Videos

Sunday night we watched a short video, "Room on the Broom." It was a kind, gentle video.  The whole family shared the couch, and Johanna spent much of the time sitting and wiggling and squirming on my lap.  I love cuddling with her so much.  She's so much fun to tickle!  I love hearing her laugh. 

Last night we watched an early episode of The Cosby Show.  (Rudy's fish died and Cliff made up a funeral in the bathroom.)  William and Evie and Mirjam and I laughed at all the jokes, and little Rudy reminded me of our little Johanna -- clever and funny and precocious. 

It's fun to spend good time together as a family.  I like it better than shuttling kids around to busy activities, which seem to take up too much time away from our family time. 

Springtime

Yesterday everything was melting.  It was almost 60 degrees outside.  When I came home after work, the kids were playing in the backyard.  I walked around the yard, picking up trash.  We all sloshed around on the ice rink, which was quickly turning into a pond.  Johanna helped me take down the last of the Easter eggs that had been hanging in the front crabapple tree all winter.  William and I played catch with a baseball and glove, while Evie rode around on her bike, and Johanna went scootering for the first time on Evie's old Razor scooter.  Mirjam threw a couple snowballs at William and me, and then we all went inside for dinner. 

It was a beautiful evening, with the sun setting later and no activities to worry about, and the squishy grass everywhere, no longer covered with snow. 

Pure love and kindness

Last week I had a couple of very stressful days, feeling heavily weighed down by the burdens of things at work, at church, and decisions we had to make at home.  One night at bedtime, the whole family was in the kids' room to read and pray.  I was sitting in the black IKEA lounge chair with the Bible on my lap, waiting for it to be my turn to read a couple pages from the Old Testament as the kids fall asleep. 

I felt very down, and I must have looked it, too, because when Evie saw me, she got up from her bed and without saying anything just walked over to my chair and gave me a big hug.  It was exactly what I needed, and she knew exactly how to help. 

She is one of the kindest, most inclusive, and most caring and loving people I know, and she's only 6.  I'm truly blessed to have her as my little girl. 

Speaking clearly now

Yesterday Johanna was playing with the big Cinderella puzzle on the carpet and I peeked into her diaper to check for something.  I tried to discreetly pull the backside of her blue cloth diaper, which I had done many times before.  But this time, her response was clear:  "Hey, no lookit my poopy!" 

It was unmistakable.  She knew exactly what she was talking about.  I couldn't help but laugh.  :)

Trying to have good days

Sometimes I get frustrated and upset.  I don't want to, and I try not to.  But sometimes it happens. 

I love my kids, and I only want the best for them.  I don't want them to feel scared or hurt, especially because of me, and if I've ever caused them to feel scared or hurt, I am truly, deeply sorry.  My job is to protect them, teach them, guide them, train them, and give them what they need to be smart, safe, and spiritually prepared. 

I'm not perfect at any of this.  I make mistakes, sometimes the same ones, sometimes over and over again.  But I try to fix what I break, and sometimes that means I have to fix things over and over again. 

I don't do everything right every day, which is why I'm so grateful to have so many days to try again.  Some days are better than others.  Some days are a step backward, some are a step forward.  

What counts is that I keep trying, and that I don't give up trying. I thank God for his graciously giving me so many days in the past, and I hope to have many more days to come.  I'll probably need every last one of them. 


All I want is peace, calm, love, and fairness in our family.  Sometimes I get upset when any of that is upset.  Sometimes I let it show, sometimes I have better control over myself than that.  I just want my kids to know I love them.  More than anything, I want them to know I love them.  And I want them to love each other, and hopefully, to love me back.  

"Exactly What I Wanted"

Monday night at the end of Evie's birthday, as she was getting into bed, without prompting, she smiled and gently said "Thank you for my birthday -- everything was exactly what I wanted."  It was so perfect and satisfying to hear her say that.

Rewind 18 hours.  I drove to Cub after midnight to get a balloon, ice cream, and a box of Lucky Charms for her (she wanted her own box, and it's once a year so why not).  I stayed up another couple hours fixing up her "new" bike.  I yanked and tugged and pulled the old tubes and worn out white tires off the green and white and purple bike, and replaced them with the not-as-old tubes from the red bike and the brand new white tires I bought.  It looked like a regular bike shop in our living room, with parts and tools and two undone bikes scattered around.  I wiped down the frame, pushed the white tassles into each handle grip, fastened the basket to the front, and stood it next to the kitchen table.

Mirjam had already arranged the other presents on the table.  Around 7 a.m., Mirjam woke Evie and William up, covered her eyes before she saw everything, then woke me up.  We went together to the kitchen table (Mirjam's hand still over Evie's eyes), and then came the big reveal.  Mirjam and William sang happy birthday (I kind of hummed along, still half-asleep.)  Evie stood there beaming before she started opening the gift bags and wrapped packages.

She got a new light blue swimsuit with little white flowers (which she loved and tried on right away), a new pink nightdress (which she loved and wore to bed that night), a pink piggy bank with (when she opened it, she said with excitement, "It has a tutuuu?!" touching the frill on its back and the tiara on its head), new stencil books from Oma und Opa in Germany, money for the piggy bank and a towel from Gma and Gpa in Utah, the bike, the Lucky Charms, and other stuff I can't remember.

That night for dinner, Evie chose the restaurant -- she wanted to go to Burger King with the play place.  Sounded fine to me.  We got kids meals for William and Evie (and she got to have Sprite!), chicken for Johanna, and a Whopper Jr. for me.  They climbed up and down, played with their kids-meal toys, and we went home and had Sprite floats with the ice cream I bought late the night before.

It wasn't overwhelming or overdone, it wasn't a ton of junk, it was just perfect.  Nice and simple and our family together.  And as Evie said, everything was exactly what she wanted.

School bus

The last two years, William has gone to the elementary school just a mile from our house. Because it was so close, we usually dropped him off in the car. A few times he and I rode our bikes together to his school in the morning, on the bike path around the park. (I'm going to miss doing that with him.) But he's always wanted to ride on the school bus like the other kids.

Two weeks ago we found out that Evie was accepted into Kindergarten at a new charter school, but William was on the waiting list. Evie was so excited to go on the bus, she got up before 6 a.m. to catch it. She loves going to her new school. Meanwhile, I've been driving William 45 minutes to a day camp every morning, which he's been having fun at while he waits for his school year to start.

We've begged, prayed, and waited in hopes that William and Evie could both go to the same school together, somewhere, anywhere. (Evie was accepted into two schools, where William was not. And at William's normal school, Evie was not. It's been a crazy couple weeks.)

Then late last night I got an email from the charter school that let us know William was in, too. I told him the news this morning, and he quickly got a gentle smile on his face that turned into a big grin and he genuinely and innocently and calmly said "Yippee! Now I get to ride the bus!" I don't think I've ever seen him so happy.

Tootsie Roll

This morning as I was putting my lunch together in my little Igloo portable cooler, Evie hopped up on her tip-toes a couple times to see inside. Then she ran around to the other side of the counter and said, "I'll give you a treat for your lunch!" She grabbed her bag of candy from the parade the night before and picked out a little Tootsie Roll for me and dropped it into the cooler (I'm eating it now), and I thanked her and gave her a big hug. It was the perfect treat.

Evie has an inherent generosity and love bigger than anyone I know. She loves sugar -- I often have to make her stop eating large amounts of whatever sweet thing she has (she inherited my sweet-tooth, which I got from my dad) -- but she willingly shared her candy with me, no prompting at all.

Mirjam has told me that when she plays with our friend's autistic daughters, sometimes she'll get pinched, bitten, pushed, squeezed, or have her hair pulled, but her response is not crying or fear. She grimaces and laughs as best she can while telling the other girl, "That's enough" in a very kind, motherly way.

(William, too, is very generous with the other kids. It's uncanny how well they all play together.)

It's incredible to me how loving and generous Evie is. It is truly a gift to have such an enormous heart like that. And she is truly a gift to me and our family.