Two more days and my dear sweet boy will be five. How time has flown.

Tim and the boys spent the night away from home, so I made the ill fated decision to let C sleep in our bed with me last night. In my head this plan made perfect sense, but in reality it was harder than I anticipated. First of all, she tossed and turned all night long. Secondly, she snores. Thirdly, she kept waking me up blaming me for snoring (not sure if I was or if her own snoring was waking her up.) So, we barely got any sleep last night. However, even with those complaints, I actually really did love having her in bed with me, especially when she rolled over in the middle of the night and curled up against me.

Since the boys weren’t home yet this evening, I decided to take my best girl on a date after I picked her up. We went to a local pizza place and had dinner, talked, colored, and told jokes. It was a lovely evening spent getting to know the heart of my best girl just a little bit better. I love the little lady she is growing up to be!

The temperature is dropping. I can feel it as I sit here in my living room. The snowstorm that came through very early this morning left little snow, much to my disappointment. It did, however, afford me a day off from work and for that I was grateful. We’ve had precious few snow days this year so we were long overdue. Poor C still had school so the boys and I visited the neighbor cousins for a few hours this morning and this afternoon we spent inside as well. The kids are still adjusting to the time change, so we made an early night of it. I enjoyed being home with them all day. Fingers crossed we get a delayed opening in the morning! 🙂

This little fellow woke up shortly after I got home from MOPS this evening. He has a cold and it is making him cough. So we hung out for awhile watching TV until he was ready to fall back asleep. Considering he and Big E had a fast moving stomach bug yesterday, I sure hope he gets completely better soon!

Just me, Tim, and Molly hanging out and watching TV. Good times!

I had been looking through some old images the other day when I came across a picture with a name and address on it. Back when we were living in the farm house, I kept misplacing our landlord’s address, so one day I took a photo of the envelope with our rent check before I put it in the mail. Then each month I would scroll through my pictures to find his address again. (Why not write it down and store it somewhere safe, you ask?… That’s not really my personality. I wish it was. My life would be much easier if it was!!!)

Anyways, it was that picture that I ran across the other day. I had not seen him since a few days before we moved out of the farmhouse in early 2015. It’s been over two years. Out of curiosity, I googled his name and found what I feared I might find.

Mr. Wiggins is dead.

There was scant information, only that he was 92 years old. It happened back in October. When I looked up the date I realized it was the day we spent at the pumpkin patch, a week after I found out I was pregnant. I thought about how happy I was on that day. I wish we had learned about his passing back then. We would have gone to his funeral.

Mr. Wiggins was a nice man. He was a good man. And from the conversations that we had, a Christian man. He was incredibly active, showing up at the house on more weekends than not, to work around they yard or repair something in the house. As frustrating as that house was, it was a delight to him. It had belonged to his late wife’s family and she had always hoped to move into it. She died before they got the chance. The original house was only four rooms (two downstairs, and two upstairs.) Everything else was added on later… the kitchen, dining room, bathrooms, etc were all built on, and mostly by Mr. Wiggins in his youth. About six months after we moved in he had the kitchen semi-remodeled so that we would have a better functioning space to use.He took such pride in that house and enjoyed telling us the stories about simpler times. He would watch the kids play in the yard and he would tell us that he hoped we would live there for the next fifty years. He knew he wouldn’t be around forever, but he made good use of the time that he had, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had reached 100. He used to collect items for a church near his home and he would often walk down and visit his sisters-in-law that lived in the neighboring houses. Like I said, he was a good man. I was sad to hear that he had passed and I never got to properly thank him for the kindness that he showed to my little family in the two years that we lived there.

So here it is now… Thank you, Mr. Wiggins. Thank you for the time and energy you invested into your house and into us. We enjoyed the many conversations that we had. The children still speak so fondly of our time at the farm house and Tim and I clearly recognize that living there helped us to save up the money to buy our townhouse. We are grateful to you for that. You were always encouraging and positive. Should I live to be 92, I pray I can be as active, contented, and genuine as you were! Until we meet again, Mr. Wiggins, good bye.

Back in early December, Baby E had a stomach bug. That night he threw up all over his bedding and proceeded to throw up for the next several hours. With the first onslaught of vomit, I was able to convince him that his paci was yucky and that it made him sick (I know, I lied.) He was so miserable and tired that he didn’t even argue. The next night he asked for it and I reminded him that it was gross. For the following few nights he would ask on and off, but I would give the same response and he would say ok and snuggle down to sleep.

So that’s how we weened Baby E off his paci…

the first time.

You see, in a moment of sleep-deprived manic frustration and defeat during our five week sickness marathon I dug out the paci and popped it back in his mouth in hopes that we could possible, just maybe get a few hours of sleep. It worked like a charm, so much so in fact that he is quite attached to it again. He only gets it at night and only if he asks for it, but I know that in the next week or so we need to try getting it away from him again.

Poor little guy started to develop a stuffy nose last night and at about midnight he woke up complaining that his nose hurt. “You have boogers, kid. And you aren’t great at blowing your nose yet.” Every time I laid him down he would start crying, so I finally relented and brought him downstairs to watch TV and sit on the couch. So while most of the world (and the rest of my house) were cozy in their beds, I was sitting on the couch with Baby E feeding him bananas, watching the cat play, and gently persuading him that he was tired enough to go back to bed. I finally got him down around 2 and he woke up fine this morning. However tonight he was complaining about his nose hurting again. Hopefully this time he sleeps through it!!

We weren’t five minutes into dinner when I noticed that Baby E just couldn’t sit still. Every once in awhile he would start to wiggle and let out a little moan or grunt. I thought this strange because we were having one of his favorite meal, sausage and eggs (more sausage than eggs) and he really wasn’t focusing on it. Within a few more minutes he started to whine.

“Baby boo boo!” he whimpered. “Baby boo boo!”

I asked him what hurt and he said “back” and pointed behind him. I wondered what could be bothering him, as he had been running around just fine a few moments before. I went over to his high chair and made him lean forward. I noticed a strange lump underneath his shirt and I reached down his shirt to feel around for it. When I pulled my hand back out I had retrieved a small, green finger puppet with a wide open mouth and imposing teeth.

“Oh, I put that in his shirt,” Big E said matter of factly as he munched on his eggs. “There’s something else in there too.”

I dug in again and found a small plastic boulder. Poor third child, no wonder he was in pain. With that little incident went any interest Baby E had in dinner this evening. He’s going to be starving in the morning!

Be still, my heart, be still.

There are moments I want imprinted on my mind and stored in my heart, to treasure them all of my days and revisit them when I am old. In the chaos and blur of life, these are the moments that truly matter, the moments that take your breath away and remind you of the heart’s capacity to love. . .

The goodness of God and the beauty of life clash together in undeniable joy.

In these moments, life is perfect.