My Darling Joella..

Every day I look at you.. and I am amazed. I am amazed and frustrated, and envious and terrified. I fear my heart may burst with all of the emotions you evoke. Everything in your world is beautiful and funny and exciting. You run at life head on, with no fear, pushing your limits and eager for your next adventure or challenge. I hope and pray that no one ever scares you enough to shatter that courage. But if that does happen, I pray that you may find your voice and speak out against the wrongs done to you.. that you may pick yourself up, put yourself back together, and bravely move forward.
When you climb on furniture or run down the driveway to the street, I want to pull you back, to hold you tight, and protect you. I want to hold you back, to keep you to myself, just as you are. I might go so far as to point out that no one else is doing such things, and wonder what put the idea in your little head? But I know it doesn't matter to you. What those around you are doing is of little consequence, you truly march to your own beat. The world is your playground and everything in it is a new experience waiting to be devoured. And I smile knowing you have a mind of your own and you will go your own way, forge a new path. I admire your ingenuity and creativity.
Many parents have plans or hopes for their children, ideas about who they'd like them to be or how they'd like them to turn out. But I'm not out to mold you or shape you into who I want you to be. I want you to be you! And I delight in learning more about you each day. Your growing vocabulary and your new found ways of communicating surprise me everyday, and my heart aches as I watch you grow up right before my eyes. I can't wait to see the young woman you become! Watching you discover yourself and who you are is a privilege I wouldn't trade for anything in the world. I realize you won't always want me along for that ride, and that's okay. You are your own person, don't ever let anyone tell you differently. But please know that I will always be here to catch you when you fall and help you get back on your feet.
As you lavish your innocent love and affection on those close to you, I am in awe of how freely you dispense it. I yearn with every ounce of my being to protect you from ever having someone break your trust, betray you, or take advantage of your love.. perverting and twisting it and turning it to pain. But I know that I can't always be there to watch over you and I just hope that, over the years, you can trust me enough to be open and understand that I love you, no matter what. I will be here with an open heart, a welcoming shoulder, and a willing ear. If you ever need to fall apart, I promise to help put you back together.
Your laughter is like music. I step out on the porch in the morning, greeted by the sound of hundreds of birds chirping and chattering, and I can't help but think of you and your darling giggle. Like a lilting melody, sweet and precious. It warms my heart and makes me dizzy and euphoric, I can't help but stop and smile and laugh right along with you. The way you spin and dance and sing songs in your own tongue may not draw an audience but it is enough to make me wish I could dance and sing with you. But grown-ups have little knowledge or understanding of your world. To be so tiny again and free from the weight of adult responsibility upon you seems unfathomable at times. It is so beautiful to watch. The magic and mystery of childhood still fresh and new. You make me want to be a child again and I do my best not to intrude on your world, preserving it and protecting it from mine. Adulthood and maturity come soon enough and I want you to enjoy your carefree innocence for as long as you desire.
And then come the rare delicious moments when our worlds collide and mingle. Catching fireflies together as the sun sinks low in the sky, sitting in a tent in the backyard just because, tea parties and baby dolls and painting our nails on the back porch. They remind me that our bond is growing, they show me we are connected, and I will treasure those moments always.
Watching you play and interact with your siblings is breathtaking. The adoration and curiosity is palpable when you are with them. The way you watch them and communicate with them reminds me that this is the very definition of family. Our bonds are still new and seemingly unbreakable, I pray that they stay that way. This kind of love is what all families should be made of.
The more I get to know you, the more I adore and admire who you are. Your bold and courageous spirit astounds me and I love the way you delight in every new thing in your world! Ever eager to learn new things and explore new ideas, I thrill at the thought of knowing who you are when you are grown. It makes me want to be more like you.

Wordless Wednesday

Dumb Shwip..

I had planned on posting the next part of my short story today, but it will have to wait. Parenting and... life have gotten in the way today. Whatever. It will be up tomorrow. I hope.

This afternoon the boys were playing and at one point Kieran says:

"Dumb... shwip." as he looks around and notices I'm listening. Yeah, I'm on to you buddy.. watch your mouth.

Aidan, on his way out of the kitchen with some crackers says, "Good thing you didn't say dumb shit!"

I laughed. I couldn't help it.

Dumb shwips.

We like to go outside.

Last week, Aman stayed home on Tuesday because Aidan had to do testing with our home school teacher and we were doing paperwork for next school year. I will have three, yes three, kids doing school next year.. my baby boy is going to be in Kindergarten. Sigh. Not ready.

Anyway.

Since he was home, we took advantage of the lovely weather and the fact that we had a vehicle that day and drove over to Gray's Lake for a walk.

It had been raining the day before, but luckily the playground was nice and dry and the kids were able to play. The boys brought their scooters, Aman brought his skateboard, and I had the double jogger stroller for the girls. It was cool and breezy, but nice.

Torrin took no time at all to give up on the scooter (he just can't keep up with the big boys quite yet..) and Aman opted to toss his board in the stroller and walk with me too (once he realized that he couldn't watch my butt if he was ahead of me skating).

Naturally, I brought the camera along. So here's some pics..

Are you sure you're ready for this??
If the sun is out, Gray's Lake is crowded.
The boys were surprisingly brave and took off on their scooters way ahead of us. Like so far we sometimes couldn't see them.. Once we caught up to them, we made a game of it and had them start counting light posts and stopping every 5 or so.

Torrin was content walking with Aman and I while we snapped pictures.

Eliana wasn't sleeping.. she was grumpy for some reason. Maybe it was the sun in her eyes. Or maybe she just didn't want her picture taken.. Who knows. She has a bit of a Diva Complex.











Naturally, the highlight of the outing for the kids was playing on the playground.. The last time we were at that particular playground, I was pregnant with Joella. My parents had come up for a birthday picnic for Aidan. We need to get out more often.

We tried offering a couple of our kids to strangers.. you know, just to lighten the load a bit. But they all looked at us like we were smoking crack.







Yep, it was fun.

Until we decided to go home..




Funny thing was (well, not funny at the time.. is it ever?) that Aidan was the one to throw a fit.. go figure.


But it was late. So we just locked him outside forgave him.


The End.

Resurrecting Long Lost Boyfiends and Pukey Toddlers..

I was going to write a big companion post to Only Aman's guest post on The Dayton Time.. but my baby was covered in vomit this morning.

So this here is going to kind of make up for my missing Random Tuesday Thoughts this week.. Yeah. Sorry about that.

I know how much you all look forward to hearing my brain muddle.. (come on, just lie and say you do.)

So anyway.. (just had to take a break to change a poopy diaper and refill a sippy with some diluted PowerAde that my dear friend Lisa was kind enough to pick up for us..) Sunday was Easter. We had our own 'resurrection' of sorts around these parts.

My old boyfriend is back.

It's been a long, long time since I've seen this handsome face that I fell in love with 11 years ago.. I love seeing his smile, seeing his face, seeing his expressions when he looks at me.. Oh, how I've missed this man.. He's not so sure how he feels about it.



To be honest, even Jo was a bit upset by it. She wouldn't let him touch her for 2 or 3 days, and still gives him the eye now and then (she gets that from me..). She's adjusted to it though, and all is getting back to normal in Daddy's Girl World. (It will be even better when she stops releasing the contents of her stomach onto the floor..)

Every time Aman comes home.. or even walks into the room.. I can't help but grin from ear to ear. I love his face.

(Jo just puked again.. yay.)

Anyway.. I need to go clean up some more vomit, change the toddler, do some laundry, and all sorts of other fun things.. So go check out Only Aman's post to get the scoop on The Beard and also The Uniform. If you like, I'll share more pics of the shearing on another day.

Oh, and go stop by Steenky Bee's place and offer your support in her attempt to land a blogging gig and then swing by Lisa's to enter her giveaway. I'll be busy cleaning up after my hurly-girl and ogling my gorgeous man..

I should be writing..

.. but I'm here, entertaining you instead.

Kidding.

Kind of.

I mean, I know I'm not that entertaining, and this post will probably be pretty boring.. and, honestly, I should actually be doing something responsible right now instead of writing - like teaching my kids something, or cleaning my house, or exercising.. or something. Whatever. So how are you today? I'm doing okay. I just uploaded more pictures than you can stick a shake at. Now, I'm going to try to organize them into a post for you. You're welcome.

Last weekend, we went to my parents. As I mentioned on Tuesday, they both performed in their local theatre's production of My Fair Lady. They were fabulous, of course. My dad played the Zoltan guy and my mother was a cockney girl. They had a blast and I can't wait to see them in their next show.

It was a short visit, despite my parents living about 3 hours from us. We left on Saturday morning and came home Sunday morning so that we could be back in time for Aman's soccer game Sunday afternoon. The kids spent Saturday night hanging out at my parents' house with my somewhat distant cousin babysitting them.

Aman and I took the kids for a walk Saturday afternoon after lunch to help them burn off some energy (so they wouldn't drive Fallon totally crazy) and let my parents rest up a bit before the show.

(I just had to stop in the middle of typing up this post and go up two flights of stairs to plug in my laptop and finish.. my battery was dying.. and now I am. *huff, huff, pant, pant*)

It's been a while since our family has had a chance to get outside and enjoy the outdoors together.. We had a great time Saturday. See for yourself...

We somehow forgot to throw a stroller in the back of the van we rented (I know, right? we have a baby for crying out loud.. you'd think we have this down by now..), but it was all good. Jo was happy to walk the whole time. I was impressed. (And honestly, had we thought of bringing a stroller, we might have just decided against it.. because at this point in the game? it just feels like extra baggage that's not really necessary..)

Obviously, the girls had a great time running around together and walking down the street holding hands. Aman and I always get a giggle out of seeing how cute and girlie they are together. Even after 3 years of having a daughter, it still feels like uncharted territory for us after the previous 5 years with all boys.

The boys, however, did remember to bring along their scooters and helmets. They had a blast scooting all over my parents' neighborhood. They live right on the edge of the biggest park in Keokuk, the perfect place to live when you have grandchildren.. obviously. It's also a lot of fun at the end of April when they do the Civil War Reenactment in the park - oh yes, you will be bombarded with those pictures in a few weeks, make no mistake.


We went to one of the playgrounds in the park and played for a while with the kids.. it was quite windy, but the sun was shining. On the playground we took more video than pictures, I will save those for another post.





Eventually, we decided to head back to my parents' house to clean up and eat some pizza before the show. But not without snapping some shots near one of the awesome old brick buildings in the park. The kids love posing for pictures.. can you tell?



Of course, all that fun came to an abrupt end when my aunt hit Torrin with her vehicle as she pulled in the drive way.. It was a sad moment for all.


But he's made a full recovery.

I think.

Operation World Domination

I had planned on posting about our date night last weekend.. But by the time I got all the pictures and what not uploaded, my kids needed my attention more than my blog did. So here is a brief pictorial update from the ChurchPunkHouse instead...

In honor of J's beard turning 1 year old on Tuesday, one of his co-workers presented this picture (for those of you who've been with me a while, you may remember it from Dress Like J Day and my appreciation for senior humor) .

He still hasn't decided exactly what he's going to do now.. The last three days, however, nothing has changed. Same Uniform, same enormous mass of fuzz protruding from his face.. same plans for World Domination...

*Sigh.*



Aidan is thinking this World Domination thing may not be his cup of tea after all.. He's finding it a bit frustrating, to be honest.









This makes Jo giggle.. a lot. She thinks Aidan is a sissy and works very hard at achieving her father's dream. She wants to make J proud.. Such a Daddy's Girl.






World Domination... Exhausting work. Right Torrin?







Kieran is sure thinks he has it all figured out though. I'm not sure what he's got up his sleeve, but he gave me a shopping list the other day that I could barely read and mumbled something about fruit loops, bacon salt, and duct tape.. oh, and marshmallows.. lots and lots of marshmallows.. Hmmm...





As far as Eliana is concerned.. Well, we just try our best to keep her happy. Sometimes, I swear, that girl is just not right. She seems a bit.. off.

But don't worry too much about Aidan.. He still thinks his dad is "AWESOME!!"

And they kick you when you're down! Adding insult to injury, Amazon style..

I was cruising the ABNA forums yesterday (many of us 'losers' are hanging around there in support of the quarter finalists, cause we're nice like that..) and I noticed a thread titled: Haha fooled you! - Didn't actually make the 2000 cut... So I opened it to discover that people had been receiving emails from Amazon/ABNA that were stating they'd received the other poorly written email announcing their excerpt had been reviewed but rejected and they'd be recieving their reviews by ACCIDENT. At first I thought, 'Oh, these poor people.. how aweful..' Then I thought, 'Hm.. I haven't checked my email all afternoon... ... ..oh, shit..' I quickly opened my email and found...

Megan,

We mistakenly sent you a message on Monday stating "Your Excerpt was reviewed by two Amazon Vine Reviewers, however, and their feedback will be made available to you via your CreateSpace ABNA Dashboard in the coming weeks."

We regret to inform you that based on reviews of your Pitch, you were not selected to move forward to the Second Round (Excerpt Review) of the contest. You will therefore not have reviews of your Excerpt posted in your CreateSpace ABNA Dashboard. We sincerely apologize for this notification error and regret any confusion it may have caused.

We hope you will accept a $5 electronic gift card which you can use for any Amazon purchase along with our apology. To use this gift card, place items you wish to purchase in your Amazon cart and begin checkout. Before you click "Place your order", enter your gift code (listed below) in the space provided and $5 will be credited towards your purchase.

Sincerely,
ABNA Admin Team

Now, I thought about just keeping this to myself. After all, it's a little humiliating after my post on Tuesday, to be honest.. But just by the sheer numbers alone of people who received this yesterday (like, we started another thread asking if anyone had not received both.. was there really a 'Top 2000'? or is this some cruel way of telling us they lost our reviews??).. I think Amazon should be the ones that are embarrassed.

And that's all I really have to say about that. Hmph.

*******************************************************************************
The Wii is apparently still broken. Boo.

Thanks to that nice little email up there, I now have to take another look at my pitch before I start sending off queries to agents. Poo.

But hey, I'm quickly climbing the ranks over at Authonomy.com, and that makes me feels real good.. Yup. I'm up to 914 out of nearly 3000 books. See? I am awesome.

My kids just noticed a moving truck across the street..
"Mom, there's a truck!.. a moving truck!"
"Yep, look at that."
"Someone's going to move!.... to America!"
Um.. yeah.

******************************************************************************
Oh, and this guy? He's awesome..


Shh... Don't tell him I put a picture of him in his secret lair on my blog..

Operation Hot Chick - Week 2

The past week has been... interesting.

As you may recall (or not), last week I committed to working out with My Fitness Coach on Wii 6 times a week. My workouts on Sunday and Monday were decent.. and then on Tuesday, my Wii promptly decided to cease functioning.

Awesome.

So between my toddler force-feeding me fruit snacks and Cheeze-Its, pulling every bribe I could to get the kids to go to bed at night so I could work out, and then my wonderful offspring breaking the dang Wii.. I was starting to feel as if my kids were somehow conspiring against me to keep me chubby. Even in spite of the fact that Aidan is always asking me "When will you get back to like you used to be, when you were skinny?" He's such a flatterer, that one. And a real motivator to boot. I'm so lucky.

Well, my darling husband was kind enough to remind me that I can build my own workout video on FitnessMagazine.com (he works for Meredith, the company that publishes that and many other popular magazines). Brilliant! Then I can use our handy dandy projector and do the video just as I would my Wii game.

Wednesday I made my video. I haven't done the work out yet though.. actually I haven't even watched the whole thing, to tell the truth! I know. Shame on me.

Still, I've been more careful about what goes into my mouth over the past week, and have behaved myself pretty well... most of the time..

********************************************

Stats:
Starting weight: 160lb
Current weight: 157lb
Weight loss goal: 30lb






Never fear, friends.. that same wonderful husband has purchased a Wii cleaning disc and has repaired our game console. We are back in business (dang it!). Now, all I have to do is get my game back from the friend I loaned it to.. In the meantime, I shall do some Wii Fit instead. Wish me luck..

Not entirely happy, not entirely sad or funny either random thoughts for your Tuesday...

Do you know what yesterday marked?? It marked 4 weeks left until we hear who the top 500ish quarterfinalists in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest are.. Yeah. I hope I make the cut. I don't know if I should tell myself 'I am awesome and so is my book and of course I will make it because I'm going to win this bitch..' or if I should just say 'Hey, I finished my dang book and that makes me awesome.. who cares if I win?' Hm.

Anyway, word has it that my writing is way better than that Stephanie Meyers lady who wrote Twilight.. (just ask Amy.. she's read over half my book.. in it's unedited like forgot to check your face in the mirror and didn't know you had a giant booger on your face unedited form).. So, maybe I have a chance? Sure, why not.

Depression is a bitch. (nice transition there, huh?) Have I mentioned I'm a nutcase? I am. Social anxiety, PTSD, depression.. yeah. I has it. Too honest for ya? Suck it. Go read someone else's blog.

But yeah. Depression. It's why I haven't posted in almost a week. So next time, say something. Who knows, you might be saving a life. (kidding... kind of.)

Am better now.

Our home school assistance program teacher is coming today. I'm not super excited about this. Aidan is being a poo-poo head about school lately. I love the boy, but damn... do something other than play with Lego pirate ships, dang it!!! The boy just might be the death of me... I hope his teacher has some kick ass ideas on that.. I'm thinking military school..

We have officially gone from 5 cats to 4 (and despite the fact that we were calling the kittens 'Bacon' and 'Sausage'.. no, we did not eat them for breakfast).. Someone I met on Twitter adopted one.. Bacon, to be more specific. Maybe we should have made him sign an agreement to not eat her for breakfast.. hm. We'll miss her. Sausage is still recovering from a broken tail (thanks to my kids..) but will soon be admitted to her 'forever home'.. Meanwhile, Gizmo and Livvy are busy doing their best to make us some inbred kittens... um, yeah. We had an appointment to get Gizmo's nuts removed, but the no vehicle thing kinda sorta got in the way. Uh oh.

I'm looking forward to only having one cat in my house. Seriously.

I read Walking Dead Vol 9 last night. It kinda sucked. But I hear it's about to get better.. I hope so. I almost fell asleep. Now I need to read the Watchmen. I have to finish it by March 6 because we're supposed to have a date to go see it.. a date? A date. I don't remember the last time we did that.. We might have to get a cab.

I've never ridden in a cab before. I think we should make out in the back seat.

Okay.. I should go dress my children before the teacher gets here. Ta ta.

Fun with SiteMeter: referral of the day? someone googled 'beautiful teenage girl's jugs'.. awesome. Yeah, you know who you are..

Wordless Wednesday

We don't eat fingers.... jus' sayin'..

"Moooommm!"
"Yes, Kieran."
"Torrin says that if I don't care about carrots then I don't care about The Family."
"Oh? and why is that Torrin?"
"Cause carrots are a living thing.. and if you don't care about living things, you don't care about your Family."
"Um.. okay."
"That's stupid."
"Carrots aren't living things, Torrin.. and you don't need to call him stupid, Kieran."
"But carrots come from plants, and plants are living things."
"Yes, Aidan. Plants are living things. But the carrots aren't part of the plant anymore."
"Oh."
"If we cut off our fingers and fried them up for lunch, they wouldn't be living things, would they?"
"No."
"But they came from a living thing, right?"
"Yeah."
"So carrots are not living things.. and even if they were, that has no bearing on whether or not Kieran cares about his Family."
"Okay, Mom."
"Okay. Finish your lunch."

******************************************
"Mom?"
"Yes, Aidan.."
"How was your night?"
"It was okay."
"How was your sleep?"
"Eh.. it was alright.. how about yours?"
"It was faantastic.. and I didn't even have any nightmares.. like about zombies or anything."
"Well, that's good."
"But I did dream about little zombies.. and the little zombie went into a workshop and turned the man who worked there into a zombie.. and that was when I woke up.."
"Um.. oh."
"And that's all."

Tagged!

So Clark, over at Clark Kent's Lunchbox, tagged me for a fun and quick little meme. I'm trying to organize in my brain which stories I'm going to tell and when in the coming weeks.. And this meme gives me the perfect distraction to help me avoid getting it all sorted out.. Thanks Clark! (seriously.. I'm like starting to get writer's constipation.. I've got lots to get out, but I'm still trying to get myself to the toilet.. er.. um.. blog. Wait.. Oh, nevermind.) So, here are the rules..

1.go to your documents
2. go to your 6th file.
3.go to your 6th picture.
4. blog about it.
5. tag 6 friends to do the same.

I checked both my Photobucket albums and the files on my computer for this meme.. I decided to go with the picture from the computer.. and, here it is.

For those of you who are not parents, that is not a picture of some modern art lamp shade.. It is an ultra sound image of a fetus. NO, I'm not pregnant. It's Joella! Hm.. what to say about that... Well, we actually debated about not getting an ultra sound during that pregnancy - we really had no need for one. My midwife left it up to us. In the end (obviously) we decided, 'what the heck, why not?' and went for it. Of course, we decided to not find out the gender. For this ultra sound, we decided to bring all the older children along rather than get a baby sitter. J and I watched the screen in wonderment, delighted to see this little person we'd helped create come to life on a little fuzzy black and white screen. We listened to the heartbeat, counted the fingers and toes, and listened to our other offspring say such things as 'What's that?' 'It is?' 'Why does it look like that?' 'I need to go potty.' 'What's that?' 'Are we done yet?' 'I'm hungry.' 'Can we go now?'

It was awesome.

No matter, we didn't let the kids dampen the mood and just hoped that they would look back fondly one day and remember the experience.. Or at least remember picking up McDonald's on the way home..

So, I'm going to assign this task now to 6 more people.. and here they are...
Amy at The Spritely Syndicate
Pamela at The Dayton Time
Daddy Joe at Daddyus Dorkus
Jillisa at Break the Earth
Mary Moore at Holy Mackerel
Erin at Moore to Love

So get to it, people!

***********************************************************

In other news, today is Eliana's birthday! She turns 3 today. She is determined to wear the same diaper she slept in last night like.. all day or something.. and is quickly stinking up the house. I will soon have to chase her down and tie her to the bed so I can change her and give all of our nostrils some blessed relief.

I was too lazy to wrap her presents, but no matter.. she didn't care. She's busy playing with her little mini Cabbage Patch Kids dolls and My Little Ponies and didn't miss the pink polka dot wrapping paper for a moment. More for next year, I say. She's probably spent half the morning screaming at anyone that comes withing 6 feet of her, for fear of them touching her things. Yes, she really is 3. I just adore 3 year olds... heh heh.. She also made her daddy proud by picking out a neat little Crayola video camera at the store yesterday. I can't wait to see her videos of Barbies riding My Little Ponies with mini Cabbage Patch Kids dolls through a Little People town while being chased by giant baby dolls and fat fuzzy kittens.. It's gonna be AWESOME. She's excited too, but luckily hasn't remembered about the camera yet today (busy with the new toys, you know) because we need some.. uh.. technical support for our stupid SD card.

Anyway, here's some pictures of Eliana from the day she was born and over the past 3 years...

Eliana Laura
January 12, 2006
3:52pm
9lb 10z, 20.5in long