Falling off the face of the earth . . .

So I’ve disappeared, apparently, from Blogland.  I don’t know why.  And I’m either having deja vu or I’ve written that at least half a half a dozen time in the last month or two or three.  I wonder if it’s because I’ve been preaching more regularly lately.  Don’t know.  But today, which, according to my last post must be tomorrow, I’ll talk about my cute kids.  Cuz I can’t do that too much while I’m preaching.  Though I do have a good story about Ruthie and Communion that will likely show up in a sermon some day . . .

So, on the kid front lately . . .

We have Isaac.  Who is seven.  And I’ve decided seven is my all-time favorite age.  At least that’s my story this year.  He’s just such a neat, neat kid.  He’s really coming into his own and we don’t have to struggle over every request, and his brain can handle some more complex thoughts and conversations . . . it’s just so fun.  And he’s so nice to his sisters.  He really is.  Especially when he’s not yelling at or kicking or otherwise bringing harm to Hannah.  They’ve been playing together so much better, just really being good friends together.  I love that.  They must have spent 4 hours in their bedroom on Saturday morning, just doing some sort of imaginative project together.  Very nice.

Now that it’s November, Isaac’s year-round Halloween obsession has come to an end.  I think he actually finally released enough of his Halloween ideas into the atmosphere that he’s no longer exploding with Halloween.  He’s making a good transition into Thanksgiving.  Which is probably his second favorite holiday.  Because of the food.  And because he love love loooves having guests over and hosting events.  He loves it.  So, he’s planned out how we’re going to have our family over for Thanksgiving dinner and he’s divvied up the dishes:  daddy’s turkey, mommy’s gravy, daddy’s mashed potatoes, Aunt L’s sweet potatoes and homemade cranberry sauce (we need her to make cranberry sauce.  I love Aunt L’s homemade cranberry sauce!!!), Grammy’s rutabaga and parsnips, Grandma’s peas and corn and apple pie, and mommy’s pumpkin pie.  I think that all covers it.  And picture it delivered much faster than you just read and with more enthusiasm than you can imagine, and you’re probably close to the live version.  Isaac is excited! about Thanksgiving.  He’s now talking of buying a giant blow-up turkey for our front yard because we don’t have any Thanksgiving decorations.  He’s also started planning for upping our Christmas decorations from last year’s additions.  Think Clark Griswald.  “Christmas Vacation.”  Except his father and I are more the simple all-white little lights and candles in the windows sorts.  If we were actually motivated to decorate at all, that is.  I’m not really sure where this boy came from.

Hannah.  Hannah girlie.  Hannah girlie’s birthday is right around the corner and is she ever excited.  We wrote out her invitations for her friends this morning.  This is her first birthday party with friends invited, not just family.  She was jumping up and down and wiggling with excitement.  Which means, when you do the conversion, if Isaac felt that same level of excitement he would, quite literally, be through the roof and out in space somewhere.  Hannah is giggly and excited and wrote everybody’s names on the envelopes along with a drawing of a stamp and an I <3 U for every one of her classmates.  She’ll be five.  FIVE!  And if she saw you on the street, she would invite you to her party.  She’s just sweet as can be.  And I need to start making some plans.

Her “best friends” in her class are the kids who are in most need of early intervention and/or special education.  I’m not exactly sure why, she can’t explain what she likes best about them, but knowing Hannah, it just seems to fit.  She sees the people most in need of love and care and attention and she lavishes it.  Of all our kids, we can most easily, very easily, see Hannah following in the family business.  Of course, Lord knows what he’ll really call her to, but she has the kindest, gentlest heart and a passion for caring for people.  She’s precious.  Simply precious.

And Ruth.  Ruthie Ruthie Ruthie.  Ruthie’s big project this last week and a half is starting to use the potty.  I’ll save you the gross details.  Suffice it to say, she’s been so easy about it.  She just decided to do it and now she’s doing it.  It’s thrilling.  It’s the end of an era.  And there isn’t an ounce of bitter in its sweetness.  I’m thinking of opening a special savings account where I can squirrel away the money we’ll be saving on diapers.

Now that I’m thinking about it, I might just know the real reason I’ve been absent from blogland.  Ruth has been two-and-a-half.  And if you’ve ever met a 2 1/2 year old, you know what I mean.  Holy moly, Ruth is doing 2 1/2, like she does everything else:  with GUSTO!  Full bore!!!  Yesssireeebob, I am toddler, hear me roar!!!  Wow.  And I’m getting a little old for this stuff.  Finally, finally she seems to be mellowing out some.  Some.  She’s getting a grasp on taking turns.  She’s gaining a little bit of patience.  She’s developing better language skills and that seems to diffuse some of the intensity.  But at the end of the day, this toddler is positively hysterical.  When she’s not screaming at me, she’s saying and doing some of the funniest things and I find myself laughing at her all day.  What a joy!  What a blessing!

There ya have it.  My three kids and where they’re at and what they’re doing.  Meanwhile, I’m watching them grow and learn and be, and am, in many ways, simply along for the ride.  These years are far too fleeting.  I don’t want to miss a second.

A Love Story

I know.  I know I wrote about our first date last year.  But that was last year.  I’m all sorts of nostalgic this year.

It’s funny, though, because when I wrote my post on this date last year, my blog audience consisted mostly of my imaginary friends from my favorite message board.  They don’t know my husband at all, and most of them have never laid eyes on me.  So, I was throwing this story out there to people who don’t know me in my personal, real, day-to-day life and never had.

In the year since then, I took the big leap and started linking my blog to facebook–or vice versa, I’m not sure–and with that, my audience has grown.  Now, it may still be some of my message board friends who are also FB friends who didn’t know about my blog before, but it also includes some friends I interact with on at least a weekly basis, and other friends I haven’t seen much, if at all, over the last 20 years, but who knew me when.  And knew Ry when.  And were our friends when this first date of ours took place.

So, the change in audience makes reflecting on the beginnings of this relationship a little . . . odd.  More intimate?  More exposed?  I’m not sure.  But that won’t stop me.

Because it’s September 14th.  A holiday in this house.  I was greeted first thing this morning with a “Happy September 14th” from a very nice man.  So every year, we pull out the stories.  Much like the pilgrim stories of Thanksgiving.  I’m sure some details have been lost along the way, but I don’t think quite as much has been rewritten as with the pilgrim stories.  We’ve told and re-told our story to one another every 14th of September since 1991–the first anniversary–as well as at various times throughout the year.  And I think it’s important.  I think it’s important for everyone to rehearse, rehash, repeat their own stories.  It helps us remember who we are, who we were.

Yesterday we spent the day with a lovely couple whose only child is in his second year of college.  They were telling us what a shock to their system it was when their son first went away to school.  The two of them sat there and stared at one another:  Well.  What do we do now?  It took them a couple of weeks to realize that, well, now they could go out to dinner with one another any time they wanted, that they could spend all the one-on-one time together they wanted.  They reveled in it.

In the midst of my day-to-day, up-to-my-elbows-in-small-kids life, it’s been important to me, to us, to remember our story.  To remember how it is we got together in the first place and then remember that it is still at the heart of what’s keeping us together.  I’ve spent intentional time and energy on keeping us connected to who we were way-back-when as a way of helping us to stay connected to who we are now–and by we, I mean Ry and Lee, not the whole family–so that we can maintain that we into those days that are out there–somewhere–when it will, once again, be just Ry and Lee rattling around in these halls.  Celebrating the days of yore, the days of just fun and friendship and laugh, laugh, laughing, helps keep us grounded through these days when we are so focused on these little people that it’s sometimes hard to see the face of the grown-up on the other side of the little heads.

So, today we remember.  We remember how we were such good friends.  Just friends.  How our friendship grew slowly, over the course of years.  How we were both surprised when we looked at the other and realized . . . hunh.  You might be a little more than a friend to me.  How the end of our first date, in a very sweet and innocent way, with a hand-hold and a hug, brought us home.  Home to a place we knew we belonged and where we hoped to stay.  It was comfortable and natural and easy.  Just easy.  Like breathing.  Yes.  This is it.  It hasn’t all been easy, but the getting together, the transition from friend to . . . different category of friend . . . was easy.  And that’s where we remain.  Friends of a different kind.  And I give thanks to God for bringing us together in precisely the way he brought us together.  And I pray for 19 more years like the last 19:  years that get better and better.  And then I pray for another 19.  And heck, I might just shoot for another 19 after that.  I like this guy.  I really do.

Seven?! Seriously?!

My Boy. He’s seven. As of this past Saturday. Seven. Seven. I’m having trouble wrapping my head around that. At the moment it seems so . . . Old. Mature. Big. I know the day will come when I will look at Ruth, see her as seven and say, Wow. She’s still so little! But in the meantime, my firstborn is hitting a new milestone and I can’t believe how old he’s getting to be.

He is simply great. In so many ways he is exactly the Boy who greeted me seven years ago. With these intense eyes, darting about, determined to figure this place out. “I don’t know where I am, and so far I can’t seem to be able to move much, but I. will. understand and conquer this place. Whatever it is.”

He’s still the Boy who would get excited from his toes to his nose and flap his arms up and down breathlessly when we would put his blankie over his face while he lay on the floor. His blankie is currently a tangle of waffle-weave knots.

He is still the Boy who as a toddler was surely a liquid as he expanded to fill every square millimeter of space available to him.

He is still the Boy who at barely three could walk into a room of grown-ups and assert himself, ask them what they were doing and how he could help.

He is still the Boy who moved non-stop from sunrise to sunset and slept and slept all night long.

Yep. He might be seven. And he might be getting awfully old. But he’s still my Boy. My sweet, sweet Isaac Boy.

My baby is two.

And I’m having a hard time believing it.  I think she aged tremendously, just this week.  I know two is still really little, but it’s also getting pretty big.

Poor Ruthie was sick on her actual birthday, so we postponed her family birthday party two days, to give her a chance to stop barfing.  You can’t enjoy chocolate cake while you’re barfing.  So, we had her aunt and uncle and two cousins and grammy and grampy up for a little shindig on Friday and Ruthie had a ball.

She was inside-out excited when she opened a package from my sister and her family and found a little Abby Cadabby inside.  She kept digging deeper in the bag to find Elmo, but to no avail.  Her disappointment over Elmo’s absence was short-lived however.  When Hannah brought out the new umbrella stroller, once again Ruth was over the moon.  She spent the rest of the evening running Abby around in the stroller.  And by running, I mean running.  And each take-off would begin with Ruth picking up the stroller and slamming it down.  Then zooooom!!  Ry hoped that Abby had taken her dramamine.  The girl just cracked us all up.  I tried to push Abby just a bit to get her started:  “NO!”  “Ruthie, Abby so sweet.  May I give her a kiss?”  “NO!”  Nobody mess with her Abby.

Cake time comes.  “Ruth, you want to come get some cake?”  “No.”  “Really?  It’s cake.  You want some cake?”  “No.”  “You can bring Abby with you.  Abby can come with you.”  “Cake!”  And off she runs with Abby in her stroller.  Abby sat in her stroller right next to Ruth, with Ruth looking over to check on her periodically and to chat with her a bit.  At one point, Ruth looks to Abby and says, “Watch this, Abby!” and proceeds to pick up her scoop of ice cream in her hand and eat it.

Ruth pretty much amuses us all to no end.  She’s just the funniest little kid.  Really.  Really really.  I know, everyone thinks they have the funniest little kid.  But I really do.    There’s nothing delicate about her.  She knows her mind and she’s not afraid to speak it.  Well, as best she can at two.  But somehow, she succeeds in speaking it, no matter how limited her vocabulary has been.  No one will mess with Ruth.  We once joked about how enormous Isaac will be and how no one will mess with Isaac’s younger sisters when they hit dating age.  We’re now thinking no one will mess with Ruth’s older siblings.  “Oo.  Have you seen that Isaac?”  “Yeah.  But don’t mess with him.  He’s Ruth’s brother.”    At the same time, she’s sweet and caring.  When Hannah is upset, she’s the first to stand by her side and rub her back and hug her.  And sweet Hannah is so comforted.  She turns to Ruth’s open arms and they hug each other for a while.  This is, of course, only when Ruth is not the source of the pain and agony, like when she’s yanking Hannah’s hair out.

I look forward to seeing who Ruth turns out to be, who God has created her to be.  In the meantime, we can’t imagine life without this third one.  Ry and I both come from families with only two children.  In our families–our extended families, even–three kids is a lot.  That leads us to reflect often on life with three, and what an amazing blessing this third one is.

Happy Birthday, Ruthie Ruth.  Ruth Ann.  Roofie.  Ruthie Ann Kadiddlyhopper (your mom’s personal favorite).  And your own name for yourself, you who know best who you are:  Ruth.

And so it begins . . .

Ugh.

School started 3 1/2 weeks ago. The week before Labor Day, Isaac returned to his studies at our local public school, entering first grade. He’s having a great time. He’s feeling on top of the world, knowing all he needs to know, acquiring green stars and stickers and stamps and jewels for his treasure chest (whatever that is). He’s reading. Oh, how he’s reading. Reading everything he sees. Reading words aloud to me, asking me to read him “just one more story” six times a night. He’s making up math problems to stump his uncle.

The other night Isaac was helping Hannah learn to spell his spelling words: “Hannah, how do you spell ‘ham’?” “Ummm, I don’t know.” “Well, what’s the first sound that you hear? It’s the same as the first sound in your name.” “H!” “Yes, Hannah! Very good! Now what do you hear next? It’s the next sound in your name. . . . ” And on it went for quite some time at dinner Friday night. The Big Brother bringing home new skills and exciting tales to share with his little sister. Wonderful.

Well. Mostly wonderful. The problem is that the skills and the tales are not the only things Big Brother brings home from school. He also brings along some teeny, tiny, microscopic creatures crawling all over his hands and body and bag and books and, I think, floating around him like a haze. He gets them at the little party these creatures surely must be celebrating in the land of “RarelyWashYourHands” and “PickYourNoseAtWill” and “BeSureToTouchEachOtherAsMuchAsPossibleInSevenHours”.

Arrgh. Pobre Hannah. Poor, poor Hannah Girlie. She’s sick. It’s just the sniffles (so far), but she is the most pitiful sick person I’ve ever set eyes on. Oh. *sniffle sniffle* *whimper* *sniffle* Pitiful. And since she and her little sister are being so beautifully sisterly these days (see the sister posts that I was so excited about but that no longer strike me as great), it’s only a matter of time before Ruth adds the sniffles to her teething and then Musical Beds as we’ve been playing it will begin to seem ever-so restful.

Arrgh. And then, given the fact that Ruthie is currently a teething drool machine, can we guess how long it is before the Mommy gets sick? And as has already been covered here: There are no sick days for the Mommy.

Arrgh. We spent all last school year–well, I don’t want to exaggerate, it wasn’t the entire school year, only October through May–with at least one of the five of us sick at all times. At. All. Times. Arrgh.

It’s nearly October.

And so it begins. . . .

The Boy’s New Look

On Tuesday evening we had the Session of our church come to our house for dinner and their monthly meeting. It has turned into an annual September event. It’s fun, if not a little stressful. Isaac and Hannah both enjoy it. Isaac especially. He’s just a little extrovert, feeding off the energy of all of the people. This year was especially exciting for the Boy as he was a man on a mission: Must Get This Tooth Out!

He had a very loose tooth. It was barely hanging on. And it was bugging him. The elders who sat at the table with him were all so very encouraging and excited for him (all but one were moms themselves). Finally, he gave up on eating and just went in to the bathroom mirror and focused. With a little help from his dad, he emerged 10 minutes later with a cat-who-swallowed-the-canary smirk. The women at the table feigned breathless anticipation as they awaited the announcement . . . “YES! My tooth came out!” Hand raised, thumb and forefinger pinching the tiny tooth between them. Huge, wide, grin. It’s the grin that gets you. It’s gotten me every time since.

Ruthie Learns “The Chicken Dance” and Other Tales

We’ve had a big couple of weeks here in our house. Major milestones all around, not the least of which is Ruthie is now equipped to attend any future family weddings. She can now do “The Chicken Dance.”

I wasn’t sure if “The Chicken Dance” is known universally, so I looked to see if I could include a link to provide information on it–keep everyone well-informed, you know–and I found an instruction video of sorts from “The Lawrence Welk Show.” What better source to keep you up on your cheesy dances “one of the most popular dances in America” (so says Myron Floren)?

Now back to our regularly scheduled post . . .

So Ruthie learned the Chicken Dance this week. At least well enough to take it to weddings. She may not quite be ready for Lawrence Welk though. It truly is too funny and, I imagine, a passage all toddlers must go through. In our house the tutelage usually comes under this remarkably obnoxious toy chicken who plays the tune with increasing tempo while it hops and flaps about the floor. Ryan’s dad and step-mother sent it to Isaac for his first Easter. He would run in fear of it (wise boy) until he was almost three. Then he found it in its hiding spot and brought it out. Hannah (at about 6 months) loved it and went on to dance with it for months.

The chicken had been in hiding again (does it run and hide all on its own?) up until last week, at which point Isaac and Hannah must have stumbled upon it and immediately introduced Ruthie to its charms. She, like her older sister, loves it. So she’s been playing with it all week. First she would just squat next to it (shaking her tail feathers), then she added the clapping, and finally, just yesterday, added the beak movement. So, she still lacks the wing flapping, but really, how often do chickens actually flap their wings to fly? If our neighbor’s chickens are any indication, rarely.

Now that the chicken dance story has been chronicled, let me share the Other Tales of our big weeks . . .

In addition to learning the dance, Ruthie has learned to walk during these last two weeks. There are few better sights than a newly-walking toddler. They remind you where we got the term “toddler.” She is cute as can be with her arms outstretched like a mummy, her feet as wide apart as they’ll go, stumbling and tripping all over the place, but proud as can be. It’s been fun.

Isaac recently turned 6 and finished Kindergarten. We celebrated his birthday with a science lab birthday party. That was a good time all around. Volcanoes and slime. We were generous enough to send each child home with a working (still soaking wet with the vinegar-baking soda-food coloring solution) volcano and a bag of slime. I’m not expecting to see these same children at next year’s birthday party.

Hannah, Hannah, Hannah . . . she has not had any major milestones lately. She simply continues to be the sweetest, most thoughtful small person I’ve ever encountered. I hurt my shoulder a couple of weeks ago and had to go to the doctor for it this morning. “Which shoulder is it Mommy?” “This one.” A kiss on my boo-boo shoulder from my 3 1/2 year-old. Sweet.

Life is good.