.....All My Children.......

Finally, I was able to get all my children together for my birthday celebration.  One thing about having multiple children is that it is very hard to get them all together at the same time.  It won't get any easier, I know, and luckily I do not care what actual "day" this happens on.  Whatever "day" it happens is always a good one, regardless of whether that is the actual "day" we are celebrating or not.  It's a mom thing.

My first request was to get a picture of all of us.  This involved setting the timer on my camera, sitting it on the barbeque grill on The Rock Star's patio, and running to get into position.  We didn't get a great shot, but we are all in it.

Youngest Baby, Rock Star, Rockette, Charli-girl, Beautiful Redhead, My Oldest Baby, and me, the mother of them all.

It occurs to me that my children are pretty much grown.  Look at that, My Youngest Baby is taller than the Rock Star!  The Beautiful Redhead said she was in an awkward pose, so we took 1 more.

I am confused as to how they all go so big, but I got a grandchild out of it, so I'm rolling with it.

The queen of all our hearts.

I wanted to get some pictures of all the kids, so the boys all pile in.  Charli sees sunglasses!  A prize for any 9 month old child.

But wait!  Where is the Rockette?  Turned out she was in the kitchen preparing beautiful, handmade cupcakes with candles that--HAD COLORED FLAMES, ya'll.  Coolest thing I may have ever seen.  She is like Martha Stewart, but better, I swear!  She, also, is a nurturer.  She also, can't seem to stop.  I think she is a special present just for me!  I call for her, there is the sound of running feet, and then here she is.  Charli has successfully snagged the sunglasses from the back of her Youngest uncle's head.  He hasn't even noticed.  Victory for Charli!  My Oldest Baby was about cropped out, but you can tell he is there.  The twins got some sorely needed time with their brother, and my heart was full.

After a wonderful meal and cupcakes, Charli was very tired.  Her mother read her new Easter book to her and I watched that baby's feet.  She has her mother's feet, we think.  Just look at those little toes. 

A couple of times I thought she must be praying with those feet, she can almost fold them together like the rest of us do with our hands.

Then it happened.  Charli's signature move.  When she is tired she puts her hand on her forehead, as if to say "Oh my, it's been a long day, I think I must lie down for a bit."  That's not even all.  See the look on the Beautiful Redhead?  Also her sign that she is tired.  Perhaps only her father and I would recognize it, but that is it.

Just look at that.  It melts my heart every time.  I am so thankful for a grandchild with parents who love each other.  She has a beautiful house where she is treasured above all every single day and night.  She has lots of family and any one of them might snuggle up and take a nap with her any time she wants.  This time it was the Beautiful Redhead.  To hear her offer to lay down with her niece made me look forward to her having her own baby.  The years flashed by in my head in a blur, and I realized that this is real.  This is my life.  I love it so much.  Sorry, Beautiful Redhead, but you knew this.  I waited for a very long time for grand children of my own.  Totally worth the wait, but I wait still for the rest of them.  It's a mother thing.  You will understand.  Someday.  The story never ends, you know.  Or perhaps I should say "the neverending story continues"?  So many happy hours I spent with my older two watching that wonderful movie.  

It's just going to keep on going.  Eventually, someone else will take up the telling of this story.  I wonder who it will be?  We will just have to wait and see what happens next.  I can't wait.  What happened next this time was the Rockette went back to check on our girls and came back gushing about how sweet they looked asleep together, and it hit me: I am not the only mother around here anymore.  What a relief this is.  What a blessing for this wonderful, strong woman to have landed in our family.  You never know what lies around the corner, but I am so glad our family went around that particular corner.  

Happy 50th to me, colored candles and all.  Thank you, God, for my many blessings.  May I be worthy of them.

Rosie Posie Girl.....

So Rosie is now 7 months old, sitting up and happiest in the middle of all the action.

I kiss you back!  I mark you with my bodily fluids! Muahahhahahahah!

She has the funniest way of looking up at you when you hold her, as if she is checking to see whether she knows you or not.  She knows me, and once she realizes it's me she grins all over herself. Then I give her 1,000 kisses all over her neck as fast as I can.  She likes it!

Yes, I let you kiss by kissy cheeks, nice lady who doesn't think I should be put down.

I had a little trouble during the time I had both girls by myself.  The angel showed up unexpectedly to cut some limbs for me, bringing his two dogs. His two dogs are the mother and brother to my own, so I had two small children, two big children of my own, an angel with a chainsaw and 4 dogs running in, around, and through the house for awhile.  Remember when I said I'd relaxed about how clean, or unclean, my home is all the time now?  Well, it's here to stay.  At one point I was holding the baby, sitting at my kitchen table, and one dog or another would come in and either stay or go back out, Abigail was having the time of her life with her "big boys" in the backyard, and I thought, "this is all right!"

It all worked out fine and then I couldn't get Miss Rosie Posie to go to sleep.  She wasn't cranky or anything, she just wouldn't go to sleep and I couldn't put her down and Abigail was only going to be entranced in a movie for so long.  So I strapped that baby in the car and drove around for about 20 minutes. When we got home she was almost out, but she had this thing she does where she leans forward.  What she is leaning toward  I do not know, but she's going to have a great set of abs at the very least.  I rocked her a little more and she let go completely.  I laid her down in the cradle and then I went in announced that she was asleep for the night and Abigail and I did the happy dance.  It came right back to me, just like riding a bike.  That gave us time to watch a movie together, which we do in bed, eating popcorn and drinking juice or tea.  She always announces that she doesn't get to do this at her house because "mommy doesn't like messes".  I tell her it takes a long time to get over hating messes and her mommy isn't nearly old enough for that yet. ;)

The next morning Rose and I were up early, getting along just fine when she gave me *that look* sitting beside me in the corner of the couch.  I know *that look* and so I picked her up.  It must be very hard to poop when you are sitting on a couch, don't you think?  Sitting on anything, actually.  Once I picked her up it really got to going faster.  We were in it together, I felt her pain, I told her she wasn't alone.

Soon I felt the dreaded blow out diaper leaking through her back, onto my arm, and then on my front, onto my chest.  It kept right on coming faster than I could find anything to absorb it. I started for the bathroom and it started dripping off my elbow!   Frantically I rolled my robe up to try and contain the hot, pungent mess as I raced down the hall to the bathroom.  Down went the baby onto the bathmat!  Off came any and all clothes that either of us were wearing, I rolled it all into a huge ball with nothing showing on the outside, and into the shower we went!

I had told her mother the day before that I would probably just take her into the shower with me.  Her mother said she didn't know if she would like that because she had never been in the shower before.

I am here to report that she liked it just fine.  Whether this is because she was covered in hot, stinking, radioactive teething baby poop or because we had bonded and she had decided she could trust me, I couldn't say.  Probably a little of both.  She didn't make any sounds when she was pooping and she didn't make any sounds in the shower. She seemed to be in her happy place, in fact.  I cleansed her off, talking to her the whole time.  I said I didn't know WHO had pooped in her pants but they better never do that again!  I rinsed and then I lathered up and then I rinsed her again and she seemed to enjoy it!

I washed her off, heart in my mouth, remembering the different holds, turning her, alternating the holds, and then sat her in the back, out of the spray where she had a ball trying to grab the shower curtain while I washed myself.  I don't know why I was so afraid, I've taken MANY showers with many babies, and never come close to dropping one yet.  I think it's just that I've lived long enough to learn that it can be dangerous to be over-confident.  Not to worry, though. I still got it!

After that it was just a short time until we had to go meet their mom.  I was both looking forward to, and dreading that.

Abigail said her legs were hurting and she needed to stay with me a lot longer.  No, she couldn't get up.   She couldn't feel her legs.  I dressed her like I used to "when she was a baby" and let those two little girls spend as much lazy time as possible in Mimi's bed.

My new favorite sight.

The others babies that love my bed.

This is how she looks when I kiss her head.  I am behind her doing just that here.  This child saved me in a way.  She came along just as I was about to lay on the couch forever and let it all slide.  For her I got up, and my small part of this world has been so much better, ever since.

When we met their mom, she was impressed that Rosie tracked me with her eyes.  What can I say? She's a sound judge of character and she knows who loves her.  After that blow out diaper, there really could not be any doubt.  Only she and I know just how awful it really was.  When I got home and looked at the sweet little pink sleeper imprinted with rosebuds that was soaking in the sink, the stain went from one ankle to the armpit on the other side.  It was EPIC!  Epic in a horrible but memory-setting way!

Only you know and I know, my Rosie Posie girl. ;)  Well, and now the internets.  I beg your pardon in advance, for when you are 11 and can read and get mad at me for this.  

I also had a great idea.  I've always read in books about taking out stains with club soda.  I had never tried it, but I did have some Ginger Ale from making awesome waffles, and I figured I would soak the acidic stain in the greatest antacid known to man.  IT WORKED!  The stain came out.  I was so excited I called her mother who said "Oh, she's about to outgrow that size anyway."

Took the wind right out of my sails, I tell ya, but still, at least now I know.  And now you know too!

It took me a week to catch up on my rest and everything that *must* be done around the house, but it was so worth it.

Until we meet again, my sweet girls.  Next time I promise to schedule a lazy morning in there. Some things you have to make time for, and some things just can't be hurried, especially when you can't feel your legs.

What makes a good weekend?

It's pretty hard to ruin a weekend if you work.  Even if you don't work, and are a student, weekend's always rock, am I right?  Last weekend it was just me and the boys and the dogs, and we had a really great one.

Maybe it's the age I am, but a "good" weekend to me does not involve going anywhere.  Unless you just want to and have no time frame to have to stay within and no pressure to be anywhere by a certain time.  We get enough of that during the workweek, don't we?  I do.  My weekends are strictly my own, and the best ones often involve doing a whole lot of nothing.  I think we all need a lot more nothing in our lives.  The definition of nothing is not actually nothing, of course.  My definition is loosely what used to be considered "normal life" in an apparently isolated period that occurred during the 70's, for the most part.  During this time, at least it was my impression, "doing nothing" included taking care of your house, your yard, your children, and your soul all in one fell swoop.  This was before everyone started signing up their children for various and sundry classes, or sports teams, by the age of 3.  This was back when it was a long time until dark, no matter what time it was, because you didn't have anything to do until then but "play".  Your mother would call you in for supper, not on a cell phone, but by simply stepping outside and calling your name loudly, probably followed by "sup-per" and you would hear it, wherever you were, and you would go home.  Just like that.  No discussion, excuses or compromises, you just went home for supper when your mother called your name.  It was a brilliant system, dependent only upon the same people being in the same neighborhood from year to year.

What did we do?  Not much.  It has been beautiful here, after the winter that wasn't.  Friday night the twins wanted 2 other boys to spend the night.  I said sure and they did and the next day I was naturally the first one up.  I had this whole plan, what I have come to think of as "the usual" in mind.  "The usual" consists of dusting, laundry, sweeping, occasionally turning mattresses, raking leaves, drudgery, mostly, but normal life depends upon it.

I walked outside and it was----beautiful.  The first nice day we had had in recent memory that I would be able to actually see it, so I just sat there and made myself sit in the sun and enjoy the beautiful weather.  Then I went inside and started the washer on laundry, made coffee, and did a few dishes as the coffee dripped.  I felt my spirits rise, and it wasn't just the smell of coffee.

For some reason I just love being the only one up in the mornings.  I think it gives me a false but comforting sense of being in control, and with everyone wondering when the world is going to end these days (I'm not the only one, surely?) I try to cherish every moment of it, false or otherwise.  I made biscuits.  Real biscuits.  Easy as pie but I never take the time to do it anymore.  I made angel biscuits, that include yeast and light kneading, just because kneading bread comforts and calms me.  If you have never kneaded bread, you should give it a whirl.  If you have, you know exactly what I am talking about.  I was euphoric, and "the usual" was already seeming like a good thing to avoid on this day.

So I made biscuits, grabbed my coffee, threw the laundry that was in the washer into the dryer, grabbed my book and headed outside.  Glorious!  

When the boys got up I had biscuits ready and they even helped clean up.  A little.  Enough, because it was glorious outside and who wanted to be in the house?  Not us.  They spent the day trooping between all of our houses and the creek.  I spent it sitting in the sun letting the warmth seep into my bones and not feeling the least bit guilty.  The dogs spent it lolling in the sun on their backs and keeping me company as I did NOT rake leaves in the yard.

I threw a bag of chicken breasts in the crock pot with a jar of bbq sauce and some brown sugar and vinegar and planned on scalloped potatoes and steamed cauliflower, broccoli and carrots that evening, which during the week I never feel that I have time to do.  The entire house smelled wonderful all afternoon.

About the time the birds started chirping and the sun was getting very low in the sky, I went out and here came the boys trooping up the street.  They were sunburned and muddy, slightly in both cases.  They also were euphoric, not just because they hadn't dusted or vacuumed that day, but because they had spent most of the day on the creek.  

The creek is about a block and a half from my house.  They love to go down there and fish.  How much fishing gets done is anybodies guess, but they are 14 and old enough for such manly pursuits.  On this day they had decided they were an Indian tribe and everyone had picked an Indian name, known only to the others.  They had caught frogs, quite a few of them, and then built a fire on the sandbar in the creek and sharpened sticks to cook the frog legs with, and then dined upon what nature and their own wits had provided.  They were incredibly satisfied with themselves, as was their mother.

We had our incredible supper and went to bed happy.

The next day was the dreaded time change.  It was also raining.  I made coffee and decided not to get out of my pajamas for the entire day.  When they finally got up, the twins concurred.  We spent the day reading, watching movies and taking naps.  They also played video games, and I didn't care.  I felt I had been away from work for longer than two days.  That is priceless.

We can't go back to the days when we had more time.  We can try, but the world won't cooperate.  What we can do is take our time when we get the chance and make the very most of it.  Sometimes making the very most of it means doing very little, or only the bare minimum of what we usually hold ourselves responsible for.  We should not be so hard on ourselves.  A little time outside in the sun listening to the birds and the breeze and just breathing is not just good, but I think essential to our lives.

Make sure you make the most of the time you have while you have it.  It goes very quickly and you don't want all your memories to be of waiting in line for one thing or another.  Don't forget to make some memories at home.  They are the ones that will resonate the loudest.