Scissors

So I woke up this morning and was making breakfast when I saw that all the toys that are supposed to hang from Evany's (new) play mat lying forlornly on the floor. I thought maybe they velcro'd on and that one of the kids had pulled them off while playing.

But...nope. Upon closer inspection it was clear that all the toys' strings had been cut cleanly off.

I turned to look at Ava and Jace, both of whom started talking a mile a minute. They each said it was the other, and when that didn't work, they told me it was Seth. That he had somehow climbed out of his own crib, climbed up onto the counter, onto the microwave to get the scissors, then got back down, cut Evany's toys off the play mat, planted the scissors in Ava and Jace's room to fake me out, then put himself back to bed.

When I explained why that wasn't likely to have happened, they changed the story again. In this scenario, it was Evany herself who sabotaged the play mat since she was so unimpressed at the gift I chose for her.

Wow. I knew she was advanced, but I had no idea she already had the dexterity to manipulate scissors. I think she could maybe play Renesmee in Breaking Dawn if that's the case.

Hey, there's a thought!

Anyway, in the end, the both admitted to cutting the toys off.

But it didn't stop there.

They cut the hair of a doll I'm immensely attached to...on our first visit to New York City, we saw a doll at FAO Schwarz that looked just like Eli did. (He had died two days before) After I couldn't stop talking about the doll for days on end, we rushed back to the store, racing through the place just before closing time. I was a basket case thinking the doll was going to be gone...These were the dolls they have in a "nursery" area of the store and they're all unique. But we made it, and he was still there. I remember holding him a lot in the months after Eli died, needing to be able to hold a baby in my arms. He's weighted and feels remarkably baby like.

And now he's been scalped.

But they didn't stop there, either. They cut some other stuffed animal's hair, then they cut each other's hair. Ava told me Jace's hair was too long on top so she cut it. Just last week I paid the stylist to cut his hair longer on top ON PURPOSE, Ava! You're Five! You don't know style! Then Jace cut her hair. And she may have gotten away with a new haircut after the first time she trimmed her own hair up a few months ago, but I'm not doing it again. She's going to have to live with one chunk of hair a whole lot shorter than the rest.

And she better like it.

It was a good thing today was Sunday and we were running late for church, because they may have had to walk the plank into our drainage ditch otherwise.

They're in a lot of trouble. It's partly my fault for, you know, sleeping.  Of course it would be better if I could stay awake 24 hours a day. I know that would be ideal, but it's just not happening. And these kids are sneaky. And tall.

So now we're a scissor free zone. The next school project we have to do will have a distinctively crafty feel to it, what with the hand torn paper and all. Let's hope they don't go in a glue stick rampage next, or we'll really be screwed.

What was I thinking?

I'm exhausted.

But I'm writing from a functioning computer! Score.  Now I have no excuse not to write all kind of things you don't care about reading. Fun!

So, Evany has always been a super annoyed baby...she can give a better dirty look than I can, and believe me, I'm no slouch. She's like an angry old lady and she's not even three months old yet. It's pretty intense. So I thought maybe if I got her a present it would perk her up...who doesn't like presents? I love presents. And food. And Evany seems to be like me. I feed her regularly, so maybe she's been put out because I haven't been showering her in gifts. There was this playmat at IKEA I've been eying since I was pregnant, and I thought she might like it.

So this morning I got the bright idea to pack all the kids up and head to our big mall to get an accessory for my phone I needed. That took several hours, mainly because I started to say we were leaving about 9 am and we rolled out of the house oh, about noon. I'm really peppy like that. Of course I didn't feed the kids before we left because I had fed them breakfast super late and thought that they wouldn't be hungry.

They were.

By the time we got to the mall, trolled the parking lot for a space, and walked in the rain into the mall from the back 40 where we parked, I was ready to quit. But we were there, so I decided it was a good idea to take the kids into a loud, crazy busy store full of computer and phone equipment. It was probably one of my most brilliant plans ever. Every time I said "Now don't touch!" Jace's fingers shot out involuntarily to grab something, and even when he tried to stop himself he ended up knocking things over anyway. I didn't see that you had to sign in to get help, so I didn't, so we were totally ignored, which...well, I would ignore me, too. Seth was trying to disassemble his ears, and he managed to pull them off just before I told him "no!" every time, so he never even heard me. Evany's hat kept falling over her eyes and she was royally ticked so she was screaming bloody murder and even when I found the accessory I needed I couldn't, no matter how many times I circled the store running over people's toes with the stroller, find a register.

Someone had the bright idea that taking away the registers was a good idea. Apparently now the associates just wander around checking people out all willy nilly. There is no line, no order, and I almost threw up when I realized I was going to have to go walk up to one of them and TALK to them. Finally, though, I realized I really needed the stupid thing and I got up the courage to ask someone to check me out, and after she looked around trying to find anyone else to do it, she rang me up with her fancy ringer up thingy. But then she had to walk all the way across the store to find a bag, which took the better part of five minutes. Then she needed my zip code so she had to walk all the way again back to get my receipt. It was eerily similar to a walk of shame. She knew taking away the registers was a silly idea, I know she did.

Um, as fancy as that was,  I think just having a register would have been quicker. Sometimes people get too fancy for their own good. Smack me if I ever try to do something like that, ok? Thanks.

So by that time we'd spent nearly an hour in the store, and the kids were begging for every overpriced baked good in the mall. I managed to drag them back to the car, literally kicking and screaming at some points, and the part of my mind that is sane was screaming "Just go home!"

Instead, the crazy part typed "IKEA" into the GPS, and away we went. By then it was 2:00 and we were all hungry, but for the life of my I couldn't figure out how to eat at the cafeteria, then go back down and check the kids into the play area. You can't go back the same way you come in at this store, and so instead of walking the long was I just suggested to the kids that they go to the play area first and that we'd do lunch afterwards. They were fine with that, considering there was a ball pit. Ava said "When you hear me scream 'WEEEE!' you'll know I've just leapt into the ball pit. I only say 'WEEE!' for ball pits." Then Jace said "When you hear ME screaming it'll be because I fell off the rock climbing wall. Come back when you hear that, okay?"

Of course, there was a line, and after waiting for longer than any of us would have liked, I was first in line. I grabbed a sign in sheet just as the check in girl stopped checking kids in. They were at their limit, and kids had to get checked out before mine could go in.

Seriously. Stupid childcare laws. (Kidding! Don't email me).

So after about ten more minutes watching the kids discuss just exactly what they were going to do first, bringing our waiting time up to about 25 minutes altogether, they were signed in.

That's when the check in girl told me that the time limit was 30 minutes.

Are you freaking kidding me? You can't even see a fraction of the store in 30 minutes. I've never gone and had the time limit be less than an hour before. Ridiculous. We'd literally waited in line as long as they could play.

So that's when I ran as fast as I could and jumped onto an elevator with roughly 80 other hardcore IKEA goers and went in the opposite direction of the arrows, which, whoa, apparently a big deal to some people, in search of the play mat that was going to magically make Evany a happy baby.

Then I got distracted by some pretty boxes, then I got the idea that we needed some more toy storage options, and, oh! Hey! Look, there's a wooden slide that Seth could use with his processors on! Then I remembered that I'd meant to price their cribs. And we were running low on the kids' table ware. And oh, there was that playmat, which was way bigger than I remembered, and it wouldn't fit in the basket of the stroller, and Evany was in the bottom and Seth was in the top and in the end it had to go kind of over my shoulder like a hobo's stick. Classy.

Aaaand that's how I was late picking the kids up. But only by a couple of minutes. The downside is that even after I picked them up, we still had the entire bottom half of the store to navigate before we could make it to the registers and the hot dogs I had promised them. It was like they were slogging through the desert, dragging one foot behind the other, arms outstretched, wailing "Hot Dooooooog!". That is, until they got distracted by something pretty. Ava saw a rug and said "Mom, what if I had my own room and put that rug in there, with like a nice little loveseat and then we could get those lamps, and..." that's when  I tuned her out because she doesn't even have the first part of that sentence which made the entire thing pointless.

Finally we made it out to the self service area where I had to find and load up the storage stuff I'd found. Then we found another table choice and weighed the pros and cons and compared the different table leg styles and then I decided on it, loaded up, and then couldn't find chairs that matched in stock. So I had another idea and I unloaded everything and reloaded something else, then went to look for stools, Ava careening behind me with the stroller with the babies in it and Jace saying "I can't do this anymore!"

The the stools were the wrong color. Then The storage unit I'd picked out was out of stock although the cubbies were there.

I stood there with a push cart of stuff that wasn't complete for various reasons, and it was practically four o'clock and Evany woke up screaming bloody murder, and...

I totally left the cart right there, checked out and bought one stinking thing...the playmat.

Then we ate hot dogs and chips (read: Ava, Jace, and I ate while Seth threw everything on the floor.) and I fed Evany.

Then it was five o'clock and we were still 45 minutes away from home and out of diapers for Evany. I loaded everyone up and we headed for Target, and...of course, by the time we got there, all four kids were passed out in the car, so I drove right by.

Diapers do not trump waking up four sleeping kids. We'll survive somehow.

And just so you know, I just put Evany on her brand new playmat and for five whole minutes she looked interested and kicked her legs...and then she started yelling at it in a very mean voice.

So...yeah. That was a fun day.

Hope.

So, I have a confession to make. 

I've been feeling pretty sorry for myself lately. I'll officially be divorced in 14 days, and just 18 days after that, I'll be celebrating the day my son both died and was born. If you had told me last March, when I was vacationing with what I thought was my intact family, that I would be divorced before his third birthday, I would have laughed. And probably head butted you. 

And yet. One short year, and my family is fundamentally changed. 

Plus little things are going wrong left and right. Our settlement was not ideal, the kids are acting out, I burnt my finger with hot grease. Everything I do around the house just leads to ten other things that need to be done, and I'm drowning in the sea of clothing that five people create. I'm tired. I'm not sleeping well, and my computer is broken. The mortgage company called John at work today about our house.

Does anyone have some cheese to go with my whine? Thanks, 'preciate it. 

The point is, I've been down in the dumps, and I've had a hard time praying about it. When will something good happen for me after all we've been through? When will my husband open his eyes? When will I have to pack up everything and leave the home John and I worked together to restore from the floor to the ceiling?

Yeah, a total pity party. Then, as God so likes to do, I tripped right over my own feet feeling sorry for myself and fell flat on my face, which was totally the position I needed to be in, on the ground, praying, finding God again. 

What did it for me? Well, it was simple, really. Because of a friend of mine (Hi Stephanie!) I was blessed to see these pictures.

My best friend's husband, and sometimes I feel weird calling him that, because we truly are friends ourselves after all these years and what we've been through together, is in Haiti right now (Along with Steohanie's husband, Tim). That's him, in the boots and bandanna, looking up at the camera. Tommy. He's our church's youth pastor. He spoke at Eli's memorial service. He made Seth's fundraising video. He risked losing John's friendship because he felt so strongly about speaking the truth to him. He is a devoted husband, a strong and funny father, a hilarious and loyal friend. I don't know where I or my family would be without him and his family.

He flew last week to Haiti with a few other members of our church, to meet up with a team from Missionary Ventures International. There was a need, and they went. For some members of the team (I can't speak for all of them), they are doing this trip on their own dime, just hoping that people will feel led to help them fund it later.

They're  doing construction near Port Au Prince. I'm not positive what they're building...communication has been fairly light as they've been incredibly busy working. There is a clinic set up, and just last night three babies were delivered, two of which survived. Today, six women were in labor.

Tonight, Tommy had the opportunity to preach, to share a message with them all. He got the chance to share our faith, to be God with skin on to these kids and their families.

Last night there was a tremor, and this morning there was an aftershock. Thankfully, no one was hurt. The workers at the construction site had a chance to have an awesome night with the local families, lifting their spirits as they construct a building for them.

These people have nothing. They live in one room shacks built out of cardboard, heading into the rainy season. And yet the kids, who have every reason to feel scared and confused, are friendly and welcoming.

I don't even have words for the way seeing these pictures make me feel. Insignificant, like I have been so stuck in my own head that I've been making myself out to be way more important than I am. Yes, I have problems, but I am blessed beyond measure, and beyond many other people out there.

The eyes on these kids...I've never seen eyes like theirs. They're not the sad eyes of the kids on the commercials asking for a dollar a day. They're knowing eyes, eyes that have seen more than most of us have every dreamed of seeing. And yet they're hopeful, even happy. They haven't given up.

If they haven't given up, how can I? How can you? A verse has been going through my head all day, a very familiar one to me. I have always said that Jeremiah 29:11 was Seth's scripture.

 

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future."

DECLARES the Lord. He declares that he has a plan to give us a hope, give us a future. How amazing is it that he has a plan to give each and every one of us hope, one of the hardest things to hold on to? What a gift.

It was the next verse, though, that has been echoing in my head all day. he entire passage says this:

“For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

That's amazing to me. I feel so unheard so much of the time, like I talk and talk and have to reword everything forty times just to get my point across. And maybe there are people in my life who I need to do that with...but not God. Even when his plans aren't clear, even when living in a fallen world creates a terrible situation, God is still listening for our call. He is still planning to bring beauty from the ashes in a way only he understands. He plans to prosper us despite all our efforts to control our own lives, offers us hope and a future no matter how bleak things look in the present. He is offering us hope, and all we have to do is seek him out with our whole hearts.

God, that's hard to do.

But I want to. I want to feel hope like it looks like these gorgeous kids do. I want to feel the stirring in my soul every day that I feel tonight wondering what God did during Tommy's sermon, how many people he had the opportunity to share Christ with. I was to feel on fire again, like I'm overflowing with the word and have no room left to be negative or depressed. The devil isn't always overt...sometimes, just causing us to feel lackadaisical about our faith is enough  for him to feel like he's winning the war.

These people like Tommy and Tim and everyone else who not only speak the Word but act the Word in the most inconvenient, least comfortable way inspire me to be better. My beautiful cousin Jordan took off to do missionary work in Brazil for the second have of her junior year of high school. She left her family, her friends, all because she felt led to be there. When someone asked her why she was going, she said "Because it's not my life. It's His, and this is where He needs me right now."

When we get right down to it, this small stuff, even when it doesn't feel small, doesn't matter at all. All that matters is that we are furthering God's cause and helping to bring others into his kingdom.Whether we're doing that here in our every day lives or whether we're traveling to far away places to do it there doesn't matter as long as we're seeking His will in all we do.

If you guys would keep the entire team in your prayers, that would be amazing. They'll be traveling home at the end of this week.

A first!

Because Evany is my fifth child, I don't get a lot of firsts with her. In fact, when you factor in all five kids, I've pretty much been through every quirky/sad/happy baby and kid milestone and behavior. Colicky babies, sleep issues, the terrible twos...I've had a kid sent home from school because he couldn't handle his socks being different heights. I've been through the potty training wringer. 

When it comes to pre school and below, I've pretty much been there, done that, and gotten the t-shirt(s). 

But one thing I hadn't ever done before the other night?

Pulled out a tooth out of my child's head.

It was hanging by a thread and after we took this obligatory 'before' picture, I yanked it right out of her pretty little mouth. Halfway through she changed her mind, but by then it was out and she was over it and bouncing around like a puppy asking to call just about everyone she's ever met to tell them.

It was a first. I haven't had a first in a while. It was a cool bonding moment for Ava and me, and although I totally broke my own rule (Never pull out your kids teeth, no matter what), we both thought it was pretty exciting. She even got five bucks under her pillow since it was her first tooth and all.

Of course, we now have a problem because she lost the other bottom tooth tonight and there is no way I am giving her another five dollars. I don't have a money tree! She's going to have to settle for a pack of gum this time.

I can't believe I have a kid big enough to be losing her teeth! Wow. I think I might start charging a fee to pull them to help cut down on tooth fairy costs.

Kids are chaos

This is a snapshot of our weekend.

Not really, though, because at least two kids are missing from this picture.

One of my very favorite friends, Sarah, (She is the one who took this picture so we could memorialize the ridiculousness of taking 11 kids to Wendy's with four adults) drove up from Fort Meyers for a conference and she left her adorable son, Zachary, to play with us. Ava and Zach are all of 6 days apart and they have been best friends since, oh, almost a year before this picture was taken:

That's Zach in the green dino costume. Zach and Ava had their first birthday parties together as well as their second. They were joined at the hip. John and Sarah's husband, Josh used to be very close friends as well, along with the rest of our gang here. So we all cried a lot when they moved away. Sarah is also the beautiful lady who designed Seth's fundraising business cards last year and my fancy tattoo! She's pretty awesome.

On one of her last visits, we took this picture (yes I'm showing you an old picture because we failed to take any this weekend), and I think this was proof that Ava's going to be a photographer...

That's Laura, Amy, me, Mara, and Sarah. We have a lot of fun together. This weekend, we sat around and let our kids play for six uninterrupted hours at a park, then, when they were way overstimulated and overtired and over-everything, we took them to Wendy's.

Not the best idea ever, but...seemed like a good choice at the time! We got just long enough to remember how much we miss her when she's not here, and now I'm a little depressed because I miss when she lived down the road from me. Sarah was my very first friend in Florida, and I love her like family.

Speaking of family, though...

My Logan is coming for her spring break in just a few weeks! We're going to have so much fun! Then, either during or just after, Jacob is coming (Scroll down on that post to see some pictures so cute you'll throw up!). Then, then, then....my best friend and Jace's godmother Kara, and my another one of my best friends, Keith, are flying down to have a sort of party in honor of my divorce being final. Tacky, yes, but it will be so nice to see them and let loose a little bit! They'll also be here for Eli's third birthday, which will be really nice, since this is the first year we won't be celebrating his birthday in New York, which makes me really sad, so it'll be nice to have a distraction and we'll be able to plan something great for his birthday with them and the neighbors.

In other words, March is going to be full to the brim, and I am so excited about that, as I am always a little more down that month leading up to Eli's birthday, thinking about all the things that happened and the last weeks I was pregnant with him.

Man, I made this amazing broccoli salad today...I'm kind of in love with myself, even if I did burn the heck out of my arm frying the bacon. Totally worth it.

Movin' on up...

So I finally got around to putting little Miss Vivi onto this cool scale my friend Laura loaned me, oh, about two babies ago, and I was simply shocked by what it said...

Yep, you're reading that right...Evany weighs around 8 pounds 5 ounces. I'm kind of thrilled with that, and I'm most excited because it means Evany is...

Movin' on up...to a new size!

Here she is in her fancy 0-3 month clothes and baby legs. I think she's scrumptious.

And I'm fairly certain, based upon this picture, that she's pretty excited, too!

We've got a full day ahead of us filled with playing outside, attending a going away party, and, later tonight, tossing a bunch of kids together and hoping they amuse themselves so that two of my best friends and I can enjoy hanging out and having dinner at home together. Sounds like a perfect Saturday to me! First, though. I have to wish Evany a happy one-month-since-your-due-date-day! Isn't it crazy she's only supposed to be a month old?

Have a great Saturday, everyone!

Mediators are melodramatic

Today was rough. John and I mediated it up and after four looooong hours we came to an agreement. I was exhausted and it all still seems so surreal, I don't even know what to think. Our mediator was a loon. A LOON. If  I could add more Os to that I would, because it would get my point across better. She tried, hard, to stir up as much drama as possible. It almost got super ugly before we salvaged the situation and in the end, we signed.

I'm mentally and emotionally exhausted. I'm relieved, I'm frustrated, I'm sad, I'm numb, all for various reasons and to varying degrees. It'll apparently be another month or so before it's all for real and final, but our agreement is signed and we've avoided a court battle.

Yay.

I'm glad, although I don't think either one of us ended up being thrilled with the agreement we came to, but after four hours of insanity you find yourself suddenly seeing the compromise as the best case scenario and you'll pretty much sign anything they put in front of you.  Almost.

So I don't have it in me to write much more tonight, I just know many of you were keeping us in your thoughts and prayers today, and I wanted to update you and thank you. At one point, I was just praying that others were praying, because it seemed like it was all going to hell in a handbasket. Some of you must have been sending some prayers up for us right then, because it all turned around even though I thought there was no way the mediation could be salvaged, so...totally a God thing.

Okay, my brain is fried...I'll be back with real content before you know it. If my brain starts working again. That'd be nice!

This is not the post I promised you.

So, turns out I can't get the pictures off my computer to post them, and I had not yet uploaded them to FLickr, so the awesome "A Day in the Life" post I've been working on is going to have to wait. I know, I know, I'm a tease. It's ok though, because it was turning into WAY too much for one post anyway. 

Instead, you get a Jeremy post! Ahhh! I know, there are a few of you who are jumping up and down. For those of you who aren't, better than nothing, right? We have to keep it on the DL...he's going to be super annoyed if he sees this. Which he will, but whatevs. Sorry, J! I needed material, and there you were...suck it up.

He's lucky, though, that I could only find a couple of pictures from high school on Flickr and that they're not embarrassing. I have so, so many more, and they're so, so much worse. 

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I met Jeremy on the bus to band camp the summer before my senior year of high school. 

OK, are you done laughing? 

He was a very bad drummer boy, which meant I liked him immediately. That's how I rolled back in the day. My friends told me he was a player and that I should stay away, but he had my interest the moment he leaped onto the bus and told me I was in his seat and I better move. So Romantic! One night after lights out we heard the girls in the bunks below us whispering about how cute he was. Two different girls thought he was into them, and at least one of them had already told him she loved him, but I knew, judging from the fact that he threw me into the lake without fail every single day, that he actually liked me. 

Of course, I had to play it cool, and I basically ignored him for most of the week.Apparently it worked, because on the bus ride home from band camp, he gave me a shoulder massage, and word traveled through the six other buses magically, like wildfire, and as we shuffled off the bus late that night, one of the girls he was talking to was standing there, flaming mad, and just like that, he asked her for his drumline jacket back. Harsh.

I think we were together after that, although I do seem to remember sitting in my convertible in the school parking lot one day after band practice, and him somehow awkwardly kneeling outside the door and asking if I would "go out with him." Of course, I totally said yes, and we started a total controversy in the band because I was one of the good girls and he was a stone cold player. Or something. I don't remember, except that our friends were all beyond annoyed and hated being forced to hang out together. So that was fun. 

Here is a picture of us the fall of our senior year. Excuse the fact that we both have an insane case of red eye.

We hung out all the time with my friends, and we'd talk on the phone for hours at a time. He acted like a five year old most of the time, although he did earn points when he told me that all he needed to be happy was a picnic blanket, the stars, atomic fireballs, and me. I was totally into him, so of course he dumped me about a week later, when he told me that Love was like falling off a cliff, or something. I'm not sure what that was supposed to mean. 

Of course I was devastated, but I rallied a few months later and started dating his best friend to make him jealous. Yes, I was that girl. 

Only his best friend ended up being pretty awesome himself and we dated for several months during which time Jeremy and I became close, very dysfunctional friends. Here we all are at our high school graduation:

That's Ben (the one who came to visit Evany during his bachelor party), me, Zac (Jeremy's best friend) and J. We all, along with some other friends, hung out together pretty much every second of the day. We spent most weekends at Zac's parents lakehouse, and I'm relatively sure I was responsible for that terrible dye job Ben is sporting.

Sometime later, Jeremy decided to join the Marines. He left for boot camp, and while he was there, we wrote lots of letters back and forth. We tossed around the idea of dating again, and there were a few occassions where we tried it out, but we were never all that successful. He was living across the country, and I was way, way too high maintenance for that. We dated, he would visit, I'd break up with him, he'd break up with me, it was a soap opera. Together we created a ton of baggage for one another so that everyone who tried to date one of us pretty much waved the white flag immediately. Fun! Except...not.

Then September 11th rolled around, and all of our lives changed. You can read about my thoughts on that here: We wrote letters during his first deployment, some of which I still find laying around in random places. He'd write letters about what car he was going to buy when he got back, what huge parties there would be. At some point we had begun to make the transition from melodrama to real friends, although it was bumpy. Somewhere along there I met John, and soon after his second deployment he ran into the girl who would become his wife who had also gone to high school with us.

They ended up splitting up, (but on a happy note, she's since met and married someone who seems to make her insanely happy, and they have one of the coolest blended families I've seen.  We meet up at the zoo with all the kiddies every summer we visit home, and I'm glad to say we're friends. Hi, L!) and he's since moved down to southern Florida and we get to hang out semi regularly. It's the first time we've lived within 4 hours of one another since we were about 18, so it's been great.

But we're just friends. Sorry to disappoint some of you, but we get along much, much, muchmuchmuch better as friends. Although he does say I never like the names of the girls he dates. Which makes no sense to me. Now that I think of it though, he does date girls with some unfortunate names.

Oops. Now he's really going to be mad at me. Oh well, nothing new.

So that's the Jeremy story, and it had pictures, although there weren't kid pictures. Happy now? If not, take it up with my broken, useless computer.

Valentine?

So, Valentine's Day.

Ugh.

I'm a fan of it, generally. Some of you may know my love language is restaunts and hotels, and therefore Valentine's is fun for me. I've had some doozies...one Valentine's day consisted of the whole shebang...dressing up and followng a scavenger hunt to a pedestrian bridge where my boyfriend was waiting with a boom box playing our song. We slow danced, went to dinner, and then he just started driving, right out of the country into Canada. When I freaked out about not having my birth certificate, he pointed at the back of the car, where my roommate, who was in on the secret, had packed me a bag without my knowledge. We spent the weekend wandering the streets of Windsor (where the drinking age is 19, btw) and visiting the Columbus zoo. Yeah, that one was fun.

Last night I went to our church's Valentine's Day Dinner and a Movie.

I went with my best friend, because if she didn't go, she would totally have ended up working childcare for the third year in a row (her husband runs the event), and that's just no good. Plus, it's a fundraiser for our youth group. So when she asked me if I was interested in going with her, I said yes without considering the ramifications of going to a event aimed solely at couples. I guess that makes her my valentine.
And, man. It wasn't the dinner, which was amazing, or the conversation, which was great, and it was great to see everyone from church. In fact, being around all the married couples didn't even bother me, which is huge. I mean, it was kind of bittersweet, obviously, since it's something that I never wanted to have to learn to do, go places alone.

But it was fun, and the movie was good...really good, and it hit me hard. It was a movie about a marriage that kind of fell apart for various reasons, and the wife ends up basically losing it and taking off. The movie fast forwards ten years and is about how the husband and wife end up reconnecting and what happens with their relationship as the wife has become a believer.

Afterwards, Tommy spent some time praying for everyone's marriages, and that's when I had to get up and walk away. As okay as I am with the divorce in these circumstances, I never would have chosen it, and at certain times the loss of it all hits me all over again...not just the loss of our relationship but the loss of our dreams, of the people who had such great plans for our family. The loss of innocence for the kids, the loss of really understandng what our family was before it became what it is. But more than all that, I feel sad for John, sad that no matter how hard we try, he is going to miss so much of their lives, even if I stay single. And if I don't stay single, there will be another father figure in their lives, and no amount of stressing that John is their dad and so and so is not won't change the fact that John won't be the one waking up with them, doing homework with them, cutting the crust off their sandwiches for lunch. He (whoever he may be) will be the only man Evany or Seth will remember living with.

I really do believe that John and I are doing this this the best case scenario way, but it's tough when we're making the best of one of the worst things that could happen.  We talk, we get along, but there are so many things we'll never agree on. We can be around each other without issue, and in fact, when I see him I rarely even think of what we had. It makes me happy because I don't feel sad. Then it makes me sad because I know I'm the only one who remembers, and if I forget, who is going to tell the kids one day that their parents really did love them and each other? Even if they grow up with two step parents, two nuclear families, it's still important to me that they understand that.

A bit heavy for Valentine's Day, I know. I sat down to write a very different post, but an hour later, this is the one that insisted upon being written. The other one was going to be super funny and you guys are totally missing out. Sorry!

Technical Difficulties

So, my laptop died. It was very sad. It might not be dead forever, but considering the length of time I've had it, it probably is. John apparently knows a guy, or something, and he's going to take it in for me to try to get it back up and running, but it's not looking good right now.

So that's why I've been MIA. I didn't leave you, I promise! I'll be back up and running as soon as human, or computerly possible. Let's hope it's soon!

Oh man, I just remembered I forgot to finish up Jace's valentine's for his party tomorrow. They're the cutest and easiest things ever...I'll have to post pictures after I get them done!

Hope everyone is having a great week!

Friends

So I came to Starbucks tonight to hang and get some work done answering emails and blogging while John had his visit with the kids and instead I have gotten sucked into the longest and strangest twittversation in the world. Then I started chatting with one of my best friends on face book, and then somehow I found some LOST theory I hadn't read yet.

So in other words, I'm an easily distracted procrastinator.

I know I know, you all knew that already.

I just...I love my friends. I have a handful of friends who I have known for ten-fifteen years now, who have been there for every big and small event in my life, who can off the top of their head remember the nicknames we had for boys so we could talk about them in code, who have seen me cry my very ugliest cry, who have laughed so hard we've all ended up laying on the ground trying to desperately to breathe. They were there for my soap operatastic high school and college experience, and they rode the roller coaster right along with me no matter how melodramatic it got. The friends who know my shorthand, who I can call after months of no contact and jump right into a conversation we had maybe a year ago.

Then I have the friends who I met after moving to Florida six years ago, who have stood alongside me as I navigated the uncharted territory of motherhood, who have answered my calls and refused to laugh when I beg them for guidance on whether or not my kid is drinking too much water or rolling over at the proper time. These friends stood unflinchingly behind me as I dealt with the loss of Eli, no matter how distant, self absorbed, and distracted I was. They helped me plan his memorial, they go out of their way to say his name, they are always willing to come sit in my living room and drink sangria and talk about how we're most likely messing up our kids. These friends will guard my pride when I need help, parent my children as if they were their own, and let me give back in the limited ways I can right now.

In many ways, these friends are like family to me, as precious to me as my mom and my extended family and they have earned that place by being amazing.

But the friends I never expected were the ones I met here, on this little piece of property on the internet, the people who were inexplicably drawn to our story, who took it upon themselves to comment or email and probably comment and email again because I'm such a loser at communicating, and who somehow over the past year and a half have become such close friends that I can call them unexpectedly when I'm going into labor or call at any time of day just to chat without a good reason. I plan visits and vacations with them and when we meet up we have so much fun that it's almost impossible we've just met...from the internet. They make me laugh so hard I cry, and I feel like I've known them forever. It's crazy, but they've become as valuable to me as many of my "real life" friends, even become real life friends to me, and sometimes I can't believe what amazing people I have in my life.

So I guess all of that is to say that while keeping your spouse first and your priority is so important, don't forget to guard your friendships as well. If, God forbid, anything does happen to your marriage or relationship, your friends and family are going to be the most important people to you, the first responders in healing and guarding your heart as you try to go about your life in a whole new world. I would even venture to say that having good friends, a good support system to hold us accountable and remind us of who we are can actually make us better husbands and wives than we would be in a vacuum, when we expect our spouse to be absolutely everything to us. While that's ideal, there are going to be times in a marriage when one spouse just can't give 100% for whatever reason, and in those situations, it's imperative to have friends around who can help pick up the slack in an appropriate manner while guiding us towards building our marriage up and not tearing it down.

I love friends.

In which we reveal our startling knowledge of Quantum Physics.

Or, How do you pronounce "Crayon"?

Weekend Wrap Up

So my children are basically little monsters, or possibly they're going to be brilliant. I most definitely need to stop letting them have rest time alone in their room, but man, that 2 hours keeps me sane, so...it's a toss up.  Yesterday they got into an art kit of Ava's and painted a landscape in black paint on their walls.  Today they did an "experiment" wherein they got a toy gumball machine, filled it with water from every single bottle of water in our house, and were surprised when it leaked.

Good experiment.  Also good that I got rid of their carpet a long time ago. Not good that they wasted an entire roll of paper towels cleaning up.

After the painting incident Mara and I were sitting at the kitchen table and I was contemplating whether drinking wine at 3 was trashy or not. I did conclude that all I had in the house was beer, and as tempting as it was, I was definitely not going to drink beer at 3 pm as that definitely WAS trashy, even if it was relatively fancy beer like Stella Artois left over from New Year's. Instead of drinking, I called John and told him he may not have any children left if he didn't come entertain them for a while and take care of the mess, God love them. He headed over with a guitar and apparently serenaded them into submission, which was nice, although I did notice today that none of that black paint actually got cleaned up, so...ugh. But at least I got a chance to put it all into perspective instead of listing my kids on freecycle. Normally I'm fine with being the only adult in the house, but every once in a while it gets to be a bit much.

Because of my bad day, my friend Jeremy decided to drive up from south Florida and hang out, and I was actually able to talk him into line dancing, which was hilarious. I'm a terrible line dancer, let me tell you, but I think it's the most entertaining thing to do, ever, and I don't mind when people ask me to dance because I'm not expected to touch them.

That sounded weird. I'm not against touching people, I just don't like to touch random people. I got J to hit the floor for the Cha Cha Slide, which always reminds me of the cruises the girls and I take, and man, you have never seen anything more entertaining than a 6 and a half foot tall guy doing the Charlie Brown and bringing it down low. We also got to witness some amazing mechanical bull riding and you would not believe how many girls tried to ride the thing tandem facing each other and how hard I laughed every time they inevitably knocked heads. Physics, people. It's going to happen. The best, thought, was the girl who rode the bull wearing her festively fuzzy Christmas Socks. I mean, it's only February. In Florida.

The highlight, though, was this 45-50 year old man who struck up a conversation with me while Jeremy was off talking to people, which is a talent he has. He was wearing a paisley shirt that was oh so definitely purchased on some sort of cruise, and he had mardi gras beads on. It was unclear whether he had added the beads at home to finish off his outfit or whether he'd procured them at the bar doing who knows what, but it was the most amazing outfit. He started our conversation by asking me if I'd ridden a horse to the bar, and he seemed slightly disappointed when I told him that I had not, and that the car I'd ridden in was just a plain old sedan and not a juiced up monster truck. He asked me if I was single and when I told him I was going through a divorce, he nodded excitedly and said "Perfect!" Nice, let me tell you. When Jeremy came back I escaped and left him stranded talking to Paisley Shirt Guy and it was awesome, even though I got several texts telling me that he hated me for it. I can live with that.

So all in all, a relatively successful weekend. Ava is newly obsessed with folding her own laundry, so we've been working on that and man, wouldn't that be nice if she did a chore? Seth spent all day today at church obsessed with a drinking fountain and he still won't even think about going to the nursery. I left him in child care last week for a meeting and the kid cried so hard he puked. I've never seen a kid like this. I spent some time on the phone with Sarah this afternoon, so be on the lookout for the link to that...thirty minutes of your life you'll never get back listening to us try to stay on one topic for more than twenty seconds. We're not watching the super bowl, mostly because I only watch sports for a good reason like food or a party. I am, however, rooting for the Colts in support of Indiana. Go Colts!

Random/Wicked

So Wicked was kind of amazing, I've got to say. Dinner was also awesome, and I'm now kind of in love with mojitos, for two reasons...one, there was pretty much an entire fruit salad in mine, and two, I really like saying the word 'mojito.' Mojito! Plus they have chocolate cake that is roughly a foot in diameter. That, my friends...is beyond. Beyond. I don't even know what it's beyond...it's just beyond it all. I could use a foot long piece of cake right now.

But the musical...wow. Glinda was my favorite, followed closely by Fiyero. Once I read the playbill, though, I realized why...the chick that played Glinda also played Sharpay in High School Musical...the musical. And the guy that was Fiyero played Warner in the musical version of Legally Blond. And you all know I love me some High School Musical and I'll admit publicly for the first time I loved Legally Blond. I'm kind of a sucker for ditzy blonds and vapid frat boy types.

Which is why I made so many bad dating choices in the past. But that's another story.

Our seats were amazing...I twittered a picture, it's over on the left sidebar...we were center stage and sixteen rows back and I could actually see the facial expressions of the actors. I had never seen the show or even known the entire storyline...we basically went in knowing it was a Wizard of Oz "prequel" and so I was totally shocked by the ending. It was very, very cool.

And that Popular song is stuck in my head. Like, a lot.

Jace has walked by me at least five times since I've been writing going back and forth from his room to the bathroom, and he has that look on his face that tells me he is going to be in big trouble when I manage to get up from this couch and see what he's been getting into. I'm going to put it off a bit longer because what I don't know is not going to hurt me right now.

I'm feeling blah today. I'm really looking forward to seven o'clock when I can get the kids in bed. There is actual grown up food in my house that I can cook (meaning, beyond macaroni and lunch meat and fruit) and the girls are coming over, so hopefully I'll be able to shake myself out of this mood by then.

Just to end this totally disjointed post I'm going to show you what was one of the highlights of my day yesterday. Facebook cracks me up. Although not quite as much as Mandy.

Remove

Ellyn Meinzer McCall http://bit.ly/9taSOS#disqus_thread You guys' comments are making me cry in carline. Can I love blog readers I've not met? Cuz I think I do!

Yesterday at 2:20pm via Twitter  · Comment · 

Mandy Crawford Hornbuckle

Yes, but you have to love the ones you have met much, much more.

Yesterday at 3:26pm · 

Ellyn Meinzer McCall

I already love you so much it's slightly inappropriate, Mandy.

Yesterday at 3:46pm · 

Mandy Crawford Hornbuckle

I assure you, the inappropriateness is mutual.

Yesterday at 3:58pm · 

Jeremy Spradlin

wow. thats all i can say

Yesterday at 4:44pm · 

Kara Ketter

you two are getting J ten shades of excited!

Yesterday at 6:59pm · 

Ellyn Meinzer McCall

Oops!

Yesterday at 7:08pm · 

Ellyn Meinzer McCall

I can't help. Mandy rocks!!

Yesterday at 7:09pm · 

Mandy Crawford Hornbuckle

Don't listen to them. We'd be great together, Ellyn. I'm just not ready to be a step-mom to five kids, that's all. I hope you understand.

Yesterday at 7:49pm · 

Ellyn Meinzer McCall

Are you breaking up with me???

Yesterday at 10:48pm · 

Mandy Crawford Hornbuckle

Never!!!!

Yesterday

Hope everyone is having a great Friday...I'm going to go find some ice cream and eat it while hiding somewhere my kids can't find me. 

Lemonade

I just typed out this long meandering post and then it disappeared. 


Uncool. 


But enlightening. My post was getting long and confusing and the whole point was lost, so maybe my second attempt will be more succinct. 


Today marks another month that has passed since my marriage broke up. 


Man, that sucked, huh?


And yet, this is the overarching feeling I have when I think back over the past months. Don't be too shocked.


Thank God. 


I mean, it's not that I'm glad that I will be a divorcee in a few weeks. I hate the extra care and effort that will have to go into guarding my children's hearts and minds when I never wanted this for them, but still...


Thank God.


Thank God He saw fit to see me through these months, to the day that it suddenly dawned on me that in many ways I am better off, a healthier and more whole person since my husband left. 


He's probably reading this, so...sidenote: Thanks, John! If you hadn't given up on me, I never would have realized that in many ways I had given up on myself, or just how miserable I was in so many areas of my life. I was backsliding, mistrustful, losing faith even as I grasped it by a thread. I had reasons to feel all those things, valid ones. Your leaving jump started this journey I've been on, and all this time, when I thought I was just trying to rebuild our marriage, it turned out that I was actually rebuilding myself. (And no, nothing in the above paragraph is mean to be snarky.)


Okay, back on track. I have been broken since Eli died. That day changed me, for better or worse, in a way that even my marriage vows didn't. I was consumed by grief. Then Seth was born, and because he was deaf, and because it was easy to blame myself because if I hadn't "failed" him by delivering early maybe he would have kept his hearing, I was consumed by passion to help him. I was consumed with my children, keeping them alive, keeping them safe, when I should have realized that there was only so much I could do protect them, being only human and all, and not, you know, God. 


But these several months of being on my own, in a sense, have helped me to find that part of me that I thought was gone. I'm happy. I didn't even realize it until someone told me, said that as crazy as it seemed in the midst of all this, I seemed more at peace than I have in a long time. 


Then I realized it was true and offered them a cookie, because...man, why didn't I realize this sooner? I've been doing all this work on me to fix my marriage and I never once realized that even if my husband didn't want to benefit from my efforts, I still could! In a lot of ways I am much more prepared to be a good and happy wife than I ever was before, and if not that, I am already a better and happier person, even on my own.


I have to tell you, I'm a fan of being happy. I'm a fan of looking forward to life with a more balanced view of what my family should and can be, with myself as a person who feels real and whole as a woman and not just a mom. I like being able to find a way to reconcile ME me with MOM me and not feeling bad about it. That while it's not ideal, I'm capable of doing this, and doing it well. Who knew it...kids do better when their parents like themselves. Rocket Science, I tell you.


Of course, they do even better when their parents like both themselves and one another, but we're getting there, and, also, you can't always get what you want. 


But when you try sometimes, you get what you need. (Sidenote, I miss GLEE.)


Turns out I don't need my husband to survive or be happy, although obviously that would have been the best case scenario, and man,  I hope this doesn't trick anyone into thinking I'm a fan of divorce, because...no, no way dude. But on the flip side, I'm also not a fan of forcing people to stay married, and if you do, where's God in that? I'm okay with it. I mean, I think it would probably be best to be married to someone who wants to be married to you, too. And I feel strongly that when God is quiet about something, when he holds back from convicting someone, there is a reason.


Maybe someday it will happen, and I'll find a partner and best friend, someone who will laugh at my jokes and think my neuroses are cute, and who will wake up every morning making the choice to love me even when I'm being unlovable. Who will be honest even when it means I'll be sad or mad or frustrated. Who will work tirelessly to prevent the enemy from attacking our union, as he so wants to do.


It would be great if that happened for me, but if it doesn't, that's cool too. But I promise you if I do this again, I'm doing it for keeps. Because now I'm back. I'm no longer grieving, not my son's death or my marriage's demise.  I'm so blessed by each of my children, and by the years I spent with John. I'll always remember that boy I married very fondly and I'll probably always love him, although I don't really see him in the guy I am developing this strange, quirky friendship with as we learn to parent our children together.


Over all these months, I have prayed for peace. For peace with John's decisions, peace to guide my actions in the right direction. It eluded me. I never knew what to do, I never felt closure or like my marriage was over. 


But now, for whatever reason, in whatever timing, I am at peace. We've survived these months, and in the years to come, I have complete peace and conviction about something, and I know, for once, without a doubt, that it's straight from God. 


While our family being intact and whole was the goal, we have survived what has happened here, in this fallen world. And it won't stop there. 


I think...no, I know we're going to thrive. 


It's yet another place I never thought I'd be, something else I never asked for. But just as great good has come from the tragedy of Eli's death in the form of bringing other's to Christ, and that great good has come from sharing Seth's story, I also know that good will come of this, somehow. 


But seriously, I've had enough lemonade, okay? I don't want to see any more lemons around here!