Miriam is 5

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas. We have been hanging out in SC, away from the computer, so this will be brief. But Miriam is five months old so here is the photo update.

Deep Water

Scientist have been working hard to let the public know that sharks are not the blood thirsty, ferocious, maniacal killing machines they are believed to be. But we the public know better. Of course they are vicious and always eager for carnange, the poor beasts are constantly teething.

Sharks have multiple rows of teeth in their mouth so when one drops out they already have three or four ready to fill in.

I've been thinking of this lately because both Miriam AND Reuben are teething this week. Miriam is getting her first bottom tooth. Reuben didn't want to be left out so he's decided to sprout some molars. If you look into either of their mouths it looks a little like this:

Consequently I feel like I'm in some deep water with my own little vicious toothy beasts constantly circling me.

Miriam chewing on plastic.

Reuben chewing on wood.

In a more positive development Miriam is getting really good at scooting around. Unlike her brother I think she might learn to crawl. But like her brother she's a basketball fan.

Culinary Improv

Currently the self-selected focus of Reuben's life seems to be food. I think I made that clear in last night's post. In an attempt to utilize his interests for his educational benefit both Aaron and I have started teaching him how to cook.

He's pretty good at scrambled eggs. He can crack them by himself, stir, and add salt and pepper. And I've taught him how to scoop out flour and kneed bread. He chops celery. He knows to wait til he sees bubbles before adding noodles to the pot and all the steps for making crepes.

The kid knows his way around the kitchen. Which is why I feel pretty confidant in telling him a simple direction (like stir or chop this or add butter) and leaving him to do it while I check the recipe or help Miriam.

The last day or so Reuben has started going the extra mile. He accomplishes the assigned task then thinks,

I know what would make this cookie butter even tastier - a toy hamster and Miriam's blue chew ring.

And what would make these eggs taste good? How about some chopped celery and rocks with red paint on them. Yum. yum.

The biggest challenge with his additions is his conviction that the food really is better with them and he WANTS to eat it that way. Talking him out of the rock celery eggs took some serious negotiations.

Creativity aside, Reuben gets the job done when it comes to food. We made some mighty fine spice cookies without any surprises. Well, no surprises that I know of.

The Very Hungry Reuben

We bought a carton of large eggs YESTERDAY. Tonight they are gone. All gone. I ate two eggs. Aaron hasn't been home so he didn't have any and try as she might Miriam is still stuck on a milk only diet. That leaves Reuben.

At dinner I watched him devour four eggs in under a minute then beg for more. I scrambled another and thirty seconds after I'd scooped it out of the pan it had followed the others into the bottomless pit that is Reuben. He ate five eggs right in front of me along with four stalks of broccoli, a full cup 8 oz of yogurt, a full cup of milk, a rice cake with peanut butter and a slice of nine grain wheat bread. And that was just dinner.

I feel like I am raising the very hungry caterpillar. Or Gaston. I'm not sure which is worse. I'm really hoping Reuben is working on growing Up and not just out.

He's also figured out how to peel his own clementines so now there's no stopping his depletion of our fruit. I'm finding piles of clementine peels all over the house.

Scary Mime

Do you find mimes scary? I've heard a lot of folks do.

Reuben doesn't. Quite the opposite. He finds them hilarious. Particularly when they are angry.

I know this because I woke up this morning without any voice so most of my parenting was done using sign language and miming. There was one time in particular where I had to make some very dramatic gestures of protest. The situation involved a laptop left on a couch and a small baby laying within a certain two year old's throwing distance of said lap top. I thought I made my point well til Reuben responded by literally falling over laughing. At least he didn't complete his throw.

I need my voice back.

Merry Picture

I've started receiving requests for our address from my kind and organized friends who send out Christmas cards. When I get such a requests I think, How nice. I really hope they don't expect a card from us. Because if they do they are going to be disappointed. But I figure, if they are truly my friend they know this already.

I would like to send out a Christmas card one day, in the way that I would like to one day own a house and have a retirement savings plan. It's what respectable American middle class folk do. But I'm not sure if I'll ever make it into that category. For several reasons.

But as for the Christmas card the major obstacle is trying to get a decent family picture. We are NEVER together. Any of us. Here's an example.

The lights at the temple are gorgeous. We live a mile away. Perfect picture taking opportunity. All this has me thinking maybe this year might be the year. We'll get a family photo and I can make that into a card and send it out to all our lovely long lost friends.

It's Friday evening and I think we can go to the temple grounds and have some Christmas fun and take a picture together.

Strike 1 : Aaron calls and says he can't come home.

I rally: Well, too bad. We are going anyways and we are going to have Fun. Wether people want to or not.

And what do you know? It's a Christmas miracle. I get Reuben AND Miriam into a picture and they are both looking at me and almost smiling (Miriam) and fake smiling (Reuben).

Strike 2: Reuben never actually stops moving so the picture is a little blurred. But I start to think that maybe I could get into the picture too and I could hold Reuben still and we'll just photoshop Aaron in. As I start to look around for someone who can take the picture for me, Reuben reads my mind and runs away. Far far away.

I think it's funny how Miriam follows Reuben with her eyes. I know she wants to run away too. But too bad. She's still under my control for now.

So here's a picture of eskimo Miriam sweetly smiling.

Strike 3: Then Miriam takes revenge and has a HUGE diaper which goes everywhere. So I give up and we wander around smelly and unpresentable. But it was a good enough time. The nativity scene and lights were fun to look at. Reuben was mesmerized by the life size outdoor nativity. After staring at it for a good five minutes he loudly exclaimed "Those people are stuck!"

Four Months

I adore Miriam. She just turned four months. She's a very watchful, busy, and loving little person. On the days I need a smile, I know where I can turn to get one.

All I have to do is say

Hi..

Mir...

...iam. Bam. There's that smile.She's so much fun to talk to. She listens! Unlike another little person around here....

I'm kidding. Reuben listens. When he wants to.

But watch out for her mouth. She bites. She's like a shark. Anything that comes within sight she'll lunge at, mouth agape. She's constantly trying to steal my food. So we got her a giraffe chew toy which has become her constant companion.

It's kind of funny to watch her try to chew his head off.

Reuben and Miriam have started playing a game. She sits in her Bumbo and chews on her rings. When she drops them, Reuben picks them up and throws them back to her. They both crack up about it.

Miriam acting as Reuben's target practice. Pretty good aim, huh?

And if you are wondering about Thanksgiving I think this picture does a pretty good job summing it up. Here's Reuben stuffing his face with lefse, football securely in hand.

Kids and Weekends

Our kids fail to grasp the great opportunity the weekend presents to sleep in. They wake up at 6 AM. Every day. So what to do on Sunday morning around 6:45? We went for a walk at the nature center as a family.

Here's Miriam and Aaron smiling at me.

Reuben found his beloved rocks and water.

Reuben pondering a rock.
Reuben pondering all existence.
A deer we ran into. We saw several including a three point, drooling buck. Yuck. It's mating season so all the deer have been acting kind of loopy. I was glad we looked intimidating enough that he backed off.
Cold Miriam.

When we got back home Reuben decided to give his sister a hug = Danger!

These bottom pictures are from a day or two ago.

Miriam playing with a leaf that fell her way.

Reuben playing with milkweed fluff. He would throw it up so it'd fly away in the wind then wave and yell bye Milk weeeed!

Thanks Government

Aaron has told me he feels a little weird living across the river in what we jokingly refer to as the "socialist" state of Maryland. He feels weird because he's realized that he really likes it - lots of wonderfully maintained parks, nature centers, community programs, health assistance programs, great libraries, smooth roads, etc. We benefit big time from having so many wonderful parks to play at. It's a noticeable different from other towns I've lived in where the only communal place for kids to play was the McDonald's playground.

Last week I had a pleasant surprise when I learned our county gives out composters for Free. (Thanks to Dean who did the finding out for me) The day I found out, we picked one up and went to work assembling it. Joan and I paved an area for it to sit so vermin couldn't burrow into it from below. Then Reuben and Miriam "assisted" me in assembling it. The plastic was rolled Super tight so we wrapped it around our fisher price car to get it to stay open then Reuben helped me screw the bolts on. His tiny fingers were remarkably well suited for the job.

Here it is:

Here's Reuben next to it for scale.

Eight days later, it's up and running. I was feeling pretty proud of getting it put together. Then I reread the directions to make sure I had the green to brown ratios right. At the bottom of the assembly instructions I noticed it said "assembles in only 2-3 minutes" What?!? That drained away some of my pride. But not all.

Here's Battle supervising our efforts.

Here's Reuben throwing a frost frozen green tomato into the bin. And if you are wondering, yes the tomato made it in. On his first shot too. As poor Miriam can attest to, Reuben's aim is excellent.

Even though we've only had it a few days, it's already come in handy. There are tons of leaves falling from the trees. The frost took out our garden so we cleared what remained. All that and dinner scraps have found their place in our composter to make some good dirt for next year's garden.

As a bonus, while digging out the spot for the paving stones we found the biggest earth worm I have ever seen. It looked like this. See me at the bottom of the picture?

Okay, not really. But it was so big that I at first thought it was a snake. Reuben was mesmerized but refused to touch it. After I let it go Reuben insisted we find "more worms" for me to hold and him to glare at from a safe distance away.

Sadly our worm was not even as large as the giant gippsland worm pictured below. They are only found in Australia. If you want to read more about giant worms you can go here. There are legends and rumors of worms more than a foot in diameter and many feet long. Just like Dune...