Bella, Gabe and Josiah

Since Bella isn’t living here right now, I don’t post much about her. However, I think I’ve mentioned in the past that she’s really good at music and has really enjoyed playing the clarinet. Unfortunately, the woodwinds in the school band got canceled with covid, so she hasn’t been able to play this year. So instead, she started taking guitar lessons. She’s doing really well. Hopefully she sticks with it because music is definitely something that she’s really good at. I mean, she was one of the few 7th graders invited to be in jazz band with the 8th graders and the kid brought her clarinet home maybe twice in all of 7th grade, so I have no idea when she actually did any practicing... Since her teacher happens to be a friend of mine, she sent me this.

It has been the week around here. I spent all day Sunday skiing, which I haven’t done in years, and I was completely worn out when I got home. So I started the week tired. I was also crazy sore and I think that today is the first day that I can walk without limping first. Late Sunday night I got a phone call from a friend’s daughter saying that my friend was having a rough time. I won’t get into details here, but I’ve spent the week trying to help them out, making her dinner, taking her kids, checking in on her, trying to help out as much as possible. Then on Monday Pat left for an out-of-town work job. So he’s been gone all week. Then we got a massive snow dump. Thankfully, we have a neighbor kid who really likes to use his snowblower and that’s saved me from shoveling my driveway multiple times. And then on Wednesday, daycare called and said that Josy had a fever or 100.5. 100.4 is not a fever, but 100.5 technically is. So I took him home and had to keep him home for 72 hours. But he...

Since we have so much snow, I decided that we should go play in the snow. Unfortunately, there’s so much snow that Josy don’t know what to do with it since he can’t even walk, so I pulled out the sleds. Actually, that took awhile. It was hard to find the sleds... Eventually I found them. But by then, Josy had found the snow shovel and insisted on shoveling the driveway. I will always encourage him to shovel the driveway, so I let him have at it. But then he got attached to the shovel and refused to put it down. So he brought it on our walk. We didn’t go very far, because I was afraid he was going to drop it and then I’d have to pull both sleds and carry a shovel home. Also, Josy refused to wear gloves so I figured that his hands were going to get cold and then I’d have to carry him too. But I shouldn’t have worried. He carried it the whole way. Silly child. And of course, Gabe insisted on hot chocolate as soon as we walked in the door.

String is Gabe’s favorite guy in the whole world. Well, one of two. String and Timmy. They have been his two special snuggly guys since he was tiny. Unfortunately they have been loved almost to death. At least twice have I had to do major surgery in order to keep him put together. This week was operation number 3. Gabe crawled into bed with me this week. I was mostly asleep as he told me that there was a big hole in String, in the spot that was his favorite. I thought he was telling me about a dream, but then he handed me String and I was instantly awake. That is a huge hole. I have no idea how he pulled that off. After the boys were in bed (and Gabe was snuggled with the string blanket that Gram made Josy), I set to work. The good news is that I managed to figure out how to reverse knit, so I was able to put the whole thing back together without too much drama. I anticipated another long gray string in it, but it ended up looking much better than that. Seriously, I have no idea how th...

The last time I went skiing, Bella had her 5th grade ski pass and I ended up pumping in the lodge in the middle of the day. As she’s now in high school, it’s clearly been awhile... But this weekend it was my turn to go up with Gabe. I went up early to get a bit more skiing in for the day and then a friend dropped Gabe off for lessons. (Gabe and her son are doing lessons together.) So not only was I skiing, which was strange in itself, but I was doing it all by myself. That doesn’t happen often either... It was beautiful up there. Cold, but beautiful. It’s hard to even put it into words. After a couple runs, I met up with Gabe and got him ready for his lesson. After his lesson and lunch, he and I went up. I had a harness for him, to catch him if he got out of control, but he did so well that I almost didn’t need it. Almost... His teacher had said that he was having trouble stopping so we worked hard on going down the hill and them stopping when I yelled stop and he was able to do it eve...

Gabe was on a roll today... G: What's the thing with the keyboard and the buttons? M: An accordion G: Yeah, an accordion. I've been practicing and I think I could be really good. Can we buy one? M: No. We're not going to do that right now. G: But I think I could be really good! Why not? M: Well, accordions are really big for people like Daddy so you need to be a lot bigger. G: Oh Mom. They come in little sizes. Gabe was telling the guy at the store that he'd lost Perry. G: I think that maybe I should get a new one. M: You want to get a different parrot to replace Perry? G: No. A copy. M: Then what will Perry say if we find him? G: They'll be twins. We're about to have a swordfight. G: Wait! I'm not en guarded! He grabs the hat off of Josy's head. G: Now I'm ready. En guard! Gabe just got back from a sleepover at a friend’s house. I asked if he had fun and he said "oh, you bet I did." G: Have you seen my eyepatch? M: No G: Where did you last...

And this is what happens when Josy and I are home alone together.  He gets ready to go on a run in the dark. We pull out the walkie talkies. I try and fold some laundry while he and the bear try to take over the laundry basket. I washed his sheet and blanket, so when I made the bed, I set up all his animals. He was very confused, but also exciting about it. He’s so much fun. He’s big enough to respond and play and it’s so entertaining. If he sees someone else getting a kiss he does his hmm hmm noise and picks up his little face so that you’ll give him a kiss too. It’s so cute that there’s no way to resist giving him a kiss!