I have not written a thorough update in a while and figured it was time to post some recent family developments. First of all, the boys are doing pretty well. We’ve enjoyed a couple of fast-paced and sometimes stressful but all-together-awesome weekends of having the five kiddos together. My nephews seem to be as excited about moving here this summer as the other three are about having them in our home!

Without going into a very long story, suffice it to say that overnight visits have been removed from the custody papers. This is tremendous, but it has delayed getting the final revisions signed and filed with the Court. We anticipate that they will be in the clerk’s hands by the end of the week. I cannot register the boys for daycare or school until we have the papers, so please pray for expedited processing.

Also, my mom and her hubby are planning to move here! They’ve talked for years about moving to this part of the state after retirement, but he has just been offered a great job, and they’ve even found a house that they love. Not only that, but we’re looking at some houses in the same neighborhood (same school district as we’re in now) to move, also. What a blessing it would be to live just a few blocks away from Nana & Granddad … bike-riding distance! Please pray for all the dominoes to fall into place … houses to sell, houses to buy and the whole process of relocating.

“Check this out,” my oldest said, jutting out his chin and pointing to his jaw line, “I virtually have a beard already going on.” Sure enough, if you look realllllly close and turn your head just-so and the light hits it perfectly, you can see a tiny bit of peach fuzz.

This, coming from the boy who just the other day confided in me that he has a crush on a girl! Oh. My. Gosh. This shouldn’t surprise me, yet it doesn’t help to prepare me. After all, I had a crush on a boy when I was his age … and just a year later, I was climbing the spindly tree in our backyard (not really a climbing tree, per se, but it worked ok as long as I sat verrrry still and the wind wasn’t blowing too hard) and composed poetry with doodled heart borders about the cute boy from my class who lived across the street. (I had a fairly unobstructed view of his tree house from where I sat perched in my writing branch.)

Why does this scare me, then?

Partly, it’s because I don’t want them to get hurt. I remember the sting of unrequited crushes (reference aforementioned cute boy). Girls can be so catty and mean, and as tough-skinned as my monkey boys may seem sometime, I see the sweet and tender side of them, too, and it pains me to think of some sassy brat mistreating their kindhearted spirits.

Not to mention, I’m not ready to have “the talk.” My parents gave me a new book every few years (I think it was “7-9 Year Olds” and “10-12 Year Olds,” etc.) with crude ink drawings and vague explanations about development. My brother got the boys’ version of the same book. Of course, they always said that they were available to answer questions, and I think my folks did a fine job of informing us of what we needed to know.

However, times have changed! There’s so much information (and misinformation) out there with a simple click of the mouse, and kids have way more access to reference materials than we had back in the day. Honestly, I’m leaning toward buying a nursing school anatomy book from Amazon.com and having a sit-down conversation over the chapter on STDs, complete with color photos. That outta scare the crap out of them, at the very least!

And, what about the Guy Code? Isn’t there some inherent rule about not dating your brother’s ex-girlfriend or not pursuing a girl who your brother likes? Man, Lane has his work cut out for him, b/c there are some conversations that I’m definitely delegating!!

Ok, now that I’ve had my panic attack, I will take a deep breath and think sweet thoughts about my boys who still like to sleep with special toys and blankets, still get excited about freebie do-dads from the grocery store kiddie machine, still occasionally eat boogers (despite my firm admonition!), still argue over who gets to sleep in my room when Daddy is out of town … and not dwell too much on the young men they have yet to become, peach fuzz or not.

The blog site has been down for a while for upgrades, so this is the first chance I’ve had to write in several days.

Sometimes I struggle with giving myself the liberty to really speak my mind here, because I wanted this blog to be uplifting and a source of hope for whoever might be reading it. Back when it was just my diary and no one (ok, maybe 2-3 people) knew it even existed, I vented pretty openly about things in my life that frustrated me. Now that it’s more than just a diary, I’ve filed away some of those posts and tried to focus on writing things that might be meaningful to someone else.

The fact of the matter is, right now, I’m angry. I can’t sugar-coat it, can’t shake it off, can’t pretend like it isn’t there. I’m livid. Maybe it’s high time I admit it and show that I’m human, just like everyone else.

I’m sick and tired of feeling like I have to walk on eggshells around HER. She does not deserve to have this kind of power over me. She is a self-serving, manipulative, professional victim with no one’s interests but her own in mind. The air she breathes is toxic, and she exhales lies. She is the Charlie-horse in my calf … the fleck of mascara in my eye … the thorn in my side.

Hearing her voice on my inbox sends an unpleasant quiver down my spine. I told Lane that if I had an alter ego, her voice would be the trigger to cause me to morph into a super villain. To think that I have to maintain contact with her for the next 14 years … to talk to her, to see her, to have to pray fervently against her caustic influence on the boys’ lives … Argh!!

I’m supposed to love my enemies; pray for them! I do try to pray for her, but it’s so hard to be sincere when she continues to live a life of lies. The “flesh” side of me wants to see her earn her just desserts for the hell she’s put my family through all these years … wants to see her screw up big time and land her butt in the slammer for good. (Even King David asked God to smite his enemies on occasion, did he not?) The “spirit” side of me wants to believe that even she can change … that if she really turns her life over to the God she says she follows, then she’ll quit being stupid.

I understand enough about addictive personalities to know that their behavior is irrational. I also know (when I simmer down long enough to let it sink in) that I have much to learn from this trial, as well. Not that I have any clout whatsoever to compare myself to the apostle Paul, but this is one thorn that doesn’t appear to be dislodging itself from my side anytime in the next decade-plus, so I might as well figure out how to deal with it. *sigh

So, if you’re reading this and I’ve disappointed you by my bald honesty, I’m sorry. I had to get it off my chest, and since punching her in the nose is not a valid option, I had to vent here. Please pray for us – for me – for wisdom, clarity, a gentle spirit and endurance.

Having a best friend – the kind who loves you despite yourself, who will be there for you through thick and thicker, who adds a measure to your sanity (however questionable at times! Ha!) just by being present – I can think of few greater gifts.

The past three days were spent enjoying a girls’ weekend with my best friend. We require very little for our get-aways: books, a movie or two, daiquiris and a cheap but safe hotel are the makings of a perfectly content weekend!

This weekend, we watched the last Lord of the Rings movie, Return of the King. I had never seen it, and one thing that really struck me was the deep friendship b/w Sam and Frodo. They (literally!) went through heights, depths and fire together. They faced strains, encountered challenges at every turn, but friendship prevailed.

When Sam carried Frodo up the side of the volcano, propelled by the urgency of the task and not his own strength, it reminded me of the way I’ve been carried the past several weeks. I have had moments of mental and physical exhaustion, and I’ve not had to walk alone. I am so grateful.

We had pizza for dinner last night, and the little one picked a piece of fennel out of his sausage and showed it off: “Look! A pineapple seed!”

Today was a great morning. Everyone got up when they were told … and they were even dressed before me! (In my defense, I had some ironing to do.) As we were driving to daycare, I told the little one how proud I was that he got ready without any fussing and how happy it made me. He said I love you … I said I love you, too … he said I love you three … I said I love you four … and we went back and forth all the way to eleven before he got bumfuzzled at counting every-other number.  :p

I know there are going to be hard days when all five boys are here, but I really look forward to being able to share more “pineapple seed” stories with the other two!

Lately, I’ve been caught off-guard in the middle of a conversation or overhearing an exchange between my boys that I realized would never have made sense … nor could I ever have anticipated! … before parenthood. Here are a few snippets:

“Whew! Well, at least now I don’t have to worry about that booger!”

“Whoa, that song would be totally hard on expert.”

Me to the little one: “Next year, you’ll be in PreK.” His reply: “But I already am in Room O!”

“When I grow up and be a construction worker, then I can build it.”

“Mommy, I like girls.”

“I brushed’ed my teeth like a biiiig alligator!”

(I need to take notes, b/c there were some real keepers, but my mind has gone blank at the moment.) 🙂

I have been remiss in writing, not because I lack things to say, but because I am overwhelmed by the legalities of the past several weeks and don’t feel that I can comment on efforts that are in process. I have toggled between cautious optimism and near-despair these many days … trying to rely on faith and trust my Almighty, All-powerful, Perfect-timing God.

That same God has a hand in this process, however minute the detail, and I continue to pray for his intervention, protection and guidance. I praise him in the storm and offer my worship in those desperate moments as a sacrifice, knowing that he has not ever failed me.

We attended a performance of the Physics Circus on campus last night, and everyone agreed that it was way cool.  The theme was “The Universe,” so we learned awesome facts about galaxies and light years and got to see a laser light show with 3D glasses.

My oldest was selected to play in the “game show” after the performance, and he won the highest prize! Excitement was in the air, and getting everyone to bed when we got home posed a challenge.

http://www.baylor.edu/physicscircus

Last night around the dinner table, we were brainstorming possible “menus” and divvying up supper-related chores. The game plan was to think ahead about what we’ll have for dinner in the coming week and assign chores so that everyone knows what to expect – and what’s expected of them. I couldn’t resist these kid-isms that came up during the conversation from my oldest:

He was making suggestions for the menu: “Italian day, breakfast supper day, Mexican day, Crockpot day, grease day …”  We asked what was grease day? Fried food? He said, “You know, like lamb chops and stuff.” My husband clued in more quickly than I did: “Ohhh, you mean Greece day – Greek food.”

Then, we went around the table for volunteers for the various chores. I suggested that we start with the little one and go in reverse age order for the first round. The oldest said, “Yeah – least to greatest.” 🙂

The guys were helping to take out the trash earlier this week, and the middle one paused on his way to the front door. He lifted a trash bag by the tied handle and with a grunt befitting an athlete in the weight room, overhead-pressed it as high as he could reach. His strong little arm quivering from the weight of the bag, he exclaimed with a proud grin: “Look! I’m Uncle Nathan picking up the boys!”

I’m so glad that they have happy memories to share. It helps to heal my aching heart to hear them share funny stories – like when Uncle Nathan would take turns holding their clasped hands and performing overhead presses in Nana & Granddad’s kitchen, to the amusement of all of us. They would clamor for turn after turn, and he got quite a workout lifting those boys with one arm apiece!

Nathan could always be counted on to praise physical achievement. When I was doing an exercise study for the university, I would call and report my newest “max” record, and he was genuinely interested and enthusiastic. When I reached my highest leg press of 735 lbs, he didn’t flinch when I said that someday, I’d like to be able to do 1,000 lbs. He had confidence in me and made me feel like I could really do it.