The Puddles

Ainsley is at the grocery store with me and she is singing "Amazing Grace." Several people came up to her complimenting her on her choice of song and how well she was singing. Which only encouraged her to sing more.

Wow.  You would have thought that the Puddles have dropped off the face of the earth.  We have been swamped this week, and barely found time to call mom this week to say that we were alive.  We have had guests this week at our home.  Dear friends of ours from seminary and their 18 month old daughter visited for a week.  The puddles are convinced we need another child because they had so much fun with Lydia.  They would be satisfied with Gordon living with us, but I don’t see that happening soon.

I had a ton of extra work this week plus normal household chores.  I managed to go to the grocery store every day this week and sometimes twice in one day.  We are pooped!!!

So here in the lowdown on the Puddles from this week . . .

Madie – is alive.  She is almost at 100 points for AR and she is totally psyched about that.  She has a major report due next week about what she wants to be when she grows up.  You will never guess . . . yep. she wants to be a pastor.  (Ben on the other hand told me today that he wants to be a stay home dad and spend all day cleaning so that when his kids come home they never have to do any chores.  I told him that was certainly his choice!  But this stay-home mom was making her son do chores!) She interviewed Chris and Will together (that was interesting.) and now has to work on completing the project.

Ben – is alive. barely.  If he didn’t crack me up on a regular basis with his stories, I think that I may have sold him to the Schwan’s man a long time ago.  He went for a barium swallow on Monday at the local hospital for his acid reflux.  All tests came back normal.  YEAH!!  The doctor says that he probably has reflux but there are other reasons why.  So we are on to the next step for figuring it out.  The cardiologist called and I think we will have to increase his blood pressure medicines to get his pressure lower.  We think that the meds are upsetting his tummy causing his reflux.  Increase meds. Increase tummy problems.  Vicious cycle.  But got to do it.  He has had an awesome week at school.  He just loves it there.  Something about chasing girls at recess but he doesn’t kiss them when he catches them?! I quickly told him to stop the story.  Don’t say anymore about kissing girls.  I needed plausible deniability if questioned by the authorities.

Ainsley – is alive. We found out officially this week that she is lactose intolerant.  YEAH!!  It just means that we give her lactaid chewables before she consumes dairy and give her lactaid or soy milk.  No problem.  My fridge is starting to look like the dairy case at Krogers.  We have whole milk, skim milk, soy milk, lactaid milk, and chocolate lactaid milk.  Pouring milk at dinner this week has required the entire countertop and multiply trips to the fridge.  Ainsley is still figuring all of this out.  Her tummy has not hurt at all this week, so she is happy.  We think that we will get to take her off two of her medicines in the next month.  Now that we have figured out what caused her tummy issues.  It should clear up and not require medication anymore.  YEAH! YEAH!

Madie actually told me tonight that she is jealous of her siblings and that she wished she had more medical problems like them.  I pray to God that her wish does not come true.  We discussed it later and I made her understand that this prayer was not a good one.  Yikes!  I can barely deal with two right now. No one else needs to be sick today or tomorrow or ever!!!

Ok.  So you know that we are alive.  You know that we haven’t fallen off the face of the earth. The children seem content right now. Our week with friends is over.  We miss having a full house.  That is always a joy!  We always (and I do mean that literally) always feel lonely after everyone is gone.  There is a reason I always wanted a huge family!  But I think that I’ll work on the multigenerational angle and not the dozens of children angle.  At least for the sake of our marriage!  But boy  . . . those three puddles are relentless on the baby issue.  I just keep sending them to their father.  He has a stronger will power than me!  He can more easily say no, heck no! Not is this lifetime!  Don’t even think about it! etc. etc. etc.  Let’s hope that they are beginning to see the picture!

I will put up more pictures tomorrow.  It has been a long day. And I am bushed.  The puddles are all tucked in and my warm bed is calling to me.  Good night.

I am trying not to be whiny these days, but I have had one royal week of screwups as a wife and mother.

Example number one . . .

I caught the couch on fire.  Seriously.  No I haven’t taken up smoking.  I was having the carpets cleaned and I piled some of the living room stuff on the couches (footstools, lamps, etc.).  The gentleman doing the carpets came to me and asked me if I had burned something.  I said, “I burn things all of the time cooking, but I haven’t burned anything today!”  I thought that the smell was from the cleaning process.  I look around the house.  I don’t see anything.  I sit back down to keep working, and he comes back in and asks again.  I get up and look around the house again.  Suddenly I see smoke coming up from the couch.  I run over to the couch and see the couch smoldering.  The lamp I put on top of the couch had somehow been turned on (you turn it off and on at the wall). I yank it off and run for a cup of water.  I pour water on the couch.  Of course, we have that spill resistant couch cover on, so the water is not really penetrating the cloth.  I finally get the water to soak in a bit.  There is only a four inch circle where the lightbulb had touched the couch.  I think how bad can it be?  Then I think . . . how many stories have you heard how cigarettes smoldering for hours before they catch fire and burn your house down?  I desperately try to call someone to ask for help.  Dad. No answer. Chris. No answer. The fire dept. (Not really.  I was too embarrassed.)  So I decide to go ahead and pour another glass of water on the spot and then go to church.  Luckily the house was still there when we got home, but when I went to check out the spot. The material broke under my touch and I was able to see the four inch deep hole of charred padding and other material.  I nearly died.  How lucky am I?  Chris would say it is not luck but God’s blessings on us today.  Well then . . . Thank you God, because I need it!!!!  (By the way . . . when the gentleman who cleaned the carpets left the house, he gave me his business card and his flyer to describe how he will also come and clean after a house fire.  I can’t tell if that was “haha” moment or if he was for real.)

Example number two . . .

Ainsley is still on a lactose free diet.  So the school called on Friday and said that the hot lunch they were serving had cheese in it, so what did we want to do.  I tell them to not let her eat it and to give her everything else and that I would take her to McDonalds afterwards to get a Happy Meal (there should be something good to come out of her diet).  I pick her up from school.  We go to Walmart to run errands and I get her a Happy Meal on the way out.  She enjoys the meal.  While waiting in line to pick up Ben and Madie from school, Ainlsey has an unfortunate accident.  Poor thing.  It is everywhere and there is nothing I can do about it.  The kids are coming out to the cars and I can’t even begin to squeeze myself out of line.  So I clean her up and she sits naked from the waist down while we pick everyone up.  When I go to get her out of the car, there in her cup holder is the container of chocolate milk that I just GAVE HER!  I gave her milk.  I can’t believe I gave her milk.  I work so hard to not let the school give her milk and then I give it to her.  UGGGGHHH!

There are days when I feel like I am doing a pretty good job. But this week . . . has been a run of non-successful days.  I call my sister to tell her about my milk mistake and she says, “it still isn’t as bad as you catching the couch on fire!” So in perspective at least I’ll have the rest of the year to compare my mistakes to the couch fire.  There are not many things that can beat my couch fire incident.  And I promise to not to actively try to beat it. I’ll just add it to my Lenten goal of peace and serenity with the children.  I guess I could say that I still had both of these incidents and I didn’t raise my voice to my family.  So there you go . . . I guess it has been a good week after all.

. . . when your son who is still healing from open heart surgery is using your laundry pile to cushion his free fall from the back of the couch without any fear of pain.

We had so much fun today!  But we are tired!

We are waiting and watching for more snow.  This is Ben’s super cape.  They are watching for more snow.  Ben is showing you his take off stance.  This is what he does before he takes off flying.

Ben has been wearing this cape for years.  He loves it.  The cape is a shawl from a wedding that I was in.  We just double it over and fix it with a safety pin.  When he was real little he would wear the cape when we would errands down town.  He would watch himself in the windows and run from store to store while the cape flowed behind him.  Some children have a blankie.  Ben has a cape.

The kids were actually excited that there might be some snow.  And it finally snowed!  The jumped right outside to play in it.  Ainsley went to the garage to get the sled but I told her we needed a little more snow.  Of course, hardly any of it stuck.

But . . . we had a good time anyway!!

We are hoping!!!  They are predicting 1-2″ of snow.  Maybe??

We were having a sad day.  We needed cheering up.  So we went and bought flowers.  Everybody got to pick the flowers that they wanted.  Ainsley – petunias.  Madie – snapdragons. Ben – begonias Mommy – geraniums.  We all got our favorites and had fun planting them.  We haven’t had flowers since we moved here.

Flowers make us all smile.

Rosie on a leash? Never a good idea.  This picture was taken a few seconds before she pounced on Ainsley.  Live and learn Ainsley!

Hi I’m Madie. I’m in second grade I’m  8 years old and I love to read. I’m a good reader I have 79.9 points in A.R. I can read chapter books like RAMONA, HAPPY BIRTHDAY  MRS.PIGGLE-WIGGLE,AND THE 39 CLUES.  let me tell you a little more about my self I like, 1. tacos(really any thing like tacos.)2.ride my scooter and my bike.3.girl scouts(I’m a girl scout and I am a brownie.)and 4.being with my family.(and a bunch with my mom.). here are some things I don’t like, 1. scary movies 2.geting yelled at. 3.tornados 4.some dogs.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  well I have to go.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     bey,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 madie                                                                                                               finished February 23,2010 6:50