Our bed isn't ours

For the past 4 years we've had to share our bed with one (or all three) of our children. Though it lends itself sometimes for very difficult sleep for us, we love it. Yeah, sometimes we wake up to wet sheets due to a leaky diaper, sometimes we are kept awake longer than we'd wanted, but all in all it has been a wonderful part of being parents. I love it.

I love when Adriana comes to find her spot between Ben and me to snuggle as close as she can to one of us (usually me). Her little arm comes wraps around my neck and her little face is pressed against mine. That is how she goes back to sleep.

I love opening my eyes in the morning to the milky chunky little body curled up by my side. I love that the minute I move, he immediately stirs looks at me with his baby blue eyes and smiles the widest toothless-cheek-crunching-smile.

And when I am tempted to complain because a little someone is stealing my blankets or leaving me no room to move, all I have to do is remember that although Elena still comes to us occasionally, she is pretty much past that season. My little girl rarely wakes up in the middle of the night now and when she does, she usually takes her little self to the bathroom and back to bed. So I'll take it... as uncomfortable as it may get, I love snuggling with my babies!

More funnies from the girls

*Adriana is always asking for snacks when she's not supposed to and I keep telling her "no" time after time, after time. So she had already asked three or four times in the last hour when she came back in the kitchen: "Mooomy, I want tandy!", frustrated, I turned to look at her and said "Adriana, sweetie..." but before I could go on she said: "Momy, be happy. ok?" ...and I really didn't know what to say, I just had to laugh and say "dinner will be ready soon".

It was bed time and I had given Elena instructions to go take her clothes off to prepare for bed. She was walking and talking around, obviously delaying her obedience. Ben finally made her note this and asked her to be quicker to obey. "But I want to blow pretend bubbles!" came her response as she dragged her feet towards her bedroom and was beginning to cry. In an attempt to make a point to her, Ben said to her: "Elena, I want to go walk on the moon..." but before he could even try to go on and make his point she said: "Daddy, I want to go walk in the moon with you" and kept going on "I will be so sad if you go without me!", Ben and I just looked at each other and laughed...

Chuckling

As we walked the couple aisles of tanks filled with all sorts of fascinating sea creatures we could hear all sorts of exclamations coming from little voices thrilled at the discoveries.

We kept hearing Bannon say: "Hey, Jake, look at this fish I found" or "Aunt Keila, I need someone to show something" and then he'd excitedly run back to proudly show his discovery.

"Ooohs" and "ahhhs" kept coming from every direction of the store. Rightly so, these tiny little creatures were simply fascinating reminders of God's careful design. Amazing colors, shapes, and even temperaments (I think fish have them too) were at display. Of course, we found Nemo, Dori AND Nemo's dad, saw a "bubble bus" (one of those little water tank decorations that let a big bubble out every few seconds), a sting ray, live rocks and corals (which I had never seen before), and even a rope fish (yes, a fish a few inches long that had the texture of a rope!).

But the real point of this story, what made Be and I laugh was that in the excitement of the moment, the girls, especially Abby and Elena, kept going back and forth from tanks showing each other their findings and exchanging exclamations and opinions about what they saw. Their exclamations began to blend as they tried to imitate each other and this is what we began to hear:

Elena: "Oh my holy! Abby come look at this!"
Abby: "molly gooness, Elena!"

and every possible combination of the exclamations they kept making! Silly, but worth recording for future memories!

Life these past few days

Well, our plans this weekend were to attend a Valentine´s Day party and a Birthday party or two in addition to the regular weekend activities. For a season now I have really been craving some grown up socializing just for fun. It goes without saying that life with little ones leaves one needing time to just sit among adults, even if I can´t bring much to the conversation (or the table, for that matter) because I still haven´t gotten a hold of life. So I was very excitedly looking forward to these opportunities to share with loved ones, maybe interesting topics, maybe a few laughs, just a good time.

My weekend ended up looking quite differently from the refreshing time I´d envisioned. I had longer nights that usual with Adriana sick. Not only could I not make it to the parties I was looking forward to but not making it to church either! Adriana has been extremely testing because she probably has been feeling so poorly and it has made staying at home much more tiring and demanding than usual.

My heart is in a good place though, I know these days will pass sooner than later and there will always be parties to be attended and fun to be had. Now I only need a bit more patience to help my little girl deal with getting better!

The Heart of the Matter

As the girls are growing and continue to present challenges on a daily basis we are faced with choices. How to correct them, what to correct them for, when to do it, etc. We so much want to honor the Lord with our discipline and lead them towards God's mercy. So a couple weeks ago, when we came to wake them up from naps to find that they hadn't slept at all but instead, ever so quietly, threw every single item of clothing on the floor. Not only that, but they managed to climb on their dresser and get every possible cream, rub, lotion, etc. and smear it on their hair. It was quite a funny scene but we couldn't treat it as funny at the moment, we needed to be quick to correct. When we wanted to do it, though, where did we start? They did so many things they weren't supposed to do:

* They got out of bed
* They were playing instead of sleeping
* They climbed on the dresser
* They took the lotions and creams (which included anti-itch, and antibiotic ointments, and petroleum jelly!)
* They took all the clothes and messed the morning's worth of work, etc.

We felt full of remarks and comments that we felt compelled to explain to them. Things such as how much these things cost, how much effort Mom put in folding all the clothes nicely, how dangerous it was to put stuff on their faces and hair threatened to spill out of these concerned parents who, by the way, decided to tackle this together to stay accountable and avoid a major temper meltdown! Yet any course of action we'd suggest would be received with the question "why".

No matter what we said, they couldn't comprehend the severity of what they had done. So after a lot of head scratching and quick little discussions over little heads screaming about the scrubbing of hair we asked each other: what is the bottom line? The bottom line was that they disobeyed, take your pick as to what color, shape or intensity, they disobeyed and that was what we needed to address. We knew that not only would they understand that but it would also keep us objective.

Yes, this was a very simple response to a very simple dilemma. Probably most of you, seasoned moms have figured this one out already, but to us, it was a revelation! It was one of those moments where we could have heard an angelic choir of voices chime in as we concluded to address the obedience issue and forget how stressed, disappointed and even angry we felt.

So I know I've been out of touch here, but at least life has been dishing us some good lessons lately!