Happy Birthday, Charlotte!

Charlotte is two today! I am trying not to think thoughts about how she is my last baby, and no matter how you define babyhood hers has basically passed, which means I am not a mom to babies anymore, and ahhhhh existential crisis but NO, that can wait for another day, because no matter how hard I feel her birthday, today is for Charlotte.

My sweet Charlotte, who is two. TWO.

Two years ago today, I took my 41-week pregnant belly for an early-morning swim, and rocked in her room, and then some hours later we met the little girl who will always be my baby. My baby!

And y'all, that baby is the best two-year-old I know:


(If you can't see the embedded video, click here to watch it on YouTube.)

(And here are memories of Charlotte's first year.)

I love you, Booler, with everything I am. Daddy and Nathan and Anneliese, too. You astound us with your sweet and lovely ways, and we are more enamored every day, every week, every year.

Happy birthday, dear Charlotte.

Home and Reunited...

I got home from Montreat yesterday.

Everyone who told me how amazing it would be was exactly right. It was an incredible week. But I don't know what to say about it yet that will fully capture it without cheapening it. Trying to articulate it makes me feel very tired.

I am assuming the words will come later. Right now I am emotional and empty and quiet.

Capital F Feelings and all that.

But I am being filled back up by my sweet family who spent my last few Montreat days down with Mark's dad at Lake Wateree.

And now they are home. And I am home. And that is a good thing.

I missed my people, and am so glad to hug them again. I need to do this and only this for a few days.

Charlotte at Almost Two

Y'all. Can we talk about Charlotte for a second? I want to. I need to.

I won't have pictures to add to this or be able to post it til I get home, but tomorrow is her due date, Charlotte day, August 1st, bo time! as we were ready to call it back in 2011. Now I am sitting on a quiet porch at Montreat, watching a waterfall (well, a dam), glad for a free afternoon of sabbath rest from an insanely busy week, really glad to be here -- full of heart feelings and the holy spirit and a peaceful view to boot...

...but I miss my sweet Charlotte like there is a hole in my chest.

I miss both girls, of course, and Marky, and Bowden, but today the thought of Charlotte's toothy grin and a mouth-open slobber kiss just makes me ache.

So I am going to blather on about her for a hot minute, yes I am.

In the past year Charlotte has gone from our sweet slow tiny delicate flower to a running jumping dancing grinning laughing silly little girl. She is still sweet. She is still tiny. She is still kind of a delicate flower. But thriving in her delicacy.

She is still timid around strangers, but no longer panicky. She greets people with a wave and kiss blowing and a grin. Full of teeth. That girl has a grin for days. FOR DAYS. She will copy anything Nathan and Anneliese do, and eats up their praise. She is picky about what she wears and her biggest tantrums so far involve us putting something on her that she doesn't approve of. (Her approval is exactly as predictable as you would think it is. She's almost two. That's to say, not predictable.)

She isn't a big eater but she loves yogurt and bananas and nutri-grain bars, unless she doesn't. (Again, almost two.) She sleeps every night with a menagerie of toys and animals and books, but is most loyal to Sheep and Sunny Puppy. She loves blocks and buildings and will habitually stack up any group of toys she encounters. She calls her siblings Lee-Lee and Nay-Nay and I hope she never outgrows it. They are her very favorite people.

She is quirky: Scampering to the window to wave at the car of someone who is physically standing right by her. Running a crazy run that involves one (just one) of her arms swinging by her side. Sporting the most incredible bed head where her wispy hair sticks out in front of her face like a visor, because apparently she sleeps on her face. (?) Oh and she's still wearing that winter hat in any and all weather.

She is obsessed with shoes. Never in the history of children or shoes has any child ever asked for shoes to be taken on or off more times in one day, every day, than Charlotte. Ever. If they're off, she wants them on. If they're on, she wants them off. And if she's satisfied with their current status, she's still talking about them. Syoo? Syoo? I hear it my dreams.

She calls milk how. Yeah I don't even know.

She still insists her name is Night-Night.

And in three short (long) days she will be hugging me and saying Mommy and my arms will be full of her wispy hair and sweet smell.

Happy almost two, little Booler.

Dinosaur Pool Party

Nathan and I are headed to Montreat for a week for a youth conference, and Montreat (from what I can tell after two short afternoon visits last summer and last week) is where the internet goes to die. So who knows when this will be actually posted complete with pictures.

But. Nonetheless. We had a dinosaur pool party!

Yep, that is what Nathan asked for. Mark and I didn't know what it meant either. But it turned out very okay!

Inflatable dinosaurs! In a pool! What is a dinosaur pool party if not EXACTLY THIS?!

We cut slices of pizza into dino shapes with cookie cutters. Note: this is not for the faint of heart. Pizza-cookie-cutting is approximately one million times trickier than you are picturing it in your mind. I know, because I pictured it that way too. Um, nope.

I made adorable (if I can say so) (yep, I can) favor bags from foam masks. I loved them. They were maybe my favorite thing all day. Besides Nathan. Of course. My sweet big boy six-year-old. Okay whatever LOOK AT MY DINO BAGS THEY ARE SUPER.

Charlotte adopted and rode a new pet. You know, like you do.

We set up the table outside with paper and dino stencils and things to color.

We made a dinosaur cake complete with rocks and dirt, obtained in the form of toppings from a pay-by-the-ounce frozen yogurt place where Mark went and bought... just toppings. Parenting makes you do weird things, yo.

This is a portrait I like to call "Birthday Happy Frantic with Daddy and Paralophosaurus" (heck yes I know dinosaur names) (no I just flat-out lied, I had to ask Nathan before typing that) (and then google for spelling) (I am a sham of a dino-lover mother, is what I'm saying).

And then we opened presents and played. Oh and yes those are indeed dinosaur bones in that bowl. Thank goodness for Pinterest or I would have just thought they were yogurt pretzels. NOPE! Dinosaur bones.

Happy dino pool birthday, dear Nathansaurus.

Nathan is Six!

Happy birthday to our oldest baby, whom I feel could have just been a tiny baby last week but somehow it has actually been six years, who is now bright and kind and uncertain and excitable and gentle and curious and empathetic and funny and shy, all at once.


(If you can't see the embedded video, click here to watch it on YouTube.)

(And because I know some of you love memory lane as much as I do: here are links for Nathan's fifth, fourth, third, second, and first years too.)

We love you so much, sweet Nathan. Happy birthday to you.

Almost Six: HI My Blog by Nathan

{Royal baby or not, to me July 22 will always be Nathan's due date. Happy almost-six to my sweet baby boy! I was going to write an update on how he is doing at almost six, but he has been working on this for a month, he said last week he was done, and I thought this would be a good time to post it. So, here you go: baby's first blog post!}

The titel is HI my Blog by Nathan

HI my Nam is Nathan i m Email a blog.

My brthae is Just a feu mare days. i will be six yers old. my brthae pRtey will be a dinosur poul pRtey weth six frends boys and grels!

i Love Rex. Rex is fun he is my vare sof t-rex. he is my fevrit toy i can Have 1 speshal toy that is not for to shar. Mr Roger said that. Allso Tiger is my speshal fevrit toy that is not for to shar.

haveing tow sistrs is fun! Ther Nam is Annelieses and Charliett. they aer pritete and smart sistrs i Lik to hug tham i can pik up Charliett isNt that so fune! Charliett sez her Nam is nite nite isNt that so fune!

My fevrits things are LEGOS and dinosurs and plaenets and puZelz. My fevrit sho is Daniel and Super Why and the cat in the hat nose all abowt that! and dinosur traine.

We seed a snake owtside but it was not peosnus my mom hit it weth the shuvL. 

did you no that astro nots war Diprs in Spas! isNt that so fune!

If you cant find some Thing jus thingck Like a Skewrl! Becus Skewrls can all ways remembire and find ther Akorns.

By Nathan!

Friday Miscellany: Flying Solo Edition

I think I mentioned that Mark is away on his annual ASP trip, which means it's time for my annual week of parenting, flying solo. Am I being an annoying internet mom if I say it actually gets easier every year? I think the hardest one was the first one. When I only had two kids. Oh and the one where I was 39 weeks pregnant trying to find a tanker truck to come fill up our pool wasn't a breeze either. BUT anyway, this week has been pretty easy.

Besides melting various plastic shapes in the guest house oven, we also did another bucket list item -- "go downtown and go up in that big tower again" -- by request of Anneliese, who remembered our glamorous (not glamorous) trip to the state vital records office last fall to get Charlotte's birth certificate. And wanted to re-create it. Apparently.

So we went downtown, we looked at the big towers, we went into the big towers, we rode elevators in the big towers, and then we ate hot dogs at a sidewalk table in the shadow of the big towers.

It was not unpleasant. It was lovely, actually. Sometimes I am glad when we do random harebrained kiddie ideas.

Now, want to hear something that is unpleasant?

I am feeling pretty pissy that I still don't have my oven back. You would think I wouldn't care (or at least care less) when it's a week without Mark which means I am not cooking much real food, but I do care. It is driving me nuts and taking forever.

Our home warranty is covering the damage, which is nice, but the red tape requires attempting to fix it first, which is also fine, and I totally get that diagnosing the problem and getting approval for parts, and then ordering said parts takes time. I get it. I do. But all our parts came, we still had to wait a long week for a technician appointment, and then when he came, he found that we (of course) need a different part. Argggghhhh.

Shit happens, I know, I know. But an oven is an essential appliance. ESSENTIAL. And I feel like there should be an upper limit on how long it takes the warranty people to fix/replace it before they are in violation of the warranty. Or if their contractors have a several week waiting period to get it fixed, we should be able to ask for a different contractor. Our next repair visit is in August. AUGUST. Our fire was IN JUNE. I am basically going all summer without an oven. Well that's how it feels. It is TOO LONG.

I would bitch about it a lot more except I do technically have a working oven in the guest house, and saying that that isn't good enough makes me sound brattier than I want to believe I am. So.

Anyway.

So now not only is Mark out of town, but Another Nathan left yesterday to lead worship for a huge youth conference for the next three weeks (pray for him! send him a million encouraging thoughts!) AND our Nathan is visiting my dad for the weekend, so it is hella quiet around here. No one should say that about solo parenting an almost-two-year-old and an almost-four-year-old, but it does indeed feel... still.

I miss all my favorite dudes! Marky comes home tomorrow so there will be ginormous hugs involved.

And in the meantime I wanted to record a little bit of Charlotte on video, to share some sweetness with our traveling guys, and also just since I haven't been great about getting her on video of late. (Remember this sweetness from Nathan at almost two?)

So, here is her cute little voice getting ready for bed (and no, she doesn't know her correct name or age and no one is really bothering to correct her, so just go with it) (also try not to notice she does something vaguely Hitlerish with her hands when she says her (wrong) age, which is... yeah, um... awkward):


(If you can't see the embedded video, click here to watch it on YouTube.)

Oh and I also realized I never blogged about Nathan passing a belt test at Tae Kwon Do, so I guess this is also a good time to say yay Nathan! He worked hard and passed the test and is one belt level higher (I don't understand all the levels, please don't ask me). Oh and yes, if you remember his previous disappointment, he broke a board. His first real wooden one.

I can't believe how big he is getting. He will be six in a week! A WEEK! SIX! When I could swear I was just pregnant with him. That cannot have been six years ago, when I wasn't even a mom yet. No way. Cannot.

Another Nathan pointed out that I do this every July, get all mommy nostalgic remembering where I was and what I was doing every summer previously, pregnancies and births and such. It's true. Summer brings it out in me. All the birthdays are approaching and I have feeeelings and now I am HYPER AWARE of how much time I spend in memory lane. Um I don't know what to say about that really, since I like being this way, nostalgia feels kind of great actually, but... now I know I am That Way.

And the chromebook battery is dying (dark red with an exclamation point), so that's how this post ends.

Surprise (!) Crayons

Well I attempted a craft this week. Yeeeeeeah you already know how this post ends, right?

So one of the items on our summer bucket list was to make "surprise crayons" (which is what Nathan and Anneliese call those crayons that have a bunch of colors all marbled together). A friend brought some to us last year and the kids like using them to write and color and you never even know what color it will be! Surprise! So, surprise crayons.

Anyway.

We have been collecting the broken bits and bottoms of old crayons for several months, and we finally had enough to melt down into new ones. So we peeled and peeled and picked paper off all those bits (it took a lot longer than we thought it would but Anneliese was my cheerful worker bee) and then I chopped them all up. It was more satisfying than I want to admit.

And then, per the internet's instructions, we filled the bits into some silicone* ice trays the kids had picked out. Lightning bolts and coke (not beer; I am a good mom: coke) bottles for Nathan, and hearts and sausages for Anneliese.

Yes sausages. My child wanted to make surprise crayons in the shape of sausages. I dare you to find another kid like Anneliese. I DARE YOU.

So we popped them in the oven (in the guest house, because my real oven still is not fixed from the fire, don't even get me started) and... this happened:

Uhhhhh yeah.

*Learn from my fail: $1 ice tray molds from the one spot at Target are not, I repeat are not made of real silicone. They do not double as candy molds. If you get them hot, they melt. Like crayons.

So I threw them in the freezer (I don't know, it just seemed like what I should do), decided not to deal with it, and resorted to a summer activity I know I'm good at:

But a couple hours later, I was able to pry a surprisingly large (frozen) handful of pretty crayons from the mess. I re-chopped what I could salvage from the janky ones (PS today Nathan learned the word janky) and had big plans to re-melt them in my metal (metal!) mini muffin pan, but then I remembered we had those ice cube molds from Nathan's lego birthday last summer, which are actual silicone and can be used as candy molds (I remembered thinking to myself when I bought them, who the eff would use these things for anything but ice? damn overachievers).

So... we did that. And it worked just great. Happy ending after all?

anyone want exactly ONE surprise crayon shaped like a sausage?

And that's the story of how I learned if something says Not Dishwasher Safe, you probably can't bake it in the oven either.

Never Grow Up, Never Ever

On weeks or weekends when Mark is on night shift (or on his annual ASP trip, like right now), I usually let Nathan spent one (ish) night(s) with me in our bed. He's a snuggler, I'm a snuggler, we both love it, so we indulge.

And those nights make me want him to never grow up. Never. Not ever. #fiveforever

Chicago Chicago Chicago!

Okay I am about to be really annoying and rave all about a beautiful American city that everyone else probably already knew was awesome, but we didn't, and we loved it, so now you get to hear me say a lot how much we loved it. Okay? Okay.

Chicago!

If you missed it before, this trip was part anniversary celebration, part Thailand consolation prize, part sheer desperation to be away somewhere, together, just us. We like big cities and we hadn't spent much time in Chicago (despite so many family roots there on my mom's side!) and we could get there with miles, so... Chicago. A bit random, but yknow, whatevs.

Our first day involved taking the wrong train to Somewhere Random, Chicagoland, and then trying to catch a bus outside a Home Depot with two dying phone batteries and only a quarter clue where we were but hey! we have had weirder lost adventures!

(Y'all only wish I had been blogging back when we got on an unmarked bus bound for who-knows-where in downtown Beijing, and then got in a fight with a rickshaw cyclist -- it definitely involved cash being thrown in the street in front of God and everyone) (and don't ever ever ask my mom about the time we took her on a train to the wrong country and then tried to play it off like we meant to do it that way the whole time) (y'all are all dying to travel with me right now, aren't you? I am actually an excellent traveler! I am! Really! But I digress.)

So anyway we found Wrigley field, where we were trying to go. And because it wasn't a game day, we got to tour it -- including the press box and locker rooms and go out on the field. Mark was predictably geeked up on baseball and nostalgia. But y'all! The stadium really is beautiful! And the city behind it!

Okay I will cool it with the exclamation points now, it's just a baseball field. It gets way better.

Like, our beautiful hotel with a lovely view of Lake Shore Drive. See?

And the spectacularly fancy Water Tower Place mall next door. Fancy, see?

And the perfect foodie dinner (something top chef Stephanie something? we didn't watch the show, we just follow restaurant suggestions) with an unexpected rooftop bar at the top full of fun music and craft beers (in cans! oh Chicago you hipster, you) and a great view -- see?

And drinking coffee on top of the John Hancock tower the next morning wasn't shabby either. Y U NO TELL US U SO PRETTY, CHICAGO??

We also did some things that we love that other people might find nerdy (take lots of pictures on L trains, poke our head into several beautiful churches, admire all the adult-built with Legos on display (it is apparently A Thing in Chicago to have a lego model of whatever building you're in, in the lobby. yes really) and take far too many couple-selfies standing in islands in the middle of busy streets. (There is a picture link at the bottom of this post if you're dying to see all that. Obviously you are.)

I am ashamed to say we didn't eat any steak (I know!) but we did at least find some delicious pizza at this famous place Giordano's (again with the following of restaurant suggestions).

And we went to what midwesterners adorably call "the beach" which, yes, okay, it has sand and water (big water!) but... but. Y'all. It's not the beach. I mean if I lived smack dab in the middle of the country I would be all over it, but only because there was no real beach. It must be how people in the Caribbean feel about Myrtle. (Myrtle y'all!)

But it was fine and fun and we were glad to spend an afternoon in the sand relaxing. And we had never been on a beach underneath skyscrapers before. Very weird and kind of awesome.

And since we were there for the fourth, we took a sailing trip out into the harbor (on a tall ship! I had never been on one of those before! very cool) to watch fireworks over the skyline.

It was... well, perfect. We drank cocktails and snuggled and it was dark and romantic and OH MAH GAH I am so cheesy right now but basically I loved every second and I'm not really ashamed to admit that. 

It was lovely.

And then when it was over we weren't ready to leave the pier and go back to real life ("real life" being our swanky hotel room downtown) so we stuck around the pier and shopped for cheesy souvenirs and shared a cookie in a skillet. Which of course delayed us on the pier til super late, later than was easy to get back into town, which OF COURSE resulted in our hopping on some whatever bus that happened to be sitting there. We figured it would take us someplace where we could figure out where we were, and it did, and we did, because these things always work out. Usually.

Oh! And one other really cool (nerdy? no, cool, let's go with cool) thing we did was take a river tour of Chicago architecture. Yes, it's really a thing people do there. And it really is cool. Seeing the city is beautiful from the river. And I totally mostly kind of part-way listened when Mark was telling me all about some fascinating thing he saw on A&E Top Engineering Disasters That Are Boring to Wives of Engineers (that might not be the exact title, check your listings) about someone drilling something too deep and flooding the city? Yeah I can't believe I even just subjected y'all to that sentence about it, actually.

Anyway the tour was great and our guide/docent was this warm Chicago native with an adorable midwestern accent who actually got choked up looking at the skyline. Like, literally choked on her sentence! Tears in her eyes! We loved her, is what I'm saying.

And the moral of the story is that everyone should big-puffy-heart *love* Chicago just like that lady. And us, now.

And then we took some pictures under the Bean and had froyo at the top of a skyscraper and flew home. The end.

(More pictures click here.)