The great outdoors.

So I have this vivid memory of when I was a kid. I don't know exactly how old I was, but I'm going to guess between seven and ten. And my mom made us go play outside.

Our yard wasn't fenced, we were on a corner lot and basically used the whole neighborhood as our playground. There was a huge pine tree out front that was a favorite spot of mine. And I don't know where or what I was playing on this particular day, but I know that a big dog came roaming around our yard, and so I ran to the front door to go inside. But (not kidding) my mom would not let me in.

Now I don't remember exactly what transpired prior to being banished outside, but I do remember sort of understanding why I had to stay outside. I was aware that when we were told to play outside, it was in some ways a punishment. Or maybe a preemptive measure against some worse punishment. In short, we were driving her crazy.

So there we were, Laurel and I, cast out of our own home, scared out of our wits at this dog. So we did the only thing that made sense. We shut ourselves in between the screen door and the front door (for protection, you know) and screamed and banged on the door with all our might.

I assume she let us in eventually, because I am here today to tell the tale.

I reflected on that day today. I may or may not have been locked in my room at the time. And my children possibly could have been banging on the door, screaming, crying in desperation.

My poor mother.

Why couldn't we just leave her alone?!

All she needed was a few minutes of peace! Just a few minutes!

And so today I laughed. And laughed. And laughed. Because that memory finally makes sense.

Look, Mom!

"I took a picture of your bum!"

"Oh! So you did. Thanks, Ella."

I will have to check an etiquette book. Because, to be honest, I wasn't sure what the polite response was to someone taking a picture of my rear.

In other news, Max can get himself into the sitting position independently. As of 3:30am today. You will go far, son. But not that far if you keep waking up ready to begin a new day at 3:30 every morning. That choice will bring you nothing but broken, exhausted parents.

Lists

Paul went to Atlanta this week on business, and before he left, he made a list of things he needed to pack.

Ella asked me to read the list. And I am not gonna lie. I couldn't. His handwriting is awful. But that is really just a side note. She also asked why there were lines crossed through all the words. So I explained the concept and moved on.

Later I was clearing up and found she made her own addition to the list. It was too endearing not to share.

Ice cream cake.

Let me just begin by saying, it was delicious.

I think this is the first time I have purchased an ice cream cake in the history of our marriage.

I made an ice cream cake for Ella's birthday. And I have asked for an ice cream cake for (possibly) all of my birthdays. But, as it turns out, I don't get everything I ask for. And Paul just can't wrap his head around paying twenty five dollars for a dessert.

So I brought up the ice cream cake with Paul prior to the purchase. He was hesitant (at best) about the idea. "Thirty dollars for a cake!" (He always rounds up.) "We could use that thirty dollars and buy a great gift."

"Um, yeah, Paul. Ice cream cake is a really great gift."

Then he took another tack. "You made ice cream cake for Ella, why can't you do that again?"

"It just didn't taste as good," I told him.

"I thought it tasted great!" he countered.

"Paul, you snuck bites of ice cream out of the freezer until all that was left was frozen cake. You didn't like the ice cream cake. You liked the ice cream."

I wouldn't actually say that Paul "gave in". But we did (and by we I mean me) buy an ice cream cake for Charlotte's birthday. And it was amazing. And, in my opinion, worth every penny.

Birthday Parties

My kids have never had a "friend party", this is mostly due to my own laziness-- or my own awareness that I have enough going on in my life that I don't need to add to the chaos by planning a party for toddlers. Either way. :)

But Charlotte has three friends who have birthdays within a week of hers. (Two of them are twins.) So one of my friends decided that we should throw a joint party during one of our playgroups.

Perfect.

All I had to do was show up with balloons and oranges.

It was really fun and low key. And not super memorable. But I recently made the first year I blogged into a book, and going through those posts made me realize that I don't spend much time on the minor events of our life. I do okay on day-to-day and major changes. But birthdays and holidays are usually celebrated with very little pomp, and since I tend to want to write about the things that we do that are interesting, they don't quite make the cut. We celebrate basically like everybody else.

We haven't had our family birthday party, yet. Her actual birthday is Wednesday. So she will get gifts then. And maybe a cake if she is lucky. Or an ice cream cake if she is really lucky.

Ice cream cakes were our family tradition when I was growing up. I have good memories of sneaking into the deep freezer and picking the icing off the leftover cake.

For Lindsay.

Here is Charlotte, in all her glory. The picture is in black and white so the rash around her mouth is less noticeable. Too bad I can't do that in real life. Although coconut oil helps. It seems to be the only thing, though.

Stories. Of my children. That is what Lindsay wants. So I will oblige. Here is a recent happening:

Ella wanted to put on a play for our Family Night activity. It was basically a one man show, with Charlotte doing what she was told at random intervals. Ella is creative to her deepest nature and it is always interesting what she comes up with. This was a rather detailed story about a young mermaid who had various and "wondrous" (Ella's descriptor) adventures. I don't remember all the details, but at one point Ella was telling us about how the little mermaid (no relation to Disney, she has not yet had exposure to that film) always knew her family loved her. "That's nice," I thought. And then Ella goes on, "But not Jesus. Jesus didn't love this little mermaid."

And in my head I am thinking, "What?!? Do I stop her and correct this false doctrine? Where have I gone wrong?! What is she learning in Primary?" Well, I didn't say anything, and the story went on, and the little mermaid seemed not to be very influenced by this fact. So we clapped with gusto at the end of her performance and that has been the end of that. It is interesting to watch her explore her world and the ideas that surround her through play.

Charlotte had a severe meltdown at bedtime last week because Paul made her put on a diaper before bed. And she wanted to be a kitty. And kitties don't wear diapers. "So now I'm not a kitty! [wail]" That kid's logic is rock solid.

Today we went for a space walk. Which was really just like a regular walk, except we pretended we were in space. And everything we saw had the word 'space' in front of it. "Look! A spacebird!" Oh, and we were actually flying instead of walking, which was cool, because Ella used the buttons on her jacket to fly herself around, and Charlotte was a bit bummed her jacket had no buttons, but she just went and pressed the buttons on Ella's jacket, too. Crisis averted.

House-hunting

As some of you know, we are now officially going to be in Dallas long term. And we're happy with that.

Our biggest problem with choosing a permanent home is we have so many people we love scattered all over the country, that there's not one perfect place. But Texas has come as close as we could ever hope since my family has always been here, and Paul's family is here now. Mostly. We're still missing a few key players. :) Plus, our two-plus years here, and three congregations have given us many friends nearby.

So we have started looking for more permanent housing. It is interesting because it is our second time to buy a house, and we haven't actually lived in the house we own for almost four years (we have renters there now). Plus, there is really no rush to move, we are on a month to month contract in our current rental.

But we are so picky! I honestly don't remember having any criteria whatsoever (except price) the first time we bought a house.

Well, the more we look, the pickier we get.
We are blessed to have a Realtor who is just as picky as we are. And not crabby with our long search. Good man.

Our search spans two school districts. And three cities. Well, four cities of you count Addison, where we would love to live but can't actually afford. So three cities.

But I am secretly rooting for the city of Dallas, with its higher taxes and inferior schools. Do you want to know why? I really miss the Dallas Public Library. And backyard chickens are legal in Dallas.

A million factors and it all comes down to chickens and books.

Oh yeah... I have a blog.

We started a homeschool co-op this semester.  A bit premature, you say?  Yes.  Technically Ella will not start "kindergarten" until Fall.  But she is the oldest (by far) in our church playgroup and I was hoping to get her more exposure to older kids.  And me more exposure to homeschooling parents who know what they are doing.  Two weeks in and I am pleased with the results.

I told you that story so I could tell you this one.  One of the women I met at co-op (which met last on Valentine's day) mentioned my aversion to the aforementioned holiday.

"Where did you hear I don't like Valentine's day!?" I asked my friend.

"From your blog," she responded.

Oh.  Yeah.  I do have a blog.  And apparently, people actually read it.

But hopefully everyone just plugs the address into their google reader so they don't have to waste time checking to see if I posted every day, which clearly I do not.

And while I am here, would you like an update?

Ella learned how to read.  Slow and steady wins the race.  I forgot (since it has been 26 years since I learned how to read) how long it takes to get good at reading.  She tells people that she can only read 'special' books.  And she is right.  At this time we are pretty much limited to the Bob books and McGuffey's primer and a few other leveled readers.  All in good time, my friend.  Soon we will move on to Frog and Toad and I just cannot wait for that.  I have good memories of early readers.

Charlotte is almost three.  I cannot think of anything else earth-shattering about her development.  But she is still developing.  And she is turning out marvelously.  But I think that about all my kids. (Usually.)  She is at that stage where she has started coming up with unique ideas, instead of parroting the ideas she has heard from us.  "Tell me a story about Jesus when he was in a bad fight," she asked me today.  "Ummmm, Jesus was never in a bad fight, Charlotte."  She has also started calling herself Charlie and introduces herself as such, and will correct us if we introduce her as Charlotte to new people.  I still call her Char, Charlotte, and Charlie in equal amounts.  I think Paul mostly calls her Charlie.  She also knows that her hair is her identifying feature.  I tried to pull her hair into a barrette the other day and she said, "Now I'm not Charlie!"  I'm a little concerned about that, since she is so much more than a head of hair.  But it gets SO MUCH attention.  Working on it.

Max is darling.  Everyone comments on what a happy baby he is.  And he really is very engaging.  He loves 'flirting' with strangers and people around us.  But he is going through a phase where he never wants me to put him down.  Ever.  It's killing my back, since he is now a hefty 23 pounds.  He started trying to crawl several months ago, but he stopped trying and now does a roll-scoot to maneuver around.  Maybe I should get Ella and Charlotte to do some crawl coaching.  

I am tired.  That is my overriding general feeling.  But I am pretty sure that is normal.  Although my mother thinks I should get my thyroid levels checked. 

I am madly in love with my kids, and still routinely like to watch them sleep (when I manage to stay up that late).  But I'm not going to lie, this mother-of-three stuff is not easy.  I think that other people (from comments I sometimes get) think that I'm kind of rocking the whole motherhood thing, and it's probably my fault because I don't complain enough.  (It's funny to type that out.)  I probably only accomplish 20% of my goals.  But I kind of like having unrealistic endeavors, so that number isn't a great representation of what actually gets done from day to day.  Thinking on this more, I might only accomplish 5% of my goals, since I don't actually consider things like, "ensure everyone has a clean bottom after using the bathroom" and "clean up shards of glass" goals.  They are just things that must get done.  We still aren't fluent in mandarin.  And in fact, I still haven't even borrowed mandarin language learning CD's from the library, as I have intended to do for at least a year.  Truly, the house is always a mess. 98% of the time I wish it were cleaner.  I am not exaggerating.  There are so many other things that are more important to me (or that simply must be done) that it just doesn't get the attention it requires to keep up with the whirlwind of three little kids.  The list goes on and on and on.  There are so many things I am not that I wish I were.

That being said.  That is not how I define my life.  I am happy.  Madly in love with my husband.  And regularly enchanted by my children.  I spend my day chasing little girls and coercing them into giving me kisses.  We laugh and play monster games and dance in the living room.  I live a good life.  But it is so so far below perfect.  Seriously, I could write at least three thousand words on how not perfect I am.  

So, this was not even remotely what I intended to write this evening, but the loveliness of my life is really what I focus on in the blog (and really most of the time), and so I hope that you are not playing the comparison game with me.  Because seriously, you would totally win. (Smile.)

Except we would win in the tickles category.  We basically dominate in tickling.

So then Paul says to me...

"I've been seeing all of these advertisements about Valentine's day. Flowers, candy, everywhere!

"When is it?"

I laugh at him.

"No. Really. When is it?"

I laugh again and we get distracted with a conversation about how he's lucky he has a wife who doesn't care, nay outright rejects Valentine's day.

The next night:

"Really, when is Valentine's day?"

Weekending.

We made it down to Houston for the weekend. And it was lovely. I just love my extended family.

Laurel bought a new house and so we celebrated with a house-warming party. It was so fun to see everyone. I wish I could get down there more often. But the four hour drive turns into five or six hours with three littles in the car. And Max is the worst traveller I have ever encountered. Ever. The drive back up to Dallas was one of the best we've had. He only cried for about forty minutes of the trip. Forty. He just hates the car seat. I have learned a lot about keeping the agony at bay by passing him toys whenever I hear a fuss. So every time we pull over (which is more frequently than I would prefer), I collect all the toys and prep for the next leg. It seemed to do the trick until he started getting tired and ready for a nap. Why that child hates to sleep in the car I will never know, but he does. So finally he cried himself to sleep, and we passed the rest I the journey in relative enjoyment.

There was a brief period that everyone (except me) was crying with some intensity. Max was tired. Ella was upset about the audio choices. And I'm actually pretty sure Charlotte just joined in to add to the chaos. Hers was not a face of grief.

Ah well, it passed. And we're home. And we have some new chef's hats and aprons to show for it. Thanks, Grandma. Charlotte likes to run around calling herself a 'cooker girl'. Love that kid.