These Are My People...Even Today!

Normally when I write, it's late at night when my head has been cleared and all the dust has settled in my brain and I can see things in a better light. Today however, I'm writing during naptime and I'm afraid the rawness of today will come through loud and clear.

I swear my children have secret meetings in the middle of night that go something like this:
My four year old is the ringleader and wakes the other two up to remind them that "tomorrow's the day". The goal: Lets see how long it will take to have Mom fall apart.
(I do know that this didn't happen at 4:30 last night because I was up with the one year old at that hour!)

With the goal in forefront of their minds the day begins. My two year old decides to cry about everything all morning long. I'm not making this up. I say no to having chocolate chips for breakfast (which has never happened)  and you'd think I was ripping his leg off! Then he wants cereal, but not cereal in a bowl just straight from the bag. Again a "no" and again a total meltdown. After spending some time alone in his room to calm down the very first thing he does is rip a toy out of his little sisters hands. He then peed his pants three times this morning!

On top of his lovely demeanor today, the baby is on a hunger strike demonstrated by throwing every piece of food put in front of her. She will however, nurse like a newborn if I would let her! She's 13 months old!! She also has decided that things like walking and playing with toys do not seem like something she would be interested in today. Instead she would prefer to stay on my hip and will scream and pull on my legs until she gets there.

Surprisingly enough my four year old has been quite mild today. A few sassy remarks, but that's it. Now, I know this is because I haven't really asked her to do anything she objected to like get dressed or brush her hair or ask before she gets out glue sticks. I'd like to think she sees how full my hands are with the other two she figures she'll give me her good stuff another day. But, I'm sure secretly she's saying, "Haha, the plan worked....she's loosing it! And, I don't even have to do anything!"

I fell like a good hot meal in their belly's always helps turn some things around. So I thought I'd make some Mac'n Cheese for lunch instead of the regular peanut butter sandwiches and apples. Not just Mac'n Cheese, but the homemade kind. I recently saw something on pinterest about boiling noodles in milk instead of water and stirring in the cheese. I thought i'd give it a try. I'm for anything that skips a step. Did you know that milk boils like 5 times faster than water? Did you know that it doesn't steam like water so you don't know it's boiling? Did you know that when milk burns it results in disgusting solid burnt stuff and smells awful?....yeah....me either....but I do now!

As I frantically moved the baby away from the stove (because she's always right at my feet) and grabbed the pot of flowing burnt boiling milk and noodles to the sink steam filled the kitchen and for a moment I was filled with all kinds of bad emotions. I was filled with hopelessness as I thought about how I just spent 20 minutes scrubbing the stains off my stove-top YESTERDAY, and now there was burnt milk stuck and smeared all over half the surface. Why even bother? I was filled with anger, frustration, and jealousy as I thought of my husband sitting at his computer chatting with adults about the upcoming election and record breaking storms. I thought, "This stay at home mom stuff is for the birds!". I thought how different my life would look if I dropped my kids off at daycare and went to work, picked them up and came home to a clean house because no one was here all day, made dinner, baths, books, and bed and called it a day. It sounded sooo good as the baby was crying because she couldn't be wrapped around my leg while I was dealing with mess, and the two year old was screaming "food. food. food." and my four year old who is normally a good buffer for the other two decided to go off by herself to color.

That bring me to now. After having peanut butter afterall, the little ones are sleeping and my oldest is still coloring quietly, and I finally have time to think practically. I need time for my heart to tell my head what it knows. My heart knows that THESE ARE MY PEOPLE! My heart knows all these headaches will soon turn into memories. Memories that will bring a smile to my face. Memories that someday in the future will bring me comfort. My heart knows it would be torn up daily dropping them off at daycare. My heart knows I love these boogers to death through all the whining, crying, peeing, non-eating, boiling burnt milk kind of days. My heart knows I'm right where
I need to be....WITH MY PEOPLE!

I Say "No", Because I Love You.

We've tried really hard to set a precedent in our home that the kids receive the toys and special things they want for their birthdays, Christmas, or a special occasion, and not every time we go to the store. Even with this being the general expectation of our home, our 4 year old has decided to test the waters recently. She's smart too. She thinks she has more of chance with a cheaper item, so the dollar bins at target has become a breading ground for whining and bargaining. In fact, just the other day we went to Walmart to pick up some pacifiers for her younger brother (we lost a few traveling), and she tried to tell us how its not fair that her younger brother gets something and she didn't. She also had that little item already picked out that would quickly right the wrong that was being done to her!

These are hard but very important moments for us to stand our ground and explain that we know what's best for her. My grandfather was known for saying. "The biggest mistake GOOD parents make is giving their kids TOO MUCH." I'm confident that saying "No" will help her grow into the person I want her to become. A person who can hear disappointment and still cope, a person who can trust that her parents can see a big picture that she may not. I love her too much to let her get everything she wants. I even explain to her that there are things that I want that I can't have. She'll be dealing with this her whole life. Better learned young. You see, right now it's the trinket from the dollar bin, but down the road it'll be a sleep over that I don't feel comfortable with, or riding in a car with boys, or going to a party that has alcohol. In these moments, when I say no because i love her and know what's best for her, I want her to be confident that her parents see something she doesn't. Just like time she begged hard for a toy and forgot about it within 3 seconds of walking out the store. 

I'm the parent. I call the shots. I know that hearing "No" develops character. It helps her get to know herself better and what she really wants. If that toy isn't forgot about within 3 seconds of leaving the store, and we keep hearing about it, we tell her that if she really wants it she can wait for her birthday or Christmas. This also makes her appreciate it that much more because she had been waiting for it.

It does get me to thinking: How many times do I play this game with God? How many times have come to him with requests that seem so important to me, life-changing even? And, God in his infinite wisdom looks down on me and says, "Not right now. Not this time. Put it back on the shelf." There have even been times where I shamefully have thrown a fit whining and pouting about this answer. 

Please let my husband get a raise. 

Take this cancer away. 

Help this person see where I'm coming from. 

How could these things be wrong or bad? I don't know. 

But I do know that God stands over me just like I stand over my 4 year old and knows better. He knows that if I have to wait for something that I really want it could help develop me into a better person. A person HE wants me to be. It could help me learn patience, gratitude, thankfulness, or contentment. Looking back on my life a lot of things I thought were so big at the time, really were quite small. Is it possible that God knew the mountain was really an ant hill? It's not only possible its very probable! He knows and He loves me, and sometimes the answer is "Yes. Let's do this!" But, so often I fold my arms in protest and hang my head and pout all the way through the store because God said "No" to the dollar bin junk at the beginning. Sometimes it's because there's something so much better in store....something I didn't even know I wanted, but something I'll cherish forever (like a child). 

Good reminder: Sometimes "No." is code for "I love you."

My Baby is One!

Today my baby turns one. Now I know turning one is a big deal in general, but its especially a big deal for this third child. Don't get me wrong, this birthday is everything it should be: a celebration of her life, but its also the day my husband and I get to look at each other and say, "We did it! We kept all three kids alive for a whole year!" So, while we're celebrating her life we're also high fiving and fist bumping on the down-low.

I know you think this sounds a little dramatic, but let me tell you when your kids are not even 2 1/2 and 5 months old when you find out number 3 is coming along, you begin to severely doubt your ability to meet everyone's physical needs more or less nurture their souls like a good mother should. So, yes, there are some high fives around here!

For a good portion of my third pregnancy I did what any mother of two other young children would do: I pretended it wasn't happening. I focused on the two I had in front of me and tried not to think about how crazy life with one more would be. God knew what he was doing when he made gestation 40 weeks. It's funny how with my first it felt like it would take forever before I was holding that baby, and by number three I was begging for a few more weeks. Even though my back hurt, I peed every 15 minutes, and I could breath while laying down, I knew the easiest part of parenting was while they're in the womb.

Three months before my due date we moved to North Carolina. New state. New people. New doctor. New hospital. Husband has a new job. No family. I had my reservations about this new life, but followed my new found mantra of "Just keep living." It works well. My new doctor agreed that number 3 should be induced just like number 2 to prevent what happened with number 1. One great thing about this plan was that my mom was able to plan a trip to be here with plenty of time before the arrival. (Hallelujah!)

Mom here? Check. Baby girl newborn clothes pulled out of storage? Check. Bassinet ready? Check. Bags packed? Check. Camera charged? Check. Let's have a baby!

We showed up at the hospital at the crack of dawn like instructed to find out that they had no room for me. My amazingly awesome nurse brought me into a triage room to "start things". Now, I call her amazingly awesome because when I informed her this baby would show up very soon after my water broke, she listened to me. She decided she didn't want to personally deliver the baby in the dinky triage room so we waited until a room was ready, then my doctor came in and broke my water. So, what does a woman who's had one baby with an epidural and one all natural do with the third birth? Everyone has their own options and beliefs about this, but I am proud to say that I had 5 bad contractions before the epidural kicked in. As they say "Fool me once..." I felt no need to knock on deaths door like I had previously experienced. Been there. Done that.

Turns out I was right. The little squirt made her appearance within an hour of my water braking. One push and there she was! We're not exactly sure how much she weighed. The scale was doing weird things at the time of her birth and somehow she magically gained a whole pound in 2 hrs, so we're guessing she was around 7 lbs. Right in between her brother and her sisters size.

A few hours later the bed was full of my whole family. All 5 of us. A crazy moment for me to look from OUR 3 year old, OUR 1 year old, and OUR newborn. I remember thinking, I sure hope this works! Flash foreword a year, and our lives would have a great hole in it without this little one. She loves to laugh and her favorite things ever are her older sister and brother. She marches right along with them. She's been walking now for a few months and practically runs from room to room with the clan getting into all kinds of fun stuff. She's our "sweet pea" and loves to snuggle. It amazes me how she filled a hole in our family we never new we had.

Life can get crazy around here. There are days when all the tantrums, teething, and poop make me go batty. Or nights with fevers, bad dreams, and teething that make those nights of feeding a newborn every three hours look heavenly. But the good far out-ways the bad, and I can't imagine life without the little monkey around. Happy Birthday Sweet Pea!