the honey home

gallimaufry, 2.13.22

It’s Sunday afternoon, the first day of our “work week” since Jeremy’s work schedule changed several weeks ago. We’ve had church, done school, ate breakfast, lunch, and snacks, and Elvie has joined and surpassed me in a bit of cleaning. (She took over each thing I took on, until I had to stand by and direct while she completed everything.)

We read about emperor penguins in Character Sketches today, so we watched an episode of a show on Antarctica that featured them. The virtue they are illustrating in our book is generosity–namely the giving of gifts that require sacrifice. I think about the penguins shuffling with their eggs for months in the dark cold of the antarctic winter, and I feel ashamed for my complaints about the trials of pregnancy. I have something like nine weeks left as of today. Some days I feel like I won’t make it–though this feeling usually passes. Eventually.

Miss Flannery, upside down, with her legs over her head, like she’s not supposed to be.
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kransling the eighth (month six.three-four)

Week 26

Treadmill

Jeremy got a treadmill set up for us in the basement, and I’ve started walking on it daily. I’ve never done any kind of exercise during pregnancy! I shoot for a mile a day, but occasionally half a mile is all I manage before my belly gets sore. It hasn’t helped me be able to get up and down the stairs more easily (that still completely wipes me out) but I do feel better overall throughout the day. My weight gain has leveled out since starting that, too.

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fifteen months (aurick virgil)

I have almost missed this month. It has absolutely flown by. Aurick turned fifteen months on the 7th of January.

moving rooms

Since last month’s update, he’s been moved permanently over to The Boys’ Room. He was not quite as excited about this as the rest of us were. The boys were excited to have him with them; I was excited at being able to say “The Girls’ Room” and “The Boys’ Room” and have it be accurate. Aurick just rolled with the punches and continued his habits and routine in his new location.

I had to move him because–as I mentioned in his last update–he would wake Beatrice up in the mornings, and they would pal around together until I got them up. Unfortunately, she began using this time to put things in his crib that he shouldn’t have, and for his safety I thought it was prudent to move him in with the boys, who are all old enough to know better.

I wasn’t really sure how the move would go, since the boys are not used to having a baby in their room ever and can be rather noisy at bedtime. (Eldore didn’t move in there until he was old enough to sleep in one of the bottom bunks.) We moved our nightly reading out to the living room (one way to make sure Anselm stayed awake for it) then the boys sneak into their room once we’re done reading and Aurick has been asleep for a little while. They can’t manage to be really quiet, but Aurick has proved himself a much heavier sleeper than I ever knew he was. Their noise doesn’t bother him at all.

And thankfully his early wake-ups don’t bother them, either. I still can’t get him to sleep in for anything. by 6 or 6:30 he starts occasionally screeching like a monkey, hoping someone will come get him. I’ve never had a kid that I couldn’t get to sleep later, and I’m still not sure what to do with him on this except wait for March and the time change.

Mobility

Also since last month’s update he has started pulling up and crawling on all fours. What a relief that was to have him finally start that! I have been watching him closely because of his gross motor delay. I couldn’t quite decide if I was worried or not (I wasn’t worried at all until we hit maybe 14 months, since he was so closely following Anselm and Clive’s motor skill curve.) 14 months, however, was the time that they both started pulling up on things, and I was worried that he wouldn’t start and that would mean something was wrong. Thankfully, though, he started up just at the time they did, starting with small boxes and graduating to bigger boxes, then to places like the side of Beadie’s bed.

The all-fours crawling surprised me, though. Because Anselm and Clive never switched over to crawling properly once they had found another mode of getting around, I didn’t really expect Aurick to either, but to just continue to army crawl until he found the courage or strength to start walking. (And I tried–I tried so hard to get Clive to really crawl!) I am very glad that he began, though, as this saves the front of his shirts and sweaters from the large grimy smear that pulling himself around on the floor produces. At the moment he army crawls and properly crawls interchangeably, depending on what he’s doing, what type of surface it is, and how quickly he wants to get there. He is more likely to crawl on all fours when he’s on carpet.

He also started pushing himself up to sitting from belly-scooching. In all, he’s made great leaps in mobility this month, and I am relieved!

attitude

He is a master of scowling. Sometimes he scowls to be funny, and sometimes he scowls because he’s really ticked off with you. Ticked off about what, I often have no idea. He gets mad when he cleary has asked for his water bottle and you tried to give him more oatmeal instead. He also gets mad when Beatrice so much as looks at him sometimes (I don’t quite understand that.) You can tell he’s mad because the scowl is accompanied by a BAH!, uttered in such a growly tone that Scrooge himself would be proud. The madder the Aurick, the longer the BAH.

(Sometimes it’s just AH, as I am reminded because he is currently looking out the glass door making said noise to something outside that is angering him.)

scowling (at Anselm, I think)
just kidding!

He likes to crawl over to the glass door and look at the dog. (Woof, woof! He’ll say.) He’s also started spending more time with Beadie back in her room, listening to music and playing quietly in that way that toddlers do–playing alongside, not with. He still likes to stack blocks; he can make a tower of four or five now. He will sing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star (the melody, not the words) and likes to sing along and do the motions to One Little Finger (he actually tries the words on that one). He’s gradually beginning to say more things, beyond just his guttural babbling, which he still likes to do.

He also still loves his Johnny Jump-Up. Now when he twists himself up, he knows how to pull his feet up and let himself untwist, round and round and round.

other updates:

ephraim + clive + anselm + eldore + beatrice

pancake breakfast for a large family

I took this picture one morning when I made pancakes. I quadrupled the recipe–typically I triple it, but we’re too big for that now–now I’m making batches four times as large as the original recipe I memorized about six years ago. I don’t know how many pancakes it makes. I’ve never counted, actually. “A lot” is probably an accurate assessment.

This is making pancakes for two adults and seven children. (Eight if you count Flannery, in utero, just visible in the above photograph.) I had three cast irons for the pancakes, one for some sausage, and a pot to warm the syrup. Two twelve-inch pans and two fourteen-inch pans. And the pot. I don’t know how big the pot is. It’s bigger than my smallest pot and smaller than my biggest pot. There you go.

We do have a griddle on the stove top, but it doesn’t quite work properly, so I’ve never used it. I think I can cook the pancakes more quickly on the pans, though, but of course this is only speculation.

It takes a bit of time to get through cooking this many pancakes. I make them small because our kids are still small, but also because in my mind I can make more pancakes more quickly if more fit on the pan. (I realize that’s not quite how it works.) I also think a large stack of small pancakes is more satisfying mentally than one large pancake on your plate.

When they’re finished cooking, the pancakes are transferred to a warm oven to wait until everything is ready. This works great for pancakes, but is terrible for waffles, by the way. Unless you’re fond of soggy waffles. They get soft, sitting together like that in the oven. We like crispy waffles. I haven’t figured out how to make waffles that we can all sit down and eat together without investing in ten more waffle makers. I am open to suggestions.

And I do highly recommend all sitting and eating together. I am not keen on the idea of everyone sitting at the table while mom stands by the oven, makes things to order, and gulps down her own food only when everyone else is done. I don’t think that presents a good example. It is possible to all eat together. It takes some planning, though. I remember when Jeremy and I were in Paris, and the mom of the family we stayed with presented us all (three teenaged kids, her husband, and we two guests) with a several-course dinner every night. And she always sat and ate each course with us. I can’t quite figure out how she did it (I have never tried multiple courses as it seems too daunting) but I have an intense admiration for her skill. I wonder if she would have a solution for serving large amounts of waffles simultaneously while still managing to keep them crispy.

I used to have a lot of trouble with pancakes going cold. I would go through all the trouble to cook them and keep them warm and then once they were on the table, it seemed they all went cold almost immediately. This has been remedied by the pot of warming syrup. It was the syrup that made the pancakes go cold the minute you got them on your plate. Now served in small pitchers around the table, the warmed syrup doesn’t assault the pancakes like the cold syrup did. You live, you learn.

kransling the eighth (month six.one-two)

I don’t have any pictures from this week, except this one of pots on the stove. Enjoy

week 24

Holy braxton-hicks, batman

It’s hard to know, exactly, whether a symptom has suddenly appeared or it has just become frequent enough for me to realize it’s happening. Whatever the case may be, this week Braxton-Hicks contractions seemed to swoop in out of nowhere. And they took over–happening all the time (or so it felt. Not really all the time. It they were happening all the time, I would call my doctor. Or chalk it up to irritable uterus. But they are frequent!)

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king saul & captain hook

Hook was profoundly dejected.

[…] Good form! However much he may have degenerated, he still knew that this is all that really matters.

From far within him he heard a creaking as of rusty portals, and through them came a stern tap-tap-tap, like hammering in the night when one cannot sleep. ‘Have you been good form to-day?’ was their eternal question.

‘Fame, fame, that glittering bauble, it is mine,’ he cried.

‘Is it quite good form to be distinguished at anything?’ the tap-tap from his school replied.

[…] Most disquieting reflection of all, was it not bad form to think about good form?

His vitals were tortured by this problem. It was a claw within him sharper than the iron one…

[…]the sword fell from Hook’s hand, and he was at Peter’s mercy.

‘Now!’ cried all the boys, but with a magnificent gesture Peter invited his opponent to pick up his sword. Hook did so instantly, but with a tragic feeling that Peter was showing good form.

Hitherto he had thought it was some fiend fighting him, but darker suspicions assailed him now.

‘Pan, who and what art thou?’ he cried huskily.

‘I’m youth, I’m joy,’ Peter answered at a venture, ‘I’m a little bird that has broken out of the egg.’

This, of course, was nonsense; but it was proof to the unhappy Hook that Peter did not know in the least who or what he was, which is the very pinnacle of good form.

[…]Hook was fighting now without hope. […]James Hook, thou not wholly unheroic figure, farewell.

J.M.Barrie, Peter Pan

8 Then David went out of the cave and called out to Saul, “My lord the king!” When Saul looked behind him, David bowed down and prostrated himself with his face to the ground. 9 He said to Saul, “Why do you listen when men say, ‘David is bent on harming you’? 10 This day you have seen with your own eyes how the Lord delivered you into my hands in the cave. Some urged me to kill you, but I spared you; I said, ‘I will not lay my hand on my lord, because he is the Lord’s anointed.’ 11 See, my father, look at this piece of your robe in my hand! I cut off the corner of your robe but did not kill you. See that there is nothing in my hand to indicate that I am guilty of wrongdoing or rebellion. I have not wronged you, but you are hunting me down to take my life. 12 May the Lord judge between you and me. And may the Lord avenge the wrongs you have done to me, but my hand will not touch you. 13 As the old saying goes, ‘From evildoers come evil deeds,’ so my hand will not touch you.

[…]

16 When David finished saying this, Saul asked, “Is that your voice, David my son?” And he wept aloud. 17 “You are more righteous than I,” he said. “You have treated me well, but I have treated you badly. 18 You have just now told me about the good you did to me; the Lord delivered me into your hands, but you did not kill me. 19 When a man finds his enemy, does he let him get away unharmed? May the Lord reward you well for the way you treated me today. 20 I know that you will surely be king and that the kingdom of Israel will be established in your hands.

I Samuel 24:8-13, 16-20

kransling the eighth (month five.one)

week 17

obstinate baby

This week I had a doctor’s appointment. It was a very fast visit. The longest part of the appointment was trying to find baby’s heartbeat. It took long enough that I was starting to be very concerned before we finally heard it–I really thought that everything was over. This is the second appointment where baby has been hard to find. I hope this doesn’t indicate something about their personality. As it is, I can’t imagine why it’s been this difficult twice now, except maybe things are even roomier in there than I can tell from the outside? I have no idea.

Other than that excitement, there was nothing particularly special about the rest of the appointment. I didn’t have any questions, so it was basically taking my blood pressure (twice because it was a little elevated) and then I left. Sometimes I do wish I had a doppler at home, and I could just send them the baby’s heart rate and my blood pressure reading and not have to drive the 30 minutes into town. From experience I know that this desire will intensify as I near the second half of pregnancy.

haircuts

This week I gave haircuts to two Kranslings who needed one. (Is this appropriate to put here? It’s not pregnancy related, except that I gave the haircuts and I am pregnant. I suppose that is good enough.)

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