A loaded question

“Hello, dear! How was your day?”

Today at lunch, “everything hit the fan,” as my sister Em would say. Rose spilled her milk and started crying loudly in dismay. Layne was hungry and wailing about it. Jay was drilling me on the finer points of the Big Bad Wolf’s morals. 3/4 of us were more or less covered in peanut butter. I was trying to make 3 lunches,  feed a baby, and field impossible questions like “is the Big Bad Wolf bad all the time, yes or no, Mommy? yes or no?”

I’ve been really trying my best not to stress or lose patience in tricky situations. It is uphill work. It takes an incredible amount of focus, control, and [often desperate] praying. And sometimes a time-out for Mommy. [Inside a locked bathroom with the fan on to drown out any moans—mine on one side of the door or the kids’ on the other, you pick]

Thankfully I managed to see the humor through the chaos today, and I just let everyone cry and badger away while I paused to take a deep breath, get out the camera, and unclench my jaw for a brief (if somewhat grim) chuckle over the situation. I felt like a toy that 3 kids wanted all at once: one kid had me by the arms, one by the legs, and one by the ears, and they were all pulling at the same time. I honestly didn’t know which fire to put out first. Underneath my slightly tense nerves, it was hilarious! After a few minutes, I gathered my wits and started plugging in bottles, wiping up milk and philosophizing about good and evil.

In spite of my latest inroads to cool, collected patience, I think I’ll still need some alone time in a clean, quiet room tonight.

This morning, I took a series of amusing cousin pictures. I posted them in a chain straight from my camera:

   

Oh, kids. They stretch me to breaking point and then heal it all with a single GRIN (or a kiss or a hug, etc.). They are 100% worth the struggle for patience. My goal is to remember this next time (and every time) everything hits the fan.

4 Morning Glories

#1: Rose and I have been waking up with amazing hair lately.

The pictures don’t do it justice.

#2: Jay and Rose have decided that their traditional 6:15am wake up time was not early enough. This week they adopted a glorious 5:40am wake up in spite of the many room-darkening and silencing wiles of their tired parents. At least they wake up bursting with joy!

  

#3: Jeff and I ran our first road race of the “season” yesterday—the Sunnyside High School Track team’s fundraiser 5k fun run (Jeff teaches at Sunnyside High School). About 25 people ran it. Jeff and I were the Adam and Eve of the race. No, we did not run clad only in leaves. We were the first man and woman finishers of this informal little race. It was a shock to both of our systems to actually try to run faster than a “maintenance jog,” as we call it. I know I was gasping for air by the end! Jeff finished in 17:52, and I was 22:14. The older I get, the harder it feels to pull off these short, quick little 5k’s, and I’m only 26!

We didn’t get any pictures of the actual running, (thank goodness), but we hung around the finish line on the track infield for a while afterwards, chatting with Jeff’s colleagues and watching Jay and Rose live it up on the pole vault mat.That’s when I got my camera out.

Rose knew I wanted her to get her finger out of her nose for this picture, but she didn’t remove it till I put away my camera. That girl.

When Jay started gnawing on sticks, Jeff and I decided to share our complimentary Cheetos…

…resulting in neon lips! This was their second, possibly third time ever to have Cheetos. Oh, the fine line between MeanMama and HealthyMama that I tread.

#4: [read with a cheesy booming announcer voice] And finally, Morning Glory number four! Oregano takes first place in the herb-a-thon on our back porch! It’s the first thing that I’ve managed to grow this year.

That poor oregano may be the only green thing our back yard produces too, at this rate! [And technically, since it’s in a planter on the porch, it’s not even in the back yard] Our garden is not very close to ready. We did plant grass in the crusty-dusty prickly-tickly back yard last week, but between the scorching sun, foraging birds, and gusty winds, it’ll be a miracle if any of the stuff takes root at all. We’ve been trying to remember Amulek’s advice to “cry unto him over the crops of your fields.” I just hope we’ve done our part well enough…it’s hard to have sufficient faith when you don’t know if you’ve done everything you can or not. Always an intriguing topic to ponder. Wasn’t that quite the theological detour.

At least we have the oregano.

  

And these two bright faces!

PS It’s 11am and Rose has just fallen asleep next to me with her head on my shoulder. That’s what I THOUGHT, 5:40am!

IT’S DONE.

Now all I need are some accessories: bonnet, bloomers, apron. But I think I’ll relish this success (and recover a bit) for a little while before I go there. I wore my dress to our latest Ma and Pa training meeting last night. On the way home, I had to get gas. Allow me to mention the obvious: pioneers did not have to get in and out of low Honda Civics in their flowy long dresses. My attempts were rather comical, and I did end up hiking the thing up and showing a scandalous amount of ankle (and calf!).  Also, it was surprisingly tricky NOT to drip gas on the billowing sleeves and skirt.

But, The Dress is DONE!

Yep, I really know how to exhibit the emotion of my victory.

It turns out that button holes are incredibly easy on my darling ole $50 Singer. I figured this whole dress out all by myself somehow. Sewing is SO HARD for me, but man when I unravel the pattern-puzzle, it is such a SUCCESSFUL high feeling, even if the result is a tad…frumpy.

Well, it’s not perfect, but it’s my best-ever!

What are hand-sewn pioneer dresses to handcarts and mountains?

What are you able to build with your blocks?

Castles and palaces, temples and docks.
Rain may keep raining and others go roam,
But I can be happy and building at home.

Let the sofa be mountains, the carpet be sea,
There I’ll establish a city for me:

A kirk

and a mill

and a palace beside,

And a harbor as well where my vessels may ride.

Great is the palace with pillar and wall,

A sort of a tower on top of it all.

And steps coming down in an orderly way

To where my toy vessels lie safe in the bay.

This one is sailing

and that one is moored:
Hark to the song of the sailors onboard!

And see on the steps of my palace the kings
Coming and going with presents and things!

Now I have done with it, down let it go!
All in a moment the town is laid low.
Block upon block lying scattered and free,
What is there left of my town by the sea?

Yet as I saw it, I see it again,
The kirk and the palace, the ships and the men,
And as long as I live and where’er I may be,

I’ll always remember my town by the sea.

___________________________________________________________________________
[Block City, by Robert Louis Stevenson]

We went to the library for the first time all month today, and Jay picked out his old favorite book like always. After we read a stack of fresh library books (including the Block City one) and put Rose and Layne down for naps, Jay and I decided to build a block city. It was quite the bustling port town, with alligators and dinosaurs guarding the harbor, the Nutcracker and Clara as king and queen, Captain Han Solo on the royal ship with Noah and Joan (of Ark) as ship mates, a Sesame street in town, and My Little Ponies as villagers.

I’ve been rather caught up in my megasewing project this week, so it was nice to do a little creative architectural fun with Jay for a little while this afternoon. The good thing about building with blocks is that there are no rules. No limitations (except those imposed by soft carpet and gravity). NOW the fun is over and I have to figure out how to sew button holes…maybe…