How… disappointing.

I stayed home from church yesterday. Self diagnosis: bronchitis. I can’t remember the last time I was in my own house, entirely alone. Probably about 10.5 years ago. There’s usually a baby that stays home with me or a small toddler who isn’t capable of sitting in the pew with children and no parent. We don’t use a nursery, Blaine has duties during the service often, so me not being there means a likely noisy child. But… Pierce went and sat like a pro I’m told when Blaine had to leave. Amazing.

Anyhow. There I am, in a silent house, wondering what on earth I ought to do for what promised to be at least four hours of silence. I took a shower, briefly considered cleaning but quickly nixed that idea, read a chapter in a book, and decided on a nap.

I woke up four hours later when the front door flew open and my children piled back into the house.

Once I was over the adrenalin rush of being woke up like that, I couldn’t help but be disappointed. Alone for what turned into nearly five hours, and I slept through it. How… disappointing.

I do think I’m on the uphill climb though, thankfully. I don’t typically get completely incapacitated by illness, but this one has knocked me down. I love my new recliner, but I’ll be glad if I don’t ever have to sleep in it to keep upright enough to be able to breathe ever again. I’m so glad, if I had to get this, that it’s now, and not with a newborn in the house.

A newborn. Eek. It hit me last night. We’re about to have another baby. This pregnancy will end. Soon. 5.5 weeks to due date. Back to nursing, diapers, a child who cannot walk, and waking up in the night. Life’s about to get more interesting, my friends. I’m excited… and a wee bit curious how this will look. Chaos upon chaos.

Cleanly confused.

I've been making my own soap for nearly two years now. I was cleaning out the bathroom cupboard a few days ago and found half a dozen bars of Irish Spring from before my soap making days. Charlie was in the tub when I stuck a bar of it into the tub to use it up.

"Is that ice?"
"No, it's soap."
"When did you make green soap?"
"I didn't make it. I bought it, a long time ago."
"You can BUY soap?! WHERE?!"
"Wal-Mart. Lots of stores sell soap."

She was amazed. What a strange life we lead. She doesn't remember anything other than homemade soap. What other misconceptions am I unknowingly teaching my children?!

Pierce was in the shower with me the other day, and I was sitting in the water spray, rinsing his hair when he apparently decided the water was too hot. He marched over to the faucet and flipped it to cold. Ice cold. There I am, big pregnant body trying to scramble up while taking a now cold shower. If I could have seen it instead of experienced it... It would have been hysterical. I share this story so you all may laugh instead. I'm still trying to recover.

And... back to my misery. I can't remember the last cold I had that kicked my behind quite this bad.

I got a recliner. After many pregnancies wishing for one, and many newborns without a rocking chair, I’m thrilled with my craigslist find – it matches the couch. Problem:

The kids really like my new recliner too. (Sorry about the photo. It was impossible to get a good shot. The coat hooks are on the wall directly behind the chair. Ugh. Six kids times two coats each plus fleeces and purses for four girls equals one mass of outer wear and going-out accessories. Summer can come, anytime.)

Today is pajama day at co-op. Ruby is sporting her feeted zipper pj’s and slippers. She thinks it’s fabulous. Sterling is equally decked out in flannel pj pants and shirt and fuzzy slippers. As a “when you’re awake, you’re dressed” household, they are tickled pink at the thought of leaving the house in their pj’s. Eden’s participating as well. Liberty… she’s wearing jeans. I get that. Me? I’m staying home to deplete the Kleenex box at a ridiculously rapid rate. It might just be pajama day here too.

Shifted purposes.

I am not enough.

There’s not enough of me to go around. I’m tired and sore and wishing the next weeks away, longing for the day I’ll feel normal again. For the day I feel normal again.

I can’t ever take the kids to the park enough times to suit me. The zoo pass sits lonely and unused far more often than I’d like. I haven’t played with my kids outside since the first time it snowed. That was at least a month ago. But lately, it’s not just “not enough”. It’s “not at all”.

The subject of “mommy guilt” has always confused me. Guilt about what? Lately, it’s all come crashing in on me. Guilt about everything. There’s something about pregnancy hormones that will do that to you.

And yet, as I lay in my bed last night, unable to sleep, I couldn’t help but wonder at the thought process. My children aren’t complaining. They rub my belly and look forward to the day they can hold their newest sibling. They take joy in serving me… most of the time… even if, in Pierce’s mind, it’s bringing me a Coke four times a day. (Since I bought the Coke to marinate deer meat, it’s an interesting gesture. Basically, it has him moving Coke from the box in the basement to the fridge in the kitchen because I don’t have the heart to tell him I don’t want it. So I procrastinate and send him to put it in the fridge for me. We’re getting a huge stash up here, only to be taken back down… he must think that box will never, ever empty itself.) Liberty offers to make supper every single night. Eden loves to look through cookbooks to find me recipes to make with the ingredients we have. Sterling is the expert “stand on a stool and stir this” supper helper and Ruby loves to get things out of the garage for me. She usually comes back giggling with a tale of “I had to climb into the chest freezer to find the broccoli.” Such hardships, I’m sure.

I wonder. Is pregnancy a way to make me slow down? Is this an opportunity to teach my children service, empathy, and the value of offering to help instead of spend their time doing less fruitful activities? In my guilt over what I’m not doing with them these days, have I missed the bigger picture?

Our home is still functioning. The floors are swept… most often by an eight year old these days. Laundry is as caught up as it ever is. (You decide what that means!) My older two have learned how to sort, start laundry, switch loads, fold, and put away. The younger four are fabulous at taking laundry to the laundry room. School has happened every day, just like we always do. Grocery shopping is enough to make me need a nap – but my children pitch in and put groceries away and while I have yet to find the onion soup mix we bought last week… that’s minor. I’ve had more chances than normal to sit and read books to the kids, to snuggle up next to my little ones, to convince Pierce to take a nap – with me.

Maybe, just maybe, I need to look at this as a season to live differently, a chance to teach my kids things they’ve not learned yet about service, compassion, and empathy. Maybe, instead of seeing this as what they aren’t getting, I can see it as a chance to get something entirely different.

It’s hard. I’m thankful it’s not anticipated to be long term. But instead of looking at it for what it isn’t, I’m going to look at it for what it is. Guilt free.

To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under the sun… (Ecc. 3:1)

Another woman.

I took Blaine's van to Bible study the other night. It gets better has mileage than my big van, so whenever I head out alone, I take that instead. Shortly after getting in, I smelled perfume. Strange.

I didn't think about it too much at first, but I kept smelling it. Littered with jumper cables, car seats, random photography paraphernalia, cereal bar wrappers, and the like, smelling foreign perfume is odd. The thought of my husband going out to lunch and given a co-worker a ride crossed my mind, but he always packs a lunch. I kept smelling it, all the while wondering why it was bothering me so much. I've never had a moment's worry regarding the man I married. He drives a fifteen year old small minivan we outgrew two kids ago that leaks oil like it thinks it's doing the lawn a favor, dripping fast enough to leave a puddle everywhere it sits.

This man of mine goes to work faithfully, teaches our children as he works, slowing him down but certainly worthwhile. Father of nearly seven. Faithful. So why on earth is the perfume smell sending my mind in all sorts of circles?

I decided I was being absolutely ridiculous.

I proved myself correct when I took my hair down when I got home, late in the evening in a sleeping house. The scent of my new conditioner hit my nostrils and I nearly choked on my stupidity. Somebody, please. Save me from myself. I. Need. More. Sleep.

Shopping battles, missing ribs, and toy invasions.

Life has become mere endurance. At 32 weeks pregnant, I’m miserable beyond words. I. Hurt. Everywhere. But, baby kicks and rolls and from all appearances is doing fabulously. I was warned by my midwife to expect this one to be bigger than all my others, since he/she is already larger than most. My heaviest was 9 lbs. 2 oz. so I’m rather expecting to birth a three month old at this point. The constant question is whether I’m positive I’m not carrying twins, how sure I am of my due date, and if I’m done. Oh, and one particularly fun comment about being like one of those prize pumpkins that never stops growing. I hold onto the knowledge that I won’t be pregnant forever.

I bought new fabric for pillows. We might, by the end of tomorrow (because I need another pillow form, so that’s been added to today’s grocery list) have matching pillows on our not completely mismatched couches for the first time in history. I’m rather excited about this. No, it’s not nesting. I purchased the fabric the day after Christmas. Christmas sewing and dread for getting on the floor to cut out fabric had me putting off the sewing until now. But if my living room could be more intentional, that would be fun. Of course, the Lincoln Logs, the train set, the car basket, the Legos… it’s a toss up on whether I can win this battle.

Pierce got a handful of Tonka toys for his birthday last year. Sterling has had a dump truck since he was about two, so when I found a bunch of them on Craigslist, Pierce got them for his birthday. He loves them. They had, however, been used in the sandbox and lived outside or in the shed. Sterling begged to bring them in for Pierce when it got cold, willingly put them in the tub and scrubbed them until no sandbox remnant remained, and made his brother one very happy boy. My living room/school room now looks like this on a continual basis:

 

I’ve decided Sterling is just trying to balance out the boy toy/girl toy ratio. Or kill me, tripping on large wheeled toys in the night. Take your pick.

I told the kids to get ready for the day. The day consists of school and grocery shopping. Sterling feels like he’s headed into battle, apparently. This is what he came up with.

Last night I made barbecued pork ribs and baked potatoes and our own canned green beans for supper. I got all the kids’ plates dished up, and Ruby went to the garage fridge for more milk. She plopped the brand new gallon of milk down… on the edge of Sterling’s plate. Just like that, potato, beans, and pork rib went flying, catapulted toward nearby Pierce and the floor. Some of it landed on the table, some landed on the floor, but that rib simply disappeared. Brady (the dog) was not so very far away, and the fear that she’d snatched the meat was voiced. Even if she had, a pig rib vs. an eight pound dog seemed like an unlikely match. Surely something would be left. She can’t eat a bone that big that fast. And so the search continued. Everyone’s plates were checked for the extra portion, but no one found it.

It struck me as awfully funny. Eight people, searching floor, plates, counters, and curtains for one catapulted rib.

Finally, I spotted a bit of the sauce on the back of Pierce’s chair, and his chair became the focal point of the search. The rib was behind Pierce, on his chair. Supper was saved, Brady was innocent, and the idea of catapults was discussed.

Pretty sure I’m not going to forget the food flying through the air, plate and all, anytime soon though. Supper around here is never dull… but that was a new one, even for around here.

To the mothers vacationing without their husbands or children in Florida.

"What's a daycare?"

One of my children posed the question. Pausing, I tried to come up with a suitable answer. In the world of my children, they don't know anything like it. Momma stays home with them.

Explaining it's a place that cares for children, rather like a babysitter, while parents work, my children looked even more confused.

"Oh, like if the dad dies."

Didn't see that coming. Yes, I suppose that could be one scenario. I added that perhaps both parents work. I got trampled in the trains that were my children's imaginations.

"Or if the mom dies."

Yes, I suppose that's another possibility.

Then Ruby dropped the bomb.

"Or if the mom goes on a trip, like to Florida."

Florida? Florida? Who's going to Florida? And why wasn't I invited?! What is Florida anyhow?

She looked at me like I was SO ignorant.

"It's a state, Momma."

Glad we got that cleared up. What I want to know is this: who taught her this stuff?!