Sleeping Habits

Mermaid Princess has two identical duck lovies that she sleeps with. They are getting very velveteen rabbit-ed; the fleece is gone from their hats and their beaks are starting to fray. She has the oddest habit of stroking them and clicking her tongue to fall asleep. Woe be unto us the day they are lost or frayed beyond repair. She, of the three, is the most attached to her Duck-Ducks; she will run for them at the least sign of trouble and holds them near during the scary part of whatever books she's reading.



Flash has three identical frogs. Well, sort of. They are meant to be identical, but two have been chewed and shredded so that major surgery has been required to keep them in a semblance of the genus/species. The other, for some reason unfathomable to his father and me, has emerged completely unscathed. To fall asleep, Flash chews on the webbed foot of a frog and hums to himself. Loudly. So loudly that MP used to wear a noise-blocking headset to fall asleep when they shared a room. He really has no need of the frogs during the day and less and less at night these days. Hopefully, the humming stops too. I would hate to have to draw a serious girlfriend aside and give her fair warning.

"Daddy Nouille" (short for Grenouille)

MP in her Flash Headset Protection

Flash has another odd habit. He has the coolest handmade race car bed I have ever seen, given to us by friends. He has another sweet air mattress/sleeping bag sports bed on the floor. And where is he sleeping tonight? On the floor in the corner of this room. I just pray it's not some sort of training for eventually becoming a S.E.A.L. or Ranger.

JackJack has two identical bear lovies. I noticed a few months ago that the satin on on the paws was falling off, and attributed it to poor quality. Foolish mother! The other night, I went in to check on the kids, and found my youngest half awake, half asleep, and stroking only the satiny paw of his bear. No wonder they've been slowly disintegrating.

I'm blessed - not a pacifer-craver in the bunch. And we somehow avoided thumb-sucking too. Still, I do wonder if and when these habits will be outgrown... I know I had a bear that I took with me to college (the first year, anyway).

What was your childhood soother and when did you give it up?

Play 'n play

Today's title is JackJack's word for clay, as in "Mommy, can we do play 'n play today?" For my own record, I would like to note that he never says "play and play" without also doing the sign language for 'game'. Which now has me confused between the sign for game and play - which are really nothing alike.

Army tank, complete with crayon barrel

Thanks to my sweet friend, Heather P., who clued me into recovering my mealtime sanity. She introduced me to the 5pm art project... setting the kids up to do some sort of artistic creation while I finish up dinner. Kids are close by, occupied, and content. I'm not interfering in their creations as I have an infuriating tendency to do ("But what would happen if you put the boat here on the water instead of in the middle of all those cows?"). And boy, do they scramble to clean up the family room as a precursor to getting on their smocks.

Daddy and MP sitting under a palm tree

MP with her creation

For my part, once I'm in kitchen clean up mode, adding a couple of paintbrushes or some cookies cutters to the dishes ain't no big deal.

JackJack with his turtle. Good thing he told me what it is.

Kids having a blast, Mommy enjoying them as they show her each new brushstroke, and general joy in the kitchen at 5:30pm. Who'd've known? (Okay, besides Heather...)

Scrubby clean!

When Mermaid Princess turned 5, one of her new "big girl" rules was that she could no longer shower with Flash. At least two times a week, they STILL ask if they can shower together. And I say no. And they ask why. And after 100 queries, I STILL don't have a good answer; well, a good answer that I can tell them.

Cute when they're grubby; cute when they're clean. It's a good deal all around!

Halt... or I'll say halt again.

Rainy last week, so I rearranged the family room furniture so we could wrestle, play a little nerf b-ball and generally have space to get the wiggles out.

The sofas ended up becoming bunkers. Daddy had one; the big kids took the other. Wearing snorkel masks and using the snorkels as rifles, a raging battle ensued.

My favorite exchange:

Flash (jumping out from behind the sofa): Put your hands up!

Daddy, with great reluctance, raises arms all the way up.

Flash eyes him for a second.
Flash (takes aim, makes sound of 'gunshot'): Tszchoo!

Daddy: Hey! You can't do that! I put my arms up. I put myself in your protection. Start over.

Flash chews on his lip while processing this new bit of information and returns to his bunker.

Daddy (head popping up from behind sofa with an evil laugh): Aahh haaa haa haaa!

Flash (jumps out from behind the sofa): PUT YOUR HANDS DOWN!!!!

Perhaps not quite the right attitude for going into law enforcement.

"I've never loved you more"

Music to a girl's ears when they come from her best beau.

What can I say? I cancelled tonight's weekly planning session (logistics, finances, weekend action plan)...

At one point I remembered it was the start of the NFL season. Separately, I remembered that this is the wrap-up of the Republican Convention. For either of those, I would have made sure it was brief and let the man get to his remote.

But both the man's obsessions highlighted in a single evening???

No, no. We can reschedule.

We won't be watching any commercials tonight!

Words to the wise

Words that our children got wrong and we delight in so much, we've never had the heart or will to correct them:

Commercional (commercial)

Kamote (remote)

Black minnow (Black widow - as in spider, and that's a whole story by itself)

On this same theme, Flash is currently appearing at my side at random moments with a stuffed animal in hand, generally his lizard, and informing me of some heroic deed his lizard just completed.
Flash: Mommy, Lizard just jumped from the brown sofa to the orange sofa and rescued JackJack from the sharks.

Mommy (as I pick up Lizard and hold him up to my face in serious discussion): Lizard, I am so proud of you. First, for being brave. And secondly, for taking care of a Chambers Champion! Good job, Lizard.

Flash (reaching up to pet Lizard): Yea good job, Lizard! He's a brave lizard, isn't he, Mom?
Mommy: Yes, he is, honey. A brave lizard who wants to give you a kiss.

Flash (with implied eye roll): Noooo, Mommy. Mommy, Lizard is just pe-tend.

Mommy: Yup. Okay then.

Egg-cellent

In my childhood home, once every couple of weeks, we had Humpty Dumpty night. Mom would softboil some eggs, put them in eggcups and set us loose with the crayons to draw melted wax faces onto hot eggs. We would draw lovely ladies and brave young egg-men and then encourage them to have conversations ("Oh Monsieur, you look so very handsome this evening).

Once the egg people had taken their farewells, my mother would brandish her dinner knife guillotine as we all recited:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall...
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall...

At which point, my lovely, gentle-spirited mother would chop off the top quarter of the egg in one smooth, decisive gesture, we would finish the rhyme -- complete with toast soldiers -- and we would dunk the strips of toast into the yolks for dinner.

And so the tradition continues. In a gluten-free version, of course.

The Blue Period

This is "Blue" by Any Warhol, one in a series of 25 cats of various colors.


This is our version of this painting:


Here is the artist alongside his handiwork:


When I was first pregnant, I read about a woman whose 4 year old colored the ENTIRE face of her two year old with black permanent marker the day before their Christmas pictures were supposed to be taken. That has helped to me to keep all instances of child-as-canvas art in perspective... this was washable marker (and pretty cute!).

D-A-D

I remember desperately wanting loads of black and white photos at our wedding, and one photographer I interviewed told me that if that was what I wanted, he wasn't the right photographer for the job... he couldn't bear to have a red-headed, blue-eyed bride shot all in black and white.

He didn't get the job, but I now know what he meant... I often sample the photos I take of the kids in black and white, but in the end, I can never enjoy them that way. God delivered three red-heads into our family, and all three have such unique eyes, so that I feel like they aren't even really my kids when they are in black and white.

These are the photos I took and will be presenting to Big E. for his birthday... I'm running a little late, but wait until I scan in the photos the kids did for him on their own! Totally makes up for my deliquency...

35 reasons I love you (not an exhaustive list)

To my sweet husband:

Happy birthday! I don't think I could ever thank God enough for giving me such a gift... but today, on your 35th birthday, I thought I'd tell you my top favorite 35 things about you. If I can't think of 35, then it will be 3.5 which isn't quite so catchy but I would make sure they were really GOOD 3 and half things...

1. You are my favorite playmate (note: that's a lowercase 'p').

2. You delight in all children, but especially in ours.

3. Your enthrallment with God's creation never ceases.

4. You just love people... all of them, in any walk of life. And not from a distance. Never have I known someone equally as compassionate for the wealthy as for the poor.

5. You are endlessly curious - about people, politics, sports, nature, science, technology. What a blessing for me and our family!

6. God comes first. And because of that, I never have to worry that your love for me will sway you to make a bad decision - even when I'm at my most persuasive.

7. Love for us comes next. Always has, and I know it always will. These last two years have been proof positive.


8. You are fierce in your convictions. More fierce than anyone but you and I really know.

9. You are loyal. Your deep friendships are few, but they are for life. What a wonderful example you have been to me, and are to our kids.

10. You have a heart for service balanced by your season of life. You long to serve in so many ways, but always carefully balance it against the needs of your family.

11. Although fully capable of playing "the game" of business, you choose unadorned integrity - refusing to manipulate people or back them into corners. You have chosen to operate in good faith, as a living testimony, every time. I take such comfort in that.

12. You have the coolest hazel/green eyes. Thanks for passing them on, too.

13. You love sports, but are not consumed with our kids being sports phenoms.

14. You love your parents. (I do too.)

15. And yet you understand that we are cleaved together.

16. You love my parents. Even on the days when you don't agree over much.

17. I am so thankful at the energy you put in to relating to each of the kids in their temperaments, instead of insisting that the kids figure out how to relate to you. It takes a lot of energy - and since you get one of them effortlessly, it makes it all the more amazing that you work so hard with the others.


18. You don't have a manipulative bone in your body. You say what you mean and are baffled with the concept of sub-text.

19. The Bible is endlessly interesting to you - and you love to hear what I've discovered too.

20. You love music. And will even put up with my affection for pop music.

21. I still am amazed at how cleverly God put us together - me with my plain old "in the box" systems and you with the ability to make anything work on the fly with only "out of the box" parts.

22. You put such effort into serving me even though speaking love through chores is completely foreign to you.

23. You can laugh at yourself better than anyone I know. So endlessly charming...

24. You can cook. Man, you can cook!

25. You work so hard to keep your physical challenges from affecting the kids... I probably know the most about it, and I think you keep a good part of it hidden even from me. It is a HUGE sacrifice and I am deeply appreciative.

26. You are going to heaven too! That would be a burden on my heart and instead it is such a delight.

27. Your feet are ticklish. The necessary equalizer in a wrestling match.

28. You are so NOT a border collie - but you don't fault me for being one. In fact, you try to provide me with as much working dog time as you can...

29. Mermaid Princess: that he works hard everyday so that we can be here doing fun things like school and crafts and painting.

30. Flash: that he does cool things with me like making catapults and rockets.

31. JackJack: riding on the tractor!


32. I love it that we like to read the same stuff. Well, except for Watership Down. And In The Neighborhood.

33. I love it that you have a wet sense of humor... working dogs blow right past dry senses of humor - we need a good splash of water with our humor to slow us down.

34. That you are committed to growing in your Christian walk... I know we will always grow closer together if we are both drawing nearer to God.

35. That after a decade of marriage and a lifetime of knowing each other, you are absolutely the one person I long for time with, love to share my thoughts with, and seek out in most every circumstance. I am so thankful for the years we've been given together and pray for many, many, many more.

Happy Birthday, sweetheart! I love you.