Levi James

Levi was born on September 18 at 12:45. He weighed 9 lbs, 6 ozs, and was 22" long. He is my biggest baby, beating Tabitha, the former heavy weight champion, who weighed in at 8 lbs, 11 ozs and 21 1/2" when she was born in '01.

Levi shares a birthday with Clara, who was thrilled to get a brother for her 7th birthday. All of the girls are thrilled with Levi, as are Rob and I.

Pelli, though, is less than thrilled. At first he thought Levi was a gift for him, because we called Levi "baby," which is what we call Pelli's hedgehog(s). When we put Levi on the floor that first day home from the hospital, Pelli snapped the foot of Levi's feet jammies in his mouth and tried to run off with him. Luckily, he missed Levi's toes, and he'd barely had a chance to move before the girls all tackled him (they were all sitting around Levi in a big circle). Now Pelli only cautiously sniffs at Levi, but gets right up in the middle of everything when Rob tries to play with Levi. I don't think Pelli would hurt Levi, now that he understands Levi is not a hedgehog, but he's not getting the chance to prove himself.

All my babies have been easy, with the exception of Eve, who was colicky, but Levi is even easier than the girls were. He rarely cries, and when he does, it's easy to figure out why. I've never heard him cry for no reason. He mostly sleeps through the night, rarely waking up to eat. As long as I'm bragging on my little Snuggleupagus, I shouldn't neglect to mention that he is really strong. He's had great head control since day 1, and can bear a lot of his own weight on his legs.

The only problem with my bitty boy is that he sometimes pees during diaper changes, and it doesn't just pool around his bum, as happens with girls. No, Levi's pee shoots straight up in the air, sometimes hitting both him and me in the face. Yuck! But all I have to do to avoid such unpleasantness is cover him up with a diaper wipe while I change him.

The very best thing about Levi is his baby smell, especially his baby breath. Just like his big sissies used to smell. There's nothing better in the entire world.

I went back to work when he turned one month, and I hated being away from him at first, but I'm getting used to it now. It's not so bad because I have to focus all my energy and attention on the high school kids, and my workday is shorter than if I worked in an office. Also, Rob sometimes brings Gemma, Violet, and Levi to see me at lunch time, which is soooo nice!

Levi has thick, dark hair which may or may not be curly. Right now, Clara is our only curly kid. Levi's eyes are bright and seem to be turning hazel or brown. Zoe has my blue eyes; Clara's are green; Eve and Violet have Rob's hazely green eyes, but theirs are greener than Rob's. The other four girls (Sophia, Juliet, Tabitha, and Gemma) have deep, chocolately brown eyes.

When each of the girls was about six weeks old, we got their pictures taken in a cute little pink dress that Rob bought for Zoe when she was born. Each girl wore her first pair of shoes, a size 0, for her picture. Before Levi was born, I got him a cute little blue and white checked short overall with an elephant on it (I collect elephants), and his first pair of size 0 shoes. But sometime before he was born, he outgrew those shoes, so I had to buy him a pair of size 1s for his picture. He got his picture taken last weekend, at 7 weeks instead of 6, for no good reason (I feel a little bad that we didn't do it at 6 weeks, but not too bad, because Sophia was also 7 weeks for hers). His picture turned out adorable because by some miracle, the photographer captured him with a full-face, open mouth smile. Gorgeous! I'll post it here after we pick it up and I scan it in (hopefully sometime before he turns one).

To make a long story short, Levi is absolutely perfect, and I am deliriously happy. Same story, different baby. :)

Metaphors by Sylvia Plath

I'm a riddle in nine syllables,
An elephant, a ponderous house,
A melon strolling on two tendrils.
O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!
This loaf's big with its yeasty rising.
Money's new-minted in this fat purse.
I'm a means, a stage, a cow in calf.
I've eaten a bag of green apples,
Boarded the train there's no getting off.

I love Sylvia Plath, and this is my favorite Plath poem. Nine syllables in each line, nine lines--this poem describes exactly how I feel, and look. ("A ponderous house," "a melon strolling on two tendrils," "a cow in calf"--totally me right now!) But this is my last night of riding the train. Tomorrow I unboard.

I can't wait to see baby Levi James!

Before Babies/After (and During) Babies

Left: Me at the beach in '92.

Right: Me at the beach in '09.

I wouldn't trade my beautiful, amazing, wonderful children for anything, but it would sure be nice to look like that again!!

“Large Families Do Not Create Low IQs”

And all these years I thought my kids were going to be stupid just because there are so many of them.

That’s a relief, I guess.

Well, that would be a relief if the study didn’t go on to proclaim, “Low IQ Parents Create Large Families."

So now when rude people count the kids when we’re out in public and then ask us if we’re crazy, we can answer, “No. We just have low IQs.”

This study was first published nine years ago, but as a low IQ parent to a large family, I hadn’t come across it before. Or maybe it’s because I’m the busy working mother of a large family. Either way, the result is the same: I’m nine years late weighing in on this. But I will weigh in on it, regardless, because intelligence in America is a subject I’ve often pondered over. Actually, I’ve seriously stressed out over it because there are so many unintelligent young people in our society, and they will be the policy makers and lawyers and doctors and teachers of tomorrow. For that matter, I’ve met plenty of people in these types of positions today who are incompetent and unintelligent.

The information I need to draw strong conclusions on this matter is not available to me without heading to the nearest university and hitting the scholarly journals, something I won’t be doing anytime soon. I would like to know, however, how many large families and how many “normal-sized” families were followed for this study, and how many children, on average, the large and normal sized families had. I would like to know where they found the participants for this study. Face it, if they paid participants, they’d be more likely to find families that were low-income, which is also associated with low IQ. So, I would also want to know the average income of both sized families. Race, ethnicity, nationality, and religion were not mentioned, either, and these factors also influence IQ.

The results of the study that I have been able to find do not give any indication what percentage of the children from large families were found to have low IQs, normal IQs, and high IQs. There was no report as to the IQs of children from “normal-sized” families, nor was I able to find out what they considered “low IQ.” My guess is an IQ under 100 would be considered low, and above 100 would be considered high.

My opinion is that the majority of Americans have low IQs. IQ is not stagnant and can be raised by things like going to graduate school, doing crossword puzzles or Sudoku, and learning a foreign language. On the flip side, then, I would assume that you can also lower your IQ by watching stupid television shows, playing certain (most) video games, and spending too much time on some Internet sites, particularly on social networking sites like MySpace and You Tube.

Most of the high school and college students I’ve taught are not readers. I know this because it’s one of the first questions I ask when a new class starts. I spend a lot of my time encouraging and requiring students to read, but it’s a losing battle. They weren’t brought up to read. Their parents don’t read. They don’t read well. I’m very upset when I have students read aloud and they stumble over words that they should have mastered in 2nd grade. Remember, I teach 10th and 11th graders, some honors classes, 12th grade AP students, college prep courses, and college level English Comp and Literature classes. The vast majority of students in each of these classes cannot read at the appropriate level and are, in fact, reading far below where they should.

In 2005, I read an article by Sam Dillon in the New York Times entitled “Literacy Falls for Graduates From College, Testing Finds” that I found greatly upsetting, but not surprising. It stated,

When the test was last administered, in 1992, 40 percent of the nation's college graduates scored at the proficient level, meaning that they were able to read lengthy, complex English texts and draw complicated inferences. But on the 2003 test, only 31 percent of the graduates demonstrated those high-level skills. There were 26.4 million college graduates.

The college graduates who in 2003 failed to demonstrate proficiency included 53 percent who scored at the intermediate level and 14 percent who scored at the basic level, meaning they could read and understand short, commonplace prose texts.

Three percent of college graduates who took the test in 2003, representing some 800,000 Americans, demonstrated "below basic" literacy, meaning that they could not perform more than the simplest skills, like locating easily identifiable information in short prose. (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/education/16literacy.html?ei=5088&en=0e36586fe81ccdb3&ex=1292389200&adxnnl=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1134784871-U7g5x6gt0q+4+Khj28BJvQ)

The article quotes Grover J. Whitehurst, the director of an institute within the Department of Education that helped oversee the testing. Whitehurst said that in part the decline could be blamed on “a rising number of young Americans [who have] spent their free time watching television and surfing the Internet.” He also surmised that “substantial declines in reading for pleasure” are “showing up in our literacy levels.”

My point is that many Americans are unintelligent. I’m working from memory here because I can’t find any Internet sources I trust. (I could go out to the garage and dig out my old psych texts from college, but they’re outdated, anyway.) The average IQ is between 85 and 115, with 100 being the most common score. IQs of 50-70 indicate mild mental retardation. 115-124 is considered above average, while 125-134 is gifted, 135-144 is highly gifted, and 145 and above is genius. Americans are not participating in activities that would raise their IQs. They’re participating in activities that dumb them down. Turn on any TV channel right now and you’ll see what I mean. (Okay, not any channel. Some channels have quality programming, but you still shouldn’t watch them nonstop.)

You may have noticed that I’m spending much more time than is normal for me blogging today. This is because my online Intro to Lit class turned in their essays in which they write a statement of theme and explore how the different literary elements work to help the reader understand the theme. I have twenty students who turned in their essays. I promised myself I’d grade five essays a day so I could be through in four days. I get irritated and worn out reading the essays. I’ve graded five so far, and the highest score was an 80%. I simply can’t get myself motivated to grade today’s five essays. My students in my online classes usually write at a higher level than the students I encounter in the face-to-face community college classes I teach. I don’t know why that is, but still, they aren’t writing as well as they should as college students. If you’d like to get an idea of the average writing skills of my high school and college students, go to any online newspaper, pick an article, and read through the comments left by readers. Admire the spelling, the grammar, and the logic that go into these. Of course, people who don’t read can’t write well. They have nothing to model their writing after.

Another complaint I have about many people I’ve met is that they’re very willing to believe anything they hear on TV. Hey, it’s easier than doing a little research and thinking for yourself. Besides, if you’re not intelligent enough to “read lengthy, complex English texts and draw complicated inferences,” research is a waste of time for you, anyway.

Now to get back to my original topic: Low IQ parents create large families. Well, low IQ parents also create small families. Bottom line, most people have low IQs, or at least act like they do and raise their children like they do. Therefore, Rob and I have pledged not to stop at nine children because we have to outnumber the idiots out there.

Evan!!

Our Visitors

Our family had a great treat this summer. Rob's little sister, Chastity, and her four year old, Evan, who is three weeks younger than Gemma, came to stay with us for ten days. We had a great time while they were here. The girls adore Evan, and I don't think I've ever met a better behaved four year old. It also gave the girls a chance to see what it's like to have a boy around. Okay, I learned a few things, too. One day when Chastity and Rob were out, Evan needed me to take him to the bathroom and I was a bit nervous, because I didn't know what he'd need help with. Turns out, he only needed his pants buttoned and unbuttoned. Also, boys don't have to use toilet paper after they go pee. I guess that's a good thing to know, but it seems kind of unsanitary to me.

Our Itinerary

We went to a nature trail one day where we saw several critters, but the highlight of that trip was seeing three manatees! Chastity has always wanted to see a manatee, so we were really lucky.

Another day we went to the zoo. It's a small zoo where we have an annual pass. Evan loved it because he got to see bald eagles. There is a petting area there, and the kids got to pet goats and

alpacas and llamas. At one point, the goat she was petting started eating Juliet's ponytail. I didn't feel she was in any immediate danger, and tried to take a picture. A dad standing right beside

Juliet, though, felt she needed rescuing, and did just that, as I was saying, "No! Don't save her yet! I want a picture of that!" Well, Juliet's hair is VERY long, and all the goat could really do was chew on it. It would have made a good shot. An alpaca tried to eat Clara's hair, but nobody saw it happen, and she managed to extricate it herself. I would have helped her immediately. Her hair is much shorter than Juliet's. Rob loved the goat. He made me take about fifteen pictures of him with the goat. I don't think the goat cared much for Rob. Rob had no hair to feed it. There was a snake in the petting section, and its handler set it on the ground so the kids could all see it. Out of nowhere, with no warning at all, Violet decided to hop over the snake. Thank goodness she didn't land on it. Needless to say, the handler put the snake up after that.

The temperature that day was a sweltering 90 something. For the first time ever in my life, my hands swelled up so badly my fingers looked like white sausages. I found it quite alarming, but every day afterwards that we spent out in the heat, my fingers did the same thing. The doctor said it's okay; drink more water.

The most exciting thing that happened at the zoo was when a wild gorilla got loose and attacked Zoe on the boardwalk!

The day after the zoo we went to the science center, mainly to get out of the heat. Guess what? The air conditioner at the science center was out that day. Of course. My fingers puffed up like sausages. The kids enjoyed themselves immensely, though. Violet particularly enjoyed making a Mr. Potato Head from all the pieces available at that display. We also got to see feeding time for the alligators. Stinky, but neat. Evan's favorite thing was fixing a car.

We spent two days in St. Augustine. At least, we would have spent two days in St. Augustine, but it took us most of the first day to drive there. It shouldn't have taken that long, but we made many, many potty stops on the way, and we had to stop and fix the air conditioning in the truck, and stop to eat, and stop to buy honey roasted almonds. You get the idea. When we got there, we headed straight to the hostel where I'd found cheap rooms that would let each of us have a bed to sleep on. But when Rob and Chastity went in, they said it wasn't what I'd expected when I booked it, and there were creepy looking old men all over the place. We had to pay $40 to cancel the reservation. We ended up in two rooms with two double beds each at a chain hotel, but the kids got to swim in the pool, and they were exhausted at bedtime anyway.

I love St. Augustine. We got to see the Castillo de San Marcos and walk around the historic district. But it was really much too hot, and the highlight of the entire trip was eating at a nice restaurant in the Spanish quarter. We were all cranky, hot, and tired. We didn't get to take the ferry out to Fort Matanzas, and Evan was sorely disappointed, because that was something he'd been looking forward to. The ferry, that is, not Fort Matanzas. I told Chas they have to come back down when the weather is better. Like in December.

The day after we came home from St. Augustine, we had to take Zoe to cheerleading camp. She was gone two whole nights. She's never been on her own for so long before. She handled it much better than I did. That evening, we went to Downtown Disney so Evan could ride the ferry. He enjoyed that and the Lego store, which is unbelievably expensive. Then Chastity treated everybody to dessert at the new T-Rex Cafe. The kids loved it. I was sad Zoe wasn't there. Downtown Disney is best at night in the summer. Not unbearably hot. This is one of my favorite places to go on date night.

On Chastity and Evan's last day, we picked Zoe up from cheer camp and got to watch the different squads compete. The girls were all very impressed by the cheerleaders, and every day since Zoe's been home, they've had her teaching them and the neighborhood girls cheers, and they've planned their own fundraisers, along with the neighbor girls, to buy cheerleading costumes. They even had a peprally in our driveway yesterday. Better than that, they were all also very impressed with the university that sponsored the cheer camp, and they all want to go there when they graduate from high school. This is great because the four oldest ones have been asking me what they have to do to be able to go there, and we get to talk about grades and extracurricular activities and community service and saving money and applying for scholarships. I had seniors at the high school who didn't know these things, so I'm glad the girls are getting the idea now, when there's time to prepare.

Jack Russell Terror: Kokopelli

I didn't really know what we were getting into when we got Kokopelli, our Jack Russell Terrier, three years ago this coming October. I'd done my research. I knew that Jack Russells had lots of "personality" and were "feisty" and "energetic." What I didn't know was that these terms are euphemisms for "insane."

He was just weaned when we brought him home from a kennel in Rockvale, and he was filthy. We put him in our big garden tub and the water turned black. I had to refill the tub three times to get him clean.

Pelli seemed normal enough the first few weeks we had him. He was afraid of everything, including our Dachshund-Pomeranian mix, Chupacabra, who was three months older than him. (Chupa was hit by a car and killed last year.) But soon Pelli started to show his true colors. One morning I let the dogs out for their morning run. Our house was located on half an acre and was set well up from the street, which wasn't very busy. About five minutes later, I heard a lot of honking. I ran down the driveway, and there in the middle of the street was Pelli, all five pounds of him. He was facing down a short line of cars and trucks, barking. He thought he owned the street. After that, of course, we quit letting him outside without his leash.

From the time he was a very little puppy, he has loved Rob, his daddy. He demonstrates this love in kind of a strange way: every time he gets the chance (i.e., every time Rob sits or lies down), Pelli likes to nibble Rob's ears. He doesn't do this to anyone else. He also absolutely LOVES napping with Rob. Look at the couch any weekend afternoon, and you'll find Rob and his boy cuddled up, sound asleep.

Pelli isn't all bad. He's great with the kids. Violet is always trying to play with him, hug him, kiss him, dress him up. You know, typical three-year-old girl stuff. Pelli puts up with her as long as he can, then gives a warning growl, which she never heeds. After the warning growl, he "nips" her; that is, he puts his teeth on her arm without putting any pressure at all. The result is Violet thinks she's been bitten, although there is no mark and no pain and no tears, and she decides to find somebody else to play with.


But Pelli is, um, eccentric. About a year ago I bought a dog toy for Pelli at Wal-Mart. It was a squeaky hedgehog for about $3. He went CRAZY when I gave it to him. Within two weeks, he'd "killed" it. The stuffing and squeaker were all torn out, but he still played with the empty corpse. Now we have a supply of hedgehogs we keep in a bag on top of a kitchen counter. When he kills a hedgehog, we have backups. When he gets a new hedgehog, he spends all his time putting it beside somebody and watching it, waiting for that person to throw it. If ten minutes elapse and the hedgehog hasn't been thrown, he'll give a few sharp barks and settle back into watching. Or he'll find someone walking around, dropping the hedgehog at their feet hoping they'll kick it so he can run and get it. At night, he'll stay awake, putting the hedgehog by my feet, hoping I'll kick in my sleep so he can fetch. When he can't get anyone to play, he buries the hedgehog in a blanket and entertains himself, growling and trying to free it. It's not that nobody is willing to play with him. It's just that nobody wants to play with the hedgehog for 24 hours straight. Besides, after the first ten minutes, the hedgehog is slickery with Pelli saliva. We have to hide the hedgehog and put Pelli in his crate so he can get some sleep when the hedgehog is new.

The behaviors I've detailed so far are relatively harmless. Since we moved to Florida, Pelli has become a kind of neighborhood terror. The biggest problems happen when Pelli escapes the house without his leash, which happens much more frequently than I'd like, mainly because neighborhood kids haven't learned to shut the front door quickly after themselves when they come in and out. My kids know better: whenever they want to open the door, they holler, "Hold Pelli!!"

A few months ago, Pelli had a crush on Joy, a pretty golden retriever who lives down the street. Joy was in heat, and one day, Pelli got out of the house. Rob chased after him, but Pelli disappeared into the doggie door at Joy's house. The neighbors weren't home, and Pelli would not come back out. Luckily, Joy was crated, so Pelli couldn't get at her. Unluckily, Pelli marked his territory by peeing all around her crate. Rob apologized profusely to the neighbors, and took our carpet cleaner over to take care of Pelli's mess. Still, how embarassing! Pelli spent quite a lot of time in his own crate after that incident.

About a month ago, Pelli got out again. Rob and I were getting in the truck to run an errand when it happened, so we followed Pelli down the street in the truck. He stopped in a driveway, and Rob pulled the truck over, got out, and told Pelli, in his deepest, meanest voice, "I'm going to beat your ***!" Pelli promptly rolled over on his back, and Rob picked him up and started cooing at him, because Rob isn't really mean, and he loves his doggie boy. Rob and I hadn't noticed, but the garage door was open. When Rob picked Pelli up, the front door of the car that was in the garage opened, and a Hispanic lady stuck her head out of the car and called to Rob, "Oh, you're talking to the puppy! Oh, that is a good thing!" Rob and I were surprised, and after Rob apologized for startling the lady, we had a good laugh, but we're grateful that the lady didn't call the police when she thought Rob was after her. Yikes!

The Belly Shot

This is me and Kiwi, halfway through, on Mother's Day. Most of the girls have gotten to feel him kick, and sometimes we can even see my belly move.

Violet hasn't felt him kick yet, and she seems to be humoring me. She puts her hand on my belly for a second, then takes it off and says, "I felt him kick" (even though he didn't) and gives me an indulgent look: I know you're crazy, Mommy, but I'll play along. One day I asked her, "Is the baby in Mommy's tummy real or pretend?" She looked relieved and answered, "Pretend!"

Violet Octavia is 3!!

Violet had a lovely birthday. She dressed up in her Halloween pirate costume and played with balloons and ate Disney Princesses birthday cake. What more could a three-year-old ask for? How about a Baby Alive boy baby that shoots pee all the way across the room after you feed him his bottle? Good practice for the major change coming at her this year.

Twilight Obsessed

Eve and her friends got to go to a Twilight convention and meet some of the stars of Twilight. Her friend, Katherine (on the far right) invited five of her best friends to go to celebrate her birthday. This is Eve's favorite actor from the movie, Kellan Lutz, who played Emmett. That's Eve's friend Hayley on the far left. That's Eve to Kellan's left, looking like it's the happiest day of her life. Well, according to Eve, it was. In fact, all the girls said the same thing.

To be very honest, I'm just glad Katherine's mom took them so I didn't have to go. ;)

Give me a Z-O-E! (Two dots over the E!)

Zoe got her cheerleading uniform today. Isn't she adorable? It's finally starting to hit me that my baby is going to be in high school next year. Where did the time go?

Sophia and the Bee

Last night all ten of us headed down to the elementary school for the spelling bee to determine which of the fifteen top spellers in the 4th and 5th grade is the best speller in the school.

The bee was conducted a bit differently than I've ever seen before. Each speller stood at the mike and spelled his or her word, then sat back down. After the round, the judges told the kids which ones misspelled their words and had to leave the stage. Sophia survived round 1, correctly spelling "wary," but six students were booted off following round 1.

Sophia misspelled "benign" in round 2. She had absolutely no idea, and there was no way she could've sounded it out. Altogether, five more students left the stage after round 2.

Rounds 3 and 4 ended with none of the four children left correctly spelling their words. Finally in round 5, two students misspelled their words, and the other two correctly spelled theirs. In rounds 6 and 7, neither of the finalists correctly spelled the words, but in round 8, we finally got a winner!

Sophia, I'm sure, was a little disappointed, but she didn't show it, and, of course, we're completely proud of her for making it to the top fifteen out of two hundred students. That's nothing to scoff at.

Spring Break

I had planned to spend our spring break having tons of family fun. I had several beach days planned, a movie day, a trip to the science center, a hike on a nature trail. As usual, things didn't go exactly as I had planned.

The week before spring break, some of the girls caught a 24-hour stomach bug that made them throw up. A lot. Gemma and Violet had it at the same time, but the other girls got it separately. That means that the bug carried over into spring break. On Wednesday, the four oldest girls had dentist appointments to pull teeth (in preparation for very, very expensive orthodontic work). Altogether, the four of them had fourteen teeth pulled. Luckily, all of them were baby teeth. On Friday of spring break, all the girls had finally recovered from the virus and the tooth pulling and were ready for my plans, so on Saturday, we headed out to the beach.

We had a great time. We stopped at Toys R Us to buy our beach toys for the summer, and found some really good deals. Gemma was especially excited about beach toys because she and Violet are kind of afraid of the water. They'll outgrow that; all their sisters were the same way.

The best thing was that I was able to lay down on my belly by digging a hole in the sand and putting my towel over it. My big baby bump fit neatly into the hole. Very comfy. It would have been better if I'd remembered to bring a book!

We planned to go back the next day, but I kind of ruined things by not wearing any SPF. I lathered the kids in it, so they were fine, but I got the worst sunburn of my life. For three days, the joints in my elbows hurt, and I had to take motrin before bed to deal with the pain. This was two weeks ago, and I'm still peeling, to give you an idea.

We're heading back to the beach tomorrow, and you'd better believe I'll be all sunlotioned up, along with the girls!


Zoe: It's hard to believe this almost-14 year old is the same chunky baby whose wrists I had to pull up in order to wash her hands, and who hid cheerios under her chins for snacking on later!! She tries to sunbathe on the beach, but we slather so much SPF 45 on her...

Eve: She is 12 1/2 now; where did the time go?? Her favorite thing to do at the beach is throw the football with Daddy.

Sophia: At 10 1/2, she's all arms and legs, and a ton of fun! She loves playing in the water.

Juliet: 9 years old, she loves gymnastics. It's too bad we can't afford classes. :( But at least we can feed her! :)

Tabitha: She'll be 8 in June. She doesn't like going out in the water as much as she enjoys sitting right there at the shoreline and letting the water sink her bottom down into the sand.

Clara: She is 6 1/2 and loves everything about the beach. It's hard to get her to slow down enough to take a picture. The picture doesn't show it, but her skin gets very dark. Most of the girls are blessed like that, but with Clara's blonde hair and blue eyes, the effect is stunning.

Gemma: She just turned four and doesn't really like the water unless Mommy and Daddy are both holding her hands and "jumping" her over the waves. She loves playing in the sand, and she and Violet have been having some fun playing, or trying to play, paddle ball.

Violet: She'll be three on May 11, and hates the water; she won't go anywhere near it. She also likes to play in the sand, but after a few hours, she's ready to go home.

It IS a boy!!

I can't believe it! The doctor and Rob were sure at the last ultrasound, but this time there was absolutely no mistaking it. And, like a true boy, after Kiwi showed us what he's got, he started playing with it. I'm not sure I'm ready for this.

The girls recovered from the shock pretty quickly, faster than I did. Well, except Violet. She's in denial. This baby is a GIRL and we're naming it Delilah. I tried to explain that God gave us a BOY, a BROTHER, and she responded that God would turn it into a GIRL, a SISTER. That reminded me so much of what happened with Clara, back when she was Gabriel and Char had the "sex party" at church for me... LOL!

So, as you can imagine, I'm going through some mental adjustments. If anyone wants to offer me any advice here:

What am I going to name this baby? My students have ruined a ton of names for me, and there are so few good boys names to start with.
Should I have him circumcised?
Can I dress him in the girls' hand-me-downs? (Just kidding!!)

When I get the scanner set up, I'll put in the latest ultrasound picture, just in case anybody wants proof that Rob actually can create a son. ;)

Babies, Cheerleaders, and Scholarships

Some exciting things have been going on in our family since the last time I posted. We're expecting baby #9 at the end of September. I'm about fifteen weeks right now. We call the baby Kiwi because at the very beginning of the pregnancy, I craved kiwi, which is odd because I don't really like kiwi. This has been a nerve-wracking pregnancy because I've had two miscarriages in the last fifteen months: one at ten weeks and one very early, at six weeks, and I had some spotting a few weeks ago, which was very scary for me. But we've had several ultrasounds, and the baby is doing well. I think I'm feeling movement now, which is very reassuring. I get my next ultrasound on April 15, when we'll find out if Kiwi is a boy or a girl. When I went to see the maternal fetal specialist, the doctor took a peek at Kiwi via ultrasound and he and Rob both swore they saw boy parts. I'll wait until April 15, because I really doubt we'd have a boy. Besides, right now the only name I have is Millie, which is plain silly for a boy.

Next exciting thing: Zoe tried out for cheerleading and made it, so she'll be on the freshman/jv squad next year. It's hard to believe she's starting high school, although she does look like it. Where did my chubby bubby baby go? She used to be so fat I had to push up the skin on her wrists to wash her hands, and put baby powder in the folds of fat on her thighs to keep her from getting a rash. She hid cheerios under her chins to eat later. Now she's almost as tall as I AND she won't hold my hand in public anymore. What happened??

And last, but not least, Eve got a full scholarship for college. It's based on grades and financial need; it's for seventh graders, and she was one of sixteen kids in the county to receive it. It pays for two years at a community college and then two years at a four-year college. I'm also counting on her getting a Bright Futures scholarship (if the funding for it still exists), which pays 100% tuition and is for kids who have at least a 3.5 weighted GPA and a 28 on the ACT or a 1270 on the SAT and 75 community service hours. Right now, she has a 4.0 GPA (granted, it's seventh grade, but she's taking honors classes), and a 19 on the ACT. (To get a Florida Medallion scholarship, a high school senior needs a 3.0 GPA and a 20 on the ACT. That scholarship pays 100% tuition at a community college, or 75% at a four year.) She WILL still hold my hand in public, even though she's almost as tall as I am, too.

The only thing that upsets me is that I've never been *tied down* to a place before. We don't own a home; we can up and move whenever we want to. But now, we've spent an obscene amount for Zoe's cheerleading uniform, and if we leave Florida, Eve loses her scholarship. We're tied down, just as I'm starting to feel restless here, and thinking about moving--maybe further south (still in Florida, but Zoe's cheerleading uniform is useless at any other school), or to Texas or back to Colorado (good bye scholarship). Adding to the stress, I may or may not have a job at the high school next year. It all depends on budget, and since I've only been there two years, if somebody who has a continuing contract gets bumped from another school in the district, they could conceivably get MY job. With the baby due in September, it's just about impossible for me to find another teaching position for next year. It's all so stressful right now!

I'm back!

I had to send my Acer laptop back to the manufacturer to get the keyboard repaired (for the third time) a month ago, and I finally got it back on Friday. In the time it's been gone, I've been using the girls' computer, but I don't really like hanging out on there, so I didn't blog at all in the last month.

It will only take a few minutes to catch you up on the last month of our lives, because nothing has really changed, fortunately or unfortunately.

1. Juliet will turn nine tomorrow. She went on a shopping trip to Justice, courtesy of Nana and Papa, and is thrilled with her haul.

2. Eve is in her room now taking the practice ACT. She takes the real thing next Saturday. She was tagged by Duke University because her FCAT scores were so high, and, depending on her ACT scores, she may be eligible to take some summer classes at Duke. Eligible, but not necessarily ABLE. ($$$)

3. Zoe (8th grade) won third place in her school's spelling bee. She lost on a French word she doesn't remember, but she knew how to spell the winning word.

4. Violet (2 1/2) is not yet potty trained. She runs around naked until she needs to go, then she puts a diaper on and does her business. I think it would be easier for her just to GO, but she doesn't agree and she's got all the power in this situation.

5. Our 42" LCD flat screen TV was broken by a neighbor girl who was playing our new Wii, but neglected to put the strap around her wrist. We've been without a decent TV for over a month now. Apparently, it costs more to fix it than to buy a new one. No matter. We can't afford to do either. One of our neighbors gave us their old Panasonic. It's not 42" and it's not an LCD, but it is bigger than Zoe and Eve's 17" TV we were using in place of our lost one. Thank you, Tracy and Drew!!


Hopefully now that my computer is back, I'll find the time, energy, and inspiration to post often. Now I need to go check out my friends' blogs. Surely they've had a more eventful month than I have!

Lysistrata is alive and well in Naples

Read this article from Times Online: Women Go On Sex Strike

I wish I'd read Aristophanes' Lysistrata with my AP class during the first quarter unit, Literature of the Ancient World. This is a perfect example of how themes from ancient Greek drama are applicable even today. The idea is humorous, but the underlying intent of these women is serious, just like in the play.