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Treading Water
Things remain busy as ever here in the Ricks household. Merritt is in an interesting cycle where it seems that one day he sleeps about 20 hours out of the day and then the next day he fusses for about 18 hours out of the day. He gets into these fits where he just can’t seem to be calmed, even with a full stomach, clean diaper, and warm blanket. Fortunately, the fits don’t usually last too long at one time, but they sure grate on us when we are already tired.
As if to make up for it, Merritt for sure smiled at me twice over the last two days. He doesn’t do it predictably yet, but these were certainly reciprocal – he looked directly into my eyes, puzzled at first, it seemed, and then his concern slowly melted into a warm, broad grin. He knows how to play us.
Avey finished school this week, so she has been home and busy. She’s still on a kick of financial independence, so in between meals and some relaxation, she begs for chores to do. We want to keep reinforcing that attitude, so we’re doing our best to keep work available. Monday, for example, she declared early in the morning that she was going to make it a relaxation day, but that lasted about 30 minutes before she started mopping, sweeping, weeding, and so on to earn a few bucks she could blow on her new favorite store (Five Below). Her latest treasures are disappearing ink, some slimy goop, and an obnoxious pen that plays various versions of “Blah blah blah.” Needless to say, they have caused her and the boys much entertainment, and that works out enough for us that we’ll overlook the noise (and often the mess).
We had a fun time last night when Kira realized that the water heater had stopped heating our water. Thankfully, each of the children had successfully bathed by then, but Kira suffered through a cold shower. I worked on it and could get the pilot lit, but it would not stay lit, so we had to call in somebody who knows something about water heaters. He got it back up and running this morning- apparently it was just dirty.
Carver has been working on reading and counting lately. Avey likes to help him through the counting especially, and got him to count up through 20 this week. He still seems to have some conceptual problems with quantity, however, as indicated by this anecdote; It was bedtime, but Carver insisted that he was not tired, so he and Kira were in negotiations for how long he could do something before bed. Kira firmly offered 3 minutes, which Carver quickly countered with a whine. Kira, asserting her position, then reduced her offer, “Okay, well how about 2 minutes?” Carver, apparently misunderstanding, smiled broadly as if he had won, and said, “Okay yeah, that’s good!”
In other exciting news, Avey is a grandma! Kira heard the chirping of baby sparrows in Avey’s newly occupied bird house a couple of days ago, and so we’ve enjoyed watching the busy parents retrieve food for their noisy offspring. Kira and I catch their gaze every now and then, and exchange sympathetic looks with Mr. and Mrs. Sparrow. Not much sleep happening around here, regardless of one’s species.