Oo-day, oo-yay oh-knay uht-way I-ay ean-may?

I’ve gotten so used to my kids being clueless – or trusting maybe? – when Tom and I talk. We’ve literally discussed gifts for the kids when they were sitting right next to us at dinner.

Tom: Let’s get Ethan the Buzz Lightyear and Kaylee the Woody and Sienna the Jessie.

Me: Ok, you don’t think that Ethan will mind not having the soft toys like the girls?

Tom: Nope.

Ethan: More milk, please.

It’s odd that when we try to spell things in order to be sneaky, he pays attention. The previous conversation would be something like this:

Tom: Let’s get Ethan B-u-z-z L-i-g-h-t-y-e-a-r.

Ethan: (thinking to himself) Bu-zz. Bu-zz Light…

Me: Ok. What about the girls?

Ethan: Oh! Buzz Lightyear!

Now you’d think that I’d get the hint that he pays more attention when we try to spell things instead of just openly talking about them. But no… I have resorted to using Pig Latin. It’s much more fun that way, really. Then he knows we are talking about something we don’t want him to know, but he doesn’t know what we are saying. And he can’t figure it out. (Insert evil cackle here.)

Ok, I know that seems silly. Ethan is naturally a sweet kid. And the girls follow suit most of the time. As nice as it is to be able to leave bags and boxes on the ground where they can see and trust that they won’t look at them or try to open them, it’s just not a lot of fun – no need for sneakiness in this house yet. Is it wrong for me to wish they would snoop so I would have to be more creative with my hiding places? Until that happens, I’m just going to have to use Pig Latin and pretend it’s necessary. Do you know what I mean?

Happy birthday, girls!

It’s only fair to post pictures of my baby girls since I did for Buddy, right?

The morning of my c-section

Proud big brother!

Could there be two cuter girls?

Kaylee girl - almost a year old!

Nenny!

Duck... Duck...

Mmmm. First birthday cake!

Almost two! I couldn't believe it!

Sharing a birthday party with Buddy!

Sienna. 🙂

BIG girls! 🙂

And now they are big!

Kaylee

And they are turkeys!

The teenage years should be fun!

Are all little sisters this way?

I’m a little sister. (Can I get a “whoop-whoop”? No? Eh, oh well.) When my sister, Debbie, and I were younger, we fought all the time. She played the role of the bossy big sister and I played the role of the super-annoying-get-away-with-everything little sister. OK, she wasn’t really that bossy, she just wanted me to leave her alone so she could do whatever she wanted without me bugging her.

The other day, I noticed Sienna poking Kaylee. Kaylee was whining for her to stop and began to lash out at her. If I hadn’t been watching this take place, I wouldn’t have seen the evil smile on Sienna’s face or the fact that she was purposefully pestering her sister. Normally, in this situation, I would have walked in when I heard Kaylee shrieking and I would have punished her because she was hitting Sienna. Sneaky little Sienna is amazingly adept at looking like an innocent victim. Before I saw her gleefully poking Kaylee, I would have assumed that Kaylee was just overreacting when Sienna accidentally bumped her.

Since Debbie lives three hours away, I’ve gotten out of practice with being a little sister. But as soon as I saw Sienna silently aggravating her big sister, it all came back to me.  Little sister rule number one: Always remain silent. How many times did I poke just the tip of one finger over the “line” in the middle of the backseat of our car? As soon as Deb would raise her voice to tell on me, I’d fold my hands innocently in my lap and gaze out the window as though I didn’t know what was going on. She’d get scolded for whining and I’d get off scot free. The icing on the cake was the triumphant smile I’d give my sister as soon as my parents’ attention was elsewhere.

Gosh, I miss those days. It was like I was fulfilling my sole purpose in life: Making Debbie angry and getting away with it. (Sorry, Deb, you know I love you!)

Since Sienna is only the younger sister by one minute (seriously!), I’ve begun to wonder if she was just born with some of my uniquely amazing traits or if somehow there is a little sister code that we all follow simply because of our birth order. If Kaylee had been born after Sienna, would she have been this way? And why doesn’t Kaylee do the same thing to Ethan? Is this a sister-sister thing? The world may never know.

Dramatic finish, don’t you think? That’s what I say when I don’t know the answer to something.

Happy Birthday, Buddy!

First picture ever!

Bubble beard. Who doesn’t have a picture like this!

This is a special photo to me because it was taken just a few days after we lost our second baby. Bittersweet days for sure.

Who's afraid of frosting?? Ethan, that's who!

I wish I could poke his belly!

Not so much room on Mommy's laugh with two babies in her belly! Ethan was just turning 2 in this picture.

I couldn't believe he was three already!

Mixing frosting for his FIFTH birthday!

I can’t believe I have a five year old. I’m so blessed with my sweet-natured, intelligent little guy who’s not so little anymore! I love him! If you don’t know how much of a miracle this is, check out my post from August: http://www.mommyinthemirror.com/?p=282

Let them eat cake.

Ok, so probably not a lot of you remember Geoff Moore and the Distance. They were kind of a cheesy band back in the 90’s. But they had this beautiful song that I think Geoff wrote for his wife called “If You Could See What I See.” I’ve posted some of the lyric down below.

I think a lot of Christian couples picked that to be “their song” back then. Maybe they still do. Aside from the fact that it’s a beautiful love song (kinda sappy), there are a few things to glean (ahh, see I can still use unusual words!) from it.

First – Guys see women differently than women see themselves. This is probably a big “Duh” to those of you out there who’ve never wanted to starve themselves to look “beautiful,” but for me, I still have trouble believing it. I keep thinking of that stupid “ideal” cookie cutter image of what the world considers beautiful and since I don’t fit into that mold, I feel like Tom must be disappointed in me. I look in the mirror and see faults and flaws. Tom looks at me and sees his ideal woman. I am actually beginning to think that maybe models look they way they do partly because of women. I think men don’t care as much as we do. I heard on Bob and Tom one morning, “Guys like boobs and butts. They don’t care so much what size they are as long as you have them.” So as my friend Allison says, “That girl looks like she needs a big ol’ piece of cake.” I agree, “Let models eat cake. Let them all eat cake.”

The second thing I learned from that song is that, duh, most women feel inadequate at some point. We probably all question our husband’s (or boyfriend’s) sincerity when they tell us we are gorgeous. If we are in a room with a woman we feel threatened by (because we think she’s prettier than us), we often think our husbands will think she is prettier than us, too. At least I do. Let me list some reasons why that’s stupid:

1. My husband picked me to marry. He dated me for four years before we were married, so he had ample time to find another woman. It’s not like he didn’t know me and all my baggage before we said “I do.” He didn’t “settle” for me. He chose me.
2. Since he chose me, he’s not looking at other women as anything other than, “Hey, there’s a female human over there.” I know, cynics unite, all guys lust over other women. I don’t think that’s true. I may be naive but I 100% trust my husband when he tells me that he is not checking out other women.
3. He’s not blind, though. He might notice that the woman is pretty, but he doesn’t compare me with her. (Tom says if he did, I would always win anyway.) We said “until death do us part” – and we meant it with all our hearts before God and all our friends and family. He’s not looking for a new girlfriend. He’s not thinking about leaving me on the side of the road and finding a better model. (Pun intended.)

Something else all this tells me: Having faith in God makes it a whole lot easier to have faith in your husband. Healthy, wonderful marriages are supposed to be a picture of what a relationship with God is supposed to look like. Husbands are to love their wives with the same kind of agape love that Christ loves us. Because I know that Tom loves God with his whole heart, I can trust him to be faithful to me – I can believe that we have a true covenant and not just a temporary commitment to each other because he is charged with loving me with a sacrificial love.

Ok, that got way deeper than I intended, but hey, there it is! I’m going through a rough patch emotionally and physically and I just needed to give myself a little pep talk. 🙂

Here are some of the lyrics:

all of my life
i have dreamed
that somehow love would find me
now I can’t believe you’re standing here

if beauty is all
in the eye
of the beholder then i
wish you could see
the love for you that lives in me

i know there are days
when you feel
so much less than ideal
wondering what i see in you

it’s all of the light
and the grace
your belief in me drives me to say
that i promise you
a faithful love, forever true

if beauty is all
in the eye
of the beholder then i
am beholding…
true beauty

Pink

I’m not a big fan of pink. I never have been – as far as I can remember. I was more of a tom-boy. My Barbie suffered at the mercy of a homemade guillotine. I tied my Cabbage Patch doll to the back of my bicycle and rode around. I played with Matchbox cars and mud. I hated pink. For some stupid reason, I expected my girls, if I had them, to be like me.

I can hear you laughing. (You seem to do that a lot.) See, I don’t treat them like girly girls – I just didn’t know that they could be born that way. I think Sienna came out of my womb loving pink. It might have been one of her first words. Long before she cared about anything else, she told me she wanted her room to be pink. And even though she’s never seen any princess movies or read any princess books, she’s obsessed with them. She doesn’t know their names (like Cinderella or Ariel or Snow White) but whenever she sees them, she yells “Princesses!!” She wanted to be a butterfly for Trick or Treat. A pink butterfly. A pink princess butterfly. I never would have thought that someone like me could produce a child so obsessed with such girlified things. Perhaps it comes from Tom’s side of the family?

Unfortunately for Kaylee, Sienna has also claimed every pink thing in their wardrobe as her own. If Kaylee happens to wear something pink, it’s because Sienna “let” her. Otherwise, Sienna tries to rip the shirt off Kaylee’s back. It’s rather amusing – aside from all the whining. We’ve had meltdowns that lasted all day because Kaylee’s wearing Sienna’s pink shirt. Or pink socks. Or princess jammies.

I’ve learned a valuable lesson from all this: Sienna likes pink. I’m just not sure what to do about it. 🙂

I promise he isn’t normally like this!

My Ethan is just one of the sweetest boys I’ve ever known. Yes, I’m partial. Duh. Did you think I was going to say he’s one of the worst boys I’ve ever known? But seriously, he is such a good boy. He loves to make his Mommy and Daddy happy – he works really hard to do what he knows is the right thing. He cleans his room without being asked, shares (or gives away toys) without being asked. He says things like, “Last night I had a dream that Kaylee’s ball burned up in a fire and I cried. But when I woke up, the tears were still coming out, so I thought it was real.” He just melts my heart all day.

Sometimes I forget that he’s a little boy, though. I expect a lot out of him without even meaning to. Take today for example. He was playing “musical chairs” with six other kids in his homeschool class. He and a little girl sat down on the same chair and really, I don’t know who was there first. So I told Ethan to come on out and let the girl keep playing. I expected him to realize that it was a chivalrous thing to do. That the point of a game wasn’t to win, but to have fun.

Side note – It occurred to me just now that I’m always trying to find the balance between encouraging my kids to do their best while helping them to understand that even when you try your best you don’t always win.

Anyhoo, he got very upset and I’m pretty sure he felt like I did a great injustice to him by not defending him. At the same time, he needed to know that you have to treat others the same way you would want to be treated. I thought he understood that when he started the second round. But then, even though he got a seat, he decided to quit because he didn’t want to lose. And I got really upset. He is not supposed to behave like that! He should know better!

I will openly admit that I was worried about  what the other parents would think. What is she teaching her kids? I can’t believe she hasn’t taught him better! Pathetic! Boy, what a great mom I am. Worried more about my image than my kid’s feelings. Forgetting that even though he doesn’t always act like it, he’s not even five years old yet.

Ethan’s consequence for making a bad choice (actually he’d made many many bad choices by that point) was that we didn’t go to the playland afterward. He was really sad and I asked why he thought we weren’t going. He answered that he had been bad by crying when he lost and quitting because he didn’t want to lose. Then he twisted the guilt knife that I always feel when I have to follow through with a tough consequence. He said, “Mama, I decided I would play in the next round, but they said it was time to go. But I wanted to play even thought I knew I could lose.”

So when we got home, because it was a gorgeous day, I let him play outside and we even had a picnic. Just before we went in for nap, he told me, “I’m glad we got to play outside. It makes me glad we didn’t go in the playland.” That’s my buddy. Not perfect, but gosh, he’s a good little guy.

I have an eating disorder

I like to say that I used to have an eating disorder. But the truth is, as my counselor pointed out, that it’s kind of like being an alcoholic. I may be several months “sober” from obsessing over calories and feeling guilty for every bite, but it is always there in the back of my mind. Every morning, I wake up and it’s so stupidly dark outside and I can’t ride my bike (and feel safe) so I’m stuck exercising in the basement. I don’t want to wake up. I don’t want to pedal and go no where. That’s when the battle begins.

“Well, then, don’t exercise.”

“But if I don’t, I will either get fat or feel guilty for eating.”

“You won’t get fat, just listen to your body’s hunger cues.”

“But I should exercise just for my health.”

“Well, then, do.”

“But I don’t want to.”

And on and on. I never know what my motive for exercising or eating is anymore. There’s a constant stream of fighting thoughts going on. And I’m getting tired. Weary. (Matthew 11:28 anyone?) I’m really good at acting like that’s all behind me, but the tears are just below the surface.

I finished a short story that I won’t be posting on here. I’m hoping to edit it and submit it to some publisher somewhere. But the gist of it is that just because we win one battle against Satan (the liar who tells me I’m ugly) doesn’t mean he’s gonna give up. And I shouldn’t give up either. Because I’m worth it. (Take that, L’oreal!)

p.s. To those who constantly tell me how beautiful I am, thank you. I’m sorry you keep having to remind me!

When’s Thanksgiving??

My kids always announce whatever they see when we go into the store. For weeks, it’s been “There’s the scary monster picture!” I’m not a big fan of Halloween – our kids dress up and ask for candy (Trunk or Treat at our church is the best!) but I hate the scary icky mean and nasty stuff. I guess it’s fine if others enjoy it, but I want to know why Halloween  has to be the focus of Autumn. Why can’t we have pictures of kids playing in the leaves? Oh wait, it’s because they don’t sell leaves at WalMart. Well, they sell rakes anyway.

I think I could tolerate the hype over Halloween (did I mention I hate the scary nasty part of it??) if they didn’t put up Christmas stuff the next day. I mean really. When did Christmas come in November? I didn’t see one thing today about Thanksgiving – just the “Holidays” (because “Christmas” offends some idi- er, other people).

The “holidays” are supposed to be about spending time with your family and enjoying each other – that’s what all the commercials want you to think, too. But gosh, I feel rushed to start planning parties and asking what people want for Christmas because it’s everywhere already! The cashiers asked my kids if they have Christmas lists yet. The answer they get is a blank stare because we’ve never had them make lists. It’s not the reason we celebrate Jesus’ birthday.

Sienna thinks Santa is Noah. They don’t expect gifts from Santa – they know that Mommy and Daddy buy them a few (three each) gifts for Christmas and that we find toys we can bring to shelters for children in need. Santa’s not bad. I just think that for little ones, it’s too easy to focus on the getting rather than the giving. It’s too easy to ignore the incomparable gift of salvation and eternal life when you don’t know what those mean but you can understand wanting all kinds of toys for yourself.

But I digress. Whatever happened to Thanksgiving? Huge hype over a (originally) pagan holiday and we skip from that to Christmas?? I was about to ask why on earth stores don’t make such a big deal about Thanksgiving – but then I realized that just like Halloween costumes and candy, Christmas sells way more than Thanksgiving. The longer kids (and adults) see stuff about Christmas, the longer they think about what they want and the longer they end up buying stuff for others. If they advertised Thanksgiving, they’d probably lose a ton of early Christmas shoppers because the shoppers would think, “Hey, it’s only November 1st, I’ve got plenty of time before Christmas to get those gifts.” But with Christmas being shoved in our faces, everyone is thinking, “Oh, gosh, Christmas is almost here, I’d better get shopping.” Well, not everyone. I’m thinking, “Hey, what happened to Thanksgiving? You poopers, I’m not buying anything for Christmas until I’ve eaten all my Thanksgiving leftovers.” And maybe not even then.