Grubby Best

I went grocery shopping with Peanut the other day. I like grocery shopping with him. We just chat.  That night we picked up a box of Whoopers and were snacking out while we shopped. And halfway through the grocery store I mentioned that "daddy likes Whoppers too". Well, HOLD THE PHONE (where did that phrase come from? Does anyone still say it?) Peanut stopped with a Whopper in his hand and thought about that for a minute. He decided that the Whopper he was holding was "for Daddy". There was no convincing him otherwise. I tried albeit very gently to convince him that he could eat that one and then give Daddy one out of the box at home. Nope. Daddy needed "THIS ONE!" So he held it in his tiny little hand through the last twenty minutes of grocery shopping and through the checkout as he helped me unload one-handed. He held it while we walked to the car and while he was buckled in. He held it as we made one last stop at the gas station. He talked to the cashier and told her it was for his daddy. He held it as we drove home and we went upstairs to find daddy. We woke him up from a late evening nap and he was presented with this:

Can't see it well enough? Try this...

That picture doesn't even fully capture how gross that Whopper  looked. Melted in a sweet, but sweaty little hand, dropped twice in the grocery store and visibly dented. He presented it to his father with absolute pride, certain that what he had would be appreciated. And it was appreciated (it was not eaten, but he doesn't know that) for the sweet gesture that it was. Andrew is a great dad and not a picky eater, but he was not about to eat that Whopper. :)

Again with my standard theological disclaimer: If you are looking for a theologian you are in the wrong place.

God is very clear about what he wants from us. He wants us to love him with all our heart, soul, and mind and he wants us to love our neighbor. It sounds simple, but like most of life, what sounds simple is not really simple. It takes EVERYTHING to love (God, neighbors, and yourself). EVERYTHING.

I know that I always start with the best of intentions. You know I fall asleep at night thinking about how I will be patient, compassionate, kind, etc to my children. And then I wake up in the morning and it goes downhill from there....

My best efforts to be patient---they totally suck. Man, stopping to think about it even irritates me. I mean, I "decide" to be patient. You know. Saying to yourself, "I WILL be patient". As if you can will yourself to be patient. (If you can let me know...) Maybe I can force myself to remain patient through the first scuffle or two of the morning, but inevitably I cannot do it all day.

The best I can do is to pick myself up after each failure and try again and offer myself to God with joy even though I'm melting, and gross looking and have a few dents. God takes a perfect father's love in us and he will take our dirtiest offering and clean it up so that we can let him shine through us. After all, his strength is made perfect in our weakness.

A Day in the Life: Month Two

July 7th was our second month home with Little Miss. I did this live-blogging on our one-month home and I decided to repeat it monthly to see if any progress shines through. I realize that I'm off by a few days, but with our recent trip home I'm little late.

12:02 am--- I realize that staying up until midnight to watch Twister is probably not the best idea even though the movie had randomly been on my mind.

12:07---I get into bed next to Peanut and realize that I put him to bed early tonight because he didn't take a nap and so he's been asleep since about 6:30 and will probably be up early. Double whoops on the movie.

Undisclosed time in the morning--- Peanut tells me he needs to go potty. I encourage him to get lost and then go find his dad.

7:00--- Andrew wakes me up. Peanut is downstairs, but hasn't eaten so he must have slept fairly late. I hear Little Miss and so I bring her down with me. Pickle is still quiet. I bring Little Miss down and try to jolly her along to reciprocate Andrew's affection. She usually does a little better if I play mediator between them. She does okay this morning, but definitely not at her friendliest. I put her down and pour myself a cup of coffee.

Peanut pulls a bag of Goldfish crackers and launches a campaign to have them for breakfast. I don't go along with the scheme and he does not give  in graciously. He is sent to his blue chair in the living room to sit down until he has some self-control back. I change Little Miss' diaper and do some more jollying her along with Andrew. I try hard to make their first interactions (in the morning and after he gets home from work) positive. She's still not fully buying into it this morning. Andrew leaves for work.

Peanut comes back with his self-control and starts a friendly debate about his breakfast cereal. I get his cereal and Little Miss' cereal to the table with no big issue. I go back to the kitchen and accidentally put too much Splenda in my coffee. As I'm stirring my coffee I bump the cereal box and spill our Berry Cheerios all over the floor. I borrow a curse from Winnie the Pooh and say, "Oh, bother". Peanut comes into the kitchen and wants to know what "oh bother" means and wants to know what that sound was. He volunteers to help me clean up. We put the cereal back in the box because my floor is very clean-ish (lol), but mostly because that stupid cereal was expensive. I make a mental note to not eat it anymore. After I pick up the easiest picked up amount of cereal I sweep the rest of it up with a broom and dump it in the trash. The trash is full so I pull it out of the trashcan and toss it in the garage.

7:22--- I go check on Pickle and he is awake. I bring him down and we go through "good mornings" with the other two. (well, my time is up, come back later!) I change Pickle's diaper, but never put a trashbag back in the trashcan so the diaper goes on the counter. Ew.  Little Miss is done eating so I wipe her up, wipe the table up, wipe the kitchen up, put a new bag in the trashcan and get the diaper off the counter. Peanut finishes eating and remembers to put his dishes in the sink and push in his chair. I put Pickle in the highchair to eat. I take my first sip of coffee.

Peanut and Little Miss go into the playroom and start playing with our great new ice cream toy. It goes well for about a minute and then I need to be in there with them to help them navigate the intricacies of playing together. I help them along for about three minutes and then Little Miss wanders off. I go and talk to Pickle for a minute. I kiss about 14 imaginary wounds for Little Miss.

7:35---Peanut has started playing with his firetruck and Little Miss decides it should be hers. Peanut starts shrieking. I halt the shrieking and explain the proper way to appeal for help, which does not involve my eardrums shattering. I get another firetruck to offer to Little Miss. It is clearly (to her) inferior to Peanut's and she gives the fire truck and then me a very dirty look. She walks away, but not without a very sly (to her) shoulder shove at Peanut. Whoops, too bad Mom is not (always) a fool. I bring her back and tell her to say sorry to Peanut. She can say it and sign it. She gives me her blink-face and turns her head away. I sit her down on the kitchen floor and tell her that she has to sit down until she's ready to tell him sorry. She sits and conjures up some tears which do not impress my heart of stone. I ask her if she's ready to say sorry. She wipes her eyes, gets up, and says it. Crisis over.  Pickle is still eating. She decides that she will play firetrucks with Peanut and so I spend another few minutes sitting there with them while they drive the firetrucks to each other and crash them around the kitchen.

7:50--- I finish my first cup of coffee.
7:51--- I walk toward the dining room to check on Pickle. Pickle walks into the kitchen. This stops me dead in my tracks. He managed to climb out of his highchair, get from his highchair to the tabletop and off the tabletop without crashing, making noise, or taking more than about 90 seconds. I carry Pickle around for a few minutes and turn on the Today Show.

7:54--- Peanut and Little Miss have spent about as much time playing together as any of us can handle right now. I put the babies in the playroom and put the gate up.
7:55--- They have emptied every book and toy off our bookshelf. I tell myself again that I have to figure out a way to stop that from happening. Just not right now....

8:00---I set Peanut up with blocks to build with on the floor. I sit down with more coffee and the laptop.
8:05--- I stop the babies from tearing the blinds off the sliding door. Have I ever mentioned how much I hate blinds?
8:15--- Check on the babies again, admire Peanut's tower. More coffee, straighten up the kitchen.
8:30--- Peanut refuses to clean up the blocks and becomes rude again. He returns to the blue chair until he's ready to cooperate. He sits there for about three minutes and decides he'd rather clean.
8:33--- I start my promise to myself that I'm going to have the babies start helping clean up the playroom. Peanut is good at helping. The babies not so much, but it's time to change that. We all clean up together. It's rather slow and excruciating, but I know it will be worth it eventually.
8:46--- Done cleaning that room up. We go upstairs to get ready for the day. Little Miss starts "dressing up" and pretends to go to work which involves her carrying a  bag and saying "ciao" to everyone a lot. Peanut is a racecar and has "zoom power" and cruises around the upstairs. I fold the clean laundry that's covering the hallway floor. Pickle grabs the laundry off the floor and keeps running off with it. He's just generally trouble. :) My "racecar" starts crashing into his siblings and we go over the Rule of Being the Biggest which says that the job of the biggest is to take care of everyone smaller than he is. We talk about ways that he can take care of the babies. He starts chasing them around to kiss them.... He does manage to channel some of his Zoom Power into playing soccer appropriately with Pickle.

(Be back soon!)

9:15--- I take a divide and conquer approach so that I can get dressed and put some makeup on. Little Miss goes into the crib with some books and toys in what is supposed to be the boys' room. Peanut is in there as well building a train track on the floor. Pickle is in what is supposed to be Little Miss' room with toys and books. It worked fairly well. Peanut was the one with problems paying attention (this is a theme today) and since he couldn't sit and do what he was supposed to (play) he came into my room with me and just sat on the floor for awhile before deciding that it was better to go play after all....

9:30--- I'm changing diapers, dressing kids, getting shoes out of the van (from our debacle yesterday) and when I see the van for the first time I have a small WTF moment and then I remember. Little Miss has a small fit that I currently can't remember the cause of.... She and Peanut both also start crying when their sandals come unvelcroed, but are quickly consoled because it turns out it's not that hard to velcro a sandal back up. I sneak off to the bathroom for a minute and find that Peanut has not flushed some poop, peed on the floor, and been playing with the toilet brush. Nothing alarming or anything that I actually mention to him, but noteworthy to a mother's brain. By the time I get out of the bathroom (20 seconds) both babies are crying.

9:45--- Hey, we're outside. Wahoo! Outside is generally pretty mellow. Peanut LOVES to be outside although he did tell me about 300,000 times that he wanted to be at Nonna's house because her outside was better. It's totally true, buddy! They all played and got along fairly well. Peanut and Little Miss still had boundary issues, but it was minor. Peanut had to sit down next to me again for not listening. I was able to read a little bit of "Held at a Distance" which I can't believe I've barely started since I bought it way back when. The kids got themselves THOROUGHLY dirty. I mean, hardcore dirty. Pickle was dumping dirt over Little Miss' head. She didn't seem to mind and was covering her legs with it anyway so I didn't say anything. It's a break from nagging. We all need it!

10:25--- I had the kids help me clean up outside and we came back inside. Little Miss took her shoes off and put them on our shoe pile and I had Peanut help Pickle with his shoes. We're really trying to help him with this sort of thing. He enjoys doing it. He just needs a little more finesse. :) I guess most three year olds do! I had them sit down in the kitchen and gave them all sippy cups of juice and wiped them down with a wet rag. The amount of dirt that would not come out of Little Miss' was fairly alarming. We hand-brushed as much out as possible and used the wet rag to wipe a little more out, but it will definitely be a bathnight tonight!

10:30--- I put on Sesame Street and all the kids watched for a little awhile and I sat down with the laptop again.

11:00--- The babies were bored of tv, but I was impressed (what does that say?!) that they had watched even a little bit! I put Little Miss in the pack and play where she could still see the TV, but I gave her some stickers too and she was moderately entertained. Peanut, of course, kept watching Sesame Street. Pickle was barricaded into a slice of the kitchen via two baby gates and it was his turn with the box of blocks. He was less cooperative than Little Miss, but made it through for fifteen minutes. I still had the laptop, talked some Sesame Street with Peanut, played some stickers with Little Miss, and helped Pickle build towers. I made lunch and got annoyed that I grabbed the wrong thing of hummus from the grocery store and got something that is too spicy.

11:15--- The babies eat lunch and I keep doing all of the above things and Ben asks if he can finish Sesame Street before he eats.

11:30--- Pickle is done, but not Little Miss. I change his diaper and take him upstairs and put him in bed. I come back down and Little Miss has smeared her banana all over the table. I overreact and make her cry because that's how smooth I am. Peanut sits down to eat and I take Little Miss upstairs. I change her diaper, give her a bottle, read her Family Book, and put her in bed. Peanut came upstairs when he was done and went potty. I read him some books and settled him on my bed for "bed-time" with some books and toys.

12:00--- I clean up the rest of the house, start a load of laundry, check on Peanut a few times because he needs reminders to stay on bed because resting is new for us. I made myself some lunch. I checked on Peanut a few more times. At one point I found him climbing off the bed and he informed me that he needed to poop and he would be "finished in ten minutes". There was then some more bathroom talk that I will spare you the details of. I put the laundry in the dryer.

12:25--- I actually sat down to eat my lunch and watch an on-demand episode of "Kitchen Nightmares" while eating and catching up my blog.

1:15-- The ACTUAL time right now and I just heard Little Miss wake up. :( This is significantly less sleep than she needs and does NOT bode well for the rest of the day. She slept for slightly longer than an hour and really needs about double that to be at her best.

1:16--- I prepare my afternoon special cup of coffee (I mix chocolate in) and go up to bring her down. The boys are both still sleeping. We have a snack of chocolate cookies on the couch until I see what a giant mess she's making and I move her to the floor. We watch some Cake Boss together because I'm feeling pretty stinkin' lazy. We hang out in the living room together just chilling. I chat with my sister on FB for awhile. When she starts to get antsy I take a ribbon from one of her recent presents and tie one end around each of wrists and we lead each other around the house for awhile. I do a lot of talking about how we are "together". I don't know if she gets it, but she likes the game. Notably, she wanted to do ALL the leading and was a little more reluctant about following me around. I got the idea from this book.  I wonder if she would play the game with Andrew. It was not any major breakthrough, but hey, it killed ten minutes.... I finally get around to unloading and reloading the dishwasher with her assistance. I decide we should have cauliflower for dinner, but don't pick a main course....

2:30--- Pickle wakes up and I go and get him and change diapers again. He hangs out with me and Little Miss in the house just running around, hugging, free play type things. No big deal. Did I mention how lazy I'm feeling? I know there are things I should be doing, but I just can't muster up any energy. I think I should do something fun with the kids, but I'm not sure what it should be. They all really like to paint, but I'm not quite ready for that. Little Miss is getting antsy and I can already see the effects of her not-enough-nap.

3:00--- Peanut wakes up and has a snack. I put the babies in the playroom again while they're both still in good enough moods that they can manage some independent play. They start out playing nicely and in an organized fashion with the ice cream set, but it devolves before too long. I can hear all sorts of toys crashing about from their playing, but no crying. I really need to figure out a solution so they can't wreck everything at once. I guess some fancy rubbermaid containers will be in order. I do enjoy organizational shopping! :) Peanut and I hang out together and spend some time talking and just chilling while he wakes up a little bit more.

3:30--- Peanut and I join the babies in the playroom so I can supervise everyone (imagine that) and help the kids play/exist all together. Woohoo and once again I'm current on time.

Okay, I'm coming back and finishing this post, what two days later? I have it all written in a notebook, but Peanut has decided to flaunt his three and a half year old mouth muscles and has really ramped up the obnoxious behavior opportunities for me to practice my advanced parenting skills and he has me either laughing hysterically or ready to kill him and usually there's only about a .03 of a second in between the two. Really, he's going to be the end of me. (If my mom read my blog she'd be laughing very hard right now because she's been praying that I would have this exact same experience for years.)


3:30 continued--- The kids and I are all in the playroom and Peanut plays Ring Around the Rosie with the babies. His lyrics contain "ashes splashes we all fall down", which I find kind of gruesome. He then pretends to go on walks with the babies and they each hold one of his hands and walk around the playroom for awhile. We read a few books, play more ice cream, take care of doll babies, build towers, etc. The "countdown to Andrew coming home" has officially begun.

4:00--- I decide that I should call my mom because she had knee surgery the other day and I am a Great Daughter. I get Little Miss to say a few words into the phone which makes me also a Great Mother. Peanut doesn't want to talk. The kids tolerate my being on the phone for about the 90 seconds that Little Miss is interested in talking and then they start to scream. They're like the Shrieking Eels from "Princess Bride". I employ my parenting skills and I leave them in the playroom and I step outside onto the front porch. We can still see each other through the window no parental neglect. My mom asks what that screaming is...from two rooms away and outside. They're loud. I know that a good parent would have made them be quiet so that she could finish her phone call in peace. That good parent is welcome to come to my house and do that for me. My mom asks me if I have "a plan for when they're like that". I tell her "I go onto the front porch" and she laughed. I was serious, mom. :)

4:20--- Little Miss tackles Pickle (we've been seeing more aggression from her toward him) and I end my phone call to do actual parenting. She goes into the pack and play stoically and I tend Pickle who is fine. I sit down across from Little Miss and look at her. She looks at me. I smile. She glares. She smiles after a minute and we talk about being gentle, not hurting, etc. She says sorry to Pickle and gives him a hug. We sit down and read a book and I let Peanut watch Special Agent Oso.

Okay, so I'm not going to finish this yet because my husband wants to use the laptop, but soon! :)

Vacation Reviewed

Hello again my bloggish friends! I had a couple of you checking in on my because it had been a week and I hadn't posted anything. I think the best concern that I got was checking to be sure I hadn't "spontaneously combusted"! Always a threat, folks. We recently took a 4th of July mini-vacation to my hometown. I had several specifics worries about the trip that I would now like to address in retrospect.

1) The boys needed haircuts. I took all three of my children to Walmart did the shopping for the trip, got the boys' hair cut, and got two pairs of broken glasses fixed. It was a little psychotic and the haircuts were TERRIBLE, but hey, no one died!

2) Packing. This went badly. No two ways about it. I did get everything packed, but both the babies were fussy and didn't want to go to sleep. My husband had to go to sleep as soon as he got home because he was going to be driving all night. Peanut was so excited he stayed awake until we left...at midnight.... so he was awake and in my way constantly. Then Pickle woke up at 11:00 and wouldn't go back to sleep and so he was awake and wandering around. So this was a time of great mayhem, frustration and mama may have had a drink to make it through....

3) The baby shower. This went really well. It was very nice and touching. My mom read a devotional that she wrote for Little Miss and I talked a little bit about some of our process, struggles, and successes. We received some nice clothes in bigger sizes and she got some fun girly toys which are in short supply here! It was a quiet and low-key event. There was only one other little girl there (my niece) and so I think that helped keep it mellow. She was still a little overwhelmed though and spent the majority of the time snuggled up in my lap, which was fine with me.

4) Travel. Okay, pause with me for a moment, while I go throw up. I think the Sweet Baby Jesus could have been present in our vehicle and not calmed those children down. It took six and a half hours of driving on the way there (overnight) while Pickle screamed the majority of the way. Peanut slept, moaned, cried, and barely made it through. Little Miss did pretty well. Andrew was tired and (ahem) crabby! (Sorry, babe!) and not interested in listening to children crying for extended periods of time. I got zero sleep on the way there. By the time we reached my parents' house and I got to take a nap I had been awake for...five...ten...fifteen...twenty...twenty five...TWENTY SIX HOURS! I am too old for that kind of nonsense, ya'll! And traveling home. It was so. much. worse. It was during the day. It took us about 9 hours. (I have a few pictures I took with my phone, but they're not working right...) There were traffic jams. (My "don't kill the children" tip for traffic jams is to listen to a cd of redone hymns. It doesn't do anything for the kids, but it discourages violence in the parents.) There was SO MUCH CRYING. Oh, Pickle. It's a good thing that we love you as much as we do. He cried the entire time again. I'm not joking. There was probably 60 minutes total during the trip when he was not crying. It was not good. NOT GOOD. NOT GOOD! He was so beyond awful. Can I make this any clearer for you? He was a monster. Little Miss came in as a close second. She started out in the back beside Peanut. She wouldn't stop bugging him and so we moved her carseat up into the second row in a bucket seat. Peanut went to sleep without her there so that was good. Then she moved into goading Pickle. Was she doing it on purpose? I don't know. It really really seemed like she was irritating him on purpose, but maybe I'm biased because it was a bad trip. She was definitely being a booger overall. Peanut was good once we got him away from Little Miss. He slept and read books to himself and kept the whining to a minimum. For the adults there were earplugs, CDs, Starbucks, and some taking frustration out on each other that we couldn't/wouldn't take out on the children. We got it together and decided we had enough stress without squawking at each other. We all made it home alive and it will be a long time before we leave home again....

5) Me feeling fat and zitty. Well, not much could be done with this. Instead I went home and had my sister (who is way skinnier, sexier, and stylisher than me) give me a shoulder rub outside. She sat on the swing and I sat in the grass and tipped my head forward and let her rub the knots of my shoulders. It was wonderful. And it resulted in a monster strip of sunburn across my forehead. No more worrying about zits because now I have stripes...

6) The 4th of July Party. This was at my parents' house and there wasn't really a way to escape it. Plus, it was one of the big reasons that we went home. It was the last evening/night that we were there. We had been really particular up until then about who held Little Miss or did things with her. As in, it was us. We did let my parents, my mom in particular do a lot of things too so that we could have a little rest. Anyway, we did a lot of relaxing this night. We still kept fairly close tabs on her, but we did let her do a lot more "visiting" than we had planned on. She did fine and I think we handled it fine. By the end of the night she was clearly showing signs that she needed her excitement level dialed back and so Andrew reclaimed her. She also was NOT into the fireworks. She grabbed Andrew in a deathgrip with the first one and was clearly terrified. So he took her into the house. They went down into the basement and calmed down and then she was able to watch them with him through the kitchen window. Pickle was also not into the fireworks, but to a lesser degree. He seemed to want to like them, but couldn't quite get past the noise. I took him inside too and then my sister's boyfriend came in and he is a Pickle-fan so he held Pickle for me and I enjoyed the fireworks with Peanut until I was booted out so he could talk boy-talk with his cousin. We've been talking about these fireworks for several weeks and it was really fun to see him enjoy them.

7) Peanut's adaptability. He did pretty well overall. It was definitely one of his better trips and hopefully as he's getting older he's getting to be more flexible. Oh, Peanut. He is such a great kid. He's having a hard time post-adoption, but he is so wonderful. We've had some really good moments and talks with him these last few days and weeks. He is going to grow up into a great man. (If anyone would like to talk to me about arranging a marriage to their daughter, I'm open to that!)

8) Not having car-sleepers. This was pretty well covered in the travel post. My kids just don't sleep well in the car. I'm not talking about it anymore because it's unfair. :)

9) The Aftermath. It hasn't been too bad so far. Little Miss has shown an increase in "deliberate hitting" which is hitting/throwing things without having a tantrum. Pickle is catching up on sleep in a major way, which has actually been nice. He's sleeping so much though that I'm almost worried about him. Peanut just wants to go back to Nonna's house and play outside. He told me so. Oh, and then today at 8:45 am I had tossed all three children into the minivan to go get my mother's helper for the morning so I could clean upstairs and vacuum the van and an older Korean woman ran a stop sign coming out of a parking lot and T-boned the minivan. I hadn't even had any coffee yet! I was really shaken. I had kind of "seen" it as it was happening, but there was nothing I could do (I honked and tried to brake, but there just wasn't enough time) and she hit the door right by Little Miss' carseat and it just rattled me. We are all okay, no injuries at all, besides nerves. It really stayed with me all day. The van definitely will be visiting the shop, but her insurance will cover it. I was scared when it happened, but I really felt bad for the woman. She looked really upset the whole time and when she heard that there were three little ones in my van she almost cried. Someone who saw it happen stopped and stayed to talk to the police which was nice. The kids didn't really "get" what happened or what could have happened so that was good. Pickle was totally oblivious. Little Miss kind of sensed something was up and started to get antsy/agitated in her carseat while we were waiting. Peanut kept saying, "Someone forgot to tell that lady to stop!" But he wasn't worried about it. He was excited to see the firetruck and police and ambulance come. Little boys! :)

10) My hometown. I didn't mean to make my town sound like it was the epicenter of racism so I hope that's not how it came across. I do realize that there are certain parts of town where there is more of an emphasis on diversity and like I said, I haven't lived there in a long time so things could have changed and I hope that continues to happen. I do think that there is a lot of room for improvement and I still don't see much diversity there at all. However, we didn't encounter any problems on this trip. We stayed basically at home and it wasn't an issue. Throughout my last comment I was mostly trying to get across that there is just so much more diversity HERE that being in the military is almost a bubble for us. Going "home" is much more what I think MOST places in the United States are like and it just makes me more aware as I think about going back into that environment that I need to be prepared.

Tomorrow I will be live-blogging again since we have hit the two-month home mark! Watch out for us!