The Annual Disease

So every year, sometime in the early spring, we get sick.  I've never understood exactly why this is -- why not in the winter when everyone is stuck in inside and all the windows are closed all the time and germs have ample opportunities to spread?  No, it's always as soon as the weather starts turning warm again.  Perhaps it's because "spring" in The Commonwealth of Virginia means "that season when the weather can't decided whether it's still winter or summer yet."  So maybe the constant flip-flopping between 80-degree days and 40-degree days -- as well as the days when you go from heat to A/C back to heat, all in one day -- take a toll on our fragile immune systems.

At any rate, just when I thought I'd dodged the bullet this year, the baby got sick.

:(

There is nothing, no nothing, more pathetic than a sick baby.  Just wookit dat widdle face.  It's saddest because nursing, which is normally such a calming and nourishing time, becomes an exercise in frustration and mild panic -- since a baby with a stuffy nose keeps suffocating when he's trying to eat.

The illness made it through all the ranks.  This year's symptoms were high fever accompanied by debilitating lethargy.  (Only a couple brief cases of intestinal upset, praise be.)  Mr. Pickles, hero that he is, took a few days off work to make sure we didn't all starve to death.

Our living room was converted into a sick ward. I was tempted to put a big yellow flag on our door.

Andy's fever got as high as 105, which was scary.  Mr. Pickles had to take him to the pediatrician post-haste, since I was completely useless, being borderline delirious myself.  He didn't have strep, thank goodness.  But the fever lasted for almost a week so we had to take him to get bloodwork done.  That wasn't as horrible as it could have been -- he was a regular little champ.  And it turns out his iron levels were really low!  Surprising, since he is our resident carnivore.  The low iron levels were making it hard for his widdle system to fight off the infection, so after yet another doctor visit we were assigned the fun and enjoyable task of trying to get a picky three-year-old with a healthy gag reflex to take those yummy pink antibiotics, twice a day, for the longest 10 days of my life.   (We finally had success disguising it in strongly-flavored fruit smoothies -- honestly, I think he was objecting to the disgusting artificial fruity flavoring.)  We were all leaping for joy on that 10th day, let me tell you.

We are also giving him iron supplements, which as anyone who has had to take the liquid version knows are vile, but which we have learned he will take cheerfully in plain ol' apple juice.  (but not orange juice)  (remember, picky 3yo)  I guess all this explains why his favorite breakfast is an omelet with spinach.  (and salsa, the weirdo)

Well, after about two weeks we all finally got better.  Aaaaaaaand then the baby got sick again. :(  But thankfully, the cycle stopped there.  Miraculously, Mr. Pickles didn't catch it! 

Boy, nothing makes you believe in the fallen state of nature like being sick as a grownup.  It is NO FAIR.  When you feel lousy, you have to hobble into the kitchen and make your own broth and get your own medicine and rinse out your own sick bowl and wash your own sheets -- PLUS do all those things for everyone else who's sick, too!  And your unsympathetic beast of a five-year-old coming up to you when you're wrapped around your sickie bowl desperately trying to keep body and soul together, and saying "I'm hungry!  What can I have to eeeeeeeat?"

Part way into my recovery I posted this on Facebook:

"I just want to take a moment to go down on my knees publicly and thank my mother for all the hours she nursed us when we were sick. Yes, I was an ungrateful wretch who didn't care how she was feeling and certainly did not fully appreciate her sacrifices and hard work at the time. Well, I'm appreciating the HECK out of it now. Thank you, [Mommy]!"

And also, thank you Mr. Pickles for working so hard to keep everyone fed (a Herculean task) until I became fully human again!

I'm also grateful for generally good health in our family -- I know so many families who are suffering through chronic disease or unexplained health problems.  Anemia, or even food sensitivities, are nothing compared to that.

Sacrament season

This has been a busy year for us, Sacraments-of-Initiation-wise!  Of course, we started with Dominic's memorable Baptism last summer (you know, when he shrieked through the entire thing).

Then this spring on April 3, Divine Mercy Sunday, Joseph made his First Holy Communion!

such a happy day!

We did his Sacrament prep at home -- after Katie's First Communion we decided we needed to opt out of the circus of the big 1st Communion class Mass.  (It was really disgraceful how ill-behaved the adults in the congregation were, so we decided Never Again.)  So we conferred with our parish priests, and we both agreed that Divine Mercy Sunday would be a most appropriate day to make one's First Communion!  (We had thought about St. Joseph's feast day on March 19 -- also Miriam's birthday -- but we weren't quite ready in time.  He had made his first Confession in early March, so we wanted to make sure he had a couple opportunities to receive the graces of Confession before he received Jesus for the first time.)

he is so proud of his suit!

Several of our friends were able to come to the Mass, so we had a small party at the house afterwards.  And just so y'all can feel better about yourselves as homemakers and party-planners, despite the fact that we had known about it for WEEKS, I still wasn't fully prepared for the shindig.  Our friends generously helped out and brought extra donuts and fruit, so no one starved.  It was a lovely day, albeit a mite chilly, but the kids after getting loaded up on sugar went outside to run around anyway, while the grownups all stood around in the kitchen (natch) and drank Mr. Pickles' lattes and gabbed.  Everyone had a good time.

Finally, on April 26, Miriam received the Sacrament of Confirmation!

with her godfather

Miriam took the name Joseph as her Confirmation name.  And she asked the famous Aunt Katie to be her sponsor.  So Aunt Katie and Uncle Stefan and their two boys made the trek out from Ohio to spend time with us for a couple days.

yay for Aunt Katie!

The Confirmation Mass was late in the evening, so certain small people were very Done by the time we finally got a family shot:

one down, five to go!

 Even though we had a couple days with Katie and Stefan, I STILL feel like we didn't have enough time together!  They spent a good amount of time running around after their very busy toddler.  Andy and their 3yo got along swimmingly, though.  They both share a passion for all things vehicular.

So grateful to them all for making the trek out!  Miriam was very touched to learn that I was Katie's sponsor, back in the day!

Despite all the hustle and minor chaos that goes into ANY family celebration, we're able to remember at the core of it all what a gift the Sacraments are.  Miriam was relating to me just how she felt right after the moment of her Confirmation, and I've noticed a subtle change in Joseph's behavior in the last couple months.  Grace truly is transformative.  Glory be to God!

P.S. The kids learned this song at their Vacation Bible School.  I think they will never, ever be able to forget the Sacraments now.  Nor will you, if you watch! :)

Birthday Week 2016!!

Aw yeah, every March it's non-stop par-tay at die Gurkeschloss!

We started out the gate with Miriam's 14th.  Her birthday was on a Saturday this year, which as every kid knows is the golden ticket for birthday celebrations!  We started the day off with a special breakfast and family presents.

Katie made a model of the dream house that she and Miriam designed together.  much paper and scotch tape were required.

I don't know if I've mentioned it on here yet, but Miriam has decided that ice skating is her Thing.  So she had a lesson in the morning, and then hung around for the open skate time.  (She's been taking lessons off and on for a couple years, but for about the last year it's been more consistent.  She can skate backwards really well, and is currently learning fancy stuff like spins and the waltz jump.)

Then that evening we invited several of her bestest friends over for a party.  They played silly games and watched the Kenneth Branagh Cinderella. *swoon*

cue giggling

It was a really fun party -- even Dominic had a great time!

*ripriptearshred*

14 is great.  It involves a certain amount of emotional instability at times, but that's what Daddies are for.

Happy Birthday, Princess

Next up: Joseph turned 8!

He had a simple party -- he just wanted to invite a couple friends over for lunch.  (I think he was still shell-shocked from last year.) :)

He had a good day -- he ate all of his favorite foods (macaroni and cheese was on the menu, of course), tried out his new toys (the friends gave him a mini-catapult!), and spent the rest of the time reading his new book (the first in the Wings of Fire series, courtesy of Katie).

not the Wings of Fire book (it's actually The Wanderings of Odysseus instead!) -- but still, this boy loves to read!

Finally, Mr. Pickles himself hit a big milestone this year!!!

For such a big birthday I gave him permission to purchase a new sound system for the TV.  It's great -- we can hear dialogue now!

So that's it!  Another successful birthday week.  Everyone made it through another year!

Easter

So I was planning on posting about Birthday Week first, but I remember almost nothing from then so I'll have to ask my resident memory-keepers what exactly we did.  Meanwhile, here's a bit about our Easter!

So once again we indulged in our new Easter tradition...

Pysanky!

The girls are pretty much independent -- from design, to dyeing, to using the kistkas and the beeswax -- so while I did the Easter baking on Holy Saturday, they went at it.  They just need me to melt the wax off at the end.

it IS pretty dicey.  but I haven't figured out how to melt the wax off in the toaster without making a total mess, so this way is still simpler -- so long as I don't do something stupid like hold my thumb over the flame

finished projects

Sooo... below is one from last year that we never blew the yolk out of, since we were afraid a small crack would ruin it.  We kept it in the fridge, hoping it would dry out, then pulled it out in March.  However, based on a dramatic episode involving another un-blown egg and the inside of the china cabinet last year (important announcement: do not store intact eggs inside your china cabinet), I put this one in a cup outside.

You can't tell from the picture, but after the egg warmed up, one end really, REALLY wanted to point straight up.  It finally did crack from the internal pressure after a couple days.  And no, it didn't smell like you would expect a rotten egg to smell.  It was... more like vinegar?  It's hard to describe.

(We did blow and lacquer this year's eggs.)

I'm still working on mine.  The problem is that the egg has to be room temp to stop sweating & take the wax, which means leaving it out for at least 30 mins before I can work on it.  So my dilemma is this: if I take the egg out, there is no way I can guarantee that I will be free to do ANYthing 30 mins later!  I guess I have a couple more days until Easter is finally over....  Although our Eastern Orthodox friends JUST celebrated their Easter, so if I borrow their calendar, I've got plenty of time!

Another Pickles Easter tradition:

Easter Bunny bread!  Yeah, yeah I know it really ought to be a lamb.  But I like bunnies.

I totes forgot to get a picture of everyone in their Easter finery until the next day when I saw everyone else's FB photos of their adorable families in pastels.  This is all I got:

Since Miriam is singing in our church choir now, she got to do alllll the Holy Week liturgies, including Easter Vigil AND Easter Sunday.  So natch, earlier in the week she came down with a mild head cold that severely limited her ability to sing descants.  Lots of gargling with warm salt water brought it into submission by the end of the week, thankfully. 

Our little church choir traditionally sings the Hallelujah chorus for Easter, which is risky for little church choirs because it's one of those things that can be really awesome or really, really cringe-worthy.  Thankfully they always fall on the "awesome" end of the spectrum, and it's always a great finish to all the pascal pageantry.  THIS year, the diocese's Ghanaian community (who are hq'ed at our church) joined their choir to ours for the Easter Vigil.  One thing about those Ghanaians -- they can sing!  Sadly I wasn't at the Vigil, but Miriam says the Hallelujah Chorus was AMAZEBALLS.  Next year I think we just need to suck it up and all go to the Vigil.  (It's just hard to wrap your head around attending a Mass that BEGINS an hour after your kids' bedtimes!  Yet another thing that falls on the potentially-really-awesome/really-horrible spectrum.)

Happy last few days of Easter!

Spring Photodump!

Ohhhh, lordylordylordy do we have some updating to do!  Since today is Mother's Day, I ought -- at least in theory -- to be able to blog uninterrupted (ha!) and let you in on what we've been doing with ourselves the last few months.

just the usual silliness

Well!  Where to start?  Sacraments?  the annual Illness?  Spring (achoo!)?  Easter?  The baby?  Blimey Cow?  Too many options!  Maybe I'll just go binge-watch Netflix instead.

Happy Pi Day!

Wayyyyyy overdue Baby Update

I have been failing -- FAILING -- utterly in turning this blog into an all-baby-all-the-time love fest.  I'm too busy feeding, changing, holding, feeding, holding -- did I mention holding? -- and of course gazing at, the baby to do any actual blogging about him.  So here you go, a Baby Update Photodump!  Beginning with...

2 months old (October)

Math with Katie

Could she get away with this in a regular school?

One great thing about homeschooling is that the kids have time to be creative in their schoolwork.  And by "kids" I usually mean "Katie."  And by "creative" I mean "wack-a-doo."

As I've demonstrated elsewhere, Katie enjoys decorating her math sheets.  I think she just can't help it.  She just sees things and can't NOT express them.

Addendum to my last

So the Blizzard of 2016 was officially named...


SNOWZILLA

SNOWMAGEDDON 2016!!!

dun dun DUNNNNN....

So, yeah, it blizzarded (is that a word?) here in the great Commonwealth of Virginia.  And because we are south of the Mason-Dixon line, the department of transportation officially doesn't know how to deal with real winter weather.  As you've already seen from news reports, DC pretty much shut down for several days.  Schools were closed; the Federal Government was closed; the Metro was only open underground for a while.  It felt like a page from Katy and the Big Snow.

if only we had Katy to dig DC out!