In the quiet of this new spring morning

         Nature is awakening.

Sounds of life where cold darkness reigned.

The night rains have washed away all traces of Winter

The wind and thunder hastening its departure.
Trees are remembering their purpose,
Yellow buds push thier heads though half-frozen earth,
  Demanding attention.
Reminding us of the promise of renewal.

I should rename my blog to "Life With Ben"

This kid is something else. I can't even remember the first "Ben-ism" because there are so many and he started saying them so young.  I just never know what to expect.

Bennett has inherited all the quirkiest things about his father and I. Every obsessive tendency, every overly critical rage induced rant.  He looks just like his father, so I'm completely head over heels, especially when he gives me that squinty-eyed grin. 

What kind of kid has a cookie for a best friend and the awesomest toy ever is a "chicken plunger?" (read: turkey baster).

We have a a few challenging weeks recently.  Suddenly, Ben is full of the "I know better than you's" and I want to flush him down the toilet. No, your show is NOT more important than breakfast.  I don't care if you want to play Mario, you've been playing for 4 hours and 36 minutes and it's time to STOP! (times exaggerated).  I was baffled by these times of "everything I do has a better reason than yours" until I asked his father to help out by doing the dishes. 
"Well, you know," he says with a cocking of his neck that I haven't seen before a MILLION times.  He might as well do Ben's tisk noise when he's making a point as well.
"I can't find one of my slippers, so I have a hard time doing household chores."  WHHHAAATTTT?? ARE YOU FOUR??
"But my sock will get wet and that bothers me." 

I totally get it now.

Poor Ben also has what is referred to the "Trombley Temper".  When things aren't going his way, he has a tendency to lash out with shaking and "AAAARRRRRRRHHHHH!!!"-ing. 
"Itriedtodothisthingbutit'sbad and IT'S NOT LETTING MEEEE!!"

He loves all sorts of silly things.  The Girl scoffs at anything remotely silly; changed words to a song, jokes or teasing.  The Babe is just happy to have something to bang.  But Ben loves silliness and teasing.  And also; accessories. Hats, ties with tee shirts and belts. He wears his safety goggles to school. 

To my future daughter-in-law; I'm sorry. I have tried as best as I could, but nature wins out every time.  Sadly, my children were cursed by their grandmother before I even made an appearance.  Maybe YOU can stop the cycle.  Just don't have a boy second, I'm begging you.

What Is Unsaid

As I stood near the coffee table at church today, an acquantaince of mine walked up to fill her cup.  Her son committed suicide last week. I had never met him. My head swam for a second trying to find the right word...but none came.  Finally, I greeted her and told her I was sorry for her loss.  "I know, there aren't any right words to say, so I'll say I love you".  To me, that sounded awkward, but she replied that was a great thing to say.  I told her we had been and would continue to pray for her, and we parted. 

I've been thinking about our exchange, and the words we use when we are faced with death.  We're ALL touch by death, our parents, grandparents, children, friends; none of us are immune.  Death is one of the most intimate parts of life, the thing that came make you the most raw.  How are we able to comfort one another?  The person who is gone is not sad or unhappy.  In fact, they are in the Kingdom of Heaven surrounded by love and light.  While in our grief, we are perhaps feeling sorry for ourselves, or feeling sorrow for the ones left behind.  You can tell them that you're sorry, that you understand, but each of us feels and experiences grief so differently.  The last thing you want to do is offend, or bring up pain.  The words hang in the air, but each is afraid to say them, afraid of the hurt they might cause.

Though the friend is not someone I know well, we are connected.  We are mothers, we are women, we are sisters, we are wives.  We have the same faith to lean on.  I do love her.  Perhaps that's all I could say to let her know that we won't forget her son, and that her loss wouldn't be in vain. 

I looked at my sons when I found out about hers, and wondered about him as a baby, how she held him and loved him.  About how he played with his cars and toys at 4, like my son.  Where had he taken a wrong turn? What were the words he needed to hear?  I pray she finds the peace he couldn't.

Thinking

I've been thinking about how I don't have much to say.  I like to blog about my (limited) experiences, but it seems that in every blog I read, they have something to blog about. This one has an autistic son and a daughter with a brain hernia.  Another has money problems.  Alcoholic, abusive parents.  I almost feel as if I don't even deserve to be reading these people's stories, as my life so far has been pretty uneventful.  I have been blessed with so much, a loving family, children who are well, a stable roof over my head, a husband whom I love and respect (mostly) and reciprocates the feelings.  I am, in every way, living my own dream.  I do not know what I have done to deserve such a life. 

On the other hand I always feel as if the other shoe is going to drop.  I am constantly anticipating a disaster.  Why? So I can be prepared? So I'm not blindsided? I hate living in fear.  I want to live my life joyfully. 

Last night the children got their teeth cleaned at the dentist.  The hygenist was pregnant at the same time I was, but due later, in August.  She had her daughter one month after Owen was born, at 23 weeks, due to Placental Abruption.  The baby is ok, but has had to have numerous surgeries and was in the hospital for 5 months.  Last night I had to bring Owen because Ryan had band practice.  There I sat, with my perfectly formed, perfectly healthy, perfect delivery baby.  I felt ashamed.  I wanted to take back every complaint I had ever made. 

I have tried to take the time to get back to myself.  I go to book group once a month, I Zumba my buns off with a friend one a week.  I want to be a better person, I want to give back the blessings I have been given.  Now if the time to start.

Just when you think you know it all...or a least something...Ah, forget it.

So after having two kids, you have a few tricks up your sleeve, a few tools in your belt. Then you have Number Three and God thinks it's funny that you think you know what's going on. 
This week has been momentous in the life of The Babe.  He has gotten tooth #2, learned how to crawl AND how to pull up to his feet. He has been very close to crawling for some time now, he just hasn't been able to put it all together.  Who woulda thought that something as simple as a stuck toy would make the gears click? 

Now that he's officially mobile, he has decided that he's going to venture out into the big, wide world: The Kitchen. He only crossed the threshold into the kitchen twice before, even though he could army-crawl very well.  Today he is my shadow at the sink. 

At our old house, there was a small, definite path to and from the kitchen.  One gate and three closed doors later, the Family Room was a baby-safe area.  Here at the new house, the space is slightly too large for a gate, so here comes Babe.  Luckily, there is a pocket door at the top of the stairs, so I don't have to worry about that. 

I remember Maddie learning how to crawl. I got home from work and Ryan showed me mauled pink rubber ducky.  He had let her chew it as a "treat" when she would crawl correctly.  He was SO PROUD!  It took her longer to crawl than Owen, maybe 8 or 9 months because she could roll everywhere so well that she really didn't care to learn.  I don't know where she gets her stubbornness from.  Owen is at the age where I can't remember anything from Ben.  I was in a cast and miserable and I know I wrote some stuff down, but poor kid, mommy was not in her right mind.  I do  know that he was earlier, closer to 6 months.  Owen splits the difference of everything Maddie and Ben did.  Maddie got her tooth at 6 months, Ben at 8, Owen at 7.  I could have predicted it. 

The Babe is also not sleeping quite through the night. His sibs were by and before 6 months.  So I'm still feeling the sleep deprivation.  He actually slept better at 3 months!
He doesn't eat baby food.  Nothing pureed or mushy.  I felt bad about not making it myself for Maddie and Ben, and when I do make it for Owen, the kid won't eat it. Huh. So much for Mommy guilt.  He also learned his pincer grasp on Thursday. Now he can feed himself, which is awesome.  Here we come, Cheerioland!!

 It's amazing how cool it is to watch something you made grow into a person.  It's frustrating, challenging, exhausting, but at the end of 18 years, maybe we'll get a break.  And hopefully we've done a good enough job that we won't have to worry.  Or not too much.  Who'm I kidding? I will never stop worrying!!

Internal Clock.

I've always liked to sleep. 

The problem is, whether I've slept 6 hours or 16, I never feel quite refreshed. I always have to drag myself out of bed. 

I love the feeling, at the end of the day, when you turn out your lights and lay in silence between the cool sheets.  There is no place like your bed.

So I wrestle myself out of bed each morning by 7:30 (usually I've already been awake for a while, either due to nursing or waking up when Ryan leaves at 6:30. Those are bad mornings, when I fall asleep again riiiight about 7:25).  I wake Maddie, who wakes up similar to me, like a hibernating bear.  Ben pops up like a spring, ready for the day. Funny. Ryan sleeps like a dead person, but wakes easily, and I sleep so lightly that ANYTHING wakes me, but wake (for good) hard. Our kids are mixed. Maddie has it the worst, sleeping like Ryan, waking like me. Bennett is lucky, sleeping lightly but waking easily. 

As soon as Morning Routine is done, I want to take a nap. At 8:45.

I never can get going. All morning I laze around, trying to get some energy or motivation to do ANYTHING. 

Around 1 pm I start getting in my groove. I am the only person I know who works out and showers at night.  If I manage to get them done in the morning, it's all I manage to do all day! 

I feel like my internal clock is set wrong, Don't get me wrong, it's a good clock. It wakes me up at exactly the time I want to wake up, but it only awakens my mind, not my body. 

I wish I could be a morning person, but I just can't fight it.  And the world revolves around the "bright and early".  I've thought about getting a job at a coffee place, but I think I might just die if I had to be at work by 5 a.m.  Caffeine has little to no effect on me.  I just have to accept the fact that I am a slow starter, that I will never look around at 10:30 and sigh with happiness at my accomplishments. 

Right, like my house is ever clean. 

Blessings

Hm. I'm full of beautiful phrases and eloquence in the space between consciousness and sleep.  I wake up and it's gone.  Yeah, I could keep a journal by my bed...but turning on the light is ill advised, especially when it takes so long for me to fall asleep in the first place. Plus I'm lazy. 
I feel like I'm getting to a good place. I feel like having Owen (and all that lead up to him) have helped me be satisfied. Nothing is perfect, everything is hard, but my life is inherently blessed. Each one of our friends who is in the same "stage" of life has their own problems. We all struggle with discipline, money, time, none of us seems to have enough of any of those. And yet, we all have love. 
A few weeks ago, one family's father lost his job. While at first, it seemed like a crushing blow to the family, the couple, his ego, they have realized that it was probably the best thing that could have happened. The job's hours were dragging them down, putting unneeded stress on the family. Since then, both parents have been happier, kids are more secure, less problems all around. They decided to look at it as a blessing.  I'm trying to see the events in my life as blessings as well, regardless of how challenging.