Squeezy got tiny toddler-sized board book Alice in Wonderland for Christmas, and the words “tea party” apparently caught her imagination, because she’s been saying she’s going to a tea party all week. Yesterday at lunch Bubs said that maybe after quiet time they could have a tea party with her, and she was so excited that when I went upstairs an hour later to yell at her gently reprimand her for not going to sleep yet, she told me “Me’s gonna have a tea party with my boys!”

So I decided to go a bit overboard, and while she was napping and the boys and Art were gone at piano lessons, I made scones and put a tablecloth on the table and set the table with my good dishes and dug out some fake flowers and a vase and put on a dress and some pearls.

Then I went to get Squeezy up and get her dressed all pretty for her tea party. Of course, I underestimated how much time it would take for the boys to get home, so once Squeezy was dressed and had squealed with delight over the flowers and the pretty cups and the tea powdy! I had to find something to keep her busy. So I took her picture.

Isn’t she so pretty?

She is in the throes of being two, so life with her can be pretty rough, but when it comes right down to it I feel so blessed to be the mommy of this beautiful little girl.

Here we are, waiting oh-so-patiently for our boys to come home!

And they finally did, and I told them to go get dressed up for our tea party, which took much longer than Squeezy would have liked, but we survived by dancing around the living room to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, which we decided was good “tea powdy music.” And finally everyone was ready.

In case you can’t tell, Bubs has his tie on the inside of his collar instead of under his collar like it is supposed to be. And Stinky was buttoned crooked but I fixed that.

We also let the kids each bring a friend. May I introduce you to Lucy, Jimmy, and George.

Lucy was dressed quite appropriately for an afternoon tea, I think we’ll all agree. Jimmy the rabbit was wearing a crown, which is quite lovely. But poor George, in spite of his necktie, looks like maybe he wasn’t drinking only tea, if you know what I mean. Bubs assured me that he just has a spinal problem that prevents him from sitting up straight. Still . . . I don’t know if we should allow our kids to hang out with his type.

I know that my pinky is not out as it should be in this picture. You try holding a teacup properly when your fingers barely bend. At least I was wearing my pearls.

Stinky here is giving a combination thumbs-up/pinky-up, reserved for only the classiest of tea party goers.

And here he is, demonstrating the proper way to wear your glasses on the tip of your nose for that truly “proper” touch.

Maybe he could give Bubs lessons. I’m not sure he’s got it down quite right.

Art, on the other hand, brought new meaning to the word proper, with his bow tie and tweed jacket.

Miss Squeezy was so very careful with her fragile cup and saucer. It was seriously adorable.

Originally I put milk in the kids’ teacups, but then Squeezy wanted a taste of my tea. Since it was decaf, I let her have a sip, and she loved it and wanted more. So I poured a bit in with the little bit of milk at the bottom of her cup, and she drained it. And then asked for more. So Auntie Karen, you’ll be glad to know I think we have a little tea drinker on our hands!

It’s a beautiful life.

Is that your dwess, Mommy? Can I wear it? Why? I climb up on your bed, Mommy. Are those your tights? They’re black. Can I have tights? I have socks. Can I jumpy jumpy on your bed? Where are your glasses? Do you have boots, Mommy? Do they have buckles? Can I have them, Mommy? Do you need to go potty? I don’t need to. Where’s Bear? Why? Is this your pillow? Is it my pillow? Is it Daddy’s pillow? Daddy’s at work! No. Daddy’s downstaiws! Do we love Daddy? Do you have a sweater, Mommy? Is it so warm and cozy? We not going to church today. No ma’am. We going to Hy-Vee. No. Are you going to work, Mommy? Mommy not need to!

On and on she goes, not noticing that I am barely answering, that I am in a fog, wanting nothing more than to fall asleep on the bed she is jumping on. She follows me into the bathroom while I comb my hair.

Is this a comb? Is that your toofbrush? Can I brush my teeth, Mommy? Why? I don’t need to go potty. That’s the baftub. Can I take a baf? Why? We don’t play in the potty. Are you combin’ your hair, Mommy? I don’t need to comb my hair.

It’s like this most of the time. She simply must know what’s going on, and she must comment on it. When we listen to music, she needs to know the name of every song.

What’s dis song, Mommy?

“I don’t know” is not an acceptable answer.

Most of the time I am just used to her chattering, and I answer her questions until I start to twitch, then I tell her to go find her brothers and play with them. I’m sure the boys really appreciate that. Her voice is just a part of the soundtrack of my life– the very loud soundtrack.

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It’s Tuesday night and we’re on our way home from the store. I am listening to music (what’s dis song, Mommy?) and contemplating the joy of bedtime, which waits just inside the door of our house. From the back seat, I hear her little voice . . .

‘Cause what if Your blessings come through raindwops?
What if Your healing comes through teaws?

I sing along with her to the end of the song, and we pull into the driveway.

I like to sing with you, Mommy.

My life might have a noisy soundtrack, but it sure is a good one.

I hate camping.

Anyway, I have been putting of a trip to Walmart since approximately New Year’s Eve, and I simply had to force myself to go this morning. Which turned into tonight, as I was able to procrastinate it by nearly twelve hours. So I left Art and the boys at home to finish Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and Squeezy and I braved the cold of January in Iowa and the misery of Walmart at any time.

I’ve been drinking a lot of water lately, which is not a valid substitute for the cup of afternoon coffee I gave up. I knew as soon as I got out of the van that I was going to have to make a stop in the bathroom before I could go buy a new tent shampoo. So I dragged Squeezy into the bathroom, which had miraculously just been cleaned and which also, for reasons unknown to me, had a cinnamon roll in a baggie lying on the floor. This has nothing to do with this story, but I point it out because, well, because I do.

By the time we got into the bathroom, my potty need had reached critical mass (which doesn’t take much after you’ve birthed 3 children, just saying), so I dashed in, pulled Squeezy in after me, slammed the stall door shut, hung my coat up on the hook, and proceeded to do my business. Unfortunately, just as I sat down, I noticed that the stall door was hanging wide open. Apparently in my haste I had not latched it well. It is also important to know that I was in the big stall and couldn’t reach the door.

“Squeezy!” I hissed desperately to my daughter, who is afraid of automatic toilets, public restrooms, and vacuum cleaners (one of those is not relevant to this situation), “Push the door shut!”

My genius two-year-old gave the door a little tap, causing it to close by 1/4″ and immediately swing open by 3 more inches.

“No! You’ve got to push it! Push it shut!”

I should note that normally this child adores slamming doors, so her unwillingness to do so in this situation is proof of the constant conspiration of the world against me (I just made that word up). Finally, after much encouragement from me (all very loving and patient, I assure you), I convinced her to hold the door shut until I could waddle over and lock it properly.

My business taken care of, I now turned my attention to my dear, sweet, angelic little Squeezy Bug.  We recently potty trained her, and she is usually very good about staying dry, but that’s because I take her potty every chance we get. Usually it’s not on scary, tall, automatic-flush potties in scary, loud public restrooms.

“I need to go potty,” she said.

“You do?”

“Yes.” Quite decisive. Then– “NO!”

“I think you’d better try.”

Those five words prompted my child to have the Mother Of All Tantrums, which I’m sure all the people in Walmart enjoyed listening to. “I DON’T NEED TO GO POTTY! I DON’T WANT TO SIT ON THE POTTY! IT’S NOT GONNA FLUSH IT’S NOT GONNA FLUSH IT’S NOT GONNA FLUSH! I DON’T NEED TO PULL MY PANTS DOWN!”

I have in the past been able to get her to calm down and go, but tonight I had to admit defeat after five minutes of bloodcurdling screaming and crying and back-arching and freaking out. I helped her off the toilet, took my hand away from the sensor so it could flush, and hissed threats of the dire consequences of wetting her pants as I helped my sweet angel pull up her pants and gathered our coats.

On the way out of the bathroom she got too close to the hand dryer and set it off, which caused her to shriek and run out of there like all of the presidential candidates were after her vote. I was kind of sad about that because I had wanted to investigate the cinnamon roll further. I’m sure it has an interesting story. Why would anyone leave a cinnamon roll anyplace other than in her mouth? Particularly the bathroom at Walmart? But alas! I could not satisfy my curiosity. Instead I had to chase my toddler out of the bathroom to the front of Walmart, where the people sitting at the H&R Block booth were looking at us with much interest and a smidge of judgment. I ignored them, wrestled my unwilling daughter into the seat of the cart, and walked away with what little dignity I had left.

As I headed toward the health and beauty department, I realized that I needed to go to the bathroom again.

1. Yesterday Squeezy got into a tub of Vaseline that I accidentally left in her bedroom. Art walked into her room to find her with her pants down around her knees, smearing the stuff on her bum and shining like the sun. It could have been a lot worse. But she still required much scrubbing.

2. I have been reading Howard Pyle’s Robin Hood to the boys and we are just loving it. It makes me laugh how every time they meet a new character they have to fight him. I guess men haven’t changed much in the last few centuries, huh?

3. I’ve also been reading the Just So Stories to Stinky and they are delightful. I’m always happy when they pop up in my list of things to read for the day. Yesterday I read him “The Beginning of the Armadillos.” He didn’t know what an armadillo was so we had to look it up. He declared them “creepy.”

4. You know that sound the coffee maker makes when it’s almost done percolating? I love that sound. That is the sound of happy morning magic.

5. The boys are participating in our homeschool group’s production of The Three Trees. Most of the kids need tree costumes, but Bubs is supposed to be a stump. I can handle hot gluing leaves to Stinky’s shirt to make him a tree, but I’m not sure how to create a stump. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

6. One of my current annoyances is the way that stuff keeps appearing on the back of the piano. Stuff that, unlike my cute little snowman display, does not belong there and does not look seasonally adorable. Do you think that throwing it all away would count as going off the deep end?

7. Art has been reading Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang to the boys in the evenings, while I provide sound effects (warning: that link does include some explicit language). Last night Art read something about a box full of cartridges, and Bubs piped up and said, “But where’s the pear tree?” Which might be the first time he ever told a joke he made up himself that was actually funny. These are precious milestones and must be remembered.

8. I’ve been trying to stick to a cleaning schedule for the last few weeks, and it’s been going really well. Tuesday is mop-the-kitchen-and-dining-room day, so yesterday after lunch I had the boys pull out all the chairs and everything and then I mopped once everyone had gone to their rooms for quiet time. And then, two hours later, I sent my boys out to play in the snow. You know how you get into my house from the backyard? Through the dining room, over my freshly mopped floor. I’m a genius. So when they were ready to come in I gave them very specific instructions involving brushing snow off outside, hanging up gear, and drying the floor with a towel. They actually did pretty well about it. My little babies are growing up.

9. Art’s resume has started going forth from our home, unto the ends of the earth. Well, not really of the earth, actually. But you know. It kind of has me in this constant state of panicky excitement, overlaid by a thin veneer of Peace That Passes Understanding. It’s hard to explain. I just know this: God has led us this far, and He’s not going to forget about us now that graduation is getting close. Now . . . breathe.

10. I simply love having a word for the year, and I’m wondering why I never did this before. It has been such a great way to refocus myself when the day is getting away from me. What can I do in this moment to glorify God? Such a great reminder.

11. If I don’t make breakfast soon, my children might start eating each other, so I guess this is it for now. Hope your day is beautiful!

The whole earth is filled with awe at Your wonders;

where morning dawns, where evening fades,

You call forth songs of joy.

Psalm 65:8

The kids are playing hide and seek. I listen as Stinky counts to twenty, hear the snicker of Bubs hiding in the closet. Then– “READY OR NOT, HERE WE COME!” and the searching begins. “Where should we look, Squeezy? Where’s Bubs?” His voice is patient and sweet. He lets her guide him upstairs, knowing full well where their brother hides. Finally after many two-year-old detours past the dollies and the book about Alice and the button that sings the ABC song, he gently points her in the right direction and SURPRISE! Bubs has been found.

Later, with the hamburgers sizzling on the stove, I slice tomatoes as Bubs guides Squeezy in the proper deployment of a Nerf gun. “See? You just put the dart here, and then you pull this back. Good job! Now aim at the window. Ready? Pull the trigger!” She is six inches from the window and the dart bounces off and flies over her head and we all laugh.

I am not a perfect mother. I look in the mirror of my children every day and see my own failings written across their freckled noses, their bespectacled eyes, their grinning mouths. I hear my weaknesses in their voices and my struggles in their shrieks of anger. And so I know this. This little family of ours– these boys who so passionately and patiently love their little sister– this is nothing but a gift of His grace.

And it makes me smile.

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Linking today with

Bigger Picture Moments at (just) Lenae

Let’s Hear It for the Boys at the MOB Society

I prefer to write about the small. Pictures of my children and stories of this little life we build here. Just that sort of thing.

During the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day I think, and I wonder, what does God want from me in the New Year? I am afraid of resolutions, afraid of failure, afraid to not finish what I start– a pattern in me, a weakness in my character. And yet– the drop of the ball and the start of something new call me anyway.

What does God want from me?

This year ahead, it holds change. I can feel it, sense it. I know it and I must believe it. Things will change, big and small, and who will I be throughout the change? And what can I do in the middle of my messy days to weather the change, to be the wife and mom and daughter and sister and friend and person and Christ-follower that I am supposed to be?

And the day before the New Year dawns, He tells me, not in a long list of resolutions, not in guilt for all I am not and all I should be, but in a word. One little word.

Glorify, He says to me. Glorify me.

And can it be this simple? Can I make a beautiful start in this New Year simply by wearing one little word like glasses, seeing everything I do through their filter? Can I glorify Him as I load the dishwasher, sweep the floor, read Robin Hood, kiss my husband, hug my children, prepare meals? And if I can do these things, in His strength for His glory, can He change me?

What if I could let go of this fear of failure, of this dreadful track record, of the burdens of the person I think I should be, and just choose in each moment to glorify?

What would my life look like on December 31, 2012? Could I look back without regret?

Time to step out . . . time to try.

In my life Lord, be glorified.

I was thinking last week, walking quiet and heavy under the burden of the kindness of others, that it seems God breaks me every Christmas. He breaks my heart, my will, my pride, and when I start to think that, yes, here I am standing on these two feet, I find myself broken again.

Christmas seems like the wrong time to be broken, like an unfair time. Break me in summer and sunshine, maybe, or at Halloween– yes, what would be wrong with a little breaking at Halloween, if breaking must come, so that I have time to build up again in time for Joy! and Mirth! and Celebration! at Christmas. Christmas isn’t supposed to be hard.

So we tell ourselves, remembering perhaps with misty softness some childhood magic before life became so rocky and grown-up and responsible and sometimes just flat-out horrible. Or perhaps we let ourselves be drawn into the message the commercials sing loud and brazen: buy your happiness here! and we rush and overspend and panic to purchase or create the perfect Christmas for ourselves and our children and then, when the toys we thought so important lie broken an hour after the ribbon is untied, we crash down and think of how unfair it is that Christmas should be so hard.

We are deceived.

For Christmas, whatever we think it should be or do, serves as a magnifying glass for the hurts and insecurities and griefs and shames and inequities in our lives. Whether we compare our Christmas to some romantic half-truth memory, or the Christmas our neighbors are having, or the lies the stores sell us all wrapped up in pretty paper, we find our Christmases never match up. And we feel that sting, and cry out– where is my peace on earth?

Perhaps we compare our Christmas to the wrong Christmas. Perhaps instead of looking around us, we should look back– back– two thousand years back to that barn and that baby. You want an imperfect Christmas? Behold the young unwed mother; the long, miserable journey; the inn with no room; the manger.

Why did He come that way? Why did He come in such a tiny, broken way, instead of like the Mighty God Jehovah that He was?

He came because we are broken. He came to meet us, here, in our lowliness, our fallen shame, our griefs and sorrows, our broken hearts and our pain and our desperate needy brokenness. And He came with peace and goodwill, but we look under the tree or in our wallet or in that empty chair at our dinner table to find it instead of looking to Him.

Surely He has borne our griefs, carried our sorrows!

In the middle of our brokenness, He finds us, and when we sit alone in sorrow or put on a show of cheer for our children or spend another sleepless night in worry and pain, He is there. And He is the God of all comfort.

And He is with us, not in spite of our brokenness, but because of it. For it.

He whose coming we celebrate at Christmas came in brokenness, and carried our brokenness to His tree, and bears it for us and with us and is always, always here– our Emmanuel– always and forever when we look for Him.

And so if you, like me, face a Christmas this year with a shadow overhead– big or small– or more than one shadow– be it loneliness, illness, financial distress, disappointment, discouragement, loss, grief– will you remember with me that He came for you, for this very Christmas, this very imperfect, broken holiday? And will you let Him be your Prince of Peace?

He has come. He abides with us. He is the answer for this broken Christmas.