Poor Middle Child

Remember how, in my last post, I went on and on about poor Caedmon, our deprived youngest child (and by "deprived" I mean not deprived at all, as he currently gets more one-on-one parental time than any other kid in our family- although that's all about to change because summer break is almost here thank the good Lord)?  (And yes, I have been to Wal-Mart since that last post.  No, we still do not have any photos of Cade in this house.  I never finish anythi)

Well, forget everything I wrote in that post (that's actually a pretty good rule of thumb for everything I write, because it would appear that I live my life in the same way that I garden:  Try this and that and then something else and then something else else until one of those things finally works.  This means I am learning as I go, which means I am almost constantly screwing up, which is fine, except that I have a blog where I can chronicle those screw-ups without the benefit of hindsight or perspective.  So... yeah.  Take everything I say with a whole tumbler-full of salt, okay?  Super.).  (I'm beginning to think I have an addiction to parenthetical statements.  Some post soon I am going to force myself to not use a single parenthesis, which might mean I get through a post without veering so far off course that I have to go back and see where the heck I was going with this or that particular sentence in the first place.  Today is not that day.).

Okay, new rule for the rest of today, NO MORE PARENTHESES.  Where was I?  Oh, yes- you should be forgetting everything I said in the last post about pitying Caedmon, because I've decided Atticus, our middle child, is the one you should actually feel sorry for.

Saturday we went to visit Derek's parents' to celebrate his Dad's birthday.  We hiked, we gardened, we put up a bunch of fence, we ate delicious ice cream (I KNOW, OKAY, I KNOW- but I just have to tell you that I had cherry limeade soft serve ice cream, and it was so refreshing, so creamy, and while Becky and I were discussing the merits of this restaurant's ice cream, she mentioned that she thought the reason it was so good was because it "isn't too sweet, isn't cloying."  Cloying- does anyone else just love it to absolute pieces when someone uses the exact right word for the situation or feeling or ice cream you're currently experiencing?  Because I so, so do.  Okay, now I'm really done with parentheses.  Really.), then we packed up our dirty, tired, sugar-stuffed children into the car to head for home.

Atticus got stuck in the middle- something that rarely happens, as arriving at our destination with all offspring still in possession of all four of their limbs is one of our family's silly little rules- and about 30 minutes into the drive he fell asleep.

You know what it's like to fall asleep in the car, right?  You either do the horrible head-bobbing thing that cruelly half-wakes you up every 35 seconds, or you ever so slowly lean to the side, because like advanced trigonometry, gravity is hard.  (And if trig is easy for you, just don't even talk to me, okay?  We're not friends.)  Now, you would think, with three- and eight- years of stellar parenting in their respective pasts, Caedmon and Adelaide would do the loving, sweet, supportive thing and actually physically support their dear five-year-old brother as he attempted to rest his gigantic weary head against one of them.

Instead, I turned around just as Atticus began an unconscious lean against Caedmon, and witnessed Caedmon digging one of his elbows into Atticus's temple and angrily driving Atticus away from what was obviously space only for three-year-old's and over to Adelaide's side.

Post-brotherly shove.  Atticus didn't even wake up.

And was there any fond gentleness or mercy to be found in sisterly quarters?

Nay.  Not a crumb of compassion for her little brother.  She even stopped reading her book to avoid being touched, and that book is amazing (Fever 1793- read it, read it, read it).

I won't even talk about how I'm 80% sure that physical touch is Atticus's love language.  

Poor Atticus.

Slow Motion

I often feel bad for Caedmon.


He gets beat up a lot.  Not necessarily on purpose- his older siblings seem to view him as yet another piece of furniture, to be stepped on, crawled over, or knocked aside as they run past.

Atticus is by far the worst offender; I'm not sure whether this is due to his Y chromosome, the fact that he's three, or if he's just kind of rough.

Caedmon and Adelaide play very well together.  She's usually pretty gentle and patient with him, and still seems to find him to be exceptionally cute rather than exceptionally annoying.  But she's still only five years old, and has a lot to learn about how to handle a toddler.

He's obviously smiling and enjoying himself, despite having his shirt and jacket pulled up to expose his belly. I'd be snarling and scratching at my captor if someone tried that with me.  Compared to the kind of treatment he usually receives, however, this is bliss.

It has also resulted in an unusually tough kid.  When he fell down a step and landed flat on his face on the industrial carpet at the library this morning, he came up laughing- a far cry from how his older siblings would have reacted.

I suppose there is a positive side to all this abuse.

(Pssst... If you click on the first photo, it will bring you to a larger, slideshow format.  You can then use the right arrow button on your keyboard to scroll quickly through the pictures and watch as Adelaide and Caedmon slide down.)

Samson and Rapunzel

You know how much fun it is to be around a little kid on Christmas Eve?  They're all excited and anxious and a little bit crazy just waiting for the next day to arrive.  Just being near them is enough to get you hyped up (and possibly drive you a little bit insane).

That's kind of how I felt the previous weekend.  I was down visiting my sisters, both of whom are expecting their first babies.  I got to experience a vicarious thrill just being surrounded by so much eager anticipation.

At this point, my middle sister is probably edging the younger one out on eagerness, simply because she's due any day now, so she's got the whole can't-wait-to-meet-my-baby thing going on combined with a fair amount of I'm-so-done-being-pregnant.

I'm super excited to see this baby, too, for many reasons; the foremost of which is to find out just how hairy it is.

Let me explain.

My sister and her husband are both very hairy- not in a sideshow freak/ front page of the National Enquirer kind of way- more like a shampoo commercial/ no amount of product will ever make mere mortals' hair look like that.  As a result, I am fully expecting their baby girl to exit the womb with long, shiny, chestnut-colored hair.  She'll have to get her first haircut at one month, and her hairdresser will call it The Mane- the same title that has been bestowed upon my sister's hair.

Added to this is the fact that over the weekend, my brother-in-law mentioned their most recent ultrasound, and that the technician was amazed at the amount of hair they could see.  I said something like, "What, could you see her hair floating gently in the amniotic fluid?"  I was joking.

He said, "Yes, you could."  He was not joking.

I'm thinking about starting a pool amongst family members where you not only guess the weight and length of the baby, but where you also must give an estimate on the length of hair- in inches, not centimeters.

I'll go first:  8 lbs, 5 oz, 20 inches long, hair length... let's go with right around 4 inches.

Believe it or not, that's a conservative guess.

Valentine Sweat Shop

Sometimes, things don't go exactly as planned.

Last Sunday, with the boys down for their naps, I began laying out all the things Adelaide would need to assemble her Valentines for school.  Her teacher was organized enough to have sent home a printed list of her classmates' names, so thankfully all we had to do was cut them out and paste them to the Valentines.  I carefully laid out all the materials we would need, assembly line-style, so that Adelaide and I could whip through this task and move on with our day.

What I forgot to plan for was Adelaide.

We purchased one of those slim boxes of pre-made Valentines weeks ago; the kind with eight different designs on the cards to choose from, where all you have to do is tear them apart on the perforated line, fill in the "To" and "From," and seal closed with a sticker.  With 19 kids in her class, I knew it wouldn't be a five-minute chore, but also figured it wouldn't take anywhere near an hour.

And I was right.  It wasn't anywhere near an hour.  It was closer to two hours before we had finally finished.

I detached all the cards from each other, lined them up, cut out all her classmates' printed names, laid them out, and told Adelaide to choose which card would go to which person.  I would attach the names, and she could sign her own name.  Simple and efficient.

I knew I was in trouble when, eight minutes later, she was still hemming and hawing over which card was exactly right for which friend.

"I can't give that card to Tristan because it's too girly... so I guess he can have this one.  But wait!  That one says 'best friend,' and we're not really best friends... so maybe this one... but that won't work, either!  He hates pink, and the exclamation point on that one is pink!  Let's see here..."

I tried explaining to Adelaide that her classmates really weren't going to be upset if the punctuation on their Valentine was in an offending color, nor were they going to be looking for hidden meanings in what she was really trying to say if she gave them a card that read, "You sparkle, Valentine!"

She disagreed, and proceeded in a supremely slow and tedious fashion, picking just the right message for just the right person.  19 times.

At one point, I mused aloud about how thankful I was that our two other children were boys, who were sure not to put so much thought into something as simple as Kindergarten Valentines.  Adelaide disagreed, and two hours later, even after we had finished, continued to argue with me about it.  She just can't let things go, sometimes.  (I'm not sure where she gets this- it's certainly not from me.  I take a much healthier route, and lock things up tight in a dark corner of my mind.  I'm saving up for a whopper of a mid-life crisis.  You should start praying for Derek now.)

By yesterday afternoon, I thought she may have finally forgotten about it, when she yelled down the stairs.

"MOM!  Come up here!"

"How do you say that politely in a sentence?"  How many times do I say that in a single day?

"MOM, CAN YOU PLEASE COME UP HERE?"

"Certainly, my sweet, darling daughter."

What she had to show me was nothing new.  It was her two brothers, playing with one of their very favorite toys.  A few years ago, Adelaide received a microphone that you can sing into, or push one of two buttons, and it will play a song from the movie High School Musical 3.  Adelaide has played with it a few times, but really hasn't taken too much interest in it.

Our boys, on the other hand, love it.  They rarely press button #1, which would give them a fast, up-tempo song; instead, they nearly always press #2, the button that plays "Can I Have This Dance?", a ballad that sets them to slowly swaying.  They fight over this toy, and who will get to croon into the microphone along with the syrupy teenage music.

Adelaide pointed at Atticus, who was singing along, getting about one word in ten correct.

"See?  Boys do girl things, sometimes."

"Adelaide, we are not still talking about this."

"That's because I'm right."

I'm getting seriously frightened about what the future holds for Adelaide and me; oh, say, about ten years into the future.

Maybe you should pray for me, too.

I'm Here to Tell You

Have you ever wondered what the bridal party does right before the wedding starts, while everyone is finding their seats?


Well, I'll tell you.


The bridesmaids take pictures of themselves.

The bride updates her Facebook status.

Someone says something about singing a song.  I don't remember exactly who it was, but my money's on Kelli.  She can usually be counted on to instigate that sort of thing. 

The first thing that pops into my head is that song All American from the movie A League of Their Own. So I start singing it.  Everyone quickly joins in. You know the one:

Oh, we're the members of the All-American League

We come from cities near and far

We've got Canadians, Irish Ones, and Swedes

We're all for one, we're one for all

We're All-American 

Totally appropriate for a pre-wedding song, right?

The flower girl stares at her singing mother. 

"What are you doing?"

Or maybe just "Lame, Mom.  Lame."

And now you know.

Weddings and Horses and Stairs, Oh My!

Some days are more eventful than others.  Today?  We have a few things to do, but not so much that I feel like I'm running from sun-up to sun-down.

Last Saturday?  Busy, busy, busy. 

We started the day with a wedding and all that entails.

My baby sister and her new husband.  Congratulations guys!

Then we returned to Derek's folks' house.

Caedmon finally conquered the stairs.



Adelaide rode a horse with her cousin Aria.

Aunt Stacie led the way.

All the kids took turns riding on the four-wheeler with Derek.

Then we put the kids to bed and collapsed.





Try To Keep Up

See the guy on the left?

His name is Clinton.  He is getting married next week. 

This is the girl he is marrying.  Her name is Stephanie.  She is my sister. 



See this guy? 

His name is Aaron.  He got married almost a year ago.  He is one of Clinton's brothers. 

This is the girl he married.  Her name is Kelli.  She is also my sister. 



That's right.  By the end of next week, my two sisters will have married two brothers. 

This is kind of neat and kind of makes me feel like I'm trapped in a Rogers and Hammerstein production.  I keep half-expecting our families to break out in carefully choreographed musical numbers.

Actually, the wedding would be the perfect venue for something like that!  I better get started...

The Happiest Baby on the Block

Caedmon is a happy baby. 

He smiles a lot.  He giggles when you tickle him and play certain games like peek-a-boo.  He's quite easy to please. 

This week, however, he has taken his happy baby-ness to a new level.  He smiles all the time.  He laughs easily.  He smothers Derek and I with nine-month-old-baby-boy affection. 

You see, last Friday Atticus and Adelaide left to spend a week with Derek's parents.  So while A & A are having the time of their lives at Grandma and Papa's house, Caedmon is here with us, experiencing the joy of single childhood.

No one has stepped on him in a week.

No one has bitten his face.

No one has sat on him.

No one has grabbed his foot to keep him from crawling away and escaping whatever torment he's currently enduring.

 And so as much as I'm looking forward to reuniting our little family this weekend, I do feel kind of bad for our Spud. 

As always, I'll do my best to shield him from the random violence and over-affection his older siblings bestow upon him, and when I fail, just tell myself that he'll be the toughest kid in preschool.