Sunday Night

This is not a picture from today, though I sort of wish it was. It's a picture from Easter Sunday. Margot is enjoying watching the fountain. The Bollman family was staying with us that weekend and that always makes everything better. I really wish this was today because it would mean that I got a do-over for the weeks that came after. I could really use a do-over.

The day before this photo was taken, we found out that some close friends of ours were separating. About a week later the husband of another dear friend just up and left her and her daughter. Then somewhere in there yet another couple, one of whom has a continuing battle with addiction, was thrown into turmoil.. again. While I can't pretend that I have been on the phone day and night with any of these women, I will tell you that my thought life has been preoccupied of late. I think of my friend up the street who I know must be hurting and I am desperate to help, but can't do anything other than let her know I am here to talk if she needs me. My friend whom I met for coffee this week, to whom I can only listen.. and offer no real words of advice.. or wisdom. My friend in the town down the road, whom I love so dearly.. hurting.. and all I can do is listen. Pray and listen, pray and listen. There is never a more useless feeling to me than this. All the while I am trying to leave in the hands of the One who knows how to love these friends best. The One who has all of this under His control, though I won't know what that looks like until He is finished with it. That is never easy either. Waiting to see how God will work in a situation. Waiting to see if He will be glorified by a happy turn of events or a painful outcome. My heart aches despite all my efforts to keep from taking the wounds of my friends as my own. It has been a hard few weeks and it doesn't look to be getting any easier any time soon.

Today I am feeling pretty angry, if I am honest.. and I am so.. yeah.. I am mad. I have no idea why really. I have just been lashing out at Stephen all day. I hate that. I lash out and apologize and lash out and apologize. I feel strangled today. I feel overwhelmed and underpaid today. The pre-K drama rages onward. Having not heard back from the school I thought was a sure thing, I applied for Smart Start but won't know anything from them until August. Also we are applying at Stephen's school.. but we aren't sure how that will go yet. And sense it seems to be a post about complaining and whining.. let me just whine for a moment about our living situation. Living in a HUD house has it's advantages. It's many advantages. Like low rent and great maintenance. But there is the constant pressure to get up and get out. Buy your own home. Take classes on home ownership and tell how you plan to buy your own place some day. Here's the thing.. how do you do that exactly? How do you buy a home when you have no money for a down payment on a mortgage? How do you buy a home when you are well below the state median income.. how do you save enough to buy a home when only one of you works? How do you do this? We are happy here, we feel blessed to be here and we do not want for anything. Yet the pressure is always there in the back of my mind. The time ticking away before we will be ineligible to live in this house and will have to move elsewhere. It seems unfair to force people in low income housing to learn how to buy a house.. if we could buy a house .. wouldn't we be doing just that?! This is an argument I have with myself from time to time and now I am having it on the blog so you all get to enjoy my internal banter. We are happy where we are and just as I get super comfortable with our situation, the time comes for me to renew all the paperwork to keep us living here and my world gets thrown into turmoil. Suddenly I feel guilt for not being out looking for a house to buy.. for not attending home ownership classes as I am being encouraged to do. It gets me all flustered every year and this year that flustered feeling just hasn't gone away yet.

There are other things racing through my mind today but I will spare you, dear interweb. Tomorrow I will get up and  I will get my three little girls ready for the day and we will learn things and laugh and giggle until we get the hiccups. I just know we will.

Is this thing on..

Has it really been that long since I wrote anything on here...? Yes, yes it has. This month has been off the chain crazy ya'll. And right now I am about to crash with my boy on the couch but I just wanted to show the world the lovely face painting (hand painting in Ada's case) that the girls had done at the most fantastical birthday party in the history of birthday parties.. that we went to today. I was never brave enough to get my face painted when I was a kid.. look at Margot! She is as brave as they come. 

And just for fun.. yes.. you can, in fact, fit 3 girls in a bathtub. The smallest girl will think it is the most incredible thing she has ever experienced.. even if she gets to experience it every night for a week. The big girls will also think it's amazing because they are amazing big sisters.. the bond between these three never ceases to amazing Stephen and me.

We love you guys. We are all ok its just been one of those crazy months where the time flies with illness and the like and before you know it .. it's almost time for the man of the house to be out of school and home every day. HURRAH!!!!!!!!!

More sooner than later.

IT WORKED!!!!!!!

THEY SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT LAST NIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Whatever you guys did out there if you love us even a tiny bit you will do it again!!!!!!!! 

Margot woke up around 10:15 and called for me from her bed. A car had just gone by with loud thumping music. I went up there and she was sitting on the edge of her bed snuffling and said she heard a bump-bump sound. I told her it was a loud car, praised her for still staying in her bed and helped her get settled in again with Button and her "puppet" (her soft has developed a hole in the silky part that she can put her finger in and she now calls her soft her puppet). I left the room praying hard that the Lord would calm her spirit and help her to stay put and sure enough.. not another peep until 5:40 this morning. That's right.. THEY ACTUALLY SLEPT IN!!!!!!! Ada woke up around 6 and the light on the clock hadn't turned green yet (I messed it up last night - fixed it this morning) so she was calling for Stephen because it was starting to be light around the edges of her curtains but the clock wasn't green yet. We actually had to convince her to get out of bed!! I know it's just one night but it was such a drastic change from the last few weeks that we are both so encouraged!! Stephen gladly helped the girls celebrate by making pancakes and bacon for breakfast. 

Here's hoping it happens again tonight. Behold the power of chocolate.. or the loss thereof. 

Sleep

This is how the girls sleep. Margot in matching long jammies with mismatched socks (yes, that is intentional) and Ada in her skivvies. Bright eyed and bushy tailed from another blissfully restful night of slumber.  Here they are enjoying some time with Daddy this past Saturday morning.. or as we refer to it in our home "Chocolate Waffle Day". 

Now, go out and drink 5 double espressos, run 13.7 miles and work an eight hour shift in a wine glass storage facility that employs 13 year old boys who play basketball around the merchandise on their Doritos breaks. Tired? Anxious? Are you so tired you could sleep backstage at a Rage Against the Machine concert without a pillow? Are you so anxious you could adios an entire bottle of Xanax? Aight then. This is how Mommy and Daddy sleep. This month makes the 15th month since we attempted potty training the twins and subsequently caused them to wake during the night over and over and over and over..and over again. Our babies who were the greatest sleepers around just vanished (POOF!!!!!!) in a puff of smoke. We have been down this road before on this blog.. I am too tired to even talk about all the things we have tried to do to "fix".."solve" (?) this problem.  A few months back we reached a mutual understanding. We would set up pallets on the floor of our room every night before we went to bed. At some point during the night they would wake up and come sleep on said pallets. They didn't disturb us, we didn't have to deal with them. It wasn't ideal but it was something we were willing to put up with until this phase was over. Then it all went south again. Now we are having to deal with waking children at 9:30 and 10 at night. They wake up and sneak downstairs, sniffling on the stairs to get our attention. One of us will coax them back to bed .. and the other starts turning out lights and preparing to turn in for the night.. because.. they never, EVER stay put. In frustration we have stopped movies early, and gone to bed, wide awake mind you, so that our offspring could run into our room and lay on the floor and sleep. We have returned from date nights to find both of them up and had to go straight to bed rather than fight with them to stay in bed. This has gone on for the last 3 or 4 weeks. No more. We are tired. We are irritable. We can't get more than 2 hours IN THE ENTIRE DAY to ourselves.. and by that I mean me really. They get up at 5:15am.. they don't nap.. and then they won't stay in their own beds after 9:30. WTF people!? (don't look that up if you don't already know what it stands for..you will be disappointed in me) Do you know how hard it is to spend time with your spouse/best friend/ lover (Ah-HEM!) when the kids could walk in at any moment ? Gettin' old. Gettin' real old, real fast. Actually it's been old.. none of that even makes any sense but I am too tired to use the delete button! See?!?!? 

Latest strategy. If they don't stay in their beds at night.. they lose all desserts the next day. They each have an entire bag of Easter candy they collected from an egg hunt last weekend.. incentive? It was for Ada. She made it the whole night last night without a problem. Margot did not. This is her second day in a row with no desserts and man has it been a doozy. Praying like everything that she will make it through tonight. 

So.... if I have been absent the last few weeks I hope you will forgive me. I have been unwilling to sacrifice the few precious moments I have in my day to the internets. Crossing my fingers that soon this will all be a distant memory. Cross your fingers with us will you? Or pray, or light a candle, or both or all three. Yup. Thanks.