©2026 The Daleys
I don't think it has been said here, other than in small mentions here and there, that I joined our volunteer fire company in Middlesex Township a couple of months ago. I am not sure of the exact number of incidents that I've gone out on, but the number is probably around 8 or so, though most of them have been cancelled while enroute to the station, or after we got the truck out, etc. It is often that case that people report a "fire" or "possible fire" when it actually isn't, and the county dispatch systems often are setup to dispatch two stations whenever there is a fire, and so we'll get paged for a neighboring township, and then once a township chief gets to the location, sees that it isn't a big deal, and is either not anything, or can be handled without help, etc.
5/23 - Joy is chomping and chewing. I suspect she is an early teether like Noah and Faith.
5/30 - Joy rolled front to back.
6/2 - Joy crawled in bed 18", with diaper
Joy is grabbing and exploring what she finds. Likes fabric especially. Worked really hard on a
board book.
6/4 - Joy was diaper-free all day. We only had five misses (sorry, Mom, I miscounted earlier) and they were only pee, and none got on the floor. I held her most of the time because it's easier for me to tell when she needs to go that way. When she fell asleep, I put her on a waterproof pad (with a diaper under the relevant part) on the bed. Later, Faith told me Joy was crying. When I got there, she had crawled three feet! The only reason she stopped was because her head was smashed up against the pillow. There was a wet spot on the diaper, and everything else was dry. Three of the accidents were when she was sitting on my lap and those three times she gave no sign whatsoever. Two of those times were when we were all playing a computer game, so maybe that's distracting enough even to a three month old. The last one was when I put her in her seat in the basement while I did laundry. She did fuss a bit, and sure enough, it was wet underneath when I was done with the laundry. I am so happy with that day's success and so was she. I put her in a diaper for bed because I knew I'd be checking all the time throughout the night if I didn't, and I needed to get my sleep for the second day Daddy was away at fireman school.
6/5 - We did a little diaper-free time but I had more things to do that needed two hands. Many fewer catches this time, but you win some, you lose some. It was the night that was a winner. We got to sleep around 10:45, and then she started moving around at 2:15 - he diaper was dry! So I put her on the potty and she went. Then she nursed back to sleep. 4:30, same thing! Then around 6 or 6:30, I was not awake enough to respond to the initial movements and she was wet by the time I got to her. So neat!
Jon was with a bunch of people we don't see often last night, and one of the men mentioned that his wife was discouraged by all these homeschooling mother-of-many type blogs where everyone has all their lives together and nothing goes wrong. So I thought I'd post how my life is not perfect, though it is very blessed. I am not a perfect mother, but I'm the best one for my children. I am not a perfect teacher, but I am the best one for my children. I am not a perfect homemaker, but I'm the best one for my home. I'm not a perfect wife, but I'm the best one for my husband. I hope this post is encouraging to other not-perfect moms.
i have 21 quarters in my quarter colection. those quarters are hawaii, kansas, maine, west virginia, wyoming, idaho, kentucky, arkansas, wisconsin, maryland, south dakota, new york, oklahoma, iowa, north dakota, alaska, florida, louisiana, new mexico, north carolina, and tennessee. they all have very good pictures on them except kansas, which just has a bison. (jonathan)
Joy has two hair swirls at the back of her head. One goes clockwise and one counter-clockwise. Each of my other children only have one.
5/3 - Joy's two month appointment. 12 lb, 3 oz. She is developing a birthmark in the upper right of her forehead (can't remember the very long medical term, and interestingly enough, "birth"marks can appear within a few months of birth and not only at birth.) It's likely to grow to about a nickel size and then recede to be gone when she's about five or six. When her hair grows out, it should completely cover it. Her bellybutton finally finished its healing and got the ok.
Jonathan's new adventure in earning money is a lemonade stand. He thought maybe he could call it "Lemon Daley" as part of the family theme.
At first, he had all sorts of grandiose ideas, including a frequent buyer's club, a toy day (when you get a toy with your purchase), and a fancy wood stand to sell from. Jon and I encouraged him to start small.
We also believe in starting where you can afford. He only had a few dollars in capital. So, even though the cheapest cost per lemon is to buy a bag of 14 lemons at Restaurant Depot for $5, he bought a single lemon for 79 cents. I offered him a deal on half a bag of sugar for $1. We also had some paper cups lying around that he got for free.
4/15 - Faith and Noah are playing house. They are married, and are parents to Faith's "purple baby doll". Noah says to Faith, about their baby, "When she is happy, I hold her. When she is sad, you milk her."
4/18 - We were talking about heaven (I don't remember the beginning of the conversation) and the boys were discussing what it might be like. Noah said something about being able to do amazing things to the bad guys. Then both Jonathan and I said there won't be any bad guys in heaven. Noah was taken aback by this and the look on his face was priceless. He just couldn't comprehend how heaven could possibly be fun if there were no bad guys to fight.
Faith still asks me to tell her "Moses and the little boat" every night at bedtime. She has asked for this since at least December. I got tired of saying it in my own paraphrase, so I have been reading Exodus 1:7-2:10. One night recently, when I had finished, she rolled over and sleepily said, "That's a good story."
4/20 - Random dinnertime discussion. How much salsa can you fit in a minivan? We calculated about 2 tons.
On Easter Sunday, we were singing some resurrection hymns. When we had finished, Jonathan was still looking through the hymnal, and he said, "Here's one that has parts about the cross and rising again, this would be a good one." Which one was this? St.Patrick's Breastplate. Honey to a mother's heart. (And a grandmother's, too I'm guessing, as soon as she reads this.)
4/27 - Joy found her thumb. She has also been grabbing at any fabric that is near her hands, mostly her clothes and sometimes the spitup rag.
And now I leave you with the funniest quote of the week:
4/26 - Another dinnertime discussion, talking about recent holidays. Noah asked, "What's Lent, Mom?" I explained a little bit. Then he responded, "Oh. I thought it was that stuff in between your toes."
Noah (while we started the woodstove): Can fire do anything to metal?
Dad: It can melt it, if it is hot enough.
Noah (wide-eyed): So, you could melt the metal into a sword?
Noah then relays the conversation to Jonathan, who is taking a bath.
After some discussion about where one might get metal to melt, and Jonathan thinking that maybe the combination of our woodstove and the MAPP gas torch would get the metal hot enough, Noah comes back. After each question below, Noah consulted with Jonathan and then came back with a new question.
Faith has started calling Jonathan, "Ohnny-int" This is related to how she says medicine ("meddy-int") and other words that end in /n/.
She also says her own name, which sounds unfortunately rather like "Hate" but the /t/ is a bit softer, maybe halfway between that and "Hathe".
3/30 - In the morning, I woke to the sound of the floorboards squeaking in my bedroom. I opened my eyes and there was Jonathan with a tray of toast and juice! What a sweetheart.
3/11 - Faith can count to six.
3/12 - Faith counted to ten. She isn't consistent with this. She'll get stuck after six, but if someone says seven, she can do the rest on her own. I don't think she has quantity recognition past five, though. And she sometimes likes to start counting with nine.
3/21 - We've been listening to CDs and tapes a lot on my old stereo. Noah comments, "Mom, tapes are really cool. But CDs you can skip to the next one. But tapes you can stop it and then it starts right where you were."
Jonathan has been reading Greek myths and has made himself a Zeus costume, complete with eagle-topped staff and thunderbolts. Then he discovered an old tape of mine with Holst's The Planets on it. He was very excited to recognize the personalities of the gods in their respective movements. He and Noah were marching around with invisible guns to Mars before I even told them what it was. Holst sure did a good job! It is fun for me to see me kids enjoying a piece of music that I enjoyed so much (well, I still do!)
Joy has been smiling a lot this week, mostly for her siblings. I think her hair is growing. It never fell out as her siblings' birth hair did. Maybe her hair will start out brown?
Noah is learning simple addition and beginning to read. He is enthusiastic about this learning and schooltime is fun with him. It's so neat to watch them figure out things! School with Jonathan has not been as much fun, but I think we need to find something that challenges him more.
I bought 6 Seagate hard drives from Amazon and Newegg, and both companies sent me drives that already had half their warranty expired.
Amazon, after waiting for the customer support guy to handle 5 simultaneous chat sessions, and so was quite slow at responding, did send out a mailing label with no restocking fee.
Newegg took a half hour on hold before they answered, and initially said that there is a 3 year warranty. I pointed out that there was only two years left on the warranty, so even if it were true that Seagate only offered a three warranty (which they don't - they have 5 year warranties on their drives currently), this drive is still partially expired. She then said that she could not accept a return because, "Unfortunately, we are unable to make the changes since the warranty was provided by the manufacture directly." I asked if she was authorized to refuse a warranty claim and she said she would be sending an RMA form shortly. She did, after request, provide a return shipping label and removed the restocking fee.
While on hold with the online chat folks, I called Seagate on the phone, and after waiting maybe 5 minutes on hold, got an English speaking person who offered to send out an email where I can take a picture of my invoice, with the appropriate serial numbers, and said that "usually, not always" they would update the warranty date.
She said that often vendors keep the items on the shelf and sell them with expired warranties. So - now I know to always check the warranty right when I get it.
It's irritating that companies sell old devices without mentioning that on their product specifications page.
2/11 - Faith, looking at cousin Cole's cute pictures. "Me wikey 'at wittle Tole, Tole, Tole."
2/24 - Milk started coming in Thursday evening. Joy is a good nurser.
2/26 - Joy's cord fell off. Noah called it the "umbilicord" when talking with Faith about it. Faith is very excited about the bellybutton.
2/27 - Faith, talking about Joy's hiccups, "Baby 'Oy had hip-up twenty-teen long time."
Things are going well. Everybody has adjustments to make. Faith loves her new little sister and likes to hold her a lot. She is having a bit of a hard time with the reduced Mommy time. She gets weepy about things that weren't such a big deal before. Noah is more of a silent sufferer, but I can sense he is also adjusting. Jonathan seems to be doing great and he is very helpful. He loves to check in on Joy throughout the day.
Jon and Mom are wonderful about doing lots of work and letting me rest.
I'd been having these strange contractions for a few days. Not the simple Brackston-Hicks that I have throughout pregnancy that feel tight but do not hurt. Not crampy labor contractions, either. They were very tight and they hurt. They came usually when I was sitting – on the couch or in the dining room – and relief came rather quickly if I stood up. This baby didn't want me sitting down! I talked to my friend Mary on Sunday (2/20) who had had similar ones with her son – for 26 days! I figured I could deal with it for another week and a half or so.
Heather will surely write a more detailed post for those wanting those details, but for now, a shorter post will have to do.
Here is our Christmas letter - if you are reading this blog, you probably know most of it anyway, but I figure there are some people that we didn't mail this too, and who don't read every word of these posts... :)