St. Patrick's Day

Not to add any fuel to the Mommy Holiday Wars, but I'm pretty solidly in the "no frills" camp. But since Seth doesn't get the chance to celebrate at school (do they even do that anymore?), I tried to up my ante a bit this year to compensate.

For breakfast we painted rainbow toast. And I was completely shocked when Seth actually made a rainbow on his toast and not some kind of spaceship blowing up:

Catherine was just thrilled to have a paintbrush: 

Aaron didn't get any rainbow toast, but he did wear green! 

Continuing the grand Mikesell Family tradition of dyeing food green on St. Patrick's Day: 

They were both a little weirded out by the green ramen.

Catherine kept asking why it had "icing" in it.

(Assuming that came from watching me color icing with the food dye. Not sure.)

Neither of them finished it, which pretty much never happens with non-green Ramen.

I also put together a rather elaborate (for me) treasure hunt for Seth for school. He had to answer a bunch of math problems, plus put together a rainbow of colored objects from our house. At the end we found where the leprechaun hid his treasure: green Ring Pops and yellow M&Ms (gold): 

We also co-wrote a book about leprechauns, which Seth illustrated:

Just your standard story about leprechauns defending their treasure using traps, weapons & tanks. The best part was the very last page, which Seth was very specific about: "Write 'And then the spider grinned.'" Did I mention that the story featured ZERO spiders up to this point? The English major in me had a bit of a breakdown trying to make sense of it. 

"Where did this spider come from? Did I miss something somewhere?"

"Why a spider? What is Seth's subconscious trying to tell me?"

"Why is the spider grinning? And why do I find this whole thing so creepy?"

The take-away? Don't try to analyze your five-year-old's writing for hidden meaning.

Aaron at 6 Months

Irish Super Baby

At six months old, you are:

• Grabbing everything you can reach, especially when it's in Mom or Dad's hands. And you get faster every day.
• Taking legitimate naps (usually about 90 minutes), 2 or 3 times a day. But ONLY in your crib, which makes Sundays and days when we aren't at home during nap time complicated.
• Related: you still will not sleep in your car seat, nor will you fall asleep nursing (never have). You are a weirdo.
• Eating. And eating. And EATING. You eat 3-4 solid meals a day and still get offended if someone else is eating in your presence and not sharing. You love sweet potatoes, peaches, yogurt, pears and graham crackers (which you insist on feeding yourself). 

"Guys, the food-eating gig is the STUFF."

"Nummm....graham crackers....nommnomm..."

• Violently opposed to the idea of sitting up. Left unattended you'll throw yourself immediately backward. It's as if you sense that once you can sit up you're going to be put down a lot more frequently...
• Wearing size 3 diapers (same size as Catherine) and 6-9 month clothing. Official stats: 16 lbs. 1 oz. 27.5 inches. You are a tall young man (and not nearly as chubby as we thought).
• You've cut 2 teeth (bottom front) and have ten billion others on their way. Which means you are constantly chewing on whatever you can get into your mouth.

You carried around this spoon for several days. A great chew-toy.

• You've started getting bored with the same old toys. If you don't want it you'll either refuse to grab it or you'll immediately drop it.
• You LOVE bedtime. You get all excited as we go up the stairs and whine when I don't get you into your crib fast enough. You'd also go to bed at 6 pm every night if we'd let you (we don't, since you'd be up at 6 am the next morning).
• Not sure if we can blame a growth spurt, but there was one day I put you down for what I assumed was a nap at 4:30 pm. You proceeded to sleep for 15 hours (with a few wake-ups to nurse). 

Handsome boy in his Bumbo

• You don't really like the Bumbo. You'll endure it for a little while when we feed you, but by the end you're arching your back and demanding to be extracted. You pretty much always finish your meals seated on someone's lap. Also not a huge fan of the Jumperoo, but you do like your caterpillar mat. Your latest trick is either tugging or kicking the arch holding up the toys until it falls down.
• I hate the mornings you wake up before Seth and Catherine (for several reasons), but mostly because you are so darn BORED without them. It reminds me of what life was like when it was just me and Seth at home together all day long. I definitely prefer the excitement of siblings (and so do you)!

It's hard to believe you're already halfway done with your first year, little man! We adore you and your sweet drooly smiles.

That one time you mysteriously acquired some chocolate...

Apparently you'd be more than content to hang out in your dreaded car seat if 

we'd just give you chocolate to gnaw on while we drive!

Seth's Reward

Seth is five-and-a-half now, so we decided it was high time he start figuring out how to keep himself dry at night. We put away the diaper (yes, we used diapers. Way cheaper than Pull-ups and serve the same purpose), bought some Good Nite pads (LIFESAVERS) and gave it a try. 

It wasn't perfect, but he did manage to stay dry a few nights, which meant he got to cash in on the trip to the bouncy place we'd been promising for years if he stayed dry all night. He even got to bring his friend Gabe, which made it extra fun. And I was a sucker and paid for an overpriced can of orange soda and bottle of Sunny D, so it was extra super sugary fun.

Catherine, being brave and going on the pumps by herself

One of the few moments I could get a non-blurry photo of Seth

Sliding with Daddy

(this was post-bravery stage)

Aaron gets his first ride on the slide!

I wish I could say that everything is great now and Seth is dry all night, but that would be a lie. This kid sleeps like the dead. Even with Jon waking him up between midnight and 1 am every night, he still consistently has accidents. Guess we'll try again in the fall and see if things are better!

(Our pediatrician doesn't worry about it until the kids are at least eight years old, but I wasn't sure if Seth was incapable or just lazy. Incapable it is!)

That one time I cut off all my hair...

Jon likes my hair long (and so do I). Long hair doesn't have to be cut every 8 weeks, plus it can conveniently be thrown into a ponytail. Which is pretty much all I do with mine. But there's a fine line between "beautiful long hair" and "Amish/homeschooler/polygamist" long hair, and I apparently crossed that line sometime around Aaron's blessing day (right, Kenna?). 

So I went to my friend Tara and had her cut off eight inches. You know your hair is too long when you cut off EIGHT INCHES and no one notices.

Fast forward a few months. My hair is falling out in handfuls (one of my favorite post-baby phases) and I'm getting headaches every evening. I decide it's time for another haircut.

If I'm going to cut off a bunch of hair, I like to try to donate it when possible (not to Locks of Love--they're shady). I should have gone in a bit more informed. The stylist said the minimum length was 10 inches, so that's what I let her chop. In truth, I could have kept two of those inches...sigh...

Ten inches...gone!

Jon was really creeped out by this mound of my severed hair.

The new look: 

I don't love it. I don't even really like it (I would if it looked like this more often, but it doesn't). But my hair grows quickly and it will be back soon. And the headaches are gone, so hooray!

School-Type Stuff

Our co-op went to a theater performance called "Mammoth Follies" to go along with our dinosaur theme in January. Well, it would have gone along with our dinosaur theme if they hadn't postponed the stupid show for 1/4 inch of powdery snow...but enough about Maryland's complete incompetence when dealing with snow (or just the threat of potential snow).

So instead of a January show, we finally saw it in March. It's definitely not going to win any awards, but the kids were thrilled. Giant dinosaur puppets that sing and dance? What 2-8-year-old wouldn't love it?

Coolest part: After the performance they drew out two names from the audience, one from the groups of schools, one from the groups of homeschools. The winners received a dinosaur book for their groups. And guess whose name was called for the homeschoolers? Seth was THRILLED to have a chance to go up onstage and grab the book. It ended up being a really cool 3D book of dinosaurs (complete with glasses). You can see him holding it in the pictures below:

Post-performance co-op kids (and little siblings)

Being dinosaurs

Catherine has started taking an interest in her letters, so we've started doing "school" together. She's very excited to have her own workboxes and activities to do (very, very simple stuff). So we started with letter A and do one letter a week. 

Turns out that all those things they say about little girls and fine motor skills are true:

Yeah, she did that completely spontaneously.

I had written "Aa" on the other side for her to make thumb-and-inkpad ants on, but when she was done she flipped it over and just wrote an A. Apparently teaching handwriting to Catherine is going to be a heck of a lot easier than teaching Seth has been (I would totally wait until he's eight to start handwriting if the school district wouldn't freak out on me). 

Speaking of Seth and writing...  His handwriting has improved immensely recently. I think the credit goes to his newest hobby: filling notepad after notepad with drawings:

(We probably have ten of these notepads full of drawings hanging around)

I recently read a book about boys' writing that talked about the importance of letting boys illustrate their stories. The author talked about how girls tend to draw nouns (people & places) while boys draw verbs (movement). This is EXACTLY how Seth draws--in his pictures there is always something blowing up, or dripping, or flying, etc. 

I can't believe we're almost done with our first year of homeschooling (benefit of homeschooling: we get to be done by the end of May! No snow or teacher in-service days here!). It's been such an awesome experience, and I'm definitely planning on continuing with it next year!

Real Life

That one time we were crazy enough to go out to eat all together:

Sometimes it's still really strange to think I have THREE KIDS.

(But seriously--they are the best things in the world)

Love, love, love my two little boys: 

And they adore each other.

My glamour shot: 

Not a selfie--a classic Seth "in your face" photo

"Seth...what are you DOING?" 

Love my babies: 

Just chilling on the stairs, watching ballerinas on the iPad with Catherine: 

Aaron is intrigued by all the flashing:

And that's it, ladies & gentlemen! Our oh-so-glamorous life. 

Life With Catherine

Yes, that is my daughter, completely naked in front of our glass door, drawing pictures.

Also please note the neighbor boy outside (who hopefully saw nothing).

I cannot keep clothes on this girl.

Good news! Despite getting a haircut (or two or three since her hair falls differently every day), the ringlets are still there! I still have a feeling the curls won't stay forever, so I'm enjoying them while I can! 

A brief story: Catherine got a stuffed My Little Pony from Grandma Cathy for her birthday. It's not one of the few she knows by sight, so she and Seth decided to give it a name. It has a smiling flower on its rump, so I made some suggestions based off that. Nope. The pony is officially named "Crisp". I just can't figure out why My Little Pony hasn't bestowed that lovely name on a pony by now. Just imagine the possibilities for the rump image: a barbecue, or perhaps a charred horse carcass (which happens to be what I picture every time the name "Crisp" is mentioned).