Henry's Reality According to Evelyn

Henry is a bit philosophical for a 4-year-old male.  We have been spending A LOT of time in the van driving to and from school and activities.  He asks a lot of questions about God that frequently come up in our van.  Most recently, he asked if there are many Gods.  I told him we believe in one God.  He said with perplexity, "Then how is He in everyone's heart?"  I couldn't explain that one.  I tried, then told him we'll have to have a chat with one of the priests.  On another occasion, he asked who is in our heart, God or Jesus?  "Both," was my reply.  To this my son said, "Wow!  They must be all squooshed up."  I love the laughs that are induced from the comments of my children.  I got a great one as we read, Let Me Hold You Longer, a book that suggests parents are so busy celebrating firsts with their children that we don't recognize their "lasts".  One line went something like, "The last time you tell me you want to marry me when you grow up."  Henry pointed to the illustration of the young son running toward his mother's open arms, and he very seriously told me, "If he marries her, then Evelyn says their children will grow an extra eye right here."  He pointed to his forehead, and I erupted in laughter.  Apparently, Miss Evelyn has explained something about reproduction to Henry so that he has been advised against marrying his sisters, cousins, or mother.  On a long, sunny walk on a brisk morning, Henry inquired about how God put him in my belly when he was "a tiny baby as small as a bug".  He wanted to know if God had to use really strong tape to close the opening in my body that He used to put Henry in there.  He's always thinking and wondering, and I treasure this privilege of being with him daily so that he turns to me with his beautiful questions.

I think my son misses mom when he goes to preschool.  He asked as I pulled into the preschool parking lot, "WHY do you want me to go to school all the time?"  He only goes three afternoons a week.  After I happily reported that friends and family bought magazines from him during the school fundraiser, he got really worried.  "MOM, I don't HAVE any magazines."  Again, more laughter.  Finally, shortly after 6 am this morning my little buddy crawled into my bed for his morning snuggle.  After a bit, he got right in my face, his nose practically touching mine, and said, "When are you going to get up, Mom?  I'm so hungry."  Henry sat on my lap all during Olivia's first volleyball games yesterday, and he was not still.  Robbie chuckled next to me in bed, and said, "You see little monkeys or cubs who are all over their mothers, bothering them relentlessly.  There are similarities."  More laughter.

Olivia is totally excited about playing volleyball and dancing ballet this fall.  She will likely audition for The Nutcracker with the Kansas City Ballet.  Evelyn has been earning gold coins at school for her cooperation and fine behavior at a record setting pace, and she's working hard on school skills.  She started back to gymnastics last week, and she loves it!  She's been doing all sorts of moves on the swing set bar.  Vivian is a talking machine and wearing panties.  What has the world come to when I don't have a baby in diapers?  I'm kind of in a funk about it, rather than celebrating Viv's accomplishment.

This is a beautiful morning.  Robbie and the children are outside playing on the swing set.  I am enjoying my second cup of hot coffee after a scrumptious breakfast of Robbie's "from scratch" pancakes, a new recipe today, 100% pure Michigan maple syrup, melon, berries, and bacon.  Life is GOOD!  Thank you dear God.

A Typical Saturday of Mayhem

My morning began with one of the children (who ran fevers yesterday) coughing to the point of retching.  I am potty teaching Vivian, and after making her first morning trip, she said, "May I please see my penis?"  I explained, "You don't have one."  She emphatically replied, "Yes, I do.  I saw it yesterday!"  Later, I was on hands and knees again cleaning pee off the floor, and she had to be bathed.  Just after one of her potty breaks I stupidly thought I was "all clear" for a quick shower.  While I was occupied, "someone" gave her a banana.  She tried to wash it down the hall bathroom sink.  That didn't go too well.  I later found the peel stuffed between couch cushions.  Evelyn coughs and she sounds like a dying, barking seal.  This only got worse when she and Henry fought over who owned the stuffed tiger.  Olivia came to me in the afternoon, and she had broken a key off inside the lock of our back door.  Robbie is on call, and he spent most of the day helping an extremely ill individual with a serious eye complication.  His day home for family time and some relaxation was shot.  Henry just came to me, and said, "When I grow up I am going to give birth to a chicken!"  He then bent down and strained a bit.  Luckily, no chicken appeared.  His inner workings amaze me.  I have fed my family dinner, and I'm ready to say, "Okay, everybody.  That's a wrap."  I will certainly welcome the peace of some quiet time on the couch with Robbie after the children fall asleep tonight.  I am worn out.  My own throat hurts something fierce.  However, I am thankful for all of the "excitement" that is my household's norm.  Someday, I'll be bored to tears, and I'll miss being needed so dearly.

Progress

Vivian is my alarm clock.  Each morning she wakes me as she loudly calls out something from her crib.  This morning, the words were of the loveliest sort, "MOMMMMYYYYY!  I love youuuu!!"  She said it again and again until I was able to peel myself out of bed.  It was very sweet.  Sometimes she'll yell, "Is it morning?" She's really getting big, and she keeps telling me, "I am NOT a baby anymore.  I'm a big kid."  She demonstrated this today during my workout by coming upstairs to take herself potty, and she didn't just make a little "tinkle music" as we call it.  I was so proud of her.  Henry got tucked in for nap time, and I said, "Buddy, can you even believe that you are about to be a school boy in preschool?"  He said, "Don't worry, Mom.  You won't be alone when everyone goes to school.  God will be with you."  Wow!  What profound words from such a small boy.  Well, I have my big girls and a friend dropping homemade oatmeal chocolate chip cookie dough onto a cookie sheet, so I better run.

My Baby Climber

Vivian is a wild one.  Today as I made lunch, she disappeared from the living room where the children were quietly watching a nature show on a HOT day.  I began my search, and I couldn't find her.  I looked behind the rocker in her room.  I checked on Robbie's side of the closet, down where his pants hang.  I pulled aside the shower curtain, and on I looked.  Finally, I heard a faint answer, but I still could not figure out where she was in the house.  Olivia found her in the unfinished part of our basement.  She was back in the storage area where we have broken down boxes for our next move and where we save boxes to ship packages.  She climbed five feet off the ground onto suspended wooden shelving units that Robbie built for storage.  She even manged to get her sippy cup and a toy puppy bank onto the shelf with her.  She looked so proud of herself up there high off the basement floor like a big shot6.  She peeked out through the side of the shelf with an enormous smile.  What next?!

Nail polish nightmare

I just took a shower after a workout.  I put Vivian into her crib with some toys and books.  Henry was playing cars in their room, and I was quick.  I wasn't fast enough.  Vivian crawled out of her bed, confiscated her big sister's purple nail polish (thanks, Aunt Des), and proceeded to paint both feet, part of her leg, and our hard wood floor.!!!  NOT GOOD.  Once I fixed that problem, Olivia "helped" Vivian use the big potty.  She let her fall into the potty bottom first, so then I had to clean her and change her clothes.  Oh MY GOODNESS!

I am going to sing over and over in my head a song that came up on the iPod during my workout..."Let it go. Let it go.  Let it go!!  Let it go.  Let it go.  Let it go.  When the world is coming down on me, I let it go."  There.  I feel better.

No, let me update that.  As soon as I finished typing, I discovered that Olivia was using thumbtacks on our basement wall in the area where our Aerobed serves our guests.  What?!  We just had to replace it at no small cost due to a slow leak.  I wonder how that got there.  When I corrected Olivia, her reply was, "Now we can't make our museum.  Thanks for ruining our whole life!"  She is now on her bed in big trouble.

I will survive their childhood.  I will survive their childhood.  I will, right?

A Rough Morning

Today we had what I will refer to as a "rough morning".  To summarize some of the challenges experienced, I will say that the big girls didn't want to wake up and get ready.  Evelyn changed her mind about the clothing that was selected last night.  She then thought her French braid was too puffy.  The redo took forever.  Olivia grabbed Henry's Iron Man talking/light up mask, put it on, and he totally flipped out by kicking things.  This did not go over well with me on numerous levels.  The baby screamed she wanted her DADDY to get her out of bed, but he had already left for work.  On the drive to school, which began late, I learned that even though I reminded her, Olivia left her piano lesson books at home.  You get the picture...a rough morning.  All mommies have them.  All mommies survive.

We often pray on our drive to school.  I am now driving kids to and from school over one hour daily, so I figure praying is a good use of some of those minutes.  We recite the prayer of St. Teresa, which I love.  The kids have it pretty much memorized, and Henry even helps out his sisters with the final line about the soul.  This delights me to no end.

May today there be peace within.
May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.
May you use those gifts you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.
May you be content knowing you are a child of God.
Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.         It is there for each of us.  Amen.

After our prayer I talked to the children about how I love them no matter what.  No matter what they remember or forget.  I talked about what could have made our morning go better, then said I know that someday when they are all away leading their own lives I will long for a crazy morning like this morning.  I'll long to fix warm milk, change a diaper, grab a snack for my child, braid hair, tie shoes, and more.  I made up a funny song about how they do naughty things that make me crazy (yet I love them dearly) to the tune of Home on the Range, and they were all laughing.

Henry is most talkative during our car rides.  This morning he said, "When I grow up, I want to have childs."  He also told me that he wants to get a dog, a Husky, when he is a grown up man.  He's convinced that having a dog, in particular a Husky, would make his dreams come true.  He imagines being pulled on a sled through our yard by his Husky.  He doesn't really listen to my climate explanations.  Henry also said, "I want to live with your FOREVER, even when I'm all big."  I can see it now.

"Mom, look! I'm nursing."

I'm terribly behind in so many aspects of life as one who runs the house.  For instance, the kids still (in spring) have loads of fleece PJs and clothes in their drawers, and now nothing will shut properly.  However, with the recent string of deaths and illnesses in young parents around me, I have been attempting to embrace the moments that matter.  We go to the park on beautiful days.  We snuggle on the couch and read books.  One day we read pre-nap stories on a beach blanket in the yard and ate popcorn in the sun!  Bursting drawers and snow boots still in the bedroom closets be damned...we're going to have some fun around here.

Vivian's main source of fun is at Henry's expense.  She figured out that if she wields Barbies at her brother, or mermaids during bathtime, she can totally and absolutely send him into shrieking hysterics!!  I kind of like it, because he gives the rest of us so much trouble that Henry has his fair share coming.  Robbie told me he heard from a friend that having a two-year-old in the house has been likened to living with someone under your roof who is constantly drunk.  We got a lot of hard laughter out of that news!  Yes, they have no impulse control.  They make huge messes.  Reason doesn't work.  Wow, why didn't I think of that sooner?  Robbie and I have been living with 2-year-olds for many, many years in a row.  Someone is always two, or acting like it, around here.

Usually when Henry wakes up we all hear the pounding of his fast feet as he sprints down the hardwood floors in the hall to find me.  This morning I only heard whimpering and some moaning as he entered the kitchen.  He was sore from his four mile run, and his little body was tight all over.  He was in slow motion for the whole morning.  This NEVER happens.  Later, when Henry got up from naptime without ever having gone to sleep,  he entered the living room with a tiger and a stuffed giraffe to his nipples.  "Mom, look!  I'm nursing."  He was SO proud of himself.  He was also very excited recently when he arrived at playgroup and ran to show his boy buddies the My Little Pony Rainbow Dash toy figurine that we are going to use, against Robbie's wishes, as his cake topper.  It is his heart's desire to have Rainbow Dash on his birthday cake.  He's been talking about if for months.  I, as his mommy, will make his dreams come true.  I, as his mommy, will pull this cat out of the bag way down the road when he brings some pretty girl home from college.  I can't wait!!  Again, Henry has paybacks coming.  Bless his heart.  I love him dearly, but he can wear a woman out.