Author: Phoebe Gleeson

We went to Mass today, like we do every Sunday, and I sat in the narthex with three of my children. I usually sit with two, but Trixie has been having asthma flare-ups recently so I thought it best she stay away from the incense smoke. Anyway, there we were, and today I really felt blessed to be at a church that just oozes with children. Off the top of my head, in our small parish of perhaps 150 families, I can think of at least 20 families with five or more children. There is one family with eight kids and two with nine! My seven just fit right in.

The kids aren’t an afterthought, they are one of the reasons we’re there. There’s no nursery, everyone attends the same liturgies. These kids have been to Mass every Sunday of their lives so they are remarkably well behaved. It’s pretty quiet. But when Mass is over and they all come pouring out, all loud and happy, it is one wonderfully joyful noise.

Here are my bookends.

I’ve cloth diapered 7 babies now.

I’ve changed over sixty thousand diapers.

(Wow!)

I have used almost everything, from pinned flat diapers with wool soakers to fitteds with nylon covers to pockets to prefolds with wraps. My current diaper for the diaper bag, where convenience is more important that cost (since I only need a few), is the bumGenius Elemental.

It’s a one-size fit, which means it adjusts to fit from 7 to 35 pounds. I have my doubts that it will fit my kid at 35 pounds, but I’ll see about that. So far the pros are easy to put on and take off, great fit with no leaky leg gaps, and clean-washing. Cons are drying time. I’ll update in a few months as I use them more.

• That Boy is much improved.
• The experimental kids-look-it-up homeschool week is, ah, rocky. I still tell them where to look, and then later, what to do. Oh well. It’s a nice way for me to keep records anyway.
• Faith is so very into ponies. When she does something she does it with every fiber, and in her mind it’s as if she has always been. And as though she never really liked other things. I gotta say, just between us? I’m getting sick of ponies.
• I’m selling some cloth diapers on Craigslist. Bah. “I know you’re asking $50, will you take $20?” Uh, no! $50 is already half price. Argh.

Yesterday I lucked out and scored a new Nexus 4 on launch day before they sold out (in minutes!) As I’ve said previously we need a new carrier for our cell phones out in the sticks, and since we have prepaid Virgin Mobile phones with no SIM to switch that meant buying brand new phones. I feel very decadent buying a $300 phone! Wow.

Sam wants you to understand the situation from the scorpion point of view. Nobody was living in the house, much less the air ducts! Can’t we all just… get along?

I told Sam that his buddies are welcome to live outside in my woods but we were afraid we would reflexively kill them if they live in the house. Especially if they live in our similar-to-leaf-cover bedsheets. Totally involuntary response on our part, you understand. Safest for all if they vacate.

Except you, Sam. You can stay.

Agitation and ire today for reasons unknown from the Bede. He is ‘stuck’ today, and very inflexible. He yells at us, and contradicts what we say. I wonder, is he in pain? I don’t think so. He tells us when he hurts. But maybe that is it.

His interpersonal skills are completely unpolished. He has very functional communication abilities, but conveying a bad mood really just results in lots of yelling of NO! YOU BE QUIET! and AAAAAAUGH!

The view from the loft at the new house. We think we’re moving before Thanksgiving, but I’m not holding my breath.

Hey! I bought a sofa. I wanted busy, bright and loud, like us.

I think I got it!

Also bought an ottoman (same print) and a chair-and-a-half. Let the lounging begin. It’ll be here on Tuesday.

I met my milk recipient! So impossibly adorable!

It’s good to know my milk is going to such an excellent example of ADORABLY CUTE BABY SQUEEEE!

Since Gilbert loves Minecraft so much, everything is Minecraft. He’s dressed as Steve, and had just told me he was headed out to punch some trees.

 Here is the ever-chipper Gilbert doing his math. He’s working his way through Miquon, but what he really loves is Life of Fred. We save that for Fridays. One of my favorite things about Gilbert’s math pages are the doodles he draws. He always has some Goldberg-esque machine with little stickmen.

Earlier there was a knock at my door. I opened it up to see an exterminator, who asked that I keep my kids inside because he was spraying for box elder beetles next door. Poor lil bugs.

Well. That’s over. We’ll see how it goes. My candidate didn’t get out of the primaries and both of the bigs left me unimpressed, so I guess I didn’t care that much.

I took the kids with me to vote (I always do) and got to cut in line because of the baby. Which was nice. Maybe they just wanted to get babies out quickly because if they start crying everyone is miserable? Who can say. In any event, I gladly took the chance to cut.

Today the big girls have finished their math book! Since we homeschool year round the milestones come at irregular intervals. Which is a contradiction, I realize, but I’m one-handed here and I hope you understand. So tomorrow, for their reward, they get to… start their new textbook. Yeah! There may also be a token or two of my esteem.

Here is Faith doing the last lesson.

Appropriately enough she is wearing a Dalek t-shirt. EXTERMINATE!

UPDATE: Cute!

So when we move, we’ll need a new cell carrier. We currently have prepaid service from Virgin Mobile, which uses the Sprint network. It’s great, but we have no coverage in the sticks. So we have to switch.

I am leaning toward AT&T. They have good coverage where we are and Sean and I could share a plan. It will still be more expensive than we are currently paying but I am considering getting rid of our land line when we move and going all wireless. That would even it out.

We can pay $160/mo and get unlimited talk/text along with 6GB to share. I currently use about 100MB a month, so I would use that for a hotspot for my laptop and the kids’ computer. That would cut down on the satellite internet as well.

I realize this is all very boring. Here is a photograph of the long-and-getting-longer Abby.

We’re buying a new couch.

Sean will be hard to convince to drop our land line, but I don’t see the advantage. If anyone has any convincing arguments for either side please let me know.

A side effect of switching carriers is getting new phones. I’ll confess I’m pretty pumped about that. I take about a hundred times more pictures with my phone than I ever did with my camera, largely due to Dropbox and auto-upload. So getting a phone with a boss new camera is a Big Deal. Sean doesn’t do subsidized contract equipment if he can avoid it, so we’ll both be buying. I am leaning toward the new Google Nexus 4.

Goodness this is a boring post. Here is another photograph, of the little girls playing outside.

Not a very good photograph, but isn’t it more interesting than cell phone plans?

First a picture or two of Dorothy, to soothe the easily spooked:

So, yeah. Scorpions. I saw one about a month or so ago, and had planned for it accordingly, e.g., no beds on the floor anymore, clothes and toys kept picked up, check shoes before wearing, and so forth. Then the guys who are doing some interior work got into the ventilation system and WHOA NELLY. “It was like Indiana Jones in there!” said Terry. So I was right. When you see one scorpion there are definitely more.

Today I will find out what to do about them. The acute problem and the chronic one will likely have different solutions. I’m pretty confident that I can keep them down with boric acid and diatomaceous earth once we get rid of the ones currently partying in our air vents. Also very glad the house only has central h/a downstairs.

So far in my life I have dealt with fleas, wasps, mice, meal moths, cockroaches, ants, black widows, rats, ticks, and now scorpions. Never bedbugs or lice though!

(Yet. Shudder.)

At the house! Ack!

Round Two of the costumes. We have a Michael, Jeanne Delanoue, Lucy, John the Baptist, guardian angel and Francis. Whew! Next year no doubling up unless I have nothing to do with it. I’m available to help with ONE (1) costume each.

Today, we pray for the dead.

De profundis clamavi ad te Domine!
Domine exaudi vocem meam.

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord!
Lord, hear my voice.

I waited too long to do Halloween costumes, eek! But I think it’s okay. This year we have two Rainbow Dash, one Scootaloo, one Minecraft Steve, one dragon princess, and PBS. Guess who that last one is, heh.

I need to make pony ears and pin dragon wings to a shirt. Also feminize the fit of a too-baggy shirt. All while minding a rather uncharacteristically upset baby! Today my friend T and her kids are coming, and I think Sophia.

But this is what I’m doing instead.

Since we are moving to the sticks next month (AKA the land of expensive capped bandwidth) I have been tasked with ways to put our family on a data diet. We use a LOT of bandwidth. 8 computer users in the house along with streaming video. We were blowing through around 200GB a month!

This is great! I read the book it’s based on, Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything, several years ago, and this one takes the feel of the other book and condenses it into an illustrated kid-friendly tome. The drawings are reminiscent of the mammoth-machines in The Way Things Work by David MacAulay; very cartoonish but informative.

Highly recommend.

Every February 15th, I pledge my love to my Faustine, Sean. And every year he returns the favor. I have learned that the Faustine’s Day holiday is not universally celebrated, which confuses me, because it is a feast of a Roman martyr (and his brother, Jovita), beheaded by Hadrian. I am told there is some other such martyr who has a feast about the same time, who seems to get a lot more attention.

Anyhoo, the great thing about Faustine’s Day is there are frequently excellent sales on the sort of thing one would give one’s beloved: heart-shaped chocolates, flowers, pink teddy bears, and so forth. One thing lacking every single year, however, are Faustine cards. Sean always makes me one, with an illustrated poem, which follows.

Faustine, Hero of Love
by Sean Gleeson

Long ago, in Roman days
Faustine went to and fro
To spread God’s love, His word and ways,
And Jovita, Faustine’s bro.

On the city streets he’d preach,
And the alleyways thereof.
“Amo, Amas, Amat,” he’d teach.
I love, you love, He loves.

But the man in charge was bad
Hadrian the Great.
The emperor was spitting mad!
Haters gonna hate.

“I shall kill Faustinus dead
To stop his words of love!
Make a trophy of his head!
Jovita’s too, by Jove!”

Faustine chuckled at the king.
“Our heads are yours to lop.
But love is an eternal thing.
It can neither die nor stop.”

So Faustinus spilt his blood
For love of God and Man.

Be my Faustine, if you would,
And I’ll be yours if I can.

More Poetry Friday entries can be found here.