The Waiting

I am in such a reflective state these days as we count down to the arrival of our daughter.  We have less than six weeks until our due date.  Six weeks!  It's all I can do to reign my heart in at times right now.  And my heart is all over the place.  Just listen.

I'm so excited I can't sleep.  I lie awake dreaming of who this girl will be, how much we are going to love her, and of course how much I have left to do before she arrives.  As I go through the clothing that has been passed down to us for her, I cannot believe we will have a beautiful little girl running around our house wearing them!  As I organize her room I lose my breath as I picture her swaddled and sleeping in her crib.  As the boys talk about their sister I am in awe of how much they already seem to love her and how many plans they already have for her life.  I am so ready to know and hold and nurse and kiss her it's driving me crazy!

At the same time, I find myself staring at Sam and Ben as they talk or play or think or sleep and I realize that I'm trying desperately to freeze who they are right now in my mind. I know that in the months ahead, when life changes dramatically... they will also change.  I remember it happening to Sam when Ben was born.  I'm not referring to the transition that all older siblings go through as they learn to share their parents.  I'm remembering how all of a sudden, Sam grew up a little bit faster.  His personality grew older and he just...changed a little bit.  This time, Sam will grow quickly in front of me as he takes on the role of oldest brother. Ben will go through the transition from "our baby" to a big brother.  Their relationship as brothers will evolve and grow as well.  And I know all of these things are completely natural and totally positive.  I know that.  But still.  The life that I love and treasure so much right now...will change.  That part breaks my heart a little.  I'm so very excited and yet a bit melancholy at the same time about all of this.  Do I make sense?

Really what I think about the most is life with my best friend, two of the coolest boys ever and their little sister.  I just feel so rich.  I feel rich in love with Jonathan.  Rich in love with my babies.  Rich in expectation.  Rich in faith in the One who sees my days before I do and promises to hold me through them.  I am rich and today I know that. 

Now the thoughts that probably won't makes sense to anyone are the ones that show how insane I can become about my role as a mom. 

I will now be a mother of three.  I only have two hands.  How can I hold all three of their hands as we cross the street?

How in the heck will I get groceries and errands done once I can't wear the baby?  Especially Target.  Oh Target I love you and I hate you. 

Our sweet neighbor girl came over the other night after her first dance.  She's twelve.  Will our daughter go to a dance when she's twelve???  I just don't think I'm ready for that. 

What if she doesn't marry someone as amazing as her dad?  How will I ever love that guy the way I should as his mother-in-law?

And finally...I'm almost positive I've worked out the best way to get two of my children out of our van if for some reason... we are on the 520-Bridge when THE BIG ONE hits and we all go over into the water.  But three?????

My mind just won't quit. 

Defeated

They laughed at me. Both of them. Laughing.

I'm already completely exhausted by our family trip to Home Depot.  That experience in itself should have been my cue to hand the boys over to Jonathan for the rest of the night.  But no. 

I start the tub for the boys and then go to finish the dinner dishes we had left. After hearing evil laughter and a comment about the "toilet tub" I head into the bathroom to see the boys sitting in the tub with guilty little grins on their faces.
It takes no time to figure out that they stood side by side, outside of the tub, TWO FEET FROM THE TOILET and peed into the tub while it was filling up!  Did I mention they were two feet from the toilet?

If they weren't absolutely filthy from the day and in desperate need of bathing, the appropriate consequence would have been to take bath time away for the night.  (Don't worry.  Jonathan let me know that that's what HE would have done after all of this was over.)  Instead I drain the tub with them in it, refill it and take away pre-bed book time... as if all of this nonsense is digging into our bedtime routine and something has to go.  Natural consequences?  Well...it was logical to me in the moment.

Bath time is filled with more clowning and when the splashing becomes entirely too much I get them out and say very clearly, "Do not leave the bathroom.  We are brushing teeth and heading straight upstairs for bed."

This is Ben's cue to bolt out the door cackling and squealing.  He clearly isn't sensing how close I am to sending both of them up the Omo River in Ethiopia today.
Sam stays put but roars with laughter at his brave little brother, which of course just feeds Ben's budding ego.

Now...I don't spank often. I hardly ever have to. Really.  But this deliberate disobedience combined with my total lack of anything redeeming left in my bag of tricks is just the last straw for the day.

I say in my firmest voice, "Ben you are getting a spank for disobeying,"
Of course Ben pleads, "Nooo!"
But as I put his bare, little, tan body on my lap and give his adorable white buns a whack... he laughs.
He laughs!!!

THEN! THEN!  From the bathroom Sam yells while cracking up, "Did she just SPANK you Ben?"
Ben bursts back into laughter and calls back "YAH!  She SPANKED ME!" 
They both continue laughing as I sit on the couch in disbelief and a little bit of horror. 

This is the beginning of the end isn't it?  I am going to be their joke.  For the rest of their lives.

I march up the stairs with the boys, finish the routine (sans book) and let them know that I'm not coming back up no matter what.  I come down in somewhat of a stupor and look out the front window to see Jonathan happily chatting it up with three of our neighbors across the street.  They all wave at me and smile.  I gather myself and head out to let them know what the last hour just looked like.

They laugh.  At me. 

Oh Benjamin

Ben you turned three today.  

I can hardly believe it. 

I believe that you are three. 

I just have a hard time believing that you are MY three year old. 

That God gave you to ME. 

Because I'm in awe of you Ben.

I'm in awe of your spirit.  

I'm in awe of your heart. 

I'm in awe of how darn cute you are. 



And sweet!

Ben I pray that I bless you in your life as much as you bless me in mine. 

Because you BLESS ME!  Oh how you bless me.

Where is the Line?

(Caution!  Bathroom Talk to Follow!) 

I'm struggling.
We've entered the stage of "How inappropriate can I be without getting a consequence?"
I know that I'm on the stricter side than some but I really try to choose my battles wisely. Language is an important part of who we are. It says a lot about us. It can reveal one's level of respect, responsibility and wisdom as well as the amount of compassion, empathy, and love one has for others. I want our boys to communicate and play in a way that is respectful and loving to anyone who might witness it.
That being said, they aren't puppets or robots. I know this full well. I can try as intentionally as possible to teach to their hearts and "train" their behavior. But let's be real...

So we have three strains of "inappropriate" dominating our household these days:

Potty Talk.  Body Talk.  Violent Talk.

If you know me at all, you know that I'm most averse to the latter of the three. Truthfully, I get a kick out of Potty talk myself. Who doesn't appreciate a good joke about poop or letting one rip? Okay well I do.  But as we all know there is a time and a place.
Body talk is important and a part of our every day lives.  We take this one very seriously and encourage it in context.  But again, context! 
Violent talk on the other hand has no place in my heart or home. We all poop. We all have private parts.  We don't all shoot and kill people. So no. I can't find a way to justify jokes about cutting your brother's arm off, beating him all the way to jail or setting his eyeball on fire.  Roll your eyes at me. But its my house.

Here are the latest little jokes the boys love:
Ben will walk up to one of us at any given moment, point his hip up toward us and say in his deep, loud, gravelly voice, "TOOOOT!!".  I can't help it.  I fall apart.  It's not funny because he's pretending to toot on us. It's funny because of the way he lifts his hip. The way he says it with his adorable lips puckered out like a bugle. The way that he and Sam bust apart laughing immediately after.  And that he came up with this act totally on his own!  I think the best part of this little stunt is that he often does it when he feels the mood needs a bit of lightening.  He is already such a middle child.

They both love the word 'booby' right now. They thought they made it up themselves so they didn't know that it actually already has a meaning. Sam kept calling Ben things like, "squishy booby underpants" and "booby tooter". So when asked what their new word means they informed us that it means 'stinky'. Awesome. So that's a new favorite word in our house. Along w/ penis, buns, toots, barf and poop. Booby.  The other day when Sam told me he was going to "poop his boob out" I just about gagged on my tooth brush.  It was then that I had to share that the word actually has another meaning.  As respectfully as I could I shared how the word "booby" is used.  They looked at me like I had ruined all of their fun.  The actual meaning was a total bore.  Fine.

They love the word "fart" but are only allowed to use it in their room together.  So we regularly hear them blurting out all of the "bad words" they can say alone together in their room and then laughing hysterically.  Most of the time they use these words in such ridiculous and nonsensical ways.  But oh it's fun right?!

Here's a disturbing one...the other day after the boys got out of the tub one of them accidentally slapped their own private part w/ his own hand. Well...there began the giggles and nonsensical talk (talk only) about spanking each others penises.  They are so fascinated by their own anatomy and how hilarious it is.  Today Sam was having a conversation with his...

You see where these things start to get out of hand now right? There is good harmless fun and then there's stuff that we just have to put an end to before I get called into Sam's kindergarten class next year with big questions about what in the world goes on in our home!  Or worse yet, BEN'S PRESCHOOL CLASS! 

Drawing the line and then explaining to them why that crosses the line is sometimes blurry. 

We approach most of these issues with a general rule that we can have potty and body talk at home in the privacy of our family but not around others and not in public. We want them to know that we can talk about anything as a family but not everything is appropriate to laugh about or share with others.

With the coming of a new baby, there have been great questions.  Mainly about how their sister is going to... exit me.  It's great!  We get to teach our kids about life in the context of family and health.  We get to share with them the true, natural, God designed uses for our bodies and functions. 

But still. Some of the things these clowns are coming up with in humor is not even going to fly in private.  They just snowball from Ridiculous Land into Unquestionably Inappropriate and Downright Disturbing Land.  They expect a consequence or "the look" from me when their language turns bloody and painful.  However, when they are just being silly about bowel movements or their anatomy and it has gone too far in my eyes, it's harder for them to understand where they crossed the line.  Answering why one thing is funny and another has gone too far gets complicated. 

So they walk the line.  My line.  They say their joke with a giggle, watch me carefully and then proceed to go further with caution.  It's confusing.  Mostly for me.  I look at Jonathan and he so often just shrugs like it's... normal.  "Really?!" I ask.  Bizarre.  Other times there's no denying just how far over the line they are and we have to go all "parent" on them. 

Now that there is a sister coming....a whole new can of worms is about to open up! One that I welcome but will need to navigate intentionally and thoughtfully out of respect for her and every woman they encounter in the future.  I need to start praying for their wives more diligently.  God help them. 

We Found Out!

It's probably the second question everyone asks when they realize that you are pregnant.  After asking "When are you due?" they ask "Are you finding out?" 
My first two pregnancies I have endured the eye-rolling, gasping and complaining over our decision NOT to find out.  I actually even had a close family member tell me that it's "just not as exciting NOT to know".  Wow.  Ouch.  Sorry to ruin this for you. 
We never regretted not finding out with our boys.  Those moments in the delivery room when we discovered that we had sons were absolutely MAGICAL.  We truly met them for the first time in those first minutes.  Not having wrapped our heads around who they might be until that first, precious moment.  Magical.

This time....we did it different. 

Our dear friend Linda was our ultrasound technician with both Sam and Ben.  She so gracefully held the secret of our babies' sex for us and we just loved having her in that experience with us.  She has since retired but we wanted so badly to share this moment with her again and she had expressed that if we were going to find out this time she'd love to come in and do the grand reveal for us!  So of course we asked her. 

All four of us walked in today with the expectation of another Judy boy.  There really is no other way in any of our minds.  In fact this morning as I was preparing the boys for what the appointment would look like and what things Linda would be looking for they both started chanting, "Penis! Penis! Penis!"  Welcome to my life.  Anyway, almost everyone else has predicted girl.  So we kind of planned on proving everyone wrong today. 

It didn't work out that way. 

Jonathan and I were both shocked.  In all honesty we kept thinking that as the exam went on...there would be a penis.  But no.  No penis for this Judy baby. 

The boys?  Sam's first words when Linda said, "You're going to have a sister!" were..."This is horrible news."  Not a joke.  He was spitting angry.  We burst out laughing and then of course he was angry that we were laughing at him.  Ben came around a lot quicker and promised to teach her how to hold a baseball bat.  That's my little peace maker there.  

Most importantly, everything looked perfect.  Her heart, her spine, her kidneys, her limbs...everything.  We are so thankful. 

As the shock has worn off for Jonathan and me...we are very excited.  It hasn't taken long tonight for the boys either.  Sam admitted that he was more disappointed that he was wrong than that he is going to have a sister.  The kid is honest.

So now I get to purge some baby boy clothes and prepare for a daughter!  That still sounds really foreign!

"Girls are Bleh!"

Last month a story came out about a couple who refuses to share the gender of their 4-month-old baby with anyone.  That's right.  Even the grandparents don't know if they have a granddaughter or grandson.  The child's name is ambiguous (Storm) as well as their first two children's names and they have chosen to let the child decide for itself what gender it is.  They are leaving everyone in the dark with the hopes that their child will be spared the messages that place him or her into gender specific boxes.  They said "parents make so many choices for their children.  It's obnoxious."  http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110524/ts_yblog_thelookout/parents-keep-childs-gender-under-wraps
I love stories that make me laugh out loud.  The idea that I am making the choice for my boys to actually be and act like boys is totally hilarious to me.

Earlier this week our morning devotional was about God providing everything that we need.  To expand on the topic I asked the boys what we have and enjoy that we don't particularly need. 
Here is the conversation that followed:
Sam:  "Toys."
Me:  "Yep, we don't need toys but we still have them and get to enjoy them.  What else do we have that we don't really need?" 
Sam w/ a silly little grin:  "Penises."
Me:  "Hmm...I'm pretty sure you need your penis Sam."
Sam:  "But you don't need one."
Me:  "Yeah, but I have what I do need.  I just don't have a penis."
Sam in a neener-neener voice: "Yeah, boys have more than girls!"
And...there ends our time of reflection.

Whenever possible, they choose to pee outside.

This is every day.  I don't know where it came from, but the boys have decided that all things "girl" are lame, dumb, ridiculous and shameful.  They are even adamant that the baby growing inside of me is a boy.  The root of this insistence?  Sam practically spat out at me, "We do NOT want girl toys in this house!  Especially a DOLL HOUSE!  I do NOT want one of those here!"  Of course Ben follows everything that Sam says up with agreement, "Yeah, no doll house!"

They hate pink, anything with pink on it, any character in a book or on a program that wears pink.  If you want immediate dismissal, tell them you like pink.  You'll be out and probably laughed at. 
They call each other "princesses" as an insult (although...I get that one.)
Ben saw Dora the other day in Target and said, "OH Dora!  I don't like Dora!  She's a girl!" 
Sam constantly calls things "girly" as a put down.
He has also successfully taught his sweet, innocent, mother-lovin' brother to respond, "Girls are bleh!" whenever the topic comes up. 

Here's the thing... they don't dislike girls.  Their two closest friends are girls of course.  But they have been clear to me that they would prefer to have those friends come to our house so that they don't have to play with "their girl stuff".  Of course once we are actually in their house, those girls own them and they'll do whatever they tell them to do.

Here's another thing... I am confident that this new phase has not come from Jonathan and me.  In fact we have challenged it thoughtfully with questions and reminders of truth.  Jonathan and I share responsibilities pretty evenly in our home.  I'd say more evenly than a lot of people we know.  And we speak highly of each other to our boys.  There are never put downs or generalizations made of each other.  Ever.   Regardless of our efforts to communicate true, healthy, balanced messages about men and women in our world, my boys are "typical boys".  Yep, they fit right into the boy box the parents previously mentioned are dreading for their child. 

Last summer.

We named them Samuel and Benjamin.  Strong, male names.  We told people they were born with penises right away.  I didn't dress them in yellow every day.  You could say that I "chose their gender for them".  But I also learned about trains, trucks, and football because that's what they are interested in. Not because I wanted them to be.  I didn't even know who Thomas was before Sam practically had seizures over him in a book.  We got Sam a baby doll when we were expecting Ben and he wanted absolutely nothing to do with it no matter how hard I tried to make him love it. 

Now what this doesn't mean is that they are insensitive, violent, aggressive little tyrants running around without feelings or compassion.  Although my boys have no use for a baby doll, if there is a real baby in the room, grab your camera.  They melt.  They kiss and love and talk sweet just as they should.  For example, their newest cousin was born a week ago to their Auntie Nellie and Uncle Aaron.  As you can see, they are in love with "Baby Andrew".


 


 



If there is a toy kitchen in the room, just sit down and let them bring you all of their creations.  They are going to be awesome and inventive cooks just like their Dad.  If they get a bonked head or hurt feelings, let me just get back to you in a bit because they don't "act tough" and I'll be comforting them and kissing on them until we're back to good. 

Despite their recent opinion that anything "girlie" is of-the-devil, I refuse to believe that we have confined them to a strict, role determining system of beliefs about themselves purely because we announced their sex at birth.  I am not thrilled with this current disgust of pink and girls but I'm confident that we'll get through it without neanderthals for sons.  They are who they are because they were born that way and I'm doing my best to learn about what they love so that I can keep up. 

Oh and this just in: Last night at dinner with their two best friends present (both girls), Ben announced that he might like pink now.  See?  It won't be us that influences their opinions.

Ginger

 

I've been trying to write an entry about the sweetest member of our family since I started this little blog in January.  I think I knew time was limited to document what a precious part of our crew she is before "something bad" happened.  Well, it's harder than I thought to describe someone so precious to me without writing an entire book or movie.  Thus, books like Marly and Me by John Grogan or The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein.  How do I describe Ginger and what she means to us with out going back in time and reliving our time-line a bit?

And so the following is probably boring to many.  But it's important for Jonathan and I to put our story into words so that we never forget how much we loved Ginger and how loved we were by her. 

This entry is for us.

Jonathan brought Ginger home to me at the end of our first year of marriage.  She was a gorgeous, happy, well-mannered, four year old Golden Retriever.  The effect on the two of us was immediate.  We were now a family.  Really!  In our 600 square foot house on Finn Hill, she made us complete!  She went everywhere with us.  Hiking, camping, visiting friends and family, BBQs, Home Depot (until they changed their policy)...everywhere.  She was part of us and we loved her like crazy. 

In the nine years following, a lot happened.  We added a cat, moved two times, re-modeled two houses, changed jobs, had two babies, eight roommates and constant gatherings at our house. Ginger was the constant.  She never changed or wavered.  We could count on her sweet golden body to greet us at the door, sidle up to us when she'd see us pull out her leash, get excited when she saw us packing up the car to go somewhere or plop down at our feet when we'd finally crash on the couch at the end of the day.  There were movements of hers that became so predictable.  Through each change, we could count on her to be our faithful girl.  Even through big changes.

I'll never forget bringing Sam home from the hospital when he was born.  She was so excited.  She couldn't stay away from him.  She just kept wagging the whole back end of her body and trying so hard to sniff her new boy in his little carseat.  I said something to her that I'll never forgive myself for.  Just thinking of it today puts such a horrible lump in my throat as tears stream down my cheeks.  I was so annoyed at her eagerness and her being in my way to get him out of the carseat.  "Ginger," I said, "I never thought I'd care so little to see you."  I regretted it the second it came out of my mouth.  But there began the first big change in our family.  Ginger dropped a notch in rank and we suddenly saw her as our dog.  Not our baby. 



Two guards to the stairs from Sam

 Of course, she moved right into the role.  I started calling her 'the other mother in the house'.  If Sam woke up and cried in his crib, she beat me there.  Wagging her tail furiously at his door and looking at me like there was a fire in his room.  She even stopped sleeping in our room for awhile and started sleeping in the hallway between us and Sam.  If a dog walked up to us on a walk, she stopped right between Sam and the dog and stood firm as a soldier.  As Sam learned to crawl and then walk, Ginger was right there making no movement as he pulled handfuls of hair out of her to steady himself.  She was perfect. 

Sam and Ginger watching the world

When Ben came, she was less enamored (which is why sadly, I can't find ONE picture of the two of them together) and just took the transition as gracefully as before.  She knew the drill.  Be good.  Be still when he crawls all over you.  Love on him.  Clean up the food that he drops.  Crash with us at the end of the day. 



Ben



Ginger's true love was the same as ours: Family.  And hiking.  There wasn't a hike that we went on without her.  In the days before the boys, we could count on her to complete the hike three times as she would run along ahead of us, then back to check on us and then ahead again.  Once we had the boys hiking along with us, she stayed pretty close to them.  No fail. 

Really, could we ask for a better dog? 

Four weeks ago, Jonathan and I had to make the worst choice we've ever had in front of us.  Of course, it wasn't really a choice.  Ginger had started coughing up blood and the X-rays told us that her lungs were filled with Cancer.  So, wait until her pain is unbearable?  Or end her pain and thus say goodbye to our sweet girl?  We cried for three days before we finally made the decision.  By then she had stopped eating and was pretty slow moving.  The two of us took her in together.  We sat with her on the ground sobbing as she licked us and loved on us until her very last breath.  I'd love to say that it was very peaceful and comforting.  But it was horrible.  It was absolutely horrible.  Enough said about that.

These past weeks have been...weird.  Each one of us have mistakenly expected Ginger to be at the front door when we walk in, (Ben has actually yelled, "Hi Ging!" more than once) or to hustle over to us when we drop a piece of food on the floor, or to accompany us on a walk or hike. 

A week ago the boys and I were on a trail and a big goofy dog ran up and basically tackled both of them.  They were hysterical.  I was calming them down while telling the dog owner it was fine and to JUST GO so that I could take care of them with out her stupid dog taking them down again.  Why hadn't that ever happened to them before?  There are always dogs on the trails.  As we got back on the trail, Ben said to me,  "If Ginger was here she would say 'BACK OFF!' to that dog."  He's right!  That's why they've never been harassed by a dog before.  She was always there in between them. 

Things are different now...and none of us like it. 

We're moving on and forward without our golden girl.  I don't expect to ever feel the same way about another dog.  We've had our good one.  She was the best and we miss her terribly.  But I will always be so thankful for the nine years we loved and were loved well by such a perfect, beautiful friend.

Goodbye sweet girl.  We love you.