Sunday, August 24, 2008

People

Today I feel I can really appreciate that credit card commercial (American Express?) where Ellen DeGeneres wants to go to Beyonce's (do I need 2 apostrophes there to emphasize the 'e' in Beyonce' AND demonstrate possession? No clue. Anyway...) concert but can't find her "people" to talk to Beyonce's "people" to get the tickets or something.

We've been in Waco for one full whirlwind of a week. I haven't had much time to really put on the brakes. I've been working all week. Micah got into a private school which started Tuesday and we were not prepared at all for such a quick transition (surprise!). We've still had a ton of unpacking to do and errands to run. Thankfully, my wonderful mom stayed with us to help around the house and help take care of the little ones on Thursday and Friday b/c Jason has been gone.

But today my mom left, Jason is still gone (but he'll be home soon!), the kids are napping and the house is silent (which is NOT very golden right now). I'm left with an unexpected feeling of sadness mixed with a touch of panic. The only feeling I can compare it to is the feeling that you get when you take your newborn baby home from the hospital and no one else is around to help you take care of it. I can remember being a new mom and wrestling with a weird feeling commonly known as "baby blues" when your hormones are still adjusting and you cry over mundane things like sitting down for dinner or changing the TV channel. To compound the sad feeling, there's the panicky feeling that you're all alone with a tiny creature that you have no experience dealing with. And there's no longer anyone else around to help you deal with it. It's lonely and unsettling when you don't have "people."

And today, with this being the 1st time I've had to be completely alone, I'm missing my "people." As much as we were dissatisfied with our old town, we still had "people." Friends, family, friends who were like family... "people." Community. It was comfortable. Here, we have no people. And it's quiet and lonely.

I think we'll find some "people" here eventually. I know it's only been 1 week, as opposed to 5 (LONG) years. But for today I long for my "people."

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Tag Team, Back Again!

After about a week of old-fashioned living (read: no TV and no internet), I've finally rejoined the 21st century! We haven't had much access to the outside world o' info since we moved on Saturday. I almost felt the inclination to start churning my own butter and weaving textiles on a loom. Not that I actually own a loom or butter churn (thank goodness- that would have just been 2 more items to haul 200 miles!) but it's quite unappealing to be without modern technological conveniences. But once again we're hooked up to the World Wide Web! I'll hopefully be posting more regularly. There's so much to tell!

Monday, August 11, 2008

Overheard

Cade has some moderate hearing loss due to chronic fluid build up in his ears. We used to think it was selective hearing until we actually had his hearing tested and then felt guilty for all the times we got on to him when he said he didn't hear us tell him to do something. So he had tubes put in his ears last Tuesday. The audiologist who originally tested his hearing said that "we don't suspect it's a progressive hearing loss" which was actually not something I had considered until she actually suggested it. Hopefully he will regain his hearing once his some of the fluid is allowed to drain. That's why what I overheard the other day is so funny...

On Sunday morning, 5 days post-surgery, Jason was bathing Cade and I heard this conversation:

Jason: "Cade, can you hear better now that you have your tubes in?"

Cade: "What?"

Jason (considerably louder): "Can you hear better now that you have your tubes in?"

Cade: "Oh! Yeah."

Uhhh, sure. Let's hope for the best!

Friday, August 8, 2008

Unrelated Thoughts

Just some stuff we've got going on:

*Our house was visited by The Plague this week. Not the actual Black Plague of course. Otherwise you might have seen us on the news or something. Or attended our funerals. No, just a pesky keeps-the-kids-feeling-crummy Plague. Now that I think about it, it's been quite pleasant (except for the 7:00 AM wake-up call I got yesterday when Micah threw up in his bed. There's nothing quite like being jolted out of a dead sleep to clean up vomit. Nothing like it at all.)

Micah had it the worst- mostly he just ran fever. Cade has been under the weather, but it's hard to tell if it's because 1) he had The Plague, 2) he was feeling bad due to the adenoidectomy he had on Tuesday or 3) he's really a couch potato at heart and was taking advantage of me so that I'd let him lay around on the couch and watch endless hours of Noggin, PBSKids, and Toon Disney. This is maybe the most probable possibility. Piper has been healthy and hasn't even considered ceasing her favorite activities of Putting Small Toys in Her Mouth and Getting into Everything She isn't Supposed To. Oh, and Pulling Things Out of the Trashcan. If these were competitions, she'd be a gold medalist!

*Tonight we enjoyed watching the Opening Ceremonies while inhaling some Chinese food take-out. Or, as the Chinese call it, just food. I thought it was quite an impressive show, albeit rather long. It will be interesting to see how all the competitions and politics play out over the next few weeks. My children had better brace themselves- there will be no cartoon reruns the next couple of weeks. Just the Olympics.

*We made pretty great progress packing the house today! It only took us about 2 1/2 hours to clean off our computer desk- no lie! The amount of papers we have amassed and ignored over the last few years was... well, let's just say we haven't saved any trees. Then we boxed up all the random stuff shoved in our closets from the last 5 years and I pulled the stuff off the walls in Piper's room. Except for a shelf that I couldn't figure out how to take down. Because it's SCREWED INTO THE WALL. Thanks for that bit o' info, Jase.

It just really irritates me how the house can look so much messier as we go through and box stuff up. We end up with so much random crap laying around. Then, I end up spending time trying to organize the mess. Who says I can't prioritize?

*I'm up way too late writing this. My final words: USA, USA, USA!!!!!

Monday, August 4, 2008

Too Much TV

I suspect that my 2 oldest angels have been watching a bit too much TV this summer. Really, though, the heat this summer, particularly in July (and now in AUGUST, if you can believe it's already AUGUST, people!) has been so oppressive that if you aren't fully submerged in water, it's not worth it to go outside between the hours of 8:00 AM and 9:00 PM. I try to limit their TV time, truly I do, but sometimes allowing a bit more TV gives me time to piece together an actual coherent thought without being interrupted by an argument over who is going to be Batman or Superman or any number of made up superheroes (like Wolfman, Raccoonman, Waterman, etc. Their imaginations clearly have no limits).

My wonderful, darling, precious mother-in-law came over on Saturday evening and helped us pack our entire dining room and half the kitchen. So now our dining room is stacked with boxes and little room is left to actually, oh I don't know... DINE in there. I'm not complaining, just saying. So this morning at breakfast, Micah tells me (and I'm QUOTING here!) "Mommy, if we put daddy's books in spacebags, we could put them in the closet... under the bed... or even in a box! Spacebags would save us alot of room for other stuff."

If you haven't seen the infomercial for the miracle that is a spacebag, it's basically a vacuum sealed bag for your clothes. And the commercial comes on at about every commercial break on Toon Disney, which has superhero cartoons on in the evenings, which my boys are addicted to like crack. It's sad, really.

A few nights ago we were eating at a home-cooking restaurant and Micah, referring to a plant on a ledge over our booth, said, "That plant has an aquaglobe. That one does too. Aquaglobes measure out just the right amount of water a plant needs and they're only $14.99." He's turned into a series of walking infomercials.

Better parents than me would be using this incredible brain memory space for scripture verses or ancient hymns. Oh, I'm kidding. We work on memory verses, but listening to Micah's informercials is slightly more entertaining. But I'll admit, it's also become a wake-up call to be more intentional about working harder helping them commit to memory words of life rather than words of consumerism.

Friday, August 1, 2008

A Tearful Day

We got home last night after a very productive day in Waco. And a tearful one. Seriously. I broke down a few times, not because I'm sad about moving but because I'm amazed at how things are working out so easily. It's almost like the Lord is in control or something. Jason and I certainly can't deny that this is the perfect timing for making this move.

In a nutshell, we found a house to rent, secured excellent child care for Missy and Cade (that's when I cried. But that's another story), and put an application in to send Micah to a very high-achieving charter school. Whew!

Things are still moving fast, but going smoothly. The best part will be packing our house and loading the truck with 3 "helpers" 6 and under. If we make it to Waco with all 3 children alive and whole, it will truly be a miracle from the Lord.