Elysia, Geronimo, Aramis and ????

We’ve been managing school even though the children really are done for the year. Elijah can almost write his name. He’s having some trouble with the A but writes a great #2. He’s really taken to learning now and insists on “writing my letters” while Caleb and Rebekah work on morning assignments. Caleb is a dot to dot fanatic at the moment.

We’re on Number 4. The kids are learning a paraphrased version of the Ten Commandments for each number. Rebekah is just soaking up learning about God between her Bible lessons, devotional and Bible verses. She’s almost insatiable and so much is just clicking together for her. Concepts like “idols” and “images” and then honoring the LORD’s name. In March and April she attempted to use “God” inappropriately twice and got a good talking to. When we did “Number 3—God’s name should be never used in jest” she finally got why, even though we’d used the verse with her before. We talked about how other people hear that and we can’t use his name lightly because “He’s so important” Rebekah declared.

Jessica’s Dad came though in March. The kids enjoyed having Pops and Nana around in the mornings and evenings. The extra special highlight was a trip to Forbidden City the last night they were with us. Before going to the restaurant though Jessica had her first prenatal checkup at 12 weeks. Chanse was able to watch the kids at 130 so Jessica could get out to the appointment. Chris picked the kids up right after school. Jessica expected them to come to the appointment but there were some miscommunications and they didn’t come, all that in a world with cell phones!

Jessica weighed in at 148, which probably accounted for the frustration of bloatedness (MSWord doesn’t think that’s a word, but you all know what it is) early on. She figures we started the pregnancy at 141, her wedding weight! YAY and jump up and down cheers! We digress. Jessica is healthy and in good shape for blood pressure, weight, and most of the blood work. The protein checked a point high but the water intake was off that day. The office didn’t call so everything is good. The doctor found the heartbeat and then did a sonogram. Based on the baby’s heart rate the guess is a little girl, and the office has been right with the other 3. The sonogram showed a perfect new life. It was the farthest along we’d had a first sonogram done. Rebekah (the crab) was 10 weeks, Caleb (the blob) with 6 weeks, and Elijah (the lizard) was 8 weeks. It is absolutely how amazing human procreation is. In the two weeks difference between Rebekah and this new baby, you could tell which end was the head. You can see limbs, and most beautiful of all you could WATCH the heart’s chambers open and close. The picture is still complicated. Head is on the right. Nose is in the top middle of that. The left arm is on the bottom middle. The heart is the 3 black spots between the middle and the nose. We are excited. “Squiggles,” as Grandma DJ has dubbed the baby, measured 11 weeks 4 days, we were 11 wks, 3 days and 15 hours. A very good measure—Squiggles is due November 10. No names picked yet. Middle names are narrowed down to “Eowyn” or “Arwen” for the girl and “Faramir” or “Elessar” for a boy. Break out you Tolkien if you’re lost.

We went to our second track meet last Saturday at BHS. It only held running events. Rebekah ran strong for a first place finish in the girls’ 6 and under 50m dash. Caleb had a different experience. He fell in lane 4 of the first heat. He got his upper body going so fast his feet didn’t keep up. The timers allowed him to try again in the last heat. He finished 7th out of the three heats. He won’t ribbon but he made a strong showing and had a heart lesson learned. Rebekah did take the blue ribbon for that event, and Elijah set a personal record which means he got a jolly rancher from coach.

Rebekah is getting used to glasses. We had them readjusted the second week of having them when she fell up the stairs and bumped her face and sent them way out of whack. The lady that fixed them tightened them on Bekah’s ears, which we quickly noticed made marks on her nose and didn’t really sit behind her ear well so we had them readjusted the following week. Last week they got out of aligned while Rebekah and Caleb were wrestling which we didn’t know. Rebekah explained a few days later “I fixed them myself.” We made a trip into town to fix them again and suggested that they come off for roughhousing “just like Pah does” and that has worked since.

We have tub issues at the house. The strange stopper system that came when we bought the house wouldn’t stop water for the tub. Two years ago we had the master bath’s stopper fixed mostly. So Jessica had the boys bathe in her bathroom. She thought she’s cleared all the adult soaps and stuff. After an hour of playing in the tub (which a huge highlight for the boys and their little sea animals) Jessica got the call that they were ready for a shower. Seeing that an hour had passed, she was already on the way upstairs having showered Rebekah, combed out the hair AND painted her nails during that time. Rebekah also painted Jessica’s toes. (Sorry, the line has to be drawn somewhere, Jessica can’t stand the finger nails being painted.) Turning the corner to that bathroom Jessica hears Caleb started screeching. Open the bathroom door and there is Elijah sitting next to Caleb with the disposable razor. Knowing what had probably happened to Caleb and needing to get it away from Elijah without him doing a swash buckler’s routine Jessica made two statements, “Caleb, are you okay?” and “Elijah, hand that to Mama now.” That made Caleb breathe and Elijah realize he was the unintentional culprit. The razor was handed over quickly and then the boys saw Caleb’s hand dripping blood. Caleb promptly flipped and raised his raucous a level and Elijah started saying “Sorry, Caleb” over and over again and crying. This all being without a shower yet and naturally still birthday suited. Jessica got Caleb out of the tub and wrapped a towel around the bleeding. Then she had to finish a very upset Elijah out of the tub and get him calmed down all with them wondering what the “pink stick of bleeding” (Caleb, dubbed it) was. Over the monitor Jessica was able to enlist Rebekah for some band-aids, which allowed her to stay with two very upset boys. Caleb was still bleeding and the source was two flaps of skin on his ring and pinky fingers. However Elijah slashed his brother thankfully he only got one of the two blades to make contact on each finger. The boys wanted to know what had caused it so Jessica pulled out the razor and showed them what it was. Wondering WHY anyone would keep something so dangerous Mama explained it was a woman thing but Daddy had electric versions of it. Rebekah brought in the bandaids for the fingers that were STILL bleeding even with pressure. Elijah finally calmed down once we established it was an accident and he didn’t mean to hurt Caleb. That made him feel better. We were able to shower the boys while Rebekah went to get replacement bandaids that were always at a maximum for blood. While they dried Jessica showed the boys what the razor was for. Their little eyes as they watched Mama purposefully put the pink stick of bleeding to her leg were wide and worried. Jessica showed them how you had to hold it a certain way and go in a certain direction to make everything work safely. They felt better when they saw you could use it without bleeding. Caleb’s fingers finally kind of stopped bleeding after his shower. We had to change the worse of the two after lunch and it was sensitive for a few days but he’s forgotten about it now.


A month ago after the kids were fully interested in Action heroes, Super Friends, and DC comics, Jessica allowed them to play with her old Hall of justice and action figures. Especially the boys will now play with them for hours and when it needs to be cleaned up and put away the switch to role-playing complete with blanket capes. It’s kind of dolls for boys but it really works and they take playing and cleaning up seriously. Caleb was ordering the villains and heroes in to their case.

We had our first trip to the River two Mondays ago. It was the first beautiful day we’d had in weeks. After lunch we took the Durnil children out to Harper’s Ferry to use the kayak launch beach. Macaroni got to be the chauffer. Upon arrival the first declaration was “I need to go to the bathroom.” There is no bathroom there so everyone got back into the car and we drive into Harpers Ferry. We were able to parallel park in front of the train station, which is 1 ½ blocks from the bathroom at the visitor’s center. Taking a chance, Jessica took the kids into the train station where YES there were bathrooms. We took it upon ourselves to check the trap doors in the floor also—crawl spaces. As we left a coal train came through. Elijah was veryexcited to watch it on the bench on the train platform. It was coming from Maryland out of the tunnel and going around the curve. It made his day. Then we got back into the van and drove back to the River lot. They built a dam and poured water and collected River things. Who knew kids could throw so many rocks in such close proximity and have only one kid get hit on a little throw? Not that there weren’t MANY unnoticed close calls on their part, not Jessica’s. The kids played for hours and would’ve played longer except they were all soaking wet so we needed to take a dry off walk before climbing back into Macaroni.

The rain let up for a little while. We were able to have some outdoor recesses and the kids are taking the tire swing to new limits.

We also embarked on our first fishing trip and caught nothing. Very unusal but Rebekah baited her own hook and Caleb made great use of the trout fishing sticks. Our caterpillar spun and hatched for us. We let her go two days later.