My Average Child…

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“Average Ada” age 2 at the NLC

Keep soaring, our girl!

I can seriously not stop laughing.  My daughter, my firstborn, my pride and utter joy has written two different things that she would like me to help edit.  The first is part one of a children’s book—seriously the cutest book ever.  Can’t wait to share it with you here!

And then.  Then there is her resume.  My daughter is saving all of her gift and babysitting money to buy a phone.  But, as we all know, phones are very expensive.  Well, my little ray of sunshine, my decade plus 2 daughter, will see her Nana and Papa for a few weeks this summer, so she has decided to submit a resume for them.  On her resume, which I won’t share the entire thing, she wrote:  Average student.  If that was not brutally honest enough, the rest would make you laugh out loud.

Things such as:  Good at—Loving her grandparents.  And so much more.

My “Average Daughter” is just so ABOVE AVERAGE in the good feels department!

And, to be fair to her, she studies in the Polish language, all her subjects.  So those average grades are really QUITE impressive for me 😉  Her father and I will take them, at least!  I can barely help her study for her History or Science tests (no smile and wink here).

Oh, my average daughter, I love you so average PLUS much!

Thanks for bringing sunshine to my EVERY DAY!!!!!!!

 

Jet lag is like a fly

fly

Do you know that pesky fly?  The one that swirls around you?  It actually, even though an insect, begins to cause you self-doubt.  About hygiene.  Do you really smell that bad?  I mean, you know that you traveled for basically two days—but you thought you showered.

Or did you?

Or did you dream you showered?

Or were you DREAMING about a shower?

Or did you shower the kids but forget about yourself?

The fly won’t leave you alone and now you wonder if you need a shower!!!!!

#jetlag

It’s killing my sanity.

This is what my last 5 days have looked like:

Day 1:  Airplane (3 to be exact).  I slept approximately 1 hour on all 3.  At the airport, in Munich, I laid down on the benches after having my husband SWEAR on his very life and beard that he would WATCH our children with his 41 eyes and make sure no one stole my purse in the meantime, then I crashed.  For approximately 2 hours.

He has snoring video in public to prove it.

I don’t even care.

Night 1 in Poland:  The 3 and 5 year olds did not sleep.  Nearly at all.  The 5 year old eventually waned off as the sun was rising.  The 3 year old is more stubborn than a mule and beat the sun.  She finally seceded around noon.

The decade plus one daughter was already OUTTA the house and OFF to friends.  Goodbye, my firstborn.  WE LOVE YOU…REMEMBER US!

Yeah, right.  We haven’t hardly seen her since.  One night at Wiktoria’s house (Victoria in English), Oliwia’s a second night, and now Nikola’s.  Yep.  The decade plus 1 missed her little Polska wies (Polish village).

Nights 2 and 3 and 4 also lost to JOJO the GIANT!  She won hands down each and every time.  The sun has NOTHING on the spirit of our 3-year-old.

Night 5.  Ah, lovely Night 5.  My hopes were in you.

You were my precious.  I held you in my hand.  I cuddled you.  I made you feel important.  I knew you had a big job ahead of you.  And I knew you, Night 5, were the one to do it.

And, alas, you won.  At 1am, the 3-year-old fell asleep with me stroking and singing to her.  Yes, I sing in private.  Heck, I sing in public—you people just don’t appreciate it as much as my spawn (smile and wink)…

And with the delicate balance of tiptoeing and delicately stepping over EVERY TOY in Max and Josephine’s room which is currently out so that every single marble and doll will know it is loved even though there was a 6-week-absence, I made it out of the room without any crash.

Voile!

I crawled into bed.  THE FIRST NIGHT I would sleep in bed.  If one in the morning is still considered night—and I closed my eyes.

My respite was sweet.  And short.

Oh so short.

The 3 year old came and told me that she DID NOT WET THE BED but her PANTS were all wet.

Yes.  That is called “Not wetting the bed—it magically wet me” syndrome.  It occurs often with our third.  The other two have bladders that could win Olympic Golds.

So I took the daughter that was victim of the vicious bed to the toilet—hastily cleaned her off and threw her in bed with me.

That’s when my victory became my defeat.

She was NO LONGER TIRED.  She was wide awake.  She jumped, and crawled, and laid, and sprawled all over me.

Could she see my phone?

Could she watch a movie?

Could she hold my phone?

Could she see the lullabies playing?

Could she listen to my ear—after all, my ear was making the SAME noise as a volcano.

No, my dear…That’s MY HEAD!  And you are the cause of that.  (I thought to express this to her—but, come on, she’s three…She wouldn’t even care if I did).

To TOP IT OFF…My husband is on the other side of my daughter shouting in his sleep, “I’m going to get you!” Followed with actual karate chopping motion and sounds, “Katcha-katcha!”

I kid you not.

Somehow, miraculously in the midst of the karate chopping albeit sleeping husband and the “NOT TIRED” toddler, I managed to coax her to sleep—legs on top of my head and all.

By this time, it is now after 3am and DARN HER…Guess who is not tired now?

Me.

And so I sit.  With this pesky night fly swirling around my very head.  Touching my hand and invading all sorts of personal space (I LITERALLY CANNOT STAND FLIES—I have a bubble, flies, respect it!).  Typing. To you.  Because you care, don’t you?

And if you don’t, don’t worry.

I’m still here with my fly.

He doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.

Just like Josephine’s jet lag.

Sigh.

I wish I could be like Richard, my sleeping husband, and “Get you, Jet Lag, katcha-katcha!” (insert super karate chopping action here)

Good thing today is Sunday—I need the glorious grace of Jesus to get me through the day and his ultimate gift of forgiveness because I ALREADY know MY FAMILY IS ALL GOING TO NEED IT as this Momma is going on 0 hours of sleep.

Thanks to jet lag…my least friend.

Eyebrows Make A Man…

the crazy naked littles

Okay, we have had a lot of laughs on this particular blog site about eyebrows.  I, alone, am a living, walking, talking, breathing eyebrow failure of a woman.  BUT TODAY…today it was all about a lesson my son was teaching my youngest daughter.  And, I am willing to bet, it’s a lesson that YOU, AS WELL, didn’t even know 😉

Maxwell (age 4), sitting at our lovely farmhouse renovated table, messy hair, and slightly hoarse morning voice, eating the “talking” cereal with his little sister, GoGo Bean (aka Josephine Diane), looked excitedly at her and proclaimed, “JOSEPHINE!!!!!  You’re growing EYEBROWS!  Soon you’re going to turn into a MAN!”

And as excited as he was for Josephine to turn into a man, this newfound knowledge did not sit as well with his 3-year-old sister who then proceed to cry, “I DON’T WANT EYEBROWS!”

Entertainment abounds, my friends…

Even in the art of eyebrows!

Momma Beast Mode


This is called 250 pounds of coal post coffee this morning.

What a Momma will do for her family, eh?

#mommabeastmode #heatedhouse #warmbabies

But let’s not stop there…then I obviously needed to shower—so my littlest asked to join me.

Why not?  I’m a good momma…

As my littlest then proceeds to poop in my shower.

You saw my photo, right?  If anyone needed a shower—it was me.

But now there is poop.

Just as it gets cleaned up, my middle then decides to jump in.

Momma beast mode went away—momma desperate for clean mode just wanted to come out to play 😉

In the end, I got clean.  Kids got clean.  Shower got clean.

And we have heat.

Chalk one up for a good #mommabeastmode day.

***

In case you missed the video earlier, here is the #mommabeastmode at work.  Enjoy!

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Had I Known…

Had I known that my husband’s knees would go out on him this year, I would not be living in this house.

Had I known this fact, in advance, there is no way I would have even considered living in this house—nor be in the process of purchasing it.

I mean—this house is a second marriage to start.  It requires endless renovations.  And it’s okay—but we knew that going in.  So THAT (the need of endless renovations) was upfront with us and quite visible.

As was the coal furnace.  But I am married to a man that takes care of the coal for me.

But then life hit us and sat my husband down.

Which has left me lifting 200pounds of coal every couple days.

This morning, my hair did not feel like hair.  It felt like ashes.  It smelled like coal.  And my nose still blows black.  Wonder what the doctors would make of that?

You see, though—This thing “HAD I KNOWN” is just what we don’t know.

And, therefore, we enter life with a whole bunch of unknowns.

Perhaps you have so many HAD I KNOWN moments in your life:

Had I known my marriage would not work…

Had I known my loved one would not be here this year…

Had I known my health would not always be with me…

Had I known my job would not be secure…

Had I known…Had I known…Had I known…

My friends. We don’t know.  And that’s a certainty we can be sure of.

Sure, in some situations in life, we can be aware that something may go in a certain direction…But in many HAD I KNOWN situations in life, we just don’t know before it happens.

So the question is—What are you doing about it?  What are you going to do about it?  What will you keep doing about it?

You are here.  In this place of HAD I KNOWN and now it’s your turn to realize that you can’t look back and change the past…You are here.

What are you going to do about where you are?

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This is Real…

Real life in photos:

Real kids paint naked  Real dads makes baseball cupcakesReal moms get down and dirty Real miracles turn 10    Real streets get lamps   No matter where you are or what you’re doing, I pray you’ll keep it real!

XO b

“What Does The Fox Say?” Daddy be CRAZY!!!!

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Okay—so, if you, my And 2 Makes Crazy Readers, don’t realize something, it’s that we live in a beautiful but very little farming village in the country of Poland.

Right now, our house is massively undergoing some awesome construction where we are putting in a gate (woot-woot) and some pavers (because cement on wet land does not bode well) and some other cosmetic outside stuff.

WHICH MEANS…our dogs are by and large locked up for long portions of every day.  And it also means I have to take them on long walks.

We have (the field that immediately borders our property) wheat going.  Then there is the other field.  The beautiful field that is for sale by owner—yet no one seems to buy.  So, my dogs and I go and romp around that field (the dogs romp—i walk).  It has tall grass, wildflowers, trees, and is super duper duper big.

It is bordered by wheat on both sides.  And my dogs are always finding random bones.

WELL…how I have missed this fox hole over this last month is beyond me.  But, just a few nights ago, I saw it!

Mind you, it was about 8pm, so my hubby was at home with all of the kids.  I picked up my phone and called my daughter anyway and said, “QUICK!  Hop on your bike and come find me.  Momma found a FOX HOLE!”

Before I knew it, she was riding out to me.  We loved it.  And had lots of fun exploring around it.  Then we decided to call Daddy and Max.  Josephine was already sleeping, “Daddy!  Put Max’s hat on and come out (it was super cold).”

He wasn’t convinced to take a 3-year-old out exploring at 8pm, but he did anyway.

And that’s when it hit me!  Start the music and have my crazy daughter go wild!  I was just SURE she was going to dance like crazy while I literally had a fox hole filming right behind her.

To my great surprise, I turned on the music and started filming and there my daughter went—EVERYWHERE but in front of the camera.  But daddy stayed (even with Maxwell in his arms).  And, apparently, daddy had WAY more fun than I was about to realize.

He went all “Daddy in front of a fox hole” CRAZY on me 🙂 🙂 🙂

And now we have the best memory of the night!

A video of my hubby (Richard—the FAR better half of And 2 Makes Crazy) going actual crazy to that really fun (and addicting) song, “What does the fox say?”

Click on the link (I have yet to post it to YouTube) and enjoy!  Especially watch it if you are in need for a smile today!

You can even share this video with others.  Go ahead.  Make their day!

xo for now,

B (and now you can see why we are And 2 Makes Crazy)

People are more important than buses.

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The other day we were a bit early to pick up Adelyne from school.  So we were outside letting Maxwell run around.  One of her former teachers came out and stopped to visit with us.  After about 10 minutes of conversation, a big, white bus drives off.  The teacher looks at it and said, “Oh, that was my bus.”

Richard and I were so sorry and told her so profusely.  You see, in our village the bus only comes once or twice an hour.

She looked at us and said, “It doesn’t matter.  I believe people are more important than buses.”

And we continued our conversation.

On the day of our 13th anniversary since we stepped foot in Poland, I would like to say this is one of the greatest lessons I have learned while living in Poland:  People.

People are the most important.

Thank you, Poland, for teaching us such truths.

1 John 4:7  Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

Throwback Thursday…Nearly 2 years and two worlds later. Whoa!

It’s amazing how time flies and can change life so quickly…

Two years ago, we were a family of 3, living in Poland…baking Maxwell.

Two years later, we are a family of 4, living in Arizona (for the time being)…baking Josephine.

Two years ago, my little gal did not have an American accent—and had never spent more than a total of 3 months in all of her life in the States.

Two years later, she has lived in the United States for an entire year—and, although she is still learning the art of the “American smile”, she no longer sounds like our own personal version of Mary Poppins.  Slightly a bummer.

Hope you enjoy her precious (1 minute) video wishing you a Merry Christmas in English and Polish.  And hope you also enjoy our throwback photos from life before Maxwell and Josephine.

Amazing how time changes things…

Many hugs for today—looking forward to writing tomorrow about “The Impossible Task”!

xoxo

b

ImageImageImageImageBaking Maxwell:  Brandenburg Gate, Berlin, Germany…2011