Six 6 and Under

This desperately needs to be updated but I am not exactly feeling it right now. So, if this ends up sounding a little forced.....it's cause it is. At the moment it is midnight on some random Thursday night of my life while Evye is in Fort Worth with Mother and Grayson and Brad are camping in the Guadalupe Mountains with some dearly missed friends. Although I can't really say I'm alone, I figure it's close enough. I always hate it when Brad's gone. That is only magnified by leaps and bounds when both Grayson and Evye are missing too. I figured I would probably enjoy this time and use it to get some much needed stuff done but instead I found myself wandering around aimlessly being even less productive than normal. Having failed to think through it very well I looked up this morning and was left with 6 children 6 and under. Carrying out our daily tasks brought back so many memories. Long ago days of Brad's commuting years and being home alone with 5 children 6 and under suddenly didn't seem so very long ago. But since those days we have added a menagerie to care for along with the mundane daily responsibilities. I had plenty of helpers to drop eggs as we collected the daily dozens that are now being laid, spill cat food as they refilled empty bowls, spill the entire contents of the dog food sack as they attempted to lovingly refill the food can, string out clean clothes across dried muddy floors as they whisked clean clothes from dryer to basket spots. I am quite certain I spent more of my day cleaning up helpers' messes than I did actually getting anything done. And that doesn't even include the poured out cat food and water that little 11 month olds go around dumping out and eating. Even with all of my rowdy little helpers running wildly around I'm still always painfully aware of Brad's absence. You'd think after being married over 10 years to a firefighter that has never worked anything less than 24 hour shifts that I would be used to the night's spent alone. I suppose I do to some extent but there is never really a time that I do not want him home in bed with me. No matter how many years we do this I don't think I will ever come to love the many nights spent alone. The good thing about tons of kids though....there's always a bed buddy waiting eagerly to fill his spot and keep it warm until he gets home in the morning. But I just miss him.


Despite my unproductive state I was a bit taken back by how far we have come in only a few years and how swiftly children grow.....how painfully fast they go from being little helpers running eagerly behind in my shadow.....toys and messes strewn in their path........to being able to completely carry out responsibilities without ever having to be told....and without the many messes in their wake. Bittersweet aching of the heart began as I realized how fast our lives have grown and changed in so many ways.

With restlessness pervading within my own self I loaded everybody up and took off for town. I figured some fun food, good coffee and a new good movie for all of us would lift my spirit and take the boredom out of the day........yes, I did say boredom. Aubrey quickly became my new right hand man as we gathered shoes, dressed little ones and attempted to make sure that everyone left the house with shoes on and was at least partially dressed. While she loaded everybody I fed animals. And I think it is safe to say that I was pleasantly surprised by the interesting topics of conversation that came up in the 32 miles between home and town and the 32 miles spent returning back home. When an 11 and 9 year old are taken out of the picture and center stage is left to a 6 year old, two 5 year olds and a 3 year old it is quite the entertaining experience.

We ventured into Wal Mart to run down our quick list. Somewhere I'm thinking we must have redeemed ourselves in the world's eyes and gained some respect when we began having older children instead of a ton of little ones at our heels. The disdain and complete disgust that was so apparent tonight as my young little crew made their way through the store was appalling and really pretty sad. I think we are at a point in life where we will forevermore get the comments and stares but I had almost completely forgotten what it is to be such an outcast in society. Being a young mother with so many little ones and no sign of any form of help is apparently a sin to most. It's a very lonely feeling to be looked upon as such an outcast, even if only for a few seconds of time in the overall span of life. People look at you like you have done the world a complete disservice by procreating. We actually had people that would not even make eye contact with our merry little crew and then we actually had 2 horrific women that sighed in disgust and physically moved one of the children out of their way so they could get on the isle before we could get there. Maybe if they were running like little turds up and down the isles screaming or fighting with each other just being annoying in general I could've understood it...but not well behaved children that actually smiled politely and said hi directly to the people crossing their paths. I don't know. I think it's just painfully sad to me now as I deeply long for another baby and I watch the world filled with such total disgust for human life and the innocence of bright eyed children filled with awe and joy of all of life. How can you look at that and grunt with disdain or sigh in total impatience as they disregard the beauty of something that is still so unmarred by life....that is still so carefree and so unburdened? How can one just walk by that in disgust?

All of that to say, we greatly peeved the majority of all Thursday night shoppers at Wal Mart on this chilly autumn evening. The children, totally oblivious to this fact, talked excitedly about the pizza, cookies, movie and hot chocolate that were to be made as soon as we returned home.

On a completely different note, we spent last weekend at the fair. Aubrey, Garrett and Gavin spent the weekend at Brad's parents while I took Grayson, Evye, Garrison and Grant with me to Fort Worth. Brad opted out of it since he is such a great lover of the fair and stayed with sweet Ivye-girl here at home. We had made plans to surprise Mother on her birthday by showing up at church but this all fell together rather quickly and was much more fun than a mere day at church. So, we just turned it into a 4 day birthday celebration. Being that I am still so emotionally volatile and when unleashed my emotions rival an atomic bomb going off I have found that everything has some sort of emotion attached to it. Everything in life right now is bittersweet in some form or fashion. I have done better at managing and coping but it's like somewhere in this I lost the ability to balance any of my emotions. I cry over bread that doesn't rise...and well, do my fair share of cussing it out while I'm at it, cry over puking kids and cleaning it up and mopping floors for the 5th day in a row....but then who doesn't cry over that?????, cry over our amazingly beautiful 11 year old boy as he stands in front of Big Tex and I think back to the day he was only 22 months old standing in that very spot, cry over 5 year old boys discovering all of life as they see it all for the first time. Tears are so easily freed as a dark eyed baby leans in to press long hard kisses as she cooes her sweet love songs to me. Tears so easily shed as I gaze at the round, clean cut, little 2 year old head as he falls asleep nestled into the curve of my body as we snuggle up for a movie. I dance and twirl around the kitchen passionately in love with my pink hairbowed baby, 2 year old gleefully jumping straight up and down at my feet turning in dizzying circles, 3 year old laughing gleefully doing antics that would surely earn him physical agility of the year award. Everybody else dances and and laughs around me as they sing along. I know that this moment in time is so fleeting, so brief. Will I remember it? Will I remember this very moment...his boyish 11 year old smile, shining handsome green eyes, the fluid graceful movements of her innocence, the absolute carefree glee over all of life in her total abandonment of self as she laughs and dances, the humor that dances in his green eyes, the bright red that is transformed into total orange as the sun catches his hair, bright blue eyes that laugh as loud as he does, the huge teethy grin as eyes dance and he tries to coordinate movements amidst laughter??? Will I remember this day, this moment? Or will it just blur and become part of the scenery of life...the many threads that make up the tapestry of my life, blended into the bigger picture?

With emotions still a bit volatile the fun of the fair and the departure from Fort Worth were indeed bittersweet. Leaving Fort Worth to return to our little tiny bit of heaven is always kind of hard since we leave those whom we love most some 200 miles behind. Evye ended up being able to unexpectedly stay so she spent the week with Mother before returning home tomorrow. Mother will spend the weekend here as we have a girls party.....with 4 little boys to liven it up no doubt....before Brad and Grayson return home late Saturday. Mother will return home Monday and the normalcy of life will return.

As I continue to walk down this emotional roller coaster of a road I have found that this is a much farther hike than I ever anticipated. There is no magic cure....no magic pill that can be taken that makes all of life good again. Life as we know it has forever been altered. There is still lots and lots of sadness. There are days that are really good and then there are still those days that I wake up and know that every minute is going to be a struggle. There is an ache to adopt more now than ever, a longing to be pregnant again, a desperate need to be completely and totally at peace with all that has tanspired over the last little while. It certainly didn't help my cause out when I went to research my options for hurrying this miscarriage up and I stumbled across a website that had every awful, real life outcome that could be gathered in one place. Story after story of women who had chosen to miscarry naturally that had miscarriages that lasted an entire year and then gone on to have hormone induced infertility issues. These were women that had 2, 3 and 4 children that now had unexplained infertility. Most were finally diagnosed by dr's with hormone induced infertility after 6 months to 3 years of being unable to become pregnant. I finally realized that this process is so much more than grieving the loss of our tiny baby but of coming to accept that we really REALLY gave this area of our lives up to the Lord and He is the one that controls it in every way. This has been a painful reminder that we are not guaranteed anything in life and to assume anything is just presumptuous on my part. So each day I work on claiming His word that children are a blessing and we will indeed be blessed with more but knowing that if His will for our life differs from this that I must accept it and continue on...happily. That is a very very hard thing to do for me because I absolutely love children and I love what I do. So, in all of these emotions, those are a few of the many elements I battle to overcome mentally. Though I delight in the plans God has laid out for our lives the fear of the unknown is something I must daily overcome and find myself giving back over to the Lord millions of times throughout my days. So, here we are still walking out our salvation in much fear and trembling....seeking to fully understand the height and depth of it all. I miss our baby. I miss being pregnant. I miss being able to feel normal. I miss being able to just let go with Brad....cause right now when I let go I leave a wake of devastation in my path. I just want everything to be normal again. I think Brad has hit total exasperation with me. I've hit total exasperation with myself. So I continue to work on accepting the fact that none of this was my fault and just living in acceptance to what all just is. Forgiveness of self.....it's a powerful thing. Acceptance of life as it is now....it is mandatory to move forward.

"I realize just how beautiful you are
and how great your affections are for me....
My heart turns violently inside of my chest
I don't have time to maintain these regrets
when I think about....

how you love me."