"Women should not have children after 35;
thirty-five children are enough."
--Unknown

"Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing
is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing."
--Phyllis Diller

Weblog

Thursday, 02 April 2009

Tuesday, 10 March 2009

  • The apple didn't fall far from the tree...

    Hooray!  My 10-year-old loves to read, has a library card, and knows how to use it!  Amidst all the adolescent-directed chick lit and Nancy Drew spin-offs, she's also learned to find good stuff in the older-people section.  Clay and I recently shared a David Brooks article with her, which she then shared and discussed with one of her teachers.  This led to his recommendation that she read Bobos in Paradise, which we picked up at the library last week when she was home sick.  A good read, but before I got very far into it, I got sidetracked by her more recent library acquisition, David Grann's The Lost City of Z.  She and I heard Grann being interviewed on NPR last week, then she saw the book in a library display and snapped it up. 

    Oooh, it's good.  It's been awhile since I've picked up a page-turner.  I am just totally captivated by this well-written action adventure story about exploring the unknown in the Amazon (ooh, that sounded very book reviewish, didn't it?).  It reminds me a bit of how much I enjoyed reading another non-fiction adventure story, A Pirate of Exquisite Mind, which Clay bought me for my birthday a few years ago.  This may set me off on a non-fiction adventure kick... I have Kon-Tiki around here somewhere and may have to pack it when we take off for Florida for Spring Break later this month!

    So, Sweetie, I'll get those library books back to you soon... I promise!  That is, as long as you don't mind doing the dishes, laundry, and packing for our trip while I read...

Monday, 09 March 2009

  • Brief Spelling Lesson

    setting:  everyone at the dining room table, breakfast, Sunday morning, eating Pop-ems donut holes

    E-man:  "Pop" is spelled with one "O"
    The rest of us:  (all nodding in general agreement as we chomp on waxy, somewhat chocolaty, breakfast food) Yes, Bud, one "O"...
    (pause)
    E-man:  "Poop" is spelled with two "O"s

    (we all laugh and choke on our waxy, somewhat chocolaty Pop-ems)

Monday, 26 January 2009

  • Resonance

    This verse from "Beautiful Savior," written by Stuart Townsend, resonated with me yesterday.

    I long to be where the praise is never ending
    Yearn to dwell where the glory never fades
    Where countless worshipers sing one song
    And the voices of the nations
    Sing worthy, worthy, worthy


    I don't care much for the song's tune, which sounds kinda church-lady praise-liteish to me, but great lyrics reminiscent of one of my favorite Bible passages, Revelation 7:9-12.

    After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice:
    "Salvation belongs to our God,
    who sits on the throne,
    and to the Lamb." All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying:
    "Amen!
    Praise and glory
    and wisdom and thanks and honor
    and power and strength
    be to our God for ever and ever.
    Amen!"


Thursday, 15 January 2009

  • I like...

    • ... that the baby holds onto my finger while I nurse her.
    • I like that I can get her to stop nursing for a moment and smile at me by "flirting" with her.
    • I laugh when I hold her up close to my face and giggle and chat with her, thinking she's totally focused on me, then realize she was focused on the fact that she's about to fill up her diaper or spit up all over herself and me.
    • I don't like it when I'm in the middle of typing out long-in-my-brain blog posts and our poor dying computer black-screens on me. (save early and often!!)
    • I want the fact that my baby is totally in love with me and I am totally in love with her to last forever.
    • I remember that some days this will be a difficult moment to capture. I remember this when my four-year-old asks me (on one of those hard-to-love days), "Why don't you talk to me like you talk to the baby?"
    • I wonder if someday, after my days are no longer filled with diapers and tears and laundry and weariness and endlessly messy rooms and little kids with urgent non-stop "needs," I'll ever recapture that same kind of ga-ga feeling I also used to have about my hubby.

Wednesday, 14 January 2009

  • Knitting Circles

    My 10-year-old is turning into a totally crafty gal! She was so totally excited to get a box in the mail yesterday with two new Knifty Knitter looms:


    Flower Loom:
    flower loom

    Spool Loom:
    spool loom


    I told her she couldn't start a new project until she'd finished the others she was working on, so earlier this week she finished up a doll that she's been knitting for her little sister's birthday next week. That is, *she knit a doll*! From scratch! She conceived the whole project on her own, devised a plan for working on it, then (here's the kicker for me, who has about a dozen unfinished projects sitting around here somewhere) she worked her plan!! I had no idea she had that in her.

    So last night, she tried out her new spool loom by knitting a small tube scarf for one of her American Girl dolls. She totally rocks! And she has elaborate plans for Easter knitting project fun. That she's already thinking about in *January*! Who *IS* this girl? *MY* child?!?

    She's also been teaching herself to crochet, but I let her go on having that project completed... she's working on a striped afghan, and I can see that a 5th grade girl in school full-time, taking piano lessons and completing 60-90 minutes of homework a night plus coping as the oldest child in a family of seven could use a little slack from her slacker mom.

Saturday, 29 November 2008

Monday, 24 November 2008

  • Yet another reason why I want to be MacGyver when I grow up

    Belts!

    First, there was the belt *box*.

    That worked for awhile, then we had more kids.  And more belts.

    So then I moved up to a *bigger* belt box.


    This was really more of a frustration maneuver.  I had nowhere to put the growing cache of belts, so I just grabbed the first empty box I found.  Well, that just left a pile of belts in front of the belt box every morning.  All that digging around for just the right belt, right?

    So then we moved on to the belt *hanger*.
     
    Just move the circle around until you get to the belt you want, and "Voila!"  But, then the little rubber things on each end of the circle fell off, then so did all the belts.  And, really, didn't it just take way too much patience and effort to spin that ring around anyway?  Back to belts all over the floor.

    So, now.  I'm trying a row of belt *hooks*.

    All neatly displayed and whatnot, right?  My main concern is that one of the kids will just pull it right out of the wall.  I mean, hooks are for hanging *on*, not just for hanging, as far as they know.  Just ask my bath towel hooks.

    But I won't give the kids any ideas if you won't.... here goes nothin'!

Friday, 14 November 2008

  • Brief Baby Update

    I have this incredibly yucky headache, probably brought on by a renewed effort to cut back on caffeine.  I've gone from:
    • full-strength Starbucks Gold Coast from Schnucks, to
    • half full-strength, half House Blend decaf, to
    • half of the half... I guess that makes 1/4 full-strength, 3/4 decaf House Blend
    My body's not crazy about this mostly-decaf thing!

    So, while I wait for some ibuprofen to kick in so that I can run back out to Walmart for my *second* visit this week, I'm sitting here at the computer.  The uniform pants I bought for my daughter fit, so I'm going back for a few more pair so that I don't have to wash them every other day; I need to pick up a gift for a b-day sleepover she's going to tonight; and I need a skein of candy-cane red yarn for some hats I'm knitting for the kids to wear around this winter.  Thanks to my daughter's Knifty Knitter tools, *I knit hats*!  Someday soon I'll post a photo of the hats I'm calling "Chocolate-covered Peppermint Bark" ... yum!

    Ooh, my husband just called to tell me about a memo he just got at work.  I now have some added hope for the future of the legal profession!  His firm has cancelled its annual Holiday party and is instead going to donate $10K to some local legal services community organization.  Isn't that great news... wow!  I told him I was so glad he didn't say that they were tossing the money back into the partnership bonus pool, you know, AIG-style.  I think this was a magnificent decision, and not *just* because it means I don't have to get dressed up and hire a sitter for some foo-foo party.

    So, anyway, back to my point, if I really had one.  The baby is so darn *cute*!  Of course, when you're the fifth child, you're required to be laid-back, so she already had *that* going for her.  We've loved watching her move out of her newborn stage into a little baby who is very interested in her surroundings.  She loves interacting with her siblings.  It makes me happy to see her eyes light up when she hears their voices, craning her head around to see where they are.  Their singing and talking to her make her giggle, coo, and smile... very sweet.  Yesterday, she saw her hands for the first time.  She loves trying to focus on those funny-looking things attached to the ends of her arms.

    Well, I think maybe the meds are working... time to, yes, feed and change the baby, put on something presentable, and head out into the cool, rainy weather to get my errand done.

Wednesday, 12 November 2008

  • Ooh-la-la!

    I had a little taste of post-post-partum life today... you know, when the new mom gets to re-enter "real life" with everyone else and do "big people" activities!

    So.  Today, I showered before 10 a.m., put on a little make-up and a little jewelry, wore clothes that were mostly clean and coordinated (meaning I didn't sleep in them and they didn't smell like baby spit-up and had no visible stains), and went to Great Clips for a long-overdue trim.  I had the baby in tow, so it wasn't a *total* Big People moment, but it was close!  Then I went to Target and Wal-Mart for a few things, came home, fed the baby, and realized--already?--it was time to pick up kids from school.

    So that was my day.  Tonight I'm back to being tired in my messy house and tired *of* my messy house.  But, I'll feed the baby once or twice more tonight, get to bed, and wake up one step closer to feeling like a new woman.  (That is, as long as bedtime is before midnight and wake-up time is, maybe, close to 6 a.m.!) 

    It's a good thing for my four younger kids that God gives us a short-term memory for these times of life; otherwise, I might have said ten years ago or so, "I'm not going through *that* again!"

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Learn the Signs!

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A few tips we've learned along the way:

• Get early screening check-ups; be vigilant
• Don't settle for "wait & see;" trust your instincts
• Obtain a formal diagnosis
• Early intervention is key!

"Be wise as serpents, innocent as doves"
Matthew 10:16

"Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness. . . ."
Matthew 6:32-34
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