To Pee or Not to Pee?

Last week my bestie and I took our kids to a local corn maze. We quickly ushered the kids to the hayride as we watched the school buses descend on the parking lot like a horde of bees. After the hayride we decided to eat our packed lunch before said school groups took over the picnic area. The eating area at this farm is a long, covered but open on the sides building filled with picnic tables and plastic swimming pools of raw corn kernels for the kids to swim in, throw at each other, and shove up their noses before eating lunch. The floor is covered with hay, which is really where this story begins.

Rosie took the older boys to the car to get our food while I stayed behind with the younger kids. The trip to the car takes maybe 4 minutes so I didn't see a problem with 6 young kids and pools of corn. Surely that would keep them occupied for 4 minutes. 20 seconds after Rosie and the boys left, the little kids got bored. Suddenly I had 4 toddlers to keep an eye on, making sure no one ran out to the adjacent playground or grabbed one of the chickens pecking around in the hay.

I hear an innocent little voice behind me - "Mama, I can pee here?"

As I turn to answer, I see that Noah has pulled down his shorts and underwear and is already peeing onto the hay/floor, right by a picnic table.

"No!" I tell him but he's not at an age where he can stop once started. He stares at me with crystal blue eyes and continues to soak the floor around us. Really, I can hardly blame the little guy. If there's one thing he loves, it's peeing outside. Anywhere he can make his mark on the earth while feeling the cool breeze on his behind is a happy place. Also, there are chickens. And as the saying goes "Where there are chickens, there is chicken pee." Once you realize the chickens are peeing, you begin to think to yourself "Am I all that different from a chicken? They're allowed to pee here, I should be too. What makes them so special?"

I feel myself prickle with sweat as voices of school group move closer, the excited din that accompanies children about to dine on lunchables and juice boxes. Noah is not stopping no matter how much I order him to stop, nor does he seem fazed - indeed, he has the slack look of relief that accompanies emptying one's bladder.

I pick him up and try to figure out which direction I could go where we won't draw attention to ourselves but still allows me to keep an eye on the 5 other children. I'm turning in different directions, slightly panicked while he pees on -  like a ghastly helicopter of pee. Finally I set him down next to the building, facing the playground. He is still peeing (Moons of Jupiter - how much liquid has this kid consumed today?), the front of his shorts now damp from our relocation. I stand in front of him, trying desperately to mop my glistening brow and look as nonchalant as I can. Trying not to look like I'm shielding a person urinating by the picnic tables.

It seems to be more of a boy thing (although Tali tries her darnedest to pee outside with Noah), this desire to pee outside. I have friends who nod their heads when I tell them about these incidences - their sons love nothing more than a good tree, waiting to be christened.

With trick-or-treat approaching, I just want to conclude by asking parents to be extra vigilant. Kids, especially boys, will be bombarded with nicely trimmed hedges and inviting lawns. Tomorrow night, ask yourself - It's Halloween, do I know where my toddler is peeing?

Free Vacations are the Best Vacations

Matt's in St. Louis now on business but I'm sure whenever he reads this post he will mutter under his breath - "It's not free." Which is technically true because the trip is considered a gift in the eyes of the government and is taxed as such.

Matt works for Edward Jones and one of the pros of the company is the diversification trips. It's a really big pro. Diversification trips are like a bonus - do a good job, win a trip. We have friends in the insurance business and they take similar trips. It usually takes a long time to qualify for these trips, like years. Matt has been back at Edward Jones for about a year and just won a trip. I'm really proud of him because he does work very hard and is always chock-full of integrity and honesty and stuff.

It's here that Matt would be all truly humble and try to downplay winning the trip: "It's an office where most of the clients already knew and trusted me...the company gives a lot of points towards the trip during the first year...it's hardly my doing at all..."

I really don't understand people with no ego. If I was talented like Matt (understanding investment stuff, building furniture, driving planes, playing instruments, racing bicycles, etc), I would be simply unbearable. You'd never hear of the end of me gloating and I would eventually be like the Kanye West of my town.

Anyway, Matt won a trip!

In case you couldn't tell from either knowing me in person or only on the blog, we are fairly thrifty people:

1. We eat oatmeal 6 out of 7 mornings. Not the expensive packet kind, either. Scooping generic oats out of a canister type oatmeal. The one cereal morning is usually off-brand low sugar cereal but it thrills my kids immensely.

2. The only time we eat out is when we have a giftcard or it's a super special occasion or someone else is paying.

3. We haven't seen a movie in a theater since before we had children. Even anniversaries are brought to us by Netflix.

In fact, the other day I showed Noah the Buzz Lightyear costume I got him for Halloween. He asked "Did you get this at a garage sale? Or from Walmart? Or from Mamaw?"

The kid knows what's up at our house. Those are really the only three options for new stuff.  (If you're curious, the costume did indeed come from a garage sale - $5!)

Needless to say, we don't go on fancy vacations. We're not fancy people (in case you couldn't tell from the myriad of blog posts that mention bodily fluids or dried animal genitals or me falling into a puddle for no apparent reason). And here we are, going to Maui.

The diversification trips are pretty amazing. You get to pick from, like, 40 places. Places like Rome, Japan, Aruba, New Zealand. You can win two trips a year. And if you win them both, you can combine them into one long supertrip. A Supertrip! Trips like 11 days at the Hilton in Bora Bora. Bora Bora! Or you can cash out your trips and have a pile of money instead!

Are you getting sick of the exclamation points yet?

Matt told me when he first started at Jones (9 years ago) that I would get to choose the first trip and that we would go without the kids, although many of the trips are family-friendly. Even though he would happily cash out the trip and do something exciting, like invest it in a high yield bond or something, he's content to pay the taxes and enjoy wherever it is I chose to go.  I've always wanted to go somewhere tropical and some of the tropical trips included places like Aruba, Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, Caribbean cruises, Anguilla, Costa Rica, several of the Virgin Islands and Hawaii. We could choose either Kona or Maui. Maui just sounds better, you know? The spots for the trips fill up quickly and some of our first picks were taken. My best friend told me she's always going to make fun of me for telling her "We settled for Maui."

The trip includes airfare, a week at the Fairmont Kea Lani (Rooms - all suites - start at $529/night! Can you believe that - we bid for rooms on Priceline. We're like $60/night people), breakfasts, dinners (including a luau!), and a rental car. I hope we can try to pretend we're classy but we'll probably give it away when we show up in Goodwill clothes and gawk at the lobby.

We're going in March so I have like 5 months to get something resembling a decent body shape and to train myself not to squeal in classless wonder when there is (I'm sure) bottled water in our room.

"Name brand bottled water! I'll bet they even have flavored oatmeal for breakfast..."

Toddlers, Preschoolers, and Kids - Oh, My!

It seems to be a magical threshold when children turn from 2 to 3 - they cross over into preschoolerhood and leave their toddler years behind.

No. No, not really.

Take, for instance, going to church with a three year old:

If I am wearing a skirt, he will absentmindedly run his hand up my leg while standing next to me, taking the skirt up with him.

♪Come thou fount of every blessing...♪

(mutters under breath) "Stop putting your hand up my skirt!"

♪tune my heart to sing thy grace.♪

Then there is the awkward apologizing to the people behind you - "Oops, sorry about that, what with the skirt and the leg and the hand and all. Nice to meet you, by the way."

If I'm wearing jeans, he'll quietly sit behind me while I stand to sing and trace the rhinestones on my back pockets (that's right, I said rhinestones. Glamorous.) Having someone trace designs on your behind while you sing hymns is really as odd as it sounds.

And the biting. Oh, the biting.

My older two kids never bit anyone, as far as I can remember. Which really doesn't mean much. My own mother, when asked how she handled certain situations with us as young kids, will say she honestly doesn't remember much. I got enough spankings to realize that raising me was so traumatic that my mother blocked out memories of my childhood as a self-preservation technique. And really, I can't blame her. I have fuzzy memories of my older two as babies. Some stand out because they were so very sweet or so very horrific but most of it fades into a pleasant, buttery blur in my mind.

Anyway, it came as quite a shock to me that Noah uses his teeth more than his words. Or, alongside his words: "No, Tali!" *bite* "That's my car!" *nibble*

She, of course, does the same to him. Having children who bite really puts a damper on my feeling like a good parent, or even an adequate one. If there's anything that consoles me, it's the thought that someday, years and years from now, one of my children will say to me "Mom, how did you handle it when we fought?" And I will put down the book I will be reading, wrinkle my brow in concentration, take a sip of my frozen drink, and say "You know, I really don't remember you guys fighting much at all."

Home Projects and Other Marriage Counseling Topics

Projects

As any normal wife does, I often peruse Pinterest in search of home remodeling projects for my husband to do - don't want him being too relaxed or anything.

The kids' bathroom mirror has always bothered me - it's one of those boring builder-grade mirrors whose holders have gone rusty from time and depression.

See how sad and boring this is? Unfortunately, I didn't get a shot before we painted the walls. They went from off-white to gray.

See how much nicer it is with the frame? Listen, I know that people are supposed to take pictures with natural light and not that glaring artificial light. But this is really all I have - no one promised you a high quality blog.

When I saw the ideas on Pinterest, it was full of pictures of easy projects and happy couples. Get a couple pre-cut pieces of molding and throw it on the mirror with a squirt of liquid nails and be done before your blushing bride can cut the freshly baked coffee cake.

Matt, however, looked at those projects and decided against a fast, cheap fix that won't look as nice and may indeed fall off the mirror and conk unsuspecting guests in the head. Of course, it's fairly safe to assume that when people come to our house, they may indeed suspect that something terrible could happen, especially if they've come over before.

Regardless, Matt kicked it up a notch and began getting all sorts of material - see the top piece? It's actually three pieces of wood, with the top piece nailed at an angle like a mantle. Both the top and bottom pieces also wrap around to the wall so there's no gap. My husband? Is pretty amazing.

Because it was somewhat more complicated than the easy tape-or-glue to the mirror projects, it caused Matt some anxiety, figuring out how to affix it to the studs at the appropriate spaces and calculating the angles of the saw and whatnot.

We were somewhat snappish with each other over that terrible weekend and every time I walk past the bathroom and see the frame, I feel a twinge guilty. Not enough to stop suggesting projects from Pinterest, though. Just a tad.

Speaking of things that are good for marriage...

Romantic Texting

I really hate to begin yet another subject with me looking things up on Pinterest...but here we are again. I saw this little bit about '50 Love Bombs to Send to Your Spouse' or something. Normally those sorts of titles induce my gag reflex but I thought "You know, I really should do stuff like that." The suggestions were things like:

"You're so strong."
"Need your cuddles."
"You are one good looking guy."

Immediately I knew that if I texted him something like that, he would realize something was terribly, terribly wrong. This sort of stuff is really sweet in other couples but it's just fake and cheesy with us. So in the end I texted something like "Hey, what's up?" Which is silly, because I knew what he was doing - talking to people about their investments. Obviously I didn't want to hear the details about that because OH MY GOSH, SO BORING, PLEASE STOP TALKING. And it was silly for him to ask me what I was doing because it's always the same as well - "Breaking up fights among offspring, please send wine."


Cutting off the Dead

Hair, that is. Kate convinced me months ago that we should both grow our hair like Rapunzel in Tangled. Science notwithstanding, I agreed. She's only young once. I know the style is long with beachy waves and curls nowadays but I simply cannot bring myself to care about hair enough to put the time in. Especially if the only outing most days was to Walmart, where even in yoga pants and a greasy ponytail I felt ok about myself. I had finally convinced Kate to at least cut some layers into her long hair so we went to the (where else?) salon at Walmart. The hairdresser told Kate that she had similarly thin hair and kept her hair short so it looked more styled. Katie suddenly said "Cut it all off."

So we did. And then, freed from the bondage of hair care, I cut mine off the next morning. The hairdresser kept telling me as she cut "You're going to have so much fun with this haircut" "My goodness, SO much fun."

I appreciate your enthusiasm but let's be honest - this is a haircut you're giving me, not a bounce house. Let's tone it down to appropriate levels.

Then as she teased it a little as it dried, she said "Oh my, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to give it so much body..."

Not to worry, my friend. It's going to look like a wavy mushroom unless I slather it with serum and straighten it repeatedly.

Needless to say, we've been having fun. SO much fun.

365

Yesterday we celebrated Talitha's Gotcha Day - the day we got her in China.

It's been quite the year. Tali went from a very small, quiet child who could not stand on her own to a not quite as small, very vocal child who chases her older siblings around the house.


Talitha's referral picture (when she was named Wu Rubei, or Peggy):

One of the first pictures the orphanage had of her - 4 months old.

The day we got Tali:

She was laughing at Jack, naturally.

On the way to officially adopting her in China

 She was very quiet in China - so many changes for her. Once we got home, the real Talitha began to emerge. Slowly but surely - the meek, subdued, weak baby transformed into a strong and mighty little girl.

Walking! 22 months old - 6 weeks home.

This was a common occurrence - still is but now they're older, so there's more screaming and pushing.

She came to us at a mere 15 lb - the size of a 9 month old when she was almost 2. She gained 1 pound the first week we had her in China, most of that was probably all noodles. She gained another 4 in the first few months and is now holding steady at a little over 20 lbs.

The day after we came home - Noah was flummoxed, Tali was such a baby in this picture!

6 months home - swinging their legs and laughing

One year home - could not get them to keep still for anything.

Last night we had a small celebration for Talitha's one year home-aversary. I made Chinese food and had the parents over. Tali, being the guest of honor, didn't eat dinner with us. Instead she walked around the house and didn't mosey over to the table until the fortune cookies were brought out.

Fine, we'll just take a picture without you.

She picked at her food and kept gesturing towards the fortune cookies.

She has changed so much over the past year - our whole family has. She has learned to stand, to walk, to run. She has learned to understand us and is growing in her language skills everyday. She is a mighty one to behold sometimes - Shakespeare surely had Tali in mind when he penned 'Though she be but little, she is fierce.' She can raise a storm over your head if she is upset. She gets in Noah's face (though a head taller than her), points her tiny finger and lets him have it in her high-pitched Chingrish. Her tantrums have eased over the past year, which is good news for everyone. She loves noodles, scrambled eggs, and Pooh Bear, dislikes plain water and being crowded out by a very huge Noah. When she gets upset, her nose bleeds - she throws all she has into letting someone know she is displeased.

There have definitely been some trying times for all of us but so many moments of sweetness and grace, having her in our lives and filling an emptiness in our family we didn't know was there. Jack and Tali have found kindred spirits in each other, Kate has a long-awaited and treasured little sister, Noah has lifelong friend, Matt and I have a cherished daughter.

365 days of Talitha Ruby.

365 days of learning to walk, learning to talk, learning to trust.

365 days of being a family.

365 days of forever.

A Relaxing Trip to New York...of course, I am Kidding.

If you asked me to list enjoyable activities, traveling in a car for long periods with four children under 10, including two toddlers, would not even make the top 10,000. Nevertheless, that's what we did. The first day we it took us around 18 hours (but who's counting?) to drive from our house in FL to Philadelphia. Ah the City of Jacked up Hotel Rates and No Parking Brotherly Love. We relaxed in a lovely Best Western and ate (what I can only imagine) scrambled eggs rejected from local prisons and public schools. Then we jetted off to The Franklin Institute. We would have been there when it opened but instead we drove circles up and down a dimly lit parking garage while (and I am not making this up) macabre circus music played on loudspeakers in every corner. We finally arrived at the museum only to realize that we had nary a stroller. There are, of course, no stores in the city, only overpriced fruit stands.

I did what any parent in such a situation would do.

I played my daughter's heart condition card and got us a wheelchair to cart them around ("Tali, cough a little. Stop looking so perky" I'd whisper at the counter...)

(Here's where I would insert pictures of us at the museum. But the camera had gotten stashed somewhere among the Cheez-Its and the Melatonin).

After that we spent a night with some friends and headed off to NY (another 8 or so hours in the ever-shrinking vehicle).

Yes, I chose the picture of the children reading. The majority of the time was actually spent either watching movies on the laptop or eating snacks.

Bonus - we got to use the High Occupancy Vehicle lane - yay!

Despite all the driving and the staying at two hotels and three different houses, the kids did pretty well. One of our hosts told us she even bragged to someone about our kids behavior and how they quickly cleared the table after dinner. I nodded serenely, acknowledging the product of consistent parenting. I did not tell her how after dinner I quietly threatened the older two through gritted teeth:

"I swear, if you two do not clear this table politely and quickly you will get unfrosted Poptarts for Christmas this year. And possibly for the rest of your lives."

We had a great couple days with Matt's family. His Aunt and Uncle have an amazing house, like a spread in a Country Pottery Barn magazine. We ate great food, including a corn roast which Matt grew up enjoying, and just spent time together. One of the main reasons we all went up was to see Matt's Grandma Dot (as she's affectionately called by our kids).

We stayed the last couple days in NY at Matt's best friend from high school and his family. His wife and I were treated to many tales of near-death experiences from their late teen driving escapades.

We took a quick jaunt to Niagara Falls, which was exciting for the first ten minutes or so.

Matt and his best friend (also Matt, same birthday). No one who knew them as teens would've guessed they would both end up professionals in suits.

On the way home we decided to break up the trip into two days. We treated the kids to a particularly horrific Golden Corral (after which Matt and I made a solemn vow to never, ever go to that restaurant again. Unless we are dying. And even then maybe not.)

We started off the trip passing out books and planning to show movies on a maybe four hour schedule. By the end, the movies were on continuous play. I've never felt such strong feelings of love for a computer as I do that old laptop. When it finally goes to the Radio Shack in the sky, we may lovingly bury in the backyard under a tree and lay DVDs on the site once a year in remembrance.

Glassy eyes, watching Pixar and waiting for the next round of Goldfish in a Dixie cup.

Overall, it was a good trip and everyone who hosted us was so welcoming and gracious (if you were one of them, you were of course our favorite. No question.) We tried to stay only 2-3 days at each house, much like the stomach flu. With four kids, it's a similar experience. We leave you exhausted and wondering what hit you.

We will probably make it a yearly trip. We even may go up with Matt's parents. Maybe they'll ride with us, maybe Matt and I will fly and they'll drive with the kids and we'll just meet up. Haven't worked out the details yet.

You'd think I'd be Smarter with all this Education...

There's been a lot of stuff going on lately so I'll try not to bore you with all the details of every little thing.

Jack turned 9 earlier this month and he had a few special requests. He asked to decorate his own cake as a model of an animal cell then he was so embarrassed by its imperfections that he wouldn't talk about it or explain it. Sheesh.

Then he asked me if the children at his party could build a model of something - an atom or DNA. A cell cake and a DNA craft? Don't spoil these kids for birthday parties for the rest of their lives. Slow down on the fun, Jack!

In the end, the Pinterest-inspired craft of DNA models with Twizzlers and colored marshmallows turned out pretty well. Despite the fact that the kids didn't listen much to Jack's instructions on pairing the marshmallows by color so it would be more realistic, everyone's DNA was delicious. Which is not a sentence I ever thought I'd write.

Right after the party - like, right after the party, we went camping on our inaugural trip with our new camper. We haven't camped since before Noah was born. So we've doubled our kids since last time. Boy, have we ever. This isn't a cheapo pop-up like our last one, this has four bunks. The table and couch even fold out so we could have like 10 people sleeping in it. We've offered this to both our parents but they have been surprisingly uninterested.

Jack wanted to take a picture of me and told me to act natural. Me trying to read while sitting next to one toddler and having another hanging on my arm was actually pretty natural.

Camping's tough.

Matt's parents brought over his presents on his actual birthday morning in the camper. One of them was a multi-functional tool with a compass and binoculars and such. He happily trooped out to the woods to use it. And yes, that is a first aid kit on his belt loop. A birthday gift from one of his pals. Got a small burn or cut? He's your man.

And then...I graduated. College, that is. I finally, after many months, tears, and glasses of wine, got my Bachelor's of Science in Nursing (BSN - really a Bachelor of Stuff and Nonsense). I've learned a few things over my years as an adult student:

-I really, really hate APA format. I imagine that one of the circles of Hell includes APA format, demons with red pens and rulers, measuring the margins to the millimeter. I had an 8th grade grammar teacher that would have been truly spectacular at that particular position.

-Can we, as adults in education, professors and students alike, all agree of the relative meaninglessness of some degrees? My first nursing degree was chock full of useful information and I hit the ground running every single day. This degree, like many higher education degrees, was full of busywork and papers and rhetoric about professional excellence and scholastic achievements and other such things I simply can't remember anymore.

-In the same vein (oh yes I did), students who started a little later would always ask me and my classmates about the class we were in or had just finished. They'd say "Was Policy hard?" and I'd always reply "Did I take that class? I honestly don't remember. Is nursing policy actually a thing? Doesn't ring a bell..."

-I'd make a terrible professor. The first day of class, I'd sit everyone down and say "Ok, listen up. You and I both know you're here simply as a stepping stone in your career or because your workplace is paying for it or because you'll get a raise because of such and such degree. We can all agree most of this is pretty pointless so let's just do what we have to do to fulfill the college's accreditation requirements and get on out of here. Wendy's is only open until 11 tonight and after reading all these boring textbook pages, I for one am definitely going to need a Frosty."

-I now have three Associate degrees (Arts, Early Childhood Education, and Science) and my Bachelors. If you added them all up, I'd have a Doctorate and a half.

Matt, who even before this was my favorite person, threw me a surprise graduation party. I'm a great person to surprise because I don't know what's going on ever.

Matt coordinated the whole thing with my two best friends, my older sister, my in-laws and my parents. All of the children we have between us are not pictured for obvious reasons.

Finally, we are heading out for a week's vacation time up in NY. Matt is doing some things for work and since he has family in NY and we haven't seen them since Noah was an infant we decided to suck it up and all of us go up to visit. We're leaving at 3am and I should be cleaning to at least bring it up to a respectable level for the family staying at our house with Toby but after all the prep with the trip I simply can't bring myself to clean anymore.

Bag of tricks.

Why yes, cashier at Walmart, we are traveling a long way with small children.

Benadryl is on to us...

And then tonight as we're scurrying around trying to get everything packed and cleaned, the dog puked on the 2 ft of floor rug in the huge, wood-floored family room. Thanks, buddy. Oh and the ironing board fell against the door of the laundry room and broke, wedging the door shut. Matt had to saw it in half so I can finish the last load of laundry that I can't bring myself to fold tonight. The door reminds me of those old-school church nursery doors that were in every church when I was growing up.

At least the housesitters probably won't notice the crushed Cheerios on the floor with a door like this.

Me (as a kid is screaming in the background): "If we make it back from NY with all of the kids, I'll be very surprised."

Matt: "I'll be very surprised if we leave tomorrow morning with all of the kids..."