This afternoon

-I did not get a nap because Kylie got out of bed to tell me she had to go potty and woke Julia up.

-Ethan and I did science and history while Julia climbed on my kitchen countertops, screaming for a pencil (which she eats) because Kylie had one.

-I sorted, washed, dried, and folded, and put away enormous stacks of laundry.

-I thought the girls were playing nicely in the bedroom. I found them. Kylie was in the baby swing dumping baby powder on a washcloth, and Julia was holding the bottle of baby lotion, pushing her, and singing, "Swing, Swing, Swing, Swing"

-I read "Shiloh". Yes, the entire book in about an hour. It's about a mistreated dog and a boy who falls in love with him. I had to read it to make sure it's ok to read to Ethan. We're good!

-Ethan pestered his sisters while Kylie and Julia screamed. He also talked endlessly about absolutely nothing and made multiple unecessary noises at the supper table. Boys!

-The guys at work were bored and replied to my texts to Caleb without telling me it wasn't him. Like I said about boys!

-Kylie and Julia threw ashes from the firepit all over my patio and themselves.

-The kids took at bath at 6:30.

-I made beef and noodles for supper. When Ethan saw it, he said it looked like rubber.

-Caleb did not come home. He went straight to his chiropractor's appointment after work. Then had an hour and a half to kill on the other side of town before choir/ worship team practice tonight. So he ate out by himself, in the quiet, with no screaming. Life is not fair.

-My back hurts because I spaced off my chiropractor's appointment last Friday. And I have to drag all three kids to my glucose drinking, 27 week prenatal checkup tomorrow because I forgot about it too - and therefore forgot to find somebody to watch my kids.

-We are watching a movie until bedtime tonight.

Sorry. I'm sure you did not want to listen to me complain, but it makes me feel better to write it down. This is one of those days I'm supposed to treasure when my kids are older and I'm home alone in a nice, quiet, clean house, right?

-As I write this I'm looking out the window at Ethan spraying the gutters with a hose (he's supposed to be cleaning the ashes on the patio). The water is heading straight for the kids' OPEN bedroom windows. I should probably stop writing and do something about this now....

I think God is trying to see if I REALLY believe what I wrote in the previous post.

I used to think my mom was crazy. I know. That's a weird way to start a blog, but let me explain. When I was 8, my family moved to Senegal, West Africa as missionaries. My mom always said her verse for that year was Psalm 16:6. "The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; Indeed, my heritage is beautiful to me."
Now I may have been 8, but I thought I was pretty smart, and I could not figure out what was so pleasant or beautiful about Africa. My parents took six kids ages 2-8 and 13 (not sure on that number, but it was some odd number in the teens) bright red trunks holding all our belongings for a year (I'd like to see you - or me for that matter - try that!) half way around the world to Fanda, Senegal - A little village in the middle of nowhere. Our house was concrete block with a tin roof and screened windows. We had electricity for a couple of hours in the morning and a couple of hours at night. She boiled all water before drinking or cooking with it. No hot water for showers. No washing machine or dryer - although we did get an African maid who thought we were filthy rich Americans and dug through our trash to see what valuable objects we'd thrown away, so maybe that makes up for it. One phone on the entire missionary base, no internet, and extremely slow mail that sometimes got where it was supposed to and sometimes didn't. Plenty of poisonous bugs and GIANT snakes. Plenty of missionary stories about so-and-so's kid who died from a snake bite or was eaten by alligators. Like I said, not beautiful or pleasant.
Anway, the point is I've always been fascinated by this verse, trying to figure out why my mom chose it. And then just the other day, Ding! The light popped on in my head - took 20 years, but I finally got it. All I needed to do was read the verse before.
Psalm 16:5 - 6 "The LORD is the portion of my inheritance and my cup; You support my lot. The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; Indeed, my heritage is beautiful to me."
The place wasn't beautiful. The circumstances weren't pleasant. I remember it being very hard to leave everyone and everything familiar and keep six kids alive, healthy, and happy in such a foreign place.
But the heritage isn't a four bedroom, three bath house in a fancy neighborhood or a brand new minivan or even healthy kids. The heritage is Jesus! Surroundings don't matter when I have Jesus.
I live in a small house (with no family room for my kids' toys!) on the wrong side of town. My husband is gone more than I think he should be, leaving me with three screaming, whining, arguing kids who need Jesus to radically change their lives if they're going to be godly adults. The everyday chores that no one really wants to do (anyone excited to change diapers or fold laundry?) are endless. I often think I have something to complain about - and I have it alot easier than my mom did! My circumstances are not beautiful or pleasant to me many days.
I have to focus my eyes on verse 2, "I said to the Lord, 'You are my Lord; I have no good besides You.'" I think of Corrie TenBoom in a concentration camp in Germany where there was literally no good anywhere around her, and yet, Jesus was still enough! When I keep Jesus in front of my eyes constantly in all his beauty and glory and holiness, I stop complaining about my circumstances and rejoice in Him. My job is to faithfully do the work He has given me to do (no matter how lowly and constant it seems) and keep my eyes focused continually on Him.

Psalm 37:3-4
"Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. Delight yourself in the LORD; and He will give you the desires of your heart."

What was I thinking?

Today is Ethan's first official day of first grade. Which means it's my first day of adding "homeschool teacher" to my already overwhelming list of responsibilities around here. I think I might completely lose my mind before this is over. As you've probably noticed from the lightbulb eating incident and the van registration eating incident (see previous posts...), I HAVE to know what Kylie is doing ALL the time. And Julia's going through an "I'm going to scream loud and long all day, every day at everything I don't like" phase. She does not like me sitting on the couch doing school with Ethan. And we're adding a newborn to the mix in December.
Fortunately, Ethan's a smart little boy. He can figure out most stuff on his own without a lot of teaching. Unfortunately, I picked a science and history curriculum that requires me to do alot of reading, writing, and projects with him. He needs one-on-one time with me - something in short supply around here.
I have a feeling I'm going to have to resist the urge to flag down the bus that drives by our house every morning and beg them to take him to "real school" with them!

Me, Cinderella?

I've decided being a mom is kind of like being Cinderella. The kids were watching this movie in the car the other day. I could hear it but not see it and wasn't really that interested. But I was driving and thinking and had nothing else to do. So when the mice started singing, "Cinderelly, Cinderelly, night and day it's Cinderelly, do the dishes...." and the rest of the words that I can't understand, all of a sudden this thought popped into my head.
"That's what I feel like all the time!" I live with a house full of people who need/ want something from me ALL the time."
"Mommy! Kylie's being mean to Julia!"
"Mommy! I can't find my ballerina!"
"Mommy, I'm bored"
"Mommy, I'm hungry"
"Mommy, can we listen to Odyssey?"
You hear the repitition? Just like the song.
"I'm Cinderella!" I thought.
Then I thought, "How did Cinderella respond to all the nagging, whining, and unfair endless lists of chores and cleaning and cooking?"
She didn't complain. She didn't whine to her husband about how overwhelmed she felt. She smiled. She sang. She talked to animals. Her attitude made life joyful when it shouldn't have been.
I have a few benefits over Cinderella. I'm not a slave with no other options. My children don't order me around. And I have a husband who helps me out now and then. So does my joy in God and in life make things fun when they shouldn't be? Or do I whine and complain about my endless to - do list?

Really, I'd just like to know: When do I get my fancy dress and get to go to the ball?

Ice cream temptation

Ok. I realize it's been forever since I've written anything on here. I feel like I pretty much completely missed the last few months. In case you didn't know, I'm rather unexpectedly pregnant, so I spent April and May either throwing up or trying not to. But I'm beginning to feel like a semi-normal person again.
And Caleb said I had to blog what Kylie said to me today.
It's 9:30 in the morning. I'm on the computer trying to research a car charger for my laptop so the kids can watch movies on the long drive to New Orleans in July (yes, we are crazy for wanting to go to New Orleans in July, and if you know anything about car laptop chargers, we could use some advice).
Kylie has been suspiciously quiet for a couple of minutes, and I am just beginning to wonder why.
I hear Ethan yelling, "Kylie! You can't do that!" and half a minute later Kylie walks into my bedroom with something hiding behind her back.
She says rather sheepishly, "Mommy, can I have some ice cream?", pulls out the ice cream scoop from behind her back, and grins at me with her best "Aren't I too cute to say no to?" look.
I look at her like she's crazy. I'm very sure we have never eaten ice cream at 9:30 in the morning. Without hesistating, I answer, "No."
"But mommy, Satan's tempting me."
My mouth drops open as I try not to laugh hilariously.
Does she even know what tempting means? What three year old blames their desire for ice cream on Satan? No fit throwing. No whining. Just, "Satan's tempting me."
I try to reply something coherent and smart-sounding.
"Kylie, it's ok if Satan tempts you, but you don't have to do it" - or something lame like that.
Kylie leaves - surprisingly seeming to have forgotten all about ice cream.
Who knew I'd have to be so smart to keep ahead of a three year old.

Opinions anyone?

Caleb and I have a new bedroom. We decided to play musical bedrooms to give the kids more space to play. Here's the problem. We're sleeping in a bright yellow room with baby quilts hanging over the windows. I obviously need to redecorate. But I can't decide what colors to use. Usually I use blue, brown, and green as my go-to colors. But we painted our WHOLE house blue when we moved in (NEVER do this!), and I am SICK of blue!!! Our kitchen is green and our living room is brown. Caleb is afraid if we paint brown or green, we will overdo a good thing and end up hating it like the blue. We thought about red, but Caleb likes cool, purply reds and I like warm, orangy-reds. I need curtains too. And the room is tiny, so we need something that makes it look bigger... Any great ideas? I love to decorate, but I always fall in love with the most expensive thing there is. And then I'm too cheap to buy it, so I settle for something I secretly think is ugly but is very cheap. So I need something cheap that I like this time. Help!!

What is this child going to think of next?

You'll never guess what Kylie did Friday. She ate (as in it's GONE) our van registration!
We just got the new one in the mail that afternoon, and I laid it with the rest of the mail in a pile on the table. Then I started making supper. I got supper finished and cleared the table so I could set it. I noticed there was no pink paper and no stickers. So I asked Kylie, who was sitting at the table watching me, if she had seen the pink paper and the stickers.
"I ate it," she said matter of factly.
I didn't even know what to say. I looked under the table thinking surely she did not eat ALL the van registration. She probably just tasted a corner. All I found on the floor were two stickers with obvious teeth marks in them. Apparently she hadn't been able to chew them. The pink paper was gone.
I knew Kylie liked pink paper and stickers, but I didn't know she liked to EAT pink paper and stickers. I'll add that to the lightbulb eating incident and the time she sprayed "Home Defense" insecticide in her mouth as things to remember to tell her friends when she gets older.
The question is, what am I supposed to do? Can you just see me walking into the car registration office and saying, "I'm sorry. I need a new copy of my van registration because my daughter ATE the last one." Doesn't that sound suspiciously like, "No, teacher, My dog really did eat my homework!"? I'm sure the office workers are going to get a good laugh out of this one....