I'm back!

I know, it's been 10 months, and you have probably given up on me. Honestly, I thought I was done with blogging, too. Then two things happened. 1)One of my sisters moved to Korea. I'm not restarting things just for her, it's just that her moving to Korea made me realize how spread apart my family is. And while I hate that, one of the great things about the time we live in is the technology available to us. I might as well use it to stay connected with the family! My sister-in-law, Michele, is so good about maintaining their family blog, and I always love reading about (and seeing pictures of) my niece and nephew, Ada and Quentin, who all live in Virginia. Thanks for the inspiration, Michele!

2)I looked back at past blog posts, and I couldn't stop smiling! I am so glad I wrote down as much as I did! Let's face it, parenting 3 kids (almost 4), especially when they are as young as ours are, makes everything go by in a bit of a blur. And yet there is so much that happens every week that is worth remembering and learning from.

I think the biggest thing that has kept me from blogging in the past several months is my darned perfectionism. Because I like things to be just so, that meant that I had to spend more TIME on blog posts, and in the end, I just don't have a ton of spare time. And when I do have it, I don't want to spend it staring at a computer screen. So what needs to change? I need to be okay with less-than-stellar writing, and I need to make things simpler. i.e. less talking, more pictures :)

With all of that said, how about an update on the Butts family?

Travis. He's going to be 7 in just a couple of months! That kills me. I just love this kid. By the grace of God (because everything is), he is growing into a truly caring, smart, thoughtful, and personable boy, and he makes me proud in more ways than I can count. He also has a stubborn and slightly controlling streak that will serve him very well in life later on....but for now, it sure can be a challenge! I was telling Steve today that there is no doubt in my mind that Travis' love language is "quality time". I don't know how many times a day I hear something from him that goes along the lines of "Mommy, can we....", "Mommy, do you want to...", mommy, mommy, mommy.... And sometimes I just want to say, "Travis, leave me aloooooone!!" Don't worry, I don't. But an exasperated, "what?!" escapes my lips more often than I'd like. Travis is thriving in his first grade classroom, and he's just begun a season of coach-pitch baseball with boys from his school - a really great group of boys and parents, I might add. He is our social butterfly, which helps pull me out of my shell.

Jayna is loving preschool and we've got her registered for kindergarten next year. Yikes! I would love it if she was assigned the teacher Travis had last year....we'll see. Jayna is simply a happy little girl. She is pretty shy with people, very laidback, and she can't stay mad at anyone for very long. She is not as driven as Travis, but that is certainly okay, and I think pretty typical of second children. She is my shadow - anytime I go anywhere, she insists on coming with me. (I do most of my errand-running in the afternoon when Steve is almost always home and Evan is napping - so Jayna could stay or come with me). And she is so loving and forgiving and very generous with affection - both physically and verbally. In the past several months, her and Travis have become much closer and more capable of playing together, which is always a joy to watch. On the other hand, she has come to view Evan as her very pesky little brother, and they don't play together well at all. For now, anyway. It will be interesting to see how things will change as we add another to the mix and as they all grow older! One last thing about Jayna, she looooves to sing, and she is good at it! I do hope all my kids will be musicians at least to some extent, but I have no doubt that Jayna will be.

Evan. When I think about how I would describe him at this point in time, I smile and yet sigh at the same time. I could write a blog based only on Evan stories. Here's a fun one for you....

A couple of weeks ago, I was taking the kids to school in the morning, and I could tell Evan was in one of "those" moods. This process of taking the kids to school has been a real pain in the hiney this year, which we knew it would be (at least MWF, when Jayna has preschool). Basically, I drop off Jayna at preschool first, but it's not just a matter of dropping her at the door. First you have to park in a rather large parking lot, walk into the building and then down some stairs and down a hallway, then personally sign her in. Because it's a large parking lot and a bit of a walk, I can't really leave the other two in the car. So we all get out of our carseats, walk in, come back out, back in the carseats (those of you with young kids know what a pain all of this is), then off to drop off Travis at his school. Which, thankfully, IS as simple as dropping him off in front of a staircase. Anyway, we've actually grown used to the routine and most days it goes very smoothly as long as I leave enough time. On this day, however, Evan was not exactly being cooperative. As soon as we parked, he started crying (okay, wailing) over something little. I did my best to console him, but we needed to get Jayna inside. We got about halfway through the parking lot, and Evan, who hadn't stopped wailing, threw himself on the ground, throwing a full-on tantrum. He refused to get up and probably couldn't even hear me over his crying. So I picked him up (sidenote: keep in mind I'm almost 8 months pregnant at this point, and look about 15 months pregnant, and it is very awkward for me to wrangle an almost 3 year old Evan), and told T & J to get back to the car. My plan was to spank him, but realized that a)we were not in a private enough location for me to feel comfortable with that idea, and b)spanking him at that particular moment would not be effective. The spanking would need to wait until we were both calm. So instead, I talked to him as sternly as I could, and for a moment, thought he understood. He stopped crying and and spoke with compliance. However, it all started up again as soon as we got out of the car. The next several minutes of going from car to classroom back to car again (remember, a bit of a walk and at this time of day, one surrounded by lots of people/gawkers) alternated between him insisting on walking then refusing to walk, flailing in my arms then going completely limp - and all the while, making an embarassing amount of noise. Oh, and the best part - on the way back to the car, as I'm holding him and just trying to get back as quickly as possible (and doing my best to hold back tears), I looked down and realized that my shirt, which had shifted in my wrestling match with him, was totally hiked up and more than half of my huge belly was exposed. And I had no idea how long it had been that way. No wonder people were staring (or quickly averting their eyes). Of course, I got back to the car and immediately started bawling.

Let me tell you, that definitely goes down in my top 5 list of mortifying moments. Travis and Jayna were never (really, never) ones to throw fits like that, and I truly was one of those moms who thought no child of mine would ever act like that. But that's one thing parenting does - it humbles us. And boy, was I humbled that day.

(Sidenote: We have all seen a version of the above-described scenario at some point in public. If/when you see this, I strongly encourage you to NOT judge the mom, but instead to offer understanding and even help. Yes, it may be something the parents are doing wrong in raising the child, but you do not know that for sure - and even if it is, condemning - even with a glance - does absolutely no good in changing that parent. On the other hand, it could very well be that the parent IS doing their best, and the child WILL be disciplined for their tantrum, and that this is simply a stage to be worked through. Judging never does any good; encouragement at least stands a chance of doing good. Okay, I'll get off my soapbox now.)

So, Evan occasionally throws tantrums. While my initial inclination was to freak out about it and wonder what are we doing wrong?!!....I'm trying to be objective. Like I said earlier, Evan is currently kind of the odd man out amongst our three kids. Of course, we try to encourage the other two to be inclusive, and they often are, but you can only push this so much. So I think that may be a part of it right now. Also, Evan has been the baby for 3 years now, and he is very aware of the fact that that will soon no longer be the case. That could also be a part of it. Then again, the tantrums could simply be a part of his personality at this age, his way of testing the boundaries. In any case, we are working through this, and he is definitely beginning to understand that this behavior is absolutely not acceptable. Hopefully he REALLY gets it sooner rather than later :)

Okay, but I can't just leave Evan at that. He's kind of a boy of opposites, because on the other hand, he can be incredibly sweet. He is our most cuddly kid. Steve usually gets home from work around 6:30am, and sometimes he'll lay on the couch, and when I come out I find Evan with his blankies, curled up with Steve, both of them asleep. He rarely lets me leave the room at night without saying, "I wuf you", and then making sure I say, "I love you, too". He's also a funny, funny kid who LOVES to make us laugh. He makes me laugh too many times a day to count! He's thoughtful - occasionally he has pee accidents in the bathroom, and the way I find out about it is that he calls from the bathroom, "I'm cweaning it up! I'm sowwy, I'm cweaning it up!" And even though it is possible he's having a hard time with the transition to baby, he's also very sweet about it, randomly kissing my tummy, and apologizing when he accidently bumps/hits/kicks it. Whenever I get to this point in pregnancy, I can't help but be sad over the fact that our littlest will no longer be the baby....and I am definitely feeling that with Evan now. I don't love the idea of him growing up.

Steve was recently (and finally) assigned his own take-home patrol car. He doesn't actually bring it home, as we don't want to become a target here in good ol' East Tacoma. But it is nice for him to have his very own car that he doesn't have to share. The other perk is that it opens up a ton of extra overtime opportunities (seriously, it seems like he could work as much as he possbily wanted). This is good, as we would love to get rid of some debt and actually save some money, but I think the next couple of months (especially with baby's arrival) will involve trying to find a balance. I simply can't have him gone all the time. Not just because the kids are a lot of work, but more because he is my best friend and I miss him when I don't see him much, and that really affects the family as a whole. But we are defnitely grateful for these new opportunities and that he at least has the option of working more.

Me....well, I'm not sleeping well and my belly itches and and I still would love to eat some rocks and dirt, but beyond that, I'm really feeling great! I'm almost 36 weeks now, and I can't believe that about a month from now, I will be a mother of FOUR kids. Holy cow. Didn't I just graduate from high school? I am very, very much looking forward to this baby. I was recently remembering being pregnant with Evan and how nervous I was about how I would handle three kids. For whatever reasons, it was a hard transition for me. Thankfully, this time around, I really have no anxiety at all. I'm not even sure exactly why it's different this time; it's certainly not that I think I have this mothering gig all under control. After all, who does? I'll have to think more on this one. Maybe it's easier because I AM learning to let go of this illusion of having everything under control? In any case, I'm just really, really looking forward to holding a baby - OUR baby - in my arms again. I love this child so much, and I know God loves him/her even more!