiative and do things his own way, which are not the way he was instructed.

I love that the play “Hide and Nature Seek.” The three older children are so sweet and fair with the young twin girls. Well, not always, but for the most part, they let them win or make it easy to find them or something darling like that. And other times, they fight the way siblings do.

ANNNND….. we have built our portfolio of English, American, and German folk songs:
Seven Joys of Mary
Greensleeves
Wayfaring Stranger
Blue Tail Fly
Fiddle Dee Dee
Ballad of the Boston Tea Party
Hopp, Hopp, Hopp
Bakke Bakke
O Tannenbaum
Es war eine Mutter
Ich bin ein Musikante

I think our next song will be “Swanee River.” I just have to find and write down the verses because I know only the piano melody.

They also sing solfege, the octave, third and fourth intervals along the octave, arpeggios major and minor, and chords in solfege I, IV, and V7. I’m so glad we home school. I can’t imagine how ignorant they’d be if they went to government school!

Nearly two years ago, our washing machine stopped working. We threw it out and washed clothes by hand for many months. The most difficult part of washing clothes by hand is wringing them out, so with President Bush’s stimulus check, we bought a wringer. It was working well, and I had an efficient system of washing diapers, clothes, and linens. The boys would help each other wring the babies’ diapers (which are flat pieces of cloth) and their own t-shirts. We acquired a second-hand washing machine some months later and completely forgot about the wringer and the hard work it requires, so we relied on that for a year (though not as systematically) until it finally failed on us.

The clothes started piling up, and I finally hand-washed a load of laundry, using the wringer from the mop bucket to wring the clothes, but it didn’t do a great job and left the clothes dripping on the line, which made the drying time twice as long. I couldn’t use the appropriate wringer because it wasn’t latched onto a table or sink that is sturdy enough to keep the whole apparatus from wobbling. If a pair of jeans is going through the wobbly wringer, they are going to be stuck in there.

Dad took the washing machine out of the utility room and set up our new washing station.

Well, okay, it’s the wringing station. The washing station is… a secret operation.

On the first load, Talon helped me by handing me an article of clothing. She didn’t touch the wringer at all, and I made sure that her little fingers were not in close proximity to the rolls of the wringer. She was busy getting herself wet from the wet clothes. So, sorry Talon, you’re not going to “help” me again any time soon.

********
Oh, yes, we also make our own laundry low-sudsing detergent:

1 bar soap, 4-6 oz (Castile, Fels-Naptha), grated
2 cups Borax
2 cups washing soda (we use Arm & Hammer)
1 cup baking soda

Mix it all up and use 1/4-1/2 cup per load as powdered detergent.

I was telling a mother of two girls that Ty went to a boy’s birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. At three years old, he clung to Dad’s arm for an hour before he sat by himself in the booth. The other children ran around and played. He was still, quiet, observant, and no more than four inches away from Dad the entire time.

“Wait until he gets to the real world!” exclaimed she.

A young public schooled boy asked me why I home school our children. He mentioned that his school was a good school. He also talked about a family who lives on his No Outlet street with five children who are home schooled. Without waiting for my response, he said, “The mom does that because she’s afraid of the world.”

“Oh, is she?” I wondered where he got such an idea.

“Yea, and her kids are never allowed to come over.”

I didn’t answer the boys original question because he obviously didn’t want to hear it and because I didn’t want to get into topics such as parental influence, abdication of responsibilities, and low quality government workers with a nine year old boy.

On a Teacher Work Day, Dear Husband was at Target when he overheard a mother’s telling her children, “This is why I shop while you are at school, so I don’t have to put up with your misbehavior.”

Yet… our children give a proper greeting, hold open the door, give the right of way to elders. When prompted, they give up their seat for others. They sit quietly at the bank, and stand in single file when I’m shopping. They are children who forget where they are sometimes, so every once in a while, I have to call attention to them while in public.

Do we not ALL live in the real world? A successful bachelor banker doesn’t live the life that a single mother of two who is on the dole lives, but they both live in the real world. What exactly do people mean when they mention “the real world”? If it means gangs, drug pushers, and people of questionable values, the sexual education of young children, loud music, video games, and high fructose corn syrup, then, by the power invested in us by God Himself, we will strike it down with our flaming swords!

But it is all in how we treat people and to what we are accustomed. Ty’s clinging to his father for an hour is a representation of how we chose to live, where we chose to go on our free times… the library, the park, the wilderness, places that harbor mostly quiet (the real world). When Taylor accompanies me to my trips to the fabric store, she stays close to me, on the right side of the walkway, with her voice down, exhibiting behavior that is lacking from other four year olds. She’ll get a little shriek in her voice when she sees a pink, glittery fabric that would be perfect for a tutu. In our “real world,” Kyle greets the grocery store’s security guard and cashiers with a hearty “Good Morning” and stands aside when a stock clerk has to make his way down an aisle while pushing a filled cart.

We, Sleppys, are not afraid of the real world. School cannot be counted on to do what is clearly a parent’s responsibility, which is to teach a child how to treat others. NOT EVEN CHURCH will teach them that. We, Sleppys, already live in the real world, day after day, guiding, teaching, encouraging, witnessing to, sacrificing for, correcting, and molding our young breed.

Just you wait until *your* children get to the “real world.” Wait to see how shunned they’ll be, classified as rude, crass, grotesque, tasteless, loud.

(Aside, Talon loves wearing her brothers and sisters’ boots. They are so big on her, so she stomps around the house, looking like Link in Iron Boots. Totally adorable.)

We woke up this morning and immediately started writing down our time table. That’s Time Table, as in, Time. Not multiplication. For the most part, we stuck to our assigned tasks at the assigned times. I started the cakes a little too late, so I finished them later than planned. The children helped to clean up the house. I swept more than a few times because the floor just couldn’t keep clean. We ate lunch, rested a bit, and continued our cleaning.

My aunt and cousins were visiting from out of state. They came down with a family friend and my maternal grandmother who was visiting them from another country. My parents offered them lodgings in their house in the city. Being Kendall and Talon’s first birthday, we asked them to come down today to celebrate.

They arrived at our house at about 6:30pm. We talked and watched the boys sword fight. I, once again, defended my child-led weaning beliefs. Ty played the piano for them (and they were very much impressed). My youngest cousin and his friend went outside and played Frisbee with the children. Later on, we sat down for dinner. Dad had made a casserole from scratch, and everyone gobbled it up.

Talon and Kendall really had no idea what was going on except that there were strangers in the house. Talon looked a little worried but kept quiet most of the time. Kendall, on the other hand, expressed her upset fervently. My dad stopped by after work to eat a small dinner and have some birthday cake.

I am usually the one bringing the cake forward, to the birthday boy or girl, but Kendall wouldn’t stop crying unless I was holding her. So Dad brought forth the cake. I directed the singers with a starting tone (to keep it sounding good because “Happy Birthday” sounds awful when people aren’t singing on the same key). When we stopped singing, I held her face to the flame so that she could blow it out. She just looked like she was going to cry some more. Kyle was close by and blew the candle out.

We ate slices of the cake. Eight minutes later, it was Talon’s turn. (Talon was born an hour and eight minutes later, but we’re not going to wait that long).

I was holding Talon and hummed the beginning tone. Dad brought forth her cake. We sang Happy Birthday, and I held her face to the flame. But she just looked around. Again, Kyle helped blow out the candle. I cut up her cake, and we had seconds — but of much smaller sizes because we had already had Kendall’s cake.

We hung around for a little while longer, cleaned up the big messes, and finally said our goodbyes.

Kendall was really tired and went down easily, but Talon wanted to nurse a little longer. She’s only one, you know. She still needs “nurse.”

I found the dog with her snout in my bag. She didn’t get to a lot of the chocolate. Looks like she just smooshed it around my journal, my hairbrush, and my keys. It’s my fault, of course, for leaving my bag open in the music room, where I usually keep it  during the day. She knows she did wrong. She went straight to her crate with that guilty look.

Talon really really really looks like she wants to walk. She doesn’t want it badly enough, however,  because if she did, she’d be walking already. It’s just mind over matter. I take her down the corridor in the mornings, and she prefers to walk instead of crawl until I let go. Then she stands in thought for a few moments and prefers crawling. She has made attempts, real attempts, to walk. The last time, she walked to the coffee table, wobbled a little and fell forward, hitting her lip on the table leg. She didn’t hit it hard, and she didn’t cry. I don’t think that it was enough for her to stop trying.

Talon and Kendall fight over toys and food. I’ll give a piece of zweiback toast to Kendall, and she looks like she’s considering taking it. Talon just takes it. Kendall yells and gets mad. I give another one to Kendall, but she doesn’t want that one. She wants the original one that I gave her. It’s the same way with toys. Talon will be playing with a Little People person or a building block, and Kendall will snatch it from her hands. Talon is still where another toy will console and entertain her, but I don’t know how long that’ll last.

Ty has started learning knots. His first know is a bowline. He can’t do it without the help of the illustrations in the book. He learned the clove hitch, but still needs help from the book. I tell him that he should learn these things because he’ll be running errands for us in town when we move to the country. He’ll need to tie his horse to the posts in a way that he can untie the horse but the horse can’t untie itself. And he won’t have a book to help him along. That motivates him, knowing that he’ll have a horse and go into town by himself (or with a buddy).

One of my piano moms gave me about a hundred books that she doesn’t need anymore. She has two boys who are out of college who read and learned from these books. They are great books. Though I’m not a fan of coloring books in general, the coloring books that she did give me were of epic images: castles, Columbus’ voyage, Pilgrims, Civil War, Native Americans. And there were snippets of information that went along with each image, i.e. biographies.

The babies are eating more and more kinds of food. Now that they are nine months old, they can tolerate new foods better than when they were four months old. When they did turn four months, a lot of moms were telling me that I can start feeding them regular food. Food at four months? That’s crazy to me. With our first child, we followed what the books (Doctor Spock, Babywise, et cetera) were preaching to us. But trying to feed a four month old who can barely sit up and is continuing to make a mess with his sloppy food was frustrating. “Give it time. He’ll get used to it.” More crazy talk. So with our second, I waited until he was six months to feed him. It was easier, but I still did not feel that I was doing the very best for him. One mom told me that she exclusively breastfed her baby until the baby was almost one year old. “Can babies survive on breastmilk for one year?” Well, God made my mammary glands to make the milk that provides nutrition. This nurse-for-a-year concept didn’t seem as ridiculous as giving a baby slop at four months. It was like being taught a strategy and slapping one’s own forehead for not realizing the simplicity! I took our third baby to work with me for ten months, and she nursed exclusively because we were attached to the hip, which is where babies are supposed to be: attached to their mother. I know that it’s nearly impossible for a modern mother to be with her baby 24 hours a day, seven days a week for the first 45 weeks, but we made it happen.

So at nine months, both babies can confidently sit up and tolerate new foods. This morning, I mixed in two table spoons of cow’s milk into their cereal, which is barley and breastmilk. They didn’t seem to notice the change in taste, and two hours later, they are not looking like they’ve reacted with allergy. I think we should try goat’s milk because it is supposed to have a composition similar to breastmilk.

A few nights ago, Dad made a delicious soup with white beans, pork, onions, celery, and carrots. I mixed their cereal not with breastmilk but with the stock. The cereal disappeared from the bowl faster than you can say, “Bob’s yer uncle.” They liked the taste of taste! Not that they think that breastmilk is bland, but it kicked the jarred Garbar junk in the derriere.

I’m aware that some might think that I am being over-protective about the babies’ intestinal flora. If I had the choice of being over-protective or unaware, I’d chose the former. There was a police officer who made the news recently for going out of his way to save a choking two-year-old girl. The girl was feverish, so her mother gave her meat. Meat. With a fever! When my children have fevers, they get breastmilk, even if they are two years old.

Kendall‘s lower central-left incisor debuted Monday the 15th, and the right one on Thursday the 18th.

Talon was toothless until New Year’s Eve. Both her lower central incisors broke through the gum together.

In her crawling attempts, Kendall sways on her hands and knees, back and forth. She moves her left knee forward, yet she hasn’t figured how to move the rest of her limbs. She is certainly mobile – in an inchworm kind of way.

Talon moves quickly along the floor, dragging her body while pulling with her forearms. She doesn’t even use her toes to push off. It’s all upper body. Before you know it, she’s putting a sword or battle horse in her mouth.

Kendall is pink.

Talon is olive.

Kendall coos and babbles throughout the day. She’s quiet only when she’s sleeping.

Talon is quiet except when she’s loud. She screeches with joy.

Kendall sits well by herself in a leaning tripod position. Her right arm supports her weight after she turns onto her bottom from a crawling position. She’ll stay that way for a few minutes and watch her older siblings’ play.

Not interested in sitting up, Talon would rather watch the action in her dragging/crawling position. She will stand with locked knees for several seconds if she has assistance. A lot of times, she’ll do squats in quick repetition.

Kendall looks like Kyle.

Talon looks like Ty and Taylor.

Kendall sleeps through the night.

Talon wakes up at least once. Sometimes twice.

When asked, “Are they twins?” I usually answer, “No, they were born on the same day.” What I really want to say is, “They were born on the same day from the same pregnancy, which, by definition, makes them twins. But the smaller, younger one is a result of superfetation, and that doesn’t happen everyday. If you’re going to put them in a box, put them in a cooler box and recognize that they are unusual twins.”

Kyle was having a hard time with a castle. His pirate had fallen into one of the bastions (a full circle, not the typical half-circle), and he couldn’t get it out. His hand kept getting stuck. He asked me to help.

“Turn it upside down,” I responded.

He picked up the castle, which was a bit heavy for him, flipped it, and shook it. Out fell the pirate. He smiled. “Mommy, you have great ideas!” Gravity must be taught, I suppose.
********

Talon and Kendall have been practicing rolling and are attempting to crawl. Talon rolled back to front one morning. I found her in the crib, belly down. I didn’t put her like that nor did Dad. Kendall was found belly down in the crib by Dad later that afternoon. That was a few Fridays ago… October 24. Lately, we’ve been putting down blankets and setting the babies on the floor with toys just out of arm’s reach.
Kendall is controlling herself a little better than Talon in the sitting up competition. Actually, a lot better. She’s kicking Talon’s ass. She doesn’t sit up unassisted just yet, but she can balance herself for a second or two before leaning forward. Then she’ll be like that for several seconds before falling to her side – which never happens because we have terrazo floor and must be VERY careful to avoid babies’ hitting their heads on it. Talon just doesn’t get the whole sitting up thing. At all. She’s still like a bag of water.

But she’s winning in the eating competition and the complaining competition and in the waking-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night competition. Yes, it’s all a competition with these twins. But, hey, no pressure. Talon, by our hypothesis, is younger than Kendall. Not by a mere 68 minutes but by a few weeks, gestation-wise. “Are they twins?” “No, they are just born on the same day.”
********

Our washing machine broke down. The switch that sets the agitator when the lid is closed has failed – again. The last time that happened, I spent twenty minutes shaking the whole appliance, jiggling the wire that connects to the switch until it finally started. That’s how we fixed electronic equipment in the Army. Shake it ’til it works. Unless it has obvious water damage or fried-black components.

I’ve been washing clothes by hand – diapers, too – in a five gallon bucket with a plunger. Agitating. Agitating. Agitating. It’s starting to agitate my nerves. But the clothes comes out clean, and my triceps get a much needed workout. After wringing them by hand, I hang them to drip dry on the solar drying array. That does most of the drying on sunny days. But even on sunny days the sun is so far south that the Royal Poinciana in the southwest corner of the yard spreads its shade across the hanging laundry before 2pm. So I put them in the drier. I know, it’s not very “green,” but we don’t have enough diapers not to be washing everyday. They need to be ready to wear before the sitters get here.

The solution to this is an old-fashioned wringer.

********

My brother Joe and his wife had their first child on November 14th. Their baby boy was born at 1:12am and shares a birthday with Ty. They are exactly six years apart. My favorite cousin was born the day after my sixth birthday.

… a gas-powered lawnmower.

Some new weeds have grown to a wonderful height and are major attractions for various butterflies, so we keep these “weeds” in our butterfly garden. Our county, on its official website, encourages the residents to let a part of their yard overgrow to allow for biodiversity. This little piece of land on our yard has tall, deep green St. Augustine grass. The bugs love it.
There was heavy weather brewing in the ocean, and Dad was getting the house secured instead of focusing his weekend energies on tending the lawn, as he usually does. The storm came by (and didn’t leave) and brought heavy rain. When the skies cleared, the grass and weeds grew thickly. The bugs loved it. The birds and lizards loved it because the bugs loved it. It was a tropical paradise.

Until our neighbor complained to our landlord that our grass was too long. Our elbow-grease-powered reel mower doesn’t cut grass that is too long, so we spent $170 on a gas-powered loudmouth. *sigh*

… a baby sitter.

Actually, we got two babysitters, Miss E and Miss C. And they are more like Mother’s Helpers than babysitters. Actually, they are Father’s Helpers. They come when I go to work. But they don’t come together. They switch off because they each have other things to do. Some days are better than others. Some days, Miss E is playing Chutes and Ladders with the older children when I’m walking through the door. And other days, Miss C takes loads of pictures of the children.

… decent pictures of the children!

Thanks to Miss C, her camera, and her amazing ability to get my children to pose! How does she do that?

Proof that Kyle does smile.

Kendall and Talon.

More pictures to come.

After six weeks of trying to get it together, I still haven’t gotten it together. I don’t know how often the babies wake up during the night. I don’t know which one is eating more, sleeping more, or having more diaper changes during the night. It’s dark. I just grab whichever baby is crying (I can’t even tell their cries apart, by the way!), change Baby’s diaper, and latch Baby onto whichever side feels the fullest.

Dear Husband did have the idea of putting the couches together to make one great co-sleeper. Before going to bed, I join the loveseat and the sofa, tuck a blanket into the cushions so that the babies won’t fall through the cracks, and prepare a diaper changing station. I fall asleep in my proper room and about three hours later, I pick up a crying baby and move her to the couch. She falls asleep while latched on to nurse, and so do I. I don’t know when the second baby wakes up, but the first baby wakes up when I unlatch her. So I have two babies to latch. Throughout the rest of the night, the three of us sleep together. Sometimes we are joined by a third girl who is *way* to big to fit with us, but we manage. I wake up to the gurgling sounds of the coffee maker or to the older children’s laughter. Refreshed!