Gingerbread houses in January

I made gingerbread houses with the kids over Christmas break. I cheated and used graham crackers, which ended up taking longer than just making the dough and baking the pieces because I found out that graham crackers don't cut well, Anyway, as any good mom, I told my kids that they couldn't eat the candy off the houses because the frosting is old and hard and makes a crumbly mess.

So, of course, they've been sneaking pieces since I put their houses up on the piano as decorations. Can I throw them out now or is there an allotted time frame before they can be tossed in the great abyss that is our city issued garbage can?

It is January.

The Backstory

Almost eight years ago, my little sister got pregnant without a husband or father for her baby. My husband and I offered to adopt her baby and raise her as ours. She thought that would make her a bad mom, so she tried to take care of her baby, but my mom and I spent a lot of evenings helping her settle baby Annie to bed, cleaning her house, and trying to instill some motherly instinct. Instead, six weeks after Annie was born, my sister got pregnant again.

We made the same offer with the new baby Matt, but once again she declined. By then, she had lost her state housing and was back home with our parents. Several times, she has moved out, only to be back again and the two children have been raised mostly by my mom. After a year and a half of temporary custody, my sister living with her new husband and moving from one evicted apartment to the next, my parents couldn't do it anymore.

In February, we took the two kids into our home, after lengthy discussions with our other children, and after a move to a bigger house. And so started the journey of a mother of seven kids.

Some of the biggest challenges in those first months were teaching the new kids how our family works, explaining what responsibility means, and providing security that was lacking in an unstable childhood. I think Little Matt suffered the worse, with separation anxiety to the extent that he would scream and run through the house if he was unable to find me.

Now, ten months into the family expansion, the new kids are settled and it's hard to remember what our family was like before these two came along. They have made us focus on family again, and we had gotten lazy. We had enjoyed the freedom that comes with kids that can take care of things on their own and we were finding other things to occupy our days. I had even taught the two boys to start doing their own laundry. Happy day!

As our family has expanded, so has my heart to make room for two more. And with these kids have come blessings into our lives beyond what we expected. It's been a hard journey and we are far from over, but the scenery has been beautiful and we're ready for the next curve of the road.

Dust off the keyboard

I've added a niece and nephew to the family tree. Two new kids after thinking I was over the hard stuff, washing hair, tying shoes, teaching ABCs. Yet, here I am, with college, high school, jr. high, elementary, and kindergarten kids. But the amazing thing is what these kids have reminded my family of, family time, support, and love. We were so caught up in our routines that we didn't stop to see that we were growing apart.

One of my goals is to make these kids feel like they are part of my family, that they belong, have security. They are awesome kids and don't deserve the life they've been handed, and I have to show them that they have some control over their future, that they can make better choices than their mom did.

Post-Christmas cleanup

I spent my Saturday by putting away Christmas, cleaning, and rearranging furniture.  Obsession took over as I pushed the piano to its new spot, rummaged my rotating decorations, and organized the wrapping paper in the storage room.  Throughout most of the day, Sunshine sat at the kitchen table, putting together his gigantic Halo mega blocks Christmas present. I admired his dedication and was grateful that his back didn't ache, as mine would have by sitting that long.  As afternoon turned to early evening, I finally sat in my newly decorated living room and turned on my Kindle.  Hubby came home soon after that.  I watched him, waiting for my words of praise.  He stood by the kitchen table and looked at Sunshine.  "Wow.  Someone's been busy today.  Looks great.  That looks like a lot of work.  Good job buddy."  Head down, he moved toward the bedroom and disappeared.  

Oh, I don't think so.

I entered the bedroom to find him logging to his computer.  

"Um, I want you to come back out here and take a look.  I've been working all day and you didn't say anything.  I need a comment from you."

He looked at me, bewildered.  "I did comment.  I said 'Wow, someone's been busy today.  Looks great.'  Then I told Sunshine that his project looked like a lot of work."

"Oh.  I thought you were talking to Sunshine the whole time."    

Supermom returns

I got an email today telling me that someone had posted a comment on my blog.  The blog I haven't thought about in four years.  It's possible that some sort of fate had this gentleman finding my dusty blog and commenting, although I suspect that it was really some type of ad trying to get me to go to his webpage, but I'll choose to take it as fate.  I started this blog to keep me writing every day, and by some crazy turn of the cosmos, I've recently returned to my favorite hobby.  I wasted an entire evening reading my prior posts and laughing at the brilliance of my writing skills /blush.  But the point is that I have been re-introduced to my blogs, they weren't removed by some blogbot non-activity detecting software, and I'm happy to be back. 

It's kind of like seeing the display for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that was near the cash registers at Wal-Mart today.  "I remember those when I was little.  Funny how that kind of stuff returns.  I don't remember my mom ever talking about toys from my childhood being a reincarnation of her childhood days."  Jellybean replied, "That's because people can't think of anything original." 

I have no real correlation between the first paragraph and the second, except, that in my mind, returning back to my blog was kind of like seeing the childhood toys.  It's only been four years, but it seems much longer.  Welcome back Colleen.

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

So I had a wonderful experience last night. To tell the story properly, I must give some background. Our basement has been in a state of remodel for the last ten years. (See here for bathroom story.) Two years ago, my dear husband finished framing the walls and I got my storage room back. I painted it and filled it with boxes and general clutter. The only problem was that he never finished the light for the room. So we've had electrical wires hanging out in two places on the wall right inside room. Wires that weren't covered with those cute colored electrical caps. (Can you see where I'm going with this?)

Last night, I went to store some shoes for Sunshine and I guess I hit against the wires with my hip, and there were some sparks, and, well, my pants caught on fire. Not badly, but how bad does it really have to be? It melted a corner of my pocket and blackened a nice area on my favorite capris.

I was a little upset. I called my dear husband and left him a voice message. I'm guessing that I sounded pretty pissy because when he came home he headed for the basement and fixed the light.

So, guess what? I have a light in my storage room! It only took two years and one hour. And a sacrificial pair of pants. Yeah!

Human racetrack/cushion

Yesterday, being Sunday, we went to church. Sick hubby stayed home and left me to entertain five children for an hour in the chapel. Little Sunshine (3) was not cooperating and I had to half drag him into the church. He wanted to go home and be sick with daddy. So when he sat on my lap and pulled out his cars to play, I was very thankful. I was even okay when he used my arms as racetracks. But when he decided to connect the two racetracks, and "leave them here" meant crossing my fingers and holding my arms at an awkward position, I had a few problems. But when I moved, he got louder. So what is a mom supposed to do? Yes, I sat there, arms aching, while he raced his cars up and down my arms. I even laughed when he decided that my shirt sleeves were garages and put the cars up my sleeves. The things we do to keep kids quiet.