Yay for Meems!

Mia got her cast removed yesterday and received a clean bill of (leg) health. (Head, chest, ears, nose... not so clean and healthy.)

We went to Frapys to celebrate! It was directly across the street from the doctor's office, so how could we not go?


I felt a twinge of guilt bringing my obviously sick brood into the public like that, but there was no one else in the place, due to the lovely rain, and I personally wiped down every surface we touched with germ fighting wipes, then encouraged the bored-out-of-his-mind worker to do the same.

Then we went home and the girl took a looooooooooooooooooong HOT bath.


Congrats Mia! May you stay cast-free for years to come. :)

Me and Them

I walked into my boys' room and found it a total mess.

SO FRUSTRATING to find the pile of clothes that I just folded sprawled across the floor. I wanted to rant about how they obviously have too much stuff if they can't take care of their things. I held it in though (for the most part) because moments earlier I had walked into my own room and saw this:


I think that's one of the hardest parts of parenting for me, seeing my own flaws in my kids. When they react the way I do, and not in a good way, I cringe. When they make mistakes and they are the same ones I've been making for years and I want to shake us all up and scream GET IT TOGETHER MAN!! But I don't because they're my flaws and my mistakes too.

Recently I had bought into a lie the enemy was telling me that no matter what I do, no matter how hard I try with my kids, they will still grow up with issues, and blame me, and secretly think I'm crazy.

I love my parents. I think they did a lovely job raising us kids, but they will be the first ones to tell you they are NOT perfect. It was only because they prayed their little hearts out on our behalf that us kids turned out relatively "normal". And yes, I've had some deep rooted issues, and I could blame them (if I was a pansy who didn't take responsibility for my actions) and even my mom will admit that "everybody has a little crazy in them" (ahem, perhaps even herself at times?? - LOVE YOU MOM!!!) But my parents did a lot of things right. They gave us the chance to mess up, and not be perfect, and forgive us and still love us. And they messed up, and weren't perfect, and we knew how to forgive them, and we still love them.

My prayer is that the Lord will give me the wisdom to see the messes that matter. Also that He will help me sift through the junk and get to the heart of it, in myself and in my kids. Some messes in life must be dealt with, there is no sidestepping heart issues. When my kids grow up and my halo falls off and they see the "little crazy" in me I hope they will see that everyone needs a savior, there are no "except for so and so" or "especially so and so..." EVERYONE.

Mia's Day

(Is it wrong that I'm posting about Mia's birthday before I post about Addison's?)

Mia, you turned TWO today. Turning two, in my book, means I get a free-pass on the whole birthday shebang. The first birthday I throw a party for everyone else's sake, and the third birthday (and every birthday after that) you will be well aware of so I have to do something big-ish. But turning two is -and I'm so sorry if this bursts your little two year old bubble- not that big of a deal. You won't remember it at all. So I didn't go crazy trying to make you feel crazy about today. BUT, I did take lots of pictures to document this day so you will have proof that while I didn't bake you a cake - or even have you blow out two candles (what kind of mother am I????) I did really, really care that it was a day that marked the end of quite possibly the cutest year of your life.

You received your awesomest present first and you immediately fell in love.


Then Troy got super sick and had to go to the doctor where he was diagnosed with an ear infection and pneumonia. Booooooo.


So you spent the rest of the morning in our home theater, complete with stadium seating, yaaaaaaaaay!


You took a nice nap, then played around with your horsey some more.


Did I mention you fell in love?


After we took dinner to a friend you came home and had pizza, noodles and a half of banana for dinner.

And that's when we sang "Happy Birthday" to you!



Then you opened a few more presents that Ben and Addison had wrapped up for you, and wanted to unwrap for you as well.


You got a dolly that looks an awful lot like your sister Addie and you love her


But not as much as you love your horsey!!!


Happy second birthday Mia Joy! You are pure sticky sweet joy and you are fiercely loved by all who know you.
Love, me (Mom)

Small Stuff

Sometimes I think I'm really hard on my kids, one in particular. Lately I've been trying to discern what is really important and what is really not that big of a deal as far as issues to take up with them. More and more I think about my own parents and how I think they were really good at knowing the difference between heart issues and surface issues. I got my belly button pierced and wore really really dark lipstick and gigantic hoop earrings. I'm sure they thought it was the most disgusting, stupidest thing to do, but they didn't make a fuss. Jason got tattoos and they didn't go on and on about it. Darren, wait Darren was perfect... Just kidding! I'm sure Darren did some stuff too they could've harped on for days but instead they realized there were greater things at stake in our lives than whether or not my lipstick was a light enough shade or my shoes were tied with a keyring.

Some things they did care about; the words that came out of our mouths was a big one. They monitored this by putting a lot of weight on the content of the music we listened to. I remember one time I was obsessed with Mariah Carey (don't judge) so much so that I had copied out all the words to one of her songs so I could more accurately memorize them. I think my dad saw the sheet of paper and brought it to my attention. He had me read the lyrics to him out loud and holy smokes it was so embarrassing! Then he showed me in the Bible the verse that says, "For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks" Matthew 12:34. He told me that I was memorizing these words and writing them on my heart and when it came time for me to make a difficult decision I would be pulling from these words, and did I really want to make my decisions off of a Mariah Carey song? I remember thinking, it's just a song! Who cares? But the fact that he took the time to question and discus my attraction to such a strongly worded song made me think he must really care about this issue. So I stopped listening to it.

When I was elementary school age they were influential, whether I knew it or not, in the friends that I made. Making it very easy for me to hang out with certain ones they were fans of and - what do you know we're busy on that day TOO -very difficult for me to hang out with ones they didn't think would be a good influence on me.

They gave punishments that fit the crimes. They were very aware that my brothers and I were very different and knew the best ways to correct us depending on our personality. Sitting next to Darren in a class in Jr. High because he kept getting "talks excessively" on his report cards. Making Jason stay indoors - basically crippling him. Keeping me from going to an event where I was sure to see lots of friends and flap my social butterfly wings. And when we were really young they, well lets just say they did NOT spare the rod. Thanks mom and dad!

They prayed for our hearts, our character, our salvation. Knowing, in their God-given wisdom, that the lasting issues were not on the outside but -oh this is so cliche- what's on the inside that counts.

So when my kid keeps making the same disgusting sound over and over again I try to stop and ask myself, is this a salvation issue? Because really, what's a silly sound matter when there's a heart in the balance?

Casted

It finally happened, a cast has been placed on one of the Fitz-kids. Mia, of course. She'd already had a rough day, by noon she had a goose egg in the middle of her forehead because she ran from me instead of to me when I called for her and she smacked her head on a wooden beam on Ben's bed. That's what we like to call a "natural consequence".

Then, minutes before I needed to walk out the door for my CPR certification class, Mia fell off the couch. And she cried. This cry was different. It was a "I broke a bone" cry. This cry kept her/me up most of the night.

In the morning I knew I needed to take her to see a doctor but I wasn't sure to where. The pediatrician didn't have an x-ray machine, urgent care couldn't cast it if it needed it, so a friend suggested I go straight to a pediatric orthopedic doctor, so that's what we did. It took half the morning for me to figure that out.

The other half of the morning was spent at the DMV waiting to get a copy of my driving record. (Adoption certification stuff. I can think about two babies at once.) :)

**FYI: DMV appointment times hold about as much weight as doctor appointment times.**

It was also the day we had chosen to celebrate Ben's birthday at school, so there was that blip in my schedule as well.

Mia wasn't the happiest of campers throughout the day, but as long as I was holding her she was fine, which is not too far from a typical day anyway.

We made our way to the ped.ortho.doc for our 4:00 appointment time. At 5:15 we were seen, x-rayed and yep, she needed a cast for her nicely fractured tiba.



This is why I'm not too bummed:

~ It's wintertime - but not too cold that she requires snow boots to go outside.
~ It's not summertime - so water and sand are not an issue.
~ She was given a short cast, and can walk on it anytime she feels so inclined, which hopefully will be soon.
~ I have sweet friends who swooped my kids up and took them away so I could concentrate on fixing Mia.
~ When those kids came back to me, and Mia wasn't yet fixed, and hours of waiting loomed, I was confident I could take them with me with little to no problem and they would survive. And they did, and had better attitudes than I did at times.

Here's the clincher: in order to get to Mia's doctor's office we had to walk through CHOC hospital. Up an elevator, down an elevator, through this hall and that. During our jaunt we came across little kids, big kids, toddlers and babies, sick as sick can be. Bald heads, ashy skin, shallow eyes, one was carrying a barf bag. And we smiled and chatted with a few, but inside I felt embarrassed. I had SO many friends calling and texting to check in on the Meems. Friends praying and asking what they could do to help. And really, her hot pink casted fracture is like a Band-Aid on a splinter compared to those tiny, precious children in that hospital. And I almost didn't want to look at the few parents I saw because the wounds they wear are gashes and mine is a hangnail.



So we came home and Mark was here with our late dinner ready and waiting. I couldn't get over the day I had and how richly blessed I felt. Not just because of CHOC, but because a week ago I was feeling hopeless (more to come on that...) And on a day when, by anyone's standards, I could've thrown in the towel and poured myself the mother of all glasses of whine, instead the Lord saw it fit to remind me of the blessing of life. And for the next 4 weeks I have a little cutie wearing a hot pink cast to remind me as well.

Hold on folks...

I've got a good blog a brewin'... it's about the funk I was in last week when I was all doom and gloom and whoa is me. But then I went to church - collective sigh ahhhhhhhhhhhh - and our pastor, conveniently enough, was just starting a 9 week series titled "Encouraged" based off of Romans 15-16. And guess what? I was.

So I want to blog about that and more.

And if you, or someone you love, needs to hear some Truth and be encouraged then I encourage you (heh heh heh...) to come to Compass Bible Church and be fed. Or you can watch online. Or you can listen via podcast. So many ways to catch this gem of a series! But do catch it. God's word is so good, and more than able to pull me out of a Debby -downer funk.

In the meantime, I know how ya'll love your pics-fix.

Here's a photo the awesome Hannah took, and I thought it was lost fo-eva but I found it in some random desktop file. Isn't it SO CUTE????????


An oldie but goodie...


My girls, my girls!


Oh Troy...


I took this simply as a reminder to me of Mia's first love. Elmo's Wild Wild West, or as she calls it "Horsey Elmo". One of her brothers, who shall remain nameless (Troy) was upset one day and broke her beloved Horsey Elmo VHS (yep, VHS. That's how we roll). So for Christmas I gave her a new copy and she was ECSTATIC.

No Joke!

The Best Gift Winner in my book is ME because I gave Addison the most awesmest brush in the world! What's that? An awesome brush? Yes. It's awesome because it holds secret magical untangling powers. I don't know how it does it but it does. It boasts of it's awesome de-tangling powers, calling itself the Knot Genie, which is a daring thing to do unless your product really works. It really works!

I saw this little beauty on a favorite website of mine, Zulily, where I got a great deal. Addison tries very hard not to complain while I do her hair, but the tangles she gets sometimes are out of this world, so I know it's not feeling good when I'm brushing. Pretty much every time I brush her hair is ended with, "I do NOT like it when you brush my hair." Which I was fine with because I have a feeling, compared to other hair-brushing battles I've heard of, her reaction is pretty mild. But I did want to do something to help my poor, rat slept in, dreadlocked girl.

When I opened the box and saw a piece of plastic nonsense I was initially disappointed. It's really lightweight, which I took as cheap. Knot genie my tush, I got rooked! Whatevs... it was a stocking stuffer for Christmas morning anyway, so I really didn't care.

My hopes were not high. I was not expecting any change in hair-brushing time. But, I kid you not, the thing is magical! SO magical, in fact that I use it on my massive mane every morning and evening. Addison LOVES it. When I used it the first time, I didn't say anything about how it was supposed to help with tangles, but even she said, "What is with this brush? This doesn't hurt or anything!"

Secret untangling magical powers, that's the only thing it can be.

Anyway... This is not a product pushing blog, generally speaking, but when I find something good that I think is worth mentioning then I do so. Should you purchase one for your nappy-haired love and find yourself not nearly as slaphappy about them as I, well, then, so sorry.... maybe the magic really just lies in Addison.

I'm a happy gal, and she's a happy gal, yay Knot Genie!