Blast from the Past

Littles likes looking at old pictures during breakfast if we're not getting to Skype with someone. Evidently, he is not satisfied by the scintillating conversation provided by Tiny and his mom. Anyway, I like to show him pictures from the same time of year but a year or two earlier. The fabulous thing about this is that since Tiny is exactly two years younger than Littles, I get to do the whole, "See, when you were Tiny's age, you did such and such." It's fun.

I'm rambling, but not purposefully. Mostly because Littles keeps coming in here to put stickers on me and Tiny insists on climbing on the couch and threatening to jump while grinning at me cheekily, and that's extremely distracting.

So this morning, I was showing Littles pictures from Easter two years ago, which was a great Easter. On Good Friday, the Man came home from work and said, "Let's go to the beach!" So we threw our stuff in bags and drove to the beach where he proposed to me so many years ago and the spontaneity was almost as wonderful as being at the ocean again. I showed Littles this picture:

And this picture:

And told him about how the Man and I had the hardest time keeping him from nose diving into the icy cold waves.

And how I got food poisoning while we were there, and that we somehow didn't realize that was the first signs of Tiny in evidence.

And we made it home to celebrate Easter with our church family (and man, I miss all that green and the fact that the ocean was only two hours away--and isn't that little boy adorable?)

Here we all are. Tiny got cut out of the picture, but in our defense, we didn't know he was in existence until two weeks later.

Can I tell you that I am just as thrilled to be celebrating Easter this year, green or no green, ocean or no ocean, because Christ's love does not change and the incredible gift of who He is and what He did is just as true and exciting and relevant today as it is yesterday?

I'm hoping to have some new Easter pictures to put up that actually include Tiny, who is only one day older than Littles was in that picture and has significantly less hair but is just as cute in his own way. But first, I need to get Saturday's show on the road.

Thanks for joining me on my walk down memory lane. Sometimes it's good to remember the grace and joy of past gifts, even as we celebrate new ones, like purple tulips and homemade bread and the chance to serve.

Lies from the Laundry Basket

Laundry baskets are the worst.

Not, of course, when they're actually holding dirty laundry--then I feel like they're serving some kind of useful purpose--but when they've been refilled with a bunch of neatly folded, clean laundry. Then they are the devil. Because at that point, all they do is whisper sweet seduction in my ear:

"You don't have to put these clothes away."
"I can be your pretend extra dresser. You know that would be so much more fun. And so much less effort."
"Your husband uses the recliner as an extra closet. You deserve to be in this relationship with me."
"Putting away clothes is only for boring perfectionists. Embrace your creative, artistic self and keep your clothes on display, off-set by the clean plastic lines that define my style."

My laundry basket is crazy, man.

And that's why, when I am in my right mind, I fold the laundry and leave it in stacks on our bed. Because at some point I'll realize that I either have to put the laundry away or sleep on the couch. And I just don't like bunking with the dog.

Crayoned Wodehouse

Our masterpiece

We've had a lot of at home time lately, as I'm aware I've told you all repeatedly. The truth is, if I can force you to listen to my trauma, then it's like I'm sharing it, and sharing always means you have less of something, so essentially, I'm decreasing my level of trauma by shoving it down your throats. Don't you feel sorry for me? And aren't you grateful?

Anyway, we've had a lot of at home time lately, and the boys and I are exhausting our usual store of things to do around the house. Which led to pinterest art projects--which were almost, but hopefully not quite, pinterest fails--and fun with crayons! At the very least, the boys were entertained, and I've discovered how to hold Tiny in my lap while melting a crayon with a hair dryer. Someone should give me credit for that.

In the meantime, I've been trying to take it easy myself, since I don't want to get sick either. So yesterday while the boys played, I sat with them, oohed and aahed at appropriate times, and read some P. G. Wodehouse. I love Jeeves and Wooster. I have loved Jeeves and Wooster for a very long time. I plan to love Jeeves and Wooster for the rest of my life. So when the Man lovingly downloaded the kindle app on the smart phone he forced me to buy and then painstakingly walked my technologically challenged self through how to use it, I asked him to find some Wodehouse for me. Free Wodehouse, because I don't like paying for things. It's an illness.

We found My Man Jeeves available for a grand total of $0.00, and I set to reading. Turns out it's a collection of short stories, which is perfect for my current attention span and the fact that I rarely have more than 5 consecutive moments in which to sit down and read. And I loved being back with Bertie Wooster and his proper English valet, the inimitable Jeeves. We hadn't spent time together since college, and, these days, that seems like a long time ago.

As I read I could hear Hugh Laurie's fantastic voice foppishly narrating the tale. For those of you who think Hugh Laurie is an American actor whose greatest accomplishment was playing House, I pity you. And I will be frank enough to say that in this one case I find the TV series (Jeeves and Wooster, not House) just as wonderful as, if not better than, the books (...waiting for lightning to strike...). Now if only Stephen Fry would come be our family's valet...

All that to say, I've been thoroughly enjoying My Man Jeeves, though I was disappointed that not all the stories are about Jeeves and Wooster (and why name a short story collection My Man Jeeves when Jeeves is in only half the stories?). At the very least, I'm now wanting to say such thrilling phrases as "what ho!", "jolly chap," and "old scout" with startling regularity. I also discovered that "streets ahead" is a legitimate British saying, so Pierce was wrongfully if hilariously mocked in that one episode of Community. And then last night when I was getting back in bed after changing Tiny's vomit-encrusted bedding, I heard my internal voice grumble in the Man's general direction, "The bally blighter's pinched the covers again."

Either I'm losing it after ten days of house arrest or the crayon fumes are getting to me (do crayons have fumes?) or I've been reading too much Wodehouse.

Studying

In the in between, right now, I'm studying. The in between of taking care of sick children that is.

Studying a little bit of this and that, and I'm hoping one day, when I'm not recovering from ten days of nasty and gearing up for however many more, to share it with you. If you'll just be patient and hang in there with me, I want to meet you on the other side of this.

In the meantime, a few blurbs for you:

• Do not teach your children to sing. Not anything. Because if you innocently teach them the words to "Rejoice in the Lord always! And again I say rejoice!", they will sing it at you after a long day of cleaning up diarrhea when you have retreated into well-deserved grumpiness. Then you will want to throttle them.
• "Order is the shape upon which beauty depends," says Pearl Buck. Most of the time I agree in my obsessive need for structure, neatness, and scheduling, but what about the need to revel in a wild storm? wind-swept hair? a tangle of what some call "weeds"?
• Do you ever ask yourself who you really are, at the end of the day? Am I really a mother or am I just going through the motions of parenting? Am I really a homemaker or am I just sweeping the crumbs under the kitchen rug? Am I really a writer or am I just shoving words together in the hopes that someone is listening?
• In the course of the gazillion loads of laundry, I accidentally pinked our two cream coloured pillow cases. They are a lovely, perfect shell pink now. They are just crying out for creativity, and there will (hopefully) be more on that later. Unfortunately, in that same load of wash was one of the Man's very masculine t-shirts that had some manly saying written on it in what used to be white lettering. He has graciously not said a word. In my defense, this is the first load of laundry I've ever pinked...and I blame Little's red-trimmed Thomas shirt. Thomas pinked the laundry!
• Saturday night I took the boys and dog for a walk, and we pointed out spring nests and loose down feathers drifting beside the creek. I love learning as you live.

On that note, taps has played and I need sleep before I attack whatever tomorrow brings. More crackers, applesauce, and toast, I anticipate. My military brats do love that BRAT diet.

Spring Sick

It's been a long week. And just as we were seeing the light at the end of the tunnel with Littles, it seems that Tiny has descended into a violent vortex of vomiting. The best thing is that he is a trauma hugger, and throwing up is extremely traumatic for a fourteen month old. Needless to say, there have been multiple outfit changes for everyone involved.

In the meantime, I've been taking joy in the little things that get us through. Like, the get well card that came from Little's class at Mother's Day Out. You should've seen his face light up. And running into three different friends while out walking yesterday afternoon (real live conversations with people who aren't threatening to throw up on me! The novelty factor was unparalleled...). But mostly, I've been enjoying spring.

We've been kind of cabin fevered since we don't want to spread germs: no library, no play dates, worst of all, no playground. So we've been spending a lot of time in the yard enjoying the sunshine and going for long walks to find signs of spring. Tiny gleefully busted out the year's first pair of sandals:

We had a muffin picnic in the backyard:

And we discovered the first tree on base to burst into bud. At least, we maintain that it was the first tree. We then broke off a couple branches to bring home so we could have a little Spring in the house along with all the sickness. The Man thought we were horrible, defacing the tree like that for our own enjoyment, especially it being the First Tree on Base to Bloom, you know, but there are so many branches and the two we took were very little and how many other crazy people do you know who would take one for themselves?

At any rate, the moral of the story was encompassed in the first moments of my day: in the middle of de-barfing the crib, I happened to check my phone's verse for the day, and it read: This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it! So I'm going to get on that. Right now. Seriously. Right. Now. Barfy babies and all.

Being the MOM

How you like me now?
Check out my super snazzy photography, man.

Sometimes I like to remind myself of who I really am underneath my secret identity of the MOM. This week, being the MOM has deserved all capitals. That 24 hour virus that hit over the weekend has turned out to not be a 24 hour virus. Add to that, the fact that Littles tried to give himself a concussion (and failed) on Monday, flooded the bathroom with toilet water (allegedly an accident) on Tuesday, and relapsed with barfiness on Wednesday (wait, that's today!), and I am the MOM.

Also known as the BOSS.

And the AWESOME.

And this is just my day job, guys. When I take off my nerdy glasses and slick back my hair, that's when I really get to work.

At the very least, I am seeing that glass as half empty. The benefits of having a child with the stomach flu (or whatever it is that he has) are legion. I have now culled the herd of plastic grocery bags that were taking over my kitchen. The grout on the bathroom floor has been religiously sanitized. I have the theme song to Thomas memorized and in my head 24/7. I'm not gaining weight from resting my knee since all the food I cook still smells like barf to me. What else? Oh yeah, everyone's sheets are very, very clean since they have had to be washed multiple times. And the list goes on. It's a pot of gold, I tell you!

By the way, I have now reached the point where I can do eight full loads of laundry in a day and not lose my mind. Somebody get this girl an award!

Anyway, I do have serious stuff to write in here later, but I'm saving it for a day when I wouldn't rather be eating chocolate chips and watching JAG.

One final note, and he'll probably kill me for this, but I'd like to make a special shout out to my side kick and partner-in-crime, the Robin to my domestic Batman, the Ricky to my Lucy, the Barney Fife to my Andy Taylor (haha, just kidding on that last one): The Man sure had my back the last few days. And I appreciate him. The End.

Sick Sunday

We stayed home from church today with a sick Littles. There was an exquisite amount of barfing going on. Well, most of it happened last night, and then the stomach problems progressed from there. But here we are today: Littles has been curled up in bed watching Thomas with a trash can ready for our next excitement, and the rest of us are just enjoying having more family here (the Man's brothers and dad). I wasn't going to write, but then we all sat down to watch Hook together while the boys nap (and hopefully sleep off whatever yucky virus is going around), and all of a sudden I started wondering what other people did when they were sick as kids. The Man watched loads of Disney movies, but since we didn't have a TV growing up, I remember lots of books. Lots and lots of books. In all honesty, growing up in our family was no fun until you learned to read, which is why we all learned so quickly. Anyway, point being, what did you do when you were little and sick? Now that I'm big--can you tell I'm watching a movie about Peter Pan--when I get sick all I want to do is sleep and con my family into waiting on me hand and foot. Why does that not work better? Oh yeah, I'm a mom of toddlers.

Informational aside: it's really hard to get vomit chunks out of a mattress cover. There must be something about the material that causes things to stick. Aren't you glad I shared this with you?

Anyway, last two things. May I show you my new throw pillows? My wonderful in-laws re-gifted some pillow cases I'd given them and they were just the thing I needed for the couch. Now I only have four more hideously fringed pillows to replace. I'm not much of a decorator, but I try to make our home cozy and functional. Picking up shedding fringe does not equate functional. I know there are pictures of said fringe pillows elsewhere in the blog if you feel the deep need to go look for them. In fact, in the past, that fringe provided a really ugly head of hair for a bald newborn Tiny. I say that like he has hair now, which is barely true. Point being that I love my new pillows and they make the living room a much happier place. It drives me crazy that the big couch's pillows don't match yet, but one step at a time, right?

And lastly, I know I've been talking about the garden a lot lately, but it makes me happy, and I also know I've been including a lot of blurry phone pictures lately, but I'm still getting a hang of the new camera phone. But here's a picture of our new flowers in all their happiness and joy. Yay for spring! Yay for rain! Yay for a kid with a green thumb! (Incidentally, I had a dream that my Pathetic House Plant burst into luxurious blooms under Little's tender ministrations--if only this would come true.) At any rate, we had more bulbs push brilliant green spikes up through the dirt last night, probably checking in on Littles who is the only one who remembers to water. It was fun to tell Littles this morning that there were more flowers waiting for him to dump more water on them. Spring makes even the sick smile.