Over the past nine years, we have often heard things like...
"Poor Maggie, stuck with all those brothers"
"I bet she really wants a sister, huh?"
"Poor little thing, it must be hard having all those brothers and no one for her to play with..."
once we even had a stranger in a store ask if the little two boys were failed attempts at giving her a sister?
(don't even get me started on that one)
Our responses have varied, but always we have attempted to make it known that Magdalyn loves her brothers, they are gifts to her.
Sure she'd love a sister, what girl wouldn't? However, she'd also love another brother. No, she doesn't think four is more than enough.
Often when I see a conversation headed towards the "poor Maggie" direction, I try to head it off. It's been pretty standard to hear me say something like "Yes, she's the only girl. She's got the perfect spot in the family...two big brothers to protect her and two little brothers that she can mother. She holds her own and is a great sister, we are very blessed by ALL of our children."
Wednesday was Rocklin's birthday. One gift he received was a book to teach him how to make various "weapons" from historical times by using duct tape and other house hold scraps. Right away he went to work and built swords out of tape and foam. It wasn't long before he had one for himself and each sibling so they could sword fight.
At one point, Magdalyn stomped into my room and said, "I don't like that book. We just read the rules for playing and rule number 7 is that girls aren't allowed to fight."
We talked about chivalry and that historically girls didn't fight. We talked about the fact that despite that "rule" there were various girls through out history, Joan of Arc for one, that fought anyway.
I gave her permission to ignore the rule and sword fight against her brothers, but also reminded her that if she was going to play with them she had to be prepared for their roughness and not come whining to me.
I really had no fear, she holds her own well. It was no surprise that later in the day, she is the one that had a broken sword from hitting too hard.
There are plenty of days when she is the princess,
the damsel in distress,
the cow-girl,
the mommy,
or the scared little sister that needs a brother to squash a spider.
On the other hand, there are days like Wednesday.
Days when she's the bravest of knights,
the toughest of pirates,
the superhero that saves the day
or the Queen that rules rebel-land and orders her servants to perform all manner of tasks.
I have no worries that this girl of mine has too many brothers. I have no sympathy that she's the only girl.
I am thankful for and blessed by all of these children every single day. I don't believe the placement of any of them in our family was a crapshoot, a random circumstance or unfortunate in any way.
They are exactly who they were meant to be, in exactly the family they belonged in the exact order orchestrated by a loving Creator.
Yep, she is the only girl and no, I didn't necessarily plan that, but God did. He put her smack dab in the middle of four boys.
Four boys that need her.
Four boys that she needs.
Four boys that adore her.
Four boys that she adores.
Two big brothers that protect her.
Two little brothers that love when she mothers them.
Four brothers that no matter where life takes her will forever remain her first best friends.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Wordless Wednesday: A fieldtrip
The group was split into older/younger groups. Jerald went with the olders until it was time to ride the fire truck, so this is the only picture captured of him.
You can find more wordless wednesday posts here
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Lullabies, brotherly love and little moments I wish would last forever
Friday night was the homecoming game at my high school alma mater. For the past few years, I've gone to the game and met up with friends I don't get to see very often. I was excited about going this year, but when the time came that just wasn't going to happen. In the best interest of several children I needed to stay home while Kev and Rock went to the game.
Initially, I was here at the computer sulking and the children were scattered about reading or playing quietly. Jerald, Aaron and Parker eventually made their way to my bed and were rough housing a bit.
That's when things changed.
What had been a evening of sulking, quickly changed to one of those moments when all seems right in the world.
When a little moment suddenly becomes a big moment and you realize yet again that you are blessed beyond anything you could ever ask or imagine.
Jerald began singing lullabies, silly songs and hymns to the little boys. For nearly an hour they enjoyed each other, basking in brotherly love.
They sang together, a miracle in itself because Aaron rarely sings along.
The little boys listened while their biggest brother sang to them.
Jerald endured the little boys singing to him for a boisterous version of Joy the World.
Every song, every moment a sweet sound to my ears. A blessing to my heart. My cup runneth over.
Eventually Aaron hit total saturation and ran from the room, hands over his ears, but not before I captured a bit on video. The video quality stinks, but to me, these are worth far more than any music video you'll ever see on TV.
A lazy Friday night, cherished memories forever.
An evening of fun for three brothers. A moment of renewed hope for their mama.
Initially, I was here at the computer sulking and the children were scattered about reading or playing quietly. Jerald, Aaron and Parker eventually made their way to my bed and were rough housing a bit.
That's when things changed.
What had been a evening of sulking, quickly changed to one of those moments when all seems right in the world.
When a little moment suddenly becomes a big moment and you realize yet again that you are blessed beyond anything you could ever ask or imagine.
Jerald began singing lullabies, silly songs and hymns to the little boys. For nearly an hour they enjoyed each other, basking in brotherly love.
They sang together, a miracle in itself because Aaron rarely sings along.
The little boys listened while their biggest brother sang to them.
Jerald endured the little boys singing to him for a boisterous version of Joy the World.
Every song, every moment a sweet sound to my ears. A blessing to my heart. My cup runneth over.
Eventually Aaron hit total saturation and ran from the room, hands over his ears, but not before I captured a bit on video. The video quality stinks, but to me, these are worth far more than any music video you'll ever see on TV.
A lazy Friday night, cherished memories forever.
An evening of fun for three brothers. A moment of renewed hope for their mama.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Goodnight to the knitting rabbit
Bedtime has been an unsteady thing in our home. It has been a roller-coaster of ups and downs through different seasons of this parenting journey.
Bedtime with a house full of all littles was very different than our current house full of not so littles anymore.
There have been seasons of cuddling and reading picture books.
There have been seasons of reading chapter books and/or the bible.
There have been seasons of tucking them in, quick kisses all around and then retreating to my room to cry and try to gain the strength to make it to the next bedtime routine.
There have been seasons of Daddy handling bedtime while mommy tried to soothe a screaming baby.
There have been times of everyone getting frustrated and the whole family in or near tears by the time the lights were out.
There have been times of cuddling with a little one that loved to hear classic literature and autobiographies read to him, while the other parent read board books to his brother.
I'm sure there are several other scenarios I'm not recalling at the moment and all of these have been repeated more than once.
Through every season there was a constant for a long time. Even on nights when a bedtime read aloud didn't happen, the desire was always there. I have always loved to read to my little ones and they were always eager to hear it.
Until Aaron came along.
As a baby, a toddler and then a preschooler he was pretty indifferent about it. He never threw a fit (about reading that is) and most of the time he would be relatively still and quiet if I was reading, but he was pretty disinterested. It was rare occasion that I could convince that cuddling and reading a book together was a good thing.
A couple of years ago, he became more and more disinterested, but it was more than that. Eventually he hated to listen to me read and read aloud time became meltdown time. It wasn't anything personal. He could not tolerate the sound of voices reading aloud. It didn't matter if it was history on CD, Jerald's math instructor on the computer, audiobooks or someone reading a book to him in person. He just couldn't handle it and it became truly painful to him. He had a very low tolerance for movies/videos too and couldn't handle anything beyond three or four exceptions. Those depended on the day. Some days he couldn't even tolerate his favorite at the time, Bob the builder.
This impacted our entire family every day, and most definately at bedtime.
It was a hard time for all of us, but most especially for my sweet boy and his mama. Hard for him as he was constantly bombarded with audio input and couldn't process it sending him over the edge daily, often hourly. Hard for me as I tried to find resolution for all of us and as I longed to just sit on the couch and read to my little guy.
Eventually we got some things worked out to make it manageable. Jerald doing math with headphones, Aaron having room time while I did history read aloud in the family room, etc. At the same time we worked with Aaron to build his tolerance for such things. Bedtime remained a challenge though.
On the other end of that now, he has certain things he loves to listen to (the Mr. Putter series by Cynthia Rylant for example) and others that he still can't tolerate. Even the books he now loves to listen to he prefers to sit and listen to a CD alone or have me read while he sits nearby. He's still not much of a "let's snuggle and read" type except on rare occasions.
I didn't realize how sad I am about that until recently. I missed many of the early opportunities to snuggle and read to Parker too. Some because of Aaron's issues and they are so close in age that it was difficult to snuggle and read with Park and not with Zig. Often it just didn't happen because the first four years of Parker's life were so hard and his pretty constant screaming in pain, especially at night. Some how it all blended together and we made it here.
Here to this place of reading chapter books when we could, but not snuggling and reading picture books with my littlest boys.
In my mind, this is just something mama's do with little ones. It's part of the job description. Hard to accept that my sons hadn't read my resume and didn't seem to care that reading aloud while cuddling was high on my job qualifications list.
Recent weeks have moved us to a new season.
Parker suddenly loves to snuggle in my lap and read. Loves it in a way that even rivals his big brother Jerald's love of all things bookish. He's been coming to me every day with handfuls of books asking me to read to him. Our current bedtime routine includes reading "just one more" as I read a few favorite bedtime books and a new one or two tossed in each night.
Apologies to Margaret Wise Brown, but at the house of Little Rebels, the great classic, Goodnight Moon has been edited.
In our house...And goodnight to the old lady whispering "hush" will forever read as "...And goodnight to the old lady whispering "hush" and knitting."
I'm pretty sure after each time the book closes and the last kiss is on his forehead I'll hear him giggle and say "you know she's really a knitting rabbit, not an old lady".
The bedtime season hasn't always been the stuff of sappy movies. It's not always been pretty.
I still carry a sadness, I think will always be there, that I didn't have these days with Aaron when he was littler or even with Parker.
Tonight as I cuddled Parker and read, Aaron sat on the edge of my bed and happily listened.
Bedtime is exactly what it needs to be for us in this season and I'm finally more than okay with that. It might be a season that seems to pass all too swiftly, much like summer. It may instead be more like a long winter. Either way, I'm cherishing every page read...Every cuddle with Parker...Every time Aaron goes off to bed only to sneak in a minute later and sit near our feet as we read...every moment forever etched in my memory and my heart. It seems these moments swell with each goodnight kiss and the the smaller, sadder memories have a little less room to take up residence.
Goodnight Moon and goodnight little boys that still believe their Daddy hung that moon and their Mama has the best hugs in town.
Editors note: Just for clarification, Aaron has no problem with books. He enjoys looking at them often and hopes soon to be reading on his own (he's close). He enjoys receiving them for gifts and especially loved his insect books for his 7th birthday yesterday. He was even thrilled to let me read 2 of the 3 of them to him at rest time yesterday. His issue has always been about having things read aloud to him, not books in general.
Bedtime with a house full of all littles was very different than our current house full of not so littles anymore.
There have been seasons of cuddling and reading picture books.
There have been seasons of reading chapter books and/or the bible.
There have been seasons of tucking them in, quick kisses all around and then retreating to my room to cry and try to gain the strength to make it to the next bedtime routine.
There have been seasons of Daddy handling bedtime while mommy tried to soothe a screaming baby.
There have been times of everyone getting frustrated and the whole family in or near tears by the time the lights were out.
There have been times of cuddling with a little one that loved to hear classic literature and autobiographies read to him, while the other parent read board books to his brother.
I'm sure there are several other scenarios I'm not recalling at the moment and all of these have been repeated more than once.
Through every season there was a constant for a long time. Even on nights when a bedtime read aloud didn't happen, the desire was always there. I have always loved to read to my little ones and they were always eager to hear it.
Until Aaron came along.
As a baby, a toddler and then a preschooler he was pretty indifferent about it. He never threw a fit (about reading that is) and most of the time he would be relatively still and quiet if I was reading, but he was pretty disinterested. It was rare occasion that I could convince that cuddling and reading a book together was a good thing.
A couple of years ago, he became more and more disinterested, but it was more than that. Eventually he hated to listen to me read and read aloud time became meltdown time. It wasn't anything personal. He could not tolerate the sound of voices reading aloud. It didn't matter if it was history on CD, Jerald's math instructor on the computer, audiobooks or someone reading a book to him in person. He just couldn't handle it and it became truly painful to him. He had a very low tolerance for movies/videos too and couldn't handle anything beyond three or four exceptions. Those depended on the day. Some days he couldn't even tolerate his favorite at the time, Bob the builder.
This impacted our entire family every day, and most definately at bedtime.
It was a hard time for all of us, but most especially for my sweet boy and his mama. Hard for him as he was constantly bombarded with audio input and couldn't process it sending him over the edge daily, often hourly. Hard for me as I tried to find resolution for all of us and as I longed to just sit on the couch and read to my little guy.
Eventually we got some things worked out to make it manageable. Jerald doing math with headphones, Aaron having room time while I did history read aloud in the family room, etc. At the same time we worked with Aaron to build his tolerance for such things. Bedtime remained a challenge though.
On the other end of that now, he has certain things he loves to listen to (the Mr. Putter series by Cynthia Rylant for example) and others that he still can't tolerate. Even the books he now loves to listen to he prefers to sit and listen to a CD alone or have me read while he sits nearby. He's still not much of a "let's snuggle and read" type except on rare occasions.
I didn't realize how sad I am about that until recently. I missed many of the early opportunities to snuggle and read to Parker too. Some because of Aaron's issues and they are so close in age that it was difficult to snuggle and read with Park and not with Zig. Often it just didn't happen because the first four years of Parker's life were so hard and his pretty constant screaming in pain, especially at night. Some how it all blended together and we made it here.
Here to this place of reading chapter books when we could, but not snuggling and reading picture books with my littlest boys.
In my mind, this is just something mama's do with little ones. It's part of the job description. Hard to accept that my sons hadn't read my resume and didn't seem to care that reading aloud while cuddling was high on my job qualifications list.
Recent weeks have moved us to a new season.
Parker suddenly loves to snuggle in my lap and read. Loves it in a way that even rivals his big brother Jerald's love of all things bookish. He's been coming to me every day with handfuls of books asking me to read to him. Our current bedtime routine includes reading "just one more" as I read a few favorite bedtime books and a new one or two tossed in each night.
Apologies to Margaret Wise Brown, but at the house of Little Rebels, the great classic, Goodnight Moon has been edited.
In our house...And goodnight to the old lady whispering "hush" will forever read as "...And goodnight to the old lady whispering "hush" and knitting."
I'm pretty sure after each time the book closes and the last kiss is on his forehead I'll hear him giggle and say "you know she's really a knitting rabbit, not an old lady".
The bedtime season hasn't always been the stuff of sappy movies. It's not always been pretty.
I still carry a sadness, I think will always be there, that I didn't have these days with Aaron when he was littler or even with Parker.
Tonight as I cuddled Parker and read, Aaron sat on the edge of my bed and happily listened.
Bedtime is exactly what it needs to be for us in this season and I'm finally more than okay with that. It might be a season that seems to pass all too swiftly, much like summer. It may instead be more like a long winter. Either way, I'm cherishing every page read...Every cuddle with Parker...Every time Aaron goes off to bed only to sneak in a minute later and sit near our feet as we read...every moment forever etched in my memory and my heart. It seems these moments swell with each goodnight kiss and the the smaller, sadder memories have a little less room to take up residence.
Goodnight Moon and goodnight little boys that still believe their Daddy hung that moon and their Mama has the best hugs in town.
Editors note: Just for clarification, Aaron has no problem with books. He enjoys looking at them often and hopes soon to be reading on his own (he's close). He enjoys receiving them for gifts and especially loved his insect books for his 7th birthday yesterday. He was even thrilled to let me read 2 of the 3 of them to him at rest time yesterday. His issue has always been about having things read aloud to him, not books in general.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
(not so) Wordless Wednesday
or The Emperor's New Clothes: Parker edition
Layer by layer=
orange long sleeve tee that is "too long, too funky and too orangey, but I'll wear it to bed"
royal blue mesh football practice jersey that is "comfy and holey"
Mag's now too small bathrobe that is "soft and warm and perfect"
Miami dolphins costume jersey that is "slippery and stripey"
playsilk from The Purple Tangerine because "playsilks are perfect for bedtime. Don't worry I'll take it off my neck and snuggle it"
all topped off...or tied off rather...by the tie from Daddy's bathrobe "because it's comfier than the string I was using."
Those of you that have children with sensory issues likely know what a challenge it can be when seasons change and with it comes the clothes swap out. It seems my sweet boys finally get used to wearing shorts/tees and sandals and then BAM! it's time to switch to pants, sweatshirts and boots. Not to mention coats, mittens and the like. It can be rough.
I am always in awe when I read friends post on facebook, twitter, etc that they've completed the clothes switcharoo. It takes us days.
Days. Sometimes weeks.
Getting them to try on things to decipher what fits/doesn't and what I need to buy is a long, tedious process. It is MUCH too overwhelming to have them try on everything at once. It's almost always a battle to even convince them to get started, much less, finish. I've learned over the years to break it up, spread it out over a couple of weeks and to sneak it in when possible.
As in, it's time for bed let's get on some pajamas. Then I hand out pajamas from the stash and wait. A few minutes later and it's "oh, it looks like those are a bit too big, guess we'll put them up for next year. Here you can try this pair."
I've also learned not to push my luck. By the third pair they are on to me and they will wear them whether they fit or not.
Enter into this challenge...Parker.
What? You thought I was talking about Parker already?
Um, no.
Parker is not that easy. Yeah, I realize the swap isn't easy for the others, but Parker is a whole 'nother ball of wax.
Parker generally doesn't like clothes. I'm sure I've shared that a time or two before.
So, not only do we have the usual issues with switching seasonal clothing but we also have Parker issues on top of that.
He's been resisting for over a month. I've had to wrestle him to try stuff, quickly decide if it fits before he pulls it off and then move on to the next outfit. I finally know what fits, but the real problem is that of everything in his closet he will easily wear exactly two shirts. Sure he's wearing the other clothes, because, well going naked isn't an option and those are the clothes he has so he's wearing them. At least enough to make a few suitable outfits. I'm willing to let slide the things that really bother him. Okay, well everything really bothers him. There are some things though that push him over the edge enough that it's not worth the battle to me. Those things will be going to a new family soon.
The interesting thing this year is what's displayed in the above picture.
He's embracing the fact that colder weather means he has to actually you know, wear clothes.
We've gone from wanting to be naked and changing clothes seven hundred times a day because nothing fits right, feels good, is tolerable. To now this week I can't keep clothes in his drawer or closet. I no sooner do a load of laundry and he's grabbing stuff to layer it on. He's still changing seven hundred times a day, but he's keeping them on longer and he's layering to be warmer.
Now if I could just convince him that four short sleeve shirts, underwear no pants and clifford slippers are not exactly a warm fall outfit...
Layer by layer=
orange long sleeve tee that is "too long, too funky and too orangey, but I'll wear it to bed"
royal blue mesh football practice jersey that is "comfy and holey"
Mag's now too small bathrobe that is "soft and warm and perfect"
Miami dolphins costume jersey that is "slippery and stripey"
playsilk from The Purple Tangerine because "playsilks are perfect for bedtime. Don't worry I'll take it off my neck and snuggle it"
all topped off...or tied off rather...by the tie from Daddy's bathrobe "because it's comfier than the string I was using."
Those of you that have children with sensory issues likely know what a challenge it can be when seasons change and with it comes the clothes swap out. It seems my sweet boys finally get used to wearing shorts/tees and sandals and then BAM! it's time to switch to pants, sweatshirts and boots. Not to mention coats, mittens and the like. It can be rough.
I am always in awe when I read friends post on facebook, twitter, etc that they've completed the clothes switcharoo. It takes us days.
Days. Sometimes weeks.
Getting them to try on things to decipher what fits/doesn't and what I need to buy is a long, tedious process. It is MUCH too overwhelming to have them try on everything at once. It's almost always a battle to even convince them to get started, much less, finish. I've learned over the years to break it up, spread it out over a couple of weeks and to sneak it in when possible.
As in, it's time for bed let's get on some pajamas. Then I hand out pajamas from the stash and wait. A few minutes later and it's "oh, it looks like those are a bit too big, guess we'll put them up for next year. Here you can try this pair."
I've also learned not to push my luck. By the third pair they are on to me and they will wear them whether they fit or not.
Enter into this challenge...Parker.
What? You thought I was talking about Parker already?
Um, no.
Parker is not that easy. Yeah, I realize the swap isn't easy for the others, but Parker is a whole 'nother ball of wax.
Parker generally doesn't like clothes. I'm sure I've shared that a time or two before.
So, not only do we have the usual issues with switching seasonal clothing but we also have Parker issues on top of that.
He's been resisting for over a month. I've had to wrestle him to try stuff, quickly decide if it fits before he pulls it off and then move on to the next outfit. I finally know what fits, but the real problem is that of everything in his closet he will easily wear exactly two shirts. Sure he's wearing the other clothes, because, well going naked isn't an option and those are the clothes he has so he's wearing them. At least enough to make a few suitable outfits. I'm willing to let slide the things that really bother him. Okay, well everything really bothers him. There are some things though that push him over the edge enough that it's not worth the battle to me. Those things will be going to a new family soon.
The interesting thing this year is what's displayed in the above picture.
He's embracing the fact that colder weather means he has to actually you know, wear clothes.
We've gone from wanting to be naked and changing clothes seven hundred times a day because nothing fits right, feels good, is tolerable. To now this week I can't keep clothes in his drawer or closet. I no sooner do a load of laundry and he's grabbing stuff to layer it on. He's still changing seven hundred times a day, but he's keeping them on longer and he's layering to be warmer.
Now if I could just convince him that four short sleeve shirts, underwear no pants and clifford slippers are not exactly a warm fall outfit...
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