Absolutely Luxurious

It's been the kind of month that's required frequent self-medication with chocolate chips. 

The twins decided that sleep was for lesser babies, and we have all spun into a vortex of exhaustion and insanity.  I hesitate to say that things are improving only because I'm a firm believer in the sleep jinx, and I don't want this to backfire on me, but today, I found myself with both the time and energy to engage in what suddenly has become a luxury: writing.

Everyone is happier with a little sleep.
And a few chocolate chips.

Also a luxury these days: eating my own meal without having to share with Bee and Bruiser who have suddenly decided that real people food is the most thrilling excitement of their lives. Please don't judge my lack of an appropriate introduction to food. It's hard to diligently space out perfectly pureed fruits and vegetables when Bee is literally grabbing my turkey sandwich and shoving it in her face.

This kid tried (and failed) to steal my frozen yogurt.
It was a low point in her day,
and I'll be honest: it is so hard to say no to this face.

Anyway, through all of this, I'm learning a lot about expectations. And hope. And how easy it is to think completely irrational thoughts when I'm over tired and there's been a baby screaming bloody murder in both ears. And that's been good, you know? Also, it's been really nice to know that the Man has my back through all of this. He's a good partner in crime. And he doesn't judge me when I say really mean things in my sleep (which I do when I am over tired--and no, there is no logical explanation for this).

Here is Littles sporting the bite mark of
the wild Tiny, native only to the jungles of Frizlandia.
I told you, we've all gone a bit insane.

But the twins put themselves to sleep tonight without at least half an hour of walking the floor with them praying desperately for them to just pass out, and so I am celebrating by being here. With you. And some typed words.

The fact that I'm blurry is not due to Little's camera skills.
Nope, I was literally starting to fuzz around the edges
from lack of sleep. Seriously. No lie.

Also, we are moving in two months! And I thought that you would be excited about that too. Especially if I manage to produce a few completely incomprehensible posts about boxes and moving trucks and road trips and doing a Permanent Change of Station. Yes, fifteen months counts as "permanent".

All that to say: hurray! For the little luxuries life affords. Like sleep and writing and turkey sandwiches and the Man and precious children who help sand down the rough edges just a smidge.

{I'm trying to include a video of the twins laughing their heads off at my sister and brother-in-law--whose visit has been a big luxury. Posting this video has been the bane of my last twenty four hours, and I'm pretty sure it's still not working. So tell me if it actually is!}

Joy Choices

We were in the middle of our Sunday afternoon drive tradition when I told the Man I'd always wondered what wheat felt like. He grew up in the country, while I grew up in the concrete jungle, so he's starting to get used to me saying things like this.

It was a somewhat enforced Sunday afternoon drive since we'd had a rough night with the twins and a ensuing nap battles, and they had finally consented to fall asleep in the car, and there was no way we were messing with that. So the boys sipped strawberry limeades, and we drove through fields of gold brown Oklahoma wheat, and the Man and I talked about big things and little things and wheat.

He said wheat was kind of fuzzy.

"Really?" I replied.

And he pulled the car over to the side of the road so I could jump out quickly and find out for myself.

It wasn't fuzzy. It was prickly and proud, and one of the little seeds rolled out into my hand, and I crunched it between my teeth, and it tasted like joy.

The Man asked me that night what my favourite part of the day was, and I told him it was when he had pulled the car over so I could experience the feel of wheat first hand. 

Turtle number two and happy boys

Three weeks ago, before the Man was home, the boys and I woke up to an empty Saturday after a long week of grumpiness, tantrums, and missing Daddy. When the Man is gone, it's always the weekends that are the hardest. During the week, we can pretend he's at work, stuck at the squadron for this or that, but when the bleary weekend comes, the reality that he really is gone always hits again.

I sat on the guest bed in the nursery, feeding the twins with my eyes closed and my head tilted back against the wall. I wanted nothing more than to climb back in bed and get another few hours of sleep. Instead, I decided to pile the kids in the car, and we went to pick up donuts. When we got home, we grabbed a blanket, the stroller, and a to go mug full of coffee and walked ourselves and our donuts down to the creek to look for turtles.

The donuts disappeared even more quickly than usual, and the boys could barely wait for me to finish my coffee so that we could go turtle hunting.

We found 6 turtles that morning, and I got a great work out off-roading with the twins' stroller.

I wanted nothing more than to quit that morning when I woke up. We were so close to the end, with the Man's return just around the corner, and all I had to do was grit my teeth and survive. Making what at first seemed like a choice that would just wear me out more brought me my favourite memory from the entire 8 weeks of separation.

Some women go to the gym

Yesterday was another nap war with a few side skirmishes in congestion and crankiness. Every choice had to be purposeful.

Bang my head against the wall or bathe screaming twins?
Complain or cook dinner?
Cry or cuddle babies?

It was a one step at a time day. And there were moments that I lost it. But when I found myself taking a picture with both twins strapped to my front while I stir fried beef and green peppers and brokered train deals between the boys, and I was somehow still laughing? Well, I knew I'd won. At least that day.

Sure, I was dog tired and I could feel my spine compressing vertebrae by vertebrae (I've always wanted to experience life as a short person), but there was still joy, and I had found it. I had made one tiny joy choice after another, so no matter how difficult the day became it never turned into a bad day.

In retrospect, it's easy for me to over emphasize what I need to live a joy-filled life. Even when I think I'm being low maintenance (the words "all I need is a cup of coffee, some time to write, and the twins to take a nap at the same time" may or may not be my new mantra), I'm still asking for more than I really need.

You see, I already have everything I need.

I've already been given every spiritual blessing in Christ. It says so in Ephesians 1:3.

So if I can just remember that, and then ask Him for the strength to take the next step, to make the next small joy choice, there never have to be bad days, even when there are challenging ones.

Sometimes, it's about pulling the car to the side of the road (all the while risking waking the babies) so that you can pluck a handful of glowing life and taste it on your tongue.

Sometimes, it's about donuts and coffee and turtles and the early morning sunlight on the laughing faces of your children--but please let the coffee be caffeinated.

And sometimes, it's about getting to the end of a day where the twins traded off screaming for four hours straight, and knowing it was still a good day because of the many, many blessings that I was able to see because in Christ I could choose joy.

Pictures and The Princess Bride

Let's be honest: I've fallen off the blogging band wagon. So my goal for today was to write something, anything, on here. And as luck would have it, I think it's mostly going to be captions for a massive amount of pictures. So let's get this done!

Incidentally, the Man and I watched The Princess Bride this weekend, and I threatened to do a post that consisted solely of Princess Bride quotations. I don't really plan to follow through with that, but…don't be surprised if a couple random bits pop up.

"Are all these children yours? Gracious, you have been productive." <--Name that quote. And no, it's not from The Princess Bride.

Littles took on a friend of ours with pugil sticks. He's a natural.

See? Jonathan didn't rig this at all...

My mom is the best Skype picture taker ever. She loves to take pictures of me and the kids while we're eating breakfast and then send them to us. Normally, I'm super grateful to see pictures of my bleary eyed, bed-headed, pre-coffee self, but then she sent me this picture, and I suddenly became glad for her trigger finger and the Little Man's inability to get through breakfast without Skyping with Neni.

Incidentally, for those of you who can't tell the difference, that's Bee, not Bruiser. Pajamas are equal opportunity in our family.

The boys are starting the twins early with the lego mania.

"Beautiful, isn't it? It took me half a life time to invent it."

"The chocolate coating makes it go down easier. But you have to wait fifteen minutes for full potency. And you can't go swimming after for at least an hour."

"I challenge you to a battle of wits."

"Oh my sweet Wesley! What have I done?" (I'm sorry, Bruiser. I couldn't help myself. It had to be done.)

"You mean you wish to surrender to me? Very well. I accept!"

I am waiting for Vizzini! I mean, Daddy.

I confess that this post has just drowned itself in Princess Bride quotations. Also, I promise that Tiny was much happier once the Man got home, but this was his first day of the wonderful sick that proceeded to infect every single one of our children over the last two weeks.

Tell me those are not the cutest babies you have ever seen.

Next come twenty different gazillion pictures from the Little Man's pre-school graduation.

Bee was absolutely enthralled waiting for the ceremony to get rolling.

The Man is going to kill me for all of the following pictures of him, but it's just so much fun to be able to take pictures of him instead of just sending pictures to him. Plus, he makes Bruiser look good. And vice versa.

There's Littles getting his "diploma". The graduation was nautically themed--personally, I think those sailor caps are significantly more flattering than mortarboards.

There's our little graduate.

If we splice together this picture...

…and this picture, all of our family would be present. Minus Tiny's eyes and Bee's face, of course. Pictures are hard, man.

Bee to Bruiser: "It's not my fault being the biggest and the strongest. I don't even exercise!"

Still Bee to Bruiser: You WILL hold my hand!

This is how the boys spent our rainy Memorial Day weekend. It was fantastic. Someone needs to tell me that my tent making skills are epic. I should list that on my resume.

This is how the Man spent his rainy Memorial Day weekend. He should list that on his resume.

It's been a wonderful five months with these rocker babies.

And evidently, it really wore them out.

Me too, guys, me too.

Weeding Hope

{I've been sitting on this post for almost three weeks now--seriously--because I haven't come to a good conclusion for it, and that's embarrassing. In consequence, I haven't written anything else either, which is also embarrassing. There is no logic to this, I'm aware. Anyway, in an attempt to move on with my life, I'm going to post this and hope I can get back to writing other things. Maybe one of you can find a way to tie this up a bit more neatly for me.}

In preparation for the Man's mother visiting a few weeks ago, I decided to tackle a few projects around the house that had been thumbing their noses at me. Don't worry, the house is now back to its usual state of post-twin disarray (yogurt finger smudges are the new wall decor and crayon scribbles the new faux carpet).

The Little Man being well aware of my driven tendencies, decided to get a jump on the work load by tackling some yard work while I was finishing my morning coffee. He came cheerily in from the backyard around the time I was deciding that I might actually want to face life and informed me that he'd taken care of the weeding for me.

Pause for effect.

Now, I will be the first to tell you that our yard is more weeds than anything else. In fact, it is more honest to say that we mow the weeds than mow the grass. So the sinking feeling that I had in my gut was completely unwarranted. There were certainly plenty of weeds to pull. But I've learned to trust the Mother Instinct over the last few years. It doesn't stop certain things from happening (like when Tiny dumped the entire bottle of baby wash that I had just bought) but catching my children in the act sometimes minimizes the damage. Anyway, the Mother Instinct instructed me to throw on a pair of shoes and go survey my newly "weeded" back yard.

Sure enough, littering the "grass" were all of the tulip bulbs that the Man had painstakingly planted two years ago.

I thought I was going to throw up.

And so that you are aware that this was an extreme over reaction, you should know that a total of one tulip bloomed this year, and it was short and runty. I have a black thumb, and we are in year three of Oklahoma drought.

I don't know, though… There was something about it. Until Littles pulled up those bulbs, I could keep hoping that they were going to bloom one last time before we moved. Once that possibility was removed, it felt…a little like grief. Which was weird. Because they were just. tulips. Unblooming ones at that.

At any rate, I thanked the Little Man for his weeding prowess, and we had a short discussion about what weeds are, and we proceeded to pick up all of my decimated tulips and move them to the trash bin. Somewhere in the midst of the clean up, Proverbs 13:12 came to mind, just the first part: Hope deferred makes the heart sick.

I truly hoped, however unfounded, that those tulips were going to bloom for me this year. They did last year. But all the rest of the tulips in this town had bloomed, and mine didn't show any signs of following suit.

Hope deferred, friends, hope deferred.

And the truth is that I wasn't going to get to see them bloom next year either since we won't be here next year but that's another story for another time.

So what's the point? I've been waiting three weeks to figure that out.

I feel like there should be some great revelation in the second part of the verse, "A desire fulfilled is a tree of life."  I know this. I'm getting The Man back today--desire fulfilled, tree of life. But I think the question I am raising is how do we heal a heart that's been made sick by a deferred hope? And no, I'm not just talking about uprooted tulips here.

When the grief of broken hope has tangibly sickened our hearts, where do we go? Yes, I  know the easy answers, the quick neat bow to tie on this, but I'm questioning how we plant new desires in sickened soil and then wait to see if those seeds turn into trees of life.

For the woman who has suffered through miscarriage or still birth. For the one in the midst of a broken marriage. For the person who has relapsed into depression or sickness or, yes, even sin. When we are confronted by the death of our hopes, where do we go? What do we do?

Is it really as simple as waiting on Jesus to bring healing and new growth (and perhaps facing the reality that there's nothing we can do in and of ourselves and there never has been)?

I told you: no neat conclusions, but I'm going to go ahead and put this one out there so I can stop thinking about dead tulips and the existential side of weeding. 

Pictures and Rabbit Trails

I've had these adorable pictures of the twins ready to post for a week now. But we had family visiting (which was wonderful) and then the week just got away from me. But the twins are in bed, Tiny is busy dumping things, and I'm sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee while Littles colours green flowers and sings nonsense songs at an unholy decibel. 

Mornings are loud. 

He did make me my coffee though, if that redeems him somewhat. The Keurig and Littles are friends.

Point being, our wonderful Katie came last week to watch the kids while I ran to the grocery store and while she was here, did a photo shoot with the twins so that they won't be entirely remembered in grainy cell phone pictures. And I wanted to share them with you. 

I don't, however, want to share Katie with you. In fact, the Man and I have spent an inordinate amount of time brainstorming ways to convince her to move with us this summer instead of with her family. At the end of the day, though, I have decided (I won't incriminate the Man with this thought process) that the best route is to con her into visiting us and then never let her go back to her own family. Bonus points for us if we can get her to bring her best friend Hannah with her. I'd never have to decorate for Christmas ever again!

And now that I've concluded yet another rabbit trail, here are some cute pictures of the twins courtesy of Katie's budding interest in photography!

Wednesday Blurbing

We had a fun morning: making paper airplanes and peanut butter m&m cookies, teaching Alex the finer points of bottle blowing and what a printed lower case "g" looks like (this is more confusing than you'd expect), engaging in a dishwasher unloading dance party…you know, the awesomeness that ensues when you have two boys and half a Dr Pepper left in the fridge to kick start your day. I thought I would continue the roll that I'm on by congratulating myself publicly on this blog (I'm humble like that) and sharing some fun moments we've had this week. There are even a couple pictures included.

Tiny knows how to get that beater done.

Showing off our cookies.
Tiny couldn't tear his eyes away.
He proceeded to pick out and eat the m&ms
one by one before inhaling his destroyed cookie.
If you look closely, you can see he already started on the m&m
picking with the cookie closest to him.
Can this caption get any longer?

Incidentally, come back by later in the week because I'm going to be posting some super cute photos of the twins courtesy of the 16 year old Baby Whisperer. More on that later.

How 'bout them paper airplanes?

Anyway, moving on. Some blurbs for your day. I promise they are completely pointless and solely written for your entertainment.

• I know that I'm a scrooge because my new reason for hating holidays is all the candy that good natured people pass off to my children. (Do you not realize that I'm the one who later has to deal with their sugar high??? I thought you loved me more than this!) Anyway, I dole out the candy one stingy piece at a time, and my kids know to ask before they indulge. At least I thought they did until I was dusting their bedroom and found a whole ream of empty candy wrappers hidden behind the Little Man's bed. Sneaky, sneaky. My initial reaction: burn the rest of the Easter candy to the ground!!! But I called the Man and he laughed until I think he might've been crying, and we came up with a more toned down consequence. The best part of it was that when I sat down to talk with Littles about it, he demonstrated an uncanny ability to wait until he knew that I was in possession of damning evidence before he 'fessed up.
• My middle sister has spent the last few days not getting kidnapped in Darfur (you can read about her exploits on her blog--you won't be disappointed). The boys and I got to Skype with her while she was there, and she took us out for a "walk" in the street. Littles and Tiny got to see a horse, a donkey, and a herd of goats. So, thanks to her, their world view is now significantly expanded.
• The Little Man entertained himself during "nap time" the other day by providing some new decor for the master bedroom. That kid sure knows how to put together a mean wall gallery. The Man and I will now be able to spend our evenings discussing great art and the esoteric meaning behind Littles' black masterpieces instead of actually sleeping.

• Littles and I have been spending a lot of time working on his reading skills lately. By a lot, I mean we discuss phonics at lunch and call it a day. So, Monday I sent Littles to get a pot holder for me saying, "Pot holder, puh, puh, puh, pot holder. What letter starts the word 'pot holder'?" To which my extremely intelligent son responded, "P! You know what else starts with the letter P, Mom? Penis!" Phonics has scarred me for life.
• In more exciting news, Bruiser and Bee have mastered the roll over (you really wanted to know this, didn't you?). Bruiser nabbed it first, but Bee couldn't stand Bruiser getting all the adulation and applause, so she manned up did it too--and was quite pleased with herself.  Bruiser thought he'd go for two just for good measure, but Bee was content to rest on her laurels afterward. I can now give myself a check mark for the week and stop playing classical music at them in desperation. Obviously, they are halfway to Harvard (possibly alongside Littles with his masterful new spelling skills).
• We've all been a little mopey with the Man gone again. Tiny, especially, has been spending a lot of time hugging on the dog saying, "Are you missing Daddy, Trigger?" And yes, he probably is missing the Man, because, let's be honest, he got left with me.
• Tiny has finally mastered his bike riding skills, and the five of us took the dog for a walk Monday that actually provided me with exercise. Pushing the twin stroller and speed walking after two maniac bikers (cue Wicked Witch of the East theme song) turned out to be a decent work out, even if we didn't make it very far. Today, though, the boys informed me that they wanted to take the double stroller this time instead of the bikes. I'm not sure where they expected me to put the twins as I haven't yet figured out how to baby wear them both simultaneously. Can we take bets about whether or not I could pull off pushing two strollers at one time?
• I'll close with this. This is a picture of my new favourite tortillas. Because really, how could I not buy these when they have a cute little mascot to provide pronunciation help for what was obviously a very bad choice in brand name?

And with that: Happy Wednesday!

Beautiful Bee

Having a daughter is messing with my heart in all the best ways. 

Eyelashes.
Enough said.

The boys have taught me how to relax, how to get messy, how to build an elephant out of legos, how to throw a football through a basketball hoop, and other such important things. And, man, I have loved having my boys. They make me feel like a queen. There is nothing like being told by an admiring little man, "Mommy, you look so nice today!" And boy snuggles get me every time. 

I'm not going to lie that I would've been totally okay with two more boys, and it kind of makes me mad when people wink knowingly and say, "Finally got your girl, huh?" like I was just waiting for a girl and now I can move on with my life because I'm complete. "Kind of" was an understatement.

To be honest, I was a little nervous about having a girl. I'm not great with pink and frills and bows. I've only recently learned to develop my feminine side. What if I scar her for life? Thankfully for Bee, most of her clothes are hand-me-downs from my niece whose mother could write the book on girly, so she's pretty well taken care of. My sister also sent a whole bag of bows and threatens me with her unmitigated wrath if she hasn't seen a de-bowed picture of Bee recently enough.

There is more bow here than baby.
Seriously, I cannot see Bee for
the gigantic flower eating her head.

Of course, I fell in love with Bee the second I held her and she stuck her little tongue out at me, but the thing that's been getting me lately is how incredibly beautiful she is. All my babies are beautiful (biased? who? me?), but Bee is girl-beautiful, and it's different. Don't ask me how. It just is. I sit and look at her little pink mouth and her reams of long eyelashes and her huge eyes (and yes, she's bald and currently going through the cradle cap phase), and I'm utterly convinced that she is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my entire life.

Don't you tell me she's cross-eyed!

So you can imagine my surprise when we showed up at church Sunday, and my friend, Andi, greets me with, "That child is just you made over, Marian." 

What? Who? Me? This perfect, precious, beautiful baby looks like awkward, gawky me? Please, don't insult her!

She has the over the shoulder model look
down like nobody's business.

And I know you think you know where this post is going. Next I'm going to tell you that I need to discover a more positive self image so that my daughter won't grow up thinking that she's ugly too. And while that's true (positive self images are not my strong suit), I actually have a different point that I want to develop here.

We like to dress up and send pictures to the Man.
Just so he knows what he's missing.

Because here's what happened instead: after I got over my shock at Andi's comment (it took a few hours), I started realizing that my gorgeous baby really does look like me. She has my eyes and my mouth, my nose and my eyelashes. It even looks like she has my toes, but that's neither here nor there (do toes determine a person's beauty?). Interestingly enough, it took having a girl to have a kid that managed to break free from the Man's incredibly strong genes. And so, being the logical person that I am, I realized that if A) Bee is beautiful and B) Bee looks like me, then C) I must be beautiful too.

And you know what? That was kind of fun. So I thought I'd share.

She will be that kid who sticks out
her tongue when concentrating.
Wait: she got that from me, too.

PS My husband is sitting in Alabama right now, rolling his eyes and saying, "I've been telling you this for how long?" But seriously, guys, having a daughter is craziness! msf