Where has the time gone?

I can scarcely believe that my baby, my first born child, my little Mikaela just celebrated her 14th birthday. Her birth is still a fresh memory. Five weeks early, so very tiny and perfect, weighing only 5 pounds when we brought her home from the hospital. Her little nose squashed and her foot bent upwards and to the side, plenty of dark hair for little ziploc bows, the tiniest cries. Preemie clothes too big for her itsy body, sweet snuggly baby.
Adorable toddler with long blond hair and big blue eyes, her smile lighting my world. Cheery, animated, smart, caring.
Many years, many memories later. I'm so proud of the beautiful young lady my little girl has become. Her sweet spirit, positive attitude, compassionate heart, and growing character amaze me. I'm so blessed that she calls me her mom.

The Aftermath

While Sunday was difficult for us with our flooded basement, it sounds like we were not alone. Just driving around the last few days I saw furniture, rolled carpet, and lots of garbage by the curb at many houses. As it turned out, we were blessed greatly by the experience. Sure, I lost some things that I've been saving for years. The worst thing was the contents of our safe. The things on top were mostly fine, but on the bottom I had several of the kids' special things from babyhood. Hospital footprints, sonogram photos, cards, first year calendars, etc. were ruined. I've tried to salvage some of it, but it's really a mess. I suppose maybe God was trying to teach me not to hold on to material things so tightly.
Some of the things that were lost had sentimental value to me, some were just junk, but nothing was overly expensive. Our dehumidifier bit the dust, but I suppose that is minor. The water heater seems fine, and I've already washed and dried 5 loads of laundry in the last 2 days. What a blessing. It's so inconvenient having to take it somewhere else to do it, and it stacks up so fast. The freezer may be usable. We are mostly worried about it being a safety risk. Apparently our lame homeowner's policy doesn't cover the kind of water damage from flooding that we experienced. Nice. Well, then it's an extra blessing that the appliances seem to be working.
An added bonus to our week is an amazingly clean basement. We swept and mopped and mopped some more. We ran fans and burned scented candles. Then I bought several more rubbermaid bins to fill with things that had been in cardboard boxes previously. I organized and rearranged. I think that crazy basement is cleaner than it has ever been. Truthfully that has needed to happen for quite some time, but I knew it would require more time and effort than I had to spare. Still, I'm glad I was forced to get it done. At this point there are only a handful of things still remaining in the garage that need to be dragged back down there. The paint on the landing and down the stairs was all torn up and needs to be repainted, too. Maybe tomorrow...

When it rains...it pours!

Joseph sporting the look of the day

Maimie and Jacob keyboarding

Jacob's first game

Mikaela and Beverly


Mikaela and the Madrigal Singers

Maimie and Miss Kristi during speech session

We've gotten back into the school routine. School events, football games and practices for Jacob, Madrigal events and practices for Mikaela, Lego league in the mornings for Jacob and Joseph, piano lessons, etc. But this past week and this weekend has rained almost nonstop. I don't mean just a light, sporadic wetting of the ground, either. It's been torrential rain--absolutely inches and inches. Plus it's been cloudy and depressing. Today was pretty much the last straw. It's definitely time to start building an ark. This morning I headed down to the basement to get Maimie's Chinese dress for church, only to find the basement under water. Late last night I had been down to put a load in the dryer and the floor had been bone dry. By 10am it had risen another few inches and was up to my calf. It has been pouring in all day, but we managed to unclog the sump pump. The level has gone down considerably, but it can't dry up while it keeps coming in the floor drain. We enlisted the help of my parents after struggling awhile. Many boxes and things had to be brought up into the garage to dry, others could not be salvaged. I did have a lot of our storage things in big Rubbermaid bins, but there were many more I wish I had put in bins.

We are still waiting to see if the washer and dryer weathered the water.


The freezer may not make it. We tried plugging it back in after putting it on bricks, but it smells funny like something burned up. Fortunately, I'm a slacker and didn't have it stocked with much. Less to throw out.

What's new

Just wanted to post a little update on Maimie's current progress so I have a record later when I get around to her lifebook. Maimie will turn 3 years old on October 11. She loves to sing and dance, and is almost always happy and animated. She recognizes all of her alphabet and is just starting to learn the sounds each one makes. She is beginning to try to draw her letters as well. Counting is great fun to Maimie and she recognizes a few numbers by sight. She talks all of the time and is being more easily understood. Maimie lights up when she recognizes people that she knows from church, the community, the school, etc. Reading library books is a favorite past time, but she enjoys puzzles, drawing, making music on the piano and recorder, playing with baby dolls, swimming, playing in the sand, and above all--helping! Maimie gets so pleased with herself every time she helps one of us. She likes to get a kitchen chair and help when I'm cooking. Last night I was making pizza crust for supper and she poured in some flour, put away the scoop, closed the cannister lid, and turned on the mixer all by herself. Unfortunately she turned the mixer on one of the highest settings and blew flour all over the place before I could turn it down. It was okay, though, because she loves to clean up, too!

fishing sisters


Petting the fishy

Maimie enjoys introducing herself and her family to people. She puts her little hand on her chest up by her neck and says "I'm Maimie", then points to each of us saying our names. Not being able to make an "s" sound, Maimie makes plurals by saying things like "Dog. More dog." Prayer times are way too precious at our house. We have been teaching Maimie the "Now I Lay Me" prayer for awhile now. She used to repeat it a phrase at a time after us. Now she has it memorized and says it all by herself. When she gets to the end she says "God bless Daddy, Mommy, ..." etc. She struggles a bit with the kids' names. One night she was praying and couldn't think of the boys' names in particular. So...she substituted their names with "boy" and "more boy". Now she often refers to Jacob as "Boy" and Joseph as "More Boy"
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Maimie, More Boy (Joseph), Boy (Jacob), and Mikaela

Maimie uses several phrases and small sentences now. Here are a few:
"Look at me"
"Me, too"
"What's wrong"
"Don't cry, it's okay"
"Are you all right"
"Where's Dad" (or the kids, etc.)
"What's that mean"
"My mom" (or dad)
"Let me help"