scenes from the circus: (perpetually) playing catch-up

Our sweet Madeline turned three! (A month ago, but who's counting?) She celebrated her birthday with her cousins and a few friends at a butterfly-themed party. (That event warrants its own post, which I will get around to. One day.) She felt like a princess.

Two highlights from the non-party portion of her birthday:

We don't eat a lot of boxed breakfast cereal at the circus. We've got a box of cheerios on hand for snack/bribery purposes, but we generally start our mornings with eggs or steel cut oats or yogurt or granola. (Or the occasional splurge of pancakes.) On your birthday, though, you're permitted to select your own box of cereal. Any cereal. Even the cereal that you've only ever eaten on vacation, but ask for constantly. Madeline might have been more excited about her "sparkly" fruit loops than any other aspect of her birthday.

She did love her new scooter, though. She spent all morning scooting it around the house. (And in fact, her sister loved it so much that after a few weeks she decided to use her piggy bank money to get one, too!)

Our sweet, sweet girl had a sweet, sweet day. We love you, Madeline!

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Unfortunately, the two days after Madeline's birthday weren't as sweet. Daddy left for a business trip the next morning. And then, just after dinner on Labor Day, poor Madeline fell backwards into the coffee table. (If you ask her, she'll tell you John David pushed her. I was putting dishes in the dishwasher at the time, so I can't verify that claim.) I managed to load the three kids into the van and take them all to the ER, where the nurse doing initial assessments looked appalled.

"Um, these are all yours?" he asked, "Is there anyone else? Somebody parking the car?" When I told him that it was just the four of us, he seemed a bit panicked. "Do you want to call somebody? A friend? A neighbor? Somebody?"

Um, no thanks.

We did just fine at the ER. Madeline was an absolute angel -- she didn't even cry when they stapled her wound. (John David, on the other hand, wailed like a banshee when he wasn't allowed to leave the exam room.) With some ibuprofen for her poor head and some strawberry ice cream as a treat when we got home, we were able to finish out our night with our usual routine (only a few hours late). The next day everything seemed back to normal.

Kathleen, however, made sure we hadn't forgotten our Labor Day adventure. As we were getting out of the van to go to bible study a few days later, Kathleen pointed out, "Hey, Madeline! Remember that your head's stapled together?"

You know, just in case she forgot.

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Like countless moms before me, I have discovered that the car is a great place for conversation. As we cruise around town running errands, the kids and I are able to talk about a lot. And sometimes I'm able to listen -- and that's even better.

A few weeks ago the girls were discussing Christmas.  That discussion came about, I believe, because we were running through the order in which things will happen -- Baby Flash arrives, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Kathleen's birthday, Mama's birthday, Christmas... We talked about Santa (trying to downplay his importance) and about Baby Jesus. Kathleen concluded our conversation with this observation:

Santa Claus and Jesus. They're the best guys in the whole world.

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Madeline's the only one who has needed to visit the ER lately, but we're not exactly sure why that is. John David is constantly pushing the limits of safety and sanity. I was correcting someone's behavior when I turned around to find him here.

He'd used a chair to climb onto the counter so he could play with the faucet. Running water is one of his current fascinations. Another?  Door knobs.  He has completely mastered them. I hadn't fully processed this (though I had been deadbolting the front door, just in case) until I found our extremely independent boy munching on mac and cheese in the living room.

He'd opened the pantry, helped himself to the box, torn the box open, and chewed on some uncooked pasta shells -- all while I made beds. And he's so pleased with himself. Me? Not so much.

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Can we blame this look on a head injury? Sadly, I think not. This is actually pretty typical around here.

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I'm 37 weeks along with Flash and have been in the midst of some pretty serious nesting instincts. We've cleaned and reorganized closets and cleaned some more and taken an embarrassing amount of unwanted stuff for donation. We've even rearranged furniture.

Even the girls haven't been exempt from this flurry of activity. I recently found some new quilts on super clearance at Target and -- once everyone's head was healed -- we decided to bunk the girls' beds. Grandpa came down for the day and painted the room a lovely pink ("poetic princess", to be precise, which is just about perfect). So, voila! The girls have a brand new room.  And they love it.

Here they are, getting settled for their first night in their "bump beds."

Kathleen had been really excited about bunk beds, got a little nervous about the prospect of falling out, and then got excited all over again when she realized that the railings would keep her safe.  She was giddy at the prospect of sleeping on the top "bump." 

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Madeline helped me bake a Texas sheet cake for our community group a few weeks ago.  Kathleen was at preschool and John David was napping and Maddie Beth soaked up her solo status.  Can you tell?

(I promise -- none of that licking went back into the batter.  We kept all germs to ourselves.)