Getting a Life

Starting last Monday, I spent the week transitioning the babies over to sippy cups instead of bottles, so feeding them is less of a chore and doesn't eat up as much time. Don't you just love the pic of proud papa feeding his little birds? Next step: teaching them to hold the sippy cups themselves!

Six months into this three children life, and things seem like they might be looking up. We all spent the weekend together--just the five of us--and it was so wonderful. I love my husband; I know from doing that love language book by Gary Chapman that my definition of love is fulfilled when my husband spends time with me. That's when I feel the most loved. But time with him has been rare this past 1/2 year because he has been helping by taking the three kids away to give me some rest or time to play catch-up with my paying (teacher) and non-paying (housewife) jobs.

But, this weekend, we did "real" stuff, not just staying at home for naps, grading papers, housework, and screaming kids. Papers are still ungraded & housework is still not done--I have Scarlett O'Hara syndrome...you know, "Tomorrow is another day."

On Saturday, we went to Home Depot and then out to eat at a sit-down restaurant (hint: if you order a la carte, the food comes faster!) Yes, Emerson "fussed" the entire meal, but it was a start towards getting a life back.


And today (Sunday), we went to the Fertility Reunion at Woman's Hospital. It was so nice to see all the babies and young children there--the photographer took a "group" picture and had to take 3 different panorama-style shots to get a photo that included everyone. I know God is the author of all life, but I also know God has used Dr. Webster (pictured here) in a special way to help bring those lives into the world to those of us who longed for children of our own but who had difficulties conceiving. I will always feel a thankful tenderness towards Dr. Webster and his wife Nancy and every kindness they extended in their efforts to help us have a family.

At the party, Wyatt had an absolute blast! We told him Dr. Webster was hosting a party and showed him the invitation (new word). He bounced the entire time we were there: in line, from and to the car, in those blow-up bouncie things, while he was eating cake--you get the picture.

Such a nice weekend. Hopefully, this is a coming trend, and our household will have many more of them.

Conundrum

This week off from school has shown me just how much I am not enjoying my paying job right now: how much it takes away from raising my children, and how much it hinders me from getting a proper amount of rest (and we won't even talk about taking away all energy to exercise). I want to focus on my biological children, not my school children. I don't want to miss out on time with my entire family because I'm stuck indoors grading papers while they're off to Home Depot or down to Oma's to see the biddies. But, I don't want to be stuck with a huge mortgage when we build our house (we're shooting for this fall) either, and my salary goes to insurance and house.

Please understand: I know I'm blessed that God has given me the ability to teach via the Internet so that I can stay home with my children and to have a great job in this economy. Teaching has always been (and still is) my calling. I'm just increasingly more and more unhappy as I do my job because it eats away every spare moment I have during the day and the night. I rarely go to bed before midnight and many times over the last two months, I've seen 2 am on the clock....and Amelia always wakes up by 7:15 bright and shiny. Right now, I'm carrying a full-time course teaching load. I don't want no job; I just want less job.

I've already accepted my courses for the fall, but I'm getting either cold feet or lazy feet or just spring fever feet, not sure which. So, I really need my prayer warriors to hit the floor for me right now. Pray God will tell me exactly what He wants me to do this upcoming fall--specifically, whether He wants me to keep (or bow out of) two classes I've accepted already. Pray He'll send so many signs in so many different forms that I can't help but see them. I want to be hit squarely in the back of the head with the obviousness of what I should do so I don't have to wrestle with this any longer. I'll let you know when I know.

Laughable Linguistics

I am sitting here basking in the silence. It's been a long, long day. Someone has been fussing or crying at almost every single moment for the past fourteen hours. But, in the midst of the crying is lots of fun. Wyatt is just a word bank of humor lately. He made up a new word today: "yummylicious." Pretty creative. I never know what is going to come out of his mouth or what actions on his part will result in sentences out of my mouth that I've never said before. For example, today I said, "Wyatt!! Noooooo!!! We don't poo under the tree!" "Stop drinking out of Jonah's water dish!!!" and "Sure, you can touch the cricket." I just can't think fast enough to know what mischief he could possibly want to try next.

Yesterday he was looking at one of those nasty blue tent caterpillars and said, "Look! Sunglasses!" When I got eye-level with the awful critter, its hard blue helmet-face did, in fact, look like his daddy's glasses. Then, the next thing he says is, "I smash it to pieces." And so he did, only to then peel caterpillar guts off his shoe. GROSS!! But, that was yesterday. Today, he did a number on my self esteem. I was telling him that mommy was not a horsey. He thinks about it and says, "Daddy a horsey. Mommy a cow." Gee thanks kid. Later when I was on the phone with Doug, I proceeded to try and ride his tricycle, which was quite difficult with long legs, and he kept screaming, "Run over me, mommy!" This is why the phone's mute button was invented.

I can't wait till Amelia and Emerson learn to talk. I know I'll die of embarrassment when the three of them spout out something they shouldn't, but right now, it's just so fun to listen to Wyatt create sentences, vocalize his child-like ideas. To watch his amazement at any little bug or flower blossom....how a driveway rock can be an imaginary "treat" one minute and a "ball" the next--there are no words to describe it. As I held him facing me in my lap as we swung together on his swing set today, I savored each delighted squeal and genuine giggle every time the swing brought us down to earth and I would lean us both backwards to where my hair touched the grass. There will come a day all too soon when he won't want to sit in mommy's lap, when I'll have to pull from him his thoughts, when he won't wear every emotion easily on his face.

I feel so lucky to be included in his little world...I'm already saddened at the thought that this world will not last and that once it's gone, it's gone forever. I know each phase of my children's lives will have joys and trials. But unless God leads us to adopt more children later in life, this joyous innocence won't grace our household again. With each grown-up thing Wyatt does, with each change in his face, I see it already slipping away.

God Has No Phone Problems

I am elated that the new phones came in today. They're "free" and that's even better. We've really been a phone-problem family of late. I've been having issues with my Motorola phone for 2 years (won't make that mistake again--back to Nokia)--the first time, the speakerphone died, so I sent it back and they gave me a new one. The speakerphone promptly died again within a month, so I just lived with it, but a couple months ago, something else went wrong internally. The result was I could only hear the person on the other end of the phone clearly if there was nothing happening on my end. And that's hysterical since at least one of the three kids is almost always making noise. It almost sounded like I was eavesdropping through a keyhole.

Doug's phone has been giving him Sim card error messages--he'll think all is well with the world, look down, see the error, and find out he's missed a half a day's worth of phone calls....and that he has an irate wife at home who has worried herself needlessly when she can't get ahold of him.

And what has this experience taught me? That I'm very thankful that God doesn't use cell phones. Can you imagine how bad it would be to think that when I needed to call God, He wouldn't be there to listen to me because of a technology error? Or that His phone's speaker was broken and He couldn't understand what I was saying? I really take for granted the priviledge of being able to pray to Him anytime, anywhere, and know that He's always ready, able, and willing to listen, even if the prayer is, "Please, God....let her sleep just 10 more minutes."

Oh--24 hours and counting without an accident in our underwear!!! Woo Hoo!!

Holding My Breath

Oma's house is "across the pasture," and that's about 1/3 mile from our house. When I used to backpack baby Wyatt down to Oma's, we would only meet 1-2 cars on her road, but since we don't live in a subdivision, I'm just too scared to let him walk on his on. Plus, while it may be a nice walk for me, it's a little too long for Wyatt, especially since we have to walk down the road to get there. And then there's the problem of the twins--needless to say, we haven't "walked" to Oma's house; we've been riding in the van, which involves seatbelts, carseats, screaming children who don't want to be strapped in: just not fun and no exercise, which is part of the point in going there to begin with.

But, my friend Catherine gave me her jogging stroller to use with the twins. Still, there was no room for Wyatt, so as the saying goes, necessity was the mother of invention, and I had Doug attach a temporary bar for Wyatt. So, for now, Wyatt happily hangs on to his bar and doesn't even complain about the twins who are incessently kneading his back with little baby kicks. No tears from anybody (although Amelia has been running low fever and has had the sniffles for the past 2 days). They're really too heavy to turn easily in this contraption, but it's so good to feel a bit of freedom.

Now to the title of this blog: I've been hesitant to say anything for fear that Wyatt will regress tomorrow, but it looks like we may be making progress on the potty training front. Wyatt has started to take himself to the bathroom!!! It started Easter Sunday: I lost Wyatt (in a house full of 20 other people, that's not too difficult) only to find him parked on the potty--door wide open, lights off, but he was doing a #2 on the potty all by himself. I squealed with delight, gave him a "huge" treat, and just made an enormous deal out of it.

Yesterday, he did his business in the potty again; later in the day, he started an "accident" in his Thomas underware, stopped himself, ran to the potty, and finished there. Today, we had one accident, and he didn't like it, so by the time I learned of it, there was a big mess on the lid of the little potty and his underware was left on the floor. But tonight, he even took himself to the bathroom at Oma's to do his #2.

If you notice in the picture, he has "pink underware" on--they're pull-ups with Dora the Explorer on them. I learned the hard way that they make "girl" pull-ups and "boy" pull-ups. Who knew! But, I found that out only after opening the package, so poor kid has to use them up. He doesn't mind, though--when I told him that was Dora's picture on his underware, he said, "No. That Wyatt." Same haircut, so why not! It's just special underware with Wyatt's picture on it! I'm hoping this is a good sign that soon I'll be able to put him in big boy underware all day long and that he'll take himself to the bathroom without much prompting. Fingers & toes are crossed! Prayers are said.

Outdoor Art

Wyatt is a budding young artist...definitely into some sort of "modern" art because I sure don't get it. I can imagine him as one of those artists who accidentally let his cats walk through paint and put footprints all over a canvas that he'd then sell for thousands as art critics everywhere expressed amazement over such an intense level of creativity. Last week, he was in a "Pooh and the dragon" phase. This week, he's drawing pictures of everybody.

Sidewalk chalk seems to be his favorite medium of late, especially since mean mommy stifled his creativity by forbidding him to draw on the white refrigerator with a black ink pen. I don't have a problem with him seeing the entire world (i.e., the linoleum, the sofa, any walls) as a canvas. I just have a problem with him using that world as a canvas.

The first piece of art is simply entitled "Mommy." Yeah--that's how I feel some days: totally frazzled. The second is entitled "Daddy"--I'm assuming this is how daddy's hair will look once he's done raising three children--just a little left on each side.

On Loan from God

Today, we had the babies' dedication service at my parents' house after Easter dinner. I know people normally do this in a church-like setting and definitely not after the second-most button-popping meal of the year, but since my entire family gets together rarely, this date worked for us, and since my brother, Johnathan, is an ordained minister, we had him do the honors. It's a lot more personal to have all my family around as part of the service, people whom I know will commit themselves to praying for my children and their salvation.

What was amusing to me was when Johnathan said something I already know but hadn't really dwelt upon. At the start of the dedication, he said, "As believers we are called to recognize that children belong first and foremost to God. God in his goodness gives children as gifts to parents. They not only have the awesome responsibility of caring for this gift, but also the wonderful privilege of enjoying the gift. Because children belong to God and are given by grace as gifts to parents, it is only proper and appropriate that children be dedicated back to God. "

In other words, Amelia and Emerson are just "loaners." Thinking of my children that way is both a relief, a source of humor, and also a huge burden. What a relief that even if they do something awful, I can honestly and truthfully say, "Oh well--thank heavens that's not my child!! My child would never hide under the dining room table so he could secretly eat all the candy in his new Easter bunny Pez dispenser! That must be God's child you're talking about--that kid is always coming up with something mischievous. His Father should really do something about that."

It's also a source of humor because I could always use this concept when disciplining my children: "Hey, don't blame me--I didn't make the rules! When God sent you to us, He gave us this huge book of instructions on how to care for you, so if you don't like it, take it up with Him. What? You don't believe me? You want to read the rules yourself? Ok--here's the book: better go to your room and start reading. Call me when you're sure I'm interpreting the rule right." Or maybe "I'm just the babysitter--and I can't let you do ______ because God might decide to take you back and fire me from my job of taking care of you...and in this economy, I really need this job right now."

But apart from all the humor, God gifting me children is also a huge burden...that if I don't get this mothering thing right, I will ruin three souls for all eternity. More than huge. Ginormous. No, I can't think of any word to define how large a weight that is. Terrifying. "Leaves-me-speechless" terrifying. Pray for my children and for me to be a good, Christian mother to them, one who would lead them toward the right path.