How Scared Should We Be?

Yesterday, Safa made Eden cry. Eden. The same Eden who at about 16 months pushed Ava and knocked her flat on her ass. Safa turned 11 months old yesterday. She is the only baby I've ever known who retaliates. If her sisters take a toy from her she gets mad. Really mad. She screams and tries to scratch them. All other babies I've known might cry, but most just look a little bewildered and move on to something else. Safa has a bit of that third baby scrappiness you sometimes hear about. I don't think we need to worry about her holding her own as they get older. But the other two might need to sleep with one eye open.

First Icicles

Sharing Icicles

The girls were well enough to go to school today. The entire time I was getting them ready I was feeling something. Was I getting sick too? Too much coffee? Need to eat? I said good-bye and watched them walk up the driveway with Erik and my eyes filled with tears. I felt actual, physical pain in my heart. I closed the door and wondered around my filthy house. Safa is napping. A quite house. The very thing I've been waiting for. The thing that rarely happens. And so now I have it and all I feel is lonely. And not lonely because I'm alone. I love being alone. Lonely because my girls are gone. Lonely for them and their silliness and their voices. Sometime, later today, when they are back home I will forget having felt this way. I will feel overwhelmed and tired and someone will cough in my face. Do I possess the self-awareness to stop and at least remember this moment? I think I do. Will it open my heart and draw a compassionate, measured response in the face of whatever I'm in the face of? We'll see. What I feel right now, as I sit in a quiet house with a heavy heart is this: I am tethered to my children. And they to me. And their distance is a reminder of that tether. It is long and it is strong.

Newest Quotes

Ava (filling up the sink with water) said in a panicky voice, "I don't want it to ovary flow!"

I was changing Eden's diaper and she had a bad diaper rash and was remembering powdered Desitin. She was crying hard and said in a desperate voice, "I want some Splenda on it." I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants. This would certainly be the cause of Child Protective Services descending upon us if this were to happen at school. I think I was able to clear up the confusion, but you never know...

I'm pretty sure Safa called me a "f*cker" yesterday. I apologize for the language. I'm just reporting the facts.

Hence the Fantasy

My children are sick. Again. Hacking, coughing, snotting, (yes, that can be a verb) all over everything. As I told a friend the other day, I'm two wet coughs and one sneeze in my face away from giving Erik two-weeks notice. Just kidding. Kind of. The illness coupled with the ice means the girls have not been to school, nor has Alice come in a long while. And let me just be completely honest here, coughing is a pet peeve of mine. Ok...so it's more like I have to clench my teeth really hard and take a deep breath for my head not to explode when a person is coughing a lot--- including myself. And when three persons are coughing a lot (in my face), and I've had no sleep (because of all the coughing don't you know), well then, my friend you've got a situation on your hands. But then Safa will look so pitiful, and Ava will be shockingly sweet despite feeling like crap and then I remember a quote Erik told me about having children: "The days are long and the years short." Indeed.

A Weary Mama's Fantasy

I swear they got in there on their own accord. I did not, however, hesitate to lock the gate. After strongly considering a bath followed by a nap, I decided against both and opened the latch.

So you may recall I had a sense of the nature of Safa when I was pregnant. I felt her to be a gentle, deep-thinking, strong, but silent type. Well to put it bluntly, I was dead wrong. This child is so crazy Erik and I just stare at each other in fear sometimes. She screams. Joyful, excited, raucous screams. She head-butts for kicks. She gets no greater thrill than watching her sisters engage in craziness. She hears their feet running and she literally bounces with excitement.


I don't know what to say about the nursing. Other than it is ridiculous and my face is rarely looking that happy while it's happening...(I will admit it is funny and that I would laugh if I saw another baby do it. Apparently Annabelle does it to. Perhaps they could challenge each other to a nurse-off. Most extreme move wins...)

EXTREME NURSING

S
S

So this is kind of a weird picture but I really liked it. The light is so bad and funky and it looks very old to me. Their souls are sort of perched right there, beautiful and visible to me. I love my daughters so...

DOGGIE LOVE

CHRISTMAS DRESSES

Are you kidding me with the cuteness?

EDEN

I know I'm her mother, but she is the most charming child I have ever known. Here are some of my favorite recent Eden quotes:

"I don't have any clothes on, right? But that's okay, because I'm cute now."

I will preface this one by saying that we haven't had popsicles in the house since the summer and there were no booty issues when she said it: "Popsicles make my booty feel better."

"One time, I used to live in an orange car in the valley, and a T-rex bone crashed out of the earth."