My Miracle

It's not often the I write a touchy-feely sentimental post.  I usually try to suppress vulnerable feelings such as those and just stick to my security blanket of sarcasm.  However, this moment in my life deserves recognition.  It was Saturday night.  My girls had been passing the infectious and stubborn "pink-eye" to each other ALL week.  Thursday I thought we were in the clear and then Friday everyone had it again! 

I had hardly left the house for six days, I saw on FB that all my friends in Monmouth were having a fabulous girl's night that I wasn't at, I couldn't interact with anyone here because I didn't want to spread the germs, Lars was of course working, and I was having a ROYAL pity party for myself.  I had just laid my head down on the desk to cry (really...that's how pathetic I was being) when my dear friend M.A.R. showed up at my door with a hug, some chocolate and a magazine.  She made the mistake of noticing my mascara streaked down my cheeks from crying and then dared to ask me if I was OK.  She enter my quarantined home, sat on my pink-eye infested couch and listened to me blubber for twenty minutes.  After I was done emotionally vomiting all over her, she hugged me and I made her pinkie-swear she would act like this never happened and still be my friend.  She humored me and left. 

After I closed the door I just started crying again, but this time because I was so grateful to a merciful and personal God who is aware of me, my feelings and my needs.  He didn't come down from Heaven to put His arms around me, but He sent a willing substitute to do the job for Him. 

To me that is a miracle; and for that I am grateful.     
 

Fight or Flight

Yesterday was another beautiful day on the coast.  The girls wanted to play outside on the balcony, so we were out there messing around.  (That picture...not my balcony)  Heidi came out munching on a piece of bread.  The wind must have picked up the aroma of Heidi's crust ol' bread because out of no-where a huge flock of seagulls was suddenly on the balcony, and on the roof, and circling over head, screeching and pooping all over the place.  Leah, Naomi and Emilia went barreling back inside screaming.  Heidi, however, stood her ground.  She ran right up to the railing and yelled in her two year old voice, "No birds!  Get off Heidi's house!"  Then she stomped around the balcony until the birds had all flown away...and then she finished her bread.

PG-13

At dinner tonight Leah was building a mashed potato volcano complete with gravy oozing everywhere. Naomi was, of course, complaining about how disgusting the mashed potatoes were.  Leah encouraged her to try them with gravy and launched off on a pro-gravy campaign.  "Gravy makes mashed potatoes taste better.  Gravy makes the meat taste better.  Gravy makes the rolls taste better.  Gravy pretty much makes EVERYTHING taste better...except for boobies."  Lars and I looked at each other with raised eyebrows.  "I mean, boo-boos, owies...you know.  Gravy doesn't make those better."  It was too late.  Lars and I were already in a fit of uncontrollable laughter.  I had tears running down my face. 

It was a testament to my children's innocence that they were completely clueless as to what spurred this insane reaction.  Leah asked Lars what he was laughing at and he said, "Your Mom" which made me laugh even harder because it just sounded like a tacky, but well played joke.  Then Leah asked me what I was laughing at, and I said, "Your Dad."   The girls just rolled their eyes at us and continued eating.  Just another random outburst...nothing out of the ordinary. :)

All you need is LOVE

As I sat on my living room floor, on February 14th, pulling a massive hair ball out of my vacuum I couldn't help but chuckle as I thought of how our celebration of Valentine's Day had morphed over the past ten years.  Of course our first one together was full of romance, dinner at the beach and watching the sunset over the ocean.  The next V-day I was gigantically pregnant and things only got more chaotic from there. 

As I reflected on the way things once were, I started feeling a bit of sadness that it couldn't be the same.  And after about thirteen seconds of that I realized that I now had four MORE people to love with all my heart!  I decided to embrace the day and steal my friend Stacy's tradition of having Valentine's dinner as a family; complete with sparkling cider and chocolate dipped strawberries. 

I had already agreed to let Naomi make the meal, so we enjoyed "Hogs in sleeping bags" and fruit salad.  We decorated the table and drank "fizzy" out of real glasses.  During dinner we had an impromptu session of "I love you because..." and we all took turns filling each other up with kind words and compliments.  It was a wonderful evening and I'm so grateful to the man I love for being the father of these four beautiful girls that I get to squeeze and kiss and love on every day.

M.I.A.

We've been having an issue lately called, Heidi doesn't want to wear a diaper OR use the potty.  An unfortunate part of the "issue" is finding rouge diapers around the house that she takes off by herself and walks away from.  This also means there has been an increase in conversations similar to the one Leah and I had tonight.

Leah- Is Heidi wearing a diaper?
Shar- I think so.  Why?
Leah- I just heard her pee!
Shar- What?  Where is she?
Leah- On the counter.

Heidi hair

Heidi's hair grows straight down into her face.  She never lets me put it up, so I cut it.  Heidi held very still while I cut her bangs.  I put the scissors up and went into the kitchen to get started on dinner.  Two minutes later I heard Heidi's little voice say, "Heidi hair!"  She walked up to me with a different pair of scissors in one hand and a lock of hair in the other. 

It's not obvious where she cut it from but I have a feeling I'm going to have to have to keep an extra eye on Edwina Scissorhands.

Afternoon at the DMV

I've been needing to change my Iowa drivers license to an Oregon one for the last...oh, three years now and for whatever reason decided today was the day.  So I spent all morning reading the very engaging and intellectually stimulating driver's manual.  I know the common sense stuff of driving, just figured I should brush up on the laws specific to Oregon and whatever random tidbits of information they find necessary to tuck into those 112 blessed pages. 

All I have to say is, it's a good thing I barrelled through that book because otherwise I would have FAILED!
One of the questions was
"If you are driving and approach a person on horseback with his hand raised, you should...
A. Wave back 
B.Continue slowly around the animal
C. Stop. A raised hand means the animal is frightened. 
D. Honk obnoxiously while increasing your speed"

Ok, so I don't actually remember the choices, but obviously the correct answer was C because everybody knows that a raised hand = frightened livestock.

There were several questions like that one about completely useless and impertinent information and then I was humored with some questions from the other extreme of being blatantly obvious.

"When you approach this sign, what should you do?"

A. Come to a complete stop
B. Slow down at the intersection
C. Pull over to the side of the road
D. Eat a ham sandwich





After laughing out loud at the absurdity of some of the questions and MANY of the photo illustrations, I answered 28 of the 32 questions correctly, passed my vision test, lied when asked to verbally confess my weight and filled out all other necessary paperwork.
Then they told me that would be $65 cash or check only.  I had to ask for my old, invalid drivers license back so I could drive only semi-illegally to the bank and close out my life savings to pay for that confounded piece of plastic.  But all's well that end's well and I can rest easy tonight knowing I can FINALLY check this off my "to do" list.  :)

Nature over nurture

Yesterday Naomi came home from school with a list of all the kids in her class; thus ensuring she could non-discriminately bring Valentines for everyone to the class party on February 11th.  Last night before going to bed Naomi approached me with this request.

"Tomorrow while I'm at school I have a few things I need you to do for me.  I need you to go to the store and get me a pad of construction paper, two packs of pencils and a bag of heart candies.  Do you think you can do that?"

I agreed and inquired what she would be doing with said objects.

"I am going to make 10 Valentines on Wednesday, 10 on Thursday and 7 on Friday.  Then I am going to put three heart candies in a bag, punch a hole in each bag and punch a hole in each Valentine.  I'm going to tie the bag to the card and then I'll be ready for my party on the 11th." 

What six year old has that much forethought?  That clearly was not a learned behavior from her mother.  "Nature"-one "Nurture"-zero

It just keeps going and going and going....

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I'll let this one describe Heidi's speech patterns.  The kid doesn't stop talking.  I love hearing Heidi jabber on all day about everything she sees and thinks.  She will even randomly burst out into song.  (I have NO idea where she may have learned that...)

On one such day of endless mind-numbing babble, I finally dialed the phone to call Grandma for respite.  Being so good at her Grandmotherly duty, my dear mother listened to Heidi for nearly an hour; making animal sounds, singing songs and playing "I spy" (which is a rather interesting game over the phone).  Heidi just went on and on the entire time loving every minute of it! 

Cups

Yesterday I was  in the kitchen when I overheard Yaya (Emilia) in the living room say, "Look Heidi! Yaya has big boobs!"

I chuckled to myself thinking I had mis-heard her and surely Yaya was saying "BOOTS."

I poked my head into the living room just as Yaya stood up and yelled, "Oops!  My boobs fell!" and two plastic cups tumbled out the bottom of her shirt. 

And I get to add yet another moment in my life when I had to duck of the room muffling my laughter at inappropriate things.