Three (four) males snoring

Here I am sitting in the warm cozy sun room of our home that includes a wood burning stove.  I am sitting here all alone.  Why? you ask?  It is because I arrived home from karate class to find not one, not two, but all three males in my care (four, if you include the dog) sleeping happily.  One with his head on a purple and pink unicorn PillowPet (Don't ask).  One with both arms thrown over his head as if to say 'touchdown', his reading light blasting him in the face.  The last snoring.  I will not tell you which one is which.  What I will tell you is that it does a heart good to know that all are snuggled happily away.

What I am contemplating is how DadOfAllTrades has the where-with-all to go to bed when he is tired.  Now, I know that sounds like a statement that should be followed by a loud and long 'DUUUUUHHH'.  But I realize that he can declare 'I am tired.' and go to bed without a second thought.  I have not the ability to look beyond what needs to be done and just say "That is it.  I am D.O.N.E. And I am going to bed at 8:15."  Why can I not do this and my infinitely smart husband can?  Is it hardwired in men and not in women?  Can I go back to the manufacturer and ask to have an after-market part installed that allows me to overlook the dirty dishes and just lie down?

DadOfAllTrades used to work these awful shifts that involved him on all three shifts over the course of 28 days, every 28 days.  It was the most difficult time in our  marriage as the poor man was constantly tired and cranky.  I can't say I blamed him.

I remember how I was during the months I nursed babies, but even then I still know that I could sleep when it was dark out and be awake when it was light.  And I had an adjustment period to get used to the broken sleep.  Being nine months pregnant with a kicker is not conducive to eight consecutive hours of shut-eye.  I even developed a system with Buzz in that I would put two blankets on the floor in his room before I went to bed.  When he hollered for some milk, I groggily drug myself upstairs and scooped him up.  I changed his diaper, smelled his hair (wonderous!), and placed him ever so lovingly on the floor next to me on blanket #1.  I would cover me and him with blanket #2 because I am a freeze-baby ever since gestation and help him to latch on.  Then I would fall back to sleep while he ate.  This may not be the safest way with the blankets and suffocation and all, but it was much safer for him than me being in a rocker and dropping him as I fell back to sleep.  I figured that if he was already on the floor he couldn't fall there.

I digress... Back to DadOfAllTrades.

So, DadOfAllTrades had these crazy shifts and for seven glorious, I mean lonely, nights I had evenings all to myself.  Once I put the boys in bed and did the minor straightening I have to do (or I can't sleep), I could have dropped into the gentle arms of sleep and felt much better the next day.  Better able to handle all that toddlers and preschoolers can throw at you, or me, or...whatever.  But NOOOOOOOO.  I usually turned on the TV and channel surfed.  I found shows I would never have watched while DadOfAllTrades was home.  Like this one about spoiled brats looking for the best wedding dress.  Or some cooking shows on The Food Network that sent me back to the kitchen for a nighttime snack.  Or even the home shopping shows.  Next thing I knew it was 11pm and I had to force myself to turn off the TV quick before the 'Next up" previews began.  There were nights I turned of the tube right before I knew DadOfAllTrades would be home because I was embarrassed to admit I was still awake and watching TV I really didn't care about.

The thing that impresses me the most about finding them all asleep is that DadOfAllTrades makes no excuses. He just goes to bed and sleeps.  I wish I could take care of myself like that.  He got the boys ready for bed, which is no mean feat anymore.  I even remember looking at him when he got home from work and thinking that he looked a little tired.  And God bless him that he recognizes this about himself.  I need to take a lesson  from DadOfAllTrades and just go to bed.

Ok here I go...

Well..ok now....

Frigid winds and little digits

This post is written in haste because I am so frustrated at other parents.  So-I may or may not make sense.  Consider yourself warned.

This morning, in my little piece of heaven, it is frigid.  Single digits abound and wind chills are even lower.  As we are getting ready to climb in the car I remind my boys of the cold and that they have a responsibility to take care of themselves.  I have provided them with coats, hats. gloves, snow pants and boots to protect their little beings and I fully expect them to use those tools of warmth.

Now, this lecture came on the tails of talk last night at bedtime about how cold it was to be tomorrow and how much DadOfAllTrades was going to have to protect his body while working outside.  This was not the first time that LegoMaster and Buzz have heard about dressing appropriately for the weather.  I have discussed this ad nauseum before this date-mostly to Buzz who insists upon wearing snow boots all year round.  I have pleasantly asked him to change in to more appropriate footwear, not only because he will be  hot, but how in the world will I get sand out of fleecey insides of boot linings?? (I usually have to throw his snow boots out each fall because they reek, just FYI about his decision making processes and why I have to talk about this ALL THE TIME.)

SO, we get in the car fully bundled.  "Where so we put our hats and gloves when we take them off?"  "In our bags (monotone)"  "Where so we put our snow pants when we take them off?" "In our bags or hooks (monotone)"  Boring, but my responsibility as a parent.  They are seven and five, for crying out loud, and will choose the path of least resistance unless I guide them.

We step out of the car and look straight at two boys who are not only without hat and gloves, but their coats are not zipped and are hanging off their shoulders so that their t-shirts are clearly visible.  Goodness-it is ZERO degrees.  You couldn't feel the cold when you put your kids in the car??  You couldn't ask them to zip when you pulled in the driveway of the school?  You couldn't refuse to get out of the car until all hats were in place and all fingers were loaded in gloves??  Or at least send them back to their rooms to get a sweatshirt??

"Why don't they have to wear hats?"  I hear.  As a mom I wanted to say, very loudly, that we need to take care of ourselves and it doesn't matter what others do.  But I bent down and talked directly to my son and reminded him of this.

Please, moms, take care of your kids.  For they are young and, flat out, do not know how.  They need to be told and reminded and reminded again.  They will rebel and you need to be persistent.  If we do not take care of the "little" or "easy" self care things, we will not be able to help them with the harder things.  Those self care choices like sex, drug taking, smoking, exercising, healthy eating.  I am not saying their little beings need to be saint-like in their actions.  I am saying that they need to see how to take care of themselves so they can make an informed decision later in life as an adult.

And for cripes sake-YOU ARE THE ADULT!!  You are in charge.  And if you aren't in your own home, then change your actions so that you are.  If they refuse to do something as simple as putting on a hat now, what is your life going to be like when you give them a curfew??  Think about that.

I am done.  I think.....

Seven quick thoughts #2

1. One can tell if a child is interested in a show by the amount of wiggling is occurring.

2. I have a desire to have a clean house.  That is it, just a desire.  No amount of energy will make it happen though.

3.  Children will play with the one thing you thought you lost, then never give it back until it is broken.

4.  If you finally remember to bring the camera to karate, your child will not look at you.  Also, they will mess up more doing their cada then be embarrassed and not want to finish class.  Or it just looks that way.

5.   I can live without coffee, but life is not as much fun.

6. Knee patches on little boys pants are cute.

7. There is something to be said for having a fast food meal.  While I try not to make it a rule to eat the greasy stuff, sometimes it is OK and even better for the flow of our day.

Thats all.  Have a great day.

An Update

I wrote earlier that I am trying to do a year long gastronomic adventure through the USA.  It involves a "Best of.." cookbook that found it's way into my hands over the Christmas shopping spree and two boys with composition books and a boatload of crayons.

Here is what we have done so far (only two weeks, but I am proud nonetheless):

OHIO!!!  We attached the state, looked up the year of statehood, made a pork roast recipe and a sauerkraut recipie.  We looked up the capital and began our notebooks.

ALASKA:  We venture to the the last frontier because my niece's boyfriend-surely-husband-to-be-someday spent five months there on some work-study thingy.  He spent a while showing the boys pretty cool photos of the state and some of it's offerings-like Mt McKinley, ice climbing, iditarod, skiing, King crab, and more.  We put the state on the map (or didn't put it on the map as we are trying to be geographically correct and I could not find a paper big enough to truly be correct, so Alaska is hanging out on the wall).  We read the story of Balto, the Famous iditarod dog.  We ate a Wood Stove stew, and bear claw cookies.

To add some humor-LegoMaster said they would have been better without the almonds.  If you have never seen these type of cookies, one places slivers of almonds before cooking to look like the claws/nails of a bear.  without them the cookies would just be chocolate cookies.  Funny as my boy is so "vanilla" as I am.  While I enjoy a good granache, give me New York Cheesecake or vanilla bean ice cream any day.

Back to Alaska:  My niece and boyfriend made state flags with them.  I love watching my boys do crafts.  LegoMaster is SO serious about getting it right.  Buzz just waved the glue stick somewhere in the area of the blue paper and hoped for the best.  Can we have a cookie now?  I am hoping he is getting something out of this other than the fact that Mom makes him do so much-can I just play now??

Next- popular vote went to following the path of our last summer Epic Vacation.  So we are on to Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas with six others from that trip to cover until we head east to those states they have set foot in.

I think I am more excited than the boys.

You Are Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

At a recent bible study, a newly saved believer asked how one would know if an answer to a prayer was really God’s word or just the “musings of her own brain”.  Or something like that.  I  LOVED the question because it was true and to the heart of her feelings, and, quite frankly, something that I have also wondered.  It led to a fabulous discussion regarding adventures in God’s talking.  Talking to us, that is.  Every one of the other participants was able to relate a time when they felt that God had answered a question or a longing in their heart.  The answer may not have been exactly what they were asking for, but it did fulfill their need and brought them closer to Christ. 

One of the ladies related the story of how she and her husband came about the home in which they now live.  They could not meet the price the seller was asking and she would not go down in her price any further.  They had resigned that the house they loved was not the one God had intended for them and had peace with not going above their offering price.  They knew their financial limitations and decided that God would guide them to the house, or the neighbors, that He had intended for them.  The very next morning after they decided not to raise their offer, the real estate agent called and told them that the seller decided to take their lower offer because she had an overwhelming feeling that the house was supposed to go to them.

Another lady talked of how she knew that God was in the hand of her divorce, although He hates divorce.  She and her estranged husband began having the same dreams about him serving in a church, some brick church that he had never seen.  He decided to try to reconcile with her and attend her church even though he had never been there, nor had he even lived in state for the past six months.  When they pulled into the parking lot of the church, he immediately stated that this was the church he had seen in his dreams.  They both met with the pastor separately after the service, but the estranged husband refused to admit that God had tried to join them back together.  He would not accept Christ as his savior.  The pastor believed that she was right in ending the marriage and she has had great peace with it ever since.  She met her current husband a week later at a bible study in that same church.

And my story:

I struggled with my feelings about my weight for a while.  I am not obese, but I have a real hard time finding clothing that flatters me as I have larger hips and bum than I do waist and shoulders (and bust also, but that is a whole other post).  I feel disappointed every time I try on clothing as most retail clothing is made for the model figure-no hips, and legs up to there.  I put on a pair of jeans that fit my hips and have visions of young boys trying to throw coins into the gap in the back.  I squat down only to see plenty of crack that no one wants to see (except maybe DadOfAllTrades, <wink>).  Every stinkin’ time I buy pants I must remove around 6 inches of length because designers don’t quite get that when one gets bigger side to side, one does not grow top to bottom also.  Seriously, go to Target and grab a pair of size 18 pants.  Hold them up and check out how long the inseam is.  One would have to be roughly six feet tall to not have to hem those babies.  It is quite dehumanizing.

Not that I suffer with low self esteem.  But trying on these clothes makes me feel that I am “not right” even though there is little I can do about it.  I have tried to lose weight, but the gap thing and the length thing still are there.  No matter how many Ho-ho’s I give up, my hips will always be there.  Regardless of my size, my legs will always be the length of coffee table legs and I will never have ankles, rather “cankles” as my aunt calls them.  It is just genetics: my grandma was the same way and she was a slight woman.

So here I am, worrying about my weight and how I look in clothes that are in fashion and I come to a 10-day discovery time. 

I sit down for my prayers and can’t decide what to read that day.  So I flip open the Bible and let God tell me what to read.  I somehow end up in Psalm 139:14 “…I am fearfully and wonderfully made…” and I feel a little tickle in my heart.  I guess He made me this way so I should be respectful of my body.  I begin to wonder if I am and I think that yes I am, kinda.  I eat well, except for the sugar fixation I have.  I am active, but not an exerciser.  I had two toddler boys at the time so being active is not really a choice.  But I still have the nagging that I do not look like a model and cannot find clothes to fit, so my body is not “right”.

Later that week I attend a MOPS meeting.  We are doing an activity that involves picking a verse out a hat, reading it aloud, and saying something about it.  I cannot remember exactly the exercise because it was a while ago, but that was the jist of how the exact same verse ended up in my hands.  Seriously.  I had a whole hat full of verses and THE VERY SAME ONE found it’s way into my hands.  I open the slip of folded paper and read aloud “Psalm 139:14 ‘…I am fearfully and wonderfully made…’”  Sheesh, someone is trying to tell me something.

The last incidence of the Psalm’s appearance is the one that brought me to my knees.  I am in some store with my boys.  I am sure I was distracted because I was in some store with my boys.  But I was still able to hear the conversation of the two ladies in the same aisle.  I kid you not when I say they were discussing Psalm 139:14.  Really, they were. 

I looked up to the heavens and yelled “OK.   I GET IT.  MY BUTT IS JUST FINE.”  Well, not really the yelling part, but that is what I wanted to do.  It was like getting a smack on the side of the head form a sarcastic God.  “So, is this enough for you to finally understand that your body is just perfect?????”

I cannot say that I totally am OK with my body since then.  But when I have doubts Psalm 139 goes through my mind and peace soon follows.

What was your message from God that brought you the most peace?  Just curious-I love to hear how He inspires us.

Vacations start now

I am currently searching for a home to rent for our next vacation.  This process, to me, is part joyful and part frustrating.  And I am feeling quite sarcastic today, so hang in there with me.

The joy:
We are going to have a week away from the hassles of everyday life!!!!!!  I won't have to worry about the dog (who goes to my in-laws) or the dirty floors.  I won't have to look in my craft room and cringe because of the disorganization.  I won't have to deal with the better-than-you attitude of other people.  Well, maybe not.  I will get to go out to eat more than once a week.  I will get to sit on my butt and read a book if I want.  I will get to enjoy the presence of my three favorite males.

The frustration:
How on earth am I supposed to know where a good place to stay is?  That is one that is not on a boardwalk with five thousand people all around.  One that is close enough to a WalMart or the like so I do not have to pack a boatload of groceries just to save money.  (Have you ever bought milk in a tourist town??  Can you say over $6 a gallon because they know they have you by the...)  How are we to know if getting a house on an island is worth it-if we have to use the ferry every time we want to go sight seeing and the ferry takes 45 minutes wait on both ends??  Is that worth it?  Is 1 hour away from a really cool attraction too far??

Moms that plan these things have all the stress while the dads just pay the bill.  I am not sure who has the better deal.