Children

Ready or not….

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Hubby:  You’re nesting!

Me:  No, I’m panicking!!

Last week we celebrated my niece’s first birthday–my niece, who arrived a month early.  A few weeks before that, a friend delivered her twins ten weeks early.

If things go as planned, we will be having a baby in three months.  But nothing about this has been very planned, and for that reason, plus those back-to-back reminders that things can happen very quickly, I’m a little on edge.

Someone asked recently if we had the baby’s room ready.  “We have a room, does that count for anything?” was my response; and I confessed to a friend later that I felt genuinely bad for the kid.  The state of the nursery was “proof that this baby is a total afterthought.”  She promptly informed me, “No, it’s proof this baby is not your first.”  Good point…

Regardless, I decided that it was time to do what I could in the still-looks-like-an-office bedroom.  (It’s hard to get away from the office look when there’s a large computer armoire sitting smack dab in the middle of the main wall.)  I’d been moving random pieces of stowed furniture into the hallway, piece by piece, for my husband to carry down the stairs to the basement; so far it’s all things we do want to keep.  I had finally cleared off and set up the changing table, and last week I decided to stop waiting for the extra set of hands I assumed I needed and I assembled the crib by myself.  (Yes, all by myself.  Go me!)  I washed all the bedding and curtains, made up the bed, changed out and moved the curtain rods, and hung the curtains.  My niece christened the crib with its first nap the very next day.

Later in the week, I finally started clearing out the file cabinet, and am on the verge of–gasp!–getting rid of it completely.  I know myself, and I know that the file cabinet is feeding my paper clutter addiction.  I’ve changed a few things around with our filing system, which I hope to post soon.  (Until then, you can look at my hero and inspiration here.)

Finally, and this will seem silly, I sat down with a piece of paper and inventoried every single thing left in the room and closet that didn’t belong there.  (Or, rather, that no longer belonged there.)  It probably sounds like an extra set of work to do all the writing, but I’ve used this method before, in the garage, and it’s so much easier for me to look at a list on paper, go through it, and write down what I want to do with each item.  Once I’m done, I can look at the list, see that x, y, and z are supposed to go to Goodwill, and just walk in the room with a bag and gather it all up.  For some reason, walking in the room with a bag, without a list, means I just stand there and turn around in circles.  A lot.  Then I get distracted by something and nothing at all gets accomplished.

Two more pieces of kids’ furniture to drag to the basement, a trip to Goodwill, and doing something with that computer cabinet and we’re ready.

Well…the room is ready.

FM to CD to MP3….

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One cold night over Christmas break I snuggled with my son on the sofa, watching the most recent version of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”  We’d come to the part where Johnny Depp’s Willy Wonka comes out to meet his motley crew of golden ticket winners for the very first time.  He smiles his vaguely creepy Willy Wonka smile, and after a dramatic pause, utters his first words to the group gathered before him:

“Good morning, starshine!  The earth says hello!”

I haven’t seen the movie much, but this always makes me laugh, and I burst out laughing even harder at my son’s reponse:  “That was…..weird.”

“It’s a song!  It’s an old song!”  And I found myself wondering how he can’t know it’s a song.  Which sounds ridiculous (why would a nine-year-old boy be aware of any song from the musical Hair, right?) but we are such a music-obsessed family it genuinely took me by surprise.

It reminded me of a conversation I’d had with my mom this past week, where she teased me about being a “woman of a certain age” because I knew the lyrics to some song she referenced.  (For further proof that I truly am a “woman of a certain age,” I’ve completely forgotten what that song was.)

We just like our music.

My husband and I grew up listening to our parents’ music, the true, fun “oldies” radio station (that would be defined as ’50’s music, people, not ’70’s).  My mom had the classical station on at our house during the day, all day.  Going to college in a town with only two stations (before the advent of internet radio and MP3’s) meant I got a good, solid education in classic rock before I met and married my husband and got a schooling in alternative music.  My son has had his own iTunes playlist on our computer since he was 18 months old.  (He was the one rocking out to an REM concert at nine months in utero.)

The ridiculous range of music I’ve been exposed to means that when we got our dog, Kina, I walked around for two weeks with random warped song references running through my head; from “Kina is a Punk Rocker” a la The Ramones, to “Oh, Kina Oh, Kina” instead of “Corrina, Corrina.”

All that to say….

In the bottom of our TV cabinet are three large drawers.  In spite of the fact that we now do loads of online music buying, all three are FULL of CD’s.  Full to the point of being difficult to open because they’re so heavy.  Full to the point that I’m not sure where we’re going to put the Imagine Dragons and Mumford and Sons CD’s my husband got for Christmas.  The drawers are holding, roughly, 300 CD’s.  Every last one of which has been downloaded on our computer.  So, why is it so hard to get rid of the CD’s??  We even have a place that would buy them from us; all we’d have to do it load them up and drive them there.  (Side note:  I’m reading a book right now that makes 300 CD’s seem paltry.  But that’s a post for a different day.)

Yet there they sit.  Put away enough that I can conveniently forget they’re there.  Organized, even, so we can find what we need when we need it.  But really?  Do we really need to keep the CD’s, when everything is on the computer and its backup drive?

I keep coming back to a different question:  do I really want to lose all that music if the computer crashes?

Once someone can convince me to let go of that question, we can start really letting go of CD’s.

My Christmas list

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One last Christmas post and I promise to move on…

This is an idea that occurred to me fairly early this Christmas season, as we were just getting started with our decorating and everything was falling apart.  As my daughter kept asking about when we were going to put up the tree (the day after Thanksgiving, just like always–why is that a surprise?) and kept hounding me about putting up the tree and finally it was time to put up the tree…and I realized we had no lights.  (Take that, all you friends who think I’m incredibly organized.)  I knew we were going from a pre-lit tree back to our old, needs-lots-of-lights tree, and I’d bought a few boxes of lights…but then I’d promptly loaned out two boxes for our Sunday School class Christmas party, held the evening after we were tree decorating.

At that point I was so fed up with the entire situation; with all the badgering about putting up the tree and finally getting set up and realizing that we could now do nothing with it.  In desperation, I told the kids they could decorate the bottom half of the tree:  the half with lights.  Notice, please, that we finally have kids old enough to actually decorate the entire tree and not just the bottom branches, and now I’m asking them to just decorate the bottom branches.  I wanted to be done with the whole mess and move on.  I’d fix it later.

When “big tree decorating” was done, my kids unpacked their tiny trees, the ones they set up in their rooms.  None of their lights worked either.  At all.

And that’s when I started taking notes.

All Christmas I took notes on what would make life easier.  Just little ideas, here and there, when they’d come to me.  Problems that we’d had that could easily be fixed, something that could have been done better if I’d had more time to prepare, or things that seem obvious now but that I know I’ll forget by next year.

I present to you my Christmas list (maybe some bit of it will help someone else):

  • Pack all lights in a separate box, and check to see if they work a few days before putting up the tree (especially lights for kids’ trees).
  • Pack ornaments sorted by “fragile” and “not fragile” so the kids can help decorate much more easily.
  • Put on cross-stitched ornaments first–they’re way bigger.
  • Have a wide space cleared in the kids’ rooms a few days before their trees go up.  (The bookcases are not deep enough to set the trees.)
  • Unload one box a day, and ONLY one box.  (“Tree” and “Kids” boxes first.)
  • If possible, set up the tree the night before decorating.
  • Have back-up “candle” bulbs ready [we put “candles” in all eight of our front windows]:  only one burnt out this year.
  • You are absolutely forbidden from buying ANY more scented pinecones.  No exceptions.

Hopefully next year will go a bit more smoothly.  I’ll need all the help I can get, seeing as by then we’ll have a eight-month-old girl added to the mix.

The “curliest” elf

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A reminder that Christmas traditions are not always about “stuff”….

I asked my children a few weeks ago to tell me everything they liked about Christmas.  I wanted to come up with a list of things to make sure we did, much like our list this summer; not missing opportunities in this brief season to do the things they really loved.  The phrasing of my request ended up including things like “Opening presents!” from my very enthusiastic daughter, but it also covered all the things they wanted to do to celebrate.  One of those things was the lights at Longview.

Longview Lake’s Christmas in the Park is something we’ve done ever since my husband discovered I had never been; I think, on our first drive there, he must have asked me at least three times, “You’ve really never been to see this?”  (I think it was two whole years later before my parents went their first time.)  It’s a drive-through-the-park light display put on by the county; and I have to admit it’s nearly impossible to describe unless you’ve been.  There are dozens (hundreds?) of, essentially, pictures made out of lights; most of them “move” through the magic of timing (lights on/lights off).  Reindeer “fly” over your car; trains full of Christmas toys “drive” down the road; sledders slide down hills and “crash” into snowmen…..it really is amazing to watch.  (This year our son was finally old enough to realize and suddenly ask, “How do they put all this together?”)

Some of my favorite Christmas memories involve this drive with the kids.  When we started taking them, it was easy; we lived less than fifteen minutes away and we could hop over any weeknight to drive through after dinner.  The first year my daughter went she was too little to remember anything, so the following year my son kept asking her, “Don’t you remember that?  Do you remember that?” and finally, as we drove out, he leaned over in his car seat and looked at his baby sister.  “So….did you like it?” he asked eagerly.

Then, when the kids were four and two, we moved.  That made the trip to the park much more of an Event, and due to my husband’s overtime season coinciding with the holidays, we were usually limited to weekend visits.  That put an entirely different spin on the night.  No more zipping over on a whim, maybe even twice a year.  Now we drove the over-half-hour there as early as we could, to wait in line for who-knows-how-long.  (My cozy thoughts of, “Ooo–I should pack cocoa!” quickly disappeared once I realized I’d be trapped in a car with two potential bathroom emergencies.)  The first year that we sat in line–and I mean, really SAT in line–the kids should have been completely unbearable.  Just turned five and three?  Trapped in car seats?  Yikes!  Instead, we read the signs the light-up “elves” held, standing along the side of the looooong road (it’s about a mile to just get in to the place):  “Welcome!”  “Drive Safely!”  And the elf with our family punch line:  “Be Courteous!”

“What?” my five-year-old son asked.

“Be courteous,” I repeated.

He burst out laughing.  “I thought you said ‘be curliest!‘” he howled, and for the rest of the interminable drive to the entrance, both the kids laughed hysterically:  “Be curliest!”  Each time it might quiet down in the backseat, one of them would shout it again, and they would both dissolve into fits of laughter.

Every year since, we look for the “curliest” elf.  When we went this weekend, unfortunately, he wasn’t there; they’d replaced most of the elves’ signs with “Happy 25!” in honor of the display’s twenty-fifth birthday.  There was brief disappointment…..but that elf will forever live on in memory.  Besides, there’s always the chocolates handed out at the end of the drive to soothe any hurt.

At least one Christmas tradition that doesn’t involve “stuff.”  I know there have to be more….I think I’ll be on the lookout for them this year.

 

 

Only one thing is needed

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On the first of November I logged onto Facebook and, in the midst of everyone’s sweet posts beginning their “days of thankfulness,” I unloaded.

“I HATE THURSDAYS……sorry, needed to vent.”

I don’t actually hate Thursdays.  Three-quarters of the day I love; that’s the day my mom comes over and we play.  We get coffee and run errands if we need to; we have most of the day together to just enjoy each other’s company…..and then she goes home, and I have to face the fact that I played all day and that nothing got done.  Any other day of the week, that would be an easy recovery, but Thursdays are my daughter’s gymnastics night; which means she and I eat dinner together early, and then head out the door for a good chunk of our evening.

This particular Thursday was especially bad.  Mom and I had played that morning, but then spent the afternoon at home with the still-new-to-us dog, since I don’t yet know if I can trust her for much longer than three or four hours.  Mom and I sat together in my living room; she worked on cross-stitched Christmas presents while I tried to coax a GoogleDoc to work for our Sunday School’s class Christmas party.  I would like to say it was a cozy and comfortable afternoon at home; unfortunately I was stressed out from the uncooperative document and an even more uncooperative laptop.

After she left it was a collision of things:  get the kids from school, drop them off at home, run the dog to her first vet appointment, run back home, scarf down dinner, throw my daughter in the car and run her to gymnastics, where I texted some more info about the Christmas party to others on the planning committee.  While I sat with my phone in my lap, responding to texts, it suddenly began ringing, and I recognized the name at the top of the screen as another friend who, I knew, was calling about a meeting we had the following morning.  And I admit it:  I saw her name and I groaned.  (Yeah, I’ve already ‘fessed up to her, so it’s okay to write about it.)  I answered the phone with the statement, “That’s tomorrow, isn’t it?”

That night was so bad my daughter didn’t get bathed.  That night was so bad I actually asked my husband for help.  (He’s great to pitch in….you’d think I’d ask him more often.)  That night it was all I could do to get the kids into bed without a meltdown (me, not them), and crash on the sofa, and unload my seven little words on Facebook.

As I thought about it that night and the following morning, some thoughts began to gel for me.  As I watch people run from one thing to the next, as I see our lives crowded with “stuff” of the time-kind, not just the material-kind, I started to realize something.  My mind went from rambling thoughts to more specific thoughts and finally, I realized, I could reduce these thoughts to two words:

Who says?

Some examples, from conversations I’ve had with people over the past few months:

Who says we have to sell popcorn to the school kids the first Friday of every month?

Who says the high schoolers need a coffee bar, staffed by parent volunteers?

Who says we should have gymnastics practice two nights a week, with competitive meets every weekend?

Who says our class party needs to be a catered affair at a venue instead of a potluck in someone’s home?

Who says we need our kids in every activity our church home offers?  (If I had a dime for every time I’ve heard a chipper, “If the doors were unlocked, we were there!”)

Please understand….none of these things are bad.  But every time someone has another “good idea,” that idea has to be carried out and run by other people.  Which leads to well-meaning people being overwhelmed by the amount of stuff they’re doing.

It’s ironic that I’m even writing about this….I’m not a “joiner.”  My kids are in the bare minimun on extra-curricular activities, because I think being home, as a family, together, is more important than most stuff they could sign up for.  (My son is currently involved in–gasp!–nothing.)  I’m not that bad at saying “no;” I had a great amount of practice last month when our trip was closing in and making me feel overwhelmed.  It’s really struck me, though, how easy it is to get sucked in; especially when the ideas are so “good.”  How quickly we become “the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful.”  (Matthew 13:22)

Or we turn into those invited to the banquet:

“At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’  But they all alike began to make excuses.  The first said, ‘I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it.  Please excuse me.’  Another said, ‘I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out.  Please excuse me.’  Still another said, ‘I just got married, so I can’t come.’ ” (Luke 14:  17-20)

I can hear Jesus saying to us, ” ‘Martha, Martha….you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed.  Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.’ ”  (Luke 10:41-42)

As I read through the Old Testament, I’m struck by the continued, repeated instruction given to the kings:  Seek Him.  Follow Him wholeheartedly.  And listen:

“They sought God eagerly, and he was found by them.  So the Lord gave them rest on every side.”  (2 Chronicles 15:15)

I realize the verse refers to peace instead of war, but truly….doesn’t rest sound good?

Dog days are here!

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“Four hours till home.  Anyone want to place bets on how long it will take my husband to get a dog now that the trip is over?”  –my Facebook post, Monday, October 22nd

 

Five days.  That’s the final count:  home Monday night; dog Friday night.  She’s curled up next to me on the sofa, sacked out, as I write this.  And she’s been such a blessing.

A very brief history of where we’d come from:  one dog owned for fourteen years, another owned for twelve years, neither one of which were big fans of “those kids” once they came along nine years ago.  Bo was a mean enough dog we were genuinely concerned about how things were going to go; it turned out to be fine, but I never trusted him much.  Basie was tolerant but skittish; he’d just leave the room if a child wandered in.

So much for the idea of “a boy and his dog.”

For three days after we were home my husband and I researched dogs; we looked online at three different shelters and a rescue and compared notes about who we’d found that was interesting.  (This involved lots of “Oh, look at this one!”; and hormonal pregnant woman having to leave the room when the family would look at the homeless doggie videos.)  I was surprised–pleased, really–at how quickly some promising dogs came and went; a dog there one day might not be there the next.  But I collected a little list of names when my husband said we’d go by one of the shelters Friday night.

When we pulled up, I saw her.  I knew it was her, but I didn’t say anything to my husband; who had already assured me he’d done this before and that what we really wanted to do was walk the kennels and see who we were drawn to.  So I said nothing as we piled out of the car and took in all the incessant barking around us, and then I heard him say, “Look at that black one….” and I got to smile and know that this would be easier than I thought.

We went in, though, to ask a worker for some more information about my list of four; she was an amazing source of information and could rattle off all sorts of things about each dog:  “Alex was just adopted this morning; Carolean….you really don’t want her in a family with kids, that wouldn’t go well; Kina would be wonderful, she’d be great; Jullian, well…..”  And then I had to laugh as she went on to describe behavior that pretty much fit our old Bo to a “T.”  (At one point later, I was talking about Jullian-dog with another worker, who used the phrase, “He can be…..weird,” which made me burst out laughing.  That was the exact same phrase we used about Bo.  Often.)

“He can be so sweet and so affectionate, but there are times, if he’s cornered….he can get really aggressive….but he can truly be a really good dog….”

Yeah…I’ve done that for fourteen years, thanks.  I’m done.  Time for a friendly dog.

So we went out to collect sweet Kina and get to know her a bit, in the huge play yard/agility training course they have in one area.  Of course, for the first ten minutes, she had absolutely no interest in us, as the area had probably been marked by dozens of dogs, and there were so many things to smell.  (At one point my foster-parent-trained husband looked at me and laughed, “She has attachment issues.”)  But she finally decided that the people were more interesting than the smells, and as I watched my family play with the dog–the one I felt from the start was ours–I knew it was official.

Why would anyone get rid of such a friendly, precious dog?  It turned out their grandchildren had allergies.  Our extended family has had much discussion about who they’d get rid of….the dog or the kids.  lol  (My pharmacist husband’s comment:  “They make medicine for that.”)

So we came home with a pet.  Not a former stray, or just a dog, but someone who’s been a pet for six years and who’d been passed over time and again at the shelter (age-related concerns, I assume) but who is an unbelievably well-trained, well-behaved, sweet-tempered pet.  She loves to be loved, and will snuggle with my kids. (!!!)  It broke my heart the first few nights she was here as I realized we were having to teach my kids how to play with a dog; they’d never been able to before.  Now they can play with her and walk her and love on her and I’m able to relax a bit and not spend every waking moment saying “Careful of the dog!”

And then, that first night home, she went outside and rolled in something completely heinous.

Yep…..we’re officially dog owners again.  🙂

 

The title from this post came from the announcement my daughter wrote on our dry-erase board the night we got Kina, playing off the “Florence and the Machine” song “Dog Days are Over.”  I thought it was pretty ingenious for a seven-year-old.

 

Happy Halloween?

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I have to admit I’ve never really understood the obsession with Halloween.  I love autumn; it’s my absolute favorite time of year, and fall “stuff” sucks me in each and every time it rolls around.  (One of the biggest reasons I’ll never make it as a true minimalist:  fall decor.)  I’m relieved when the temp starts to cool; I love the bite in the air each morning and bundling up in jackets as we head out the door to school.  I love the changing leaves; though for all the huge trees in our yard we really only have two pretty ones.  I love crunching through the fallen leaves as we walk out to get the paper, or the mail…in spite of the fact that our neighbors on either side keep fastidious lawns that manage to make ours look more than a little unkempt.  (I believe the word is “trashy.” lol)

What I don’t get is the gore.  The desire to “decorate” with corpses and zombies and skeletons…..and I’m always struck, each year, at how we as Americans wail about the cost of everything, and yet people will shell out their hard-earned dollars for things like inflatable spiders to sit in their front yard.

I don’t get it.

October is the time where I’m finally willing to start walking to and from school….and it’s also the month where I had to change the route we took when my kids were younger, because there’s a house on one street with zombies overtaking the front yard.  I don’t mean a few scary items; I mean the entire front yard is covered with creatures….it truly looks like a graveyard come to life.  They have to have over thirty creepies on their lawn, including a large Satan-like creature suspended above their front door.  Each year as it goes up I realize how grateful I am that our neighbors at our last house got into Christmas instead of Halloween.  (To their credit, the whole mob scene is taken down promptly on November 1st.  No lingering zombies hanging out for Thanksgiving dinner or anything.)

That’s the stuff I don’t get.

Time magazine states that this year, “Americans are expected to spend a record $8 billion on Halloween-related products and activities this year, up 17% from 2011.” (From “More Trick Than Treat,” October 29th issue).

$8 billion….

I don’t get it.

We got costumes for the kids; my daughter’s was actually her birthday present.  I bought not even $20 worth of candy, which might not sound like much, but it’s a ton; trust me.  I think we’re covered.  I’m calling it good.

Because there’s loads of other things I’d rather spend my money on.

 

 

2600 miles, 7 states, 5 parks, 11 days

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Or, “Pursuing Enough” pursues more than enough….

 

It’s been awhile.  It’s been so long and I’m still so off-kilter that I’m not even sure I’m quite ready to start writing again…but I felt the need to check in after such a long absence.  Our family got back Monday night from an eleven-day (road) trip to Disneyworld and Legoland, sponsored very generously by my parents.  Six people in a twelve-passenger van; three days down, two days home (you know it’s a long trip when driving through five states is a good day).  Monday through Saturday we spent at all the different parks.

Overwhelming?  Yes.  Wonderful?  Absolutely.

The drive didn’t go nearly as badly as I anticipated; portable DVD players are beautiful things…and bringing along all the kids schoolwork they were missing out on helped, too.  (Full disclosure:  due to our school district’s quirky calendar, we were able to take an eleven day trip with the kids only missing three days of school.  We were NOT the only people to jump on that opportunity.)  My dad and husband sat up front and took turns driving, continually arguing with the GPS system and making her angry (“Recalculating!”).  The rest of us spread out in back, switching places when needed, since siblings can only sit together for so long.

Our time in the parks was great…my daughter met everyone she wanted to meet, including Tinkerbell, and my son rode all the coasters he wanted to ride.  My husband quickly learned how to work the Fast-Pass system (and I mean really work it), which meant that we didn’t have to wait in line more than twenty minutes for any ride we did.  (It also meant blisters for my poor husband as he ran the parks to collect the things…)

And then….Monday night at 7:30 home, Tuesday morning at 8:00 back to school.  There’s a nice jolt of reality for you.

I think, three days later, I’m just now starting to feel like things are getting a little back to normal; although with my son’s birthday plans this weekend (9 years old today!  Happy birthday, sweet boy!) and the relentless talk of getting a new dog now that we’re home, I’m still not quite feeling settled.  October is one of my favorite months of the year.  I think it’s time I slowed down a minute and tried to enjoy it.

One last thought on vacations and returning home:  I know that technically, what we come “home” to is just a bunch of wood and siding and insulation and metal, etc.  I know that really, it’s just a bunch of “stuff” that shouldn’t really matter all that much.  But after you’ve been gone for eleven days, it becomes much more than that.  It’s what it represents:  home base, safety, the comfort of the familiar, the “normal,” Home.  Night after night of sleeping in hotel beds gives you a new appreciation for your own bed; night after night of sleeping in hotel rooms gives you a new appreciation for your own room, which my children disappeared into the moment they got home, introducing their new stuffed animals to their old ones.  Right now I’m so grateful for this house, this home, and for the comfort of (slowly) getting back into a routine.

It’s good to be back.

Party time!

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I was at my daughter’s field trip recently, joking with a mom about how I seem to spend all my time counting heads when I’m out with the class that way.  (We were only in charge of four little girls, so the job should have been easy, but I’m learning that there’s always one in any group who wanders.  A lot.)  She laughed and commented that it was like those big birthday parties that you have somewhere “out;” where she could never relax because she kept needing to make sure they had everybody.

And I had to laugh, and admit that we’d never done that.

While we’ve had family parties every year, it wasn’t until the kids were in kindergarten that we started doing parties involving friends; and even then, they were small, involving five or six little ones.  My children are invited, often, to parties where kids invite the entire class or all the girls/boys in a class; while I suppose that saves on hurt feelings, I have no idea how people do it.  The cost.  The headache.  The hassle.

My daughter just celebrated her seventh birthday, “Rainbow Magic Fairy”-book style.  (On a side note, my kids have a knack for picking birthday themes that you can’t find party supplies for.)  We intended to invite six little girls, but once she got to four, she got hung up.  A domino effect seemed to be occuring:  “If I invite A, then I have to invite B and C; and if I invite C, then D and E have to come…”  Finally she stopped and looked at me.  “Can I just invite four people?”  Absolutely!

Out of the four, three showed up, and they had a wonderful time playing fairy games and making fairy crafts and eating pink-frosted chocolate cupcakes.  It was absolutely hilarious to see how much noise four little girls could make….coloring.  They laughed and danced and “helped” unwrap gifts and when it was all over, my daughter told me how much fun she’d had.

“I’m glad you liked it!”  I told her.

“I didn’t like it!  I LOVED it!!” she shouted; and honestly, if she LOVED her small party, why on earth would I want to do anything bigger?

Realistically, a bigger party would have meant missing out on some of the crafts; buying supplies for four is much easier than buying for twenty.  I was able to include a “fairy book” (from a local used-book store) in everyone’s party favor bag, instead of a plastic kazoo.  It just turns into a completely different party with fewer kids.

My sweet son approached me recently with a request for his upcoming birthday:  could he just go with a couple of friends to the local science museum?  And then maybe out for a treat?

These parties just get simpler and simpler…..

A time to laugh

/ jenfletcher / Leave a comment
Your great sense of humour is going to be your greatest gift! –friend, via e-mail
Enough with the whining.  I’m pregnant.  I’m thirty-nine.  It’s kind of funny.

I’ve said I don’t know how many times over the past few weeks, “I have to laugh; if I don’t laugh I’ll cry.”  So that’s it.  I’m choosing to laugh.  And I wanted to share at least a few things I’ve laughed about as we’ve walked through this situation.

First off, the day I discovered I was pregnant–the same day–I logged on Facebook and was greeted, at the very top of the page, with a picture of Dr. Seuss’ Sam-I-am next to a lengthy quote, which began:  “You can get pregnant in a car.  You can get pregnant in a bar.  You can get pregnant on a hill.  You can get pregnant on the pill.”

Seriously.  I am not making this up.

Reading through, it was made clear by the end that it was a tirade about Todd Akin, who was all over the news at that point.  But I still about fell off the sofa.

My sweet husband’s first words on finding out were, admittedly, “Holy crap!”  After a pause, he brought up something I hadn’t considered:  “Wow.  Aren’t you glad we didn’t adopt that sibling set of three?”

Um….yikes!!

Two days later he and I sat in our Sunday school class and tried to keep a straight face as the teacher read one of the points for the day:  “Have you questioned God’s timing while you were waiting to be delivered from difficulty?”  Um, yeah…doing a lot of questioning God’s timing lately, thanks.

Not long after I was sitting in my doctor’s office, having an “official” pregnancy test done, and laughing (at that point, nervous laughter) about the whole ridiculous situation.  The nurse wrapped a blood pressure cuff on my arm as I murmured, “I’m going to have a fifteen-year-old, a thirteen-year-old, and a six-year-old.”  She laughed.  “You’re just going to live in your van!” she announced with a smile.  A pause while she took my pulse….and then something clicked.

“Oh, my word….we’re going to need to buy a van!”

(On a side note, does anyone have a Mazda CX-9 they’d like to sell for a reasonable price?  I’d really like to avoid the whole van thing.)

It’s funny to finally start telling people, because I love to see the variety of reactions.  One is the relentlessly positive, “That’s wonderful!  Congratulations!!” from people who clearly don’t know the whole story.  Others immediately get concerned; I’m an “old” mom and they know it.  A reaction I got yesterday (which I really appreciated) was, “Congratulations?  With a question mark?”  That was a mom who understood.

My favorite reaction, though, which I don’t get very often, is when people burst out laughing.  They get it.  I know when I have a laugher that I’ve truly found someone who gets it.  Those are the people I’m planning on hanging with for the next seven months.

Because I’ve got to keep laughing.

Okay, enough baby talk…..back to my regular topics next week, I promise.  🙂