Things Not Done. And a Few Things Done.

Yesterday was back-to-school night for the younger kids. 

Next week we will have kids back to elementary, and starting elementary (that's you, Hansie), and back to junior high, and starting high school (I suppose Pen was technically a high-schooler last year, but 9th grade was at the junior high--not quite the same as starting at the high school).

And three kids will be returning to or starting (Goldie) college!

Which means that, all at once, the number of people living in our house will drop by three. (Almost a third of our children! Gone!) 

That sounds a bit dramatic I suppose. It's not as if they'll never be back. We'll see them on the occasional weekend or holiday. But, for nine months, those three will live ... elsewhere. In fact, now that I think about it, maybe that statement--about a third of our children leaving--wasn't dramatic enough! After all, it's only the fact that we still have more children here, that makes the three of them leaving seem in any way small. If we'd been a normal-sized family, three leaving would put us into empty-nester status--we'd be talking about all of our children grown and wondering where on earth our time with little ones (and their backpacks, and shoes, and matchbox cars, and stuffed animals, and snow boots, and nerf guns, and crafts and Littlest Pets) had gone.

As it is, twenty-one-plus years into parenting, we are still in the thick of "little ones"... and all their trappings (and will be for a very long time yet).

And does that have anything to do with ... my having accomplished virtually none of the things I intended to this summer? (Organizing piles of piano music? Sorting through the kids' clothes? Addressing the sets and sets of Legos strewed across every surface of the boys' room? Getting the kids going on piano? Keeping up on math practice sheets? [We did--with great confidence it would last--do that for about ... four days in a row at the start of summer.] Using the early morning hours [free of readying kids for school] to consistently run?)

I don't know. It's hard to say how closely my years of parenting and number of children correlate with my lack of determined accomplishing. I do feel ... rather tired. And sometimes I look at that twenty-something-year-old mom of three and four kids that I once was--at all her exuberance--and don't know that she and I are acquainted at all.

But! Let's not be all dreariness! The fact that practically nothing I intended to get done this summer ... got done, doesn't mean ... nothing happened at all. And the things that did happen weren't even always the path of least resistance. 

I potty-trained an incredibly stubborn three-year-old after all. (If it weren't for social pressure I would never ever ever potty train my children. Ever.)

And we got little Hansie's tonsils and adenoids out. (For months I have genuinely wondered if he was breathing at all when he slept, and when the surgery was finally complete, the doctor described his right tonsil in particular as a fisherman might describe his most enormous catch.)

(Before surgery.)

Dear little boy. He was so brave--praying that he would be proud of himself and that his Grandpa Gordy would be with him for his surgery. I felt so grateful to be able to send him in with the extra power that comes from priesthood blessings, fasting and prayer.

(He was quite brave afterwards--while all the nurses were still around. But as soon as they left he tried to hide his little face as tears began to pour out and he asked me if we could just go home and just have that blue bandaging [that covered his IV] off his arm. Seeing your little people in a fragile state makes all the love you have for them rise so intensely in you that it feels you might burn right up with the power of it all.)

(A brave smile as we waited for the required post-op hour of monitoring to be up.)

(Snuggled up safely back at home with all of his siblings showering him with attention and making lists of all the foods we needed to get for him--popsicles and pudding, bananas and yogurts, etc.)

Other things? Well, I did rally and have a window-cleaning day. It's such a job--hauling ladders, trying to manage tall poles, taking out and cleaning screens--that I only manage a full window cleaning day once a year. And I almost couldn't bring myself to do it this year. But I did. And then it promptly rained. Still. That was a large accomplishment.

And scripture reading with the kids is always much better during the summer months when we aren't so rushed. (In fact Hans asked me if I would please let him "draw some Psalms" the other day. :) We've been in that book of scripture for several weeks and I've been having my kids doodle things that capture their attention each time I read them a Psalm. Hansie quite enjoys it.)

And we successfully finished celebrating all our summer birthdays with Mike and Mette's shared August birthday. (Mike 46 and Mette 7.)

For Mette's birthday (and good-sported Mike's) we took the kids to use up the rest of the coins on our card at Fat Cats. And also got a season pass for the Treehouse Museum. (I'm not a very big fan of crowded/fun kids' places, I'm afraid. But, almost any time we do go to one of those places--the Zoo, the Aquarium, The Dinosaur Park--we end up getting a family season pass. When you have as many kids as we do, a family pass for an entire year is usually not much more than buying everyone a ticket for one day. Sadly we often don't end up using it again during the year. [Shame on me.] But with Daisy, Goldie and Penny around and willing to take them, they've gone back to the Treehouse Museum twice since Mette's birthday.)

(The Treehouse Museum happens to be right by the Ogden Temple.)

(I shall briefly tell you about the scene of carnage I witnessed come upon these poor chess figures as some older child (not one of my own)--with a face filled with terrifying delight--took a pawn and swung it wildly and with great force into all the other chess figures. It was incredibly loud. Bishops, knights and queens flew this way and that. [One even lost their head.] It was some rare entertainment.)

(These pictures are all out of order. The arcade sorts of things are at Fat Cats--not the Treehouse Museum.)

(The painted horses that show up every summer in downtown Ogden are always a huge hit with the kids. And with me too.)

Anyway. So those things happened while most other needful things weren't happening. And ... a few more misc. pictures of other little happenings--significant and not.

Starling baking with Daisy.

A tea party on the stairs.

Starling becoming a fan of scissors and cutting paper into tiny pieces. 

An interesting wall with shifting images and games at the library.

Andres came to visit Abe! Andres was one of the new converts Abe got closest to on his mission. He's from Guatemala and his wife and daughter are still there, but Abe actually taught him in Las Vegas. Abe had to translate everything between us, but it was very fun to meet him!

We've had some cool rainbows the last few weeks. 

Starling turning some stuffed animals yellow and pink with sticky notes. If she had it her way, the entire world would be yellow and pink. 

Speaking of yellow and pink. ...

This is the face Hans makes every time we ask him to smile for the camera. 

I have to think of ways to trick him into his real smiles. 

And lastly me looking far more serene than I usually feel about all the undoneness of things. (It quite regularly sends me into tears of overwhelm.) But I suppose one should expect a dose of that struggle when one decides to have ten children. And looking back at all these bits and pieces of things we do get to do ... makes the ones I can't get to seem a fair trade. Though I'll likely cry about them again soon enough. Now, if you'll excuse me, laundry needs folded, dinner needs made, kids need bathed for church, and Starling just threw all of our silverware into the living room.