So as not to scare off any people who don't have children now and make them think the NEVER want to have kids, I thought I'd post a few things that make me laugh.

From September 19, 2005:
So, I finally had a moment of peace and quiet. Ethan and Sera were in bed, the older girls were at school and Cole was in his room watching television. So, I decided to do some dishes. Cole came downstairs and said, "Ethan was wearing your glasses." So, I go upstairs to put him back to bed and this is what I found:


The mess:








The culprit:

Yes folks, he not only took the sheet off of his bed, but he BROKE the bed and poured an entire LARGE container of formula on it and on himself. I think he must have been rolling in it. It is interesting to note that Cole thought the worst thing...the one worth telling me about...was that Ethan was wearing my glasses. Sigh...just when I think I start understanding how their minds work.



Okay, so that's something that I laugh about now. It wasn't so funny at the time.



I enjoy taking pictures of things that make me SO mad at the moment with the idea that I will laugh about it someday. Here's another one.


Ethan got fingerpaints for Christmas. They were stored in my bedroom closet. He was supposed to be taking a nap in his room...

"Uh oh...I'm in big trouble."


*thinks to himself "Maybe I can play it off."* "Hmmmm...that's strange...how did that get there?"


"Sweet...Moms taking pictures. She must not be mad! That was fun!"


"What do you mean you're throwing the paint away?"


Okay, so the first and last picture are the same, but I didn't get one of him crying when I threw the stuff away.


As you can see, Ethan was the one who got/gets into everything. It was an interesting couple of years until he figure out he shouldn't do that. If it could be poured out, it was poured out. If it could be smeared, it was smeared. If it could be broken, it was broken.

I'm bummed...I can't find the pictures of when Caitlin cut Emma's hair. That was a fun day! Heidi (my sister) had to basically give Emma a pixie cut to correct the mess that Caitlin left on Emma's head. She still had bald spots that we had to color in with eyeliner. LOL

Yep, I can laugh about them now. I'm glad I took the pictures.





As an update to my previous post, Caitlin and I sat down and talked abut the things that she was feeling, how her letter made me feel and what we could both do to make things better in our home. I've agreed to be better about saying please and thank you when I ask her to do things she's not normally expected to do, and she's agreed to do the things she's expected to do, without me telling her to do them and if I have to remind her, she'll just do them without complaint. We both agreed that a later bedtime wasn't a good idea. We've decided to start back up the family journal that we used to have going. It's a notebook that all of us can write in and read each day. If we're having problems, we can write them in the journal. It's a way to keep the lines of communication open even if we don't feel like sitting down and talking about it. I'm hoping this will continue even as the girls get older and they feel they can write about the issues they're having in life even if they're uncomfortable talking to me about them. I figure that eventually each child will start keeping their own journal that we can write back and forth in so their siblings don't read what the others are writing.

I know that as a teenager, I had things I would have liked to talk to my mom about, but I was uncomfortable bringing them up. I could never figure out the proper time or setting to say, "Hey Mom, I had a huge fight with one of my friends. How should I go about apologizing even though I don't think I was wrong?" or, "Mom, my friend's dad beats her up and does horrible things to her. She's asked me not to tell anyone, but I really think something needs to be done about it," or, "My boyfriend broke up with me for another girl. I feel completely lost, used, and heartbroken. What did I do wrong?" I can remember the times that I did sit down with my mom and tell her about things going on in my life and lo and behold, she actually had really good advice. LOL I can remember one time in specific where I was feeling really down. At this point in time, I was really big on inspirational quotes and poems. I had them hanging all over my room. I don't remember which guy had broken up with me (as I'm sure that was the case...I swear all my teenage drama revolved around guys!) but I had talked to my mom about how rejected I was feeling and how ugly I felt and how unhappy I was. The next morning, I had a new poem hanging on my wall. My mom had put it there while I was sleeping. It read:

"After a while you learn the subtle difference
between holding a hand and chaining a soul.
And you learn that love doesn't mean leaning
and company isn't security.
(Kisses aren't contracts and presents aren't promises.)

After awhile you begin to accept your defeats
with your head up and your eyes open,
with the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child.
And you learn to build your roads on today
because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain
and the inevitable has a way of crumbling in mid-flight.

After a while you learn that even sunshine burns
if you stand too long in one place.

So, you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul
instead of waiting for someone else to bring you flowers.
And you learn you really can endure,
that you really do have worth.
And with every goodbye, you learn.

She got me up early that morning, gave me some expensive shampoo and conditioner and told me to take my time getting ready...to do my hair and makeup rather than just throwing it up in a ponytail (which I had been doing since I was feeling so down) and to be ready to face the day with my head up and feeling good about myself. She told me that when you take the time to look good on the outside, you can't help but feel better on the inside. When I was done getting ready, she sat down with me and told me that she wanted me to stop looking in the mirror and start looking out the window. She challenged me to focus on making others happy, rather than focus on how unhappy I was and she promised me that if I did that, that I would find happiness with myself. She couldn't have been more right. That day, I went out and focused on how I could make my friends happy and turning their happiness into my own. I came home that day with such a different outlook on life. To this day, when I'm unhappy and feeling down, I remember what my mom told me and get up, get dressed, take the time to make myself look nice and go out and find ways to make other people happy.

Anyways, now that I've gone off on a tangent, I'll get back to what I was originally posting about. I told Caitlin that I was really glad that she felt like she could express her feelings to me and that I hoped she always felt like she could talk to me about anything she was feeling or going through in life and that letter writing, or writing in the family journal was a wonderful way to talk to me about things she wasn't comfortable actually talking to me about. One of the things I want the most when my girls are teenagers are for them to feel comfortable talking to me about their lives. I want to know what's going on, even if they think I won't approve. I don't want my girls to be like I was...always hiding things from my parents because I didn't want to disappoint them, or feeling like my parents had no business knowing my business. All that did was hurt both my parents and me. I wish I had been more open with my parents. It turns out they actually did know what they were talking about and really did want the best for me. ;)