Pieces of Us

I do not know how they survive, honestly.

    I have managed to be a parent for 12 years to 6 children and never had a child pull over a piece of furniture.  Now in the last week Caleb pulled over his dresser and today Jillian pulled over her dresser.  She managed to survive. Honestly, what is going on with these children?  I am going to have a heart attack. I was out in our trailer working on some Christmas present sorting and Jilly was inside 'napping'.  Next thing I know Ginny is knocking on the outside of the trailer door.

    'Mama, we heard a CRASH and Loulee is crying!"

    So of course I fly to the back bedroom and my amazingly responsible girls had already lifted the dresser back up and were cradling Jillian in my bedroom.  Amazingly, miraculously and by the grace of God Jillian also was spared in the same way Caleb was.  Apparently she was trying to reach her kitty which was on the dresser. She  opened all the drawers and stood on the bottom one.  The dresser tipped but because the bottom drawer was open it caught against the carpet and didn't topple all the way over.  The force threw Jilly back and the girls big jewelry box fell on her but the dresser did not. Praise God!

    Ironically I had just tested the dresser to see how stable it was after Caleb had knocked his over (it's the same dresser style) and it seemed so sturdy. I am going to anchor them both today. At least Jillian came out of it with her dignity intact...she was fully clothes unlike her brother.

I'm slacking!

    At the first of the year I committed to a goal of reading a book per week this year. I have been ahead of the game but now I am getting nervous!  Possibly this is due to the fact that I am reading two rather large books concurrently.  Fiction :The Pillars of the Earth at over 900 pages and Non Fiction: Lies My Teacher Told Me at about 450 pages. 

    I can do this!  I WILL meet this goal! I am about 3 books ahead right now at 48 books for the year on Week 45.  OK, off the computer now so I can READ!

Mini Mall Rat

    We never go to the mall.  It's just not my thing.  I do love to shop for things for the home and I also love clothes but I have never been a 'mallrat'. Today I realized how long it has been since I took the whole crew of kids to the mall. 

    As we walked into Macy's, it was already decorated for Christmas.  Jilly's eyes were very round and she stared at all the colorful decorations.  There happened to be a big shiny red mailbox with a little table and postcards beside it.  Kids were encouraged to write to Santa and for every postcard 'mailed' they would make a donation to the Make A Wish foundation. Each kid was happy to fill one out and AJ took his time writing a novel! At least I think it was a novel, I did notice he put our phone number at the bottom but he had to cram it in and it wasn't very legible so I let it slide.

    After the letters were posted we walked out into the mall. Jillian started squealing at the sight of all the stores and the Christmas decor. 

    "Ooohhhhhh!!!!  I am so excited. hee hee hee hee!" She said.

    "Uh-oh, I think we have a little consumer on our hands!" I said.

    We made our way to Justice so the girls could spend their birthday gift cards- which was the whole reason we were there. Jillian's reaction made me realize that this was her first trip to the mall (other than when she was teensy and in a stroller or MeiTai). The girls had a hard time making selections because the store mainly had teeny-bopper/pop star type clothes.  They are just not into that.  Gabs likes to look trendy but not commercial.  Maddy is more of a hoodie and jeans girl. The boys were not thrilled with sitting in a girl store so we went next door to the seasonal Toys R Us.

    Jillian found the baby doll aisle right away.  She was in heaven!  She stroked each doll and cooed to them, told them her name and hugged the boxes.  She LOVES babies!  She has about 7 babydolls and loves them all equally...even the Dollar Tree baby with the dent in her plastic skull. 

    Caleb planted himself in the nerf gun territory and promptly stacked up all of the models he wanted for Christmas, apparently he felt the need to take them all down and so I had to put them all back up!  The best part about Christmas is that whenever one of them says, 

    "Can I get this?" you can reply with, "Put it on your Christmas list and we'll see."

    I finally got the kids out of that store and we walked along the top level of the mall. Jillian and Caleb were very impressed to be able to see down to the bottom level.  It was so cute to watch them press their noses against the plexiglass.  It was then that I noticed Santa was already there.  Just waiting there for some little children to come say hi.  I am not huge on Santa but I do love the magic feel of Christmas and so we do let the kids believe. 

    Jillian can be funny with strangers.  She is the most energetic, talkative, outgoing girl but she can often cling to me and hide her face, even with family friends.  I did not think she would have anything to do with Santa.  Not to mention that last week when I mentioned Christmas she had no idea who Santa was. Then we watched Elf.  She loved Elf. I think it may be responsible for how the rest of our mall trip went.

    She spotted Santa from our vantage point above and pulled us toward the elevator. 

    "I'm going to tell Santa to bring me a baby!!" she shrieked.

    I kept telling Grammy that I wasn't sure what was going to happen when we rounded the corner.  Would she bolt?  Would she cry? Would she hide? We came to the entrance and there was Santa, hatless. Looking lonely and sad because it's only November 12 and people can be so bah humbug about Christmas before Thanksgiving.  She ran through the entrance with Caleb hot on her heels and they both climbed up in his lap and were talking his ear off in a matter of seconds.  Ginny and AJ followed with their wishes. I ended up with the best Santa picture I think of all time. They look so gleeful and happy! They sat and chatted with Santa for about 15 minutes and Jilly could not stop smiling afterwards.  I never force my kids to sit or talk to Santa.  It's always their choice but I am glad they did.  They really enjoyed the experience.

    I also enjoyed watching them as I know these years of childhood wonderment won't last forever. A quick stop to browse the Disney Store followed.  Jillian loved all the fancy shoes and Caleb loved the Cars and Toy Story toys.  They are great browsers and we left empty handed but still happy. Our last stop was into The Gap.  This was when Maddy and Gabby realized they much prefer the classic, simple styling of The Gap to the loud, obnoxious Justice offerings.  Live and learn!

    For now I am waiting for Jillian to ask me to go back to the mall.  Sadly, it may be awhile.

 

NaBloPoMo Obligatory Posting

    Committed to blogging every day of the month of November I am resorting to a "this is how our day went' post.

    Everyone is coming down from a weekend of candy eating, pie consuming, Birthday-Halloween hijinks kind of sugar high. I was plenty tired this morning after the girls' birthday party, which was fun and entertaining and exhausting.  So I slept a little later than normal, the bed was cold on mike's side when i woke up.  He was off attempting to become the great deer slayer again. I heard the little ones pattering around the kitchen like little mice.  Albeit mice that pour milk and cereal into a bowl instead of hoarding it in little mouse holes in the wall.

    Although today was a back-to-school kind of day I had to make it a late morning so I could get some groceries. Seems the wee mice resorted to the mashed up mini-wheats fragments from the bottom of the bag.  I should have served them leftover pie.  The older girls stumbled out looking like remnants from a Halloween party (the undead). They plopped on the couch and pulled out their nooks so they could read to wake up.  Who reads to wake up?  Apparently my kids do.

    Prodding and pushing eventually led to 6 kids ready to get out the door.  Dropped the 4 youngers off at Papa's house and took the eldest two to the polling place so I could exercise my right to vote. That done we headed over the hill to WalMart (ick, I hate WalMart but I needed something from there) and Costco (love Costco, I needed everything from there), but only after a stop at the bank to prepare my budget for the month.

    The girls and I managed to get all the grocery shopping done quickly-most likely due to their being no little ones in tow- and we grabbed some lunch on the way home.  I was pleasantly surprised to see Mike home and that he had picked up all the kids earlier and so they were all ready for their schoolwork.  That was a load - and about 20 minutes- off my day. Mike and Caleb unloaded the van.  Caleb loves to help unload the van, he feels supremely important and needed- which he is.

    Schoolwork commenced.  I worked on math with AJ and Ginny and we did some dictation work and spelling. The kids were squirrelly and I am chalking it up to the aforementioned sugar high. I patiently reminded  ordered them to soldier on because we had acting class at 4:30.  The great part about acting class homework is that it is public speaking and memorization which are wonderful skills.  I always feel like it's a great addition to our regular work.  AJ worked on his Hamlet monologue (Alas...Poor Yorick!) He has most of it memorized and we will work on it more tomorrow.  He needs to work on his enunciation but his accent is hysterical. The addition of a plastic skull to our 'prop' basket has been great fun.  AJ happened to win it in an apple bobbing contest at a Halloween party.  Fortuitous!

    Mike happened to be taking a nap- this is not newsworthy, he is always taking a nap, but it was time to head out to class so off we dashed and I prayed that the littler ones either woke him up soon or busied themselves with some project that did not include either sharpies or my walls or both.

    Acting Class happens to be at the church which was also our local polling place so it was crazy busy. As luck-or bad luck- would have it we were filming today. So we did our best placing props and filming amidst loud voters, rambunctious voter's children and insane drivers driving while on their cell phones in the parking lot.  We wrapped up a little late, around 6:30 as the attention span of a horde of child actors is about as long as Dory the fish's. And did I mention the sugar highs? Anyway, that resulted in take, after take, after take.

    I sent up a prayer as I drove the couple of blocks to our house that Mike had had the forethought to make some dinner and he was preparing a pizza when I walked in.  Thank you Jesus!  It even had fresh mushrooms on it so I was a happy girl. Kids ate, I ate, Mike ate.

    There was a knock at the door and I opened it to find my brother and sister-in-law bearing gifts for the girls. Both of the girls aunts got them the same gift this year so Kelli had exchanged them and brought new gifts.  A computer mouse for Maddy and a movie for Gabby.  They stayed and visited and we had a nice time.  It's always lovely when they come and visit as it is hard to chat at parties when there is a herd of elephants  houseful of young children running through every room squealing with delight. At some point during the evening Caleb clobbered his ankle against the coffee table with a loud and furious CLUNK. I flinched, Mike got ice, Caleb cried, we moved on.

    And so now Mike is in the bedroom watching the poll results on the news, Maddy and Gabby are feverishly banging out novels on their keyboards, I am blogging (no, really?), Caleb and AJ are talking when they should be sleeping and apparently as I have just heard announced in unison, the younger girls are 'PEEING!".  Why must they always go together? 

    Need. Coffee.

The End

Actually the end was yesterday but I made it through with around 40 posts for the month of November.  I am going to stick with it best I can and keep on posting. :)

Contemplating Black Friday

    I have only gone out shopping on Black Friday once in my life.  Mike was underway on a submarine, I was home alone and i had all my family coming up to stay when I realized I had NO blankets for them and it was snowing. I braved Black Friday that one time.  Since then I have had kids and the thought of waking early after being up at night with little ones was not desirable at all.  But now my children have all passed that up at night stage.  The girls are older now and next year will be 12 years old by Black Friday. I think next year we will begin a new tradition and try to save our shopping for Black Friday and do most of it together, the three of us.

    Perhaps I have over-romanticized it in my mind but I can picture waking them up, bundling up and heading out in the wee dawn hours, stopping in for Starbucks and then spending all of the early morning just the three of us. It seems like a fun time. So next year we are going to try it, I will of course post to see if it has met my expectations.

Picture Tag!

    Post the 4th photo in the 4th album in your computer.  I tag everyone who blogs and reads my blog.

Here is mine...

The 28th again

    That means Miss Bossypants herself is another month older.  21 months in fact.  So close to turning 2 already. She is fully aware of the word NO at this age much to our chagrin but at the same time it's fun to see her have an opinion.  And a big one! Here are some facts about Jilly at 21 months.

• Loves sauce, any sauce. 
• Loves soup because she thinks it's a big bowl of sauce.
• Is not into kid food at all.
• Adores animals especially kitties.
• Enjoys playing outside.
• Using the potty often.
• Sits at the table like a big kid.
• Loves Music "sounds"
• Favorite song is "Doggie Song".
• Still will not watch tv.
• Loves to brush hair and have her hair done.
• Starting to dress herself.
• Finally can jump, both feet off the ground.
• Draws and 'writes' constantly. This is her favorite pastime, she also draws on walls, floors, books, etc... Cleaning these things is not MY favorite pastime.
• Likes to help clean.
• Loves to wipe her face.
• Likes to help do laundry.
• Enjoys books and will look at books for hours talking about all the pictures.
• Does not like to go to bed at night.

Out with the old, In with the new

    We spent the morning taking down all the fall decor, singing Give Thanks

Give Thanks - The Praise Baby ...

as we did it.  I love to sing with the kids, it's so sweet to her them all belting out a chorus. Our Thankful poster is full to the max and I get a little teary when I rad all the new things that were added each day this week, not to mention the adorable different stages of handwriting, Caleb even added his doodles. The Christmas stuff is up and we enjoyed watching The Santa Clause and The Polar Express after we finished getting it all Christmasy up in here. Pics to come.

It definitely does not smell like stinky kids.

    Because my Scentsy order arrived!

 

The scary part is that that is only MY order.  The fun part is it was almost all FREE!  I love FREE! I was shocked at how much hostess credit I ended up getting. Everything smells wonderful and I am a big Scentsy fan now.