To be honest friends, I’m feeling pretty down tonight. I think it’s a combination of feeling overwhelmed with packing and all that has to be done before we move, and the fact that we are selling our home at the end of next week. It has pretty much turned me into a weepy mess this evening. The thing is, I know we are doing the right thing. We are trusting God to provide and follow through. But the waiting is hard, and the unknown is scary- and that’s where I find myself. I catch myself looking around each room, trying to memorize each detail and replay each memory, and if I’m honest, it’s exhausting.

I hate change. I hate it. And yet, what are we if we never change? We sit in quiet resignation, pretending we are living a full life, but in reality we are squandering our time and wasting away. So change we must and change we will. This is a massive thing for our little family, but I am trusting that God has already gone before us.

I can trust Him because I know Him to be good. 

Traditionally this has been my least favorite day of the year… the first Monday after the time change. The commutes are typically horrendous and by the time we get home it is dark. However… Today was also Baby E’s birthday, so I decided that today was a very good day indeed. When I picked the kids up this afternoon, I took them to a local playground for a little while.

We lost the light pretty quickly, so we headed over to the boardwalk to expend a little more energy. We were checking out the fish ponds when the kids started to complain about being hungry. They asked to go to the candy store, which thankfully was closed. Then they asked for ice cream. No. Well how about an apple? How can I argue with an apple?

There’s a store near the beach that sells farm fresh produce so we went there in search of apples… and man were we not disappointed. They had a bunch of the largest apples I have ever seen in my life. The kids picked out the biggest ones they could find, while I grabbed some cherry tomatoes and salted peanuts. We paid for our food and headed back to the boardwalk and down the long pier.

I suppose the early sunset sent most people inside because we had the pier nearly to ourselves. We walked out to the furthest area, found a place to sit and proceeded to have a picnic of giant apples, cherry tomatoes, and salted peanuts. We sang happy birthday to Baby E and the kids ran around for a little while. It was about 7 by the time we got home. We ended the evening with dinner and bedtime. 🙂

Baby E turned three years old today. Wow, that happened quick! He woke up this morning with a huge smile on his face and whenever I mentioned it being his birthday he would give me a huge grin!

Nearly every single day of Baby E’s life has been documented, and as I scan through the photos of the past three years, I am so incredibly grateful for the gift we have in him. He is a beautifully blended combination of both his sister and brother. He has the determination of C, with the sweetness of Big E. And while he may be ornery around complete strangers, his love for his family is very intense.

He enjoys oatmeal, pizza, cake, and salami (in no particular order.) He likes cars, trucks, trains, and planes. His favorite movie is Moana and if you aren’t watching he might grab your ear, and try to convince you to return the heart of Tafiti. He’s remarkably clumsy, but I think he has finally grown into his head. He likes to wear baggy shirts so he can watch them dance around as he runs. His favorite book is Llama Llama Red Pajama.

Three years happened in a flash. He’s not a baby anymore, he’s a big kid. Oh and if you ask him how old he is, he will still insist he is five.

Excuse me for a minute as I climb up on my soapbox. It’s a familiar one, I’ve been here before, but it’s been awhile so here goes! As I was getting the kids ready for church this morning, I grabbed a pair of jeans for Big E to put on. I checked the size and they were 5’s, which is what he is wearing now, but when he put them on they looked strange. They look to be about 2 inches too short, very narrow in the legs, and he was having a hard time buttoning them. All over, they just looked too tight. And that’s when it dawned on me, those weren’t his jeans. Those were an old pair of C’s jeans. I dug around his clothes and sure enough I found another size five, but one I was sure was his.

Let’s take a moment to compare both of these pairs of jeans. They are both size five, but that is pretty much where the similarities end. The jeans on the left, the ‘girl’ jeans are significantly tighter and shorter, while the ‘boy’ jeans on the right are longer, with wider legs.

So guys, the last time I checked, five year old girls are not any smaller than five year old boys, so what’s the deal?!?! I’ll tell you what, go to any store and try to find your young daughter jeans that aren’t skinny. Try to find her something modest. It’s tough. You will find plenty of leggings that are passed off as pants, and lots of skinny shirts and jeans. The skirts are short. The shorts are ridiculously short. Some of the necklines are low. The double standard in children’s clothing would be remarkable if it wasn’t so tragic.

For the longest time, C hated wearing jeans. I can see why. They must have been terribly tight and uncomfortable for her, even though they were labeled the correct size. This isn’t fair for our daughters, and it isn’t fair for the women they are going to become. I guess there’s not much I can do, but shout from my soapbox and shop for my daughter in the boys section, which will be happening the next time she needs clothes.

PS- this sweet fellow turns three tomorrow! Poor kid, last year his birthday was overlooked because I was recovering from surgery. This year we are moving out of our house, so it looks like we probably won’t be having a party for him. But this evening we did have his favorite meal (Ledo’s pizza) and we ended with some cupcakes! Happy Birthday tomorrow, my sweet boy. All the hugs and kisses!!

Today was a packing and errand running day. We made it to Home Depot to pick up some repair stuff for the house. 

Big E was sitting in his car seat eating goldfish crackers when I asked him to get out. When he didn’t respond I asked him again, and still he sat eating goldfish. Finally, with a stern voice, I told him to get out. He looked up at me and said, “Mommy, I’m not God!!” Umm… what?!? “I can’t do everything at once!”

It’s hard to believe that it was warm enough on the second day of November to get some italian ice and hang out on the beach, but it was. This time next week it will be dark when I get the kids, so I’m doing it while I can.

I’m taking the day off from work tomorrow so that I can spend a good portion of the day packing up the house. There’s a lot to do and time is flying, so I need to buckle down and get it done. Hopefully by the evening I will have made significant progress.

** Spoiler Alert**

I am not a cool mom. I like to think I am, but tragically I am not. Never was that on better display than this evening.

I got the kids home and decided that after such a late night last night, it would probably be a good idea for us to stick close to home and get to bed early. C begged to go to church and I agreed as long as I could find someone to take her. When my sister in law said that she could, we went outside to wait for them to show up.

While we were out there, a bunch of the neighborhood kids were outside in the court. They were all trying out a hover board that one of the kids had. I always thought they looked fascinating, and like an idiot, I asked if I could try it out. Hey, how hard can this be, right?!? Ha! So… as it turns out, I’m like an 85 year old woman stuck inside a mid (ahem) 30 year old’s body. Also, it turns out, that those things are not as intuitive as they look. As a 6th and 7th grader were giving me tips and hints (and laughing at me a lot) I could only manage to spin in circles. But hey, I was staying on. After making myself sufficiently dizzy, I decided to get off.

Fun fact- hover boards are NOT EASY TO GET OFF. So in my attempt I landed square on my rear, much to the delight of all the kids (and my brother in law and sister in law as they pulled in at exactly that moment.) Not to be bested, I thought I’d try again (I know, I should have learned my lesson the first time), but I was pleasantly surprised that I was kind of getting the hang of it. I could tell how shifting my weight could alter the course and speed of the board, and even though I was still going in circles, I seemed to have a little more control. When it was time to get off, I pretty much tanked the dismount and once again landed on the ground, that time a little harder.

So needless to say, I am way too old for such silliness and I will be nursing some sore muscles for a few days. However, I amused my kids immensely, so I guess it wasn’t a complete loss. And while there are both photos and videos to document my fall from grace, my pride is just a little too fragile to share them here! Ha ha! 🙂

I have three children passed out in their beds after a lovely evening of Halloween shenanigans and sugar. I’ll post more tomorrow, but for now, we sleep!

See that dark spot on the bench? Thankfully, that’s not blood, even though it kind of looks like it. It’s not water either. It’s soap. Why would I show you a picture of a park bench with a spot of soap? Why indeed.

Well, after I picked the kids up this evening they asked to go to the park nearest to our house. I agreed and when we got there the two older kids ran off to find friends to play with. Baby E swung in the baby swing for a few minutes and then he was content to follow me around as I walked. I found this bench to sit on and he decided to climb up next to me. As we sat there for a moment, he suddenly said, “I’m stuck.” He didn’t look stuck to me, I mean, he’s sitting on a bench. How could he possibly be stuck?

I guess Baby E thought it would be a good idea to stick his fingers in between the cracks of the park bench and two of them got stuck. REALLY, REALLY stuck. So stuck, I had a sinking feeling I’d be calling the fire department just to remove my child from a seemingly innocuous park bench. Thankfully the park is right in front of a Boys and Girls Club so I had Big E sit with Baby E as I inquired after some soap. A nice gentleman returned a few minutes later with soap and some help. It took three grown adults, a large amount of dish soap, and about 12 curious children to finally free Baby E from his park bench.

freedom!!

On Saturday we had to run some errands and we realized early on that we were all very hungry. There was a new restaurant in town, and we get pretty excited when we get new restaurants, because we have very limited choices. So on a whim, we decided to go. When we got there it was a little fancier than we expected (not very fancy, but fancier than we would normally take small children.) They showed us to our table and I noticed that the table seemed a little unsteady, but we didn’t think much of it. They took our order, brought us our drinks, and some hot soup. The kids were behaving very well and I was pretty pleased with how our outing was going.

That was until poor C leaned down on the table. That’s when we found out that the entire top of the table wasn’t attached to the base AT ALL. It came crashing down, thankfully not on top of her. The drinks and hot soup went flying through the air and landed squarely on C and me. We were absolutely drenched. The entire restaurant turns to see what the commotion was and there we were, sopping wet, smelling of soup. C started crying but I assured her that she didn’t do anything wrong. The restaurant workers came over and moved us to another table. The rest of lunch was pretty uneventful, but we left pretty smelly and disappointed in the whole experience.

Seriously, do these kinds of things happen to other people on a regular basis or are we just special? 🙂