Two - the third

Dear PIE,
I wrote in your journal, but not here, when your 2nd birthday came around.  I will date this on your birthday so it can be found, but today is July the 10th and you have been solidly in 2 for several months.  I think you are just getting better with every day.

You told me your first joke.  It involved poop.  You find funny words and voices to use in your ever expanding vocabulary and when you get us to laugh, in true baby of the family form, you use that joke often and well.  It's lovely.  You give the best smooches and hugs, say I love you without thinking, cradle my old Pépe bear in your arms wherever you go.  You play hard.  You stomp your foot and yell "NO!!" at the top of your tiny voice.  We have learned the hard way that to meet you head on is to meet with defeat and sobbing.  I take the back way and lead you where we need to go, and you go joyfully and willingly.

You and your brother wrestle in wild ways that make my heart thump, worried a head will get knocked or someone is going to fall off the bed or lose a tooth.  I've worried that you have knocked my own tooth loose, but when something does happen, you say in your little voice. "I SO sorry, Mama" (or Cora, or Papa, or Judah) and you mean it. 

You LOVE (I can't emphasize that enough) your Papa and some part of you has wormed into his heart even deeper that the other kids managed to get.  Maybe it is your stubbornness that won't let him go and he gives in and softens and takes the extra time.  And then gives the extra time to the rest of us too.  It's wonderful to watch.  You sing and make up songs, and when your favorite song comes on the kitchen radio, you RUN in and dance your heart out.  It's infectious.  As is your joy.  But look out if we should cross you.  I love you more with every passing day.  I am glad you were born, sweet boy.

Love always,
Mama

Four - the second

Dear sweet Judah,
    I wrote in your journal on your birthday, but not here.  I'm thinking back on your birthday and you today, far away from the snow that you loved so much this winter. 

Four years old has hit you like a ton of bricks.  I don't know what it is that brings with this age such strong feelings (and tears), both high and lown.  I noticed it with your sister in her 3rd year, but you seemed immune.  Glad to just be alive and as we used to say when you were a baby, you Ate Life!  Happy to just take it all in.  But hard things happen sometimes.  You got a new brother just the year before that took the focus off of you for awhile while we adjusted and recovered from not one, but two pregnancies, one that was rough, didn't last and made Mama and Papa very sad.  You had a scary experience in a pool where you got away from me and spent a few seconds alone under water and it hung over you for a long time.    Little fears crept in and for a little while squashed down your natural tenacity and vivaciousness.  You knew how you felt, but not how to say it, or say what it was you really needed.

Thankfully with much love and care and time, that seemed to pass and your old joy reappeared.  Papa and I understand what it is to be a middle child.  We both were once.  We know you need extra time and love to be seen and heard and we try to take that time where ever we can.  A snuggle here, a story there, a walk, a conversation, a shared chore (not your favorite, but you do it with me).  You hardly ever ask, just happy to be here and with us all, but we know you need it too.  The squeaky wheel may get the grease, but we know you need attention even if you don't complain.

You learned to ride a bike with all of your stubborn strength and will, in spite of it being too small for you now.  You were determined.  You fell lots of times, just like when you learned to walk, and I expected you to walk away, but you didn't.  You fought for it.  And you were rewarded with the thrill of racing on your bike down the sidewalk, victorious and fast.

You sing at the top of your lungs whenever the song hits you, no matter where we are.  I understand how that is. I do the same, just not at the top of my lungs any more.  Just ask my family how much the liked it.  (p.s. it bugged them, but I still love when you do it)  You long to play and instrument and can sing back any tune or song.  Like the theme music for Peter Pan and Captain Hook in the Disney movie.  You sing Peter's theme when you are happy and up to mischief.  It suits you so well.  Your jokes improve with every passing day and I love how you love to find things to be joyful about.  We joke that you are Emmet from the Lego movie who said, "I can be dark and brooding...Look guys a rainbow!!"

You are my go along to go along guy and generally play well with your older sister and  younger brother, intent on fun rather than having your ideas be the ones that are used.  You build legos like a maniac and love (yes still) anything with wheels or that flies.  You make your loud vrooms and screeches go along with it.  I love your gentle spirit, your love of justice, your kindness, your willingness to share or ask or think of others.  I love that you never quit, but just try again until it works for you, willing to be terrible at it until you succeed.  It makes my heart brim with love to see you push through your fear and swim or try because you trust me and want to try.  You are my fella and I love you with all my heart.

Love always,
Mama

Super Kids

Rainy Day. 

Messy Playroom.

Super kids.

 

 

 

 

Even Super Kids get grumpy sometimes.

Easter Photos

It took me awhile to not be annoyed by how these turned out, but having embraced the fact that was no human way possible (at 7am on a Sunday morning in the cold, wet grass) to get all 3 kids in the SAME shot and actually LOOKING at the camera, and/or not crying, I can finally present, with a smile, the Easter Photo Shoot.  It is actually pretty true to life, so it will serve as a great reminder of this year.

This was probably the best I got.

Then an airplane went over.

Then things started to get silly.

Really silly.

 

Judah only wanted to pose IN the bushes.

 

 Cora only wanted to do these strange poses.

 

Peter was having NONE of this grass touching him and there was a slide, so...

But I managed to catch a little spark of true self from each kid.

 

 
 
 

And a pretty good reflection of the two of these boys as brothers.

 

Two outta three ain't bad!

   

So happy Easter!  (Peter didn't like being held on to.  Poor guy.)

10 years - a letter to my husband

Hey babe,
I sat down to write you a song for our anniversary, but my fingers were rusty from disuse on the frets of my guitar and the words were halting, resisting my efforts to mold them into lines and phrases that said what I wanted them to.   There's just too much to say.  Our 10th anniversary is today and I am watching five marriages dissolve around me.  People who have been together as long as us.  It is heartbreaking and makes me angry, discouraged, and a little bit afraid.  If it can happen to them, can it happen to us?

The answer to that is yes.  It will always be yes.  Only three things stand between you and me and the devastating untangling of lives that we have witnessed; you, me and God.  Luckily one of those things will never fail.  I have a love song on repeat in my head.  It's one of our favorite singer/songwriters.  You know the one I mean.  He sang at our wedding before he hit it big and we have danced barefoot in the living room to his love songs.  The line from the song is "Love will be enough." and I am struck by how much that is not true.  I wish it were true.

Love is not enough to hold us together.

Kind of a crappy sentiment for this anniversary, but just wait a minute.  It's not the end of the story.  For the last 40 days I have been doing the "Love Dare", secretly, with women from our church.  Yes, it's cheesy and the movie I found out about it from, staring Kirk Cameron, is even cheesier.  But every day I was "dared" to love you better and given a task to practice unconditional love. You may have noticed a difference, but you may have not.  I'll admit, I failed left and right at loving you well.  But as the days went on, I saw again and again that love, the kind that makes us work, is not something that happens between us.  It's something I choose to do myself, again and again, even when I don't want to.  Even when I have to go hide in the bathroom and scream into a towel to keep from saying every nasty thing that comes into my head, while we are in the middle of an argument. 

I wish I could say that our relationship was somehow profoundly different as a result of this dare.  It isn't.  We are pretty much still us.  Hot tempered, Spirited, Passionate people, surrounded on all sides by kids who seem intent on never giving us another private moment together.  Sometimes, like a few weeks ago during that stomach bug, the only thing "hot and heavy" around here is the washing machine setting.  But I learned something.  A hard lesson.  The love I give you isn't about the love you give me.  It's a choice.  One that I have to make daily when I am tired, or about to go nuts because I gave up sugar for Lent and that has been my drug of choice for...oh...forever.

So I am just gonna shoot straight and say what I know you already know, I suck at it.  I really do.  But I am never going to stop trying.  Never going to stop laying down my pride and my right to be right, no matter how many times I may pick it up in some effort to feel in control of this marriage.  Never going to stop reaching to put my arm around you in the dark, even when of of the kids has snuck into our bed and is asleep between us.  Never going to stop fighting for us.  Never going to stop asking God it root out the character flaws in me that threaten to destroy us.

I love you.  Not with the kind from love songs that says when the "fire" burns out, it's time to move on.  The kind that requires me to become less of me, (not in that unhealthy way that requires therapy) and to love you in a way that will never be easy, but will always be good.

Happy Anniversary, honey.  Thanks for sticking with me this far.

Love,
Me

Five of the most wonderful months of my life

The giggles and smiles of this one get me.  They shoot little love arrows straight at my heart.  He is my personal cupid.  I bet you can see why.  Third baby.  Laid back, happy baby.  Joyful, giggly, oh so very wiggly, lovely baby.  Your eyes have that same exact mischievous tilt that your Papa has.  Happy 5 months, littlest guy.  We are crazy about you.

Mother's Day 2013

My mother's day was spent in a new way this year.  With this crew.  Peter was just 2 weeks old and we were still taking it very easy.  But we went to breakfast and the park and had an impromptu photo shoot.  It was a beautiful day to be a mama.

4

Zero

My dearest little girl,

You turn 4 today.  I can't think how that happened.  The days have run swiftly by and that tiny girl we brought home is so big.  Four going on fourteen or forty-five, depending on the day and the color of your attitude.  My old soul.  You ponder the deep questions as we snuggle in the big recliner in the half hour before the boys wake up.  Life, death, God, a hope for a sister, how things work, and what is your place in the world.  Those big blue soulful eyes peer up at me and you offers your endless stream of why and where and how, your silly jokes (How does a pig sneeze?  "Oink-choo!"), your fierce independence, your gentle heart.

 One

I love to watch who you are, even if I see too much of myself in you and it scares me.  No mama wants their girl to hurt, but I cannot save you from everything that will come your way.  You want to do so much and be so big, but the scary shadows move on your walls and still you come to our bed to seek comfort.  You are, at once, so big and still so small.  I forget that and expect you to be bigger than you are, and your reminds me, sometimes loudly, that you still needs your mama.

Two

A seeker of accompanied solitude (I'm in the room, but we work on our own things), a doer of small things, a lover of the lovely, you live to make and dream and play and pretend.  I watched you play with your new paper dolls for 2 hours the other day and you never broke concentration, never asked for help, never decided that this wasn't interesting enough for you.  I see you grow in kindness and friendship with your brother, even though some days you boss the life out of him.  I hear your heart's yearning for a sister, although I can tell you from experience, she won't let you boss her around either.

Three

You run and play and dance your heart out and then are quiet and still.  The beauty of your heart shines through you and my love for you gets bigger every day.   We have our struggles and we may butt heads often, but you will always be the most amazing little girl I have ever known. 

Four

Thank you for just being you.  Happy Birthday, my girl.

Love,
 Your mama

6 months of pure joy

Judah celebrated his 1/2 birthday with little fanfare.  A home video.  Some photos.  Hanging out at the house together.  No presents.  He is, after all, only 6 months old.  But I just can't tell you how much I love this boy!  I loved Cora from the day we found out we were pregnant, but when we lost a baby in between Cora and Judah, I was afraid to feel so deeply about him. I was terrified to lose him.  I oscillated between love and fear.  I did love him, but I didn't want to fill his journal up with thoughts of love for him, just to set it aside empty of any further words, with emptiness inside my heart.  It's a good thing God knows what we need.

 

Here he is, hollaring. He has lots to say.

He sent me the most stubborn, most joyful, "eating life" kind of baby imaginable and I am consumed with love for him.  He wakes with a smile for me, and then it's on to business with what we have come to call "the hungry hands".  He puts them in front of him and rubs them together.  Imagine a greedy miser at the sight of money.  That's it.  He used to do this little grunting noise as well, but he's given that up in favor of all out wailing if he doesn't get milk in. his. mouth. within seconds.  I took him in for his 6 month appointment on July 13th.  He's 18lb 5oz and in the 75th percentile for everything.  I tell ya.  He eats life!  (and everything else, apparently)

As for stubborn, it's not something that bothers me, but I can tell he will be strong willed.  Let's call it determination, shall we?  There is no distracting this child from something.  If he wants it, he WILL get it. Or at least try with every chubby ounce until Mama physically moves him or the thing away and out of site.  Then there is sadness.  Oh the sadness.  But it's sadness that quickly turns to joy (unless he's hungry) when I make silly noises or blow raspberries, a skill that I heard him practicing to himself for days until he got it and then he blew his little raspberries at me and anyone else who would give him a giggle.

He has learned to sit up by himself and give him another week and he just might learn to crawl.  Oh, heaven forbid!  We love, love, love him and I love the tender Mama moments I get with this wee chunk of a boy.  He is my little snuggler and I am soaking it all in.  One delicious day at a time.  Happy half birthday, wee man.

Harried Mamas, Rejoice! There is online grocery shopping! (no fee this week)

It is 7:30 am and I just finished what would normally be the hardest part of my (current) hardest household chore: grocery shopping, and I'm still in my p.j.s.  IN FACT, I'm still in bed!  What? Yes. In bed.  Laptop on my lap and groceries ordered.  Online.  I'll pick them up at lunch time, but for now, someone else is doing my actual grocery shopping.  The best part: I'm not dreaming.

Yes, harried Nashvegas mamas, this service actually exists!!  For a mere $4.95, you can have this service. A friend told me about this service a long time ago, but I didn't think it was for me.  Now with being at home with our 2 year old and newborn, I figured I'd give it a shot.  What did I have to lose?  And now, I'm hooked!

The Pros:
- I don't have to get me, a baby and a 2 year old dressed, think about what I need all while wandering down aisles telling my 2 year old that everything she can reach is 'not for you' and 'put it back' and 'don't touch, please'. All while either wearing the baby in a carrier or stuffing groceries in around his car seat while he sleeps.
- I stick to my list and I am not tempted to impulse buy.  Let's face it.  When I'm hungry, tired and faced with Little Debbies, I can hardly resist.  But this way, it's not right there, on sale, calling me and telling me that chocolate will make my sleep deprivation crabbiness and raggedness all disappear like magic.
- I can plan my menu for 2 weeks in advance, fill my 'cart' with what I need and then 'check out'.  Then I drive to the store, ring the buzzer and my 'personal shopper' brings out my stuff (to the car) and then puts it IN MY CAR.  I then swipe my bank card, or hand over my check and then I drive away.  It's practically magical!  No one had to get out of their car seat.  Not one had to convince a 2 year old that they REALLY do have to hold hands in a parking lot.  Nope.  That's it.  I'm done!
- I can add things to my virtual cart as I go and then save it.  The weekly specials and sales items are all there for me to see and I can sort my list by brand, price, unit price, sale items etc, etc. 
- I can send my sweet Geek to the store for me and know that he will come home with what is on my list and not something else because he couldn't find what I wrote down and so bought cocoa crispies instead.  (Love you, Honey!)
- I can search by key word and it will bring up all of the items with that word in it, cutting down on search time.
- I can save a list as a starter for items that are staples at our house. You just go to the list and select from the list of things you usually buy and add them to your 'cart'.

Cons
- The only chain of grocery stores that offer this service locally is Harris Teeter, which I generally don't shop at because they tend to be more pricey than my local Kroger. (but with savings from not impulse buying that bag of clearance Christmas chocolate, it evens out pretty well)
- Like every new grocery store, its a little bit of a learning curve to find what we normally eat at a whole new place, and in the categories offered on all internet grocery stores.  (Peanut butter is a 'condiment or sauce'.  Who knew!)  Add the tiny online pictures as my only guide and sometimes I end up with weird things like 3 oz of Parmesan cheese, which is a tiny can!!  I had no idea how many oz. our usual parm cheese purchase was for.  Learning!!
- The three locations that offer the 'Express Lane' service are in Belle Meade, Brentwood, and Franklin.  So it's a bit of a drive.  It's 15 minutes door to door for the Brentwood location.  But considering how long I'd normally spend at the store (typically an hour or more, if it's a big trip), the trade off is pretty worth it.
- You can use coupons, but they apply them to your next order, so you gotta buy more to get your savings.  Not crazy about this feature, but we are not huge couponers, so it's not a problem.
- There is a fee.  However, the fee is pretty reasonable at $4.95.

How it works:
1. Head over to the Harris Teeter Express Lane website and sign up.  You can also link your Harris Teeter VIC card, but that is separate.  Be sure you actually register for the 'Express Lane' login so you can save your cart.
2. Shop!  Add things to your cart at your leisure. Be sure to save your cart so you can come back to it.  If your cart mysteriously empties between visits to the website, just click 'view last cart' and it should bring up what you had.  If you want, as you go, add things to your 'starter list' so your next trip to the website will be even shorter.
3. Click on 'check out' and let them know if you will be paying by credit card or check.  You don't actually pay online.  You pay the cashier who comes out to load your stuff.
4. If you forgot something, you have an hour to log back in and add it to your list.  You can also call and tell them to add something.
5. Select your pickup time.  I usually order the day before and select an early pick up time, but you just need a lead time of 4 hrs in advance to pick up same day.
6. Drive to the store (of your choice) and look for the pickup buzzer lane, ring the bell, have someone load your car, swipe your card or hand over your check and do a little happy dance.
7. Drive home!  You are done!  They even split up the groceries into 'frozen', 'refrigerated', and 'non refrigerated', so I can bring in the stuff that needs to get into the fridge or freezer right now and get the giant package of toilet paper when everyone is down for a nap.


This week only (2/23/11-3/1/11) Harris Teeter is waving the fee!  You can place as many orders as you like and pay no fee.  What a great way to try out this service!  By the way, I am not affiliated with H.T. nor do I get paid to write this post. I am just so excited about a service that makes my Stay At Home Mom chore list just a bit shorter and easier, allowing me more time with my sweet babies.

Edited to add:  This week (8/8/12) is super double coupon week at Harris Teeter!  If you play your coupons right it could be a lot of savings (on your next order).

Nine Months!

Heck! I wasn't even pregnant for that long! And here she is. It has been nine months of craziness, but mostly of her favorite emotion. Joy. I can sing all the cheesy songs in the world about how much I love her, how she lights up my life, etc, etc, and they'd all be true. Just look at this little bitty girl!



These two were taken last week. All she wants to do is pull up on Mama. And then let go! We are SO in for it.

The Papa Bear's day

Today we celebrate the Papa Bear. No words can tell you how grateful I am for this man and how he loves his baby girl, so I'll just say it in photos.
Honey, you are the best Papa Bear ever. Happy Father's Day!

And now for your secret present. Go and look in the Baby Bear's room, where all of her blankets live. Love you!!