Why I cherish her.

She was supposed to be napping.
I was on the phone getting advice from another girlfriend.
I heard her say, Mommy, I need to go potty and I said okay.
But I forgot to listen for the sound of the door closing indicating her return to her room.
After twenty minutes of quiet, while I was still on the phone, it registered.
Is she in her room, asleep?! Wow! That would be nice for once.
I go upstairs to check.
Nope. Nowhere to be seen, but traces of her everywhere.
Makeup dust on my counter.
File folders strewn across the office floor.

I call her.
And then the smell registers.
Nail polish.
I yell. Tell me where you are RIGHT NOW!
I hear her little voice tell me she right here.
Right behind the white couch in my room.
With the red nail polish bottle.
All over her.
But only one drop on the tan carpet.

Little miracles.
Little mercies in the midst of messes.
Half a bottle on her and the window.
None on the white couch.
None on the new curtains.
Nothing permanent on the walls.
Only one drop of red polish on the carpet.

I couldn't punish her. She was just trying to make her hair red for Halloween (she is going to be a modest mermaid). Not that she has seen the movie Little Mermaid, but she knows her hair is supposed to be red.

I am freshly reminded of how precious she is as a girl.

This was me when she was born. I didn't know what sex she was. But my wish was born. All I had wanted was a girl. I read something so shocking different today. Michael Stokes Paulsen comments on the ethical debate in progress today on sex-selective abortions, stating,

Sex-selection abortion occurs in America, too, and the practice is likely to increase. In August, a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that a simple blood test seven weeks into pregnancy can reliably identify the sex of the child. Watch for a spike in abortion rates over the next few years as parents find it easier and cheaper to “choose” to have a boy by killing the fetus if—in a bitter reversal of an expression of joy—“it’s a girl.”

Under the current laws on abortion, a woman can abort for any reason, even if it is for sex-selection.

For me, I cannot imagine life without Kate.
Even her three year-old wiles do not deter me from saying that I have always been glad she was a girl.

Summer Planning.

My mother always made us new plans for the summer. It included summer reading lists, new chore lists and the fun planned activities or classes.

So Kate is now signed up for Princess Dance for July. And I found a reading list I will be working off for a while here. I would put a beautiful picture of a stacked books [here]. But my computer isn't up for it.

Still waiting Peter.

My kind brother is sending me his old, but newer than mine, laptop.

So while I am in exile from a truly working computer, I will just post the  link to this awesome book list I found for the 3-5 year old range..

Lastly, I completed this photo version of a chore list for Kate, which I'll post as a generic one so that you can freely steal.  I am giving her one penny for each daily chore she does and a nickel for doing some of the harder chores. And at the end of the week I plan on paying her from our large change bucket so that she can "save" and buy something at the end of the month.

Our fun summer activities include:
1) The Phoenix Zoo (it has a water park too)
2) The Phoenix Children's Museum
3) Sleepovers with friends
4) Storytime on Thursday at Barnes and Noble. I plan on trying to purchase a small book each time we go since we are enrolled in their kids program and it gives a discount. It will make it more exciting to "find" a book and bring it home, since we always get library books.

Follow the Spark

I picked up this book my friend had at her house the other day and ran across this phrase:

Follow the spark

Following the spark is a concept that this author applies to mothering small children. What a great phrase to reinvent our time with our children during the holidays! If you are like me, you need an attitude adjustment, some elves, a cleaning lady, a personal assistant and a make-over to get through the holidays. When you have little ones crawling and taking off your tree ornaments, feeding your cookie dough to the dog and wiping faces, hands and bums a hundred times a day, it doesn't make for a lot of free time to accomplish all your holiday wish lists.


Those lists are just wishes. Not everything is crucial. If we follow the spark of what is amazing to our children we will stop. We will pause with them. We will rejoice in their little moments. Their perspective is so fresh. Usually I try to just grit though it and GET IT DONE. I want to follow their sparks of joy, wonder, delight and interest in the next few weeks. Christmas can be a true spark to rejoice in our mothering.

Best Toe Forward

I tried Target.
I tried Old Navy.
I tried Babys R' Us.
Let us just say that none stood the test of Little Miss Wiggle Toes.

Then I changed my friend's kids socks.
I noticed:
A wide, sturdy elastic band to keep them on!
A decent weight that does not alter shoe sizes!
Adjustable elastic sizing!
Walmart!

The world must know! Go to Walmart! Pick up the eight pack. No one told me that more than half of the socks you buy your kids never make it back into the drawer after the first wash! They get lost, eaten in the washer, stolen by the dryer...these tiny toe covers are impossible to own.
But at Walmart, they not only fit, stay on, but they are six dollars for eight pairs.

Rocking the world

Here's a quote my sister found in Female Piety by John Angell James that we found sweet, inspiring and encouraging. The last part we dedicate to my Oma, a very strongly minded woman, who believed that truth whole-heartedly...we would agree with a touch more humility, yet we acknowledge that you never know what the Lord has planned for your child. This is a sobering and exciting thought as I embark on motherhood. I am anticipating the joy of watching my child become the man or woman they are meant to be.

"What associations with all that is lovely are connected with that blissful word, "mother"! To that sound the tenderest emotions of the human heart, whether in the bosom of the savage or the sage, wake up. The beauty of that term is seen, and its power felt, alike by the prince and the peasant, the rustic and the philosopher. It is one of the words which infant lips are first taught to lisp, and the charm of which the infant heart first feels. It is a note to the music of which it is difficult to say child. Humanity, however semi-brutalized by oppression, ignorance, or even vice, has rarely been sunk so low as to have the last spark of maternal love extinguished, or the last sensibility of this kind crushed out of it. This strength of woman's love for her child must be turned to good account, and be directed by its exercises to the best and most useful of purposes...woman's heart is made to love; and love is exerted more gently, sweetly, and constrainingly upon her child by her than by the other sex. It makes her more patient, more ingenious, and therefore, more influential...Hence, to repeat an expression of Monod, "The greatest moral power in the world is that which a mother exercises over her young child. Nor is there much exaggeration in that other expression, "She who rocks the cradle rules the world."