Picture Day

Thank you to EVERYONE who LOVES the pictures!  Now how they were successful...

Drew was home Wednesday morning, so I went shopping, in hopes to find matching *perfect* outfits for the kids.  Yeah, right!!!  What a disaster.  Old Navy was my store of choice (limited on time).   And as I am asking the worker for help to coordinate she (literally) had a vertigo attack and passed out on the floor.  So here I am hold these cobalt blue girls pants and the lady is on the floor.  Of course, I went and got help, hung around to make sure she was okay, and came home with some of the worst.  clothes.  ever.  
Drew went to work.  I went to get Isaiah from school.  The whole time all I could think was, "what the heck am I going to do?  Pictures are TOMORROW!  My kids have NOTHING!!  (sad, but true)  CRAP.  I am going to have to take them shopping.  Double Crap."
We get home only to find some neighbors walking by our house to which my kids RUN out as fast as their little legs can carry them.  Before I know it I'm feeding my kids cold, stale pizza as the neighbors are happily playing in our house.  FOR 2 HOURS.  Crap.  There went naptime.  I still need clothes.
Now close your eyes, and in your head picture the condition of my sweet, adorable children.
Natalie was wearing red pants, a gray and white zebra striped dress with a lime green turtleneck with lolipops on it, uncombed hair, pizza sauce on face.
Noelle was wearing a shirt that was at least 2 sizes too big, so she kept sticking her arm through the neck of the shirt, wearing it more like a one-sleeved dress than a long-sleeved shirt.  Pizza sauce, dirt, you get the picture?  NOT SHOPPING CONDITION.
We still had to go.  (Caleb was still in PJs.)
So the neighbors left and shoes on and out the door to the mall.  ANYONE with small kids knows skipping nap AND going shopping is a recipe for disaster.

Have you ever gone shopping with several little kids?  HOLY FREAKIN' COW.
I never realized how hard it was to find the same outfit in two different sizes.  I think that the stores have conspired against us.  Size 5 here, Size 3 on those two (small) racks.  Size 6?  Where?  Really.
Now my kids are actually pretty good.  But keeping track of all 4 in a store at the same time is really difficult!!
One under the rack, One taking shirts off the table, One running around with her shirt 1/2 off, one shoe on, one foot barefoot, One crying because he didn't get the "boy" penguin, One starving and ready to die.  Having had enough, I used the "if your teacher were here right now, what would she say!!"  approach.  That lasted all of 3 minutes.

Keep calm, michelle, it will be over soon.  Keep calm.
As i'm checking out and the kids are completely destroying the jewerly display, I just apologized for the damage my kids had done, and with my head held low, walk slowly away.

And just when I was ready to give up hope, I finally found outfits that matched, and were even cute.
The stockings and shoes didn't come until the way to take the pictures, but I survived.  The kids survived.

As i'm checking out and the kids are completely destroying the jewerly display, I just apologized for the damage my kids had done, and with my head held low, walk slowly away.

I realized two things.  This is why I hate shopping.  Taking pictures is stressful.

And now that I'm looking at them all again, it was so worth every moment.

Answers

I was thinking this morning (always dangerous) about my personal growth over the past two years.  It dawned on me that two years ago my major "self" goal was to have more patience.  Last year it was to not be as judgmental.
You know, as in you see that person in front of you with ONLY things that contain huge amounts of sugar, no real veggies or fruit, and pays with her "free for me" card.  Admit it.  Everyone has always and will always as long as we live judge the food purchases of others.  That's the easy example, but you get the drift.

Rewind to April, when I had Caleb.  I thought that I had this whole baby thing down pat.  Seriously, how much different could it be going from 3 kids to 4 kids... and the whole c-section saga.... been there, done that!   But Caleb was different from the beginning.  He came out blue and full of meconium.  I knew he would be fine, and for intensive purposes he was.  Me, on the other hand, had a pretty difficult surgery followed by more antibiotics than I have had in my entire life combined with a lovely "take home bag" full of my own pee.
Caleb, though, was just not easy.  In fact, I think that he cried any time and every time I put him down for the first 4 months of his life.  This, of course, started instantly and my baby experience was put to the test.  Then another test, the realities of thrush (Thank You Antibiotics)!  The the test of mastitis.  Then Mastitis again.  I was wondering if it was ever going to end. I was wondering if the effort to breastfeed this time around the block was worth it.

I knew that God had a reason, (at least I hoped) for giving me this child that required so much more of my energy, in a season where my husband was gone more than he was here, and my hands were full with 3 others. And now I see it.

Caleb is just going on 6 months.  Although most nights are still up and down, we see the light at the end of the tunnel.  He is turning out to be extremely sweet, loving his older siblings, and his cuddles make me melt.
But today I realized how much Caleb has refined me in the exact areas that I was asking God to refine. I realized that my reactions to the kids and some of their stunts is not anger or getting mad but rather with patience and a calm spirit.  I never thought that would be me.  I see the small things that used to irritate me as things that need my understanding and guidance, not me getting upset because "hello!!  bedtime was and HOUR ago!  GO To BED".
As for the judgement part?  I always wondered why moms with lots of kids seemed "distant" and, in my biased opinion, too concentrated on their family.  There were times when I would text a friend and wouldn't get a response for what seemed like months.  But now I have become, in many ways, that mom.
I find myself only responding to emergent texts, emails, or facebook messages as opposed to casual chats with friends.  My day is full from 6:00 in the morning until 9:00 at night and when my head hits the pillow i'm out.  Well, until someone wakes up, which generally happens 2-3 times each night.
All of these changes  brought on through Caleb have refined me to not judge, to realize that there is more to a book than the cover and sometimes the pages are just so full, that to squeeze in one more word is really just meant for the sequel.

Slanted

The left.  The right.  The news.  It's all slanted.  Even those annoying parking spots!
Last week I was pulling into one of those parking spots when a woman driving the wrong way decided she was entitled to it and told me off in front of my 4 kids.  Her reasoning?  She had a handicap sticker. It was not a handicap spot.  Just a spot, and I had entered it legally.
After she told me to stop procreating (really) and almost ran over my foot while I was making an attempt to help her find a more appropriate handicap spot, I realized that everyone feels entitled for everything, but why?
That incident started off a week of crazy highs and lows.  That, was obviously a low.  A few days later a high of getting my treadmill to start working on dropping these last 15 lbs. of baby weight.
Then chapel at my son's school where a good friend explained how one of his girls from the orphanage in Haiti had been kidnapped and 123 days later, they were still trying to get her back.  The saddest part?    He (we) know some of those involved and they are "professing christians".  Low.  I sat there looking at my kids wondering what would I do if it had been one of them?  Tears.
Trying to get a 5 month old to sleep through the night.  Tiring.  Add that to the complex emotions, and it's almost, well, sometimes I wish that I could just take a weekend away to think, to pray, to just sit.
So off I went to get a dress to wear to the gala to support the orphanage in Haiti, and the irony hit me.  The only 2 hours I have had to myself in weeks.  low.
On Facebook some crazy lady ranted in public view of a local restaurant because her friend had a negative experience publicly breastfeed her son.  While some of the reasons were solid, the basis was that she was entitled to do what she wanted when she wanted and everyone else could just deal.
UGH!  Here's this girl, this six year old in Haiti, who has been taken from the only home she has ever known, and here we are in America having this attitude that the only one who matters is ourself.
Let's not even get started on the Presidential election.  (I can't believe that those two goons are the best we have to choose from).
And, after feeling like my husband has been MIA all week, he surprises me with a bracelet, the first truly thought through gift I think he's ever given me.  High.
So tonight will culminate this week and I am hoping to do my best to enjoy it, ending on the highest of notes, rather than the lowest.

Chocolate

So this is it.  My first posting.  It's only 9:14 pm and everyone else is in bed, so I figured, hey- why not.  
So  for my first post:

Tonight I found Drew's hidden stash of Halloween candy.  Yes, it's September 24th.  And I highly doubt it was even from last year.  I had no idea how disgusting chocolate could taste, but I think I know why I wasn't a huge chocolate lover growing up.  EWW!  
And yes, I am completely addicted to sugar.  Despite how "healthy" we try to eat, sugar and coffee is my weakness.  (secret #1 revealed).  Sugar IN coffee is even better.  
I'm going to need some of that in the morning...