You know that moment when words fly out of your mouth, and you see them darting away into the atmosphere, irretrievable, and wish a little string trailed after them so you could haul them back like some erstwhile kite to clutch tightly to yourself?

I felt that way two nights ago.

I said, “Do you want to have a sleepover?”

I clutched at a string that wasn’t there, horrified at what I’d done.  I knew the second that question smacked Little Friend’s ear, there was no turning back.  We were going to have a sleepover.  Me, Little Friend, and my bed.

I could blame Big Friend for being away on a week’s business trip.  I could blame the vast expanse of new, luxurious mattress that was just begging to be shared by someone.  But really, the person who is to blame was indeed the one who paid.

Me.

First, I staked claim to 1/5 of the luxurious new California King mattress, leaving the remaining 4/5 to a child who weighs less than one of my thighs.  Then, I shared my thigh with someone else’s leg, which just. needed. to. be. there.  Then I tried to “scoot over” someone, but was told in no uncertain sleepy terms, “NO!!!!  NO SCOOTING OVER!!!”  Then there was the period at 4-bleary-30-am when someone sat bolt upright and announced “I’m hungry.”

Then came the moment when I woke up for the morning.

I heard the bird’s-whistle breathing change beside me into something softer, more sibilant.  Then from behind the drawn drapes of my eyelids, I sensed a dark form rise beside me.

Then came the tenderest moment.

A small hand brushed my shoulder, then my cheek.  A pat.  A caress.  A tangible “I love you” written on my cheek.  Words and handprint that I want tattooed there permanently.  Words that I clutch after, futilely attempting to draw them back by invisible string.

The best way to start a morning.  Ever.

It {almost} makes up for how dog-tired I am today.

This post is shared with The Gypsy Mama’s Five-Minute-Fridays.

There are just a few wisps of baby cocoon clinging to Little Friend’s rapidly spreading pre-schooler wings.  The other day, Big Friend and I realized that another sizable chunk of cocoon had fallen off.

Somehow, somewhere, Little Friend has shot up in height.

She’s got legs.

Tall, lean, muscular legs.  Legs that propel her at mach speeds around the mall playland.  Legs that spring uninhibited to leap three steps in a single bound.  Legs that stick knobby angles beyond the frayed edges of her size 2T pants.

If she’s lucky, she’ll have inherited Big Friend’s legs.  They’re kinda his sexiest feature.   And I just totally embarrassed him by writing that for the world to see.  All the same, she’ll be lucky.

If she’s unlucky, she’ll have inherited my short stumps of legs.  Legs that reliably allowed me to come in dead last on the 200 meter dash and hurdles.  No one on my track team asked where I had disappeared to when I gracefully retired with stress fractures.

So far, Little Friend seems to be stretching into the stratosphere on legs all of her own independent, strong-willed, convicted making.

You’d think I would have noticed my baby disappearing in more obvious ways–facial features elongating, tubby tummy flattening, fingers learning the dexterity of buttons and zippers.

But no.  It’s the legs that have somehow kicked a bruise in my heartstrings.

Have I mentioned, this gal’s got legs?

That’s all I wanted to say today folks.  My baby’s in shreds and my toddler’s in full-grow(ing) glory.  If you need me, look first for Little Friend sprinting by.  I’ll be huffing along a bit later, dead last in this race toward growing up.

Little Friend gave me a birthday present this morning as she wandered out of her bedroom, footsteps still dragging in the sands of sleep and tousled hair stuck to eye gunk and lips.

“Here Mama.  This is for you.  Let’s play catch!”

My birthday present had slept with her.  Cause that’s the kind of gift-giver she is.

“It’s a butterfly.  And it has an earring.  And look at these!  Do you know what these are?  These are wings!”

Later, once I had grabbed my camera, someone was a little grumpy about having her picture taken.  I’ll give you a hint on who: that butterfly has a pretty smarmy grin, so probably not her…

I wasn’t exactly surprised by the birthday gift.  Yesterday’s conversation went something like this:

“Hey Mama.  Is it your birthday today?  I have a present for you!”

“Actually, my birthday is tomorrow.”

“No.  It’s today.”

“Well, no…It’s kinda tomorrow.”

“Like after my nap?”

“Yes.  Tomorrow.”

“No!  I want it to be your pretend birthday today!  I’m going to get you a present.  It’s a bouncy ball!”

So, no.  No surprises here.

We’re in a riotous season of Little Friend’s life.  What began with her third birthday early in December bled into Christmas, which smacks right up against my birthday, and then, joy of joys, trips along to Big Friend’s big day at the end of January.

Everything important on Little Friend’s birthday as become important on my birthday:

A candle in every meal, snack, and cake of the day?  Check.

So this morning, Little Friend insisted that Big Friend add two candles to my birthday breakfast of French toast.  Then she sang to me: “Happy Birthday to Ooou, Happy Birthday to Ooou, Happy Birthday to Ooou.  Now blow out your candles, Mama!”

Big Friend was reprimanded for not providing me with birthday balloons.

Because Little Friend had balloons galore.

And she insisted she could blow up her own balloons.

She couldn’t.

But that didn’t stop her from insisting she could.

The only thing I’m missing from my birthday so far is the highlight of Little Friend’s special day: yellow rubber dish gloves.  No, really.  They were one of the best presents she received.  She even wore them while devouring her cupcake.  ”Hey!  I’m wearing gloves!  Now I don’t have to wash my hands.”

Later the gloves transferred to feet and she became a duck.  Who knew dish gloves could be Dora’s sidekick, Boots?  Or a baby?  Or a container for rubber bands?  Or a home for a family of play dough snails?

Yup.  That’s my kid.  And I adore the guts and stuffing out of her!

I haven’t yet opened a single present this birthday (’cause I can’t count one that someone else has pretty much claimed as her own), but I can’t help feeling like the best presents were the grin Big Friend flashed me as the first worlds I heard this morning from his mouth were “Happy Birthday, B!” or Little Friend padding from her room calling, “Mama?  Mama?  Where are oou?  I got something for oou!”

Maybe this year I’m just a bit more sensitive to the miracle of a birth-day.  Those of you who have loved and lost someone tiny can probably relate–life can so quickly, effortlessly, breathlessly, and lightly disappear.  Each and every day, especially those on which a birth (life!) occurs, is more precious than all that buried treasure Dora the Explorer uncovers.

I’m poignantly reminded of some of the most wrenching lines from Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, when Reverend Hale cries, “Life, woman.  Life is God’s most precious gift.”  And I think of Jesus’s own awareness of His life’s purpose: “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10, KJV).  Life, an abundant life, is more valuable than all the bouncy balls and squishy butterflies in the world.

Although, I’m pretty psyched with this present.  And its giver.

So, dear readers and friends, may I wish you today, whether this is your pretend birthday or your actual birthday, “Happy Birthday to Oou!”  You are precious, and I’m glad you’re reading and celebrating Life with me today.

I began 2011 with a vision for the year: The Year of the Cup.  I imagined the twelve months before me as empty vessels to be filled with God’s trademark creativity, blessing, and challenge.  And fill He did.  Filled with giggles, nose pickings, imaginary friends, ocean swimming, summer swinging, temper tantrums, and talk-talk-talking.  Little Friend is enough to fill anyone’s cup.

Then, back in September, we found out that our cup was going to get one baby fuller.  Little Friend grew into Big Sister to a brand new Little One.

It’s a lot to adjust to, those first pregnant weeks, when exhaustion drops like a blanket each afternoon, smells become unbearably poignant, and nausea tip-toes in the door of the day.

I would have written about this family expansion long before now had it not been for some unexpected roller coaster climbs and drops to this pregnancy.  Namely, when we went in for an early ultrasound, we discovered that Little One was not just One, but Two.  We spent the next eight weeks of the pregnancy mentally adjusting to the idea of TWINS (capital letters, in my mind, always) while we watched two hearts flap wings in silent flight on the ultrasound screen.

Then came week 14 of the pregnancy.

At a routine OB visit, just one heartbeat thumped through the crackle of the monitor.  A second ultrasound showed the newest truth we’d need to adjust to: Little One stretched her(?) legs up, raised a hand in leisurely salute to the sonogram wand’s probing eye.  The black hole where we had previously watched Little Two’s butterfly heart was just that…a black hole.

I peeked over the ultrasound tech’s shoulder to read the clinical diagnosis: “Diagnosed Demise of Baby B.”  I actually find comfort in this word “Demise.”  When I had to tell friends and family who had celebrated Little One and Little Two’s lives with us for the past eight weeks, I found myself falling back on the phrase, “We lost one of the twins.”  And I came to despise those words: “We lost a baby.”  Saying it like that, I feel responsible to go looking for and finding, at all costs, what we’ve lost.

And I can’t find what we’ve lost.  Demise is a better word.  A more final word.

That’s the grief of this pregnancy, the drop in the roller coaster’s thrill ride.

But I can’t stop there.  Because we have joy, too.  A coaster’s climb into joy.

Joy that Little One is still with us, growing, expanding, heart fluttering, kicking at the sides of my belly as I type.

Little Friend is convinced she is Big Sister to a Little Sister.  No “Baby Boy Sisters”, as she calls them, for this family.  We’ve elected to wait until those final moments of delivery to find out the gender of Little One, but Little Friend in the meantime frequently discusses the issue with Jesus:

“Hey Jesus,” she says, head dropped down toward her belly (where Jesus lives, she’s convinced.)  ”Jesus, can I have a Baby Sister?”  [Slight pause.]  ”He said ‘Yes.’  He will keep the Baby Boy Twin in heaven with him, and the Baby Girl Twin can be mine.”

Sometimes the simple faith of a child is the most healing balm of all.

So until May 15, when Little One is due to make her(?) appearance in the world, we pray for a smooth roller coaster ride of ups and more ups.

Then we’ll say with heartfelt gratitude, “Our cup overflows.”

There’s something that happens as the calendar nears that final day of one year, and I anticipate cracking open a new calendar to welcome the fear, uncertainty, promise, and mundanity that are offered up in invisible ink on 365 new squares.

I feel rushed.

Rushed to squeeze in those last items I swore I would do by Thanksgiving.  Then by Christmas.  Then by the end of the year.  And somehow New Years is upon me.

Rushed to send emails, wrap up work, unpack from vacation while offering half-tuned-in mumbles to Little Friend who is patiently sitting at my elbow with a miniature tea set, a collection of bouncy balls who are standing in as mermaids in her mermaid kingdom, and I have somehow been dubbed a littering octopus who is reportedly flinging trash far and wide in her ocean abode.  Somehow this all makes sense to her.  I send another email and absentmindedly toss some trash in her aquatic tea party direction.

Rushed to succeed at something in the final hours of a year.

And then I question…why?

Why do I think if I complete these things today, on the eve of the eve of the new year, I will somehow guarantee a success that seems less ensured come January 1?

If I’m honest with myself and declare it openly in this public space, I should confess that I’m motivated by fear.  Fear of my own failure.  Fear of God’s potential answer of “No” in my life.  Fear of the bent turn that those blank days ahead could take.  So here I sit, like some worrisome wintering groundhog, attempting to stockpile my necessities for the days to come.

I’d much rather approach the blankness of the new year with open hands, ready to receive the good and the bad, the expected and unexpected, the dreams achieved and dreams deferred.

I think (cross my fingers, toes, shoelaces, and sweatpants ties with hope) that I can switch around my focus.  Out with the fear, in with embracing God’s glory.  Because if I truly believe down the the red, pulsing marrow of my bones that all things (the good, bad, and blank calendar days ahead) work out in the end not in “Happy” or “Sad” but in “Come-What-May-Glory”, well, that just kind of takes all the sting and victory out of the bad things I fear, doesn’t it?

If I can release my tension over fussing around to guarantee success in these final two days of 2011, I won’t be quite as uptight at the start of 2012.  After all, there are more important parts to life than the “what ifs.”

I’d rather focus on my make-believe octopus duties than my own make-believe fears.

‘Cause who wouldn’t rather be a litter-pus than a worry-bug any day?

This post is gratefully inspired by and shared with The Gypsy Mama’s Five Minute Fridays.

I woke up this morning to two wide blue eyes staring at me from five inches away.  The eyes moved to two inches away and a blonde head of downy fluff rubbed into my forehead.  A thumb sucked and squeaked in a rosebud mouth.

Little Friend wormed her way into our bed somewhere between the hours of Christmas Eve and Christmas morning because of a diaper that gave way like a cracked dam to the flood of urine somehow produced by her little nugget of a bladder.  Little Friend couldn’t exactly be put back into a soaked bed in soaked pajamas, so we opted for clean pajamas and a little nest between us in bed.

“Merry Christmas” I say through sleep-slitted eyes.

“Can we go downstairs now?” comes the quick reply.

“Sure.  Why do you want to do downstairs?”  I’m fishing to see if she’s remembered the avalanche of presents presaged for this morning.

“I want to see if Baby Jesus came.”

And just like that, I’m exploding with gratitude for these two little blue eyes and head of duck fluff that has, in the innocence of her three years, reminded me just what this day is all about.

Of course, not all parts of the Christmas story have sorted themselves out in Little Friend’s head.  On Christmas Eve, Little Friend’s narrative went something like this: “When Jesus comes, he will come into my tummy, and then he will grow and grow and grow, and then I will cough him out, and we will sing Happy Birthday Jesus, and he will be three-years-old.  Just like me.  Then he will ask me if I want to come to heaven with him, and I will say ‘Yes.’”

Here’s wishing that a simple and merry Christmas spirit finds you and yours this Christmas day!

Little Friend went to the doctor today and was diagnosed with “Christmas Fever.”  It sounds technical, right?  Not quite the ear infection that I had imagined after the past week of mid-night wake ups and adamant claims that “THIS ear hurts.  Inside.  Not outside.”  Turns out that this morning’s 4:30 am wake up call was due to this December scourge now known as Christmas Fever.

“What woke you up, Little Friend?”

“A noise.”

“What noise?”

“I heard a noise, and I think it must be Santa.”

“Christmas doesn’t come for three more days.”

“Oh.  I think it was a raccoon then.”

So the Christmas season with a three-year-old has been just a tad bit different than previous years.

I just heard on the news tonight that 25% of the American population has not yet begun shopping for Christmas presents.  Why can’t I run into this type of person in line at Target?  I seem to be a magnet for the braggy-judgemental type who like to inform me that they completed their Christmas shopping one day after Thanksgiving.  Or the Fourth of July.  And they’ve also wrapped each and every present.  With bows.  And whirly-gigs.  And matching name tags.

That’s not how Christmas is going around my house this year.

We haven’t baked a single batch of cookies.

Our Christmas tree lacked a star up until last night.

It rained today.

We’re not exactly speeding through this season at the top of our game.  But I’m okay with our pace.  It’s slow.  It’s deliberate.  It includes two advent calendars instead of four.  It’s been soundtracked with Christmas carols and a toddler who can sing “Jingle Bells” in an impressive monotone.  It is the top of our game, played by new rules.

Because really this season shouldn’t be about the perfect meals, delectable cookies, red-and-green attire, and cascades of gifts.  Those things can make it wonderful, truly.  But this year I’m hanging with the 25% of people who are taking a bit more laid-back approach to the holidays.

On days like today, when it’s rainy, and gray, and the Advent calendar looks deflated with only three more treats to offer, I’m deliberate in my choice of the slow road.  When Little Friend requests a date with Big Friend, I ignore my “Perfect Christmas” plans of making peanut-butter dates (the fruit, not the romantic outing) after dinner and instead relish a few minutes alone to relax, think, and write.

And Little Friend, now self-described as “Princess Little Friend,” gets to go on a real Christmas date with “King Big Friend.”

What more could a gal wish for at Christmas?

This post is shared with Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop.

Sometimes failure looks like a messy house.

Failure leers at me from the kitchen sink where dishes multiply with the voracity of an alley-full of un-spayed cats.

Failure jeers at me from the dining room table that is covered with everything from two-night’s-ago dinner crumbs to Bible study books to Christmas cards that I have every intention of getting in the mail sometime before April.

Failure snickers at me from my bedroom where my bed is piled high with maternity clothes waiting to be absorbed into the closet and a mattress which was generously baptized in cat urine during our beach-Thanksgiving hiatus.  What a lovely welcome home gift.  Big Friend and I are unceremoniously camping out on the floor of the vacant nursery while we decide what to do with the pee-logged mattress.

My perfectionist soul looks around my house in bewildered wonder and weeps.

My perfectionist soul makes list of all my friends who have it more together than I do.  The list is lengthy.  It includes…everyone.

And this is where a whisper of grace comes in.

Sometimes success looks like a messy house, the grace whispers.

…Because truth be told, my house looks like this because, when Little Friend is not sleeping, I’m pouring my minutes into her and neglecting the dirty dishes and cobwebs.  I’m wearing out the knees of my jeans on the floor with her pretending to submit to the doctor’s prolific shots, concoct blanket-pillow fortresses, and eat pieces of pretend cake that go down with an “Mmmmmmm.”

…Because if I had the perfect house of my soul’s dreams, I’d have a little girl playing in a corner by herself while I whisked around making everything look just as it should.

On days when I open the front door and sweep aside the pile of yesterday’s mail dumped on the boot tray and want to cringe from the failure that screams from every room I enter, I’m grateful that a whisper of grace can be louder and more insistent.

So excuse me while I go play with Little Friend and let the household duties take the backseat for awhile.  Later, when I’ve discovered how exactly to emulate Super Woman and have a lovely home and happy kid, I’ll invite you over for a playdate.

Then again, why hide?  Why not just come over today and get a glimpse of the failure/success of my life?  It’s not pretty.  But it’s real.   And it’s grace-filled.

This post is shared with The Gypsy Mama’s Five Minute Fridays.

This particular someone has elected to create atmosphere with James Taylor’s Christmas CD and traipse down recent-memory’s lane while the edges of a wan sunset attempt to tie-dye the raggedy-grey edges of a horizon outside the window.

In my mind’s eye, I’m seeing this:

Just a few days ago, I was teaching Little Friend what it means to be a bad mother:

1.  Go to the beach without packing a single t-shirt for Little Friend.

2.  Go to the beach without packing a single swimsuit for Little Friend.

3.  Let Little Friend eat sand.

Just a few days ago, I was teaching Little Friend what it means to be a redeemed mother:

1.  Let Little Friend play in whatever clothes have been packed.

2.  Substitute a birthday suit for a swimwuit.

3.  Let Little Friend eat sand.

You can always wipe off a tongue.

That’s my life lesson for today: you can always wipe off a tongue.

The other lesson I learned on our beach romp was also simple: a child is a universe.  We parents get to experience the sheer, lonely joy of bearing witness in the very marrow of our bones to what a miracle this little universe is.  To parents, even a simple beach romp is nothing short of breath-snatching.

As further proof of a parent’s all-forgiving joy, I offer up my child, who took the greatest delight in whipping sand at A-Rod speeds toward any loved one within arm’s reach.  Even with gobs of sand hurtling toward my camera lens, my heart pitter-pattered a bit faster with love for this urchin.

And if a loved one couldn’t be found, well, beach dogs beware…

Running, throwing, jumping to the white noise symphony of low tide sucking on sand.

And when the jumping and exploring escapades have been exhausted, the beach, albeit without a single ball, kite, or shovel in sight, still offers delights.

Like birthday cake baking.  And candle-blowing.

And letter writing.

Meanwhile, parents stand by with trigger happy fingers to catalogue every precious second of this universe’s existence.

It’s just a day at the beach.  But it’s all I need to drive the bleak midwinter away.

1.  For a little girl with hair that spouts like a whale’s sneeze.

2.  For a pastured turkey that glazed succulent and delicious after 12 hours in a low oven.

3.  We ate it ate after 13 hours.  We can thank the extra hour for the toughened, slightly dry texture.  But that bird looked great at 12.

4.  For being woken by a crying toddler at 12:30 am, one hour of sleep tucked away into my bottomless pit of need, to see two arms stretched hopeful in the dark, needing to be picked up.

5.  She needed her daddy to pick her up.  I am grateful.

6.  For a Thanksgiving sunset that wrapped its arms halfway around the horizon and squeezed an orange, purple, and red bruise out of the sky.

7.  For 24-hours of Christmas music on the radio.

8.  For doors open, breezes trapped, and sun poured liberally across the surface of the day.

9.  For moments like this.

10.  For four grandparents who join together for a feast with a little girl in their midst who carries a carefully blended recipe of four DNAs in her single body.  For this, we all give thanks.

11.  For readers, like you, who pause in your day to share in our small slice of life.

Happy Thanksgiving to you for the blessings big and small in life!

And I can’t forget to express gratitude for The Gypsy Mama’s always inspiring 5-minute writing prompt on Friday mornings.  If no other posts get wrung out of the week, I always look forward to Lisa-Jo’s inspiration and reading fellow writers’ thoughts!