Girls' Road Trip

Recently, I felt brave, really brave. In fact, there was no lost sleep, no worrying, no fretting. I was brave.

I set off on a 420 mile journey.

We're no stranger to this journey, but this time, it was only a girls' journey.

Yep, 420 miles alone with the two Mice in the backseat.

We checked out somewhere near 10 books on cd from the library, packed ourselves up, and headed out.

We had a great trip, made easier by the fact that we met Grammy and Grandpa Bob at about the 300 mile point on the way, and Grammy rode with us for the first 120 miles of the return journey.

But still, the Mice and I made it 300 miles on the way and 300 on the way back by ourselves, and it was really, truly the cutest trip I could have ever imagined. They danced together in the backseat (carseat dancing - arms and legs going only); we sang; we played "What am I hiding in?". It was lovely.

These are some of my favorite pictures. I should have had my camera out to take some with other family; I was lax on that this time.

Miss Mouse desperately wants to be a farmer when she grows up.

I remember the few times I played in mud as a child. Growing up in the drought of the 1980s meant mud was a special thing, an uncommon commodity. Never have I seen water like this around the farm. As far as I've heard, no one up there remembers water like this.

It was par for the course for these Mice, though. For them Spring=Water.

I'm fairly sure a cat brought out that sweet smile. Her favorite is still missing (we're going with "missing" for now since there is no real evidence to the contrary, and anyone who went to the same elementary music class I did will certainly break into song with "The cat came back, the very next day; the cat came back; they thought he was a gone-r, but the cat came back; he just couldn't stay awaaaaaay. Meow."), but adaptable little Miss Mouse has just warmed up to Jeeves now like he was always her love.

They're trying really hard to enjoy the "spring" weather on the deck.

Grown in Grammy's garden.

Picking crocuses in a beautiful spot. There are fields all around this hill, but my Dad chose to not till up this ground. Crocus bulbs from seed catalogs are beautiful, and I admire them in the yards of my friends. But there's nothing like a wild crocus persevering through repeated harsh winters, cold springs, and dry years bringing the promise of spring.

I love this picture. I wanted to include some of Sunny and Grandpa Bob together, but in most of them Sunny was trying to squint away the sunshine and not looking very happy in doing so. I really love this picture, though. Since my Dad didn't get to wear his wedding ring much while I was growing up (it isn't very safe for farmers to wear them), it makes it special to see it in this picture. I also love hands that have been worked so hard for so many years and yet are still so gentle to pick wildflowers with the fourth 2-year old now (Me first! Then came Auntie Laura, and, after quite a hiatus, Miss Mouse, and now Sunny Mouse).

Since my parents visited at Easter, Mr. T and I have learned that no one can push a swing like Grandpa Bob....even if we do it the same way....at least according to Sunny. This picture is Miss Mouse, but I thought it was fun.

Somehow Grammy escaped most pictures.....This will have to be rectified in the future.

Another World

Nope, I am not talking about an old daytime soap opera.


I'm talking about the world in which the two Mice live these days.


It is precious. Truly, I've dreamt of these moments from the time we found out we were having another little girl with Sunny Baby Mouse. Moments of girly giggles, twirling dresses, and high-pitched squeals....sisters and best friends.

Now, that time is here. They are creating a world of their own, a world which I have to wait for an invitation to enter.

I.Love.It.

The other day, they raced outside with their light-up Easter decorations, a green frog and a yellow chick, to "show the birdies". They ran around the yard together shouting "Birdie! Birdie!" or "Beedie! Beedie!" This was entirely their doing, and the only part I played was to open the door for them to go in as they conspired with each other about what they were going to do. Unfortunately, there were no birdie takers to look at the toys.

Miss Mouse has been getting a bit overly helpful to Sunny lately. She absolutely loves to care for her smaller sister, but we've had some confusion when smaller sister wants to reciprocate. Case in point: The other night, Miss Mouse, um, "helped" Sunny when she was done with a bathroom visit. In Sunny's opinion, it was only natural to show her elder sis appreciation by attempting to help her in return. That did not go over so well. Miss Mouse and I had a discussion about how Sunny is her friend and wants to be a helper, too. My sweet Miss Mouse is, of course, patient with this situation, although she seems to have backed off on her bathroom helpfulness toward Sunny lately!

On our way to Auntie Laura and Uncle Jon's hotel to swim on Easter Sunday, Grammy and I overheard this conversation in the vehicle:

Sunny: "Blah, blah, blah, blah - tine."

Miss Mouse: "Daddy drinks wine?"

Sunny: "No!"

Miss Mouse: "Uncle Jon drinks wine?"
Sunny: "NO!"

Miss Mouse: "Well, I don't know what you are saying."

Sunny, obviously distressed: "I - not - whining!"

Miss Mouse: "No, not crying whining, wine that you drink!"

Sunny: "No. No wine." - - Sunny notices Grammy is shaking with laughter in the front seat and asks in an offended, serious voice, "Grammy, what you laughing 'bout?"

--A bit later, Grammy found that Miss Mouse was so knowledgeable about wine because she and I take it to give for home Communion for two women in the congregation.

Last week the girls disappeared into Miss Mouse's room. I heard Sunny's toy boombox being cranked, and I went to investigate. Sunny met me at the door with a "Mommy, go out!", and Miss Mouse explained, "Mommy, she wants you to go out so that she can have her singing lesson. She's going to have a singing lesson now." Um, okay. Out I went to do up some dishes! Ten minutes later, Miss Mouse and Sunny both came out to invite me back in. I was told Sunny was done with her singing lesson, so they were ready to put on their performance. Apparently, there were dancing lessons going on, too, because after I was politely seated on the loft bed steps, they turned on the music, started "singing" along (singing the words they know, humming through the rest), and dancing around in fluffy costumes - Miss Mouse had a tutu; Sunny had a shawl. I clapped and ooed and awed so thankful that I have the amazing opportunity to be kicked out of their room and invited back in at 10:30 a.m... It's like sitting in a warm ray of sunshine through the window on a cold January day....something one doesn't want to end, and yet something that is so very fleeting.

Compassion

https://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/video/video.php?v=10150159530731106&oid=195418685157&comments

If you watch the video on the link I posted, you'll hear and see (most unfortunately, see) me talking about why our family supports a Child Survival Program through Compassion International.

There is so much more I wish I could have said about the CSPs. In the video, I focused on the fact that they will provide prenatal, delivery, and post-delivery care for moms. The reason I chose to focus on those functions of the CSPs is that having access to those types of medical interventions - basic though they are in this country - has saved my life several times. The physical complications of having a stillborn baby, complications after a miscarriage, progesterone supplementation through two healthy pregnancies, complications after one of those healthy deliveries....at any of those times in my life, without the care that is accessible here, life would likely be a lot different for us.

Rather than sitting here, typing out a blog post on my laptop, I would at best be a divorced, shunned outcast of my community, shouldering the blame and the wrath for the losses we've experienced.

The CSPs provide so much more than what I had time to share in the video. They provide education - for women mainly, but that translates into the whole community - about why losses occur, how to prevent them, and what does not cause the loss of a baby (i.e., something innately bad about the mother). Women are taught basic reading, writing, and arithmetic skills so that they can read the Bible which is being shared with them by the Compassion Int'l employees, so that they can sign their name to contracts of business, so that they can understand some of what their children will be learning when they hopefully are healthy enough to be enrolled in the Compassion Int'l sponsorship program to pursue their own formal educations.

For me, being born in a place where, in the lowest parts of my life, I have had the support of understanding friends, the support of several loving congregations, the necessary medical care means that I have a responsibility to those who were not born in such a place.

As I tuck my girls in at night, after helping them put away all their developmentally-appropriate toys, after reading to them from our virtual library of books, after feeding them their well-balanced bedtime snacks complete with fresh, clean water.....I want to know that I am doing what I can to help those mommies whose evenings looked so different from mine and to help those babies who face statistics like 72% mortality rates by age 5.

That treatise - THAT is why my husband had to hold me down to 1 minute and 21 seconds for a video.....I could talk all day....

Dancing with Cinderella

She spins and she sways to whatever song plays

Without a care in the world

And I'm sitting here wearing the weight of the world on my shoulders

It's been a long day, and there's still work to do

She's pulling at me saying, "Dad, I need you"


There's a ball at the castle
And I've been invited
And I need to practice my dancing,
Oh, Please, Daddy, please?

So I will dance with Cinderella
While she is here in my arms.
Because I know something the Prince never knew
Oh, I will dance with Cinderella
I don't want to miss even one song
Because all too soon the clock will strike midnight,
And she'll be gone.....


She says he's a nice guy
And I'd be impressed
She wants to know if I approve of the dress
She says Dad the prom is just one week away
And I need to practice my dancing
Oh, Please, Daddy, please?


So I will dance with Cinderella
While she is here in my arms
Because I know something the Prince never knew
Oh, I will dance with Cinderella
I don't want to miss even one song
Because all too soon the clock will strike midnight,
And she'll be gone....


Well, she came home today with a ring on her hand
Just glowing and telling us all they had planned
She says, "Dad, the wedding's still six months away,
But I need to practice my dancing"
So, please, Daddy, please?


So, I will dance with Cinderella
While she is here in my arms,
Because I know something the Prince never knew
Oh, I will dance with Cinderella,
I don't want to miss even one song
Because all too soon the clock will strike midnight,
And she'll be gone....
----Words and Music by Stephen Curtis Chapman
He wrote those words after losing one of his daughters in an accident when she was five years old. He knew the power of those sweet moments between daddies and daughters. We know that here, too. The dances that will never happen perhaps make the dances that do all that much sweeter.

Daddy and Miss Mouse went on a "date" to a Butterfly Ball last Friday evening. Miss Mouse had a countdown going for weeks. Weeks. This event was perhaps the ultimate in cuteness and sweetness. A room full of cuddly bunnies and ducks could not have surpassed the amount of "sweet" at the Ramada last Friday. There were proud daddies and adoring daughters lining the entire ballroom. I was excited to have captured this shot showing Miss Mouse's obvious admiration for her Daddy.

They not only danced the evening away together; they also went through a grand march which is shown above where Daddy is introducing himself and his little girl. My heart melted at how tightly she held his hand as they went through their "parade". I'm told Miss Mouse went all out and danced on a chair at one point. She told me that "they played some wild music and some calming music". Daddy told me he had to reign her in as she was flailing her arms and legs around so wildly with her eyes closed, dancing her little heart out. That must have been for one of the "wild" dances. Aaahhh, sweetness.

I have a Daddy who danced with his two little cinderellas anytime they asked. Now my two little cinderellas have a Daddy like that, too. He's creating very big shoes for some prince to fill someday!

*As a sidenote, when the song that I have written out above was played at the dance, I am told most of the men had to, at the very least, swallow really hard. On the way home, Miss Mouse noticed three deer (displaced from their riverside homes due to the water, no doubt) on the street and commented, "Oh, Daddy, I wish you had your gun, so you could shoot them. Then we could have meat!" Apparently, that was the tear-shedding time for my Prince Charming (though I just got a sideways look when I asked how the song was for him....). The funniest part, though, is that Miss Mouse didn't so much want them to be shot just to be shot, but she wanted them to be shot more to make her Daddy happy and to eat them!

First Track Meet

On April 6, Miss Mouse entered her first track meet. She called it her "marathon", but it was a kiddie track meet complete with directed stretching exercises. The partial line of children pictured is only the "age 4" line....there were also lines for ages 3 and 5. Lots, lots, of small children all attempting to follow directions. It was hilariously chaotic.

This is Miss Mouse in line for the "medal race". The four-year-olds seemed to have a lot of trouble understanding the idea of "line up"; many also didn't understand why only two children ran at once. The whole "get ready, set, go" thing, to them, meant that all of them should "go!". Miss Mouse took off with two other little boys and had to be chased down by the official. She apparently didn't understand that "Pink, come back! Come back here, Pink!" meant that she was supposed to slow down and return to the starting line to wait her turn.

And no, I didn't interfere.

When it came time for Miss Mouse to run her "medal race", she and a little boy headed out. He started before she did, and, when she was about to catch up to him, she slowed down so that he could go first. My polite little non-competitive Mouse. Again, I did not interfere....and I was proud that she wore her "second place" medal so happily. I'm not sure I was thrilled that they actually gave out first vs. second place medals to four year olds, but Miss Mouse was proud (and polite); therefore, I was proud and happy, too!

The last event was a "hurdles race". This was, perhaps, the funniest race of all in that Miss Mouse started out with her two running partners, ahead of them both. That is until she got to the approximately 2-inch hurdle bar, stopped, looked down at it, spread her legs wide, and pushed off in a gigantic jump over the hurdle. There were two sets of hurdles, so this process was repeated....both times the kids ran that particular race. She's not only polite; she's cautious, as well, and had many onlookers chuckling. Way to go, Cautious Mouse!

Afterwards I asked Miss Mouse was had been her favorite part of the events. I was shocked when she said her favorite part was getting to run with the "green thing" (baton) in "that race where we just ran to someone and gave someone else the green thing". It was an attempt at a relay race, but even the adults organizing the thing weren't sure where each child was supposed to be running. It ended up that when a child would get the baton, he or she would start running in a random direction and would eventually be intercepted by an adult who would then shuttle the baton to another child. It. Was. Chaos. It drove me batty, even though I'm usually very process-oriented. When it comes to running, I have a definite need to know where I'm going and how to get there. Apparently, Miss Mouse does not have that need.

All in all, the afternoon was a fun time. We didn't go back last Tuesday because I really am not a fan of encouraging a first and second place winner among tiny tots, but I'm glad we did go the first week. Miss Mouse still periodically wears her medal around the house.

Another Simply Saturday

We're still trying to dig out from our winter wonderland here, but it's been fun seeing glimpses of sunshine (i.e., spring, gardening, warmth, etc.). Even these simple rays of sunshine can carry me through a week of unseasonably cold temperatures!

Check out other Simply Saturday photos here:

Simply Saturday

When we splurged last fall and bought this refurbished dslr camera along with an additional used ("well" yet "carefully") lens, one of my biggest hopes was that it would allow me to see beauty at times I may have otherwise missed. This hope has been fulfilled many times over, but the past few weeks, I've struggled finding any beauty outdoors. The excitement of glistening snow and frost has long since worn off, and I've taken solace in pictures of my "Mice". Today my dry spell was broken, though, as I watched Miss Mouse enjoying the sunshine in the 20-degree backyard. She stayed outside longer than Sunny Mouse and I; she chatted with the dog; she chatted with the neighbors we haven't seen since October. As I called her in for the third time, I noticed the sunlight shining through the bird feeder. It was like fresh air into a stale room. It is simply a birdfeeder on a simple Saturday. For me, though, it was simply beautiful.

Check out others' Simply Saturday photos here