Rome wasn't conquered in a day...

Well friends, Jack finally pooped in the pot: two days in a row even! Like dutiful parents, John and I ordered the formerly banned pizza to celebrate the event. I was in rehearsal, but I hear it was a great celebration. I got home just in time to put the boys to bed. I'll let you guess what Jack did in his pants moments before it was time to climb in bed. Anyway, there has been no poopin' in the pot since last Monday. I must say two poops are better than none and I’ll take what I can get. Besides, Rome wasn't conquered in a day, was it?

Little Jackie Paper has been sick this weekend. I could barely keep his fever down yesterday and was on the verge of taking him to the Dr. this morning, but his temp is down. Not gone, but down enough that I'm not worried sick. Here he is hanging with Gammy yesterday morning. He looked at me and said "Jackson's sad."

Jack and Devlyn are still having troubles with sharing. I have heard Jack say to her “You don’t be sassy to me.”

Wy is saying please (pea)and thank you (dit do). He can name numerous body parts. He is working on 1, 2, 3, letters and colors. Whenever we talk about something being blue, he names all the blue engines. During mass he lists off all the engines he can think of. I'm trying to get him to work on his quiet voice. He doens't care. He loves to say hello and goodbye. Any chance he gets, he grabs a phone and starts chattering away sprinkling his conversation with "HEH-WO" and "BYE-BYE". He had a little developmental breakthrough this morning: John was heading out the door and Wy called after him "BYE-BYE, Da-ee!" He hasn't been stringing words together other than repeating the same word over and over. OK - he has been saying "Come on!" for a few weeks - but he hears that phrase day and night. Wy was in time out when I woke up Saturday morning. He was negotiating with Gammy about getting out of it. There he was sitting on the step looking up at her and saying "Come on...Come on..." to which she would reply, "No, you are in time out." This played out on a loop till he gave up, sat there and cried.

OH - I was home with the three little ones during the inauguration. I got everyone situated with snacks, turned on a movie for them and turned on the news for me. Wy insisted on sitting in my lap and he watched the whole thing with me. At one point, Jack & Devlyn came running upstairs making all kinds of noise and Wy turned to them, put his finger to his lips and said "SSSHHH!" How wonderful that he knew something important was going on!

By the way, I don't want to jinx us, but Wy is finally, blessedly sleeping though the night! Yeah Amy & John!

The girls miss their mama, but they are settling in here and at school. We already have a few major events to add to our date books; Abbie is going to receive her first communion, Jess is going to be confirmed and she will graduate 8th grade in May. Speaking of schedules, Jess has already been to a sleepover and both Abbie cat & Connie have invitations to birthday parties in the next two weeks. I am thrilled and nervous about their budding social lives. The nerves are completely selfish. I already feel like a mad scientist running this way and that - I am terrified of adding their social schedules into the mix.

Poor Devlyn has had a time of it this week. One early evening while I was at work, she jumped off a coffee table, rolled over the sofa and landed face first on an open frame wood arm chair. She gouged open the corner of her eye and totally looks like someone backhanded her. Mom was worried we were going to have to take her to the hospital (and how could she do that as she was the only adult home and couldn't fit all the kids in the car...) Well, mama got the bleeding to stop just as John got home and they decided it wouldn't need stitches, though it was a chunky cut. The next morning I was home with the 3 little kids. Devlyn came downstairs with something odd in her hair. After a few minutes of searching I discovered the source of the problem in the bathroom. Earlier in the day I started mixing some color to do my hair and I was distracted by one child or other. Before I had the opportunity to get back upstairs, Devlyn found the bottle and squirted some of the color in her hair and on the floor. We quickly rinsed her hair and cleaned up the floor and I did my hair before any other harm could be done. It wasn't till about an hour later that I discovered I missed a spot of dye on her eyebrow. Now one of her eyebrows is a titch lighter than the other one.

With the exception of the boys, the kids are eating about everything we put in front of them. I was sure there would be flat out refusals of this or that, but they have been willing to try just about everything including the veggie lasagna I put together last week. I also have a yummy potato soup that everyone likes...except Jack. Here are the little ones having ice cream after lunch one day. We had the potato soup and I had to bribe Jack with ice cream in order to get him to eat any soup. Lick for lick, bite for bite we went - soup, ice cream, soup, ice cream. I'll take what I can get, yo. (I know it looks like Dev & Wy don't have ice cream - but they devoured theirs while Jack and I did the potato soup tango.)

That's all I can come up with for the week. I hope to get back to our regular schedule this week - we'll see what happens. Till next time - love and many blessings from Owenland Park!