Halloween

Thoughts on Motherhood

Here is a picture of my baby boy, back when he was a little squirt and truly a baby. Here on my top 10 thoughts on creating further tiny people to increase our family...

10. I would give almost anything to freeze my children in this stage. They crawl, they coo, they drool. It's perfect.

9. If there is anything that will make you want more sweet babies, it is a sweet baby. Their most tempting parts are their cheeks, nose and toes.

8. I saw a newborn baby girl the other day and I wanted her. For my own, if only her mother would agree (she didn't). I considered making my own and felt that it would have been a lot easier to be given someone else's. Sigh.

7. I have a new sister-in-law Lindsey and a soon-to-be SIL Hannah, who could really help me get my baby fix. But no, they live in Italy and are not yet married (respectively.) Can a sister get some help around here?

6. With the exception of one roly poly adorable child named Jack, Shane and I have borne the entire burden of providing grandchildren for both sides of our family. This is clearly unfair. And I intend to write a strongly worded letter to all relatives with available reproductive systems. And also replace any birth control I can find with placebos.

5. I want to have more babies, I do. It's just that pregnancy is so... long. (Lindsey and Hannah ignore this!) I'll have more someday. Maybe twins. I could name them... Mavis and Matilda. Or Todd and Copper for boys. Wait, isn't that the fox and the hound? (True story: I actually suggested Copper as a potential name for our daughter. Hormones can really get you man!)

4. The hormones. The upside: My hair gets thicker and shinier, I have no bad moods that I know of (ha!), and my skin glows. You know, the pregnancy glow? It's totally real! My dad watched me carefully and informed me that I was indeed glowing. Yes, he's wonderful. You can borrow him sometime if you need.

3. I believe God has instilled something inside of women, and if not in all women, at least inside of me that allows me to know when to have more babies. The light is flickering, but it's just not quite there yet. As in, yes I would love to decorate a nursery, buy a layette and dream of names, but I am not ready to sign on for pregnancy yet.

2. I just had a thought, what if the joke is on me and the reason I've got all this on the brain is because I'm already accidentally pregnant and I just don't know it yet? I better delete this and think of a new number two. I don't think my husband will like it.

1. And to wrap up... may I just say that gazing into the eyes of my 12 month old in this picture turns me to mush? I could wallow in a puddle of longing for 2008, or I could bide my time and make another one of these cute suckers one of these days. I'll keep you posted.

Jungle Junction

Right now, my sweet baby boy is watching the premier of the Disney Channel's newest morning cartoon show, Jungle Junction.

And may I just say that I do not get it?

So the setting is the jungle. And there are animals there, but not necessarily jungle animals. The main characters so far are an elephant, a pig, and a rabbit. But they aren't really animals, they're car-animals. So it's not an elephant, it's an "eley-VAN." Get it? Me neither. Also, the jungle is criss-crossed with roads, making it look more like downtown Seattle than the middle of the jungle, because the animal/car thingys only have wheels, no legs. So they need lots of roads, right?

As if we needed something else to be weird about it, the premier, as in the opening show that is supposed to convince everyone to watch, is about the ele-van accidentally touching a shrinky-bush. If he and his friends cannot make shrinky-bush cream in time, the elephant/minivan character will shrink into oblivion. I bet that's a sentence you never thought you'd read.

So this is what the best and brightest in children's entertainment have to offer us these days?

I Have the Best Mommy

Thursday 11 pm: I go to bed with a weird itching burning in my throat.

Friday 3 am: I try to wake Shane up to tell him I am SICK. Really sick. It doesn't work.
Friday 4 am: I start crying and wake Shane up to say I am sick and so someone will hear me blubbering and try to help because I am so miserable I can't sleep.

Friday 10 am: I call my mom at work and tell her my sad tale of woes through my sick, scratchy voice.
Friday noon: My mom calls me and lets me know that she is taking me to the doctor. Inside I leap for joy. Outwardly I moan and then go back to sleep.
Friday 1 pm: Mom takes me to the doctor where I am given a strep test and a positive result. We call in the antibiotics.
Friday evening sometime: I awaken from sleeping for what feels like all day to my mother laying her hand on my forehead to relieve the pain. Then she feeds me a grape popsicle while I am laying in bed because I am too weak to sit up.
Saturday morning: Shane makes me yummy fruit smoothies. I sleep and sleep and sleep and take pain meds but cannot shake the fever, sore throat and migraine.
Then I throw up. Sorry. Too much information, I know.
Saturday afternoon: My mommy watches my kiddos, makes me homemade chicken noodle soup and sanitizes my bathroom. That is love.
Saturday night: My mom takes Elsa home for the night so she can sleep away from the germs and go to church with them in the morning.
Sunday morning: I wake up feeling just the teeniest, tiniest bit better and I praise the Lord for my husband, my mother and penicillin.

September 2004

Elsa Grace.

Age: 1

Dress: my most favoritest sweater dress ever from Gymboree.

This is what she looked like then. Now she goes to school and ballet and when I drop her off she reminds me not to come in, and to drive away as soon as she gets out. She usually gets up on her own, and tries to pick out her own clothes and do her own hair. I am still fighting the good fight on this one. I do not get up early on Saturday mornings all summer long to buy her designer clothes from garage sales for 50 cents just so that she can pull out everything striped and combine it to create an "outfit." Air quotes here please.

Designer? Do baby Gap and Gymboree clothes count as designer? Well, for me they do.

All this to say that I try very hard to send her out into her big grown up kindergarden world looking nice and today it paid off. Another mom and I take turns driving our kids home and today when she got out of their car at home she informed me that she had received her very first proposal of marriage from Wyatt Sharkey.

Unfortunately she declined, "until he is 29... or dead."

Sleeping Beauty

It's 11:03 on Friday night. I just got back from a girls' night out and this is what I found. I guess the magazine wasn't that thrilling? I'm going to go wake him up now. Ssssshhhhhhh...

No Picture

Today is a BIG day for Joshy in the potty training department. He did something new, something different, something you should all thank your lucky stars that I did not take a picture of and post it right here. It would have induced gagging and wretching, which is why I did not take a picture of the grand occasion. But around here it brought on candy treats, celebrations and even a victory dance!

So three cheers for Josh and... you're welcome.