The Most Precious Conversation I Have Ever Had

On the way home from daycare tonight...

I color-coded the names for ease of reading.

Anna: "Jesus' birthday is coming!"
Me: "Yes it is, Anna!"
Anna: "I've been trying to figure out what to get Jesus for His birthday."
Me: "Uh...yeah?  What do you think He wants?"
Anna: "I don't know!  I've been thinking about it."
Me: "Huh."
Anna: "Maybe I'll wrap up this candy cane from my sleigh!*"
Me: "Ok!  How are you going to wrap it?"
Anna: "I'll put it in a box and wrap it up!"
Me: "Ok...then what are you going to do?"
Anna: "I'll keep it till I get to heaven and give it to Him!"
Me: "Well ok then!  Where should we keep it in the meantime?"
Anna: "Up on the white shelf."
Me: "Are you going to make one every year?  There's going to be a lot of boxes."
Joshua (the know-it-all): "You know, He can hear you right now!"
Anna (still on the arrangements): "Maybe we can set it out and maybe Jesus will open it."
Me: "Will you be there when He does?"
Anna: "Well, maybe He will open it at night!  And I'll set one out every year!"
Joshua (louder this time): "HE CAN HEAR YOU HE IS EVERYWHERE!"
Matthew: "Jesus is not here!"
Me: "Sure He is, Matthew!"
Joshua: "Jesus is EVERYWHERE!"
Matthew: "He's EVERYWHERE?!"
Joshua: "So how is it going to be a surprise?  He knows what you're saying right now!"
Anna (distressed): "Oh no!  I want it to be a surprise!  How can I make it a surprise?"
Me (perhaps playing with theology a bit, but what can one do?): "Umm, maybe we can ask him not to look?"
Anna: "Yeah, we can do that!"
Joshua: "But He HAS to look!"
Anna: "No, that's what we'll do!  We'll ask Him not to look while I wrap up His present."  

I. Love. My. Children. 

*They received candy sleighs from their daycare today.  They included candy canes glued to a big candy bar.

Christmas 2012

Things Overheard at Our House...Christmas-Style

"IT'S A CHRISTMAS TREE!!" - Matthew

"Every Christmas tree needs a penguin!" - Anna

Mommy: "Did we find all the pieces to the Nativity set?"
Joshua: "We have some shepherds, a piece of Wise Man, and no Baby Jesus."

"PICKLE TIME!  PICKLE TIME!  PICKLE TIME!" - Matthew

Daddy: "Matthew, do you know why you had a time-out?"
Matthew: "You and Mommy told me to stop saying pickle time."

"You know what would be a good topper?  Joshua, go get your Mets hat!" - Daddy

"Hey!  Maybe there's gonna be a PINATA for Christmas!" - Joshua

"I think maybe Baby Jesus needs a haircut." - Anna

Storytime

The kids wanted to tell stories at dinner tonight...

Anna: 
One time there was a prince and a princess.  She was so lost that her mom couldn’t find her.  And then, a fairy princess came.  And then a fairy godmother came.  The fairy godmother waved her wand and and sent her to Dinosaurville.  One day, in Dinosaurville, there was mean dinosaurs, and then there was a nice little dinosaur named Timmy and he gave her ride through the corn and there was a scarecrow.  And that little girl was named Anna.  And they came back to her mom.  And then they lived happily ever after.  The end.  That’s the whole story.  

Joshua:
One day there was a dinosaur named Joshua.  The dinosaur went to a giant chicken, and it was named Daddy.  And then the water buffalo Anna went to the dinosaur named Joshua and then Joshua stomped on the big giant chicken Daddy.  And the water buffalo named Anna went to meet the dinosaur Joshua.  And then the dinosaur said “where’s the giant chicken Daddy?  Uh, he’s under me,” the dinosaur said.  And the giant chicken Daddy went under the dinosaur foot and got the water buffalo out.  And they all lived happily ever after.  The End.

Matthew:
There was a snowman named Dad. Then there was a big peanut butter throwing snow. The snowman named Dad smashed the big peanut butter.  The end.

Dinner Table Talk

The following are snippets of conversation  from our family dinner tonight...


Anna: "I had a dream last night that Daddy took us out for ice cream and got Matthew some and Joshua and I didn't get any!"
Matthew: "Yeah!  Me too!"
Anna: "No, Matthew, you got ice cream, Joshua and I didn't get any"
Joshua: "WHEN?!"

***

Joshua: "Once upon a time, there was a video camera that got eaten by a chicken."

***

Daddy: "So if there's a fire, you get out of the house and go to the ramp."
Joshua: "And I grab my toys on the way out!"
Daddy: "NO, you just get out, do NOT stop for your toys!"
Anna: "What if I'm holding my toys when there's a fire?  Can I take them with me?"
Daddy: "Yes, if you're holding them, you can take them with you."
Anna: "What if I drop them?"
Daddy: "Then don't pick them up."
Matthew (suddenly grabbing Daddy's neck): "I DON'T WANNA BURN MY LITTLE FINGER!"

***

Matthew suddenly grabbed my head and pulled it towards his. I said "Matthew, what are you doing?"  He paused for a moment and then answered "I don't know!"

***

Anna: "What if there's a fire and you guys are gone somewhere like...Colorado?"
Mommy: "Why are we in Colorado?"
Daddy: "And why did we leave the children by themselves?"
(We might point out that we have never been in Colorado during the entire course of our marriage or Anna's lifetime.)

It is never, ever dull around here.

Stories Told 'Round the Dinner Table Tonight

All three kids wanted to tell a story tonight.  These are the stories they told when it was their turn.  

Anna:

"Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess named Anna.  Then there was a big mean water buffalo named Joshua that hit the princess.  Then there was a chicken named Matthew who kissed it and put a band-aid on it.  The water buffalo went to jail and the princess and the chicken lived happily ever after ever on a cupcake.  The end."

Joshua:
"The water buffalo named me ate the Princess Anna, and the cereal chicken named Matthew punched the King Daddy.  The Queen Mommy ran, and the Princess was alive again.  The Queen Mommy ran to eat the Princess Anna again.  And the Princess came alive again and the Cereal Chicken Matthew kissed the beautiful princess and the Princess was like 'oh, that's so cute, Cereal Chicken.' And the Cereal Chicken kicked the beautiful Princess even though he liked her because she wanted to be flying so she can pray to God while she's flying.  And then the Princess kicked a piggy bank and the piggy bank goes like 'OH I AM SO MAD AT YOU.'  The end!"


Matthew:
"Can I have another muffin?"

Tales From Potty Training

Warning: this entry talks a lot about bodily functions.  I type the word poop far more often that I have ever desired to.

We are in the throes of potty training Child #3 at the moment.  Matthew is 2 1/2 and is right in the middle of the process.  I should mention here that I hate, hate, HATE potty training.  You gotta do it, they gotta learn it, but man, it is SO FRUSTRATING.  Two steps forward and one step back, over and over and over again.  In the grand scheme of childhood, it really doesn't last very long, but in the moment, it feels like you will be rinsing out poopy underwear for the REST OF YOUR LIFE.

True to form, each one of the children has approached the process in a unique way.  Joshua was very methodical.  We set up a reward chart with stickers and trips to the Dollar Tree and all the trimmings.  He liked the process and he liked staying clean.  What he did NOT like was "being stinky" - that is, going poop in the potty.  He would wait every night till we put his nighttime diaper on him to do that business.  It was frustrating, but he eventually broke free of that.  The last hurdle was overnights, and that took him quite a while - into his kindergarten year.  (Someday, he will hate that this is published.)  He has finally arrived at the point of bathroom independence, and we couldn't be happier.

Anna, of course, had no method to her madness.  She was all over the place.  She took forever to get trained just because we couldn't quite nail down her pattern - being Anna, her typical pattern was no pattern at all.  She eventually figured it out, and oddly enough, she got the nighttime thing a whole lot faster - she just started Pre-K, but she is completely diaper free.  Who-hoo!

And then there is Matthew.

This brings us to our story of the night.

Matthew, the laid back one, really just can't care less what is in his pants.  He's doing all right with the #1 process, although the adult in charge generally has to be the initiator and take him every hour.  The problem lies in the #2 area.  Unlike Joshua, who hated being dirty, and Anna, who would often cry at her perceived "failure," Matthew has absolutely no problem just going ahead and doing his business right in his pants.  Not only that, he usually won't get around to telling us about the problem - we have to discover it on our own.  After all, no skin off his nose, or any other part of him, for that matter.

So tonight I discovered that he had, once again, used his underwear as his own personal toilet, and I hauled him into the bathroom for the cleanup and post-poop analysis.  Sean followed us in for support.

"Matthew," he said in his best Daddy voice, "where do we go pee and poop?"
"In the big boy potty," Matthew said happily.
(At this point I had to start coughing to cover up the laughter because, dangit, he's just so cute.)

"Yes Matthew," I chimed in "and did you make a good choice or a bad choice?"

"Bad choice," he answered nonchalantly.

"Matthew," Daddy continued, "we want you to make the good choice.  It makes us sad when you choose to poop in your big boy pants."

At which point Matthew answered:

"But it makes ME happy!"

At which point I had to dive behind the shower curtain to hide the fact that I was busting a gut trying not to laugh.

Matthew started giggling.  He thought the whole thing was hilarious.

Daddy hung his head in dispair.

We'll get there...I know we will...in time...

Just not tonight!  

Where's Matthew?

Mommyhood is a fun place.  Many, many humorous things happen.  Obviously, this blog is evidence of that fact.  Hilarity ensues all around us.

However, then there are those times that are not at all funny.  There are those times that make your heart stop beating for just a moment and fill you with fear and shame and terror all at the same time to degrees unfathomable before the arrival of children.

Tonight was one of those nights.

I was making dinner while Sean took the kids outside to play.  When I started to set the table, I hollered out back for everyone to come in and wash up.  A few moments later, Joshua came bounding in, jabbering away about school and this and that.  Anna came in shortly after having some sort of emotional crisis - I honestly don't remember what it was, she is at the age where everything is DRAMA.  While I was talking to her in the living room, Sean appeared in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen.  We chatted back and forth for a few minutes about dinner and whatnot.  Then came the words that stopped us in our tracks:

Sean asked "Where's Matthew?"

I stared back at him and said "I haven't seen him, what do you mean, where is he?"

Sean replied, "No, I sent him in with Anna."

I answered back, "I have not seen him, I thought he was in the kitchen behind you."

A split second that lasted a lifetime passed between us as we realized that, at that moment, we had no idea where our two-year-old son was.  

This was bad enough in itself, but our panic was enhanced by three specific facts:
1. We live on one of the busiest streets in our town.
2. Our "driveway" is actually a parking lot shared with a grocery store.
3. Our house backs up to an alley through which people regularly shoot in and out without looking where they are going.

Sean immediately shot out the back door, while I was at the front door in two strides.  Anna and Joshua, sensing the urgency of the moment, followed their father.  As I gripped the front door handle, I heard a sound that simultaneously brought both senses of relief and horror - the unmistakable sound of a toddler sobbing in fear.

I wrenched the door open and, sure enough, there was Matthew, his little tear-stained face staring up at me with an expression I never want to see again.

As I scooped him up, he clung to me, and cried out in between sobs: "You YEFT me!" (Translation: "You LEFT me!")

I brought him in the house, shouting to the others that he had been found.  Sean came bounding over, absolutely grief-stricken.  Matthew looked up and him and cried out, hiccupping with sobs "YOU DIDN'T COME BACK FOR ME!"

Through the cries and the soothing, we pieced together what had happened.  Sean told Anna and Matthew to go inside and, thinking that they had, turned around to pick up the toys.  Matthew waited for his daddy, but then Daddy, thinking Matthew was already inside, headed in without him, leaving the little guy in the yard by himself, wondering what to do next.

We held Matthew together until he got squirmy and asked if he could go eat dinner now.  Then Sean and I had to hold and soothe each other.  (If you think of it, pray for my husband - he feels totally guilty about the whole thing, and I don't want it to haunt him.)

So...not our finest moment of parenting.  I still shake a little thinking back on it, but writing about it is therapeutic, and it gives me the chance to reflect back and think so, God...what do you want me to see?

(Besides the obvious - always know where your toddler is!)

As I look back on it, I marvel on how my daily prayers for protection for my children are answered.  This was just an incident I know about - what about all those times I won't know about, this side of heaven?  Dangers face our children each and every day.  Sometimes they are from our own mistakes, and sometimes they are just part of the world in which we live.  I remember the first day I was home alone with Joshua as an infant - I literally froze in fear on my bed holding him, and we sat there for two hours while I thought of every horror that could come to him.  It about did me in right then and there - and I only had one child!

Our children are not our own.  They belong to God first and foremost.  We can create the safest, most nurturing environment imaginable - one in which our toddler would NEVER be accidently left outside - and still, trouble can befall us.  And the fact is...we are not perfect.  Accidents happen.  We think our child is one place when he is in another.  We forget to buckle their seatbelts or hold their hand while crossing the street.

We also cannot shield them from all fear.  I never want to see that kind of fear on the face of any of my children ever again.  But I can't promise that won't happen.  I can't make it not happen.  The truth is, they will feel fear and pain in this world.  I can't keep them from it.

So - what do we do?  Do we stay paralyzed on the bed, refusing to move with our infants in our arms, hoping to keep them from all harm?

No.

We slowly crawl off the edge of the bed and walk around the house.  We let them crawl on the floor.  We take them outside to play and let them run and learn and grow.

And how do we do that without gasping in fear for their lives?

We learn to let go and give it to God.

I do not know how any mother gets through a single moment of their day without having a trust in God.  I really do not know how that could be possible.  The only reason I am able to get up in the morning and breathe through my day is that I trust that, no matter what happens, ultimately God has my family in the palm of His hand, and there is no safer place to be.  No matter what terror may come, no matter what horror befalls our family, God's way is the best way, and I have to trust Him utterly with the lives of my children, or else I can't move.  I'd be sick every day, worrying that something would happen.  I'd lock the door and hold them in and never let them out into the world to fulfill the priceless destinies they have.

I choose to trust in the Lord my God and His plans for my children.  He gave them as gifts to me and my husband - and we choose to surrender them back to Him.  This does not guarantee nothing bad will ever happen to them.  It doesn't even guarantee that we will never make a mistake again.  But it does guarantee that, no matter what, my God has my children in the palm of His hands.  There is no better place in any world for them.

I choose to lay down my claim to their lives and trust in God alone for their safety.

And finally, I choose to leave this blog and go curl up with my two-year-old, who is at this moment safely snuggled in my bed next to his daddy - a daddy I would not trade for all the daddies in the world.  I choose to curl up by his side, kiss his face, smell his sleep-scent, and go to sleep, thanking God that I get the privilege of being Matthew's Mom for one more day.

It's more than I could ever hope to ask for.

Where's Matthew?

He's in the arms of His Heavenly Father, and I would have it no other way.