Single Digits

Today marks 31 weeks of pregnancy. The countdown is now in the single digits. Only 9 weeks to go until baby Benjamin arrives on the scene. In some ways this seems insanely close, in other ways it seems like an eternity. I guess my only real complaint is that my weight is far further into the triple digits than I would prefer. Darn those cravings for corn chips and salsa con queso!

Booked

Marc took this adorable picture of our three guys reading on the couch. We had to catch this rare moment of peace to remind ourselves that there are times when they are not fighting or scheming. Our boys have a serious love of books which we hope will continue after they learn to read. I get the request "Read a book please, mommy." multiple times a day. Even David John requests to be read to by throwing himself in front of you or in your lap and shoving a book into your hand. He then forcibly points at the book, says "book" and looks at you expectantly. I try to acquiesce as often as possible. I only wish they wouldn't pick such annoying favorites. I think reading the book "Ice Cream Dreams" ten times a day could be a community service project for a convict. I know I'd think twice before committing a crime again if that was my sentence.

No ID, No Problem

As mentioned in a previous post, Marc flew to Utah earlier this month. In order to make this less catastrophic for me and the boys and to save a lot of money, we drove down to my parents' house and had Marc fly out of the nearby Dayton airport. For some reason flying out of Dayton is much cheaper than flying out of Cleveland... maybe fewer people want to leave Dayton? I don't know. Anyway, it sounded like a great plan until we arrived at my parents' house and realized that Marc's wallet was not in his pocket... or the van... or the luggage. In the chaos of packing up the van with luggage and children we accidentally left it at our house. We thought for sure that this was the end of Marc's travel plans- but we were wrong. You can, in fact, get on a domestic flight without a government issued ID- without any ID at all, actually.
The people at the Dayton airport were very nice about the whole thing. In order to get through security Marc had to agree to the much-complained-about pat down. (I guess they think if you really aren't who you say you are the threat of the pat down alone might send you packing.) He also had to submit to questioning from the TSA national headquarters by phone. They asked him for names of family members, previous addresses, car makes and models, anything the government would have access to. Luckily, he passed but it made me think that they were going about this all the wrong way. Anyone could look up a bunch of information like that and pose as someone else. If the government has access to the name of your spouse then they should call up the guy's wife and ask her to help verify her husband's identity. Then they could ask real stumpers like, "What snack did you eat in bed last night?" "Did you brush AND floss your teeth?" "Name two things your wife got you for Christmas." Wives would probably also be able to identify any tattoos, birthmarks and scars that would be helpful in confirming identity. A wife could even inform the TSA about any unique talents the husband could use to prove himself- he can roll his tongue, he can burp the alphabet backwards, he can do an impressive moonwalk. Let's face it- wives probably know more about their husbands than they know about themselves. The only problem with this system is that men might not be able to answer questions like "When is your anniversary?" or "What, according to your wife, is your most annoying habit?" And forget about asking a man to identify his wife if she forgets her ID. I imagine the conversation might go something like this, "Well, I can't really describe what she looks like. I'm not sure what her original hair color is, but she makes some killer meatballs." Ladies, if you want to get on a plane without your ID be prepared to cook.

Music to My Ears (or Nose)

In order to prevent complete boredom and cabin fever craziness I started a system last year in which I rotate the toys that are in our living room every week. Over the New Year weekend, I reorganized the toys into new thematic rotations and this week we've been having a music themed toy selection.
The boys have been enjoying an assortment of store bought and homemade musical instruments, although they frequently find alternate uses for them. We have discovered that rhythm sticks can also draw on walls, homemade tambourines can be used as flying saucers or Chinese throwing stars and maracas make an ever more satisfying sound when you use them to hit someone on the head.
Surprisingly, some of the most popular items are our paper towel tube "trumpets". The boys love to play them by singing or shouting into them loudly. Elijah used his today to announce everyone's name in the family in sports arena style.
"There's Daddy on the couch! Aaaaand Gabriel and David John! 'Lijah's on the table and Mommy in the kitchen! Thaaaaaat's our family!"

David John couldn't quite get the hang of his at first and ended up looking like Pinocchio or an up-tight elephant. Eventually, he figured it out and can now yell with the best of them.
Anyway, I thought I'd be a good mom this week and try some structured activities in order to reduce the chaos in our house. I decided we'd make some shakers with dry beans and old seasoning bottles. After tasting the dried beans and finding them inedible, David John figured out that it would be better just to drop them in the plastic container.


Elijah did a great job putting beans in his and testing it until it had just the right sound.

We hot glued the caps on to prevent future messes and choking hazards. I asked Gabe to show me his partially finished shaker and smile. This is what I got:

Next, I cut some paper to the same size as the labels we ripped off and let the boys decorate it. This was very serious business.

There are no pictures of David John coloring his label because if I let go of his hands to snap the photo, he just threw the crayons, crumpled the paper and drooled on it. When the labels were done we hot glued them on also. Here are the finished products:

Everyone was proud to show daddy their creation when Marc got home. We had a great jam session- but since then the boys have discovered that the best sound quality is created when you throw them from mid-leap off the couch. And I thought music was supposed to soothe the savage beast(s).

A Belated Tribute

Marc's grandfather, also named Marc Ricks, passed away earlier this month at the age of 100. Marc was able to attend his funeral last week in Utah along with large numbers of family and friends who came to say goodbye. The boys and I couldn't go- we could swing one unexpected plane ticket but not four- but I thought I'd write a little bit about this man who gave my husband his name.
By the time I joined the family, Grandpa Ricks was already 91 years old. I'm sad that I never knew him as Marc did, but I did get to hear a few of his stories at family gatherings. The story he was most fond of telling me was about playing his violin. He loved to play classical and operatic pieces. He took his violin with him when he left to serve a mission for our church in Switzerland. He served in the French speaking part of the country and was asked to play his beautiful music on more than one occasion. Once, he played during a church service. It was a piece from a French opera and though he spoke the French language enough to teach the gospel he was not well versed in the lyrics of operas. As he finished the piece, he looked out at the congregation and noted a distinct feeling of unease. One member took him aside later and informed him that though the music was beautiful, the lyrics to that particular piece were about a raunchy love scene and inappropriate for church.
He would always laugh in his wheezy way after telling me this story.
I think I would be satisfied if I could live life as fully as Grandpa Ricks. In his declining years, after his wife had passed away, he reduced his life to only the essentials- reading and eating nothing but Oreo cookies and milk.
I am grateful for the legacy he leaves for my husband and boys. I know that he touched many lives and often offered his services as a family doctor for little or no payment. I think Marc's passion for medicine stems largely from his grandfather. In fact, the similarities between old and young Marc Ricks are remarkable. Both are doctors- we have Grandpa Ricks' fascinating old medical texts and some old equipment. Grandpa Ricks spent much of his life in the San Francisco area running his family practice. Marc served his mission in San Francisco and also fell in love with the bay city. Both received master's degrees before deciding to go on to medical school and both loved to read.
Marc jokes that when he begins to interview for jobs or fellowships and they ask him where he sees himself in the next 5-10 years that he'll answer, "I'm planning to travel back in time and become my own Grandpa."
While I am not a fan of that idea I wouldn't mind if, in many ways, Marc becomes just like him.

New Sayings for a New Year

I thought we'd start the year out right with some quotable quotes from Gabe and Elijah:

Me: "Gabey, come here please."
Gabriel: "Mom! It's Gabe, not Gabey!"

We took the boys to Red Robin where they got helium filled balloons. By the next day they were on the floor so I explained about helium and how it had leaked out and now there was not enough to make it float. The day after that, Elijah brought me his balloon and we had this conversation:
Elijah: "Mom, I can't see them."
Me: "See what?"
Elijah: "The aliens. There used to be lots of aliens and they made the balloon fly but now they don't, right? I can't see them in there!"

Gabe wanted me to read him a book in church. I told him I would read him one when the current speaker was finished. He squinted up at the pulpit and said, "Who, the white guy?"

After I took the tree and nativity down Elijah asked, "It's not Christmas anymore?"
Me: "No, it's not Christmas anymore. Christmas only lasts for a little while each year. We will have it again next year."
Elijah: "The Grinch taked it?"

Me (in response to Gabriel pulling wipes out of the package one by one and dropping them on the floor): "Gabe, what are you doing? Pick these up right now and put them in the trash please."
Gabe (with a heavy sigh): "Sorry, Mom. It's just been a long day."

This evening we read some nursery rhymes before bed. I would occasionally pause to let the boys fill in some of the words. Elijah did well with Humpty Dumpty but struggled with this one.
Me: "Mary had a little lamb whose fleece was white as..."
Elijah: "Me."
Me: "And everywhere that Mary went the lamb was sure to..."
Elijah: "Hide."

The Blog I Will Never Write

It is not December and so I cannot write the blog that I wanted to write.
I know this post is still dated in December- but it is a lie. Somehow December escaped my clutches with but one paltry post and that one was about November and now it is January, a whole new year, and far too late to go back to musings on what happened in December of 2010.
So here it is, the blog post that I will never write unless at some future date I happen to cross paths with a time machine.
I am sorry to say you will never read about the soft spot I had this year for the TV Christmas special "It's Christmas Charlie Brown!" as I surveyed my own gimpy wreath and tree. The wreath I made myself with real fir boughs, but it didn't turn out quite as I envisioned it so it hung inside our house and we enjoyed the piny scent. I could pretend that its humble, lop-sided appearance was on purpose in honor of the humble birth place of Jesus, but let's face it- I just can't make wreaths.
The tree, which I will not write about, was just fine, lovely in fact, until we decorated it. The twins helped me decorate it while David John just as quickly ripped off and destroyed ornaments. I had to keep moving the ornaments up higher and higher as David John devised new ways to reach them until the bottom 2/3 of the tree was completely bare and the top 1/3 suffocating with decoration. All of this majesty was topped by a homemade cardboard and foil star which frequently decided to flop over or threaten to fall off entirely.
David John seemed to notice the disparity in decoration, however, and tried to make up for it by shoving megablocks, dinosaurs, cars and dusting cloths into the bottom branches. This was truly a tree only a mother could love and you will never know about it.
I neglected entirely to write about the formal Christmas party for the Cleveland Clinic Children's Hospital that Marc signed us up to go to. You might never know about the panic of trying to find something even semi-formal that would fit over my gigantic pregnant belly. I won't be able to tell you about combing thrift stores with all three boys in tow, about Elijah opening the dressing room door while I was changing or about the miracle of finding a very plain funeralesque floor length black velvet maternity dress for $7 which a team of fairy godmothers turned into a cute knee length little number with fabric flowers on the neckline and matching hair clips and beautiful pearl jewelry. Marc and I had a wonderful time with all of the fabulous people he works with. We played with the exhibits, ate, danced, watched an awesome IMAX movie about Alaska and came home to find that our boys did not destroy our neighbors' house or even their breakable Christmas village display.

My year of blogging will not include the cute quip in which I asked my boys about the nativity scene and the only three characters they seemed to think worth mentioning were baby Jesus, Jesus' mommy, and the cow. (Here is the picture that I would have included of our nativity set we bought in the Philippines. The boys loved watching me unwrap each piece and put it on the mantle.)
I won't get to write about Christmas morning and how Gabriel threw a tantrum about having to put on his pajama pants before he could go downstairs and declared that he did not want presents. Of course, he changed his mind.
I'll never tell you about the boys unwrapping presents to find a sealed box beneath the paper and calling out, "I got a box!" then tossing it aside without thinking that there might be something in the box. This fabulous picture of Elijah after having eaten all of his stocking candy with a smile only a dentist could truly appreciate might never see the light of day.
No one but my immediate family will recall how cute David John looked in his little red robe, or how he stood by the door with his snow boots just waiting for someone to take him outside.
I wish that I would have written about my husband who worked through the Christmas holidays without complaint and even made it through some very tough days of endless patients, long hours and heartbreaking cases without a family to come home to. I wish that I could tell you about my gratitude for him and how sweet it was to come home to him and to have our own little Christmas celebration on New Year's Eve. I wish I could boast about what a good job he did in surprising me with thoughtful gifts but I will never write this blog so I can't.
Oh, and I wish that I could wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year but this blog was never written. Maybe I'll remember to write one this year.