Of breakfast and balloons

When Daddy returned from a run Saturday morning and discovered Mama on the sofa, nursing the baby and surrounded by whiny, teary girls, he made an executive decision.

"Girls," he announced, "we're going to breakfast!"

That sent the little girls scrambling for their clothes and shoes, while Mama was able to finish nursing in relative peace. And before we knew it, the whole circus was dressed and out the door. We hit up our local Hobee's for breakfast. Everyone seemed to be excited to get out of the house.

There were no complaints about the food. The girls loved the happy-face fruit plate they got when we sat down, and they devoured their honey-whole wheat pancakes. That the pancakes came with sliced bananas, whipped cream, and sprinkles made them even tastier, at least according to Kathleen. Madeline seemed to like them, too.

Mama and Daddy were equally pleased with their food, and Indy slept peacefully in his sling for the entire meal. After we were finished, the little girls expressed their appreciation for their father's quick thinking.

Encouraged by our outing's success, we just kept going!  We stopped to get Daddy a haircut (he's looking much more military-respectable now, we promise) and then continued on to a picnic thrown by our church.  The picnic was at a park in Los Gatos and the weather was hot, hot, hot.  Mama and Indy hung out in the shade, chatting with friends.  Daddy and the girls played with more friends on the playground.  Eventually the heat got the better of all us (Indy was a little cranky, the girls were bright red -- not from sunburn, but from running around in the heat), and we headed home.  The girls weren't so excited about leaving, though.  They'd seen some big baskets of water balloons at the picnic and really wanted to try them out.  Instead, we stopped at a drugstore and picked up our own.  

After naptime (and a significant slathering of sunblock), we convened in the backyard for some lessons on water balloons.

As it turned out, no lessons were needed.  Apparently, our girls are naturals when it comes to water balloons (perhaps that's on the same gene as dancing to the oldies).

Everyone joined in the fun.  Mama and Daddy even demonstrated how an actual "water balloon toss" would work.   The girls shrieked with laughter when the water balloon popped all over Mama as she caught it.  

Although it looks like they were throwing the balloons at one another, the girls much preferred throwing them on the ground.  Madeline would clap and dance when they burst.  As soon as they tossed a balloon, the girls would race back to get another.  They used a lot of balloons -- quickly!  (Filling balloons takes significantly longer than throwing them!)  At the end of the afternoon, our yard was covered with the colorful remnants of fun.  (Picking up the pieces takes about as long as filling balloons!)

After our big day, everyone slept very well.  And we get requests for more balloons.  All the time.  So, if you're looking for some water balloon fun (we're not really up to a consistent toss or fight),  let us know.  The circus would be happy to oblige!

Scenes from the Circus: The Circus Set to Music

If you needed further proof that we here at the circus don't necessarily know how to quit when we're ahead, consider this: we moved the girls into a shared bedroom this week.

We've been meaning to do it forever, but we've been (read: Mama has been) slightly nervous (read: terrified) that putting two little girls in the one room would seriously disturb the girls' sleep.  Kathleen is a terrific sleeper; Madeline, not so much.  We had visions of normally sleepless Madeline making Kathleen sleepless, too.  And that would mean even less sleep for us.  And since sleep is a precious commodity around here, we'd delayed the "big move."

However, in a fit of something -- we still don't know what -- we just went ahead and moved the girls in together on Friday night.  (Don't worry, the "move" didn't involve disassembling or even rearranging furniture.  That'd been done months ago.  All we needed to move were some blankets and loveys, and well, Madeline into the newly shared room.)  The girls knew the "move" was coming someday, and they were quite receptive when we announced it would happen that night.

The move has not been completely smooth sailing.  Predictably, it takes the girls longer to fall asleep.  This has been most noticeable with Madeline, who's up far longer than we'd even suspected singing and talking at night.  (We'd not used a monitor to listen to Madeline before the girls were in together.  Madeline is more than capable of letting us know when she needs us.  Loudly.)  Kathleen largely ignores her little sister and appears to be able to sleep through most anything.   Although the first night was rough -- the new routine completely threw Madeline, who was up six times that night -- things are going better.  Now if we can just convince Madeline not to start her day at quarter to five each morning...

However, the point of all that background was that, although it has deprived us of some sleep, the "move" has provided us with plenty of laughs, too.  We get a kick out of hearing the girls and talk and sing before they fall asleep. 

The first night Mama and Daddy nearly cried with laughter listening to Kathleen command her sister, "Shut your eyes!  Shut your eyes, Maddie!" while her sister responded with an equally forceful, "NO!"  Also, Madeline has a much larger repertoire than we had previously realized -- her post bedtime medley includes Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, Mary Had a Little Lamb, Holy, Holy, Holy, Sing, Sweet Nightingale (from Cinderella), and the perpetual circus favorite Tractor, Tractor.  The lyrics on the songs are a bit fuzzy, of course, but the tunes are easily recognizable.  Our favorite moment thus far, however, occurred just a few nights ago.  We don't know what precipitated the conversation, but we could hear Kathleen declare, "That's not funny, Madeline!" while Madeline roared with laughter.  When Madeline's laughter would die down, Kathleen would again insist, "That's not funny!" while Madeline belly-laughed.  They continued for at least five minutes.  And then they fell asleep.

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Madeline's love for her baby brother has only grown over the past two weeks.  She's still fascinated by him and asks to kiss him and hold him whenever she see him.  He has a name now -- Madeline's version of Indy sounds like "E."  Although we're delighted by this love, occasionally Madeline's exuberance can be a bit intimidating.

In an attempt to keep Madeline at arm's length while Mama nursed John David, this week we set about teaching Madeline "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes."  (We hoped that the hand motions would distract her from climbing on Mama and attempting to hug her brother.)  We started out our lesson by asking Madeline to show us her head.  No problem!  We next asked Madeline if she could show us her shoulders.  She paused for a moment and then ran to her father, who was studying in the recliner.  

"Dada!  Dada!" she cheered.

It took a moment for the light to dawn.  

"Oh, sweetheart," Mama replied, trying to contain her laughter, "You're right.  Daddy is a soldier.  But we're going to sing about our shoulders..."

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Thanks to the miracle of the internet, the other night we introduced our girls to the "oldies" after dinner. . .   They're naturals!  

A few things we've learned this week...

Kathleen and Madeline are truly in love with their baby brother.  

Madeline refers to John David as "my baby" and she becomes very, very concerned when he cries.  Whenever she sees him, she calls out, "Kiss, peash!" until you bend low enough for her to kiss his little head.  When she's permitted to hold the baby (with lots of supervision), Madeline is in heaven!

Kathleen is also quite enamored of her baby brother, although she only calls him Indy.  If anyone is so foolish as to call him something else (you know, like John David), she says quite forcefully, "His name is Indy!  You were joking."  Kathleen sings for her brother when he cries, and she speaks quite sweetly to him about how we'll take care of him, sounding surprisingly like her Mama.  When Kathleen's permitted to hold her brother, she beams with pride.

Help is wonderful!  Our church family has been great about bringing us meals to ease our transition (we're eating like kings!), and Nan and Grandpa have come to lend a hand the days Jim's at class.

Our little boy is destined for basketball.  His aunt and uncle gave him his first basketball, and he's taken to it quite well.  We've also witnessed John David craning his little neck to get a better view of the NBA finals on television...

It's definitely a bit crazy, but we love our three-ring circus!

A Family of Five

Our family of five was reunited on Wednesday evening when Mama and Baby Indy were discharged from the hospital.

John David, all tuckered out from "getting ready" to go home.

Looking pensive.

The stay at the hospital had been just fine, but we were grateful to go home a bit early. (We'd had a semi-private room all to ourselves and would have had to share it had we stayed any longer. As far as we were concerned, there isn't really an upside to being in the hospital if it isn't in a private room!)

Mama and Indy weren't the only ones looking forward to having everyone home. When Daddy left for the hospital Wednesday morning, he explained that he'd bring Mama home with him that afternoon. Madeline's first question was, "And my baby?"

We brought him, too. And when we walked in the door the girls' excitement about welcoming him home had not diminished... not in the least. They ran to greet us and insisted we put their brother's carseat on the floor so they could inspect him.

The girls showered him with kisses and with gifts they'd selected for him weeks and weeks before his birth. We celebrated the home-coming in true circus style -- with a pizza-movie-picnic-night! (No cooking, minimal clean-up, and enthusiasm from the entire family -- the perfect welcome home meal!) The girls couldn't have been happier. And their brother took it all in stride.

The celebrating continued the next day, when Indy reciprocated the gift-giving. (There'd been too much excitement to add new toys the evening before.) If the girls hadn't loved their brother before, they certainly would have after they opened their gifts! Madeline received an Elmo toy that she'd been admiring in the toy store every time we went. She couldn't wait to get him out of the box.

And Kathleen was delighted with a "leapster" learning toy, which is now a "naptime toy" and has made announcing Kathleen's nap a joy.

With the girls happily distracted, Daddy got a chance to snuggle with his little boy.

We can tell that Mama will have lots of help with the new baby...

But there'll be plenty of playing, too!

Dr. Kathleen gives Elmo a full physical.

Madeline insisted on wearing the baby's hat. He won't be able to wear it again now until he's at least a year old!

We're feeling fully integrated as a family of five! Our transition from man-to-man to zone defense seems to be going well, at least so far. We are grateful that Daddy has been around full-time since we've brought John David home. We'll see how Mama fares when Daddy returns to class and "real life" resumes...

Grandparents are great!

Mama wasn't there to witness it herself (she was still lounging in the hospital), but according to our camera's timestamp, Grandpa was manning his station (complete with accessories!) at about twenty to seven on Wednesday morning.

Is he great, or what?

Welcome Indiana! (Actually, its John David, but don't tell Kathleen!)

Frequent readers of the Circus surely will notice a significant drop-off in style and eloquence in this post.  Kristen is resting and recovering in the hospital tonight so my best attempt at a post will have to suffice; fortunately, I have content on my side.  And I've got pictures!

This morning at 1030, we welcomed John David Golby into the world!  He's a big boy, weighing in at 9lbs, 3oz and measuring just over 22 inches long.  

Kristen was amazing, continuing her trend of producing over-sized babies with ease and grace.

Since John David joined us early in the day, there was plenty of time for a visit from his two big sisters.  They were thrilled to meet him and welcome him to the family!  Please don't mention his given name around Kathleen, however.  She refuses to concede that the baby could be named anything other than Indiana Jones Golby (as do I) so we haven't broken the news to her yet.  We actually have no plans to do so until she leaves for college!  As the saying goes, Kristen may have won the battle... 

Nan and Grandpa O'Connor, who bore the brunt of containing Kathleen and Madeline for the day, were rewarded with a chance to hold their first grandson.

Now, we officially are a Three-Ringed Circus.  If all goes well, we will be bringing Momma and Baby Indy home early tomorrow afternoon.  Please pray that our transition from man-to-man goes well.  We will be forced mostly to play zone defense now, but we plan to mix in some full-court pressure and strategic jump traps, too.  Kristen isn't convinced that my plan will work, but I don't think Indy and the girls will be able to deal with our superior wing-spans and physical presence on the boards for a few more years.  

Scenes from the Circus: While we Wait

First things first: if, dear friends, you're checking this blog hoping for news of the newest member of the circus, this post will disappoint you. At Mama's last OB appointment the doctor confirmed that Mama was nowhere near ready to have a baby. We'll check in again Monday (at 40 weeks!) and perhaps things will have changed by then.

Kathleen arrived 10 days early; Madeline was induced 10 days late (so that she could meet Daddy before he returned to Iraq). It'll be interesting to see when our little boy decides to join us. We've begun to tell people that we're just hoping to have a child before the 4th of July.

Until then, here's some of what we've been doing while we wait...

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Daddy shared some of his reading with Madeline the other night. If you can't quite make out the title, it's Mostly Harmless Econometrics.

Madeline listened quite politely for several paragraphs before deciding that econometrics (harmless or otherwise) weren't for her.

Eventually all pretense of studying was abandoned for play with Daddy.

At one point Daddy began singing "Tractor, Tractor" from Andrew Peterson's "Slugs and Bugs and Lullabies." The song has really simple lyrics, which are mixed around to be nonsensical. For example, in the beginning the lyrics are "Tractor, tractor harvesting the wheat." Later on that becomes "Tractor, tractor shooting to the moon." It repeats with a firetruck and a backhoe and a number of other things, each doing normal and then ridiculous things. The girls think this is hysterical.

Daddy began to sing "Tractor, Tractor" with the girls, substituting the girls' names and all sorts of whacky activities. Kathleen jumped up and down as she interrupted her father, "But, Daddy, I DON'T shoot to the moon!" The girls reached new heights (or would it be depths?) of hillarity when Daddy began singing "Kathleen, Kathleen walking on her knees" and "Maddie, Maddie walking on her knees."

The girls raced around the living room on their knees, singing along. If we tried to stop, Madeline pleaded for more, singing "tractor, tractor, MOON!"

At points Madeline was too amused to keep moving!

It wasn't the usual pre-bedtime activity, but we were all laughing so hard that no one minded when the girls got to bed a little later than normal.

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The girls have continued to spend their afternoons in the wading pool. They do occasionally take a break from the water play. When they do, they insist that we wrap them in their towels.

Sadly, the warm weather seems to have run its course, at least for now. The girls have loved using the wading pool, so they're disappointed by the change in weather. Mama is perhaps most disappointed, though -- the girls' love affair with "swimming" meant that Mama could spend an entire afternoon sipping iced tea and watching the girls run wild in the backyard... They were gloriously lazy afternoons.

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We also spent a morning celebrating our sweet friend Mei Mei's third birthday. We opened gifts and ate cupcakes and let the girls run around to burn off the sugar. It was a lot of fun.

And the party made for more than just a fun morning -- it made for great naps that afternoon! And a Mama awaiting a new baby especially appreciates naps!

Fun in the sun

We'd purchased a wading pool during a warm spell before Easter (largely because we've found if you don't jump on the summer toys in spring, they're all gone by the time you really, really want them in say, June or July) and brought it home (tied to the top of the minivan) with our delighted girls (who'd have rather been riding on the top of the minivan in the pool, water or no).  Sadly, though, once we'd gotten the pool home, the weather turned cooler and we spent lots of time explaining why it wasn't warm enough to "swim."

That is, until this weekend, when the weather suddenly became very warm.  (It's less like spring weather than summer, really.  In fact, the expected high today is in the 90s!)  It was the perfect excuse to bring out the wading pool!

I don't think it would be overstating the case to say that the girls dove right into the water play.

It took a couple of days for Madeline to warm up to the wading pool's little slide.  But once she figured it out, she didn't want to stop sliding!

But she did a little "hanging out" for good measure, too...

We're looking forward to lots more fun in the sun this summer!

Life These Days

Having celebrated Easter and survived the post-Easter, post-sugar-high, Easter-grass-has blanketed-our-house fall-out (honestly, that part was so much harder than Easter -- I think all Mama and Daddy did Monday was discipline little girls), the circus is mostly just waiting around for Baby "Indy" to make his big debut.

To be honest, we had high hopes that the baby would choose to meet us this week. He apparently had other plans, which, to the best of our understanding, involved swimming around and kicking Mama as much as possible. Having resigned ourselves to the fact that all our children have arrived on their own timeline, we've used the time to finish up the last-minute projects that probably should have been finished long ago -- washing and installing the car seat, setting up the bassinet, locating all the pieces of the pack 'n play, and packing a hospital bag (okay, so that last one's still not finished, but it's not like there's all that much we really need). Mama even managed a dinner out with her dear friend Jenny, who drove for an hour just to have dinner at a not-particularly-good Turkish restaurant, before turning around to drive another hour home to her little boys, who don't get up any later than the girls at the circus. What a friend! And Uncle Kevin and cousin Nora came for playdate (and to diagnose Mama's extraordinarily slow computer). What a family! Otherwise, we've been spending a lot of time walking around post, playing in the backyard, and doing the usual clowning around.

Obviously.

Easter Joy

Sleepers, awake!

Christ is now risen; 

Empty the tomb; risen the sun!

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

Easter morning dawned clear and bright.  The Son had risen and the world looked just the way we thought it should -- shiny and crisp and colorful.  Although our girls normally wake in shifts (Madeline first, Kathleen about an hour later), on Easter morning they woke at the same time. We hadn't spoken to them about the treats that'd be awaiting them downstairs until we were headed down, but that was apparently plenty of time to work up some excitement.

The girls found their baskets on the toy bench.  They each received a bit of candy (there'd be more than enough of that over the course of the day) and they shared a new copy of the Jesus Storybook Bible.

After they'd examined their baskets we told them that there were eggs hidden around the living room.  Kathleen raced off to find them (she'd actually spotted a few as she'd come through the living room to see her basket), but Madeline couldn't see the point in that.  After all, there were four tiny chocolate eggs in her basket.  Why collect plastic eggs when you could eat chocolate at seven o'clock in the morning?  She'd hold up the tiny piece of foil-wrapped chocolate to Mama or Daddy and exclaim, "Treat!  Help, please!"  Eventually she was distracted from the chocolate and convinced to join in the egg hunt, too.  She's a surprisingly accomplished hunter!

After hunting eggs, we sat and talked about the first Easter morning.  Our girls haven't yet associated the Easter candy and treats with the Easter bunny -- we are thankful that when asked about what we celebrate at Easter, Kathleen announces proudly, "Jesus rosed from the dead!"  And Kathleen practiced responding to our "He is risen!" with "He is risen, indeed!"  (Despite our success with it at home, she had no interest in the response by the time we got to church.)

We started what I think will become a new Easter morning tradition -- baking "Resurrection Rolls."  We started with some refrigerated crescent rolls, which represented Jesus' shroud.

Next, we took marshmallows, which represented Jesus.  We "prepared" Jesus for burial by dipping the marshmallows in butter and cinnamon sugar.  (You know, in case there wasn't enough sugar on Easter.)  Daddy read the scriptures to us as we worked.

We then wrapped the marshmallows in the crescent rolls and baked them.  They turned into nice, puffy little rolls.  And -- even better -- the marshmallow disappeared, just like Jesus!  Along with our normal Sunday morning fruit smoothies, they made for a lovely (if sugary!) Easter breakfast.

After breakfast we headed to church for Easter services, which were beautiful.  We spent time in the sunshine after church, visiting with friends and rejoicing in the resurrection day and the gorgeous weather.  Then we scurried home to finish preparations for Easter dinner.

That afternoon we filled our little house with family and friends to celebrate.  All told, there were 21 of us!  Nan and Grandpa, aunties and uncles, cousins, and friends from church and school.  We feasted and then the children (all girls, actually!) hunted for eggs in the backyard.  It was hilarious to see them racing around the lawn...

Apparently the early morning practice paid off for Madeline, because as the egg hunt started she raced out, cutting off our three-year-old friend Audrey to grab her first egg.  (Sorry, Audrey!)  Of course, after that she reverted to her normal candy-seeking (rather than egg-seeking) behavior, pleading with adults to help her open her egg!

Girls on the hunt!

We lingered in the backyard after the egg hunt, watching the children play in the playhouse.  (Where, I later discovered, Kathleen was surreptitiously eating egg after egg of candy!  By the time I went in to confiscate her loot, there was none left.  Whoops!)

We hope your Easter Sunday was filled with the joy and sweetness of our risen Savior and of family and friends!

Death has been slain;

Life is victorious,

Winter is past, springtime returns!

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

Lyrics from "Sleepers, Awake!" by Chrysogonus Waddell, OSCO , copyright 1996, World Library Publications.