Like jewelry or something...

Colby just finished eating yogurt. I looked up to see that he'd upended the bowl to try and get the last molecules out with his tongue. He had yogurt all over his eyebrows, his mouth, and his nose. I said, "You have your yogurt all over the place!" and Kailin said, "Yeah, like jewelry or something! Silly monkey!" It was really cute and silly and it made my heart (and my face) smile. I love that girl!

Midnight wakeup call...

I heard it in the night, in my dream, and then in my reality. A panicked, somewhat terrified, urgent call..."Mama!!! MAMA!!!!! MOMMY!!!!!" It was Colby and I'm pretty sure he had a bad dream. I went into their room and fumbled to his bed and picked him up. He latched on and clung to me the way you see a little chimpanzee cling to it's keeper. It was solid and kind of desperate. He nuzzled into my neck the way that only my darling son does, and relaxed immediately. I sat down in the rocker with him and started to rub his back - up under his shirt - skin on skin. In that moment in the middle of the night it occurred to me that right now I am Colby's only mama. I'm the only mama he knows. When he thinks of mama he thinks only of me and that won't last much longer. I'm okay with the day when he truly understands that he has a Taiwan mama, but it's kind of nice to live a little bit in his ignorance when he doesn't have questions running through his head about why he has a Taiwan mama and if she loves him like I do - or maybe even if I love him like she would have. So as my boy lay on my chest last night with his sweet, hot breath on my neck, I said a little prayer of thanks. Thankful to be his mom and thankful that his other mom chose to share him with me. I'm not always the nicest mama in the middle of the night and I admit it, but in times like last night, I'm grateful that God gives me the strength and patience to be the mom I wish I could always be and the wisdom to be thankful for it.

Me dood it, ool gone, and RIDE ON!!!!

I've been meaning to blog for awhile about the prevalence of "dude" in our house. It's not so much "dude" actually as "dood". As in, "ME dood it!!!!" should you try to help Colby with something or "Bubbee dood it!" if he's trying to get himself out of trouble. It's cute. Kailin never used dood or "me" incorrectly, but both of the little boys do. I know I should be correcting them. I promised myself I'd start as soon as the bigger kids go off to school, but somehow "dood" is just to irresistibly cute to put a stop to just now.

Colby also seems to have, in some cases, some sort of European accent. I've been struggling with how to articulate how it sounds, and "ool gone" is about all I can come up with. It's definitely not all or awl or ole....it's ool. I don't know where he picked it up, but I find it nearly as endearing as "dood" and that one's not even technically wrong, so I'm letting it be!!

Lastly, Colby's been having a hard time this summer. Dawson learned how to pedal really early in the summer as did the little girl next door (who's not even two yet). He WANTED to do it. We worked and worked on it and I tried pushing his little legs from the top and pushing the bike itself so he could feel how it should feel with his feet going around. No luck. I tried being in front of the bike and sort of pulling his feet around on the pedals so that the right leg muscles would work. Nothing. He looked the other kids and then tried to effect what he saw. I could see him struggling with it and it was a testament to his patience (unlike his sister). He is VERY proficient at foot pedaling (Flintstones style) his little bike and is faster doing that than most kids who pedal. Yesterday, though, was finally his day! He has a long way to go and still gets frustrated, but he pedaled a good long piece all on his own. Of course he celebrated by screaming, "Mommy - look!! Me dood it!!!"

Day 3

I'd invited my mom up for the day on Sunday (long before the catastrophic events of Saturday) and I was glad. I don't ever get to spend as much time with her as I'd like and this was a good opportunity to share the day with her. We played with the kids and then had lunch. While the kids napped, Mom and I watched "New in Town" with Renae Zelweger and Harry Connick, Jr. It was good and it gave me a hankering for some tapioca. When the kids got up we were planning to head outside for a bit, but Mother Nature had other plans. It rained cats and dogs for a good long while and my garden was glad for it! Mom offered to take us out for dinner so we packed off for Culver's and the kids enjoyed it. It was clear to me that we rarely take them out when Kailin said, in disbelief, "and we're going to eat HERE?" Sad, but true!

I needed a few things at the grocery store so we stopped there on the way home and my Saint of a mom loaded the kids into a truck cart and drove them around while I shopped in peace*. (*peace being relative as I was still able to HEAR my kids half way across the store....sometimes with happy noises and other times....well.....use your imagination). Home and kids in bed. Another day down and I'm still alive. I daresay it was a good day!

Day 2

Houston we have....complete and utter system failure!!!

I awoke on day 2 of my adventure at 4:30am. Why? Because my wonderful, caring, FORGETFUL husband failed to turn his alarm off. It wouldn't have been a big deal at all except that I was a. petrified that it was going to wake either the children or my friend Katie and b. I've never been able to figure out Steve's alarm clock. If you happen to (fumbling in the dark) touch ANY button other than the correct one, it irrevocably sets the sleep function and/or a second alarm. I have been unable to find a way to turn either one off once engaged. Therefore, I now found myself fumbling around behind the bed for the plug so that I could unplug the blasted thing. The only problem with that is that is that the wall behind our bed is directly behind Colby's head and I was still living in fear of waking him up! I noticed I had a headache, but determined that a trip to the medicine closet was not worth the chance of waking the rest of the crowd. I should've chanced it!

By the time I awoke "for real" at 6:30, my head was POUNDING and I felt a little like tossing my cookies. Not a good way to start the day!! Things were going along as well as can be expected under that circumstance. I was due to host one of Kailin's friends for a few hours that morning while her mom was at work and I figured it would be good to have some entertainment for Kailin. The girls soon reported to me that Peanut had vomited all over the floor. Thankfully it was on the linoleum, but it was still a royal mess. No sooner did I have that cleaned up than a report of Sugar vomiting came in. Seriously?! BOTH dogs in one morning? Sugar did it on the carpet (of course) although it was less of a monstrosity of a mess than Peanut's contribution. Fine....moving on....going to have a good rest of the day. Or not.

A neighbor came to the back door to let me know that we could pick the raspberries of another neighbor. A kind gesture. Peanut's reaction was NOT kind. When I finally had him convinced that the house was not actually under siege, he repaid me for the relief of duty by relieving himself all over the kitchen floor. I was NOT pleased.

I made the kids some early, light lunch and we were due to head off to a welcome home party for a friend's son. My head was pounding, but we'd agreed to go and I figured it might be a better distraction to get them out of the house than to keep them home. I had everyone loaded into the car and was just buckling Kailin into her seat when she accidentally jabbed me in the eye with the comb for her dog and it hurt soooo bad!! It wasn't until minutes later that I realized my contact was gone. For anyone who doesn't know, I wear gas permeable contacts and I don't have any extras as a result. I was just...well....reduced to tears at the thought of having to wear my glasses (and thus no sunglasses) to drive 1.5 hours each way to and from the party with a smashing headache. I searched EVERYWHERE for the contact to no avail. I finally ended up pulling myself together and driving down the road with my sunglasses perched atop my eyeglasses. I was a spectacular sight!

I was due to go to Julie and Julia with my friend Katie and let it slip to Kailin that Caleb was coming to play. She immediately launched into a mantra of "I don't want you to go" that literally lasted til the very moment she fell asleep in the car on the way home and began again the moment her eyes opened. I tried reasoning with her that I would come back just like I always do. I went so far as to ask her if she was going to drive away to school every day this fall. She said no. I was nervous that we were headed down that road when she said with a smile, "the BUS DRIVER will drive, Mom. You're silly. I can't drive!" I modified my question and she said that yes, she was going to go off to school every day. I asked if she was going to come home every day and she said yes, she was going to. I asked if she promised. She said yes. I asked if I should stand at the bus stop every day and wail loudly that she shouldn't go. She saw right through me and said, "No mom... and that's different!" and then launched back into the mantra. Hrmph.

I felt bad for poor Caleb, but not bad enough to stay home!! The movie was great and the rest of the night was uneventful. The day didn't give me much hope overall for the week that lay ahead, but I figured it really couldn't be much worse, and that gave me a strange sense of peace.

Day 1

Steve left on Friday for a backpacking trip to Montana. Although I know I can exist without my husband, I don't often choose to. As sappy as it sounds, he does complete me and he is my sanity at the end of the day and the one I want to talk to and lean on when I'm not feeling like a good mom or when I just plain need strength. My whole world feels off kilter when we are arguing, so I have to honestly say that as much as I was excited for him to go off and do something he loves and see the wonders of God's hand, I had a lot of anxiety about how I'd do here at home without him for a whole week (we never last more than a few hours arguing, so a week seems like an eternity to have my world off kilter). My anxiety was a little amplified because I started watching 2 new girls today and that's always a trying time and moreover until school starts, I'll have six kiddos under six three of the days he's gone. I think that's kind of an insane undertaking under the best of circumstances, but with Steve gone....

Anyway, I"m counting Friday as day one of my journey through single parenthood. It was fairly uneventful, actually, and that was a good thing. Did some school shopping for Kailin and then settled in to wait for my friend Katie to arrive. She was due to bring me 30lbs of frozen blueberries I'd ordered and we have a monthly yoga lesson together (she is studying to be a yoga instructor and stays with us once a month to attend class). Unfortunately, Katie's arrival brought the realization that I'd wrongly assumed that the 30lbs would come in a horizontal box. Not so much. The box didn't fit in my freezer in any orientation, so I was madly scooping blueberries into bags and containers before they thawed (they were individually frozen and I wanted to keep them that way), when Katie came in and announced that she'd just figured out that her suitcase didn't make the trip with her. She is short and petite and I am...NOT. Borrowing clothes was an impossibility so I sent her off to our 24 hour Walmart for replacements. Thankfully, all situations were handled and everyone came out relatively unscathed. No yoga this month, but at least I still have the frozen blueberries and she didn't have to attend class naked. High hopes for Saturday!

Lights, camera, CHEEEEEEEEE!

We missed Colby's two year portraits as a result of a botched session at Portrait Innovations, poor scheduling on my part, his surgery, and then additional poor scheduling on my part. Kailin was due for her four year portraits and I was at my last Friday off for the foreseeable future (I started watching two new kids today and they're five day a week kids). On Thursday last week I attempted to schedule a portrait session with our local Sears (as my other choices were much further away and I wanted to be sure to get the kids down at a reasonable time so that we could all see Steve off on his big trip) for Friday morning. No go. NOTHING open. "Okay, I'm alone all week with the kids so I'll grab something for after 4 next week", I thought. Not so much. NOTHING available. They had a 5:15 appointment that day, so I snagged it and then started throwing clothes in the laundry for the kids.

Colby's not much of a smiler lately so I wasn't very optimistic about what we'd capture, but figured it's still documenting him as he is right now and went for it anyway. Of course, as children will do anytime they're given the opportunity, he proved me to be a liar. He was so cooperative and at least somewhat smiley. I'll take it. We got some good pictures and I had Kailin put her beloved "Whitey" in some of them and got Colby with the ever present "Kiki". The last time I tried to take their picture together was a disaster and the time before that (last summer) the best we got was one of them sort of near each other and sort of smiling. I'm pleased with the results overall, and will head back to Sears again.

The only thing that displeased me greatly is that they've finally discovered that the CD they used to sell you for $19.99 is worth a lot more than that and it now starts at $130 and comes down in price according to how many portraits you buy. It's still worth it in the end, but good grief that was some sticker shock!!

The formatting here kind of stinks, but I'm done with trying to fix it!!