More Bathroom stories.

Contrary to the impression likely given by these posts, my children are not generally rascals.  Generally, they are bubbly, interesting little beings who mostly do not cause a great deal of trouble and mostly do not deliberately defy their parents to their faces.  But their sins are far more interesting than their “good” behavior.  For example, more smiling happens when you read:

Eli’s question penetrated my concentration: “Why are you hitting me, Nayah?”  I thought it would be prudent to pay attention without necessarily appearing to do so.  Nayah was standing next to Eli with her arm cranked back in the classic hit-like-a-girl motion.

“Because I want you to give me my nuk-ky back,” she told him in her flat, matter-of-fact voice.  She glanced over at me and we made eye-contact.  Instantly she dropped her arm (hitting for such reasons being illegal in our house) and shifted into a performing, pathetic puddle.

“EEE-li!” (fully whining and crocodile-crying)  “Don’t take my nuk-ky away!  I need my nuk!  Give me my nuk ba-ack!  Mo-om!  Eli won’t give me my nuk-ky!”  She threw her head back and wailed.

…as opposed to:

Hannah: Tamos is asleep.  Come look. [Tamos is sprawled out on her kid-sized portable lawn-couch.  I am impressed because the baby is not known for sleeping just anywhere at the drop of a hat.]  Do you know how I made him go to sleep?  Lean down.  I need your ear.  [I groaned, thinking she was going to whisper into it in that piercing, clinging way of small children.  Instead she gently massaged my earlobe.  Yes.  I also could fall asleep quickly to that...]

Or:

Every morning when n8 leaves for work, the kids run outside to wave goodbye to him.  They start on one corner of our front yard, and run alongside his car to the opposite corner of the yard, waving their arms and shouting, “Bye! I love you, Daddy!” at the top of their lungs.  When I watch from the window, I notice that Eli runs like Forrest Gump, Navayah runs like a windmill with a part missing, and Hannah runs like water flowing down a hill.

Boring stories.  So this post is a conglomeration of the more interesting kind of stories of naughtiness my perfectly angelic children have practiced.

Last night we visited some friends who just had a new baby a few weeks after Tamos was born.  We brought them food and had a picnic with them on their patio.  n8 and Navayah returned from the house, and Navayah bounced up and down with glee.  She informed the neighborhood that she had GONE POOPY! in the toilet and needed some N-UH-MENS (M&Ms) as a reward when she got home.  We were leaving soon, so n8 did not put a diaper back on her little bottom, he just pulled her shorts up.  Ten minutes later, she walked over to me.

“I need somebody to tchain [change] me.”  Plop.  A large chunk aud-i-bl-y dropped out of her shorts.  Our friends had just made some comment on how impressed they were by our children.  And then our youngest daughter poops on their deck.  Yes, our children are very impressive.

***********************************************

Then,

“Mom, Nayah pooped out-thide.  Three big onethz.  And the fliethz are eating it!”

“You’re kidding.”

“No.” Eli shook his head gravely at me.  I walk outside.  Navayah had pooped just left of the sidewalk, just outside our back door.  Flies were indeed covering.  She stood next to her clumps, pointing and grinning proudly.

“Mom!  Look!”

“I see.  And smell.  I thought I told you to never poop outside.”

Completely ignoring that comment: “Can I have a nem-a-nem for that?”  What is more important: encouraging her to not poop in her pants or encouraging her to never again poop outside?

******************     ********************    ************

A few Sundays ago one of the many kids in our church came up to me after services.

“Eli peed outside.”

“He didn’t.”

A few more older kids crowded closer.  “Yes, he did.”

Great.  Many witnesses.  That means he flaunted.  I found my son, pulled him aside, and asked the important question: WHY did you do this?

“Well… I had ta go potty and you thaid I could go potty outthide if I went potty necktht to a tree…”

I had said that, but context is everything.  Our backyard is three lots long.  He can pee outside in our backyard as long as he pees behind a tree.  Then the neighbors will not see him.  In contrast, the church has one main giant tree: on their front lot, at the corner of two streets.  There is no way one could pee on that tree without multiple people seeing from every conceivable direction.

And I am still working on getting him to close the door when he uses the bathroom.  The men’s bathroom in our church is a one-roomed affair that opens to the hallway which everyone passes through to enter and exit.  It was reported to me that he pooped with that door open, and carried on a conversation with the teen boy who questioned Eli’s appropriateness (Eli had not a problem with that.)  So what is worse: peeing outside in front of church or actually using the toilet inside the church, but with the door wide open?

It smells like something…

“I feh-ow on mouse poopy.”

Wow.

Navayah entered the bedroom with an amazingly putrid smell.  I have lived with my dad’s gas, with a handicapped older sister, and with my own children.  Both sets of grandparents lived on farms most of my growing up years.  I have a strong stomach, but the stench of my youngest daughter was strong enough to be a Presence.  I had to press my lips tight together so I could not taste it and regurgitate my breakfast.

“Did you go poopy in your panties, Nayah?”  If you did, I am so bringing you to a doctor.  That smell is not right.

“No, I did no-ot.  I feh-ow in mouse poopy!”

“Did a mouse crawl into your panties and go poopy?”  Hey, why not?  She’s clever.

“No.  It did not.  I jess feh-ow on mouse poopy.”

I turned Navayah around.  There was a dark smear across the bumblebee on the bottom of her under-dress bloomers.  The smell smacked me across the face.  My eyes watered and stomach spun.  I stripped her and threw her in the bathtub, fighting the invisible and heavy-handed pervasiveness of the stench.  Then I sought out Hannah.

“Where did Nayah fall?”

“Nowhere.  She didn’t fall.  She stepped on a dead mouse.”

“Seriously.”

“Yes! I’m serious, Mom!”

That mouse is about 4 days past its expiration date, and it has sat on our hot tar driveway happily decomposing.  I am guessing it was irresistible to the two-year-old.  She reached out her foot to touch it, then lost her balance and landed on it, squeezing out decomposing mouse guts like a three-year-old boy squeezing out a tube of toothpaste—all over.

Once during one of Dad’s gas-sessions, a friend of the family chastised him: “Reed!  It smells like something crawled up your butt and died!”  In Nayah’s case, it was a mouse, and it was already long dead.  And now I must burn those unfortunately cute clothes.

PHRASE YOU NEVER THOUGHT YOU’D SAY #168:
“Next time you see a dead mouse, don’t try to step on it, and cer-tain-ly NEVER fall on it.  Especially if it’s been dead for more than a day.”

Saving it for later.

“H-I-J-K, Ellemo, Q-R-S, T-U-V… H-I-J-K, Ellemo, Q-R-S, T-U-V… H-I-J-K, Ellemo, Q-R-S, T-U-V…”

I watched The Guppy (aka Navayah) lay on her tummy, kick her her feet and sing parts of the alphabet song in her too-loud, off-key voice.

“Mom.  Mom.  Look.”  She held up her two thumbs.  Little crusty boogers coated them.  Her thumbs moved toward her little, loud mouth.

“No!  Do NOT eat your boogers!”  She jerked her hands out of her mouth and fixed me with her absorbing brown-eyed stare.  “Navayah, do boogers taste good?”

She nodded, still staring.

“No.  They do not.  They are ishy.  Gross.  Dirty.”  She looked at me as though I was speaking a foreign language.  Why should my words ever have an impact on her will or preferences?  Then she whined.  “It’s stuck!”

I looked in her mouth.  One of the green crusties was stuck between her teeth.  How in the world…?

PHRASE YOU NEVER THOUGHT YOU’D SAY #167:
“Nayah, don’t ever stick boogers between your teeth again!”

For how long do we parent?

“Tah-moth [Tamos] needthz to eat a lot, doethzn’t he, Mother?”  (Eli and Hannah both call me Mother.  We never asked for this.)

“He hath to nurthe at breakfatht, an’ all night, an’ at lunchtime, an’ everytime he crithz…  You’ll have to feed him for 55 years!”

For the record, fifty-five years is too long for me to feed a child.  I plan on lovingly kicking each one of them out once they graduate.

Nakedness

“And they were both naked… and were not ashamed.” (Gen 2:25)

Yesterday it took Eli about 45 minutes to get dressed.  Then his friend Joshua came over, and they played outside.  Being boys, they do not tend towards tranquility, do not create tiny houses or have tea parties or sit on a blanket and tell stories.  In place of walking, they wildly run everywhere. They yank large branches from trees and use them as swords or clubs.  They ride bikes/cars/tricycles around our horseshoe driveway and chase each other.

After ten minutes outside, Eli was red and sweaty.  So he took off his shirt.  I think the sudden cooling impressed him.  If taking off his shirt cooled him down this much, how much more would removing all his clothes?  He does use logic occasionally.

I caught him walking out the door in all of his glory and arrested that.  He was not pleased that I forbade him to be naked outside.  He did not care if his best friend Joshua or his sisters or the neighbors or the traffic driving or walking by our house on the way to or from the high school saw him in such a state.  But I did.  I told him he could better cool off by running through the sprinkler outside.

Except the garden sprayer was still attached to the end of the hose, so very rapidly the play evolved from “Who can successfully spray the other running boy without himself moving?” to “Let the waters cover the dirt and make mud. And Let Us Run Sliding into that mud.”  Within fifteen minutes, Eli was naked again, though this time he was successfully outside, running around our house to the seldom-used front yard.  No one else seemed alarmed by this.  I questioned the son.  Apparently he had gotten wet.  And muddy. (I’m sure no one saw that coming.)  He could continue to wear his trunks only to get more mud lodged up by his potty stick, or he could strip, letting any mud-accumulation fall more easily to the ground.  It made much more sense to be naked.

Indeed.

Today Hannah found a water bottle.  She filled it and drank from it.  From the time it took me to change Tamos’ diaper, she had graduated to squeezing it all over her sister and brother, all over the freshly-washed bathroom floor, the kitchen floor, and the living room throw pillows, couches, and carpet.  Eli and Navayah had retaliated by filling up cups and dumping them.  Inside my house.  Over Hannah.  And my floors.

We have been over this.  I have never approved of water fights indoors.

During the water fight, Navayah naturally got wet.  The only state in which she could clean up her portion of the mess was completely in the raw.  I enter the bathroom to find her grinning nakedly at me, her curls half bouncing, half plastered to her head.  She explained to me that there was no way she could wipe up Lake Bathroom with her clothes on because “dey wiw get wet again.”  It took her four minutes to clean up the bathroom and another hour to get dressed.

Tomorrow is Hannah’s turn to be naked for a few random hours of the day.  We are planning on going swimming at a public pool.  Dear God, Help me!

Boys and violence

It rained copious amounts last night and this morning, which had the effect of turning the dirt space behind our back door into one “giant” mud-lake.  Add to this the arrival of Joshua, Eli’s best friend and an only child.  Joshua has great creativity, a strong will, a short fuse, and incredible strength.  It is a combination worthy of bringing consternation to the best parents.  Pray for his.

Unbeknownst to me, before he had left for work, n8 told the kids not to play in the lake of mud.  Our lack of communication meant that I did not enforce the rule.  They are boys.  They were created to get dirty.

As Joshua walked in the door, I pulled aside my oldest two and reminded them how I expected them to act and the sure-and-certain results of them acting differently than my expectations.  They solemnly nodded and assured me that they would play well together, not exclude anyone, and not react out of violence, hitting someone out of anger.

Then everyone went outside to happily and peacefully play.

I heard various reports of misdeeds: Eli and Joshua collected muddy water from the “lake” and dumped it into the play-sink and other various objects in the playhouse.  Hannah called someone a bad word.  Navayah accidentally got pushed by one of the bigger kids.

But then havoc descended.  I heard Eli scream-crying, the special sound he makes when he has been physically injured.  He shuffled sobbing into the kitchen, sprinkled with mud and blood.  Joshua followed, apologizing and assuring me “It” was an accident.  I tried to calm everyone down, keep the mud as contained in the kitchen as possible, and then get the full story—from a five-year-old and four-year-old boy, neither of whom are overly motivated to tell the truth.

I deposit the sobbing Eli into the shower.  Joshua washed his own muddy hands and arm, complaining all the while that Eli threw mud at him.  This I believe.  Both of Eli’s hands were completely dipped in our deep-black, sandy, wet soil.  Eli’s head stopped bleeding rather quickly in the shower, and quietly turned raised and pinkish instead.  Ah the quick healing of the little people.

Then comes the story.

ELI’S FIRST VERSION.
Joshua threw the bucket at me and hit me in the head! (which explains the gash, but surely there must be more…)

“What had you done to him?”
Nothing. [insert The Look.]
I threw mud at him. (and now we are getting somewhere…)
Why did you throw mud at him?
Becauthze he wathz mean to me.
What did he do to you?
Ummmm… He…   he…  he-eeee…    umm… (and now I am convinced this will be the truth) he thaid bad wordthz to me!

JOSHUA’S VERSION.
Eli threw mud at me.
Then what happened?
I accidentally threw the bucket at him.  (now that’s oh-so possible!)
How could you ac-ci-dent-ally throw a bucket at someone?
Silence.
Try again.
I threw the bucket at Eli’s head on purpose.  (better…)
Then what happened?
Eli pushed me.
Then what happened?
I threw mud at him.
Then what happened?
That’s all.

ELI’S SECOND VERSION, JUST BEFORE WHICH I FIND OUT N8 TOLD THEM NOT TO PLAY IN THE MUD.
I place a bottle of soap in front of Eli.  I tell him that I know which part is the truth, and which part is the lie.  If he chooses to lie to me, he gets to eat soap.  A lot of it.  His eyes get very big.  He becomes immediately very “good.”

Did Daddy tell you not to play in the mud? [Eli nods sadly.] Why did you then?
Well, you th-ee, Joshua wathz playing in the mud firtht.  (ahh… we’re going back a half-hour to when they were dumping mud in the playhouse.  Of course this has to have started much earlier in the day!)
Why did you play in the mud?
[He eyes the bottle of soap.] Because I wanted to.
Why did you throw mud at Joshua.
Well, you th-ee, it wathz a game.  We were bretend fighting.
Did you ask Joshua if he wanted to pretend fight with you BEFORE you threw the mud?
No-oo…
Then what happened?
I threw mud at Joshua.
Then what.
Joshua hit me in the head with a bucket.
Then what.
Then we came inthide and you made me take a shower and now you are athking me thethze quethchionthz.
Did you push Joshua?
No.
Did Joshua throw mud at you?
No.
Then why were his hands muddy?
From putting the bubble-thing in the mud and dumping it…

JOSHUA’S SECOND VERSION.
Why were you playing in the mud?  Did Mr. n8 tell you not to play in the mud? [Joshua nods.]  Then why did you play in the mud?
Because Eli was.  (Joshua “started” playing in the mud about a half-hour earlier, so Eli joined.  Eli continued playing in the mud all morning, while Joshua stopped shortly after starting, then restarted just before Eli threw mud at him.  “Who-sinned-first” is now a moot issue.)

What happened?
Umm, Eli threw mud at me and it got on my shirt and on my arm.
Did he want to play-fight with you? [Nod.]  Did he ask first?
No.
Then what happened.
Then I threw the bucket at his head and hit him and made him cry.
Then what?
Then we went inside and I got in trouble…

It is really hard to discipline when all you want to do is laugh at how STUPID they are!  One never thinks through the consequences of his actions, despite the many times he has been pummeled for very similar reasons of Instigating War Without First Asking.  The other does not bother to try to control his temper and lets fly with his anger, drawing blood, being strongly disciplined by his mother, and experiencing the side effect of no-friends-for-the-rest-of-the-day resulting in the additional punishment of Dreaded Boredom.  STILL they do this.

I do not understand boys.

A friend of mine told me today that her ten-year-old and eight-year-old sons told her this:

“We were talking last night, and we made a deal.  I could tickle him all I wanted to with my red feather, and he could hit me in the pee-pee.”

In all the years my sisters and I punched each other, wrestled, and physically and verbally tried to inflict damage on each other, we never once thought to make deals like this.  I am beginning to question whether I really do want a brother for Eli.  There is no way I can discipline such perpetual stupidity in a somber and stern way!

The Strong-Willed One

She was about two days old when we noticed the vast difference between Navayah Emeth and the previous two children.  She was less than a week old when we realized she would have been more aptly named Chara-Kai-Thumos (Greek for Joy-and-Fury) instead of this hopeful name that means “beautify (or extol) the LORD of faithfulness”.  The strength and persistence of her will has not diminished with her growing “maturity,” but rather she has found new and more exciting ways of trying to win.

A couple weekends ago the beloved Tante Annie came down to visit and help keep me sane, since n8 was going to be busy most of what is normally my break time.  Navayah greeted Annie with all of the enthusiasm and bubbling joy of her personality.  Five minutes later, she was a whining puddle because she did not get her way in some minor arena.  Tante Annie told her to quit whining and apologize to her.  Navayah turned around and left the room.  It was bedtime, and she suddenly decided that she was tired enough to go to bed.  We followed.  Told her again to apologize to her aunt.  The adorable, angelic child responded by flipping over to face the wall (instead of us) and pulling the covers around her face.  She peacefully closed her eyes.

Her knowledgeable parents were not convinced by her sudden interest in sleep.  I stuck my face inches from hers until her eyes cracked open.  I told her if she did not apologize to her tante, she would get Time-Out in the Quiet Closet.  Her eyes popped shut and she buried her curly little head deeper under the covers.  She was promptly pulled out and stuck in the Quiet Closet.  We told her she could come out when she was ready to say sorry.  Five minutes later, we had finished getting Hannah and Eli ready for bed.  Nayah still had not emerged.  n8 opened the door to the Quiet Closet.  Navayah was sitting on the floor playing with the corner of a basket, every atom of her tiny frame resonating with an unspoken but clearly detected, “I-can-do-this-all-night-but-YOU-cannot-get-me-to-apologize!”  We closed the door.  Had a whispered conference.  Decided to turn off the light so she could no longer see to play.  It was immediately effective at bringing her will into open confrontation.  She screamed.

Ten seconds later, we opened the door, fully expecting (though I don’t know why!) a thoroughly contrite daughter, softened in spirit and ready to apologize.  We asked her if she was ready to say sorry, or if she needed more time in the Quiet Closet.  She looked at Tante Annie, and immediately made up her mind.  She turned around and walked sobbing back to the darkened closet.  Another count of ten.  Another question.  She put off answering.  She was told to decide quickly or she would return to the closet.  She pretended she was stone deaf, and also blind, so she was marched back to the closet.  She loudly protested its darkness.  Eight more times we counted to ten, opened the door, asked the question, then put the unyielding child back into the closet.  We had done this TEN TIMES  before she was willing to speak.  She faintly whispered that she was “ready.”

She walked over to Annie, her body shaking with over-emphasized and melodramatic shuddering sighs of tears.  We asked her what she needed to say.  Silence.  More fake sobbing sighs.  We told her if she did not start apologizing by the time we counted to five, she was back in the closet.  She pretended she had not heard us, but continued her charade of Woundedness So Great It Disables Speech.  Annie was about to give in and forget the whole thing.  Navayah read this in her face.  She increased her performance, and landed back in the closet.  Six more times of the ten-second time-out, question, refusal to obey.  Finally, after the sixteenth time-out, she walked over to Tante Annie, put her head in her lap, and mouthed, “I’m sorry.”  We made her say it so everyone in the room could hear it.  She contemplated giving n8 an evil glare, but instead yelled, “I’m sorry I whined at you!  Will you please forgive me?!”

It took only twenty minutes and sixteen time-outs in a darkened closet this time.  I guess it could have been worse.

Stupid Questions II

I know I have already written about this, but he has a disease, and it is not going away.  A few weeks ago, I had even commented to a friend that Eli may possibly be outgrowing the Stupid Questions Phase, which he has been in roughly since he began to speak intelligibly.  I was suffering delusions.  I may have had a brief respite, and only because he (or I) was too busy.  The last few days have offered ample evidence that this disease of Eli may be chronic.

Today someone at the table brought up the kids’ radio show Paws and Tales.  I know little about it but the title.  The kids sometimes listen to it with Daddy on Saturday mornings.  I try not to interrupt my one possible day-a-week opportunity to sleep in.

At breakfast, Hannah asked what “paws and tales” meant.

Me: What do animals walk on?
Them: Feet!
Me: Do you know what those feet are called?
Eli: Toethz!
Me: No.  Paws. Cats walk on paws.  Dogs walk on paws.  Lions walk on paws.  Their feet are called paws.  What are animals’ feet called?
Eli: Feet!
Me: [striving for that extra grace to be patient] Or animals’ feet can be called…?
Eli: Feet-thz!
Me: Help me out here, Hannah…
Hannah: What does “tale” mean?
Me: Eli, animals’ feet are called paws.  Say that with me.  PAWS. Say that a few more times.

He does it while I explain the play on the word “tale” to Hannah.  Eli half-listens, his face scrunched up in concentration.

Eli: Mom, what doethz Pawthz-n-talethz mean?
Me: I just explained that to Hannah.  I am not repeating myself right now.
Eli: Mom… [he repeats the phrase “Paws-en tales” a few more times to himself] What doethz “ithz” mean?
Me: Call your dad.  You ask him what IS means!  I think he will like that question.

The conversation with Daddy failed.  While Daddy tried explaining the title of the show to Eli, Eli could not focus enough on the conversation to get any of it.  He asked me questions while n8 was talking, then asked me what Daddy had said, then couldn’t remember his next “quethchion”, then finally dropped the phone, popping out its battery and effectively ending the call, with none of his latest “quethchionthz” answered.

Then after breakfast.

We were outside when the plague hit again.  We heard a woodpecker, and walked around our almost-an-acre backyard to find it.  It flew away before we reached its pecking perch.  Both Hannah and Eli watched it fly away.  I explained what woodpeckers do, what they eat, where they live, what they look like when they are not flying, and so forth.  I thought I had answered every question that could be considered, at least up to my level of knowledge.

Eli: Why do woodpecks have a red spot on their heads?
Me: Why do you have brown eyes?
Eli: Because God made me that way?
Me: Yes.  So why do woodpeckers have a red spot on their heads?
Eli: Because God made them that way!
Oh the blissful feeling of success?
Eli: Are woodpeckth made of wood?
Me: What do you think?
Eli: Ummmm…. yes?
Me: Eli, what is a woodpecker?
Eli: A bird?
Me: Yes.  And what are birds made out of?
Eli: Wood?
Me: Eli.  What are birds made out of.
Eli: I don’t know.
Me: When you look at the outside of a bird, what is its outside made out of?
Eli: I don’t know.
Me: Yes.  You do.  What does a bird have on its outside?
Eli: Colorthz.
Oh dear.
Me: And what makes the birds look colored?  What makes the colors?
Eli: Jee-thzuth.
Me: No.
Eli: God!
Me: Yes, God did make the birds and their colors, but FEATHERS are what give the birds their colors!  [I admit.  I was a little exasperated by this point.]  FEATHERS are on the outsides of birds.  Birds are made of FEATHERS.
Hannah: Bones are in birds too.
Me: Very good!  [Bless your brilliant mind, child!]
Eli: What are bonethz?  [We have been over this question before.  A LOT more than once.]
Me: Eli, what are bones?
Eli: I don’t know.
Me: [Of course you don’t.]  Yes, you do.
Eli: The hard part-th of uth?
Me: [grasping at whatever dim light blinks on for however long I get to see it] Great job!  So what are birds made of?  Feathers and…
Eli: Featherthz and bonethz and wingthzethz.
Me: And are woodpeckers birds?
Eli: Yeth.
Me: So are woodpeckers made of wood?
Eli: Yeth…?
Me: Why don’t you go ride your bike now?

Sleep-Deprivation

Last night Hannah went to bed after 9:00 p.m., which is unusually late for our kids.  This morning Navayah woke the entire clan up before 6:30.  The others have varying levels of handling sleep-deprivation.  Hannah has but one, and we had forgotten that.

On top of Hannah’s unusually less sleep came a busy morning with other moms and their kids, then an afternoon at a friend’s house…and no nap.  By 5:30 tonight she was acting like a pregnant woman with an extra shot of estrogen.  She wept over everything.  She could not generally tell us why she was crying, except that she was very tired.  She barely made it through supper, and not without her face crumpling more than once—for very significant reasons.  She did not have enough milk in her cup to take a proper drink.  “The reason why” she was not able to eat was because her left little toenail hurt so badly and her teeth also probably itched.  And she had to put soap on Eli’s head when they were supposed to be washing their hands because he had hurt her feelings (even our sensitive son had no idea what he had said or done).

The entire 10 minutes of her bedtime routine, like a C-rated actress, she silently and dramatically sobbed.  We were impressed.  She could not dress herself (she is five and has generally been able to clothe and disrobe herself daily for quite a while, sometimes changing up to 11 times a day); she was too cold those five-and-a-half seconds of nakedness; she could not hold her toothbrush (sometimes they get too heavy, understand); she could not remember if she had gone to the bathroom or not….  n8 and I spent most of the routine fast-tracking Hannah to bed, and exchanging grins and half-laughs over her theatrically and quietly weeping head.

Two minutes and thirty-four seconds after Hannah’s head hit the pillow, before 7:00pm even struck, she lost consciousness.  Now I realize that the dear child was sleep-deprived, but this?!  This goes above and beyond anything I have seen in a five-year-old child.  If a lack of sleep affects her this much, how much more the blessed estrogen-enhanced pregnancies, or certain times of the month, or chemical substances like caffeine, alcohol, and so forth!

We pray for her husband, and after tonight, even more.  Join us.

Matching

This morning Eli pounded on the bathroom door the entire length of my shower.  Through the door I told him to gather his clothes so he could get dressed while I finished in the bathroom.  His perpetual kicking of the door was not going to cause me to open it any faster.

After he finished his morning “business,” he came out dressed…sort of.  He had chosen for himself a pair of bright red shorts, a bright aqua polo shirt—put on backwards—and over top of the aqua shirt, a burnt-orange and navy blue stripped polo shirt.  He was wounded when I told him that he did not match and one of the shirts would have to go (though neither went especially well with the bright red shorts).

I think he gets his sense-of-matching from his father.