Intense?

Last night I attending a little Girls Night Out, and the guest speaker talked about parenting. I piped up and asked if it is possible to royally fail your children on both a daily basis and in the long run. Then a few other moms felt comfort in knowing they weren't alone in their fears and spoke up. I think it is safe to say that our intensity acted as birth control for those poor girls who have yet to have kids. Girls, this is indeed the hardest time of a mom's life. Young kids are just difficult, pushy, mean, and bossy. But there is always at least one time of day when they are sweet too. I know I can count on at least one. One doesn't sound like much considering the other 99 times are times of discipline or distress. But rest assured, we live for those rare sweet moments. Like right now...JW and Micah are on the floor kicking their legs like they were flailing fish out of water. Just a cute moment to get me through the next hour until bedtime. This hour is otherwise known as the witching hour, evil hour, or the longest hour of the day. But girls without kids, being a mom really is good haha! I bet this post makes you want kids about as badly as I want to break up another fight LOL :)

On another cute but kid note, JW has learned how to spit. And in fine boy fashion he comes right up to my face to do it, leaving spit on me and a bunch of slobber on his chin and shirt. Soon this spitting will accompany cars crashing into eachother or some super hero taking flight. Ah, boys.

Now, who wants to come babysit my three blessings so I can go get some much needed icecream with Scott? I promise you will be tired and covered in spit...maybe poop too. But at least you get paid for it! HA! (Please sense the sarcasm in this entire post. If you don't, I just come across as mean and ungrateful. Jordan might say I am mean, but she would agree that I am never ungrateful! I beg to differ on the mean part. I am, however, probably one of the most sarcastic people you will ever meet.)

A Few Random Thoughts

1) THis is the picture that is going on my dad's mug for Father's Day. Yes, I know it is way late, but I had a grand plan and a cool mug and it has all fallen through. So now he gets the traditional Dad Day mug, but this year it has THREE kids on it except for just one. Very cool!
2) Jordan fell asleep ont he floor tonight. What makes this worse is that she was without bear. So she fell asleep...without bear...on the floor. She has pretty much outgrown naps except for random ones here and there. On July 4th she was eaten alive by the big country mosquitos at mom's house. I think she has 50 bites. Every once in a while she will tell me she is itchy, but even when she isn't telling me I know she is itchy because she is contantly scratching. constantly. So I had her take some benedryl. I guess the combo of no nap and benedryl did her in. Mental note: No more benedryl if she is already insanely breaking down due to lack of a nap.
3) Today was a rough day. I had some bouts of crying and tears. An almost 4 year old and two 1 year olds is just tough. It would be tough on anyone; there is no way around that. I think that those families who have 10 kids are amazing considering 3 has me pretty nuts. A typical day would go something like this: make Jordan's breakfast, make babies breakfast, while Jordan is eating I wake JW to eat, then wake Micah. Get milk ready for all three. ONce done, they all get milk while I clean up their messes. At some point the dishwasher gets cleaned out so I can refill it with all our empty sippie cups for the day. After breakfast is over the kids fight, er, play for a while and I do whatever needs to be done for 30 min or so until, inevitably, I smell poop. Two babies are up for a diaper change. Then soon after they are down for a nap. Now, if I don't have laundry to fold or a room in need of major cleaning, this first naptime is when I do my quiet time. I try to do this with Jordan so she can see me studying the Bible. She needs to see that happen as often as it can. By the end of quiet time the babies are up. I am lucky if they sleep an hour. I make their sippie of milk and maybe a snack depending on time, get JW up, then Micah. Then they fight, I mean, play. An hour later it is lunch time. I prepare all three lunches, sit all three down to eat. While they eat I clean up the mess made in the kitchen and put dishes in the dishwasher. Then they are all done, so I clean up the mess they made in the living room/dining room. After this, surprisingly, I can sit down for a while. We have a whole hour before nap time. In that hour I will change two more poops and probably wipe a bigger girls bottom after she poops. Naptime comes and I am in hog heaven. Babies go down for 1.5-2 hours of BLISS. Jordan has quiet time in her bedroom; sometimes she falls asleep and sometimes she doesn't. But no matter what, I get time alone. I can fold laundry if I want. Or I can sleep. Usually I sleep. I am awaken by a baby crying. I run to get snacks and milk made for everyone. Give Jordan her milk and snack, go get JW and sit him down for food, go get Micah and sit her down for food. After snack time I clean up the messes (again) and the kids play and fight, fight and play. While they are fighting over the newest plastic Shreck toy I get dinner going and get frustrated because who can cook when you have to break up so many fights? And darnit if JW didn't poop again! Let's hope the sauce doesn't burn while I change him and my eyes burn from the stench of poop. After dinner, things are kind of a blur. Usually everyone goes right into the bathtub. Somehow the kitchen gets cleaned. Scott does that part a lot while I make sure the kids are safe in the tub. After the tub they all get milk, then teeth brushed, then the countdown begins. 1 hour. 30 min. 15 min. 5 min....close enough...bedtime!!!
Somewhere in there we read books to them. Jordan gets the bible read to her at night. I generally read 2-3 books here and there. Micah is a huge bookworm, as is Jordan. All JW wants to do with books is hit somebody with it.
ANyway, today was just one of those days for me. I know all moms have them, but for some reason I feel that the general public feels that I shouldn't have days like this. Afterall, we waited years for these babies. We shouldn't ever have bad days but instead be so thankful for our blessings. *rolleyes* Today was just rough. The kids fought non-stop. I realized that Jordan is about to start pre-K and she still doesn't know her letters/numbers. She can say the ABCs and count, but doesn't recognize them. Bad bad mama! I add to the everyday mommy guilt by feeling guilt over feeling guilty.
4) My friend's mom is dying. She was sent hom today on Hospice care. Kelley is an only child. It breaks my heart. I can't imagine. I put myself in her place and I have 3 brothers who would come mourn as well. I have 3 other brothers to share stories with and grieve with. She is all alone. Please be praying for her. I just can't imagine. It saddens my heart.
5) I sing "Jesus Loves Me" to the babies every night when I am putting them to bed. Today Micah sings "bible" when it comes up, and JW sings "Jesus". Awww. At least they are learning something good from me. I was beginning to worry that all they would learn how to do is scream and clean up. And knowing teens, they probably would fail terribly on the clean up part.

Families Like Us

Nothing gets by her, Jordan that is. Yesterday she looked deep into my eyes and said "mommy, your eyes are different." Alamred by this I asked what she meant. She went on about the white in my eyes having red in them (no thanks to you, kids!) but mostly she was concerned with the fact that my eyes are blue and hers, Micah's, JW's, and Daddy's were all brown. Hmph. This means she is noticing differences in us. She starts scool on August 23. I am sure some boneheaded 4 year old will say something to her and she will be totally taken off guard by it. This is her normal. She has no idea that she is the minority in more ways than one. Jordan, I hate to break it to you, but familes like us are few and far between. That is why we are so thankful for the K familiy down the street, and the couple families in church. You just remember that if someone says something that kind of rocks your world a little, remember that God made YOU special, and that your birthmom thought YOU were so special that she couldn't just keep you and enjoy you all by herself all day and forever. She wanted to share you with another family, and she chose us. And mommy and daddy, we think you are VERY SPECIAL too. Psalm 139 assures us of the lengths our God will go to to make just the right person. HE knits us together in our mothers womb, forms us inside and out. The rest of the Bible is all about the lengths our loving God goes to in order that you, Jordan, might know just how special you are. You are so special that he gave you a book of dos and don'ts to keep us out of harm, and while out of harm we are pointed back to Christ. Christ was God's son and he died because God decided that we were too special to pay the sacrifice our sins require. Even the God of heaven and earth, the beginning and the end thinks that Jordan in the blue bedroom with girly white furniture and tutus galore, yeah, she is pretty special.

In the Eyes

When I was doing this photo shoot I looked at Faith's mom and told her that Faith's eyes were simply stunning through the lens. Well, see for yourself. There are absolutely zero actions done to her eyes. This is genuinly what they look like. I think her mom and dad would agree that it is all in the eyes.