Veterans Day

I am not very political. In fact, I tend to shy away from all things controversial in the world unless I happen to be an expert in the subject. And, uhhmm...there's very little that I'm an expert on. And I certainly didn't pay a whole lot of attention in World History class-- I can't even remember who my teacher was (but I do remember the boy in the front row whom I asked to prom!). So now that you know how completely shallow I am where history and political science are concerned, it won't surprise you that I haven't ever considered Veterans Day as much more than a day off of school. Even today, I was mostly concerned with keeping tabs on the kids as they celebrated the four-day weekend by scattering off to friend's houses. And once, I thought "oh yeah--Veterans Day" as I fished around in the mailbox to find it empty.

One summer I had this boring job where I sat around in an office break room with a bunch of old farts, waiting to shuttle cars from here to there. So one day I decided to suck up my pride, put my naivety and poor schooling on my sleeve and start asking some questions about what it was like to have been a part of WWII. I thought it would be fantastic to hear it from the horse's mouth...real historical figures in my midst! I'm sure my eyes began to glaze over as they started to relay information that was so far out of my frame of reference that I was soon overwhelmed completely. However, that day sparked a desire in me to know the wars in America's History. There are a whole generation of Americans that had their lives changed by WWII. As if gentrification wasn't enough, to think that the major thing that changed you isn't even known, much less understood or remembered would be a little lonely and frustrating I think. There are a whole new generation of Americans that are being effected by the wars in the Gulf and Middle East. Will our grandchildren know what 9/11 is? Will they be able to explain the "War on Terror" as more than a Jon Stewart punchline?
As much as I wasted the bulk of this holiday not considering our country's veterans, I do think about my brother every day. He's in Iraq for the second time. He will have missed two birthdays and Christmas with family by the time he gets back. So if today I don't further my education of the veteran's experience, I will consider the sacrifices my brother, and therefore all the people currently serving our country, are making. I am proud of him for serving something bigger than himself, and because of him I am a little more proud to be American...and a little more political, too. So thank you, Chris, for showing America's sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations... you are in my prayers, I love you and miss you!

"To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…"
President Wilson, November 1919

Happy Birthday

This is a busy time for us in the birthday department (which means the new year must be a pretty inspirational time for us!)...Morgen, Micah and Noble all have birthdays within 8-17 days of each other. Not only are their birthdays all bunched together, they are flanked by sweets-filled holidays (so must we really have cake too?). And then there's the awful truth that they are simply not the first boy and first girl who get all the first fruits of my imagination and parenting inspiration (perhaps they don't know to start demanding it months in advance). So sometimes I feel like they get a bit shafted with the birthday celebrating. I have to say though, that I am enjoying the challenge of carefully watching and listening to each child for what makes them unique and what I love about each one. They are all so different! I love them all equally but in different ways and for different reasons. I like that I am being challenged by the troupe to plan ahead and manage our time and resources because-- and I am appreciating this too-- the weight is on my shoulders to show them that they are special and loved unconditionally, and there is such a short window to do that before the foundation is laid and they are off building upon it.

MORGEN is FIVE! ....independent, creative, morning light!

Morgen has a great preschool teacher, Teacher Marge, who gifted Morgen a book on her birthday. Morgen wore one of her new princess dresses from Grammy to school, and she was celebrated with a birthday crown and a song!

Morgen wanted a Princess Party at Chuck E. Cheese's, so that's what she got! She changed princess dresses, wore her crown ALL day, and enjoyed running around CEC with a few of her friends. She even put up with Chucky for a minute, even though she refused to give him a high-five.

Tiny little things are thoughtful gifts from friends.

Mommy made a princess cake; Morgen added the sprinkles.

MICAH is FOUR! ....snuggling, energy, pure joy!

Micah got Blue sitting at the beach playing guitar (I just cannot get the layer-cake thing right! Why is my frosting always oozing off the cake?!). He made sure I knew what he wanted (after changing his mind about five times): "I want Blue's Clues! I want candles!" He was pretty excited to find a candle in the shape of a four on his cake! Four is his new number, you know.

The boy loves books! He was so excited (as were the rest of the kids) to get a bunch of new books from Grammy...including a gross one all about worms.

Since Taylor recently got a cool new wallet (like Daddy's) he decided to give his old one to Micah. "Hey, just like Tay-duh's!!" Micah exclaims. "Bob duh Bil-duh!"

"I'm getting ice cream!" he plans out loud to himself, singing the Bob the Builder theme song while he stuffs the $5 bill from Gramma & Papa in his wallet.

He was stoked to try out his very own Big Wheels (sin pantalones, of course!)

Noble's First Day

I should be sleeping right now...

...when I'm tired (which I am, because we went out for a while today) I feel the breath of postpartum on the back of my neck, threatening sadness...

But Noble is over eight days old already and I wanted
to post some more pictures of the big day...

He is so tiny and precious!

He loves to snuggle and to be held. In fact, if I need him to wake up, I just put him down and walk away for a few minutes. I knew when I was pregnant that he was going to be this way.

David has been awesome, doing almost everything with the kids: driving, cooking, buying a violin, going on field trips, while at the same time finishing the bedroom floor, assembling the bed (I helped with that) while I mostly just sit on the couch and let this baby [re-]condition my breasts into nursing machines. (Minor expletives involved.) I don't know how I will do this on my own when he goes back to work!

Everyone loves the baby. Morgen has not stopped asking "can I hold the baby?" since he was born! She is very mommy-esque.


I left them together for a minute and when I came back she was rocking him in her arms, singing songs to him. "He's got the whole world, in his hands..." Noble seems to really love being sung to (not all the kids did). His middle name, Ranen, means "to sing, to have joy." I think we chose a good name.

Micah likes to snuggle up next to this baby (he's been our morning snuggler since he was born). Noble turns and looks at him, waiting for him to talk. Micah says "I like him," and "Hi Noble!" and "baby like me!" (the baby likes me.)

Let's face it. These boys are all in love with each other. They are really great kids; I am fortunate for the relationships they all have.

Taylor brings out the "to have joy" part of Noble. He finds something to laugh about every day, from his funny faces...

...to his little squeaky-toy sounds.

Now I think I'm going to go lay down with this little guy on my chest and go to sleep...

Noble Ranen Vonderahe

I have been pregnant for long enough. I can hardly walk, my extremities are swollen and numb, everything hurts, and my belly seems in a constant state of contraction. So October 17th, Friday morning around 4am, I gladly welcomed the backache that is true labor; I was ready to get this show on the road!

We woke up Aunt Renee and the kids and scurried around quietly gathering jackets and shoes and piled into the car. We checked into the hospital around 5:30am and had to wait while they found a room because they were so busy with new babies (I'm telling you, it's that full moon theory!). As they wheeled me around I had back-to-back contractions and even felt what I'll call the UTP ("urge to push")...not the best position for having contractions. I politely explained to the nurses that this was the 5th baby, and it would be happening fast ("so get that damn tub filled up!" I added in my mind), thinking of friends whose 5th babies were born into their daddy's hands after nurses and midwives didn't take them seriously.
They only had a chance to take one heartbeat monitor before I got into the tub. Things were looking good! This is my favorite way to labor: standing with my head in David's chest, drawing strength from his body. He is a rock, an amazing birthing partner. The nurses, midwives and doula said we really work well as a team which is awesome to hear...but I guess we've had a little practice at this thing, right?

I was glad to have our doula, Amanda there. It was strangely comforting knowing there was someone who had no medical agenda, who was only present to listen to and help communicate and meet my needs. I don't know why I didn't quite understand this before. I always assumed having David was enough, but as you can see, he is busy having his body squeezed and bitten, and he is permitted only a few words before I am hissing at him to STOP TALKING. Even though there wasn't time for her to contribute much in action, just having her present felt very supportive.

I am very proud of Korah and Taylor, my birth photo-journalists. They have a special nack for capturing the details of the moments, and their physical perspective makes for an interesting-- and often more modest-- composition. Plus, it gives them something to do, a purpose, and they are less inclined to worry and feel helpless when mommy is going through something difficult. The younger two are apt to follow the crowd: if it's alright with Korah and Taylor, it must be alright! Still, it was excellent to have their favorite Aunt Renee to snuggle and to wait with.

Micah probably could've just gone back to sleep.

Morgen just takes it all in. She's a learner! She's seen and heard mommy go through all sorts of emotions before, and she knows she's waiting for a baby!

When my water broke, there was a small amount of Meconium, and they told me I was going to have to get out of the tub to have the baby and they were going to have to call Peds, etc, so after the next contraction, could I just wait? Ah-ha-ha! Waiting again... very funny! Telling a force of nature to wait. Sure. Noble heard this and decided to just be born.
It was amazing--he just came squeezing right out! I mean, it was intensely hard work, but it was so incredibly fast! It was funny hearing the nurses getting ready for me to hop (yeah, right) onto a bed, and then switch to "nope, we're gonna have a baby!"
That's right we're gonna have a baby!
I love that the baby was instantly in my arms. No one elses. My very own prize for doing all that work! Right away I looked to see if it was a boy or a girl. Then as the names we had chosen got lost in my head I looked at him and said, "who are you?!" It was like I had not taken the time to consider that a real human was causing this pregnancy, was the purpose of this labor, and when suddenly there was this human in my arms it felt like "where did you come from? Do I know you?"
I was eager to share him with David, who was suddenly (to me) the only other person in the room...


8 pounds, 2 ounces...20 inches long
Born at 6:28am, October 17th, 2008
Only 2 1/2 hours of labor!

Korah is thrilled to have a baby brother, and to be the first to hold him!
For days she's been saying "I want you to have that baby to-day, mommy!"

Look at that proud papa and his gaggle of children :)

Micah has been eager to meet the baby for a long time. He's very curious to check him out.

The kids had heard a lot about the placenta, now they get to have a tour of it! We love life's lessons. And their expressions are priceless!

Korah, knowing a good photo op when she sees it, gets a good picture of the placenta's "tree". It's a bit much to post here on the family-friendly blog, but it's a great photo.

Noble came out wailing!! The boy does NOT like to be suddenly cold.

Ahhh...that heat lamp feels good.
Now give me back to my mommy.

I AM EXTREME.

I do childcare at the YMCA. In order to make it inviting and somewhat entertaining for our guests, we have an event calendar every month, chock-full of fun things to do like tattoo days and paper boat making. My boss finds ridiculous holidays on the web and my job is to invent activities to do on those days. I secretly love it, but I play it cool because I know I'm already a nerdy underpaid overachiever to my 20-something co-workers. Whatever. Love what you do, I say.

This last week, on one of my days off, it was National Comic Book Day. So before I left the day before, I went to my favorite place, the gigantic chalkboard, and drew up a bunch of blank comic strip pages with the instructions "CREATE YOUR OWN COMIC BOOK".

Today, seeing as how most of our guests are under three years old, the "Comic Book" was mostly a bunch of smeared scribbles. But then on one side was a single drawing of a boy named Hayden and his mini-biography. I have never even met Hayden, but I just thought this was awesome. I didn't have my camera with me, so I copied his drawing and here is my expanded interpretation:

Melt Down!

A couple of weeks ago, we were on a kick of meeting at IKEA every Friday after I picked up the kids from school and David got off work, both of which happen at 3 o'clock. David works right by IKEA, and IKEA has free childcare, really cheap food, and loads of stuff we like to dream of putting into our house, so as you can see, the convenience of it all just needed to be taken advantage of...and off we were on a date.

Mmmm...can you say "romantic"?

The last time we were there, we decided to get the kids ice cream on our way out because it was like, 90 degrees that day. As soon as we hit the door, the ice cream began to melt faster than any human child is capable of licking and before you knew it there were drips everywhere. Hands are sticky. Cones are getting mushy. Toes and flip-flops are spattered with the good stuff. And the world turned upside-down...

Suddenly there are tears and weeping like you've never seen before! It's woeful! Dreadful! Horrible! Unfortunate! Catastrophic and disastrous! And it's all from the 9-year old!!!

I tell you, I have never seen such discouragement for something so circumstantial. It was hot, and had been for days! We've been rolling with the sweat, the sunscreen, the constant yelling of "SHUT THE DOOR--THE A/C's ON!!!" at home. It's what you do with days like these: you lick faster! But for poor little Korah, it was too much to bear that day. It was like a lifetime of disappointments culminated into this one great misfortune. And the more she stood there and wailed, the more the ice cream melted. WHY, you ask, didn't we stay and eat our ice creams in the air-conditioned IKEA Bistro? I don't know. Maybe the air-conditioning or the magic of IKEA stunted our judgement, and now that we were outside--for whatever reason--we were determined to stay there, perhaps trapped by the melting confections and countenances.

The real reason I share all this is to ask: is it wrong that this whole scenario just gave me the giggles? I could not stop chuckling (not in an evil, or outright way, mind you, just amused) as my usually composed 9-year old carried on like the greatest of social injustices had been delivered to her. She didn't want to get a new cone. She didn't want help licking. She didn't want to lick on her own or to get cleaned up. She wanted to stand there and wail. Just stand there with her diminishing dessert. I tried not to laugh. I tried to be empathetic...but there was no consoling her, and I was keeping 3 other cones in check. We were making it a comical race between the rest of us. It was fun! And she is way too old for this. Something else must be going on. It was so ridiculous, I got giddy. All the stress I'd had building up all week in that heat transposed into laughter, and I couldn't stop. Then Dave said, "talk about a melt down!" and that was it. It was downright funny now. I gave Korah a hug (still giggling) and she trudged off to eat her melty mess between sobs. Micah's ice cream was melting worse than anyone (he always wins the prize for most messy eater) , which didn't bother him a bit, and Morgen thought she'd try drawing on the ground with her ice cream, and then resume licking with a sneaky grin when everyone said, "Hey! HEY! What are you DO-ing????" Eventually we went home and went to bed early, I think.

Maybe I'm just twisted, but sometimes things are so loud and chaotic and messy that I just have to laugh. Because really, there are worse things in life than a melting ice cream cone, but the innocence of a child cannot even fathom such things. Maybe I'm just happy that this is the worst thing that can happen to my kid right now, in her opinion. And that's a good place to be, in mine.

Dardinelle

I have this friend. Her name is Leslie. We are having twins! That's what we say because we are having babies at about the same time. It's very exciting. This will be my 5th, her first, so she has time to do amazing things like start a onesie business. This is not to under-appreciate Leslie's overall brilliantness...she is everything cool you ever wanted to be: a rock star, an artist, an amazing teacher...blah, blah, blah...the list goes on. I wanted to make a few gender non-specific onesies for our baby (we're waiting until it's born to find out the gender) but it's all I can do to make sure we all have clean underwear right now, so I don't know if the nesting thing is going to save me or not. Leslie's onsie shop is, ironically, just what I'd been wanting to do except even more amazing! It's called Dardinelle and I really want you to help her get it off the ground! So here's what you can do: pick the onesie that you love the most (it's really hard to decide) and buy one for me! Wouldn't that be wonderful? Leslie will appreciate you, and our baby will appreciate being clothed. Really. I have a bunch of receiving blankets left over from the other kids, but that's about it. I pictured the hippo onesie "because," as the caption says, "they are always hungry." I love it!
Now go shop, and spread the cuteness!

Perjinkities

Perjinkities (pur-JINK-i-teez) n. Those little fuzzy balls hanging off of cheap sombreros.

Look at me!! I can sew!

I am really proud of this skirt I made for a little girl we know. I feel like a real sew-er...errr, seamstress. I'm making one for my girls as well, but theirs will have equally cool ORANGE ric-rac lining the bottom instead of lime green perjinkities. I've been really into orange and green lately.

The thing is, you've probably never heard of perjinkities. You've seen them, you know what they are, but the name for them has only been around for about 10 years. It came out of a game of Balderdash, which the gang played up at Westmont one night in the early 90's. It was yet another night of laughing and hilarity at lord knows what....how come we don't laugh like that anymore? I think I just haven't made aquaintences in my adult life as silly as the friends I grew up with, and like a drug, I sometimes long for a few minutes of those days so bad I can almost taste it.

Well, I tried to look up perjinkities in the dictionary and it isn't in there, which makes it seem impossible that it was in the game. Maybe I spelled it wrong. But no matter...it's still a word to us. And isn't it ironic that everyone gets giddy when they see perjinkities, they are just so fun and cute! But to me they tap into a giddiness deep down inside me, past my grown-upness, into a place between youth and responsibility where gas was cheap enough to drive all over town doing ridiculous things almost every night of the week, filling our backpacks with laughter. Ohhh, the addictive taste of laughter...