Today

1. Try to wake up.
2. Try again to wake up.
3. Turn on light and try again to wake up.
4. Finally wake up.
5. Get ready.
6. Be grateful for David and Mary for being focused and helpful.
7. Squeeze everyone into the Forester.
8. Drop David and Mary off at the bus stop with another mom. 
9. Drive to Loveland.
10. Drop Sara off with a friend.
11. Leave Sara for 7 hours!  The longest I've ever left her.  Ever.
12. Drive to Columbus to attend the temple.
13. Drive to Loveland.
14. Talk to my mom on the drive.
15. Be grateful Leslie picked up David and Mary from school because I never would have made it home in time to meet them at the bus.
16. Visit with my friend, who declares Sara the best baby ever!
17. Drive to the cousins' house to pick up David and Mary.
18. Decide not to go home.
19. Go to Red Robin for no particular reason.
20. Go across the street to Dick's to buy shoes because it is there and we have momentum.
21. Discover David's current shoes are two sizes too small--no wonder he has been asking for new ones.
22. Let David pick out shoes with laces because it's way past time he be forced to learn.
23. Stare longingly at the Crocs.  They have no laces.
24. Let David push Sara around the store in the a shopping cart
25. Be talked into buying shoes for Mary too.  With laces.
26. Give a stern lecture about the importance of learning to tie shoes.
27. Buy shoes.
28. Go home.
29. Unpack backpacks.  No homework.  Phew.
30. Clean up breakfast dishes.
31. Read scriptures. Wrestle. Laugh. Pray.
32. Write an email.
33. Make a reservation.
34. Put the kids to bed, youngest to oldest.
35. Watch one TV show.
36. Try to put some thoughts together for a blog post.
37. Make a list instead.
38. Go to bed.

I'm sorry...

I'm sorry about my last blog post.  I really do not need to post about bawling and weeping and life descending into chaos.  Sure, I think it's important to "keep it real."  But for me "real" is the rhythms of daily life, the steady march forward.  There is not a lot of drama in my life right now.  Life is tiring.  But not dramatic, and thank goodness for that.  Earlier that day I'd thought that I should start posting more often, even if it's boring, even if it's just some of the regular not-at-all special things we did that day, even if it's not thoughtful at all.  But by the end of the day, when I sat down to type, all I could think about was how much I had cried, which was kind of a big deal because I really don't cry very much anymore.

Anyway, here is a picture of Sara in her winter suit, which she has basically lived in the last few months, and then a list of some unrelated random thoughts.

1. We have a musical beds thing going on in our house right now.  Last night David and Mary slept in my bed, Sara slept in Mary's room, and I slept in the office.  It was darling putting Mary and David to bed in the same bed.  And even more darling when I woke up this morning and found them both lying in bed reading.  I love those two.  They are such good, good kids.
2. So the goose egg I was afraid of didn't appear.  But I did (do?) have a concussion.  Ha ha.  It's so sad I have to laugh.  I am improving.  Wednesday was the worst.  Also, I think I should sign Mary up for soft ball.  That girl can swing.
3. We have started having the sister missionaries over regularly.  They bring such a feeling of peace with them. 
4. One of the things I have done to simplify my life is NO BANANAS FOR SARA.  They are so messy and they stain and I don't know why I'm being so weird about it because I let her eat all kinds of messy foods but I have to draw the line somewhere and I draw it at bananas. 
5. Time feels like it is passing faster now.  That's good.
6. Today the house is clean and the car is clean.  Well, I should say: The house was clean and the car was clean.  It was nice while it lasted.
7. David and Mary played outside with the neighborhood kids after school.  Then we went to Culver's (it tastes better in Wisconsin), where Sara stuffed her mouth with chicken and then spit it all out.  Very appetizing. Then I dropped Mary off at ballet, drove home to start the laundry, and then went back to pick Mary up.  Then is was straight to bed for my babies.  That pretty much sums up most of our Friday nights.
8. I am not super dooper over-the-top nice to my kids' friends.  They are welcome here.  And I am happy they are here.  It is safe and stable and peaceful and there are lots of things to do and sometimes there are snacks.  That is enough.  I'm too tired to treat them better than I treat my own children, and that's okay.
9. It's harder to blog when your kids get older because they deserve their privacy.  I have so much I want to "talk about" here about David and Mary and our struggles and triumphs and worries over the last year or so.  But I never will.  I will talk to you about it in person, in confidence.  But I can't post it.  That's an enormous part of my life that is off limits for blogging.  
10. I can blog about Sara, of course.  But she's so sweet, and, to be honest, it's not as fun to blog about sweetness.  It's more fun to blog about what a pain in the patootie your kid is.  But she's not.  But I will say it's more fun to LIVE with a kid who's not a patootie in the rear, even if it's not as much fun to blog about.  Hooray for boring Sara is Sweet blog posts!  May they never end...
11. I am going to bed, without even glancing back once for a quick proofread.  Take that, Perfectionist Within! 
12. And so good night.

A gorgeous day (and I hated it)

 

This is Sara playing with a baseball bat.  In about ten minutes from the time this picture was taken Mary will take the bat, swing it with all her might, and hit me in the face.  The forehead to be exact, where I have a nice goose egg growing and the headache to go along with it.  

Poor Mary.  It was an accident.  She thought I would be angry.  But instead I burst into tears.  I started bawling uncontrollably. Mary was like what the heck?  It's probably unsettling, to say the least, to see your mom crying like that.  Of course she thought it was her fault.  She had just whacked me in the head.  And, yes, it did hurt like the dickens. But it didn't hurt so bad that I would have started weeping.  The whack on the head was the last straw; it opened the flood gates.  

Today was gorgeous.  It was sunny, it was in the 70s, it was perfect.  And that made it the most depressing day ever.  The weather was taunting me--telling me to be carefree, to shrug off responsibilities if only for a while, to frolic and run free.  

But I can't.  I cannot be carefree, even for a minute.  We are slowly, gradually descending into chaos.  I am fighting back the chaos.  There is no reprieve.  Life is too much for me to handle right now, but not drastically so.  If I just manage to not let too many things slip through the cracks, we'll make it until August.  It's definitely an uphill, losing battle.  But if I can just hang on long enough, not allow myself to fall all the way to the bottom of the hill, we'll be okay.

Unfortunately, life continues to get busier, fuller, more complicated.  So we descend into chaos just a little bit faster.  I can't keep up.  And I am so tired.

And now my head hurts.

Anyway, I think I liked winter better.  It is cold and hard and matches my life. 

Well, winter is coming back cold and hard tomorrow.  Yippee for me.

P.S.  I am not crazy about the weather being depressing today.  My neighbor friend, who has more complicated burdens than I do, felt exactly the same way.  She came over right after the bat incident to find me wallowing in my tears.  Then we sat on the deck in the gloriously perfect sunshine...and felt depressed.  But at least we were depressed together!

P.P.S.  I might not have liked the weather, but this little girl did!  She is ready to explore the great outdoors--if only she could walk.  (In this descent into chaos, I'm glad she's going along with me.  I love that little girl, sassy new attitude and all.)

A list of thoughts on Sunday night

1. The time change did not go well.
2. Mary gave a little speech in Primary today.  She wrote it herself in extremely legible handwriting.  It was about how Jesus Christ is our Savior. I held up the pictures she had picked out while she read her words.  She did a great job.
3. David is doing really well at the piano.  He can read music, and it's wonderful. I am so proud of him.
4. I am dreading dreading dreading dreading dreading the Pinewood Derby.
5. Sara slept through the night last night. Eleven hours!!  First time ever.
6. Mary had a nice play date with a friend from church on Saturday. They played imaginatively and quietly.  Quiet, imaginative play is a mom's dream come true.
7. I accidentally mentioned that my parents' dog Roderick is old and so will not live a whole lot longer.  I didn't realized that David 1) didn't know Roderick is old and 2) didn't know dogs don't live forever.  He bawled and bawled.  Oh the tears.  Dear God, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease don't let Roderick die while we are in Texas this summer.
8. Sara certainly has some sassy moments now.  In sacrament meeting when I tried to give her a pacifier, which was clipped to her sweater, she ripped it off and threw it in the aisle with lots of dramatic flare.  The people around us laughed.  I did too.

Sara is 14 months old

Sara is 14 months old today.  

I realized today that she's not a little baby.  Okay, so she still doesn't have any teeth.  And she likes to be wrapped tight in her blanket and rocked to sleep.  But little babyhood is over.

I guess it's time to let it go.  She hasn't been as eager to escape babyhood as David and Mary were.  So it has been a sweet time for me, for the two of us.  But it's time for the next stage.  The next stage will be cute too.  But different.

Nothing in Sara changed today.  But for the first time I saw the sweet little girl in her--not just the bald little baby.

The thing is that Sara has been so different from David and Mary.  (And, please, spare me the "oh it's because you're more relaxed" baloney.)  David and Mary are good, bright, pleasant children.  But they are intense and high-maintenance.  And they were intense and high-maintenance as babies.  I spent their babyhoods feeling utterly exasperated.  Exasperation.  Yes, that it the best word to describe how I felt every single second of those years.  Of course I was absolutely crazy in love with them.  But when babyhood was ending, I was sort of sad but mostly I was like "Good riddance!"  I'm sadder with Sara's babyhood ending.

Sara is gentle and strong.

She chooses to trust.  To accept life as it is.  And bring others happiness.

She is a special child.  God has given her a special, specific mission in this life.  And she already knows what it is.

It has been a tender time for our family, with Sara as our baby.  (We have felt so lucky to have a baby in our family.  And super lucky that Sara is the baby in our family!)

Baby Sara, I will miss you.  But I am also looking forward to seeing who you become.

I have a feeling we will love her more than we can imagine.

Some odds and ends posted on yet another snow day

It wasn't a two-hour delay after all.  School is canceled today.  Sigh.

David and Mary are off playing with the neighbors, so I will take this opportunity to post some random pictures from the last two months with accompanying comments.

Sara and my mom look at a book in our Idaho hotel back in January.  Sara is so sweet and loving.   People love to be with her.  She has a special gift of bringing happiness to those around her.

Sara loves books.  She is much more genuinely interested in them than my other two kids were as babies.  Sara is truly excited to see what each new page will bring.  She also enjoys the act of carefully turning the pages one by one.  

These pictures were taken over a month ago.  I love spending my days with this sweet baby.

This little cutie still has no teeth, no words, and has taken no steps.  So it's hard to believe she will be 14 months old tomorrow.  But she is getting some of the toddler attitude and sense of humor.  She is curious, thoroughly exploring her surroundings.  And she watches her big brother and sister, joining in their fun.  My personal favorite is when I sit and do Mary's hair--Sara gets in the supplies and earnestly tries to put her hair in a pony tail.  It's so funny.

BFF Bailey came over for a sleep over on MLK weekend.  The boys worked hard on this Lego creation, which they named Fort Bavid.  What luck that David's best buddy lives just 2 hours away.

This is the Grand Canyon.  This was a Grand Crisis.  But it everything turned out fine.  By the way, it weighs two hundred pounds and takes up a lot of shelf space.  It's adorable, but, really, how long am I obligated to keep it?

This is the first grade at their music concert.

You can find Cousin Evan in this picture.  (Middle to the right, white button-down shirt.)

And the lovely Mary.  She was very nervous beforehand, but then thoroughly enjoyed performing.  That's Mary.  She gets nervous before performances, but she ends up LOVING it and totally gets a high from it!

Usually Mary takes a bath with Sara.  But this time it was David.

Sara loves her silly brother.

This is David and Brother Echols.  David's Pack had a father-son cake contest, and Brother Echols kindly filled in.  Brother Echols is super nice, and David had a great time.  Plus, they passed off a bunch of  Cub Scout electives while they were waiting for the cake to bake.  (By the way, Universe, enough with the father-child events!  We are blessed to have awesome, fun, loving people fill in--but these events still make my kids so, so sad. They can't help but be reminded that their dad is not here. )

This is David and their cake at the Blue and Gold Banquet.  (A HUGE thanks to Aunt Janell who was inspired to send cake pans for Valentines this year.  She thought it was totally random--but it was truly inspired.  It was a small but real mercy to have the storm trooper cake pan on hand for this project.  Thank you, thank you.)

The cake won an award!  (And it was yummy.)

The theme of the Blue and Gold Banquet was Invention Convention.  David did a presentation on George Eastman, the founder of Kodak, who made easy-to-use cameras that everyone could use.  David did an awesome job!  He is a smart kid and he know a lot of things.

One Saturday we went to the school's extravaganza.  I usually dread things like that.  But it was so fun!  It was a huge undertaking with carnival games, drawings, a silent auction, bouncy houses, tons of food, etc., but really well organized.  The kids had a blast--it was like a play date with the kids they never get to have play dates with.  Mary even won a prize!  Yay for a fun Saturday activity (that conveniently fell in between Sara's naps)!!  Also, now that you know where my kids go to school, please don't kidnap them.

This is a three-person Sunday morning play date.  Can you see the three?

David, Mary, and their dad.  They were busy playing when he was available to skype, so the brought him along.

This is so cute to me.  It's nice when they can skype.  The time difference has been killing us.  So far the kids have really only been able to skype with Greg once on the weekends because he is asleep when they are at school.  I realized that he's just going to need to start getting up in the middle of the night--especially to talk to David, who really needs to be able to talk to his dad during the week.  I usually talk to Greg on the phone every day at 11 for about 15 minutes.  Sometimes 30 minutes. I am old-fashioned, and we usually do not skype.

Mary and Sara are developing a very close relationship.  Mary takes very good care of Sara, walking her around the house, reading her books, and helping me clean up her messes.  She also likes to take care of Sara in the mornings, which I appreciate so much.  I have really begun to rely on Mary a lot.  She carries a lot of responsibility.  I have to remember she's only 6.  

Greg said it best:  Sara is a giver, not a taker.  She gives joy and energy and happiness.  She is gentle, and she will trust you to be gentle too.  And that trust, that sweet smile, fills your heart with gladness.  This is a special little girl.

David and Mary are back from sledding.  Gotta go...

The point of this post is a link to Sara dancing!

Yes, I am alive!  And I do blog sometimes, like how I just did about Daniel visiting.

So I just found out the kids have a two hour delay tomorrow.  This past week was their first full week of school since before Christmas, but David and Mary each missed a day with colds.  And already this next week isn't starting out well.  It's gotten so bad with the missed days and delays that they now cry when they DON'T have school.  (They've realized school isn't as much fun when teachers are pressed for time to cover all the material.)

Anyway, I realize I'm not blogging much.  A major reason is time.  Another reason is how slow my computer is.  (Yes, it's brand new. I don't want to talk about it. I need to send it in to get it repaired...but it's not high on my priority list.)  But another reason is the nature of blogging, for me anyway.  It invites reflection.  And I simply cannot bear to reflect on life right now.

I am doing fine.  I promise!  I would even say we are doing well.  But it is hard.  Really, really hard.  And I don't want to think about how hard it is.  I would rather clean the kitchen (again!!) or watch TV or post videos of my baby bear on YouTube.

I keep moving forward, and if I stop to reflect, I'm afraid I will fall.

I do have a few odds and ends I hope to post tomorrow.

But, for now, I invite you to watch the first 15 seconds of this video.  It makes me so happy, and it might do the same for you.  I love that baby of mine.  And her big brother and big sister.

By the way:

My YouTube videos are unlisted.  That means you need the link to see them.  You can find the links in my Twitter feed.  Click on the tab at the top of this page.

Ninja Dude and Taco Man have been having a lot of new adventures in places like Kandahar, Kabul, Bagram, and good old Al Udeid in Qatar.  You can see them on my Flickr page.  Again, click on the tab at the top of this page.

One more thing ...

That is my baby.  (Almost 14 months!)  Doesn't her sweetness just melt your heart?

Good night!

Uncle Daniel was here

My little brother Daniel came and spent a weekend in February with us.  He might have been expecting a nice, relaxing break from busy student life.  But we put him right to work!


He tended Sara so I could take David and Mary to The Lego Movie (loved it!), went with Mary to her special Valentines father-daughter ballet class (and was a good sport when Mary broke down because she missed her dad), shoveled the driveway after yet another snowstorm, took David to Tae Kwon Do, tagged along on a last minute trip to Air Force museum, took Sara to Elder's Quorum with him, joined us on our first visit to Skyline Chili, and recreated Sochi with David and Mary.  He let Mary wake him up early every morning, played Skylanders with David, and made friends with Sara.  The kids had a wonderful time with him!

And I did too.  I love catching up with my baby brother.  He is someone you can hang out with for hours just talking.  I am happy for the exciting things unfolding in his life.

I am truly grateful he took the time to come see us.  It was really a blessing.

If you haven't already seen these pictures on Flickr, take a look ...