An Acquired Taste

It turns out that I might be an acquired taste.  Bummer.

Part of my Super-Fun-All-The-Time-2013-Year-Of-Thrival plan is to make new friends.  New town, new job, new season of life...new friends!

I've become almost obsessed with this. I look at every passerby and run them through the 'could she be my come over with her kids while my house is a mess have coffee and watch them play' friend?  Could she be my 'Bible study' friend? Could she be my 'shopping, ladies who lunch' friend?

After the obsession of recognizing these people to fill my needs, then there's the dilemma of how to convince them to be my friend...this is where, I'm afraid, I have found that I'm an acquired taste.  I have friends.  I know I can make friends.  But, well, maybe, sometimes....I may come on a little too strong, a little too fast.  Oh, my bad, new girl I met in the park 4 minutes ago...you mean you're not quite ready to go on a double date and share a babysitter at my house.  Silly me.  You mean you don't like it when I ask very direct and personal questions in our casual, first time, chance meeting.  Oops.

I'm afraid my crazy 'too much too fast' style has been reinforced in the past, giving me an erred sense of appropriateness.  Well, except for that still painful memory when it didn't work out for me!

First meeting with Dan in Albuquerque 100 years ago.  'So, ever been married?  Kids?  Plan to get married someday?  Christian?'  Sweet, now man of mine, simply chuckled, said, 'Wow, you get to the point, huh?'  And answered my questions.  Then said, 'What was your name, again?'.  Behavior reinforced.

Albuquerque bestie.  Then a patient I had seen maybe twice, but was hoping to convert to a friend.  I was pregnant.  'So, is labor just horrible?  Did you poop when you pushed out the baby?  Are your boobs always that big or is it just because you're breast feeding?'  Sweet, now ABQ bestie of mine, simply snickered, said, 'You have no idea...want to go have lunch sometime?'.  Crazy behavior reinforced.

I have been wallowing in my realization that maybe this making of friends thing is going to take longer than I thought.  I have a very ain't nobody got time for that  attitude about it.  I am anxious to make some friends.  I think it will help me to feel more settled.  Dan meets new people everyday, and doesn't really get it.  But somehow spending most days in our rent house that I can't really make a home ('cause who paints someone else's walls!?) with three kidlets two and under, makes me oh so anxious to meet a kindred spirit.

As I have been wallowing, though, I have come to realize that while they can't drop in on a random Tuesday morning and physically have coffee, I have all these roles filled in my life.  They live in California instead of Edmond, or work a 40 hour work week, or are in a different (and so fun!) stage of life...

Being reminded of that recurring lesson - patience is a virtue.

-Erin

Who Are These People: Jack

*Disclaimer: Writer will not be held responsible for electrical problems that result from drool onto computer*

Jack.  Baby Jack.  Jackapoo.  PoohBear.

Every Momma should have a little boy.  Goodness.

He is learning how to sleep through the night right now.  It was super sad for about two days, then he caught right on!  He is still getting up once at about 4:00, but just two weeks ago he was asking for me at 11:00, 2:00 AND 4:00.  Winning!

He is ALL boy.  He is daring and reckless and has a post pubescent voice!  When he bellows, babbles, or bawls - you can tell he's a he.

All of our kids are great eaters, but Jack is the most impressive right now.  He can put it away!!  He is brave to try new things and is seemingly bottomless!  Here is Papa Terry feeding him sweet potatoes.

As we near the anniversary of my Papa Eells' death, I can't help but think that maybe Jack would have been his buddy.  He loved a baby...he especially loved a chill, happy, well fed child!  

He is such a happy pumpkin.  Smiling is his favorite.

His sisters adore him, big time.  They ask about him first thing in the morning, every morning.  They look out for him.  They mother him.  They smother him.

He is also the third child.  This happened last week while it was snowing.  I left the back door open to take some pictures of the girls.  When I turned around, Jack had army crawled outside (in the snow, with one sock on) to see what was going on!

We kinda have a 'thing' going on.  He may be a bit of a Momma's boy.  I basically light up his life...even looking like I sometimes do.  We make out, we snuggle, we just like to be touching.  He will see me across the room, scootch/army crawl over, and if I don't immediately pick him up, he just rests his little head on my foot and begs.  Rotten.

I feel the same way, love.  And I don't even get all my nourishment from you!

We found out that we were unexpectedly expecting Jack when the girls were the age that he is now.  I get it. This is an awesome age, and really the first time that that silly thought crosses one's mind...well, maybe just one more....

Jack, my love, I'm so glad God knew best.  We NEEDED you, sweet boy.

-Momma

Keepin' It Rrrrrrrreal.

Dear Kate, Lauren, and Jack's wife,

Women.

Moms.

The Guilty.

We are so good at feeling bad about ourselves.

Do a pinterest Valentine, think it cute and healthy, get to school and find only one other mom even sent Valentines and they are not homemade (but completely sweet and acceptable)....GUILT.

Be the mom who sent the off-the-rack Valentine...GUILT.

Be the mom who forgot it was Valentine's Day....GUILT.

The mom who thought that surely two year old can skip that holiday one more year...GUILT.

We are just good at it.  We are so aware of it that we can let the fear of making another feel guilty stop us from being crafty or staying at home or cooking a meal or sharing our day with others.  

I think about this a lot.  This blog's main purpose is to keep a record for our family.  To be the memory keeper FOR US.  It's for Dan and me.  It's for Kate and Lauren and Jack.  

But, it's also a little for my ego.  It's for the Facebook comments and emails.  It's for the people in Laverne who stop me and tell me they enjoy it and can relate.  It's for me.

But I don't think to post about the crap stuff.  I don't tell you about the afternoons that I ignore the crying/fighting/whining because I'm reading Fifty Shades.  I don't tell you about the cereal-for-supper nights.  I don't tell you that your dad and I sometimes sit in the same room, each on our phones, don't speak, and then go to bed at different times...still not speaking.  Not because we are mad, because we are just so tired and have nothing to say.  I don't tell you about LOVING that all three of you are in Mother's Day Out now.  I never tell you that the hour that you all nap at the same time is my favorite hour of the day.  I would hate for you to know that I count it a successful day by whether or not I got my to-do list done, not by whether or not I sat and played with you.

But real is real.  My real probably looks a whole lot like your real.  So, please never let this record of events make you feel like I was better at it than you are.  I'm not.  Not even kinda.  

Just so you know how the REAL rest of the day that I took super cool Valentines to school went...

*I realized when I got to school that I hadn't brushed my teeth.

*I spent more money than I should have at Target - on nothing of consequence.

*I locked my keys in the van.  I had to knock on the car door of the hot mom who made me feel bad about myself, the one who was sitting in her new Escalade, looking (and smelling) nice, talking on her phone...and tell her that I was about to lay down under my beast of minivan, would she please not back out and run over my legs.

*I lost my debit card.  (Probably on the ground where I laid down at Target, I am NOT going back.)

*I had to meet the plumber to unclog the nasty, stinking disposal and dishwasher at home.

*I had to show the Orkin man where the mouse droppings had been, where the noises come from...

Yes, I made super cute homemade Valentines to take to school when you were two year olds.  But I think we can agree that real is real.  Mind your own business.  And just keeping telling yourself that the hot mom in the Escalade was probably talking to her therapist, 'cause she has no friends. 

And I do love you best.  I do that better than anybody.

-Momma

Who Are These People: Lauren

My Lu.  LuBear.  LuLuMagoo.  Warlen.

A sweeter, more sensitive child I do not know.  She is a lover.  She is bashful.  She the Yin to that other one's Yang.

She is dutchy.  Like serious-style.  Sometimes I try to convince myself that she's speaking in that hoped for 'twin language', but if she is, Kate doesn't understand her dialect.  Every once in a while, she'll pop out a sentence that is as plain and clear that anyone who heard me say she was Dutchy, would roll their eyes.  Others, baby girl needs an interpreter.  A few words I try to set her up to say:

Orange - aweeenchhhhh

Oklahoma - hOkEmOma

Jackapoo - just a sweeter version of how you'd say it

She gets so excited about things.  Big eyes, O shaped mouth, palms up, shock and awe.

She has lots of tricks - she jumps from everything, she climbs up on anything, she does jumping jacks and somersaults.  And before she does, she always says, "Watch!" about 49 times.

She is such a lover.  She likes to play with big kids and adults who will hold her.  She still loves to be wrapped and held like a baby.  One of her latest tactics to get us to snuggle her is to say either, "I tired" or "I cold" when she is neither, she just knows that those things involve snuggling.

They've got my number at bedtime.  They are both weaned off of their pacifiers (suckers)...just for the last two weeks, I'm weak.  But instead of taking away one thing to think of at bedtime, it has been replaced with about 14 others.  Now, they have to have a drink, and their blankets covering them in a certain order, and their babies and their blankies.  It's ridiculous.  Dan gets irritated with me, because I allow the nonsense, I did however recently put my foot down and say 'no'....when Lauren said she needed her gloves on.

This child is sensitive.  Yell at her, she cowers like a beaten dog.  Yell at anyone around her and she just wilts...and then cries.  Tell her 'no' and mean it - cry.  Slap her hand when she's doing something that could hurt her - cry.  Comfort her sister who is hurt - she cries.  In church, Christmas eve service.  Kate was being a hoodlum and bouncing around.  She caught her chin on the pew in front of us and busted her lip.  She wailed, Pop scooped her up and left the sanctuary.  And then Lauren REALLY wailed.  She was not hurt, she was not feeling sympathy pain, she just needed to know that sissy was ok.  They're such good friends.

The girls don't always do everything together, but they are always together.  Maybe one is playing babies and one is reading a book, but they are backed up to each other.  Maybe one is sitting at the big table for lunch and the other refuses and wants to sit at the kid's table...they'll be together before I get everything on the table and sit down myself.  It doesn't seem to be a power thing.  One does not give in, they just naturally end up together.  This weekend, Kate was down for her nap a little longer than Lauren.  I needed to run to the store, and I thought it would be so fun for Lauren to go - just the two of us.  She was so excited to get her shoes on and get into the car to go shopping!  And then, on our seven minute excursion (we were in Laverne) she asked about or mentioned Sissy 8 times.

She is a little momma.  Where Kate is the bossy one, Lauren is the comforter.  All her babies always are crying.  She has to swaddle them and nurse them (hilarious!) and shhhhh them and rock them.  She works so hard keeping her babies happy.  I love to see and hear familiar things though...bouncing and patting the baby who is resting on her shoulder, kisses that make it 'allll behhhr'.  Presh.

For every characteristic I recognize in Kate, there is one that I am in awe of in Lauren.  She is patient and quiet and reserved and calm.  Her hair lays in soft, beautiful curls right out of bed each morning.  She is lean and strong and  able.  She makes whoever has her feel like she is their girl.  She makes me go a little slower - not because she needs extra help or is slow herself, but because in watching her, I can see that there are times that it's just more fun to slow down and take your time.  She makes me more sensitive - because sometimes it doesn't have to be loud and busy, sometimes quiet and calm gets the job down just as well.  

I'm watching you, little girl.  Be patient, Momma will learn the lesson...

There are no words for just how much....

Momma