Tuesday, October 17, 2017

Garlic's in, braces on...

Catch up time! Girls to rejoin me momentarily and dishes waiting for me by the sink, but here I am eager to share an update before this news becomes history and we move on to our next adventures!

First backing up to the remainder of Terah's actual birthday. We celebrated the evening before due to our Wednesday evening soccer practice schedule. It rained the hour before practice and so until the last minute we weren't sure of the plan. Then it cleared off beautifully and the sky offered Terah a birthday rainbow to enjoy! Here's the trio about to head off. I think it ended up being the perfect birthday present for Terah - an hour where her mommy had no other responsibilities other than to be at Smithland fields in case Kali or Alida needed something AND puddles! Needless to say, baths/showers were on the agenda as soon as we returned home!
Terah's birthday was also a day in which I noticed things more around our place. I tried to slow up a bit and set my agenda aside, allowing Terah to guide our pace. We took two meandering trips down to the pigs, once with meat scraps and chicken bones and once with persimmon pulp and seeds. While Terah announced to the pigs that it was her birthday, I think they thought it was theirs! They were quite a fan of the birthday visits from us! And I must say that it gives me great pleasure to see them relishing our seconds with such gusto. They really do seem to love their life at Tangly Woods and I'm glad to provide a pleasant existence for them here! I also walked slow enough up and down the front walk to notice a date on Kali's tree. Always a special reminder of our first apartment on Hamlet Dr...
Before moving to yesterday and today, two more quick highlights. I love when our three girls are enjoying each other! I don't tend to run for the camera when Terah is screeching "go way ida" or trying to pull her off the recliner because she wants on. Or when Alida is hounding Kali about something to the point that even Kali loses her patience (long after I would have lost mine). But these moments when they snuggle up together to read or just be close to each other warm my heart (almost balancing out the others if my mind didn't forget so easily the tenderness in those other moments)!

In a similar vein, there is almost nothing I love more than working/playing with our gals in the kitchen. When they are in the mood, they are so fun to be with! The opposite, sadly, is also true! I've been savoring my daily jaunts out to our persimmons trees with bowls or containers in hand to pick what has dropped since the day before. I'm harvesting them daily and getting normally 1-3 quarts a day. What bounty!! Slowly the containers are building up in the freezer and for the first time this year we had enough to make it worth trying out the Victorio Strainer - IT WORKS! And works well - with our grape spiral and the pumpkin screen. So there will be chocolate persimmon muffins and yogurt smoothies with persimmons in our future. I also hope to try some persimmon leather sometime soon.

Yesterday was a work day in the office for me and I came home to a delicious smelling house. It was Kali's night to cook and she had decided to make bagels. They were the one thing on her "no no list" for eating while she has braces on that she thought she would miss. I thought it was a fabulous excuse to make bagels. :) She also made "dream cheese" which was a cream cheese like substance made with yogurt. We got to taste test a bagel but then had to pull ourselves away as daylight was waning and we had our work cut out for us! Jason had spent the day (thanks to my folks hanging with the girls!!) prepping the garlic field. It was time to plant!

And plant we did - by the end I would have to say we were more or less planting in the dark and hopefully we got the right side of the cloves down in the ground. We'll see what they look like when they come up. I am so eager for Alida to catch the vision of family work times consistently and for Terah to develop even the slightest ability to be patient for just a few minutes at key times. We made it, and mostly in very good spirits, but it took a lot of creative energy at the end by this "team captain" to engage the Myers-Benner team in beating the sun (my it sets fast at this time of year - or we are just not used to the short evenings yet).
 And now today! Kali went from this:
 To this:
 To this:
It has felt like a long process of discernment (we don't make these kinds of decisions lightly or quickly!). I said on the way home that at least we can't agonize about the decision of whether to go forward with braces or not. That part of the decision is now made! I can still agonize a bit on whether it was the right thing to do or not, but I'm trying to just settle into the decision being made and now making the very best of it. Kali makes it easy to do just that! Once it felt like we had exhausted our list of questions and were convinced that this was not just a plot to give Kali a "perfect smile" but that it was also an attempt to avoid some major dental issues down the road, she was at peace about it. On the way in today, she even mentioned being a little curious about it. That's our gal! She is so interested in the world around here and fully engaging with all of her lived experiences that she can even kind of look forward to a somewhat unpleasant experience for what she might learn from it.

So there is much to be grateful for. The office is a very pleasant environment. They are super family-friendly. They take a lot of time with us and never make us feel silly for asking questions. AND they now don't have one but TWO dogs as assistant office managers. This is not necessarily a positive attribute currently but I have a secret hope that our monthly visits to the office will slowly ease our two younger girls' fear of dogs. That would be worth a portion of the $5000 plus we handed over to them today! I am seeing an easing already in that Alida did not have to be held off the ground today and, by the end, Terah was even ready to pretend being Wally! Now that's progress! Stay tuned...

 Terah might be scared of dogs, but she has no fear of chicks! In that case, I believe the fear goes the other direction. But she is learning to be gentle, if she can just contain and curb her unending enthusiasm and adoration. Here she is "helping" to get the chicks ready to head from incubator to their swimming pool home last evening. All for now!

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