First off,

((Thanks for the photo, Hannah))

This weekend was incredible. Thousands of photos to come. But my bed, my bed, is demanding I join it.

My 50mm lens broke again [$^#@!!!!!!]. I accidentally knocked it off the countertop and it hit the tile and it was completely my fault. Ugh, so so sick about it.

My lens is almost as much a part of me as this little baby. She totally owns me and I let her. I don't go anywhere without her. Lillie and I drove down to World Market and stopped at Target, too. M stayed at home with Jake and the older girls and she caused a ruckus. She was happy when her mama showed up again an hour later, because she just doesn't know who she is without my voice floating across the living room. And I'm so totally fine with that.

Alright, my bed, I must go.

Miriam and Nienie.

Let's have a moment of silence for Miriam. She was due yesterday. No baby yet.

Last night we saw Stephanie Nielson of Nienie Dialogues speak at BYU. It was so great. She talked about how, after she got in a plane crash with her husband that burned over 80% of her body, that she had an experience so private and intimate she couldn't quite describe it except, "for any of you that have doubts that God exists, he does. I know he does. And I know he knows me personally".

There were so many women there. The place was completely packed, people were standing shoulder to shoulder along the edge of the room and it was silent as we listened to her story.

She said before the crash, her youngest son Nicholas was holding onto her pantleg asking her not to go. She said, "I really shouldn't have gone". At that moment we all could relate to her regret. So hard to hear it firsthand.

Her daughter Jane looked at her one time, five months after she was burned, and couldn't look at her again for a few months after. When she finally could lock eyes with her mother she said, "Look Mom, I'm doing it, we're doing it!!!"

She is so humble, so kind, you can tell from her voice. I can't imagine the pain she lives with on a daily basis, and it's humbling. So glad I got to go.

Bad Parent Trophy

Ruby thought the Tooth Fairy came, took one look at her tooth, and didn't want it.

Why didn't she want it? Maybe it had blood on it, that's why she didn't want it?


No, she just forgot. Just plain forgot. Ruby walked into school this morning with her shoulders low and her head hanging down. She was so sad. I emailed Jake at work and we discussed disappointments this morning. How painful it is to see our kids experiencing a big one. And being fully responsible.

Ugh.

She'll be here tonight. She'll draw hearts on the dollar, just like she always does. She'll maybe even write an apology.

Because Ruby's heart is just too tender.

On a lighter note, we're having a Medley reunion this weekend. Including, but not limited to my parents, 8 out of 9 siblings, their spouses (6 are married). My grandparents will stop by on Saturday along with my cousin's family and my aunt, uncle and their 6 kids.

Oh ya, and we invited a special guest: Chaos.

Did I mention my house is 1200 square feet?

A Tuesday.

I am so mentally and physically exhausted from taking care of my four daughters. Sometimes at the end of the day I can barely move. Mysteriously, I can eat chocolate and blog, though, strange.

Took the girls to their school playground this evening. Jake wasn't home and we needed something to do. Lillie fell and scraped her nose. Her nose is the teeniest part of her face. It hides between her cheeks, lips and forehead, so scraping it was nearly impossible. Comfort I gave, and she trotted off and most promptly stubbed her toe.

So I called it a night on account of injuries and said bring it in, girls, we're going home!

I've tried lately to be more present. Really see them, really hear them, really really remember. It's hard. It takes more effort to live this way. But I'm determined. I never want to regret or forget the easy stuff, the daily stuff. I want to tell them someday about their younger selves and how amazing they made us feel.

My doobies who doesn't even know her middle name. The girls stayed home from school with the sniffles and we did "homeschool". A combination of nonsense games that we made up for each other. I gave Ruby a quiz. I asked her, for question #5, what is her middle name? She didn't know. She'd never heard of it. Could it be Doobies? What about Ruby Tuesday? or Dubinator? Nope, I told her: Jean. Ruby Jean. She was surprised. "Oh", she said.

She's got peach fuzz on her skinny bruised little legs and she's got my crooked toes.

Gracie with her cheeks puffed out riding her scooter. She's a creature of compulsive habit. Every day making noises with the air in her cheeks. She does it constantly. Her number one goal is to be my friend and companion. She is a thousand good, kind, friendly people wrapped up in one seven-year-old girl.

Here we go

She is fed rice cereal. And likes it!

And do you enjoy her hair as much as I do? The way that one bang is creeping onto her face, down toward her eyes.

She absolutely kills me with her beauty every single day.

Sunday Drawings

Ruby's drawing. Riding scooters to the park. Daddy's giving the family a thumb's up and I am bringing up the rear thinking of our family in my thought bubble. Holding a mini Matilda. 

Grace's illustration of Grace and Ruby choosing the right. Dad has no idea where to go. 

Grace's chart. 

Ruby draws a scene in a pet shop. She and Daddy have love halos above their heads.

Ruby's drawing of swimming at the rec center.

Today we had a long discussion about how dangerous marbles are for choking. We don't let them in the house. I told them that they are slippery and round and that they are one of the worst things! This is Ruby's drawing of me cooking eggs, Grace comes to ask me a question and leaves her bag of marbles on the ground. Lillie picks one up and chokes on it. Her throat leads straight to her heart. 

Just Stuff

-- Ruby loves that Tada Mae so much.

-- So now that Lillie is potty trained, next on the agenda is taking away the binky. Probably will never happen. She sucks on that piece of plastic like a bag of m&m's at midnight.

-- The girls just started gymnastics at a serious gym. I sit in the waiting area and watch (with Lillie and the babe). I simply cannot hang with these moms. They are dressed to the NINES. I am not. I feel like little Tim from Christmas Carol.

-- I took the girls swimming at the rec center last night. There is a soap opera going on over at that place with all those teenage lifeguards. There's always some drama going down. A little flirt or a sideways glance. I overhear some pretty interesting stuff. They don't care about chubby, pasty white moms. They know we're completely harmless. If I hear them talk about how cute so-and-so is or what chick didn't show up for work, who the heck am I going to tell?

The little one in swim diapers, that's who.

-- I've lived here for 9 months now and apparently there's been a WinCo Foods store near me all that time. Oh, the pain I feel having found out that truth, and all the money I could have been saving! Hannah and I went there together. With our five kids. It was as ridiculous as it sounds. Speaking of Hannah, she just finished a cycling relay race from Salt Lake to St. George. She is incredible and tough and does it all while halfway through nursing school.

-- My sister Miriam is 39 weeks pregnant today. I felt her tummy, closed my eyes and pictured my niece all curled up inside there, her tiny warm body taking it day by day, making her new parents wait. She'll be such a beauty. I dreamed about her a few weeks ago. She looks like her mama.

"The Impossible"

I may have potty-trained our third child.

Without totally losing my mind.

I would have bet millions that Lillie would have been astronomically hard to potty train. That she would test all limits, set the earth askew and send me rolling down a steep embankment to take away the pain.

But she was fairly easy. She took to it. She was motivated. She was organized. She was clean.

So I'd say after three weeks of it, she's about 95%.

Most of us know that potty training is never really over, not until they're four. Give or take two years.

But for now, Mama's happy.

Graby

Eating their after school waffles, sharing a chair, wearing best friend necklaces.

With all that fighting they used to do, who would have thought?

Sunday Photo

Mothering is much harder than anything I have ever done or ever will do. I'm going to even be more specific-- being the mother of FOUR is much harder than anything I have ever done. One, two and even three wasn't so bad.

Sometimes, when we're driving down the freeway on the way home from something, various little ones cry and fight and scream and throw board books at the back of my headrest.

Sometimes that happens and when it does, explosions happen in my brain. Like when Baghdad was bombed, you remember watching that on TV? The earth was rocking and rolling and there was a firebomb here and a building exploding there and it happened at random and it looked all together very damaging.

Well that's my brain sometimes.

But at the end of the day, at the end of the long sentence that is my day, there's a short little cadence. A sweet song that sums up what we did and what we felt. It's mostly the sweetest song anyone would hear and its melody weaves into my heart and back out again, over and over.

I can hear it when I look at this photo. Sung by a lucky, lucky mama.