Summer pics

Last post was a lot of jabbering, so this post will be more pictury, just to shake things up. Justin is playing in a softball tournament with his work. Here are his loyal fans paying so much attention (yes, that's his game going on behind us).

I cannot tell you how difficult it is to take a group selfie, when one member of the groups has arms too short to hold the camera far enough away to squeeze all our selfies in, one member is grouching because he is not allowed to lick the camera, and one keeps counting blades of grass with her big toe. It's like trying to take a selfie in a mental institution.

And before we move on, I feel I should apologize for Little Man's 'Luke Skywalkert/Aunt Beru' haircut. I am aware it's not his best look. He still wears it better than Mark Hamill though.

This is Baby Girl, and Big Little Man at Lagoon... speaking of not our best look ever..

My kids have a polar magnetization to water. They are part water monkey... (is that a real thing?)

August Showers Bring Great Glowers

It all depends on your perspective.

After a flight to New Zealand, whereon I ceased to exist for the span of one day (and why does that always happen on Saturday?), got pelted by a Thor-grade thunder storm, took a 2:00am detour to Fiji, and finally landed in Auckland exhausted, starving, and brimming with excitement for the adventures ahead, all I really wanted out of life was a shower. ... and maybe a kiwi. ... the fruit, not the other kind. ... I mean seriously, who would land after such a traumatic plane ride and want to snuggle up to ... a rare, flightless, soda straw beaked bird? ... and not the other, other kind either.

(It just now occurs to me that you have to understand New Zealand slang to think that joke was at all funny. Sorry.)

After our brief NewZea orientation (wherein the kiwi joke was explained to us [if you're really curious I can attach a power point presentation outlining the nuance of meanings, which infuses humor into all previous phraseology]), we went to the Marae. If you've never experienced a Maori greeting and welcome onto the Marae, it is beautiful, moving, haunting, and warm, a curious juxtaposition of forgotten worlds and those to come (except with sloppier sneakers, because I swear, it NEVER stops raining in New Zealand). My need for a shower was lost in feelings of awe and honor, family and community, fear and food. However, once we had been through the welcome ceremony, a huge meal, singing and dancing together, and a philosophical lesson from the story-teller, my shower craving had returned. A short-circuit in my brain was processing all information in a binary of 'shower' / 'bed.' (For example, when asked my name it would come out: -shower-shower-bed-shower-bed-bed-bed-shower.)

So for the first time in three days (well, four according to the calendar, but that pesky oblivion doesn't count), shampoo and razor in hand I stepped into a shower. Allow me to set the scene: Outdoors, top half of a wooden crate set over a drain, dingy tile walls, 'that's a curtain?!' shower curtain, COLD water - adjust - COLDER water. And Jethro. Jethro is the wee froggy who lives under the wooden crate. And Roland. Roland is an enormous unfolding spider who lives on the shower wall... with about 50 of his buddies. I was having a Cirith Ungol, Forbidden Forest shower.

In all honesty, I found it most entertaining. It was an adventure. Abi's love adventure! Of course there were spiders in the freezing shower, that's how adventures work. How else would you know you were on an adventure if there weren't creepies in the dirty hole where you are supposed to get clean? Adventures require frogs in the shower. They serve the same function as parakeets in the coal mines. If the frog passes out, it's time to go. With all the balance of a ninja, you angle your back out of the freezing spray, and your leg crooked in front of you so you can manage to shave slice your legs with the utterly chilly razor. It was fun!

Flash forward to last night. Finally, I gave up on getting my sweet baby to go to sleep. After a very hard week, I peeled off my clothes, swept back the 'that's what a curtain is supposed to look like' shower curtain, and stared into the eyes of a very broken faucet. So here's a sentence I hope none of you ever have to write: my dog ate my shower. He jumped in and either smacked or bit the water gusher part and broke off the little bits that make it shoot from the top. (That is my advanced plumbing vocabulary coming into play. Sorry, if I left any of you behind with my elevated, PVC diction.)

Justin was doing homework. I think at this point, that should be a given. Despondently, I gathered my shampoo and razor (and a few other necessities), wrapped a towel around me and trudged downstairs to use the other shower. Allow me to set the scene: Indoors, clean white, 'you can't see me' door, COLD water - adjust - COLDER water - adjust oppositely - warm water, and only a few unsightly insect corpses. All in all, from a neutral perspective, better.

But it wasn't better. It was all worsely all over. It was one of the more wrathful showers I can recall in my brief history. I seethed at the small space, cursed that I had to use all my ballet training to shave my legs, and grumped at the innocent deadlings swirling down the drain. When it was all over I swung the door open. BAD IDEA. BRRRR COLD! I snatched my towel from the floor. Oh, did I mention the shower kind of leaks? How silly of me to leave that glorious detail out! So my towel was wet and probably about 32.5 degrees Fahrenheit. And so without a stitch of clothing on, hair dripping wet, and eyes blazing red I stormed away, leaving the offending shower to sulk in its steaminess.

It's all about context. I will endure most anything in the name of adventure. I will endure it with the joy encouraged in New Testament letters. Sans adventure, there is very little I will tolerate.

Frozen

The latest lapse in blogging is brought to you by the stomach flu, unemployment, and the numbers 9-1-1. I don't feel like expanding on any of those topics. Rather, let's just move on, you and I. (At this point I don't particularly expect any 'you's' to be left.)

And despite the title of this blog, there will be no snow queens or talking snowmen roving about in it. Hence, if you were reading in hopes of Disney magic, alas, there will be none. Only Noah magic.

Noah is a ham. A real ham. Cover him in pineapple, and you could serve him for the holidays. Let's not, but you could. He has locomotives of energy, trucks of charisma, and toasters of crazy ('cause how else would you measure crazy?). Typically, to wind down before bed, he runs full speed from one couch to the other throwing himself head first into the cushions, before charging back to his point of origin and repeating the process. (And I will sadly include that he doesn't always land on the couch. Sometimes his beautiful block is hurtled headlong into carpet and/or load-bearing wall.) When we are driving in the car, he chats our ears off about this, that, and what the monkey says - oo, oo, oo, ee, ee, ee. When, in the throes of frustration, he cannot remove the lid from his beloved bubble wand, he screams, a hearty, masculine, baby shriek that shakes the rafters. Then he grins and eats the bubbles. He is a ham.

Until people arrive. It is no wonder that with Justin for a father and me for a mother, the poor lad is terminally shy. He never had a chance. When approached by someone he doesn't know or doesn't spend a lot of time around, my Little Man freezes solid. He will not move a muscle. It is honestly somewhat concerning. He'll stay there for a long, long time. Frozen. I don't know how his little muscles do it. He can be stuck with his arm straight out, and I am sure all the blood will have drained out of it pooling in his little sneakers, and still the lad will not budge. He is going to kick trash at freeze tag and red light/green light when he goes to school.

His next action will either be to move only his eyeballs, peering up through long lashes and a shaggy mane to see if his foe is gone or seems less scary on second glance, or to melt into a puddle of silent tears. It is a toss up as to which action will occur, and sometimes one follows the other. That's super funsies.

He would make an excellent figurehead. The Good Ship Noah, sailing the seven seas, led into gale and adventure by a curiously lifelike figurehead of the most adorable, frozen little scalawag every seen.

Grand Ambitions

Last night the husband sighed and said, "You know, if we had a whole day off without the kids or school or work, I bet we could..."

Before he concluded the sentence my brain jumped into annoying Google mode trying to guess the end of his sentence before he could get there.

"... plant our garden and clean the entire house."
"... go hiking and have a picnic in the mountains."
"... actually enjoy what married couples get to enjoy legally and without moral condemnation."

How did his sentence actually end? "... sleep the entire day."

Oh. Well. Yes, that actually sounds like the best of all possible options. Good plan, sir!

She-friend

Women bond over complaining and criticism. We grumble about men and their infantile obsession with explosions, violence, and mayhem. No one could bond over such atrocious behavior! Yet women are worse. Without the grace of our Savior and the love of Jesus Christ in our hearts, we bond over interpersonal explosions, emotional violence, and petty complaining mayhem. It's uglier than any video game, more brutal than any slasher flick, more appalling than a night watching the WWF. But bad attitudes and petty disputes bring women outside of God's mercy together like peanut butter and jelly.

This is the kind of female relationships I am used to. I grew up with unbelieving, incredibly liberal dancer friends. Each of them beautiful, empathetic, gentle, and amazing in her own way. Combined, all this femininity has the disastrous potential of C-4. I couldn't relate to the women at church, those who seemed to have it all together, like I could to the women in the trenches, trying to survive like me. Rarely, did I partake in the slamming, complaining festivities. But there I sat: listening, absorbing, thinking this kind of gossip and malice were normal, were what made girls close.

For mother's day Justin (bless him all the way to his socks) stayed home with the kids while I went out with a wonderful friend. We saw a movie and went out to eat. Over a delightful (and somewhat ridiculous) amount of sushi we chatted about life and got to know one another better. Then, she said it... "I've always felt you were your own person, not swayed by the crowd, not compromising." (Paraphrase. She was more eloquent. I wish I had been wearing a wire, so I could catch her exact phraseology and meaning... I imagine wearing a wire would have cancelled the possibility of Indian food next week, though.)

She complimented me. Un-solicited and with sincere admiration, she gave me a true compliment. I don't know what external Abi was doing. Probably, she smiled thankfully, or shook her head as if to say 'oh thank you, but not really.' Internal Abi was panicking.

What do I do now? She is so nice. I should compliment her back... You too? I think you're smart? Sweet? Cool? The kind of person who wouldn't point out that COOL hasn't been cool since the 90's?

I think the best of this friend, but I am so unused to receiving and giving genuine compliments. And isn't that a little sad. What a difference to be in the presence of a sister with a genuine heart and wonderful spirit. She is not the church face that most people show; she is in the trenches. But she is not alone in the trenches. The One who makes us family has given us hope and that hope let's us see with a spirit of goodness and compassion and patience... sometimes. Often enough to make this woman look different, sound different, live differently than every other close female friend I have had.

So we will be having more coffee or sushi or whatever other excuse to hang out. Because I need practicing reminding people of how genuinely incredible they are, and I imagine she needs practicing hearing such things.

Spidey Sense

I have never liked Spiderman much. That has nothing to do with this blog, it is just something I told a friend today and felt would be worth repeating. Irrational, much?

Often, my children prove to me that they are far more in tune to the extra-physical world around us than I, and often I am wondering if they have been bitten by a sense-heightening, radioactive spider. Okay, perhaps 'often' is an over statement. There probably aren't many folks on the planet who think of sentences like that 'often'. But I've thought it at least twice. And thoughts are so few and far between as of late that thinking the same thing twice makes that idea, regardless of how bizarre, a majority of my collective ideations. So there. The majority of my brainlings are about radioactive spiders, my kids, and superheroes I don't even like. How very unspiritual of me.

Justin has class Monday and Wednesday from 6:00-8:00pm. Noah's bedtime is 7:30, and Hannah generally goes down to sleep shortly after that. Mommy feeds them and gets jammies on them, mommy tucks them in, and if screaming ensues ('if'... haha), mommy rocks them, shushes them, hands them milk, or starts cramming towels under the door to block the sound. As far as reality presents they don't know where daddy is until the next morning.

But somehow they feel he is there.

The first clinical rotation for Justin's class started Thursday night at 6:00pm and ended at 3:30am. From there he drove to work and played with ecoli and other viruses until 11:30am. To my foolish and ever optimistic assumption, this night would be like any other. (Except Dumpster would get to sleep on the big bed with me because, I am, in my heart of hearts, a coward, afraid of the dark, the light, and staplers that make too loud a crack. If I still lived in the deep south with all its toothless flora and fauna, I would most certainly be accused of being 'yella'.) I got the younglings into their beds, got myself ready for bed and laid down. To my surprise Dumpster did not come and offer his courageous (albeit stench-ridden) presence on the bed to guard his mistress from the foes of night. And from there nothing went as I had foreseen.

Noah woke up screaming. And again. Third time's the charm. And third time he brought Hannah with him. And then she decided the day ought to start at 3:00am and sleep was no longer an option.

If you want to see a desperate woman, imagine this blogger, scampering back and forth from room to room, scratching Noah's back and shushing him, diving next door to give Hannah her pacifier back, dodging a curious bulldog (traitor!) as she runs back to re-wrap Noah in his blanket. One would finally be quiet, and the other one would let out a shriek just piercing enough to awaken the first, and start the strange series of events again. The carpet in our hallway is now sadly worn, the warpath through the jungle, showing the slogging of two tired boots from battle to battle.

How do they know that daddy is away? It has to be extra-sensory.

Justin is a presence in the house: a strong tower, a source of security, and encouragement, and provision. He isn't perfect, he doesn't make perfect decisions, but there is never a time when I wish he was somewhere else. I never want a break from him. Even when he spends hours studying in the basement, or working in the yard we know he is a whisper away. I suppose the kids are just like me. I don't sleep when he isn't here. It's not just that he calms our fears. It's not that he is some megawatt superhero, and I'm laying down beside ... I just realized there is no superhero name with which I can complete this sentence and not draw serious repercussions... . He's just a dad. A good one. And everything is better when dad's around.

I went out with some ladies to see the movie Mom's Night Out (more on this to come). I had the thought that someone should make a movie like this about dads. Then it occurred to me that would be the worst selling movie ever. Moms want to see movies where moms are lifted up. And dads... dads want to see movies where stuff is blown up. That knocks out almost all of the potential audience

Dads are important, more than we as a society are willing to believe. I'm as feminist as the next girl. I know I am smart, strong, capable, beautiful, a fighter, independent (all and only by grace). But I cannot imagine trying to accomplish this impossible task of raising two children filled with potential all alone. So this Mother's Day, despite the fact that he gets a day in June, I want to honor my husband, a dad, a good one, who makes everything better.

Scrubs, Socks, Mittens, and the Wizard

A glance at the current state of our family through four articles of clothing(ish):

Scrubs - The Husband: Justin is embroiled in a tear down, drag out, shoot 'em up street fight with nursing school. This semester is the peak before we start getting to head downhill to the blessed light at the end of the tunnel. He has to wear scrubs to every class and his clinical rotation. The thing is, despite being given high blood pressure and elevated cortisol levels from school, my husband is built like a Greek statue. He keeps grumbling about stress (and my cookies) making him fat. Right, like if the 'David' put on a couple after arm wrestling a bear and a lion. He is tall and trim. Ever since I've known him he has been tall and trim. There are certain less civilized regions of the world where men have been executed for lesser crimes. Like Hollywood. I digress. We buy him size X-Large scrubs because he can't stand the tantalizing glimpse of tube sock peeking haughtily out from under his cuffs. While X-large pants are long enough (barely)*, both he and I and Dumpster could stand in the waist with room to spare... now there's an image. And here's one: my scrubby clad adonis:

(He's the tall cute one in the back.)

Socks - The Blogger: We decided since our softball team tends to disappoint in the winning area of the game, we should try to make it excel in the fun area of the game. Step one: get Abi some awesome softball socks.

Really, what else needs to be said. I traipsed about the field all night in hot pink knee-high socks. It's a living.

Mittens - Baby Girl: Shortly after her four month doctor appointment, Hannah developed some skin problems. It started on her face and has spread to most the rest of her body. A lesser (meaning less cute)  girl would be in a sad state, but Hannah wears her rough, flaky, and red skin like a champ (an adorable champ). The worst part is she scratches at her face when it itches. For any of you who have little ones, you know how hard it is to keep baby nails short enough that they can't claw themselves to within an inch of your sanity. So, in order to save her face and my nerves we have been putting mittens on her for the last few weeks. We take them off so she can play, and if her skin has a good day. Otherwise, Hannah has some version of mittens on most of the time. Like so:

And yes, she is wearing boy clothes. That's what happens with babies: they wear everything they own in one week and then spit up on the last God-forsaken outfit... or worse. Usually worse.

The Wizard - Baby Noah: (Before we get to the explanation, I apologize that I don't have a picture for this section. I'm having a devise transferring issue. Next post about Little Man, I'll get a good Noah pic up. Until then, our imaginations are woefully underused; dust yours off and make this as cute, funny, or boring as you want.) Noah loves his blankets. He's on a sure path to being the next Linus in Peanuts. He's not partial, and will drag any available scrap of fabric around, but there is one for which he has a slight preference: It is white with blue and silver stars all over and a blue trim. Lately he has taken to wrapping this blanket around his shoulders before scampering about the house chanting all manner of incomprehensible incantations. Shy of one pointy hat, he looks like a little wizard ready to turn Dumpy into a toad (not too much challenge, really entry level magic. The same thing could be done with a razor and a bowl of water).

There you have it: us by garment.

* Justin spent a year in New Zealand. I swear he left at a respectable 6' 2", but returned at an uncanny 6'4". And this was when he was 25 years old. It is just wrong for anyone to have a growth spurt that late in life. I swear he found the One Ring that instead of unusually long life, makes someone concerningly tall.

Baby Mutant: Tornado

The last thirty minutes have been spent with me holding baby girl tightly to my chest and trying to prevent heart attack aftershocks. I'm sure this is one of those moments I probably shouldn't blog about because child protective services will be banging on my door seconds after it is published.

Children are miraculous in their ability to learn, experiment, and live without defeat or fear. Miraculous: always, but not necessarily the good kind of miracle.

Hannah has been rolling from her tummy to her back for a couple weeks now. She is much more optimistic about tummy time than Noah was. Sometimes, we can't keep her on her back. I have only seen her roll from her belly to her back once. It seemed an exhaustive effort, and she was disinclined to ever try it again. Therefore, from past experience, I assumed my daughter to be capable of moving at her best about three feet in either direction.

I want her to be able to move about and explore her world, so I will lay her down on a big blanket in the middle of the floor. Tonight the blanket was positioned like so:

Any of you who have had young children can probably already see where we are going with this. In my defense, the perspective on this photograph doesn't show that the blanket is five feet long, the distance past that to the left corner of the stairs is over six feet, and I was sitting next to Hannah playing at the edge of the blanket furthest from the stairs.

From the kitchen, Noah started begging for some milk. There was a cup ready in the fridge for him, so I got up to grab it, and hand it to him. It took me all of one minute.

I heard Hannah make a noise from the living room, so I patted Noah on the head and looked over. There was my baby girl at the far left corner of the stairs (because that's the highest point, silly mommy)  one leg dangling over the edge, most of her body laying under the railing, trying to roll over and away one more time. I freaked. I don't think that the English language has the letters to form the sound that I shrieked as I dashed into the living room, slid baby girl out from under the railing, and crushed her to my chest. Noah, baby girl's fellow daredevil, looked at me with big eyes that said, "What is your problem? That looks like fun!"

Still, I am trying to conceive of how she could cover more than eleven feet in less than sixty seconds. I think I have an X-Men child, who's mutant name is Tornado. She has some kind of super stable inner ear canal and super-physics rotational musculature. I've started designing her hero outfit in my head. "The Pink Tornado." It's adorable.

She's fine.   See:

I had a coronary, but she's fine.

After strapping her tightly into her bouncer (just in case the Pink Tornado decided to strike again), I retrieved the walker from the basement and the pack n play from Noah's room. She has lost her free range Hannah privileges. Blanket time only occurs now when mommy or daddy is within arm's reach.

Beauty and the Beast - meow

It's Friday night, and I am standing in my nothings staring into a dresser full of blessings (you can call them clothes if you're feeling dull). Big date with the husband? Night out with the girls? Yes and no. I'm sure Justin considers the first softball game of the season a date, and if by "the girls" you mean my hardcore fellow softball chica sluggers, then yes to both. April games are always tricky. You don't want to wear long pants and give everyone the impression that your legs haven't seen the sun or a razor since sometime in September (they have, right?). However, you also don't want to traipse out onto the field in your lil' shawty shawt shorts, and be standing on two perfectly Else icicles five minutes into the game.

Yeah, because I'm totally that girl who empties her wardrobe onto the bed looking for the perfect softball outfit to play in what weather.com claims will be a torrential downpour. And really, bright yellow jerseys built for a size small, who is six feet four inches tall: not helping.

So now I am at the softball game and the little droplets have starting splashing down. I am in knee length white shorts, a long sleeve gray t-shirt, a hoodie, and my jersey. I am wearing socks that only barely sneak over my heel and shiny black cleats. This will all come into play as I come into play.

Five minutes into the start of the game the following things will happen:
1. Friendly little droplets will turn into Hurricane Irene.
2. My gray shirt will ride up to the middle of my ribcage.
3. My batting gloves will be soaked, so there is NO WAY I am reaching up to fix said offending gray garment.
4. A player will slide into me at first spraying my white shorts with nice sandy red mud.
5. Nice sandy red mud will lodge itself between the flesh of my achilles tendon and the heel of my cleats, rubbing my ankles raw and, as an added bonus, bloody.

Do you have the visual picture? Just imagine a kitten in an over sized bright yellow smock, drowned wet, frozen cold, and starting to hiss at inanimate objects.

Now, it is Saturday morning. Formerly drenched kitten has her long hair curled/waved and pulled up Princess Buttercup style. She is in a bright pink dress (say what?!), four inch white heels with bows on the top (get out!), and she is wearing... wait for it... make up (shut the front door!!!).

In January our women's ministry team decided to hold a generations women's conference on April 26th. I must have, in a moment of temporary dissociative disorder volunteered to speak at this conference. Or they may have kidnapped me and forced me to speak at gunpoint. Someone should pat down our team for weaponry before I claim any responsibility for my actions. Either way, today I stood there in pink and heels with big hair and war paint, speaking.

It was all very surreal. In my mind I am the drowned kitten. People will say things like, "Oh you look lovely," and I have to try very hard to not stare at them like a dog listening to a high-pitched whistle. In my mind I am still the tomboy sliding through mud, and making fun of girls who do insane things like wear four inch heels they will have to stand in for forty-five minutes in front of fifty women. I suppose there are hints of our every reality marking us as we drift from form to form. Under the strappy stilettos are the scrap marks of red mud. The graceful, slender hand holding a microphone as I share a distinctly feminine story is starting to turn blue with the bruise of a misplayed out at second. And the sweeping locks falling in waves about my shoulders are only really that curly because I left them out in the driving rain far too long.

A mentor of mine once told me, "First God made you a woman, then He made you an athlete." Actually, first I think He made me His, and everything else (make up or mud) is just window dressing.

Oh... and we worshipped. Lots. Which is nice.

My Minion

Disclaimer: I don't own Disney, Despicable Me or any actual minions. If I did, my family would live on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, shouting scalawagian threats at one another over tourists' heads, and stealing their mouse shaped creamsicles.

Noah has become that guy who poses questions to himself and then answers them. However, English is not his strong suit yet, so it sounds like my son is one of those Disney minions from Despicable Me having a conversation with himself. What is even funnier is how much he looks like a minion, sort of like a round, pale pill with big eyes. And adorable. Cute up-to-here adorable. The conversations go something like this:

Curious Noah: "Da brag?"
Noah Know-It-All: "Da basho yang ana."
Curious Noah: "Oh..."

Curious Noah: "Da Ding?"
Noah Know-It-All: "Dish duc wanna brag da nana."
Curious Noah: "BA!?"
Noah Know-It-All: "NANANANANANA..." giggles "Head!" (smacks himself on the noggin')

This posing and answers of questions with himself will go on for a good ten minutes before he has sorted out all the mysteries of the universe (including why the duck wants a banana on his head [why to brag about, of course]).

Justin thinks that Noah has a minion language all his own that makes perfect, eloquent sense in his head and to other minions. Since they do not make Munchkin Minion Rosetta Stone, I have to struggle through deciphering his sentences all on my own. The worst part is he will spew out a good fifteen word sentence with a subject and predicate, prepositional phrases, demonstrative adjectives; the works. Then he will stare at me with those big beautiful minion eyes in anticipation of a response. The longer I delay in confirming or denying his theory of reality, the more that cherub face falls. To reduce the number of these heart crushing misunderstandings, I have translated several key words below:

Du - 'Duck'
Ish - 'Fish'
Nana - 'Banana', or my mother, this word is contextually dependent.
Long, loud, glass-shattering shriek - 'Well, that didn't go as I had planned, perhaps this world is not the malleable, gently solace I had imagined... And why would anyone put the silverware drawer way up there, where I can't have at the spoons. Crazy people.'