All About Obie

Obie is now six months old - if you can believe it! - so I thought I'd take a moment to tell you about who he has become in the past half year.

Mostly he's just the happiest, funniest, most snugly baby boy in the history of the world. He's pretty much addicted to me and is leery of the bed because he knows I'm going to try to make him go to sleep. He has been sleeping in his cradle for the last month because he's finally mastered rolling in both directions. Once I went to get him after I left him napping in the middle of the bed and found his head lolling near the edge - not quite off, but close enough to make a mama worried! So he stays in his cradle now. He'd started eating rice cereal, but then we had consecutive projectile vomiting after a meal and I haven't tried it again. (The first time left a trail of pukies from the front of Walmart clear to the restrooms in the back!! I had to get him a new outfit and blankie!) His favorite game is to work at his socks until he gets them both off and the chew on them until they get very soggy. I'll often find him with a sock in his mouth like a puppy dog, just munching away, usually only moments after putting them on him (when I'm trying to get out the door!) Just like my girls, he is utterly incapable of hanging on when we carry him about, but he also seems to weigh twice as much as they ever did, so most of the day I carry him over my shoulder like a log or under my arm like a football. My back is completely out of line and I'm considering a chiropractic visit for the first time in my life.

Everywhere we go people ask me, "Is he always this good??" Yep, he is. He makes it easy to consider finding him a brother!!

Here we are down by the lake. I love my Obie!!

Who Else Can We Offend??

Rob left for a conference in Minneapolis this morning.  He'll be gone for four days.  And of course by 4 o'clock this afternoon I was already dying to get myself and my three kids out of the house.  So we fled to McDonalds.

Redwing has a pretty upscale Mickey D's.  The chairs are all padded, the playland has videogames with touch screens, there is "art" on the walls, all in all a decent place for a frazzled S@HM to waste an hour.  So we got our food and Maggie sat down to eat on the booth side of our table with the boy and Beatrice and I sat in the chairs.  This table happened to accommodate wheelchairs and had a little symbol in the center to inform people.  Of course Bee wanted to know all about it.

She asked, "What's this blue dot for?"

"To tell people that wheelchairs fit here," I told her.

"Oh," she says.  "Like for Old people."  We are surrounded by old people also eating dinner at 4:30.  

"No, honey," I try not to laugh at her.  "For handicapped people who are in wheel chairs."

"Oh."  She is clearly not impressed.

Of course Maggie has to put in her thoughts.  "Like for Fat people!" she chimes in.

"No," I say a bit too loudly and slightly relieved that there aren't any fat old people sitting next to us.  Thankfully the questions ended there before we offended any stinky, hairy, or far-sighted patrons, too.

I think my kids need sensitivity training.  Or I need to stop answering questions in public places!

Friday Foto

See that nice shady spot to the left? With all that nice soft grass to lay in?? If they could follow directions, that is where they'd be happily lying and smiling for this week's foto. Instead of grimacing in the sun. On a pokey plant.

Well, there's always next week...

Happy Earth Day!!

Go organic today!!

Out and About

Rob took the girls out of my hair on Saturday.  They went to explore the local landscapes.  This is Frontenac Bottoms.  Maggie called this raised path the alligator.

Look at how BIG this tree is!!

They enjoyed the explosions of spores coming from these old puffball mushrooms.

The best thing about our move to MN is that it has prompted us to get out into nature more.  We had become slugs to the routine in C'dale, but we've already improved that in the few short days of Spring we've had here.  I mean, look at this place!  How could you stand to stay home??

The Big Birthday, Part Two - Cake and Presents

After the Pinata we came inside to eat Birthday cake and open Maggie's presents. She had a ton of them! Beatrice helped.

Obie surveyed the carnage with an air of disenchantment.

I'm not sure why John was being wacky. He's a great little boy and I'm glad we had a reason to have him over.
For her cake this year Mags requested five green cats singing under a rainbow with clouds on both ends. Where does she come up with this stuff? Grandma dutifully made a cake that fit the bill! We enjoyed it with Oreo cookie ice cream! Obie didn't get any this time, though.

Maggie was very happy with all of her gifts. The light-up unicorn has been much flaunted in front of and therefore coveted by Beatrice, the alphabet stickers have been stuck all over the house, the clothes have been mostly ignored, the Littlest Pet Shop house has been nicely shared, and the paintable dishes have been thoroughly examined and are asked about everyday. Can I paint them yet?? No, not today, honey. (We'll paint them next week while Daddy's away at a conference - stay tuned for the results!)

And of course Mr. Silky was there, too - the best birthday pet ever, in my opinion!

The Big Birthday, Part One - The Pinata

Maggie's Fifth Birthday Party was last weekend. Grandma and Grandpa Supan came in to celebrate and we also invited our neighbors to come over.

We started the afternoon off with hot dogs, bratwursts, and lots of other picnic food. There's Maggie enjoying her feast.
Next we had all of the kids gather around to take turns hitting the Cat Pinata. Since Maggie was the oldest kid it took lots and lots of hitting before they even made a dent. But finally Maggie broke through!!

Here are John, Beatrice and Maggie scrounging for their spoils.

Obie watched.

Friday Foto

Only Beatrice is looking at the camera, but I like the sideways glances Maggie and Obie are giving each other.

Did you notice Bee's sunburn??  And Maggie is covered in Heat Rash.  I forgot that even Minnesotan sun can do that!!

Mr. Silky

Our Guinea Pig is slowly becoming accustom to life here at the Keehn house. He comes out to eat when we're at the table eating, too. He doesn't scrabble so hard to get away from me when I pick him up. The girls know how to pet him, how to pick him up, and how to avoid stepping on him - well, pretty much. They also love to feed him sprigs of timothy hay, which he nibbles with piggy delight.

Since the weather has gotten nice, we take Mr. Silky out on our most excellent front porch. He's free to run around and get a little exercise. He's still a little nervous with all that space, though, and spends most of the time hiding under our feet or racing back and forth along the wall as fast as he can go squeaking and oinking and looking for someplace safe. He's hilarious!

Maggie loves him. I think he likes her, too. As you can see. He's almost smiling!

Conversations with Beatrice

We went to the awesome park in Red Wing today. While we were sitting in the shade having lunch a woman walked by with a little girl and a baby boy. Beatrice asked me what the boy's name was. I said, "I don't know."

"Hmm," said Bee, "Maybe it's Robert. Or Obie."

"Maybe," I said, "but I doubt it." I though that was it because Bee just sat there munching her potato chip. Then she said, "Well, maybe it's Jim."

Jim??? I just started laughing at her.

And then a few minutes later she piped up again, out of the blue and asked me, "Why did that Lady put Dr. Who in the pit?" Why indeed. Where did that come from???

Egg Hunt

Here are a few of the highlights from the Egg Hunt that Grandma and Grandpa Supan put together in our yard on Easter Sunday.  The girls loved it!

The rules were Beatrice picked up the yellow eggs and Maggie picked up the pink ones.  Any blue ones were given to Daddy for Obie.  They spent almost as much time shouting out when they found the wrong egg as they did looking for the right ones.  "Mag!!  A Pink EGG!!!"  "Bee!  Here's a yellow one!!"  It was very sweet the way they worked together.  If only they got along that well when there isn't the promise of candy involved!!!

Poor Obie!

As I'm coming down the stairs from getting Beatrice out of the bathtub and dressed again, Maggie meets me and says, grinning impishly, "come look at Obie."  I know this means that he's been subjected to Maggie's dress-up will.

Evidently he's the ghost queen.

He will love his sisters when he grows up!

Christ Is Risen!

Christ Is Risen Indeed!

Happy Easter!!

Margaret Rose

April 18th, 2004

April 8th, 2009

Five Years Ago

My, Oh, My, How Time Flies

Here's a little glimpse of our life in the days after M was born. She wasn't a great nurser, or more likely, I didn't have the hang of it. The thing that gets me about this video is the squawking. I have a hard time wrapping my mind around the knowledge that that is Maggie. It sounds like an exotic bird. Being poked with a stick. My Maggie sounds nothing like that now. Obie doesn't even sound like that.

Five years is such a very long time. Maggie is not a baby or even a toddler any more. She can read, she can wash dishes, she plays Mario games, and adores her family. She's grappling with the enormous ideas of religion and cooperation and logic and hunger. I very easily forget that she was ever this small. That she needed my undivided attention or she would starve to death or freeze to death or suffocate to death. I have forgotten how intrinsically frightening it is to have your first infant in your arms, even for someone as horribly confident about everything as I am. She was so small. And we loved her so much. It is amazing and breathtaking and so exceptionally normal to me now.

Five years ago I was on the very cusp of motherhood - a long sought after, begged for, longed for state. Today I can't imagine that my life was ever childless. After very little labor, very few contractions, and very few pushes our lives changed forever and it was all so long ago that I've forgotten how hard we had to work to have Maggie in our lives. I've forgotten all the waiting, all the sorrow, all the struggling. I just revel in each day that she is mine. She simply came along and gave me everything I ever wanted in life. To be her mama.

Thank you, Maggie.

Friday Foto

Grandma Supan is making a guest appearance this week.

"Hey, I Wanna Hold That Rat"

I'm still trying to convince Beatrice that we have a guinea pig, not a pet rat.

In the mean time Maggie finally picked a name for the piggy.  He's now Mr. Silky.  Obviously this is because he's so soft.

Also I'm feeling a little bit guilty because I want to sneak away and pet him, too, all by myself.  I'm waiting for the girls to go to bed so I can watch a movie and pet Mr. Silky.  I feel guilty because I haven't snuck away to pet one of our cats in over five years.  Poor cats...

The Newest Member of the Family

Maggie turns five (!!!) next Saturday and we decided a while ago that we'd up her responsibility in the household and get her a pet.  We already have too many cats and I don't want a dog, so it had to be a rodent.  We briefly considered a Sugar Glider until we looked at the price ($500 for pet and cage - no thanks!) and so we settled for a Guinea Pig.  Kids love Guinea Pigs, they squeak, they're affectionate, they "popcorn" around in their cages, and they're easy to take care of.  And they only live 4-8 years.  So on Saturday morning I popped over to Rochester intending to get the cage and what-not that a new pet would require.  Low and Behold they had everything on sale at PetSmart and I just couldn't resist getting the pig, too.  (I had grandly talked up how we'd go as a family and Maggie would get to pick out her very own pet.  However they never have more than one in stock anyway - I reasoned - and it is sort of a let down to get just a cage, right?)  So, I picked out the nice little calico piggy and swore Beatrice to secrecy.

On the way home Rob and I talked strategy.  How would I get piggy into the house?  How would we keep piggy secret for a whole week?  How would we keep Beatrice quiet for a whole week???  After I briefly tried to convince Rob that the pig could be hidden in the closet in our bedroom, we agreed that the unveiling had to be that day.  Rob took Maggie on a hike while I set everything up.  And it's a good thing we decided not to wait because the moment they got back Bee shouted, "Mag!  There's a surprise!!!"

Here's Maggie and her new pride and joy!

He doesn't have a name yet, but there have been many discussed.  Among them: Piggy, Ariel Princess (Thank Heavens I got a boy pig!!), Max, Miles, Velvet, Silky, Spotty, Mr. Twitchy Drawers, Penn, Squee, and just this morning Beatrice told us his name was Jeff.  That last one cracks us up!  Jeff the Guinea Pig.  We'll keep you posted on this hot topic!

Maggie loves him and calls herself his Pet Parent.  (A title from the PetSmart Brochure.)  While she's holding him she takes great big sighs of happiness.  She and Beatrice are very careful with him and we have yet to have him poop on one of them.  He's a great little piggy and last night got comfortable enough on Maggie's lap to make little bubble noises of contentment. 

I think we made a great choice for her big 5.

Obie's First Hair Cut

I couldn't stand it anymore. I'm one of those people who believes that girls should have long hair and boy's hair should be short. And at five months, Obie's hair was already too long. See:

Almost in his eyes! I don't want anyone mistaking my handsome little man for a girl, so I sat him up in his Bumbo seat, employed Maggie to distract him (just a little), and snipped those long hairs short.

It's a big difference, don't you think? It was exceptionally hard to snip the hairs around his ears - for one because it tickled him and he was squirmy, but for two because he has had one exceptionally long hair growing over his right ear from birth. It was a little whispy thing that just floated there from the side of his head and always made me laugh. Unfortunately it's nearly impossible to take a picture of one hair, so this will have to be one of those special things that mama remembers but has no proof of. I'll think fondly of that little long baby hair.

But I really love my big boy's new hair cut!

Don't you??

Friday Foto

This was taken last week at Grandma Keehn's house.  We had a great time in So Ill and can't wait to go back in May.  Until then, though, I'll get back into my blog posting routine.  I promise!