Mayhem and Magic

Another Conversation with Sparkle: That's My Boy

Sparkle is busy helping Daddy seal the new fence.  As he ran across the yard toward Daddy, Sparkle stripped off one garment after another, leaving a trail of sandals, shirt, shorts, and finally underwear, which Mama picks up as she approaches.

Mama: "Hey, Sparkle, you lost your clothes."

Sparkle: "I peed in the grass, Mama!"

Mama: "Oh, really?"

Daddy, to Mama: "Yep, and down his leg, too."

Mama: "Nice."

Daddy, to Sparkle: "Then what did Daddy tell you about peeing outside?"

Sparkle: "We can only pee on the grass when we go camping.  And, also, I need to clean up."

Daddy, again to Sparkle: "That's right.  Then what did you do?"

Sparkle, indicating the clothes Mama holds: "I wiped off my leg with my pants."

Observations on Life, by Sparkle

Playing baseball in the backyard.  Mama is the pitcher.  Sparkle is the batter.  Sparkle is only three years old, so there seems to be a lot more pitching than batting overall.  Sparkle says,

"Sometimes I hit the ball, and sometimes I miss."

(shrugs)

"That's just the way it goes."

Three Examples of My Bargain Hunting Skills

Exhibit 1:  Every once in a great while, I buy coffee at a little drive-through espresso stand.  It's between home and daycare, so when Beloved is out of town I figure I deserve some good coffee even though it's too expensive to buy every day. 

When you have purchased twelve drinks, the thirteenth is free.  I guard my little punch card closely for months, anticipating my freebie.  My last punch was a few weeks ago, and today I drove in for my free drink.  I looked through the menu for something really expensive and yummy, and ended up with a vente Heath Mocha Big Train.  Sounds good, doesn't it?  It was huge and cold and very, very sweet.  Fabulous.  Mmmmm....

Exhibit 2:  Our neighborhood, which is huge, has a community yard sale once a year.  The homeowner's association sets a day, people register, they advertise, and then on the designated weekend there are about 40 yard sales all within a few miles of my house.  I love yard sales.  However, I'm disappointed lately that things aren't as cheap as they used to be.  Instead of a marking things for a quarter or fifty cents, the cheapest things are $1 or more, even for stuff that is truly junk.  Still, there are deals to be had.  Look what I found at the neighborhood yard sale:

 

Six childrens quilt tops, all assembled, with the batting, backing, and edging all in a neat little package.  They were $4 each.  Sweet!

People like my sisters-in-law or mother-in-law or even my mother would probably not be as excited as I am.  They like the process of picking patterns and fabric and sewing everything themselves.  Me, I'm not so picky.  I'm all about the finished product, baby.  I love that I can pretty much just finish these up and be done with it, and have six cute little handmade quilts.  Perfect baby shower gifts!

Exhibit 3: My favorite children's boutique in town had their semi-annual clearance sale this weekend.  Clothing there is ridiculously expensive, but sometimes you can find good deals at sales.  Today I picked up shoes for the boys for next winter.  I got these and these and these.  All had been $35 to $50, and I didn't pay more than $20 for any of them. 

I love feeling like I have saved money and still managed to get nice things for the boys or for myself.  It's satisfying to feel like I have spent money wisely. 

sigh... 

So it's been a good day.

Adoption Day: Then and Now

Happy Adoption Day to us!  Today is the one year anniversary of the finalization of Pumpkin's adoption. 

The day of the finalization was a regular day for us last year.  The lawyer was able to complete everything without our physical presence at the court in Indiana.  Financially, that was great.  But we would have loved to be there, all dressed up and taking pictures. 

We had no reason to think that the adoption might not be finalized, but I was surprised at how relieved I was when it was complete. 

I met him when he was three weeks old, and the adoption was complete six months later.

My sweet baby...  He is amazing.  I'm so blessed to be his mom.

(Edited: photos removed)

New Stairway

The stairway as it was before:

There was no real bannister, just a partial wall along the stairway.  When you come into the house, this is almost the first thing you see.  It makes everything look closed off.  You can't see it very well in this picture, but the landing is kind of an awkward shape as well. 

And the carpet is trashed.  The house is about 8 years old, and this is the original carpet.  When this project is done, we'll put new carpet on the steps and probably (hopefully) the whole hallway upstairs.  I'm thinking some kind of berber-- that stuff is pretty durable, right? 

Those are our bedroom doors at the top of the stairs.  The boy's rooms and the playroom are to the left, and the office is to the right.

Intermediate stairway:

This is a safety rail made of 2x4s that will be up until the new bannister goes in place.  It looks better already, doesn't it?  That hand rail on the opposite side is coming down, too.

By the way, can you tell Sparkle is paying close attention to the workers?  (Edited: Photo of smiling Sparkle with a pencil tucked behind his ear has been removed.) 

So, I was humbled today.

So, I was humbled today. 

Six years ago, a friend of mine found out during the seventh month of her pregnancy that her son had a congenital heart defect, and would be born with a heart that could not keep him alive.  (Don't worry, there's a happy ending coming up!) 

She has told me how she treasured every moment of her pregnancy from then on, even more than before, trying to get to know him as well as she could before he was born because she might not have a chance to know him any longer than that.

Today I got to see a picture of my friend feeding her son for the first time after he was born.  In the picture, my friend is wearing a hospital gown, standing beside his closed incubator.  She is holding a syringe filled with breastmilk, and she is pushing the milk through a feeding tube into his little baby belly. 

And she is grinning like it's Christmas. 

If it had been me, I would probably would have been disappointed that I couldn't breastfeed directly, or even hold him close to give him a bottle.  But she has a look of complete joy in the picture.  She tells me she was just so glad to have the opportunity to feed him at all.

Their family's story has a happy ending: the baby got a new heart, there were scary moments but he was monitored closely and now he's an active six year old.  Because their family is so "normal" I sometimes forget how vigilently his parents watch over him.  They give him medicines three times a day and he has cardiac biopsies every six months. 

Part of what I admire about her is that she still parents with such joy.  It sounds cliche to say, "treasure every moment with your kids," but really, that is what she reminds me to do.  She doesn't grasp for every memory in desperation, but she is very deliberate about how she spends time with her family.

I get frustrated when shoes can't be found, or the floor under the table has a piece of dried hot dog stuck to the grout, or the boys are gleefully spitting at each other in the back seat.  Sometimes I feel like I am parenting with more irritation than joy.

And then she calls, excited about her boys starting swimming lessons, and I remember, "Oh yeah!  The mom under the table removing encrusted food particles and grumbling to herself is not who I want to be!"

Once again, I'm not sure what my point is.  I was just grateful for the reminder to let go of irritations, and enjoy my family as much as possible.

Filling Space

I can't believe I have not posted anything for a week!  But brother-in-law and his family are gone now, so things are getting back to normal. 

Except that various construction workers are in and out of the house, working on some remodeling, and creating new varieties of dust daily (wood dust, sheetrock dust, and regular dust being blown in because the front door is always open). 

Sparkle gave me Sugar Babies for Mother's Day.  Whenever he gets to choose what to give as a gift, he invariably chooses some lovely food item.  Clever boy has discovered that he can "share" these with us, so he gets something out of the gift-giving as well. 

Pumpkin has been sleeping through the night more and more often in his own bed.  This is not something we have been working on at all, and I am a little sad about it.  No more co-sleeping means no more midnight baby snuggles.

I'm feeling like a lousey mom for not writing a tear-jerking Mother's Day essay about how motherhood has changed me and now my entire life is filled with sunshine because of my kids.

I am hoping, however, to post something of substance as well as remodeling pictures in the next few days...

Wondering About First Parents

We don't know the boy's first moms very well. 

We are in regular contact with Pumpkin's first mom, but we don't live close to one another.  About every eight weeks or so we call her, or she calls us, or one of us sends a letter.  It's fine, but I certainly don't feel like we know each other well at this point.

A few days ago Beloved and Pumpkin had a great afternoon together.  They read books and played a chasing game and shared a snack.  Pumpkin has always been absolutely a delightful, wonderful little boy (and I'm not just saying that because I'm his mom).  But for some reason that afternoon was extra-special. 

After the boys went to bed, I listened while Beloved recounted their afternoon's adventures.  We probably talked for about 30 minutes just about Pumpkin, listing all the ways he delights us as his parents.

"You know," Beloved said, "I wish R. knew what a really great kid Pumpkin is."

After a few seconds he said, "Watching Pumpkin grow up makes me wish I knew R. better.  I wonder what parts of her we are seeing in him.  I bet she is someone I would really like."

Yeah.  I think that pretty much sums up our feelings about Sparkle and Pumpkin's first moms. 

We're so lucky, so blessed.  Their first moms must be amazing.

We're Running 'Em Ragged

Since Brother-In-Law and his family arrived, we have been doing our best to keep the kids busy.  We've been to an open gym at a local gymnastics club, the library, had picnic lunch at the park, went swimming, went on a hike, went to the children's museum, and had a portrait taken of all the kids together.  We are quickly running through my offical roster of Potential Activities.  The kids are crashing hard for naps and bedtime. 

Today we made T-shirts to commemorate this trip.  Not a lot of creativity involved on the part of the kids (just one handprint on each shirt), but they had fun.  A messy craft project is a successful craft project, you know.

Mama and Baby Boy

Pumpkin was unexpectedly hit with a bit of spray from a sprinkler.  He didn't really even get wet, just startled.  But I'll take the snuggles anyway. 

You can see a little tear rolling down his nose...

(Edited: You can now see this photo in the sidebar.)