1. We took all the kids to see a Rhinos hockey game. We weren't able to stay for the entire game, but it was fun while we were there. Brishen most liked the Ghost Chile French fries a the concession stand.
2. Basia took some great pictures of our spring beginnings. We now have leaves on some trees and roses blooming.
3. We finally did our polar bear plunge. Brishen and Basia did it first, and then I jumped in fully clothed to prove that I still have a bit of spunk, too. It was shockingly cold and the craziest shock to my system. The cool air outside felt positively warm after climbing out of the pool. I felt extra alive for a few hours after the plunge. I'm guessing that's why people do it year after year in places much colder than El Paso.
4. I have wanted to go to a monster truck show since I was a teen. I'm not exactly sure why I wanted to go, but I remember that I did. Fast forward to motherhood, and Brishen made me watch a toddler documentary about monster trucks 3,498 times one year. I know all sorts of little facts about monster trucks. We were especially fond of Grave Digger. Fast forward to motherhood multiplied and the present moment when I have quite a few little boys who enjoy monster trucks. I finally got around to buying tickets to a show with the plan to take all my boys except Asa. The big day arrived, and I chickened out. I had no doubt that two of my boys would not sit well through the whole show. Another of my boys had some trouble following rules, so he was out, too. In the end, I took Brishen and Tobias, my two girls, and gave Jon the last ticket so he could join us after church on that Saturday night.
I hate to admit how much I loved the show. From the very first second we walked into the stadium, I was hooked. I'm not sure what that says about my attempts at enlightenment, green living, or educational advances. I'm a country bumpkin through and through, I suppose. Big trucks are pretty awesome. I needed to leave a bit early to relieve the babysitters, but I couldn't! They saved Grave Digger Max D for the end, and their runs were the most exciting (of course), so I watched it all and had to fight the crowds and arrived home a few minutes late.
I really haven't felt that kind of excitement in a long time, probably since watching Basia kick another little girl in the head over and over again in taekwondo. Yeah, I guess I have issues. We will be back another year, I'm thinking. My other boys are now very determined to be good enough to attend next time. They have seen the pictures and have been reenacting the event since then. They are very big fans of Max D and often fight over who gets to "be" Max D.
5. If Brishen is on the couch, he's attacked or at least surrounded. Cassia is especially attached to him right now. Soren pretends he is Brishen all the time. They love their big brother.
6. Jon took the older seven on their second journey this month, to City of the Rocks. I was sad to miss it, but it's out of state, so I stayed behind with our last child who needs travel letters. The kids are still talking about how much fun they had. Zade likes to embellish the height of the biggest rock he climbed to the point that he is pretty sure that he climbed higher than Brishen.
7. We celebrated the big Pi Day of the Century with family and lots of delicious pi(e). It was so nice to have Saralyn and CJ able to join us even though I may have scarred CJ by going crazy and high-5ing everyone at the appropriate pi second.
8. I took the kids to see the horse races on Pi Day, too. The races are only a few minutes from our house, but they happen to be over the state border, so I have to think ahead enough to get a travel letter for Asa. If it weren't for that, we'd go more often. Asa loves horses, and the rest like to guess who will win and run around between races.
Here's Asa pointing and saying over and over and over, "huss, huss!"
9. We were festive in our green on St. Patrick's Day, and Jon and Basia joined forces to make green sprinkle-filled pancakes to start our day off right. I was happy to be able to be the first one awake and able to pinch four of my kiddos who didn't wear green pajamas.
10. It was also on St. Patrick's Day three whole years ago that Zade first came to live with us. We will forever be thankful that we were the ones called that day to take this little boy even though we were supposed to be waiting a few weeks before taking a new placement to give us a chance to move to our new house. We were called anyway, and we said yes anyway. Thank God! We love our little man, and he will make me a better person bit by bit by challenging what I thought about parenting. Thank God!
11. When I first put a tie on Brishen, he cried. He was a cute toddler. When I tried it again, he cried. He was a cute 10-year-old. I gave up and never thought much about little boys and ties again. Now I have this crew of boys who beg to wear ties, so I've been wiping the thrift stores out of their ties. Of course I then realized that I don't necessarily have shirts to match the ties. I also realized that I will have to get them more button up shirts than I had previously planned if they are going to insist on wearing ties every Sunday. I actually have to hide the ties from them during the rest of the week or they will wear them with their polo shirts...and t-shirts...and pajamas. Trust me, it's happened! Now I find my mind blown with having to think about wardrobes for boys who actually want to look a little more dressy and less funny t-shirt-y. If I don't encourage them now, they'll probably grow out of it and turn into teens who cry when I hand them a tie. If I encourage them, they may be snazzy dressers forever more. Or they may just be weird boys who clip on a tie to their Santa Claus pajamas.
12. I was eager to have all my kids at home all day for a variety of reasons, and one of those reasons is that it gives us a chance to really meld as a family. It gives these kids who spent years in other families really grow as brothers and sisters without peer input. When the kids were in preschool I got reports almost daily of one or another of them ignoring the other in favor of a friend. Since their relationships are still in the toddler stages, they still need special nurturing and time to grow and develop. Of course we have lots and lots of fighting each day, but we also have some really beautiful moments and bonds and memories that are bigger than all the bickering combined. The kids most often play as a 5-some, but the moments that I find especially sweet are the ones when two of the kids are especially connected for a few days at a time. It happened this month for a few days with Zade and Tobias where they wanted to be together from morning until dark and then with Cassia and Soren. After a few days they tend to wander back to the 5-some, but I love to see that they will have life-long friends in each other.
13. If you read all those adoption books, you'll find the recommendation to create family rituals. Our newest ritual is a 5 minute pillow fight after cartoons on Saturday mornings. I usually am making sure the kids DON'T hit each other, so this is the one time during the week that they can let loose and hit to their heart's content. I set the timer so they know that all the hitting ends when they hear the buzz. Even Asa loves to be hit while enjoying the view from my arms. I think the kids would play pillow fights and sword fights and wrestling all day every day if I let them. This is my tiny compromise. I'm considering foam swords for the lot of them, but I'm just not there, yet. Some of my kids come from homes where there was very real violence, so I feel the need to go very far in the other direction. We see other siblings wrestle and sword fight, but lines can be crossed so easily when kids have seen real violence in their little lives. Pillow fighting for five minutes a week seems just about perfect for now.
Brishen would want you to know that he is wearing very short pants because of me. He was about to start painting our hall bathroom in some very new pajama bottoms. I told him that surely he had some old pajama pants stashed in his room that used to fit him a few years ago. Sure enough, he emerged in perfect painting pants.
14. We did a lot of painting last weekend, but I just realized that I haven't taken any "after" pictures. I'm in love with every newly painted room. I was taking pictures of Brishen because he was painting above his head and spilled his bowl of paint all the way down his front. He was very good at hiding (or manhandling the camera-mom), so I never did get a picture of his mess. We got a hall, two bathrooms, and the fireplace area painted. I'll have to get some pictures soon. The problem with painting is that it is addictive. I now have many more places that I want to paint.
15. Back when I bought tickets to take the boys to see the monster trucks, I also bought tickets to take the girls to see Cirque du Soleil when they were in town along with my mom. The acrobatics were quite amazing, and there were lots of laughs. My girls were very impressed and were very excited to tell their brothers all about it all. There were a couple of my boys who would have really enjoyed it, too, so I think I'm going to do a better job at matching personalities with events and not just genders!
Well, I think you can see we have had a busy month so far. I have other things I have been wanting to post about, too (like my Lenten goal failure), so I hope to be back on here before too long. Thanks for visiting the long-neglected blog!
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