8

Dear Hayley,
First of all, I'm very sorry that this birthday tribute is 4 days late. Second of all, I'm sorry that it does not yet include the super awesome picture that I took of you on your birthday with you newly pierced ears. Third and finally of all, I'm just flat out sorry that your mommy is so lazy.
Anywhoos, now you are eight. Can you believe it? I sure can't.  You may not know this but your birth brought about some kind of freaky deeky time warp and now the years fly by at super speed. I can't explain it but trust me, these 8 years have gone by in a flash.
Your seventh year was a challenging for us both, there were so many big changes. Sometimes I think I pushed you too hard to be responsible and mature and I should have let you get away with more. We butted heads some but not really that much  because you are such an easy going girl, it is incredible. You allow me room to make mistakes as a mom and are so fast to forgive. You allow your brother to be pesky and still love him unconditionally. You understand that your sisters are still little and don't understand the world as well as you do and you take time to teach them and guide them. I could not be more proud of who you are right now, exactly as you are.
Your sense of humor is still one of the most beautiful things about you. You laugh and make others laugh along with you.  You are beautiful. Your smile makes a room light up, (even with your missing teeth!).
I know this year is going to be another great adventure with you leading the way. We love you so much, our little Peep.

Sunny days, chasing the clouds away...

I haven't updated much because we've been out in the sunshine welcoming the first signs of Spring. I hope you are finding the sunshine wherever you are, and soaking it up.

I have to warn you ahead of time that this post is going absolutely nowhere. I have no theme whatsoever to write about and the kids have not done anything story worthy this week (except Ace got this new fighter pilot coat and he strutted around the library to show it off and double high fived everyone he saw because he felt so awesome. But that doesn't translate well in writing. Trust me, it was so adorable it made 2 people cry and only one of them was his own mother.) Where was I? Oh yes,  so I have no real focus here but I feel like writing and have 45 minutes till I have to rush to claim a prime spot in the carpool lane.
I'm so tempted to nap because I've had this awful cold for days. It started as just a little itchy throat and I thought it would pass and I'd just have the stuffy nose that the girls have had for days  but instead it transformed into this horrible body aches, sinus headache, feeling like I've been hit by a truck cold. I spent much of yesterday in bed and now I'm much better. Then, since I spent the day in bed, at night I didn't know what to do with myself and was up until well after 2am. That sucked, what else can I say.
I was listening to a morning new shows on the radio and they were interviewing Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The interviewer asked him how his faith in God has changed as he got older. The closing line to the answer was about how he used to go to God with his long "shopping list" but now has learned to block other things out and just be with God. He compared it to sitting by a fire in winter. He said you don't have to be smart, you can just sit close to the fire and it will warm you. I was so moved  by that, I've been thinking about it all day.  Faith can be such a simple thing. I tend to complicate it by trying to find answers to everything big and small or worrying over different philosophies or interpretations. It was like taking a deep breath, to accept that being close to God can be as simple as just holding still and feeling the warmth.
Lucy is up now, she took such a short nap because Andy let her fall asleep on the couch while they watched CMT cribs.  I'm always mad when he does that because she wakes up when he moves and then won't finish her nap but they look so cute cuddled up that I don't have the heart to move her.
Our DVR has ruined Julia for regular tv. She's screaming at me now to start Yo Gabba Gabba over again because she knows they are wrapping up the show and doesn't want it to end. I can't seem to explain to her that I can't just rewind it.
Well, don't say I didn't warn you, this is quite possibly my most random post to date. I will try and make it worth your while by addind a picture of Ace in his new jacket tonight.
Edited to add: In order to finish up this riveting piece of writing I got Lucy out of her crib and sat her at the table with a spoon and a little bowl of hummus. I just turned around and every inch of my girl is covered in hummus except her right hand. That is because she is using that hand to hold the spoon at a safe distance from the hummus so it too is spotless. And I just saw her stick her entire face in the bowl. Neatness and decorum matter to Lucy.

Focus

Lucy has been in the bathtub for almost 20 mintutes. She has a tiny plastic cup and a Wall-E toy and she is filling the cup and pouring the soapy water on Wall-E. I ask what she's doing and she says "Wash" and continues on. It soothes me to watch her. She has a skill I don't possess, to focus on a singular task for such a long time and block everything else out. I want to spend a few moments in her mind and I wonder if I would be surprised. Is she really thinking of nothing but Wash? Or are there dozens of other thing running through her mind? Instead I just watch and she brings me a quiet moment to start our day.

The worst of me.

I'm not much of a morning person, I  hit the snooze button over and over again in order to grab hold of those four extra minutes of sleep. That makes our morning routine rushed, to say the least. On mornings that my only duty is getting Hayley to school on time I stay in bed until the last possible moment, directing her from my half asleep state to get dressed, find her homework, find her shoes and socks. Then I roll out of bed, fix her breakfast, throw on something halfway decent and drive her to school. Not much quality time there. That process wakes me up enough that by the time I get home I have energy and motivation to get out of the house or play with the kids here. By the time the afternoon fade kicks in Ace is off to school, Lucy is down for a nap and Julia is either tired from her morning preschool or happy to watch Yo Gabba Gabba so I have some downtime. So with the little ones our days have a good rhythm and I feel like they get the best of me, we play and laugh and there is plenty of quiet time during the day to spend with each of them, cuddling and talking and being together. Then, when Hayley comes home we kick back into high gear. We have a few hours for errands, extracurriculars, dinner, homework, baths, stories, and bedtime. In between there are sibling squabbles to settle because everyone is tired and cranky and constantly hungry. Again, not quality time. It makes me feel horrible because that is what Hayley gets from me 5 days a week, rushed morning and hectic evenings. It is hard for her to get a word in edgewise to tell me about her day, much less have my ear long enough to tell me her deep feelings. I would like to keep her up later than the littles so we can talk and have "our time" but she has the longest and most exhausting day of anyone so she is always the one the most ready for bed. I feel like she gets the worst of me.  I know the day is coming at me fast that there will be even fewer opportunities to be at my best for her, she will be doing more with her peers and less with us, busier with school work, less likely to chose an afternoon with us rather than a chance to hang out with her buddies. I want to give her my all every chance I get and instead I feel like she gets the leftovers after a long day of meeting the needs of her younger siblings. But, I'm going to keep on trying, maybe tomorrow I will do a little better. 

"It's so sweet you don't even know how sweet it is"

Ace is at the kitchen table putting together his lego firetruck and Julia is watching, this is the conversation:

Julia: I like your firetruck Ace.

Ace: I know. It's awesome.

Julia: Yeah, it's awesome.

Ace: And sweet. It's so sweet you don't even know how sweet it is.

Julia: Yes I do.

Ace: No, no you don't. You don't even know.

Julia: Oh. It's awesome?

Ace: Yes. And sweet.

Julia: I know.

Ace: No you don't.

I got Hayley an alarm clock for her room so she knows when it is time to wake up. The problem was not that she would oversleep but that she tends to undersleep and wake everyone in the house up when I still have 45 minutes left of precious sleep. Ace got our old alarm clock too for the same reason and I set them up this afternoon. 5 minutes later Ace came racing into my room freaking out because his clock kept changing. I calmly explained to his that that is what clocks do, the numbers change to show the accurate time.  2 minutes later he yells "Mo-om, the numbers changed again, this clock is so broken!" After about 15 minutes and 15 freak-outs he finally calmed down and accepted that it was okay if the numbers changed every minute. Then Hayley realizes that her clock is one minute slower than Ace's and this sets off a whole new round of problems.
Who knew that a new alarm clock would cause so much commotion?

My task for this week is organizing the playroom. I've been sending the big kids down there after Hayley gets home from school so I can get things done upstairs and avoid them begging for food and television. But even though the room is overflowing with toys, they can never seem to find anything to do and they end up doing the same thing everyday. Unfortunately that is finding Ace's plastic sword and chasing each other with it. So I've got to clear out some of the clutter so they aren't so overwhelmed with choices. I'm also going to throw away all the weaponry.

I landed myself in the emergency room last week and I fully blame it on giving up caffeine. I was so tired in the shower at 8 in the morning and I went to adjust the temperature with soap all over my hand. I'm not sure why I was putting so much force into changing the temperature but when my hand slipped off the handle I went face first into our built in shelves. From the looks of it I had no doubt it was broken but it turns out it is just really badly bruised. When I was getting x-rays at the er I got my left and right side confused and was embarrassed because the tech had to help me get my chin on the correct spot for the machine. She was very nice about it and said not to worry, that happens a lot because of all the drunks that come in from barfights with broken noses. I'm not sure what she was suggesting there. Anyway, as embarrassing as my swollen nose and black eye are, at least I can claim it happened in a barfight.


(picture: Julia, a few seconds before her latest barfight)