Slacker Mom Strikes Again!

I was driving along with Tate flipping through stations on the radio when he said "Wait a minute. That song you just passed sounded like an 80's song. Go back." Indeed it was. It was "Always Something There to Remind Me" by Naked Eyes.

My heart skipped a beat. My parenting has not been in vain. My children know and appreciate 80's music. They request "Safety Dance". They love "More Than a Feeling" by Boston. They love anything by Journey. They know all the words to "Mr. Roboto" and Jack has a seriously sweet dance routine to it. For this moment, I feel like a success as a mother.

I need this feeling since yesterday was a "slacker mom" kind of day. Actually many days feel like that. It started with me getting out of bed just in time to stumble into the garage as Bill and Tate were leaving to say "Have a good day at school, honey."

Totally forgot it was picture day. Oh well. How many middle school pictures really turn out that great anyway? Who cares if he was in an old t-shirt? Well I admit, I kind of care. But obviously not enough to drag myself out of bed in the morning to advise him on his clothing choice and spike his hair. He was probably thrilled that I forgot.

Grandma, Luci and I had a lunch date in the middle of the day...
But later, I was a half hour late for picking Tate up from school. Especially lame if you realize that I only pick him up two days a week. He was quick on his feet about it, as ever. When the school secretary put him on the phone and I was apologizing profusely, he good naturedly said "If I had a cell phone, then I could have called you to remind you about the early release." Score...Tate:1, Mom:0. And yet, still no cell phone dude.

I tried to make up for it with a trip to Sonic after school. Okay, okay that was as much (if not more) for me as it was for them. But we all enjoyed the Sonic and a play date at the park...

I think the height of my slacker mom-ness came when Lulu and I took a nap together from 5:15 until 6:30. The other three were happily freezing their brains watching a movie on a school night and dinner was nowhere to be found. Thankfully, leftovers saved the day.

However untimely, that nap helped me make it through the rest of the long night for Tate's 8pm football game clear across town. We bundled Lulu up for the event. She's going to need to get used to be carted around to the older kid's activities. Bill took the following picture of us together...
It looks like I needed a longer nap or have been sippin' something more than Sonic in that picture.

While I was fussing at him for not focusing the camera, he amused himself with taking unflattering pictures of me...
Above I am saying "Stop. Please stop." But he had no mercy. Everyone thinks he's such a nice guy, but I know his ornery side...
In the above picture I am trying to take deep breaths to deal with my frustration. If you look closely you may see fire coming out of my nostrils. At least he got the focus right that time.

I am not a slacker in all areas, though. Since I am new at this whole baby thing again, I have gotten all the little baby items that probably aren't necessary but you think you need when you are a first time mom. One of those is the mirror so that I can see her while I'm driving. I probably don't need to see her while I'm driving, she's not going to go anywhere! But I just miss her. So I have the mirror. We just realized that she can see me when I turn around and look at her. This has made our driving excursions way more fun as I get to see this...
And maybe a little more dangerous since I'm constantly turning around to catch a glimpse of that smile to which I am addicted. Oh well, I'll just crank up the 80's music and enjoy the ride!

What have I done?

Lulu has enjoyed her tummy time since before we even brought her home which has given her some pretty good upper body strength. Check out those guns...
Doesn't she look proud of herself?

For weeks she has been vigorously rocking back and forth on all fours, but she had not figured out that she could move her arms...
This accomplishment hasn't been fully celebrated the way it should be by her Momma. My kids think I'm selfish for vehemently opposing how they try to coax her to crawl, and they may be right. But since she's been home less than 2 months, in some ways I feel like I have a 2 month old baby. And no "2 month" old baby should be on the verge of crawling!

She had no forward motion, only scooting herself awkwardly backwards. UNTIL her mother mistakenly left her Sonic Limeade Chiller (have you had those? If you like Key Lime Pie, you must partake!!) on the ground a few feet from the blanket Lulu was playing on. The unsuspecting mother went to check on something in the kitchen and came back to find...

Forward motion! I guess she was presented with the right kind of motivation. She is my daughter after all.

She doesn't move very quickly so life as we know it has not changed dramatically yet. We will have to clear the decks pretty soon though. She has already made her way over to Ruby's nasty football, not an ideal play toy for a baby...
Unless you are okay with your child chewing on gangrene.

Maybe Bill has come up with a new containment system we could try...
By the way, thanks for the encouragement about my sadness. It's not adoption related. I will be blogging about it at some point, I'm just not ready to yet.

I'm not quite ready to blog about the source of my sadness yet. But here are some things that have been making me smile lately.

1) Friday night our two oldest kids each had sleepovers and Lulu was asleep by 8pm, so we had a date with Jack. He rarely gets us to himself and vice versa, so it was a rare treat indeed...
2) Saturday night we had a visit from the Lewis family all the way from Colorado. Here's a picture of Gracie and Lulu getting acquainted...
First Lulu makes her move to grab Gracie's ear...
This is how Gracie feels about it...

Lulu likes Gracie as you can see...
Until Gracie makes her move for Lulu's ear...
Now Lulu's not too sure...
She got over it and they will be friends forever. Emily I and couldn't resist singing "Ebony and Ivory" while they played.

3) Girls in plaid...

4) Boys in stripes...
5) Lulu got a special package this week from US Immigration. I had to smile at Tate reading to her from the Guide for New Immigrants...
6) And lastly in the smile department, I found this "music video" on my camera. It just might be my favorite thing ever...
(pause music on playlist for full effect)

Going Boinkers...

It's been a hard week. Today I was just plain sad. So I decided to try some hair therapy. I gave Lulu "boinkers"...
Maybe that's not their official name, but that's what I call them. I still prefer the bows of unusual size, but it was a fun change...
And a good diversion for me. Though I'm not too sure the Lulu liked it...
I guess misery loves company.

Why buy toys?

Lulu has two favorite play things. The first is never far from her. It's her tongue...
She can do this...

And this...

And this...
We call it her Lizard Tongue. The rest of us can't do it. We have fat tongues. Like this...

And this...

And this...
So we are very impressed with her mad Lizard Tongue skills...
As evidenced by the fact that I've taken a bajillion pictures of my daughter sticking out her tongue and just posted them as if everyone will hail the Lizard Tongue Genius that she is. Okay, just one more...
Her other favorite toy is never far from me. It's my JunkPosse Ethiopia necklace...
I love that what I wore to "hold her near my heart" while we waited is now something she daily holds in her hand, while I hold her in my arms...
Somebody pinch me.

We partied like it was 2002...

Have you ever received an invitation that felt too good to be true? Like Mr. Totally Rad invites you to the Prom (guess what decade I was in high school). Or you are invited to vacation with friends at their multi-million dollar beach home. I felt that kind of thrilled when our friends invited us to celebrate the Ethiopian New Year with them. I was so excited that I almost squirted a little in my pants.

Though Friday marked the Ethiopian New Year, we celebrated on Saturday at our friends home. The kids had to dress appropriately, of course...
There was an amazing spread of Ethiopian food. Betty had been cooking for days...
And of course, there was coffee...
Normally I drink my coffee with LOTS of creamer. Preferably Coconut Cream. But Ethiopian coffee is an exception. The flavor is so rich that with only sugar and no creamer whatsoever, I am totally smitten.

It's 2002 in Ethiopia now because they operate on a Julian calendar instead of a Gregorian one like we do. I really don't have any idea what that calendar stuff means. I'm just repeating what Sophia told me at the party. But I did sound really smart for a minute, didn't I? Amy, who was also at the party, loved this 2002 idea since she immediately became 7 years younger...kind of.

On the actual New Year's Day, we had another way to celebrate. We welcomed home this beautiful girl. What joy! Junie and Lulu were at Hannah's Hope together and now they are home in the same town. How sweet is that?

Also part of the welcoming committee at the airport was this little guy, Mussie (pronounced Moosie) who was also adopted from Ethiopia by friends...
Luci and Mussie sound pretty cute together, huh? I love the Ethiopian community that we are now a part of!

Melkam Enkutatesh! A Happy New Year indeed!

Not my finest moment

There are some nights when I hate that our work means Bill is gone a lot of evenings. Last night was definitely one of those nights. Tate had football practice, so I dragged the other three kids along.

It was Lulu's bedtime...
Emma did her homework...
I ate my dinner in the car...
Jack was, well, Jack...
When it started getting a little darker they moved into the van. Jack entertained himself by finding the nearest Chick-Fil-A on the GPS...
112 miles by the way. That's just wrong.

Luci woke up...
We were snapping pictures and I was planning the blog post. Not exactly cocooning, but not a bad night. That is, until we got home. It was 8:30pm and the older three still needed showers. The dog was barking. There was fighting. There was yelling...mine, unfortunately. And Lulu, though exhausted, was fighting sleep.

I was mad. Mad that Bill was gone. Mad at the dog for barking. Mad that everyone needed me (as if that's their fault?!) and there wasn't enough of me to go around. I was even mad at the baby for not going to sleep. And you know what makes me so sad? I think she knew it. My whole body was tense as I rocked her to sleep. I wasn't gentle or nurturing, but had a more commanding spirit. No wonder she didn't fall asleep! It was like trying to sleep on a cold, marble bed. Not surprisingly, when I confessed my anger that my life was not easy (as if that is my right?!) and my spirit softened, she fell right asleep. I'm sorry, baby.

I know some nights are just crazy. The thing is, even on crazy nights, I don't have to be crazy right? I don't expect that will be the last of such crazy nights. Or the last appearance of the crazy mom, unfortunately. But in the midst of the crazy...in my circumstances and in my person...I hope I can cling to this, "Let my soul be at rest again for the Lord has been good to me." (Psalm 116:7)