Random update

So if you have seen the little ladies lately, you will know that they are growing by leaps and bounds. This goes for their personalities as well. Here are 3 stories for your reading pleasure which all illustrate a typical day in the life of Clan Gacek.

The Monkey and the Cheese:

So I gave the girls cheese sticks-whole cheese sticks. Both of them plopped on the floor and started munching along. Well, for some reason, A got tired of eating hers and tossed it just a little ways away from her, but right next to Eleanor. So E grabs the stick and hands it to Abigail who narrows her eyes and tosses it again. Again, E picks it up and hands it to her. By this time, A is ticked, grabs the slimy cheese stick and with an exasperated UNH, whips it across the room. Eleanor did not get up to get it.

Music Soothes the Savage Beast[s]:

For those of you who don't know, we moved into our new Casa de Gato y Ninas this past weekend. Along with the house, we purchased a piano, intending for the girls to eventually take lessons. Well, needless to say, they are fascinated with the thing. They can both crawl up onto the bench and reach the keys. So yesterday they are both sitting up there playing away and pretty soon Monkey starts saying, "EH EH EH!!" Then the Bear joins in, both babies yelling, "EH EH EH!!!!" Finally E points down the keyboard. They wanted the bench to be moved down so they could play new keys. As soon as I moved them a bit, they were contented.

Comedy of Errors-funny and pretty sure we are doomed to the seventh layer of Hell:

Unfortunately, we had to make a somewhat unexpected trip to Chicago the week of June 16 for my grandmother's funeral.The whole family traveled there via minivan, which was an experience in and of itself. We also got to meet the two newest members of the family, Anthony who is 4 days younger than Monkey and Bear, and Noah who is now 6 months old. The 3 toddlers took to each other immediately and absolutely loved each other's company.

Being only 15 months, sitting in Church was not their idea of fun, so we spent a great deal of time outside having adventures. It was a beautiful day, very warm and hardly a cloud, so we spent a lot of time outside rather than in. The church was built in 1928, but in the classic Catholic church style which always seems to include millions of steps. So there we are, Abigail, Eleanor, Anthony, my cousin Shari, my mom and I, watching the babies run and frolick through the concrete pathways, ride the statuary and play the bongos on the Virgin Mary's head. Nothing too crazy, until the natives grew weary of their playthings and chaos ensued. First, Monkey decides she would like to do her best Nadia Comaneci impersonation by doing a well executed forward roll into Anthony's OCCUPIED stroller all while standing on the 4th to the bottom step of the entrance. My cousin immediately pulled back on the stroller, via instinct and I lunged forward to grab the still rolling Eleanor, only for both of us to trip over Abigail, who was having a senior moment and was crawling on the sidewalk. The end result was 3 toddlers screaming, 3 adults laughing hysterically, and one older late-arriving funeral attendee giving us all the crusty of a lifetime, damning us, I am sure, to eternal perril.

Feeling guilty that we were missing the service and worried that we would have a repeat performance of Miss Gold Medal 1976, we moved indoors to the OTHER set of 25 steps. At this point, my cousin gets tired of listening to Anthony whine, and lets him out of the stroller. He then immediately decides to show us HIS stair stepping prowess by going down the stairs like a big boy. Any of you with toddlers or younger children will know that when they are first mastering steps, more often than not, kids will back down them, using their hands and feet, in a modified bear crawl fashion. Going down like a "big kid" involves walking down the risers like any adult not completely inebriated or otherwise impaired, would tackle a staircase. I digress. Anyway, so Anthony is at the top of these stairs. To his credit, he did make it down about 5 before momentum took over and he started sliding down on his heals, but not going into a full-on log roll until about step 12. I should point out that this is my cousin Shari Lyn and any of you who know her, know that although she is only 5 feet tall, most of those 60 inches are occupied by lungs, so she shrieks, "ANTHONY THOMAS!!!!!!" Chris swears he didn't hear her inside the sanctuary up in the front of the church with the other pallbearers, but I think he is lying.

So yes it was an incredibly sad day, having to say goodbye to such a dynamic and wonderful lady, but really, there she was in all three of those little ones, having the time of her life.

So as you can see, most days we have our work cut out for us. As they say on Jon and Kate Plus 8, "It maybe a crazy life, but it's our life." Here, here, Gossleins.