Stay at Home, Mom!

I was talking to a young mother who has one 3-year-old girl. This mother told me that she's had it with watching this girl all day every day, and she absolutely has to get a job and put her daughter in daycare or she'll go insane. I told her what she needed was to give the little girl a sibling to play with. (This could be construed as a tactless comment---I am famous for making them---but the condition of my belly at present allows me to make certain types of comment without too much reproach).

The conversation didn't really go anywhere, and I certainly made no impact on her resolution to quit being a stay-at-home mom. But it made my heart hurt for her and for her cute little girl.

I would never voluntarily leave my children to go to work. The thought of having somebody else raise my little ones is appalling! That is MY job. These are MY little ones. Nobody else in the entire world can do for them what I can do for them. Nobody else can love them as I love them.

There are days when I go bonkers and realize that being a stay-at-home mom is hard hard hard hard hard. There are times when I let my children make me so mad that I am surprised at myself. My house is often a mess, my shoulders are often covered in peanut butter or worse, and I am often greeted with angry faces as I turn a corner.

But then, as I put the kids to sleep, I hear a little voice say "I like you and I love you and I think you're beautiful and pretty." These children I have are my most precious blessings from heaven. They are so cute and so sweet.

And that's enough soapboxing for now. I just wanted to say I treasure not just my children, but also my role as their mother.

Happy Birthday, Kevin!!

Around four years ago I had my second baby, sweet little Kevin Allen. When Kevin got his blessing at church, Rob included that Kevin would be a joy to his mother. Boy, has that ever held true. That boy just makes my heart weep with happiness.

Kevin is our jolly child. He almost always has a smile on his face and he's always ready to play what anybody else wants to play. He is fun-loving, happy, and just too cute for words.

OK, so he has his moments of intense anger, but he is, after all, a very small person, and they all have their moments.
(Here he is after I picked out the boys' clothes and Rob put the wrong clothes on the wrong boys anyway.)
But he never stays mad long, nor is it possible to stay mad at him for long, even if he's eating cookies in bed:

He's been growing too fast and I'm definitely looking forward to many more years of enjoying my friend Kevin. And did I mention that he is just so cute? Those blue eyes have been enchanting from the time he was just a few weeks old.

So for his birthday this year we had a friends party at home with 17 kids and 9 mommies, we went to the Exploration Place, we went to the grand opening of the new library, and we went to McDonalds, where we learned that Kevin wanted not food but to play on the play place. (Oh well. Not sure the stuff at McDonald's really qualifies as "food" anyway.)

Kevin got great presents and had a happy day.

But then, most of his days are happy days. : )


Happy Birthday, Kevin! I love you!

What's up with my body?

For the past few months I've been putting on a shocking amount of weight, despite my usual rigorous exercise regimen of chasing three insane children around. Strangely, the weight seems to congregate mostly in my middle, though it has also spread itself rather obsequiously over my entire body. And the concentration of weight in my middle has this alarming tendency to wiggle and attack me from within! I've also had heartburn, difficulty breathing, fatigue, and extreme moodiness.

Fortunately the doctor assures me that this condition, while life-changing, will last no longer than three more weeks. I'll have to go to the hospital to have the majority of the swelling removed in what will most likely be an extremely painful experience, but then my body will begin to gradually shrink back to its previous state of normalness.

But here's the weirdest thing: The doctor told me that I'm going to have to keep the cause of the swelling! And it's going to cry and poop! For years!!

Though, now that I think about it a little more, it seems this has happened to me three times before. And each time was one of the highlights of my life, so I guess this is all really a good thing after all. I think I'll call the little lump "Hannah."

And I will smile and possibly cry just a little too. : )

Happy Halloween!

A few months ago I went to a consignment sale and was clever enough to snarf up a $5 Darth Vader costume. Then I was foolish enough to give it to the boys to play with----so by the time Halloween rolled around, neither boy had the slightest inclination to be Darth Vader.

Drat.

They decided they wanted to be bats. See, Rob sometimes tells them bedtime stories about Tanner and Kevin having various adventures on a hot air balloon. One night the adventure led them to a haunted house surrounded by bats with red eyes. The bats were really a minor detail, but the boys focused on the red-eyed bats and wanted nothing other than to be bats for Halloween.

So this year, I am pleased to say that I did not purchase pre-made costumes. I sewed bat wings on the backs of some black shirts and stitched some ears and red eyes on black hats, and there you have it. I even used some left over fabric to tie on a cape for Amy, who, by Rob's request, was a little witch. She wouldn't wear the hat, preferring instead to showcase another of my hairbows. : )

Anyway, the kids had fun trick-or-treating, except Amy got a wee bit spooked by the whole thing. Not spooked enough to refuse the candy, but spooked enough to be quite somber for the majority of the evening.

Of course we carved pumpkins too. Messy business, that. I took no part in it, except to take pictures.



We had a happy Halloween and now are screaming internally in anticipation of Thanksgiving. Will the baby come before or after? Oh boy oh boy!