The other day Mosely said, “Hey Mommy, can I pick out my own clothes?”
Pretty sure we had no plans of leaving the confines of our home, I took a gamble.
“Sure,” I agreed.
Mosely appeared in a too-big shirt and a slightly-too-corduroy-to-be-seasonally-appropriate skirt.
(Actually, Mosely picks out her clothes pretty often and mostly does a great job.)
It’s just that she has a certain pattern.
A specific look to which she seems constantly drawn.
And it looks a lot like this . . .
I guess this picture is just about perfect for this post.
Piper Finn looks a little creepy. Otto Fox looks mostly miserable.
(But they are both still sort of cute despite the weirdness and the displeasure.)
I’d say that’s a good summation of my day.
I should just stop right there and step away from the keyboard.
But I can’t.
Because that’s not how I roll.
Today was a school day. But it was also a day that required a few quick morning errands.
A few quick morning errands.
Oh, how I laugh at the idea even now.
Before the bulk of our real shopping was to begin, Bergen reminded me of a promise I apparently had made to him for the previous three days.
“Mom, you said we could stop at the dollar store whenever we went out again. We didn’t go yesterday. Please. I have one dollar saved. I know just what I want.”
I vaguely recall saying something silly like that to my eldest boy, so I swerved the Suburban into the parking lot. (I think even the parking spaces at the dollar store are sub-par. They seem somehow tinier.)
We all unbuckled.
(5 kids. 1 adult. Please don’t forget our child to adult ratio.)
I slumped the toddler onto my hip and we headed into purgatory, a.k.a. the dollar store, to wait while Bergen wavered frantically between choices – the whale that grows in water or the plastic dragon or the army guys or the parachute guy.
Parachute Guy won.
Piper Finn announces the need to urinate. Our tribe marches to the restrooms. Girls’ restroom is occupied. Since it’s a single person restroom and there are no men currently in the entire dollar store establishment and I have a freshly potty-trained daughter I choose to take no chances. In we go to the men’s bathroom. I am forced to allow Toddler Boy to toddle as I hoist Potty Trained Girl on the seat. Before I can even fully warn Potty Trained Girl of the dangers of touching the toilet seat with her hands Toddler Boy has toddled right over and into the trashcan.
Eventually we recover and take care of business. (But not before I am secretly disgusted at all public restrooms, no matter the level of their cleanliness, and have a slight urge to throw up.)
During the “taking care of business” portion, Bergen is suddenly struck by more indecision. He thinks he made the wrong choice. Should he switch it up now? Are the army guys his true destiny?
The pressure is mounting. Mommy is reaching the edge of some level of sanity.
And Otto decides he has simply had enough and he does what I did not do earlier.
My son threw up on the floor of the dollar store.
A dollar store employee had to step over and around it. She made eye contact with me, said nothing, and kept right on trucking. To her register. Where no one was waiting for her to ring up their purchases.
Another dollar store employee watched the whole scene from the vantage point of her ladder while stacking crates of Ajax. She glanced my way multiple times. Spoke no words. And never stepped off her ladder.
Come on ladies, I don’t really expect you to clean up my son’s vomit, but could you at least crack a smile, make a sympathetic cluck or even just sigh in disgust for me?
And so the story ends.
(Pointless, just as I promised in the title.)
I wiped up the remnants of Fox’s Cheerios breakfast with paper towels from the men’s restroom.
Bergen settled on Parachute Guy after all.
I stripped Otto down to his bare chest and carried him out of the store that way. (That attire seemed to fit the atmosphere better there anyway.)
Berg paid for Parachute Guy all by himself – with a quick loan from his big sister to cover the unexpected seven cents tax.
And all this occurred before the real errands of the day were even underway.
Yes, that is the glamour that really is my life.
We have those weeks at our house.
Like everyone else I assume.
Weeks where the grocery budget has been spent and we end up eating tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches (at an estimated cost of less than 80 cents per family member) or tuna casserole (a throwback from the quick, easy, low cost dishes of my childhood).
I cut coupons and am currently trying my hand at the whole CVS game.
And I’m not doing it because I like spending several hours huddled over newspaper ads or searching websites for great deals.
I’m cutting coupons and planning low cost meals for the same reason everyone else is doing it.
Because providing food and clothing and other essential and non-essential items for a family is expensive.
Budgeting makes me a lot more aware of the items I toss into my grocery cart these days. Fewer prepackaged foods weasel their way into our home.
And I am finding that another item I have started leaving off the grocery list is juice. The kids don’t really need it. It can get expensive – particularly at our home when serving up one glass per kid empties an entire container at one meal. Juice has become a treat here. Our kids generally have two primary options to quench their thirsts. Milk or water.
The little gang of them were outside playing the other day and Mosely announced, “I’m going to go in and get myself a big glass of cold water.”
Which made all of them suddenly realize their own desperate desire to have water as well.
They rushed in, clamored around the sink, sloshing water in their cups, down their shirts and on their faces.
London told me, “You don’t mind us getting water whenever we want. We don’t even have to ask. Because it’s free.”
(Maybe I have been talking too much about grocery budgets all around or something.)
Anyway.
She said all this.
The kids downed their water. Spilled their water. Had seconds. Soaked up the spilled water on the floor with a towel. And then rushed back out to ride bikes. Or climb mountains. Or save the world. Or whatever.
Water.
It’s free – right?
We just turn on the faucet and fill up our cups.
We even have a handy-dandy water filter attached to a spigot on our sink.
It’s nice.
I use it maybe twenty times a day. Probably more.
Uh. Sometimes I leave it running, pouring clean water down the drain of an empty sink while I step over to the fridge for something.
And I never even think about it.
Until right now.
And so, yeah – I want you to think about it too.
Our family’s friend, affectionately known here as Uncle Tyler (although we cannot claim genuine genetic proof of this familial relationship), invited Kevin and I and 28 other bloggers to participate in a challenge to raise $30,000 in 30 days through a project called charity: water.
For 30 days – that’s the month of September, you know – I will be encouraging you to learn more about charity:water and to donate some of your grocery money to the cause.
You could just stop buying juice for this month, which might equal $20 or more if you have a passel of kids slurping down the Juicy Juice every day.
Because $20 – your juice money – can provide one person with clean water for the next 20 years!
All of the money raised this month goes to build wells to provide clean water for the people living in the Central African Republic.
Most citizens of this area are walking to unsanitary water sources miles every day to carry dirty water back to their homes.
And guess who does most of the heavy lifting there – trekking back and forth to water spots with cans on their backs or their heads?
Women and children.
The you and me of their culture.
And guess who most frequently dies because of the lack of clean water?
Kids under five.
That’s half of my family!
Please.
Explore the website.
Watch the videos.
Go ahead – picture your kids in that environment.
That’s what I did.
My water-drinking, water-wasting, juice-loving, blessedly healthy young children.
That kind of helped make things a little clearer for me.
Let me know what you think.
My children say some crazy things.
Out of nowhere, Mosely commented, “Wouldn’t it be weird if a witch came here right now and turned Bergen into a dog?”
(Where’s that kid learning about witches and how powerful does she think they are?)
Or Bergen wondering out loud, “Wouldn’t it be funny if all shoes were made out of sausages?”
And I actually like to hear these bizarre-o statements escape their lips.
Because I like laughing.
But it’s the sweet, unexpectedly kind and thoughtful comments that really shape my heart.
Brushing Scout’s much-longer-than-I-realized hair, I began telling her how much her current seven-year-old self resembled my former seven-year-old self.
(It’s uncanny, really. I would scan a photo if I knew how. Or wasn’t mostly computer-lazy.)
Anyway.
I told her how she looked basically like a miniature me in cooler clothes.
She listened.
Then she said,
“Maybe God liked the way He made you so much that He wanted to make someone who was a little like you.”
Well.
That’s a beautiful thought.
And it’s sort of true.
For any parent of any kid.
God likes us so much that He allows us to create other people who are a little like us.
It is beautiful.
And it’s also humbling.
And overwhelming.
And it’s a work in progress.
Because the people God allows us to create who are a little like us will one day create more people who are a little like them, which means they are still a little like us.
And so on.
That’s a sobering thought for me.
Because I’m afraid that my London will not only look a little like me, she will also act a little like me.
And that’s where the real burdens and blessings lie.
Today.
It’s the first day of the 2010-2011 school year here at our home.
And this year the School of Keigley has a record number of students.
Three.
A second grader.
A first grader.
And a kindergarten student.
(Not to mention that we also manage and maintain a very elite preschool and a rather crème de la crème nursery as well. So sorry – all vacancies are filled.)
Ahh – the new school year.
The books we cannot gather locally are ordered from our school’s personal suppliers- a.k.a. Barnes & Noble and Amazon.
The classroom has been tidied. (Read: the kitchen counters are cleared and the sunroom table is free of toys and mismatched socks.)
Idealistic routines have been written in chalk on the kitchen cabinets, clothes are in each child’s labeled plastic bucket in the hall for pre-breakfast dressing, copywork has been placed on the kitchen table and pre-breakfast chores have been assigned. (Bergen has compost duty this week. Mosely is on laundry detail and London is setting the table.)
A field trip to a horse farm is scheduled later this week to begin our nature journals with this term’s focus on mammals.
I am sure it will be a good day.
Not because the idealistic list gets every item checked off.
Not because Fox sleeps exactly on schedule so that math can progress quietly and efficiently.
Not because my children will be completely cooperative and perfectly obedient.
But because I get to enjoy the privilege of doing something
a little bit magical,
a lot miraculous,
completely humbling,
totally beyond myself
and
mostly unrepeatable.
I get to participate in educating my children.
I get to place beauty and truth and knowledge
in their direct paths
and watch where all that wonder
will lead.
I can’t wait.
Let the school year commence!
Isn’t it funny
how all of a family’s history
can meet
right in the face
of a three-year-old?
On our long drive recently Kevin and I looked at Piper’s face in the rearview mirror and verbally dissected her petite features.
A Norton nose.
My mom’s jawline.
It’s all right there.
Aunt Vonnie.
Uncle Tommy.
In my little Willow.
That wee face,
full of so many faces she will never even know.
All of the people whose blood flows through hers.
All of the people who have had a hand in making her -
both structure and soul.
A whole of so many pieces.
An end to something started so long ago.
A continuation of something
centuries in the making.
A beginning of a new story
with endings we cannot even imagine.
How will you grow, little girl who was yesterday two but is today three?
What faces will we see when we look at yours?
Just three tiny little fast-as-lightning years of your story have begun.
Oh.
I hold my breath
and wait with joy
to see
how your face forms,
how your story shapes itself,
how you continue to pull out pieces of my heart
and stitch them back together in a new pattern.
Happy Third Birthday Piper Finnian Willow Lacey.
Sometime in the less-than-distant past, this event occurred at our home.
It was bed time.
Some friends were over.
Bergen wanted Nate to fly him to bed like a superhero. (Because Nate can do that, you know.)
But Nate was busy.
So Bergen began to wait.
Impatiently.
He cried out Nate’s name.
Loudly.
Repetitively.
Nate told Bergen he would be right there in just a minute.
But Bergen didn’t care.
He just kept crying out in a sobbing voice, “Naaaay-Aaaate”.
Over and over.
Increasing in volume each time.
Nate was not ignoring Bergen.
He had every intention of entering the living room, scooping Bergen up Superman-style, and making a grand exit to the bed.
Bergen didn’t need to cry.
He didn’t need to scream.
He didn’t need to do anything.
He just needed to wait.
To sit still.
His turn was coming.
The Superman lift was approaching.
And the funny thing is, Nate, being the kind pal that he is, planned to meet Bergen’s request.
Bergen was going to head to bed lifted high in Nate’s arms.
Whether he sat patiently
or bellowed loudly.
The end result was the same.
Crying didn’t get Nate there more quickly.
It just made Berg unhappy and miserable while he waited.
(And bothered everyone around him as well.)
I’m pretty sure that for most of our lives we sound a lot like Bergen did that night.
I know I do.
We are just screaming for the next thing, the good thing, the end we desire.
Just shouting off and crying out and making ourselves unhappy and damaging the experience of all those around us.
Being miserable
while we wait.
It’s what we do.
Making others miserable
while we wait.
I’ve been guilty.
And the funny thing is, God has every intention of meeting our need.
He’s at the end.
He is the end.
The truth is
that end is going to happen
regardless of the manner in which we choose to wait.
Regardless of how we sit in our chair.
Regardless of our screaming.
I can be just like Bergen was that night.
But I don’t want to be.
I don’t want to sit
crying and screaming
waiting for the next thing.
I’d like my waiting to be a tad more patient, to look a lot more gracious, to be a bit more proactive.
Because maybe it really is
the waiting
that defines us anyway.
Last year was our first ever Tybee visit.
So this summer we steered the Suburban (or “suh-burr-ven” as Piper calls it) southeast to see if, in fact, our family and Tybee were still a great fit.
This year’s house was actually not that far from last year’s house.
We stopped for ice cream at last summer’s favorite spot, Tradewinds, the first night – before our toes even touched the sea.
Well.
That was a little disappointing.
Riley and Kevin’s favorite flavor – Savannah Mud – was sold out and the teenagers running the counter were bored, uninterested and seemed a bit burdened by our desire to pay their establishment money to purchase their advertised goods. Turns out, the friendly store owner we conversed daily with last summer sold the ice cream store and Tradewinds was under new management.
So we didn’t stop there every day this year. Which was probably good for both our stomachs and our wallets.
Plus, the pursuit of ice cream pushed us to discover a new dive. A new-to-us, old-to-Savannah ice cream store. Apparently Leopold’s Ice Cream has been around for a long time – since 1919 actually. And you know how I am a sucker for places established long ago. (They had me at “established in 1919″.)
The decor was charming and the place looked authentic. And they sold ice cream. So that was good enough to satisfy every member of our band.
Even the discriminating tastes of Eagle.
And while we were on that new street in beautiful Savannah we stumbled across another sure to be favorite.
Savannah Bee Company.
Honey tasting. A cool “hive” for the kids to play in while we shopped. Honey packaged as if it was a work of art. Which, I guess, it really is. Engaging employees. We tried new honey flavors – acacia, orange blossom, winter honey, tupelo. And as we were about to leave the store with our golden treasures one friendly employee we had been chatting with commented that he had a baby snake in his pocket. Yes. Inside his pocket. Right there.
The kids were far more impressed with this knowledge than with any statement we had made in the last half hour.
The young man offered to let the kids see and hold the snake if they were interested.
They were.
We all stepped out on the street in downtown Savannah for a stranger to pull a baby python out of his shirt pocket so we could allow our very young children to hold it.
Yes. It was as bizarre as it sounds.
One thing that is cool about visiting the same place each year is that you have the opportunity to measure your children’s growth through “sames”.
Same beach.
Same favorite restaurant.
Same ice cream store.
And then you can remember how just last year Otto couldn’t run down the same beach.
Or just last year Piper was sitting in a booster seat at the Pirate House.
But this year she was wearing regular human-style underwear and sitting cross-legged in her own chair laughing at her big brother Bergen posing as a pirate.
This year we conquered what we could not conquer last year.
The 178 steps up to the top of the Tybee Lighthouse.
Last summer a thunderstorm kept us from reaching the top.
This year the skies were clear.
2,848 steps in total.
If you count all eight pairs of feet. Which you can’t exactly, since Otto Fox was strapped to my back and Piper Finn made most of the journey in Kevin’s arms.
(Thanks for doing the math Patty – those numbers have never been my strong point.)
It was worth it.
The view was worth it.
Listening to the kids talk about the climb and how they made it – worth it.
I haven’t purchased one of those circular black and white bumper stickers for the car yet.
Kevin says the third summer will be the make or break summer for Tybee.
I don’t know.
I just know – it was a great second round for us this year.
Otto Fox Wilder McDonald.
It’s kind of a royal name – right?
I mean, royal in the sense that lots of kings and queens and dukes and duchesses and such have a long series of names – right?
Right?
Well, this week our family decided that its youngest member needed to be crowned king in a few areas.
Like . . .
King of Throwing Objects Into the Toilet
Objects such as a letter magnet.
A wooden block.
A stuffed animal.
Pretty much, if Fox sensed that a toilet lid was left open anywhere in his vicinity he would rush headlong toward that open hole and try to toss in whatever was in his hand, near his hand or, if no object was at hand, he would just toss in his own hand.
King of Smiles
Man, that kid a grinning machine.
He sat in the backseat, all buckled down with straps and nylon and foam-encased plastic, and manufactured grins as if it was his job.
We didn’t even have to work to earn the grins. We just had to breathe in his general direction.
Sometimes his grins were out of control. They couldn’t just stay on his face. I guess his face is still too tiny to hold all of that smiling. He would start cranking out those smiles and they would spread across his cheeks and then he just couldn’t hold still – his little head would bob and his grin would somehow take over his entire foot and a half body – right down to his tiny wriggling bare toes. I tell you, if a baby’s toes can smile, Otto’s can.
King of Loudness
This kid is loud.
Unless you have heard this, you probably won’t believe me.
Yes. It is embarrassing.
Because he is loud at all the wrong times. Particularly inside buildings. I think he has decided that the smaller the building, the more crowded the space is with people who do not love crying children, the louder he will be.
The funny thing about being King of Smiles and King of Loudness is that he cannot be both at the same time. When he is one, he is most definitely not the other.
King of Recklessness
Yeah, we were all kind of convinced we already had a leading monarch around these here parts for this title. (You might know him by his street name – Hawkeye.) But I am afraid to say, the smallest man is trying to give him a run for his money.
And trying to scare me into old age and gray hair into a hurry while he’s at it.
The house where we stayed on vacation had maybe eleventy million stairs in about that many directions. I was responsible and brought our baby gate with us but one baby gate was not going to cut it at this place. We used all of our resources at hand – coolers, big baskets, strollers, other children’s bodies – but mostly to no avail. The wee escape artist plotted and schemed all week to gain freedom at all cost.
He brought that same sense of impulse and daring to the beach scene as well.
If Otto saw a wave, he ran for it. Guess what is endless at the beach? Uh. Waves. We tried distraction. Sometimes it worked. Sort of. I imagine his thought process was a little like this . . . “Wave. Wave. Wave. Oh, sand is coo- wave!”
There was this one awful time. When Kevin and I had a bit of parental miscommunication and the little emperor in his new clothes dashed like a lunatic to the waves he had so long desired. The first wave washed across his legs and he broke out into his grins. But the second wave. Oh, the second wave. That one washed over his legs too. And his arms and his head. It was probably only about two seconds before he was lifted up to safety, but it was a frighteningly long two seconds.
Sally said I might be sorry giving a child a handle like Wilde Fox. I might just brand him. Uh-oh. What if is she was right?
Last week we were at Tybee Island.
This week we are not.
(Although the eight pounds of sand piled on the laundry room floor makes me think perhaps we are.)
Please allow me to list a few things I learned while on vacation.
Last week I learned that limited internet access can be a good thing.
It can be a very good thing.
I learned that you can eat too much divinity from the Savannah Candy Factory.
I was reminded (for the second time) that a protective UV lens filter on your camera can literally save the life of your lens when said camera is accidentally dropped on a tile floor. One UV filter shattered. One lens saved.
A walk-in closet serves quite nicely and rather conveniently as a luxury bedroom for a young boy who still sleeps in a pack-n-play.
If you list an “established in 18-something-or-other” below your restaurant’s name, I will desire to eat at said establishment. If it’s old, if it’s local, I want to eat there. (And I was not disappointed. Two best-evers. One best-ever burger and one best-ever carrot cake.) Our family did not dine at a single McDonald’s the whole week. Shoot, we avoided fast food entirely with the single exception of that inevitable Zaxby’s on I-95.
When all three male members of your family wear matching khakis, t-shirts and bandanas – it becomes the very definition of adorable. And when you cannot snap a photograph of them because your camera’s filter is shattered and stuck to the lens, that is sad.
I am in love with Spanish moss dangling from every tree in Savannah.
My children are fostering an unhealthy love of hot dogs.
Introducing the kids to the 1970’s movie version of Benji was actually a genuine highlight. I am particularly fond of the love song-infused, blurry, slow-motion Benji-falls-in-love-with-a-mangy-white-mutt scene that lasted nearly five minutes.
I love my family. (That isn’t a new lesson, of course.) And they are really fun to travel with. I want to find a way for someone to pay me to go on cool trips with my family.
Pretty sure the Parenting Olympics would be way more popular than the Winter Olympics were. (Oh, come on Leanne and Jane – you know it’s true.)
I think I am practicing all the time.
Perhaps two categories (or events or whatever an official sounding name is) would be something a little like this . . .
My mad skillz on the hoops, yo!
Every time I change a diaper (and that’s still a-plenty, I’ll have you know) I attempt to swish said dirty diaper into the trash. Sometimes I give myself little challenges – off the wall, into the blue pail. Over Fox’s head, then swish. You know how we do.
Strong Man. (Or woman. Got it.)
Carrying two children at once because one’s shoe is untied and she cannot imagine being asked to walk on an untied shoe and one is . . . well – willing to walk but I am unwilling to allow him to walk because I forgot his shoes and his walking takes soooo long to accomplish and is unpredictable in its very nature and all I want to do is just get to the car so I can go to the store to buy more diapers to practice my hoop dreams.
This skill is also honed by carrying both an eager-to-walk one-year-old on your right hip and eighteen bags of groceries to feed your family for one afternoon on the left arm, right hand, around the neck, over the shoulder, around your waist and looped to the ankles to avoid making two trips.
What other daily parenting acts should earn us a right to compete?
You know how sometimes you just want a sign for what you should do?
You ask God to make it clear what direction to move or to let you know what He would have you to do or how He would have you act or whatever?
You know how we pray like that? (Or, I pray like that.)
But then we (or, wait – I) don’t even look for the signs that I just finished asking for?
I don’t even listen for the voice.
I don’t keep my eyes peeled (as my kids say) for what God is showing me.
Do you ever do that?
Well.
Okay.
This isn’t about you then.
But it is about me.
And I do that.
All the time.
Every Day.
I live like that.
And recently I got a little sign.
A little reminder.
(And I am pretty convinced that most signs and most reminders are usually of the little variety. Which makes them all the harder to detect.)
Here’s how it’s breaking down for me.
The sign, that is.
A couple of weeks ago my watch broke.
(I was wearing Wilder on my back in my groovy Ergo carrier and I entered a restaurant. He reached for a picture from the restaurant’s wall. It was not secure. The picture came off its nail and was heading quickly to the ground. I slammed my shoulder against it to keep it from falling. It was really heavy. It slipped across my wrist somehow, sliced my watch in half and bruised my shoulder. Yes. It seriously did. But it did not fall. And that was good.)
Anyway.
My watch was broken.
And I have been watch-less for weeks, not wanting to spend any money on a watch.
But constantly feeling out of step and out of time and unaware of stuff.
Late and off schedule and forgetting about naps or bedtimes.
I like telling time on my wrist.
It keeps me a little more sane.
A few days ago I discovered an old watch of mine – it looks ugly but it runs well.
I didn’t want to wear it – because of the ugly part.
So I spent a few more days feeling misplaced, running late or early and generally being in a time funk.
Enough already.
I told myself.
I picked up the battered old watch and slung it on.
Cool.
Now I know what time it is.
And then I started that day’s activities.
We were all in the kitchen cooking – it was a muffin factory day.
And out of nowhere I heard a beeping noise.
That’s weird,
I thought.
And I looked at the stove to see if it was the timer.
It wasn’t.
Then I looked at my arm.
Oh yeah.
An alarm.
Hmmm. Why?
It’s only 11 o’clock.
That’s when I remembered something.
I used to do something every day at 11 o’clock.
But my former watch (the broken one) didn’t have a timer on it.
So I had forgotten about my 11 o’clock reminder.
Do you remember what I used to do at 11 o’clock every day?
I would pray.
For my husband.
At 11 o’clock.
When the timer reminded me.
But I am forgetful.
Even about the things I want to remember.
I forget.
And I haven’t been remembering to pray for my husband at 11 a.m. for a long time.
Longer than I want to let you know,
actually.
I stood in the kitchen, wearing a dirty red apron, covered in flour, feeling convicted.
And I remembered something I had just read earlier that morning.
My friend Sarah Markley’s blog.
Where she wrote about her husband.
About the good and the bad and the effort and the success.
And she asked this simple question,
“Can you say something good about your husband today?”
Sometimes
I get
a bit consumed
pondering my husband’s weak points.
And,
let’s be honest,
(because I strongly dislike pretense),
he has his faults a plenty.
But you know what?
So do I.
I basically suck at practicing what I preach.
I forget to pray for my husband.
I forget to ask myself what is my purpose
and then tell myself what the truth really is.
I overlook the tattoo right on my very own stinkin’ wrist that reminds me of truth!
Truth.
And the truth
is not that my husband is perfect
and not that I am perfect
but that
my job is not to perfect him
and not even to perfect me exactly
but to serve God.
To glorify my Creator.
Honor Him.
Praise Him.
Obey Him.
Follow in Christ’s footsteps.
Getting all dusty in the dirt of my rabbi – you know?
That’s not really about Kevin at all, is it?
It’s not really about me either.
I think I won’t even try to buy another watch.
Maybe this one still has a few things to remind me.
Actually Said Out Loud
By laceykeigley on August 18th, 2010
Ridiculous Things People Have Actually Said Out Loud To Me
You have your hands full.
You are so brave.
Two six-year olds? How did you manage that?
How old are you?
How do you manage it?
You look too young to have this many children.
How old were you when you started having kids?
Are they ALL yours?
Don’t you know how this happens?
What were you thinking?
Girl, you need to stop having babies.
What ludicrous comments have people actually said to you?