Open Up Your Mind And See Like Me

We're almost done. Next week is Brian's last week of Rotations. His last week of school - ever. Our last week of being apart. When we embarked on this journey, I didn't think that it would be as hard as it was, or that I would grow so much. Doing everything on my own - the day to day, teaching Marcus how to sleep through the night (which he's doing for the most part now, yea!), dealing with Alyssa's struggles in school - it's all taught me to be calm, patient, and understanding. It's taught me to trust in the Lord and to rely on Him while still maintaining confidence in myself to do the things that I believe will bring our little family happiness. I have grown in so many ways over the last nine months. While I'm thankful for all the experiences and wonderful "growth opportunities" this last year of school has given me, I still don't ever want to do it again!

Marcus is starting to talk. He can say a lot of little things (Mama, Daddy, Lassa, cat, wata, etc) and he repeats a lot of things I say, like this morning when Ethan sneezed, I said "Bless you," and Marcus said "Ess-oo." He's growing up so fast, but he's still at the point where he wants to say so much more than he is capable of saying. This morning he woke up perfectly happy, but when I set him at the table for breakfast, there was something he wanted that he couldn't communicate to me, so we spent the next twenty minutes with him crying and screaming at me and me trying to figure out what he wanted. Not a whole lot of fun for either of us. When Brian called on his way to work, he tried to help over the phone.

"Can you sit with him on your lap and have him eat breakfast there?" Yes, and it worked somewhat, but once I sat down, Ethan needed a refill of orange juice. It's not easy for a mom of little kids to sit down for any reason - someone always needs something.* I was able to get Marcus to settle down enough to eat some of his breakfast, but then when he got down he was angry again. I pulled him on my lap while I checked everyone's blogs while Alyssa and Ethan were finishing breakfast, and luckily he heard the music on Heather's blog. He started dancing to Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours."

I had to remind myself once again, like I've had to do so many times over the last several months, that sometimes I need to slow down and take the time to hold and love my children and just be with them. So we had a dance party to Heather's playlist, and even though I had to kick stuffed animals and discarded pajamas out of the way so none of us tripped while dancing, we had a fabulous time.

*It's taken about an hour to write this post, because of all the interruptions.