I mentioned before, that Scott and I have not made any decisions regarding the size of our circus crew. Some days we feel quite complete with our trio, others there’s that desire to add another little one to the crew. So, we haven’t done anything drastic and we’re spending some time praying and thinking on it. But the crew members are starting to share their feelings on the matter. Not that we asked them their opinion mind you.
Last week the kids and I were walking to the park each holding hands and my son who was in the middle of his two sisters, says to me…
“Mom, it’s not fair that I don’t have a brother. They both do and I don’t and I want one.
Me: Well, if we did have a baby brother, he’d be a lot younger than you.
Son: That’s ok. I want to teach him things, like karate.
Me: Hmm… well, there is no guarantee we’d have a boy.
Son: Oh, well, then you could just have another and we could have 5 kids
(woah, slow the baby train down here… we haven’t even agreed to a fourth)
Me: Hmm, well, I think it would be hard to fit 5 kids in our minivan
Son: We could get a bigger van
Me: Well, with all those kids how would I have time to spend with all of you?
Son: Well, the baby’s take naps so when they nap you can play with me.
It appears he has this all worked out. I was left with no arguments, so I believe I muttered something like, “Hmm, we’’ll see…” and left it at that. The girls haven’t felt the need to share their point of view, but I am sure before long they too will voice an opinion. He brings it up fairly often though…again this morning when I was scurrying to put on 3 pairs of shoes and 3 coats and scurry out the door to drop my son off at preschool, he said, “Ya know I really want a baby brother and then we could have 4 kids and 2 grown ups which is 6 people in our family.” Yes, on a day when I didn’t get a shower or even my morning glass of milk, and the girls are heading out with out socks, just sneakers and we are STILL late for preschool, that is an excellent time to discuss adding another one to the circus. Jury’s still out…
My little brother celebrated his birthday this week. And being the good big sister that I am, I thought I’d share some lovely pics of him growing up for my Fro Me to You post this week. Cuz’ nothing says happy birthday like having your big sister post your picture on the internet for the world to see.
Happy Birthday Little Brother!
Here we are at one of his birthdays. I am guessing he was five or 6, making me 8 or 9. Looks like I gave him a dream team poster.
We look pretty dressed up for birthday gifts, so I am guessing his birthday fell on a Sunday that year and he got to open his gifts before we left for church.
And here we are on a family excursion to see the Cherry Blossoms in DC. I am guessing I am in about fifth or sixth grade. Please take notice of the turquoise shorts with the tucked in shirt and my favorite, the coordinating turquoise “koosh ball” earrings. I was stylin, don’t ya think?
He is my only brother. While we definitely had our moments growing up, I’d say we were pretty close. I have fond memories of playing Star Wars and GI Joes with him (I was always Princess Leah cooking food and cleaning house for the troops). I was a bossy big sister and it took me awhile to figure out that he didn’t need “another mom” as he would tell me time and again. Once I learned that, we were great friends.
We were both in each other’s weddings and have been to the hospital to welcome our new niece’s and nephews. I’m excited that our kids are close in age and hope that they the cousins will be good friends growing up.
I am thankful to have him as my brother, friend, and my children’s uncle.
Happy Birthday Bro! I love you lots!
I had a dream last night that I went to the movies and when it was my turn to order the tickets, I couldn’t remember the name of the movie we wanted to see. For some reason they didn’t list them on the wall behind the register like normal. I tried to call someone for help, but suddenly my phone had been replaced with a different phone and every time I hit the buttons for my contact list, it took me to some funky screen and I couldn’t find anyone’s number. As the line behind me grew and grew I kept begging the man at the register, “Please, it’s about a guy and a girl… it’s a comedy, with a little romance…you know the one…what is it?”
The funny thing is at the end of the dream when I finally found out the name of the movie, I said to myself, “Man, my memory is really going…it must be momnesia…I have totally gotta blog about this.”
And then I woke up.
What? I am blogging in my dreams now? I thought it was bad enough that when my kids say something funny and I laugh, that they ask if I am going to blog about it. Or the fact that when I go to share a funny anecdote with a friend, I am often interrupted with the phrase, “yea I know I read about that on your blog” But blogging in my dreams? I think I may need some serious help.
We have a few daily battles here at the circus which I have to mediate carefully. One involves who buckled their top straps first in the car seat and the other is over who gets to eat off of the coveted plate at meal time.
I made the innocent mistake of purchasing three different animal face plates last year at Target. I also bought some basic color plates as well. I was careful to make sure I got red and purple (my son and daughter’s favorite colors as well as 2 others since they baby didn’t yet have an opinion on colors and it was nice to have extras for when friends are visiting)
.
I remember bringing them home with excitement, our first kid plates, weren’t they cute?
And for awhile all went smoothly.
But, somewhere in the last year my daughter decided her favorite things were whatever her big brother liked best. So, since he wanted the frog plate at dinner, she too wanted the frog plate. And poor mr monkey and miss lady bug were cast offs. I suddenly had to keep track of who ate on the frog plate yesterday and whose turn it was tomorrow. And when the frog plate is dirty, we then resort to colors. The colors worked for awhile b/c my daughter liked purple and my son liked red. For awhile I just hid mr frog because the colors kept the peace.
Until my daughter decided that she too liked red.
Now, I have to keep track of who ate off of the frog and who ate off of the red plate.
I have one saving grace though.
Noah’s Ark.
Not sure exactly where we acquired this plate, I think it was in a box of hand me down toys someone gave us. But my daughter has latched on to the Noah plate because, “Hey, we learned about Noah in my Sunday School class.” And since my daughter has taken such affection towards the Noah plate, my son now shows an interest in it as well.
Of course.
But Noah does help keep the peace, because if my son has the frog, my daughter is happy if she has Noah. And vice versa.
Inevitably there are days when Noah and Mr Frog are both in the dish washer and I have to keep track of the red plate and who ate on what when.
Some days I say “Forget it, no one gets to eat off of the red plate, or the frog plate, or Noah plate.” Admittedly, this is usually said in frustration and met with great weeping and gnashing of teeth as they have to “suffer” with eating off of the monkey or lady bug. Some days, I don’t feel like negotiating and I just give the coveted plate to the baby, who doesn’t yet care. Some days I keep track of who had what when. Some days I patiently explain that we have to share and take turns and we can’t all have what we want when we want it.
Most days I regret bringing home the cute kid plates and am wondering why I didn’t just bring home 5 plastic white plates and call it a day. I’m pretty sure that’s what an experienced mom would have done. And I’m pretty sure where communism got it’s start.
In a home with three children all fighting over the coveted dinner plate.
Found this on CNN headlines…it appears I am not the only mom living at the circus.
Gotta busy Monday ahead of me, will try to post an update of our crazy circus life later today, until then you can read about this circus life.
Last week in church the pastor gave an illustration in which he mentioned the number of American lives lost during various wars in our history. My son looked over at me and asked why he was talking about American soldiers getting killed.
This led to a discussion later in the week in which it was brought to my attention that my son was under the impression that good guys don’t die in war. It was a sobering discussion I had with my four year old that afternoon that went something like this…
Son: Mom, why did the good guys die? I thought they killed the bad guys.
Me: Well, sometimes they do, but sometimes the bad guys kill them first. The bad guys are trying to get them just like they are trying to get the bad guys.
Son: But Mom, they have camouflage so the bad guys can’t see them
Me: True, and that helps a lot, but sometimes the good guys still get hurt. That’s why they are heroes…not just because they hurt the bad guys, but because by doing so they are risking their own lives. That is part of war…good guys and bad guys die.
Son: But Uncle Jim didn’t die.
Me: Yes, and we are so thankful for that, but that is why we were praying for Uncle Jim when he was at war, because we wanted God to protect him.
Son: But Uncle Jim isn’t at war right now…he’s training right now to be a captain.
Much later that night when we were saying our bedtime prayers my son prayed, “please keep Uncle Jim safe.”
I found this whole incident to be quite sobering. We have stressed over and over through the years that soldiers, and policemen, and firemen are true heroes and deserve honor and our gratitude. I guess though we never stressed why they are heroes. And in the sweet innocence of childhood, my son assumed that only bad guys get hurt. Yet we live in a world where that is not the case.
And as this truth sunk in to my little boy, his response was to pray for the Lord to protect his dear Uncle Jim who serves as a soldier in our U.S. Army. 
This served as a good reminder to me to continue to life up our soldiers in prayer. While Uncle Jim is home in Texas right now, we are praying for our cousin Joel who is at war fighting for our freedom. We are proud to have both soldiers as part of our family, modeling heroism for our children.
Last week the girls and I were at the auto mechanic waiting to get the oil changed in our minivan. We were sitting nicely in the the waiting room reading books and enjoying some goldfish when suddenly I look over at the older one and shockingly find her standing in the waiting room (filled with people) with her pants and underwear down to her ankles. I quickly pull them up and ask her why she did this and she explains that her “butt hurts.” I quickly take her into the bathroom to fix this.
Today I took the kids to the park to enjoy our heat wave (45 degrees today). As I was unloading the girls I look over to see my son with his drawers dropped, peeing in the grass.
“What are you doing?” I shriek as I then make eye contact with the mom in the car beside ours. “I have to pee,” he explains.
As if it is ok to just pee wherever we want.
For the second time in a week, I find myself hurriedly pulling up my child’s pants and ushering him away from the public spectacle we’ve caused. Thankfully, we have our in van potty seat, which I find in the back of the van. Apparently he really had to go b/c he tried to go in the parking lot when I set it on the ground. I quickly get it in the van and out of the world’s view. He asks why he can’t pee in the grass. I say b/c it is gross and people walk there. He then asks if he could pee in poison ivy (I know his logic is that no one would be walking on poison ivy). I caution him that it isn’t a good idea to pee in poison ivy either.
Apparently I need to have a little talk with my children about decency and what behaviors are and aren’t appropriate in public.
A few weeks ago Scott’s cousin was married in CA. Since the groom was from Brazil, we were among many friends and relatives that weren’t able to attend the ceremony. The family thoughtfully broadcasted the ceremony live on the internet. I had never attending a wedding this way before.
While we would have preferred to attend the wedding in person and share in their celebration with them, in some ways, it was the easiest way to watch the ceremony with our three kids present.
The kids were able to play during the ceremony without us having to worry about them disturbing anyone else. My daughter made sure that all of the little people were present and lined up to see the ceremony, while my son flew something around the room.
We were able to type messages to the bride and groom and they could talk back to us. My daughter didn’t quite grasp the fact that they couldn’t see her though. Here she is holding up some signs for them. 
Eventually they got so out of control that even though they weren’t disturbing any of the other guests, they were disturbing us (first time I was ever body bashed while watching a wedding) so we sent them to their room to play. 
Every now and then they’d come out though. At one point my son was marching through the room singing, “Pha-roah, Pha-roh, let my people go, before God smites you with his hand” not your typical wedding song. After the ceremony was over and we got to “talk” to the beautiful bride and groom as well as extended family members, we went back to the kids room.
It appears that they thought a fun way to play quietly was to take every.single. paper out of their binders and scatter them over their entire bedroom. Nice, huh?
We were so thankful that we had the opportunity to share in bride and groom’s special day from the other side of the country. I’m pretty certain though that they won’t be including these pictures in their wedding album. For more pictures that won’t see the inside of a scrapbook, check out We are THAT Family.
I recently discovered a way to entertain and delight my children, while also getting some help in the kitchen.
I let them wash dishes in the sink by hand.
I don’t give them anything fragile. But at almost 3 and almost 5, they are quite capable of scrubbing pots and pans or large bowls…things I can’t squeeze into the dishwasher.
They beg me for the opportunity and it keeps them content for up an hour. I figure I gotta take advantage of this while I can…having my kids beg for the chance to do the dishes is not something I anticipate lasting forever.
I’ve learned a few tricks to keep this successful.
- One child is on dish duty at a time. (2 preschoolers at the sink is recipe for trouble).
- Be prepared to go through more than your usual amount of soap. Seems the kids think you need a LOT of soap to clean those pots.
- I limit them to two or three dishes. I don’t want them to be overwhelmed or to get bored…bored kids armed with the spray house is another hazard.
- Remove any important papers at least 3 feet away from the sink…splashing is par for the course.
- Sometimes you gotta spot check them b/c even though they scrub that pot for 30 minutes, they can still miss quite a few spots. (I typically sit them on the counter to dry and to a quick touch up later when they aren’t around) They are still getting most of the hard work out of the way with all that soaking.
My son told me last week, “Mom, you never have to do dishes again.” …If I could just get that in writing.
Check out Rocks in My Dryer for more helpful hints.
I am dealing with some serious reentry probs today, so my post is not only later in the day than normal, but will be more of a random tangent on life at the circus today.
The entire circus fam is fighting colds. Runny noses, coughs…we felt them coming on at the end of last week but oddly enough standing in 15 degree weather for 4 hours did little to fight them off. That coupled with the fact that the five of us spent 11 hours in the car together this weekend breathing in the same recycled air, has ensured that we are all equally miserable.
It’s not that bad though…if we are feeling too blue or grouchy all I gotta do is play my recently downloaded “Here We Go, Here We Go Steelers, Here We Go, Pittsburgh’s Going to the Superbowl” song and all five of us are dancing and singing along. I am sure we’ll have all the lyrics memorized by the 1st!
On our drive home yesterday we were stuck in two different traffic backups. For the first one, we were able to get off, take a back road,and get back on our route. In the other case, the accident was on the other side of the highway and we were in congestion caused by rubbernecking. It was however, the worst traffic accident I have ever seen in my life. A 40 car pile up on route 70. It made me realize how much I take for granted our safety in the car. How I rarely offer true thanksgiving to God for my safe voyage. Often if I remember to do anything, it is more like lip service, rather than heart felt gratitude. Today I am truly grateful.
I am also thankful that today is Tuesday. Tuesday is the one day of the week that we don’t have to be somewhere at any specific time. I need this day, especially this week, as I have suitcases to unpack, laundry to do, ringtones to download, blogs to read, a house to clean…
In the midst of all this, I made time to record a new message on my answering machine thanks to my recently downloaded fight song.
We also took some time out to watch the inauguration. Scott and I were talking yesterday about how much we take our government for granted. Today, we had a change in power in our nation. One government party and its philosophies and ideologies, was replaced with another, and it was done so without a military uprising. How often do we take that peaceful hand shake for granted?
As I was pointing out the important political figures and explaining who was who and why they were being saluted, why they were wearing black suits (you know the important details and questions I wouldn’t think about without preschoolers present) I had a rather comical conversation with my oldest daughter.
I was pointing out George Bush and she said, “Not George the monkey!”
No I said, “George Bush” and she giggled.
I realized in her mind she was probably looking for a cartoon character like George the Monkey only it was a little bush. This little diversion made me laugh for so many reasons during this solemn ceremony.
Afterwards Scott called and we discussed the inaugural address. It was so refreshing to have an intellectually stimulating discussion with my husband in the middle of the day. There is no one whose opinion I respect more than his. I greatly appreciated hearing his thoughts on things, asking him a few questions and discussing our opinions. It lasted about 5 minutes, because then I realized that the house was way too quiet for having three circus children awake and when I realized the bathroom door was shut, I knew I had to go. Turns out my son was reading “Pat the Bunny” to the girls while he was on the potty.
So, that is my hodge podge of thoughts for all who care…funny to me this whole bloggy world and how there are people out there that are actually interested in my runny nose musings. I love it though. Love these relationships I have cultivated through this crazy world wide web. I am off to get some lunch and catch up on your lives (I hold you responsible for the laundry that does not get done today).
