On the heels of a truly disappointing snow storm a few days ago, (it never actually snowed) we finally got some snow last night and into most of today. When we woke up this morning the ground was already covered and the kids were eager to get out and play. With a ‘feels like’ temp of about 10 degrees we held off until this afternoon. Up until then we had a lego playdate with the neighbor cousins, ate lunch, and took a desperately needed nap.

After waking up, we dug out all the snow clothes and bundled everyone up. They lasted about 30-40 minutes outside, playing with a neighbor and then helping to shovel. Baby E was the least amused with the snow because his multiple layers (along with snow pants that were three sizes to large) kept making walking a little difficult and frustrating. The big kids enjoyed munching on the snow and cleaning it off the vehicles.

Then this evening we had dinner with the neighbor cousins, so much fun was had by all.

We assured the kids that the snow would be sticking around for a few days since the temps are supposed to stay well below freezing for a little while, so hopefully they will get some more time to play in it.

This little cutie is hoping for some snow tonight, and if I’m honest, so am I. Whispers of snow started swirling a few days ago. While we are not expecting to get much, I always love it when it snows (unless it falls during rush hour and then I really don’t like it) However,  I think overnight snow storms are the best!

“Why is Daddy the one that comes into our room when we need someone in the middle of the night?” C asked this evening as she was getting ready for bed.

The real answer to that question is that I nursed each of my kids for almost a year, and during each of those years I was up with the nursing baby 3-4 (and often more) times a night, while working full time an hour away from home, running on caffeine and power naps. I’m not sure if we ever distinctly talked about it or not, but as soon as each kid stopped nursing, Tim took on the responsibility of checking on the kids in the middle of the night if they needed something. It was his way of giving me a much needed break and some desperately needed sleep. It is still mostly Tim that gets up with them, but there are plenty of times I’m in their room too.

I figured this explanation was a bit too complicated for the kids so I simplified it with, “I used to get up with you guys a whole lot when each of you were little. Now Daddy does it so I can get some sleep.”

“Why do you need sleep? You don’t actually do anything!” C replied.

“Excuse me?”

“You don’t do anything all day. You just sit and edit videos. Daddy actually makes something.”

“Yeah, you just sit at a computer!” Big E chimed in.

I stood there staring at them completely speechless. Did they just say I don’t do anything all day?!?

The idea of work is an abstract topic for children to grasp. I thought about it from their perspective. My kids have visited both where I work and where Tim works. I’m a video editor, so it is true, I sit at a computer every day and Tim is a wood finisher so he is up and about. They’ve seen him use the spray gun and work on panels and doors. I totally understand that from their point of view, daddy’s job is much more active, but dear children, I actually do make something!! Day in and day out I make something!! In fact, I always thought my kids would think my job was pretty cool. *sigh*

Had their statements come from a peer, I think it would have been a pretty huge blow to my confidence, but since I know my kids have zero intention of hurting my feelings I decided we would have a talk about what is and isn’t appropriate to say to people about work.

I started off by explaining how hurtful their statements sounded. As I suspected, they had no idea what they said would be upsetting. (They had been viewing it as I mentioned above, that Daddy moves around a lot more with his job.) Then I went through a list of some of the things that we are blessed with because “mommy just edits videos.” We have a house and clothes and food. Then we talked about how important it is to speak well of people. It doesn’t matter what they do, if they are working they are doing a good thing to help provide for their families. They seemed to understand and quickly apologized.

It wasn’t the life lesson I was expecting on tackling this evening, but thankfully it all worked out in the end!

This morning I had a one month follow up appointment for my finger. They took more x-rays and the doctor decided that the soft splint I had been wearing wasn’t cutting it, so I am back in the hard plastic splint for a few more weeks. Not sure if my timeline got shifted due to this setback, but I imagine it was. The best part of my morning was as I was leaving the doctor’s office I ran into my sister-in-law and her sweet children in the waiting room. Her oldest daughter broke her arm a few weeks before I broke my finger and she had an appointment to get the cast off. We have the same orthopedic surgeon and by happenstance we both had appointments! I took a picture with her so I could show the kids this evening. The kids thought it was awesome that their cousin was my broken bone buddy!

“Can Monster Trucks drive on the road?” Big E asked me as we drove home this evening.

“I think so,” I replied. “I don’t see why not.”

“Can they ride on the dirt?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Well if they go on top of a house of dirt and fall off then they can’t drive on the dirt, can they mommy?” (Somehow that scenario made sense to him.)

“I’m guessing the answer is no.”

“Don’t you know about Monster Trucks??”

“You know honey, Daddy is the one that knows more about monster trucks than Mommy,” I told him.

“Yeah, Daddy knows about a lot more stuff than you!”

Ouch! Thanks, kid. Trying to redeem myself in his eyes I countered with, “Actually, there are things that mommy knows more about than Daddy!”

“Like motorcycles?” he replied.

“Um… no.”

Silence from the back seat.

After a beat he pipes up with, “Maybe you could read my book about machines at home. Then you would know stuff.”

I’ll get right on that, kid. 😉

“Sorry I couldn’t give this to you on Christmas day.”

I love you. I hope your finger feels better soon.

This evening I dropped by Chick-Fil-A and picked up dinner for me and the kids. One of the things that I like about Chick-Fil-A is that their kids meals always come with a book or a game, never a cheap plastic toy to litter my house. 🙂 This evening’s meal included a little pack of “Dinner Games” cards. The little plastic container was filled with cards to encourage interaction and fun at meal time. There were a few games where we had to guess things about each other, and ones that led to silly faces and lots of giggles. It was a wonderful way to sneak in a little quality time with the kids before bedtime.

“Money Bob-boo-wah???” Baby E pleaded with me as I was making breakfast this morning. “Money Bob-boo-wah!!!”

“I’m sorry, honey, we don’t have any.”

“Lay-low.”

“Yes, if I can find some.”

Toddlers have a language all their own, and consider yourself blessed if you are able to translate their foreign tongue. When Big E was a toddler, he used to babble at me and I had a very hard time understanding him, so I would turn to C and she would translate for me. Somehow she completely understood just about everything that came out of his mouth and once she would say it, it would start to make sense to me as well. Now that Baby E has his own language, I sometimes turn to the big kids for their translating skills. C is of little help because she spends every day at school, so she hasn’t caught onto the intricacies of his dialect, and Big E merely tells me what he wants Baby E to be saying, not actually what Baby E is saying.

So in spite of their ‘help,’ I have gotten pretty good at translating him.

So I am compiling a small ‘Baby E to English’ dictionary should you find yourself in a one on one conversation with Baby E and you are a little rusty on your toddler-ese.

Bob-Boo-Wha- Lollipop

Money- More

Lay-Low- Later

Litty Litty Litty- Kitty

Meal- Oatmeal

Doo-Doo – Downstairs or Upstairs (you’ll need context clues for that one.)

Wannee- Water

Malm- Milk

Cargo- Car

Offensive curse word- Truck

I wanna + offensive curse word- Another Truck (My sincerest apologies on this one. Yikes!)

YiYa- Big E

Charree- C

Doe-nee- Doughnut

Fair-fane– Airplane

Mean Up- Clean Up

So there you have it, you will no longer be ill prepared to speak with our tiniest savage. Good luck and godspeed.

Late last night my loves came home. After a week of being separated, Tim walked in the door with both of them in his arms. Their faces were buried in his neck, half asleep from the lateness of the hour, but when I spoke to them they opened their sleepy eyes and smiled. They were home. We carried them upstairs and laid them in their beds. As I covered them in kisses, they settled into their pillows and drifted off to sleep.

Today they filled me in on some of their adventures of the past week. They swam in the Gulf of Mexico and they visited the Clearwater Marine Aquarium. But their absolute favorite activity was the time they spent at their great grandmother’s house with their cousins, playing hide and seek and celebrating her 90th birthday. My brother in law was kind enough to share some photos with me of their time down there. Enjoy!

Two years ago I decided to do a 365 blog. I had never attempted anything like it in the past, but my sister-in-law had done one and I loved that at the end of the year she had an irreplaceable record of every day of her family for an entire year. I was impressed that she had never missed a day, and I had spent the year reading about the adventures of her family. When I started mine I wasn’t even sure if I had the discipline to follow through, but 767 posts later, I am still writing. This blog took on a life of its own, treading into topics I never imagined attempting and challenging me with subjects that I was honestly afraid to tackle.

Through it all there were two topics I did not broach… My Job, because I work in a professional environment and did not think it was appropriate, and any difficulties in my marriage because marriage is a sacred institution that needs to be a place of trust and confidence. And while writing about my children and our adventures and mishaps, I have strived to be honest and yet spare my kids future embarrassment. I pray I have been successful with that.

I’m not sure what this year will bring, or if I will continue to write daily, but I am hoping to be here often, continuing this tradition.

Thank you for joining me as we continue Eating With Savages! 

Tim and I had been discussing baby names the morning we were at the hospital waiting for a room to open up. In the back of my mind, I had a feeling we were in the middle of something terrible. My mind had wandered to the thought of losing the baby but I refused to dwell there, after all I had had three successful pregnancies. No, it couldn’t be that bad- after all, I had prayed.

The night I found out I was pregnant I asked God to spare me the pain of losing a baby, but a few weeks later my baby was gone, and in such a dramatic, heart wrenching way. I struggled with why God had said no to the one thing I had begged of him. And so I vacillated between numbness and deep sadness, trying to make sense of the loss we had experienced.

I’ll never know this side of eternity the answer to my ‘why,’ but I can (and have) learned from it.

I’ve learned that the body heals faster than the heart.

I’ve learned that a community of believers has the power to impact the outcome of grief. 

I’ve learned that miscarriage and infant loss is more widespread and common than quiet whispers allow. That there is a kinship of women that have walked this path ahead of me, and their collective wisdom has helped navigate me though this season. 

I’ve learned that naming our baby is helping me to process my grief. (One day I will share her name, but for now it is a treasure I keep close to my heart. )

I’ve learned that grief takes on many forms- fear, sadness, compassion, courage, love, etc.

I’ve learned, or rather been reminded, that God’s goodness is not contingent on my circumstances and that the loss of our baby is a part of our story and is being worked out for good even if we can not yet see it. 

And I’ve learned that you will smile again, laugh again, feel again. It takes time, but it happens. And when it does, it feels like freedom. 

2016 was not all terrible. In fact, it was peppered with some truly wonderful experiences, but it finished with such a fantastic maelstrom of difficulty I am not unhappy to see it end. Of course, the turning over of a new year neither guarantees prosperity, nor safety, nor happiness, but it does offer a good opportunity to do a mental reset, a chance to start fresh and to approach the new year with a sense of optimism. So with that in mind, may God bless you in your travels, encourage you in your relationships, and draw you ever closer to himself. Happy New Year!

I’d like to say thank you to those of you that have journeyed with me this past year. Your words of encouragement were deeply felt and appreciated. Thank you for reading and thank you for staying! 

As we walked back from the bathroom towards the office, we meandered through doorways and past panels that were set up on saw horses, waiting for their first coat of spray. Baby E held onto my finger, tighter than normal, as his eyes darted around, trying to absorb his very busy environment. A metal door slammed behind us and I felt his little body jump. I looked down as he regained his footing. Across the shop a spray booth kicked in, sending a roar through the warehouse and Baby E jumped again. By now he was worried, the noises approaching from every direction. About twenty feet away, someone turned on an air gun to clean off the dust on a panel that had accumulated from the sanding process, but this was one loud noise too many for Baby E. His body trembled and he started to scream. I scooped him up and carried him the rest of the way.

I mused as I comforted him that the very noises that had startled him were the same noises that brought my childhood flooding back to my memory in a rush of nostalgia. The  sound of the spray booth is comforting, a constant hum that permeated a great deal of my early years. The air gun reminded me of the hours my sister and I spent playing with it, watching how the rush of air would toss our clothing or distort our faces as we pointed it at each other.

Our childhood was unusual. I’m so glad that it was.

I’ve spent a week with my parents. One day I made a brief stop at the shop. While it is not the same building as when I was a child, it smelled the same and it sounded the same. In a strange way, it feels a little like home.

As I type, my loves are driving. They’ve been driving the better part of the day, but will have to stop to sleep and continue in the morning. By this time tomorrow my sweet children should be sleeping under the same roof again, and I might find myself staring at them, wondering how they grew so much in just one week.

I can’t wait. I’ve missed them terribly!

Happy Birthday, my love!