Eddie, age 4

Strawberry picking

I really wish I could have recorded this interview to capture his voice and many, many stories along the way. Eddie is so fun and imaginative--he's often in his own world of play and entertains himself (and Mary) better than any of the other kids. He's moved on from playing trains ALL the time to being a superhero or a polar bear or a police officer or whatever the cool thing is that day. He really likes Spiderman. We really like Eddie!

How do you feel about being four?  

Snuggly.

What kinds of new things do four-year-olds do?   
Wipe themselves when they go potty, open presents, clean up their toys and clean up someone else's toys but not all of them. And if a kid has to clean up one more of his toys then his mom says to him, "you can leave that out if you want to," and he just leaves it out. Making forts. DJ and me have a fort in the echo room!

What are you most excited about for the next year?
Going to Aunt Pam's house, getting a gun that makes sounds for my birthday, going to preschool!

Who are your best friends?

Annie and Mary and DJ and Nellie.

Who are your favorite people to play with?
Otto, DJ, Nellie too, and Annie, and kind of Mary.

What kinds of things are you good at?

Going on real treadmills, working on real computers, riding bikes, doing new tricks on the swingset.

What do you want to be when you grow up?
A dad. And Mary wants to be me when she grows up!

Why do you want to be a dad?
Because, um, I want to work on a real computer.

What’s your favorite song?   
Like a Spiderman song or the song from Racing Thomas where he's sad and painty.

What's your favorite food?
Strawberries and bananas. Mac and cheese, I love mac and cheese!

Favorite movie?
Star Wars, Avengers, and I think those are all of the movies I like. Oh wait, we do have Avengers movies!

Favorite book?   

[Surprise face.] Do you know why I look like this? Because there's a bench at the library and it has Avengers books on it. But there was no Spiderman on it. Just Antman, Captain America... I wish that Avengers book was at our house.

Favorite color?   
Green.

Favorite place to be?

The library and Papa John's house too, and Papa Mike's house because it has a ladder.

What are your favorite things to do?   
Playing tag and hide-and-seek.

What is your favorite present that you received?
My Ninja Turtle bike.

Is there anything else you want us to know about you?   
No thanks.

Eddie loves to take videos of himself, which I find later and are often hilarious. Here's an interesting one. "Goo goo, ga ga! I'm a baby, and I'm going to destroy you. Bye!"

Reasons to go strawberry picking

I had to think hard about this after I woke up Thursday--the 90 degree day we planned to go to the strawberry farm. In addition to the heat, mud, and spiders, there are so many things that can go wrong when you have a specific task ahead of you in public with five kids plus one niece. (For example, we could follow the elderly farm owner about 200 yards across the field and as he gives us directions I might notice Eddie wasn't there. But luckily maybe he'd dressed himself in a bright green shirt and I could just barely see him a few feet from where we started, calmly picking berries with another family. That's actually what happened.)

So here's a pep talk for my future June self with the top five reasons to just do it.

1) It's so wholesome and old-timey. I'm pretty sure that's why most people go, from what I saw. There was one family with matching straw hats looking like they walked out of a magazine. We didn't look like that. We were a hot, sweaty, sticky mess. But we left happy and loaded with strawberries.

Post-picking slushies. They deserved it!

2) It reminds you of being a kid when every summer, your mom would make you go strawberry picking on Wacousta Road. And there was nothing better than a sun-warmed Michigan strawberry right off the plant.


3) I'm Dutch. Sixteen cups of the best-ever freezer jam, 2.5 gallons of frozen strawberries for smoothies, strawberry shortcake, and all-you-can-eat strawberries for 24 hours x 7 people for $28 in berries is worth it.

The haul.

4) It's a good reminder that although 98.3% of the things I need to do in like are made more complicated and less efficient, there are things that are easier with six kids and strawberry picking is one of them. The child who likes to direct things can direct to her heart's content. There's a built-in snack. And when one kids decides to stay back and hang out with strangers, you can send a big one to retrieve him. Many hands make light work, they say, and occasionally it's true.

5) You get to hear Mary Cate say, "strawbeedies." It's really cute.

On the first day of summer vacation

It sort of feels like this summer picked right up where last summer left off. Here are just a few of the things we did, many before 9:00 a.m.

• Learned to program Eddie's new robot mouse and designed popsicle stick mazes for him to go through.
• Built a million things out of Magformers.
• Colored pictures.
• Mediated no fewer than 50 silly arguments as the kids figured out how to spend a whole day at home together.
• Played with the PJ Masks figurines. Pretended we were PJ Masks characters and fought crime in the nighttime.
• Played on the swingsets for ages.
• Had a Nerf gun fight.
• Made breakfast, cleaned the kitchen, made snacks, cleaned the kitchen, made lunch, cleaned the kitchen. I spent a lot of time in the kitchen.
• Tackled the laundry mountain in our closet.
• Took a walk/bike ride.
• Went to the resale shop, the doctors office to pick up immunization records, and Meijer--gloriously ALONE because the girls stayed with the little kids while they rested.
• Had a water balloon fight.
• Played catch and packed up the softball and baseball gear, not to be put away again until late July.
• Went to the girls' first softball practice and played at the school playground..
• Went for another walk. By the end of the day, I was tired in a completely different way than last-week-of-school tired. I walked upward of 21,500 steps.

[Somehow, the kids still managed to watch too much TV, so Day 2 included making their summer want-to-do lists and engaging in conversation about reasonable screen limits.]

Thus began the Wernets' summer break, bringing with it a steady decline into feral living in which lake swimming and running through the sprinkler count as bathing, bug spray and sunscreen run in our veins, and Annie basically becomes nocturnal.

DJ's maze. He figured out how to code the mouse faster than I did!

Annie's creation, obviously.

Catboy crashed while I made dinner.

A new playground for us!

Mary's picture. Thankful I dug through the marker drawer to find the washable ones.

Saturday = Chores

Me, after lunch: Way to go, guys! You worked hard and now you get the rest of the day to play and relax.

DJ: And you can sit on the toilet without getting your booty dirty!

Truth.

[He was on toilet duty.]

Things they say

I told Eddie he needed to get ready for bed. He responded with, "But Mom, the roads are slippery so you have a snow day tomorrow! I can stay up." Sorry Mrs. Hofman, but I think Eddie calls snow days now.

My Mom texted me to tell me she hid the M&Ms but the kids still found them and ate them all. Annie blamed Eddie. He looked right at her with his hands on his hips and yelled, " Oh no I didn't! YOU did!"

All day, Eddie entered rooms saying, "How DARE you?!" It was hilarious. I'm not sure he meant it to be.

The kids made up a game where one person is a wild but oblivious dancer and accidentally [fake] kicks and punches everyone around them. They take turns and they love it. Best game ever.

Speaking of dancing, DJ has some sweet dance moves on the kitchen tile. He tells me, "Mom look, I'm square dancing! Because I'm dancing on squares!" He gets his puns from his dad.

Somebody learned how to take selfies

Spring Break Chronicles

Day 1: This break started the way most do (especially around holidays)--with a 6:00 a.m. trip to Meijer. I got that out of the way and came home to find everyone in bed. Before long they were up, writing and practicing a princess play. Mary Cate and I watched Sesame Street and worked on laundry. That lasted about an hour before one kid after another came up to complain that a certain anonymous sibling was trying to direct too much and things fell apart. So we played out in the backyard and the front yard and took a walk, all before lunch. I bribed the kids with watching The Greatest Showman if they picked up the house in preparation for Easter, which worked. Then the kids went with a neighbor friend for their first-ever trip to the park ALONE (they called from my cell phone every 10 minutes to check in). That turned into an impromptu sleepover. We dyed Easter eggs and went to bed!

Day 2: I turned into crazy-cleaning mom getting ready for the big Wernet Easter party and hosting Easter lunch. At one point DJ and Eddie were playing and I overhead Eddie yelling, "No, no, no! EVERYBODY OUT OF THE KITCHEN!" Don't know where he got that one...

Then it was off to the Wernet party, which was as fun as usual but a lot colder than usual, so it was mostly inside fun. It was a late night coming home from the party to bake dessert, fill Easter baskets (why do you stuff stockings but fill baskets?), and hide eggs.

Serious Annie getting ready to pommel the pinata

Eddie discovered this sweatshirt of DJ's from last year. He loves it.
It's weird to turn around in the car and see Darth Vader sleeping.

Day 3: Easter! The headlines are -

• Christ is risen!
• It snowed!
• The Wernets were on time to the Easter service!
• The ham turned out fine!
• Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves!
• The kids didn't fight!
• But they ate way too much candy!
• We never got a family picture, so for the record everyone was dressed in nicer-than-average clothing!

The big kids planned and implemented an egg hunt for the littles

Day 4: The day for errands. To the police department to pay for the parking ticket we got when we forgot to put the car back in the driveway after the party (officer badge stickers for everyone!), the library, the bank, and Barnes and Noble to finally spend the girls' Christmas gift cards. Now we're all set with books and DVDs to last us the rest of the week, or at least the rest of the day!

DJ, our newest independent reader, spent most of the afternoon reading his new book about dinosaurs. It's a tough book to read when you're still learning. So that was most of my afternoon, too. ("Mom, what does p-r-e-h-i-s-t-o-r-i-c spell? What does a-n-k-y-l-o-s-a-u-r-u-s spell?") Since it looked to be the one nice-ish day of the week, I also took everyone outside before the rain and cold hits.

Not to be outdone, Eddie walked up with this little guy and asked,
"Do you know what this is, Mom? It's a DI-NO-SAUR-US."

Day 5: It rained all day. I took Nellie to an early morning doctors appointment (because she hadn't had a well-child check up since we was four).  Annie and I did some grocery shopping, which we shouldn't be allowed to do because we buy too many extras. Other than that, we were cooped up at home. 

Sibling love is interesting. DJ and Eddie spent most of the morning fighting over one toy after another, wrestling/play fighting and causing each other injuries, and coming to me to complain about it. But when I asked who wanted to go to the store with me, Eddie wouldn't go because DJ wasn't going. And when DJ left for an hour for karate class, Eddie was sad because he had "nobody to play with." I find that Annie and Nellie aren't much different.

One of the sweetest things in life right now is that Mary Cate calls the boys her "bubbies" [buddies]. She, for one, is loving having everyone home to entertain her!

We're going a little crazy here.

Day 6: It snowed. So we spent the morning outside in our snowpants...

...and the evening in a steamy hotel pool. We might not spring for a European or beach vacation, but a surprise overnight in Hastings with cousins is good enough for the Wernet kids!

Day 6 (night): I was sharing a bed at the hotel with Annie. Around 2:00 a.m., DJ had a bad dream and came to lay right next to me. That was enough to wake up Eddie, who also came to sleep with me but there wasn't really room for four. So he lay right on top of me and squirmed for a few minutes before telling me to move over, I was "squishing him."

Day 7: We ate breakfast at the hotel and swam one more time. Then it was home to unpack, repack, buy vacation groceries, and wait for Kevin so we could head up north! After one false start where we had to turn around in Portland to go home for forgotten items, we were on our way to the great north.

Day 8: We woke up to several inches of new snow, and it continued snowing heavily on and off all day.

So we did all the things seven people in a small space on a snowy day--went outside to hike around and build snowmen, read books, watched movies (Ant-Man, Toy Story 2, and The Princess Bride), went to the Luther store, got out the paint-with-water books, played with all the toys, and ate 10,000 snacks.

Day 9: It was another quiet (well, as quiet as can be with five restless kids), snowy day. I finished my grading early with a little help from Mary Cate.

Kevin took Nellie, DJ, and Eddie for a longer hike while Mary slept and Annie and I painted our nails and watched another movie and read.

The kids spent most of the afternoon deep in an imaginative world where their parents were dead. This is not an uncommon game at our house, which is maybe a tiny bit disturbing but also amazing because they don't come asking for snacks or for us to solve their interpersonal problems when we're, you know, dead. So Kevin and I had some time to watch the Tigers game and plan our anniversary trip this summer! Then it was time for dinner and a sink bath on our last night of vacation.

Day 10: Home again, home again. We had brunch with Dad for his birthday, then hit the road. The thing about spring break that I forget year to year is that it's sort of a preview of summer break (okay, minus the snow.) Lots of togetherness, maybe a rough start while adjusting to the long days at home, then figuring out how to get along and having a great time. It's bittersweet to go back to the school routine, but I also know that summer break marks our rapid descent into near-feral living. So it's time to buckle down and enjoy the home stretch. 

Mary Cate, a year-and-a-half

Mary Cate doing her favorite thing!

Mary, Mary, quite contrary has graduated from a blood-curdling scream when "strangers" approach her to just giving them the stink-eye. She'll also nudge me and say, "There's Mommy," to ward them off. Because I'm so tough. When I'm around, she won't let me put her down or follows me around crying, but as soon as I leave I hear she's pretty happy! 

At 18-19 months, Mary Cate still has quite the personality. What's new is that she talks, and talks, and talks--more and with a greater vocabulary than any of the other kids at this age. She talks in full sentences (some we understand, some we don't) and sings all the lyrics to her favorite songs. I couldn't possibly list the words she knows--she says everything I can think of. Her favorite word is "no," which she uses to mean both no and yes. Not confusing at all. 

She also loves:

• Sesame Street
• Playing outside no matter the weather
• READING - it's pretty much what she does all day. She likes to read books to herself (loudly and with expression) as much as she likes being read to.
• Raisins, fruit snacks
• Coloring
• Climbing up and down stairs on her feet without help
• Trains
• Putting tops on things, especially sippy cups and water bottles
• Her blue blankie 
• When Kevin spoon feeds her because he's just so great

And we love her, and her dimples, and the cute way she says, "I love you!" and sings the "How many cookies today?" song from Sesame Street, and a bunch of other stuff about her! The following video is great for modeling Mary Cate's "I love you" and the general level of crazy in this place.