Lest I Feel At Ease With My Pregnant Body

We were sitting at the table sharing a snack, Thomas and I. There was companionable conversation going on between us and we were just enjoying a moment of Mommy/Son hanging out. Thomas looked over at me thoughtfully, gave me a full length once over, then asked:

'Mommy, are you a cow?'

WHAT!?!?! Where did our sweet conversation go? Am I really that big?

'What, Thomas?', I asked, playing dumb.

'Are you a cow?'

'Well, son, do I look like a cow?'

'Hmmm...you look like a Mommy!'

'Oh, good. Because that's what I am, you know.'

'Yeah, but your a cow, too, I think.'

Silence from me. I just can't deal with this. I am hormonal. I am desperately trying to keep a baby in my belly when she seems to be determined to arrive early. I am tired. And my son is calling me a cow. How is a girl supposed to deal with all of this? And continue enjoying her ginger-snaps??

'You look like a Mommy and a cow. Your all black and white like a cow, Mommy! Is that what you are going to be for Halloween?'

I looked down at myself and grinned. Indeed, I had on a white shirt and black pants, perhaps looking a little cow like in my son's four year old eyes. My feathers started unruffling as I looked at Thomas and replied that yes, I might just be a cow for Halloween.

Happy Fall, Ya'll

Fall has to be my favorite season. I love the cool, crispness of the air. I love how clear and bright the skies are. I love the soft, crunchy scuttling sounds you hear when your outside and small animals are scurrying about doing their thing. I love the smell of wood smoke. I love how the trees change colors. I love the leaves that fall down and polk-a-dot everything around.

I had a gorgeous fall wedding. I had so much fun sitting with the girl who did all my flowers and decorations and brainstorming how we could incorporate the fall colors into my wedding. There were pumpkins and baskets and cornucopias and sticks tied with pretty ribbon. And rather than throwing flower petals or blowing bubbles, the guests rained brightly colored leaves on Joshua and me as we made our dash to the get-away car. Ahhh...and our honeymoon? We went to Vermont. Talk about color! And we were told we missed peak season by about two weeks, but we never knew it.

I get the bug to decorate and do crafty stuff in the fall. This year, despite being quite pregnant, has been no different. We have filled vases with acorns, scattered leaves on tables, tied harvest colored ribbons around candles and vases. My craftiness this year has tended towards useful household projects. Lots of crocheting has kept my hands busy and filled my head with ideas for Christmas gifts. Learning to do some canning has also been a day-filler. And I get so tickled to see the jars of canned stuff lined up looking pretty and yummy! It really is a pretty simple process, or the stuff I have taken on has been. Which is good. Otherwise, I might be daunted and never try again!

Telling you all of this doesn't really do much to describe the post and pictures at hand, though. Soooo...I will put a sock in it and get to the real reason most of you visit this little section of bloggy-land. The kids!

I haven't been doing crafts with the kids much since we moved. In fact, only a couple of times has it occurred to me to break out anything besides crayons. Today, however, I pried open the long-closed drawers of the craft cabinet (a three drawer Steralite container with wheels!) and started pulling stuff out. Craft aprons, paints, paint brushes, and wooden cut-outs.

The kids were so excited that I almost wished I had left all the stuff put. Questions flew at me at warp speed, shrills of excitement, and then more questions. Loudness. Energy. And I am supposed to be resting, trying to keep Baby Anna in the cooker for another week or so. This Loudness and Energy just about broke my resolve to let my Pint-Size Picassos do their thing.

I made it to the kitchen table with all the goods in tow and Granny was already spreading out newspaper. Each child got their painter's palette and paintbrushes. We looked out the window and discussed the leaves and how they were multi-colored. Granny even grabbed a handful for each kid to examine as I laid out a couple of painting guidelines. *One paint brush per color (because Mommy has this OCD thing about that). *Paint stays on the newspaper. *Remember, if you mix the colors too much, everything eventually becomes brown.


Then, I let them have at it. Thomas and Sarah Grace each had leaves and went diligently about transfering color onto those little wooden cutouts. They each had five colors and five paint brushes. I think Thomas mostly kept to one color per paint brush. Occasionally he mixed things up, intentionally or not. Sarah Grace still had two clean brushes at the end of our painting session, and a lot of mixed colors.


And then there was Elizabeth. She had two colors and one brush. Because why fight it? She dipped her paintbrush into the orange paint like a pro, examined if for a moment (to check that it was the right hue, of course) then popped the paint brush into her mouth.


I wish I'd had the camera at that moment, but in all my preparedness, I did not.

I laughed and tried to wipe the paint off and out of her mouth as she made distasteful noises about the flavor of the paint, then showed her how to properly utilize the paint brush. She caught on and was well on her way to artistic perfection within seconds.

We painted until the leaves and pumpkin were all covered, then set them aside and the kids painted on the newspaper. Finally, the fun had all been wrung out of this activity. But check out these masterpieces!!!

Elizabeth Montage

Elizabeth is growing so much. Her features seem to change by the week, her vocabulary expands daily, and her interests and accomplishments are more and more every moment! "DAT!!" is constantly heard coming forth from her little mouth. If you hear this exclamation, you had better turn and tell her what 'dat' is or else she will continue to yell it until she gets an answer. The child is insatiable!

She stands at the door and demands 'out' or 'doh' in order to get outside and play with her sister and brother. She walks around the kitchen begging for 'coo-kee', 'aaaaapple', 'mana', 'cacker', 'duice' or just a pathetic 'phease?!' if she doesn't have words for what it is she sees that appeals to her stomach. Which is everything.

She comes at us with 'buhts' and wants to be read to. She holds up her arms and wimpers 'up, phease'. She has an adamanet 'yes' and a definitive 'no'. She toddles over and grins at us and asks 'fi-fop?' (This is how we play Ride A Little Pony. Only the little pony never falls down, he just flip-flops from side to side, making the kid sway like a crazy thing.)

She brings me her 'hocks' and her 'sues' every day to put on her feet. She loves her 'bank't' and her 'bebe' when she is tired or going to bed. She proclaims 'tooooo' if I ask the older ones a question and they answer 'me!' and 'me, too!'. When the front door opens or closes any time after nap, she runs to the door calling 'Daddy! Daddy!' And when someone picks her up, she is often known to point one of her sweet little fingers to a distant spot and request to 'goh.'

When no-one is available to read to her sit and respond to her points and excited shouts of 'dat?', she will quietly sit in a chair and look at a book for nearly three minutes put together. Then she is off to find a different book to occupy herself with.


She is a lover of bananas (mana). She would eat one at every meal if we would only let her. She has the special talent of cramming large portions into her cheek and somehow managing to mash it up and swallow it without choking herself.


She is my shoe fiend. If she happens to be shoeless, she will wander over to our shoe basket and pull out shoes until she finds what she is after. Sometimes it is her shoe, sometimes it is Sarah Grace's shoe, occasionally it is Thomas' shoe. At other times, she finds even larger shoes to fill. Like mine! Then she smiles this little self-satisfied smile and clomps around for a bit.


She is a clown. She loves to make her brother and sister laugh, or anyone else, for that matter. She smiles easily and is our regular little Sunbeam. She is with ease the merriest child we have had. And without a doubt, the most independent and opinionated. The road is to be a long one, I do fear.

Five And Counting...

I have been looking forward to this weekend for months. You see, Joshua and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary! Yay, go, five years! We had originally planned to take some time back in September and get away for a few days at the beach, but alas, that was not to be. So we settled for having the entirety of Saturday, our actual anniversary, to ourselves. It may sound boring to some of you folks, but we carried ourselves off to Bridge Street in Huntsville. A place that has been open for I don't know how long, but I haven't been for various reasons. We poked around the different stores, had a wonderful snack at Maggie Moo's, saw a movie, then had dinner. And came home. Because I am seven plus months pregnant and I was wiped out.

As fate would have it, we will be getting those few days together in celebration of our anniversary. Just not as we would have planned. You see, after our wonderful all-day-date on Saturday, I wound up being violently sick all night. After nearly eight hours of losing fluids, Joshua packed me up and carted me off to the ER. Where we spent seven hours of our lives in a small room while IV fluids brought me back to life. Oh, and some anti-nausea drugs. Good stuff.

But that is not where the anniversary adventure is to end. Oh, no. Tomorrow? I have to go see my OB, as directed by the ER doc (whose wife just happens to have the same OB as me, how cool is that?). Because of my delicate nature, Joshua is taking the day off to take me to the doctor and get the all clear that Baby Anna is doing okay.

There you have it. The enchanting tale of our 5 year anniversary. At least Saturday was good!

Us, about May 2000.

Random Picture-ness

Just a few pictures from a recent playground trip. A last hoo-rah before the cold weather set in to much.

*Sigh*

Methinks I am suffering from writers block. I sit down to update you fine people, the ones who haven't abandoned me because they think I fell off the face of the earth, and I just can't find anything in my day worth mustering up the energy to write about. The kids are still nuts and into things and hilarious and sweet and temperamental and growing and learning and smearing food, dirt, and other assorted 'stuff' around (thankfully, not lipstick!). But I can't seem to keep track of it all. And the camera, well, it has some pictures on it, but I have no idea what they are because I haven't dumped it in ages. Which might be a good idea. Then it would give you something to look at. And me. Because my blog loads faster than my picture server, so I often come here to look at pictures of my kids. As if seeing them live and in color isn't enough. They are quieter on the blog, though.

I would like to blame it all on the pregnancy-mush-for-brains that I am dealing with. However LL over at VitaFam is blowing that theory out of the water. She still manages almost daily posts. Stinker.

I could blame it on the fact that I am into some full throttle nesting around here. I found a closet. No, I mean, I found a closet. Really. It was just this door that we opened occasionally and tossed stuff into then slammed the door shut before everything came tumbling out. Or worse, something came walking out. I braved it yesterday. I wish I'd had the presence of mind to do before and after pictures. Because it is really quite an accomplishment. But the camera...I don't really know where it is.

On Tuesday, I made up a dozen jars of apple butter. That was fun. And tasty, if I do say so myself. Then promptly fed my family soup from a can because I was tired of the kitchen for the day. Oh, and had made the monumental mistake of letting apples boil over onto a gas stove. Apple sugar/syrup/mess is not easy to get off of a gas stove. Just in case you ever wondered. But my MIL stepped in with the magic powders and helped (read-did most of it!) get the gunk up.

And Monday, well, I can't remember that far back. So now that I have rambled on for several paragraphs about nothingness, I will make the resolution to find the camera today and post pictures of whatever I can find. Ta-ta for now!

One Day At A Time

The Freeman house has been a very busy one the last few weeks. We seem to be spending a lot of time out of the house for various reasons which really messes with the ol' nap schedule. Mine and the children's. I find that I need a nap to make up for the decreased amount of sleep I am getting at night. Anyway, those days spent out of town and running errands and missing naps have really taken a toll on us. The kids are crankier, the Mom is crankier, and, despite the fact that the sun is going down earlier, the days seem longer.

By the time Joshua gets home in the afternoon, I am at my wits end. The kids are whiny and hungry and sleepy and I am short tempered. On good days, I hear the exasperation in my voice and cringe. On bad days, I hear myself snap and yell at the kids and want to crawl into a hole. A quiet one. These trusting little people who have been entrusted to my care catch the brunt of my frustration and tiredness, and deserve none of it.

Story time comes, and they all curl up next to me or Joshua, content to be read to, looking angelic. Bed time comes, and they offer up their sweet prayers. And later at night, after the little ones are all asleep, I creep into their rooms and listen to the sound of their deep, steady breathing. They are each sprawled out in their own bed with their own special 'lovey', looking serene and beautiful. And as I stand there listening to their sweet symphony of sleep, punctuated with the occasional sleep sigh, all of the irritation of the day seeps out of me and I can do nothing except praise the Lord for these wonderful little people in my life.

It is in those precious moments that I find myself so completely in awe of what little miracles each of them are. And I go to bed with a peace in my heart and pray that tomorrow I will be the Mommy they deserve. That tomorrow the Lord will help me to maintain my sweet spirit. That tomorrow will come and I will have another day with each of these special children. Because what I have learned, regardless of how a particular day goes with my attitude and the children's attitudes, that day is an incredible gift. It is the opportunity to watch with wonder their little personalities, to guide and to instruct, and to grow, laugh, and love.

Little Listeners

The kids have been listening to me. Which, as any mother will tell you, is a mixed blessing. I mean, we want them to listen, but it's not always at the top of our list to have them repeat the things that we have been saying. Even if what they are repeating aren't 'bad' things. Take a recent scene in our kitchen, for example....

**A bit of background here. Back in the old days, when I worked at the pre-school, I had a friend who I very much enjoyed watching interact with children. She had that special knack for the 20-ish month old age range, and a true love for the children and the quirks they have at that age. It didn't phase her to be potty training half her class, and diaper changing the other half. She just took in stride. She was also a wonderful mother to her little 15 month old, and we were both happily expecting our second children together.

Her terms of endearment ranged from love to sweetie to turkey-butt. Oddly enough, turkey-butt, which she affectionately called her son, stuck in my head. And I found myself calling my children turkey-butt as they came of age to get into all sorts of mischief. A kid who dumped out a drawer full of clothes? 'You little turkey-butt! What was that about?' The child who lotioned herself with more lotion than she needed in a week? 'Goodness, turkey-butt! How are we gonna get this stuff off of you?' And so on and so forth.

In the last year, I have been paying for calling them that little nick-name. It sounds vaguely cute when issuing forth from an adult mouth, but down right vulgar from the mouth of a pre-schooler. Hence the decision to pluck it from my vocabulary and discourage those sweet little mouths from using the phrase turkey-butt. 'Butt' was already off limits, as we call that part of our anatomy our bum or bummie. The nick-name was a way around it, though. So it took some time to divest ourselves of it.

And there you have it. A long-winded version of how we arrived at the point of this post. Aren't you glad you have stuck around so far? Hold your horses...the punch line is coming.**

Back to that kitchen scene...

I was creating some culinary masterpiece, rest assured, as the children were scampering about the kitchen. In general, they were being good, if not a bit distracting and a lot noisy. I was mindlessly listening to the chatter that was going on between the older two, and actively trying to keep Elizabeth from rummaging though the trash can when my ears perked up and my brain kicked in.

"Gracie, say turkey-butt!" said Thomas.

"No." replied Sarah Grace.

"Say turkey-butt!"

"No."

"Sarah Graaaaaaace...say turkey-butt!"

At this point, I was about to reprimand Thomas for using a word that was off limits when Sarah Grace cleanly stepped in and took care of it for me.

"Thomas, your words arwent pwaise-worvy. You souldent say butt," she informed him in a less than sweet manner. (Read - yelled at him!) "I'm gonna tell Mommy you said butt.'

To which Thomas quickly replied in a very panicked manner,"Well, your not promoting peace!"

Which is what I tell the children they are doing when they come to me to tattle on one another. That they are not promoting peace and to go work it out sweetly.

For my part, I kept my back turned to the situation and did my best to not let them see my shaking shoulders and tears of mirth.

*Thanks to LL for introducing 'promoting peace' to my repertoire of hot words!