Chick Fil A at the Mall (Or: How I Learned to Multitask)

Any time I ever--and I do mean ever--take my kids to the mall and eat Chick fil A, I'm always taken back to my early days as a mom.  I reminisce about taking Noah to the Chick fil A at the Burlington Mall outside of Boston when he was a baby, along with my dear friend, Sara, and her baby boy.  

The mall could always be counted on to be a good outing.  It had a nice little play area for toddlers.  And as an indoor activity, it was of significant value in wintertime, when toddlers really cannot do a whole lot of playing outside.  Plus, Chick fil A was a treat, going to the mall was a treat, and playing with a friend was a treat.  It was a good deal, all around.

So Sara and I would meet there, scramble for oftentimes the last two mall high chairs, order our food, then sit down with busy, grabby toddlers for lunch.  We'd lay out place mats, clean little hands, cut food into tiny pieces, keep trash and all extraneous items out of reach of the little ones, try to keep the food on the floor at a minimum, and between all of that, try to feed ourselves and have a grown-up chat.  And I'll tell you something.  No job that I've ever had ever taught me to multitask like feeding a child at the mall.  And now that I have three, it's even more true.  You just never stop moving.  But lest you think otherwise, let me assure you that it is still a treat, and it's still a lot of fun for everyone, including Mommy.

So when I met my Houston friend (also a Sarah) at the mall this week with Clara and Jane, and when I started cutting food into tiny pieces and looking for a high chair, the deja vu hit. 

Tiny food.

Never stop moving.

Yep, this is familiar.

And it's sweet that it is still happening.  Because those were sweet days with my little Noah.  And they are sweet days now, too. 

Meet Elizabeth, Jane's best friend.  They were born a month apart and they love each other.

They were so happy to be there together. :)

They even got ice cream.  I mean, who needs a cow watch when you can have ice cream instead?

There's nothing like having a friend you love.

So, of all the things that could hold significance for me and be, at least a little, representative of my life as a mom of little children, mall Chick fil A's are one of them.  I think I will always feel happy at a mall Chick fil A.

The Last Day of Summer

Well, school starts tomorrow, which means that today is the very last day of summer.

I am not really ready for school to start.  That is to say, I have everything in order, we have all of Noah's school supplies, his backpack is packed, his uniform is clean, and I have even looked over this week's curriculum.  But I do not really feel ready.  Life is about to get really busy, and I haven't really wrapped my mind around it all yet!

We've been so nice and laid back this summer.  After school ended last year, I was just so relieved not to have to get three kids out the door at 7:30, and that, all by itself, made life at our house a little more fun.  But once June hit, I suddenly realized that I need to make sure this summer is super fun!  Summer's a mentality, not just a season, right?  So I made an effort to be more open to saying yes to just a few more messy play ideas and more intentional about getting some planned fun in while we had the chance.

To that end, Noah, Jane, and I sat down and made a Summer Fun List.  It included suggestions from them as well as me, and, happily, we have been able to check every single thing off (the zoo is forthcoming).

The Summer Fun List was a huge hit with the kids.  Every day, Noah would ask, "Mom, can we do the next thing on our list today?"  And both of them loved checking things off as we did them.  We'll have to make this a summer tradition.

And speaking of traditions, I'm intentionally trying to think up and incorporate traditions in our household.  For example, we have a cake (or half a cake) on each of the kids' half birthdays.  We also had a cake when Noah read his first book (a very simple reader, but we definitely wanted to celebrate!).  And here are my two newest ones: a family game night on the last night of summer, and pink frog on the first day of school.  Even the little things will make good memories, don't you think?

Happy Almost-Fall!

A Southern Summer Memory

There's been a point in my life when I regularly carried chickens by their feet.

Surprised?

It's not something I've done in a very long time.  The years and newer (and very different) experiences make that memory feel far removed sometimes.  But although I have never not been bookish, I also had a country cousin who made sure I spent only so much time indoors every summer.

When I was a child, my family took an annual summer journey to rural southern Mississippi, where my grandparents lived.  We had family upon family upon family there; cousin upon cousin.  And since they were outdoorsy, we spent a lot of time outdoors with them.  I have memories of hide and seek games lasting long into the night, "cooking" with the overripe and unusable veggies from the garden, swimming in the pool, hiking through the cow pasture and fishing in the cow pond, playing with the puppies and kittens which were always present, and so on.

One summer, my cousin and constant companion, Stacie, and I spent a lot of time in the goat pen.  The goat pen was situated on the side of a gently sloping hill near everyone's houses (conveniently so--it's awfully handy to throw your leftovers and scraps over the fence behind your house and be gratified that someone will thoroughly enjoy them).  The grass had been so thoroughly devoured by the animals over the years that it was now nonexistent, and the hill was just composed of red dirt with the occasional crack running down its entire length.

Stacie and I started out trying to catch a chicken that had gotten loose in the goat pen, I believe.  That is not an easy task, let me tell you.  Even harder is trying to catch a goat who doesn't want to be caught.  We eventually got the chicken, but we gave up on the goat.  And we got our light blue jeans sufficiently stained with red dirt in the process.

The next day, Stacie got the idea to place a hose at the top of one of the cracks of the earth.  We put on our swimsuits and Keds and had a marvelous time lazing the day away playing in our girl-made creek.  Sinking our feet into the cool mud, experimenting with how we could divert the water to our liking, making tributaries that branched off of the main downhill crack, building little houses for ants and frogs.  A couple of tweens making mud pies is what it would have looked like, but that would be a very sad and inept description of our fun.

No, that interpretation would have been to put a productive adult's filter on our summer fun.  To see spending a day in the goat pen as insignificant, unimportant, perhaps even foolish activity.  But I'm glad that the adults did not come outside and say, "You need to come in now," or "We need to run to the store; come get cleaned up!"  No, they just let us play in the mud all day.  Which was anything but frivolous.  Nope, it was what childhood play should be all about.

Deep Thought for the Day

Deep Thought for the Day:
Nathan is pickier than I am about home decor.  Oh, it's not just me who makes decorating go so slowly! 

Seriously, this was an Aha Moment for me today.  Since I tend to take on the role of decorator, the fact that we still have some blank walls and windows is, I tend to think, because I'm not on top of it, don't have enough time to find what I want, or I'm not decisive enough.  But you know what it also is?  Nathan!

He has always had strong opinions about surprising things.  The first time this happened was with our wedding china.  He wanted gold, not platinum.  Ivory, not white.  I wasn't too picky about those particulars, as long as the pattern was pretty, and we found something we liked.  But, at the time, I was so surprised that he cared about china, of all things!

It used to be that his strong decorating opinions only popped up every once in a blue moon.  But now it is more of a regular thing.  So that I think I've finally decided on something--and, definitely, it takes me a while to get there, since I'm pretty picky, too--I tell Nathan about it, and he doesn't like it for one reason or another.  (Is this because we are both perfectionists??)  The result is that we remain in a state of limbo.  With naked walls and windows in a good portion of our house.

This is a problem, y'all.  We need to figure this out, because two years is too long to live in a house with naked windows. Life is short. :)

So here is our latest decorating conundrum.  I like these frames.  Scratch that; I love them.  I love gothic arches, and I recently went to a friend's house who had lots of window frame mirrors, which you do see everywhere once you start looking for them.  So I went hunting on Etsy and found these, which I love (they go perfectly with the prints of Cambridge gothic architecture in our dining room), and the guy will even put mirrors in them, if we want:

But Nathan says that mirrors are only for hanging in a place where they're useful.  That they seem over the top if they're purely decorative.  That a purely decorative mirror is not "classic."

Aaargh!

My opinion: 1.) It is perfectly acceptable to have a purely decorative mirror.  2.) Decorative mirrors are, in fact, classic. 3.) And, actually, not everything in our house has to be classic; we can have whimsical and fun things, too.

So, friends, what do you think?  Here's your opportunity to chime in.  Are mirrors okay as decor, or do they need to be in a place where you'd actually want to fix your hair?

:)

A Nice Day

And now I sit--in bed, lamp on, a laptop being a ridiculous convenience, when you think about it--writing about what a nice day it's been.

Bright and early yesterday morning, we got up, got the kids out of bed, and headed out of town to go blueberry picking.  I love to pick fruit, and have long before I was a gardener and got interested in such things.  It started when I first went blueberry picking about ten years ago (at this same farm, now that I think of it).  Anyway, I always enjoy the picking process, how much cheaper you can usually buy the fruit for, and the absolute bounty you can drive home with.  I love how you can actually be in the position of finding as many recipes as you can to use up your ____ (blueberries, strawberries, peaches, apples...).  There is just something about the surfeit of one type of food that makes you feel like you are reveling in Plenty.  And having a large amount of one item also makes me feel connected to my farmer ancestors, who would have been doing what I'm doing with my blueberries: making hay while the sun shines, if I may use an agricultural expression.  Making lots of blueberry dishes while you have blueberries, then canning the rest, perhaps.

Anyway, I made a blueberry crisp last night (which, my friends, you must make if you ever have six cups of blueberries sitting around--seriously, ten years ago it made me a true blueberry fan), and since it was cooked after the kids went to bed, I let Noah and Jane have some for breakfast.  It does have fruit and oatmeal in it, after all.  Then, I made blueberry muffins and blueberry pancakes.  We had a regular blueberry feast for breakfast!  And breakfast wasn't until 10:00 (read: leisurely morning).

Clara was under the weather this morning, so we skipped church and stayed home.  Throughout the day, there was lots of neatening on my part, kiddie pool time for the kids, and video games for Nathan (his brother, Andrew, stayed with us this weekend).  My kitchen is now ready to face the week.  And I even watched a movie and relaxed a good bit.  I hand-pollinated my cucumbers to make sure they keep producing (I've picked three so far! Hooray!) and soaked some beans so I can plant them tomorrow.

Janey Beth has taken to making nests out of her bedding, putting her stuffed animals in the middle, then sleeping on top of them, pretending she's the mama bird.  It is the cutest thing.  Her bed is a complete mess, but that's nothing new (I even let them make pallets and sleep on the floor all last week). I love to see the sweet, nurturing side of her.  Sometimes I look at her little toddler face and wish I could bottle the cuteness so I could pull it out for a big jolt of joy and love whenever I want.  There is something about those little faces.

Noah has been wanting more of my affection lately.  He is very huggy these days.  And I've been so impressed at what a model of a big brother he's been to Clara this weekend.  While she's in a sitting position on the floor, he'll set himself down in front of her and just chat and play with her.  She loves it, and she is really loving that Noah these days.  He's getting some big smiles from Clara.  Unfortunately, though, he is really into antagonizing Jane.  It's actually beginning to be a real problem.

I can relate to that, honestly.  I loved to antagonize my little brother, too.  Specifically, I tickled him.  He was (and still is) incredibly, incredibly ticklish, and I took full advantage of it.  Tickled him to the point of cruelty.  I probably scarred him for life.  My parents tried everything to make me stop.  The only thing that worked was to make me pay him--first a quarter, then a dollar--whenever I tickled him.  That made me stop, more or less.  But sometimes, oh sometimes, it was worth that dollar.

Well, we'll work with my Noah.  As for little Clara, she is, as always, a sweet baby.  Although her least endearing quality these days is that she is experimenting with her voice.  Actually, she is screaming.  Screaming just for the fun of it.  Screaming with everything she's got.  Screaming so big I can see to the back of her throat.  Screaming until she shakes a tiny bit.  It does not make for an easy dinner conversation, I'll tell you that.  We've also discovered that she is extremely sensitive to mosquito bites.  Each mark swells to the size of a quarter.  It is so awful looking, but it doesn't seem to bother her much, which I can't believe.  I'm going to have to start using the car seat mosquito netting that for some reason I have. 

I finished my last flower square tonight!  I took care that the last square I made was one with a pink flower.  The pink flowers, after all, were the first ones I made and more or less inspired the rest of the blanket.  Now all I need to do is block the remaining squares, join them together, and crochet a border.  Give me a couple of weeks.

Sleep is calling me.  Down goes the computer.  Goodnight!

Thoughts

It seems that just about everyone's thoughts and prayers are directed towards the town of Newtown, CT in light of Friday's events.  As for me, my thoughts have been turned there daily since it happened.

Sometime during the day on Friday, Nathan texted me that there had been a horrible massacre at a school in Connecticut.  It wasn't until hours later that I turned the news on, and my jaw dropped when they said it was in Newtown, because I know people there.

About five years ago, when I was running my Arbonne business, I had a team in and around Newtown.  I used to drive down there from Boston to meet with them every so often, and based on my experiences in that area of Connecticut, I would always tell Nathan, "I love Connecticut!  It's so pretty!"  And, indeed, it is.  The town of Newtown is particularly lovely.  There's a view of idyllic foliage from just about everywhere.  It feels peaceful.  It is certainly affluent (the real estate is outrageous).  And it's very quaint.

One couple I know there is Stephanie and Will, and they've been in the forefront of my thoughts, because Will is a police officer in Newtown, and I believe he was one of the first responders.  I remember him as being very tall, muscular, and capable--everything you'd want a cop to be--and both he and Stephanie are strong Christians, as well.  I have no doubt he is a fine policeman, and my thoughts and prayers are especially with him right now as he deals with the personal repercussions of this horrible tragedy, which are probably even more profound since he and Stephanie have a small child.

I thank God that Will is safe and will continue praying for him and Stephanie in the coming weeks.  I can't imagine that they would not need comfort and support, and I am sure that they and all of Newtown appreciate your prayers, too.

39 Weeks

I am 39 weeks pregnant today.  Tomorrow, at 39 weeks + 1 day, I'll have a baby.  A brand new baby girl.

This time tomorrow,
She will have eaten.  Several times, probably.
She will have cried.  Several times, probably. :)
She will have had a bath.
She will have been held and cuddled and admired and photographed.

I wonder how much she will weigh.  (Will it be 9 lbs. again?)
I wonder if she will be bald or have a shocking head of hair. 
I wonder if she will look like Noah or Jane.
I wonder if she will look like me.
I wonder what her name will be.

True

I just read something lovely on Ann Voskamp's blog, and it is so beautifully written and, well, true, that I had to set it here so that you could all read it, too:

Never look back unless you are going that way, is what Thoreau said.

But sometimes when you look back, just at the top of the hill, before it all slips behind, a memory, that’s when you see how the trees blazed and how you were all living right under the whole, spreading sky, right there under heaven, and you never wholly knew it until right then, till you try to wave your hand goodbye.

Now that is some beautifully poetic prose, right there.  And doesn't it ring true for you, too?   That the beauty and preciousness of a period in life doesn't quite all come together until you look back on it and see how pregnant with meaning and blessing it was?

Anybody want to comment?  Is there a part of your life that, looking back, evokes that sense of I-didn't-fully-realize-how-wonderful-it-was-until-afterwards?

Some Thoughts at 5am This Morning

So here I sit, unable to sleep for the last two hours, surfing the internet.  Something about pregnancy sometimes gives me a mild insomnia: if I wake up for some reason, I often can't go back to sleep.  I've heard other mamas say that this must be God's way of preparing us for living with the sleeplessness of having a newborn at home, but since I never deal with sleeplessness well, no matter how much practice I have at it, this philosophy has always seemed to put God in a very cruel light, and I choose not to accept it!

All that aside, this extra time I find myself with does allow me to share some thoughts I've been having lately about how the next several months are going to look for our family.  (Imagine that!  A post of more substance than a string of pictures with captions!)  Of course, lately I've been preoccupied with what our fall will look like, what with the baby coming in early September.  When people ask me if we are going to be involved in this or that, I just keep saying, "I don't know what our fall looks like right now," and that is the truth.  Until a couple of days ago, things were just not lining up in a simple manner, when it came to getting a weekly schedule together.  And, anyway, if the phrase "weekly schedule" doesn't strike fear in the heart of anyone about to have a newborn at home, you just don't know what's coming!  However, with two other kids to think of, we did need to start getting some things sorted out.  Thankfully, I think all of it is finally coming together, but that's a topic for another post.

My thoughts this early morn have more to do with what we will be doing with the rest of our summer rather than what our lives will look like after Baby #3 is born.

Now, we are not a terribly busy family.  One good friend was working on and finishing up a major project (Sarah and her album), and that made her very busy for a season, but we've had nothing like that going on.  I'm also not like another good friend of mine, who is always running around with her kids and generally always has a myriad of activities lined up for the week.  Whereas I feel like we've done well if we've had one morning outside-the-house activity, she might have had two or three or four for that day.  That is just not the way I roll--it's stimulating and works well for them, but it stresses me out to be that busy.  However, although I don't like to be running around quite that much, we have definitely had plenty of things to keep us occupied on a daily basis for the last six months or so.  And, upon reflection, I decided I wanted to change the way we do things this summer.

For one thing, Noah and Jane's little worlds are going to change in a drastic and permanent way this fall.  They can't possibly know how the arrival of another sibling will affect them (especially Janey), and it makes me a bit sad to think of how much less of me they are going to be able to get for a while and how that type of adjustment is likely to make them feel, at least temporarily.  This isn't to say that it's not necessary and even good for them in the long run, but I think it is very fair to say that there will likely be a difficult adjustment period.

Another thing I've been pondering is the fact that, usually, when we get home from whatever activity we've done that day, we are all a little too zapped to do anything of any real significance with each other.  Sure, I make dinner.  The house gets picked up (mostly).  The kids play together.  All the basic things happen.  But I don't have the additional energy and time and Noah doesn't have the focus for us to do some of the other things I'd like to be doing with them.  Things like going through the dozen or so educational workbooks I have bought for him over time.  Or coloring with Jane.  Or my being able to take the time to sit on the back patio with them while we all eat popsicles and play.  Really, the bottom line is that I want to have a little more margin in our daily life so that I can spend some quality time with them and play with them more before our lives change so significantly and that sort of interaction becomes less frequently possible.

So, to that end, I am scaling back our activities this summer.  I'm not going to say "yes" to every offer that comes along to do things with friends.  I am going to be more intentional about playing with my kids.  And I feel really good about that decision.

Because they are kind of precious. :)

Sometimes You Forget

Sometimes you forget how blessed you are.  I was just on Pioneer Woman's website, leaving a comment in order to enter a giveaway, when I briefly read someone else's comment.  The woman said that if she could stay any age forever, it'd be the age when she had her baby, because "maternity leave was awesome!"

That just gave me a reality check.  Because, truly, it says a lot.  It says she's a working mom and would love to be home with her baby.  It also says that she wants that life so much that staying home with her baby at the absolute toughest and most exhausting age (0-3 months) was one of the joys of her life. 

Reflecting on that this morning just reminded me of how very blessed I am to be able to stay at home with my kids and not have to juggle the competing priority of work.  It's a blessing I often don't recognize, because, of course, there are a lot of difficult aspects to being a stay at home mom.  But it is still a very great blessing.

Expectations

Does anyone else ever go to their blog site and somehow expect to see a new post, even though they haven't written one?  I think this must be the Facebook effect: the conditioned expectation of constant updates.  After all, my life is updating and refreshing all the time; it's as if I expect my blog to reflect that.

I swear, strange things happen to my brain during pregnancy.