Scenes from the Circus: April Approaches

March is quickly passing. Each day brings us closer to meeting the next little member of our circus. The baby is growing well (Mama measured just a bit ahead of schedule at her last appointment) and certainly seems strong and lively.

The little guy is a frequent topic of conversation around here. The girls love to feel the baby move and to speculate about what he'll like -- whether we're talking about what to eat for dinner or where the baby should sit in the minivan. (On a recent trip to Babies R Us, Kathleen seemed confident that the baby would like a set of pink princess toys!) Of course, Kathleen does more of the talking; Madeline just likes to parrot whatever her big sister says.

Last week, Kathleen was sitting on Mama's lap (or what remains of Mama's lap) when she announced, "I really want a little baby."

"Well, that's a good thing," Mama responded, "because in a little while a little baby is going to come live at our house!"

Kathleen scowled for a moment, then turned to look in Mama's face.

"But I want a baby from your tummy named Indiana. . . and you keep talking about naming him something else!"

It's true. Mama has talked at length about naming this poor child something other than Indiana Jones, but she's the only one talking. No tactic has yet convinced Kathleen (or her father) that the baby should be named anything other than Indiana. We've talked about nicknames (pointing out that Kathleen is named Kathleen but called Sissy or Leenie and that Madeline is called Maddie Beth), but Kathleen is adamant that the baby be named Indiana, and not just called that. Daddy has acquired a keen ally in his firstborn!

Daddy and Kathleen were reading a bedtime story a few nights ago about the months of the year. Months are a new concept for Kathleen, so when they got to March Daddy explained that it's March right now. And when they turned to the page about April, Daddy started to explain about what might make April special.

"And in April, honey," Daddy began, "Baby Indy will come live at our house! Mama and Daddy will go to the doctor to take Baby Indy out of Mama's tummy, and then we'll bring Indy home to live at our house."

"But how?" Kathleen asked, "How will the doctors take Indy out?"

"Oh," Daddy replied, "The doctors are really smart and really good at their jobs. They know just how to take Indy out of Mama."

Kathleen frowned again, looked over at Mama working in the kitchen, then pressed on, "But will the doctors have to make a hole?"

Staggered by our three year-old's critical thinking skills, Daddy fell silent. Mama jumped in instead.

"No, honey. The doctors shouldn't have to make a hole. God has worked out a very special way to get the baby out of Mama. . . without having to make a hole."

Mercifully, this satisfied Kathleen.

And since then, Mama keeps thinking: let's hope they don't have to make a hole!

The girl's a quick study

Apparently, Madeline has this technology thing all figured out. If Mama or Daddy won't let her watch "Signing Time" or "Miffy and Friends," she'll just turn it on herself!

Well, that's a slap in the face

Kathleen woke in the still-dark hours of the morning Sunday, crying that she wanted a cup of cold water. Kathleen's our sleep-like-a-log sleeper; our child who, with what we have since learned is startling consistency, has slept through the night since she was a few months old. So we were surprised to hear her awaken, and quick to respond. As soon as I opened the door I knew what was wrong. The poor child had been sick hours earlier and slept right through it.

So we hustled her into the bathtub and the sheets into the washer. And although Kathleen initially protested that she didn't want a bath -- she just wanted to have some water and go back to sleep -- she was sweet and compliant and surprisingly affectionate. And aside from being a little groggy, the thing we noticed most was that Kathleen was very, very red. All over. If we were still in Hawaii, we might have thought it was a sunburn.

Between the redness and the sickness, we were a little concerned. That night had been the first night of a new medication for Kathleen. She'd been diagnosed with a bladder infection about 12 days before (not fun, let me assure you) and the pediatrician had prescribed a 10-day course of antibiotics to be followed by yet another antibiotic, which Kathleen will take until we know the results of more tests (those should be done Friday). It didn't seem like Kathleen was having an allergic reaction -- not exactly, anyway -- but we thought we should call, anyway.

By the time the pediatrician's office returned our call, Kathleen was fast asleep again. Jim and the nurse talked and decided that if she were still red when she woke, we'd call and bring her into the after-hours clinic. When Kathleen finally woke up (around 9:30, which would've been fantastic, had Madeline not decided to start her day literally 10 minutes after we laid back down in bed) she was still red, so we arranged for a visit to the clinic.

There, the doctor confirmed that it was not an allergic reaction and instead diagnosed Kathleen with slapped cheek fever. We've thought that Kathleen had that before, but since you can only have it once (and a doctor never diagnosed it before, either), we figure we were wrong! Anyway, we spent the rest of the day lying low -- reading stories, watching some dvds, playing Candyland, and -- of course -- reenacting the visit to the doctor with Kathleen's doctor kit.

Our still red little girl, relaxing with some toast and ginger ale, watching a movie. She'd been entranced by the movie in the doctor's office waiting room. When I proposed that we go home and watch a movie, she said (and I'm not making this up), "I think that sounds like a splendid idea!"

Getting sick on Sunday was a double insult to poor Kathleen. First, it meant that she couldn't go to the nursery to play with her friends at church. Secondly, we'd been planning to leave from church to go to Nan and Grandpa's for the week. This is exam week for Daddy, and we figured we'd give him a bit of peace and quiet by heading to the grandparents'. Kathleen couldn't understand why we wouldn't go, since the bags were all packed and waiting on the kitchen table!

We're still hoping to go to Nan and Grandpa's in a few days, and leave Daddy a chance to tackle a 48 hour take-home exam without the circus raging around him. But that's only if everyone stays relatively healthy. Wish us luck -- we don't seem to have much luck in that arena!

Delighted about dessert

A few weeks ago we made some chocolate pudding for dessert. We'd seen this post about making pudding in a plastic bag on Chasing Cheerios (a homeschooling/unschooling blog we enjoy from time to time) a while back, and we finally got around to trying it out. Kathleen enjoyed the "squishing" part of making the pudding in a plastic bag, but Madeline mostly enjoyed eating the pudding.

And then, just a few days later, we had to make a visit to the after-hours pediatrician's clinic. Our appointment was at 6pm, so the girls ate a very early (like 4:45!) dinner at home before we left. To reward the girls' good behavior at the appointment (especially Kathleen, who actually needed the appointment), we all stopped at Cold Stone Creamery on the way home. That made Mama and Daddy happy, of course, but the girls were ecstatic. (And they don't even know about mixing stuff into the ice cream!)

And for the record, Indiana seemed pretty excited about the ice cream, too. He just wouldn't settle down after that! Apparently everyone in this circus likes dessert!

Good, Clean Fun

We here at the circus have recently discovered a new favorite -- bath paints!

We spotted the "recipe" on the Crafty Crow (where else?!) a few weeks ago and finally gave it a try after a particularly messy supper of pasta with marinara sauce. The paints whip up in seconds with ingredients we always have on hand (baby bath soap, cornstarch, and food coloring) and the girls love them.

Although the link to the recipe features a muffin tin's worth of paint, we've pretty much stuck to one cup of paint per child. The recipe makes a fair amount, but we like to have two colors! (I've been thinking that next time we'll just do one batch and split it between the two cups and then dye it. I probably should've come up with that solution earlier, but I'm claiming pregnancy brain.) With some of Ikea's marvelously inexpensive paintbrushes, the girls happily paint away. And -- even better! -- I've found that the paints clean up far more easily than some of those brand-name bath crayons I've purchased. When we're nearly done with the bath I give the girls some wash cloths, and they just wipe their paint off the tub. (Washing it off the girls is even easier, since it's mostly soap!) They like the "erasing" almost as much as they like the painting. And that makes everyone happy!

Like a Child

One day some parents brought their children to Jesus so he could touch and bless them. But the disciples scolded the parents for bothering him.

When Jesus saw what was happening, he was angry with his disciples. He said to them, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children. I tell you the truth, anyone who doesn’t receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.” Then he took the children in his arms and placed his hands on their heads and blessed them.

Luke 10:13-16 (New Living Translation)

It's another rainy day at the circus, so the girls and I are camped out on the living room floor, playing with puzzles. Out of the blue, Kathleen leans in and peers up into my eyes.

"Mama," she says, "will you help me ask God for a rainbow?"

My heart wells up.

"Oh, sweetie," I answer, "of course I will."

So we bow our heads and pray, and we praise God for the rain He's sent, which our land so desperately needs. And we ask Him, if He wills it, to show us a rainbow. If He doesn't, we ask that He give us the eyes to see the beauty in all that He's placed around us.

And we say "amen," and Kathleen returns to her puzzles without another thought. I'm left thinking about her confident, childlike request. We've not seen many rainbows since we left Hawaii. What will I tell her if there's no rainbow? I lift up a silent prayer of my own -- for faith and for wisdom -- and set about making lunch.

A few hours later naptime is over, and I'm heading into Kathleen's room to get her. I know she's up; I've heard her bouncing around on her squeaky bed for about ten minutes. When I open the door, I see that she's perched on the edge of her bed. She's pulled open the long drape that covers her window and she's peering out.

I'm about to reprimand her for playing with the curtains (a known no-no), when she turns to me, beaming.

"Mama," she exclaims, "God made me a rainbow!"

At first I'm confused, and I think she's asking whether God will make her a rainbow, and I take a deep breath, preparing myself for difficult explanations. But my girl persists, challenging my fearful and faithless heart.

"Mama, look! My rainbow!"

I cross the room and pull the curtain open to look for myself. The rain of the morning has given way to sunshine -- and a rainbow, arching over the airfield.

We pause to to give heartfelt thanks for the rainbow, a gift which seemed impossible to me and inevitable to Kathleen, before we quietly hurry downstairs, so as not to wake little Madeline, who's sleeping in the next room.

Kathleen sits at the table for her afternoon snack. I dash out the back door with my camera, eager to snap a photo of "Kathleen's rainbow," but it's gone.

The rainbow has always been a sign of God's faithfulness (Genesis 9:13). But, for me, that afternoon it was more -- not only a sign of God's faithfulness, but also a fleeting glimpse of the faith I hope will last far longer than my daughter's fleeting childhood.

Not "Kathleen's rainbow," obviously, but one of the many rainbows we'd see in Hawaii. This one was photographed from the beach at Waimea Bay.

A Pretty Little Picnic

It's been rainy again this weekend, but about a week and a half ago we had a few brilliantly sunny days. We decided to make the most of the sunshine and we packed a picnic to join Daddy for a mid-week lunch on campus. Since it had been raining for days and days before, we couldn't camp out on a picnic blanket on the lawn. Instead we picked out some benches in front of a beautiful fountain. The girls couldn't have been happier.

We ate our lunches first. Madeline particularly enjoyed her pear.

Once we'd finished our lunches, we broke out the real fun: bubbles! We'd stopped to pick up new bottles of bubbles on our way to school -- one bottle each for Daddy, Kathleen, and Madeline. (I was planning to take photographs, so I needed my hands free!)

Before we knew it, Kathleen and Daddy had filled the air with bubbles, much to the amusement of the college students walking and biking by the fountain. Madeline had a little trouble managing her toddler-sized bubble set. Daddy helped her out a bit, though, and she caught on quickly.

Our lunch hour flew by. We soaked up the sunshine, chased after bubbles, and just enjoyed the chance to be together in the middle of the week. Eventually, though, we returned Daddy to his studying and we headed back for naps. We're happy for the sunny memory, especially since the rain has returned!

So, it's March

An actual conversation on the way to church this morning.

Daddy: Hey, you didn't happen to remember to bring the checkbook with you, did you?

Mama: Um, well, it should just be in the pocketbook in the baby's bag. (Rifling through over-packed diaper bag.) Yeah, I've got the checkbook.

Daddy: Great. You're amazing.

Mama: But, uh, why were you asking? I mean, it's still February, so... (By way of explanation: we do our tithing on the first Sunday of the month, which is why Daddy knew we needed the checkbook and Mama was confused.)

Daddy: Actually, no. It's March 1st.

Mama: It's March? Today?

Daddy: Yes.

Mama: Wow. I missed that one. . .

A full minute passes.

Mama: Oh, good heavens! We're having a baby next month!

Another wet afternoon at the circus

Apparently, my admonitions to "keep the water in the sink" did not have the intended effect...

We recently borrowed "Mary Poppins" from the library and let the girls watch it for our weekly pizza-movie-picnic night. The girls were much impressed by the scene in which Mary Poppins doles out medicine on spoons. (They've never gotten medicine from a spoon -- only from a syringe or a tiny cup.) When I set the girls up at the sink for water play, Kathleen decided to help herself to a salad server to reenact the scene, which certainly contributed to Madeline's drenched state. Too bad they weren't as impressed by Mary Poppins saying, "Good enough is as good as a feast!"

Of course, I can hardly complain about two little girls who splash in the kitchen sink. It keeps them diverted for nearly half an hour and they're always more than happy to grab rags and do (or at least begin) the drying up of the counter and the floor. (And, as far as I'm concerned, that just means I don't have to mop as often!)

If I were truly crazy...

A few days ago, the girls and I got home from the commissary just before lunch. Since the sun was shining, I let the girls play in the yard while I unpacked the groceries and prepared some lunch. Because of the way our house is set up, I can see them playing from the kitchen (through the laundry room and out the back door), so this is a set-up that works pretty well for us.

Just before I was about to serve lunch, though, I looked out and noticed that the girls weren't actually playing. They were sort of hunched over at the fence. And then they weren't just hunched over -- in fact, it looked as though they were lying on the ground. Every now and then Madeline would jump up and chortle with glee. But then she'd get right back to the dirt by the fence...

Leaving the lunch plates on the counter, I headed out (camera in hand, of course!) to see what had so fascinated the girls. A few seconds later, the object of their fascination appeared.

Apparently, our neighbors had gotten a puppy -- and apparently that puppy wanted to play with our girls! He was digging his way under the fence, bit by bit. As he could stick his head under, the girls would pet him and let him lick their little hands and then they'd shriek with delight. He'd join the chorus, barking happily.

Eventually it became clear that the puppy really would make it all the way under the fence. Not wanting to be accused of dog-napping, I hustled the girls inside and rang the neighbor's doorbell to let them know what was going on. They stopped the puppy before he escaped and, within a few hours, had filled in the dog's excavation with some bricks.

End of story. Well, almost.

Yesterday, we again ran errands in the morning, preparing to host our community group for dinner and Bible study in the evening. The girls were running around the yard before naptime, picking up their outside toys (not to mention burning off some of the energy that had been pent up in carseats and shopping carts) while I attended to some chores in the kitchen. A little more focused on cleaning and organizing, it took me a while to realize that, between barks and laughter, the puppy and little girls must be up to their old tricks. By the time I got outside, the dog was wiggling halfway under the fence.

I herded the girls inside the house, hoping that removing them would remove most of the incentive for the puppy's digging. After the girls were inside, I moved the last of the toys into the garage. I was two steps from the back door when the puppy darted between my legs.

I quickly slid inside the house and scooted out the front door to let our neighbor know that their puppy had escaped. Our apologetic neighbor said she'd meet me at the back fence so I could hand the dog over to her.

"Sounds great," I said.

Well, it might have been great -- had the puppy been slower and had I not been 32 weeks pregnant. I raced around the backyard, trying to corner the puppy, laughing at my own ineptitude. The girls, who'd been not-so-patiently waiting in the kitchen, simply couldn't bear being left out the puppy fun. Kathleen opened the back door.

The puppy saw the opening. He took it.

And then the dog was in our house. Fortunately, we have a safety gate on the stairs, so he was confined to the downstairs. The girls chased him through the living room and dining room, laughing the whole time. After about three rounds, we herded him back out into the backyard.

At this point, the puppy and the girls were running through the backyard, laughing and barking. They were delighted with each other, and the three of them were just starting to slow down, tuckered out from all the excitement. And it was then that I thought, "Hey, maybe we should get a dog. Look at them run! This is fantastic!" And in nearly the same moment, my sanity returned. "Sure, I could get us a dog. If I were truly crazy, I'd get us a dog."

And I'm not. I'm not.

Right?

Three Favorites

Do I love these people, or what?

Rainy Day Fun

It was rainy on Tuesday. Very rainy. We didn't have any errands that had to be run on Tuesday, but well before lunchtime, it became clear that we'd need to leave the house, just for sanity's sake.

So we decided to take a little walk to our post box. (Ostensibly, the trip was to allow Kathleen to return her "Sherluck Holmes" Veggie Tales movie to Netflix. Honestly, it was to preserve Mama's sanity.) It's only a few blocks, but everyone was happy to be out of the house.The chance to use umbrellas was the real high point, though.

Kathleen blazes a trail.

Madeline checks out some mailboxes.

Who'd have thought half an hour in the rain could make little girls so happy?!

On our walk home, we talked about the rain and about the One who sends it -- about how He provides for plants and animals and even us. And we were reminded that even on the rainiest days, we can rejoice.

For I know that the LORD is great,
and that our Lord is above all gods.
Whatever the LORD pleases, he does,
in heaven and on earth,
in the seas and all deeps.
He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth,
who makes lightnings for the rain
and brings forth the wind from his storehouses. -- Psalm 135:5-7

This is the day that the LORD has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it. -- Psalm 118:24

Umbrellas are fun, but they're not the best photo props!

Monday in Monterey

On Monday we packed up the circus and headed for Monterey. We had decided to ignore the rain that simply hadn't let up all weekend and make the most of Dadddy's holiday by visiting the Monterey Bay Aquarium. (Plus, we liked to think of it as practice for when our friends, the Starlings, move to Monterey this summer!)

First, though, we stopped for bagels to eat on the way.

Toasty bagel with cream cheese. Yum!

Monterey is about an hour and half from us, and the car ride went very smoothly. Madeline fell asleep before she'd even finished her bagel (or the cream cheese, for that matter) and Kathleen happily watched the rainy scenery and looked at books. As we neared the coast, the weather even cleared, giving us beautiful, sunny views of the ocean.

We'd been a little concerned that Monterey would be crazy-busy, given the holiday, but the crowds were very manageable. We found street parking nearby and barely waited in line to enter the aquarium.

We'd taken the girls to visit a little aquarium in Honolulu before we left the island, but this aquarium is nothing like that. It's enormous! The girls were beside themselves. Madeline couldn't stop signing fish or calling out, "FSH!"

Kathleen checked out some new creatures...

The Monterey Bay Aquarium has an entire children's area called the Splash Zone. There, the girls got to watch and (under the supervision of some very sweet volunteers) even touch tidepool creatures. They both loved the starfish. And they seemed fascinated by the kelp crabs and hermit crabs -- but they were in no hurry to touch those! Kathleen went scrambling backwards, away from the water when we even suggested it.

In another area there were sea creature "costumes" to try (an octopus, a sea horse, etc.) and rocking sea horses and a slide. In yet another area, there was water play. After Friday, though, we didn't really need more waterplay, so we saved that for another day. Dadddy crawled through a fish-viewing tunnel with the girls. (Mama waited outside. We didn't need any beached whale episodes at the aquarium!)

And then Daddy snapped a photo of his girls in a giant clamshell!

We meandered some more, venturing into the "rest" of the aquarium and marveling at the beauty of the sea life. We noticed a crowd, and went to check out the commotion. A scuba diver was swimming in one of the exhibits!

The picture is dark, so it's hard to see... but that's a scuba diver in there!

Finally, we stopped by the sea otters. Those cute little critters made a big impression on our girls. Kathleen spent a good portion of that evening pretending to be a baby otter, demonstrating in the bathtub how an otter swims on its back, and referring to Mama and Daddy and Mama Otter and Daddy Otter.

After the otters, we headed out of the aquarium and walked down Cannery Row (yes, Cannery Row of John Steinbeck fame) to get some lunch. We had a tasty meal, let the girls run around a bit in the sunshine, and then headed back to (still rainy) Mountain View.

Our day was a complete success! We're already looking forward to our next visit to Monterey... we're anticipating we'll make the drive down every few months or so to make the most of our aquarium membership. (And to see the Starlings, of course. We can't wait until you get there!)

A day off for Daddy

To celebrate surviving his game theory midterm, Daddy decided to play hooky from school on Friday and took his girls to the Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose, instead! (So this was a day off for Daddy. And Monday was, too. It was like a self-declared training holiday!)

We'd last been to the museum at the very end of December and so we were more than ready for a return trip. The girls were beyond excited to check out their favorite exhibits -- and some new ones.

The stagecoach was a big hit with Kathleen. That probably shouldn't have come as a surprise, given that she loves to have us sing "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain."

And the toddler (four and under only!) room was perfect for Madeline. Fortunately for us, Kathleen is still young enough to come play, too, and she enjoys it. But Madeline loves it.

Madeline, branching out and exploring on her own...

After we'd had enough of the toddler room, we headed back downstairs to do some waterplay. We hadn't gotten around to the water exhibit last time, so it was all new and all fun! The exhibit is amazing -- gallons and gallons of water pumped through waterfalls and whirlpools that spin and spit colored balls. There were smocks to help keep children from getting too wet, but we didn't bother. We'd known we'd do waterplay, so we'd brought extra clothes for each of us. Mama and Daddy didn't wind up needing to change, but the girls certainly did!

It was a bit crowded in the exhibit; there were lots of schoolchildren on field trips, and even with Mama and Daddy there to advocate for them, Kathleen and Madeline had some challenges getting turns. Daddy's a creative thinker, though, and came up with some ideas for bypassing the other children.

Reaching....

A few moments later, we realized that, like the toddler room upstairs, there was an entire area designated for children four and younger. Once we entered that part of the exhibit, the fun really began. It was far less crowded and everything was easier to reach.

A toddler exhibit -- genius! Now even Madeline could reach the whirlpool.
(Sorry for the blurry photos. The exhibit was great for kids, but not so great for photo-taking Mamas.)

The girls were fascinated by this fountain. They splashed in it. They tossed balls at it.

And they discovered that, if you place the ball just right, it floats. Just like magic!

As you can see, the girls got quite wet. Wet, but happy.

Cheesing it up with Mama.

When the girls were thoroughly waterlogged, Daddy dashed back out to the car for the bag of dry clothes. We dried everyone off and decided that lunch was in order. Creatures of habit (and lured by the mini-cones of frozen yogurt), we headed back to Sweet Tomatoes once again.

Water play and frozen yogurt. It's not your typical Friday-in-February diversion, but it made us very happy, indeed!

Happy hearts for Valentine's Day

When you're three (or thirty-three or seventeen months), you love any excuse for celebration.  And here at the circus, we celebrated Valentine's Day all day long.

We started our morning with heart-shaped, whole-wheat pancakes.  The girls raced downstairs to the kitchen to help Mama make them.  Standing on their chairs, they measured out flour and milk and cracked the egg.  They mixed love right into the pancakes.

Topped with some real maple syrup, that made for a tasty breakfast and some very happy little girls.

 

Even though we serve pancakes with forks, fingers are the preferred method of eating!

After breakfast, Kathleen proudly delivered a Valentine to her Daddy.  (He didn't mind the distraction from studying.)  Kathleen had been saving the card for some time now, and she was very excited to finally give it to him.

We'd made the Valentine -- technically a sun-catcher -- using a tutorial we'd found here.  It combined lots of things Kathleen likes to work with: glitter, tissue paper, foam cutouts, and glue.  It worked well for Valentine's Day, and I expect we'll use the same idea again for other holidays.  (I see a shamrock shaped sun-catcher in our future!)

Later in the day, Daddy and Kathleen presented Mama with a Valentine of her own.  It had been Daddy and Kathleen's secret project, and it was beautiful!

We spent the day relaxing, reading, playing Candyland and Go Fish!, crafting, and napping (but only Madeline).  We enjoyed some special foods -- heart-shaped grilled cheese sandwiches, fresh strawberries, steaks for supper, and some cake that Daddy got us at a local bakery.  Yum! And Mama even got a brand new, shiny cell phone.  (Not that she can figure out how to work it!)  But best of all, we were together all day.  And that made our hearts happy.

We hope that something today made your heart happy, too.  Happy Valentine's Day!