I've been eating a lot of these lately.

Maggie is 3 years and 24 days old.

Maggie Lu turned three last month.  She's spunky.

She'll raise her hands up to her chest and her cheeks and say, "Oh, I love it.  I just love it, mom."  This can be a response to a new outfit or new shoes or even to food.  She'll also say, "Oh, I just love her (you).  I love her (you) so, so much."  She'll get this gushy face and squeeze me or Penelope (still Elope) very tight.

She is potty trained.  She has been for awhile, but when she gets upset, she tends to have accidents.  I'm learning to instruct her to use the bathroom before I attempt to have her pick something up or do something I know she won't be thrilled to do.  That way, when her fit starts, she won't inevitably begin to pee which makes her more emotional and me more frustrated.

She's occasionally inclined to let me know that "You are not the boss of me." and "Stop talking to me."  This is all normal three year old behavior.  I try to understand that she wants independence.  I try to be gentle in reinforcing that I am, in fact, the boss of her.

She also likes to say, "Stop it.  You are annoying me."  This annoys me.

When we get in the car she demands that I play a song.  She does not want to listen to conversations or interviews.  She much prefers girl songs which means they are sung by girls.

She likes to sing her own songs.  She turns her thoughts and feelings into a song.  I've said before that living with Maggie is like living in a musical.

She spends her play time journaling, dressing up, or packing items in bags to carry around.  Many times the items she packs are not hers.  She and D'arcy just moved into a room together, and she is loving D'arcy's stuff...her purses and chapsticks and jewelry.

Many days, she'll come in my bathroom when I'm getting ready, and she wants me to put blush on her so she can be "pretty".  Then she'll spend a good while looking at herself in our full length mirror.

I would describe her as a "girly, girl" in that she loves clothes and shoes and makeup, but this girl has big brothers.  She knows all the characters in the Justice League.  She likes to watch the episodes with Wonder Woman which inspired her birthday gift.

Oh, and she likes to tattoo herself by drawing with washable marker on her hands and legs.  I plan to tell her what the older kids have already heard.  I worked hard to make that skin.  Don't ruin it.  (I'm not anti tattoo, but I'm anti bad tattoos.)

I get asked quite often if she and Schroeder are twins.  They aren't, but they are good friends.  They play together and scheme together.

She has not been upset in the least to have a baby in the house.  She considers herself to be a big girl and doesn't feel displaced.  Not long after Penelope was born she let me know I should have a boy soon for Schroeder and Julian.  That isn't in the plans.

I love her and we'll get through this three year old thing together.

I am a housewife.

A couple of nights ago, we ran into someone we don't know that well.  He had been to our home once a couple of years ago.  He said this, "You're home looked like a really cool place to grow up, a place I would have liked to live as a kid."  Golly.  This was such a sweet comment at an unexpected moment.  This guy will probably never know how much that encouraged me.

I have a love hate relationship with this house.  It's big, but small in some places that count.  It has "character" which sometimes means imperfections at every turn.  It can be dark because our neighbors' houses are ten feet or less away from our own.

Oh yeah, and seven people live here.  We own stuff.  We use dishes.  We wear clothes.  We track dirt in.  Some of us pee on the floor occasionally.  Most of us pee in the toilet.  Stephen said when we got married that he wanted our house to look lived in.  So, in order to appease him, I don't clean as often as I feel up to cleaning.

That last sentence is not true.

Our last MOPS meeting was all about making a vision or purpose statement for ourselves.
I'm working on a couple for the different roles I have.  As a homemaker, I had come up with this.  I won't our home to "function".  That to me means the laundry gets done once a week, the dishes get done everyday, dinner gets prepared each evening, homework gets completed on time, the kids get a bath twice a week, and the bills get payed on time.

On occasion, when we have a party, my goal is a squeaky clean home, but otherwise, my goal is a lived in, functioning home.

I like it when I find a new, better way of keeping my house functioning.  I just recently came up with this laundry plan.  I took that idea of washing, drying, folding, and putting away one load of laundry each day and took it further.  Sundays I do school uniforms.  Monday kids darks.  Tuesday kids lights.  Etc.  Etc.  I wanted to make sure I didn't leave laundry in the washer overnight.  That's a bad habit.  I wanted to make sure I wasn't just making a load out of random stuff that found it's way into the laundry room.  I wanted to make sure that my kids didn't say, "Mom, I have nothing to wear to school."  So I wouldn't have to respond, "That shirt you wore yesterday wasn't that dirty, right?  Just wear that again."

It's working.  Woot.

So I'm trying this other idea, too.  When the kids are told to pick up their rooms, I'm not going to ask a bunch of times.  I'm just going to ask once and whatever they don't pick up, I'm going to confiscate.  They can items back by doing an additional chore.  I'm hoping this will prevent me from fighting with them, and provide a simple, direct consequence.  I'm also hoping it will help me simplify their rooms and all of us discover which toys are really important to them.  Oh, and maybe I'll get some extra chores done out of the deal.  However, I do have to pick up what they don't, but hopefully, after awhile, they'll learn to pick up what's important to them.  We'll see how it goes.    

Adrian and Evelyn share the same birthday.

Leslie and Ray are friends from high school.  This has been a big year for them.  Ray brews beer and opened Indiana City Beer officially in May.  Lily, their first child, is about the same age as Maggie.  Leslie and I had talked about the fact that we might be pregnant at the same time again.  Her with her second and me with my fifth.  I saw her last October after their kickstarter campaign.  We told her I was pregnant and she said, "That's right!  We need to get on that."
We met for breakfast one winter morning.  She was pregnant and we talked about midwives.  She had just had her first appointment and the midwife thought she was measuring big.  I just assumed she was growing faster since it was her second baby, but an ultrasound found something different.  Leslie was having twins.  I found out it runs in her family.  Her grandma had twins and her aunt had them, too.
So they spent the first half of 2013 looking for a bigger car, a bigger house, opening a brewery, raising Lily, and growing twins.  Little Evelyn Rose and Adrian José were born in July at 34 weeks, but both were strong and healthy and were able to come home after a few weeks.
Here they are in all their sweet, small beauty.

D'arcy is nine!

D'arcy turned nine on Sunday the 25th.  We celebrated both her and Maggie's birthday with a paddleboat ride on the canal and a Dairy Queen Ice Cream Cake.  I was reading her birthday posts from the past couple of years not wanting to repeat the same details about her year after year.  Here are a few observations from recent days that I've tucked away in my heart and mind, though.

D'arcy shares a birthday (they also share a name) with Stephen's grandmother who she calls GG.  D'arcy made sure she called GG to wish her a happy 91st birthday.  I'm glad they know each other.

She made her lunch one evening to take to school the next day.  Most of the time she buys lunch so she must have seen something she really liked in the fridge.  I checked her lunchbox after it was packed and found leftover Pad Thai and a red pepper cut up with dressing on the side.

She has said to me multiple times that "it's like Penelope has two mommies."  That is to say, she really loves Penny and loves taking care of her. She keeps mentioning, "Oh, she is just growing up so fast!"  She would love for me to have more babies which she knows isn't in our plans.  She told me once that she hoped God had other plans.

She spends many a weekday afternoon playing with our neighbor Katherine who is 6 (Julian's age).  After she does her afternoon chores, I hear her say, "I'm going to Katherine's" and then the screen door shuts behind her.

She recently ran for class ambassador at school but didn't get elected for the position.  She came home and burst into tears.  I told her I was proud of her for trying.  I asked if she was proud of herself and she said yes.

We had a garage sale in the neighborhood yesterday and she set out all the shells she collected in Edisto several years ago.  She actually did sell a few, and she spent most of her money buying her brothers and sisters little treasures.  Well, she bought a few for herself, too, and she talked Maggie Lu into sharing her gift.
I went to a friend's house the other night who had just delivered twins.  We were bringing them dinner and taking some pictures.  D'arcy came along.  When she got in the car she said, "Mom, I think I know where I get my ability to help people."  Where?  "From you, mom!  You are doing so much for Leslie without being asked."  I wholeheartedly wasn't expecting that comment.  It really blessed me.

Today she wore this extravagant Christmas dress to church.  We sat down to eat lunch and I suggested she change into something more comfortable for the house.  She came down two minutes later in a sleeveless shirt and a sequined short skirt.  She was still wearing her high heels.  I just laughed out loud.

Kids say the darndest things...

Maggie will turn three next Wednesday (the 28th).  I've mentioned to Stephen my desire to capture how she expresses herself these days.  It's not enough to document what she says because how she says it is just as important.  Video might be necessary.  She uses her hands, head, and eyebrows to show you how serious EVERYTHING is.  Everything has a little extra emphasis these days.

No video today, though.  Just a few moments that have made me chuckle lately as opposed to making me frustrated.  These days it's about 90% frustration and 10% chuckles.  

One day the four big kids were upstairs playing dress up.  They had come down once to show us their getups and shared that Schroeder was D'arcy's prince and Julian was Maggie's in their charade.  I went upstairs twenty minutes later and the situation had fallen apart.  Maggie shared in the saddest way, "Mommy, no one will marry me!"  My heart broke a little for her until I remembered it was all just a game.  I hope she never has to feel that way as an adult.  

She's been big into giving me makeovers lately.  I sort of chuckled the other day when she asked if she could.  She said, "Makeovers aren't funny."  No, they are very serious.  

She came into my bathroom wearing something ridiculous and announced that she was a "style girl".  Are you seeing a theme of play?  She spends several moments every morning observing herself in the mirror in our room.  

She has been dressing herself lately, and I have to consistently ask her if she has put panties on because she tends to forget that detail.  She doesn't like that question and told me the other day, "Mommy, panties don't go with this dress."  I'm determined to convince her that panties go with EVERYTHING.  

One unrelated moment from Schroeder.  He and Maggie were eating lunch in the kitchen the other day.  He was telling her that I had gotten something out of the refrigerator.  He said, "Do you know Mommy keeps saying it wrong.  She keeps calling it a fridge instead of a REfridgeERATOR.  Pshhhhhhhh (insert ridiculous sound and eyeroll)."  They both began laughing at my stupidity.  

She's reasonable.

This is the adjective I came up with to describe Penelope the baby.  It occurred to me the day after we took our canoe trip.  Maggie and Penelope stayed with my mom for the day.  Penelope had, probably, three bottles while she was there.  Which took her total bottle intake to maybe seven in her lifetime.  Seven over two months time.  

Well, the day after, Penelope decided that she preferred the bottle to nursing.  She was content that day until I tried to nurse her.  Then she would pull her head back and scream at me.  I put a pacifier in her mouth and she was content again.  This girl did NOT seem ill. She was just being totally unreasonable...a lot like her older brothers and sisters.  

This situation reminded me of her first thirty minutes of life.  She pretty much screamed the whole time and could not be satisfied.  I finally got her to settle down after a half an hour and until the nursing fiasco at the two month mark she was remarkably....REASONABLE.  

She has great expectations about how often she should be held, sleep, and eat.  She tells me fairly nicely what she wants and then when I deliver she's cool.  When you live with a daughter who is on the cusp of being three, reason is highly appreciated.  

We worked through the problem which equated to me saying, "No, you may not switch to a bottle" and after 5-6 fairly resistant feedings she got the point and returned to her normal reasonable self.   

I'm so loving watching her grow.  She is cooing, grabbing hair and blankets, kicking toys, and straining to pull her head off the ground.  We are slowly turning super flexible infant days (where she cat naps all day wherever I am) into the beginnings of a daily schedule (she is still taking naps downstairs, though, in her little bassinet in the living room).  I'm also so sad to see her itty bittinessfade away.  She's the last tiny baby that will be mine.