When You're Four...

The day before was prep.  Apart from shoveling out the whole house, which had been ransacked by the Goths ignored while the baby was sick, we made cake.

(This is the beater from the frosting, not the batter.  Because I am paranoid about raw eggs.)

The pinkest cake you ever saw.  Alas, it seems as though my baking powder might somehow be a dud.  But she didn't care--it was pink.

So was the frosting (buttercream).

After the princess (and both princes) fell asleep, we decorated the table for the next day.

(Every princess needs a tiara, particularly if she's enamored of Rapnuzel and has been watching Tangled, where the whole plot turns on a tiara.)

This dolly house from Grammy has a charming rendition of Pat-pat on it.

We got some trucks (and Grammy did too) for the boys, so they wouldn't feel left out.

Lots of trucks. :)

No, I'm not that awesome--I didn't make this--I found a cool fabric banner at Target for about the same cost as a plastic/paper banner.  I figure this way we can fold it up for next year and bring the princess flags out every year for her birthday.  I plan on getting one for each boy, too.

And then, early on the birthday morning!  (No, that's just concrete outside, not snow.  It's like 70 degrees here.)

A CROWN!  It was very exciting.

All princesses need crowns.

People for the dolly house!

Trucks!

A card with stickers and autumn leaves from Oma!  (Actually she was almost as thrilled with the leaves as she was with the other presents.)

A "Real Rapunzel, Mama!"  (I.e., a 3-D Rapunzel.)

Trucks!

Crayons!  Glitter crayons!  (Mama's a sucker for girlie stuff for her one and only girlie.)

The banner again!  (With Dora on in the background, because Miss Boo gets to choose the programming today.)

This was Daddy's idea: a curtain of pink streamers on her bedroom door.  It makes the day joyful.

And in the really big silver box, a dolly from Grandma and Opa!  Miss Boo has named the dolly, after some consideration, Veronica.  (At least for today.  For a moment we wanted to name her Clothes Girl, but Mama suggested something less descriptive.)

Dollies are so thrilling.

Especially when they come with beds.

The pink cake, getting cut...

(Ignore Mama's shoulder in the shot.)

Why yes, we had the birthday cake after breakfast.  Because we can.

(Ignore blurry Mama in the shot.)

Mmm.  Tastes like being four.

He was a little miffed with the suggestion that he use a fork.  Who uses a fork for cake?  Really?

She tried, after Daddy pointed out that princesses eat with their forks.  But it was hard.

Required a lot of concentration.

(He gave up on the fork relatively quickly.)

(In spite of the dud baking powder, the cake is apparently quite edible.)

He hoped and hoped...

...but no one dropped cake on the floor for him.

I had a symbolic piece.  Definitely I need new baking powder.

But the princess approved, so all was okay.  I'm so thankful for this girl today, and so grateful that I've had four years with her!

Cheers,

Breanna

Pancakes

When I was little I figured pancakes were really fancy breakfast items.  Like, if you were a millionaire and had breakfast brought to you each morning in your huge, four-poster, Daddy-Warbucks bed, probably what was on the tray was pancakes (and bacon and orange juice and a little pitcher of cream).  Whenever Mom made pancakes I felt wealthy.

As a grownup who can actually read recipes, I now realize that pancakes (as you might suppose) are the refuge of those who only have two eggs and a bit of milk left in the fridge, and more than one person to feed.  (Or even only one egg, if you use my recipe.)  Pancakes, flapjacks, hotcakes...the names suggest blue-collar, hardworking people like lumberjacks, railroad men, and farmers.  Not precisely Daddy Warbucks.

Now, I don't have a clear enough memory of what it was like when I was little to know whether we ate pancakes because Mom was short on eggs or simply because us kids loved them.  It doesn't actually matter--because my parents managed to make pancakes (with imitation maple syrup, or karo syrup, or honey, or peanut butter, or...) so fun and special, I still remember them fondly.

Yesterday we had to stay home from church because the Husband was on call and chained to his laptop.  So he played his guitar and we sang to Jesus because, as Miss Boo put it, "He's the strongest AND the smartest, He's even stronger than Me!"  (She went on to observe that He's the only God, which made Mama breathe a little easier that the constant Bible-story reading is at least making a slight impression.)  And we had pancakes for breakfast.

I looked around at my happy children and husband, and ate my pancakes, and I felt wealthy.

Thank you, Jesus, for being stronger than Me.

Cheers,

Breanna

Autumn in Texas

As you may have guessed, I've never seen autumn in Texas before.  It's been fun.

Miss Boo loves the yellow and red leaves.

We have a really hard time not bringing them all into the house to keep.  This pile was for the benefit of Littleman.  Mama cruelly swept them outside moments later.

I put pants on the baby, too, by the way, and socks, I didn't make him go out in the crisp air bare-legged.  As for Miss Boo, the hat was a requirement.  "I need something to protect my head!"

He always has to wear a hat.

Sigh.  Poor little purple legs.

I promise it only took seconds to snap these pictures and then I bundled him up.

The leaf-play was just so cute.

See?  All warm.  This was after we came inside.  His blankie was in the wash so I tucked my bathrobe around him.  It smells like me (oddly enough) and he seems to sleep well under it.

This is a body brush, or a submachine gun, depending on how you look at it.

Surrender, dog!

It begins early.

It's a matching game--educational--and I set a timer so as not to let it get out of hand--but--I can't help remembering that I was at *least* nine before *I* played on a computer.

Luckily she is also still interested in being a superhero with an apron-cape.  (Frilly hostess aprons are excellent lady superhero capes.)

This one recently came in a package from Grandma, and we love it to death.

See?

This little wolf we bought in Yellowstone Park when Littleman was still riding around nestled between Mama's liver and tailbone.

He was smiling so cute at the wolf until I started taking pictures, then he started waving it around frantically.

Makes for better theater, I guess.  (I went and changed his pants just after this picture.  And that's where he squirted a sippy cup on himself, not evidence of a massive cloth diaper failure.)

Meanwhile, Buddy is very tired and trying not to be.

It didn't work very well.

Cheers,

Breanna

Time for Pictures

Enough blathering.  Here's some pictures.

I finished the green pullover for Miss Boo, to match Bud's red one that I made last year.  Actually I made a red one for her last year, too, but the sleeves are getting shortish.

A picture that Bud took.  I think it's a table leg.

We really needed Mama to take our picture.  (Her hair's in a braid, not chopped off.)

Upset that he's on the bed alone.  He likes being on the bed, he just wants everyone else to be there, too.

The Husband captioned this one as "Daddy comes home from a long day of work and is able to rest and relax without having to do anything for his children."

It was sarcasm, but gentle and happy sarcasm.

Meanwhile Littleman was getting shorted, having to sit in his highchair and fiddle with cereal because Mama was busy fixing dinner and snapping pictures.

So. Not. Fair.

Also not fair: that I took a picture of the Husband unaware.  I just thought he looked an awful lot like his son.

See?

Aren't they cute?

Now I need to go rescue Miss Boo's easel/chalkboard from the baby.

Cheers,

Breanna

On the Flip Side

...there is no other hand!

No, not really.  I just couldn't resist quoting Tevya.  But anyway.

I got to thinking that, although I did state something like this in my previous post, I should make it clear that just because it is a struggle for women to rule over their emotions, irritations, and grumpiness in a way that it isn't a struggle for men does not release them from the responsibility to still rule over their emotions, irritations, and grumpiness.

Let's compare it again to the thing that women have the most trouble understanding about guys: the struggle not to look at a hot woman with lust in their hearts.  (And guys, I know you think this is much, much more obvious.  But trust me when I say I have never, ever met one woman who knew without being told that this was much of an issue.  Because for us, it just isn't.  I promise.  That doesn't make us holier than you, it just makes our temptations different.)

So a man has a struggle that a woman doesn't usually have--most women are not sexually tempted with their eyes and most do not have a store of mental images that they have to fight against regularly.

Most women do, however, have a store of mental soundbytes--people saying hurtful things or old arguments, mainly--that pop up the same way that a lustful image might for a guy.  And we have to fight the temptation to get sad/resentful/worried just as hard as a man has to fight the temptation to dwell on the mental image of the hot chick.

Now of course, this is not to say that men don't have to struggle with being sad, resentful, irritated, and worried and women don't have to struggle with lust.  Women do struggle with lust and men do struggle with controlling grumpiness.  But to quote a comedian, generally to compare women's struggles with visual lust to men's is to compare throwing a bullet to shooting it.  It's the same thing--to compare men's struggles with putting an argument out of their mind to a woman's is to compare throwing a bullet to shooting it.

We still have the same responsibilities.  This doesn't in any way give women a pass.  But just as it's helpful for a wife to pray for a husband's purity (and to dress modestly enough that she isn't risking anyone else's purity), it's helpful for a husband to pray for a wife's emotional state--and to try to be gentle when he can.

And to reiterate, no, this post and the last aren't because of any particular situation.  I just have been thinking about these things lately.  I know it sounds like I am doth protesting too much, but I promise.  Honestly, you guys can usually see through me in those situations anyway, I think.

Cheers,

Breanna

No Really. Gimme Your Mind.

Back in the day there was a sit-com called Third Rock From the Sun where aliens were undercover as ordinary humans--a man, his sister, and a teenage boy.  The alien who was the teenage boy was trying to describe to the woman what it was like inside a teenage boy's head.  She didn't believe that it could really be THAT focused on girls, so in frustration the boy said "Gimme your mind.  No, really, gimme your mind."  The woman did, was evidently shown telepathically the way boys think, and withdrew in horror.

The point of that rather rambly thing (I didn't go looking for the clip...) is to say that male and female brains are different.  Big surprise, eh?

This post is a little message to my male readers (all three or four of them), and is written believe it or not during a cool moment when the Husband hasn't done anything to irritate me.  (Honest.)  I thought I should probably help you boys out a little since you don't seem to deal with "De Hormonies", to quote My Big Fat Greek Wedding, in the same way we do.  There seems to be a widespread impression that during certain seasons of hormonal upheaval, women get a little irrational.

In the interest of helping you boys help yourselves, I am just going to explain the female mind without laying any blame.  It's not your fault.  Also you will probably not believe me, any more that most women really believe it the first time they are told the way boys think.   But here goes anyway.

See, it's not that De Hormonies make us less rational.  It's that they make us less patient.  Less understanding. Less willing to sacrifice our personal preferences for those of others.  Less able to take crap without flinging some of it back.  I mean physiologically less able.  I'm not defending it, okay?  Just stating facts.

So when you reason, "huh, she usually doesn't snap at me when I leave my wet coffee-spoon on the white counter and it dries and gets stuck down, she must be having crazy-making PMS" (just as an example, this hasn't really happened to me) then you may be sure that she is ALWAYS annoyed when you leave your wet coffee-spoon on the counter.  Most of the time she sweetly does not get after you about it, because she loves you.

This should not inspire you to awe at the pettiness of women, by the way, but awe at their habitual restraint. Lots of things bother us.  All the time.  But we don't mention it when we have our normal self control.  When De Hormonies come along and act as the equivalent of a couple of shots of Jack on our inhibitions, well, then you are hearing the truth about what bugs us deep down.

The other misconception I see is that women should be able, when someone points out "well, this that you're feeling is probably caused by De Hormonies" to then stop feeling that way.  I have been in that exact situation while terribly pregnant.  I have KNOWN that, non-pregnant, I could have handled the situation without resorting to singing very pointedly under my breath.  Knowing didn't help.  I still wasn't able to gain more control over my emotions than to just say, "PLEASE LET ME DO THE DISHES BY MYSELF.  I NEED SOME TIME, AND IF YOU MAKE ME TALK I WILL SAY SOMETHING MEAN.  GO."

Pointing out that I was hormonal in that moment would have ensured I would deliver the baby in prison.

Again, I'm not defending this.  I don't use my hormones as an excuse to emotionally abuse people once a month, nor do I think that women shouldn't struggle against inappropriate emotions.  But there's a reason alcoholics have sponsors--it really helps to have someone know that you're doing something hard and to kind of appreciate it.  To work all day (I'm not exaggerating, it really does require a 24 hour struggle sometimes) to not be a jerk when your entire body chemistry is insisting, "go ahead, be a jerk, be a HUGE jerk, break something" is hard work.  To have a man assume that it's something normal people ought to be able to do without too much struggle does not, to say the least, encourage us to work again next month.

(Perhaps the dudes will understand if they can picture being very angry over something, angry enough to throw a punch, and then having a woman step in front of them and inform them calmly that what they are feeling is only due to testosterone, and therefore they should calm down.  How do you think that would work out?)

The good news in all of this is that you can earn yourself some crazy-big points by taking note of the tiny, insignificant stuff that irritates your ladies and avoiding it.  We will notice, we will appreciate, and then what comes out when De Hormonies start raging is probably just a bunch of tears over a movie you find dreadfully dull.  Your choice.

You probably have some tiny, insignificant stuff that she does that irritates you, right?  Here's the last secret: we try really, really hard to please the men we love.  Like, sometimes, things would probably run better if we didn't try. so. hard.  You guys--let's face it, most of you are as subtle as lawnmowers--more or less let us know what bugs you.  And we try, we really do, not to do it.  Sometimes we forget, in the throes of doing things one-handed because of babies and groceries and whatnot; a brain that multitasks has its downsides, and we can't always control that, either.  But to see you trying, in good faith, to help us overcome De Hormonies inspires us to try, in good faith, to screw the jar lids on straight.

And to refrain from pointing out that if you grab the jar by the middle it doesn't matter, anyway--and that men have hormonal fluctuations, too.  Whatever. Let's all love one another.

Cheers,

Breanna

P.S.
I should reiterate, in case he reads this (5 male readers, then, if he suddenly gets the time to read it again...) the Husband isn't in any kind of trouble.  He's an intensely emotional person himself and really kind of gets it when I explain that I'm trying very hard not to be a jerk.  I also don't think any of the guys that I know regularly read this blog are in trouble--in other words, your wife did not ask me to write this.  I am writing the post merely as a public service.