What Love Smells Like

It seems that my children inherited my sense of smell. They smell every little thing, even the things that only I used to be able to smell. I finally have some camaraderie in my "What is that smell?!" weirdness.

When they smell stinky things, you know it.

When they smell something yummy, you know that, too.

Luke thinks it's funny to tell us we smell like garbage can or poopy diapers. He can barely get the words out without collapsing into giggles.

When I wear perfume or body spray, they line up in my closet to get sprayed, too. Even at the end of the day, when we are snuggling on the couch, if Luke smells my perfume he pipes up with, "I want spray, too."

They have both loved having their toes sniffed. Smelling Luke's piggies has always been a sure way to halt a tantrum before it gets out of control and change shrieks into laughter.

Smell my piggies!

My favorite weird thing I share with them is the way we love to smell each other.

Grandmother brought them to eat lunch with me a couple of weeks ago, and as I was telling them goodbye in the back of the van, I sniffed both of their necks respectively and said, "You smell like Ella" and "You smell like Luke." And they both yelled, "I want to smell you!" I leaned in so each of them could smell my neck and they told me in turn, "You smell like Mommy."

I love it when they tell me I smell like Mommy. It's like another way to say, "I love you."

When I stepped out of the van, Grandmother asked me, "Did he just say he wanted to smell you?" I said yes. She thought that was so weird. I tried to explain that it's a thing we do, even Dave does it.

Maybe it is weird, but we know what love smells like.

And, it doesn't always smell like poop.

Around the House

It's been a while since I did a round up of the things they say, so here are a few from the last several months. 

"What we ridin'? Wheee! I fly like a bird." - Luke, during his first experience in the IMAX Dome at the McWane Center. I could not convince him that we weren't actually moving.

"Was Ananias an eye doctor?" - Ella, during a conversation after Bible school one night. After hearing the story of Saul's conversion from persecutor of Christians to Paul, follower of Jesus, she was understandably confused about how Paul regained his sight when Ananias touched his eyes (Acts 9:1-19).

"Mommy, you're not my best friend ever!" - This is what Luke tells me whenever he is mad at me. Sometimes he adds, "I so sad at you."

"Mama! Look at the sea eagles!" - Ella, pointing out a flock of sea gulls on our first day at the beach.

"There are certain things of a girl's that you just don't play with, and a jewelry box is one of them." - Words of wisdom from Dave after Luke grabbed Ella's jewelry box and ran with it, accidentally dumping all of the earrings in the floor.

"Look at all this snow!" - Luke's first reaction to the sand on our beach trip. He insisted on calling it snow and even made "snow angels".

"Love grows best when you can smell each other's poop." - Dave, on the benefits of smaller houses. Given that one of the four of us is a two-year-old boy who relishes bodily functions, and another of the four of us had 4 feet of intestines removed last year, there is a lot of love growing in our house.

Little Lost Lemur

I was on the verge of plastering posters around the neighborhood this morning. They would read like this:

"Missing! Small brown lemur with giant eyes and fluffy white tufts of ear hair. 

He goes by the name "Wemur" and he's been known to develop ear infections, so he should not swim without ear plugs. He likes to snack on Cheez-its and apple juice and occasionally belches rudely. 

Last seen in the arms of Wuke Boper yesterday afternoon. 

Please return ASAP. He is missed!"

Tricky Little Lemur

We looked for him last night and didn't find him. At bedtime, I convinced Luke that he was playing hide and seek and he would find him in the morning. He settled for Coco Monkey and Fifi, but he did wake up asking for Lemur in the middle of the night. 

First thing this morning, he sat up in bed and said, "Mommy, will you find Lemur with me?" I set off searching the house for him again. I looked everywhere I could think that he might hide. I looked all the places that I thought Luke might put him. I asked Luke lots of questions to try to jog his memory of where he left them, but he had no idea. That was the odd part. He usually knows where he left his stuff. It might be under the table at Jack's, but he can tell you where it is.

I was becoming more distraught as I search the upstairs, the basement, outside, my car and then started looking again. I sent Dave a text, "Lemur didn't get into the big truck with you, did he?" He had not. All the while I was looking, Luke was thinking up places that he might be and telling stories about him. Lemur is the most special of Luke's babies; he's the Maggie Beth of Luke's world. We really needed to find him.

Three generations. 

When Grandmother got to the house, I whispered frantically, "I can't find Lemur!" She started looking, too. We pulled the bed out to see if he was trapped between the mattress and the wall, then she started pulling out the toy baskets. I told her I had already looked in there, but please look again. 

She found him. He was hiding at the bottom of the basket of dress-up stuff. I had looked there three times, but I didn't dig deep enough. She thought she had put him there when she cleaned all of the dress up crap off the floor yesterday. When I told Dave that he was found, he told me he was the one who put him there when he cleaned the dress up crap off the floor. I thought I had put him there when I cleaned the dress up crap off the floor. Obviously Luke didn't know where he was because he didn't clean up any dress up crap off the floor.

I think there's a lesson to be learned here: Stop cleaning up Luke's crap. 

Raising a Mixed Set

Since we have one of each gender, the games ebb and flow between traditional "boy" and "girl" games; they both play both kinds whole-heartedly, and sometimes they fully integrate both gender roles into whatever they are doing. It's very flexible and I love to listen to their games changing as they play.

One recent Saturday morning when we had no where to be, Luke and I were in the kitchen making breakfast. I opened the can and he put the biscuits in the pan. It was fancy.

Ella and the baby Maggie Beth were on the couch, which was Huddle House, having breakfast. I could hear her talking to Maggie about getting syrup on her shirt and so on. A few minutes later, she brought Maggie into the kitchen with a clean t-shirt and asked me to dress her because they were about to go out to lunch.

Me: (while dressing Maggie B) Lunch? Didn't you just have breakfast?
Ella: Yes, but this time we are going out to eat so that Jim and Lucas and Addison and Kylie can go with us.
(It's been a while since she's talked about him, so I'll remind you that Jim is her imaginary husband. The rest of those names are their children.)
Me: Oh, they didn't go with you to breakfast?
Ella: (pointedly) No, because Jim was helping you in the kitchen.
Me: (to Luke) I think she want's you to be Jim now, and go to lunch with her and the kids.
Luke: I'm not Jim. I'm a pirate.
Ella: (in her sassy voice, with a hand on one hip) No you aren't because I did not marry a pirate!
Luke: Oh, otay.

Then he climbed down out of the chair and took his rightful place as head of the family so they could go out to lunch.

The next morning, while we were getting ready for church, I heard him talking to Dave about his babies.When he isn't playing Jim, he has his own family of stuffed animals that he tends to - they are small and soft so that he can hold them all in his arms at one time. Seriously, stuffed animals have to meet a certain size criteria before he considers them one of his "babies". He currently has eight: Lemur, Coco Monkey, Bunny Bunny Pete, Peter Cottontail, Mickey, Fifi, Baby Bear, and No, Baby Bear (Yes, that's two bears named Baby Bear, because, for another month, he's two and it's funny to watch Mommy try to figure out which Baby Bear is needed at bedtime). I didn't catch the whole conversation with Dave, but I heard him finish with, "I a sugar daddy. You a sugar daddy, too. We are sugar daddies."

Dave asked him if that meant they were sweet daddies, but we'll never know the answer to that question.

Nine Things I Learned on Vacation

1. Led Zeppelin's Ramble On makes a reference to The Lord of the Rings. How did I never hear this before?

2. My oldest child can swim. Officially. She swims well enough that we feel comfortable sitting on the edge of the deep end of the pool while she's in it.

Before swim lessons - with floaties and hanging on the steps.
Georgia is the best swimmer of us all.

A month later - jumping into the deep end. No more floaties.

3. The Man Cub will roll in the sand until he's completely covered in it, but he cannot abide sand gloves.

Juke and Lake, playing in the sand.

Even Ella rolled in the sand.

4. Little boys are so compelled to kick down sand castles that they will meltdown into fits of tears until you finally let them.

Pre-kicking. 

5. Looking for shells never gets old.

6. They actually DO close the pool when a kid poops in there. (It wasn't one of our kids. Thankfully.)

7. Just when I think Luke's tan can't get any darker, it does. A stranger asked us if he was Indian, and even Dave commented that he might have been switched at birth. And, next to the lot of them, with a week's worth of beach tan, I still look like I just stepped out of the month of January.

He was fearless in the surf.

She has a pretty sweet tan, too.

8. Plastic bananas and California Raisins catch the wind and land in approximately the same location when thrown off of a 6th floor balcony, despite the difference in size and weight.

9. My children still adjust their bodies and sleep cycles to match each other when they sleep together.

The flash woke them enough that they both rolled the other way at the same time.

Traveling

We moved our command center to the beach for a week and now we're on the way home. This is his going home face, complete with the requisite airbrushed vacation t-shirt. 

He woke up this morning talking about his cat, so I think he's ready for home. 

Stay tuned for cringe-worthy pictures of children wallowing in sand. 

What do I like about my body?

I read this blog post this morning, and I thought about this article I shared on Facebook a few weeks ago and all of the Photoshopped before and after pictures I've seen of celebrities lately, and my own hard work to live healthier in body and mind, and I decided I needed to answer this question for myself.

I'll start with what I don't like, for honesty.

I don't like the one wavy section of hair on the back of my head that keeps it all from being perfectly straight so that it requires extra work when I let it grow long.

I don't like the extra weight I've been carrying between my belly button and my knees since Luke quit nursing.

I don't like my extra wide feet that make it difficult to find really cute shoes that fit.

That's a pretty short list. I'm pretty proud of that because it used to be a whole lot longer. I've worked really hard since becoming a mother to love my body for what it is and stop wishing for it to be something it's not.

The hair? It's just hair. It's frustrating when it won't behave, but I don't have to obsess over it anymore. I can always just cut it off when I've reached my limit of tolerance with it.

The soft mid-section? Well, it did a whole lot of work growing humans, and I'm really in awe of that, still. The extra weight? That's my own fault for over-indulging, even when I know it's not good for my long-term health. I'm steadily working to lose it the healthy way - by eating food that's good for me and only what I need instead of enough to feed three people.

The feet? They will always piss me off while I'm shoe shopping, but that won't stop me from shopping.

What do I like about my body?

It grew two people! And fed them! While I was nursing, I secretly wanted one of those t-shirts that says, "I make milk. What's your superpower?" but I thought it might be a bit much.

These arms? The ones that I always compare to those Photoshopped, skinny, celebrity arms? They are strong. They can lift crying children and hug hurting people. They make me feel loving.

These hands? The ones that are starting to show their age? They know a lot. The can cook, and clean, and fix almost anything. They mend books and scraped knees. They brush hair and teeth, and they type lots and lots of words. They paint and glue and, sometimes they even sew, just a little. They make me feel capable.

These legs? The ones that have always been just a little too thick? They take me places and keep up with a super-fast boy. They walked miles to console an inconsolable baby. They make me feel powerful.

This head? The one that has often seemed so dark and twisted? It is full of knowledge - from books, from people, from Google, from living. Even better than that? It seems to have an unending hunger for more. It wants to know all the things about all the things. It makes me feel determined.

This heart? The one that's been so broken, and hardened, and hurt? It is full and joyful in a way that I can only explain by naming the one who made it that way: Jesus. Oh, sometimes those scars still haunt me, but this heart makes me feel humble and hopeful.

Isn't that interesting? The things I like about this body are nothing like the things this world say I should want.

What do you like about yours?

Lawyer Kids

I know that to become an actual lawyer you have to complete several years of extra schooling and pass a couple of tests. Dave and I lived through that together. However, I do think some people are born with certain personality traits that make them more suited to the profession.

I suspected that Dave was one of those people after spending several years debating with him, and after hearing the stories of how he used to argue with his mother until she was absolutely defeated. Now that I'm raising his children, I absolutely know this to be fact. I don't know if they will be lawyers, but they definitely have the personalities for it.

At the ripe old ages of 5 and almost 3, they already do a lot of hair-splitting, and I often have to award them points for a technicality when I didn't clearly state all of the boundaries of a situation.

Case in point - I have a rule about the front porch. They are allowed to walk around the brick wall like it's a balance beam, but they cannot step on the flowers. I don't know how many times I have said, "Don't step on my flowers!" They know this rule. Luke especially knows this rule because he is the main person I have to say it to - him and the dog.

Over the long weekend, I was standing at the kitchen sink and happened to look up and see this.

He wasn't stepping on the flowers.

After awarding him points for the technicality, I made him get off of the lantana and I clarified that he cannot sit on the flowers either.

Between these experiences and their willingness -  passion, even - to argue to the death (and I don't mean whining and repeating a request over and over again, I mean actual, rational, often very logical arguing), I find myself just shaking my head and walking away. They are just like their father in this way.

In fairness, my mothers would tell you that I have always been stubborn and willing to argue with a wall. I don't deny this fact; I'm passionate when I get my heart set on something. However, that is not the same thing as arguing just for the sake of arguing, or just for the fun of it. It's different than being able to disengage from the point at hand and swap sides just to keep the argument alive and trap your opponent with their own words, and that, people, is where Dave Roper is very, very good. I fear that in a few more years, these children will be arguing with the same skill.

You can't win an argument with any of these people, so I don't even try anymore.

Paid Chores

Ella and I have had a few conversations in recent months about her opinion that I never buy her anything. It's true that we don't buy them things every time we go to a store, or even most times. It's pretty rare that we buy them anything outside of the normal gift giving occasions. She has everything she could possibly need and most of what she wants. She doesn't need, or really even want, whatever piece of junk toy strikes her fancy in the toy aisle. I typically handle these requests with a simple, "I will put it on your list for your birthday or Christmas." I keep a list for both of them in my phone so they can see me add to it while we stand in the store.

She also really has no concept that it takes money to buy things. We've taught them from the time they were able to feed whatever change we bring home or money they are given to their piggy banks, and they LOVE feeding their pigs. They don't even realize they could take that money to the store and bring home some piece of junk in exchange for it. They know that we go to work to get money to pay the bills and buy the things we need, but that's really the extent of their understanding.

One of the things that is so important to us that they learn is money management and all of the things that go along with it - check writing, reconciliation, saving, planning, tithing, debt retirement - all of it. We want them to be smart about their money by the time they leave our house. We needed to provide a way for them to earn money so that they can learn how to tithe, save, and spend it. Dave and I have talked about how to approach it, consulted Dave Ramsey's web site, our own experiences, and how other parents plan to or have taught these lessons. Neither of us were comfortable with just giving an allowance, and we weren't comfortable paying them for things that we expect them to do anyway - like keeping their rooms neat and putting their stuff away instead of leaving it in the living room. We finally decided on an approach that we hope will work in our family. It's a commission system, similar to what Dave Ramsey suggests.

I talked to Ella about it a few months ago and she loved the idea. We told her we would start it after she turned five, and I finally set it up for her this weekend. I had to put a lot of thought into what chores I am willing to pay her for because I expect her to be responsible for herself and her stuff without payment, and because I had to figure out what she is capable of doing mostly unassisted. The things that I previously set out for her in her daily lists will remain unpaid, and we settled on seven possible jobs that she can do or help with each week. Some of them are daily and some of them are just once or twice a week. I wrote them all out on a piece of scrapbook paper and framed it so we can mark them off with a dry erase marker.

Ella's Paid Jobs

She has the potential to earn $7 a week and of the $7, she will tithe $1 and save $1 (we've set the expectation that she's saving for a car, so it's a long-term savings project). We will pay her on Saturday morning so that she has money for the offering at church on Sunday and money to spend at the store when we do our shopping, if she chooses.

She is very enthusiastic about it right now, and I'm hoping that that will continue as she learns about spending.

The Vomit Chronicles: Sympathy Vomit

I was recently transported back to my childhood days at daycare where I witnessed the strange phenomenon of The Sympathy Vomit. One kid would throw up, and in rapid succession, two or three more would stop wherever they were playing to follow suit.

At the time, I never thought about it from the director’s perspective, but now, I like to think I understand what she was going through, except she had carpet and that always makes vomit worse. Yes, even worse than cleaning it out of car seat buckles, which is my favorite place to clean up vomit.

A few weeks ago, we made the trek downtown to the new Regions Park to watch a Barons game. It was Saturday evening. We had already attended a birthday party that morning and we took nice long naps in the afternoon. We had lunch at the party and snack on the way home and we were planning to eat supper at the ballpark. What we did not do was have a snack before we left for the game. It was a rookie mistake on my part. I know better.

Ella was acting puny for most of the drive, but I tried to convince myself that she was just tired. We’d had a busy day; she probably didn’t actually sleep at nap time, etc. Then she started coughing and I started calculating the number of hours since she last ate. They were too many. She coughed again, I asked if she was okay, and she said she was. I willed our car to transform into a helicopter and air lift us the remaining few miles to the ballpark. It didn’t. When she coughed the third time, she started crying and vomit ensued. I searched frantically for The Vomit Cup. It wasn’t there. I don’t know when it made its way out of the car, but it did. She had her car blanket wrapped around her, so I yanked it up to cover her lap and told her to finish throwing up into the blanket. Her shirt was done for, but I wanted to at least contain the mess.

It was then that I had a flashback to daycare, when, from the other side of the backseat, I heard a gag. Lacking The Vomit Cup and minus a second Vomit Blanket, I grabbed the only thing available to me. I stuck it in Luke’s hands and told him, “If you need to throw up, do it in this. I will wash it.” He said he didn’t need to. Dave made a noise of protest (disgust?) from the driver’s seat, but didn’t say anything. I’m assuming he was feeling grateful that he was driving that day. I turned my attention back to Ella and started handing her baby wipes to clean her face and hands. We’d made the executive decision to drive the rest of the way to the ballpark and change there, so I was trying to help her clean up the easiest parts as best I could from the front seat.

I heard a tiny noise and a little whine from the other side and glanced over my shoulder to see that Man Cub was indeed throwing up in a Pucci Pets White Pony Designer Purse.





Pucci Pets White Pony Designer Purse,
 for carrying ponies and catching vomit.



It was sympathy vomit at its finest.

Once we parked, I helped Ella change her clothes and finished wiping her down with baby wipes. Luke only needed his face, hands, and the chest clip of his seatbelt wiped. I wrapped all of the mess up in The Vomit Blanket, tossed it in the cargo hold, and sprayed the whole backseat and Ella’s seatbelt with Febreze.

Guess who else almost sympathy vomited with them? Me. I made it all the way to the gag before I tamped it down with a very rational argument: “What are you doing?! You can’t throw up right now! You have to clean up their vomit first.” Parenting is full of sacrifice.

30. Handwriting

Today, in honor of the "handwriting" prompt, I give you a picture of a pencil that I found in our work room at the office a few weeks ago. I rarely have need for a pencil at work, and apparently no one else uses them often either because this was the ONLY pencil I could find. The only one.

Roll Tide

I was smirking at the fact that the only pencil available to me was an Alabama one and how that would further perpetuate what Luke started last fall with his Roll Tide obsession, when I rolled it over and saw this on the other side.

Weagle, weagle, War... well, you know.

Someone hand wrote the score from Auburn's 2010 victory over Alabama. This, ladies and gentlemen, is how we do football rivalries in the great state of Alabama. Ya'll.

 

P.S. If I were as hardcore as Wuke Boper would have you believe, I would have taken this pencil straight to the bathroom and scrubbed that blasphemy right off the back of it before sanitizing my hands after touching such uncleanliness. I just took a picture of it instead.

 

 

29. In my bag

If the size of it doesn't give you a clue, the contents definitely scream, "Mom Bag!" 

Inside the Mom Bag

Here is the full inventory of things in my purse that do not belong to me: 1 plastic hammer, 1 carrot bubble necklace, 1 red crayon from Hooters, 1 Wise Man, and 1 plastic man from a Happy Meal.

Be prepared.

They didn't all get in there at one time, of course. It happens gradually as more things are brought out of the house and left on tables and in buggies as we go about our business. It's okay though. My purse is big enough to handle it and you never know when you'll need a little extra distraction while waiting somewhere with children.

28. Red

These are tomatoes from the plants on our back porch. I said I would count it as a success if they bore fruit, and they have, so I guess, technically, it's a success.

Tomato Harvest

They are yummy. However, the plants look pathetic, so I'm not sure we will get any more than the 14 we've picked and the few that are still turning red. I didn't take a picture of the plants because there's no need to document in photographs how truly bad at growing things I am. I think I just don't care enough, or gardening doesn't interest me enough. Something just isn't enough, and their priority assignment is rather low on my list of things that need doing.

I'd like to say that I probably won't try this again next year, but I doubt that's true because I'll forget by next Spring and because the kids are so excited about it. They've been checking on the progress every few days and now that the tomatoes are turning red, they want to pick them and wash them. Ella is good about only picking the really red ones. Man Cub brought me one that was half yellow last night, so we had to have a conversation about waiting a little bit longer until they are red all the way around. We'll see if it took. So, yeah, I'll try to grow tomatoes again next year; I'll even attempt to keep these alive and growing for the rest of this year, but I'm kind of over it.

The citronella plant is big and beautiful, apparently not taking objection to being mostly ignored, but it doesn't do much to keep the mosquitos away. In its defense, we do have supernatural mosquitos around our house - the kind that drink Deep Woods OFF for breakfast.

As for the rest of the vegetables I planted, something is eating them. I spray them, but they are still being eaten. One of the bell pepper plants was full of blooms one day, and all but one were gone the next. The other plant actually has some tiny bell peppers on it right now, so we'll see how they do. Every squash and zucchini blossom gets eaten before it can open. I suspect deer. The okra is pitiful, but hanging in there, and the cucumber has a few tiny cucumbers on it. I don't think those plants get enough sun where they are, either, and that's just going to be an issue in my yard.

I guess this means we'll just continue to buy our vegetables, and of course, off load any fresh ones that those with greener thumbs than mine are trying to place in a good home.

27. Into the sun

It's cloudy today so I can't take a fresh "into the sun picture" and I don't have time to put together a collage of all the sunglasses wearing we do, so I'm sharing this throwback of Dave and I (and my infamous white Oakleys - no, this is not the same pair I wear today. Yes, I do need to update my sunglasses style, and I'll do that just as soon as the perfectly good pair I have now breaks. I have been completely spoiled by good sunglasses.).

This is from 10 years ago. We left the day after Christmas and drove to Savannah to spend a few days because we had both just read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (John Berendt) and we needed to see the city for ourselves. We fell in love with it, and one day we'll go back and stay in a nice hotel or bed and breakfast in the heart of the historic district, but we couldn't afford that back then. It didn't matter, though. We spent our money on good food and we explored the city. We loved it so much that we had plans to name our daughter Savannah, should we have a daughter one day. Time changed that, but it is still one of my favorite adventures with him.

I keep this picture pinned on my cube wall at work.

At the top of the Tybee Island lighthouse.

26. Empty

Is that what I'm filling their heads with when I turn on Disney Jr. in the morning because it's ten minutes after six and I've already heard the whiny, demanding, "Mommy, find my football!" enough times to make my eye twitch?

I hope not. I don't know how I'd ever get out the door or cook supper if I couldn't instantly induce a trance-like calm first thing in the morning and on the evenings when the witching hour strikes. 

Ella's 5th Birthday

It’s June 25th, the day she’s been waiting on for at least 6 months, her birthday. The party happened over the weekend, but today is the day that she is actually 5 years old. I wonder what all she imagines that to mean?

Ella has become such a responsible, self-sufficient kid. So much so that I sometimes forget that she is just 5, not 12. I have to remember that just because she isn't demanding my time like she did when she was younger (like her brother does now), doesn't mean she does not need me to spend the time. She still loves to be read to, she can sit in her room and play Barbies or Fairies or Little Princesses for hours at a time. She still teaches her imaginary classes – school sometimes, but mostly gymnastics and dance these days.

She and Luke have started playing more and more games together. Her increasing patience with him and her willingness to accommodate his lingering toddler-ness amaze me. Now, instead of being mad when he is melting down in the evening, she makes comments like, “He’s having a rough night, isn’t he?” She tries to distract him or make him feel better when he’s upset. It’s a beautiful thing.

She seems to have set a few goals for herself for this summer, and she’s been working hard on all of them.

1. Learn to swim. We signed her up for lessons, which she loved, and she hasn't used floaties since her lessons ended. She's not strong enough yet to pass a swim test, but she's getting there quickly - especially if we just leave her alone and let her practice without instruction.

2. Learn to read. She often selects books that are way too young for her because she wants to study the words as we read, not the story. She has started recognizing printed words that she learned to spell aloud. I first realized this when she told me the binder that the gymnastics coach carries around says “love”. When we talked about how she knew that and that she was starting to read, she started listing off the other words she knows – a lot of them from her chore charts that she looks at every day. I've also been finding her using the VTech V.Reader a lot lately, and even playing the word games that go with the stories.

3. Practice writing. I made some lined paper like you get out of a writing tablet and put a stack of it in her school drawer (that’s where she keeps her teaching supplies), and she frequently gets a piece and practices her letters and numbers. The numbers are the trickiest, so she’s been working on them a lot, but she likes to write people’s names, too.

She is tired of gymnastics, but she still loves soccer and plans to play again in the fall.

A friend suggested we take her to eat lunch at the school this summer so she can get accustomed to the lunchroom, so Grandmother has been taking them a few days a week. Ella has declared the school lunch to be “the best food ever”. I would take that personally, but I know she’s excited about eating lunch at school like a big kid. Unfortunately, the elementary school is under construction for the summer, so they have to eat at the high school, but she’s still getting the lunch line, food tray, serve yourself, open your own milk carton and ketchup packet experience. And she has learned about the noise, and the fact that not every food service establishment has ranch dressing for your every whim. Also, she has decided that she will not be taking her lunch to school next year, so, whoop! She’s been drinking cow’s milk, too. I think that might be the best part about the whole deal for her. The only drink choice is cow’s milk. She loves it so much and she hasn’t really gotten to drink it since she was two. I told her she could try it for a while and see how it goes, and so far she hasn’t had any extra snot or eczema so I'm hoping she's outgrowing that allergy.

We pray with her every night and I've recently been caught off guard by the thoughtfulness of some of her requests.

Of all of us, she has put the most things in our Good Things Jar.

When I first imagined myself with children, I couldn’t think past the baby stage. I was truly nervous about having kids – not babies, but actual kids. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to relate to them, or that I just wouldn’t like them as much as I liked babies. I just couldn’t think past the first couple of years to figure out how the kid thing would work. Do you know what happened? She changed from a baby to a kid before my very eyes without me even realizing it was happening, and she’s a pretty cool kid. She’s a kid I want read to and talk to and cuddle up on the couch with. She makes me laugh and she makes me think, and I’m so thankful that God put such an amazing person in my care. I am humbled by the beautiful person she is becoming.

Cake and ice cream for breakfast.

24. Negative space

I had to Google "negative space" to figure it out, but I immediately thought of this picture I took a couple of months ago while we were eating supper on the back porch. The balloon was low enough that we could hear the hot air blowing into it.

Dinner with a view.

23. Last

He's the last one sleeping this morning - even through the alarm clock, Ella's voice, and our shower running. Man-Cub was tired. 

22. Enjoying life

                  Costa del Roper

21. Lunchtime

Praise and worship music playing, quiet house, birthday project, no lunch in sight, but this is lunchtime today.