Category — Fun Life

In celebration of my second son’s eighth birthday today, I’m posting an acrostic that reveals a bit of his personality and what I love most about him.

Kidder (loves jokes)
Ebullient (overflowing with enthusiasm)
Rascal (mischievous)
Reveler (life of the party)
Ingenious (see the 3D stars he made from magnets—without instructions!)
Comrade (friendly and loyal)
Keeper (I can’t imagine life without him!)

Sometime during the past month and a half—don’t ask me exactly when—we reached a milestone around our house: Our diapering days  officially ended. Now you might think that when Keillor—age 2 1/2 and the youngest of our four children—made the transition to wearing “undies” (his word) around the clock,  it would be a big deal. Such a momentous occasion, you might say, is certainly worthy of a paragraph or two in the journal I started for him before he was born—or at least a one-liner in his baby book. And you’d be right. (Note to self: FIND Keillor’s journal and baby book and write something—anything—in them.) Did I mention he’s our fourth child? Best intentions aside, I definitely suffer from that syndrome you hear about—you know, the one in which the mom painstakingly documents every detail of her first-born baby’s life and then slacks off just a little more with each subsequent child until the last one is lucky if his birthday makes it onto the calendar each year. (Another note to self: HIDE all other siblings’ journals and baby books.)

The thing is, life’s been a little busy lately, and it really does seem like the whole thing happened rather suddenly—literally overnight, in fact. The truth is that we probably kept Keillor swaddled and Velcroed in his little bumGenius-brand cloth diapers a bit longer than we  needed to. So when he fell asleep late one night recently with nothing but his favorite Lightning McQueen briefs on under his jammies and woke up completely dry the next morning, I had one of those forehead-slapping, “duh” moment as I realized he’d actually been waking up with a dry diaper every morning for a few weeks. And that’s when I surprised myself by getting a little sentimental about—of all things—the diapers.

Don’t get me wrong: I’ve been looking forward to this time for about five years. That’s how long I’ve been laundering a load of cloth diapers every two to three days. With both our pocketbook and the planet in mind, I made the decision to use cloth diapers when our third child—Kennah, now 4 1/2—was born. And after using the same set of diapers on both Kennah and Keillor, I like to think that all of my effort did save a couple thousand dollars (for us) and a little landfill space (for the Earth). At the very least, I’m crossing my fingers that we’re kind of close to even-steven in both regards after using disposable diapers on our first two babies.

So why the wistfulness? I’m sure it has something to do with what the diapers symbolize: babyhood. Or, more precisely, that that fleeting period of time is, in fact, over for our family. (Don’t tell Kennah. As our only girl, she hasn’t completely given up on the idea of getting a sister someday.) Sure, it took some work to wash the diapers and hang them up to dry on our backyard clothesline every other day. But after I had a system down, it was actually kind of satisfying to look out the kitchen window and watch those pretty pastel colors pinned up and swaying in the breeze. Or to see them—on the rare occasions when I managed to fold them and put them away—stacked neatly in their cubby beneath the changing table.

In addition to the nostalgia for what is no longer, my misgivings might also be a little bit about the uncharted territory that lies ahead. As I let go of the diapers, what other—maybe more demanding—parenting challenge will take their place? (We are, after all, entering the tween years on the other end of the childhood spectrum.) If you already know, don’t tell me. I’m sure I’ll discover it sooner or later. And chances are, whenever I happen to realize that the next milestone has passed, I’ll want to write about it in someone’s journal or baby book—if I can find them.

I’m sharing this post in the Simple Lives Thursday blog hop, hosted by four bloggers, including my friend Wardeh Harmon at www.gnowfglins.com. Click here to see what everyone’s sharing today.

While the heat is still with us—and will be for several more months—the dog days of summer are drawing to a close. We started our full homeschooling schedule last week, and this morning, Kellen and Kerrick bid their best canine friend (our puppy, Sweetie) farewell before heading out to the first day back to their once-a-week, school-away-from-home program. As you can see, Kerrick was a little more broken up about it than Kellen was. Regardless of seasons and schedules, we plan to continue the dog days around our house—spending plenty of time taking Sweetie on walks and teaching her tricks, as well as digging deeper into the stack of dog books on our read-aloud list. We just wrapped up Where the Red Fern Grows, by Wilson Rawls (look for a future post on that experience), and next on the list is a little-bit-lighter title: The Original Adventures of Hank the Cowdog, by John R. Erickson. I’m pretty sure our dog days will last well into winter.

Ever since her brothers got their summer haircuts in June (see Boys of Summer) and several of her friends began to sport shorter hair, Kennah has been talking about having her own hair cut. At first I resisted; after all, it had taken her tresses quite awhile to get to the middle of her back, and we’d only trimmed it once in her four and a half years (see Girls Just Wanna Have Fun). But after almost a month of daily swimming lessons and other pool fun, her blond locks were showing the effects of the chlorine and turning into a tangled, sticky mess. So this morning we did it! We made sure that we would still be able to pull her hair back into a ponytail or braid it at its shorter length, and then we started cutting. I hadn’t intended to go quite this short. I always forget that wet hair springs up a little as it dries (just ask my sisters, on whose bangs I grew up practicing my hair-cutting skills!). But Kennah is thrilled with it and even let me style it a bit with the blow drier and some hair clips. It’s a good thing I took this photo right away, though, because a few minutes after I did, I noticed that she had taken the hair clips out.

Kellen and Kerrick underwent their annual summer transformation yesterday (with Keillor joining in for the first time), when Shawn lined them up and sheared them down in the backyard. Usually, I’m the one who cuts the hair around here, but this head-shaving tradition falls squarely into their dad’s jurisdiction—a throwback to his Navy days, I guess. I do admire Shawn’s efficiency—he got three boys finished in the time it would take me to carefully cut one boy’s hair (and I noticed none of them uttered a single complaint about itchiness, either!). The boys all love their extremely short hair for several reasons: 1) It keeps them streamlined for swim team, which begins tomorrow; 2) it makes hair-washing a cinch; 3) it means they don’t have to comb their hair for the next few months. As for me, I’ll be glad when it’s time to let it all grow back.

The newest addition to our family is Sweetheart (Sweetie, for short), a 4-month-old blue heeler puppy who unexpectedly wiggled her way into our home—and our hearts—two weeks ago. Kellen and Kerrick had been begging for a puppy for quite awhile, and Shawn and I kept putting them off, saying, “It’s not the right time.” We did have some valid concerns: We wanted Keillor to be well out of babyhood and firmly established as a toddler, and we hoped that Kennah would first overcome her skittishness around dogs. Plus, we wanted our backyard (still a bit torn up after a remodeling project last year) to be a more welcoming environment for a canine companion. But when Sweetie suddenly became available through a friend of my sister’s, we decided to hedge our bets against not-so-perfect timing. (And so far, so good: Keillor and Kennah have taken Sweetie well in stride, and Sweetie has been quite content in our crazy backyard.)

We’ve suffered a few casualties as Sweetie continues to work through the teething stage (shirts, socks, underwear, an Easter egg and part of the piano bench!), but she is otherwise so well-behaved and, well, sweet, that we’ve decided we can live with that one temporary vice. I guess you could say that the entire Hemmings Half Dozen has definitely come down with a classic case of puppy love.

Sometime after 9 p.m., as I was reading stories on the sofa to a sniffling, cold-suffering Keillor, I heard a knock at the door. At first, I thought it was Shawn, Kellen, Kerrick and Kennah returning from a day trip to Tucson. But when I looked through the peephole, I didn’t see any people—just bags and boxes piled outside the door. Curious, and cautious, I opened the door to find enough groceries to feed a multitude—everything from meat and potatoes to melons and pasta to the biggest cans of tomato sauce I’ve ever seen, and enough packets of Goldfish crackers to satisfy snacking kids for ages. What a surprise! As Keillor and I brought everything into the kitchen, we asked ourselves two questions:

1. Who? (Although I have several guesses, I can’t be sure who’s responsible—and I’m sure that’s quite the point. I haven’t written about it here, yet, or shared it with many people outside of our extended family, but Shawn’s been looking for a full-time job since a layoff in January. Our budget’s been pretty tight, but God’s provision has been timely and amazing to see.)

2. How? (For as much stuff as there was piled outside, we didn’t hear a sound—not even the rustling of plastic bags or the thud of heavy cans of food hitting the ground.)

Whoever you are, you’re good! And I mean that in every sense of the word. Tucked into one of the boxes was a simple note that read, “God bless you!” And the Hemmings Half Dozen would like to say, “Right back at ya!” (Now, if anyone has any recipes that call for such things as a 6-pound, 9-ounce can of diced carrots and peas, please share!)

Goodwin children (from left: Brenda, Nora, Sonya and Kenneth); Safford, Arizona; 1974.

Hemmings children (from left: Keillor, Kerrick, Kennah and Kellen); Tempe, Arizona; 2010.

I thought it would be fun to show my sisters and I wearing the coordinating Easter dresses my mom made for us when we were young, and then show Kennah wearing the dress I made for her this year. (My brother and my sons had to settle for store-bought attire in these photos, but I’ve promised my boys that I’ll try to at least give their Easter shirts some mom-made attention next year.) Here are a few more fun shots of Kennah (and her baby doll, Mary) wearing their matching dresses. (I don’t know how my mom made three whole dresses for her daughters several years in a row! It was all I could manage to put together one dress—plus a quarter-size replica—in the weeks leading up to today!)

Kennah in her "sparkly pink butterfly" confection—because it reminds me of cotton candy—of an Easter dress.

Perfect match: Kennah and Mary.

…from Kellen (who created an army of candy-covered robots)…

…from Kerrick (who assembled button-candy cell phones with sweet text messages)…

…and from Kennah (who combined beauty and brains—in the form of fancy folded cardstock rings wrapped around rolls of Smarties) in her creations.

Handmade valentines are a tradition at our house (though I admit that sometimes we all look longingly at the hassle-free boxed cards at the store—complete with elaborate treats or cute tattoos). These are the designs the kids chose this year (from one of the places we usually look for ideas, www.familyfun.com). With a little (OK, a lot of) encouragement from me, they worked really hard for several days to cut out, color, glue or tape and address each one. Kellen, Kerrick and Kennah were so proud of their painstaking efforts and excited to give the end results to their friends. And the projects did kick some character-building qualities—creativity, problem-solving and stick-to-it-iveness—into high gear for each of them. It was enough to warm this crafty mom’s heart—at least until this time next year, when we get set to do it all again. Gotta L-O-V-E it!