Life's been good to me so far

Elise chases Sophie (cat) until she can pin her with half her body weight. Then she stands and grabs her around her middle, hauls her up meowing in protest to her chest, uses a knee and a jump to make her butt come up to where she can get the WHOLE cat in her arms, by which point the cat is nearly screaming, twists her around, hoists one more time, and is then holding her like a baby. Sophie meows one more time, in a quiet, defeated and grumpy way, and Elise looks into her eyes and says softly, "I know, you're in love with me".

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Ananda, Aaron and I were browsing through the Harry Potter tag on Tumblr. I was watching an interview with Jason Isaacs (Lucius Malfoy) on the Today Show at the Wizarding World of HP up in Orlando (where we really want to go).
Aaron: This is boring. Find another one with the twins.
Me: I want to see this.
Annie, in a perfect British accent: Mum fancies him.

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Elise, holding her ferret up towards me - What this made of? Yarn?
Me, blinking: Uh. It's alive, honey. He's made of skin and fur and blood and organs, like you. He came out of a mama ferret.
Elise: Oh...me thought...nevermind.

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Elise: You have pee on your butt!
Me: You have boogers in your eyelashes!
Elise: You have poop on your head!
Me: You have slime in your belly button!
Aaron, not even looking up from the Mario Wii he's playing: Bloody pus bucket maggot factory!
Ananda: OWNED!

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The other day I really needed a nap. I gave my kids some food and then a list of suggested activities and set my alarm for an hour and a half later. When I got up, they were SO EXCITED because Aaron had taken the training wheels off of Isaac's bike and taught him to ride it while I was sleeping. This was a serious parenting impasse for me because,

1. They are NOT allowed outside while I'm sleeping.
2. The 3 younger kids are NOT allowed out FRONT (where there's a street, no fence, etc) without an adult, period.
3. Aaron accomplished this partially through riding Grant's bike alongside him, IN A CAST. Because his foot is already broken, FROM BIKE STUNTS.
4. You kind of just want to be consulted about your clumsiest and most accident prone kid getting put on the asphalt with no helmet or pads, when to take off the training wheels, ET-FREAKING-CETERA!

BUT!

1. Aaron and Isaac are my two kids who never get along, ever. Since Isaac was a baby they have had the least love and the most genuine irritation and fighting. They just make each other miserable. So this was a HUGE show of solidarity and Aaron was blowing my mind with how GOOD he was to him. I mean it is a shocking thing going on here.
2. He apparently did a great job because Isaac is riding all over like an old pro now, I mean he rides like he's always ridden or something, and is SO HAPPY about it, when Grant and I really wouldn't have even considered it was time for him to learn. He didn't get hurt in any way, or even fall at all from what I understand.
3. They were both so shiningly excited to unveil this fabulous surprise to me.

I settled on watching the demonstration and clapping wildly, then sitting them down for a serious talk on how NOT OK some of this is for ever doing again and how they will get punished if there is a "next time", followed by reiterating the part I am proud of and taking pics and video, and then pulling Aaron aside for additional anecdotes about things that could have gone horribly wrong.

-I'm (hopefully?) getting over being sick. Grant had it first, last week, I had it over the weekend. Luckily Isaac just had a bit of a runny nose, and Ananda, Aaron and Jake appear unscathed so far.

-I talked to my mother on the phone for 2 1/2 hours yesterday. She called me. I feel a little guilty but mostly overjoyed and giddy that she has been unable to sleep, eat or think for the past few days. I know that sounds horrible, but...I feel like I'm important to her, again. I don't know how to explain what I mean. I was here worrying that if I vented to her, I could lose her, because her desire to not face the past would maybe be bigger than her desire to hang out with me. Though I know that she loves me and has always depended on me and that I'm her firstborn and yada yada yada, it seems that the priorities have went down that way on several previous occasions...I felt bad that she was upset on the phone, but at the same time like she seems so young and open and awesome, when you crack that facade, and we end up laughing through tears at everything in the world...Does this make sense? It was exhausting and I was ready to get off the phone at the end. But glad it happened. She said a whole bunch of things that I was not even allowing myself to hope to hear, and I keep recalling them over and over in my mind. They make me feel like I did when I was little and sick, and she put a rag on my head and made me noodle soup. It's so good to know that she isn't ignoring me or mad at me or thinking I'm upset over nothing, that I can effect her...

-Isaac has learned to jump. Like, to where his entire body leaves the ground. He loves it, and thinks it's hilarious. I'm also noticing him having a big leap in communication skills (he said "Go out there" to Grant earlier, and seems to understand just about anything the kids say to him, even when I'm getting ready to tell them he can't understand things like what they're saying).

-I've done jumping excercises with Aaron today (that's when Isaac learned to jump), massage, and foot pounding. As well as sat and talked with him about ways to get along better with Isaac. I allow him his honesty ("I don't like Isaac") but try to set some standards ("I understand that, but he's your brother and we're a family, so you have to grow up with him and live with him anyway. You could have more fun with him and be happier if you tried to blah blah blah"). I feel good about him, like I can put a lot into him and it will yield results. I'm a little at odds with how to deal with him and Isaac...they clash terribly. Aaron has too many sensory problems to be able to stand him, really, and I think it would be horribly false to say "Oh, Aaron, you're just saying that now because you're mad, you love Isaac" - I don't think he does. Ananda loves Isaac, Grant and I do, Jake finds him fascinating. But he's too much for Aaron and always has been. Aaron had daily breakdown over Isaac's crying when he was a baby, and ever since he's become mobile he's been yelling, stepping on him (Aaron is ALWAYS laying down on the floor...)pulling his hair, hitting him, taking his toys, etc, and it's all just turned up too loud for Aaron. Isaac even does it on purpose now, knowing he can get a big reaction and laughing like it's the greatest game in the world. Often while Aaron cries with his hands on his head or yells for me over and over. It's kind of hard for me - I know that Ananda and Aaron are super unusually close and will continue to be, and they both adore the baby, etc, but I worry that Aaron and Isaac might never have any interest in each other beyond when one or the other is moving out. My HOPE is that when Isaac speaks more and more clearly, their relationship will improve, because right now Aaron has a hard time talking to US/understanding what WE mean, most of the time,and so perhaps it's just that Isaac, with his tantrums and toddler-ease, is completely beyond his ability to cope with...It's just sad to see, he tells me "I don't want to play with him/be nice to him/have him near me/share a room with him", with this woebegone expression, and he means it so sincerely, as in "It really does make me miserable that this other child of yours is in my life". Isaac is learning limits gradually, and behaving better as time passes, but that's with Grant and I maintaining our patience, distracting him to better activities, and being able to remove him or be stern as necessary - but Aaron's kneejerk reactions are to snatch things back, run away, start screaming, and then things just snowball out of control.

-Grant Sr is talking seriously about selling the house. Like, the one we live in :p So, that's been on our minds a lot. We did a lot of talking with him about it, over the weekend. Apparently the isurance adjuster who came by to inspect all the damage from Hurricane Wilma said we need a whole new roof (in addition to replacing a large portion of the wooden fence and all the screen on the back porch). And because of the last couple of hurricane seasons, the insurance on the place is going up. He has to pay over $2k EACH, for renewing the homeowners' insurance, and his deductible for the roof - and the taxes are due sometime in the next couple of months and will be an extra $1800. And there's just no way he sees to make that happen. It's kind of coming down to, we have to fork up some of that money if we want to continue to have a place to live. But...we're still behind on the car payment and can barely keep the house stocked with groceries, etc. And this is December...even if we bought NOBODY presents, we still were planning to travel to Lakeland for Christmas...And the frustrating thing is that if Grant Sr DOES sell, we really can't stay in South Florida - it's too expensive for us to live on our own here. But the business - Grant's, I mean - is really starting to take off. He has all these new accounts, and is even hiring an employee as of January 3. It's hard, because Grant Sr hates his life - he hates his job,a nd the long commute it entails, and Mindy (sil) calling him for money and favors all the time, and being lonely, and us taking up his whole house with kids and kid clutter. He wants to sell half just to leave and start over somewhere else where nobody knows him. We feel awful for any sort of taking advantage of him. And why NOW, after years of struggling, when we actually see a light on the horizon? It's very worrisome. Major money trouble.


-I don't talk about it much, but God is on my mind a lot lately. The Advent (pre-Christmas) season, my life...Grant and I talk constantly about marriage and suffice to say I desperately want to just DO IT ALREADY, any old way, but he is very set on doing it the way we want to do it, because he's waited so long and thinks we'll regret it all our lives if we just go do it the quickest easiest way. We have been round and round and ROUND about this, from every financial and theological perspective and come up with all these pseudosolutions and unresolved compromises...I feel like it's the only thing holding me back, in a lot of ways. It makes me FEEL illigitimate in a way I don't like, as well as providing a horrible christian witness of hypocrisy and a bad example for our kids. But mostly I just feel separated from God in a very fundamental way. There is grace, there is "the Word that dwells in my heart", there is blessing and prayer. But there is also the constant hum in the back of my mind that, the bottom line is, we put our desires (for sex, or a cool ceremony, or what have you) before Him. I understand the let down of a marriage license and some vows with a pastor, I know that he has been saying he'll marry me for 11 years now and wants our friends and family there to celebrate with us,a nd I know that we are "practically married anyway". The last thing I want is for him to finally just give in to my will and say "Fine, let's just do it." and then resent me for it...I'm not really mad at him so much as just beyond frustrated with the stupid situation. Which is why I don't talk about it here, even though it's been a major topic of my conversations (with him and a couple of others) for weeks and weeks.

Right after I ranted and posted the previous entry, Ananda came and hugged me so sweetly that I felt like I should go and take it all back. I think I might have, if I didn't still have to disinfect a bunch of bath toys that were overflowed on o_O