Lu-ly Lu-la

That woe is me,

Poor child for thee!

And ever morn and day,

For thy parting

Neither say nor sing

By by lul-ly lulay!

That is from the Coventry Carol.  I sing it to my children every year at Christmas.  Then I tell them the story of how Herod was so jealous that he ordered all young boys under three to be killed.  And I tell David that I would never allow Herod's soldiers to have killed him.  Or Elsa.  Or Sam.  Which is clearly bullshit.  It is a hard and terrifying fact that we can't always protect our children from madmen.  A madman came into an elementary school and shot 20 first graders, while teachers and the principal died trying to save them.  By by lu-ly lulay, babies.  We are heartsick.

Kids are wicked funny (at least, mine are)

Sammy is sleeping, all by himself, and Elsa is off to Adlebert Farm with David riding along, so here I am.  Also, Tara, are fabulous house cleaner is here.  I don't know how mamas do it without her, in particular.  Anyway, I have a rare moment to sit down-I can read when I nurse, but what to do with hands free...I think I might work on David's sweater--I got these adorable fireman buttons and all I have left are the button bands--but first, I wanted to pop in here.

So, I wanted to announce that, in addition to a doll named Titty (named for a character from the book Swallows and Amazons--apparently it's a nickname for Christina--perhaps out of favor these days), there is a stick named the Vaginator.  This morning, David came charging  in with it, announcing that the Vaginator could cook food for me, nurse the baby, AND reduce bad policemen to dust.  Only bad policemen, of course.  I am thinking that the Vaginator is actually related to a veginator or something like that, also, we are not anti-policeman here, although it may have come up with regard to a discussion about Civil Rights.

Let's see, what else--we had a nice Thanksgiving with our lovely neighbor Amanda and her little girl.  She took some beautiful pictures-she is quite a photographer--that I would like to post here when I am not worried that Sammy is going to wake up. 

Also, our house is covered with duct tape signs, identifying all of the rooms:  there is the the bach room, the lo dree room, the kichen.  I find it totally thrilling that she is venturing into writing without asking for the correct spelling.  She is getting a real sense of how the written word works. 

We also found a new violin teacher for Elsa.  It turns out that I am not at all a Tiger Mother, and Suzuki did not work for me.  I was not interested in a complicated rewards chart to make Elsa practice, and sometimes I was not able to be the one to take Elsa to her lesson, or to do that without a child or two.  So, this is more low key, but I am feeling successful because hey, at least I did it. 

That's all folks.  Hopefully I will get it together to post some Thanksgiving pictures.

And now we are five

Look who's here!  Samuel Thornton Quam was born on October 23rd at 9:45 in the morning.  He was ten pounds even and I can't remember exactly how long--21 inches I think.  I grow them big.  He is sweet and my milk is coming in better than it did with the previous two, which is a relief.   I am definitely attached to nursing.  We are having a lovely baby moon with my wonderful parents here to take care of us--all I am doing is nursing the baby and directing (there are, it seems, a lot of things I am attached to).  As you can see, Elsa loves her baby brother...and thus far, David does too. 

Not only am I loving Samuel's tininess....I am loving how sturdy and big Elsa and David are.  I keep grabbing their arms and shoulders and hands and they are so strong and delicious.  There is plenty of love for all, indeed.

Pulling the Plug

Oh, am I conflicted.  And nervous.  But I did it.  I pulled Elsa out of her school today.  There is a farm/homeschool program twice a week in Fairview, and she went there today and loved it, and we decided that she is going to be homeschooled.  With the caveat that if it isn't working in January, she can go to the Montessorri school in Asheville.   Tomorrow we are going to work on reading word families and form drawing and making a calendar.  I am excited.  I am terrified.  I wish I had the kind of unwavering self confidence that I was on the right path...either way.  But I don't.  I can see both sides of this (and many) issues.  Although at this point in the political game I am pretty confident in my choice of president...but that isn't going against the grain.  Most people I know prefer Obama.

Anyway, I did it...and actually, I am coming back to this a week and a half later, and I am already feeling calmer about this decision.  Elsa is doing great.  We get a lot done.  She is learning to read, and we are hiking and being outside regularly.  I am imagining that after I have had the baby (and gotten through the first few exhausting months) I will have even more energy and we will be able to do more.  I do like it-it is pretty brilliant to see her figuring out how to read, and I do think it is a lot more efficient to do it at home--Elsa's memory and verbal skills had the teacher completely fooled in terms of her reading ability, and I think she was not getting much out of school.  Probably the teacher would have figured it out after a while, but as her mama, I know exactly where she is at as a reader--wonderful comprehension and understanding of story structure, not a whole lot of  decoding skills...which is what we can work on together. 

Okay, so this is even later....October, two weeks before little man is arriving.  Homeschooling seems to be working great...I wish I had more energy.  Anyway, I don't want to completely abandon this blog, but I also don't want to actually write in it, or download pictures or anything, so here it is.

David and Putt-Putt

We are at the beach right now.  When you live in the mountains of North Carolina (or possibly any mountains), this takes on a whole different meaning than it did when I was growing up, and you went to the beach for the afternoon.  What it means is that we are on vacation on Cherry Grove, in North Myrtle Beach.   Usually we go in October, but we figured that we might be a little occupied then, what with having a baby, and so we came in October.  Anyway, it is a lot of fun, and I will have pictures to post after we get back.

Although I would be perfectly content to stay at the beach house (the reason we go to North Myrtle Beach is that we can afford a cottage that is on the beach) the whole time, the other members of my family might get tired of that much beach...so we went to play mini-golf.  I didn't go last time because I was pregnant, but I am so happy that I went today, if only to observe the hilarity of a slightly overstimulated little boy at the mini-golf course where there were dinosaur statues and a multi-story pretend ship that we could actually go on.  David did actually occasionally use his golf club to get his golf ball, field hockey style, into the hole.  (Both kids definitely use the  hockey model, rather than the golf model, kind of dribbling the ball with the golf club until it goes into the hole). 

The minute we entered the course, David was off, dumping his ball down the final, permanent hole, so Jesse had to get him a new one.  Then, off he ran, ducking under rope barrier, to run to the top of the ship.  Jesse told me to follow him, which I did, but would have been wiser to follow him more quickly, as I found him attempting to climb over the "ship's" gate, which was thirty feet up, and climb into a cage with a decorative dinosaur.   He was just so totally thrilled with the whole thing, running, playing on the ship, occasionally putting his ball down randomly on the course to dribble it into the hole.  Sometimes Jesse takes one of the kids to play golf with him, and I am now dying to go, just to watch.

Hickory Nut Gap Farm

We went to this great farm, Hickory Nut Gap Farm in Fairview on Labor Day.  We go every fall, multiple times.  It's a wonderful place, they have chickens, goats, cows, pigs and horses.  All of their animals are grass finished, healthy and, well, delicious.  In the fall, the farm is open to visitors.  They have lots of low spray apples, a corn maze (this year, the corn didn't sprout--not because we were in drought because we weren't--so it was a hay bale maze), animals to look at, a big barn with a rope swing on the hay (this is generally the biggest hit), a trike run in a barn, and a creek to play in.  It was fun, and I am glad we went.  I am still deciding whether to keep Elsa in school or not...if I don't, I anticipate many more visits,  If I do, it may be more difficult.  This whole baby thing is making things challenging.  But great, little unnamed as of yet man.  Complications and chaos are fine.  We love you and want you.

I don't have a lot else to say, but I will put some pictures up.  I don't have any of me, of course, but let me tell you that I am huge and there is no fear, despite my advanced maternal age, that this baby isn't growing.

Elsa and her friend decided that the best way to do the hay bale maze was to leap around on top of them.  They were correct.  David thought it was fun as well, even when he made gross errors about how far he could jump and basically did a belly flop onto the hay and then slid down.

So, I included this picture, complete with chewing hair (as well as adorable gap toothed grin on Elsa's sweet friend) because the thing is that we live here.  It has been hot and humid lately, but my goodness, we live here, and see that stuff every dang day.  And I mean, imagine if I were actually a good photographer.

Yes.  It was a good day.

A Day Off

I have been having a rough time lately.  I have been feeling blue and sick and tired and frustrated and uncreative (aside from the life that I am sort of creating or at least holding for now.)  I told Jesse that I needed a day off...a total day off.  And he agreed--yesterday, Jesse took care of breakfast, then we all went to the Tailgate Market...I wasn't supposed to mind children, but David wasn't feeling great so it was too much to ask Jesse to take him, since he was following me around, occasionally weeping...but then, I was done.  Elsa had a play date, and Jesse took David on various errands, and I literally lay down all day.  Of course I had organizing, gardening and preserving plans for the day, but none of that happened.  I may have done a little laundry, but nothing else productive.  I hung out on Facebook for way too long, read some books and got caught up on reading the New Yorker.  I felt kind of yucky, and was glad when Elsa, back from her day out with her friend and Daddy, proposed an after dinner walk.  We walked down to the Greenway barefoot, heard some neighbors playing music, and just barely arrived back before dark.  At the end of the day, I did feel fairly gross, having been lying around all day.

But the thing is, today, I was better.  The unshakable cold finally seems to be receding.  I am not contemplating anti-depressants (I actually talked to my doctor about how blue I was feeling.)  I worked in the garden while the kids played in the kiddie pool, cleaned the chicken coop, did more laundry (laundry seems to be an incredible issue...I am a bit worried about what is going to happen with the addition of one more probably spitty and poopy little one do the mix...maybe when summer is over my children won't become gigantic dirt balls by the end of the day...), planted a butterfly bush in our "rose" (leafless thorn) garden, made a pie with the kids, froze the last quart of tomato sauce, and, most importantly, did not yell at Jesse all day (I think...I hope).  David and I had a conversation about the Civil War and why Native Americans didn't like it when the White settlers came on their land.   I am feeling more sanguine about Elsa's schooling...either I will homeschool her, or I will make an effort to take on, in diplomatic fashion of course, what I think are the problems with the public school.  Elsa is not the only one who deserves to get outside more and not to get pushed to read before she is ready.  At any rate, my worries do not feel like they are going to prevent me from actually enjoying my time with my family.   It's amazing what a little rest can do.