They've got moves

I promise, real content is coming soon. Living life can get in the way of blogging it, you know? I find I have to force myself to err on the side of experiencing things instead of writing about them sometimes. This week is the kids spring break and I'm trying hard to be fully present for them, and also I think maybe I'm decompressing from the weekend.

But I promise to be back before you know it with a super fun giveaway! In the meantime, I wanted to share these cute pictures of some adorable kids busting some awesome moves.

Also, I'm going on one of those date things tomorrow night, so keep your fingers crossed that it's fun, and he's cool, would you?

No Pictures, Please!

So, we spent all day at Busch Garden's yesterday. In a down pour. The cool part was that it wasn't crowded, and the Gorilla's were hanging out super close to the viewing area, which hardly ever happens when we're there!

This particular Gorilla was pulling the classic face hiding maneuver. Then he shot us an intense dirty look, basically saying we were idiots standing in the rain watching him when he was just trying to get some R & R. Then he gave up and ran off to find someplace else he wouldn't be hounded by paparazzi. It was hilarious, and the most human-esque expression I've ever seen on a gorilla. It was so cool.

I love his run. It was awesome. Thanks to you all for the sweet thoughts and comments yesterday...it meant a lot to be able to read those throughout the day. Overall, it was a good day, as good as it could have been. I love you guys!

Happy 3rd Birthday, Sweet Boy.

My middle child and middle son would have been three today. It was so odd to realize that he was actually older than Seth and Evany were when he died, that they were younger than him when they were born. As the years have passed, I have begun to heal. I no longer feel guilty when I laugh. I can be around children his age without falling apart. I don't always say I have five children anymore, although it does still feel like a lie when I tell someone I have four.

I'm healing, but that doesn't mean I don't miss him. Although he died before he ever took a breath, most women start planning out their family the minute they see that second line on a pregnancy test, and I was no different. We planned for him for eight months, and when he didn't come home with us, it turned us all into different people. I became obsessed with keeping my other kids safe, keeping other people's kids safe, trying to keep everyone else from going through what I had. John became distant, bogged down. Ava and Jace became kids who knew that not all babies come home.

I want to much to be lighting candles on a birthday cake for a little boy to blow out today. I'm not sure if he'd be serious or silly, quiet or loud, but I think he might have a dimple and I know he would have gorgeous dark hair. Maybe he'd be into Handy Manny like Fisher or Rescue Heros like Jace. I know, though, that he would be a sweet, loving little boy just like his brothers and sisters.

My life has changed completely because of Eli. Some changes are good, and some are incredibly sad. But Eli, even in his short life, has fulfilled the goal that every one of us has as a Christian...to bring other's to the Lord. Because of his story, someone has gone back to church, has become a Christian, has yelled a little less and cuddled a little more. His story has made pregnant mother's speak up just a little bit louder when they have a feeling something is wrong, and babies have been saved because of it. Eli's story helped gain enough supporters to give his brother a chance to hear. At the end of my life, I will be happy ifI can say I have achieved half those things. I have always felt so appreciative of those of you who go out of your way to tell me about what Eli means to you. There is nothing, nothing worse to a parent who has lost a child than the feeling they've been forgotten.

I have a special nook in my house that's full of Willow Tree Figurines, the kids' handprints, other things like that. On top of a little secretary desk we have all of Eli's things, packed in a plain brown leather suitcase. This way, his things are out, not packed away, close enough to touch any time we want to, but they're not thrown in our faces every second.

Every year, I take out all of his things and look at them. This year, I took photographs as I wentthrough them so that I could share it with those of you who would like to learn a little more about him. The song that's playing is the one that played at his Memorial Service. Thank you so much for all the support you have offered us every single day. I have the very, very best readers and friends anyone could ever ask for. It helps more than you can know.

The Duel Part 2

I have had what you might call a bad day today. Actually, that's not true. I have having a perfectly passable day, but then I had a conversation which basically put my day right in the toilet. Figuratively, of course, although I did literally almost throw up at some points of said conversation.

I want to blog about it so bad. So, so bad. I don't know if I'm being a wimp and not bold enough or whether it's really not blog fodder, but I'm trying to hold myself back for now. Suffice it to say that it's messed up. Super messed up.

It's hard. And it's about my dear ex husband and it makes me want to head butt him again. If only.

Anyway, I was on the phone with Mara about said nausea inducing conversation. While I was talking to her, I was steam mopping my floor with my beloved Shark. I feel better about talking on the phone if I'm cleaning, so it worked out well for me. I was talking, already working up a pretty good steam myself (haha! Pun intended! Get it? Working up a steam while I was steam mopping? Get it?) when I noticed something on the floor. I assumed I had just missed it when I swept up before mopping, but when I went to mop over it, it moved.

It was a huge, giant roach.

Possibly this one. 

No, scratch that. I saw how huge he was and his sickening antennae and I knew it was him...my nemesis. Or his second cousin once removed, at least.

Still on the phone, I started smashing him with the steam mop, which is actually fairly heavy. I figured even if the mop didn't kill him the steam would. But every time I lifted the mop, the sucker scuttled off. I ended up beating the thing senseless, nailing it at least 15 times with the mop all the while yelling into the phone about how this was the bionic roach that wouldn't die. Mara was dying laughing on the other end of the phone. Come to think of it, she could probably hear me from her house and didn't need the phone connection. She was cracking up, telling me to take out my frustrations on the cockroach.

Finally I got the perfect hit in and the bug's guts splattered all over the floor. I finished mopping and my phone conversation, then got distracted by some other task. I was still fuming, and finally I remembered and grabbed a dustpan and mop to sweep up the remains. As I swept up the roach, it's body flipped over and I noticed it's legs. It's gross, spindly, very much moving legs.

Yeah. The bionic freak cockroach was still alive and kicking, even though it's guts were all over my floor. Sickening. I screamed and gingerly made my way out of the house and dumped the body far far away from my house. Then I stomped the crap out of it. If it comes back to life now it is definitely demonically possessed.

It felt good. And I won't lie, I was picturing a certain someone's face while I was stomping and it felt pretty awesome.

Hopefully tomorrow is better, which sounds weird to say.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend and not being tormented by huge bugs.

Someone is all smiles

Look who has decided to develop a personality!

Finally, our jungle girl Miss Vivi is becoming her own person, almost four months after she decided to grace us with her presence two months before her due date.

I can't decide whether the baby or the bow is cuter. They're both awfully cute. You can get one too, (the bow, not the baby...we're gonna keep her) and benefit the International Vasa Previa Foundation in honor of Mr. Connor James Hall!

I'm working on some special pictures to share with you all for Eli's birthday tonight. Stay tuned!

Wake up Call

So tonight we had bread for dinner.

Ava told me she was making dinner tonight, and she wouldn't let me come into the kitchen. When she was ready for us, we came in and sat down to plates of ripped up bread.

Yep.

And crush cups, of course, because what meal is complete without yogurt you can eat without a spoon?

But yes, bread. When I questioned the carb loading, she rolled her eyes at me.

"Mom, it's almost Easter. This is what Jesus had for his last supper. We need to eat this and think about Him and how He died for us."

And, once again, my five year old put me squarely in my place.

I've been distracted lately, over something stupid in the larger scheme of things, about what's my business and what's not, about whether it's my place to share something I think someone should know. I've been frustrated over a big fundraiser coming up for my daughter's school that I have really, really dropped the ball on. I'm annoyed about a ton of can issues we're having since my tire decided to blow in a very dramatic fashion on one of our busiest roads during rush hour with all the kids in the car, coming way to close to smashing us all up. I'm antsy over figuring out the details of the mortgage deal. I'm vaguely nauseous all the time over Eli's birthday.

I feel very self involved. Very bogged down with my own baggage. Very selfish.

I don't know the last time I just sat and thought about how God gave up his son for us, to give us the chance to spend eternity with Him. That this is all just the prequel.

Thank God.

Thank God we can be human and selfish and still be redeemed. Thank God we can fall short time and time again and be forgiven. Thank God that His plan is perfect, and that even his Plan B, put into place after our free will screws his first, perfect plan all up, is still far better than anything we could come up with on our own.

Thank God.

If you're like me and have found yourself a little...distant from God and his Word lately, I'd love to invite you guys to join Renee over at Mi Querida Familia for a chronological group reading of the Bible. It'll be like the coolest Book Club ever. And it's starting on Eli's birthday! That's cool, right? Check it out, I hope to see you there!

These Friends of Mine

Yeah, so some of the facebook conversations we get into crack me up. And yep, I know I'm a dork.

Ellyn Meinzer McCall I just noticed my hand sparkling in the sunlight and thought 'holy crap, I'm a vampire!' But it was just sparkly lotion. Got excited.

5 hours ago via Twitter  · Comment · 

Jeremy Spradlin 

VAMPIRES DO NOT SPARKLE!

5 hours ago · 

Shelly Dolan-Ash 

@Jeremy - yes they do too sparkle!

@El - tell him.

5 hours ago · 

Liz Wagner Villavicencio 

lol

5 hours ago · 

Michelle Castle 

This rocks my face! :)

5 hours ago · 

Jeremy Spradlin 

haha. and no they don't. teeny bopper lover story fairy vampires may sparkle. But those aren't real vampires.

5 hours ago · 

Ellyn Meinzer McCall 

Those are the only vampires I care about, JEREMY. Gosh.

4 hours ago via Email Reply · 

Melissa Bratten 

Exactly! lol

4 hours ago · 

Shelly Dolan-Ash 

Those are the only vampires I believe exist!

3 hours ago · 

Kara Kadinger 

This is my favorite post ever! Love it!

2 hours ago · 

Jeremy Spradlin 

If emo vampires really exist. Then this world is a much more scarier world then I thought.

2 hours ago · 

Melissa Bratten 

If Edward Cullen really existed i would be happy! lol

2 hours ago · 

Keith Holman 

There aren't any real vampires, Jeremy. So we can believe whatever we want! And the hot vampires do sparkle!

about an hour ago · 

Jeremy Spradlin 

Selene doesn't sparkle!

about an hour ago · 

Keith Holman 

and you lost this argument when you made the "Underworld" reference. Selene doesn't "sparkle" because the character is a dud.

about an hour ago · 

Ellyn Meinzer McCall 

Shhh let's all just think about the pretty vampires and feel happy.

about an hour ago · 

Jeremy Spradlin 

I never said I wanted her for her charming personality.

about an hour ago · 

Gena Bishop 

ha,ha! was thinking about re-reading those books!

34 minutes ago · 

Melissa Bratten 

exactly ellyn, we can still dream cant we? lol :)

27 minutes ago · 

Honestly?

So, we're doing this sermon series at church about Honesty. Every week, they show some funny statistics about how much we lie. About our age, how much we paid for a shirt, whether we finished that bag of chips or not.

We all lie.

There are, apparently, four types of liars.

1. The occasional liar

We all have done this at sometime in our lives. The occasional liars are not used to lying, but for some reason occasionally may lie to protect their self, their interlocutor or some other person. In the background of every lie there is fear. The fear to face reality. The occasional liar thinks very well on what to say so as to appear believable. However, because they are not accustomed to lying, the body cries out the contradiction and there are a lot of signs that show that they are lying.

2. The frequent liar

Frequent liars are people who lie regularly. However, unlike the occasional liar, the frequent liar does not have the time to thing about lying, because they lie all the time, so they often fall into contradictions and logical signs that betray their act.

3. The natural liar

People who lie almost continuously and often are not aware that they are doing it as they have a relative opinion about what is true. They fall into obvious contradictions and then they try with sophisticated ways to save it. Although their body language seems very natural, because they are used to lying, when asked pressing questions, their body signals indicate the contradiction that has been initially hidden by them.

4. Professional liar

They are lying deliberately for a specific purpose or just to trick us. They study our possible objections and they know what to say. They have thought about all the scenarios and their solutions. Although they are often trained to "act" their body language (salesmen, advertisers, politicians, professionals, lovers, etc.), there are always some small details that can initially raise our suspicions and after research reveal their fraud.

Now, I was married to someone who somehow, inexplicably, was a mega, award winning liar. As my pastor ran down the different types of liars, I found myself nodding right along with three out of four of those types, so there must somehow be some overlap. I think a more simplistic version would be that lying people lie, then they lie some more, and soon they're believing their own lies and it becomes a vicious cycle. It's a sensitive topic for me. 


The knee jerk reaction, for me at least, after spending years and years with someone who lied a whole heck of a lot, is to tell the truth all the time. All the time. Even when it's not nice to hear, even when it hurts feelings. But is there a point at which you can be too honest?


There is a school of thought out there that if you're just telling the truth to relieve your own conscience that you should just keep it to yourself and save that other person from being hurt for no good reason. I get that. I do. Sometimes telling the truth can lift a weight from our own shoulders and place it squarely on someone else's, and that sucks. But still...where's the line? It's kind of like when people say "No offense, but..." You know whats coming next is probably going to be offensive, but saying those words let them off the hook. Hearing "Honestly?" sometimes gives me the same feeling in the pit of my stomach. 


And what about lying to yourself? Does that still count as a lie? Can you do yourself just as big a disservice by convincing yourself of something that's not quite true as you can do to someone else?


I don't know the right answers, here. It's just on my mind. I'm brainstorming. I want to say that I would have wanted to know that my husband was straying from the second it happened, but in truth part of me hangs onto those months when I didn't know, when I thought my marriage was still intact. I want to say that honesty trumps everything and that no one deserves to be lied to, especially since I've experienced first hand how much it sucks. On the other hand, maybe ignorance is bliss. 


Who are we accountable to, for our lies, though? Our family? Our friends? What about people we don't know? Do we have to be honest with them, too? Do we owe truthfulness to everyone or just to a select few?


But but but...one thing our pastor said is sticking with me. He said that telling the truth is making that lie a part of your past, while not telling the truth is making it a part of your future. That makes sense to me, and it doesn't really differentiate between what kind of lie you're telling. I guess what it comes down to is telling the truth, but telling the truth in love as much as humanly possible. And being human is the point, I think. We all screw up, we all make mistakes, and most of us cover those mistakes up at one point or another. We do stupid things. What we do to strive to hold ourselves to a higher standard is what matters I think...how we try overcome our sinful natures. 


Pride, too, comes right along with lies. I think we lie because we're proud, some of the time, and that once we've made a stand, made a choice, if you will, we'll lie to ourselves and everyone else just to stick to that decision so that we can hold onto that pride. 


I want to hear from all of you. What do you think about lying? Are white lies okay? Is ignorance really bliss? Is lying just something we all do in order to get what we want in life, whether that's a better job or time to ourselves or just to avoid conflict?

One week

I have a to-do list on the desktop of my computer on a little virtual sticky note. It reads things like "Fill out renewal Step Up Application" "Fax tax returns to Mortgage Company" "Write parent essay for AG Bell". As I finish something, I don't erase it...I cross it off, so that I can feel like I accomplished something.

This month has been crazy. The divorce, house stuff...every day life. It wasn't until I got an evite invitation the other day that it hit me that there were some imperative things missing from my to-do list. I opened the evite from my friend, labeled "Jeremiah's 3rd Birthday!" and read in the description that all Jeremiah, a little boy whose mom, Angie was pregnant right along with me three years ago, wanted nothing but a party with his friends for his birthday. Just a little party for the "babies" while the big kids were in school. Jeremiah. Fisher. Becca. Caleb.

Not being able to write Eli's name next on that list is harder than I can tell you.

I love those kids. A couple of years ago I wouldn't have been able to tell you that without lying, with the exception of Fisher, who has always been a balm to my soul. Babies were trouble. Seeing their faces only reminded me of what I had lost. I wondered why their parents got to keep them, bring them home, celebrate their birthdays, and I didn't even get to see Eli take a single breath.

But now, these kids have become people to me, wormed their way into my heart. Jeremiah will sit in the most uncomfortable positions just to be near Vivi, who he calls "Seth's baby sister." He and Becca and Fisher fight over who gets to be the one to hold her pacifier for her. When Seth's magnets fall off his head, Becca says "Oh no!" and rushes over to replace them for him. When I pick up Fisher from his preschool, he comes running to me, excited, calling out "My Ellyn!"

They're people. They have ideas, and they think jokes are funny. They have reached the age where they actually play together and think of themselves as having friends. They're not babies anymore.

I want to be stressing out over a to-do list that has different entries, or, if not that, at least some extra ones. "Buy Balloons." "Get Ice." "Pick out party decorations." I want to be asking Eli what kind of party he wants, who his friends are, telling him knock knock jokes and listening to him crack up laughing. I want to pick him up from preschool right along with Fisher. I want to tell him to leave his baby sister alone and to be nice to his brothers. I want to still be married to his dad, still be a complete family, and I feel like if he hadn't died maybe we would never have headed down the path we did. In all truth we've been a broken family for three years, not one.

Instead we're planning a day at Busch Gardens, a breakfast out, cupcakes. Better than nothing, but still, it's cold comfort.

This month has gone by so fast, but I'm not ready for this week to go by, for Sunday to come, to start Eli's fourth year without him. While I feel like I am blessed beyond measure, this part is always so hard.