Tuesday, February 23, 2010

We Now Interrupt the Mundane...

...for a week jam-packed with doctor visits and listening to little lungs with stethascopes.  Good thing mama knows how to use one of those little contraptions.  Turns out, little we #6 and #7 have had horrific colds and the littlest we had pneumonia!  Poor little thing was having a hard time breathing so mama called the doctor and the doctor said get that kid in here pronto!

Thankfully, we avoided the hospital and ended up doing breathing treatments here.  Littlest we (aka Millie) was tolerant of them and we even 'taught' her to breath deeply for them.  She was such a riot!  We would turn the machine on and it was like a Pavlovian response:  she would immediately start huffing with her mouth wide open and looking at us like "hey, I'm doing this right, aren't I?"  Gotta love that kid...even when she's sick she's got a look on her tiny little face!














Unfortunately, mama also got the cruddies and was down and out for a few days.  Needless to say I'm back and itching to get to work on something that will no doubt curl your toes and straighten your hair.  Daddy is ill but he is still being such a trooper and I hope his time in the snot-zone is short.  Now that the littles are healing, I think it's time to stir something up!

Friday, February 19, 2010

Finding Profundity in My Ordinary

Ok, so that's a bit of a stretch, I know, but I can try to at least be witty for a while.  You see, I'm most likely holding a squirming baby















or breastfeeding a squirmy baby



















and, while I love her (and all of her siblings) to infinity, I so desperately need to be reminded of the profound in all of this mundane. 

I want to explain why "mundane" isn't a curse word around here.  You might think that I'm trying to hide behind normality, but actually we are a rather routine group.  We get up, we go about our day caring for our children (me) or working for the man (he), we come home to one another, we go to bed and the day inevitable starts all over.  It's ordinary, mundane even, but it's not all that bad.  Some days do run into others and we find ourselves looking at the calendar in astonishment as yet another month trickles by.  Mostly, we just go along and look up every once in a while and smile knowing that we are floating along, side by side, enjoying what little of the ride doesn't blur by in an instant.

So you can understand why I use "mundane" to describe my life, profoundly. 

That, and we aren't your ordinary, run-of-the-mill blended family.  There is a he, a she and 7 (SEVEN!!!) little we's.  Once upon a time there were 8, but alas one little we grew her wings!  Some of the we's live here on the lake in this abode;  some of the we's live afar.  Most weekends will find a greater majority of the we's coming back to this place of ours and bringing along their various habits, rituals and assorted clutter. 

The oldest we will graduate high school this year and is a basketball star.  She's 6'2...'nuff said.  She's also an amazing young lady who takes my breath away and leaves me wondering where the last 17 years have gone.

The second we is a brilliant artist and colors our world with dramatic outbursts and witty but silly jokes and stories of her life as a teen in the high school on the hill.  She mostly resides somewhere in Gaia and writes a meaner blog than I'll ever accomplish.  She's a straight A student, mostly by accident if you ask her opinion!

We #3 and #4 do not come to me by birth but by luck and althought they try my patience, they really are a couple of wonderful we's.  One is an artist, the other a rock star.  They can mostly be found on a pirate ship playing various versions of old arcade games. 

The fifth we is a spirited lad who loves to game and annoy his sisters.  He reads the best books and then hooks me on them so I can share in the conspiracy.  I think he is a miracle, he just doesn't know all the potential that's stored up inside yet.

The next little we is an intersting combo of the he and the she and is most definitely her own unique creature.  She enjoys playing pretend and using big words and being four years old.  She's also the subject of numerous extremely cute photos that blink in and out on her sisters' cell phones.

And now we come to the last little we.  She came to us on a whisper from the winged we and all of us agree that she is probably destined to break hearts and generally cause a ruckus.  We #7 is definitely a lucky little we considering she's been anticipated for such a very long time by so very many people.  She completes the we's (and the us's, too).

They take up most of our time but we have (obviously) found a few spare minutes for ourselves.  The parentals enjoy reading and talking about anything and everything and even spend time wondering what life will be like when all the we's grow up and have little grand we's. 

Well, I guess "mundane" is a huge stretch.  How can anything be routine and commonplace and ordinary around here?  Stick around.  I'm sure I can find some boring for you.  Or at least something profoundly mundane.