you can't lose what you don't have

i think i'm losing my mind. and i even have evidence.

exhibit a: a few weekends back, we received two invitations for two parties on the same day. one for a pool party for jack and em. the other for a birthday party and cookout for the whole fam. i rsvp-ed for both and planned our saturday around them. when we showed up for the pool party (late of course), i found it strange that the host's car wasn't even at the pool. but we marched in, presents in hand, only to find that there was no such party at the pool that day. dejected children and perplexed mother left. at home, i looked at the invitation. it clearly said the party was on sunday, not saturday (at least we didn't miss it!)

then it was time for the cookout. we all drove to the house excited for the night ahead. but as my family was headed to their door, it struck me that maybe i had confused this party's date as well. i checked the invite and sure enough, it was for sunday as well. like a crazy woman, i yelled to my family now standing on the front porch "DO NOT RING THE DOORBELL!! IT'S TOMORROW!" this time no one was dejected, nor were they surprised. mom was just, well, being mom.

thankfully, our calendar was free on sunday so we could go to the parties we rsvp-ed to at their actual time.

exhibit b: don't congratulate yourself on what a clever passcode you came up with for your ipod unless you write it down or actually remember it. i remember being very proud of myself for the passcode i came up with, but i have absolutely NO recollection of what that clever passcode may be.

exhibit c: i took out chicken breasts from one of those big frozen Sam's bags to put in the crock pot. how refreshing that i was thinking about dinner before 5pm for a change. i went on with my day. as i was putting kids to bed that night, bill asked me "did you mean to put the bag of frozen chicken in the lazy susan?" i love how kind he is with his word choices. "umm...definitely not."

exhibit d: i don't remember what issue bill and i were discussing, some sort of decision that needed to be made. all i remember is saying to him, "i really just need to pray about this." he gave me a curious look which i didn't understand since he is always one who is up for praying about things so i asked him why he was looking at me so oddly. he said, "oh nothing. i guess i was surprised that you wanted to pray again."

me: "again?? what do you mean?"

bill: "miss, we just prayed about this a couple of minutes ago."

i had him replay for me the whole thing and still nothing. now, i have definitely spaced out during prayers before, but never to forget that we were praying at all. it left me feeling uneasy.

exhibit e: this is not a joke. i seriously had another one and now i can't remember it. gosh. seriously?

it is so sad to me that i can't seem to hold very many details in my head. it may be partially due to all the space being taking up by 80's song lyrics. but i am just not an organized, efficient, task oriented person. never have been. and though i can improve, the truth is, i never will be. at least not the the degree that i would like. but, frozen chicken in the lazy susan left undetected for 10 hours? that's even worse than my usual "tricks".

which brings me to a little more serious side to this post. my daddy had alzheimer's. getting alzheimer's is one of my fears and, given the fact that it has genetic links, it is actual one of my more rational ones. should i be worried that as i age i seem to have more and more of these "lost moments"? the answer, of course, is no. not just because we have been commanded not to worry (Philippians 4:6,7). and not just because my worry will accomplish absolutely nothing (Matthew 6:27) but because i watched my dad walk through it. more importantly, i saw the LORD walk alongside him. alongside all of us. whatever my future holds, i know i will be held.

so, regardless of what i do or do not remember both now and in years ahead, the important thing is what God remembers...

He remembers His covenant forever...

(from Psalm 105:8)

and what God chooses to forget...

"For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more."

(from Jeremiah 31:34)

she...

plus me...

equals we...

add a hotel...

and a little (or maybe a lot) of cheesecake...

and a little rite of passage...

and you have a little girl's getaway with my not-so-little girl...

Time does not change us. It just unfolds us.

Max Frisch

You know how the phrase "take my breath away" can mean either to be really scared or to be really excited? Well, it takes my breath away to watch her unfolding before our very eyes in BOTH senses of the phrase.

seriously

i remember when i was potty training tate that the whole experience seemed to consume my very life. i asked older moms advice and was shocked when some told me they couldn't really remember potty training their kids. i was so wrapped up in it, i couldn't understand how the memory wouldn't be embedded in my mind and heart for always. i even asked our college students to pray for us, despite the fact they looked at me with dear in the headlights kind of eyes (update: read first two comments to enjoy the common genes my sister and i have). perhaps because they expected their bible study leader might ask them to pray for things like the world rather than her potty training woes.

but with the fourth child, it's different. i still do not enjoy this phase. but i know it is precisely that, a phase. i really miss patting her diaper-padded bootie, which gave me proof she was still a baby. my baby. you realize, by the fourth child how very fast it all goes. but i also can relax a bit, enjoy it, and laugh about it.

like how lulu likes to declare when we are somewhere really inconvenient, "I HAVE TO GO POTTY RIGHT NOW!" so i rush, rush, rush like a mad woman to get her to the potty RIGHT NOW, only to find out that it was really more just for her amusement.

or how when i was getting her a "kittle" after a successful trip to the potty she asked, "can i have two kittles?" when i answered, "no baby, just one." she replied softly, but clearly in a disgusted tone, "gosh. seriously." (she may or may not have heard such a phrase, with just such a tone from a sibling or two...and maybe even a mom...around here) despite the fact that i don't want any of my kids (or myself) displaying such attitude, i had to (secretly) laugh.

folks, what we have on our hands is a two year old teenager. the energy, "i do it myself", and mischief of a two year old mixed with the overheard vocabulary and attitude of a teenager. lethal combination. it may be a two headed monster, but it is a super cute monster...

seriously.

well, THAT was easy...i think

thursday was potty day around here. and by potty day, i mean a day i loathe and dread. bill and i have used an adjusted version of the "toliet training in less than a day" method to potty train our kids. which is usually more like "toliet training in less than a week" for us. here's the distilled version. put your kids in undies. load them up with salty snacks so they will be very thirsty. pump said thirsty kids with juice and water so they will be peein' all over themselves. they won't like that feeling so, with the help aids like teaching a doll to pee pee, giving treats for dry pants every 5-10 minutes and unbelievably monotonous repetition, they will catch on.

it has had varying degrees of success. (though i guess i have to say it was quite successful since at 13, 10, and 8 they don't really doo-doo in their diapers anymore.) here's how it went in the past:

tate was about 21/2. he didn't show any signs of readiness, but we showed a lot of signs of readiness to stop paying for diapers. he didn't seem like he was going to catch on and i remember despairing in the early afternoon. but, thanks to a wee bit of diarrhea, he caught on much quicker in the afternoon.

em was closer to three. she caught on fairly quickly i think, but that's really all i remember except that i hosted a "potty party" the next week. i highly recommend it, there are lots of fun games that can be played with toliet paper!

jack, round one. epic fail. just not ready. the floor was wet from his accidents and the couch was wet from my tears. round two went much better. mostly because i think i had bill do most of it while i took a nap. either that or i blocked it out because i really have no memories of it except that it worked. and i survived.

with all three we went cold turkey. we didn't want to mess with pull ups. which meant we did mess with being up in the night changing sheets for several nights. now that i think about it, that was kind of mean. and gross. but it made sense to us at the time. and it only took a couple of nights for our sleep-loving kids to catch on.

fast forward to miss lulu. she is 21/2. and she is our baby. i wasn't really in a hurry to potty train her except that the girl kind of decided to get going on the job by herself. for a couple of weeks she has been doing her doodies on the potty most of the time. so since the kids are in school now and she has been begging to wear her "big girl underwears", i just decided to go for it. the night before we had all the toys in the kitchen. we had the snacks ready to go...

i was ready. but the question of the day was, was lulu? here's how it played:

6:45am- she wakes me up.

7:12am-i ask her to go on the potty...and she does! all this before we have even started the "regimen".

8"04am-we start loading her with juice and i am feeling mighty good about this situation. we were having fun in our kitchen playland...

8:33am-she runs out to get something from the front yard and pees all over herself in the driveway. she thinks it's funny. mind you, the secret of this approach is that it will both them to be in wet pants. so this makes me a little nervous.

8:40am-just got her cleaned up and changed and the second accident comes while she was sitting on a chair at the kitchen table.

8:45am-i am ready to quit. seriously. i'm not known for my perseverance.

8:50am-we are BOTH eating pringles

i have a "pants check" planned for 9am.

8:58am-peed in undies again. kept on playing as if nothing happened.

me: "lu, we don't pee on the floor"

lu: "right. or on the chair. or on the driveway."

i had hope that maybe she would catch on. it could have gone either way at that point. but catch on she did. thanks to god's gift to potty trainers, skittles. (known as 'kittles around here). she didn't have an accident until 7:30 that night. only a little one yesterday. and a little one today. she has woken up from naps dry (we are totally doing pull ups this time!) and even woke up dry two mornings in a row!

i am sort of opposed to posting potty pix, but here are some pix of her celebrating her big accomplishment...

(calling emory to brag share her joy)

maybe it's ironic that i won't post pix of her on the potty but i will post pix of her in her skivvies. all i can say is, if this girl isn't the cutest thing to ever put on boy shorts, i don't know what it is!!!

so far, so good. we'll see what this week brings...

Back to school good news/bad news

Good news: I woke up on time and made the kids a decent breakfast.

Bad news: I almost made Tate late trying to get "just one more picture". Even so, this was the best I got...

Darn braces. The next picture wasn't the braces fault. It was the "I'm annoyed with you" look...

I deserved that one since I was genuinely being annoying, potentially making him late for school and all.

Good news: The "middles" had coordinating outfits thanks to Jack wearing his Cub Scout uniform to help with the Pledge of Allegiance at the opening ceremony...

Bad news: Despite how everyone loves a man in uniform, Jack changed out of his as soon as the pledge was over. But he still looked adorable (and still coordinated, thank you very much)...

Good news: Getting back into the routine of the school year is good for us. And the kids love being reunited with friends...

Bad news: Transitioning to the routine of the school year might be good for us, but it's hard on us. We are all tired. Each year I think I am going to gradually transition to getting to bed earlier to prepare for the school year and each year that plan is an epic fail. The whole thinking ahead thing is not so much my gig. Beyond fatigue, we all have varying degrees of back to school blues. I am always in a funk as school starts back up. The house is eerily quiet and feels achingly empty. Thankfully, there is this little sunshine around...

But if you think I was down, you should have seen sweet cranky, clingy Miss Lu adjusting to the reality of her big kids being gone. She said, "I was sad when my kids went to school (prounounced "cool"). That's my 'cool. I want to go to 'cool." Don't go there, baby. Momma can't handle that thought. Not today.

Love you guys...

Miss you guys.

see ya next year, summer

today was our last day of summer. such a depressing occasion calls for fried food...

and cousin therapy...

rockin' out...

masquerading..

planking...

owling...

and red mango-ing...

goodbye summer...

you will be missed.

just like jack will miss not having to wear a shirt...