on a lighter note

Ah....now that I have some of the heavy-life stuff out of the way (previous post) here's some fun things....my kids. They make me smile.

First, Mariah. She just turned seven and is so grown up. She loves school, enjoys reading, and plays well with her sisters. She tends to be a wee bit bossy and (uh-oh) sounds like me sometimes. Hm. Something for me to work on. She is really good at remembering people's names (has been ever since she could talk!) and has perfectionistic tendencies which I cringe at. I know that it is a typical first-born trait, but I know that my perfectionistic nature doesn't help the matter. I am realizing that I need to spend more time playing with the girls...the reason I don't is another whole post.

Allison likes school, too, doesn't say a whole lot there, but soaks it all up. She is a thinker and often says funny things in a very serious way. She'll be serious one second and then the next second, she'll bust out with this big laugh. Here's some of the funny things she has said. It snowed a couple inches last week, then stopped during the day and we were discussing that it might snow again tomorrow. With this very serious face, she said "if it snows tomorrow... (I'm thinking something like, "it will be pretty" or "we can go play outside" or something nice, but instead it was)...."if it snows tomorrow, I can throw snowballs at Mariah". Where did that come from? It was funny. Then tonight, we had the advent candles lit and again very seriously she said "It would be fun if we could roast some marshmallows over the candles some time". A valid idea. And my personal favorite...Mariah learned "O, Come all Ye Faithful" in spanish for school and so we sometimes sing the refrain in spanish. Well, I have been playing the piano lately after the girls are in bed and I will take requests from them as to what songs they want me to play. Allison sometimes requests O come all ye faithful, but then tells me specifically, "Mommy, after you play the first part, can you play the second part in Spanish?" Hm. Not sure how to do that, but I tell her, sure :)

And then there's Rachel. Oh, my that child is, well, funny. I guess she is what you would call strong-willed, but that sounds so cliche. She loves life, is generally very happy and busy, but really likes to have her way. She has an opinion about everything and trots almost everywhere she goes. She can walk a half mile at an almost adult pace and not complain. Let me tell you about why this child is challenging for me. Most of you (whoever you are that read:) know me enough to see that I am not a very strong-willed person, so when you enter this little 2 and a half year old bundle of energy, she is going to either boss me around or I have to learn how to be boss. I'm learning to be boss. Here are three examples of the determined personality that she has....A couple months ago she absolutely hated getting her diapers changed. I would tell her it was time, ask her to get a book or a toy, etc. but it would take 10 minutes before she would lay down. I got sick of it so I finally told her "either you choose where you get your diaper changed or I will choose". Well, the first few times she didn't choose in 30 seconds so I chose. Oh, the screams. She threw a tantrum for 10 minutes before she finally gave in a laid like a rag doll while I changed her. This was repeated about 5 times (each time the tantrum got a big shorter, thankfully) until now I tell her it is time for a diaper change and she goes and finds a place to lay right away. Ah. It was worth every minute of the screaming. I am kind of understanding the whole "breaking the will" versus "breaking the spirit" of the child. Breaking her will is letting her throw that tantrum for 10 minutes and then she decides to submit. Breaking her spirit would probably involved phsyically holding her down to change her diapers. Not something I would particularly enjoy.

Item 2 of why she is strong-willed. Her language. We recently had a speech therapist evaluate her and her language is at about an 18 month level (she is 30 months at the end of Dec.). She is very intelligent and understands everything we say, but is bound and determined to speak on her own terms, it seems. A year ago, we taught her to do the sign for please. We told her she needed to sign please before she could have dessert. Well, the ice cream sat in the freezer for 4 nights before she finally signed please. Then, just last week, Mike got her to say please (she says it "peas") and she said it for him a couple times. When I tried it, though, here is what happened. We were eating and she had dirty hands and wanted a towel to wipe them on. I told her to get one and she said "no, you" (Her first ever phrases were "no mama!", "no, me!", and "no, you".). I told her I would get a towel if she said please. She got this big pouty face, sulked in her chair for a bit, and got quiet. A few seconds later she disappeared, came back with a towel, and a big, satisfied smile on her face and proudly bragged "no, peas. No, peas" (translation: look at me, I got my towel and I didn't have to say please).

And my favorite illustration of her will....dogs. We have a dog, Tigger, who is a tiny terrier mutt and weighs about 10 pounds. She likes to boss him around and often yells "no, goggy". or makes him move off the blanket, couch, etc., out of her way. Because Tigger is so small, it might just seem like she bosses him around because she is bigger, but we found out that she likes to boss big dogs around, too. We've read this book by Cesar Milan (of the show Dog Whisperer) about how dogs can sense people's energy -- like if people are confident of themselves and take charge of life. Well, even these big dogs can sense that she is a marge-in-charge type of person.



These are my sisters full-grown pit bulls, Titan and Hershey (weighing in at 80+ pounds, I believe). They are fairly well-behaved, but are still big dogs. They intimidate me slightly:) Anyway, we were at her house for Thanksgiving and had closed the door to the dining room to keep them out. Well, after dinner, Rachel, who is at about eye level with the dogs, goes in and out of the door and is perfectly fine with the dogs. She shoves them out of the way, tells them where to go, and is not one iota afraid of them. We were all commenting on this and then, we peek out the door and here is Rachel with Hershey (the brown one) by the collar. She is dragging him behind her like he weighs ten pounds and he is following as meekly as a puppy. Thinking of that just cracks me up! She weighs maybe 30 pounds, but apparently has enough will in her to make up for what she lacks in strength. It's no wonder she pushes my boundaries! Of any of the kids, she would be the one that puts me in the loony bin and I am beginning to understand that it isn't just me that she wants to boss around. Whenever I weary of her, I just remember, this is the child that can boss around pit bulls, and I try not to take her tantrums and strong opinions too seriously. I've known for a while that I need to learn discipline and consistency and some stick-to-it-ness in my own life, and it seems as though God saw fit to give me just the child to teach me those things.

the rest of the story (aka how life really is)

I haven't blogged for a long time, but I've thought lots about it. I've wanted to tell about how Rachel hates getting her diapers changed (sometimes to the point of screaming for 5 minutes before she'll lay down!) or funny things that the girls say or post pictures of them, but never got around to it. I think the reason for it is that I tire of blogging when it is just about the good things in life. Happy pictures, pretty pictures, superficial chit chat. In the past I have blogged about hard things and feeling lonely, but not for a while. So, here's a post to make up for lost time. Hm. Now where to even begin.

To start with, Mike and I have been married for almost 8 and a half years (wow that sounds like a long time!). Marriage is challenging on its own, but then add in 3 kids, 4 years of grad school, plus 2 more years of thesis writing, plus remodeling a house, plus moving to 5 different homes in those 8+ years, plus financial stress, and all together you get a recipe for disaster. Absolutely by the grace of God, we are still married and have wonderful children and pay the bills. Through it all, though, God has been working on me. Changing me. Getting rid of the junk and making me more like him. But let me tell you, this is not an easy thing. Not easy at all. Why not? A lot of it has to do with my tendencies to perfectionism. In my humble opinion, I don't think that a perfectionist can ever be happy. Even if I were married to a perfect person or had perfect children I would probably still get crabby at them because of times when I wouldn't get my way or when I would be proved wrong, etc. etc. So, a lot of the changing that God has done in me is to learn to not be a perfectionist (which to learn this you have to admit being wrong, look for your own fault in situations, and be ok with getting a C+ in a grad level class - I've had to do the first two things many times, but thankfully only one C+:) I was comfortable in Minnesota, though -- with our house, church, friends, etc.

OK, so that is a bit of background. Then enter the move to Chicago. I was kind of excited about it at first, but basically lots of it has sucked. I write that with a bit of a chuckle because even if we'd stayed in Minnesota I'm sure that life would have still been crappy in some ways so it isn't just because of the move. But, figure this -- with the move I lost my comfort zone. That comfort zone being habits of shopping at certain stores, going to church where I knew everyone, having friends that we could call on a moment's notice to do something, having driving be effortless because I'd driven that road hundreds of times, etc. So now, going to church becomes stressful because you have to make conversation with strangers, I spend lots of time investing in chit-chat relationships when really what I want is just a couple good friends who I can bare my soul to, I rarely drive anywhere unless I've been there before, and I have to think about what I will buy from where because I consider how it was purchased/produced, etc. I dealt with some of those things last year when we lived in a nice place, close to school. But, that neighborhood is expensive so we down-styled from the nice 2-bedroom loft and moved to a 100 year-old house with crooked floors, squirrels in the attic, back porch stairs that smell like dog pee, and very little green space in view. Quite a change from our house in Minnesota -- brand new kitchen, 2 new bathrooms, a nice theater, and a huge yard. If we were trying to live the American dream then we never should have moved.

So then over this past summer, as we were moving from the loft to this house, I'm working 3 days a week on my thesis. By August I was exhausted! (On a sidenote, one very bright spot in the whole summer, though, was a week long trip to Idaho to see my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. It had been 7 years since we'd been there and it was absolutely incredible to be around people who have known me for my whole life. Yes, I did have to small talk some because I have no idea what they do now or even who my cousin's kids are :) but to just be known and accepted and loved and not have to tell my whole life history to them, was absolutely wonderful. It was balm to my soul.) Having a week of very little stress and lots of sunshine, though, made me realize how nice it could be to be married and have kids! So, come mid August, I stopped working a week before Mariah started school because our daycare person went to college and after that, I absolutely crashed. This is what I have avoided blogging about. I was so exhausted that the girls and I went up to my parent's house for almost a week and I slept and laid on the couch and talked to my mom almost the whole time. After being there I said, well, it's no wonder I'm exhausted. She was busy all day long with cooking, laundry, dishes, and diapers, it seemed!

Alas, I had to come home, though, and the past three months have been hard, but good. I pretty much have only cooked, done laundry and dishes, and picked up toys (somedays:). Sometimes I don't even check email or facebook for days on end! I've taken lots of naps, and only three weeks ago did I pick up working on my thesis again. So, what have a learned through it all? That God is steadfast and that He is really all I need. Many people have said it, but it really truly is only when you come to the end of your strength and admit that you are weak, then and only then can God's strength permeat your life. For so long I've tried to do it all -- marriage, kids, school, etc -- but I think that so much of that was done by me living on my own strength. Not that God didn't want me in those places at those times, but I know that some of it was my trying to earn approval via my perfectionistic nature. Oh, along with way, I'd get sick and realize many times that I had been trying to do too much, but I could never stop. I could always phsyically keep going, but now I just can't. I'm figuring out the medical side of it, which is a whole blog post by itself, but right now I am just treasuring the spiritual part of it. Some days are still frustrating and exhausting, but I know that my choice is to either sit around, get depressed, and feel sorry for myself or I can claim God's word and the biblical truths about me -- that I am a child of God, I am Christ's friend, I am a saint, I am a part of the body of Christ, etc. I may not always feel valued, but I know the truth (that I am loved by God and that even if I were unable to do a single more thing in life, he would not love me any less - a pretty hard thing for this old perfectionistic/approval-seeker to grasp!) and it is this truth that sets me free.

So, that is the gist of where I am at right now. Now you probably know more about me than you ever wanted to know, but I'm so sick of putting on a happy face. Yes, I have joy and contentment, but that's only part of it. I couldn't have gotten to this place without trials and as a Christian I know that becoming the person that God wants me to be will entail struggles. So, in closing I shall just share something from church this past Sunday. In observance of Thanksgiving, there were post-it notes and pens up in the front of church and everyone was invited to come forward, write down what we were thankful for, and put the postit on the cross, the altar, the woodwork, etc. This is what I wrote: I am thankful " for trials and tribulations that show me the faithfulness of God, for children, for spouses, for family." Yes, i am thankful for a house that is warm, doesn't leak when it rains, and has new kitchen cabinets, but those would not mean a thing if I did not have God or the people closest to me. God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good. Amen. :)

some pictures

We managed to survive our move and here are a few pictures from the last month....

This is Rachel after having gotten "face-painted" by Mariah with a Marker....they had been cololring so nicely while Mike and I chatted in the next room, but Mariah decided that Rachel needed a big butterfuly around her nose and mouth (with antennae above the eyebrows) and a small butterfuly on each cheek....It is rather amusing. Rachel hiding in a box with the open bag of potato chips after a trip to Costco.

The new kitchen cabinets that our landlord paid for and Mike installed....they are SO much nicer than what was in there before!

Rachel putting stickers on the new drawers to cover up the screws. Allison is decorating a piece of styrofoam to be a horse. We added reins later and she and Mariah each galloped around the house for an hour...

The girls latest activity is "ixperiments", as Allison calls them. They like to take cornstarch, water, and various other things and mix them altogether and see what happens....Here Allison was mixing cinnamon and water which she was doing while I helped Mike put in the kitchen cabinets. Later, she grabbed the sour cream and strawberry jam, as well....yummy.

school's out and another move....

Mariah got out of school about a month ago so it has been so neat to see more of her and get to see how much she has grown and changed during the year. She is such the helper now and is really pretty good at most things she tries. She measured all the spices and herbs for spaghetti tonight and she is usually willing to help pick up. Allison wants so badly to be big:) She "reads" books to us, tries writing her name, and gets frustrated when she can't draw pictures quite like Mariah. Rachel continues to be....well, how does one describe her. She has a strong sense of what needs to be done (get a towel to clean up spilled water or dip diapers in the toilet to 'rinse' them, get her shoes on at the slightest hint of going outside, etc). She STILL doesn't really speak much, but she'll talk your ear off in some jabbering language complete with facial expressions and arm waving. I have been working three days a week this summer to finish my thesis so that helps me stay sane -- a little bit of piece and quiet even though it is while I work.

Our big job for this summer is that we are moving....only about 2 miles this time, thankfully, and it doesn't seem quite so difficult as moving 7 hours away. I like that it gives me a chance to rethink how things are arranged and also reminds me that I could really get rid of some toys or books, etc. Mariah has been a big helper in moving (she tells me, "Mom, I really feel like packing some boxes today") and Rachel followed suit by packing a whole basket full of books by her own initiative. I'll miss living close to school and having a relatively large amount of green space out our window, but we'll enjoy the new place, too....

a funny song

Today I walked into the bathroom because Allison had called me to come wipe her. She said to me, "Mommy, do you want to hear a song?" I said, "Sure." This is what she sang (to the tune of Ten Little Indians (or Fingers). "The poop goes down, the pee goes up. The poop goes down, the pee goes up. The poop goes down the pee goes up. The poop in the toilet goes splash." That made me laugh! I found out later that Mariah made up the song, but it still makes me laugh!

an addition to the family....

Well, this time our addition to the family is not of our species....rather it is a furry, four-legged little dog. Here is a link to his adoption site. We took a 5 hour road trip almost to Louisville on Friday, camped that night, then drove the 5 hours home with a new dog. He is the most good-natured pleasant dog I have ever known (at least from the 4 days that we've had him:) He didn't know "sit" or any other requests, but he doesn't try to escape out doors, he rarely barks, and he doesn't growl at you if you are nearby his food when he is eating. We'll post pictures or videos as we take them....

maple syrup

The girls absolutely LOVE this video about collecting maple sap and they have watched it at LEAST 50 times since March. Most of the people in the video go to the church my parents are at, so someday they might be able to participate. In the meantime, though, they practice pouring "sap" in the bathtub, at the sink, and Allison makes syrup in the garbage disposal when she plays at the sink. Regarding the syrup in the disposal, she asked me once "does this sap go to Grandpa Hanks??" So I told her that maybe after the water is made clean, and put in the river that it turns into rain and it might go to Grandpa Hank's. That made her happy. Ahhh, if life were that simple....

Another Allison funny...... I pulled up in front of our building to unload some groceries and had to park in front of a hydrant to get close to the door. I must of said something about hoping it was ok if I parked there for a bit and she asked "Mommy, if we park here are we going to get frogged?" I shook my head and squinted me eyes and said "What?!?" I asked her what she meant and she simply said "mommy, will we get frogged?" Hm.....hm.....and then i laughed!!!!! Of course we won't get frogged, but we might get toad :)

a ligament

I've been doing lots of thinking lately and decided that I feel like a ligament :) It's been rather slow here as far as making friends and feeling part of a community as we did in Minnesota. Using the analogy of the body of Christ, I feel as though we severed ourselves from the body of Christ we knew in Minnesota and we were kind of just floating here in Chicago. But! I've come to realize that the body of Christ is much bigger than that. Rather than being a ligament that was, for some reason, completely removed from the body, it is more like the body just had surgery....I was reading the other day about how with major ligament injuries like in the knee, doctors can somehow take a ligament from somewhere else in the body and graft it in place of the injured one. Don't ask me how and maybe I imagined it, but that is just about exactly how I feel. I am not completely disconnected from the body of Christ here, I just have a new place and it takes time to heal from that surgery to feel more at home and more useful in the new place. A strange thought, but a comforting one, nonetheless, in the midst of millions of strangers.

In spite of all of my ponderings in life, the girls keep growing up. Mariah has turned into an amazing reader and writer! She takes school very seriously, but is still very fun and carefree at home. Allison has been having a stubborn streak lately and is a bit antagonistic with her sisters at times. She absolutely loves visiting Mariah at school and will grab paper and markers and start in on her own drawing, right alongside all of these kids that are two years older than her (although they are not all taller than her!). For Mother's Day, Mariah made a couple of notes for me, made her face out of clay (with a pin on the back to wear on my shirt), bought a card and wrote in it AND they decided totally on their own to bring me breakfast in bed. So, at 7:00 I hear them whispering and clinking....and a few minutes later they bring me bread with jam, almonds (because Allison knows that I have some every morning) and an orange (that Mariah peeled, but just needed Mike to help them open). I was impressed! I am always very self-critical about my parenting so it was SO wonderful to be the recipient of their love and appreciation! I have to smile every time I remember it:) Rachel continues to be her opinionated self. She has a strong sense of personal space...she has been known to shove kids Mariah's age at school when she feels that they are too close to her. :- She still has a very limited vocabulary, but is pretty consistent in saying a mix of "ahee" and "oggy" whenever she sees doggies (which is very often). It is rather amusing.

and then there was one

We made a short trip up to my parent's for Easter weekend and since Mariah has this week off from school, she and Allison are staying with them until next Sunday! It is mighty quiet at home (which I am very thankful for because I've got a not-so-fun sore throat) and Rachel is really enjoying her time as an only child. She is nearing the 22 month point and still doesn't really speak. She does communicate very well, though, and these are a few of the things that she lets are know are very delicious (by saying mmmmmmmmm):
1. the frosting licked off of a cupcake
2. salt, poured from the salt shaker, licked off her hand
3. any flavor of chapstick that she can get her hands on (and hide while eating, but she has a hard time diguising the various licking, smacking, satisfied noises)
4. handfuls of butter, sneaked from the butter dish left out on the counter
Needless to say she knows what she wants and she makes for never a dull moment.

Allison had a funny on Sunday. At my parent's church there was chocolate milk for the kids. Unbeknownst to me, Mike had gotten her some and when I saw her drinking it, I assumed that it was hot chocolate because it was in a styrofoam cup. So I asked her if she was having some hot chocolate. She took a slurp and said quite definitively, "It's not hot chocolate, it's brown syrup". So true, so true.

What the kids do all day.....

I am amazed at the array of things that kids can find to do during the day. Here are a few pictures of them..... On one of Mariah's vacation days from school, she and Allison constructed a runway of all the couch cushions, almost every blanket and pillow in the apartment, plus all the dress up clothes and stuffed animals. They played Olympics and ran up and down and up and down and generally had a good time (and got very roasty, as evidenced by their swimming suits:)

Allison and Rachel recently discovered that playing with dried beans is rather fun - dumping and pouring and spilling and picking up, etc. They started out at the counter, but since so many of the beans ended up on the floor, they just start there now:) It must have been fun because at one point Allison remarked "Mommy, it's fun to play with beans! Playing with beans is funner than toys. Beans are funner than scooters!"

Allison, Rachel, and I. Rachel loves the camera -- if ever she hears the sound of it turning on, she'll come running and want to look at the picture on the back....thus, it is difficult to take a picture of her in the moment:)

Allison turned 4 and we celebrated with chocolate (gluten free) cupcakes and real strawberry frosting -- per her request.

Mariah went to two parties in one day -- a birthday party and a superbowl party -- and she was exhausted! She was so tired she crawled in bed as soon as she took off her boots, said that she just needed to get warm, but fell asleep in about two minutes....all she took off, was her mitten so that she could suck her thumb :)

Allison was in bed when I took the picture of Mariah sleeping, so insisted on a picture of herself, too....she really likes her silly face in the picture.

Fresh from the bath....playing a game of uno.....getting crabby at Rachel for trying to play, too.

life continues on.....

Mariah is still loving school! She recently studied the symphony so in addition to a learning excursion to a symphony performance, they played lots of instruments, built some of their own, and had a parade at school. Here she is (with about 30 other kids behind or before) parading through Mike's office. The horn that she is blowing is made out of garden hose and a funnel! She got to bring it home so it gets played at home....I just wonder what the neighbors think:)

Allison celebrated her birthday this past week and is now 4! I sill marvel at the fact that I am a mother of 3 girls and that they keep getting older all the time:) She is just waiting and waiting for the day when she can go to school, too! But in the meantime she enjoys puzzles and her dresses that get big when she spins.

Rachel is now over 19 months and still doesn't speak in a language that we understand:) (but she does have many things to say and really means whatever it is that she says). About the only thing we consisently understand from her is when she repeatedly yells "Ma!.....ma!......ma!...." until I rescue her from wherever she has gotten up on (chairs, benches, etc.).

This past week, I was able to get out of the apartment without the kids for a while! A friend of ours will be watching the younger two girls for a few hours, two days a week, so that I can go sit at school and work on my thesis. It's amazing how much I can get done when I work more than one hour a day!

Two steps forward, one step back

Phew! It seems like we are just seeming to get the hang of life here when we go out of town for a bit or somebody gets sick or something else happens that throws us out of routine and it takes a week to get back on track and all of the toys picked up. I've just decided, though, that this move has been more difficult than I ever imagined. Not only did we relocate ourselves to a new city (necesitating learning new roads, grocery stores, finding doctors, insurance, dentists, etc) but we moved into a different living situation (no basement or yard to escape to if we feed the need:) It has forced changes in our lives (changes for the better) and a reevaluation of old habits. I am becoming a bit better at executive functioning (time management, organization, orderliness), but I am sometimes amazed at how I made it through college (I guess I wasn't in charge of 3 kids then), but I have absolutely no idea how I made it through 2 semesters of grad school with three kids! -- the grace of God, fo' sure. Life goes on and I just take one day at a time. I'm learning to focus on relationships over things that need to be done and I am amazed at what a difference it makes (eg. if I play play-doh with the girls instead of trying to get some housework done while they are occuppied, then I don't get so annoyed about cleaning it up afterwards:) And, I've discovered that it is kind of fun to sculpt.)

But, it is weird, too, to ponder this life that we lead. I've been reading the 5th book by Laura Ingalls Wilder to Mariah and it just blows me away how different my life is from their's. It takes months for me to pack up and move and unpack whereas they can move in a day! They have very good executive functions (time management, etc). because their life depends on it -- if they don't do the chores or plant the garden, they will not survive. And here I sit, with a furnace running, no twisting of hay or cutting of wood to stay warm, Mike playing the Wii guitar, and a load of diapers drying in the dryer. And I think that my life is challenging....it is in different ways, I know....it is not so much a fight for physical survival, but a fight for mental and spiritual peace as the pace of life in these times can be out of control.

Enough pondering for tonight....if you've read this far, you get to enjoy some pictures.

Mariah's class studied defenses and disguises of animals at school -- for the required project, she chose to research the coyote and part of the project was to build a model. With Mike's help, she built it out of legos and covered it with construction paper. Here she is telling the class all she knows.....
A random picture in Minnesota this summer of when Mike had the engine out of the explorer before we sold it...I am amazed at his bravery! He just fixed some stuff related to the CV Joint on our van and it just blows me away! He's sometimes a bit nervous driving it for the next few days, :) but so far all of his work has been sound

A photo from Rachel's first birthday last summer....

Hm....what are those things that look like Russian stacking dolls???

Just Mariah and Allison in their new cozy sleeping bags (in our house in Minnesota this past summer).