The last diapers

It was a risky venture, to decide to potty train Gideon without warning, while beginning a new school year and adding a new student (welcome to kindergarten, Pia!). There were bribes (M&Ms: official potty training candy of the Friedrichs family), power struggles, many many clothing changes, endless books read to the protesting potty sitter, and school lessons done or checked in the bathroom while Mama sat with him. When the dust settled, Gideon was happily wearing underpants, and our very last two packages of diapers were dropped off at Habitat, to be brought home by a new family. Onward!

First professional haircut

He swears he'll never let Mama cut his hair again, and we weren't sure he'd let Pam do it, either, but he did, and she was great!

Book club on the couch

 

Coolest appliance in the house...

 

Junior Reserve Grand Champion

 Table setting: a Michaelmas Feast. Yay, Kateri!!

 

Like Mama

All his life Gideon has watched me read before bed. On this night, I returned from the bathroom to find him immersed in the poems of Phillis Wheatley. 

Handsome, Happy, Loves Trains

 

In Pia's Words

 (After being helped by her mother to blow her nose): "Thanks! Now I can snort like a warthog!"

"Behind the clouds, the sun looks like another cloud that caught on fire."

Mom (Trying to shoo Pia out of the bedroom): "I'm going to get ready for bed now."

Pia: "OK. I'll go. I don't want to see your butt."

I'm serious!

 

Mask portraits

 

Shakespeare Week--September 2020

When the Flint Hills Shakespeare Festival was cancelled due to COVID-19, we started planning the first Friedrichs Family Shakespeare Week. The kids colored Shakespeare quotes, played with Shakespeare character finger puppets, baked Shakespeare cookies, enjoyed music and films based on Shakespeare plays, and learned scenes from "Twelfth Night" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Here are a few photos from a very fun and memorable week, which ended with an outdoor performance and a great party.

Golden boy

Photos by Aunt Liz

adventurous

Mom's birthday

The boy (Gideon)

front porch view

Sunday morning

hammock

Easter lamb cake

eggsactly

riverbank fun

s'mores

on Paul's ground

adventurer



Then we had s'mores

Ringing

My grandfather Wilbur Friedrichs made this ring at Marysville High School. You can see his initials inscribed on one side and the year on the other. Mom pulled it out as part of her cleaning and sorting this week. The lettering is faint until you hold it up to the light. Amazing what detail survives over the years. It fits on my pinky, and I need to wear it on non-handwork occasions in the future.

Let me catch you up on dad's projects: planting potatoes and onions, building garden fence, deliving building materials to a neighbor, marking culvert replacements on the rail trail, building a treehouse, planning more Habitat house work, entertaining grandkids, drinking up my hard cider stash, building a raised bed in the garden, incubating chicken eggs, and I'm sure there's more.

The kids here are getting restless even with all our space. The kids at school are bored and actually seemed to enjoy our quick classes this week as we started back up. One girl watched boys talk about video games for ten minutes in a video call because she is so starved for faces outside her family's. Eighth-grade boys posted some memes during open time, and only one high school student swore out loud this week.

We had a great chat with Marian's first cousins. I hope you have relatives as amusing as Robert DiDona and Gregory DiDona. The kids will probably force me to buy a membership to the Cincinnati Zoo after watching all the great livestreams the past week, and I'm already promising extravagant trips next year to see that and the previously mentioned East Coast friends and relations.

I hope you are finding productive ways to pass your days. I've made some cutting boards to sand as a project for students, and I also encouraged them to learn to cook new foods. I'm trying to propogate some berry bushes and trees from cuttings. I love you all. Holler if your bored or lonely or need anything. I'm around.