[In the car, on the way home from Craig’s work]

Craig: Lucy, were you good today?  Did you help mommy?

Lucy: Yes!  I pushed Samantha down!

Jury is out on how or why that was “helpful”.

[The background of the computer comes up with one of those pre-loaded picturesque scenes of mountains]
Lucy: We have to get me one of those mountains!

Lucy gave us the synopsis of Samantha’s birth this morning.  It went more or less like this:

“We drove to that house, and Mommy pooped in the bathtub.  You (Mommy) did a good job.  And that was Samantha!”

And we laughed.

Later, I heard Craig doctoring Lucy’s scraped knees while I was feeding Samantha.  He said, among other things, and over her screams,

“You know, a lot of your pain is psychological.”

And I laughed.  Hard.  Never a dull moment here!

We told Lucy we were going to go to the doughnut shop with B-Bob and Mimi.  She says, with great enthusiasm,

“I can get a vitamin doughnut!”

I said, “Huh?”

The mystery has been solved.  Apparently the sprinkles on top of the doughnuts are “vitamins”.  Who knew!  I feel healthier already.

Lucy woke up last night (after she had come to our bed) saying, “I need my coffee!”  I told her to go back to sleep, but she got up, went to the living room (where Craig was still on the computer) and got her sippy-cup of chocolate milk with a splash of coffee and brought it back to the bedroom.  The she got up again and announced that she wanted water.  Before Craig could get it, she was saying very loudly, “No, I going to sleep!” but she had closed the bedroom door on her way out and couldn’t open it again.  All this woke up Samantha, and thus ended my half-hour or so of comfortable sleeping.

In other news, I am officially and thankfully unemployed.  (But, also thankfully, my paycheck doesn’t stop coming in until August!)  On Friday, Craig helped me clean out my classroom, we went out to lunch to celebrate, and then Craig went up to Shaw to do some of his own work.  Everyone at school gave me hugs and told me how sorry they were to see me go.  When I got home, Samantha was angry because she was still suffering from the cold she caught earlier in the week, and Lucy was angry because, well, she’s two.  And it was naptime, and she had already had a busy day.  And I thought, “Why am I leaving the company of kind adults for that of screaming children?”  Certain Roman bird-watchers might have something to say about this.

And yesterday I read several posts pointing out how wonderful motherhood is.  And today we tried (unsuccessfully – it rained) to take the girls to the zoo.  We got ice cream instead.  Lucy threw no fits until after 8 PM.  We napped well.  We ate well.  We played well.  We ate tomato and basil from our own garden.  This is why I’m staying home – so Lucy can paint in the back yard, and Samantha can sit on a blanket under a tree while I hang out the laundry.  So we can go to the zoo on a Tuesday.  So I can put band-aids on cuts, snuggle sleepy infants, and spend half the day with a child on my hip.

I think it will be a good life.  I am really, sincerely, looking forward to it, however much I may fear the responsibility.  Because now if something goes wrong, I have only myself to blame.  Two little souls have been entrusted to me so that I can help them find their way to their eternal home.  All those blogs I’ve been reading are right, what a privilege!  What faith God has in me to entrust two of his most prized possessions into my hands!  It is all making me very aware of all my own shortcomings and all the work I have to do to set even a decent, let alone a good, example for these little ones.  So I’m working on my prayer, and I’m asking for your prayers, because the enormity of this task feels overwhelming sometimes.  But what joy comes with this work!  I now work every day, all day, for joy incarnate.

She’s sick (again), which seems to slow her down and make her more grown-up in her speech and wittier.  Two very funny quotes from this weekend:

Craig arrives in the bedroom, and entices Lucy to take some cough syrup so she can sleep better.  She drinks it without protest.  We compliment her on her (uncharictaristic) compliance with our wishes.  As Craig starts to go, she says, in all seriousness,

“That wasn’t very good.”

The next morning Lucy stayed home from church since she still wasn’t feeling good.  Uncle Sean tried to tease her and get her to play, and she responded with a curt,

“Go to work!”

Which Sean quickly did.

I’m looking forward to lots more posts like this. : )