Things They Say

Took advantage of my afternoon shower to borrow my lipstick.

This one is for me.  Since I left the world of working mom with two little people for the world of staying at home with three growing people, I am not often in a place where I have enough energy to look at the stages they are in and soak them up.  I'm just not.  I want to be.  I don't want to feel like smacking the moms of teens who say things like, "Don't wish it away" or "It all goes to quickly", but honestly sometimes I do. 

So when there are moments (especially in the middle of a week going solo including 2 days of isolation in an apartment with itchy kids, an evening where I had to use a tool to take out a piece of unidentified plastic from the uncooperative garbage disposal, almost had to climb a tree to retrieve a stuck football, and had to kill a giant spider I would have normally delegated to my husband) that I find myself smiling and enjoying their words and their voices, I know I need to take the time to write about them.  I'm not saying that reading about them later when I'm not in that place will help (pretty sure it won't), but I think that one day I'd like to look back and remember that there were lots of laughs and silly moments in the midst of those other ones. 

This is a really big tangent from what I set out to document, but here I go anyway...
A couple of weeks ago we decided to join some friends from our first church the last time we lived here for a small group.  We had been attending a mega-church that we were all really enjoying, but not completely sure about.  One evening in a group of old friends and new for us and the kids along with a sitter at least one of our children remembers who is now three years older and has probably much improved her diaper changing technique seeing as we can only assume Hannah's was the first one she'd ever changed based on results, we were sure we'd found our church.  We attended the new, new church last Sunday and I quote, "Can we come here again next week?" (Nathan) "Can we also come here again every week after that?" (Hannah) That speaks volumes when the church we had been attending had their own Wii games set up before worship and the most incredible pretend village I've every seen.

The small group is studying a book called "Parenting Beyond Your Capacity" and I'm only on the 2nd chapter and already, ready to share.  The main ideas in this book are: "No one has more potential to influence your child than you" and "You are not the only influence your child needs".  Two influences combines will have an even greater impact that us alone.  Phew.  What a relief.  Although I'm a little terrified about those other influences at times, I'm liking the way this book is teaching us to be intentional about choosing some of those other influences for our children.  Most people do this already in one way or another.  Unless you're like a hermit...but then you wouldn't have any kids. 

As I do so often when my husband is away, I have indulged in my guilty pleasure "Tori and Dean" this week.  There was one episode where Tori (Spelling by the way) and her husband left her kids with their "Guncles" (two of her friends who are gay and were married in another episode) and they were taking care of them for the evening.  It almost made me cry.  They have so many friends (and yes, I know maybe they just want to be on TV) who genuinely seem to love and care for their children all of the time.  That is amazing.  That is kind of what an expat community can be like if you let it.  I can't say I always let it, but I really want to be more intentional about surrounding our kids with people who genuinely care about them and love them and I want to do the same for our friends' kids.  A very good friend of mine in Belgium said over and over to me what a gift it is to both your children and to others to share them.  She was right and that guilt I have always felt about "dumping them" on someone else that is called pride.



So with a new fresher outlook on parenting (for the moment) and honestly feeling like I don't have to "fix" myself in order to continue on this journey of helping to raise people, I can return to the original purpose of this post.

Not long ago I posted some things Sarah says incorrectly on facebook that I love.  Now I'm reading in the news lately that facebook is just as "forever" as my blog (at least for hackers and people with evil intentions), but I'd like to keep everything in one place so I'm going to put some of those things here.  Today the girls were watching Dora during lunch and together they started singing the "Itsy Bitsy Spider".  I was taken back 4 or 5 years ago to a little boy sitting in the backseat of a car singing his own version: "Out came the sun and dried up all the rain.....bow".  I shared my little anecdote with his sisters and then at dinner we reminded him.  He gave me a strange look and it occurred to me that he never knew that was his version.  Oh well, it took his Dad a long time to learn that it was "Secret Agent Man" not "Secret Asian Man".  I have lots of them too and most of them are Neil Diamond songs, but I can't remember my versions at the moment (conveniently).

Today while driving back here from dropping Nathan at school, Hannah suddenly said, "Mom!  I have go to learn my letters right away!  Cheerleaders spell all of their words, you know". 

This afternoon we were talking about all of the pets of our family as we often do and Maggie and Lucy came up (Colorado family's dogs they met last Christmas).  I told the kids that Julia, Caroline and Lucy were getting a new house and they wanted to know where.  I explained they were staying in the same place, but that they wanted more space than they had in their Town House.  Nathan asked, "Oh did they get a City House, then?"  It took me a minute, but I smiled to myself and explained what a townhouse is.  I love the logic of a 7 year old.  A city is bigger than a town so obviously...

Sarah has so many.  She still calls vitamins Spidermans no matter how often she is corrected by her siblings.  She calls the apartment (which is actually a townhouse so we could have saved some confusion earlier if we called it that from the beginning) a "port"--pretty sure she thinks of it as some sort of subdivision of the airport.  She puts her clothes in the "hamster" every evening (and several times throughout the day generally--although I keep finding her previous night's pull-ups in the closet--fun for me!)I love that she has to wash her hands because they are "sneaky" rather than stinky.  Mostly I just love the way her voice still sounds so little and cute, yet her sentences are complete and her vocabulary extensive.  I can see why some babies of the family continue to sound like the babies of the family a la Cindy Brady.  Only recently have we convinced Nathan not to switch to baby talk when conversing with her.  He loves that she's little and he thinks she's cute (at times so does Hannah) and the biggest problem with that?  She knows it and milks it for all its worth.  I find myself coming down pretty hard on her at times because I just don't want her to be the one that gets away with everything because she's youngest.  She'll thank me some day, I hope.

So they're cute and I'm enjoying this time.  Even though for the past two nights I've woken up to a 3 year old (who did not even do this as a baby much) screaming at the top of her lungs at 4 AM...only to find out when I get there that she wants to sleep in my bed.  I'm no dummy.  That one kid suddenly turns into 2 if not all 3 and we've passed that stage.  Even though I just had another kid come and tell me his tummy hurts after his first day back at school this week--we talked for a while about kids being picked on for different reasons today and I am going to make it my priority to pray for him and his friendships at school again during the day while he's there.  He doesn't always share everything at once and maybe he won't share everything at all, but there is just a connection I've always had with him and I feel like there is something more going on with him at school.  Those darn influences we can't control!

I know there are more things they say that I want to remember.  Maybe I'll remember to write them down on my calendar like I used to when I only had one that could talk or maybe I'll remember to add them in to this post as they happen...I did pull a fast one on them tonight asking Nathan to read Sarah's book to them this evening so I could videotape the three of them reciting the words to "Mortimer" without them knowing.  I don't want to forget or wish it all away, but when I'm in the middle of it, I long for peace and quiet.  I feel like the mom in my favorite kids book "Five Minutes Peace" which Hannah always picks because she knows I like it and which I like to read with a British accent (an accent my kids heavily criticize by the way--had they never gone to a school with so many real ones they'd never know the difference).

For now I'm off to do a little more reading and watching of guilty pleasures since this is my last solo evening of this stretch.  Ready for my first real American holiday in 3 years and the official kick-off to summer since the weather arrived earlier than the outdoor pools and spray grounds open and most of all ready for my baby daddy to be back where he belongs.  G'nite.