Packing

I totally should be. Packing, that is. But anyone who knows me could predict that is exactly what I'm not doing, and rather doing what I do best (procrastinating). It's not dire yet, and actually, the fact that I'm already this far into THINKING about packing three weeks before we go is entirely promising. But thinking about packing is getting me thinking about going and that leaves me with a whole mess of things to think about. So I'll indulge my procrastination and revel in a quiet house and my husband who is beside me watching some show where men in hard hats keep driving up to major swamps and shaking their heads and I can't really follow it. Anyways. What was I saying? Oh yeah. Packing...going...leaving.

Going is pretty much beside the point. I don't worry about going. I'm excited to go, in fact. I'm excited to be in my house and sleep in my bed and not go to bed every night calculating how many nights I have left before I have to start packing (there it is again) to move to the next bed. I'm excited to see our dog and our friends and count how many chickens Caleb has left (zero is my guess, poor Caleb). I'm excited to see Caleb get back into work and to see what Erogit and Goradit and Nanuk and Marta think of Daisy. I'm excited for Elsa and Ezra to feel secure and to watch them discover their home all over again.

Leaving is actually the point. I don't want to leave. Leaving makes my heart crack in a thousand different places. I don't know how to embrace this part of the life we live--the part where I don't get to be a part of Leah's daily life, watch Nola and Calven grow up with Daisy, hear Isla learn to finish her words, see Kellan run track and Brennan play soccer, laugh as Emma learns to walk and celebrate as Sam turns 5. I don't know how to love the part of my life that measures time in chunks of three years. Do you know how much my four year old grows in three years? She'll be seven. SEVEN. Before we return to the US and most of my family gets to see her again. My throat closes.

So my procrastination is not the only thing being indulged here. You didn't know you were being invited to a pity party tonight, did you? Apologies. I know in the end it's not really about me.

I don't even know how to finish this. There's no clean resolution here. Nothing I can come up with makes it any easier. It's just doing it. It's just leaving.

Thankfully, not yet. Three weeks still.

Kiddo Photos

Check out these gorgeous pictures taken of the kids...beautiful photography done by Christiana Childers Photography.

Christiana Childers Photography http://www.christianachilders.com/

This Blog is Mine

I've felt for awhile like I need to re-work the blog. I really enjoy writing this, about whatever pops into my head, about the nothing-ness and everything-ness that makes up my life as a mom and missionary. I like the times I sit driving in the car or lay in bed and write blog posts in my head (most of which never make it to 'publish post'). It makes me feel, oh I don't know, connected. Like I belong to something a little larger than my own living room.

I started this blog to mainly let family and friends get a glimpse of what life is like for us living in Ethiopia. When we were raising support three years ago, numerous people and churches asked us if we had a blog and I would share this site. Since then, it's kind of made me feel strange about what I write...what people expect to read on a 'missionary' (who, me?) blog. I'm sure much of what I write ISN'T what people expect. And I guess I've decided to let that be okay. I've decided to reclaim this blog--for myself. For my experience as a mother who lives overseas, to write with honesty and with no guilt and to just...write.

So. Please read. If you want to. If you want to just see a little through my eyes. If you don't mind stories about my kids and the things they say and do that probably is only really entertaining to me and to their grandmas. If you don't mind me going on a writing binge and flooding the blog and then disappearing for weeks at a time. If you can put up with all of that, then please, read on.

You Know You're A Mom of Three When...

• You take a cross country flight with only one of the three to attend a funeral and kind of feel like you're on vacation.
• You can successfully nurse a baby, read to one child, put another in timeout, and eat a bowl of ice cream (all at the same time).
• You go through about four different names before you finally hit the one you're meaning to say.
• You haven't slept through the night in about four and a half years (and find it odd that people actually DO sleep through the night).
• You honestly forget the existence of the third child--at least once a day (sorry, Daisy).
• You fully condone bribery as an effective parenting method.
• You can remember every word to the Handy Manny theme song but can't for the life of you remember where you put your car keys.
• You really feel like you're dressing up and looking good when you manage to put mascara on.
• You'll drive on the shoulder rough to 'make the car go gas' just to hear your three year old bust up laughing...and then you'll forget and do it when he's not in the car, and YOU will bust up laughing.
• You feel like if you say "Let's be sweet" one more time today, you might just punch a wall.
• You know, deep inside, that giving them each other is by far the best gift you ever could have given your kids.
• You finally embrace the fact that you are officially a mother...and then it hits you: holy crap, there are three of them!
• You smile at first time mothers a tiny bit condescendingly (for shame!) because you never realized how easy a newborn was until you had a toddler.
• You get all three to bed in the evening and think to yourself, "Man, I could totally do four"--and then 6 am comes around and you have three in your bed and you think to yourself, "Whose stinking idea was it to have three?" Oh yeah. Mine.
• You get those moments...you know those moments...when nothing in the world could be as important as what you're doing in that moment. And everything is okay for another day.

Add your own!

Home

I know many of you have been praying for us and for Caleb's family during the course of his grandfather's illness over the last 10 months. Last night Pa went home. Thank you for your continued prayers. His service will be Thursday.

Boo-Yah

My kids now say "Boo-Yah". This can only mean one thing.

Time to go.