Not Favoritism

Early this morning, I got to spend some time rocking the boy. He was awake even earlier than usual and desperately needed, for everyone's sake, to go back to sleep. He was restless and kept sitting up, looking around and then nose diving back to my chest to snuggle for a few minutes. Even though I was sleepy and really wanted that extra 45 minutes sleep before my alarm went off, I buried my face in his hair and breathed deeply of his baby scent each time. I reminded myelf that very soon baby boy would no longer be a baby. That these quiet times were swiftly coming to a close.

Because of the all-to-soon ending of his babyness, I am choosing to talk about my son first. You know, youngest to oldest or something like that. Or maybe not even in that order. Could be that another moment in time will inspire me to write about my middle girl. I'm spontaneous and care-free like that. (stop laughing those of you who know better!)

This is one of my favorite pictures of baby boy. Look at those eyelashes! He is one of the happiest, cutest, most beloved babies you will ever know. Of course he can be grumpy, stubborn (from his dad of course) and now that he is crawling and pulling up, he loves getting his hands on anything in reach.

His sisters adore him, of course. He loves them too, mostly. From a distance, on his own terms, and when the planets are aligned. No, really, he does love them. When he and youngest girl are at the babysitters, the sight of his sister quiets his tears. His two older sisters love putting him in his backyard swing or taking him to their room to play house with him. So far, he doesn't protest being the baby in their game, but give him time.

I can't imagine life without our boy. I can hardly believe there was a time I considered not having a fourth baby. I had a hard time getting up the gumption to go through it all again. Which explains the 4 year difference between youngest girl and baby boy. Life was good; potty training was behind us, sleep was better than it had been for a long time and our home was free of baby clutter. I suppose I was just too selfish to give all that up. Not to mention that the idea of another c-section was very unpleasant.

But, through all that, I knew there was one more child for us. Four was our number. Girl or boy, we wanted to welcome that last spirit into our home. However, even though we were all, "Girl or boy, it doesn't matter," when the ultrasound tech turned her magic wand in just the right spot and 'baby' became 'baby boy' a whole new feeling came over me. A son. My son. Our son. I called him 'son' a lot at first. I felt humbled and awed looking in to his face and thinking, "This is my son."

At times like this morning I still feel the same way. I love you sweet baby boy.

1000 words

I debated on using that picture of the kids or finding another one for our header. Finding another one would have involved changing computers or getting out my external drive and transferring pics onto my laptop. Yes, folks, I have only one cute picture of all 4 kids on my laptop. And yes, it was too much work to do any of the above so I kept that picture for now.

The serious pros for changing the picture is that despite the aching cuteness of the kids, there are other less desirable features of that particular snapshot. Then, thought I, why not embrace the undesirable? Why not show our true selves? Why find a photo that is without blemish? And, more to the truth, is that even possible?

And so, it is with relish that I turn your attention to the picture above whilst I take it apart. Learn about us what you can.

First, breathtakingly cute children, right? First day of school for two oldest. 3rd and 2nd grades! Do I even need to add all the trite "I can't believe how fast they grow!" comments? Littlest girl is almost five and has already claimed that school lunch bottle as her own. Baby boy is nine months old and the center of every one's attention. So, cuteness covered right?

There are empty pots that I could claim had beautiful annuals in them all season long but since school starts in August and not November I doubt you would believe me. So, I didn't get around to planting flowers this year. I blame a trip to Colorado in late June that would have resulted in dead flowers by the time we got home anyway and a cheapness that is bone deep. A cheapness that refused to let me buy flowers that were past their prime at the stores in July. So, to sum up, I was too lazy/busy/cheap to pot flowers this year.

There is a slightly askew stroller carelessly set down after one of a hundred trips to the park, mall, playgroup, sidewalk, etc ad nauseam. We had a busy and happy summer but once we were home we couldn't be bothered with putting the stroller away in the garage. Many times I just threw it in the back of the van in preparation for the next outing, but it found a home there on the porch for the better part of the summer.

Notice the homemade Huskers sign? That's right, we are proud Husker fans. Power of the red and all that. Still hoping that this is the season we make a comeback. Tee's family is from Nebraska and they are as hardcore as it gets. Screaming at the T.V., cussing at the calls, game-watching parties. Especially when they are all together. I will never forget Tee's Mom asking them to keep it down because oldest girl was taking a nap. THAT did not go over well. As for me, I am a Husker alumnus and spent many hours in a tiny graduate student office that overlooked the stadium. Once I heard the roar of the pre-recorded crowd that the football team practiced to, I was hooked. Those were part of the winning years too, 1997-1999. Good times.

There is an overall feeling of not-doneness to the porch, wouldn't you say? Last year, I painted the trim that wonderful rust color that never ever should have been painted over in the first place. (Looking at you previous owners! When you painted over the perfect color for the trim on the house could you have at least not slopped your nasty forest green paint everywhere?) Ahem. On the docket for this year was to paint the white bricks which continue around the garage a nice tan color to tie the house together. But yeah that hasn't happened yet. But! I still get points for painting the trim last year. Did I mention I was pregnant at the time?

The cement needs work or maybe even sandblasted and the patched together corner (previous owners!) of the grow box (again with the no flowers) should really be made more presentable. Oh and don't tell Tee but I keep slowly getting rid of the petrified wood. Ugly ugly stuff, that.

Whew, I think I even learned something about us. Wanna know what I learned? Sure you do. I learned that none of that negative stuff really matters. So our porch isn't perfect, so what? Everyone knows there are much worse living conditions.

What does matter is that we have a peaceful, loving home with happy kids. Funny, energetic and smart kids, too. Not to mention a strong, loving and respect-filled marriage to keep it all together.

Life is very very good.

Well, everyone else was doin' it!

All right, fine! Everyone wants a blog - you'll get a blog. You will get so much blog you won't know what to do with it! You will cringe every time you click on our site chanting, "please no update, please no update" under your breath. But there will inevitably be some inane completely superfluous update that will make you want to poke your eyes out so you won't have to read us anymore.

Okay so none of that is true. What is true is that we will probably go weeks, nay, months without updating and you will eventually delete our link. Then, a year or so later you will wonder whatever happened to us and come back to find that we have moved and left no forwarding address. But you will hear from a friend of a friend's nephew that something kinda cool happened to us but you missed it because you deleted our stinking site!

Consider yourselves warned.