March 15, 2009
Daredevilry
The warming weather has thawed an innate desire within my oldest girls: playing outside.
Now when we get home from a morning spent at the doctor or at church, they immediately run to the little playhouse in our neighbor's driveway. But I have to drag them away crying and screaming because it's nap time.
On Friday we went to Ferguson's January-Wabash Park for the first time this year. At first I thought it would be like our previous park outing the week before, in which they spent most of the time swinging and very little on the playground. The girls probably swung for 20 minutes before they (read: Jadzia) decided to ride the pretend horses.
Then Jadzia surprised me. She wanted to go on the merry-go-round, despite remembering her really bad fall the first time she tried a merry-go-round last year. Ludi wanted to do it, too. Thankfully there weren't any other kids around yet, so I could push them without going too fast.
From there it was time to hit the actual playset. Jadzia began going down some slides by herself. Ludi took a bit of warming up, but she let me help her down some slides, too. I looked up and saw Jadzia climbing a ladder. Unbelievable. Later, she was walking carefully across a horizontal ladder to get from one platform to another. She did that several times. Still later, Jadzia ascended a chain-ladder that moves as you climb it. All by herself. Ludi followed her, and though I had to help her with her footing, she managed to pull herself up with her own strength.
[EDITOR'S NOTE: I forgot to include this paragraph when I originally posted this entry] When we got home from the park, again the girls ran to the neighbor's driveway. I went to grab Ludi as Jadzia got onto her big wheel tricycle. I watched, amazed, as she began hurtling down the driveway with her feet off the ground. She never rides it feet-up. Unfortunately, she still doesn't steer very well, and she sort of flipped over before I could catch her. She ended up slightly scratching her face and crying.
Ludi's daring I could understand, as she has always been a climber. But Jadzia has always been so trepidatious about these things. What a difference one winter makes!
March 11, 2009
VIDEO: The Reader
We got a stack of books from the library this week, two of which we have read before: "Three by the sea" and "Three up a tree," both of which are excellent. While we were at the library, I also noticed "Miss Nelson is Back," another book I remember from my youth, so we added that to the stack.
Ludi doesn't quite have the patience to sit through "Miss Nelson is Back" when I read it for the girls. But she likes to take all three books and "read" them aloud by herself.
To watch this movie, you need Apple's QuickTime software installed on your computer.
March 7, 2009
Blame it on work, or the girls, or whatever
I know the pace of this blog has been a bit slow lately. There's a couple of reasons for that. The first is that I now work a four-day week. On those four working days, I have far less free time. The second is Josie and the girls. Josie has been quite fussy the last few weeks, and the harness has undoubtedly exacerbated that to some degree. When she's crying, she only calms when we hold her a certain way and rock her, and it can be exhausting on nights where she won't go to sleep.
But thankfully we've also had some really nice peaceful times with Josie. I think we are getting better at caring for her.
Of course the other girls continue to be demanding, too, always wanting to be in action, especially with the recent spate of warm weather.
One way to take care of everyone is to go for walks in Ferguson, which tires out the girls, and lets Josie sleep on my chest in the baby carrier. We went to the library and Walgreen's yesterday morning, for example, and ran into a friend on our way back home.
Right now all three girls are sleeping. I'm enjoying a bit of time to import some video of a family history interview I shot earlier this week during my furlough from the Post-Dispatch. The subject is Mr. Richter, who is the only living first cousin of my great-grandfather, Frank Becker. A couple days after our interview, he had an operation to remove some cancer. If you think of it, please pray for his recovery.
March 1, 2009
March madness
Jadzia loved doing the advent calendar in December, so after Christmas we bought a magnetic calendar that we change every month. EDIT: So my mom and dad got Jadzia a cool magnetic calendar for Christmas. Every month we change the days and set up the holidays and appointments.
As you can see, Jadzia has set herself an extremely busy schedule in March.