Adjusting

We are all over here in our little world still adjusting and figuring out this new life of parenting three.  Actually, I think we have pretty much adjusted and forgotten what it was like to not have Evie, and we have settled back into that stage of things are harder because we have an infant, and everyone else in the family seems fine with it all.  I just have these pesky hormones that never seem to settle into any kind of normalcy until I am done nursing, which is still months away, so...there's that.  But we're hanging in there and figuring it out and praying a lot and also calling my mom and sister and friends to say remind that this is normal.  Tell me that how I feel is normal. 

What to report?

Evie is still a stinker, waking up multiple, multiple times a night--every two hours?  And then every once in a while, just to keep me on my toes, she'll sleep all. night. long.  I'm talking 7:00 pm to 6:00 am, and then the next night, back to every two hours.  Who knows?  And she still only naps in 45 minute increments.  Though, again, she likes to switch it up a bit and throw in a long nap every once in a while just to show me how nice it would be if she did that every day ;)  But we sure do love her.  I can't stop kissing her cheeks and her fuzzy head and her little feet.  And in the midst of the hard that comes with parenting, I also still have so many moments of awe that I get to do this.  That I get to be their mom.  I will say it a million times--what a gift to be their mother.  To have these children.

John told us the other night, out of the blue, that when he was a little boy he used to have a different family.  Three brothers, a sister, and another mom and dad.  I asked him about his other mom, and he explained that his other mom is different than me because his other mom is never mean.  I asked him, just to clarify, if I am mean.  And he got this look on his face, like "I hate to tell you this mom, but..." and then he nodded his head yes, so it turns out, if someone asked John to describe me, mean would be one of the adjectives.  Also, his other mom has less freckles than me, except he calls them sprinkles.  By the way, Scott was laughing very hard as John broke the mean news to me.  I made a point to say that I bet his other mom doesn't cook his dinner and do his laundry and find his lost ninja turtle a million times a day.  And to that he explained that his other mom took him to toys r us and bought him LOTS of ninja turtle toys.  So...

We are in a good season of homeschooling, where things are going smoothly.  I don't take that for granted because I know that our hard season will come around again, but I am thankful for this sweet moment in time.  Ada is really loving history these days, and we are reading an autobiography of Corrie Ten Boom, which goes well with lots that we have learned about World War II.  This is my first year to begin to see the fruit of classical education, as Ada begins to make connections.  She hears the words Prime Minister and asks, "Churchill?"  and when she heard in the autobiography that something evil was rising in Germany, Ada answered, "I bet it's Hitler."  I love the conversations that are happening as a result of our Classical Conversations memory work.  It gives me the motivation to press on in the midst of the hard.  And there is plenty of hard, but I want to record the good too.  The fruit of our labor.  Today, she and John were playing outside, and I went to check on them.  They were busy in that bright sunshine playing Corrie Ten Boom, with the back yard gate being the door to their secret room.  In that moment, motherhood was going just as I imagined it would go--my children outside, playing together, acting out scenes about historical heroes of the faith...picture music playing in the background as the stars aligned.  About fifteen minutes later, they were back inside, mad because I wouldn't let them watch cartoons and Ada settled for reading a my little pony book instead--not the same picture ;)  (also, keeping it real, Ada bombed a spelling test today, so there is definitely still hard in the midst of the good ;) ) 

So, life marches on.  And I am thankful for where we are.  There is lots of hard and exhausting and overwhelming during this season, but there is also lots of good and rewarding and sweet.