Goodnight

Puckered sweet,

Dirty feet,

Jelly in his hair,

Sucks his thumb,

His day is done,

But I'm still standing there.

"Good night, my love,

Sleep tight, my love,"

The night wind sighs on the air.

I kiss him light,

whisper,"Goodnight,"

and leave him in God's care.

It's All About ME!

So, who am I? What makes me tick?

At this point in my life I am "Mostly Mom." I have 5 children. Jesse, my eldest, is 10. He is in 6th grade, and he loves to cook. That's great for me, since I strongly dislike it. Caleb, child 2, is 8 years old. He is in 2nd grade. Caleb is all about order and routine. This is particularly challenging for me. Elizabeth, the first girl, is 6 3/4 and also in 2nd grade. She is our mother hen. When she was barely toddling she would keep her eye on her older brothers at all times and gently correct them if they began to step out of line. Abigail is 5 1/2. Abby is stepping out into the world of kindergarten this year. There is not a stage big enough for the drama that comes out of this child- and not all of it is bad drama either. I have heard that 5 is the number of God's grace. I can easily see how this could be true. Jonah is my baby- even though he turns 3 in 24 days. He is the sweetest child I have ever met. He speeks the language of love that I "get." We both love quality time. I'll do a more thorough introducton to my kids in a later set of posts.

I am married to Sebastian. We met on New Years Eve of '95/'96. We have been married for 10 1/2 years. Wow where did those years go?! I can't imagine my life being any different than it is now.

Our household, in total, consists of 2 gravely outnumbered parents, 5 young children, 3 goldfish, and one semipermanant houseguest. We are large and we are loud! Shopping for a dining room table that could seat 8 every night raised more than a few eyebrows!

I am all about MOPs (Mothers Of Preschoolers). MOPs is a church based community outreach program that caters specifically to women who have children that are kindergarten aged or younger. The immediate goal is to give these women a sense of community. We are all women in the same stage of life. We all have potty issues, children who take so long to tie thier shoes, discipline issues- that kind of thing. Of course, the long term goal of MOPs is that every woman would be brought into the famly of Christian believers. The normal format for a MOPs morning at my MOPs would be: snack and fellowship, announcements, teaching time (all mothering/ womens issues), small group discussion time, craft and fellowship time. All of this fun is crammed into 3 hours. Of course while we are having all of this fun, our children are in thier classes having fun, too. The children's classes are set up in a Sunday School format and include music, gym, snack, story, and free play time- at our MOPs group anyway. By the way, if this sounds like something you would be interested in checking out you can. I go to Camano Chapel MOPS. We are one of the few groups that meets every week in the state of Washington. The Chapel even has a night MOPs for women who can't make it durring the day. Anyway, as you can see, I fully support MOPS.

This year I am the Special Teusday Coordinator at MOPs. I believe it is a leadership position unique to our group. I am in charge of the nonformat days (the SUPER fun ones). I am doing The Bite of MOPs on November 13th. Be looking for a post on that.

If I only had to look after me I think I would probably live on sugared cerial for two meals a day and starbucks coffee for the other. I guess it's a good thing I have to think about good nutrition on an ongoing basis! I also love taco salad- but it has to be made with Doritos, 1000 Island dressing, and lots of Ketsup. And Coke.

I love to play games. I like word games and I like card games. My current favorite card game is Phase 10. I am teaching my 10 year old how to lose like a good sport. We throw in an occasional game of Uno for the littler kids who would cry if they had to play Phase 10 with me. Jesse and I also like to play Scrabble- but it's not much of a challenge to play with him yet. Since English is my Husband's second language he won't play word games with me. I do like to play games with my dad, though. He almost always beats me.

I like to read, although I don't get much chance. I love to sing- I think I'm good, too. I have a huge collection of decorating magazines. I live in the typical mom uniform of a t-shirt, blue jeans, a zip front sweatshirt, and tennis shoes.

In a really small nutshell- that's me!

5 Things I Know For Sure

My sister Trish tagged me to tell her 5 Things I know For Sure so here goes:

1. Poop does indeed come out of the dryer
2. It is way too late and I have way too much to do to be sitting here blogging. Thanks Trish.
3. Dirty toilets will still be dirty tomorrow. And the next day. When they start pinching your tush as you sit down then you need to be worried.
4. Expensive gift soap from Bath and Body Works really does smell divine on almost 3 year old boy hands.
5. My children are the most perfect, beautiful angels anyone has ever seen. I might venture to say that they actually look and smell like Heaven. Unfortunately, they do have to get up tomorrow morning....

I HATE Laundry

It's one of those chores that just as soon as you are done you realize that every one just took off the days clothes and put on their pajamas. In my house a days worth of clothes adds up to a whole other load- though never all the same color, so there they sit until next week. We are also in the midst of potty training our nearly three year old. Now here's where laundry gets interesting. We usually have a faint pee smell wafting from the laundry room, although usually not so bad that it can't wait for a full load.
Today is laundry-potty training day. My darling little man forgot to go poop in the toilet. Since I was busy cleaning out the shower my husband gamely took on the little stinker! When he asked me what he should do with the stinking heap of clothes I told my husband that he should run them alone in a water only cycle since I knew I would be starting all the laundry later. OK, good enough.

So, at about 10:00pm I tossed a mountain of laundry over the stair rail and rolled my laundry hampers over to sort all the clothes. My dear 2 11/12ths year old took a nap much too late in the day, therefore he was available to help sort the clothes. Usually this child is absolutely normal- but he has a sick love of laundry which I am sure one day he will need therapy for. Darling Boy grabbed every sock he could find so he could "Fold them out." (Socks must go into the washer right-side-out or you may end up with a sock full of very clean sand....) as he is working my darling baby is HUMMING. I do not hum when it comes to laundry- ever. After we had the laundry all sorted we took it to the laundry room. This dear child also loves to load the washer. He stands with his hands in the front of the washer and I throw laundry onto his arms, he then shoves the clothes inside. And so we dance until the washer is full. It is also his self appointed job to pull the clean wash out of the washer and hand it up to me so that I can put it into the dryer since the units are stacked.

As we went to the laundry room I smelled a peculiar odor. Hot Poop??? It seems that my loving husband had his mind else where when he was taking care of the stinking pile of baby boy clothes and absently put them into and started the DRYER!!! He swears he put them into the washer and washed them, but there they were stinking up my dryer.

Well, I washed the dryer out with Simple Green and ran it for 20 minutes full of dryer sheets. I think that took care of the problem. But, just be sure I did what any dutiful wife would do for her husband. I washed and dried his work gloves first so he would be sure to have them tomorrow....