Flowers and Butterflies: Elise's 3rd Birthday

Flowers

and butterflies.

The "theme" for Elise's party was flowers and butterflies. We brought a bit of Spring to a very cold park in order to celebrate Elise's birthday.

I served food in flower planters. The balloons on top were perfectly formed flowers at home, but the wind conspired against my best laid intentions and warped my flowers. Oh well.

Side view of party setup.

Zion stayed in that spot eating party food for almost an hour. His hands were red with cold, but he would not surrender his plate of gold fish, animal crackers, and Mandarin oranges.

Elise enjoying the playground with some of her guests.

The wind made lighting the candle quite a challenge. The wind blew out her candles while we sang Elise her birthday song. She just sat there puzzled, looking at her already blown out candles. But more matches came to the rescue and the birthday girl got to blow out her own candles.

Zion took a face-plant on the sidewalk. He was playing chase with his daddy when he tripped. His puffy winter coat immobilized his arms and so his nose took the brunt of the fall.

Elise was so worn out from her party that she fell asleep on the way home, at 5:15 pm. She had been too excited to take a nap earlier. I love having a 3 year old. She is grown up enough to help plan a party, play games, and hold great conversations. And yet she still sucks her thumb, rubs Lambie, and wants Mommy when she is sleepy. And I am glad to oblige.

To Elise on Her Third Birthday

Dear Elise,

You are three years old. A big girl now. You tell funny stories, sound out letters, and help out around the house. But since this is the first letter that I've written to you since I started this blog, let's go back and remember how you began.

You started life with a jolt. Or should I say a trickle. At 36 weeks (1 month early) I woke at 5am to discover that my water had broken. Your Daddy woke to hear me giggling in the bathroom and he says that he knew right away that was the sound announcing your early arrival.

At 8:20 am, you arrived in this world. While you struggled to adjust from a warm, comfy womb to this bright, cold world we adjusted from being a couple to being parents. I could not believe that you were so beautiful and so very real. A 6 pound miracle swaddled in a duck-covered blanket.

We kept the airlines busy that day with the quick arrivals of KayKay, Aunt Summer, and Aunt Amber. Grandpa Greg followed shortly along with Ryan and Sharlene Hayton. We oohed, we ahhed, and I cried with amazement too.

And we began to gain confidence as we adjusted to parenthood.

But you did not adjust so well to life on the outside. At 3 in the morning your temperature and blood sugar levels began to drop. They whisked you off to the NICU, and any confidence I had fled away too.

You recovered pretty well. Warming blankets and a bottle of sugar water had you feeling better soon. But in the NICU you stayed, for a week.

And then you came home. You were yellow with jaundice, wore a brace for congenital hip displasia, and turned your head to one side because of torticollis. And you were beautiful. And still very real.

The next few months were filled with tears (yours), adoration (mine), more crying (yours), sleeplessness (mine), and helplessness (yours and mine). Neither of us knew how to nurse. No one knew how to get you to fall asleep. And I didn't know how to sustain the pain of having a piece of me out of my womb, out of my protection, and out of my control.

You learned to nurse, as your chubby cheeks showed. You learned how to put yourself to sleep, as my diminishing dark eye-circles showed. And I began to get used to the pain and joy of watch a piece of myself become a whole separate person. But I only just began to get used to it. Sometimes I still wish that I was a kangaroo mama and could tuck you back in my pouch, away from the pain and rock you with the rhythms of my heart.

But I can't. So I rocked you on the glider and sang you lullabies. Your tears faded. Your voice grew. You sang us songs of babbling and your favorite word, "aboo." We cheered every new accomplishment. You were the center of our budding family. Adored doesn't quite capture it. With no cousins to compete with on either side, you were the star entertainment.

And you still are. Now you have Zion as your partner, but you are no less adored.

I've struggled with what to write to describe you on your 3rd birthday. But one letter just can't capture it. This entire blog is one big letter about you. And Zion. And Daddy. And me. If you want to know about you as a 3 year old, just pull up a blog entry and read about the amusing things that you say and do or the places we explore. And I hope that through these stories about you that you can hear my voice. My voice laughing at your sayings and still adoring you.

All my love,
Mommy

Black Bean Soup

Last night Zion completed a rite of passage. He, and his new spoon skills, joined in on our family tradition of black bean soup on Friday night. Friday night is a special night in our house. The work week is done. And, like our Creator at the end of His work week, we rest from sundown on the sixth day (Friday) through sundown on the seventh day (Saturday). Many of you might find that odd, but it is a tradition that repeated each week of my childhood and my husband's too.

As a kid, Friday night was my mom's night to rest. Saturday would bring the challenges of getting us all to church and feed us afterward. So Friday night was her chance to unwind. She would head off to take a bath, which was mostly an excuse to put a locked door between herself and us =) My dad then took charge of us. He read us the "Little House on the Prairie" series. And we played many loud, rambunctious games of "tickle monster". I'm sure every dad out there plays a similar game whether you call it, "bear", "lion", or no name at all. All that is needed is a ferocious father and giggling kids. I just liked that it was the one night of the week that I knew my dad was ours for the evening.

In our house we are still growing our traditions. Black bean soup is a keeper. We've also experimented with serving soup in our china bowls and adding candle light and silver. Sometimes we video conference with our families, who are also winding down from their work weeks and welcoming in the Sabbath. Sometimes the tickle monster shows up. The evening usually ends with family worship. Elise sings songs from church while Zion runs off to bang on some blocks. It is just the beginning of a tradition. But I hope that my kids someday remember this weekly event as warmly as I do.

House of Sick

We have a house full of sickness. Jeffrey has a cold/cough. Elise has a croupy cough. Zion is still recovering from a bad GI bug. And I am recovering from the same GI bug.

Yesterday I survived a day of cleaning up icky baby sickness with my own stomach swirling. Then my hero came home from work, put the kids to bed, and cleaned the house while I lay on the couch with a sour stomach and a grateful heart.

More pleasant posts will follow soon. Unless Elise or Jeffrey swap their colds in for GI fun and I am again called to nurse duty.

I Love Photoshop

Jeffrey is in Portland, OR for an interview at OHSU. The kids are asleep. And I am exploring photoshop for the very first time. What do you think of my little fairy?