Don't Forget About Me!

I PROMISE I will post an update soon! I don't want to lose my few precious readers. My big secret is that all along when I was posting every two or three days, it was because I would sit down once a week or so and get several posts ready at once. Then I posted them throughout the week, hassle-free. Now I am at a standstill because I don't have any relevant drafts stowed away and I absolutely have not been able to find time to write any. I have a backlog of topics ready if I can just find time to write! This is a priority for me this week, so please don't stop checking back on me!

Documented Torture

Back on 11/2/07, we spent a morning at Portrait Innovations, trying valiantly for a couple of good sibling pictures (anyone out there with two or more kids know what a Mission Impossible this is). We had fun and the kids did well, especially Will, who was finally old enough to cooperate and not be overwhelmed by all the attention. Without further ado, I am posting the best... and funniest of the outtakes. (Anyone have any fun captions to add?)

"Now, Will... this time try to look sexy..."

I like this next one... "OK, just end the photo shoot now and the girl won't get hurt..."
"Please no... anything but that... NO!... NOT THE CAMERA!!!"
"You want me to touch him THERE? That's silly!"/"You want her to WHAT?!?"

Thanks a lot, Vic!

First of all, I hope you all had a merry Christmas and that your new year is off to a fantastic start. I've enjoyed getting caught up on all of my friends' blogs and I appreciate all of your posts. Thanks to my brother Vic for the kick in the pants needed to make me write a new post.

Thanks to my sister-in-law Katie from whom I blatantly stole the above Annual Christmas Picture. (She's busy trying to deliver a baby, so I was confident she wouldn't have time to prosecute.) We had a wonderful time in Michigan. One of the overlooked benefits to having kids, I think, is that we don't overschedule ourselves as much these days, so we have flexibility to do awesome and cool things like go to a Lions game at the drop of a hat (thanks again, Dan!!!). We also end up spending more relaxed time with family. (Or maybe I'm just relaxing because for once someone else is sharing the responsibility of looking after my kids!)

I've been thinking of my little blog world a lot lately, but I haven't found much time to compose my latest open letter to the world at large. Several things have interferred (i.e, Top 5 Excuses For Not Blogging For Nearly Three Weeks):

1. The holidays - and the effect they had on my house - were not properly factored into my plans. And by "effect" I mean influx of massive chaos and extreme overload of toys. (Not that we are not appreciative of the gifts, but it has been a bit overwhelming.) And this even though we didn't have any Christmas celebration at my house at all!

2. I've been very industriously and lucratively selling my time and efforts on eBay. (Selling time and effort as opposed to ski coupons, because it turns out that selling coupons is illegal. Ah, details!) In so doing, I'm attempting to finance my Steamboat ski pass for our vacation next week. Ideally, I'd finance both mine and Andy's but DANG, Steamboat is expensive! More details may follow on this subject.

3. I've been working a lot at my "real" job to try to get ready for vacation and deal with certain challenges there. I won't bore anyone with the details in this post but you never know, I may need to pontificate on the subject later.

4. You've seen our new, ahem, "investment property". It has required a lot of Andy's time and hence, a lot more of my time has been devoted to childcare. We've also spent considerable time together trying to finalize a workable floor plan for the project.

5. We had a great visit just after Christmas with my OTHER big brother (not the one that issued the kick-in-the-pants directive, although I'm sure this one would've been glad to do the same) and his wonderful family. We shopped til we dropped, Spaghetti-Factoried, and shopped some more. (Can you tell his family is dominated by females?) It was really nice to spend some time with like-minded girls, as I'd almost forgotten the fine art and joy of a good, meandering shopping trip, since I am usually flying solo with two pint-sized stowaways. It was also terrific to spend some time with my brother, who hadn't been to visit us since 1999 or 2000!

Now we are looking forward with much anticipation to our trip to Steamboat this week. Unfortunately (or fortunately, if you have better things to do or find my posts boring), this will mean another delay between postings. But bear with me (especially you, Vic!) as I do hope to post more regularly. I have a backlog of topics on my mind, the challenge is finding time to put together a halfway decent and cohesive post. (I know I failed miserably with this one, but I had a lot of gaps to bridge!)

Peace, love and fresh powder,

Kathy

Everybody's Doing It!

I am faced with the most nefarious but silent peer pressure at the moment. It's now official - EVERYONE I KNOW WHO HASN'T HAD A BABY IN THE LAST YEAR IS PREGNANT. (If you aren't and haven't, please bring it to my attention. I need to know I'm not alone.)

This comes at a time when I am vulnerable, as Sophie is almost exactly the age that Will was when I became pregnant with her. As much as I know I DON'T WANT TO BE PREGNANT at the moment, some basic, almost molecular part of me feels like I am missing out on something, as if pregnancy is an exclusive sorority I am snubbing but deep down want to be a part of.

In spite of the messages whatever biological forces deep within me are sending to my brain, said brain remains resolved in my decision to delay my next pregnancy. If I had three preschoolers simultaneously (and kudos to anyone out there who does), I feel sure I would go crazy and my enjoyment of my home life would be significantly decreased if not eliminated. For my mental health's sake, I will continue to follow the directions on the box exactly and religiously, and if by some Divine Providence pregnancy occurs, I will understand and accept that my will has been overridden by Someone immeasurably more powerful.

P.S. I am VERY happy and excited for you all and plan to enjoy all your little bundles of joy vicariously as my own.

Hero or Zero?

Today we closed on this gem. It was awhile in the making as much paperwork was required. I was out on a limb with some of the decisions I made in an attempt to see this deal through. If we were not able to close, these decisions would have made me seem like a moron. The most interesting decision I was faced with was "loaning" a sibling of the previous owner $80.

I told Kathy that whether this deal went through determined whether I was a "Hero" or a "Zero". She was quick to correct me that the options were actually more like "Hero With A Burnt Out House" or "Negative Sixteen Hundred Bucks".

Anyway, the deal is done now... just in time to sit around and accrue interest though Christmas, perfect!

Oh yeah, there was a small fire at the home which will make the rehab challenging. Home sweet Home: Whispering Hills Drive. And we've yet to sell the Southlake house! Yikes!

-Andy

A Holiday Trojan Horse

I'm coming to realize that things that previously brought our family joy and delight now cause huge fractures in our family unity. Case in point:

Andy received a huge Christmas basket of home-made sweets from one of his subcontractors. Wow! We dug in with glee, consuming white-chocolate covered pretzels and triple-chocolate cookies with relish (meaning we relished them, not that we added pickle relish). Of course, we shared with Will and Sophie, but there comes a time when you have to break the news to a three-year-old that he simply can't exist on Magic Bars and Chex Mix alone, especially not in lieu of the following morning's breakfast. It's not easy to be the bearer of such bad news. In fact, I found myself being howled at with indignation most loudly and disrepectfully, and at a distance of about three inches. This resulted in a small swat to the bottom and a three-minute timeout for both parent and child, which in turn resulted in many tears and much wailing.

Thankfully this kind of meltdown, while not unprecedented, is not the norm for us, so I found myself reflecting on whether the sweet roses of the candy were worth the thorns of the tantrums. Also with thanks I note that three minutes is the perfect amount of time for the tears to (mostly) dry and Mom to recover her temper and eat the remainder of her cereal in peace (discounting the faint wails coming from the bedroom).

Who Made God?

I know that we have to answer hard questions as parents, like "Where do babies come from?" and "Why do people die?"

I can't say I'm prepared for this, but I've come to grips with the fact that it is on the horizon. We all sign up for this when we decide to have kids. Whether dealing with these matters become a faith-building or faith-testing exercise, both, or neither is probably largely up to our own personalities and pre-existing levels of commitment and understanding.

I was, however, a little unprepared when tonight the subject of God came up with Will. I can't recall exactly how it started, but there was an initial statement that went something like, "God can't be our father; we can only have one Daddy." I tried to explain that while we all had our own "earthly" (try explaining the concept of "earthly" to a 3-year-old!) daddy, God was a Father to all of us because He made all of us. Logically, of course, the next question was, "Who made God?"

Woah. No one prepped me for this question. Did I miss some parenting review course that alluded to the fact that this would be posed early in my fourth year of parenting? (This means I'm a third-grader in parenting years. Aren't we getting a little deep for primary school?)


Mom: "Well, that's a very good question that a lot of people try to answer. But God was always there."

Will: "I think Heaven made God."

Mom: "No, Heaven didn't make God. God made Heaven."

Will: "I think Heaven made God."

Mom: "Hmm."

Yeah, that's pretty much how I left it. Isn't it a bit early to pick apart theology? At least he HAS some theology, right? And is thinking about these things? Or is that a good thing?

-Kathy