I’m preparing to share our story of adoption with a group of women Saturday and the reminiscing has been quite something. It’s given me great joy and respect for Liv’s birth family who keeps in touch with us still. It’s reminded me of God’s amazing and incredible and very detailed grace that provided for us every step of the way during the time leading up to our adoption of Livia. I’ve been encouraged once again by the unending support we found in friends and loved ones, and I’m completely overwhelmed once again by all the nitty-gritty pieces of information that had to fit together to make the adoption happen. I’m full of praise for the God who created my beautiful little girl, and I rejoice that she sleeps peacefully in her yellow bedroom just a few feet from where I type.

As I share our story, I can’t help but look forward and wonder what God is preparing for our future. We would love to have more children. For now, we pray and wait. Just like we prayed and waited four years ago.

I could take pictures of eggs all the live long day. In the second shot, I placed my favorite dyed egg on the windowsill and asked Liv to give me her favorite one. As you can tell, her “baby bird” was already “hatching”.

If you’re going to the market to buy some juice
You’ve got to bring your own bags and you learn to reduce your waste
And if your brother or your sister’s got some cool clothes
You could try them on before you buy some more of those
Reuse, we’ve got to learn to reuse
And if the first two R’s don’t work out
And if you’ve got to make some trash
Don’t throw it out
Recycle, we’ve got to learn to recycle

[3 R’s by Jack Johnson, Curious George soundtrack]

There’s a fine line between hoarding and recycling, and I’m relieved to report that we ended up on the recycling side after finally making a trip to one of Lincoln’s many recycling bin locations. We’ve recycled pop cans for a long time, but that’s only because our neighbor faithfully collects and returns them for cash. In vain I believed I need a beautiful recycling system, one that fit in with my kitchen decor (LOL). Finally Jeremy pushed us to recycle and off we went, with Jeremy often rescuing items I had thoughtlessly tossed in the trash.

By the time we had created Mount Trash (in the pic above), I was amazed by how much of our trash we could recycle. Newspapers, cardboard boxes, plastic bottles, even plastic pill bottles, milk cartons, mixed paper, so on and so forth. We still need to purchase more black bins from Target, but now we’re well on our way in this little venture of the 3 R’s.

**Note to parents: The Jack Johnson Curious George album quoted above is fantastic listening for entire families. It’s the only CD checked out from the library that I really wished I owned. And soon, thanks to Amazon.com, I will own it. : )

Livia’s been entertained for an extraordinary amount of time by her basket full of dyed eggs. Sitting on the bottom step of the stairs, she’s been coddling them and whispering sweet nothings to her “baby birds.” Knowing the potential pitfalls, I allowed her to take her babies into quiet time (her hour of playtime in her room). A few minutes ago I peeked my head in, smelled an eggy odor, and was informed that one of her babies had hatched. No, really? The eggs have been unrefrigerated for 5 or so hours now so I was a bit worried when I couldn’t locate the entire hard-boiled egg. And then Liv told me she ate the “oke.”

“You mean, the yoke?” I said.

“No, the OKE.”

“It’s yoke.”

“Oh, okay.”

Oke, yoke, whatever. Hopefully I don’t see it again later.

One of my favorite aspects of this year is Liv’s language development. I get ridiculous amounts of joy over the way she combines words and uses language in general. This morning she kept talking about a show with a boy and his rabbit; Jeremy correctly identified it as “Velveteen Rabbit.” A little while later Liv was talking about the Valentino’s rabbit and I couldn’t help but smile. Only a Nebraska kid would say that…

We’ve experienced a few miscommunications as well. For Valentine’s Day I helped Livia create huge cards for her teachers, one which in large letters read, “MRS. COLE.” It was only last week that another preschool mom told me about something Miss Nicole said. Oh. Miss Ni-cole. Hm.

And finally, on St. Patrick’s Day I woke Liv up and told her she should wear green to school. We dug through her drawers and came up with a blue vest that had a green zipper and stitching. Later on I asked her to tell Jeremy why she was wearing that vest. “Because it’s cold outside,” she very nonchalantly explained. It took some prompting before she told him about “Saints of Patricks Day.” Nice.

The truth about me is that I feel like I deserve a medal for doing many things… mowing the lawn, cleaning Liv’s little potties, making a great dinner. Ridiculous and petty, but there it is. We all do mundane tasks everyday without any kudos and I’m aware of that. Nonetheless, unwinding last night via blogging and chocolate? Good stuff. Thanks to the other parents who commented. I know I’m not alone in the realm of Target Tantrums.

The truth about parenthood is that it’s hard business. Dirty business. Business for tough people who have soft hearts. Soft people with tough hearts just won’t cut it in this line of work. When I reflect on the most gratifying experiences of my life, I find that they all involve hard work. When you roll up your sleeves and pour yourself into a project, you find that much more joy in the results. Perhaps that’s why, every evening after Liv’s asleep, I think of her little round face on her pillow, complete with two fingers in her mouth, and I fall in love with her all over again.

Someone pin a frickin’ medal on me. Seriously. I just stepped out of Super Target with the most ill-behaved three year old in history and I feel like I deserve a reward for surviving the battle without losing my cool.

It was all planned out. A shopping trip with the added enticement of a Shrek popsicle for good behavior. When we walk into the store Liv is in fine spirits. But soon her bad-store-self starts coming out… First she wants to open and close a Rubbermaid organizer with clasps too tight for her hands to control. (Translation: She begins shrieking each time she can’t open or close the lid, thus flustering me as I search for decongestants and cough suppressants in the pharmaceutical section.) So I begin to speed up my shopping; I whip through the condiments aisle for honey, then head for dairy creamer at a clipped pace. Somewhere around the aisles of paper goods, Livia begins to open the honey jar—ack, can you imagine the mess?!—and is sternly warned against peeling off the inner seal. Then starts the back and forth of disobedience regarding the honey. At this point, I’ve successfully found the creamer and am now in a rapid-fire hunt for chocolate, which will be consumed out of necessity one minute after Livia’s bedtime. Now the real fit, complete with loud dramatic shrieks of pain, commences. I couldn’t help but reflect on the ridiculous irony of Liv, stretched out in the grocery cart, complaining that there is TOO MUCH FOOD IN THE CART, I CAN’T GET COMFORTABLE!! If she had maintained one lick of rational thought I might have explained that the cart is for food, not her big-almost-four-year-old body, but alas…

So I’m finally at the checkout lanes, ignoring with all my might the full-on tantrum taking place in my red cart. The folks behind me seem to be gasping in horror at the freak show we’re putting on and I resist the urge to make a wise crack about how this is a good reminder to use birth control only because they look to be beyond birth control years anyhow. My self-awareness escalates and I do actually want to crawl into a hole due to embarrassment, but I’m determined to play it cool and ignore my child’s fit. The young cashier has the audacity to wish me a good day and I escape through the front door to the sound of my daughter sobbing dramatically, “I want to be a GOOD girl!” Truly, she knows what’s coming.

The bomb drops. This time, it’s from my lips.

“No Shrek popsicle for you. And when we get home, you’re going straight to bed.”

Now, about that medal…

Jeremy and I were watching a movie, one I hesitated to watch because I find Cameron Diaz beautiful but quite annoying, and during one particular scene Jeremy found great inspiration. This little maneuver always gets big laughs from the crowd (the crowd being Livia of course). The shot of Liv is the only one that wasn’t blurry, but to get her real mood, imagine those little lips opening up into a huge belly laugh. Her Daddy cracks. her. up!

I feel like it’s been a crazy-three-year-old kind of week, the kind where I’m ready to collapse into bed shortly after she does. I’ve had a few days where choices varied from “should I rest or bathe?” to “should I go to bible study or clean the house?” The remedies for a tired and cranky mama have certainly perked up the week though. The joys include beautiful warm afternoons where a wee bit of gardening refreshed my soul, coffee and conversation with friends, movies like Dan in Real Life where I don’t have to think too hard but can laugh out loud, and chats about books and life with my husband. Oh, and there’s this:

After rubbing her head fiercely against my stomach, Livia informed me that her friend Halle at school “do dat” and “it cracked. me. up. [followed by great laughter].” I wasn’t aware Liv knew that vernacular, which in turn cracked me up!

Yesterday Bobby (one of Liv’s quints) was taken for a walk and we needed coats to ward off the chill. Today it was Nanny’s turn and we stripped down to short sleeves. Hallelujah–spring is on its way!