Siblings

Tuesday I needed a nap, so Jake and Will climbed into bed with me (they needed a nap too).  When I woke up, I found this.  Brothers are a special sort of thing.  So sweet.  This week we moved John's bed into Jake and Will's room and John got a new bed.  Jake moved to the one without side rails, and Will moved up to the big boy bed.  Everyone is thrilled!  Jake has been begging to sleep with Will in his bed, and John is excited to have a sleepover in their room.  Again, so sweet.

 Also, this week the girls have been driving me crazy.  For 3 days they've been playing instead of cleaning their room, which wasn't too terribly messy to begin with.  They've gotten a host of consequences because they're just playing rather than cleaning (and unfortunately my hormonal fuse isn't short...it's nowhere to be found).  Then I took them to their dance dress rehearsal and snapped this picture, and all of a sudden I see that although they completely disobeyed, the time they spent together was not in vain.  Again...so sweet.

The Art of Manliness

Today Buck and I are going on a retreat with the 5th and 6th graders at church.  I think the word "retreat" is a severe misnomer.  At any rate, the kids are beyond thrilled to have "2 sleepovers at Grandma's!!!!"  If the weather is nice, and we sure hope it is, they will likely spend most of the day in her back yard and the woods.  I love that they to experience that.  That being said, you never know what might happen.  Kids plus outside freedom equals lots of fun and adventure...and maybe some trouble.  Once we came home and Mom told us she thought she might have to call someone to help get Eve.  She had squeezed herself, not in danger at all...her head and feet were out... but completely stuck folded in half, into a cement pipe.  I think that one gave Eve a good healthy scare, and fortunately she got out eventually without having to call the fire department.  I'm not sure how much I would've worried and how much I would have laughed had I been there.  Mom is such a trooper!  Last week Jake and Will were at her house near her ditch.  Jake had jumped to the other side, and she overheard him trying to coax Will, "Come on Will.  Be a man!"
I'm convinced every kid needs a big back yard and some woods...and a big box of bandaids on the ready.

Yesterday I Cried...

As of tomorrow, we've got 5 weeks until Baby Buck #6 is due.  All of my pregnancies have been "easy".  Very textbook.  Someone asked me yesterday if I was excited this would be the last time I'd feel this way.  I told her a I was a little sad this was the last time I'd feel this way.  I mean, it's tiring, but at the same time I love it.  I'd say of all my pregnancies, though, this one has maybe been the easiest?  There's a selfish piece of me (well, I suppose each of the sides here are selfish) that is ready to have my body back to myself and back to "normal", whatever that is.  There's another side of me that just absolutely can't wait to meet this baby, find out if it's a girl or boy, and welcome him/her into the family.  But there's another side of me that gets sad when I feel this baby move because I know I'm saying goodbye to that incredible feeling soon.  There is nothing like feeling your baby move inside, and having this secret little relationship that's just the two of you that most of the time no one else knows about.  It's our sweet little special secret.  Pregnancy isn't easy, but I am immensely grateful for being able to carry such an undescribable blessing 6 times!  There's still another side of me that cried yesterday (and is a little bit even now) because I counted the days Jake has left in preschool...the days I have left just me and my Baby Will.  Every time I've gone to the hospital to deliver, except with John of course, I've cried as I've said goodbye to the baby for the last time that they'll be the baby.  Maybe all of this is just hormones, but honestly I think at least some of it is real.  Saying goodbye to each stage is both exciting and a little sad.  "Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."  (-Dan Wilson)