I let my kids play in the pouring down rain the other day. Timmy, Megan, & Alex splashed in the puddles, ran around, went tearing down the hill to jump into the puddles. They fell down in the mud. I’m pretty sure Timmy ate some mud. Megan threw some mud at the back of my van (she got scolded for that one). I stood under the umbrella and took pictures while mosquitos bit me.

I do not enjoy bedtime. I despise brushing teeth. I get so tired of trying to read a Bible story that no one really listens to. I read a story a while back about a mom dying of cancer and she would drag herself, literally crawl, up the stairs just to do bedtime with her kids because she loved it that much. And everybody was commenting how we should all be that kind of mom. Well, I’m not sure what I would do if I were dying of cancer, but I don’t think bedtime is the only place for really connecting with my kids. And for me, it’s not even remotely the best place.

I have been a huge grump this week. I’m blaming heat and hormones. But seriously…it’s been less than pretty.

Eric told me he got the “you’ve used 70% of your internet allotment” email last night.  Somehow, we’ve used 10 gigs in 10 days, and our internet doesn’t reset until Aug. 12. I nearly cried. I hate, hate, hate having a set internet limit. I know it’s just a convenience. I know it’s a first-world problem. But it’s the number one thing about living out here that I struggle with. And there’s absolutely nothing that can be done about it.

I’ve tried the last few days to spend more time with my kids. Okay, to be honest, I’ve had no choice because Eric’s started tearing down the old house on the property and I can’t leave Timmy outside unattended. So if the bigs are out, he wants to be out, and I have to be there, too. But still, I’ve tried to play more games and last night, I even ran through the sprinkler a bit, too. I don’t play all the time because 1. I firmly believe that my kids need not to depend on me to think of entertainment for them and 2. I just don’t enjoy hours of card games with preschoolers. And I think that’s okay because I am their mom, not their playmate. But still, it’s probably good to do things with them more.

The twins start kindergarten in less than a month. And it’ll be a huge change for us. Definitely bittersweet. But honestly, they’re ready for it. I’m ready for it. I love my kids. I’m so glad to be a mom. I’m really grateful I can stay home with them. But I am OVER the all-four-are-preschoolers stage. Four kids in four years and all still at home. I know I’ll miss the big 2 during the day, but I am looking forward to their new challenges. I’m looking forward to having only 2 to focus on or take places. I’m looking forward to the tiniest hope of a few minutes in which I might not be interrupted continuously. Of course, ask me all this again in a month and it might be a different story. But for right now…I’m looking forward!

My kids are horribly wasteful. They leave so much food uneaten at every meal. They are not good about taking care of their toys (despite reminders, warnings, and even losing said toys). They are definitely little consumers, and I am totally at a loss for helping them be better about it. *sigh*

We are still using the We Choose Virtues program, and I LOVE it! They totally get it. It gives me an incredibly helpful vocabulary to address our situation. And it provides great opportunities to intentionally introduce important topics. Like this week’s virtue: vocabulary. One of the prompts talked about how forgiveness is about mending a broken relationship, which totally opened up to our needing forgiveness from God to mend our broken relationship with Him. I don’t know if they totally got it, but I love that we had the opening. It’s a start!

I am both really excited and really nervous about building our house. We close on our mortgage loan this week and will soon break ground. But man, the overwhelming reality of the whole thing…it’s gonna be a crazy 6 months (or longer). And the desire to build not just the prettiest, most expensive house we can, but a house that is functional and useful and that we intentionally lay at Jesus’s feet for his use. That’s a hard balance to find. And of course we’re planning to live in the double-wide while we build right outside the back door – yikes! How I’m going to manage the kids in a construction zone…very worrisome!

I’ve got a lot on my mind this way. Some days I’m a “good”mom. Some days I just let my kids watch TV and play on screens (Timmy has a horrible addiction already). But more than that…People hurting. Really hurting. My uncle who was fine in June and a month later is dying of cancer. Literally that fast. My own isolation and exhaustion and loneliness. My friends’ griefs and individual craziness. So many people who are struggling financially, emotionally. Our church family. And my wishing and wanting to find joy. Real joy.

Life is not easy. And it’s okay to admit that. No easy answers. Just a big God whom I’m choosing to trust and trying to follow. And trying to keep it real. With my kids and with Eric and with myself and with God.

And now…off to another day.

This week…we laid to rest Eric’s Grandpa Hogue. He was 92 years old. He loved his wife of 64+ years, loved my kids, loved to pick apples. He struggled with the robotic barn Alan built, but he loved all the people who came to see it. He was a die-hard high school sports fan, long after his kids and grandkids were graduated. He was a sweet, sweet man with a happy smile and will be sorely missed, not just by the family, but by the entire community.

This week…my kids got their first taste of death in a real and personal sense. We worked hard to prepare them (Grandpa had a stroke about 2 weeks before he passed, so we had some warning). I got Nana Upstairs Nana Downstairs from the library to read with them. I read it as a child at my Aunt Kathy’s house, and I remember how sad the story made me. It was just the right amount of information for my kids and prompted good questions.

We talked about the viewing and the funeral: what they should expect, how it would look, how HE would look. I think we managed to give them enough because they just accepted the whole thing without meltdowns or fear. They were with us at one of the two sessions of calling hours, but I had things for them to do in the back so they didn’t have to sit out with the crowd the whole time. I did make them sit through the funeral, which got boring for them. In fact, Erin at one point told me, “This isn’t very fun.” “No,” I told her, “it’s not. Not at all. But sometimes we have to do things that aren’t fun and you can sit there for a little while longer.” And they did fine. Really, they did very, very well. And no one is more scared of death now than they were before…so that’s a huge success in my book!

This week…we registered the twins for Kindergarten. There was a TON of paperwork to fill out. And we’ve signed up for the evaluation day in May. They’re already showing off what they know, so I don’t think they’ll have any trouble. But, we are officially headed towards the next stage of life. Crazy!

I was a little bummed by the coming changes a couple of months ago. But I’m really okay with them going now. It’s time. They’re ready. I’m NOT homeschooling, and as hard as the adjustment to all-day-every-day Kindergarten is going to be on them, we are ready for the next phase. Well, almost all of us because…

This week…Megan figured out that the twins were going to school without her. We were driving to Walmart, talking about kindergarten, and suddenly, she was whimpering. “What’s wrong, Meg?” “But, if they go to school, my sister won’t be here to play with me anymore!” I tried to reassure her: it’s not for months, they’ll still be able to play with her after school, we’ll do fun things on our own, she’ll have me and Timmy to play with. But she wasn’t convinced. “Timmy messes my stuff up when he plays with me.” SO…I think the twins aren’t the only ones who’ll have a big adjustment to make.

This week…Eric was required to go bowling at work. Workplace “morale builders” just don’t make much sense. But c’est la vie, I guess!

This week…we caught colds. I blame the up-and-down temperatures. For some reason, that always makes the “yuck bugs” stronger. Timmy’s got a lovely snot face these days. And on Tuesday, Erin woke up with a cough and Megan with a fever. She felt so bad she actually took herself back to bed for a nap after breakfast. I couldn’t find her for a minute and there she was! Poor thing. Anyway, it was short-lived, thankfully. And no one else has had one. But she was pretty low that day.

Actually, this week…was full of highs and lows. The weather was fan.tas.tic one day. It was downright cold the next day. On Wednesday, my kids had one of their best trips out ever. They were patient with me and each other. They didn’t whine or complain or bicker. They (mostly) obeyed. It was lovely. And then the next day they did nothing but talk over me, complain, run screaming through the house, smack or kick each other, and otherwise be cranky. In the middle of the week, I couldn’t find the floor for two days, and then today I managed to get it clean enough to vacuum (will wonders never cease)! So up and down, round and round. That’s how this week has gone.

Of course, we’ve also had lots of laughter and fun. Timmy is loving hats these days and he just grins when you put one on his head.

We received and watched Frozen, to great delight. Megan’s been earning sticker after sticker on her potty chart (I think in the last two weeks she’s had 2 accidents, total!) and has earned a My Little Pony doll, a Bubble Guppies dvd, and is 3 days from earning her new Barbie doll. All three kids ran up the hill today to see the new baby lamb, chicks, and ducklings at our neighbors house. And we have colored, painted, collected pinecones among other craziness.

So yes, a good week, a hard week, an up-n-down week. Overall, a pretty good microcosm of life, really. And all of it covered by the grace and presence of a God who loves us, saves us, and makes us holy.

Really, it doesn’t get much better than that.

So a quick update of life in the Valley…

TIMMY

Timmy is now 13 months old. We are entering what is one my most favorite stages of the preschool years. He jabbers constantly, and is quickly developing sounds that are intended to be actual words. The best ones are “doggie,” “light,” “on,” and “uh-oh.” In fact, “uh-oh” is clear as a bell, and he even uses it at the appropriate moments (dropping something or falling down).  He also greeted Eric with a very clear “Dah-ee” when he walked in the other day. It was most definitely a.dor.able.

Timmy’s still climbing and running all the time. He giggles with his whole self, and he puts all he’s got into fits and meltdowns, too. He put through 3 top teeth, but it took about 10 days. Either he has really slow-moving teeth or seriously thick gums. Either way…teething is painful for both of us! On the other basic fronts, he has finally started sleeping really well (most nights he goes from 8:30 or 9 to 7 with little, if any, fussing), and he’s gotten much braver with people food. He’s finally adjusted to milk, and I’ve almost stopped supplementing with baby food. Now we’re starting to experiment with silverware, but we haven’t made much progress on that front yet.

ALEX

This week’s great love is doing workbooks. My mom gave us an entire workbook of hidden picture pages (and I found another one that added mazes and dot-to-dots as well), and Alex has searched and found and colored his way through them both – along with every other workbook I could find to give him. He’s emptied my stash almost completely! It’s fun to watch him do the hidden pictures, too, because instead of circling the pictures when he finds them, he just colored the picture in the list the same color as it’s surroundings in the picture. So if he found a bug hidden on a blue roof, the bug is colored blue. And a flag on the grass is green. And if he had to find 3 of a particular item, the list picture gets a rainbow of colors, one for each hidden space.

We did survive the frigid temperatures, too, although Alex was getting a little rough in his play with his sisters towards the end. He likes to sled and eat snow, but his favorite outdoor activity is finding a big stick and whacking it against a tree until it breaks into smaller and smaller pieces. I guess there’s just no separating a boy and a big stick!

ERIN

Erin loves to go outside, especially if it means one-on-one time with her dad. The other day, she bundled up and went out to play so that she would already be outside when Eric got home and could join him in the garage. When he did get back, I glanced out the window to see that he’d showed her how to slide down on her belly on the ice, no sled needed. I got some video of it later, but it was quite a fun adventure for her!

She also can be a total sweetie. Our neighbors up the lane have a 4 year old who loves to play with my kids. They’ve been out regularly this week to sled and whatnot together. Anyway, one of the times they headed up to his house to play, Megan was the last to get her snow clothes on. She wanted to go, but didn’t want to walk by herself. I started her and then came in quickly to throw a coat and blanket on Tim to walk her up, but when I opened the door, Miss Erin had come back and was walking with her. Without being asked. Love.it!

Erin’s also discovered a new love: My Little Ponies. She and Meg spend a lot of the day playing with Pinkie Pie and Rarity (who is actually an older pony, Cup Cake, but they don’t know who she is, so they pretend she’s Rarity) and Rainbow Dash. Sadly we cannot watch the episodes nearly as often as she would like. But I’m sure we’ll survive the trauma somehow… 😉

MEGAN

Megan loves coloring. LOVES coloring. She also loves puzzles, playing dolls with Erin, and snuggling with me, especially in the middle of the night. 😛 There has definitely been an increase in her drama in recent days, but I’m sure that has as much to do with cabin fever as with her age! We are still fighting with potty training. I guess that is just my lot in life (hard PT-ers). The last couple of days have been seriously difficult on that front. I hope we see improvement soon.

On the other hand, Meg’s started snuggling every chance she can get (or create). And I love it. This girl gives hugs like she does everything else…with all of her. She wraps herself around your neck and holds on TIGHT. And then she snuggles in and grins up at you with the sweetest little Meg face she can muster. Yep…definitely love that little thing!

And as for the rest of us…we are surviving. Not always with great beauty, and occasionally with big meltdowns (that would be me, mostly), but day-by-day we are making it through. I’m not in any hurry for Spring, to be honest, because I’m really trying not to wish away my days. But man, is it hard to stay focused and engaged all day, every day, with all four kids at once. I’m just worn out from the drain of it. Still, it’s just a stage and it’ll pass, and when it does, I’m sure I’ll miss it. Or parts of it anyway. I will NEVER miss potty-training. EVER!

Just sayin’! 😉