thankful thursday

1. I am thankful for my neighbor, Ashley. It gives me some accountability when she wants to walk at night. When i have someone to go with me, even though it is 9pm and i'm completely exhausted and not feelin' it, I lace up and go anyway. Plus...there's always the bonus of adult conversation!

2. I am thankful for all of the lovely ladies I have found in my "friends and friends of friends" section. It is so neat to be able to keep up with everyone and see that they are going through the same things I am in this season of life. I'm glad we can help each other, even through the WWW.

3. I am thankful that the boys are big enough to go in the back yard to play by themselves for a little bit. I can get my kitchen clean while I watch them out the back door or sink window while i get my kitchen clean or get their lunch ready without them being underfoot. plus i know they are ok b/c they can't get out of the fence.

4. I am thankful to be almost done with laundry. I finally got all the kids done and mine put away. the only big stack left is to put away AC's.

5. I am REALLY thankful that tomorrow night, I will be attending Beth Moore's LPL simulcast event with my neighbor and my BF Brandy. We can all really use a little spiritual refresher right now and I think this will be just the ticket.

6. I am thankful that kids say the darndest things. It makes the day to day so funny. We had gotten to the contribution on Sunday and we have always told our boys from a very early age that they were giving their money (quarter) to God. Well, this Sunday as they were passing around the bags, Luke looks at the man coming toward us and said "Daddy...is that God?" and Micah told him no. and then he looks down the aisle to the man on the other side and said "well, is that God?" I love him.

sleepy smurf...

well, i don't know what smurf has to do with it other than we just changed from cable to satellite and i saw that the smurfs and the snorks come on in the mornings. i am so ready for AC to sleep through the night and get on a good sleep/wake/nap cycle. i do the same thing every single day, but some days, she doesn't want to cooperate...which means hearing a good bit of crying. she is in there crying as we speak b/c i refuse to just hold her while she screams her head off b/c she decided it wasn't important to take a nap (meaning she has been up 3 hours. she is "supposed" to be learning to go to sleep on her own...yes, i'm a babywise mama and NO i don't want any comments on it.) holy lands. i mean, she is good at night in that she gets up once and is pretty groggy through the feeding and is immediately asleep after the bottle. however the drawback to her that i didn't have with the boys is that she is apparently gonna be a thumb sucker. i don't have a problem with that once she can get the hang of it. but right now, there is nothing to soothe her. with the boys, i could stretch it out a little by popping a paci in their mouths. she will only take one riiiiiiight as she is going to sleep and then she will spit it out right as she is drifting off. AGGREVATING. i mean, she will actually gag on it. and i'm breaking all kinds of anti-SIDS rules b/c she sleeps on her belly and can't roll herself over yet. (however she turns her head and can hold it up like a little pro, so that is why i'm not overly concerned. i know...turn me in to DHR.) she has just completely been a bird of a different feather. anyway, i would love to get 4 hours in a row of uninterrupted sleep.

and this was monday...

I got quite a bit done yesterday, despite my procrastination. I got all the boys clothes put away and when i say all...i nearly mean every piece that they own. I hate putting away clothes. and that is why i still have a basket full to put away (today) that is just mine. but i got supper made early so i wouldn't have to fool with it in the afternoon when sis can sometimes be a little reluctant to nap. we had sca-rumptious chicken and dressing from my friend harriette's recipe (best micah said he has had! i will never personally make another recipe), white peas from pop and mimi (thank you from saving me from only north alabama purple hull peas) and mashed potatoes. my kids seriously don't know what they are missing. but i also took the time to follow through on a tip i read in parents magazine. luke LOVES spaghetti and some nights he wants "mama's" spaghetti. and while i don't mind obliging in that instead of spaghettios or something, it's time consuming. so yesterday, i boiled a whole box of ronzoni's smart tasting pasta and seperated it into single serving sizes by putting it in a muffin tin and then freezing them. (and now i should insert that i nearly dumped the whole blasted pot down the drain b/c i was too lazy...and short to get the colander. i was in a hurry fixing lunches and needing to give sissy a bottle.) but they were salvaged.




now when he asks for spaghetti, i can just stick the noodles with a little water in the microwave, then warm some sauce and then he can have quick, healthier spaghetti!!

we also got sissy a new activity mat b/c the one i had for the boys was a little boring. and here she is enjoying her little cherub self!!




don't forget...if you have been lurking and don't actually "know me", introduce yourself. i won't bite. i think it's neat getting to "meet" people you might never know otherwise!

roll call...

alright...i am calling out all "lurkers". i have outed myself here lately to people who's blogs i read, but don't actually know. and that is why my blog roll on the side is called "friends and friends of friends." but i wanna know if the people i read are reading me back. i think we all love getting comments, but i wanna hear from the people who read, but never say anything. "out" yourself!! i've said it once and i'll say it again...my friends live in my computer (for the most part). so i think it's time that we meet!!

picture pages picture pages...

ok, so i told you how we were without cable and internet for a week. that was a loooooong week. i'm not sure how many Disney movies we watched, but i used it as a time to introduce some newer ones that never get watched. so that was good. it also gave me the opportunity to whip out my grey's anatomy and go back and enjoy it uninterrupted from the beginning. it also gave luke the opportunity to use his imagination. i had gotten rid of most everything play doh a couple of weeks ago b/c i got tired of the fighting mostly. luke has always been very into drawing and crafts. so he started exploring. he got out his suitcase of crayons and also the art stuff that mimi got him for Christmas. (by the way mimi, we gotta work on only getting markers that are washable. seth thinks art time is for giving himself homemade tattoos...which took 2 days to come off!) anywho...this is a sampling of what Luke had to offer last week. and he is still drawing this week. he has gone through almost an entire pack of construction paper in the process. and when seth tore one of his masterpieces...oh my goodness. DRAMA!! enjoy!

i think this is luke, seth and bosley is at the bottom
(I stand corrected...this is joe, steve and blue from blues clues!!)

this is either a self portrait or micah...they all look alike to me

the artist formerly known as luke

i was impressed with this one...it's spongebob squarepants, complete with tie and his friend patrick and spongebob's house

i also needed to busy myself, so i decided to learn how to tie hairbows. my friend's little girl needed some new ones and i knew that ally claire would need some when her hair starts getting longer. which brings me to this...she has a little cradle cap, so she is losing her hair...in a male pattern baldness kind of way. and while it didn't bother me with the boys, she is a girl. the following statement is gonna get some serious tongue lashing, i know...but just stay with me and save it. i have never been a fan of the little headbands for girls. especially the ones that look like old fashioned garters. a few years ago i saw the ones that are a thicker stretchy band that you can interchange the hairbows on. and those are at least a little better. now i will stand by the fact that i hate it when somebody slaps a biggo bow the size of their little head on there. but i think by making the bows that i did, i came up with a compromise to keep her looking girly and not like a bow head. this is a really good bow tutorial. i didn't get to use it b/c again...i didn't have internet. but it is super easy. also, when you look back at the previous post of the pic of me and the kiddos before church, i found another one that i thought was really unique and pretty. the band is braided grosgrain ribbon. i had to get that one. so she is set on bows for a little while, even though i have more ribbon. hmmm...good hobby to keep me busy some days. any little girls out there need some hairbows?? i'm tying!!

another day, another lesson learned

well, today Ally Claire turned 6 weeks!! that is a great milestone (and no, i'm not gonna tell you how old she is every week) b/c the docs always talk about how important it is that babies not get sick especially within the first 6 weeks. and we MADE IT!! also, when we were discharged home, they said to limit things with AC for 6-8 weeks b/c since she had been in the NICU, she was even more capable of picking up bugs (her immunity would be even lower than a typical baby since she had tubes, IVs, drugs, etc.). well, i will admit that last sunday we busted out of our shell when we went to church.

(in this pic, she is wearing my daygown and her newly acquired headband. that will come in another post.)

she obviously stayed with us the whole time. however i did have a complete stranger ask to hold her. i have never, in my whole almost 5 years of being a parent, had a complete stranger ask to hold my very new child. i just politely said "no." she was a little shocked, i think. but i also didn't feel i owed her any explanation. i mean, i know we were in church, but there is a such thing an amber alert these days. (that only has a little bit of sarcasm in it.) also, for the last 2 weeks, i already have the ladies asking me if we are coming to mommy and me class. um...can i get in the door first? no. thanks, but no. we are good for now. she's not missing anything yet and i'd still like to enjoy my Bible class time. i mean, i have needs for the Word too!

today, i met micah in town for lunch at mcalisters. we love that place and it is one of the few places we can go and we all like something there. (super super picky eaters doesn't even BEGIN to describe it.) but i got AC fed, a bag packed, 2 boys pottied and dressed, and off to huntsville we went. (takes us about 25 minutes to get there.) we ate, the boys didn't get any public spankings, the building was still standing, and i didn't get anything on my shirt since i had to hold sister while i ate....which leads me to this...



ally claire HATES, hates, hates to be in her car seat. now when she had to pass her car seat test to come home from the hospital (standard NICU thing), the nurse told me she had to hear about her not liking it for just about the entire 40 minutes she had to sit in it (time it takes to get from the hospital to our house.) i didn't think much of it. oh.my.word. she screams at the top of her little lungs. sounds like someone rocking on a cat's tail. i know for a fact that she will be a good cheerleader one day b/c she doesn't even get hoarse (atta girl...holler from your gut, not your throat!). now, i will say that she prefers to be on roads that are a little more "gravely" than the newly paved ones (sorry Pop!) and she is better when the rpms stay above 2000. so stopping...that is dreaded because good Lord help us if she ever gets going. when she does, like today, she will cry for at least 20 of the 25 minutes it takes us to get home.



and did i mention that we are going to dothan next month...and that's a 6 hour drive? if she were old enough, i'd sock her with benedryl. however...luke is gonna move up to the middle seats with seth and i'm gonna sit in the very back with sister. (God, i am asking this far in advance for no wrecks on the interstate and no hour long stops because of construction around b'ham!!)



let's see...i did mention that last week i found crayons in the boys toilet. luke couldn't give me any reason as to why he was putting them in there. but he is in a super fun stage where he will automatically say "i didn't do anyphing." or automatically say that "sef did it." which leads us to last night's little incident. (mimi...warning...and don't tell pop until you get home. and the following photos are not for the squeamish.) the boys were supposed to be cleaning up their room before supper. i was finishing eating while on the phone with my brother. micah had ally claire in one hand, his bowl in the other b/c she was getting ready for a bottle. the boys were already whining about having to clean up (like it was a new order...i had only been after them for about 2 hours) and we hear some kind of commotion (which in our house, that happens allll the time and it is easy to over look...especially if seth is whining in the course of it.) well, luke came around the corner and said "sef has blood" and luke had blood on his hand. i throw my bowl down, walk around the corner to see my child covered in blood and it looks like it is dripping from his head.



i hang up on scott and rush seth into the bathroom. i strip him down and put him in the tub b/c i have to find out where the bleeding is coming from and get it to stop b/c it was alllll over their floor and his clothes and DRIPPING from his hair and b/c he is a curious child, looks like he has bathed in it from rubbing it. i finally get him all rinsed off, all the while he is saying "i bleeding and i hurt". (this might be a good time to tell you that when it comes to my kids, i am NOT a nurse. i'm a mama and i only have a certain level of calm.) so i get him clean to find that all that blood came from this tiny little nick on his head.


we asked luke over and over what happened and told him if he told us, he wouldn't get in trouble, but if he lied or didn't tell us, he would get a spanking. seth kept telling us luke hit him with a block. finally we got luke to apologize and when he did (thanks to my genius parenting skills of making them tell the other what they are sorry for when they apologize) we found out what happened. luke said "seth i'm sorry i hit you in the head" and i said "hit him in the head with...." and he said "sef, i'm sorry i hit you in the head with a block." siblings. i have figured out what it means to be a good mom, though. if they make it out of your house, and you haven't killed them, they haven't killed each other or caused them to need major therapy, you are a success as a parent. everything else we do is just icing on the cake.

i finished this blog to go get my camera to download the pics to go with it. i had told luke about 5 minutes earlier to come out of his room and sit in his corner until i was done b/c i didn't want him waking up seth and i had already gotten on to him about kicking the wall about 4 times. and this is what i found...





mischief making can really wear a little boy out! coming soon, pictures from "Lukaso" from last week when our cable was out. boredom can really bring out the artist in a kid! also, my new talent, also learned while internetless...hairbows.

ok other mamas...

first, i am assuming that men aren't actually reading my website, so if i'm stepping out and stepping on toes in the process, i apologize. secondly, i am mainly wanting info from other at home mamas. and the reason i'm singling you out is b/c i don't work outside of the home on any kind of regular basis and haven't in some time (does that one day a week i was working for the last year count??) and because of that, i have no idea what the WOHMs think on the subject. but you certainly aren't banned from commenting. (i may find it's just a woman/mama thing, not having anything to do with where you do your day to day duties.)

anywhooooo, all of that to say this...I AM BORED!!! i know you are probably wondering how a woman with 3 kids all under the age of 5 could possibly be bored. yes, i have plenty of things i could be doing, cleaning or playing, but otherwise, i am finding that i am completely and utterly bored. and i am beginning to think that it's not in my nature to go for such a period of time without being intellectually stimulated in some way. (who knew? i just KNEW i was programmed to be lazy. i always felt like i was, anyway.) the things i do from day to day are mindless. and when i take up a new hobby (like sewing or blogging) it consumes me for a little bit. but i get the hang of it and get bored. and i do have a project coming up after we move (can you say EMBROIDERY MACHINE???!!!) but i just don't have the time or space at the moment. {that will help me intellectually (b/c apparently i have to know more computer stuff to go along with it), creatively (b/c i am my mama's child) and i will get some validation from that.} plus a good 3-4 hours of my day are dedicated to feeding someone right now. so i need to be able to be interrupted...like every 5 mintues. and i have rambled on and on to ask...does anyone else feel this way? i have absolutely everything i have ever wanted. i am doing what i always wanted to do by staying home with my kids. but i feel brain cells vanishing by the minute some days. there have been many days in mommyhood that i have wondered if i should try to work part time. at first i thought it was because i wasn't quite as satisfied in mommydom as i had originally hoped. but now, after weeks of thinking about it, i am figuring out...I LIKE A CHALLENGE!! i like to use my brain and feel smart. (i'm assuming i was smart once. i mean i passed the hardest test i have ever come across on the first try and had every single solitary question on the blasted thing!!) problem with part time work is childcare. i don't have a regular babysitter. not one that we have to pay anyway. and i'm not gonna work a couple of days a week to do the daycare thing. NOT an option. will never be an option. don't suggest that option to me.

so how do i do what i love to do, and still feel challenged? what can i do? scrapbooking comes to mind. i mean, i could sort of say that i would be challenged intellectually, creatively and one day will get some positive feed back for all the work i put into it. or...i could get out my "nursing school in a box" and start from the beginning. i don't know. suggestions???

announcing...

this is the birth announcement my friend Dana made us. Please visit her new website and think of her for your next announcement or invitation. I'll be giving her a call when we need to announce our move...whenever that is!! isn't she smart??

finally!!!

first of all, my mama always told me that hate was a strong word. but i hate charter. while i am ok with them at the current moment...i was without cable and internet for 6 honkin days. now on vacation or at camp, i could care less. but when i am at home with 3 kiddos b/c i am still on kind of house arrest, it was like taking all of my friends away. i mean, all of my friends live inside of my computer. i check my email when i get up with breakfast in one hand every morning and check it before i go to bed...and usually with a huge sigh as i close the door to the boys room at nap time. i have a blog list of about 25 that i check daily (with the help of bloglines). i was clueless about important things like the sweet girl who is making me a majorly cute pimped out blog page (coming soon!!!) and the fact that "brangelina" had their twins. (ok, so the last one not important, but i DO like to keep abreast of my celebrity gossip through people.com.) for 6 days and 2 hours i felt like all i did was speak 5 year, 3 year and 5 week old. but i made it.

on another note, my friend julie money has been diagnosed with either meningitis or encephalitis. she is doing better now. she got really bad really quickly and was taken to birmingham. they have the sweetest most precious family and i have just had them constantly in my thoughts. she is off of the ventilator and perking up and asking why she is in the hospital. my info is coming 3rd hand at this point, but i'm so thankful to God for answering this prayer. having to watch your child be sick is a terrible thing. having to see your child on a ventilator, whether she is 17 years old or 17 hours old is one of the hardest things. i was glad i had the experience, however different, so that i could talk to "Miss" Bonnie and tell her i knew how scared she was and that i was thinking about her and praying for them and Julie. He truly gives us experiences so that we can give a few words of encouragement in the very least.

i'll give a better update with pics in a couple of days. i'm trying to remember what all went on this week. i will say that one day there were crayons in my toilet.

Where Am I????

Hello friends and family of Ms. Becky. I have been invited to sign in as my wonderful cousin and let you know where she is. Becky is on Day 6 at her house without cable or internet and 3 kids!!!! EEK! She's okay though and so are the kids as long as they stay in their closets :) I kid, of course. Everything is fine and Miss AC is doing great. She doesn't know when things will be back up so say prayers of patience and peace while she is away....did I mention the 3 kids?

So leave a comment for her showing your support for when she gets back in contact.


as posted by Lu

Thankful Thursday...ONE MONTH OLD

today i am most thankful for ally claire, especially since thankful thursday falls on her 1 month "birthday". wow...1 month. it has been the longest month i think i've ever experienced!! those first 10 days were a sho'nuff doozie. but thankfully we made it through and more importantly, she made it through. the last 3 weeks have been another experience. having 3 kids is what i abslutely always wanted. it was always "my" plan. i am just thankful and greatful that is was also "His" plan. i can remember being younger and thinking i wanted 2 boys and 1 girl. who knew it would work out that way? i'm thankful that my boys had each other while we were having to go back and forth to the hospital to be with ally claire. and again, i will always be so thankful for my doctors and nurses (especially H who loves my baby girl so!) who took such excellent care of her (and me and Micah!) i am learning to be quite thankful for my new best friend, without which i might not get anything done on days like today when she just wants to be held. (but i secretly don't mind, especially today because a month ago, i wished i was holding her allll day.)

i am thankful for my other 2 little knotheads as well. they definitely keep me on my toes (and pulling out my hair). but i couldn't imagine not having them and i earnestly pray that i'll never know a time without them. (on that note, take a moment to say a special prayer for all the mamas and daddys who can't hold their babies today because they are sick, overseas, already gone home to their Father, or are just too big to hold anymore. aching arms are an especially hard thing to endure.)

and i'm thankful for all the other mommies in mayhem that are listed to the side of my blog. i am thankful to know that we have all found each other through this small world wide web and that they go through the same things i do!!

it's tough to be my kid...

speaking of being an invisible mom...i do believe that the sound of my voice registers at a decible that my kids can't actually hear what i'm saying. (tara, if you are reading this...let me know how that works and if it's possible...maybe it's something that falls on the Y chromosome."

anywho, after days upon days of telling the boys that they needed to pick up their toys and put them where they actually go, i did something i have done many times before. only this time...it will be more serious. i took every single solitary toy out of their room. every video, every video game, every block, every car...all completely gone. and now they will have to ask for something specific to play with...one at a time. welcome to the library of toys where you have to check out one toy and when you are done, you may return it for another.

now i'm hoping this will be two fold in it's purpose. 1.) to teach them that if they don't listen and obey, they lose priviledges and 2.) now i can sort out what stays and what goes and what is trash and what can already be packed up for when we move. (and in a couple of weeks, our house will go back on the market...please don't ask me why i'm insane. i just am.

and with that, i'm off to have some breakfast, catch a little Beth Moore Bible study on the TV and take sissy's toys away from her brothers.

a reminder for moms

I got this in an email a while back and was thinking about it as i wiped peanut butter off of the table, off of 2 faces, and then wiped pee off the wall.

This excerpt from Nicole Johnson's novel The Invisible Woman (W Publishing Group, 2005)

It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask to be taken to the store.Inside I'm thinking, 'Can't you see I'm on the phone?' Obviously not; no one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all. I'm invisible. The invisible Mom.Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this?Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being. I'm a clock to ask, 'What time is it?' I'm a satellite guide to answer, 'What number is the Disney Channel?' I'm a car to order, 'Right around 5:30, please.'I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated summa cum laude - but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She's going, she's going, she's gone!One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England . Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself as I looked down at my out-of-style dress; it was the only thing I could find that was clean. My unwashed hair was pulled up in a hair clip and I was afraid I could actually smell peanut butter in it. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, 'I brought you this.' It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe . I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription: 'To Charlotte , with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.'In the days ahead I would read - no, devour - the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work: No one can say who built the great cathedrals - we have no record of their names. These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished. They made great sacrifices and expected no credit. The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything.A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, 'Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof? No one will ever see it.' And the workman replied, 'Because God sees.'I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, 'I see you, Charlotte. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become.'At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction . But it is not a disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride. I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on. The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime, because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree.When I really think about it, I don't want my son to tell the friend he's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, 'My mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for three hours and presses all the linens for the table.' That would mean I'd built a shrine or a monument to myself.I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, to add, 'You're gonna love it there.'As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we're doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women.

Thankful Thurs...uh...Friday

I am thanful that we have been home from the hospital for 2 weeks and that we are all doing well (except for maybe mama and daddy who are suffering from sleep deprivation. whoever said going from 2-3 wasn't any harder was lying. now taking care of 3 isn't too different, however operating on about 4 hours of sleep a night...b/c i'm a light sleeper...and then keeping up with 2 rowdy boys...plus i'm THIRTY...yeah.)

I am thankful that my boys have awesome grandparents who love to play with them and get just as down and dirty with them as they want. it's definitely not about quantity time, but quality.

I am thankful that i don't have to get up to do every feeding at nights with AC. my husband understands the fact that he helped make them, he can help feed them (my words, not his...he just does.)

I am thankful that Luke has always LOVED babies. he was born to be a big brother and will one day be a great daddy. he tells me all the time that "baby sissy is beauty-full"...and we didn't teach him that. he just thinks she is...and he's right!!

I'm thankful that seth still takes naps every day. if not, i would be dying right now!!

I'm thankful for the doctors and especially the nurses who took care of my little girl while she was in the hospital. harriette and michelle really helped us out and we enjoyed visiting with them as much as just being there with ally claire. they knew if this neurotic mama had her way,they would have taken turns taking care of her round the clock...and they did for the first 4 days!!

I am thankful that tomorrow (well, Sunday) starts a few things fresh for me. New diet, which means new food log, new quiet time, which means new prayer journal with specific people written on each day, and thankful that it will start a new week (and thursday starts a new month for Ally Claire...already!!)

and i'm thankful i'm almost all healed up so that i can get in the pool again. did yall know it was, FOR REAL, hot outside in july???

where does the time go? random thoughts run amuck...

i got the idea for today's blog from an email i got from a dear friend. her baby is turning 5. (she has an older child that will be 7 next month...and THAT makes me feel old b/c we met when he was TWO!!!!) anyway, this birthday is a little hard. she makes the point that 5 kind of seems like the end of the baby years and that now she has "big kids". and i hadn't really thought about it that way. but it makes me think...now I'm gonna have my first big kid. i still have an almost 3 year old and a 3 week old at home, so i'm far from missing the baby days. but i won't lie. there have been days that i have wished their baby days away. sometimes when all you do, it seems, is change diapers, then potty train, wipe TT off of toilet seats, fix sippy cups, fix snacks, wipe tables, wipe noses, break up fights, banish people to corners, wipe snot out of those same said corners, replace batteries in annoying toys, make up beds, play don't spill the beans, don't break the ice, cootie, hungry hungry hippos, and candy land for the jillionth time, watch monsters inc. for the 3rd time in one day, step on mega blocks, fill up blow up pools, pick play doh out of the carpet...well, you get it. it seems like the baby/toddler days will never end. but it is also fun watching them become big kids. like when they can say all the books of the Bible and they are only 2 and 4, or when they go to their first big kid movie (post on that to come in a couple of weeks...when luke gets to go see Kung Fu Panda), or when you take them to that movie, they tell you that you are the best parent ever, or when they break out of their shells and discover that they aren't scared of things they used to be scared of...those moments, while thrilling, are bittersweet for mamas. but it is what you have worked so hard for. we have them and raise them to leave us. it is hard for me to imagine a day when i will have kids that don't need me to parent them anymore. (what am i saying...it's hard for me to imagine having kids that don't need "parenting" every 5 seconds!!) but i know that day is fast approaching.

i told micah the other day that i am so glad that ally claire is our last baby. i'm glad we won't have to start over again. however, even in the last few weeks i have seen pregnant ladies and thought how sad it is that i'll never be pregnant again. i had wonderful pregnancies. they were very easy and very fun. i will miss not getting to feel and see all of the firsts. so i guess there is always a little longing for the things that have already passed by. but now i get to go through all the firsts of the bigger kids. we still have a few left for luke, more for seth, and so many for AC. i believe it's Trace Adkins that has the song out now "You're gonna miss this". Love it. but makes me painfully aware of the things that i have been through, that i feel like i've missed. like we talked about in sunday school this past week...life is just a vapor.

i read in a blog the other day that someone said with parenting, the days are long, but the years fly by. and that's true. i feel like i just brought luke home from the hospital and that was nearly 5 years ago. of course on the flip side, sissy is 3 weeks old...we have had her home 2 weeks tomorrow and i feel like it has been at least 3 months. we always want to be in a different "season" in our lives than the one we are in, i think. i'm guilty of that, anyway. and God puts us in the one we are in at that particular time in our lives for a reason.

so, dear friend, and you know who you are...i have absolutely no words of wisdom. maybe in 5 years i will. until then, i will give you a little lift by saying you don't have to plan things around naps, pack diaper bags or toy bags or snack bags to make a trip to walmart, remind people not to wet their pants or even wipe someone else's hiney. i mean, that's kind of a plus...right?