The Zoo at the Zoo

Mark is awesome.  When he puts his mind to a task, it gets done.  This morning, he got up early, butchered seven chickens, and took us to the zoo. 

But the zoo was a zoo!  The worst days to go to the zoo are 1) the first sunny day after several rainy days 2) any day in Spring because of school field trips 3) right after a new display is installed and 4) Fridays.  The worst time to get to the zoo is right when they open because that is when the school buses get there.  All four of the worst case scenario criteria were met along with the opening time.  The parking lot was FULL and the zoo was expecting 2300 school students, plus all the people in their cars!  What were we thinking? We almost left, but since it was the last day of our membership, we persevered and went in.

 Why was it so crazy?  The new exhibit!  A touch pool full of sting rays!

The zoo staff were actually pretty organized and moved the crowd through the stingray exhibit quickly.

Lucky for us, we went to the zoo a few weeks ago and the novelty of the animals wasn't too extreme.  We went through the exhibits and were excited when the polar bears were play fighting with each other!

This is Fiona eating a Zoo-rito.  Instead of making sandwiches, I packed a jar of peanut butter, a bag of whole wheat tortillas, and a bunch of bananas.  When we were ready to eat, I slapped them together while sitting on a bench.  Tortillas are better than bread because they don't squish.  Peanut butter has staying power.  Bananas have potassium for muscles!  You just can't go wrong there!

Daniel was not a fan of the crowd and noise.  In the polar bear exhibit, he melted down and refused to get off the floor.  He did this without screaming or making any other noises though.  He just looked like the polar ice caps under the hole in the ozone layer.  After he got in the stroller he felt better.

This monkey looked so sad.  So wistful.  Like he wanted to be anywhere except where Shane could talk to him.

Daniel felt the same way.

Last time we went to the zoo, these guys were outside.  This time they were sitting on the window sill, looking at the trees outside the zoo.  *Sigh* Poor guys.

The clouded leopard always looks so much more wild than the tigers do.  It was a good day to see both!

We got to the elephants just in time for a talk from a zoo employee.  We learned that these elephants are older than Mark! Mark just had a birthday two days ago, but the elephants are a year older than he is!

Now Mark is on his way to Mount St. Helens to go camping with the boys this weekend.  And he did it all on just coffee.  I'm impressed!  

Daisies and Bumblebees

 Goofy Boys!

 Go lay down!

 Life really can't get any better...

 Do these really have to fly so low?

 Lost in the tall grass (some grass is now taller than me!)

Finding all the different kinds of bugs on the daisies was really fun :)

Why Shane Can't Borrow My Camera

He takes pictures of the computer screen while he watches National Geographic.

 

Evie can't borrow my camera either.  I caught her video taping Gilligan's Island last night.  Sigh.

Meat

It's that time of year again...

...the eagle has been flying over the chicken yard every day, sometimes more than once, trying to get an order of chicken nuggets from McDownens to go.  We've invested a lot of time and feed into our meat birds and I wasn't willing to share.  Every day we get closer and closer to optimum butcher weight and every day the chances we would start losing birds to eagles and other health issues increased.  Finally, today, we cut those odds down and butchered 11 meat birds.

"Are we going to eat those feet?"

We practiced our routine a few days ago when we took care of five guineas and our mean rooster, Roosty.  Mark and I are getting so good at coordinating the work.  We each have our tasks.  Even the kids work!  We like the have the boys out plucking while Evie takes care of the younger kids inside, but watching three younger siblings can be a big job for a seven year old.  Ian usually gets sent inside to help her out while we keep Shane with us.  Plucking.  And plucking.  Most of the process time for a chicken is plucking.

Less talk, more work, marshmallow boys!  (The air was steamy from dipping the birds in hot water)

Mark's job is to kill and pluck (and tell the kids, "Talk while you work!") and I try to keep up with the pluckers with gutting.  When I'm done gutting, Mark quarters all the birds for storage.  Then he does all the outside cleaning and cooks a big meal and does all the dishes.  The most important job he has is to pick the playlist of work music.  I have one awesome husband, let me tell you!

I gutted seven birds in 57 minutes and 48 seconds, which happens to be the length of the Soundgarden album we listened to.  I'm getting pretty good at gutting, which is hilarious to everyone who knew me in high school and college...when I was a vegetarian.  Yeah, that lasted until Ian was on the way.  I decided there was no way I could eat my daily requirement of protein in tofu every day, so I switched to meat.  Way more efficient. 

We store our meat quartered and vacuum sealed in the freezer.  Now that we have such a large family, one bird no longer feeds us.  This year we wrapped five quarters in each package.  I did the packing while Mark did the quartering-outside; it was so much cleaner that way.  It was nice for Mark to come in after all the quartering and find that most of the chicken was already in the freezer.  Then we cook the remaining carcasses for stock and pick the meat for enchiladas and chicken salad sandwiches (oh, I'm getting hungry) and little snacks for my baby carnivores (Fiona and Lula).  All we have left to do now is eat our dinner of guinea, mashed potatoes, and gravy.  Oh...we can't wait!

Computer Adventures

Ian has been busy exploring Scratch, a computer programming website for kids run by MIT.  All I can say is, "WOW!"

This is a screenshot of his first video game.  It shows the script, that Ian designed, on the right.  You can see what the screen looks like on the left.  This is the first level and the character has to jump up the three levels, fight a germy-looking character by blowing fire on it, and when the melted remains turn into a coin and you collect it, triumphant music plays.  Like I said, "WOW!"

As this school year comes to an end, I am seeing the benefits of turning Ian loose on whatever computer program strikes his fancy.  We saw great results with Piano Wizard last summer, Serif Draw Plus when he was animating, and now Scratch.

Now I just need to teach him how to type.

Lula Sleeping

Lula has always been the easy, textbook baby.  One would think that after six kids, I would know exactly what I was doing all the time.  After five co-sleeping, night-nursing kids, making the choice to "sleep train" Lula was a weird and difficult one.

Going...

I haven't tried cry-it-out since Ian was a baby when we failed miserably at it.  I remember standing outside Ian's closed bedroom door while he screamed and cried.  Mark kept saying, "What is WRONG with him? Why isn't he falling asleep! It worked for Ami and Laura!  Laura slept completely through the night right off the bat!"  I was crying too, so I just picked him up and rocked him to sleep in my arms five times a night for ten months until I discovered co-sleeping.

...going...

I continued co-sleeping with the other kids because I didn't like the idea of disturbing my growing teenagers or Mark who really needed his sleep (thank you little orange earplugs).  But Lula is way more easy-going and she doesn't sleep well when she is with me.  And I know that if I don't do this sleep training now, I am going to really regret it in a few months when I'm too pregnant to haul my belly out of bed and lean over the side of the crib five times a night. 

...gone! (and ohmygoodness don't you love those thighs? and the belly?)

For the last week or so, Lula has been falling asleep in her crib on her own after she sucks down her last bottle of the day.  She only cried the first night.  I stay in the room, snuggling with Daniel (who still sneaks into bed with us at night), but I do lay her back down if she gets up.  I've also spent the last week weaning her off a middle of the night bottle, so when she is waking up, I just lay her back down and replace her binky.

Favorite sleeping position

Last night/this morning, she wouldn't lie back down and go to sleep unless she could hold my hand under her while she was in her favorite sleeping position (see picture above).  That was so not going to work for me, so after 20 minutes of her getting up, I walked out and shut the door.  I went back to bed and listened to her cry for exactly 15 minutes...until she fell asleep and stayed asleep for the rest of the night.  The whole time I repeated my you-will-be-so-happy-in-a-few-months mantra so I wouldn't get up and bring her to bed with me.  Making her cry and sleep alone has not been easy on my mama heart, but I know I'm doing the right thing for her and meeting her needs the way they need to be met.  And that is what attachment parenting is all about.

Party

 Okay, I have entered uncharted waters with this whole 11 year old boy stuff. 

♪♫ Happy Birthday to you...You live in a zoo! ♫♪

My method for entertaining a bunch of boys is to fill them up with junk food and then release them into the wild.  According to my boy-stuff mentor, Mark, this just causes Lord of the Flies syndrome and they actually need guidance.  Okay, dude, you know about boys, you get 'em.

Bunny Ear Circle of Awesome Coolness

So, Ian had a birthday gathering and invited four of his closest friends plus one for Shane.  They did the normal stuff: eat, shoot each other with Nerf guns, eat more, open presents, eat...  Mark decided that the boys needed to go out on our acreage and learn some tactical first-person shooting skills instead of just silly running and shooting.  The first game he came up with was Find the Crystal.  He took this Nerf alarm thingy and hid it in the woods.  He split the boys into three teams, making sure no brothers were on the same team and kids that didn't know other kids very well were with Downens.  Which ever team brought the crystal back to the house was the winner.  We enjoyed seeing what kind of strategies they came up with.  One boy decided his team would just wait and ambush whoever found the crystal and then bring it to the house.

The next game was Man Hunt.  This game is similar to Hide n Seek, but only Mark hides and the boys try to find him and shoot him with Nerf guns.  Mark started out 75 feet up a tree.  He watched the boys circle around trying to find him...and got bored.  He climbed down, called out, "I'm over here!" and started to run.  He managed to change places a few times, hiding flat on the ground behind some ferns, among other good hiding spots.  The other boys would walk right past him, but Ian was seriously hunting his dad.  He knows the trails and was so close to Mark that he had to make a run for it!  Unfortunately, Mark totally bit it and got caught...and gimped around for the rest of the day.

We partied for a good 11 hours total (right on the heels of an 8 hour Boy Scout activity the day before) and boy, were we tired!  This morning was a rough start for my kids and I know at least one of Ian's friends slept through his alarm this morning.  Ian says his favorite part of his party was the soda.  I think he's joking...I think...but what do I know about 11 year old boys?

***This blog post has been approved of by Ian***

Arrow of Light (Crossover)

Ian crossed over from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts last night.  I have been reflecting on the last five years and our journey through Cub Scouts.  Yes, our journey.  It started on this day, when Ian crossed into Cub Scouts as a Tiger.

Receiving symbolic paint from his den leader

Ian's Tiger year was so special.  I was his den leader and spent the year hauling Fiona around in my sling while Shane and Evie tagged along.  We moved at the end of the year, which was so sad.  We really loved our old pack.

Shaking hands with our Cubmaster: Chief Fauxpauxwannahaha

I was unable to continue as a leader for Ian's Wolf year because I had a new Tiger, Shane (here is a link to a picture of them).  Scouts helped us adjust to our new home and led us to meeting new people.  Ian was so shy our first year here and it wasn't until our first Blue and Gold ceremony that he felt confident.  By the end of the year, Daniel was born and I was ready to pass the responsibility of scouting off to Mark.

Arrow of Light Award: Each stripe represents an accomplishment-he got them all

The next year, Ian's Bear year, he finally had a friend.  Mark and I were so involved as Shane's leaders we were starting to burn out!  But there was still so much fun to be had we stuck it out.  One of Ian's biggest accomplishments his Bear year was earning his World Conservation Award.  I was pleased to see that Ian was really internalizing scouting values and growing up to be such a wonderful boy.

Waiting to Cross the Bridge

Ian's Webelos year really saw him grow in mind, body, and spirit.  He started having so much fun going to summer camp and camping with the pack during the year.  He made more friends.  He started working on earning all 20 activity badges and discovered his inner showman.   His happiest moment came when he placed first in the Pinewood Derby. 

Being welcomed by the Boy Scouts

By the time he entered his second Webelos year, Ian had learned so much.  Not just the regular topics that kids learn in Cub Scouts (like knot-tying and birdhouse building), but really important lessons in human nature.  He and I had so many conversations about what motivates people to act the way they do and what we can do in our own lives to manage people and how they effect us.  The day he earned his Super 20 award was one of my favorites.  We worked so hard together to get all those requirements done.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step...

And now he is done.  At least with the Cub Scout part of his journey.  Now he is a Boy Scout and is ready to start a new journey.

Watch at Your Own Risk

Introducing Brownie, the kids' pet spider.

Listen closely, if you dare.  You can actually hear it bite the ant.  (Brownie likes tent caterpillars too)

The Sandbox Rules!

 Our sandbox is the nicest sandbox on the KP.  And possibly the biggest!

Room for Six!

Ten years ago, our sandbox looked a little different...

Ami and Ian: May 2003

Ian was just a little bit older than Lula when he got his first sandbox.  Can you believe how tiny that little sandbox is?  And that little Ian?

Lula

Lula has tasted the sand a few times.   I think she has figured out it isn't that tasty.

Time to play Dinosaur Hole!

"Now, play nicely in the sandbox!" one hears at the park.  At the Downen Park, you hear, "I TOLD you to PLAY NICELY in the sandbox!!!"

"But Daniel stepped on my [super awesome cool project] again!"

It was time to have a "hands-on history" project and write and vote on some rules (Ancient Rome).

 Now we have Pax Downena (haha, get it? Pax Romana? Downena? okay, not so great)

Nap Time

School Time

Best Mother's Day present, ever!