the squibix family blog

We actually started posting moments in March 2014, a couple weeks after Lijah was born, but it wasn't til 2015 that I got the rhythm of weekly posting. And I kept up with that rhythm even after half my reason for doing so was gone, because... that's what I'm like. But as I think about our own schedule and what I hope to do with this blog, it seems to me that a single picture on Friday doesn't sum up our week in the way I'd like to sum it up. So in 2016 I'm going to try something new. Stay tuned, and see what you think!

"Yion? Yion?!" he asked, with increasing urgency. Zion was happy enough to bolt his food and leave the table—he does it enough on his own anyways—but a little more frustrated when Lijah tried to pull him off the couch as he looked at a book (ok, the new American Girl doll catalog). I'm not sure how he felt about his little brother yelling and banging on the door of the bathroom, but I bet that Leah was thrilled to see someone other than her getting that treatment! Especially as she sat at the dinner table enjoying a civilized conversation with her husband and charming eldest son.

They're all three of them changing all the time. I wonder what next week will bring?

No wait, that's not true; the best part was that we got to hang out with a lot of awesome people. And since many of them helped clean up, it wasn't even that much work! Let's do it again next Tuesday.

Serious time for us, at least; I suppose normal folks consider nine-hour work days—that's nine hours counting commuting time—to be pretty commonplace. But finding myself engrossed in a delightful, meaningful task this afternoon I stuck around in Cambridge until almost 4:30 to finish it up. And Leah didn't leave work until after 5:00 yesterday (good thing I had it all under control).

Lijah still isn't sleeping, but with the holiday craziness out of the way we're starting to find a reasonable schedule and the sanity that comes with it. The house is getting cleaned regularly, the kids are getting fun outings, and Leah and even have some time to talk with each other (ok, so that's only when we're doing the dishes—but it's something!). And there's time for work, too... who would have thought?!

Last time I went was just with the two younger boys, who could spend all day in the "Children's" part of the museum. Harvey has other interests, and with him leading the charge we soon headed over to the other building for some Science Discovery. Happily, even Lijah likes science too: he was entranced by the heat camera, and watched his own rainbow form on the screen with delight.

While I couldn't interest the older boys in a truly scientific investigation of what the camera revealed—like the fact that Harvey's hair is vastly more insulative than Zion's—they were amused to notice that their skin is in fact hot all over, and their clothes keep the heat in.

There were also opportunities for personal growth. Harvey was brave enough to approach the woman running the pendulum-table spirograph to ask for a turn (and he wanted to make one as a present for Mama!). Zion got lost a whole level away from us and didn't scream or cry. And Lijah overcame a new-found fear of humidifier steam ("no smoke! no smoke!") to be able to spend a good half-hour in a room with a seven-foot-high water vapor tornado. Good times all around!

Plus, we picked up the chicken feed on the way home.

It makes perfect sense as a replacement. Clearly, he's noticed that our dialect effectively has a /d/ /t/ merger in many cases: in an intervocalic position the two sound exactly the same. He knows when we say "butter" it sounds like there's a D in the middle of the word, but also that it's really a T: a T that one might pronounce when one was being particularly formal. His "Spiterman" T replaces an identical sound—one that just happens to be spelled with a D.

If I were to draw a larger point from his little mix-up, its that we sometimes give kids too little credit: we point out all the things they do "wrong" without very often noticing why they're making a particular mistake—or realizing the tremendous amount of processing and development they're doing in order to come up with a way to systematize the craziness around them.

But never mind that, the real point is that Zion is awesome and I wish I could record everything he says to enjoy later. The things he says when he's not whining, that is.

It was quite cold. The water and the exposure makes that bridge particularly chilly in winter, and yesterday was no exception. For at least 15 minutes, though, Lijah was good for it, enjoying the sight of the geese and a swan and charging over the bridge to see the "knight? knight? knight?" (actually the Minuteman statue).

We saw one other person there the whole time. With the place to themselves Harvey and Zion played and played; I think they would have been happy to stay out lots longer.

It's fun to watch what they get up to. Here they asked me if they could roll down the hill—of course I told them to go right ahead!

When Lijah reached his freezing point he let us know it, so we hurriedly decamped to the car (where he was mollified and refreshed with apple slices) and then to the Concord library, where we spent a pleasant hour or so playing with their legos and looking at books.

It was a good time all around, though all the cold and excitement took a lot out of the littlest one: it's not a long drive home but it was enough for him to drop off to sleep—and the car wasn't exactly quiet!—and he didn't stir at all when I brought him inside and tossed him onto the bed.

That's how every outing should end!

I wouldn't mention it here except just a couple days earlier I fixed the furnace the same way. The first really cold day this winter we were out all day, and when we came back the house just wouldn't warm up; when I went down to look at the furnace I knew why. Well, I sort of knew why: the proximate cause was the furnace's failure to light, but I had no idea of the reason for that. But I didn't let lack of knowledge stop me, and with headlamp and screwdriver got to work taking apart the little panel with the igniter and flame sensor. Not very much apart, since it was late, but enough to notice that maybe the connection between the igniter and its wire was a little loose. Who knows if that was the problem, but when I put everything back together it lit right up.

Our lives today are filled with things we don't understand, and it can be a little paralyzing. That's what attracts me to "sustainability" as a goal—not that I'm afraid society will collapse and I'll need to be able to grow my own food and maintain my own primitive machinery, just that I appreciate a little bit of comprehension about the workings around me. For me at least, it makes life less stressful.

Of course, I'm nowhere near complete independence in those terms, nor do I really hope to be. But at least now I have a first step for dealing with broken things that I'm not really sure how to fix: take em apart and take a look! It's kind of liberating.

Our friends were sick so our weekly farm-school co-op date was just us, but we didn't let that stop us from getting our hands into some dough. I was recently gifted a sourdough started (perfectly timed: I was ready to try again after some years off) and I'm working on figuring out how to make good bread with it. This particular batch was perfect for the boys: sticky enough to be interesting, but still easy to squish and shape. They both chose to make baguettes—or "long bread", as they're known in our household.

As nice as it was, the dough was still too sticky for Lijah, and he stuck to manipulating the raw ingredients.

The loaves came out good (though Zion doesn't really like the crustiness of a sourdough bread), but somehow I failed to take a picture of the finished product. We'll just have to do it again next week!

In order to make sure to get enough exercise if they wouldn't let us on the ice without skates, we parked a ways away and walked over on the bike path. The bigger boys ran ahead while I took things at a relaxed pace with Lijah. He was very excited to be walking, except when he wasn't.

It's not like I was forcing him to walk: I had the stroller, and would have been delighted to plop him in it and catch up with his brothers, who were about a quarter mile ahead of us. But he was having none of it; when I walked back towards him to make the offer he hopped right up, calling, "I did it!"

As laborious and earth-bound as the walk may have been, all three boys were transported with delight to be on the ice, where just walking seemed like flying.

There were no restrictions we knew about so the boys ran wildly around the ice surface, racing and spinning to their heart's content. The running was possible because the temperature—just above freezing—and the light snow that had fallen the day before combined to make the ice a little sticky. It was kind of disappointing, given that we had come all that way for ice—but on the other hand it was nice that none of the kids slipped and broke their heads open.

Not to say there were no falls. Harvey cut his face doing a comedic face-plant over the low rail, and then there was a moment when the bigger boys were taking a quiet sit down in between races.

Lijah came along, but instead of just finding his own spot to sit, he gave Zion a shove.

Turns out Zion's perch was somewhat precarious.

No injury resulted though, and when Zion grudgingly forgave us for laughing everyone was alright again.

After a good long time on the ice surface proper we explored a little further and found that the frozen overflow from the rink was much slipperier than the rink itself. So we played there for a while.

And then some more on the rink (the boys had to get across it to get to the gate...), then a trip to the toy store, and the Lexington library... it was a full day. But Zion confirms, the (almost) skating was the undeniable highlight. Now to find some real ice skates for us all before we run out of winter...

Right now there are four containers taking up space in the kitchen: the regular sourdough starter, a whole wheat offspring, a whole wheat bread on its first rise, and some experimental sourdough pizza dough (though really it's all experimental). Results so far have been pretty good—better than last time (though that's a pretty bread)—but not yet entirely up to specifications. So I keep trying!

Incidentally, feel free to stop by to try some bread.

Besides the singing, he's also talking up a storm. For the past couple months people who haven't seen him for a while have been remarking on how much more he says now—not that they can understand him at all. He isn't at all clear when he speaks, to the point that "Whole Foods" and "boots off!" sound enough the same that the rest of us had a difference of opinion about what he meant earlier today (admittedly we were in the car so it was hard to hear). Altering—"personalizing"—so many sounds isn't a huge problem when you're just saying a handful of words, but when you're trying to express complex thoughts like our little almost-two-year-old, things get tricky.

Still, we love to hear him talk. Now that he's capable of advanced communication I can sometimes talk him out of his toddler frustration fury; and even when I can't, his voice and speaking mannerisms are awful cute. I just wish I could end this post with a video of him saying "no no no..." in his smiling, head-shaking fashion—but the third kid just doesn't get the video time he deserves. I guess I'll just have to remember it.