Little Bits

September is passing me by. Tomorrow is October 1...and the 75 day count down to Baby Anna's arrival begins!!! I am so excited to meet this little lady. Her brother and sisters are so sweet. They will walk up and pat my belly and say 'Hello, Baby Anna!.' Thomas and Sarah Grace are also very routine in giving my belly a hug and a kiss for Baby Anna. Little Elizabeth, well, she tromps around on me like I am her own personal jungle-gym. No respect for the gestating.

We have been busy around here. Day trips here and yon, with mostly quiet, family time weekends. Funny thing about those day trips and family time weekends. I have picked up on a lot of the little things that I might have missed if we were rushing to and fro. Or not in the car for longer periods of time. In fact, most of the stuff I intend to tell about are car trip moments.

On one of our trips, and mind you, these trips were in the hour to hour and a half drive time frame, Sarah Grace was singing a collection of her favorites, generously sprinkled with her own made-up music. After several round of 'You Are My Sunshine', I heard this new chant issuing forth. 'Slow down, or your gonna crash. Slow down, or your gonna crash. Slow down, or your gonna crash.' And, no joke, it sounded just like the tune to 'Fat Guy in a Little Coat, Fat Guy in a Little Coat' for those of you who are familiar with the movie Tommy Boy.

I wasn't even doing the speed limit, for those of you who are acquainted with my lead footed driving habits. And don't twist my words to suit your evil purposes. I was well under the speed limit. Not doing the speed limit doesn't always mean speeding.

Thomas, my boy, my lyrical genius, has a new favorite song that he likes to sing along with while we trek to wherever. He calls it 'Ty-yi-yi.' You might recognize it as 'Uptown Girl' by Billy Joel. Yes, yes, I know. Old school. But I love Billy Joel. It's only fitting that I warp my children's minds with his wonderfully fun music! Plus, you ought to hear that kid wail out the 'Ooooohhhhhhooooooaaaaaaaaooooohhhhhhoooooaaaaaooooooo'. Priceless, I am telling you.

Elizabeth, for her part, isn't totally disinterested in singing. It's just that she has no words. So I guess you could say she enjoys the Billy Joel music, too. It allows her to make music without the burden of language mastery. Besides, she knows how to say 'Mommy! Mama! Mama! Mommy!' and she practices her freedom of speech by yelling out to me and then waiting for me to answer, 'Yes, Lizzy?'

Her reply? A big, cheesey grin and another round of the 'Mama's'.

Who Am I?

Momma?

Mommy?

Mother?

Momma-lope?

Mom?

It never occurred to me that I would be called so many names by my children. I had this false belief that children called there Mother's 'Mommy' until they were like, oh, I don't know...seven or so.

But it just ain't so! It depends on the mood of my child. It depends on what they are asking of me. It depends on what time of day it is. It depends on, well, I don't really know what all. There is no systematic way of figuring out what will come out of their mouths at any given moment.

It's not like it is hard to answer to any of them...I have even caught myself answering the 'Mommy' cry of a child who is not mine, so tuned are my ears to that precious name. I know women who choose not to answer to anything except 'Mother' or 'Mommy' or whatever their preference is. I wonder if it matters, if I might be somehow encouraging some bad habit or influencing bad behavior to come by not asking them to respect one name or the other as what they should call me by. I doubt it, but sometimes I feel a bit of panic over my own personal flavor of identity crisis.

Momma-lope is a made up silly time name that Thomas dubbed me with, and I have grown rather fond of it. I love the sweetness of Mommy when my children choose to say it, but really the others don't bother me either.

Yes, this post is just rambling. But I wonder, am I the only one who experiences this momentary who-am-I-ness?

Questions, Questions, Questions

"You know that children are growing up when they start asking questions that have answers."
~~John J. Plomp

That being said, here are some of the questions I have heard today.

"Mommy?!" - Elizabeth

"How do kitties make a purr?" - Sarah Grace

"Mommy?!" - Elizabeth

"Do my songs make good?" - Sarah Grace (good what?)

"Mommy, can I have a blue adfienlkdnuei for Christmas?" - Thomas (I have no ida what he meant, regardless of how many times he repeated it for me)

"Mommy?!?!?" - Elizabeth

"How did the sky get so far up there?" - Thomas

"Mommy?!" - Elizabeth (she needs a bigger vocabulary!)

There are others, but those are at the top of the list in my memory just now. I think I will get to revel in their not-quite grown-up-edness for a bit longer! =)

Things I Want To Remember

Occasionally, I just need to get these things written down. Accomplishments, cutenesses, and other assorted things.

Thomas has learned to whistle. It is adorable. He sounds like a bird flitting around, twittering for all he's worth. I love it! He is so proud of himself!

Sarah Grace is becoming such a Southern Princess. She has taken to calling squishy grapes 'cherry pop pies'. Why, I may never know, but okay. The thing is, her little accent is so pronounced, 'pie' sounds like 'piaahh', or something like that. It has no spelling, really. But I get her to say it several times for me just so I can listen to that sweet voice of hers.

Elizabeth is at that age. I don't know if I really want to remember some of the things she is into, but some of them I know I do. For instance, her excitement over the cat. Every single time she sees that kitten, she shrieks. And if she sees him through the window and shrieks and points and laughs, she will run around being all excited, then go back and the process starts over. Shriek, point, laugh, walk away. Shriek, point, laugh, walk away. She is fulfilling her birthorder role as clown of the family. It is so neat to watch!

Here Is What My Afternoon Looks Like

I have this list of things that I am supposed to get to everyday. The list isn't that hard. In fact, it is super easy.

If you take away the fact of the three littles who add to it.

And I don't really want to take that fact away. Because then where would I be?

Today, I was rolling along just fine, checking off things from Monday, when I wasn't home. And even if I had been, it was my birthday, and I think my new rule is to get away with doing as little as possible on my birthdays from here on out. I also checked off from Tuesday, when all I did was laundry and meal prep and try to rest some. Yes, the morning was going well. Quite productive, really.

I called the kids inside to eat their lunch, which they did and then excused themselves to go downstairs and play. I let everyone down, wiping faces and hands and off they went, down stairs to play while I finished clean up in the kitchen.

There were a little less than 30 minutes until nap time.

A lot happened in a very compacted amount of time. The phone rang with business to tend to, Elizabeth started coming unraveled, as she tends to do so close to nap-time, my brain froze up on all the intelligent decisions I could have made as I tried to talk to the super nice and understanding lady on the other end of the line and my child whined at me, and then finally it all quieted down. I managed to occupy Elizabeth with a puzzle, I called Joshua on the phone to relay information to him, and while on the phone with him, Elizabeth decided to rejoin her siblings downstairs.

And Joshua very gently informed me what the easiest route to take would have been. A route that never occurred to me. Because my brains are toast. Gone. Dis.funct.ion.al.

I hurriedly got off the phone with Joshua and scrambled to make things happen a different way with the business I was trying my best to handle in a professional manner so that other people could have an easier time of it. Just as I rang off after finally having gotten things straight, Elizabeth comes up the steps again. I was back in the kitchen, trying to put away the last of the dishes when I heard her whining and making her way up the steps.

Now my little Elizabeth, nobody told her to enjoy this baby stuff. She is all in a hurry to get all 'growed up' on me. Incidentally, she now insists on coming up the steps on her feet. Not hands and knees, the safe way for a just-turned-17th month old, but like her sister and brother and mommy and daddy and everyone else in her little life. On her feet. She won't even hold the slats of the banister, but would rather lay her hands flat on the wall and turn her little body at an odd angle as she precariously makes her way up.

I rushed from the kitchen to assist her in her ascent, and when I got to the top of the steps, my heart stopped. The child was covered in blood. Face, hands, arms, shirt. And she was whining. Not crying, just the please-put-me-in-bed-I-am-so-tired whine. I scooped her up and dashed to the kitchen to run water over her hands and arms then sat her up on the counter to start cleaning her up and trying to figure out where all the red was coming from.

By then, she was crying, I suppose because I scared her. I kept asking her what happened (like she is going to answer that with her limited vocabulary) and continued to mop her up. Finally, it dawned on me that there were two different colors of blood here. One blood colored, and one rose colored.

Hmmm.

Upon closer inspection, I realized what had happened. Elizabeth had found my lipstick. I have two tubes that are older than any of my children, because I only wear the stuff once in a blue moon. And I honestly didn't realize it was within the reach of little hands. I relaxed substantially as I finished cleaning her off and refused to let my mind wander to my bathroom and what it's condition might be. First things first...I needed to get this child changed into clean clothes and put her down for her nap. Even if it was a few minutes early yet.

And then the phone calls started again. I managed to get all three kids in bed for their naps while I tried to keep things straight with the nice lady on the phone. Then I had to call all other parties involved and make sure everyone was in the loop and knew what needed to happen and when. (I am being vague about this business stuff, I know, but it's really drawn out and boring, I promise.)

When things calmed down again, I went down stairs to assess the damage. The damage starts midway up the staircase, or rather ends there. Remember what I said about hands flat on the wall to balance herself? And the lipstick on her hands? Do you know what red lipstick looks like on flat paint?

Well, here, have a look-see:




I now know what this looks like. All to well, really. What I don't know is the best method for getting lipstick off flat paint. Which is why I am sitting here, tapping this all out. To put off the inevitable cleaning that is ahead of me (so much for completing today's list). Also to give you a mid-day chuckle.

Oh, and that whole 'this is where I keep our memories because I refuse to scrapbook' thing that I have going. So go ahead, laugh it up. But when you are done, send me your expertise on how to clean this up. Mmm-kay?

Heh-oooo? Ganny? Pwease still love me?

Testing

***Note that this is my third post for the day, scroll down to
be totally caught up on Freeman happenings!***

Elizabeth is getting old enough to really start testing us when we tell her that something is 'No'. Her recent love is the baby wipes box. She is just irresistibly attracted to pulling those little wipes out one by one and tossing them to the floor.

In the following montage (read - enough picture to make your retinas bleed), you will see how I blew my cover as a mother who means what she says and succumbed to laughing and snapping pictures of the little monkey in action.

I regret to inform you that she piled the trash can about six inches deep in the things the other day while I was otherwise occupied for almost three whole minutes.



Amazing talent, don't you agree?

Happy Birthday To Me

This is what I got to do on my birf-day!

Let me just state now that there are only seven of those kids, but with two in the ovens, who's counting anyway? But she is drugged, so she might have lost count.

And she neglected to mention that she cheated bed-rest long enough to take me to lunch. At a restaurant we both happen to love, so it was kind of one of those things where we needed sustenance, all she had to do was sit up and eat, so it's not really cheating, is it?

We also had our fair share of chocolate on this 24 hour adventure. Because what would a female gathering be without chocolate?

Many thanks and hugs, my friend!

When I got home, I was greeted by the two oldest kids, who got to stay up a little late to welcome me home. Such sweet little hugs!

And I had two hours of uninterrupted chat time with my husband before I fell into bed. Oh, and he got me more chocolate! Such a wonderfully smart man!

30 is off to a grrrrrrr-eat start!

Behind On Postage

It's not that I feel obligated to post daily fodder for folks to read here, but as I have mentioned on more than one occasion, this is my scrapbook! I have to get this stuff out of my head and down for posterity's sake. Because I know my children will love reading stories about themselves as youngsters when they are, um, older. I would say as teenagers, but I can't think in terms of teenagers right now.

I can't even think in terms of not having any diaper wearing children in my house right now.

All that to say, I think I will try to catch up a bit today. I promised a post about the cat and one of his first experiences as a part of our family. So, here we go!

Last Wednesday(?), the kids were out on the back deck playing. They had been puttering around and being super-good while I cleaned up in the kitchen or did laundry or something (I don't remember what anymore, that was nearly a week ago!) Anyway, I wrapped up what I was doing and went out to sit with the kids and enjoy some sunshine and breeze.

As I was walking down the deck, which runs the length of the house, I noticed Thomas hefting his sand bucket onto the railing. Maybe I realized what was in it, maybe not. But I did ask him pretty abruptly to get the bucket off the railing. Thomas reached back up and managed to knock the bucket over rather than grip the handle. It tipped over and the contents went flying off the deck.

People, I kid you not, the contents of that bucket were just this: Tippy the Kitten!

I heard the thud, a cry, and much skittering as the poor creature took off under the deck. I ran down the steps (yes, it was a six month pregnant run, but it was still a run) to check on him. As I walked towards him, trying to be calm and not scare him anymore, he swayed while somehow managing to stay on his feet.

Tippy sitting next to the wheel of the kids Cozy Coupe. See, not very big at all.

I scooped him up and carried him back up the steps, where I was met by a teary eye-ed Thomas and a mildly concerned Sarah Grace (who at that point was still pretty fearful of the cat) and a screeching Elizabeth (because that is what she does whenever she spies the cat). Thomas apologized to the kitten and explained to me about a dozen times that he didn't mean to hurt 'my cat. I wuv my Tippy cat'. I tried to soothe both little boy and cat, and finally succeeded in having one curl up in my lap and one sit next to me and continue to profess his love for his new pet.

The view from the backyard looking up at the deck.

We kept a close eye on the cat the remainder of the day, Joshua and I even allowing the poor dazed creature to come inside and sit in our laps for a little bit that evening. In all honesty, I was afraid the cat would die. He is just so little and that was just such a big fall.

And he didn't land on his feet. It's a myth, folks, that bit about cats always landing on their feet. I could tell stories of high school buddies who thought they would test that theory, but I don't want to incriminate anyone (just in case Darren reads this post, I don't want to say his name out loud and have animal services on his case!)

Tippy is fine now. Even walking straight lines again. You know, between doing that skittering thing that kittens do. Pouncing on anything that moves or doesn't move, running erratically from here to there, skidding to a sudden halt for no apparent reason.

Yeah, I think he's fine. It's hard to tell with kittens. They are just so naturally spazoids.

A Holiday Weekend And A New Addition

Don't you just love long weekends? We certainly do! And we kicked it off in fine style on Friday night with a family picnic. It had threatened rain all afternoon, but after spitting just the littlest bit at us, we decided to proceed with our outing. We gathered our goodies and our family and took off for one of the nearby playgrounds.



It was nearly seven o'clock when we got there, a bit late for an outing, but we had the entire play area all to ourselves. We enjoyed our dinner, which included the yummiest cantaloupe I have had all season, and then turned the kids loose to run about. They were all over the play equipment, full of giggles and energy.

Note the bottom half of Gracie's dress is soaked. The slides all had water standing on them, and as my adventurer, she was the first one down every time I think!


Elizabeth found a puddle to splash around in. Absolutely ruined her shoes, but it was so worth it to watch the joyful expression on her face and the pure excitement of being allowed to get dirty and soaked! Let me tell you, those kids slept well that night!

Saturday, we just kind of did stuff around the house until after the kids woke up from nap. At that point, we loaded everyone up again and headed off to a gather hosted by our Sunday School teachers. Sun, fun, water, food, and lots of little kids! It was a very enjoyable evening. When we wrapped up there, we headed to my parents for the remainder of the weekend.

My Mom and I worked at a local arts and crafts show all day on Sunday. It was a long day, but things went really well. And I enjoyed the time just hanging out with my Mom. Joshua, who is definitely taking home the Father Of The Year Award, managed to get all the kids awake, breakfasted, bathed, dressed and out the door for church by 8:15! I was ever so impressed when I got a phone call from him saying they were on the road!

The family all reconvened at my parents that night and rested up for Monday. I don't know about the kids, but I slept hard. A full day of moving about and being outside had done me in. Monday morning, my grandmother, Mimi, came over with a surprise for the kids!

Meet Tippy Toes, the newest addition to our little family. Appropriately named, as each of his paws are tipped in white, and one side of his nose is white. And his poor little tail has a crook at the very tip of it. He is in a definate transition; he went from being an inside baby to an outside baby, and from adult attentions to children attentions. It is a shift in anyone's life. But he purrs merrily through it all and keeps his claws tucked away.

He has had his first big adventure, which I will tell you about next time. For now, I am signing off and going to lay down. Sweet dreams!