Diet Zehlahlum

I'm not going to name one of my favorite stores 

that sells my favorite brand of coffee

and allows me to browse and sip a Very Big coffee

while my children sit in a cart and cram giant cookies into their mouths, 

but that store that I'm not mentioning...

they had a few things on display today that were just

a bit

too much for me, even for me.

This just makes me laugh.

 

Okay. I'm sorry. Does it seem like the placement of that "button" is unfortunate?

Or is my mind just that depraved? 

No one in a focus group giggled when they...pulled this one out?

I mean, really, I'd blush if I had to push his "interactive button".

 This one?
No laughing, just gagging.

And some jealousy.

Check out that cleavage!

I guess this is the barbie that you call if you're a businessken businessman

hoping to write-off a little hanky panky.

You know what I think?

Don't worry I'll tell you. 

(Why do you people read this blog anyway? What are you here for?)

I'd make a mom-doll with unwashed Medusa hair, sweatpants, and a coffee cup.

I think that this young lady busting out her boobs needs a grandma barbie

to slap her nicely upside the head 

and tell her that boys don't buy the loaf when they're getting the slices for free!

 

 And now here we are again

with "Tiny".

And if we roll with the inappropriate button placement inneuendo

(and you know that I will)

then tell me if it doesn't look like Tiny is a flasher?

Doesn't "Tiny" look like he's holding open his trenchcoat 

to reveal his "interactive button" 

I guess the trenchcoat is sold separately...

KABAM!!!

I want to be different. Deep down in my heart I want to be different. I want my thoughts to be different, my heart to be different, my reactions to be different, my hopes to be different, my follow-through to be different. The only thing that I am sure of is the longing of my heart. I know I'm good there. Because the longing of my heart is my desire to be different, to be better, to BE more like Christ. 

It frustrates me that I can't be different. I'm frustrated that I'm always ME. 

I've been waiting for a long time. When I was in high school I was waiting for it to happen in college. When I was in college I was waiting for it to happen when I got married (not that IT, but we did wait for marriage for that too). When we were newlyweds I was waiting for it to happen when we'd been married longer. When we didn't have kids I was waiting for it to happen when we did have kids (and we all know IT happens a lot less frequently after kids...). When we did have a kid I was was waiting for it happen after we had more kids (no joke here, too easy). And now here I am floundering about on the Sea of Ahhhhhhhhhhhh and trying to keep my family above water and I'm still waiting for it to happen. 

I'm waiting for KABAM!!!

Kabam in this case being that ONE MOMENT when God takes my messed-up, flawed, sinful, floundering self and

KABAM

fixes me!

Surely, that's not too much ask. I mean, really, it's GOD and I'm know that I'm kind crazy (hence the Z), but I'm not that screwed up that He couldn't just fix me up!

But he keeps not doing it. (He's nervy like that.) Never once at any of those key moments of my life has God just morphed me into this person that I want to be. You know, the person who would be calm, collected, smart, patient, grateful, so many things that I am not, right in the moment when I need to be. 

Because although God doesn't believe me, I swear that if he would just make me THAT person things would be so much better for me and I could do all the great things that I want to do! I wouldn't scare people away from my blogs, maybe I could start doing some speaking, I could get some things published. I could be productive as a wife and effective as a mother. I could make a difference. I could succeed instead of flopping. It would just take one KABAM, that's all!

But nope. He never just makes me that person I want to be (and I'm thinking he's not gonna) instead he just tweaks my character here and there and asks me to trust. It is the longing of my heart to be more like Him. And since God isn't going along with my plan to get there then I go along with his. I trust and I hope and try to change myself a little at a time. 



I don't know where God is taking me, my life, or my family. And yes, it scares me. I like to know, but I don't, I can't and so I (try really hard to) trust. I mean, my life departed from my route a long time ago. I know that God wants me in heaven (he wants you there too and shoot me an email if you want to talk about that) and so I'm going to go his way. Sometimes I go his way crying, my hands clenched into fist, or trembling and whiter with fear or just dragging my feet, but I am going. I long for his peace more than I long for my own success. 


I know where I'm going. I just don't know the path to get there.


And apparently God and I are on the scenic route.

The Park

I'm still not fully back in my blogging groove. Please be patient with me as I get myself sorted out. I have a lot a lot of big thoughts tumbling through my small brain which is leading to a traffic jam when I try to sit down and write. Oh, and did I mention that I'm going to be writing a novel next month? Yeah. I've got time for that....

This is how we go to the park (minus the headache of getting ready)!

 We are all buckled up.

 (slightly stunned from exposure to sunlight since we don't get out much)

 "I know there's some way to cause trouble at the park!"

 Even when they are strapped down I can't get them to look at the camera and smile.

 This was a first for us, but we're flexible. Peanut wanted to buckle up his blankie "in case that lady forgets her stop sign again".

 What? You thought I'd smiling after the effort it takes to get three babies ready to leave the house? No. You thought I'd let you see the bags under my eyes or draw attention to the fact that I'm not wearing makeup? No.

 Peanut takes a lot of pride in holding Little Miss' hand since he's the big brother. And come on, it's an adorable picture.

 Look, there's our smooth ride in the background and the world's cutest baby. I LOVE a baby with a blanket and a "muffle" pacifier. Melts. My. Heart.

 Here's our park. See that fence? That fence is the reason this is "our" park. I can shut them all in. Amen. Hallelujah.

 I just have a few things to say. "ages 5-12"? Really? and my favorite part...
"parental supervision is advisable".
Advisable? Not mandatory? Where is the nearest Starbucks? I am GONE!

 This is what we haul to the park with us. Left to right: canvas bag, wallet, sunglasses, keys, phone, 1 toy per kid: Peanut's helicopter, Little Miss' naked doll, and Pickle brought Cookie Monster, a sippy cup full of water in their own colors, a book for me, my coffee, and then my water bottle .

Straight to business!

 "SUPER PEANUT!!!" I've mentioned before that Peanut has some sensory issues. He is still very cautious on the playground and won't try everything, but this jump of maybe 3.5 feet is HUGE.

 Little Miss usually does well in the park. We're able to mostly have fun without worrying about much behavior and we can all just relax. (It helps that there is hardly ever anyone else there.)

 I just can't not photograph his little face. I have got to get working on my photography goals.

 As long as no one else is at the park then I let them climb up the slides. We're rebels. Pickle is an expert slide climber. It's uncanny.

 More jumping. More pride.

 Ahem, some of my children are really, really, really bad at climbing slides. In fact, they seem to remain stuck in place for extended amounts of time. Seriously. She's never made it to the top on her own yet.

 Love.

 Love.

 It took Little Miss a long time to warm up to sliding. She's still a little hesitant, but she warms up a little more every time. And yes, this tiny little slide is supposed to be for 5-12 year olds.

 Nothing wrong with a little dirt on the skirt!

 I can't help it. He was being way too cute.

 Seriously cute. Even with a little snot dripping out of his nose.

 I wish this picture was better, but I love that little expression.

 Little Miss is usually in charge of passing out the drinks. They double as toys that are great for rolling down the slides. Watch out for dirt in the mouth and getting hit in the mouth. Not that we'd know....

 My kids are going to be heartbreakers when they grow up, each and every one of them.

 No, he's not supposed to drink coffee, but he's a fiend. I don't know where he gets it. Seriously though, he will drink it given half a second. He doesn't care if it's mine sweetened to the hilt or Andrew's day black day old coffee left in a coffee mug in the office. Pickle will find it and drink it.

 If one of the babies does it then the other one is going to do it too. Peanut can climb this, but he doesn't like it because it makes him feel like he's falling.

 Sometimes it stinks to be the smallest and stuckest.

 It is really, really sad to come back home. Every. Time.

 This is actually a pleasant looking facade. She isn't crying like Peanut, but this is the one of the faces of the Eternal Whine.

 This is the classic "I can't believe you have ruined my life by bringing me home to feed me lunch and be sure that I'm getting appropriate amounts of sleep. You are unspeakably cruel." face











And that folks is how we to do the park Zehlahlum style. Let me know if you want to come and sit on my bench with me and drink coffee!

Virginity Lost

This past weekend I did lots of things something I've never done before and I'm not just talking about the fact that I slept with this woman. This is a confessional kind of post although I'm going to mostly keep my confessions to those things that directly implicate me, which was actually not most of the funny stuff at the retreat. I was the scary one with freaky stories and mascara smeared from crying. The life of the party I know. Anyway.

This past weekend I gave up my "I don't do anything actually just for fun because I'm a mother" virginity. I did something friv.O.lous.

I went away. I went without children. I went for me. (And I'm going again next year)

It was really really really great. It was like steeping in alcohol Zoloft all weekend. It was like having the love that mothers pour out to their children all day poured back into us with a side of dirty jokes so that we could go home and pour it out all over again, but keeping the dirty jokes internally to hold us through until next year.

What is wasn't like was high school. We were all vastly different in so many ways, but it was okay. There wasn't any attitude (of the bad kind) there wasn't judgment because some women worked, worked out, had money, showered, didn't drink, cuss, had fashion sense, skinny thighs, white teeth, a nice car OR they were like me, which is the opposite of all those things.

Nobody cared. It didn't matter. It wasn't important. We were everything that we are supposed to be in this world. We loved and were love, we were supportive and I was we were supported, we were showered with gifts and we showered underwear. We were strangers when we arrived and truly friends when we left. We (via Megan) made a community to support us where we needed it.

We were women. We were exactly what women were meant to be. We looked past differences because they don't mean anything and we looked at what mattered. We listened to problems, fears, and hopes for the future and there wasn't anything tangible we could do for each other, but it didn't matter. It wasn't about that. It was about the emotional connection. And I have to say it again, it wasn't that we all had that much in common. There were some common bonds and similarities, but mostly not. Mostly we just listened to each others' stories without judgment and what we found was our own hearts. We came back as women who were stronger, fatter, closer, and ready to do it all over again, both our lives and our retreat next year.





(and truly, I apologize for the crying, horrific adoption stories, and the fact that I'm only in group photos! I'd just like to say that several of you are in big trouble for not being in pictures with me! The ONLY "person" that I have a group photo with is...you know who! OMD!)

LoL/LoL: Meals

Welcome to my blog series! Please come in and sit down, ignore your kids, have a cup of coffee and laugh at my life. I'm excited to bring you:

Lots of Littles/Lots of Laughs

Today we're talking about meals. Meals are a frequent topic of conversation among moms and those people who are just way nosy about moms. "Are you breastfeeding? Are you formula feeding him?" In case, you're wondering the way to solve that problem is to double-feed your babies and make everyone happy. (You're welcome) 

And after you've answered that nosy question with a 50% chance of making the asker happy then they want to know how MUCH they're eating and how OFTEN they're eating (the questions get harder as the kids get older because there's more options so your odds of making the asker happy go down.)  And do you wake them up to eat or do you "never wake a sleeping baby" and surely they're not STILL waking up at night to eat! And then people want to know if you're making your own baby food or buying it and whatever it is it IS organic. Right?! Oh, and do you let them eat vegetables first or fruit first because the sweet baby Jesus knows that if they eat fruit first there will be no higher education because they'll have passed from sugar comas before they've graduated from their Ivy League Preschool. 


And then there's MORE!! If you thought there was pressure about eating when the choice was boob or bottle. Oh my dod! Just wait until you're feeding toddlers and preschoolers. Sometimes they don't stop eating. Sometimes they don't eat. Sometimes they only eat one thing for.ever. and sometimes they like potatoes one day and the next day act like you're trying to POISON them by potato. They'll eat their vegetables beautifully until your mother-in-law arrives and they've never thrown food until they're in a restaurant and then they splatter paint your walls. And on and on it goes.


As far as what happens after preschool years, no clue. Go read someone else's blog. 

This is how it plays out in our house. I'm just going to hit the highlights because it's late and I'm tired because don't believe the hype: YOU DO NOT GET MORE SLEEP ON A RETREAT. Strange (and worth it), but true. 


Breastfeeding? Yes. Peanut had some bottles of formula because I was way crazy (this may turn out to be my life theme), but we're talking about maybe two dozen bottles of formula over the course of his milk-lovin' days which lasted just over a year and had an unfortunate and abrupt ending. I was less crazy with Pickle and he was "easier" and so he probably had less than half a dozen bottles of formula ever. He nursed for about fourteen months. Little Miss (I'm conjecturing) nursed exclusively for 11 months and was then on formula. I fed them "on cue" and whenever else I needed them to be quiet or I wanted to sit down and watch tv. I've got some funny pictures of nursing in strange pictures that maybe I'll show you sometime. Peanut nursed at night til we stopped nursing and then he would wake up for a bottle of milk/formula until he was almost 18 months old. Pickle quit nursing at night except for the occasional mid-night snack around seven months. 


We did homemade baby food for Peanut and then Pickle didn't really get baby food at all except for a little. And that brings us to where we are now (totally ignoring any food issues my daughter may or may not have) feeding 1, 2, and 3 year olds. 


I try to do a hot breakfast for the kiddos because it sets us up for a better day, but it does require work and sometimes I just say no to work. For instance, after bringing Little Miss home my children lived off of cereal, because, you know. My kids are oatmeal fanatics. They eat it probably four days a week. Right now I make a big batch in a rice/oatmeal cooker of steel cut oats and heat it up for them. We also do scrambled eggs and sometimes the toast, yogurt, and fruit. I am usually sitting (except for every .6 seconds when I'm up and doing something for them) on the couch injecting sipping my first dose of caffeine and watching CNN and regretting how late I stayed up the night before. This is the kids' happiest mood of the day (usually) and so they do okay without me right there. My kids eat like gigantic starving monsters at breakfast and this is by far the biggest meal of the day. 

This is a link to my kids singing at the breakfast table. When I'm big girl I'll learn how to embed it, but for now I couldn't make it work.



When they have oatmeal for breakfast we don't usually need to do a morning snack and life is better when we don't need to do that. My kids think that morning snack should be an actual meal and so it can trigger problems when they then feel like they're not getting enough food (one unnamed child in particular). I judge the need for a snack on behavior and if they seem to be starting to deteriorate then I feed them. Since it's close to lunch time this is usually a really healthy snack...some protein, some healthy carbs, and fruit.


Lunch is our smallest meal of the day and the laziest. Sometimes it's leftovers from dinner, but usually not because we eat those for dinner. My kids often live off of PB& J. I consider it health food. Whole wheat bread, Jiffy Natural Peanut Butter (which is a miracle food) and organic sugar free jelly. Sometimes lunch is fruit, some crackers, and a piece of cheese and/or deli meat. If they haven't had oatmeal in a few days (or if we're really freaking broke) then we'll have oatmeal for lunch. Have I mentioned that I actually hate oatmeal? Blech. By this point of the day the kids are tired and I am tired of the kids and they don't eat much, half a dozen bites here and there. Plus, I have to get them all three up to naps and so it's just not always the smoothest time of day. 


Our afternoon snack is the "fun" snack of the day. We do it as soon as all the kids are awake. It's something like popcorn, maybe a little candy, "dessert cereal", or whatever else they're in the mood for. We don't really have anything in the house that I wouldn't let them eat if they asked for it and so that helps to eliminate fights.


Dinner is something that we haven't been excelling at lately. I enjoy cooking, but not with three children whining under my feet. The boys are easy enough to be distracted, but Little Miss starts to go into panic mode. Peanut loves to help cook. We still keep it pretty healthy, but also are concerned about cheap and sometimes those clash. Our table doesn't seat our entire family and so one of the adults sit at the table and then the other one "hides" nearby. The kids love to have us sit at the table and so I imagine they'd be really thrilled if we had a bigger table. As our kids get more civilized older I really really hope that dinner takes place around a table that we all fit at and that we are able to start some fun traditions at that time and make it a time for family prayers. Really at this point though we're just trying to make it through still. 


Let's see...what are other factoids can I give you?


1.    I LOVE cookbooks. When life is good and I'm actually cooking we have a new recipe about twice a week at least.
2.    We don't make our kids eat anything or "take X more bites" or anything like that. We encourage them to eat and talk about how what each food does for the body and we do say things like, "Wow! You ate a bite of chicken and that gives you big muscles. I think I just SAW your muscle get bigger!" Judge me, go ahead.
3.    My kids do not eat much meat. They make me think that vegetarian is our default setting and we just learn to eat meat because as a society we eat meat. 
4.    We recently cut way back on the amount of juice our kids drink. There really isn't any nutritional value and it's one of those things that just sneak up on you. Right now, they get a glass of water with breakfast, then when that is empty they get a glass of milk, and then when that is empty they can have a glass of juice or some,some,sometimes chocolate milk. I now buy about one gallon of juice a week and when it's gone we don't buy more until grocery day again.
5.     I grocery shop about once a week with a meal plan and spend about $120 which I've dropped by about $20 recently and would like to get down to $100 a week, but we're not there yet.




Don't forget to check out Katy she has a super great idea about how they do dessert at their house. I think I'm going to steal it and you might want to too. Also, don't forget to play along! Comment below and tell us about meals at your house or play along on your blog and link up. I LOVE to read these.

Technical Difficulties

I have a post that was supposed to go up last night and one that was supposed to go up this morning and they are both G.O.N.E.

Ugh. Good thing I stayed up until 2 am working on those....

Be on the lookout for my perspective and experience on the women's retreat that I enjoyed while terrifying the other gentle souled women  and then a LoL/LoL post about meals and feeding children, but we have early intervention for Little Miss this morning so don't be looking for my posts before naptime, probably.