This is the first day without fevers, and we’re beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Except for the nursing baby, the whole house has been weeping and wailing and coughing and sneezing. We survived but don’t sneeze sideways within a mile of our house please. The flu made a hard situation harder. Adjusting to a new baby is difficult; I’m not a smiling homeschool magazine mom. I don’t know where other people get their babies, but ours don’t sleep. That’s how we know our babies weren’t switched at the hospital. Plus, they all have reflux. It’s in the genes.

I was inclined to complain (because I am that sort). This was Greg’s vacation and we spent it spooning liquid Tylenol to our kids. If I were still thinking about those mommy wars and trying to live up to artificial impossible standards, I would’ve created an Excel spreadsheet with the doses, times, and amounts of cough syrup and alternating ibuprofen cycles. Too, I would’ve used the Sanitize cycle instead of the Quick Wash. Instead, I just asked, “Is it time for your dose?” and when they moaned, “Nooooooo” I just told them to stop wailing and open up. I’m practical, not perfect.

In other news, we signed a contract for work to begin on our farmhouse. We hope the work will begin in the next month, and we’re told that it’ll take about two months to complete. (So, make that four months, right?) It is a former Amish home, so we are adding electricity, plumbing, heating, bathrooms, a kitchen, and a laundry room. Just a few minor things. We’re also finishing the basement so that I have a place to lock up the children while I watch soaps. (That was a joke. I don’t watch soaps.) Basically, we just have a shell of a house. There are walls up, but we are moving a couple of those too.

This is what the inside looks like. There is drywall but no finishing work.

The whole “moving to the farm thing” is so close I can almost taste it. Greg and I ordered faucets and light fixtures yesterday, so it seems closer. These are happy days for our family (if you ignore the non-sleeping parts), the culmination of many years of hard work and planning. As lame as it sounds, this is our dream and it’s becoming a reality. I imagine it’ll be somewhat like Christmas afternoon, a little bit disappointing as the hype proves bigger than the dream itself. Overall, though, I like to think that the berries will grow and that the grass will be green. But we know that this world is not our home. We’re not looking for something to make us happy, so in that respect, I think it might be a good thing since our expectations are somewhat realistic.

Notice how big an Amish closet is.

We’ve been scrimping, saving, investing, and working long hours so that we could change the course our lives are on and it’s almost here. We decided a few years ago that we were tired of the rat race—working 60+ hours a week for some big company, Greg traveling all the time, me on the edge of burnout from juggling babies and toddlers alone everyday. There was an especially tiring year wherein Greg gave all his time to the company, and we hauled our family out to California for seven months to squeeze into an eight hundred square foot apartment with no yard. I sat alone on our anniversary, Valentine’s Day, my birthday, and Mother’s Day while he busted his rear for the big guys. They owned him and we didn’t even get a Christmas card. When tax time came, I took one look at the bottom line and cried. It just wasn’t worth it.

We decided that we’d live simpler lives—no big vacations, a modest house–so that Greg didn’t have to spend all his waking hours at the jobsite. I know some people don’t have the luxury of these decisions, but we did and didn’t want to waste it. When we move to the farm, Greg will say “goodbye” to the big company and do contract work (via telecommuting) for his cousin’s small engineering firm. This job is Providential in so many ways; we thank God for it. But reducing our income so substantially wouldn’t be possible if we hadn’t planned for that day and lived well below our means in order to get there. (We even saved $50 a month back in those $318/week days.) There is no secret inheritance, just old-fashioned saving and frugality.

If I sound overly passionate about these sorts of things, it’s unintentional. If I had the time or inclination, I’d maintain a blog on personal finance or real estate, my two closet passions –after luxurious seed catalog pictures. Cindy didn’t know that I swiped this quote from a blog comment of hers, but I hope she doesn’t mind my sharing it out of context here. It is priceless because of its fluidness and candor. I’m including it here because it is a good reminder to think on those important, eternal things. I am prone to bandwagons and majoring on the minors. I am not always passionate about Jesus as I am about pet issues. I can get lost in the paint colors and forget that we’re really building a home.

Say that you rail and your rail with your children about all kinds of things: drugs and rock music and Christian music and weak Christianity and sugar and white bread and recycling and ‘those’ people and bad literature and mud on their boots and dirty houses and vaccinations and feeding babies and chocolate and vitamins and natural childbirth, how will your children know which of these things is really important? Maybe one day they find out that some Christians eat sugar and they are nice lovely people who truly love the Lord but from hearing you day in and day out he thought that anyone who ate sugar had a free ticket to hell. Now every single thing you have tried to teach your child ever has been undermined by your passionate intensity.

I found myself at the mall spending a gift card yesterday, sans kids. I bought a feather mattress, which was really fake fiber feathers, because I’m allergic to all things that harbor dust mites. After I made my purchase, I checked out the clearance racks. All the shirts looked like they were pulled from my maternity wardrobe. Why didn’t I get the memo? All this time, I’m wondering why everyone looks pregnant. I can just keep wearing my maternity clothes. I don’t have to suck it in and squeeze into my old clothes. Sometimes life is fair.

There was a very elderly couple also shopping at Macy’s. The reason I noticed is because the wife was taking her time looking through the clearance racks, and the old man was whistling happily. I’ve never seen that before. Usually the husband is slouched in a chair outside the dressing room on the verge of snoring. But he was happy, whistling like he was on his way to a football game. I knew he was a good grandfather, the kind that wrestles on the floor and tells scary stories by the fire.

Leaving the department store, I sat on a bench and watched the matinee crowd buy their movie tickets. There was the anorexic teenager waiting for her friend–a girl in a woman’s body, without a father in her life no doubt. There was the grandmother with five rambunctious boys. She whooped their tails, even though the security cameras were rolling. Then there was a herd of male adolescents intent on establishing the pecking order in their pack. They kicked and punched one another, and I moved out of the way so I wouldn’t get hit. They swore and cursed while chasing one another down. If they knew words like “the”, “and”, or “chili pepper” nobody knew it.

I turned my attention to a young family in the food court. I watched them while they ate Chick-fil-A for an early dinner. They had two little girls about a year apart, Irish twins. The mom looked a little frazzled (which I’m sure they were thinking about me too). Dad was young, sporting a goatee and baggy clothes. What a good dad I saw. He made airplane sounds and twirled his daughter as he placed her in the double stroller. He kissed her and tousled her hair too roughly for a mom’s taste, but just as a dad should do. If this young couple’s marriage weathers the stress of raising children in this crazy world, I have a feeling that their teenage girls won’t be dressed as prostitutes outside a movie theater on a Saturday afternoon. Dad is there. There are other factors, to be sure, but a girl needs her daddy.

I watched as more life went by. As I imagined their stories, I knew that I was spot on in some cases and way off in others. (There was a teenage boy walking with his mom and not a bit ashamed of it. I knew he did well in school.) I pondered their lives and my own, thinking about what C.S. Lewis observed once, “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.”

Life goes by for them and for me. When it got cold earlier this week, we built a fire and roasted marshmallows. When we were tired, we got into cozy beds. When we were hungry, we ate. When we were a little dirty from not much work, we took hot showers. All these things are gifts from the same God who provided abundantly for His people in a wilderness thousands of years ago. They forgot Him though and complained about their boring provisions.

I am like them. I am inclined to give thanks with my mouth while complaining about my lot in my heart. I am prone to treat my Christianity with moderate importance. I am just another person in the crowd at the mall, busy with unimportant things. I close my eyes during family devotions. While my children thank Jesus for dying on the cross, I think about the clothes that need to be switched from the washer to the dryer.

The hustle and bustle of life goes by. God is King and we are His children. This is no boring thing. While we thank Him for our daily bread, I’m reminded to ask for more love, more devotion to Him.

The following post is not for the humor impaired. Please be warned. I love you all. (Well, mostly. If Osama is reading this, you are not included.)

Chocolate ice cream is an excellent dessert.

Of course, if you’re lactose intolerant, you might disagree about the excellence of chocolate ice cream and that is OK. Please write me an email about it. There are other excellent dessert choices for you. For example, there is All American Flag Dessert, Almond Cream, Almond Cream Filling for Cream Puffs, Almond Crunch Pudding, Almond Delights, Almond Ice Cream Cups, Almond Joy Dessert, Almond Lemon Tart, Amaretto Chocolate Pudding, Amaretto Mousse, Amaretto Torte, and Ambrosia Congealed Salad.

If the Ambrosia Congealed Salad isn’t your fancy, you can always try Ambrosia Salad #2, Ambrosia Salad #3, Ambrosia Salad #4, Ambrosia Salad #5, Ambrosia Salad #6, or Ambrosia Salad #7.

Moving on, there is also Angel Chocolate Parfait, Apple Brown Betty, Apple Buttered Rum Pudding with Apple Topping, Apple Butterscotch Tart, Apple Cobbler, Apple Cranberry Napoleans, Apple Cream Cheese Tort, Apple Crisp, Apple Crisp Parfaits, Apple Delight, Apple Dessert - Country, Apple Dumplings, Apple Dumplings #2, Apple Enchiladas, Apple-Gingerbread Cobbler-MW, Apple Macaroon Dessert, Apple-Nut Dessert, Apple Pan Dowdy, Apple-Pear Crisp, Apple Pie Parfait, Apple Pizza, Apple Rolls, Apple Snicker Salad, Apple Streusel, Apple Torte, Apple Turnovers, Applesauce Cream Cheese Salad, Applesauce Yogurt Dessert, Apricot Cheese Kugel, Apricot Coconut Balls, Apricot Salad, Apricot Turnovers, or Aquarium Jello …

There are many excellent dessert choices. I will begin with the B’s tomorrow. I was just saying that chocolate ice cream, in particular, is also excellent. There really are others that could be as well. I really just mean that chocolate ice cream is also excellent. I’m sorry to all the vanilla lovers. That could be your favorite, most excellent choice. It is not my intention to hurt you. Please accept my apologies. I like vanilla too. Chocolate is just… well… also excellent. However, if you have a cold-sensitive tooth or if you are on a diet, chocolate ice cream is not an excellent choice for you. Maybe you are caffeine sensitive, and there is caffeine in chocolate. You should be aware of that. There are other factors that might make this a bad choice for you. Please see your doctor, psychiatrist, or spiritual advisor for more information. I am not legally responsible for the statement, “Chocolate ice cream is an excellent dessert.” I mean, it might not be.

I often write in generalizations without qualifying everything because it is the better way to write. (That is a fact, not a generalization.) There is a risk of saying too much all the time. Why is that? One risks saying nothing at all. I try not to do that. That is bad. Of course, sometimes I fail in that regard, like the time….

Here are some pictures of our new baby. I hope you enjoy the video. (RSS readers might have to visit the site to see it.) Thanks for celebrating with us.

Today marked the official start of the work on the house. We affectionately call it “Demo Day.” The contractor called and there was lots of banging and clanging in the background. Most of the walls were torn into for the electric and rough plumbing. A few windows needed replacing, so they are being ripped out as well. We are salvaging some of the parts. My son wants windows in his tree house. He is still a city boy, obviously.

[Imagine a picture of the demolition here.]

Progress! Hopefully the work won’t abruptly come to a halt. The only thing worse than the house just sitting would be the house sitting all demolished inside now. I can’t show you a picture because we aren’t there to take one. Greg will fill me in later on in the month.

I’m apathetic on politics. I’m a cynic in general, but I rack it up a notch when I talk politics. Politicians are lying, stealing, thieving, conniving…ahem, sorry about that. The American public is sick of the same old stuff too.

My father-in-law was a mayor and now sits on a city council. You should know that I speak in generalizations. I just had to say that. So, I get this phone call.

Caller: May I speak to McGregor Scott? [Kudos for not saying it backwards]

Me: He’s not here. May I please take a message?

Caller: This is Linda So-and-So from the Rudy Guillani campaign, and I’m calling to ask for his support in the upcoming election.

Me: If he were here, he’d tell you that you couldn’t PAY him to vote for Guillani.

Caller: Who would be your second choice candidate?

Me: Do you mean my FIRST choice? [Not trying to smart off here] Because Giuliani is not my first choice, it seems that you’d want to know who my first choice is, not my second.

Caller: Okay.

Me: Ron Paul.

Caller: Uh. [Long pause as she realizes it’s pointless to get someone on a Ron Paul to a Giuliani. You might as well try for Hillary.] Okaaaaaaaaaaaay. [Pause. Papers rustling.] This call was paid for by the Rudy Giuliani Presidential Committee. [See? He paid to call me. I just wanted to use that post title.]

Click.

My introduction to Ron Paul came via this You Tube video. It’s inspiring. You should watch it, if only to understand good marketing techniques. After I watched it, I wanted to jump on a horse with my hair flying in the wind and yell, “FREEDOMMMMMMM!” I’ve since read up on him, watched him on TV, and feel comfortable with our family’s support of Ron Paul. (I understand why many nice folks don’t see things the same way, and I still love everybody. Lather, rinse, repeat.) I’d even put a bumper sticker on our van, but I don’t do bumper stickers. I’m just saying that the thought occurred to me for the first time.

It seems the Christian right is all split up on their anointed candidate. When the dust settles, I hope we’re all still speaking. The beautiful thing is that since we’ve converted practically all our friends to supporting Ron Paul in the primary, it should be pretty easy.

My kids love each other. They really do. Sometimes they don’t like one another, but you can’t have everything. There is some friendly sibling rivalry between our oldest two. My oldest son is the jokester of the family, but his sister, Abigail, doesn’t always find him amusing. For instance, here he is expounding. He’s quite verbose:

Oh, and am I the only one with the mid-winter homeschooling blues? Yeah, mine start in September too, but anyway. I busted out laughing on the first line of this journal entry. Here’s my nine-year-old:

All in all, not a bad day today. I know that the more I laugh and the more I take myself less seriously (EDIT: Holy smokes! “the more… less seriously” I’m teaching writing?), the easier things become. Here’s to keeping it real.

The work continues on the house. This is the first house project we’ve done without us living in the place or doing the work ourselves. Blessed relief. If you’ve ever lived through a major remodel with tiny feet pattering about, you know what I mean. The framing is almost complete on the walls we are changing. For example, there were six bedrooms upstairs, but one of the bedrooms is becoming two bathrooms (the master bathroom and the kids’ bathroom). The rough plumbing and electric are next.

These pictures were taken on the farm this morning. It is the first snow of the season. Conversely, we have our windows open here in Florida, and the kids even went swimming this week. Just like folks “ooh” and “ahh” over Mickey Mouse, alligators, and the space shuttle, we get excited about snow. The first snow I ever saw was on our honeymoon, which happened 11 years ago this Friday. Isn’t that funny?

More blogging later. I’ve been offline lately just taking care of business here. I am the woman, you know.

Now, this…–THIS– is progress. Here is a bathtub. Can you just imagine the luxury?

It was all going well until the plumber went through the roof while working on the second floor:

Oh well.

So the bases are loaded and it’s the last play of the game. There are two outs. The score is tied. They need this win to move on in the tournament finals. This is the kind of situation they set up in the movies, except that it happened in real life. If it was a movie, there would be tension music and slow motion. The wind would stop. My boy–the one for whom I endured the throws of morning-afternoon-all-night sickness nine years ago—gets up to bat.

Oh my. I’m so glad that I wasn’t there (OK, not really). Really. I would’ve had heart palpatations. I can’t handle stress. Coach would’ve had to call a time out to turn around and tell me to BREATHE.

The pitcher winds up. My son loads… CRACK! A grand slam!

The story would be better if he got two strikes called on him and then slammed it, but it didn’t happen that way. Still, it’s the moment every little boy dreams about, and it happened. There is also the moment where the outfielder jumps over the fence to catch the would-be homerun for the final out, but that is for another time, another play, another dream. The reason it gives me pleasure to write about the grand slam is because my son would never mention it himself. He’s incredibly low key. He doesn’t break his arm patting himself on the back.

I still wish he wanted to play the piano, though. He likes books and baseball instead, and he’s very good with babies. He likes raw onions on his sandwich. He likes his sisters, his church, and his dad.

I will keep him.

Hellooooo out there. My blog is not dead, it just pretends to be. Who knew that six would be the number that could sink me? Hypothetically, of course. Not four, not five, but…six. A favorite line of mine from Elisabeth Elliot’s mother goes like this, “If one child takes up all your time, six can’t take any more!”

I’m a busy lady. Now, when folks say, “You have your hands full!” I don’t chirp a sweet little, “And my heart is full too!” No, instead I say, “You better believe it. Holy smokes. Do I have spit-up on my back? Can you check for me?” I will calm down soon, just give me some space to work this out.

I made a promise to myself on behalf of all the women raising children behind me, and that was this: I won’t forget. When I found myself drowning when I had three under three, I told myself that I wouldn’t forget how it feels: how hard it is, how alone I felt, how inadequate I felt, how tired I was. Now I have three under three again, but this time I have to teach long division somehow in the midst of it. I can’t just bunk out on the couch with Mr. Rogers.

It would be easy to pat a mama with two toddlers on the head and say, “Well, at least you don’t have my load.” But that would be forgetting. I remember when I had two children. They were 19 months old and a newborn. My newborn had real, genuine colic. One day I told a mother of five about how my baby cried whenever her eyes opened. Colic Child was sleeping in her car seat, and as if on cue, after I finished the sentence, she opened her eyes and screamed. I wanted to cry too. But what my friend told me instead was, “Well, just wait until you start homeschooling. Then it will be hard.”

I’m like, what if they don’t make it to kindergarten? What if I sell them on the black market?! What if I’m in a mental institution and can’t homeschool their whiny little selves? What if I die from exhaustion? What if my brain flips out and I start singing the Barney Clean Up song without stopping? I’ve seen movies about people like this you know.

I made it through that road with God’s help. I grew. I learned. I changed. I’m not who I was before. I’m not as selfish, not as impatient. With this next batch of three under three, I see that I still have so far to go to be like Jesus. But by His grace, I will learn to be more like Him and we won’t just survive this thing, we’ll thrive.

Life with three under three, #1
Life with three under three, #2
Life with three under three, #3
Life with three under three, #4
Life with three under three, #5
Life with three under three, #6
Life with three under three, #7