Anniversary and Abe Shenanigans

Yesterday was our 12 year anniversary. Mike had to work all day (mostly because he used his last free hours of leave on my birthday the day before so I could have a day of getting to go to the gym, shopping, etc.) Anyway, though he couldn’t be here, a rose and treat mysteriously appeared on our doorstep about every 45 minutes of the day. When the doorbell first rang and I opened it to find nobody there – simply a single rose and a treat, I was suddenly very excited thinking that maybe Mike really DID have more hours and had been able to take the day off. However, there was no sign of him, and after only one or two more roses I began to suspect that the rosy-cheeked and out-of-breath children, who would come around the corner expressing their shock about another flower shortly after each new arrival, might possibly be in cahoots with their father.

Speaking of our anniversary, when the kids asked about it that morning, I gave them, what I thought to be, a few wise words about how happy their father and I are and about how important it will be for them not to marry someone just because they are in love with them; they must also make sure it is someone with their same priorities and goals.

You can judge for yourselves how well my words touched them by Abe’s response: after giving me a mischievous smile he said, “What if my whole goal is to beat Super Mario Galaxy? What then!?”

Hmph. What then indeed. I suppose all I can do is hope and pray that there is some mother out there raising a worthy young daughter with similarly lofty goals!

Another thing – relating not to our anniversary, but to the aforementioned Abe: I was making dinner tonight while he entertained Jesse in the living room. Suddenly I heard Jesse sobbing piteously. I was sure he had been hurt or terrified and was about to rush to him, but Abe seemed to have comforting him well in hand, so I stayed at the stove ‘til Jesse waddled into the kitchen and showed me that all was well because sock monkey now had a bandage on his head. Apparently it was not Jesse who was hurt, rather, his sock monkey who “somehow” (according to Abe) got a hook off the Christmas tree stuck through his head. I had my suspicions that it might have been something along the lines of a failed attempt to make Jesse laugh at the sight of sock monkey as an ornament. Who knows. I didn’t ask how sock monkey ended up horrifying Jesse with an ornament hook stuck in his head. I simply agreed that sock monkey would be perfectly fine and happy now that he had a Band-Aid covering his wound. That was some quick thinking on Abe’s part as to how to remedy the situation.

And here is a little picture of the two men I have been writing about at our recent Christmas Eve party. I sure love these boys!

Oh, and one of Mike with little mister Scrawnykins just because it makes me want to cry at the helplessness of the tiny little fella. Surely someone could at least put a nice warm pair of pajamas on the little lad!

Unmowed Daisies

As we drove to my family’s Christmas Eve party last Saturday afternoon, Mike told me, briefly, about Brother Huband; an elderly neighbor whose lawn he used to mow. Brother Huband would always come out half way through the mowing and give Mike a root beer. They would sit on the porch and drink their root beers together before Mike would get back to the job of cutting the grass.

There was a small spot of wild Daisies right in the middle of the lawn that Brother Huband would never let Mike mow down. Out of place though they were, a young mother had once stopped and asked if she might take a picture of her baby in those flowers, and who knew what other mothers might stop by with the same sweet request.

Brother Huband is long gone, and who knows what brought the memory to Mike’s mind as we were driving off to celebrate a holiday far displaced from summer, lawn mowing and Daisies; but we do have a little baby just now and something about that memory made me want to cry, made me wish very much that I could go knock on Brother Huband’s door and ask to please use his perfect little spot of flowers to take some pictures of my own little baby. It would be nice to tell him that no other patch would possibly do.

My mom said something to me later about the veil seeming extra thin at Christmas time. I almost wonder if even the memories that others had while they lived here are more free to drift down and settle on our own little minds. Who knows, but this summer maybe I will go take some pictures of my baby in a Daisy patch and send that little moment skywards – hoping it might reach Brother Huband and bring him a smile.

CHRISTMAS VILLAGE!

I don’t think a single Christmas season passed, during my growing up years, with out a visit to Christmas Village. But I have somehow failed to take my kids there maybe ever? I keep thinking we must have gone at least a few times with them, but I don’t think we have.

Anyway, last night, we bundled up in hats and gloves and coats and drove down to meet Mike for the Christmas Village experience.

I didn’t actually look at many of the little house displays because it was so much fun taking pictures in the magic of all those Christmas lights. Had I been able to be leisurely and pose kids or even simply focus on what hey were up to, I think I could have gotten some of my favorites ever. Alas, there were crowds and Jesse was constantly trying to run off and get lost in them. Mike had Anders, so I was left to constant Jesse patrol. I couldn’t actually do anything other than snap quickly here and there before back to my vigilance. Still, it was fun capturing their first experience of something that is a very familiar childhood memory for me.

I was telling my sister beforehand that my clearest memories of Christmas Village always include coming home afterwards to that unique stinging in your feet and fingers that only happen when they are trying to unthaw after being horribly frozen. I am glad to report that my children got the complete experience as we were all, despite our efforts to bundle, frozen near solid by the end of the evening. Particularly my ungloved hands that couldn’t be in pockets as they were holding onto Jesse or the camera at all times!

Once again, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

My Kids’ Book Idea and Christmas Preparations

I have decided, after seeing all the pictures that Penny drew over the last few days (and then cut out and stuffed in plastic baggies, grocery bags, and her hand-me-down Spider Man lunch box from Abe – as she does with most of her art work), that I have all the inspiration I need among these drawings to write a very successful children’s book!

I haven’t decided on the exact story line or order in which I will use the pictures, but it will probably start with this very friendly oversized tiger-colored dog

stopping by this house to take this taped together boy on an adventure!

Probably, as they set off, they will come across a family who will invite them in to celebrate Christmas

(or, it might be that the snowman will be the one inviting them to celebrate Christmas).

BUT! That might not happen before or until they have travelled across an ocean, accompanied by a friendly whale (or possibly escaping a terrifying whale).

At some point, the boy will think, sadly, about how it is his birthday and, even though he is off on a grand adventure, he will be a little sad that there has been no mention made of the day being his. At that point, there will be, naturally, a stop for . . . A SURPRISE BIRTHDAY PARTY!

And then, and I haven’t actually worked how I’ll fit this bit in exactly yet, but it will definitely end with this VERY happy ending of a purple and pink dog being taken for a walk by . . . should I give it away? . . . a . . . JACK-O-LANTERN!

It will be good, won’t it!

So, moving on to Christmas preparations: They are pretty much complete!

And that, you will find . . . if indeed you ever do find yourself with six small children needing a good Christmas, is quite a feet! (Or is it a feat? I can’t remember). But, it is a feet/feat particularly when one of those children is a nursing newborn. Can you imagine trying to do all your Christmas shopping in the mad crowds with two toddlers and one baby in a big car seat? I know. I can’t imagine it either because I did pretty nearly none of our Christmas shopping!

Truly, Mike took it upon himself to do every single bit of it, and with no real direction at all from me! That is one extra bonus thing I like about him. He can be in charge of something as big as “our entire Christmas” and pull it off perfectly. He really is much better than I am at thinking of the very best things for any certain individual, and I am unbelievably grateful that I didn’t have to feel any of the stress of shopping in December crowds this year. I have put myself to faithfully wrapping the gifts, and I did put up our decorations (and made Mike spend a crazy wee bit of time with all the kids while I snuck out to get him something), but that is it, and it has been lovely. Lovely. Lovely.

But, speaking of decorations, the tree only got up very very recently (which seems a small shame as it will be coming down fairly soon), but with Mike working his usual late hours and spending other free hours getting gifts, we just didn’t get around to it until last week when Mike took the older five kids to pick one out. Then it sat in the back of our truck for several days getting snowed on, and looking lonely, and causing my friend to tell me that, as she drove by day after day, she would think, “Poor Nancy.” (As in, that poor woman, she has a new baby and Christmas is any day now, and there her Christmas tree sits each and every day I drive past her house).

It is up now though. The kids spent many minutes pounding in to Jesse the idea that the ginger bread ornaments and popcorn strands were “yucky” and not to be eaten (so, he avoided eating them, and , instead, took a hammer and began smashing them), and they also decorated each other and themselves about as much as they decorated the tree (breaking the prized “pickle” ornament in the process):

But, we are all set! Hip hip hooray! And a MERRY CHRISTMAS to you all!

It’s an Easy Cheese Christmas?

Our little Advent Calendar with its 24 tiny drawers is supposed to give the kids some new and exciting Christmassy thing to do each and every day. Instead it often merely outs me as a failing mother.

The kids have a paper stuck to the fridge with the agreed upon rotating order of who gets to open the box each day. Every morning they rush downstairs with a “Can we open the box now!? Where’s Daisy? It’s her turn to open the box! Wait! Goldie isn’t down, you can’t open the box with out her!” but very often there is actually NOTHING IN THE BOX!! Nothing. “I’ll have the box ready after school,” I’ll quickly say . . . but even then . . . sometimes in a mad dash to make something, anything seem Christmassy (with five minutes remaining before they burst in the door from school), I end up putting something like this in the box:

They did make some good designs though. True there was the moment when I had to call a full halt to the proceedings to announce that, “Nobody can cry if people can’t guess what your design is . . . because sometimes it’s hard for people to tell what pictures made of . . . cheese . . . are.” But then, all went well, and my designs were particularly oohed and ahhed over for their unbelievable true-to-lifeness, and everyone had a grand time, and of course it eventually degraded to kids making dots and saying things like, “It’s a nativity scene from very far away”.

At least it isn’t as bad as the time, several years ago, when they opened a drawer to find a paper that read, “Clean the house to get it all ready for Christmas”. Abe and Daisy still haven’t let me live that one down. Apparently there is no Christmas cheer in cleaning. And, an added bonus to this one: the excitement of having the rarely seen (and slightly creepy) squeeze cheese in our house entertained Goldie for several days as she used it on all sorts of things including Honey Comb cereal. (Penny and Jesse must still retain their early survival instincts as they wouldn’t touch the stuff and, in fact, seemed slightly terrified of it).

So . . . Merry Christmas? 

(Sock) Monkey Business

While it is true that Jesse and sock monkey are inseparable, spending nearly every moment of the day together, I can’t help but feel, after coming upon this scene the other night, that their relationship can only be described as . . . troubled.

All right, to be fair, I don’t think Jesse actually intended to cook his friend. Upon further questioning it was all sorted out. You see, Jesse loves loves to turn a laundry basket upside down and stand on it while the washing machine is going so he can lift the lid and watch the clothes spinning around, the water pouring in, and what have you. Only, last night, I took his basket away – banning him temporarily from the washing machine – because he tossed a wrench in while it was going (and he knows throwing other things in is forbidden but sometimes can’t resist). Anywho, after crying for some time over the loss of “washing machine watching” privilege, he, apparently, drag a stool to the microwave and started pretending that it was a washing machine. It turns out, as he told me while I snapped this picture, he was simply washing monkey.

This Morning At My House

For heaven’s sake. Throw a handful of Christmas lights behind your little baby early in the morning, snap their picture, and just see if those pictures don’t seem to somehow embody magic and the perfect wonder of having a little newborn to celebrate the holidays with! Sheesh. Just looking at these I want to run wake Anders from his nap and kiss his soft head over and over. And speaking of his head, I wonder if he might possibly end up with a bit of Daisy’s strawberry coloring? We’ll see.

Anywho, the rest of this morning:

For Keeps

I usually put anything worthwhile on my blog (as opposed to facebook) so I can have it “for keeps” in my little printed books (which I am totally caught up on by the by). However, these two moments were captured with my cell phone . . . which  can load a picture straight to facebook, so I put these two pictures (and the following captions) there instead. Anywho, sorry to double you all up on stuff you’ve done seen already (I said those last three words like I was some sort of a backwoods feller), but I just want these two little images captured in my blog books:

"Jesse, it's not a toy, and it's not a hat. It's my lamp shade. Now put it back." No one knows for sure how many times I have said this. The good news? Clearly he will be the life of all future parties he attends.

 

My poor little asthmatic. When I see him like this I kind of forget about all the broken cupboards, flooded basements and other destruction this little fella causes.

‎. . . oh yah, and all the lamp shades he wears on his head. I forget about those too. I love him.

There. Safe and sound here on my blog.

TWO MONTH BIRTHDAY!

tWO MONTHS IS A BIG DEAL. Oops. Just looked up. It appears I still had caps lock on. Well, as I was saying; two months. Big stuff. Until then, baby is “weeks old”, now he is old enough to be referred to mostly in terms of “months” (which lasts clear until age 2 when they start being “years old” – or, for some lazier sorts, 1 1/2, when they figure they no longer need to bother with thing like: 18, 19 or 21 months and can just say 1 1/2 until they say 2). Anyway, that is neither here nor there. What is certainly here AND there is that Anders has reached two months this very day!

Yes, son, it is so.

Beyond the sadness of losing total newborn status, I really look forward to babies reaching this stage. They smile consistently and begin to have a schedule. They somewhat consistently respond to my efforts to teach them to fall asleep on their own in a crib. They eat on a more predictable three hour time table; and mostly, it is just that it is me who, by about two months, begins to feel like life is normal again. I’m busy and it is a tougher thing than it was when I had no newborn to hold while doing things like frying meat for tacos, or bathing other kids, or washing dishes, or . . . typing one handed blog posts, but I feel like it is my new life. Like I am not floundering and unsure of what on earth I am supposed to do.  It’s a good stage for both of us to have reached.

Here Goldie greets Anders to the morning that dawned on his two month birthday:

Daisy

I am so happy we named our girl that. It is so bright and cheery and perfect for her. I love her. I especially love the slight bit of . . . something about her smile. I don’t even know the word for it. Shyness? Sweetness? I am not really sure, but Mike and I are often nudging each other to look at our Daisy during a happy part in a show, or when someone is complimenting her just because we love the smile she wears during those moments.

Kids Are Cool

Not only because they would think to make a weapon for one of their action figures with a paper clip and some tape, but because they would then make their sister figure out what they had used to fashion that weapon by playing hang man.

Goldie Emma

Truly I don’t know if I have ever known anyone with such a kind soul..