(Note: I am thinking that this multiple author thing is still a little confusing. I think we will start signing our names to the posts we write.)

Everyday of every week I work at home as Norah’s mom. I do things like change diapers and redirect undesirable behavior and give thousands of hugs and kisses. I am in the baby entertaining business. And who are we kidding…I also do things like watch trashy TV and don’t shower til noon and sometimes stay in my pajamas all day long. Just so I don’t send out the impression that I am some kind of super-human mom.

In addition to be a trashy TV watching, jammy wearing, baby entertainer I work two days a week at a local children’s shelter. I have worked there for over three years, and while I’ve had plenty of hard times there and have even had to take some time off because I was just burnt out, I always come back to absolutely loving my job. Truth be told, when I am at work I do essentially the same things I do at home. I wipe boogers. I clean poop, the size and scale of which you don’t even want to know. I read books, help make beds, give baths, serve food, give hugs and kisses and redirect undesirable behavior. There are notable differences, however. The kids at the shelter are there for many reasons, but most often they are victims of some kind of abuse or neglect. Obviously these kids have a whole slew of things to try to understand and deal with, and many times they have no idea where to begin. Working with them can be challenging and frustrating, and sometimes it can be amazingly easy and normal. You just never know what to expect. 

I consider the main objective in my job to be loving these kids in the simplest of ways, and I know plently of my co-workers have a similar attitude. This love may come in the form of a new blanket, it may come in the form of brushing hair or giving hugs. This love may come in the form of firm redirection and quiet encouragement. It comes in countless little ways. It’s a hard job, and sometimes I hate that I have to leave Norah and go to the shelter. Many times I leave irritated and stressed out and think that I would much rather have been at home in my jammies with my Norah. But some days are better. 

Yesterday we took some of our older kids to a local nursing home to read books and play games with the residents there. I had a pretty stinky attitude about it all. I don’t like nursing homes, and I didn’t expect our kids to be too excited about it either. I kept my anxiety to myself, but all the way up to the time we were leaving I was hoping a reason to keep me back from the outing would pop up. I know…totally immature. Nothing popped up so I lumbered into the enormous 15 passenger van with the kids. I sat in the back, keeping my staff eyes on the kids to make sure everyone was behaving. We got to the nursing home and my stress just kept rising. “Eck!” I thought to myself, “I just hope the kids are polite. And if they can’t be polite, I hope they are quiet.” I had sadly little faith in our kids, but I think it was mostly coming out of my own insecurity. I was afraid of being uncomfortable, and afraid the kids would see it, and…I don’t know. But my uncomfortable feelings were not helped by the little old lady in the wheelchair who snapped at me to get out of her way. And then I did the awkward back and forth dance as I tried to figure out which way she wanted me to move.

The girls in our group got settled in to read in the common room, and I took three boys to a men’s unit to play games with the men there. The woman in charge explained that these particular men were very confused, and many of them wanted to escape from the home. Many of them tried, some of them succeeded. Walking through those double doors and seeing the men milling around in the hallway, making our way down to the game room and waiting to get settled; I can pretty much say that was one of the most uncomfortable experiences of my life. There I was, the acting guardian of three young boys, in a situation where I was completely unsure of myself.

We got into the room, where Sarge was rearranging furniture. The boys looked at him, trying to understand why he was moving furniture with no apparent reason. “Boys!” the activities director chirpped “I guess his wife just always had him moving furniture around the house!” I laughed nervously and pretended to be charmed.  We got the tables set up-two boys playing checkers together and another playing Connect Four with a guy named Albie. I sat in my chair and orchestrated board games. I smiled too much, and fidgeted like I frequently do. One guy kept wheeling himself into the room and insisting that he “had never done that damn game!” pointing to the Connect Four pieces. “I’ve never played that shit! Never played that damn game!” he yelled. The boys pretended not to notice, and finally one of the staff asked him to quit cussing at the kids.

Sarge, who had been sitting quietly for the past ten minutes, suddenly started shaking the chair one of my boys was sitting in. He kept shaking it, and trying to pull it backward. I’m assuming he wanted the boy out of the chair so he could continue rearranging the furniture. The boy just kept playing checkers, politely ignoring his moving chair. Sarge was eventually moved to the other room.

By the time we left, two of my boys were being dominated in Dominoes by a guy wearing mis-matched socks, and Albie was cheating (and beating me) at Connect Four. He and I talked about growing tomatoes and I explained my fruitless radishes to him. He told me I “had a pretty name for a pretty lady”. We said our goodbyes and walked back out of the unit to collect the group of girls who were busy handing out popsicles.

When we piled back into the van, not a single kid complained or made a rude comment. They all chattered about the people they had met and how much fun they had. And I was so proud of them. It was so incredible to see the kids give so selflessly, in a situation that makes alot of people uncomfortable. And to be honest, it was their good attitudes and love that made me see how silly I was being.

I really love my job. It is hard and thankless and sometimes I am pushed to do things I don’t like to do, but man, sometimes it is absolutely incredible.

By: Sadie

(Oops. I wrote this earlier, and then forgot to change the post date…)

1. It wasn’t me who fed Norah and Isaiah donuts and Cheese Nips for breakfast on Friday morning.

2. Nor was it me who continued to let the kids eat the Cheese Nips even after they had been dumped onto the carpet.

3. It wasn’t me who decided that drawing on the kids’ faces with chalk was more fun than drawing on the sidewalk.

4. It wasn’t me who inexplicably lost Isaiah’s shorts somewhere in my rather small house.

5. It was definately not me who lost Garret’s car keys, only to have Jasmine find them in her car.

6. And it was most certainly not me who was only halfway kidding about stasing the kids somewhere at the mall so Jasmine and I could get pedicures.

(Ok fine. That last one was me. But I was 100% kidding about stashing them somewhere.)

It was a long week…

Today Jasmine and I took the babies to lunch, then the mall, then Target.

We’ve done this before, and on previous trips the two were little angels. Both of them cooing and charming the pants off everyone who walked by. Seriously, there are often tons of people walking around pants-less, having been sucked into the Isaiah and Norah Zone.

What can we say? We have damn cute babies.

But today was a little different. Lunch started fine, Isaiah flirted and showed off for a couple at the next table, Norah shoved half of a giant cookie in her mouth before she even sat down. Totally normal stuff. But when we got to mall the idyllic picture of two mamas and their beautiful babies out for an afternoon of shopping erupted into flames of woe and angst.

Norah was in her stroller because she is not a good in-store walker. I prefer to keep her strapped in the stroller where the only thing she can damage is my eardrums. Isaiah, on the other hand, is a great walker. Jasmine and G never used the stroller like I did. They used the slings and now let Isaiah walk. He’s used to it and usually happy to do it.

But not today. Today he wanted “A Seat!”. He was really heart-broken. So we traded. Isaiah rode, happy as a clam, meanwhile, Norah attempted to dismantle a display of necklaces, put on a pair of yoga pants, and escape from me by crawling under the dressing room door.

At Target the flames of woe and angst became full-on hellish inferno blasts tinged with baby poop. Both kids were tired. Both were cranky. Both of them were acting like lunatics. And to make matters worse, they were feeding off one another. So when Isaiah dropped his gum and then proceeded to wail into a dishtowel about hw his life was over, Norah (who had just been happily trying to put an exercise shirt over her head) decided that her life was over too. So she started yelling. A cacophony of baby screams.

Isaiah was having a rough time, so I took him for a trip to the jewlery section so Jasmine could have 3 seconds to think. And again, Norah started crying like she’d lost a limb, even though she had just been fine.

These kids! I can only imagine what things are going to be like when we have four little monkeys with us.

Anyone else experienced this kind of baby dramatic empathy?

Ok ladies, its time to get really painfully honest. Maybe even embarassingly honest (though once you’ve had a baby your embarassment threshold goes way WAY up, am I right?).

I have a few whiskers. Just a few mind you, and they are thankfully white hairs so they’re not terribly noticeable. But still, they do exist.

The first time The Whisker was brought to my attention I was in high school. It was my sophomore year, I was sitting in my room talking with the boy I was in luuuuuuv with at the time. We were flirting and carrying on when he stopped. He looked at me, a strange look on his face and he said “Um. You have…hold on”. Then he reached out to my jawline and a second later I felt a tiny sting. “You have…..A WHISKER!” he yelled and then doubled over with laughter. In his hand was the offending hair. White and certainly too long to be just regular peach fuzz.

I was mortified. I mean, I could have died right there and been ok with it. Having your boyfriend pull a witch hair out of your face while you are in the midst of wooing and flirting is on par with unexpectedly starting your period in class and only realizing it when you stand up to leave and the whole class sees the evidence. Or accidentally farting while on a movie date. Or falling down a flight of stairs while trying to impress that hot senior on your way to English. These are the moments that make high school so painful.

I think that night I tried to blame the whisker on the pancakes I had eaten for breakfast. It sounded plausible. I must have gotten some syrup on my face, not noticed it to wipe it off and then a cat hair got stuck to me. I don’t think the boyfriend believed me, but I kind of believed it myself. In fact, I so totally believed my own pancake story that I didn’t even think of The Whisker again until the next year, when another boyfriend plucked it from my face in a remarkably similar incident.

Please. Kill  me now.

Since then I have regularly checked my jaw line for witch hairs. Any hairs that even have the remotest possibility of becoming like The Whisker are quickly yanked and then burned, to discourage any other hairs from growing beyond acceptable peach fuzz length. Maybe I’m a little paranoid but I would hate to be the lady that goes to Wal-Mart with a beard and seems to be unaware of it. Or one day find an anonymous note in my mailbox at work: Dear Sadie, Please lose the whiskers. You are scaring the children. Constant vigilance is the best protection.

Recently, while doing a witch hair inspection I was horrified to discover a second Whisker. Coming straight out of my CHEEK! My cheek, people! It was awful. I fell on the floor and cried, bemoaning my fate as the up and coming Bearded Lady.

So now I am on double Whisker duty. And just so I can really stay on top of it I am employing Jasmine as my Whisker Watcher.

I mean, what is a best friend for if not to help you shave your legs when you are huge and pregnant and be you Whisker Watcher?

Well Jasmine is away working at her fancy job and growing a person in her uterus, and I am sitting at my house surrounded by piles of laundry and diapers so…

I am going to start off Bad Mommy Monday!

It wasn’t me who took an un-napped baby to the  public library.
If anyone asks, it was not my baby that was running through the non-fiction section laughing like a lunatic, hair sticking straight up, only one shoe on. And I am most definitely not the mother of the child who was screaming so loud it echoed off the ceiling tiles.

Nope. Not me. I am much more polite and have a much more calm and mild-mannered child.

(BAHH HAHAHAHAHA!)

I cleaned  my fridge today.

It was a momentous occasion, as I have such a hard time keeping my house even mildly tidy I rarely (and when I say rarely I mean “nearly never”) clean out my fridge. Sure sure, I go through every few weeks and throw out the random leftovers, all the while trying to remember the last time I cooked spaghetti casserole. The two-inch green and hairy mold gives me some indication. We were gone this past weekend and in a rare moment of good housewifery I emptied the leftovers into the trash before we left, that way we would be able to come back to a semi-neat fridge and kitchen.

In a much more characteristic moment of forgetfulness I left a load of clean clothes in the washer (hello my old friend, Mildew), my contact case and toothbrush and face lotion on the bathroom counter, and the leftovers in the trashcan. In the kitchen. For three whole days.

We came back to a house scented with layers of rotten food, mildewed clothes, and cat poop. Awesome.

So today I decided it was high time to actually clean the fridge. The comments from friends (Jasmine!) and the ever-expanding iced tea leakage pushed me even further into my endeavor. I began at the top, as logic has taught me. I wiped and scrubbed and threw away and re-organized until my Frigidaire gleamed with a light from Heaven. I was amazed at the results. The space! The shiny shelves! I should do this more often! (Ha!)

It was a pretty tough task to begin with, spills and crumbs and unidentifiable goop running rampant, but it was made infinitely more challenging by the presence of a certain short, walking, yelping, four-toothed person. I speak, of course, of The Norah.

Its as though the ability to walk has instilled in her the stubbornness and strong will of a cranky rhinoceros. I’m a little frightened by her obstinance and have spent a good portion of my week reading up on toddlers, temper tantrums, toddler behavior, and what to do when you find yourself living with a baby that strangely reminds you of a howler monkey.

I did not fully appreciate how hard baby wrangling and kitchen cleaning could be when done together. Norah was all up in my business, placing her diapered butt exactly where I needed to be. If I needed to stand at the sink to wash a shelf, she needed to stand below the sink and repeatedly try to open the baby-safed cabinet. If I needed to take the eggs off the shelf, Norah needed to play with the egg carton in order to take out an egg and smash it on the floor. She developed a love for the Capri Sun pouches (I don’t even know where those came from) and took the straws out of them. Then she waddled around the house with a shoe and a Capri Sun clutched to her chest. Shortly after she screamed at the vegetable drawer for holding her beloved Capri Sun captive, even though she was the one who dropped it in there in the first place.

By the end of the day I had cleaned the fridge, swept up a pile of flax seed, mopped several milk puddles that resulted from a rebellious sippy cup, and found a shoe in the fruit drawer.

My teeny tiny itty bitty (15 month old) baby is walking. I’ve waxed on about it here.

Really walking. None of this one or two step playing around. She can walk from the living room to the bedroom to the kitchen. She also destroys everything in her path. I guess she has been walking for a while, but I’m just now getting around to writing about it. I needed a little time to sit with it, the walking.

I remember once, when Norah was just a few days old, crying about how fast she was growing. I was sitting on the couch holding her and watching TV and some commercial came on, something about growing up or grandkids or kids getting cars. Or maybe it was a commercial about apple pie. It’s anyone’s guess really, because I cried about everything for a good two weeks after her birth. Anyway, the commercial made me cry because it made me realize that Norah was 5 days old and that was so old and she was only going to be 5 days old for a few more hours and then she would NEVER be 5 days old again! Good gracious, at that rate I was going to be a grandma within the month and I was not ready to be a grandma!

So I just sat there and held my tiny baby and cried about becoming a grandma. It was strange.

Sitting there on that couch over a year ago I didn’t even want to think about Norah walking. I just could not imagine how that could be fun or exciting. I’ve had several people tell me that I would grow up with Norah, that I would eventually get past the weepy stuff, the crying about the growing baby. I thought it was all crazy talk. But I’ve come to find that it is true. I have grown up with Norah, and when I watched her face light up as she walked between Jasmine and me or Rusty and me, crashing into us and giggling, there was nothing but love and awe and excitement. As much as I loved having a newborn, I may love having a 1 year old even more.

Readers, what are your experiences with growing up with your kids?

Yesterday I painted my kitchen. I am planning to write about the whole painting fiasco here in a little bit. I don’t have a large kitchen so I didn’t expect that it would take more than a day to do all the prep work, the painting and the clean-up, but I knew that part of the day Norah would have to entertain herself. This is not unusual for us, she entertains herself very well. I am not the kind of mother who wants to be up in Norah’s business all day long. In fact, when I have to be all up in her business I get sort of cranky and snappy. I just need my own time and my own space every once in a while.

Usually this works out fine. Norah does not need me to entertain her all day. She is perfectly ok playing by herself for a while, and for this I am very grateful. But yesterday I noticed something  interesting.

I put our babygate in the space between the kitchen and the dining room so I could paint while Norah was awake and not run the risk of her pulling a paintcan on her head. I kept a good eye on her, but I was not actively entertaining her or anything. For a few minutes, when I first put the gate up, she stood at it and talked to me, jabbering and singing and throwing things over the gate. Then she crawled away and things got quiet. A little too quiet…if you know what I mean. So I called “Norah?” and she answered “Geh?”. I looked around the corner and saw her reading a book. No big deal. Then a few seconds later she dragged her toys over to the baby gate. She accumulated a few and then sat down at the gate to play.

And in that little gesture, the desire to be near me even if we were not engaged in the same thing, I saw Rusty.

I know, that is also a developmental thing, the looking and searching for and wanting to be near Mama, but I also know what Norah’s daddy is like. He does not like to be alone when he does things, even if not being alone means someone sitting near him and doing something totally different. He will frequently just come and sit in the room I am in, not doing anything, just being near me. Which, you know, is sweet. He likes my company. He is a quality time person. So while I know that Norah’s behavior was probably more of an acting out of her developmental stage than anything else, I wonder if Norah will be similar to Rusty in that need-to-be-near-ness?

And here I was, thinking she was my little clone…

I have always struggled with the daily things Christians are supposed to do–things like daily Bible reading and daily prayers. It just seems like those things get all caught up in the other stuff going on in a day. Motherhood has made my daily reading and prayers even more sparse. This shouldn’t surprise me because being a parent hasn’t really made anything easier. Everything, from taking a shower and making coffee to graduating college, became infinitely (but wonderfully) more difficult once Norah was born. And when it comes to eternal things…well. It’s pretty hard to think eternally when you have a squalling poopy baby in your arms.

Yesterday I had a profound kind of realization.

We were at church, doing our usual church thing that involves sitting and standing, singing and listening, sharing the Peace and praying for others, and a generous helping of Norah wrangling. She is a loud and mobile baby. She does not like to sit in laps for long periods of time or be quiet…ever. And the church is not a magical place with magical air that turns babies into still and silent, smiling angels. Our crazy and vocal baby is just as crazy and vocal at church as she is at home. In fact, that’s one of my favorite things about our church.

Our church is very family-oriented, welcoming to having babies and children in the service. A few years ago, Dr Robbie Castleman, one of my professors from JBU and the author of this book  , came to our church to talk about the importance of worshipping as a family and teaching children how to engage in the service. She explained that kids are still kids, even in church and that parents are still parents. She said that part of worshipping as a parent is learning to take in stride the fact that babies cry and yell during sermons, pass gas during silent prayer times, and sometimes have to be taken out of the service for a few minutes. I remember very vividly her saying that it may seem like you may not feel like you are able to really take part in, or even pay attention to, the service because you are doing so much kid-managing, but that all just part of it. She said that God is honored when you care for your kids, even in the pew. I really love Dr Castleman.

Our church has really taken hold of this, and I am so grateful for that. I think this just adds to the idea that the church is a family, and families often have crying babies in them. 

So yesterday, as I was praying the Lord’s Prayer I was also wiping Nutri-Grain goo off the floor so Norah would stop scraping it up with her fingers and eating it. I got a sudden feeling of guilt, like I was being irreverent or something. I was not paying attention, I was not even looking at the front of the sanctuary while I said the prayer. I was squatting on the floor wiping up strawberry smears. What was I teaching my daughter?! And then, Dr Castleman’s words came back to me. All of this– the baby care, the floor wiping, and the Lord’s prayer– all of this was part being a faithful Christian.

For me, part of being a faithful Christian involves being a good parent too. Even when being a good parent is inconvenient. And what was I teaching my daughter? Hopefully, that the line between the sacred and secular is not much of a line at all, that honoring God takes many forms and happens in many ways, including cleaning up goo while praying the Lord’s Prayer. 

So I’m pretty set on waiting a while to have another baby. I want to spend more Norah and Sensei time.

(Sidenote: Norah does not say ‘mama’. She can say ‘daddy’ ‘cat’ ‘no’ ’stop’ ‘bad’ good’ ‘don’t’ ‘thank you’ ’please’ and ‘uh oh’, but she does not say ‘mama’. She does, however, click her tongue at me, and yesterday she called me ’Sensei’. I think we will go with that.) 

I’m just not ready to be growing any babies yet. But I have no qualms growing absolutely adorable baby tomatos!

Look how cute they are!

Also, I live in Arkansas. It is a landlocked state. It takes at least 8 hours to drive to the nearest beach. So, since I live 8 hours from the nearest beach and I don’t make a habit of eat seafood in my garden, could someone please explain to me why I have a teeny crab claw in my radishes?