Merging, or Starting Fresh with Five?

 People in Winnipeg don't know how to merge.  There are only a few places in the entire city where it is necessary, since Winnipeg doesn't have any freeways.  And still, I expect people to get it: If you drive the speed of traffic, that gap is big enough for your vehicle!!  If you sit on the side of the road waiting for a gap at a total standstill, you will never find your opening....and I will be here, stuck behind you (stupid head).

I learned how to merge by necessity.  Bakersfield was a 20 minute freeway's ride away from Shafter, and Bakersfield was where the interesting stuff was happening (don't get me wrong - Shafter's volleyball in Mannel Park, and yearly 4th of July Parade were pretty darn fun, but Bakersfield had a movie theatre!).  If we wanted to get to the FUN, we learned how to merge early in our driving careers.

In relationships, merging is much more complicated because you can, and have to, expect the other drivers to take you into consideration.  It's not just about speeding up and jumping in.  Sometimes you just don't click.  And sometimes you spend so much time looking around at everyone else that you forget what you're supposed to be doing!

Our family is in the middle of merging.  It's pretty distracting, and sometimes difficult...for some of us.  Seamus has no trouble at all loving the newest member of our family.  He just adores the idea of having a baby around to kiss and hold.  Luke is pretty worried what another little brother is going to do to his lego projects, or his complicated maze of train tracks.  Derek has to schedule ten minutes into his lunch time just for saying good-bye to all the little ones.  And I somehow have to work a fourth person into my sleep schedule, my homeschool schedule, my menu planning and laundry...not to mention the current difficulties I have in just walking and sitting and sleeping while pregnant.

I've been using this metaphor of merging as I think about baby #3, and then I found this painting.  I painted it in November 2007.  Everyone on my Christmas list was in the middle of some "New Start", and I was considering painting each of them a unique symbol to represent a new phase of their life.  Kathy had a new baby, Amanda was pregnant, I was pregnant, Sarah just moved to Fresno, Mom had an empty nest, Dad was doing something just for fun (for maybe the first time EVER), Melissa was considering a big move...



Maybe this metaphor is more helpful in considering our family life with baby #3:  A new start.  It's not exactly that this baby has to jump in our busy lives.  It's that we all have to pull the car over to let in a new passenger, and start down the road again - start fresh - with Five.
 

35 Weeks

Kids say...

 

It was 45 F yesterday, so we had to take advantage of it and play outside!

making volcanoes!

One of my favorite corners of my home:  Plain Ol' Grammy, tiny vases from POG, a bird from Kathy, a vase from Amanda, and lego wheels...framing my favorite view: boys outside.

Seamus:

My dice are running down the hallway, and so am I!

Can I have more smarsh-mallows?

I don't want to go to bed, I just want to sleep in my bed.

(after being scolded) You're so pretty, Mommy....just SO pretty.

In six days, when the baby comes, he's going to be so key-ute.


Luke: 

I called Dad so loud that he could hear me as clear as morning!

(crying) You ALWAYS make me learn things!

I found out I liked those carrots in my chewing process.

There was an excess of apples.  So I ate them.

Mom!!  My brother is doing stuff he shouldn't be doing....like eating stuff!

Luke Says, Seamus Says.

 We have a guest for a few days: J'Mark!  He's a really popular guy in our house because he does excellent animal imitations, plays rock, paper, scissors indefinitely, reads books with all the voices, and tosses giggling little boys up in the air, or holds them "up-see-down" (Seamus says) if they're really naughty.

My favorite part of having one of my favorite people in the whole world here for a few days (besides having an awesome role model of someone who helps clear the table after meals), was having an inspirational artist to teach Luke his art lesson this morning.  How special to get a lesson in drawing expressive forms and faces from J'Mark!!  Of course we ended up using a Ninja Turtle as a model...because it's John-Mark, after all.

I should note that this is a turtle John-Mark drew very simply so that Luke could follow his directions.

Seamus says

I like the dump-o-wings with sass-kup (translation:  I like the dumplings with ketchup).

Daddy drives his hat around on his truck (referring to the WBS decal).

We love one 'chother.

Let's read Cutie and the Beast!

You're so smart, Mom.  You're just a smart guy.

(to Elaine, at church)  You gotta take your sandal off and SMACK! the scorpions, okay?

Luke says

Finders keepers, losers leapers!

Our neighbor has orange hair with a crack in the middle.

me: Remind me to wash your jacket tonight, Luke.
L: Okay, but only if I remember.

J'Mark!  I'm dead!  Come check in my pockets to see if there's anything good.

Wherever we Are

According to my yoga training I am supposed to attempt to be present in this moment.  I am supposed to take advantage of this moment by acknowledging it, appreciating it, being grateful for it.  Today is one of those days filled with moments I'd rather forget.  Moments when I lost my cool, or when my kids lost their cool, or when I felt so sick and tired I could hardly have gotten out of bed if it weren't for the one kid shouting about how the other kid just threw all the bath towels in the bath tub full of water...

How should I appreciate these terrifyingly disgustingly disturbing moments?

Like when you go outside to check on the dinner you've been planning and marinating for days, made special for company, only to find the BBQ appears to have (at some unnoticed point in the last half hour) been engulfed in flames and totally given up the ghost....dinner a burnt offering to the apparently vengeful BBQ god.

Or like when you're in the middle of shouting at your kid that if they had started practicing piano fifteen minutes ago instead of farting around they could have been done by now and they choose that moment to fall off the piano bench and hit their head with a sickening crunch on the floor?

Or like when your kid is begging and nagging and hounding you to let them eat more Halloween candy and you find yourself manipulating their naive enthusiasm to bribe them into doing something they should have done without being asked?

Or like when you haven't slept through the night in weeks and your kid is downstairs crying your name and you actually find yourself thinking, "Maybe I can pretend I don't hear him"...and you sort of hate yourself.

Oh Lord.  What I come to see after writing it all out (and crying to my mother-in-law over a cup of tea), is that I am thankful the kid didn't drown in the tub instead of the towels.  I am thankful the house didn't catch fire when the BBQ exploded.  I am thankful the head smashing didn't require a visit to the ER.  I am thankful that no matter how manipulative I am, my children still seem to know that I love them and I am so thankful I am not the only adult influencing their growth process.  I am thankful for the little boy who comes stomping up the stairs shouting, "I'm awake!!" after naptime and wants, before anything else, to give his baby brother a hug (yes, the baby in my belly).

I am thankful, but it is so hard to see past my anger and anxiety sometimes.  It is so hard to see past the blame and guilt I cast on myself, to the beautiful, forgiving, loving-ness my family and friends cast on me.  But it is there.

I learn again and again that, wherever we are - this moment or the next or next week or next year - I can find something for which to be thankful...even if it's only, "Whew, that could have been a lot worse".

Them Dreads

There is a man in Winnipeg who has made and maintained African and Caucasian dreadlocks in his hair studio for over 25 years.  Tomorrow I am going to go see him for a consultation.  Then I will (hopefully!) make an appointment to have my dreads professionally maintained sometime before the baby is due, so that I have hands-free dreads when baby comes along and needs all my hands.

I started my dreads when Steven and Grammy died in quick succession, this Spring.  They are now nearly 8 months old.  That's how people talk about their dreads.  They talk about "how old" they are, and they recognize them as individuals so the hair is no longer singular "Hair", but plural and personified, "Them".  I have begun to do the same.  This hair of mine has developed a lot of personality in the last eight months.  And while it has made me a few new friends, some very close acquaintances don't quite know what to do with "Them" (ahem, husband).  Still, it seems most people are 100% on board when I tell them my dreads are in memory of Steven and of Grammy.  I tell them these dreads of mine are an outward symbol of my inner, tangled mess of grief.  Then people nod and smile and give me the thumbs up.  Most likely because they're 100% certain by now that I'm a lunatic and their personal safety is in question.  To be fair, some of them legitimately get it.

The last few months with my dreads have been particularly trying.  They don't seem to be locking up as fast as I'd like.  They don't look nice, they're frizzy and static-y and most days I put them under a scarf just to feel like a human under this mop.  I don't really know what I'm doing with them, I don't know how to "maintain" them.  I don't know what they're supposed to be looking like as they mature.  And I begin to wonder if I've jumped into the deep end without a life preserver...typical me.

So I talked to Rob on the phone this morning and he says, "Aw, I know exactly where you're at, and I know exactly what you need.  Come see me and we'll talk, I'll give you the tricks of the trade, and you pay me whatever you can manage after I've worked on your dreads and got you set up."  A window opens!  Light pours in!  I want to cry and sob to Rob, "Make me pretty!!"  And I want to sob to Derek, "Think I'm pretty!!"  And I'm so tired I could literally lay down and cry, because I'm sad and life is hard, and people I love have died, and I want grief to resolve itself, and I want my head to be pretty again. 

Danika's Our Excuse for a Boat Ride

Back in September, when the leaves were first starting to turn, we went to visit baby Danika in the NICU.  Since this photo was taken she has left NICU and come home!  She has some future medical treatments that none of us look forward to, but for now she is doing well at home.  And we are so happy to have her nearby.

What we got to do AFTER visiting Danika is just one of the perks of being homeschoolers. We got to go on a river tour of Winnipeg with Grandma Helene and discuss how most large cities are built on or near some sort of water source (after reading the book, Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans).

Both  boys even took turns captaining the ship!  Seamus was hesitant at first, and only wanted a short turn.  Luke would have steered the boat in circles for hours!  His erratic driving made a lot of people laugh (turning sharply towards the bank shouting, "Look at those people on the racing boat!").
  
 

Manitoba Legislature Building

Provencher Bridge

St. Boniface Cathedral

a little more snow

It won't stick around for long, but we decided to be excited about it, and go roll around in the wet wet snow and throw snowballs at one another.  In a few months we'll be praying for green grass again, but for now the snow is a novel thing, and we're going to just have fun and acknowledge that snow can be magical - to see the world transformed by white!