Chesed

Christmas is getting closer.

Today Adam’s chain said seven more days (that’s because the last chain says Merry Christmas). I am loving December this year. It’s so relaxed and fun compared to last Christmas when David had surgery and Goldi had puppies and Liam was a baby. The best part of it all is that there is a lot more down time for just us … our little family. I can hardly believe I’m saying that because I am usually all about the big get-togethers and the parties. But with two children (one of whom needs all his food thought through and prepared and transported along), it’s downright nice to stay home. Plus, whenever it gets cold, I don’t feel like venturing further then the doorway to shake my head at the thermometer. I’ll regain normalcy next Spring (we hope).

More time for us meant that David and I spent a night out. This should have been perfection in a basket for several reasons. One, it had been almost two years since we were out for the night (aside from our spur of the moment night when we went to his grandpa’s funeral). Two, our babysitter is one of my good friends, the boys adore her, and she is fantastic with kids. I did not worry once. Three, well, dates are just always supposed to be perfect. Wake up and smell reality. Did you know that when you have been married for seven years and you have two kids (one who is old enough to listen intently to e.v.e.r.y word you say and one who never seems to shut down) that it is possible to get into a very bad rut of not being connected emotionally and not even realize it? And then something outside of us happened that totally unstrung me Friday night and made a lot of old emotional hurts re-surface (Yes, I have issues like that) and turned me into the kind of melancholy I don’t like and then the old battle we’ve battled for seven years came up AGAIN and we still didn’t have answers. And to top it off, I still think that even though the Double Tree is very nice, there is something very un-romantic about practically being in the Sam’s Club parking lot.

We had fun some of the time. I guess that’s the good thing about being married seven years. You can sort of, kind of lay it aside some of the time. In other words, I’ve learned to waffle box at least a little. But really, it was pretty disheartening. Especially because this hasn’t happened to us for so long. I was immature and mad for a couple of days until Wednesday afternoon when the dam kind of broke loose inside of me as I was holding Liam (he’s been sick again and can’t sleep lying down or at least he’s doing a good job of fooling me into believing that) and talking to God about the whole mess. David and I talked it out later that night and the next and it feels so incredibly wonderful to be on the same page again. I was talking to a friend of mine who has been through more struggle in her marriage in the last year then I want to imagine in a lifetime. We were talking about girls who are dating and how they think they have these huge struggles that seem so minute to us and how they have to stop everything right now and talk for four hours until everything gets hashed out. “She has no idea and I don’t know how in the world to prepare her,” my friend said. It’s true. But I still maintain that they don’t want to know how awful it can be because no one would get married. The same way that they cannot possibly understand how wonderful it can be either. And there is just no way possible to describe to someone what it is like to try to throw yourself passionately into your marriage when you are in the middle of raising kids either. Life’s like that, I guess.

Mostly I’m just glad to have things hashed out and feel all wibbly wobbly in love again. David said he thinks it’s good I get mad sometimes because it makes him think. He does say THE strangest things. width=”15″ border=”0″ />

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Virginia got plastered with snow. And more snow. And more snow. In fact, it snowed for twenty-seven hours straight unless it stopped to catch a breath during the night and I didn’t find out. I still don’t like cold weather; but this is amazing! We are literally snowed in. It’s pretty drifty which makes it difficult to get an accurate measurement but around 2 this afternoon we had approximately twenty inches and it still snowed for hours after that!

Last night, even after it actually started snowing, I had a hard time believing we’d actually get this much snow. Snow forecasts in Virginia are often a hoax. They say 3-6″ and we get maybe 1-2. But when it accumulated so quickly I dropped the disbelief. Adam and David kept checking the weather radar hopefully.

We kept the outside lights on for a long time just to watch it.


This morning we woke up to the stuff dreams are made of. At least, if your dreams include snow. The best part of it all was that it was still snowing! That’s the other thing about Virginia. If it snows enough to cover the ground, it seems to often happen at night when you can’t watch the world turn white. Adam was beyond enthralled. Liam, well, excited wouldn’t be the key word here. He wasn’t about to be left out; but he can hardly walk in his snow suit inside the house, much less in snow. Plus, he hated his mittens. He found his niche underneath the deck where the snow had only accumulated to about two inches.








Yep, that’s a lot of snow.
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My petty grievance with xanga remains. When I upload forty photos to the photo blog and I make sure the “show in photo blog” icon is checked, I would appreciate if those photos would actually show up in the photo blog. I checked out the xanga help and two things are apparent. I am not the only one having this problem. The help people are not answering. Anyone out there with solutions? I can manually go in and change each photo’s status; but it’s terribly time consuming.
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One of the good things that happened on our date was that we had time to brainstorm about parenting. It feels as though Adam has entered another stage of childhood and somehow we haven’t caught up. I think I know why a lot of five year olds are ready for school! It feels as though he is suddenly so BIG and so when he just tumbles all over me without warning because he wants attention, it hurts! I mean, forty pounds is a lot of weight to throw around. Or if he leans against me suddenly, it throws me off balance. It’s obvious to both of us that he would be a happier child if his life were intellectually and physically more challenging. He’s always been a demanding child; but in the last three months he’s become much, much more so. To combat at least some of the boredom we decided to come up with a more structured game plan for our evenings instead of just letting it happen. One of the first nights, I suggested we pull out my scrapbooking supplies and make cards. To be honest, I think we were both dreading this a little. But Adam was impressed and in about twenty minutes I surprised myself realizing we were having a lot of fun! The generic idea of cards turned into a Christmas card theme and before long there were cards for everyone. At this rate, we might put Hallmark out of business. (cough, cough)

But someone tell me, why did I have this idea that sometimes parents get to sit on the sofa and read a magazine while their kids play with toys? Adam is absolutely convinced that life in the evening is completely boring unless he does what his daddy does or his daddy does what he does. There is no middle ground. Sometimes I’m about ready to resort to the timer. How do you guys get your children to think playing independently is fun?

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reading to the boys

The books have gone and are going out in shifts. I was amazed to hear that some people received their books in two days via media mail! So much for taking two weeks!

Now I’d love to hear from you! Just for fun, I’m opening a small contest / giveaway.

On Thanksgiving Day I played “Apples to Apples” for the first time. It was fun and frustrating at the same time. I love words; but being at the mercy of someone’s subjective connotations to them doesn’t allow any helpful strategy unless you know the people extremely well. I’ve tried and tried to think of a way to make this contest less like “Apples to Apples” and so far I haven’t come up with any good ways. So if you, like me, need strategy, I give you full permission to growl at these very vague rules.

In case you haven’t been here before, here is “My Brother’s Keeper” and here is “We Build A House”

To enter this giveaway:

Blog something about your books along with a link back to this post. This can be a photo, a video clip, something your child said (this includes funny stories or “read it again, Mommy,” or anything else you want to include), your own impressions about the books, or what you are planning to do with them (one person is planning to take them along to her photography class).

Come back to this post and comment telling me where you featured your presentation.

You do not have to be on xanga to enter this and if you don’t have a blog and want to enter, feature it elsewhere and let me know where.

Here’s where the apples to apples part comes in. The entry that creates the most “awwww” factor for me wins. (David shook his head when he heard this and said, “I think you should have a male judge.”) But hey, this is just for fun!

The winner receives his or her choice of

A: A set of the two books

— or —

B: A $10 Starbucks card (unless you win and hate coffee, in which case you and I will find a mutually agreeable place to get your $10 card).

I love reasoning and debate so help me out as the entries come in and lobby for the one you think should win.

To help you get started, here are a few things that have already made my heart go flip flop flip:

1. Benjamin’s grandmother (referring to, “My Brother’s Keeper”) said, “This sounds so much like them. I feel like I’m talking to their family.” I am pretty sure this will always and forever go down in my record of the highest compliment ever. Be glad she’s not on xanga or we’d already know who will win. 🙂

2. The print broker’s dad who read, “My Brother’s Keeper,” and said, “This is an excellent book.” Choice words. Especially from one who sees thousands of books.

3. Miss Carolyn, who said, “Thank you for using your talents for GOD. I see, and you too have seen, so much of the opposite. It’s sickening.” I have her note taped onto my refrigerator.

And while these aren’t entry type things, I’m just going to add them because they are were such sweet little extras that made me smile. Sometimes, especially if you read the news or other popular pessimists, it’s easy to believe that everyone is out to get everyone else’s throat. That nothing except “myself to the top” matters in anyone anymore. It’s just all so dire. When we went shopping on Black Friday I was expecting shoplifting, selfish people shoving, and stampedes. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised to see more graciousness and smiles then usual. (Ok, maybe it helped that I was at the mall, not Wal*Mart; but still!) So here’s my little applause to the people in the world who are doing positive things. Several people sent checks rounded up or handed over a $20 and said, “Keep the change.” I went slack-jawed the first time (that was you, Audrey!) because in this Christmas Season you always hear about people getting a little stretched and I was not expecting it (and it wouldn’t have been like me to do it, shame on me). Then it happened again, and again. A few other people sent cards or notes. Here are my two favorites that will definitely stay as keepers. One, because I love these angels. Two, because it is handmade and so pretty.

Back on subject, I will leave this contest open until January 10th. That way, no one will be left out in the event of a slow postal system. Can’t wait to hear from you!

Yesterday was one of those perfect, stay at home days. It was shivery cold outside and so much fun to be in a warm house. Between loads of laundry, baking granola (umm, I love how the house smells when I do that), and watching the boys, I felt like a domestic queen. I love when it feels like that at our house … happy, restful, cozy, fun. Candles burning, Christmas music in the background, the boys’ new roaring fire truck with it’s obnoxious siren, the dryer beeping, giggles ~ it just all felt so right.

I wish it always felt like that. I think it helped that (aside from a quick trip to the post office) we stayed home all day and that my to do list was manageable instead of trying to cram two days into one like I do too often. I have pared back my expectations for myself so far from what they used to be, and yet it seems it is never enough. Like last week getting ready for the banquet I gave myself three days to get ready. But I didn’t factor in sick baby time and ended up doing a 9-1-1 call to my SIL for some help Friday afternoon, David came home early, and I still didn’t get it all done. Should moms just not do anything?

How do you know how to find balance between pursuing dreams in your life and just cutting it all out to keep things peaceful?

When I was a teenager my dreams morphed from school teacher to being a nurse. Apparently it runs in the genes; three of my great aunts are nurses. My parents stood behind me 101%. Dad paid 3/4 of my way through college and Mom did everything from serving me freshly squeezed half frozen orange juice at 5:00 in the morning (I would often get up at 2 or 3 to study a few more hours on exam mornings) to stumbling over words like “benzodiazepines” and “lymphadenopathy” to quiz me while we did jam deliveries.

Three years later my dreams became reality. I graduated summa cum laude, was awarded with the highest GPA certificate I’d worked and worked and worked for, and passed state boards. But far better then all of that, I got paid to do work that was so much fun for me. I’d worked as a patient care assistant the last six months of college to get a feel for real hospital life and to scope out job options. It didn’t take long to figure that one out. Hands down, I wanted to work in the CCU. The excitement of an intensive care unit without a lot of open wounds or post op nausea, and the majority of patients came in very ill but saw rapid recovery. Plus, the staff there was amazing.

Oh there were bad days. Especially in winter when the MICU decided to use us for their overflow and sent us their 500 lb (I am not kidding) patients with contact droplet isolation and multiple decubs. But even at the end of my three years there, I often felt thrills of delight at being allowed to walk through the “no admittance past this point” double doors, to watch an ECHO, to draw blood. When the nausea in my first pregnancy forced me to quit a few months earlier then I’d planned, I was devastated. I said goodbye in a daze, not really believing I would never go back.

The next morning I sat on the couch and cried and cried and cried and cried while David held me. It felt as though everything I had worked so hard to achieve was gone and I had no dreams in front of me. I never resented the baby inside me for the death of that dream because I knew it was not that baby; but the fact that we’d chosen to start our family. And I still don’t resent the fact that we have a family. I just wish there were some way to do everything.

There are still days I miss work terribly. As clearly as though it were yesterday I can hear the whir of a CVVHD machine or the bump and rattle of the food cart as it thumped across the doorway into the CCU. I miss Marian’s million dollar smile and the way everyone held their breath when the overhead alarm started …. then let it out when it went on to dong four times instead two. I miss working with other adults. People who made me laugh, who jumped in to help when someone was swamped, who dispensed advice about work and gardening and life in general.

Some people have insinuated that it’s a waste. As soon as I started college people would smile and say, “Oh, and what are you going to do if you graduate and get married?” (Mennonite women don’t work, you know.) My mom was the best at combatting this. From day one till now and probably till the end of time she will remind me, “It is never a waste to learn new things.” I agree. Neither is it ever a waste to fulfill a dream.

Most of the time that’s how it feels. A dream fulfilled. It’s part of why I don’t go back to visit ~ partially because I’m scared the staff has changed so much I won’t know anyone and partially because I don’t want to deal with the enormous longing that wells up inside of me every time I smell the hospital.

As time went on, I developed new dreams. To write books. To travel to Europe. To learn photography. To be a good mommy. I love that life holds so many possibilities.

The last while I’ve been wondering how much to pursue my dreams and how much to lay everything about me aside and just be a mommy. I don’t think this answer is the same for all women and neither does it stay the same for one woman over time because our families and their needs change. I could swing to one end of the pendulum and say I should pursue nothing else. This works beautifully for some women. It doesn’t work so well for me. When I pursue no interests, I dry up as a person. (Even my husband starts telling me to get out.) It feels as though there is nothing to talk about. Nothing to get passionate about (and even though he rolls his eyes when I get too excited to sleep, he likes that better then when I turn into my self-termed “meek and sweet” person). Being excited about something helps me to bring passion to all the normal areas of my life.

But when I swing to the other end of the pendulum (or my family’s needs increase and I haven’t yet caught on to that fact), I burn out and / or get grumpy. I think I’m sort of there right now (or rather was the last few weeks). So once again I am trying to evaluate what is right for me and for us and to find my way. Sometimes I wish God would audibly speak specifics.

These domestic days are perfect for evaluating. Liam is playing with a fire truck and Adam is stirring food coloring into glasses of water and getting all excited about seeing colors emerge. It’s cold out and warm in. The candles are burning and Christmas music is playing. It’s the perfect time to think.

I feel technologically challenged tonight. I still have no idea why the links didn’t work two posts ago (if anyone has any ideas let me know). I tried to re-do them and they still didn’t work.

But I DID find out why the photos aren’t showing up in my photoblog. So they are there now. Well, most of them. I got really tired of clicking on each picture and saying, “show in photoblog” so I gave up after the snow and banquet pictures and will try another link. Why do I not feel terribly optimistic about this? If you want to see photos of David’s family gathering at Thanksgiving try this.
I think you should be able to view the album without having a facebook account. At least other people are able to do things like that so we’ll see if I am smart enough to figure that out or not.

And since I’m being brave enough (or idiotic whichever the case may be) to try linking things when links are obviously not working for me, my sister posted the video clip I referred to yesterday. You can view it here.

Today I was at my mom’s house for a super yummy chef salad, iced tea, and apple pie a la mode. And then she kept the boys while I set up another checking account and made some returns. Yes, that does mean I walked in and out of stores rapidly and I only undid my own seat belt at every stop. Meanwhile my mom was being #1 grandma and helping Adam make a snowman in their enormous five inches of beautiful snow and letting Liam stay up since he didn’t want to take a nap and played happily. How much better can life get?

I felt so rejuvenated by the time I picked up the boys again. I think the boys were sweeter from all the doting, too and we had the nicest trip to Walmart I can remember in a long time. Adam helped to get groceries and did not complain or beg for anything besides apples and clementines. What mom is going to complain about that? Liam begged for “aaaa, aaaa, aaa’s” so we bought a bag of gala apples and one sole red delicious apple because Adam has been begging for “an apple that is entirely red” for many weeks. As soon as we got home he wanted to know where his “yummy red” was. (Get it? Red Delicious? ) I have this bad habit of thinking stuff like that is so funny and calling it by his new name jokingly and after awhile the name sticks and I wake up to the fact that he is not speaking proper English. Like the fact that he’s been getting “bednight snacks” now for the last few years. Think, Michelle. Think. Last week his Sunday School teacher from the previous year gave him McDonald’s gift certificates and a box of jolly ranchers. He had no idea what jolly ranchers are and had the hardest time remembering the correct name. For the next two days he kept asking hesitantly for his “jolly wrappers.” I love watching his brain spin.

The l o n g version

Liam and I are both home from church. My body has been trying to be sick all week and my brain went into overdrive convincing it that’s not an option. It seemed to be working until we got home from cleaning the church house yesterday and Liam had a food reaction. He’s been sick with a cold all week long which meant he fussed a lot and stayed semi-attached to my hip and refused to eat anything but soft-solids for two days. It was a flashback of this summer and I quickly realized why I cried so much with despair in August. So while he refused to eat supper and ran around the room like a wild child, I tried to pull together the scattered segments of my sanity only to see Liam find a bite of cheesecake that Adam accidentally dropped to the floor and before I could even yell it was in his mouth and on it’s way to his stomach. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I thought. Until we were cleaning up dishes and I found him over by the kitchen trash where he’d mercilessly pulled out a butter wrapper and was licking it. Ok, Mr. Glutton for punishment.

His cold is definitely on it’s way out but rather then take him out into germs while his immune system is already taxed, I thought it wise to keep him home with my train wrecked self and rest us back to health. Liam did not appreciate this idea. He caught on about ten minutes before David and Adam left when he noticed that they were both dressed for church and he was getting handed over to mommy and the bathtub. He pitched an enormous fit which did not in the least subside until we went downstairs and he briefly got to be with daddy. Just like that the tears stopped rolling. The screaming vanished. And when I hugged David he leaned over and started in with his little, “I love you,” coo. Halfway through David just transferred him over to me and just like that we were back to mouth wide open and screaming as loudly as a generator. Usually he settles down as soon as they actually go out the door. Not today. He threw a perfect temper tantrum for the next fifteen minutes. I do not like dealing with temper tantrums but dealing with one because my child does not want to be with me instead of his daddy has got to rank about the lowest of all lows.

His communication skills are improving otherwise, too, although there are still very few distinct words. On Thursday he suddenly surprised me with a serious, drawn-out, scolding kind of “Nooooo.” I laid him down to change his diaper. “Nooooo.” I asked him if he wants a toy. “Noooooo.” I tried to get some sweet potatoes into his mouth. “Nooooooo.” Yesterday he saw David and I hugging in the kitchen. He marched right up, pushed us apart, and said, “Nooooooo.” When we moved apart a little in surprise he flapped his arms and grunted at David who picked him up. Immediately Liam wrapped his arms around him and cooed a quick “I love you” before leaning toward me to hug me, too. Apparently he’s the only one allowed to give hugs around here. And apparently we are entering the, “Hi, I’m a big boy now,” stage around here.


Adam has decided to be an astronaut. I haven’t seen him take a fire call in weeks. This is problematic only because I gleefully purchased a real fire man costume for him and tucked it away for Christmas. It has a yellow coat and hat with a face shield. I couldn’t wait to give it to him because his hodge podge collection takes forever for him to put on and usually requires assistance from me. Plus, he always thought he would die in the fire because he didn’t have a face shield. Now he wants to be an astronaut. What are the chances he’ll still like the gear? He has been diligently saving every penny of his allowance since April to buy a big fire truck. I’ve got to say I think the fire gear looks a lot more comfortable then this “space suit.”



The other day when everything was going rottenly anyway I decided to help him make a paper chain counting down the days til Christmas. The problem with projects like this and a mom like me are many. One, I don’t do well with delegating. It’s easier just to do it myself. Two, I do NOT DO WELL at all with helping one child do something I don’t really enjoy in the first place when there is another child pulling at me and crying and grabbing things they shouldn’t have. Three, I don’t know what the next reason is. I just know that thinking about doing stuff like this is about enough to make me feel claustrophobic. So why I do them when things aren’t going well is exceptionally odd. I think it’s because when the day falls apart too badly I feel a super load of mommy guilt and then I remember all the super moms who do these nice things with their kids and kids are more important then things and what will you really remember in fifteen years and on and on.


All true. But doing a project like that out of guilt probably negates its merits. And starting out when things aren’t calm to begin with isn’t “calming” either. All said, it didn’t go too badly. But that was mostly because instead of being super mom and letting Adam cut all the strips in his own fun way, I quickly cut them and wrote inside them while he and Liam were playing. That way I only had to deal with the gluing and he could cut the scraps any old way he wanted to without me getting all frustrated at him a.l.w.a.y.s insisting that whatever way I said we were going to do things was definitely not the way he had in mind. How do you know when to draw the line and work on obedience and respect to authority versus allowing them to suggest things? I am quite sure we need to be more on the former right now; but this has been a super tough call for me as Adam has gotten older. Sometimes he has great ideas and I want to encourage him to think and to see into things instead of blindly accepting everything at face value. But he also has this completely dogmatic personality that makes him say he wants the opposite of whatever we want that is not socially pleasing at all. I know this for a fact and have occasionally used it to my advantage. I know. That is not a good way to play the game but when you have a child with this many battles, you tend to pick and choose which ones you are up to fighting. At any rate, I hope Adam will know that I love him even if I don’t do all those messy, crafty things with him at the drop of a hat.

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I can’t believe it’s only been ten days since Thanksgiving. It feels like everything happened all at once. My books appeared and knocked me senseless for awhile. David’s family hosted his uncle and aunt and family for Thanksgiving. I was a little torn about Thanksgiving weekend. We switch off holidays (Thanksgiving and Christmas) every year so that everyone has time to make arrangements and we actually all get to be together for at least one holiday. This was my family’s year for Thanksgiving; but since David’s cousin, Ellis, was here from Belize to work for a few weeks, his family wanted to spend the holiday here. For a little bit I thought we might be able to switch holidays; but it didn’t work out for everyone so we opted to be with David’s family Thanksgiving Day and I could spend the rest of the weekend with my family and we’d celebrate on Sunday. The half full version is that it was the best of both worlds and the half empty version is that we missed out on half the fun.

Thanksgiving Day we joined James’ family at the cabin they were renting. The most atypical part of the day was the fact that my generation of ladies was cooking the food. The night before as I was nervously calling my aunt Frieda to see how long to bake the turkeys, I wondered how in the world I’d grown up without finding out about it. I thought I was still in that teenager stage where we go to Ohio and hang out at Frieda’s house late Wednesday night watching cool movies she rented for us and sleeping til late the next morning while the aunts made all the food. I was feeling just a little grumpy about getting up so early on a holiday and David looked at me like, “Get over it. That’s really trivial.” But the next morning as he went to get ice and loaded the pack and play, the 5 gallon igloo of iced tea, the two turkeys, and load after load after load of paraphernalia and food, he got a little grumpy himself. When I heard him muttering about us needing a mini van, I snickered. Finally he admitted he wasn’t ready to be this grown up and responsible either. ☺ I think we’re both spoiled.

The day itself was a ton of fun. I love hanging out with David’s family and felt sad at missing them the rest of the weekend.

Friday Christy, Mom, and I went Black Friday shopping. Christy and I have been wanting to do this for years but always someone is either pregnant and sick or breastfeeding and way too tired all the time already or then it’s not our year to be together at Thanksgiving. To say it was fun would be a huge understatement. Finally I had my fashion adviser with me instead of calling her on the phone and trying to describe three sweaters to have her tell me which one to buy. Beth met us around 11 and we all enjoyed a late lunch at McAllisters. Meanwhile our phenomenal husbands took care of the kids and gave them lunch.

David and Adam went home Saturday to help re-shingle his dad’s roof. Liam spent his entire day complaining about that. My dad took us all out to the Old School House restaurant to eat that night ~ definitely one of the nicest gifts of the weekend. When you have eight children in one small house and seven of them are three and under … well, lets just say that you REALLY appreciate sitting down to food that is ready without effort and better yet there are no dishes to clean up. I got to the end of that weekend and realized I had not taken one single photo of our time together. In fact I did not touch my camera except to take a quick profile picture of Steve and Christy. But when I get a video clip from Mom, you will perfectly understand why there was never any time to take pictures. ☺

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Definitely the highlight of this past week was Edenali’s Christmas Banquet. Typically the guys take everyone out for dinner and the past two years they’ve chosen a Mexican restaurant downtown with a fun banquet room upstairs that includes a pool table. It’s great because the kids can run and be loud without annoying other guests and everyone has a great time.

This year, for something different, we ladies offered to pull off a formal banquet. The pictures are pretty self-explanatory (even if they were taken in candlelight without a tripod).

Steven & Janelle and Ryan & Tury came to serve the food for us. They did a great job but I could hardly keep myself out of the kitchen. I think I like to serve food better then eat it. ☺ David kept grabbing me and dragging me back out to the dining room. Glen suggested he put me on a leash and David “sternly” told me we’re supposed to be having a romantic dinner here. But hey, if you had run 90 mph for three days trying to get this pulled together you’d have a hard time sitting still, too!

Oh, and in case you ever think about appetizers two hours before an event, try this. Dump about one cup of my mom’s wonderful red raspberry jam over one bar of cream cheese and serve with ritz crackers. The sweet and salty combination is perfect and no one will know someone stopped at Harris Teeter on the way home from work unless you tell them.

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Oh, and just for the record, it snowed. But not at our house. Well, just a few thousand flakes at our house; but not enough to go sledding. When we went to clean the church house it was white there. When we got home, it was green here. With grass and with envy in Adam’s heart. Especially when my mom sent pictures of their SEVEN inches. She lives one hour away. How can that happen?

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Oh, and PS there are more photos in my photoblog in case you aren’t completely overwhelmed already by my very windy post.

There are three million things tumbling around in my brain wanting to get out. I have about half that many things I should be doing. I wish blogging were higher on the “have to be done” list instead of the “wish I could do” list. I’m using my “set the timer” discipline trick for Adam on myself and this is messing around. Oops. Don’t tell him.

Life is returning to a semi-normal state around here. No one would know that judging by the piles of papers and books and pictures surrounding me; but my brain knows. It feels good. Next week is going to feel twenty pounds better.

Here’s the extremely abbreviated version (long version may or may not happen because life goes on):

Thanksgiving was a riot (literally on some days)

My books came. At least 100 of them went back out the door today and I’m working on the next batch.

We all came home with varying degrees of illness. Liam is the sickest. I hope today was the worst day.

Friday night we are hosting Edenali’s Christmas banquet here at our house. Someone’s got some cleaning to do before then.

The 9th law of parenting is that just when you find the perfect Christmas gift for your child who is obsessed with being a fireman, he will switch allegiance to science and declare himself an astronaut. Today we went to visit the firestation to drum up some energy for the dying dream.

And just because I’m on a long over-due organization kick I’m going to link my current favorite planner. Last week when I was making the turkey I ran out of salt. Does it get any lower then that? Proof that I really have been in overdrive for too long and quickly becoming inadequate in a lot of necessary areas. I really, really like this planner. Everything goes in there. Menus, appointments, to do lists, birthdays … if it’s not in there, I forget it.

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I think the timers about to go and I am not done with the jobs I was supposed to be doing while I’m sitting here…. please don’t tell Adam.

WHY are the linkies not working? Must be the 9th law of blogging. I guess you will have to copy and paste the oldfashioned way to find that planner.
http://thetimekeeper.wordpress.com/

If you have not yet in your life stumbled across Dorcas Smucker’s writing you need to at least go here to read her blog. I can’t remember for sure; but I think the first time I read her stuff was when my Grandma gave my mom a copy of Dorcas’ first book as a gift. It wasn’t just Mom who read that book. We girls all read it.

A few years went by and somewhere along the line I discovered her blog. I’m sure someone told me about it; because I rarely go around finding serious treasures unless I’m shopping. I’m just not much of a “surfer” so I rely on recommendations from other people who are good at that.

I love her writing style. It’s real, honest life. But oh, the way she says it. Sometimes, like when she shared her grief over the tragic death of her nephew, I wanted to cry. Sometimes she makes me think. But most of the time, I want to laugh and laugh and laugh. She has intelligent, witty kids who are often the source of her quote of the day at the bottom.

In my family, she was somewhat of a superstar. I’ll never forget the day my sister sent out a family email in a very large font saying, “THE Dorcas Smucker was on my xanga site!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I saw her in my footprints!!!!!!!!!! Somehow I feel as though I have a link to fame.”

I’m not much of a footprint checker but I’ll admit I checked periodically after that, just hoping. And then one day for some unknown reason, Dorcas landed on my site and not only that, she LEFT A COMMENT. I was flabbergasted and took a turn tooting my horn.

When I ran into frustration a few weeks before my books were printed, I messaged Dorcas asking for her advice. I was honestly kind of expecting a pretty brief reply and sort of a “bug off, I get this all the time” feeling. I thought that’s what famous people do. Instead, I found her to be extremely helpful and gracious and by now she feels like a cyber-friend. I really hope to meet her for real sometime. But since we live a thousand miles apart, I’ll just keep reading what she writes and getting my belly laugh for the day.

Have fun reading. But be prepared if you’re new there. You’ll probably hit next page. Next page. Next page. Next page.

It’s official.

I am so having a girl next time (like I have a choice, ahem). You know, one of those docile, croon to your doll kind of girls.

The boys did reasonably well yesterday. It wasn’t like it was all adorable sitting in the back seat of the car kind of stuff; but overall, the cute moments and the bad moments sort of balanced each other out. This is to be considered exceptional since Adam and Zachary used to walk into the same room and immediately things fell apart and stayed apart. (Here is where if I weren’t one of the moms I would comment about how hard they have worked at helping the boys to learn how to play nicely together in spite of their personality clash; but since that would be bragging I’ll just let you read between the lines.)

They must have all three had a midnight snack of testosterone. Zachary woke the crowd at 7:30 by screaming because he threw up. I have no idea why. I think he’s allergic to testosterone. I gave him one dose of emetrol and in ten minutes he was fine. When he wanted cereal, I made toast. He’s been bouncing like normal ever since.

Every minute things seemed to escalate. Adam tried to boss the life out of Zachary and deliberately played with toys he knew Zachary wanted. Zachary responded by grabbing and if that didn’t work or he couldn’t reach it, hammering Adam on the head or kicking him, whichever seemed more convenient.

For awhile (something like five minutes), they sat on top of the sofa and had a construction site until a fight broke out because Adam said they were building a house and Zachary said he was building a store and Adam was furious because for once he met someone who doesn’t instantaneously think all his ideas are so cool. I think this is a very good thing.

By 10:30 the boys were all hungry so we had lunch at eleven. Meanwhile, there was about the thirteenth argument going on about Grammie because Zachary insists that Grammie is HIS grammie and his alone and Adam loudly disputes this fact. It is one I have yet been unable to resolve in spite of many generational explanations. How do you explain that? I just hope Grammie feels appropriately adored.

After lunch it was finally nice enough to go outside so I geared everyone up in shoes and jackets and things took a tremendous swing upwards. I went inside to work on the dishes and when I next glanced out I saw Adam and Zachary neck to neck, pinching and screaming. A short time out and apologies later they ran out the door like best friends and I went to finish the dishes. And when I looked out because the noises were just so happy I saw Adam repeatedly slamming his truck into the charcoal, Zachary pulling leaves off my hydrangea and throwing them over the railing, and Liam digging around in the potting soil. At that point we abruptly came in to pick up toys and have storytime for an early nap.

Many, many stories later we were having “a little bednight snack” as Adam calls them and Adam was beginning to pester Zachary again. Before I could say anything a little voice said, “Adam, give me some space.” And then we went upstairs and Zachary was afraid of going down the “very big mountain” (steps) so he said, “Adam, could you go get teddy for me, please?” (I think Adam should go to Christy’s house for a month. I want to know how to grow a polite child instead of a demanding one.) And suddenly things were much calmer and they are now trying to fall asleep.

But yeah, I think I vote girl next time. Tell me they don’t act like that.

…. Book Two has arrived! It was overnighted to my house and arrived Friday while I was sewing at a friend’s house. When I left home, I thought I would come back around five to pick it up; but we were having so much fun I forgot about it completely. Then David arrived with a box in his hands and I went wild jumping up and down (while the children stared in shock). There was no nice, “Oh, Adam, would you like to help me open this?” because I just tore into the box. I’ve barely slept since. Do you have any idea how strange it is to see your own life in an honest to goodness book?

Adam didn’t say much, probably because he thought I was overkill. He’s like a teenager in that already. But when we got home and I walked into the living room he was looking at it. I promised to read it to him in bed. When I was finished, I tried to take the book and he wordlessly clung to it. “Adam, it’s time to go to sleep.”

Adam: “I want to sleep with it.”

I didn’t let him; but offered to keep it on the dresser in his room. The next morning he was downstairs before I was and when I walked into his room to get Liam, I noticed the book had migrated downstairs, too!

You can also order these books directly through Vision Publishers.

… We are temporarily a three boy family. Zachary stayed here while his mommy and daddy went to a teacher’s convention. Do you have any idea how cute it is to look into a back seat and see three little boys? It’s downright adorable. This is not the first time it happened and whenever it does I think, “you know, I think we need to have another little boy.” But then clear as day I see my sister walk into church yesterday with two beautiful little girls in white dresses with smocking and pink sweaters with bows and their hair done up adorably. They sat down and out came two cute “hello kitty” tablets with those crayon pens that have tiny little crayons inside to change out.” And then I’m just pretty sure we want a little girl sometime. Hmmm.

… There are two bushels of apples in the basement that need to be made into applesauce. Christy and I stayed up til midnight doing one for her. I wish she were still here. I hate doing stuff like that all by myself.

… The turkeys in the frig are gluten-free! And my “turns out amazing food” aunt Frieda sent me a rub recipe she’s started using that contains none of Liam’s allergens. I think I’ll make one of each. I’m feeling much more happy about Thanksgiving.

… I think I need another cup of coffee before the boys wake up.