The Climber...

She has a will, and she'll find a way...

... she spots her motivation (in the form of chocolate)...

... and goes in for the attack.

She would be why I don't ever get anything done.

The Bachelor

So I walk in the door from work and Whitney grabs the camera to show me a picture she took earlier in the day. I'm expecting a cute shot of Tess. Or Chase making a silly face. Maybe even a picture of Trey losing another loose tooth. Instead, it was the latest work of our eldest bachelor, Jack.

She didn't need to explain the picture. To know Jack is to know that this is his mind at work. I haven't asked him why he did this, and I won't. I prefer to just consider the possibilities.....

• Lazziness? -- obviously not. Way more work to make the note
• Sarcasm? -- doubtful. Not sure he understands the concept, yet
• Helpfulness? -- Whitney says no!
• Hygeine? -- strong possibility. Dirty underwear devastates him

In the end, I like to think he just applied what few man-law concepts he has learned (and probably observed, regretfully) and left himself a reminder for when he needs his next clean pair. Sort of genius, I think. He's well on his way to becoming an excellent bachelor.

Spring cleaning can be so emotional...

Ok, not really. It's actually quite refreshing. Tyler switched our garage over from Winter to Spring yesterday, which meant storing the snow blower, removing the dead mice that we didn't realize we'd caught, and clearing out the junk that had accumulated over the past few cold months. Tyler is an organizational genius, so it involved way more than that, but you get the idea (and now I'm off the hook if he actually reads this!).

Part of that junk? This old highchair. Almost nine years old to be exact. Tess recently moved into a booster seat, and we were happy to regain our floor space that the high chair has occupied, every day, since 2001.

Wow, we've been doing this baby thing for a long time.

I'm really anti-clutter. Trust me when I say that I love a good purging. And I'm even okay with getting rid of this baby stuff. I've dealt with those emotions already, and it feels good to love where we are in this stage of life. But as I packed up the high chair for good, I do have to say that I got a little emotional.

Four babies have eaten in this thing, from their first bites of rice cereal, to learning how to use a fork for the first time.

I've scrubbed crayon and paint off the tray more times than I can remember.

I've depended on it, combined with a trusty Baby Einstein video, as a means to get my shower many mornings.

I've ordered replacement cover after replacement cover from Graco to keep it going all these years.

And every once in a while, when I was busy cleaning up lunch, I would find a baby who couldn't hold out for naptime any longer...

... fast asleep.

Thankful for this man...

Tyler has been putting in some longer hours at work since the new hospital opened last week. Not as much as some dads have to put in on a regular basis, but enough that our kids have noticed. Since Tyler works the 1:30pm-10:00pm shift this weekend, we're on our own much of the day (I know the evening shift is only eight hours long, just the same as the day shift, so why, oh why, does it seem twice as long?!). The kids and I took advantage of the beautiful weather this afternoon and rode bikes and played outside, then ventured to Target, Arby's and the car wash tonight. Have I told you lately how much Tess despises the car wash? Woah. Anyway, fancy Saturday night, I know, but we were so giddy about the 50 degrees that it didn't matter where we went, as long as we spent it in and out of the sunshine.

On the way home Trey announced - in typical Trey/drama fashion - that he missed his dad. A lot. Then he went on about how it wasn't fair that the hospital was making him work all day when his kids were not in school and it was nice outside. How dare they! That got Jack going, and before I knew it, all three boys had joined in and together had come to the conclusion that Tyler should quit his job. Um... boys?!

So we talked the whole way home about how God has given Daddy this job and that we should be so very thankful for it. I tried to give a kid-sized version of the state of the economy, just to let them know that we will NOT complain about how God provides for our family, when so many others are without jobs.

Then we talked about their dad, and what a hard worker he is. Jack brought up the fact that he's helping sick people when he's away from us. Trey commented on how smart he is. And Chase, sweet Chase, wanted us all to know that Daddy shoots off rockets from the pharmacy, and when the rockets come back, they have suckers in them (um, I think he's getting the tube systems from the pharmacy and the bank a little mixed up!). I talked about how Daddy doesn't want to be away from us either, but he gladly goes to work to provide for our family ("Okay boys, start naming things that you have that cost money. Do you know where that money comes from?").

And Tess? Well, she's just glad to be done with the car wash.

All of that to say that we're thankful for this man who works so hard and sacrifices so much for us. I wish Tyler could have heard our conversation today, and how passionate these boys are about their daddy.

It's always good to find out that you've been missed.

Haircut time!

Ah, welcome March! For February being the month of love, we weren't exactly feelin' it with a surgery, a week long flu and the insanity of the opening of a new hospital. Good times. But who wants to dwell on that when we could be talking about a girl with a new 'do?!

This is Tess before her monumental first haircut a couple of weeks ago. It was long overdue, I must say. The mullet was winning, plain and simple. You can admit it along with me... I'm secure like that. :)

The problem is that the front of her hair just doesn't grow at the same pace as the back of her hair. Why this happens, I have no idea. So we waited and waited for her bangs to grow out, and they never did.

Thin, uneven, and a mullet on steroids.

When Tyler and I were broke and in college and just friends (don't fight me on this), he asked me to cut his hair. And even though I had never cut anyone's hair in my life, I agreed. Because that might have just been one more good excuse to hang out with him when I should have been studying. So we went to Wal-Mart and bought some clippers. We skipped watching the instructional video because how-hard-can-it-be-anyway, and I gave him the worst home-done haircut in the history of wanna-be dating couples. No lie.

But he lived through it, and even asked me to do it again (it would take three haircuts to get his money's worth for the clippers). Eventually I got better, and I've been cutting his hair ever since. Every month for the past sixteen years.

And I only forgot the clipper guard once. Impressive, huh?

So now three other boys get the privilege of meeting me in the master bathroom once a month for our salon dates.

Jack: Clippers in back and longer on top, being careful to cut very evenly, since his very straight hair is not very forgiving if you get it wrong. Style with molding clay for that dry, messy look.*

Trey: Clippers all over and keep it super, super short, or his coarse, thick hair will go into Chia-Pet mode. Style with Crew gel with a spike in the front. Oh, and don't forget to shave the uni-brow.*

Chase: Attempt the surfer look with a scissor cut only, and wonder every time if I really know what I'm doing. Feed him M & M's throughout the cut since it takes much, much longer than it should due to my cluelessness.*

*Repeat monthy until they get a clue that there may actually be cooler options out there other than their Mom...

(Our cute little beautician, who was probably 18 and had - literally - 15 brothers and sisters!

You don't think she feels smothered, do you?!)

So anyway, you can imagine my insecurity when it came to girl hair. I just couldn't cut it myself. She needed a style, not some best-guess attempt. So off to Cookie Cutters we went, and asked for the cutest little bob we could get for $9.99. Never a tear, thanks to the horn that beeped on her chair, and a sweet little video. I, however, was completely overbearing and annoying (hey, I'm a fake beautician, dontchaknow)...

Bobbed (and stacked!) in the back, and angled so it's longer in the front. Super cute!

What kid could not be completely distracted in this crazy place?!

We celebrated our first of many girl spa days with lunch at McCalister's afterwards. I originally thought we would go short on her hair just until her bangs grow out, but now I'm loving the look. We may just have to keep it (it kind of goes with her spunky attitude, I must say)!

It's beginning to get complicated, folks...

We were getting a little too comfortable with all of this pink in our house. And then it happened...

This babydoll might never be the same again.

Reason #7 why girls are more complicated than boys:

Babydolls have hair. Spiderman doesn't.

And I hear it only gets worse...

Keepin' it simple...

We've been a little out of commission this week, due to a certain momma and one long overdue surgery. But thankfully, after birthing four very large babies, all of my organs are happily back where they belong. For now anyway. I'm sure you're glad to know that. And just so you know too, I have one awesome Mom and one simply amazing husband who took care of those very large babies this week. God is good. So, check that off the list, please.

The moral of the story? I'm not 18 anymore.

Or 29 for that matter.

And guess what else?

Tess likes frozen peas.

This is one crazy profound post.

Keepin' it simple around here this week...

Stable Jack...

I was sorting through pictures tonight and ran across this one from Jack's 8th birthday party. It made me stop in my tracks for some reason. At first I thought it was because he's not wearing his glasses. Then I realized how old and tall he looks. I smiled too at the thought of him losing his grown-up, academic self for the party... how I loved watching him actually act his age: carefree and full of energy. I tried to wrap my mind around his new relationship with deodorant and his desire to take morning showers instead of nighttime baths. My boy is growing up.

I admired this group of eight-year old school friends, and wondered who he would be hanging out with when he's fifteen. And what kind of influences they would be to him, and he to them. Then that got me thinking about his conviction over lyrics of a song on the school bus this week, and my phone call to the bus driver that followed.

Friends, choices, convictions, growing up. Then I decided to stop thinking.

I don't write so much about Jack on the blog, I've noticed. It's not that there's not a lot going on with him, or that I don't follow him as closely. It's just that he's...

stable.

Obviously not without some habits that need some continued, clear training. He's far from perfect. But I'm really enjoying him and his stableness. He has a clear sense of who he is and what's expected of him. He's able to do so many things on his own, and requires less direction than the other three. We have intelligent, meaningful conversations on everything from computer games to God. He still tells me everything. He wants to help me cook dinner.

He was three once, and not so stable. And trust me, when he wasn't stable, neither was I. Who knows which came first, but God used that time to teach both of us a lot about ourselves. And now, just this week, I've told his story twice to two weary moms (to guess what... three year olds!). And I was able to encourage them that eventually, with lots of discipline, consistency, patience, prayer, and grace, God can take a three year old...

and make him stable.

At least for this week (sometimes I leave that part out...heh.).

Change, take two...

Alright ya'll, I took the plunge.

Again.

At least momentarily.

You know how I am with change and all.

I took a little visit here, and looked for anything that didn't have flowers, buttons, or lace (Hey, if your blog has those things, I'm cool with that, but you know boring ol' me...).

This time it might just last for longer than an hour. At least so I can justify what I did during the kids' naptime today.

So, with that little confession out of my system, I'm off to start dinner prep. So it looks like I accomplished something of importance... you know... when I should have been working.

Winter boy fun!

Chase cannot wait for the big boys to get home from school so they can join him outside!

My most common intervention phrase: "Not in the face, boys!"

Sliding down the driveway (if you've been to our house, you know why this is a favorite!)... One awesome dad to the rescue... Jack asked for this!

This is why dads go outside, while mommas stay in with the baby to cook dinner...

How many boys in that pile? FOUR!

Dinner and hot chocolate will be waiting inside!

Quick...

How many boys can you count in this picture?

Have I told you lately

how much fun

it is

having

boys?!

The answer, and more snow pics to come!

Haiti

Not sure how to start this post... so much in my head and on my heart with regards to the situation in Haiti. I can't do one thing throughout the day without the pictures of devastation flooding my mind.

I think of the dark, sad eyes of rubble-covered, filthy orphans when I wipe my baby's face.

I scrape the extra food off of her highchair and think of their hunger.

I cringe at a paper cut and then remember their wounds. Their pain.

I climb into my comfortable bed and pray for them to be able to sleep, somehow, under the stars.

I long for a moment of peace in the midst of a chaotic house of six, and think of those who long to have their loved ones back.

I get overwhelmed with the clutter of toys, while they yearn for the basic necessities of life.

I'm taken back to 1995, when I stood in that very city. When life was much simpler and mercy seemed to come more quickly for me. My mind wasn't cluttered with the things of this world as much. At least not that week of Spring Break, when I got to witness for the first time what life - and poverty - was like outside of my small college world.

While I was working my tail off to avoid taking out student loans, people were starving to death.

A good friend named Tyler Daugherty was on that trip too. We sat on the steps outside our apartment building together each night, listening to the Voodoo chants of the neighboring village. We sat in pure darkness; no electricity since the generators had already shut down for the night. He would play guitar. We would sing a little, then pray a little. And wonder how a place - a people - that was so lost, could ever find God.

And now, all these years and an earthquake later, I'm thankful that it's God who does the finding.

My kids are asking questions. And I don't have all the answers. So we go to His Word, and we find hope. From Psalm 46:

"God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way

and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,

though its waters roar and foam

and the mountains quake with their surging..."

"...Be still and know that I am God;

I will be exalted among the nations,

I will be exalted in the earth."

Not that this crisis is about me, but God is doing a work in me because of it. He is answering my prayers and my pleading for His Word to come alive to me in a fresh, new way. I want to long for it like I did on those Haitian steps almost fifteen years ago. Overwhelmed with grief and the guilt of my selfishness, I sat on my bathroom floor last week during nap time with tears streaming down my face, soaking up the Psalms as I read them aloud. God met me there. And His Word did come alive.

It had been too long.

I sat a few nights ago on my bed, grabbed hands and formed a circle with my husband and three boys, and one by one, we lifted up the people of Haiti to the One who is our "ever-present help." There hasn't been a sweeter night since. These boys continue to pray - even Chase - who asks God to please help "her (Haiti) to feel better."

I watched today as Jack and Trey raided their Ziploc bags full of lost-teeth-and-birthday-money. They marked separate tithe envelopes "for Haiti," and stuffed their money in - in a most unorganized way. Later tonight we sat and looked at pictures of Haiti online, and Jack, convicted and full of compassion, brought down another dollar. Their $19 dollars seems so trite, but for the work it is doing in their hearts, priceless.

I don't want to forget all of this a week from now. When I've had little sleep and my patience is not what it should be. I want to be changed.

Don't you?

He changes lives. The very God who created the universe. Who even allowed a massive earthquake to fulfill His plan and purpose.

He'll meet you where you are. Even if it's a bathroom floor.

If you'll let Him.

Still three...

When he's not making you laugh hysterically, he's making you plain tired. But his prayers are pretty sweet lately. Things like:

Please help Jesus and God to feel better.

Please help Pa to feel better. But he already feels better. But please help him to feel better.

Please help me to obey my mom and dad. And oh yeah... and Jesus.

Thank you we had a great daaaayyyyy.

Thank you for my beautiful singing.

Help me to eat my lunch fast so I don't have to go to the porch...

:)

Thanks for asking...

...about this girl. I thought you all deserved an update on Tess's health - since we kind of left you hanging and all. We really appreciate how many of you have asked how she's doing!

For those who weren't aware, we've been trying to figure this girl out for quite some time. All Fall and early Winter, Tess battled constant high fevers and sickness. We wrote the first few fevers off and figured it was just the flu, but after several recurrences, we started to wonder if something else might be up. Lots of miserable days and symptoms later, she was diagnosed with a urinary infection.

Although not common in children anyway, UTI's are always a red flag for something bigger in our house. All of our kids have a one in three chance of having urinary reflux. Jack introduced us to the condition when he was three months old, and he had bladder/ureter surgery when he was four to correct it.

Anyway...

Tess was tested (now that's a mouth full!) for reflux just before Christmas, and the VCUG and ultrasound both came back normal. Great news! Except for the fact that she continued to have symptoms randomly. It has been hard to rule out reflux completely with this being the case.

So, the latest is this: we're a little perplexed! We are going with the VCUG findings that there is no indication of reflux. That being said, in the words of our pediatrician, we also have a "low threshold" for any kind of symptoms. What does that mean? Any time we suspect an infection, we cath her.

Guess how many times she's been cathed in the last four weeks?

Four. Ugh.

One foot through our doctor's front door, and this girl goes into a rage!

I will say that she has seemed more comfortable the last couple of weeks. Minus one of her ear tubes falling out and the ear infection that we thought was an ear infection.

That wasn't. Geesh.

Well, that only leaves one other option. She has to be getting a tooth. We moms are famous for blaming lots of mysterious behavior on getting teeth, aren't we? :)

(Tyler told me once that our kids ought to have at least a couple hundred teeth for all of the times I thought they were getting one. Funny guy.)

Oh well, give 'em Tylenol anyway, I say.

Couldn't hurt.

How's that for an answer? :)

Slacker parents...

... didn't get too many shots from Christmas this year. Not because we don't place recording memories for our children high on our priority list. We do. But don't check my baby books for evidence of that just quite yet.

There are hardly any pictures because we most likely had a child in our lap, or a gift in our lap, or a child opening a gift in our lap.

Or maybe we were chasing after small children, making sure they weren't in harm's way. You know, in direct shot of the 50 brand new Nerf bullets simultaneously flying across the room from all directions.

We might have been scurrying to pick up chocolate candies spilled out of stockings, before a certain one-year-old had them all crammed in her mouth, with chocolate dripping down onto her shirt. And probably somewhere else that I haven't found. Yet.

Not that that happened or anything.

(Check out my two cute sisters in the background... aren't they adorable?!)

There's a good chance we were fetching batteries. Or explaining why we didn't have the right size batteries. Or untwisting thousands of silver twisties from the backs of toy packages.

Ok, not thousands. But it had to be darn near close to that, didn't it? It could have been that we were looking for small parts to toys that were opened just 2 minutes prior. It's a tricky thing keeping track of miniature action figure guns, tiny Lego pieces, and baby doll pacifiers in the never ending sea of wrapping paper.

Anybody knows that. (Tip: check first in the one-year-old's mouth.)

There's the gift admiring to do. And that takes time. And attention. And conversation.

Times four.

But most of all, there are hugs to be given, excitement to be shared.

Smiles and eye contact and interest poured out to every one of our four precious gifts.

Sometimes, you have to put the camera away, and just take it all in...

Four Christmases and a birthday later...

I'm back, but barely. We're still in catch-up mode around here after all of the holiday hoop-la. It was nuts this year, I'm gonna have to admit. Exciting and heart-warming to see such wonder on the boys' faces, and just plain nuts with Tess. She's work, man. Especially in strange places, with no naps, and no baby gates. But she's cute, that thing.

Ok, moving on...

This was year number seven of overcompensating for Trey since his birthday falls so close to Christmas. His day is the 20th, which is at least better than his 24th due date. Oh, I can remember the Christmas he was born so clearly. We got the doc to sign us out of the hospital early so we could go home and celebrate Christmas with my family the day after he was born. We ordered pizza, everyone came to us, and we passed around the worst flu ever with my entire extended family. What memories! And then we nicknamed this sweet new baby "Tax-break Trey," since he was so gracious to join us before the end of the year.

He's seven now, and I'm tellin' you what, this kid melts me. All he has to do is smile, and nothing else seems to matter. The best part of Christmas break this year was spending time with this boy who is literally transforming before my eyes. God is doing a work in him, I can tell. So many things I've noticed in the last few weeks, but I have to share what happened the other day...

Chase is late in finishing up his lunch, as usual, so is sitting at the counter by himself when he accidentally tips over a VERY full glass of milk. It goes everywhere: all over the counter, dripping down the stool, and puddling over a massive area on the floor. I quickly grab some paper towels and inform Chase that he needs to help me clean it up.

Trey must hear what's going on from the other room. He runs in, grabs more paper towel, and gets on the floor and starts to help. I say to him thanks, but no thanks. Chase was the one to spill it, so he can be the one to clean it up.

Trey, with so much compassion on his face, says to me, "Mom, it just doesn't feel right in my heart to keep on playing when you're in here cleaning up. Please let me help too." I hug him tight, whisper in his ear that I see Jesus in him, and we all dive into clean-up together. And we have a blast doing it. Because Trey can make even cleaning up spilled milk fun.

We celebrated at Grandma and Grandpa Fincher's house this year since our whole family was already there for Christmas the day before. He wanted a Monster Truck birthday, and was super-psyched about the cake he picked out online. He got another cake in Cincinnati when we were there for Christmas, and just took birthday treats to school on his first day back from break. See what I mean about over-compensating?

He's worth it.

Definitely worth it.

Sweet, sweet Trey. God knew just what we needed. Love you boy!

Merry Christmas 2009!

A little late, but still merry, nonetheless! No funny (to you, definitely not to me, until much, much later) mishap stories on this post... just a picture that makes us look half-way normal, until you get to know us in real life. :)

Our gracious neighbor took this shot in our back yard on one of those uncharacteristically warm days in late November. We told her she could wait to walk over until after the Colts game was over, and I promised it wouldn't take more than 10 minutes.

Because some of us don't have attention spans any longer than that.

(Cough) Tyler.

But, he was flexible enough to wear a puffer vest, so I have to give him props for that.

Thanks babe. I think you look hot in it, for the record.

On that note, I'm off to join my hot-in-a-puffer-vest husband downstairs for a little Guitar Hero Van Halen.

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!!

The Christmas Tree Hunt Strikes Again...

I should know by now that life with four young children is anything but predictable. But we got a little too confident on this year's trip to the Christmas tree farm. We've been going to the same farm for the past eight Christmases straight, and we thought we had our little routine down pat.

Now, we've had our minor bumps in the road in years past. There have been freezing children, starving infants who must go back to the van with momma to eat, the time we almost lost a boy or two between the rows of trees, and who could forget the year that the pregnant momma peed her pants? Ahem. But nothing that has taken away from the thrill of the hunt as a family.

Until this year.

(Look closely to see a brother about to get tackled. This actually makes me smile... such real life, and we caught it on film!)

The day was gorgeously warm and we had just finished a wonderful breakfast as a family at Bob Evans. I love that place. The half-and-half in the tiny creamer pitcher alone makes me happy. Everyone sat like little angels (a complete miracle in itself) and ate all of their food in record time. They were so good, in fact, that a sweet family at the table next to us commented on their behavior. And said that they could see Jesus in us. Because this has never happened, I know that it's the start of a very good day.

After breakfast we headed out to the farm. Tyler and I drove separately, because from all of our past tree-farm-with-small-children experience, we know that it takes a vehicle for the children and a vehicle for the tree. We're getting good at this.

Or so we thought.

Tyler and the boys headed over for a little hayride down the long lane to the trees. I decided to drive Tess back to the trees in the van. You know, just in case someone got cold, or hungry, or.........decided to vomit their entire breakfast up.

It started with a cough, then a little whimper. And just as I parked the van, there it was. Her breakfast. Covering every inch of her body, the car seat, and the floor of the van.

While I'm van-deep in clean-up mode (and still processing what just happened), Tyler and the boys - with the biggest smiles ever - hopped off the wagon and motioned me to join them. Maybe they missed the naked baby sitting on my lap.

About this time I'm thinking back to breakfast and about that sweet lady's comment. Yes, I should have expected this.

I motion Tyler over and the situation becomes clear. The boys are already almost lost in the trees. I think I might have to go to the bathroom. And somebody needs a bath. Bad.

Tyler gathers the boys, and after some quick problem solving, we decide to let Tyler pick our tree out this year by himself. The boys did catch a tractor ride, so they are surprisingly OK with riding home with me before the tree is cut.

Whichever one it is.

Tyler starts to hug me goodbye, but I stop him just in case I need a bath too, and we both got a good laugh out of that.

Life is never predictable.

But we did get a great tree.

And we still have Jesus, after all.

Thanksgiving firsts...

We were able to celebrate Thanksgiving with Tyler's brother Deric and his wife Jenia at our house this year. We figured out that the last time the brothers were together on Thanksgiving was when Tyler and I lived in Scottsdale the first year we were married, over 12 years ago.

Deric and Jenia just moved from Phoenix back to Indiana in October. We thought maybe a holiday dinner with all the fixin's - plus lots of kids to distract them - might make them forget about all the cold weather they now have to look forward to this winter!

And here's our 25 pound bird! We've been doing our own turkey every year for quite a while now, but this might just be our biggest bird yet! Tyler created one huge menu, and he and I had lots of fun cooking together over a couple of days.

Ah...cooking together.

Something we wish we could do more of... it is such a fun hobby for both of us. Tyler has lots of detailed, creative, gourmet Food Network ideas stored in his head. Some to use now, and some, when we have all kinds of kid-free time. Hmmm... like when we're retired or something.

So, so much to be thankful for.

And all the credit?

To God alone.

Next up? The annual trip to the Christmas tree farm. Ah yes... another "Never a dull moment in the life of the Daughertys" kind of story. Stay tuned. :)

Glimpses of hope...

This fourth one is a clingy one. And that's putting it mildly. Since I'm all for keeping it real, I'll even admit that I almost lost it at small group bible study last night just talking about it. And I don't lose it all that often, in case you didn't already know that. Duh.

You'd think I'd have some mature way of handling this, since numbers one and three were the same way, and we all survived somehow. And then there was Trey. Sweet, simple Trey. Who I forget half of his babyhood because he was just so darn content.

There's no need to bore you with the details. I'm not setting records here or announcing anything new that lots of moms haven't already experienced. But it is a real part of our daily lives. Complimentary at best, and exhausting at it's worst.

So when I spot her playing on her own like this, do I run around as fast as I can accomplishing everything I think about when she is hanging on my leg, crying to be held? Of course not. That would be the smart thing to do.

First, I run for my camera. Seriously, something this rare needs to be documented. I peek in - making sure that she can't spot me (or it's all over) - and marvel at how God gave her to us. I think about how cute she is, and how I love it that she loves books, and I record in my head all of the babbles that come out of her mouth that actually resemble words - just maybe.

I look at the bow in her hair and think about how fun it is to dress a girl and figure out girl hair. I even notice that her mullet isn't quite as noticeable as it was a couple of weeks ago. I smile because I think about my mom saying in the softest, sweetest voice, "Oh dear, her hair looks just like yours did when you were a baby."

I think about her brothers, and how proud they are to have her for a sister. Trey's prayers come to mind; the ones where he thanks God for all of his family members by name, but when he gets to Tess, skips her name and says instead, "my sweet baby sister". And my eyes get watery just thinking about it.

Water.

Toilet water.

Ugh. She loves toilet water.

Do I have time to clean the toilet before she realizes I'm not in the same room?

And then, just as my thirty-second daydream is coming to an end and I'm in toilet-cleaning mode, she looks up. She spots me and smiles, getting ready to crawl my way.

I look away, as if that will magically make me invisible. You know, just until I get my toilet cleaned.

Then I spot the Batman guy eloquently hanging upside down from my blind string.

And just like that, it's back to reality.