I think I've finally accepted the fact that I have pregnant brain--permanently. I have a text from a neighbor from mid-April wanting to get together for dinner, that I still haven't replied to. Another one from a neighbor from March asking a question about chickens. Facebook messages and phone calls, also unreturned. I still haven't told a family member "Happy Birthday" from his birthday last week, and today is my sister's birthday and yet I only have one part of her present. Actually, that reminds me that I haven't mailed Erin her baby gift from when she gave birth back in March . . .
I am hopeless. Today I've fully accepted it.
So when Erin and I talked on Saturday, and she was admiring how organised I am, and how together I have it, I laughed outright. I only have it together in my head. But it never actually all comes together once I put it to action! If the laundry is going well, the bathrooms are gross. If the house is clean, my garden looks like a jungle. And today, the house is not clean, and the garden does look like a jungle. And I have cakes to make for a party with friends later this afternoon, and I still need to take a shower. I'm not feeling confident both will happen. I'm that scattered. On the upside, I made pillowcases for the guest house bedroom last night, so all is not lost, right? Right!
I feel like I have a fragmented brain, and it can't hold everything in it lately. One new text sends an older one into space, to be forgotten for months. Trying to finish a school year, plan for family visiting for much of June, getting ready to go on vacation, and doing some renovating to make room for baby is quite possibly killing my brain cells. It's like the child inside me is somehow taking up brain room, too! I don't know. Just know that if you've contacted me in some form, and I haven't gotten back to you, it's not you. It's definitely me. And try me again, because you never know when I might have a great brain day :)
And on that thought, I'd better go take a shower before I forget.
Monday, May 28, 2012
Monday, May 21, 2012
Monday Morning Ponderings
This Monday morning I'm stealing little moments of quiet out in the guesthouse-turned-schoolhouse, sipping hot tea and reading my Bible before we start lessons and noise and mess and all that! As I glance around me, I'm surrounded by sticky notes of what I can't forget, plans for renovating the Happy Room bathroom before the boys move up there, my sketched-out plans for sewing the rest of the curtains and linens for the guesthouse bedroom in the next two weeks, calendar pages reminding me of vacation and summer plans and birthday parties and everything else, and my binder of notes for planning for our coming school year. It's a little overwhelming, because none of that includes laundry or dinner or grocery shopping!
So it was very timely that this morning's read in Sally Clarkson's "Mom Walk" was about Proverbs 17:22: "A joyful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones." Sally writes about how, if we focus on all the tasks of being moms, we can quickly dry up and become discouraged and defeated. And of course we spread that to our children! So instead, if we focus on the good God is doing, and on the things that bring joy, we will spread life and joy to our families. If I'm going to be contagious, I'd rather spread life than death!!
So in that spirit, I have chocolate chips out on the counter for my family-famous oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and I've written into my calendar time this week to take the kids swimming and on a special trip with our co-op so my they can have one more fun field trip before summer begins. I'm planning in times of fun and little moments of celebration because if I don't, I'll forget, and I'll just live in an overwhelmed state with a dried-up spirit!
And these guys are worth putting down the paintbrush, or sewing needle, or sponge, and just enjoying!
Happy Monday to you, too!
So it was very timely that this morning's read in Sally Clarkson's "Mom Walk" was about Proverbs 17:22: "A joyful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones." Sally writes about how, if we focus on all the tasks of being moms, we can quickly dry up and become discouraged and defeated. And of course we spread that to our children! So instead, if we focus on the good God is doing, and on the things that bring joy, we will spread life and joy to our families. If I'm going to be contagious, I'd rather spread life than death!!
So in that spirit, I have chocolate chips out on the counter for my family-famous oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and I've written into my calendar time this week to take the kids swimming and on a special trip with our co-op so my they can have one more fun field trip before summer begins. I'm planning in times of fun and little moments of celebration because if I don't, I'll forget, and I'll just live in an overwhelmed state with a dried-up spirit!
And these guys are worth putting down the paintbrush, or sewing needle, or sponge, and just enjoying!
Happy Monday to you, too!
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Stopping in to say
that I'm just peeking in really quickly while at my parents' to let you know the baby is a.....
GIRL!!!!!!!
We're still doing the happy dance, thanking God for answering a four-year long prayer! Addie will finally get her longed-for sister, which has been fodder for so many fun conversations over the last few days, and we're all over the moon to be having another little girl among us. I was absolutely certain it was a boy, so the shock of hearing, "You're having another girl!" still hasn't worn off. I'm so tickled! It has been a very fun week at our house.
And now I have blackberries to go pick! But I'll be back soon. :)
GIRL!!!!!!!
We're still doing the happy dance, thanking God for answering a four-year long prayer! Addie will finally get her longed-for sister, which has been fodder for so many fun conversations over the last few days, and we're all over the moon to be having another little girl among us. I was absolutely certain it was a boy, so the shock of hearing, "You're having another girl!" still hasn't worn off. I'm so tickled! It has been a very fun week at our house.
And now I have blackberries to go pick! But I'll be back soon. :)
Monday, May 14, 2012
And the baby is....
healthy! Everything at my ultrasound looked great today: the weight and length, the measurements of brain and tummy and thigh bones, and all the detailed looks at the brain, heart, stomach, etc. Having a level 2 ultrasound was awesome--so much more detail! We could even see the colors of blood in the heart! And although everything looked perfect, he wants me to come back in 6 weeks to take another look just to be on the safe and cautious side. Fine with me! We loved watching this little one do flips in real-time!
And yes, we found out what the baby is, but I can't reveal just yet. I bought a gender-reveal gift for my sweet ones this afternoon, and they're going to open it tonight. They are going bonkers with the wait! And then we're going to tell my parents in person later on this week when we go to the lake.
So stay tuned! But in the meantime, I'm very thankful that this baby looks healthy. God is very gracious, indeed.
And yes, we found out what the baby is, but I can't reveal just yet. I bought a gender-reveal gift for my sweet ones this afternoon, and they're going to open it tonight. They are going bonkers with the wait! And then we're going to tell my parents in person later on this week when we go to the lake.
So stay tuned! But in the meantime, I'm very thankful that this baby looks healthy. God is very gracious, indeed.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Mother's Day
Generally on Mother's Day you'll find me at church, but this morning I'm pulling true motherhood duties: Addie is sick, so she and I stayed home. We all caught a cold a couple weeks ago, but she just can't kick it and has been running a fever on and off for the better part of a week. So this morning I sent the boys off with Daddy and put Addie in the tub, which is usually a cure-all for her, but within 30 minutes she was teary and asking for a nap.
So I'm alone, in my house, with sleeping Addie, on Mother's Day morning. Bliss! I've already done laundry, had a truly quiet quiet time, tidied the house, worked on school stuff, and now I find myself with three hours to go before the boys get home. What's a girl to do?
I find myself lured by the guest house, which is turning into our little schoolhouse and is now my favorite spot on earth. The guest house was once a garage, about 20 years ago, but some wonderful soul turned it into a mother-in-law cottage. It has a living room with kitchenette and full cabinets/bookshelves built in, a bathroom, a bedroom, and a wonderful screened-in porch that is my morning happy place. Last month I kicked out the treadmill, a loveseat, and the bigscreen TV, moved in an armoire and table/chairs, sewed curtains and pillows, and made a matching duvet cover and bedskirt. I still have some curtains and a few pillows to go, but overall it's pretty done.
I'll take pictures later, but it's the sweetest little space now, cheerful and homey and a 100% improvement from its former life as a rarely-used guest house. I can't wait to start back to school in here. The kids are mostly excited that there's a microwave in here, so we can have popcorn while we read aloud.
My brilliant mother suggested I move our computer desk into the bedroom closet, and that's now where I'm typing away. The French door to the porch is open, birds are singing, and every once in awhile I can hear the sheep. I love it here! I keep finding reasons to need to be over here :)
This weekend I went to our local homeschool book fair, a first for me, and got to hear Sally Clarkson speak. I was re-ignited in my passion for so many things, and I bought her talks on CD to listen again when I need encouragement. As we wind down our school year and plan for the next, it's always good to have a fresh remembering of my original ideals and hopes.
This afternoon my wonderful husband, who already spent his entire day off with our kids so I could go to the book fair (and rearranged a business trip to make it possible!), is sending me to my favorite local hotel. He did this for Mother's Day for me several years ago, and it's quite possibly my favorite thing on earth--an entire evening of silence, where I can read and write and plan and pray. He and the kids are meeting me at a steakhouse (I adore steak when I'm pregnant, and baked potatoes all the time!) for dinner, and I'm already hungry just thinking about it. It's such a gift from him, because he gets just one day off a week and often works during it, and I know he could use a break, too. He's a keeper!
Here's my packed suitcase: (Notice the stack of books is larger than clothes!)
And to continue randomly-placed photos, here's what's been going on around here lately:
We had this one Sunday after church. Breakfast-style pi__a (Remember that letter doesn't work? Such a pain!) The kids thought it was awesome because they love runny eggs, but I could hardly look at it.
These were my favorite shoes. This explains why some of my pets aren't my favorite.
When my sister was here, we went to a tiny local _oo, (darn letter!) and this tree was at the entrance. It took four of us to reach around it. You don't find trees that big here in North Texas very often!
I killed my first (and last) snake! The entire story is worth telling someday, but let it suffice to say I wasn't brave at all: I tried to talk both Caiden and my sister into it first before I had to do it, and my hands were still shaking hours later. But it was terrori_ing the sheep, so it had to be done. Blech.
My garden for the first time in a few years, is actually GROWING! I keep getting great harvests from the boys, who do most my gardening duties for me since two of our roosters hate me and I'm scared to go out there. But look! Tons of cucumbers, and a _ucchini the si_e of Texas! (Who knew the letter _ is so popular??) Grayson has discovered he likes to eat cucumbers straight out of the fridge. He eats them like bananas, and that's good since we're getting like 10 a day.
My handsome husband is a baby whisperer, for real! This is him and my beautiful nephew at a birthday lunch for Addie's birthday last weekend. My nephew is super energetic and not cuddly right now, but as soon as we handed him to my husband, he got all snuggly! He (my husband) loves babies and is known to slightly startle first-time visitors to church by just reaching over and grabbing their babies. And the babies always--ALWAYS--love him. This is a wonderful trait to have in a husband, especially when you're about to have your fourth child . . . Grayson has inherited the gift, so I'm pretty blessed!
While my sister was here we also went to Legoland, which is Grayson's vision of heaven. Even Addie absolutely loved it, and we stayed there for hours. I loved having our kids together. Despite a 2000 mile separation from their cousin, they are all such good friends, and since my sister is my best friend, this is good!
On Addie's birthday we took her to a local Mexican restaurant and set our timers to go off at her special time. (Her time of birth, which we celebrate loudly and daily at our house for all our kids.) When it went off we all cheered like cra_y people, and everybody else cheered, too. I can't believe she's six!!
Last but not least, we told our two thumb/finger suckers in the house that the day after Addie's birthday was boot camp for breaking the habit. Grayson got this nifty little "Thumb Buster" in the mail and loved it because somehow in his mind it gives his thumb super powers. He wore it for one day, lost it, and has completely stopped sucking his thumb. Maybe it does give super powers! Addie chose to have her fingers painted with Mavala, a finger-biting/thumb sucking inhibitor that tastes terrible, and all it took was one night, too. I'm still a little in shock. Each night when I check on them asleep, I take a photo to show them that they made it another night, and they're both so proud! I promised them a day at a local waterpark after two weeks of success has passed, and Caiden is thrilled that he gets to go without having to actually give up any bad habits :)
So that's what's going on around here. I'm sorry to be so sporadic in writing and then write a novel-length catch-up, but if I want to have anything to write about, I have to do the living first!
Happy Mother's Day to each of you, and I'll come back with baby news soon!!
So I'm alone, in my house, with sleeping Addie, on Mother's Day morning. Bliss! I've already done laundry, had a truly quiet quiet time, tidied the house, worked on school stuff, and now I find myself with three hours to go before the boys get home. What's a girl to do?
I find myself lured by the guest house, which is turning into our little schoolhouse and is now my favorite spot on earth. The guest house was once a garage, about 20 years ago, but some wonderful soul turned it into a mother-in-law cottage. It has a living room with kitchenette and full cabinets/bookshelves built in, a bathroom, a bedroom, and a wonderful screened-in porch that is my morning happy place. Last month I kicked out the treadmill, a loveseat, and the bigscreen TV, moved in an armoire and table/chairs, sewed curtains and pillows, and made a matching duvet cover and bedskirt. I still have some curtains and a few pillows to go, but overall it's pretty done.
I'll take pictures later, but it's the sweetest little space now, cheerful and homey and a 100% improvement from its former life as a rarely-used guest house. I can't wait to start back to school in here. The kids are mostly excited that there's a microwave in here, so we can have popcorn while we read aloud.
My brilliant mother suggested I move our computer desk into the bedroom closet, and that's now where I'm typing away. The French door to the porch is open, birds are singing, and every once in awhile I can hear the sheep. I love it here! I keep finding reasons to need to be over here :)
This weekend I went to our local homeschool book fair, a first for me, and got to hear Sally Clarkson speak. I was re-ignited in my passion for so many things, and I bought her talks on CD to listen again when I need encouragement. As we wind down our school year and plan for the next, it's always good to have a fresh remembering of my original ideals and hopes.
This afternoon my wonderful husband, who already spent his entire day off with our kids so I could go to the book fair (and rearranged a business trip to make it possible!), is sending me to my favorite local hotel. He did this for Mother's Day for me several years ago, and it's quite possibly my favorite thing on earth--an entire evening of silence, where I can read and write and plan and pray. He and the kids are meeting me at a steakhouse (I adore steak when I'm pregnant, and baked potatoes all the time!) for dinner, and I'm already hungry just thinking about it. It's such a gift from him, because he gets just one day off a week and often works during it, and I know he could use a break, too. He's a keeper!
Here's my packed suitcase: (Notice the stack of books is larger than clothes!)
And to continue randomly-placed photos, here's what's been going on around here lately:
We had this one Sunday after church. Breakfast-style pi__a (Remember that letter doesn't work? Such a pain!) The kids thought it was awesome because they love runny eggs, but I could hardly look at it.
These were my favorite shoes. This explains why some of my pets aren't my favorite.
When my sister was here, we went to a tiny local _oo, (darn letter!) and this tree was at the entrance. It took four of us to reach around it. You don't find trees that big here in North Texas very often!
I killed my first (and last) snake! The entire story is worth telling someday, but let it suffice to say I wasn't brave at all: I tried to talk both Caiden and my sister into it first before I had to do it, and my hands were still shaking hours later. But it was terrori_ing the sheep, so it had to be done. Blech.
My garden for the first time in a few years, is actually GROWING! I keep getting great harvests from the boys, who do most my gardening duties for me since two of our roosters hate me and I'm scared to go out there. But look! Tons of cucumbers, and a _ucchini the si_e of Texas! (Who knew the letter _ is so popular??) Grayson has discovered he likes to eat cucumbers straight out of the fridge. He eats them like bananas, and that's good since we're getting like 10 a day.
My handsome husband is a baby whisperer, for real! This is him and my beautiful nephew at a birthday lunch for Addie's birthday last weekend. My nephew is super energetic and not cuddly right now, but as soon as we handed him to my husband, he got all snuggly! He (my husband) loves babies and is known to slightly startle first-time visitors to church by just reaching over and grabbing their babies. And the babies always--ALWAYS--love him. This is a wonderful trait to have in a husband, especially when you're about to have your fourth child . . . Grayson has inherited the gift, so I'm pretty blessed!
While my sister was here we also went to Legoland, which is Grayson's vision of heaven. Even Addie absolutely loved it, and we stayed there for hours. I loved having our kids together. Despite a 2000 mile separation from their cousin, they are all such good friends, and since my sister is my best friend, this is good!
On Addie's birthday we took her to a local Mexican restaurant and set our timers to go off at her special time. (Her time of birth, which we celebrate loudly and daily at our house for all our kids.) When it went off we all cheered like cra_y people, and everybody else cheered, too. I can't believe she's six!!
So that's what's going on around here. I'm sorry to be so sporadic in writing and then write a novel-length catch-up, but if I want to have anything to write about, I have to do the living first!
Happy Mother's Day to each of you, and I'll come back with baby news soon!!
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Laundry Solutions and How God Cares for Me
Recently, while doing yet another load of mostly-clean laundry (One of my boys has a penchant for trying on an outfit, deciding against it, and then throwing it into the laundry basket instead of putting it away. And although it was clean, after being piled up against stinky socks all week, it gets smelly and has to be washed.), and wondering if I'm ever going to get my act together fully, I had a moment of inspiration. I'm convinced it came from God, because He alone knows how often I feel overwhelmed by a houseful of animals and children and noise and mess and homeschooling and laundry. I love all those things (except some of the animals!), but sometimes I feel bone-weary from the constant work.
So, when God gently reminded me that I can think out of the box as a mom and find creative solutions for age-old problems, and He gave me an idea I know had to have come from Him because I'd never have thought of it, I got busy.
Here's what I did:
I have two standard closets that are side-by-side in my bedroom. They've always been a catch-all for random things because I also have two walk-in closets in my attached bathroom that my husband and I use for our clothes. I cleaned out those two closets in my room and then brought all the kids' clothes into my bedroom. I used the smaller closet for the boys' hang-ups, and I bought extra hangers to hang even t-shirts. All the boys' shirts are now hanging, one boy's on each rod, with all their shirts hung by type. The other, larger closet has one hanging rod and several long shelves, and I hung all of Addie's shirts and dresses on the rod. Then I put her shorts, skirts, and pants on the shelf above it. Her socks, underclothes, and pajamas went in separate small bins on another shelf. The boys each got two shelves for their folded clothes, as well.
There's one laundry basket on the floor of the larger closet, for all the kids' dirty clothes. They come into our room in the morning, put away their pajamas, and get dressed. The rule is that nobody may go into the closet to change clothes without permission, and I check the basket each night to make sure only dirty clothes are in it. The boys put away their own folded laundry, and I hung a bunch of hangers in the laundry room (which is right around the corner) so that I can hang up all shirts straight out of the dryer.
To keep Addie happy, all her dress-up clothes are still in an underbed bin in her room, as well as all non-church shoes. Church shoes are in the closet in my room, so that she remembers not to wear them scootering around the driveway.
Now their bedrooms hold only dress-up costumes, their books, and their beds. The dressers, which are empty, are still in there, and I'll leave them for the time being. The closets are empty. I really thought my husband would think I was nuts to move all their clothes into our bedroom, but he took one look at the neat rows of hang-ups and folded clothes and said, "Excellent!"
It's been about two weeks since I made the move, and I'm down to one load of laundry every other day, rather than the two I did every day. I can't believe how much less laundry I have now that my unnamed child can't throw his clean clothes into his hamper and now that the kids don't have unsupervised access to their clothes! Their bedrooms are cleaner, I can always find the clothes I need for them when it's time to get ready to go to church or somewhere nice, and they're not wrinkled from being smashed into drawers. I do all the laundry in the laundry room and then take it all just around the corner to my bedroom and put it all away. I haven't had a pile of laundry sitting forlorn in the laundry room since I made the change!
If you're a mom of several kids, you can understand how getting a handle on the laundry is really a pretty big thing. It's something that has driven me bonkers for a long time, and I think it was especially nice of God to give me the idea of how to change it. It reminds me that He cares about my everyday issues, and that if I will come to Him when I'm in need, He'll provide.
And to prove that, He sent me my wonderful sister for a visit earlier this month, and she solved my what's-for-dinner problem without involving a complicated system. More on that later! In the meantime, all this has me examining other areas of our home that frustrate me, and praying for simple solutions. Having a baby coming this fall definitely has me on the lookout for some better ways to run our home!
p.s. We find out what the baby is on Monday at our level 2 ultrasound. My dr. wants me to have a specialist do the anatomy scan to check for heart defects, etc. since Addie had some health problems, so if you think of it, please pray for us and for a healthy baby! And please pray for Addie if this baby is a boy ... :)
So, when God gently reminded me that I can think out of the box as a mom and find creative solutions for age-old problems, and He gave me an idea I know had to have come from Him because I'd never have thought of it, I got busy.
Here's what I did:
I have two standard closets that are side-by-side in my bedroom. They've always been a catch-all for random things because I also have two walk-in closets in my attached bathroom that my husband and I use for our clothes. I cleaned out those two closets in my room and then brought all the kids' clothes into my bedroom. I used the smaller closet for the boys' hang-ups, and I bought extra hangers to hang even t-shirts. All the boys' shirts are now hanging, one boy's on each rod, with all their shirts hung by type. The other, larger closet has one hanging rod and several long shelves, and I hung all of Addie's shirts and dresses on the rod. Then I put her shorts, skirts, and pants on the shelf above it. Her socks, underclothes, and pajamas went in separate small bins on another shelf. The boys each got two shelves for their folded clothes, as well.
There's one laundry basket on the floor of the larger closet, for all the kids' dirty clothes. They come into our room in the morning, put away their pajamas, and get dressed. The rule is that nobody may go into the closet to change clothes without permission, and I check the basket each night to make sure only dirty clothes are in it. The boys put away their own folded laundry, and I hung a bunch of hangers in the laundry room (which is right around the corner) so that I can hang up all shirts straight out of the dryer.
To keep Addie happy, all her dress-up clothes are still in an underbed bin in her room, as well as all non-church shoes. Church shoes are in the closet in my room, so that she remembers not to wear them scootering around the driveway.
Now their bedrooms hold only dress-up costumes, their books, and their beds. The dressers, which are empty, are still in there, and I'll leave them for the time being. The closets are empty. I really thought my husband would think I was nuts to move all their clothes into our bedroom, but he took one look at the neat rows of hang-ups and folded clothes and said, "Excellent!"
It's been about two weeks since I made the move, and I'm down to one load of laundry every other day, rather than the two I did every day. I can't believe how much less laundry I have now that my unnamed child can't throw his clean clothes into his hamper and now that the kids don't have unsupervised access to their clothes! Their bedrooms are cleaner, I can always find the clothes I need for them when it's time to get ready to go to church or somewhere nice, and they're not wrinkled from being smashed into drawers. I do all the laundry in the laundry room and then take it all just around the corner to my bedroom and put it all away. I haven't had a pile of laundry sitting forlorn in the laundry room since I made the change!
If you're a mom of several kids, you can understand how getting a handle on the laundry is really a pretty big thing. It's something that has driven me bonkers for a long time, and I think it was especially nice of God to give me the idea of how to change it. It reminds me that He cares about my everyday issues, and that if I will come to Him when I'm in need, He'll provide.
And to prove that, He sent me my wonderful sister for a visit earlier this month, and she solved my what's-for-dinner problem without involving a complicated system. More on that later! In the meantime, all this has me examining other areas of our home that frustrate me, and praying for simple solutions. Having a baby coming this fall definitely has me on the lookout for some better ways to run our home!
p.s. We find out what the baby is on Monday at our level 2 ultrasound. My dr. wants me to have a specialist do the anatomy scan to check for heart defects, etc. since Addie had some health problems, so if you think of it, please pray for us and for a healthy baby! And please pray for Addie if this baby is a boy ... :)
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