SINCE Lil’ Miss Thang is actually SLEEPING this evening, it appears that I may, shockingly, have time to blog.  Will wonders never cease.  So, I’ve been meaning to do a catch-up picture post for some of the things that have been going that I just haven’t had time to sit down and properly document.  So here goes, in random order.  

Today, for the first time in FOREVER, I think, it was sunny outside.  Marvelous.  Here’s documentation of Layla Grace helping mommy with the neverevereverneverending job of laundry. 

She was such a good help. I feel like I have a million pictures involving my clothesline, but laundry is such a huge part of life with six of us and clothes are so colorful.  

Here she is with Bruvver Number Free.  

He plopped happily beside her when I was changing her diaper, and the two of them are just so cute together I had to run and get my camera.  Love me my babies.  

Here’s a sweet boy talking happily to his Aunt Lynette in Thailand.  Who is currently on bedrest, in case you want to pray for her.  Gotta keep that baby in there a while longer, please, Lord.  

The other day, I was sighing, because it seems like every day is just work work work the unending work of trying in vain to keep up with housework and juggling baby and laundry, etc. and there isn’t enough fun in our lives, so I pulled a sheet out of the closet, plopped it on the messy floor of the office, and we had a stinkin’ tea party already.  

Take that, work.  I just decided that day, that if I wait until the house is clean, it just won’t happen, so we had our sparkling grape juice and pepperoni and cheese and Wilbur’s chocolate wafers ANYWAYS.  So there.  

And that’s where this post will end, because, once again, the baby woke up.  And that is that.

Gabe sitting on top of the refrigerator, grinning and swing his legs.  Israel cutting Zion’s hair with the kitchen scissors.  Zion sitting on the floor playing at our feet as we talk in the kitchen, with his own running dialogue going on, incorporating the words he hears us using, like a mini-tape recorder.  Layla bouncing cheerfully in her over the door jumper.  The boys rummaging around in the junk drawer.  Random items in pieces around the house, missing screws, from Israel and his busy screwdriver.  Zion clambering in and out of Layla’s exersaucer and bouncer and swing.  Boys busy with scissors, glue, and paper on the floor of the office.  Paper spaceships taped to the bedroom walls.  Layla sitting on my hip, craning to look around at whatever I am doing.  Gabe ready for school in the early morning light, with his hair sticking up from sleeping on it.  Boys climbing onto the desk in the office to access the pencil cup/tape/stapler.  Loud cackles coming from Gabe and Israel’s room at night when they should be sleeping.  Belly laughs from Israel when his daddy is tickling him.  Two boys on each side and one in my lap while I read a book – or Layla in my lap, two boys on each side and one on the back of the couch.  Many messy kisses from brothers pressed onto Layla’s (almost) hairless head, leaving dried bits of food.  Layla’s bright eyes, chubby cheeks, and ready smile when she catches your eye.  Sitting around the table in a warmly lit room while it is dark and cold outside, eating soup.  Gabe coming home from school and giving Layla a kiss.  Boys playing in the bay window in the living room.  Three boys in the tub, playing with toys.  Israel cutting a cardboard box with a butter knife, trying to make himself a car.  Gabe doing cartwheels.  Israel and Zion dancing to music in the office while Layla watches.  Tim sitting on the floor playing his electric guitar as Layla sits in her bouncer.  Zion asking for “the star song” and his little voice singing along with you as you sing “Twinkle twinkle little star” in his darkened bedroom at night.     

Well, I suppose this makes a little sense.  

But this???!!  

How did he even get up there, anyways??  The sight gives a mommy a wee bit of a fright, it does…

Tonight as I was holding Layla in my arms, I looked down at her all snugged into her purple PJ’s, warm and sweet smelling, I thought of how each of my babies have brought me that heart swell of joy.  How I have LOVED that they exist.  And LOVED them, in all their round smushy cheeks that have such a pleasant give when you smother them in involuntary kisses, their happy gummy smiles, the soft fuzz of hair on their heads, the trusting warm weight of their little bodies as they rest against you, the roundness of their limbs, the smoothness of their skin, how they instinctively hold their breath when you cover their eyes, and whirl their little arms busily, and breathe huffy little busy breaths and look around with happy, excited eyes when you move your hand away.  Makes me laugh every time.  How their eyes predictably widen when you take them someplace dark, as if to let more light in that way.  That makes me laugh too.  

And so it is with Layla.  I love her little warm hand resting on my neck, or clawing my chin inquisitively; the way she is happy to lean back on me and watch the world go by; how she splashes happily in her bath, how her tears fall down into her ears when she is laying on her back, how she busily sucks her tongue, how she is so happy to be with mommy, and how it makes all right with the world so many times.  How she talks her talk, the loud “Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhh” that she loves to say.  How she curls her toes and looks at you attentively when you rub lotion on her feet.  How she grins and looks at me out of the corners of her eyes when I hug her into me when she is nursing.  I love how she gets the joke.  

I love her.  I love them.  In all of their stages and ways and troubles and joys.  

So much.

I’ve been having these random things I keep meaning to post about, so here’s a random post.  :)

1.  Has everyone discovered Pinterest??  If not, they should.  I. Love. It.

2.  I just read that Mexico is considering an option for two year marriages, after which the marriage is automatically dissolved.  Say whhhaaaaaaatttt???

3.  

I discovered this website www.carbonite.com, which was referenced after a Facebook friend lost everything on her computer, including pictures when her computer crashed.  With Carbonite, you pay $59 a year, and it automatically regularly backs up your computer.  ”Once you install Carbonite, you’ll never have to remember to back up again. The automatic backup runs continually in the background, backing up new and changed files whenever your computer is connected to the internet. Carbonite is designed to go to sleep when you’re using your computer so that it doesn’t slow you down.”  This is great peace of mind for me, because I would rarely remember to back up my pictures, and would sometimes feel the cold sweat of horror at the thought of something happening to them.  Just so you know, it will not automatically back up your videos – you have to tell it to do that.  Also, during the initial backup, make sure you turn off the “sleep” mode on your computer (ours goes on every 15 minutes if no one is on the computer), or otherwise it will only be backing up when you are actively using the computer.  

4.  One of my favorite baby items I have had since Layla was born is this:

It is a baby movement monitor that attaches to the baby’s waist band.  With each baby, during those first six months or so, I have jerked awake to make sure that the baby is still breathing.  But with this monitor, I have had such a peace of mind that if something should happen with the baby while I am laying there with my eyes closed, I am going to know about it right away.  ”Snuza Halo detects even the slightest movement and will alert you if your baby’s movements are very weak or fall to less than 8 movements per minute. If no movement at all is detected for a period of 15 seconds, Halo will vibrate gently. Often this vibration is enough to rouse the baby, and Halo will revert to monitoring mode. After three vibration/rouse incidents, the Rouse Warning will alert you to the fact that your baby’s movements have stopped for 15 seconds on three occasions. If no further movement is detected for another 5 seconds, an alarm will sound to alert you.”  It has had just a few false alarms when the monitor wasn’t positioned correctly or when the baby’s waistband was too loose, but overall it has been my single FAVORITE thing.  It just feels like I have somebody sitting beside the baby while I sleep, watching her to make sure everything is ok, ready to let me know if anything is wrong.

Go figure, it actually went up $50 since I bought mine.  :)  But I still think it’s worth it.

5.  I recently read this quote that I am currently finding really helpful for child rearing:  

Feels like parenting with gracious affirmation.  

6.  Also, I stumbled across this book a few days ago at the thrift store, and am EATING IT UP.  

It is SO helpful for the stage we are in right now, and describes the HOW of teaching your child responsibility.  

7.  Right now I am finding very helpful this resource while I am often operating in a tired fog from children keeping me from going to sleep at night, waking me up from my sleep, and requiring me to get up early.  :)  

(image from Simplemom.net)

That tired fog can make all of the tasks that await me when I wake up feel somewhat confusedly overwhelming.  The two sheets that I am finding most helpful at this current moment are the Daily Checklist and the Weekly Checklist – Household Chores.  It tells me to make my bed, I gratefully make my bed.  It tells me to empty the trash, I empty the trash.  As long as somebody knows what is going on around here.  

 

Gabe turned seven on September 8.  The night of September 7, I was thoughtful, thinking about how seven years ago to that date, there were two Millers.  And now there are six Millers.  

He was so tooootally excited about having a birthday.  He LOVES birthdays.  The actual day was very full already with school and a previously planned soccer practice in the evening, so his main choices involved the flavor of cupcakes for me to take to share with his class at lunch (chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry, with chocolate, vanilla (cream cheese), and strawberry icing), the flavor of his cake for us to eat at supper (Pepperidge Farm Chocolate Fudge), his supper (macaroni and cheese), and a movie to watch (Mars Needs Moms).  

I spent the morning decorating cupcakes I had stayed up late to bake the night before, and we ate lunch as a family with his class.  He chose that over me sending cupcakes in the morning. 

Gabe lovin’ on the Layla sister.

Tim overheard this conversation at the school that went something along these lines.  ”I’m seven now, so Israel, if you make butt jokes and try to get me to laugh, I’m not going to, because I’m seven.  And Zion, just so you know, if you try to get me to act silly, I won’t.  I’m seven.”  

The afternoon of his birthday, Hurricane Lee passed through, and dumped 11 1/2 inches on us.  11 1/2 inches!!!!!!!!  The area behind us really flooded, but thankfully, we were high enough that the water only came into our yard, but not up to the house.  

Gabe could hardly contain his impatience for us to be done with flood exploring so that he could come back and open his PRESENTS!!!!!!!

Right now, Gabe loves life and loves people and loves laughter.  He loves to play Wii games and loves anything Star Wars, and enjoys pretending that he is fighting with a light saber with his brothers.  He loves Layla, and I often have to get him out of her face, because he gets right up in her face and covers her face with kisses.  He really enjoys his friends, and loves being in social settings.  He loves to make people laugh, and can go a bit silly-crazed sometimes, which he describes as a switch inside of him that sometimes he forgets to turn off.     (But he’s working on it.  For, after all, there is a time and a place for silliness. )  He doesn’t like serious talks very well, and will deflect with silliness.  He loves to draw and likes to draw books and make up stories to the pictures, which he has me write.  He really does have a good imagination.  Sometimes he goes off into Gabe-land, where he is totally in another element other than what is going on around him, and it can be hard to get his attention.  He loves presents.  He has a really good memory.  When I asked Tim what to remember about Gabe at age seven, he said “His cackle, his love of ninja moves, his inability to stop the world in his head from effecting the world out here.”   He often talks about “eating healthy” and will ask me if various food items are healthy to eat.  He enjoys playing with his neighbor buddies in the afternoons.  I know he isn’t feeling well if he is laying around in a chair crankily, because normally he is bee-bopping around busily. In sum, he is laid back, easy going, low demand, generally cheerful, sometimes petulant, often bossy towards his little brothers, very affectionate to Layla, LOOOOOVES technology, is talkative, is social, likes to draw.  

I love you so much, Gabriel Timothy Miller.  I’m so glad you’re ours.

“Mom, Grandma is coming to eat with me on Grandma Day!”

“Yes, she said she wanted to, didn’t she.”

Gabe thoughtfully chews his pizza.  ”They also have Old People Food.”

“Oh, yeah?  Like what?”

He sighs.  ”Like…mashed potatoes…with cheese and things.”

Lately, I had noticed at the end of the day after the older kids were tucked into bed, that I felt sort of defeated.  Defeated, because every morning I get out of bed with the optomistic thought that TODAY will be the day that the house gets clean in every nook and cranny, that the pile of laundry to be folded is gone off the guest bed, that all meals will be healthy and made from scratch, and all children will be well read, and go down to bed with a Bible story and gentle words.  But…life just isn’t always ever like that.  The reality is that in the middle of every task are multiple other urgent tasks, like nursing the baby, or changing a diaper, or an emergency bath for a random child.  And somehow, no matter HOW clean the house is at 3 PM, by 8 PM something startling and chaotic-seeming has happened to it, whilst I’ve been running around making supper and doing laundry and trying to clean up after supper and getting kids dressed for bedtime and helping Gabe with his homework and finding multiple snacks.  And suddenly it’s 5 minutes past bedtime and it’s hurry-scurry-don’t-want-cranky-kids-in-the-AM.  And I sit down and look at all that DIDN’T happen, and how I got extra frustrated with the kids because I was obsessively trying to finish the supper dishes so they won’t be waiting for me in the morning, and we didn’t read a Bible story AGAIN (which I view as a helpful part of layering the foundation of stories and beliefs that make up our faith).  

I know that part of this is simply the phase we are in with a young baby and all the extra work and time it takes.  And soon enough it will smooth out, at least in some respects, as Layla gets older.  I’m also in the process of figuring out how to use my older boys to help me by doing some simple chores that contribute to my overall goal of house perfection .  But right now, we are where we are, and as I was thinking about it, I decided that my previously stated expectations of “sparkling clean house and Super Mom feats” simply had to go.  Because here’s the problem – the URGENT and my desire to show the world that I am indeed capable is what takes my day, instead of the things that I MOST want, deep down inside, unless I am intentional about it.          

So here is my revised, written down, in no particular order, expectations. (With plenty of room for revision. )

1.  Get everyone fed.  (Leaves lots of room for the “how”. )

2.  Read to the kids.  (Another thing that falls by the wayside that I really value.)

3.  Talk to my children about our faith (communicating how God interacts with our everyday, and how Jesus can help change us into people who can love and treat one another like we want in our hearts to treat them, and how we need to listen for the Spirit speaking in our hearts and be faithful to do what he is telling us)

4.  Teach them to love (by loving them, and helping them learn how to show love to each other, and by showing respect for adults, and to see others who need love)                       

And everything else, is icing.  If the living room gets dusted, great.  If the toys are all picked up and put away, awesome.  If the meal is homemade and healthy and yummy, stellar. But if supper is McDonald’s or chicken nuggets from the freezer (again), that’s ok too.  And if the toys are all over the floor in the boys’ bedroom, it’s not the worst thing in the world. Because those things are not what are ultimately important, and they are not what I’m going to look back on and feel that really matter in 20 years.  

And just because I do the things on my “Really Matters” list doesn’t mean that my children won’t make choices that I wouldn’t want for them when they grow up.  But I will know that I have been faithful in my mothering of them.    

That’s just where I am, today.

Layla is four months old.  

In fact, soon to be five months old.  (although these initial pictures were taken right at 4 months) 

When I took her to the doctor at 4 1/2 months, she was:

18 lbs 1 oz (up 6 lbs from her two month check-up) and in the 97th percentile for her weight

26 1/2 inches long (up 4 inches from her two month check-up) and in the 95th percentile for her height.

Lil’ girlfrien’s a big girl.  This post could alternately be titled, “My Daughter, the Hoss.”  :)

She is:

-rolling to her side from her back.  

-laughing spontaneously at things she sees or noises the boys make

-sometimes sucking on her thumb or forefinger, but just kind of sporadically

she’s just INCREDIBLY CUTE when she does.

-jumping up and down in her johnny-jump-up thing that hangs over the door frame

-drooling A LOT

-cooing and blowing spit bubbles

-in 6 to 9 month clothes at 4 1/2 months and in size 4 diapers

-she still has the birthmark/stork mark at the nape of her neck, and she has a similar mark where they suctioned her out when she was born, where the blood vessels have stayed close to the surface.  

-she loves to have things to play with, bat at, feel, etc.

-this month, she has been somewhat of a mess sleepwise.  She’s making up for all the sleeping she did when she was born.  She will take a morning and afternoon nap, and then fall asleep around 9 PM, nap about 15 minutes, and wake up and STAY UP until I go to bed.  Frown.  She has done this for weeks now, which has totally taken out my blogging opportunities.  The past few days she has done a little better.  A little. 

I love her dearly madly deeply do.

It is midnight.  I lie with my eyes closed in the darkened bedroom.  Layla is draped over my stomach, facing the ceiling, busily sucking her pacifier and playing with my fingers that I keep at a gentle wiggle in front of her face.  Her legs kick kick kick, pounding the mattress.  I am tired.  Zion had me up for about 45 minutes the night before, and between that and feeding Layla at night, I’m ready for a good night’s sleep.  My fingers gently tap Layla’s face – cheek nose mouth chin forehead.  Her pudgy tummy.  

My mind wanders to Clement Moore and starts reciting…

“and out on the lawn there arose such a clatter….His eyes how they twinkled!  His dimples how merry!  His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry…He had a broad face and a little round belly, which shook as he laughed like a bowl full of jelly…” (that’s what makes me think of Layla )  

Layla is getting noisier and kickier.  So as not to disturb Tim, who is sleeping beside us, I wearily drag myself up and out of the bed and into the living room, where I sink onto the couch and lay my head back as Layla nurses.  My brain flows seamlessly into the lulling rhythm of Sandra Boynton, “…and down once more, but not so fast!  They’re on their way to bed at last.  The day is over, they say good night, and somebody turns out the light.  The moon is high, the sea is deep, they rock…and rock…and rock… to sleep.”  

Lately Layla has been thrilled to be with her mommy.  She gets a big smile on when she sees me and flaps her arms happily.  She goes from fussy with Tim to happy with me; kind of sweet.  

It is 1:45 AM.   Layla is asleep.  We head back down the hall, this baby and her mommy, to soft pillows (only for me) and cool sheets, to sleep and sweet dreams.  This is my tonight, today.