I’ve said before in an understated way, “She’s a bit intense.”

Intensely sweet. Intensely loving. Intensely insistent when things don’t go her way.

Ladybug was “due” on the fourth of July. She decided she needed a bit more time to have Mama all to herself.

This year I took her to see fireworks for the first time. Her review? “I don’t like those fire lights.” She behaved well throughout the show, but she kept her ears covered. Her baby sister, however, loved every boom and flash!

Ladybug is my Rainbow Baby. She was born after a loss and after I had to teach my little ones that we have reason to praise God even for the babies we don’t get to keep. Sometimes I find myself staring at her in amazement when I should be disciplining that sassy attitude. She is so cute, and so funny, and so smart. She is also my first talkative toddler since my oldest daughter. I could tell stories about conversations with her all day.

Recently, she described Sleeping Beauty as having Sleeping Duty and then as being a Tired Beauty. Ha!

Ladybug is my girlie girl. She wears a “pretty dress” almost daily and will come to me requesting I fix her hair, but she won’t leave it up for long. When I protested her taking her ponytails down recently with, “But they’re so pretty!” she finished pulling them out and replied, “I’m still pretty.” Yes, My Dear, you absolutely are.

She doesn’t want to be three. She told her Pappaw that she is five today. She told me after I told her she’s three this morning that she wants to stay two. I said, “You can’t wear your new birthday dress if you aren’t three!” She thought for a moment and decided, “When I take it off I’ll be two again.”

Ladybug is a Daddy’s Girl. She adores her daddy, and she tries to use him against me. “Daddy said I could do that.” Ha! Little Lady, this isn’t Mama’s first trip around the sun.

I find myself watching her often these days. She understands things and acts in such a big girl way, but her sweet toddler face tells me she’s still a baby too. She’s my baby. Just don’t tell her I said that.

Her imagination amazes me! I keep trying to make an exhaustive list of her imaginary friends.

• The Bubbles – You know when you stare at a light bulb and see spots when you look away? Ladybug discovered this months ago and has been trying to catch and pop her Bubbles ever since.
• The Dinosaurs – The Dinosaurs are often at the store, and we have to call them home or tell them to pick up a few things. Some of Ladybug’s dinosaurs recently ate her Friends so she had to get new Friends.
• The Bunnies – My oldest daughter asked the Ladybug if she likes carrots. “No. My Bunnies won’t share.”
• Ladybugs – Of course. They are everywhere!
• Babies – Ladybug is a Little Mama through and through. She likes to tell her older siblings, “You’re grounded for the rest of the day!”
• My Friends – She has lots of them running around.
• She also talks to her fingers and toes and has many phone conversations with imaginary people.
• I almost forgot the Princesses! – They’re pretty new, but she loves them.

I asked what she would like to eat for her birthday breakfast. Her first suggestion was chicken nuggets so I steered the conversation toward a breakfast food. Over-easy eggs. Then I thought of eggs-in-a-bucket. It’s been so long none of my kids remembered me making them before. The best part is the buttered bread browned in a frying pan. Ladybug gave her seal of approval.

She’s talking to her sidewalk chalk right now. They are discussing who should be next to who. I remember similar conflicts with my crayons. 🙂

Ladybug shows the heart of an artist with an attention to detail that can be a little maddening when plans change. She has willingly sat down to “do schoolwork” with the bigger kids from the time she could safely hold a pencil. She’s at the stage of drawing people with a face and two long legs, and she includes eyes and a mouth. She can also draw hearts and some letters. Every word is spelled E-S-E including her name which does not have any of those letters in it. She hopes she’ll need glasses when we get her eyes checked. She wants to wear eye patches too like one of her brothers, but she wants princess eye patches. She makes me laugh every single day. She has a sensitive heart that shares with others. She has been my big girl since birth, but she is still so little.

Happy Birthday, Ladybug.

[T]hrow off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. ~Mark Twain

Before she was born, we named her the Butterfly. Growing requires stretching wings while growing roots. Living equals metamorphosis.

In the time leading up to her, “Welcome to Earth!” moment, I window-shopped the baby aisles and explored the difference between wants and needs. I sing the same song every pregnancy.

Babies need precious little beyond a full belly and a clean butt. While at home mine live in onsies or sleepers, but certain times want (require?) extra special touches.

I bought this outfit impulsively before she was born while thinking forward to her one year pictures.

Size 18 months so she could wear it new on her birthday and have time to wear it out after. I also wanted eventual photographs of her walking in this butterfly waterfall, and none of mine have walked before age one.

Throughout my pregnancy, I battled gestational diabetes to keep weight gain under control and hoped against hope for a smaller baby. The one before, my Ladybug, emerged at a family record of 10 pounds 3 ounces.

Ladybug never wore newborn-sized clothing, and I remember trying to squeeze her into this just once for pictures. Just once, please. I had once called my oldest daughter Little Lady. Could her first sister carry the same title?

Mission aborted. Ladybug wore something else. She still looked beautiful, and she’s still my Little Lady.

Oh, please, Baby Butterfly. Be small enough to wear a newborn outfit! When God grants such insignificant wishes the we don’t dare even ask for, we might call that common grace.

Baby Butterfly was born at 7 pounds 12 ounces. Average with a smaller than average head. Average fits into newborn clothing. *Happy Dance!*

As the influence of gestational diabetes left her little system, she quickly dropped from average weight to petite despite an excellent appetite.

Petite. That butterfly waterfall? It might actually fit her for her second birthday. So last week I bought her something in size nine months. So she can wear it new on her birthday and then wear it out in the months following.

For breakfast today she’ll enjoy scrambled eggs. Because she loves them and because of protein. She may always be petite like her Nana, Aunt Cindy, and many others, but she must be strong like them too.

As far as physical milestones go, she’s a bit behind where my other children were at this age. She is just starting to explore the idea of walking. Crawling gets her around just fine, thank you, and if she needs height, pulling up works for that.

She is quite communicative. Babbles plenty – mama, dada, baba, nana – , and uses yes (ess!) and no (ohh!) purposefully with head motions. She has been arguing playfully with me for months. She has said three of her siblings names quite clearly, and she copies the patterns of phrases in a sing-song way, but an ear unfamiliar with her would only hear nonsense full of L and short a sounds. We’re also working on the signs for more, all done, eat, drink, milk, please, and thank you. And don’t forget our family’s home-made sign for, “You’re making me crazy!”

Here. Let me teach you how to do it. Hold both of your hands up next to either side of your head with your palms facing toward you. Then start smacking your head on both sides near the top above your ears while making a silly face. This is best done with a child who likes to giggle at silly grown ups.

There. Wasn’t that fun?

I, of course, believe my Butterfly’s a genius, but that’s the way we make them around these here parts.

Everybody is a genius. But, if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing it is stupid. ~Albert Einstein

Butterfly meets her first birthday with four teeth, but not the typical two bottom middle and two top middle that most babies start with like her oldest brother had at his first birthday. Butterfly’s smile looks more like this:

Her oldest sister is missing a front tooth too. They mirror image each other. Before Butterfly’s third tooth was little more than a wish, she started grinding her teeth. I blame my husband for that. It’s a sound worse that nails on a chalkboard ever dreamed of being.

She loves Eskimo kisses and might bust your nose trying to give you one. She squeals with delight at having raspberries blown on her belly. For a long time she laughed at me when I told her no, but now she opens her mouth wide showing all her teeth and gives this pitiful little cry that’s almost too cute for me to remain stern, and I’ve had practice with her siblings before her. She cheeses for the camera and wiggles ferociously through every diaper change. Independent but a cuddle-bug. A giggle-box but quietly watching, learning, and growing. Petite but strong.

Happy birthday, Baby Butterfly.

In the waters ahead, there be adventures.

Onward!

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~~~

Laundry.

Okay. That’s the next thing on the list. Being productive today. So start a load and fold the three you didn’t finish yesterday. Come on, Self. You can do this.

*Yawn.* Shouldn’t Baby Butterfly be waking from her nap right about now? Nope. She slept right through me walking into the room. *Yawn.*

Stay productive, Self!

I’ll read this book I promised to review.

 The Butterfly wakes up as soon as I settle in.

~~~

Life. Life. Life. I finally picked the book up again after all the littles were asleep for the night. Before I had read two dozen pages I realized this book would give me more than I expected it to.

Falling wants–and usually with good intention. It wants the other’s attention, it wants their affection, it wants their time. Not some of it. Not part of it. Falling in love just wants. And that’s the problem. It doesn’t stop wanting until it ruins whatever was good about the relationship in the first place.

Flying, on the other hand, gives. It gives attention, it gives affection, it gives time. And it gives what’s needed most: Jesus’s love.

And it doesn’t stop. Ever.

–Dating Like Airplanes, page 24

My husband and I will be celebrating ten years come May. I am thankful I don’t have to navigate the dating scene anymore. However, our babies are growing up at the speed of life. How do we guide them? The only parenting training anyone truly gets is on-the-job training.

But we can learn from those that have gone on before. We observe, ask questions, and read books. Lots and lots of books. I expected Dating Like Airplanes to give me more rules to consider as I teach my children how to go about looking for a mate.

Refreshingly, I was completely wrong. Caleb Breakey does mention a few possible guidelines for dating, but mostly he speaks of intentions. Why date anyone?

Caleb states more than once that any date should be a marriage possibility, but he says more than that. With tenderness he speaks of the heart we should have toward our “other.” (“Other” is the name Caleb uses for a spouse or potential spouse. I like it.)

As a teen I planned out a cartoon that would represent “falling in love.” I could see myself peering over the edge of a cliff as curiosity draws me closer and closer to the edge until Whoops! Tumble! Crash! Slip! Boom! All the way to the bottom . . .

Beaten and bruised I rise to my feet to face my true love. He has been through his own fall, but that is okay because we are in love so we can now join hands and walk off into the sunset of our happily ever after.

How romantic!

And how different from a healthy reality. Marriage is not about the number of hardships you can endure while remaining passionately in love. Marriage is two who become one who race the good race and fight the good fight for Christ. Together. “And it doesn’t stop. Ever.”

Dating or courtship should work with that end in mind. It may be an oversimplification, but the JOY acrostic comes to mind. Jesus-Others-Yourself. Can you follow Jesus first? That is the foundation. Don’t move on without it! Can you put the needs and wants of your other above your own wants and needs? If you cannot, especially if you cannot because you feel your other would take advantage of you, then perhaps this other is not the other for you. At least not yet.

Caleb Breakey’s book, Dating Like Airplanes, will guide you through the process of knowing whether or not you are ready to fly and finding a person you can fly with. Close your eyes and imagine flying for a moment. The clouds. The wind. The sunshine. Breath it in. Isn’t that better than falling?

~~~

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The pencils were about to hit the floor again.

*every pencil we owned*

We’re a homeschooling family, and even though my husband tosses every pencil he finds left on the floor, we still have a lot of pencils because, you know, when I can’t find pencils I buy more. Because we’re just that organized around here.

“Move the pencil cup away from the edge of the table before it falls.”

“Why?”

“Because if the pencils hit the floor again I might explode like the Incredible Hulk.”

Here we get into a conversation about who is the Incredible Hulk, and my explanations and impersonations include, “You won’t like me when I’m angry!” with more animation from me than most people are ever likely to see. Somewhere I say, “but instead of exploding green I’ll explode . . . purple!”

“Now move the pencils. I’m going to the bathroom.”

When I return I find pencils all over the floor.

And I chill out.

Many times since my children have begged me to explode purple. The imagined image delights them, and many times since I’ve noticed my tension rising and exclaimed, “I’m about to explode purple!”

We have silly conversations about how Mammaw came from Blue Land and Pappaw came from Red Land (or maybe the other way around), and that’s why I explode purple.

Being a mama can be fun stuff.

But it can also be exhausting. So why am I writing this post at nearly one a. m.?

I couldn’t sleep. My beautiful two-month old is sleeping nearly ten hours straight through the night, and I’m unable to sleep until the a. m. hours roll around. I toss and turn at night, but fall asleep nursing my baby all during the day.

I met a home school mom once who trained her kids to fix her a cup of coffee every time they saw her nodding off during school lessons.

That could work if I actually made a trip to the store and bought coffee. I’ve been sending my dear husband for the bare minimum “just until I go myself” for weeks now. (Honey, you’re so romantic.)

That home school mom mentioned above also confessed to looking around for the baby only to have an older child point out, “You’re nursing the baby.” (It’s okay. I constantly count my five to make sure I haven’t left one behind somewhere. Bless Mamas everywhere who will admit to not having it all together.)

I grab my phone to check Facebook one more time because staring at the glowing screen will surely help me beat this insomnia. (HA!) Then I switch to my RSS feed and the Art of Simple has shared her weekend links and did this woman just crawl inside my head?

So here I am resolving once again to spend a little time each day doing something creative.

Because really, I want to keep the idea of Mama exploding purple a fun joke for my children.

Good night!

Note: I wrote most of this post months ago. That delightful two month old is now hitting her six month mark. She’s rolling about, babbling, and offering many delightful smiles and giggles. AND still sleeping through the night most nights. (Don’t be jealous. Not all of mine have been so awesome.) My sleeping schedule is getting better, and I’m still working on working in the creative muscle usage. It’s a process.

How do you exercise your creative muscles?

September marks the beginning of my third decade traveling around the sun.