Can't. Keep. My. Eyes. Open. . .

This is what I like to call a Twangover.

It's what one gets when they stay up until three thirty in the morning downing Cherry Coke and Charleston Chews with 25 friends while doing this:

I know this is a polarizing topic. Either you love it, or you hate it. But I, for one, absolutely love it. And last night was the first night in a really long time that I felt like a human again. Albeit a human who loves vampires. And um, after last night . . . a human who REALLY loves werewolves. Just sayin'.

ps. I'd like to thank The Hubby and a really good breast pump for making this night possible. Oh, and Rob and Taylor too.

Do You See It?

Here they are . . . my go-to baby entertainers doing their jobs while I get dinner ready. There's something in this picture that puts the wind in my sails. Do you see it?

It's not the Bumbo chair - although it might possibly be one of the greatest baby inventions ever {and should never be put on an elevated surface - I'm a bad Dragonfly}.

It's not the laughing baby - although the sound of that boy giggling is most definitely one of the sweetest sounds I've ever heard.

I know it's hard, but I'm gonna ask you to stop looking at the baby. Now turn your attention to the other two. Do you see it?

It's written all over their faces. That this little boy name Ollie has brought such joy, love, devotion and selfless service into the lives of my children is something I could have never fully anticipated.

And it is just. simply. the. best.

ps. CryFest Update: We moved the baby back into his crib and put RedDog on our floor. It just made sense to have the non-crying child sleeping nearest to us. Ollie slept from 10:30 until 5:40 WITHOUT crying! Hallelujah!

CryFest 2009 . . .

My infant child is like Harry Potter, sleeping in a closet and being neglected by his closest blood relatives.

Here's the report on CryFest 2009:

I fed him at 10:30. I got in bed at 11:00. He started crying at 11:15. I whimpered and thought out loud, "He is ALREADY crying?" Heaven help us, it's going to be a LONG night." The Hubby {bless his dear soul} answered with soft snoring. For the next few minutes I coveted his gift of sleeping through the pain and then I felt relief as I realized the crying had stopped. Then I cautiously drifted off to sleep.

The next thing I knew, it was 1:02 and the crying was loud and constant and heart wrenching. I had to fight my impulse to jump out of bed and go to my baby. The cry would escalate and Ollie was speaking to me - "Mom, aren't you going to come and snuggle me and nourish me?" Then the cry would change, becoming more intense as if he were saying, "Have your forgotten me? Abandoned me? Where are you?" I lay there in the bed feeling helpless and miserable. I am not good at this {which is why none of my children have slept through the night before nine months}.

The Hubby awoke and asked me a two word question: "How long?" My reply was three words: "Only six minutes." But everyone knows that in sleep training time that is about an hour. He continued to cry for 23 minutes {STT = almost 4 hours}. He stopped at about the same time as a tear slipped out of my eye and rolled down my cheek onto my pillow. After a few minutes of silence, he started again, but this time for only 10 minutes. He was not heard from again.

The alarm woke us at 6:45 and the Hubby brought my little Owl to me. He was grinning from ear to ear and I loved all over him in the happy realization that he was okay and Oh! how I had missed him. The only guilt I am feeling this morning comes from the fact that his little hands were like ice cubes on my warm body.

CryFest Part II tomorrow!

You Should Be Worried. Very Worried.

This is the face of a boy whose momma just whispered in his ear, "Happy Four Month Birthday Little Owl. Today you will be weighed and measured and get shots in your chubby legs. "

While I know the shots won't be fun, we have bigger fish to fry at this appointment with our pediatrician. Ollie needs to sleep. And Ollie needs to poop. And Ollie's little tummy needs to not be so rumbly every time he eats. Basically, Ollie isn't super happy a lot of the time and we want to know why so we can help him feel better and be the cheerful boy we get glorious glimpses of.

So wish us luck! {and pray that our doctor has a solution to take care of the DARK circles under my eyes and maybe even gives me the green light on dairy because I cannot get the good stuff out of my bloomin' mind.}

Update: Per our pediatrician's advice, we are going to try putting Ollie on probiotics to help his "gut" get to a better place. If that does not work, we will begin exploring the lactose intolerance side of things. Otherwise, our check up was great. Ollie is healthy, growing and even giggled for the doctor after he drooled down her cleavage. Tonight all joy will end as we put him in our walk in closet and let him cry. Patience and earplugs, my friends. Patience and ear plugs.

You Do The Math . . .

When great report cards came home last week the Hubby offered to take the kids out for celebratory ice cream. On the way he offered up a choice: go to Cold Stone for a $5 cone or go to the new Wegmans grocery store where each kid could get an entire 1/2 gallon for less than $5.

You see what they chose. And yes, all three kiddoes got an A in Math! Delicious dividends aren't hard to figure out.

Pausing and Breathing . . .

{Me and little Ollie having some rest together.}

I'm going on a self proclaimed computer hiatus. I'm feeling the need for a little less blogging and a little more sleeping. I want to spend more time with my family and less time pining for comments. I have things that need doing and the chime {or lack thereof} of mail in my inbox is preventing me from doing them. And I feel that I need to recharge my creative juices so I can be less critical of myself and the posts I've been putting out there for all to read. I'm going to take time off to be a better me in hopes that I can make life better for everyone involved in this little blog.

Hopefully I'll be back next week. Thanks for sticking with me.

A Few Brave Readers . . .

Remember a week and a half ago when I challenged you to take a picture of the messiest spot in your house and send it to me? Yeah, well it turns out most of you aren't into publicly broadcasting your shame on the internet. But I am - especially if it gets me motivated to make it better. Three brave readers did email me pictures and I felt much better about my dirty hub when I realized I'm not the only one who has random collections of junk overtaking my countertops or other horizontal surfaces! Here are the before's and afters:

From Christy in Kansas {I'm loving the stuffed dog}:

From my sister in Ohio {loving the lit cabinetry in her brand new kitchen}:

And here's my space {loving that I've kept it clean ever since taking this picture a week ago!}:

To reorganize my hub, I first cleared off the entire surface, removing all junk to my kitchen table. Then I wiped it down really well and only put back 1/4 of what was there before. Everything else got put away, thrown away or reassigned to a new spot where I don't have to look at it all the time. I love having a large calendar for our family because we have so much going on, but I've already invested in a smaller calendar for next year that will fit on the shelf above the counter so I can have even less clutter on the countertop.

And from Sue in Wyoming I've got a before {look, is that my blog on her computer?}. I'm still waiting for her to send me an after:

Thanks for being so brave Christy, Melissa and Sue.

Handmade Monday . . .

I put the kids and their nimble hands to work on their relaxing Sunday afternoon to do this. Their efforts are doing me a big favor and helping with the twittering set as well. Any guesses what it's for?

The Fam . . .

Kickin' it old school with a round of Jenga, a game of Scrabble and some Oreos, Baby! {with a sleeping baby}

Falling . . .

{Image courtesy Google Images}

I'm sitting in the back of my house today watching the leaves spiral through the air as they fall from the trees. I can't help but feeling a bit like a leaf these days - once green and vibrant, attached firmly to a stationary limb, spending my days fluttering lightly in the breeze. Now I'm a completely different hue, changed by time and experience, being tossed to and fro by the winds of life, just waiting to hit the ground. Sometimes when I think I'm just about there, another wind sweeps me up and around only to fall back down, this time more swiftly than the last.

I am living proof that people, just like leaves, go through seasons.

Three Word Thursday . . .

Thank. You. Stephanie.

Last night I lay in bed next to my Hubby in the dark and blurted out, "I have no friends." He laughed at me and replied, "You have no friends? No, I have no friends." I'm sure he was wondering why I would say such a silly thing when I have many wonderful friends, including several with whom I am very close.

I made the snap decision that it was too late to delve deeply into my feelings and just said "Never mind." But as I was falling asleep, my mind was formulating the actual answer, which had something to do with feeling pretty lonely right now during my days at home, going nowhere, talking to no other adults, doing the same monotonous household tasks over and over, but never getting any particular one done between feedings, changings and attending to a pretty fussy baby.

Here I am, only weeks away from my "four month fog" timeline, and I feel nowhere close to being any kind of normal societally functioning human being. Maybe what I meant when I said I have no friends is that I don't feel like I'm a good friend right now because I'm not a part of what's going on in the lives of my friends and I feel very detached from what my life used to be before I had the baby.

Whenever I start to feel this way I get on my little computer and go visit a friend who doesn't even know she's a friend. And this is where my three words come in today. I click that little button right there on the left of my blog that says "I read Nie Nie" and suddenly I have perspective again. If you have not read Stephanie Nielsen's blog, today is the day you should go take a look. Her post this morning snapped me right out of my whiny, hormonal, post-baby rant about not having friends. Her before and after life is a constant reminder to me of how grateful one can be for blessings amidst true hardship and rediscovery. And today she reminded me that even when I feel like I have no friends, there is One Friend who is always there for me.

Thank you Stephanie.

PS. In the coming weeks I am going to begin sharing with you ten of my all-time favorite blogs. Consider yourselves informed today of the blog at the very, very top of my list.

Large and In Charge . . .

{Just had to post this picture because my baby is really, really cute!}

Twice in the past two days the size of our brood has been the subject of conversation with complete strangers.

The first was at the local Sears store where we were perusing the aisles of washers and dryers since ours is on its last leg. We had all four kids with us and they were making it their business to check out the fridges and flat screens. A young sales associate approached us ready to give his appliance spiel, which quite truthfully, I didn't want to hear. What we got instead was a suggestion for a larger capacity washer than the one we were looking at since we obviously have A LOT of laundry because we have SO MANY kids. The Hubby then chimed in with "Oh four is nothing. I grew up in a family of seven kids." I'm pretty sure I saw the twenty-something Sears worker's eyes pop out of his head just a little. We left Sears knowing a lot about some big washers with big price tags.

Yesterday my kids were out of school due to the elections and a teacher work day. That meant that to vote I had to bring all four of my offspring with me. I like the idea of the kids watching their mom perform her civic duty. As we approached the entrance to our local polling place {me pushing Ollie in the stroller, Hannie B. holding RedDog's hand, Big C acting all aloof and preteenish} a representative for one of the candidates came up and plastered stickers on the kids while telling me that Teddy Roosevelt said every American woman should have at least four to six children to help keep our country running and strong. He then thanked me for having such a large family. Hmmm . . .

As we drove home I thought about these two experiences. The size of my family is not unusual in my church congregation. In fact there are several families who have twice as many kids as me. But in my neighborhood, and specifically on my street, we are an anomaly with FOUR kids. I know some people think we must be crazy. But I am continually amazed by the specific gifts,qualities, joys and challenges that each of my children bring to our family. We would not be complete without them. We would not learn and grow without them. It was really meant to be this way for us.

Does that mean it's easy? Nope. Pretty much never. We are more or less a traveling three ring circus. I am frequently embarrassed by something a child says or does. We have many cringe worthy moments. Life in public is crazy. But eventually, we get home and laugh ourselves to tears over the chaos and craziness. And when I go in at night to pull the covers up and kiss each sleeping child, I thank a loving God for giving me these precious gifts that make up my large family.

A Troubling Post-Halloween Story (a.k.a. The Post Wherein Audrey Satisfies Her Foot Fetish)

Here's my innocent and sweet SIL Audrey. Isn't she gorgeous? And happy? And unsuspecting while holding a plate of dismembered foot? Prepare yourself, because this is just another bizarro Halloween story from my family and this gal is here to show you how it's done.

First, one should always take a quick, cheerful photo with the bloody foot.

Next {as if it weren't obvious} one should ALWAYS smell the foot to make sure it is to one's liking. Her face is telling me yes, this is a good one.

Now, while she's feeling brave, she should go for it! Take a bite. It's sure to be delicious! Ooh, a surprise . . . it contains something resembling bones inside. Enjoyable, right?

Finally, one should share her foot with a friend. Yeah, this guy looks crazy enough. Mmmm, chewy. And crunchy at the same time.

Let me end with three thoughts:

1. Aren't you glad you stopped by today?

2. How can I be related to these people?

3. No actual feet were harmed in the making of this post. {however, one strikingly realist gummy foot was destroyed. Naaaahstay.}

He Didn't Give A Hoot . . .

Here it is . . . the grand unveiling of our little Owlie in his little owl costume.

With his little trick or treat pumpkin bag courtesy of Hannie B's American Girl Doll.

Having a little photo session to show off the cuteness of a baby boy on his first Halloween night while wearing a costume painstakenly handmade by his little ol' mom with love.

And in a little less than ten minutes, we had a little meltdown and it all went down hill in a big way. Hope your Halloween was great!

A Decade Of . . .

Delight!

Happy 10th Birthday Hannie B.!

When you joined us a ten years ago, we had no idea what your little girl world would bring to our family. But we're grateful for the ruffles and pinkness, the laughing and crying, the sweet and the sour, the divine and the dramatic, the smart and the sensitive. You bring it all tied up in a neat little package with a bow of big results on top and we have loved every minute of it. You truly are one special girl.

Love you,
Mommy