She's Here!

Baby Sophie Leuinna Haws was born 4:15 AM on September 24th! There are two pictures here. So, I'm super lame, and haven't got my pictures off my camera and got them up on the blog. I have five girls. Under 6. ;) I love it!!!

Best homebirth EVER! I'll give you more details later. After having a rough 8 or 9 months with very few happy things to say, I am so full of gratitude and joy right now I could bust!

I couldn't have asked for a better situation. I got everything I wanted. A hard labor, a quick recovery, an easy baby, awesome sibling adjustment, and steady emotions.

Now that I am finally blogging, my baby is crying. I must go. But I promise I'll be back!

Dirty Little Secrets

Since I have been feeling pretty rotten lately (like for the last 8 months or so...) my sweet MIL has been helping my clean house a bit. We have also hired a girl from the neighborhood to help a few hours a week. Very nice. But, it means that some of those little secrets that have been lurking at the back of my cupboards have come to light. In the effort to "be real," I will share a few with you. If I am the only person in the universe with such secrets in my house, please just avert your eyes and feel sorry for me. If not, Share yours! It's very liberating. :)

• There was an old deep fat fryer that I forgot to clean out the last time I used it... 4 years ago. I had just been avoiding looking straight at it during the last 2 moves.
• I had coupons that expired two years ago in my junk drawer. In fact, I don't think I've used that drawer for two years, because everything in that drawer was at least two years old... wedding announcements, coupons, bank statements... I forgot that my cousin was married! Oops.
• I haven't scrubbed behind the toilet since... sigh... I was pregnant with Phoebe. In my defense... little girls don't make nearly as big a mess around the base of the toilet as little boys. I had to clean up after my little brothers for years. EW!

I feel better now. Especially because we are slowly tackling all my dirty secrets. Pretty soon I'll have no more. Except all those quirks about my kids. Like Phoebe digs through trash regularly looking for snacks. The lid broke on our kitchen garbage, and it doesn't fit under the sink. I am always pulling her away from the can. Or that Zenna just came to me completely naked and asked if I could put her socks on. Her feet need to be covered. Or the fact that half of the days Zenna spends all day in her jammies. I try really hard to get her dressed before daddy comes home, but some days we don't even make it there.

So now you know. More than you ever wanted to. I am just hoping that I am not alone in living on the very edge of sanity. But even if I am, I feel better confessing. :)

It's about time...

Zenna is potty trained! I finally bit the bullet last week, and we have come a long way. I was determined that having three in diapers would be horrible, especially since Zenna is getting close to being three.

When Zenna turned two, we started talking to her about the potty. Here is a list of her statements in response:

• "The potty just won't work for me. Diapers are just right."
• She'd pat her diaper (especially when she'd fall on her bum or was riding astraddle a stick horse) and say, "This diaper is just great. I don't need panties."
• "Don't talk to me about it."

She's always been a great talker, and we always laughed about this. A few months ago, she said that if we would buy her a pink Sleeping Beauty Potty, and Sleeping Beauty panties, she would learn to go potty. We were able to find a pink toddler potty (I swore I'd never buy one of those again... I hate them!) and plastered it with Sleeping Beauty stickers. We bought the Disney princess panties (another thing I swore I'd never buy) for way too much money. She put on the panties, and was all excited until we opened the potty. She said, "I can't sit on that! There's a hole in it!" We couldn't get her near it for another month.

I finally decided to buckle down last week. We were home from vacation, and time is ticking. It's now, or when I have a newborn... and that's no fun either.

Turns out, Zenna is a potty prodigy (as I was myself). Well, or after sitting in on all potty sessions for the last 2 years, she understood all about it. After the first day, she could tell me when she needed to go, and we were good. About the third day, she decided that she didn't want to do it anymore. Her solution, "It's ok mommy, I just won't pee pee anymore!" That didn't work. Next day she got back on track. Well, since then we've only had a few mishaps.

What a relief!

Although, it will still be a while before I'm not at all involved in the process, I am glad that she is at this point. Hopefully by the time the baby comes, she'll be all on her own.

There will come a day

There will come a day when my floors will not be littered with crumbs right after I sweep.
And I will not trip over toys in every room.
And the toilet will always be flushed,
the laundry won't create mountains in my basement,
every surface of my house won't be covered in sticky fingerprints.

And that day, there will be no bumps and bruises to kiss better.
There will be no angelic faces smeared with dirt to clean.
No little tiny clothes to wash,
No more giggling screaming girls chasing each other around underfoot.

And that day I will be lonely.

So I will try to appreciate all the evidence that my life is filled with children who love and need me every minute of the day. This time will flee, and I never want to regret the time I don't spend loving it now.

What a fascinating modern world we live in...

I like to take a step back once in a while and think about how my grandmothers did things. If they had something to say, they would make a phone call if it was local. If it was really important they would pay the long distance fee and call long distance. Otherwise, they would sit and their desk and write (in cursive) or type (with a typewriter) a letter. They would probable hand it to their mailman (NOT letter carrier) who they knew on a first name basis, and send it off to share their news.

The other night I checked my FB account one last time before I went to bed. Just to see if any of my 200 best friends had anything really important to tell me. Then I checked my blog list to see if any of the 100 people who I read about daily had important news for me. There wasn't anything really new, and I went to bed.

How silly really!

I am grateful for technology. It makes it easy to keep in touch with people we have lost, those far away, and those we meet out there in cyberworld who have similar views and interests.

But think of this... I announced my baby expectations to my family over the phone (they live 600 miles away), and to everyone else on FB and this blog. I didn't tell a single person (except my husband and children who don't read this blog) face to face. Soon, my entire social network knew (either firsthand, secondhand, or thirdhand...) my exciting news. This has it's pluses, don't get me wrong, but really? How weird!!

Just thinking about this makes me shudder a little inside. To be honest, I know more about certain avid and very public quilters than my neighbor who just had her first baby. I know more about a very bored and FB active old classmate than the family across the street. I don't even know who it is that collects and delivers my mail. In fact, I don't even send much mail! I've never even seen my garbage man!

I need to work on that. Do these facts creep anyone else out? Because they creep me out. So, I thought I would blog about them, and ask all my cyber friends what they do about it? Ironic.

Being a Mother

Sometimes my girls talk to me about our cats. They think it's the saddest thing in the world that our cats will never be mothers. Their tender little hearts also ache for their unmarried aunts.

They ask me about once a week if our cats are sad that they will never be mothers. Am I sure they will never be mothers? Yes. Does that make them so sad? I am not sure. They think it a tragedy.

That has gotten me thinking about the summer 8 years ago. Joe and I were dating, and most of our conversations and plans centered around having children. How many, what they would look like, the benefits of our gene combination... When I went home one weekend, I told my parents about one such conversation, and my Dad looked a little worried. He said, "you have to promise me that you will marry this young man before any of these children come into being." I just laughed. We were so in love, and we wanted to have a family.

We were married in September, and for a year, no children came. At the end of that year, I began to feel sorrow. I prayed and prayed for the Lord to fill that empty aching space in my heart that can only be filled by children. I shed many tears, and felt a lot of pain. I realize now that that time was very short, and many wait much longer. I was young, and impatient, but my pain was real.

After we had been married 18 months, my prayers were answered. A baby was on its way, and we were thrilled! My heart stopped aching for a baby, but ached with all the tumult and worry of new motherhood. It ached because it was full. Every time a new life is put in my hands, my heart aches even more with joy and fullness. Now, more than 7 years later, every time that prayer is answered, I am honored and grateful.

Father's Day

I was so glad when we got a phone call Saturday night that They would be able to manage without Joe on Sunday morning. The crew was going out at 3 a.m. to start cutting asparagus. Joe would be able to leave the field at 10, come home, get ready, and rush off to church to practice the organ for meetings at 11.

They did just fine without him there, and so he got to rest on Father's Day. We tried to make him feel like a king. We made blueberry pancakes and bacon for breakfast, showered with gifts and love, and let him take naps.

Isn't this what Father's day is all about? Napping with your kids!

The poor man took 4 naps on Sunday. He's been working way too much.