Big Girls are everywhere!

My house is full of big girls, two weeks ago this big girl showed up at my house.

That's right, it's Kindergarten Liana on her 1st day of school! Not only did she not cry on the first day, but she made friends with the little girl who was crying and tried to comfort her. She had a fabulous first week and now here we are at the end of her second week and she is still going strong. She can already read and is getting better at writing every day.

Nina has started preschool and is more than a little proud of herself.

She should be proud, her friend who is 6 months older than her is potty trained so she decided she wants to "wear panties all the time too" and has pretty much potty trained herself. (I've been trying to do the job for 6 months now, I am convinced now more than ever that the key to success is that the child is ready.)

Ella started second grade with a fabulous Jack'o Lantern smile, she had 5 teeth extracted. She is reading at a third grade level and doing much of her home work without my assistance, which I really appreciate.

Amalia has decided to crawl and to pull herself up to standing on anything she can reach, thankfully she is still really short so this limits the number of places she can do this trick. I live in fear of when she will discover the stairs.

And how is A.J. faring with all these big girls around? He is decidedly comfortable with his repertoire of sitting and rolling, why actually crawl or stand? If something is any good one of those big girls will bring it to him. Even if they don't bring it, he has other ways of getting where he wants to go.

This last photo is just a bonus.

Magic in the air?

Liana asks me today "Is magic real?"
And I am at a loss to answer her, I know where it is coming from, a few weeks ago we went to a magic show at the library where small animals of various degrees of cuteness appeared from various surprising places and objects. At the end of the show the magician told the kids that they too could perform magic tricks and they could learn them by reading books. This prompted a discussion between the older girls about whether it was really magic if you could learn to do it.

What is my answer, do I believe that there are things in this world that are not slight of hand?

Do I think that one can pull a rabbit out of one's hat if one hasn't previously stuffed said creature into said chapeau? NO.
Do I think that those scantily clad assistants are really cut into pieces and later rejoined without harm? NO.
But do I think that sometimes the very thing I need shows up at the very time I need it? Yes.

Do I believe that there are fairies in the woods? No, But I like to pretend it and to see my own little pixies flying about, imagining they can fly.
Do I believe in hexes and spells and superstitions? No but I believe that people are vulnerable to them when they believe in them.

Do I believe in magic?
I believe in the magic of laundry warm from a dryer, it will always make me happy and for a second it will make me younger as I imagine a laundry basket big enough for me to crawl into and bury myself in the sensation of warm and clean.

I believe in the magic of books, especially fiction, they have the ability to transport us to foreign places and expose the human condition, giving us opportunities to truly understand others and have compassion for them.

I believe in the magic of Theatre for many of the same reasons as books, but adding in the sense of community that is built in the production, both in the preparation and the performance, for both the actors and the audience, and the production crew.

I suppose I believe in magic because I believe in the power of imagination and in the beauty of this world and this experience.

As a Latter-Day Saint I know that my beliefs and my testimony that God lives seem to some as theoretical as the tooth fairy. But to me knowing that God exists and cares about me and my family is the best kind of magic, and it is real.

So how did I answer Liana?
I said that God created us with bodies and brains and the fact that they work seems magical to me. Even more magical, I get to be the mother to these incredible children. There is magic in twins who are so alike and so different at the same time, magic in big girls who like to do the Hokey Pokey over and over again, and definately magic in sleeping children and a quiet house.

On feeding children.

I have previously written about the many ways of trying to feed children. At this juncture I have a few thoughts to add


The twins have been an interesting micro-study on just how different babies can be. Since their first feedings in the NICU they have been very different.

In the hospital Amalia was aggressive, she would get hold of her bottle, drain it dry, and very often bring it all back up in just as aggressive a manner. A.J. took longer to be strong enough to eat, he ate slower and spent more time on the feeding tube, but he always kept down everything he took in.


Once they came home it was a similar story, Amalia wanted to eat everything, so we kept feeding her and she kept spitting it out. Once we took her to the breastfeeding clinic where they weighed her before and after eating we realized she was eating twice as much as she needed, we tapered her down on ounces and she kept it in. A.J. kept on the "slow and steady wins the race" approach and it has worked for him.


Now here we are at 8 months and for the past 2 months we have been trying to feed them rice cereal etc. baby food. Amalia wants it all, any flavor, any time, she will eat it hot or cold.
A.J. does not want it ever, as soon as a spoon approaches his mouth it shuts, and to the delight of his older sisters he will sometimes also shake his head "NO" causing baby food to be spread across his face, often in a thin mustache . He likes teething biscuits and baby snacks that he can pick up and gum, but try to squeeze a little strained peas in there and the fun is done. He resists airplanes coming in for a landing or choo choo trains coming to the tunnel. I have to get him to smile with his mouth open and try to sneak it in.
There is only one way he has willingly ingested baby food, and I am not willing to prepare this method every night. You see one night we were eating corn on the cob, and as A.J. was watching me eat very intently, I gave him my empty cob, which he attacked with great energy. I snuck some mashed squash on the cob and he slurped it up. I was able to get him to eat a whole (baby-sized) bowl of food, something that hadn't ever happened before. I imagined myself cooking corn on the cob every night and having to make extra trips to the grocery just to make sure I always had a cob, then I remembered, babies grow up.

SO when we are having corn on the cob, A.J. can too, and in the mean time I will be happy that he is such a happy boy that it doesn't take much to make him smile so that I can sneak the food in.