Parenting at Both Ends

The other day, I read a post from an anonymous mother looking for advice in getting her infant son to settle to sleep. It was taking 15 minutes of patting his back and cooing in his ear each time, she complained.

I wanted to tell her to stop complaining and enjoy it because some day – far, far sooner than she thinks – she’ll be begging for each 15-minute segment of holding him and shushing him to sleep.

I know this because tonight my oldest will graduate.  I will watch her walk across the platform to collect her diploma. On Sunday, she will turn 18. A few months later, she will head off to college, never again to be wholly mine.

I swear she was a baby yesterday.

The years whipped by faster than I thought they would. Phases I thought would last forever proved as temporary as the bubbles she used to blow in the backyard.

The struggles, the celebrations, the losses and triumphs that at the time were so vivid and overwhelming seem to blur from the speed in which they flew by. I blinked and she grew up.

But I’m getting a do-over of sorts.  When she walks across that platform tomorrow night, I’ll be sitting in the audience, holding my infant son – her spitting image – on my lap.

I get the chance to see the same smiles and the same impish gleam in the same big eyes in living color and not Kodak color.

 I get to savor those milestones and phases with the knowledge from hindsight of how fleeting they actually are.

It’s a strange thing to begin with one child at the same time you are wrapping up with the first, simultaneously parenting at both ends of childhood. You see the fruits of your labor in one while planting the first seed in the other. Reassuring and daunting, all at once.

I won’t complain when, like Monday night, I am up until 12 a.m. until 2:15 a.m. trying to get him to go back to sleep when he wants to socialize. I’ll hold him and marvel at his rosebud lips and long lashes. I’ll pat his back and stroke his chubby, dimpled hand and store the time away in my heart.

Because tomorrow he’ll graduate.

Dr. Seuss Day

Our oldest Master Hat had Dr. Seuss Day in his class today, to celebrate the wonderful author's birthday (March 2) and kick off March is Reading Month.

We signed up to send a "Seuss-Themed" snack and needed to send something that wasn't a boatload of sugar. A classroom of first graders strung out on fun activities and sugar... I couldn't do that to a teacher. I also didn't want to use her excellent suggestions (like goldfish crackers for one fish, two fish...), fearing other parents would be using those.

So after wracking my brain, I hit on a combination of his favorite snack and most-loved Seuss book: Hop on Pop(corn).

Simply popped several bags of microwave popcorn, cooled the popcorn (fresh out of the microwave, it melts ziplock bags, apparently), and loaded into 2-gallon ziplock bags outfitted with a label I printed onto a full-page label sheet. Voila! Fairly healthy, easy, Seuss-themed snack.

At this point, I'm not sure how to load the label file for you to print from, so contact me if you'd like me to send it to you.

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Jen

'Tis the season of thankfulness. All month, I’ve read the many things my friends have given thanks for each day, and contemplated my own state of gratitude.

This year, I’m thankful for something rather odd, something I never thought I’d ever admit to being, much less thankful for. Take note, mark it on your calendar, burn it into memory, because it’s that unlikely an admission and you won't see it again v. I’m sure Mr. Hat will be hauling this out for years to come. Ready?

I’m thankful that I WAS WRONG.

Better said, God was right. As always.

It isn’t the first time He’s taken my well-laid plans and altered them. By “altered” I mean laid waste to, annihilated, completely obliterated. I never get that “still, small voice,” but rather the 2'x4' upside the head. Hard.

And back in March, that two by four was shrunk to one little stick 6"x1” – a little white stick one pees on. 

After 17 years of fertility treatments and sheer negligence that produced nothing, one doesn’t expect it to say “pregnant.”  I gave up any hope of seeing that result 12 years ago and happily adopted to complete my family. My family was made complete six years ago, with the adoption of our son. All three kids were finally in school all day.  Everyone could carry their own gear, zip their own coats, feed themselves, pick up after themselves (even if it does take lots of badgering). We could go out without having to hire a babysitter or take kids with us. It was a brave, new, wonderful stage of life – and we loved it.

So, I wasn’t at all happy to see that word. Nope. I cried – and it wasn’t tears of joy. I ranted. I contemplated jumping from the roof. I swore a blue streak – a few blue streaks. I cried some more. I panicked a lot. Why now, after all those years we would have welcomed this news but went without? Suddenly, I identified with a whole new side of Sarah, beyond the years of ache.

So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, “After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure?” Gen 18:12

And so began eight months of denial, discomfort, health complications, tears – and a good deal of laughter. It really was just so ridiculous at my age, when menopause was more likely than pregnancy. My oldest was beginning her senior year; surely one shouldn’t be shopping for colleges and layettes at the same time. I felt like I was the amusement in God’s sense of humor.

Then, as suddenly and surprisingly as it began, it ended in an emergency c-section a few weeks early.

They handed me this unbelievably tiny little thing, with a nose the size of my fingertip and a mouth equally small. His cry, when he cried, was also tiny, much like a slow leak in a helium balloon. He looked at me with these steel blue eyes, pursed his little lips into this adorable little “o” the size of a Cheerio – and suddenly it was all OK. More than OK.

It was perfect. And wonderful.

I confess I spend a good portion of each day just staring at him, loving him so much it hurts, overwhelmed with the feeling of unbelievable gratitude to have him. Sure, I knew in my head that when he got here, it’d all be fine and I would be glad. But I find I underestimated just how thankful I would be. Sleepless nights, being covered in spit up, changing countless dirty diapers aren’t dimming the wonderfulness in the least.

I should have known that having my plans thwarted would be this wonderful. I've been here before. In being deprived of the ability to conceive, I was moved to adoption, a thing I’m so privileged to be a part of. I’ve known for years I’d have been robbed of something so awesomely marvelous if I’d have had the biological kids I’d planned on. There it is again – my plan, exchanged for something better.

So this season of Thanksgiving, I’m tremendously thankful: for miracles, survival, sanity, coos, a sacrificial spouse, a six year old who adores being a brother, a rosebud mouth and tiny fingers, supportive friends, thwarted plans, a God who knows me and my needs so much better than I do...

...for being wrong.

The Day the Heartbreak Stopped

Grace is the good pleasure of God that inclines Him to bestow benefits upon the undeserving. 

~ A.W. Tozer. 

March 8 is an auspicious date in our household. It is the birthdate of Mr. Hat's mother. It is also, less significantly, the date our naughty Cat Hat was born. 

But most importantly, it is the day that saw the end of years of heartbreak. Ten years ago today, Grace came home.

For seven years, we had tried to expand our family. We made charts, endured tests, hoped the drugs would work. We contemplated and debated adoption, unable to see how it would ever be financially possible. 

Then one day, a baby fell from the sky, into our arms.

A friend in another state was housing a girl at the end of her pregnancy, a girl who suddenly, finally realized adoption was the best choice for her child. Remembering our desire to adopt, they called us, touching off a whirlwind as we sought to cram a process that took months into just two weeks, which was when she was due. When we got the call she was in labor, we drove an entire day to get there, the whole time feeling indescribable excitement.

They put this darling little bundle in my arms. This little, tiny thing with big brown eyes, a shock of dark brown hair, rosy cheeks and rosebud mouth. My son was beautiful; he looked just like that picture by Bessie Pease Gutman. For three days, we held him, loved him, planned for his future.

Then, just as suddenly as he came, he was snatched away. His birth mother learned the limits of his father's rights and beat a fast path home to Virginia. I never got to say goodbye. Instead, I came home to a ready nursery, piled up shower gifts, and the antique wicker bassinet in which I once slept trimmed in blue ribbon. I didn't get cards of congratulations; they were messages of condolence.

It was a while before we dared to dream again. When we did, we looked in Mexico, Afghanistan, and China. Three times, we started the process to adopt from China. Three times our process was sidelined. Clearly God had some other direction for us. 

We began our plan B late summer of 2001: domestic, transracial adoption. It was terrifying to trust the domestic process again, but it was clearly what God had in mind. Our only child, a tiny little autistic girl, enthusiastically begged God every night for a sister, asking Him to give her brown eyes, brown arms, brown legs.

In late January 2002, we got THE call. She was here! She'd be ours. We visited her in a temporary foster home, bonding with our new daughter, cooing over her gigantic cheeks, counting the days until she could come home. We swapped out the blue ribbon on the bassinet with yards of pink; she was coming home tomorrow.

And then it happened. On Valentine's Day, our hearts were broken again, as her birth mom came to claim her. It was just as heartbreaking, but this time, I at least knew I would survive. Another ribbon-tied bundle of condolence cards and pictures joined the first in a drawer, the only proof I have that for too short a time, I was a mother to two others.

Two days later, another little girl was born. I didn't know until the week after. We were so afraid she'd be lost, too, that we didn't visit. We couldn't bond and lose again.

Court day came. We got on our coats to head to the agency, breathless with anticipation that this might just actually work this time. Miss Hat was bouncing with joy. 

We headed to the door. Hands on doorknob, the phone rang. Not today. The judge wanted to see more effort to find the birth father, so he would have the chance to assert his rights to her. A man who abused her birth mom, who disappeared and was never a part of her life or pregnancy, stood between us and a dream fulfilled. So again, we waited.

A week later, on March 8, 2002, I was on my knees, while a woman I'd never met stood before a judge in another county, voluntarily relinquishing her rights to this little girl. I begged God for her courage and the judge's common sense. I begged Him not to let this fall through again. 

And then the phone rang again. It was done. She was OURS!

Her sister nearly crashed through the door of the foster home in her excitement to finally meet her baby sister, this baby she'd prayed for for years. The foster mom, Mama Pat, met me at the door with the most beautiful baby I'd ever seen and put her in my arms. 

There really aren't words to describe how that moment felt. My heart hurt, tremendously, but for once, not with breaking. It hurt with bursting gratitude and joy. Seven years of ache and many thwarted plans had finally met their end with this tiny little thing in my arms. Here was a gift of such tremendous worth I never could deserve it: Grace.

Ten years later, Grace is an energetic girl who lives her life in extremes; there's no middle ground for this child. She's wild, quirky, entertaining, and talks incessantly. She's brought tremendous joy and lots of laughs. She's also given us lots of frustration and challenge. There are days I want to quit. But at the end of the day, it's all OK, because...

SHE'S STILL OURS.

Linking up to Serenity Now's Weekend Bloggy Reading Party. Stop by for lots of inspiration!

A Tale of the Wet-Mitten Takeover & How They Were Defeated

Well, winter finally came. With it comes the plethora of mittens, hats and scarves needed for three kids. And so begins the daily battle of what to do with all this stuff.

Some moms find those pocket organizers you can hang on your door a good solution. And it is, if your kids keep their mittens and such dry. My kids don't. Their stuff gets wet. Very, very wet. And thick mittens take FOREVER to dry.

For many years, our solution was to toss it all on the various large heating grates around the house. Which means they are in the way and getting scattered all over, while we all freeze because the vents are down to a quarter of their capacity.

"Mudroom" is an ambitious name we use for a tiny little space between the kitchen and entry, about 5' x 5', off of which is the bathroom, the kitchen and the great outdoors. So there's no place for a drying rack.

I saw the solution in an issue of Handyman Magazine a few years ago.  A reader submitted his idea for utilizing wall space to handle all this wet gear. Wall space I don't have either, but I do have the back of the door. Bingo!

The reader used a permanent installation of eye hooks and wire. If you want to look at it all year, this will work well. Me, well, I don't need that reminder of winter in the middle of summer, so I use a strictly utilitarian, temporary method: nylon twine and 3M hooks. It isn't pretty, but it works. If you care about the aesthetics, use some of the pretty 3M hooks and the colored butchers twine.

Begin by placing your hooks in rows, lining up both vertically and horizontally. Use a level if you really care about it being straight. As you see in the photos, I don't really care. Add a hook in the middle (or more if you are going wider), which will help bear the weight and lessen sag when loaded with gear. If you are using a wall and have more horizontal space, you can add more hooks than I have here.

Tie the end of your string to the upper leftmost hook and thread it horizontally to the next hook and wrap the string around it. Then continue to the next hook(s) in a row. At the end, you can either tie off and do the next row just like the first, or, as I do, you can run your string down to the next row, wrap and head the other direction. The particular string I had on hand unravels and it's a pain to tie, so I try to keep the need to knot to a minimum. And I've actually used the vertical runs, too.

Once all your hooks are covered with line, you can hang your gear with clothes pins. Voila! Drying mittens, hats and scarves. Oh, and you'll be able to find them again in a rush to get to school. Bonus!

Linking up to Serenity Now's Weekend Bloggy Reading Party. Visit for more ideas and inspiration!

The Bread So Fabulous, It Spawned a Family Tradition

If you are Scandinavian and celebrate St. Lucia Day, be warned: We have a very skewed celebratory tradition for this day. We do it completely wrong. We know. And I'm great with it.

Mr. Hat's maternal grandfather was Swedish, despite the family hailing from Finland as far back as I can go. Still, by the time Mr. Hat was around, there was no familial observation of St. Lucia day, a major Scandinavian holiday; as far as I know, it wasn't something his mother celebrated while growing up either.

As an adoptive mother, I can't pass along genetics. But I can pass on the traditions and cultures associated with our genes. This desire serendipitously collided with a recipe I found in a magazine for an amazing "St. Lucia Bread" I HAD to try. Hello, orange infusion? Orange glaze? Homemade bread? Um, yah. We've got Swedes in our house, so why not celebrate this holiday? At the time, I knew no one Swedish who celebrated St. Lucia Day to show me how it was done.

I was on my own, wanting that bread.

I began by learning about the day's honoree: St. Lucia. She is said to have brought food and comfort to the poor and/or Christians hidden in the dark catacombs (depending on the version of the story you read). Her hands laden with provisions, she needed a hands-free way to light her path. Adding some lighted candles to her braided, coroneted hair, she entered the dark warrens looking like the angel she was.

And so began our tradition: gathering around our braided, lighted bread in the evening of each December 13, to reflect on how fortunate we are and plan how we will give to those less fortunate as St. Lucia did, donating toys for Toys for Tots, contributing to food pantries, gathering new mittens or scarves for the homeless, etc. Though money is tight, often painfully tight, for us, we are still so, so fortunate and I want my kids to realize it.

Now that my kids are older, I wanted our giving to be more sacrificial on their part. So this year, we sat around our bread and I told them my plan (which I'll confess has some benefit for me, too). There are a bazillion things on my "to-do" list to prepare our house for hosting Christmas this year. And I have three little hooligans who need something to do for the week of break preceding Christmas. So they'll be giving sweat equity: each task will have a penny value assigned, one cent for minor tasks and more for more difficult or time-consuming tasks. When the task is completed, the assigned number of pennies will be put in a jar. At the end of the week, we'll convert those pennies to dollars that we'll donate to a local homeless shelter. Our children, having no money to give, will give of themselves, working and denying themselves the pleasure of spacing out in front of the television or Wii time.

So, you see it isn't how one is supposed to celebrate the day. But it's the way we do it, and it tastes sweet all the way around.

Countdown to Thanksgiving Day 7: School

This is the seventh in a daily series celebrating the blessings I'm thankful for, leading up to Thanksgiving. While they will portray some of the many -- and random -- things I have to be thankful for, they will not be presented in any particular order by degree of thankfulness. Skewed priorities should not be implied.



There's nothing quite like a day off from school to make a mom extra thankful for good schools.

We've been blessed by the two schools our kids attend.  Both schools utilize their grounds in educating their students, getting kids outside every day and learning hands-on beyond science class and field trips.

Math?  Let's go out into the woods and compare oaks and maples as we study ratios and graphing.

Social Studies? Head to the garden, pick the stuff you need, and make salsa for Spanish class.  Build an adobe oven and cook food in it.

Botany? Sow seeds, watch them sprout, plant them, and harvest as you observe the life cycle of plants.

Biology? Go outside and find native animal and plant species, or evidence of them.  Dip nets into the pond to see the diverse life it contains.

English? Write a research paper on a particular animal, ecosystem, or plant.

They have passionate teachers wanting to see them excel.  One of our schools requires students who are struggling with a subject to stay after school an extra hour for tutor time with the teacher of that subject; you can voluntarily participate as well.

Our school culture is terrific as well, with many family fun events that allow us as parents to better know our kids' teachers and classmates while developing friendships with fellow parents.

Sure, I could provide a like education if I home-schooled, but my kids probably wouldn't survive to be educated.  I know my limits.

Which is why I'm thankful to send them off to school every day, Monday through Friday, knowing they'll be well cared for, happy, active and learning.

Every day, that is, except for those pesky school holidays...

Countdown to Thanksgiving Day 5: Grace

This is the fourth in a daily series celebrating the blessings I'm thankful for, leading up to Thanksgiving. While they will portray some of the many -- and random -- things I have to be thankful for, they will not be presented in any particular order by degree of thankfulness. Skewed priorities should not be implied.

Grace is the good pleasure of God that inclines him to bestow benefits upon the undeserving. -A.W. Tozer

Between day two's post and November being National Adoption Month, you probably saw this coming.

I'm thankful that I couldn't have more children, because if they'd come along as I planned, I would have missed out the great wonder that is a gift of grace.

I'm a very flawed human being. Yet twice I've been given a gift that cost the giver everything with no merit, no way to have earned this gift, on my part.

It's an awesome, overwhelming generosity that's been extended to me.

Our journey has been slow, initially falling prey to myths of insurmountable expense. There were starts and stops as job loss shoved plans to back burners and political unrest abroad closed options.

There were another son and another daughter held, loved... and lost to us.

But we held on. Kept pursuing. Continued praying. And finally, we made it.

And adoption is a gift for our children, too: a brighter future.  Adoption changes their destiny - and that of every generation that will come from them.  It removed them from the abject poverty and probable delinquency that would otherwise define their future.

I treasure the birth parents who gifted us with these children, despite their own yearnings and grief.  I'm thankful to have witnessed and benefitted from their sacrificial love, their grace.


 

Countdown to Thanksgiving Day 4: Wonderfully Made

This is the fourth in a daily series celebrating the blessings I'm thankful for, leading up to Thanksgiving. While they will portray some of the many -- and random -- things I have to be thankful for, they will not be presented in any particular order by degree of thankfulness. Skewed priorities should not be implied.


You may find this shocking, but I'm going to confess it anyway.  Ready?

I'm thankful for a child with autism.

Don't get me wrong - I long for a world in which parents no longer have to sit in a room full of experts who pronounce their child "defective" and hash out the best route to the brightest possible future.  It's agonizing to be told your child is autistic, wondering if your child will ever converse, have friends, hold a job, marry.

But for me, that happened 13 years ago, and in the 13 years since, I've realized a lot of things about her autism.

Realizations like austism makes her who she is, the girl that I love; without it, she would not be "her."  I simply cannot imagine her any other way. She was fearfully and wonderfully made; all her days were planned out for her before any of them came to be (Ps. 139).  THIS is who she was meant to be for our today and her future.

It gives her an innocence that I treasure.  She has an encouraging, forgiving, trusting sense of personal grace I envy.

Autism is responsible for a certain brilliance to her memory I find sometimes fearsome and most often awesome.  As a young child who could not yet read, she could hear music played from a page and still know, months later, what song was from what page.  She saw Fantasia 2000 once and afterward could listen to the soundtrack and describe what was happening in the movie at that point in the music; she'd stare at the picture window like it was a movie screen, enjoying the movie again as it played realistically in her head.  She's a steel trap for every factoid on whatever topic she currently enjoys.

Because of her autism, we've perhaps lost a lot.  But, oh, I've gained so much, too, and that's what I prefer to focus on.

It introduced us to an amazing woman who, through dance, has transformed my daughter from a shy little girl to this confident solo performer.

It's afforded her access to amazing opportunities.  She designed art in a special program that ended up being that year's gala theme, auctioned off for hundreds of dollars and made into a custom rug for thousands.

Autism exposed us to amazing teachers and aides who genuinely loved her, pushed her and taught her necessary skills beyond classroom academics; they've continued to cheer her progress long after she's left their instruction.

It makes the ordinary milestones extraordinary. I cried the first time she called me mom. I celebrated seeing her go from having to use pictures to tell me what she did that day to a fully mainstreamed high school student with her own set of peer friends.  Your kids have no doubt made friends among their peers; it's the most normal thing in the world.  For an autistic child, it's a monumental achievement. The moment I got to exit her from special ed because she'd achieved all the goals they could set for her -- normal things like how to ask for help and converse with friends -- was worth every. single. tear. shed over the years.

It's made her work hard.  She's pushed herself to go on long youth trips, tackling whitewater rafting and working in inner-city missions because she wanted to go beyond her comfort zone.  I don't think watching her do these things would be nearly as amazing had she been "normal."

I do wonder about her future.  I don't know what college -- just two short years away -- and career will hold for her.  Marriage and family?  Who knows?

Well, God knows.  I might not, but I can rest in knowing He does and that whatever her future is, it will be what it is supposed to be.  He's made her - wonderfully.

Countdown to Thanksgiving Day 3: LOL

This is the third in a daily series celebrating the blessings I'm thankful for, leading up to Thanksgiving. While they will portray some of the many -- and random -- things I have to be thankful for, they will not be presented in any particular order by degree of thankfulness. Skewed priorities should not be implied.

A day without laughter is a day wasted. - Charlie Chaplin

Indeed.  

Fortunately, I have a pretty crazy household.  I get this stuff all the time.

Usually, it involves the middle Ms. Hat.

One day, I heard her say behind me, "Look, Mom!  I'm Mulan!" 

 Yeah, I gasped so audibly the neighbors probably heard me.  And then I laughed my head off.

Then there was the time she thought my blemish (makeup) stick was lipstick.

She frequently says the funniest things, too.  I have a whole log I'll spare you, but here's a select few:

Last year's note to Santa: 

 "Santa - Merry Christmas from Gracie. I am very, very sorry with my attitude this year. 

Please don't give me coal. Please, please don't give me give me coal." 

 [Here, I interrupted: "Well, he'll probably say, 'Then watch your attitude.'" So she went and finished her note.] 

 "Please don't say 'Don't give me attitude." Please, please don't write that. Merry Christmas."

On the way home one day - 

RADIO: "Is your child defiant? Is back-talking a problem? 

You can change your child's behavior. Call 1-800-blah...." 

GRACE: "Mom, don't call that number."

After school, Gracie told me she'd spent a large part of the day sneezing, 

so much so they had the school nurse evaluate her. 

"I'm allergic to boys," she said, very seriously. "Whenever I sit by boys, I start sneezing. Except for Jessie..." 

[Jessie is the teen-aged brother of her best friend who Gracie had a serious crush on.] 

"He doesn't have dust."

On the Fourth of July after kindergarten, Grace wanted to demonstrate her ability to say the Pledge of Allegiance. 

She rattled it off perfectly, ending with "...with liberty and justice for all. You may now be seated." 

After I got done laughing, I told her that "you may now be seated" wasn't part of the pledge. 

"Well, that's the way my principal says it!!"

On the way to school, Gracie asked, "What's 'prind'?" "Prind?!" "Yeah, P-R-N-D." "That's not a word." "Well, what is that in front of you?" I gasped out between fits of laughter: "Those are letters for Park, Reverse, Neutral and Drive."

Then there's the ham to all her cheese:

Yep, even the cat is not immune:

I'm telling you, it's crazy over here.

There's humor in the things I find myself saying, funny simply because it's just. so. ridiculous that a situation is occurring that requires it to be said.  Things like "stop sucking on the cat" and "don't whip your siblings with your hair" just aren't normal.  OK, they are normal HERE, but you probably won't hear them elsewhere; there, you'll find other moms saying equally silly things.

I even find humor at the grocery store, which is good because I find a whole lot of "grrrr" there, too.  

But I laugh every time I pass the sign over a frozen aisle that says "Frozen Ice Cream" as though there's another aisle where you can find melted ice cream.  This week, I approached one aisle from a different direction than usual and laughed when I saw the small "sensible snacks" sign hanging over potato chips and fried pork rinds.  And there's that time my husband brought home their cash register-generated coupon for "Tyson Frozen Breasts. No thawing required." 

Laughter is what keeps me sane.  Finding that little nugget of funny in any form from slap-stick to error to witty irony and responding with laughter is like releasing the cork on the bottle containing all the 

yuck in life.

Humor is everywhere you look for it.  

Thank goodness, because as Charlie knows, it'd be a wasted life without it.

So, laugh today.  And then come back and tell me how humor saved your day.

It's a Strange New World

I'm sitting here, downing my second cup of motivation coffee, catching up on email and blogs like I do most mornings.  Except this morning, like yesterday, is strange.  It's quiet.  Really, truly, quiet.

They're all in school.

I've never had a morning with all my kids at school while I was home.  Ever.  My oldest is 16 and before that I worked full-time, which says something about how long this has been in coming.

All three of them talk incessantly, which generally leaves my husband and I looking rather shell-shocked by the time they are all in bed.  And above all the talking is usually other noise: games, music, banging on things, toys in motion, the cat (which also never shuts up), the clunking of all their feet on wooden floors.

But yesterday, my oldest became a junior, my middle a fourth grader, and... my littlest little started kindergarten all day, every day.

Cars: don't head to school without it being on everything.

I had a lot of work to do yesterday, which happened without interruption.  I made phone calls without having to offer lollipop bribes for silence.  The cat lazed on the couch without torment. Today, I will run errands without pleas for merchandise or having to figure out how to keep a five-year-old happy while waiting in line.

And at the end of the day - a glorious, cool, sunny, blue-sky day - we rendezvoused and finally hit the trails at the nature center, talking over their first day at school, new teachers and old friends.

It was conversation enjoyed.  Talking that wasn't mere noise.  I missed them.

It's a strange new world.

Gracie decorates her door

Saturday night, on my way to bed, I passed Gracie's door:

Apparently, I can help pay for the house.  I can clean the house.  But I cannot ROCK the house.

Below that sign was another:

La la la la.  Ha ha.  NO!

Personally, I think paying for the house trumps rocking the house.  Yes?

Notice she loves herself in the third person.  And the taped-on star.  

Nothing wrong with this girl's self-esteem.  

There is a problem, however, with her massive use of my scotch tape. 

No wonder I never have any when I need it.

And below that:

Really, it's like she wants us all to stay out of her room, which is kinda ironic, 

considering she grants herself access to her siblings' room all. the. time.

*sigh*

Into the Woods

If any of you are visiting from Centsational Girl's link party, welcome!  I've enjoyed seeing so many new places and reading of what makes them special.

And so it goes...

See this smile?

The last recorded smile with all his baby teeth.
He's pretty thrilled about his Goodwill find -
the skateboard he's asked for five times everyday for the last four months.
[Forgive the quality - it was captured on my husband's (flashless) iphone.]

Now it looks like this:

Those of you who read my earlier post know my reluctance to meet this moment.  Ironically, this tooth is out by my own hand.  My hand, far smaller than the Mister's, whose fingers were too big to grab it.  My hand, bigger than the boy's, whose fingers were too small.

I'm sure God's having a good chuckle over it.

But, boy, was he excited!  He didn't even notice mommy's tears.

Hopefully, it having occurred on his way to bed won't mean the Tooth Fairy will miss the memo and fail to stop by.  We've seen this happen all too often.  (She really needs a better memory an email-fetching smart phone to get that late-breaking news even when she's on the job.)

And so it goes... the first of many.  Of course, with that new skateboard, maybe they'll all come out at once.

The last first lost tooth

I'm not new to this lost-tooth thing.  My first two not-so-littles have lost plenty.  And I recall being excited at their first lost teeth, diligently recording it in their baby books and snapping pictures.

But not this time.  This time I'm crying.

I'm only a little caught up in his expectation and excitement, checking the wiggle, seeing if he'll dare to let someone pull it or do it himself.  For him, losing that first tooth hangs the moon; the promise of Tooth Fairy bounty mesmerizes.

But for me, this is the last first lost tooth.  The last time I'll get to see this excitement, this rite of passage in the process of growing up.  The Tooth Fairy will not leave me bounty; instead, I'll wake up to see my little buddy's shining smile with a big black hole in the row of perfect, tiny little teeth.  The gap that will remind me there are no more babies in my house, only small grownups in the making.  A gap that slaps me with just how fast this is all going.

It shouldn't surprise me.  I've watched him growing, packed up all those outgrown clothes, grimaced at shoes that suddenly no longer fit.  I've seen him master feeding himself, getting himself dressed, using the bathroom.  But somehow I forgot about the permanent teeth, the grownup teeth.

So I'm bracing myself for the moment it finally falls out, likely today or tomorrow.  A few days left to see that little tooth sitting cockeyed in his mouth, too loose to stand up, too adhered to fall out.  And that's OK.  It can take its time falling out.  I'll use the time to slow things up a bit, revel in that smile of tiny white teeth while it lasts, and try to work up my excitement for what his smile will be when they've all been replaced.  His permanent smile.  His shiny, flashy, grownup smile that will someday captivate a woman other than his mother.

Being Crafty

Anyone with kids knows how hard it can be those first few weeks of summer vacation, when the constant pace and activity of school suddenly stops, and the kids are having to find their own means of killing time.  What they often resort to tends to kill mom while killing time, and we can't keep going "somewhere" everyday.

Enter my crafty plan.  I get a break from the constant bickering they usually call entertainment and hopefully, something pretty or practical out it.  They think it's all about them.  See?  Crafty.

Our first craft seemed simple enough.  Inspired by a picture on Pinterest of these hollow yarn balls, I wondered if it could be done in a more beach cottagy jute.  Got some basic jute twine, a bottle of Elmer's glue and a package of balloons - let's try it.  They struggled a bit more than I thought, but in the end, they turned out pretty nice.

TWINE BALLS

Step 1:  Blow up balloons to a variety of sizes, 2-5" diameter.
Step 2:  Mix Elmer's glue about 60/40 (glue/water) in a bowl.  You can reportedly use fabric stiffener instead, in which case, skip the water.
Step 3:  Cut off a loooong piece of jute (or yarn, if that's what you are using).
Step 4:  Put the length of jute in the glue mixture; keep track of one end.  I used a fork to mash it down into the glue and the glue into it.  Get it good and saturated.
Step 5:  Start pulling the jute out from the glue, running your thumb and forefinger down the string as you remove it to squeeze out the excess glue.  Loosely wrap around your hand as you go; keeps it from being tangled when you get to the next step.
Step 6:  Wrap the string around the balloon in all directions, randomly.  You want holes, but not really big ones, so look for inconsistent gaps in coverage.  If you run out of string before you are done, just start another piece.  If you mess up, unwrap and try again.  They are very forgiving.  Tuck the end.
Step 7:  Set to dry on wax paper or plastic wrap at least overnight; rotate to make sure all sides get dry.   Yes, they smell like the mustiest cabin you ever camped in as a kid, but don't worry, they'll be fine once dry.
Step 8:  Once they are dry, pop the balloon and pull the pieces out with a tweezer.
Step 9:  Enjoy!  Piled in a large vase, basket or bowl, they add great texture and your kids can brag that they made them.

Now, to keep them away from the cat...