a.rose

You want to get a lot of attention?  First, take a shower.  Then take three really cute little girls to the mall.  Next put a newborn into a Moby and prepare yourself. The hardest part will be not breaking down into a puddle of sobbing post partum tears when the strangers, with admiration in their eyes, keep telling you what a good mom you are.  Try to believe them when they say this. You know, the human body has a lot of fluid in it.  Really, we are pretty juicy creatures.  All sorts of fluids, and some are supposed to come out of the body, some aren't.  Some smell bad, some smell worse.  I don't think any of them smell good... but I could be wrong? Last week I sent this email to some people, soliciting advice. "Hazel just peed all over me.  I'm wearing the only pair of pants that I can wear without pain from my incision.  We are leaving in about twenty minutes to go to Hallie's doctor appointment. I mean, I could go to the do...

Heather is an almost perfect child. Then she turned two, and I held my breath. But she was still an almost perfect child. Really. I'm not exaggerating, she was this close to it. And then she woke up one morning, about a week after her second birthday. She dumped out an entire bottle of cinnamon.  But actually, that wasn't all that unusual.  It was probably the fourth or fifth bottle she has dumped out.  You'd think that we would have learned by now that we have to keep the cinnamon far, far out of her reach.  But whatever, right? Keeps my spices fresh, you know?  Also, then when I vacuum it always makes me think I'm baking something delicious.  Bonus and bonus. Then she decided she wanted to potty train herself without telling me, and took her diaper off.  It wasn't a great success, as she peed in front of the dollhouse.  My guess is she was too busy playing to think about things like toilets. And then she pooped in front of the do...

Hallie really loves the camera we got her for Christmas.  She takes pictures all of the time, and when she runs out of things to take pictures of, I hear her saying things like, "Oh! I know! I haven't taken a picture of the carpet yet! Come on, Hanna, let's get a picture of the carpet!" Yes. That really happened. It is fun to look through the pictures she has taken, to see what sorts of things catch her interest.  I don't know what she will be when she grows up, right now she always says she wants to be an illustrator, like of children's books.  I wouldn't be surprised if she really did.  I also wouldn't be surprised if she ended up being some sort of photographer. Like, say, one of those people that carefully arranges food so that it looks perfect for the ten foot poster they hang in the windows of McDonald's to showcase their new hamburger.  Someone has that job, and why not Hallie?  I mean, take a look at her early work.  BANANA. ...

Today I was feeling really grateful for Devin.  As I went about doing the things you do in a day, this is what I thought about him... because sometimes when I think about people I think about them as if they were a character in a book, and the way they would be described.  Because I'm always writing a book in my head, just like normal people do. "There was an air about him that made a person want to sit up just a little straighter, and check their hair to make sure it was all in place.  Not out of a feeling of inferiority because of some supreme beauty on his part, for although his wife found him extremely handsome that was probably due mainly to some bias on her part.  No, it was not his own perfect features that made people want to appear their best.  Rather it was a sense they felt of his always having everything in place, of always being in control of his person that made other people want the same for themselves, and feeling that perhaps they, too, cou...

Happy Birthday little girl! Sometimes you are my Sunshine Kisses, and sometimes you are my Kisses in the Rain.  Sometimes you are my tiniest goose, but you are always my doop doop. I love you, baby.

Predictable and Unpredictable.  Planned and Unplanned.  Prepared and Unprepared.  Expected and Unexpected. Routine, Habit, Boredom and Novelty, Surprise, Excitement. I am a person that is more typically in the first camp.  I once said to my friend Alisha something along the lines of, "I really love spontaneity, as long as it is well planned out first." I think that is part of why Hazel's birth has been kind of difficult for me to come to terms with.  I wonder if I had known what "umbilical cord prolapse" was, if I had done all my research the way my sister meticulously did, would I have been more afraid of what was happening to my baby, or less?  Because the delivery was so urgent and there was (thank goodness!) no time for an epidural, I was put under general anesthesia and slept through the whole thing.  This means that I don't really know what happened when she was born.  Everything I know about it I received in bits and pieces afterward...

Well I'm a day past a week with four children.  You want to know if the stomach bug hit anyone else in the family?  Well, thanks for asking. It hit Devin hard.  Then Hallie.  I was down with a fever for a day, but thankfully for me that was as bad as it got.  I believe in miracles. Can you imagine vomiting violently a week after having them cut up your insides? But really, that's enough about that. Let's have some pictures!

So there we were, that Monday night, laying in our beds with visions of free popcorn and five dollar movies and getting to know new Disney princesses dancing in our heads.  I slept on the couch that night because I was too uncomfortable in the bed to sleep.  Suddenly, a child's crying pierced the night, and I went dashing up the stairs to see what was the matter. Hanna was sitting up in her bed sobbing, and Hallie in an almost angry voice declared the moment she saw me, "Mom, it smells like yucky vomit in here.  I think Hanna did it." Then Heather began to cry.  First things first, I told Hallie to lay back down and try to go back to sleep.  Next, of course, I went to wake up Devin and demand his help.  Then we set to work cleaning up Hanna and her bed, and getting Heather back to sleep as well. Tuesday, as you know, saw Hanna sleeping on the couch.  She didn't really eat or move at all that entire day.  And by entire day I mean up until ar...