"If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant."

We're in a bit of a winter fog around here. Our home has been a little down and sort of stalled out, especially in the fun department, for the last couple of weeks. A stomach bug x3 followed immediately by another fever virus x2 landed us into a few doctors' offices (of course, in the end for no reason, since it all ended being viral). But it's also just the cold weather -- the kids are stuck inside, much to their oft-expressed dismay. But my experience-soaked discovery about these undesirable periods of life:

It really is just a phase; things will eventually get better.

In other words, "This too shall pass." It is trite, but no less true.

Lately:

But Ellie will be rockin' and rollin' with her brothers again very soon:

Happy Winter!

Holiday-ed Out

Our family has been busy enjoying the holidays -- traveling, visiting, eating, playing, singing, buying, praying, giving, all that. We survived celebrated Christmas for a few weeks, including 5 family get-togethers! And now we've rung in the new year here at home. 

I love to look back at my blog and see how far we've come and how much we have all grown and changed over the year, mostly for the better. I didn't get to sit down at the computer very much last year, but here's our first blog of the new year, with more to follow, I hope:

Christmas and I have a love/hate thing going on:

I LOVE to see family and friends and visit with them all. They're so mean for ever leaving.

I LOVE seeing kids get excited over the box rather than the fancy gift inside. :)

I LOVE thinking about Christ -- love and peace and perfection. He came to rescue us when we were just in a mess. I hope I can do the same (well, not the SAME, but I know what I mean) for someone else.

I LOVE the music, good grief how I love the music! "Ring, Christmas Bells", "Carol of the Bells", bells bells bells, bells!

I HATE the expense, well, the wasted expense. What ever happened to "I picked up a little something that made me think of you?" We always have to over-do it.

I HATE the traveling. We are exhausted, and we didn't even go very far. I thought about sleeping in the van rather than unpacking when we got home.

I HATE the sweets everywhere I turn. Cut me some slack, Jack. I can't keep buying bigger pants!

I HATE the have-tos -- what we have to bake, give, buy, attend, and decorate. Nobody cares if we spent our savings or put 1,000 tiny lights on our house if we grumble about it and don't even enjoy it. Sheesh. Bro. Easley always said to turn those got-tos into get-tos.

Having little ones made this Christmas buckets of fun, though -- Ellie, Jack, and Woody believe in magic and they love so purely. Everything is new and exciting to them, and it really does make me remember those times. Anything seemed possible, didn't it? Well, if Jesus's mama taught us anything, it's that "Nothing is impossible with God." I'll try to remember that more this year.

Square Footage

Time for a confession: our house is completely filled with people and stuff.

We've been looking at some larger homes, and I have felt pretty guilty for even thinking about buying another house. Do we really need that much space? Being materialistic and stuff-driven is NOT a goal of ours, but it's easy to become that way. I mean, if the five of us can't fit comfortably in this house, do we just own too many things? I try to have a "home" for everything and a container for catch-alls in each room, but we still end up with clutter everywhere. Two of every baby item imaginable PLUS Ellie's toys, art supplies, books, shoes, and ponytail holders make it nearly impossible to keep the house picked up. I have these ideas of how to make better use of our space (because I really feel like we have more than enough room), but I can never seem to make the plans work. You know, maybe move this in there, and that over here. Oh, and throw those out, give these away, pack this up to store in the attic, and so on. We could use a shelf here, a toy basket there. Hooks on this wall to hold such-n-such. But will these little fixes really make a difference?

Also, in the near-to-distant future, we will have to make room for walkers, crutches, wheelchairs, or whatever mobility assisting equipment the boys will need. When I look into the future, I imagine walls being banged into and all of us getting bruised and beaten up trying to move around in the house.

So, I guess we'll de-clutter and rearrange until we can't take it any more. Is that the only option? I mean, who wants to move, anyway, right? What a pain . . .

Any ideas, blog friends?

Today

Today,
 --  I interviewed #12, on a list of 24 potential part-time nannies. Yep. Apparently, there's still not much work out there, or at least not in Natchitoches this summer. So much for the recession being over. I have liked almost all of them and loved a few of them. Gonna be tough, especially since I'm only halfway down the list.

-- I watched Ellie paint and she was so neat and tidy, such a big girl. We found a set of watercolors (you know, the little tray of oval colors) on sale at Walgreens, so I just let her go for it. She couldn't believe she could choose any or all of the 24 colors. She produced three very creative pieces for display in my kitchen gallery. She went for hot pink first, in case the suspense was killing you.

-- I thought it was gross that I gave the boys, in this order:  antibiotic, pineapple flavored; Motrin, bubble gum flavored; congestion medicine, grape flavored. It was like a nasty little fruit smoothie.

-- I witnessed a ravioli lunch incident of enormous proportions, which required a double mid-day bath. Bath assembly line = one baby in bean bag chair, one baby in tub, naked clean baby on towel, diaper, clothe, clean baby back in bean bag chair. Repeat.

-- I started packing up bottles: big boys and their cups. And yesterday they BOTH sat up long enough to be weighed at the doctor!

Wish I could say this was an abnormal day. But, it's pretty much the norm! :)

GMH

GMH stands for "Gives Me Hope" (http://www.givesmehope.com/). On this site, people post twitter-length stories that, well, give them hope. We all know I can't stay within a character limit, so here's our "GMH" from Wednesday during our trip to Shriner's Hospital this week:

Shriner's in Shreveport is only an hour from our house, and we learned very quickly that this is a hu-mongo blessing. Many families travel long distances (Oklahoma, Alabama, Arkansas) to get the very specialized pediatric orthopedic care Shriner's offers. We go to Shriner's for this very reason -- they host a monthly clinic just for kids with spina bifida. These folks have seen it all, and their experience is invaluable; nobody knows much about spina bifida, but they DO!

So, back to our GMH. Retirement is supposed to be a "withdrawal from an active working life," but this week at Shriner's, we met four gentlemen who are using their retirement to do a pretty amazing service. They accompany children with their parent to the Shriner's Hospital. They may drive them or take them on a flight. Apparently, each Shrine Temple has a team of people whose job it is to make sure kids from their area can get to the hospital they need, whether that's the burn center in Galveston or Cincinnati, or the orthopedic hospital here in Shreveport.

I don't know a THING about what Masons are or what the Shriners might do in their "secret" meetings, but I can tell you, we sat with a 60-something guy who told us that once he could spare the time during retirement, he just knew he wanted to become a driver: " . . . to get these kids to the hospital!" What will WE do with our retirement?

These guys GMH.

Thoughts

My friend Angela's post today was "Deep Thoughts", and they were sort of her thoughts before heading to bed. So, inspired by Angela, here are my thoughts right now.

I am thinking:

I'm not completely sure I can handle the kids by myself all day every day this summer.

It is difficult to find a part-time nanny who can handle my kids.

My final grades are due Monday at noon. And that I should have gotten to them by now.

How much I like mozzarella cheese, fresh tomatoes, and basil, especially all together.

Jack just ate the equivalent of a whole ham and cheese sandwich.

I would really love to take at least a short vacation this summer. Doesn't look like it will be to the Gulf.

The boys are finally getting physical therapy at least weekly now.

About Ellie's birthday coming up. I love celebrating with family, and just seeing the look in her eyes when she realizes everyone came over just for HER!

About pulling out our big inflatable pool and starting to live in the yard for the summer.

I should have planned ahead to drive south for Mother's Day. Sorry, Mama.

The heat and humidity from the weekend are a sign of things to come. Blech.

Wow, Wow Wubzy is a really stupid kid's show.



That's all I got.

Becoming a Speaker, a Signifier, a First-Person Subject!

Jack is now talking! He and his sweet brother have both been making noises for quite some time like "da da da" or "bah bah bah", but Woody came up with his first official word -- "Uh Oh" -- about a month ago. He uses it in the correct context and on queue, so we call that a word. "Bye Bye" followed closely behind, along with blowing kisses with a hearty "Mah!"

Jack has decided to wait until this week to assert himself as a speaker of words. He started with "Yeah." It's really very sweet. He can tell by our tone when we are asking a question, and he'll chime in with a loud "Yeah!" From there, he began realizing that he gets a lot of positive attention when he makes new sounds, and especially if he repeats a real word. And boy, did he get a reaction when he used a word that meant something in context, like "yeah." He now says "E-I-E-I"; yes, as in "E-I-E-I-O". And he's been calling me "Boom Boom", but we're not sure how he got that out of "Mama".

Isn't it amazing how empowering it is to communicate? Yes; Jack has been communicating through gestures and screaming in pain or in excitement, but through language, a list of new possibilities opens up. We can object to ideas, agree with ideas. and even express our own ideas. Jack is becoming his own subject! I know I'm a nerd, but that's pretty cool, right? My babies are all, indeed, little people.