Happy Easter

Four years ago this month we had our very first doctor's appointment that would inevitably lead to the little family we have now... maybe I should say the family of littles. We watched the BP oil spill in the waiting room and contemplated, not completely realistically in retrospect, parenthood. By that December we had our first three and now, four years from our initial visit, we have a healthy crop of toddlers. But this beautiful weekend of seventy degrees and sunshine is really our first Easter together doing all the Eastery things we imagined for our children. We had our first egg hunt, our first excited glee over windup chicks that are our new best friends, our first lecture from Cami about Jesus loving us so much he sent a bunny to leave us candy in the yard, and, if all goes well, our first Sunday when our children don't use church to do every awkward or loud thing they imagined all week for that express purpose.

The true meaning of Easter, the joy of the resurrection of our Savior, and the extra family time we wring out of this week left our toddlers nodding in understanding and sympathy. When asked what she learned this weekend Cami knew just what to say:

     "Jesus  and Heavenly Father love us and we remember them. They love us so much they sent a bunny and we feed him carrots and they all gone and he left eggs. They have candy inside 'em and we eat it all up. He hop, hop up in the tree and leave a pink egg and I eat the candy inside all up. I love Jesus and bunnies. Easter is special to me. I love you mommy. You're adorable."

Even for a three-year-old, Easter is a great time to reflect on the blessings of Christ in your life and enjoy your family a little extra. Happy Easter!

First Birthdays

In our crazy family of seven we celebrate four birthdays. This past weekend we celebrated one year since we jumped face first from a family of five to a family of seven. I can't believe it's been a year already.

We used for inspiration the ultimate party planning book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. This amazing text comes complete with menu and color scheme. Now, lets be honest, the party was really for the party-crazed three-year-olds that inhabit our home. Cami in particular had visions of caterpillars dancing in her head.

For nearly two weeks she kept me up-to-date on various party planning issues and needs. Every time someone came to the house she offered them caterpillar cake that hadn't been made yet while rubbing her palms together in elated anticipation and muttering to herself about the baking, frosting, and general cake joys.

We minimize decorations in this house with the knowledge that mostly they are baby fodder. With the brilliant caterpillar inspiration, we hung butterflies from the ceiling out of everyone's reach. That solved the 'decorations are food' problem and the 'we have no free time' issue as we hung them two weeks before the party. We did overreach our bounds a little trying for a colorful and disposable tablecloth. It died well before its time... Much like the cake left a little too close to the edge.

I think I would feel like a cheat if I bought my kids' birthday cake, like someone else went to the effort to make their day special, but I would probably feel like a cheat with more time to finish everything else and a nicer cake. To construct the caterpillar of Cami's dreams it took four batches of cake from scratch. I should mention that despite my love of desserts, baking cake is far and away my worst subject. Just to help us along my cake decorating tips all decided hide-and-seek would be the best party game... we had to go on without them. I finally began constructing about the time the party was supposed to start and just stopped when I reached the edge of the first pan and decided it was appropriately representative of a hungry caterpillar. Lets be honest, the extra cake layers that would have made the back half of a caterpillar will find their place in this world without difficulty.

We had an impatient little girl... we had lots of impatient little girls, but one in particular that was tall enough to grab the cake by its face and try to pull it down. She made sure it was done before candles and pictures. We live in a world where this is normal. We decided it was going to be a funny memory later and decided to give her a head start and laugh about it now.

It's hard to plan a party with twins. I almost think they enjoy staggering nap times to try and keep one of them asleep at all times. It's a clever ploy to extend their celebration as long as possible.... and it works.

With the party finally underway and forgiving family that know we have no concept of time, we ate our way through the book. Apples, pears, plums, strawberries, oranges, chocolate cake, ice cream cones, swiss cheese, sliced salami, sausages, cherry pie, pickles, and a nice green leaf (roll). My husband did an amazing job making green leaf rolls for the party. Once again Cami had insisted. That girl knows what caterpillars eat and she wasn't going to let us short change this party! We threw some extras in for good measure and had more food than we can possibly eat in a week of caterpillar birthday parties.

Present opening is really much less fun for a one-year-old than one might imagine by examining the remains of the daily mail or weekly ads that may get pulled within reach. With presents wrapped and rewrapped over the course of the morning and lots of sisterly help, we were finally ready for the girls to open the twins' gifts permanently. Then came the lesson on sharing, which sounds much more parental than it is. Ava's pleas to share are always the most insistent, but an actual translation reveals the true meaning: "Relinquish control immediately. All turns are my turn. Surrender fun." Bella settles most often on "She took it," which is in no way a description of who had possession at any given time. Cami's concept is most like actual sharing in the 'two for me, one for you' sense. The toys and children survived the day though, so it will be counted as a victory.

Cat gets first lick.

Ava and shirt cat

The babies are, unbelievably, one. The girls are still, almost a week later, going in the basement to pretends to catch butterflies. The new toys have integrated themselves into everyday play and all is well. We survived the first year with our now five under three!

Ava and Cami

Cami, Bella, and Evan

Eating Caterpillars

Families are full of compromises. With a family of toddlers this is most noticeable at meal time. There are the simple sacrifices like the cayenne pepper taking up residence in the deep dark corner of the spice cabinet. The bigger sacrifices come in the everyday struggle to eat and to feed the young.

I will admit right now that there have been those meals when in desperation an entire pork chop is speared and eaten like no civilized food should. The moment when corn became a finger food doesn't keep me up at night. Spaghetti... Or spaghetti sandwich? It comes with garlic bread for a reason. Even if I am eating like a human being... a silverwared, chair-sitting, napkin-using person, it is often at such speeds as to baffle the mind. Anyone who has met me can tell you that I'm in no danger of starving.  Lately the simple strategies I use to feed the kids has backfired and my appetite has become hostage to their imaginations.

Yesterday my little Cami insisted that we were in fact a family of caterpillars. She worked hard to control her irritation as I strode around the house on two legs, neglecting everything that we as caterpillars hold dear. She forgave me when my caterpillar voice came up lacking. As long as I called her 'my baby caterpillar' and answered to 'mommy caterpillar' we could continue a peaceful mother-daughter relationship. We're caterpillars, is that really asking so much?

Having firmly moved past my time as a caterpillar, I prepared to make lunch today. Fresh peas, strawberries, green grapes, chicken nuggets, and, most importantly, tiny rotini. Cami took one look and thought I was the best mom ever. "Thank you for making caterpillars for lunch mommy caterpillar." This is about the time I start searching the fridge for leftovers that sound a bit less like eating my own young.

I admit I rename a lot of foods to get my children well-fed. Apparently they're on to me and they have a few of their own. So here are the significantly less common and less appetizing names for food you may never want to eat again.
 

Creamy peanut butter... Blobby (Also, how you'll feel if you eat too much, too often.)
Vienna sausages... Baby doggies (Sound effects play a significant role as they whine and bark sadly, but much more quietly than regular doggies or hot dogs.)
Cooked peas... Little eyes
And my personal favorite, "Mommy, you got blood on my noodles." Spaghetti and marinara sauce.

Well, you get the idea. Add that to new flavors like fish stick lemonade or ketchup grapes and add a few yucks and ewws as they supervise my own lunch and you have the makings for a wonderful day in our toddler cafeteria.
It's these little compromises in life that build families, create memories and keep diets on track.

Sundays

We don't use alarm clocks in our house. We expect on Sunday, like every other day, to be awoken shortly after five o'clock am. We have a few hours in the morning of screaming. "I want to go to church." "Jacket please. Bye-bye please. Car please." Even the pleases aren't scream-proof.

The actual dressing of toddlers is a game, a chase, a workout and a general test of wills. I'm not sure how, but we usually win. Maybe it's unfair because we play until we win. Twenty-seven games to one, victory! This week we made an amazing and accidental discovery that we hope will revolutionize our getting ready process. They can dress each other! Mommy putting tights on Ava is a kicking, laughing, flailing terror. Cami putting tights on Ava is "thanks sister, thanks. Oh, pretty." The advantages of multiples becomes more obvious at this stage of life.

Dressed and armed with our quietest toys, pencils, paper, snacks, five little jackets and four plastic ponies, we are on our way.

To make it on time we leave promptly at lunchtime. We feed reluctant babies an hour early and the girls each get a tupperware lunch to eat on the drive. Yes, we do find the occasional shriveled grape or an apple slice that makes us wonder if it came dehydrated. A prehistoric looking piece of toast lurking under the back seat is worth arriving well fed, kids awake, and roughly on time.

We unload, something we often under estimate time-wise, and negotiate who holds whose hand. One of us navigates the parking lot with two babies twisting and craning to see all the Sunday morning minivan excitement. One of us has a grip on Ava and Bella with Cami hanging onto the other hand of her sister de jour. We select our entrance based on our ability to avoid water fountains, rooms that the girls could possibly associate with toys, that spot where once bubbles were blown, and things of that nature. We try to find a quiet side bench... One entrance, one exit. (Under the bench is a different difficulty all together).  If this all runs smoothly we are established for the first hour of church.

The first hour offers a variety of opportunities. One of our girls inveritably thinks she should conduct the meeting and exerts her efforts in that direction. Another believes there's a magical party somewhere in the building if only she can find it and the other is responsible for being so clingy that she sounds a warning cry if we go after an escaped sister.
We bring some toys, but everyone else's are somehow more fun. We bring snacks, but no one is hungry until the kid behind us is eating. Their pretzel sticks are some how vastly superior to our own. If we bring everything we might possibly need we won't use any if it. Everything we leave behind gives us the hope of a more smooth Sunday next week when we imagine that we'll remember our forgotten church perfecting toy or book.

No matter how loud are kids get we can't leave the meeting. Taking one crying toddler into the hall causes a cascading echo, avalanching behind me into five screaming toddlers. We have to stand, or rather sit, our ground until the hour is up.

The second hour presents its own challenges. The gap between the first and second hour grows into an endless chasm in the mind of a three-year-old and their parents. It's just long enough that all semblance of order is lost and by the time the next class finally starts toddler anarchy reigns. As everyone is seated for the next class my munchkin mayhem mounts. Class in full swing finds my little ones struggling between a desire to entertain the masses and making sure mommy and daddy stay within shouting distance.

The final segment of church is in a small enclosed classroom with snacks and coloring. By then, exhausted from the surge of irreverent energy, my children submit, perhaps partake in a short nap, and come out with smiles and hugs.

We are a mere mile down the road before the rebellion begins, "I want to go to church. I want to go to see my friends." Crying optional. "No one is there right now they all went home. Only seven more days Sweetheart."

pictures courtesy of amazing nursery leaders

 

A Letter Home

To my dear family and friends,

It is cold here on the front. The rain and winter winds whip around an icy chill and on all sides the enemy advances. It has been a long year. In January the RSV armoured regiment invaded our borders and left all our troops wounded and weak. Every time we tried to reinforce our defenses the enemy got stronger. By February we had little fight left in us and the enemy had been sent a special convoy of reinforcements. The pneumonia troops filled in the gaps that we had struggled to make in the enemy line. As their line advanced they overtook one of our best fighters. Private first class Cami was sent to the area hospital for fourteen days of R&R.

As February wound down our promised reinforcements were getting closer everyday. We managed to keep the enemy at bay by pulling back to a more defensible position. March brought great hope as we received word that our reinforcements were gaining strength daily. As they grew so grew our determination to beat the enemy once and for all.

One early morning in the first week of April we received intelligence that our reinforcements would be arriving within the day. They arrived as anticipated and the joy and relief among the local villages was astounding. It took ten days from their arrival for these new recruits to join our seasoned band of soldiers on regular duty, but it was well worth the wait. In the month ahead our new soldiers kept everyone on their guard and we were able to avoid any major offences until the enemy regrouped in early June.

The warm spring had left us lax in our perimeter checks and some days we neglected sending out patrols all together. This was just the opportunity that the pneumonia troops had been waiting for. They advanced on our position and brought with them agents of Strep and Ear infection. They continued to push back our defensive line late into the summer. Our troops were weak and tired, but we fought desperately to regain lost territory.

We just started to regain the first of the lost ground when in late August a contingent of Stomach flu captured some of our smallest soldiers. We were days in recovering them, but finally had a successful rescue. They were significantly weakened and the commanders kept them away from the front line during the remainder of the early fall so they could regain their strength. We faced many minor skirmishes, but overall we were able to keep the enemy at bay.

It was early November when the first Cold scout arrived, testing our defenses before the battle was to begin. Had we known then what we would face in the coming month we would have double our vigilance and reinforced the troops with all possible haste. It was just a few days later that we saw the first signs of the arrival of a Stomach flu squadron. They attacked at our weak points first leaving our youngest and least experienced out of battle for more than a week.

On what appeared to be the final day of fighting, who should arrive but the RSV armoured regiment. I must say our troops fought  bravely. On Christmas day they sang and ate, but all that day and night the attack continued unchanged. On the morning of the 27th our youngest soldier was taken captive. This caused a considerable decrease in morale. By new yea
leaving our youngest and least experienced out of battle for more than a week.

r's eve we had effected a rescue of our man, but by then the troops still on the line were giving way to a fresh division of Stomach flu.

All are alive and mostly well. We look forward to a day when the fighting can cease. Best wishes.

General Shelley