Easier out than in, or is it?

Teething. The bane of early childhood. The most common answer to "why is your baby screaming like a lunatic?" 

When our babies are little we hold them and struggle with them and cry with them through every minute of their teeth coming in. We seek advice, buy remedies, rock, snuggle and lose sleep. And then they become toddlers. When their molars come in, well darling... Just let me know and I'll bring the wine. Let's just say those days can be so long and so hard that years later you are willing to write a blog post lamenting their difficulty. 

But then. But THEN. Oh the audacity. These same teeth that took an eternity to work their horrible necessary selves INTO the mouth of your beloved first born start flying out once a week when he approaches his 11th birthday. Every other day this week has brought me yet ANOTHER tooth. Four this week. And I hate them. These horrible pieces of bone that I don't know what to do with ( seriously, they feel too sacred to throw away and too morbid to hold on to) they are taking over. Not cool teeth. Not cool. And the worst part? They are causing his sweet little mouth, the one I tenderly held ice and teethers and tablets and the forbidden orajel... This sweet little mouth is no longer sweet and little but older and teenagery and saucy and smart (in a good way). 

The same little teeth the bit my shoulder one unfortunate midnight feeding, these same precious teeth that chewed the Cheerios, rejected the peas and claimed many a pizza crust , these horrid little beasts have the gall to just fall out. Without even a to do. Without drama or consequence. Without even a fairy request. And I'll miss them. Oh man. I miss them already. 

A new day, a new year

The past few weeks have been getting tough. Summer does that, you know? We get a little too cozy with one another, and way too far out of our routines. Needless to say the boys and I are ready for school to begin... Tomorrow!! My brain is extremely single minded. I think it's one way I adapted to having ADHD over the years. I simply can not handle too much on my plate. When we move I try to step up our involvement outside of the home a little bit at a time. This summer was the exception. All of a sudden we are "all in" in many areas. I've joined Weight Watchers, which has been fantastic. It's working! Partly because we also joined a gym. Because the gym is costly I actually go so I feel less guilty ;). The hubs and I have both stepped up our volunteering at church. On top of that I've thrown myself completely into Noonday. I adore the work I get to do with Noonday, but it absorbs almost all of my brain space. All of it. So even though we are going through the motions of buying school supplies, new shoes, haircuts, meet the teacher, I feel a bit caught off guard tonight. First day eve. My big guy starts intermediate school. Lockers, A B or C lunch, changing classes 7 times a day, and orchestra. Um, what? And my middle guy, all of 6 years old starts first grade, which he still says " firthst."  Last year first day came shortly after we moved here. Getting them dressed and our the door was a victory. I love making a special day extra special though so after bedtime tonight the hubs and I took 20 mins to throw together a tablescape to make tomorrow morning feel a bit special. Simple breakfast tacos and chocolate milk will seal the deal. Then it's party time for mommy and Silas. We are so ready for this semester! 

Simply Home {room for supers}

We are in! We have all our belongings in our new home and I am head first into the boxes. My goal when we move anywhere is to get the kids rooms situated as quickly as possible. They need their stuff where they can find it so the transition is as smooth as possible. New houses are confusing enough without their rooms feeling unfamiliar. ( Sy woke up and got lost the first two nights we were here. Nothing like finding your baby bawling in the kitchen in the dark at two in the morning.) This morning I got the final picture hung in the littles room and it is finished! This is my favorite room I've ever done and am so happy with how it turned out!

Paint: Behr brand Cumberland Fog
Curtains: eclips kids thermal panels that I sewed and extra piece on.
Bedding: pottery barn Batman and Captain America sheets. Flannel quick quilts by Meme Simply.

Pond Scum

Parenting brings its highs and lows. This weekend was a strange mix of both. Thursday was the last day of school for our third grader. He came home with a tummy ache and moped around for most of the afternoon. Friday morning it was still bothering him, along with a headache. Shortly after lunch I took the baby to his 20 month well check apt where he got three shots. He was displeased. When little bit and I got home we found my now 4th grader crying. Daddy and I conferred and considering that he had a flight across the country scheduled the next day... I jumped in the car and took him to urgent care. The place we go is awesome. Its a second branch of a local walk in clinic but its on the north side of town so there is never anyone there. They took us back, brought him some nausea medicine (because he was threatening to get sick...) and the Dr immediately decided to get him CAT scanned because he suspected appendicitis. Truth be told he had a full belly, nothing else. Stress, junk and maybe a bug. He made his flight and is now in Colorado bliss with his bio-dad and family there. Happy little clam I'm sure.

After we dropped Ayden off with his dad at the airport we decided to meet some friends at their winery for their monthly live music night. We drove up and it was a blissful pastoral scene. People in lawn chairs with great wine, listening to great music. A little pond with children playing happily in the sand. Oh that little pond. To be fair.. I naively assumed it was decorative. City slicker that I am. Truth be told it is a stocked pond that is actually very deep. Deep enough to functionally fish and feed our friend the vintner.

Silas has discovered water recently. He LOVES the blow up pool we bought. He calls all liquid "juice" and was quick to point out the juice pond at the winery. We went inside the tasting room, got a glass of sangria and headed back to the lawn to visit with friends. Silas immediately took off towards the pond. Balin slowed him down, Lucas grabbed him and came back over to our seats. He immediately took off again. Lucas was headed his way, but in my state of mommy hood denial I was sure he was fine. GOOD moms don't let their children fall into ponds at wineries. Lucas would get him. So when people started yelling "He's in the water" I almost did not react. Thoughts flooded me that evening like A GOOD mom would have stopped him and held him in her lap where he would have played happily, right? A GOOD mom would have just gone home after their long day and stressful weekend, no? Wouldn't A GOOD mom have been the one to dig him out of the water? But there I was, fetching my pond scum soaked baby out of my pastor's wife's arms after his first rescuer- a stranger- pulled him out. I not only wasn't the first to him, I was the third. I felt like he smelled. Our friend the vintner graciously found us a towel and t-shirt we knotted on the side, and unlike all "good parents" (in my mind) would.. sat back down to finish our sangria. We kept him close to us the rest of the evening and after we got home and washed him sweet soapy clean again he fell asleep laying in my bed, lovie in one hand and my hair in the other. He watched my face as he fell asleep and I realized something. Being a mom is not about not making mistakes. It is not about preventing all injury. It is about how we handle the craziness thrown our way. Being a "good mom" is more about accepting and recognizing the grace our children receive from others than beating ourselves up for them needing grace in the first place. Our kids will have illness we aren't prepared for. They will have challenges we can not handle. They will get themselves in pickles we can't get them out of. But we hold them while they fall asleep... or pack their bags with everything they might possibly need for their journey, or take them for extended medical testing when all they really need is less cupcakes. However we handle these little mini crisis... we really just need to hold on to the One who sees. El Roi. He knows we need comfort along their journey. As our pastor reminded us Sunday, it is not coincidence that there were hands to reach into deep dark waters when ours were too frightened. It was grace and not humiliation when the pastor's wife you so look up to is soaked "pondy-wet" on your child's behalf. It is grace not weakness to wake up and miss desperately your child across the country but feel joy that he is where he needs to be. Oh these blessings. These little grace makers we call our children. Our beloveds; they are His beloveds too. Just as we; scared, scarred, broken, needful- GOOD mommies are His beloveds as well.

Very special day part 2

AFTER our special morning we brought one of aydens buddies home from church and were joined by two more. We took them to see the new Disney nature movie Chimpanzee. I highly recommend it! It was beautiful. If you love adoption, animals, babies or daddies it is a MUST see. So good. Ayden is now in star wars heaven with his friend an I'm sitting here staring at enough cake to feed 20 people. Sheesh. What a wonderful day! We are so blessed. I am so grateful to see God moving in my children's hearts and providing us such a great church family to grow in.

{ Simply Party theme ideas: Movie Party.Invite a small number of friends, arrange child care for young or difficult siblings, pull out all the stops at the theatre- save money by bringing paper bags to separate a large popcorn into- refill for free at many theatres. Have cake at home before or after. If you do cake before you came kids home after the movie which is an easy transition. We passed out theatre box candy instead of favors. Ours was super casual and we invited our guests in person and on the phone, but a cute invitation would be to make your invitation look like a movie ticket. }

Very special day part 1

Today we rejoiced with OUR church family as we formally joined in membership. We are honored to be a part of this family that seeks the Lord, teaches consistent reformed, accurate theology. ( you won't get the lie that Jesus wants you to live in comfort and financial blessing here). They have embraced us and all of our quirks and we are thrilled to be involved and actively serving here. We also baptized all of the boys. It has been quite a journey from not understanding infant baptism ( done from a reformed Presbyterian view/ which is that baptism is the sign an seal of our covenant relationship with God for us and our children. I still don't think I'm comfortable enough to go into any more that, but for my other Christian friends who don't practice this know that we do not believe baptism to be salvitic. We are saved only by the Grace of the blood of the lamb.

The cake that wasn't.

So a few days ago I told you about aydens request for an earth shaped cake. I tried. Multiple ways. First I tried baking cake in a bowl. Some say that works. I forgot to grease and flour the first bowl and undercooked the second. Oops. Then I tried to make a rice krispie treat bowl but the humidity here melted it so it refused to hold shape- of any kind. Eventually I iced a layer cake and made it pretty. Put a horrible drawn earth map on it and called it good. I did make sour cream cake or the layers and almond buttercream for the icing so it should taste delicious. Aydens response? " at least I have a cake". You can't say he isn't honest, ha! We did not actually get to eat it though because everyone got sick- so into the freezer it went. We will try again next week! Happy b{earth}day Ayden!

Happy birthday firstborn

9 years ago today at 7:58 pm, joined by four precious young women, after 24 hours of labor, God helped me bring into this world an 8 lb 10 oz, beautiful baby boy. He had a loud cry and a full head of long blond hair. I spent the entire night holding my precious bundle only handing him over occasionally to the nurses who came to came to check in on him. I remember the quiet. The strange silence of the hospital as I breathed him in and talked to God. How would I go from being a 21 year old crazy minded college student to being a mom? How would I get through graduation and then move on to life? How long would we be alone? How would I not mess this up? Why would God allow me such a beautiful blessing when so many of my godly friends who made wise choices struggled with infertility? It was a long night, full of questions and wonder and joy and fear and above all grace. You see, our creator loves his people. He made us for relationship, and there is no bond greater than mother and child. Because of my Fathers great love for me, this precious child - This unbelievable miracle - was mine. For as long as God allows.
Today I was planning on this post to end in the announcement of his baptism. In the celebration of Aydens own confession and commitment to the Lord. We still celebrate, but my sweet one woke up with an amazing fever. Flu. But despite the disappointment ( we were also going to formally join our church today) God continues to grace us. My parents got to spend yesterday with him while he was in good spirits, and I have recieved such sweet phone calls and messages from friends that remind me that our God wants good things for us. Ayden is rejoicing that although he missed his birthday party he got out of the scary standardized test that has been giving him anxiety- and we can celebrate with friends next weekend.
I am so thankful for every day God has given me with my son. He will always be the one that made me a mommy. The one God used to remind me that through it all I belong to Him- and that even when it gets hard... Like the days we wake up with flu ... we can remember "as a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you " Isaiah 66:13

4th of July

Move over Jungle Jack

We are creature friendly around these parts, as long as {a} I don't have to touch it and {b} it stays outside. Recently it rained. This was a big deal to our drought struck state. Texas is actually starting to look more  like the  desert cliches and less like the green paradise it normally is. When it rained one afternoon even the snails were excited. We went out to get the mail and realized there were hundreds of snails all over our front porch area. Ayden grabbed the camera and spent the next hour filming and investigating. I think Jungle Jack has some competition, don't you?

Eight {old} pictures of my eight year old!

 Oh time... why must you pass so quickly? It seems so short, these eight long years. My son, my joy, my challenge, my blessing, my constant reminder that God is good.

I love you my Ayden Sebastian. My venerable fire.