It’s been a long time since I’ve had much time for blogging. My list of priorities goes something like this 1) Jesus, 2) Kelly, 3) K, G and S, 4) Starbucks, 5) Mars Hill/ministry, 6) friends/community, 7) blogging. Blogging probably isn’t even number 7, but point is it’s sort of somewhere towards the bottom of the list. Although, truth be told, I also use my blogging as a form of ministry, so I guess it really is more of a number 5. But even number 5 has taken a hit lately as we have been overwhelmed by the depth of life change that came with increasing our children count by 50%.
Things are great at home although very very busy. It is not easy job to manage two very active two year olds and a nearly 3 month old who is quite a handful. He is a busy busy baby who likes to eat and who likes to be close. He is happiest when he’s being held, second happiest when you’re right in front of him talking and cooing with him, and pretty much unhappy when you’re not within six feet of him. He is a relational baby! Taking care of this brood is manageable when you have three adults, pretty hectic when it’s two of you, and all out mayhem when it’s just Kelly. Sometimes when I take care of them by myself for 30 minutes, I actually wonder with every part of my being how Kelly does it all day. She is such a hard worker. But if you’re a praying person please pray for strength, energy and encouragement for my sweet Kelly.
Their have been quite a few fun events lately, and I’ll include just a few snippets. One highlight has been all of the talking from the little ladies. K in particular is a real jabberbox. G understands everything, and is getting to be quite a parrot, but she’s quite a bit more reserved, so doesn’t offer much up unless you really ask for it. It is very common now to be driving home, Kelly and I in the front seats, S and G in the middle seats, and K in the way back. The van will get quiet and all of a sudden K will yell (literally): “Hey Daddy!” It is actually awesome.
A few snippets of life:
• Kelly was nursing S in our play room with the girls one afternoon. While she was sitting there, the girls decided they wanted to leave the room, so they got up together, G opened the play room door (she is better at that than K), they both walked through and G closed it behind them. Not a word. Just left K in there by herself to go explore the house.
• Later, the girls came back in. They have these three Pottery Barn Kids chairs that Nonni and Poppi got them for their birthdays. Each has their name embroidered on them. Kelly was sitting in K’s chair and K walked up and said “my chair.” She was right, which was kind of funny, so Kelly just moved. What a precocious little girl.
• One day a month or so ago we heard G’s door open upstairs during what was supposed to be a nap. I went up and found G wandering around the upstairs. Apparently she can now climb out of her pack and play (especially when it is next to her big girl bed and she can use that as a landing zone). A few days later I put her in her crib and told her to show me how she gets out. She obliged immediately by pulling herself up on the front rails and throwing her right leg up on the side rails (our little gymnast, it was like she was on a pommel horse). Pop, she was over.
• A couple weeks ago I took K, G and S to Target by myself. It was nearly bedtime, so it was sort of a suicide mission, but we were there nonetheless. I was pulling K and G in a big red Target basket and was pushing S with my other hand in his stroller. I had taken a pair of their shoes back and was finding a replacement, and then went to another part of the store. When I got to the other section, I saw not only the shoes I had picked up for the girls, but also a pair of purple “jellies” in the basket. I assumed they had fallen in and headed back to the shoes section to take them back. As I put them back on the shelf, K went hysterical. Apparently she had seen them on the way through the section, grabbed them and put them in the cart (she’s a smart cookie: she knows the things that go in the cart go home with us). Funny thing is they were the right size. Well, sadly for her, we did not buy them, but thankfully Mimi sent them each a pair a week or so later, so all is well.
• Now that G is climbing out of her crib, and because we’d like to get K out of the nursery and into their new big-girl-room (with G), so that we can paint it blue and get S into the nursery, we are transitioning the girls to sleeping in their big-girl-beds, which are in the same room in what used to be our office. Man, trying to convince them to stay in beds that they can get out of at night is a real chore. It is a matter of training that takes incredible patience and persistence on the part of Mom and Dad. I usually just get a chair and sit right outside their room with a book and am usually there at least an hour:
• The first couple of nights we tried it, G got out of bed repeatedly. I mean like 10-12 times. One of the first nights, she managed to get herself tired enough to fall asleep in bed, but the second (and maybe third) night, she fell asleep on the floor of the room after I locked it from the outside because she had been venturing out of the room to explore the upstairs so frequently. One night she fell asleep on a pile of 30 wipes that she had pulled out of a wipes container. Sweet thing is such an endless explorer! I was hoping by locking the door that she would get back in bed and go to sleep, but that didn't work. She just found things in the room to explore in the pitch black (like the sound machine, who's volume button she turned up and down and up and down...)
• In the last few nights, I threw caution to the wind and decided this was hard enough as it is, might as well go whole hog. So we added K into the mix. Oh, painful. Now, like the toddlers who love each other that they are, they talk back and forth incessantly. Sometimes for an hour or longer. Often with hops out of bed to visit the other one in her bed. K will sometimes throw her lamby on the ground and cry for it - sweet G will hop out of bed to get it for her, then scramble to get back in bed before I catch her out of bed. The will often sit up in bed and look at each other and say back and forth “hi”, “hi”, “hi”, “hi” and giggle and laugh. I came in a couple of nights ago to tell them to be quiet and to go to bed, and as I was leaving the room K said “happy birday Daddy”. Don’t know where that came from because it wasn’t my birthday, but it was hilarious.
Anyway, those are the adventures at the Cowan house. I’m sure there will be many more to come and I will keep you all in the loop.