Thighs.

Here is Tads and me after a walk. She fell asleep on my hood and slept most of the way. I love her. Our flesh is the same, there is no line where I end and she begins. We just are.

My friend is adopting a baby. After waiting years, she and her husband are getting a newborn in March. A little boy from Georgia. She is elated. Her husband even more! How incredible it is to have a baby!

Sometimes I want so much for myself, I want to be so many things, I have so many dreams that I'd love to fulfill. But at the end of the day, when I'm kissing that mouth with those blue eyes piercing straight to the soul that is no longer just mine, I can't imagine me without them.

Hands off those chunky polka-dot thighs. They're all mine.

Fiery and Gorgeous.

fiery |ˈfī(ə)rē|adjective ( fierier , fieriest )consisting of fire or burning strongly and brightly : the sun was a fiery ball low on the hills | [as submodifier ] figurative a fiery hot chili sauce.
• having the bright color of fire : the car was painted a fiery red.
• (of a person) having a passionate, quick-tempered nature : a fiery, imaginative Aries.
• (of behavior or words) passionately angry and deeply felt : a fiery speech.

Bebe.

Something Fantastic.

I will confess, I've never really liked Halloween. I really don't know why since I do like little kids in costumes and I definitely like candy...

Above is Ruby at her Halloween carnival. She even has the uncombed hair of a little witch.

And Jake carved the pumpkins to the girls' specifications. He did a fantastic job as they hounded him and climbed on his shoulders and jumped about as he cut.

I just really really love my girls. Like, head exploding love. They're different and amazing and creative and funny. And even when we're at the park and someone's pooing in their underwear and another is crying the entire time and the other needs to be nursed and the other's ignoring me when it's time to go...

Even then and especially then.

I look at my life and am astounded. That I had a great childhood and I don't need therapy or drugs or an outlet for pain. That I'm a mother, a strong one, with four girls.

I hope we take the world in the palm of our hands and do something fantastic.

Cackle, Cackle, Cackle, Quack.

Private Island.

Dear Matilda,

I want you to know, someday when you're older, that you're not what you'd picture the youngest child to be. You're not the baby that's always fussing in the high chair. You don't have an unattended runny nose and you're not always dressed in hand-me-downs and left to your own devices. You're none of those things.

You are the love of my life.

My one soft pillow, my favorite food, my dream that became real.

You're beautiful, exceptionally so, and I never get over it. I agree with people with my eyes open wide, "I know, I know, she is isn't she?" You smell like honey and cinnamon rolls and limeade. You're pliable and content and friendly and luscious.

You will forever be happy on my hip, as my appendage, hooked to me by an invisible tether, you sway to and fro back and forth as I scrub my entire house clean of little girl messes with my one free arm.

You like everyone else, but you love me and you don't try to hide it. We go most places together. To girl's nights, to get-togethers, to help in school classrooms, to doctor's appointments, to the grocery store.

You rarely cry, and rarely even make a sound. Only soft, infrequent ones, and they surprise even you. You look around, "who could have made that cooing sound?", and continue on sucking your fingers.

Most days you're wrestling me, you're up and down and all around. I tickle the back of your thighs, kiss your wet chin, scratch and tickle your pudgy back. You've got saddlebag legs that can stop my healthy heart, just like that. Sometimes you close your eyes for a second while you smile, and it creates sunlight inside of me.

I never let you cry to sleep, I never let you cry at all.

When you lay on the floor, tired and frustrated, you start to cry out for me, just a little. I start toward you right away, Lillie and the other girls following close behind, wanting and needing my attention, perhaps the phone ringing, and Daddy emailing.

I drop everything for you.

You get me, you get me first, everyone else can wait just offshore. It's just me and you, Matilda, on our own private island. Loving each other.

Sunday Photos

My girls, in my bed, where they usually are 20 minutes before church starts.

The wind is blowing fiercely. Tonight all the kids are asleep in their beds. Even Jake, asleep seconds after his head hit the pillow. All the lights are out except the kitchen where I just pulled a few loaves of pumpkin bread out of the oven. 

Silence settles like peaks of dust on my body. Just the tap of this keyboard parts the thick quiet. And that wind! Sweeping across the state of Utah like a bucket of bleach. It makes me feel so good inside.

Everything that I live for is sleeping now. They are safe and resting and calm. Agenda says I must drag my body down the hallway and into my bed, hug my pillow and scoot my feet in between Jake's toasty ones. 

Life is good.

#3

A good friend of mine also has four daughters and we went up in the mountains today with seven girls (Grace was at school).

We probably won't ever try it again, but it had specks of "adventure" written into it if we looked close enough. "Emotional abuse" is what comes to the forefront of my mind, though, and I'm talking about the child-to-parent kind of emotional abuse. Lillie cried 93% of the hike. I gave up minutes into it, but there was no choice but to press on.

She is all-consuming. When she's not crying, I tiptoe around my life as not to disturb the delicate state of peace. When she is crying, it's all I can do not to walk out the door. Hear the birds chirp. Remember who I am for a moment. The first few minutes of a fit is not bad, it's the tail end that kills me. It's the last five minutes after the first five minutes and just after the second five minutes.

I just don't know what to do. I've learned by now that she has little control over her emotions. This well of frustration is inside of her, and it has to come out. But my head hurts and my ears are ringing. Why didn't my mother (or at least someone!) tell me it would be this hard sometimes. Did they forget? Did they gloss over the details on purpose, their hands moving straight to my pregnant belly exclaiming "Congratulations" with a knowing smile on their face?

That's it? "Congratulations?" That's it? Nothing like, "you are about to be run over by a cement mixer". Or, "give yourself a few years, you'll look as haggard as the rest of us". Something that might've helped, "you may have to teach your five-year-old how to read while your two-year-old creates a crying, screaming soundtrack just feet from your eardrum".

I'm sure if they were being honest they would have warned me. I'm sure the warning would also have been accompanied by a river of gladness that they did it anyway, that they made it through.

Here's hoping!

Just a normal day.

Watching the dragon movie after school.

... Nothing I love more than having all my girls home.

Evening nap.

Ruby's origin is often speculated on.

How could a heart be so tender? What gracious god could have made a fountain of a girl, and brought her to me? She sat there, begging to hold the sleeping little monster. Finally able to manipulate Lillie's fingers and rest them in her hand.

There's a hundred reasons to collapse when Ruby speaks, but I'll let you in on just one:

"Daddy if you died I would melt into a puddle of tears and just be a wet puddle on the ground".