What's New?, Thanksgiving Edition

It's time for another edition of What's New, starring,

My Family!

Elijah

It was because of him that I decided to write this post... because... one week ago today, he took his first steps! After months of cruising around the furniture, and letting go for a step or two, he took off and walked across the living room into his father's arms. I was in the kitchen and heard SCREAMS coming from the adjoining living room, so I dashed over, thinking the older kids were bludgeoning each other, only to behold the last half of the blessed milestone.

He was terrified by the excited screams from his siblings, though, so the whole event ended in tears. Thankfully, they were quickly soothed by me as I came to pick him up and congratulate him on his Very Big Boy feat.

{Now is where I shed a wistful tear for the fleetingness of my baby's babyhood.}

Elijah is such a social child! I thinks he finds his mornings while Anna is at school rather dull. Of course, I like to play with him or read to him, but mostly he's just around while I putter about with dishes and laundry and dinner prep. So when we leave for our walk to get his sister at 11:15, he brightens up so sweetly. He knows what's about to happen.

He loves to push the buzzer to get into the school, and despite being almost completely preverbal, he makes this and all his many fiercely held opinions and desires well known.

He loves soup and it is so sweet, albeit messy, to see him eat with a spoon now. He's a big fan of pitted olives and under no circumstance can you leave a jar of peanut butter around him with no lid on. He will climb onto countertops or tables to stick his greedy paws into the jar to feast on the forbidden goods.

(Technically, peanut butter itself isn't a 'forbidden good.' Just not, you know, to be eaten with one's hands. {Ick.})

It is precious to see how much he loves and adores his older siblings. When we walk up the hill to get Isaiah from school, Noah is already on his way towards us via bike. As soon as he recognizes the familiar sight of his brother's face, he shouts and chatters incessantly while pointing excitedly. So precious.

Isaiah loves to cuddle him so much, and find books to read to him. Elijah clearly loves the attention from both his beloved brothers.

Now that he seems more "toddler" than "baby" he has become Anna's playmate... and somehow, competition. She used to dote on him dearly as her little dolly but lately they have been getting into scraps. It's... odd... to see this new phase beginning already. I still tend to forget that Anna isn't my baby anymore, and here I am, with a baby younger than her, who has just crested into feisty scrappy and oh-so-happy toddler.

And OH-SO-HAPPY he is! Everywhere we go, people comment on how smiley he is. He just loves being with people and loves to be noticed and recognized for being the incredibly cute human he is.

Anna

We recently found a cheap Dora the Explorer placemat at St. Joe's in Combermere. Anna sweetly requested we buy it for her, and since I was feeling carefree, I handed over the quarter for her to get it. This silly thing has become her favourite 'toy.' All the kids use it for a makeshift game of Twister, and she regularly carts it around to "do her math" as it has squares with each numerals and a picture of that numeral's worth of cookies, or apples, et cetera.

Suddenly she wants to "do math."


Likewise she's taking Isaiah's reading assignments and wanting to try her hand at that, too. Did I mention she hasn't turned four yet?

She is just a sweet, amusing delight. I love getting to do watercolours with her when she gets home from school, or going for walks around town. (Almost) four is such a fantastic age, because they are so little and innocent, but suddenly actually old enough to do fun things with. When we go for walks, I bring the double-stroller, but often she prefers to gallop beside me anyway, showing off her light-up Paw Patrol sneakers.

We made a Thanksgiving banner this weekend of things we were grateful for, and she chose "water fountains" and "cousins."

Seen posing in front of the 'altar' where her brothers say Mass

October is such a fun month to be her mom, because we have her birthday and then just days after, Halloween. She was switching party ideas on a dime ("a pink elephant party! No, a Paw Patrol party! A purple mouse party! A tea party with NO BOYS! No, a princess pinata party! A Cinderella mouse party!" et cetera, et cetera.) so when she said, "maybe a butterfly party!" I said, "yes!" And have continuously talked about how great that would be and nixed any attempts at changing her mind.

Because how simple and manageable is that?

(Also, as I was just typing, she just walked up to me with Noah's former Handwriting Without Tears workbook -- back from our homeschooling days -- and had finished tracing a page an entire page, very neatly, too. She plucked it off the shelf herself and did it without anyone suggesting it.

She's a wonder, this on.)

Isaiah

A few weeks ago, our wood man showed up with a huge delivery for us. I was telling the children on our walk from school that it had arrived, and we'd better get to stacking it when we got home. The crossing guard overheard me and said "good luck with that!" And I had the pleasure of replying that if Isaiah had his way, he's spend all day stacking wood, mopping floors and putting away laundry. He is a hard, keen worker and takes great pleasure in seeing a job completed. Truthfully, he's one of our most agreeable children when it comes to taking on a task involving physical work and seeing it to completion.

His friendship with Anna continues to blossom. He and Noah are great friends, too, but I think he gets special satisfaction in getting to be the older child with her and the baby. She looks up to Isaiah so much, and it's very special for him to get to be a good example to her. Plus, they just play nicely together.

He recently got to go on a trip to the big city of Ottawa with just Patrick, and it was delightful to see how proud he was of himself for getting a special outing with his dad. They listened to The Wizard of Oz on audio book from start to finish -- it's over four hours of driving -- and went to Baskin Robbins, too. He also sweetly told me they prayed a decade of the Rosary for us, and Patrick added that it was his idea.

His greatest ambition is still to be a farmer, and he hopes to buy some land just down the road from our house here, so I'm able to pop by for some veggies and maybe to help his wife if the babies are fussy.

I'm game.

Noah

He just competed this past week in his school's Partridge Run, the annual race for several local schools. Not unlike his parents, he was primarily in it for camaraderie, the snacks, and time away from his desk. (In fact, that sums up precisely why I faithfully take my kids to mom's prayer groups and tot times.) He did well, though, and I was proud of him.

His reading took off, sometime in the summer, and now he has to have his book pried from him to come and eat, to play outside, to pray... not to watch a tv show, though. Go figure.

We were looking at our local paper this week, where they profile the Athlete of the Week, and one of the questions was, With whom would you eat a meal with, if you could pick anyone, living or dead? (It specified 'athlete' but Noah was more interested in this question broadly speaking.) He promptly said, "Tolkien!" And I smiled.

The almost impossible to photograph eldest child

The younger three children are going as characters from the Wizard of Oz for Halloween -- Dorothy, the Scarecrow and a wee baby Cowardly Lion. But Noah is adamant he will be Odysseus. This was mentioned to Anna's kindergarten teacher, and Isaiah's hero/former teacher. He laughed and said "yep! That sounds like Noah!" And I said, "Indeed! To be ornery, to go against the herd and to do something unusual." He marches to the beat of his own self-made Classical education.