You know...frustration comes in so many forms in life.  Blogs should not cause frustration like they do for me sometimes.  I have officially completely deleted two whole entries now.  ARGH!

I spent the afternoon as a grown-up today.  I can't even tell you how wonderful that felt.  For 4 hours, other than getting lunch around and two snacks, and solving minor dilemmas as they arose between our 5 children, I sat at a kitchen table with my friend Kim and chatted.  About nothing.  And everything else.  Mostly our kids.  And our cluttered, frustrating houses.  And our crazy, similar husbands (whom we adore, of course).  But nothing.  There is a peace that comes when you relate with another woman who struggles with "your" issues.  Suddenly you feel an overwhelming sameness; you realize your issues jive with someone else's issues, your frustrations fit with their frustratons, you fight the same battles.  Where she wins hers, she can help you conquer yours.  Where you have made headway, you can push her in the right direction.  We had no major breakthroughs, but today, we related. What a Blessing! 

My husband doesn't understand my reliance upon my girlfriends--why I can spend over an hour on the phone with my friend Stacy every week, or 2 hours talking with Jessica while our children wear each other out, or 2 hours at a coffee shop with Kara, or all day at a Crop and only get 15 pages done in my album because we're talking and not journalling.  Men think women like to hear themselves talk, I think.  What they don't realize is that we all struggle with the need to hear that we're really OK.  I don't know that women are actually unique in this way--men just seek it differently.  Or they look for similar reinforcement, but their paycheck reinforces that they work hard and provide for their families, the running truck reinforces their ability to reason out repairs, the refinished cabinets reinforce their creativity and craftsmanship.  The pat on the back, the "Wow, honey, that looks amazing," the men standing around the truck making their Tim Allen-esk grunts finish everything off nicely, but that is just the icing on the cake.  Women need people to comment.  They need verbal reinforcement, and frequent reinforcement at that.  We certainly display our different "wiring" clearly.  I need my girlfriends.  The little time I get to spend with them affects my life.  Thank God for Kim today!

On a completely different note, have you found www.flylady.net yet?  If not, and if your house lacks organization, and you feel like you can't have anybody over until you have 2 hours to straighten your house, welcome to my life, my friend.  Flylady will become like a friend to you too.  :)  If you're even tempted to give it a shot, start slow.  Read the homepage...it will all make sense.

The girls are at Dance Camp at Christian Hope Center all this week.  I don't know who came up with this amazing idea, but I can't begin to describe to you the beauty of this camp for my children.  For one week, between 9 am and noon, they are completely occupied, dancing their brains out, learning solid biblical lessons and songs, learning serious dance terminology and movement, and loving every minute of being away from mommy and little brother...FOR FREE!!  On Friday, we will go to their recital and the stage will be covered with 100 little girls in pink t-shirts, leotards, dance skirts and shoes, and huge grins covering their nervous faces...flashes will pop at blinding rates, the electronic buzz of camcorders will fill the air, parents and grandparents will flock with flowers and lawn chairs...we'll create beautiful scrapbook layouts afterward.  I'll try to convince my mother to forward me some pictures from her digital camera (mine is refusing to work.  Of course it is) so I can post them on Saturday (HA!).  The girls look forward to VBS, but they can't wait for Dance Camp every summer. 

We have to put them in dance this fall.  It's not even an option.

If you need something else to add to your prayer list this week, please pray for my friend Stacy.  She takes her little girl to Virginia next week to begin 8 weeks of feeding therapy (I'm sure there is a more technical name for it).  Equally difficult, she will leave her two sons (aged 4 and 1) in Connecticut with her parents for those 8 weeks, and her husband will stay home in Binghamton to work  Please pray for Stacy as she travels, as she says good bye to her sons, as she lets go of her husband, and then as she works diligently to help her almost 6-year-old learn to chew.  Bridgette is an amazing little girl who survived CDH, and now needs to deal with one of her frustrating side-effects.  She's going to do it, and God is good--we trust in his ability to work through the hands of her doctors, therapists, and her Mommy.  You go, Bridgette!!

OK, if you've been reading my blog and haven't checked in on Audrey Miller lately, you need to (see Miller family listed in my blog list? click there).  Seriously.  She's gorgeous!  And doing so well!!  Keep praying for her and her brave, incredible Mommy and Daddy (and those two adorable big brothers).  God is in the business of miracles...she is living proof of that.

I realized today that it's been a week since I wrote anything here...what a week!!  I was surprised with a trip to the Women of Faith Conference in Rochester last week at the very last minute.  My dear friends Stacy and Amy thought of me when they found out another woman wasn't able to attend, and called and helped me make arrangements to go with them.  What a blessing.  Every mom needs a couple of days every once in a while to get refreshed and get her brain back...these two days were that for me.  Except for the massive amounts of guilt I felt for leaving so quickly and not giving my children adequate time to prepare, and dumping them off on my parents when they already had plans (which they were more than willing to change, thank you Mom and Dad), and leaving my husband home alone with my children on a Saturday when he didn't have to work (which is a miracle unto itself).  I felt less guilty after I realized what a blast the monkeys had without me, and that they had behaved wonderfully for my parents and their Daddy...of course they did...I wasn't home.  Do you ever feel that way?  That the only time your children do irritating, frustrating things is when you're home?  I'm sure every guilt-stricken, sleep-deprived, stay-at-home mom has said the exact same thing at some point in her life...and it's not really true. 

Is it?

We went to see Cars in the theater on Saturday night.  We're horrible parents--this was only the second movie my 7- and 6-year-old daughters have ever seen in theaters (and Bryson's first!) (and actually, it just comes down to the fact that we refuse to spend $38 on tickets for all five of us to see a movie when if we wait 3 months, we can rent it for $4, or own it for $12 ($20 if it's Disney).).  We were in stitches the whole movie, which didn't really surprise us...you just can't beat a Disney Pixar movie when it comes to getting a case of the giggles.  Bryson wasn't all that impressed, actually, getting bored with the whole process about half-way through.  It never occurred to me that he never sits through an entire movie at home...what made me think he would be interested in sitting through an entire movie in the dark, in the second row of a movie theater (no, we didn't get there in time for a decent seat--we all had good-sized headaches by the end, I'm afraid).  Anyway, he's been Lightning McQueen all week, racing around making mustang noises.  He kills me.  Have I mentioned that God gave me Bryson to make me laugh?

My girls are officially no longer First Graders.  Holy cow.  We're still doing school, and we will all summer (although very, very relaxed-like), but we turned in Reasa's paperwork on Tuesday.  It's officially over.  I'm just numb about all that.  There is something very serious about having two second-graders.  Why is it so different from first grade?  I don't know.  Probably has something to do with teaching second grade for a year about a lifetime ago.  But it's different.  It's hurting my brain.  And my heart!!  They are just not allowed to grow up this quickly!!

Dinner beckons (you know, when the raw sausage and rice and broccoli call your name from the fridge/pantry/freezer and your kids start saying, "Mom, when are we going to EAT??" and you realize that your husband is going to call any second saying he's five minutes away and you haven't gotten off your rear for the past 15 minutes??). ARGH!!   Hope you're all doing well...

I remembered tonight at 6:13 that I had been invited to a Pampered Chef show...starting at 6:59. Very graciously, Seth sent me on with his blessing, and even took the kids to the park by himself, took them for ice cream, and put them to bed. The show went until 10!! I guess that's what happens when 30 people show up for your party! You can't beat food cooked in front of you, though. And the tools...well, do I really have to tell you about the tools?

The funny thing is, it wasn't the food that made the party worthwhile for me. And the conversations I had with 10 people I had never met before wasn't necessarily the big thing either...but the fact that I was in a room with someone who loved me enough to invite me, someone who spent the evening using me as her nodding frame of reference and encourager, someone with whom I share a name but no history, someone who knew friends from my childhood, someone who loves my mother, whose son-in-law crazy-mountain-bikes with my father...so, maybe it was the conversations with 10 people I had never met before after all. The world is just small. We share so much in common with people around us, and we never really realize it until we're suddenly thrown into a situation where we share what we have in common. I love the smallness of this world. Especially the smallness of my town. When I think about the fact that I didn't live here for 12 years somewhere in the middle of my life, I shake my head. This is where I belong.

(Now writing on Tuesday, June 6)
The kids played all afternoon in the pool in our back yard. They have been begging Daddy to put it up for about a month (and in early May in New York, there is just NO sense in setting up the pool, no matter how warm May starts out), and finally, he got it dragged out of the basement, levelled up, cleaned out, and filled. They FROZE today, but they absolutely did not care. And boy, they fell asleep quickly tonight!! Now, if I could only get my stupid, antiquated digital camera to let go of the pictures and my computer to download them!! Tomorrow, I will load the Memory Manager I've had in inventory for 8 months onto the computer and see if the camera will play nice. I'm not making any promises, but you might see cute pool pictures of the cherubs tomorrow...:) Don't hold your breath, though.

On a completely different note, my cousin's son, Ryan, goes to Boston Children's Hospital tomorrow morning for his, umm, I think 6th surgery in his 4 short years. Ryan has Apert's syndrome and has had skull surgery and hand surgeries and foot surgery and skin grafting, and hopefully, after this surgery, he will have a 2- or 3-year break from surgeries (for which his very-pregnant-with-their-third-Mommy is grateful!). This marks their second attempt at making the long drive to Boston in hopes of actually having the surgery. The surgery should last about three hours (to separate the rest of his toes and to rebuild/reshape a bone in his foot that's not growing in the direction it should), but he will be in double casts (OK, imagine your 4-year-old in double casts in JUNE! Nicole and Ryan should be sainted) and realistically, shouldn't move around much for at least three weeks. Please keep Ryan in your prayers through the surgery and recovery, and Nicole and Ryan in your prayers as they drive home and then help him deal with his recovery. Nicole says that the third day after surgery is always the worst day for Ryan, so that would be Saturday. Have I mentioned lately how blessed I am with my perfectly, ridiculously healthy children??

If you haven't checked in on Baby Audrey lately, click on the link...she's just gorgeous!! Blessings, Audrey!