Finally... apples!

We finally made it to the apple orchard this year and came back with a half bushel of fresh from the tree appley goodness. My hunger has been satiated. I got the ingredients last week to make some lentil soup. I figured I'd plan a day this week to have a dinner menu of homemade lentil soup, corn bread, and apple pie from scratch. Garrett said he thought that sounds ambitious. I agree. I won't hold myself to it, but the thought is nice.



A lot of nice thoughts run through my mind these days, though I feel like I have time to get just about none of them done. I can hardly plan time to make a quick phone call during the day, much less anything more bold. Naptime has all but disappeared with the kids switching to toddler beds a couple weeks ago. Did I even mention that? Once they were climbing out of bed with reckless glee every day we decided to take the rails down. I actually bought crib tents to see if I could keep my little monkeys contained for a while longer, but it took about seven and a half seconds to confirm that crib tents were not going to be a safe alternative. As soon as the first tent was set up I had one kid getting trapped between the tent and the crib bars while trying to climb into the crib, and another trying to hang from the zipper on the inside. I'm lucky Garrett got the thing off in one piece so I could send it back for a refund. Transitioning to toddler beds has been a breeze at nighttime, but naps have been a whole different story. I've spent a few weeks being quite worked up and stressed about it because there are two things that are clear to me: 1) my kids still need naps; 2) my kids are not willing to stay in bed to get them. I've spent many naptimes policing the little runaways and taking them back to bed each time they escape, but I am slowly coming around to the idea that I may just have to let them run wild. I hate that because it means there's only about a 1% chance of a nap happening and about a 90% chance of someone getting hurt or something getting broken, or both. So far Abby has come out of "naptime" with mysterious scrapes, cuts, and bite marks; Garrett walked in to find about a gallon of water seeping into the carpet because they tipped over the mini basketball hoop that has water in the base to keep it steady; they have climbed on the window sill numerous times and pulled the window shade down to the floor; they pull out the cords to the clock and lights in their room; and they have started playing with the framed art pieces above their beds, which means we need to secure them to the wall in a much sturdier fashion if we don't want someone to bring a frame crashing down, glass and all. It's very hard for me to get any downtime when I am policing wayward toddlers. It is also very hard to get downtime when I am trying to ignore wayward toddlers who are swinging from the rafters in the next room. But, I am beginning to think that the latter is still better for my sanity in the long run. So I keep praying that one of these days the novelty of freedom will wear off and my kids will realize just how tired they really are. How can they not need a nap when I feel like I could fall asleep in five seconds if someone just offered me a pillow?

It's hard to believe it's already November. I feel like the fall has just begun and I am still adjusting to our new busy schedule. With the start of Amelia's PT and MOPS and the continuation of speech therapy it feels like we are constantly busy, and yet I am also constantly looking for things to do and ways for us to get out and about because this apartment just can't contain us all anymore. We've met a great new playmate this year. I've made friends with a woman named Kelsey whose daughter, Mackenzie, is two and a half and has a new baby sister due any day now. Kelsey and I have started getting together with some regularity and it's been great to have another home to go to and to have Mackenzie add a little socialization. Everyone makes comments about how we have a built in playdate at our house, which in some respects is true. I realize it's nice that my kids have playmates in each other and they have one another to interact with. But playing with and around siblings does not offer the same socialization as interacting with other kids. There are different skills to learn with kids from other families--lessons about sharing, respecting other people's space and toys and decisions, communication. I love having them around other kids and Kelsey loves that having my kids around means Mackenzie is learning how to accommodate and share with others. So far it seems to be a win win.

Speech therapy is going very well and Sharon is really pleased with how far the kiddos have come. They are quickly catching up with age appropriate communication skills and our house is full of chatter now. We are still working out some kinks, like generalizing what they learn in session to use in everyday life. And they are still inclined to make some very random mispronunciations that seem to originate from nowhere. A couple weeks ago I finally realized that Amelia has been trying to say pajamas. We use a lot of variations of that word--jammies, jammers, jam-jams, pjs. But her approximation was something like "sh-shems." Not real close. Since I was finally able to figure out what she was trying to say she has made some real progress, thankfully. We are still trying to figure out the word playground. They can say something close to "play" and an approximation of "ground." But when they clamber for the playground I hear three little voices insisting "keymond, keymond, keymond!" It's a little odd. But besides the hiccups here and there, they really are becoming quite verbose. They are saying please, thank you, and you're welcome, and they're learning to answer questions. They love talking about "Kenzie's house" and they're well into identifying colors and learning to count. Gabe can consistenly get to five, if you don't count his tendency to leave out the number four. We're making progress!