it was what it was.

this winter. oh, this winter. maybe it's time to acknowledge what actually went down.

i just want to say, that i refuse to complain about it. the entire 12 years that i have lived here i have ached for it to snow. and a lot. if it's gonna be too cold to go out, it might as well be snowing, was my silent, winter mantra.

so it did. and it was no joke.

we enjoyed it. i think.

it kept robbie busy. which is kind of his thing.

olive, was very occupied with it. and self-occupied, is something that is a rare thing for her.

it was really beautiful overall. and it forced our busy family to slow down, cancel things, call things off, let ourselves off the hook, hole up, shut her down....you get the point. and we needed it.

but what am i, without my grumblings coupled with gratitude? i also have to keep it real and say that i am very thankful that the sun is shining, that the flip flops have made their appearance for the year, that i have friends again...

now i'm not sure the following story was the snow's fault. i thought it was until last night the girls were busted in their room after bedtime for ripping a foam basketball to pieces with their teeth. but one sunday morning in the thick of winter, robbie and i woke up and realized that the kids had let us sleep in till almost 9am. there was no rude awakening at 6:30 to ask for us to put the tv on the right channel, or put a movie in, or get youtube.com to their favorite baby getting a vaccine while we steal a few more minutes of precious sleep.

so sweet of them, right?

*please note that pictures were not taken until the post freak out*

you know who's really sweet? us, for letting them continue to live here.

oh yeah. bean bag chairs. and it was everywhere. even crawling up their bodies and up the walls. they must have been upstairs swimming in this while we slept away like chumps!

lucy, who was the self admitted ringleader of this incident, no doubt had to be nude for the job. the picture just above to the left is right after robbie blew them into a pile with the shop vac. much to robbie's chagrin, i took pictures. only because this was the perfect visual to express this time in our lives. this daily sensation of feeling like we are being punk'd. like surely ashton kutcher should have jumped out from underneath the bed with cameras. surely there should have been a clean up crew to follow. this took us three hours to clean up! there was no church this sunday morning. only cold, hard clean up. weeks later we are still finding these "beans".

unbelievable

there are days that i cannot believe the things that i have seen, heard, said, and done inside these walls. as they are happening i barely recognize anymore how odd they are in the moment. it isn't until at the end of the day, when i'm closing everyone's doors for what i hope to be the last time of the night it kind of all flashes before me in a heap and i have to reconnect myself to it all. i have to be honest and say that some of those days that realization makes me sad at myself. i could have done better. i could have been less selfish. i could have loved harder. i could have relied less on myself and my own strengths. i could have gone easier on her. i should have held him a little longer. shame, guilt, blah. but as i've expressed like a broken record. every day it gets a little clearer. that rational seems a little more distant. i'm not getting better. i'm just letting more and more....go. letting go of what i thought it would be like. letting go of who i thought i was. letting go of who i thought they would be like. and letting us and it just be what it is and what God designed. we is what we is. and it has shed everything in this hilarious light. lately i feel like God has allowed me to flash ahead 10 years and see it all from those eyes.

"did i really do that? why would i have done that?" i think to myself as i'm checking on finn for the last time. i guess i did put him to bed with my sunglasses case and a very, very, dirty, solitary sock. pull out the said case and sock that he's curled up with and barely recall trying to take these things from him earlier, but him fussing about it and i gave in.

this past fall or maybe late summer, i was nursing finn on the bed laying down. lucy was beside us letting herself fall hands free, head hitting the pillow. great fun. until she misjudged a landing and her forehead hit my nose. i really should have known better. besides giving birth, this may have been the most painful thing that has happened to me. i've never broken anything or had any other health problems. so it really threw me off. i was on prescription pain pills for several days. those things are nice. noted to self- stay away from those nice things.



another day this winter, lucy comes into the room to tell me that she thinks finn would like some hot dogs and could i please cook him up some. "oh yeah, why do you think he wants hot dogs?" lucy leads me into the kitchen to find finn standing at the bottom freezer, door ajar, sucking on/chewing through a package of frozen hot dogs. safety first over here.

on a similar note, i found lucy chewing off her toenails. i soon realized that this must not be the first time she's done this. i was painting their nails and toenails when olive very motherly said "now, lucy, we can't suck our thumbs or chew our toenails until all this has chipped off. ok?" ew!




another foggy headed winter morning i was sitting across from lucy at breakfast. watching her with a clean, dry watercolor paint brush, pretending to paint the table. i knew it was coming, but then got distracted. she spotted a mostly empty yogurt container and had found something to paint a large portion of the table with before i noticed what was going on. a few hours later i caught her dipping her play cell phone in a cup of milk. dipping it in and then putting the phone in her mouth and slurping it off. i would really love to be in her head for a day and understand why these decisions get made.

sound bytes both said and overheard this winter

"no you may not lick him. he's sick." because i guess if he wasn't sick, it was ok to lick him?

and along the same lines "no licking the edge of the table."

"you must wear panties. OK NEW RULE EVERYONE." (i'm kinda known around here for my spontaneous, albeit genius, rule making) i don't care if you wear shirts or pants, but panties are non-negotiable." yelling this at the top of my lungs.

another rule made "you may not rub your toothbrush on your bottom". and, "you may not use your toothbrush to brush your eyeball"

"no stabbing the fruit with pencils"

"don't toot on me!"

aye yi yi!

the kids and i, for the most part, were snowed in a lot.
i had bought them a yoga for kids dvd for Christmas, after watching their uncle john and aunt katie do a little yoga with them before our 6 hour drive home after thanksgiving. i thought to myself that this could really be a tool to bring out at the right times. i was right. when it was clear that things were taking a turn for crazytown, i put this in.







it's movement for them, that requires focus and quiet. and they love it! i definitely recommend this.





sometimes judgement got fuzzy for me after days
upon days in the house. yes, that was my 15 month old standing on a table. no, he isn't incapable of falling or getting knocked off of it and badly hurt. and yes, i stopped to take a picture because i couldn't resist the light coming in the room. see what i mean? fuzzy.


but that was then. this is now. and i really think this town is going to look back at this winter and smile.

i leave you with a picture that sums up the essence of our winter. a little relaxing, a little beautiful, a little crazy, a little boring, a little simple .