Girl Clothes

The other night I was surprised by an article of clothing being worn in our house.

Funny thing is, I purchased the shirt myself.

But this isn't the kid I hoped would be the one to wear it...

At least he didn't pull on the red leggings to go with it.

The icing on the cake was watching the boys play with Elsa's doll house she received for her second birthday that was barely played with.

I love the constant surprises in parenting.

Inspiration

I recently learned that a young lady I've known since before she was even born, was diagnosed with ALL, a form of leukemia. 

She's the first person I know who has been diagnosed with this disease, that I think we all grew up dreading. 

She's a wonderful kid.  

Not to mention that I feel very confident she possesses more intelligence at the age of eight than I ever will. 

So advanced, that she must have been just 4-6 months old when I remember her raising her little arm addressing the world.  "Hi" she'd say whenever anyone walked into the room.  She was talking to people way before most little people are intelligibly verbal.

All you have to do is watch her and it's obvious that she is taking in every bit of her surroundings and figuring out how things work.

She's such a wonderfully inquisitive girl.

And I have no doubt that if she puts her mind to it, she'll find the cure for this awful blood cancer that she has to battle today.

Yesterday, I learned that she will lose her hair as part of her treatment and it inspired me to cut off 12 inches of my hair to donate.  

By 9am it was gone and in the mail by 2pm.

Long hair:

New short hair:

Selfies really are tough for me...  As are pictures of myself.

But you get the picture, right?

When you have to watch someone you care about go through something as awful as battling cancer, you find the little things you can do to help.

I've probably composed 10 cards to her and her family.

Not a single one written or sent.

I've thought of a few different meals I might make and bring to them.

But haven't followed through.

Partly because I'm swamped keeping up with everything going on in our lives.  Partly because I know they must overwhelmed with the outpouring of gifts and well wishes.  I don't want to overwhelm them in any way.

But I do want them to know that they are present in my thoughts, daily.

I'm praying for their sweet girl.  I'm pulling for her victory.  And I know that she's got to be the fiercest warrior cancer has ever seen.

I'm just so sorry she has to go through any of it yet, glad that she has such a full and strong community rallying for her.

I hope that my tiny little gift of hair will help someone out there to feel better about them self as they wage their own war on cancer.

Wishing everyone the gift of health and happy long lives.

Picking Teams

Today after school, the first thing out of Charlie's mouth was, "I got to have recess and play with Carl today."  He was beaming as he elaborated, " Carl was the captain and he picked his team.  He picked me, Carson, Ryder, and an 8th grader."

My heart swelled to think of my two boys choosing to play with each other when they have a whole playground of kids to play with.  I have to get out there and watch them playing football at recess.

There's something magical about team sports.  It brings such diverse people together and can build a beautiful comraderie  I've watched Mark playing basketball for over 20 years.  That guy knows every basketball hoop in town from apartment complexes to the armory to athletic clubs to schools elementary thru college.  And the variety of people he knows from it too constantly surprises me.

I see that starting with the boys too.  One of the principals goes out and throws the football with the kids at recess and he looks like the pied piper with all the kids following him.

I hope above all hope my kids will share in that sense of community their whole lives long.  And that they do it side by side pushing and supporting each other the whole time.

Full moon? Part 2

The day that keeps on giving.  It's 12:15am, I couldn't put down "Tell The Wolves I'm Home" but now it's done.  And I loved it.

And guess what?!  I forgot to set the clock on my coffee pot before I set it on auto brew.  I smell a fresh pot coffee downstairs.  If I were more daring I'd get up and work through the night.

But I'm not.  So I'll snuggle into my bed with visions of a beautiful story, smelling delicious coffee.

What a weird day.

Is it a full moon today?

I know it's not a full moon today but what a weird day it's been.

And it's only 2:17 pm (as I write).

I really should be spending my time doing the work I'm so worried about getting done.  The work that's been eating at me, like the feeling you get with a looming deadline you are unprepared for (remember finals anyone?)

The work I was supposed to get to do all day today with very little interruptions.

Let me start at the beginning...

5:58 am I am awoken by a LOUD boom.

Instantly a shrill, panicked shriek from Elsa's room, "Mama!?"

The power was out, all lights in the house off, and her smoke detector was chirping-loudly.

I grabbed her and tried to get her quiet and into my bed before she woke Sarina and the boys.

Ha!

Didn't work.

Pitch black, freezing, everyone awake and in my bed, wrestling about.

All I want to do is sleep, but I looked out the window and saw that a neighbor between me and the source of the noise had a porch light on.

Was it just my house?

Of course, a night when I'm home alone with the kids.

Yes, a scary movie where a bad guy cut the wires does cross my mind.

Then my adrenaline runs.

But, it's ok.

I can make it work.

I manage to get the kids up and ready for school- fed, dressed and lunches packed.

I get all my things packed in the suburban so I can head to my mom's house for a shower and I'll just work there.

I can salvage the day.

I pop the kids on the bus (it's the first day Elsa doesn't cry because she has to go to school-yay for that!).

I lock up the house and head into the garage.

Oops, no power = no garage door opener.

That's ok, I'm resourceful.  I consult my mom and brother-in-law.

I climb onto the slanted front bumper of the car and manage to pull the red handle to release the door.

I even slide the door up

once,

it slides back down,

twice,

it slides down again

huh,

I catch it on the down and slide it back up and look up at it to figure out how I can keep it up long enough to get the car out, when...

something falls off the door into my eye.

Awesome.

I turn away (toward the driveway)

boom,

down goes the door.

And you guessed it, locked out.

And the house locked up.

My cell phone in the garage.

It's ok, I have a neighbor.  I'll borrow her phone, call my mom to rescue me with a spare key she keeps (even though it's her birthday-happy birthday mom!).

No neighbor home, she was smart and got herself coffee at Starbucks.

So, not a huge deal, my sister lives 1.25mi away.  I needed to go for a walk anyway, just didn't feel I'd had the time to squeeze it in.

Got it God, I'll walk and enjoy this beautiful foggy fall morning, call my mom, it'll be ok.

Even better, my neighbor drives up, not only does the blessed soul give me nice hot Americano but she drives me to my mom's.

I get there, find her neighbor (like a favorite uncle to me) needs mom's truck.

Fine, I'll get a ride home, drive it to mom's clean it up and hand it over.  Really not how I'd planned my day but something that's been on the back burner far too long.  It's nice to have a reason to HAVE to get it done.

So I shower up, and I'll confess, I started to crack a teeny tiny bit without my own deodorant or eye make up remover.  Ok, it was the eye makeup remove that almost broke the camel's back.  Logically, not a huge deal.  And by itself just a blip.  But combined with everything, it was a set back on my glass-is-half-full attitude.

But deep breaths, and a little pondering on perspective.

It's ok.

I got it.

And now I'm home.

I am showered, I went to the bank, I helped my mom make some decisions about something, I vacuumed the last of my dearly departed puppy dog out of her truck.

Three things on my list of 100 accomplished on a day I was supposed to focus and be EFFICIENT.

I have an hour before the kids get home.

I'd better be REALLY EFFICIENT.

And it looks like subway for dinner on the way to football and cheer practice.

I wish I could have a do-over.  But Friday will be my day for efficiency.

Cross your fingers for me that the lights stay on and no clumps of dirt fall into my eye, please.

We Still Have Diapers

"We still have diapers."

Elsa said to her daddy the other day.

I think that may explain the scene I walked into, in her room.

She'd been playing in there pretty quietly for a while...

I really wish I knew what the story was in her head as she created this installation.

Why does the teddy need "diapers" on his face, down his neck, and on his belly?

Silly girl.

Fall Football Schedule

Saturday was a pretty busy day.

The only reason I'm documenting this is so that my future-quiet house, reflecting-on-raising-kids self can remember accurately (without embellishments) what a typical fall football Saturday consisted of...

Saturday morning started up trying to be a good mama making French Toast for breakfast for two kids and waffles for another (one kiddo had a sleepover the night before).  I wanted to fill their little bellies with homemade warm food before the big busy day.

At promptly 8:30am (I'd aimed for 8:00am knowing that I always seem to be running a 1/2 hour late) we departed for a 9am flag football game at Washington Middle School (a good 25 minute drive away) for Charlie and Elsa.

On the way, in COMPLETE seriousness, Charlie announced that someone had Beaver Fever (aka shart, poopy toot, you get the general picture...?).  Then pretty quickly he corrected himself, it sounded like he was  just talking to himself, "Oh no, it's just my breath."  I heard him say.

Ha!  Ha ha!

It was a fun game, aside form popping something in my mid back that left me nauseous and hard to breathe...  (It got better after a good, hot soak in Epsom salt).

Elsa tried her best and did a good job keeping up.  Charlie was a fantastic flag puller, ball running, touchdown scoring kiddo.  When he has the desire to play, he's really good, but I'm his mom and of course I think that...

Then we zipped home and picked up Sarina from her sleepover, I make some quick chicken noodle soup to warm them up and hope it helps with the sniffley, coughing kids.

Then off to Carl's 3:15pm game in Yelm.  We left at noon because the highlight of games in Yelm, for me, is getting to go to Van's- a DELICIOUS hamburger stand on the way.  It's so good that there's always a good line so you have to come with patience.  But it's soooo worth the wait.  And I consider myself a pretty good burger connoisseur.

We all contentedly polished off our burgers then headed to Yelm for the 1 hour warm up for the 3:15pm game.

After a rocky season, Carl did a good job of staying in the the whole time he was asked to play.  For some reason just into the season, we had a stretch where he didn't want to play.  He even told his coaches "no" when they asked him to play.  It was shocking for us, because Carl's such an easy going kid.  But he was scared of getting hurt.  I don't know if this is because we talked too much in front of him about how important it was that he stay in the lower league because he's only 56 pounds and he thought of himself as fragile.  Or maybe some kids in school got inside his head about how big some of the other teams are...  But we worked through that (I think) and directed him to picture the other team as a kid he isn't too terribly fond of in school.  I think that's been helpful, that and the promise of a day hunting with dad when the football season is over...

Because the game didn't start until late and the chorus of "I have to go pottys" the second we got to the car, we didn't leave Yelm until 5:15pm.

Sarina needed to be in Steilacoom at 5:00pm for warm-ups for cheer.  So much for the stop in DuPont for dinner en-route, we headed straight to Steilacoom.  It was a super fun game to cheer for, the 8th grade boys played hard and won.  I ended up coaching the last quarter (kids in tow).

Then, we made it to dinner at 8pm (they're used to eating at 4:30pm because of practice...).  We hit Happy Teriyaki in DuPont and the kids loved it.  They have a koi pond inside and the kids were fascinated by the friendly, big mouthed gold fish.  And the really friendly woman working let them feed the fish.  They filled their bellies with moderately healthy quick food then home to bed (after 9pm).

Mark's been hunting in the north Cascades since last Thursday and I'm not sure when he'll be home so it's been tricky navigating the schedule solo.  But I enjoy the challenge and it helps me to appreciate his help that much more when he's able to be home.

It was such a busy weekend.  It's no wonder the boys were out like a light (with the lights on) before I could tuck them in on Sunday.

Can you see the drool?!

I love football season and watching the kids play and cheer, but I'm really ready for the kids to have more down time, time to do their homework, and get to bed on time.