The Bowcut Bulletin: February 2010

My backside is glued to the chair. I will not get up off this chair until this post is complete. Evidently, blogging has fallen to the back burner. Actually, to the back of the back burner. Seems like my burners are full these days, and the front burner is consumed by one little morsel of Lucy Claire protoplasm.

And I know that when my sister Jen asks me when I’m going to update the blog, it’s definitely time to update the blog. She is the great ANTI when it comes to blogging, facebook, twitter-social IT networking. She can’t stand to use her precious time connecting with all of us socially-starved computer addicts. No, really, I don’t know many people busier than my sister, so if she’s going to actually go through the trouble of spending 3.5 seconds to bring up my bookmarked blog page (I did her the favor of bookmarking it on my last visit to Oregon) on her computer, it should at least be updated. So like I said, I’ve been a little busy. But my long blogging absence has paid off--take a look at me now:

Between re-claiming my pre-pregnancy body and doing photo shoots with my three girls there just hasn’t been time left for blogging. Actually, I just love finding people who have as much pink in their life as me.

The adjustment to three dependents has been surprisingly difficult. Or perhaps what has been difficult is having a baby and a 2-year old. This is new territory for me. Samantha figured out pretty quickly that when I’m on the couch nursing, the house is fair game. She locked me out of the bathroom the other day so that she could clean out the bathroom storage closet. Or she’ll disappear quietly into her and Ella’s room to ransack Ella’s drawer of lipgloss and nail polish. And I have re-gained my skill of nursing and getting kids a snack or wiping up a mess with one hand. Brian commented that motherhood quickly conditions women to be great multi-taskers as he watched me eating lunch with one hand, reading the newspaper and nursing at the kitchen table. I have long argued that women are supremely better multi-taskers than men, and so perhaps Brian has identified the root cause. So since Lucy’s birth, much has occurred at the Bowcut home. I'm a little embarassed that this is all so outdated, but at this point, I figure I need to get it down as a matter of record keeping.

Christmas was delightful (I told you this was old news). I looked forward to it more this year than in past years. Having Lucy come two weeks beforehand was so wonderful. I was forced to have most of the Christmas preparations completed before her birth (though I will admit some things did fall by the wayside—you may have noticed the Bowcut Christmas card did not happen this year) and recovering from a C-section left me no choice but to sit back and enjoy my baby and family. There is a palpable reverence in having a new little baby in your home during Christmas. My heart was overwhelmed with happiness and gratitude for my husband and children in our comfortable home. I truly could not have been happier.

Leaving a note to Santa--written WITHOUT help this year:

Coming down the stairs Christmas morning:

A few days before Christmas, Brian took Ella on a date to see the Nutcracker downtown.

She was in heaven getting dressed up and going to the ballet alone with her Dad, knowing that that is MY most favorite thing to do with Brian. (SO glad I married a man who will go to the ballet with me.) But going to the ballet with my Dad is one of my favorite childhood memories, so it thrills me to see the beginnings of that tradition in my own little family.

Christmas and a new baby also means family comes to town. We had Cousinfest 2009 when my brother David and his family came. Four Caylor girls means hours of endless fun. My sister and her daughter Lauren joined the fun the day after Christmas, which meant we had 8 girl cousins, with 4 of them all being 6 years old. Ella and Samantha were entertained non-stop. Outings included: going sledding, the Kennedy Center for a play (a special date with their Grandma and Grandpa Munk), the movies and swimming pool.

My sister Jen and her daughter Lauren arrived the day after Christmas. The main purpose of her visit was to be of help after Lucy’s birth. She did a similar thing after Samantha’s birth and there is no one who can take care of you like your sister. I fully recognize that it is a sacrifice on the part of her whole family, as her husband stayed behind in Oregon to hold down the fort there with their other two kids. Jen knew what needed to be done around my house and did it. She cooked, she cleaned, did laundry, changed sheets, etc. etc. Ella and Samantha were so well entertained, that Brian and I had special time together with Lucy. Any time my sister would like to come and take care of my family, she is more than welcome. THANK YOU, JEN!

Brian’s parents also came to meet their new little granddaughter. The girls adore their Utah grandparents and of course having two talented parents-in law, I wasn’t about to let them sit around and enjoy themselves. They get put to work at our house! Brian and his Dad hung new shutters on the house and wired a new outlet in the girls’ bathroom. Of course, trial and error is often the name of the game when those two work together, so there is a bit of patching to do, but at least there is a functional GFI outlet. Rhonda got put to work in the sewing department—she hemmed my new living room drapes and then made a matching roman shade for the side door with the extra panel I bought. This was unchartered territory for her, but she conquered it indeed. And then the doll clothes…oh, the doll clothes. Rhonda made Ella oodles of new clothes for her American Girl dolls. These dolls have nicer clothes than I do.

Lucy’s blessing. The blessing days of my girls are some of my favorite days. In our church, in the first few months of a child’s life, a father gives a blessing, or rather a prayer, expressing gratitude for the new baby and asking for a series of blessings he wishes to be given to his little one, i.e. good health, spiritually grounded, education, etc. Brian’s blessing was beyond beautiful. Each of my girls has a beautiful blessing dress made by one of their Grandma’s—this one was made by my Mom and it is exquisite.

The yellow blessing shawl was crocheted by my Grandmother, who passed away last year. It was used for the blessings of all three girls. How lucky we were to have both sets of Grandparents for the blessing, my Aunt Kristin and Uncle Bruce, our dear friends the Jensens, Kebbies and Leslie Brownlee.

Isn't it funny how you have your first child, and you just think life couldn't be any crazier? You feel so totally and completely overwhelmed, knowing your life is forever changed. I look at this picture of us on Lucy's big day with one child and think, how did I ever think this was chaotic or stressful?

And then...

I tasted life with three.

And then you come to terms with the fact that that perfect picture just isn't going to happen. But somehow, life has never felt more complete.

Speaking of pictures, getting pictures of the girls has been a monumental challenge--as you might imagine given the above photos.. We hired a photographer to come take pictures of the girls for 1) a Christmas card (that obviously didn't happen) and 2) a birth announcement (stay tuned). The photographer thought he would be here for 1.5 hours, and bless his heart, he was here for 4. Samantha becomes a screaming banshee devil child the second she sees a camera. With a lot of tears, bribes, change of outfits, messy clean-ups (Lucy sans diaper=bad news) we were downright exhausted by the end. We managed a few cute ones, but Samantha may not be photographed again until she’s 18.

We were fortunate to ring in the New Year with the Kirwans. Ella stayed up for the first time until midnight with her friends. I didn’t think she’d make it, but she hung in there! We had a great time, and I’m happy to report that I bid 2009 good-bye with my first Settler’s of Cattan victory against the Kirwans!

I’ve already caught you up to speed on the deluge of snow in DC, but it happened to overlap with my Mom’s surprise 60th birthday celebration in Florida. My stepdad flew my Mom to Florida for what she thought was a birthday get-away for the two of them. When to her surprise, at dinner that night, she walked into the restaurant to see all 7 of her children sitting there. We had a really fun weekend together visiting, eating, going to Universal Studios and Cirque de Soleil (actually Lucy and I didn’t make the show).

A few notes about the weekend:

a) When the Munks and the Caylors get together, we are a bit of an organizational nightmare. As my brother Dan said, "I learned that with this family you better eat as much as you can at each meal cause you never know when your next meal is going to be." It generally took us a long time to get organized enough to go anywhere.

b) We are all old. Since we didn't have to accommodate the demands of children this trip, we could focus on just the adult rides/attractions at Universal Studios. Rollercoasters made us sick.

c) My siblings are a lot of fun to have around. We are spread out all over the country so it doesn't happen often enough. It was a treat to be together without the demands of kids and enjoy each other.

I feel relieved to be somewhat caught up now. Brian and I are still settling into being the parents of three—and to see Ella and Samantha grow closer as they get older. In fact, the other day when we sent Ella to the top of the stairs for a time-out, we noticed a few minutes later, Sam happily sitting next to her sharing the time-out. We couldn’t help but laugh and photograph the moment.

And so…my hope is that now that we're past the hard first 3 months of a newborn, I’ll be more motivated to blog more regularly. Life has marched on, and there are still things to blog about. But one thing that has stayed constant, is that these girls are growing up way too fast.

A catch-up post to cover the last 2 months is in the works, but when something as ridiculous as the record breaking snow that hit DC occurs, that post will have to wait another day or so. Both the federal government and the school system have been shut down for the week, so we have had lots of family time, which has for the most part been nice, but we're definitely suffering from cabin fever. I've been a bit grumpy today, which I have tried hard to remedy after Ella had my camera and caught some candid pics that I didn't see until I was uploading pics on the computer today. They have been deleted, but there's something about having children that reflects all your glaring imperfections right back at you. But I digress.

Points of interest about the storm:

1. I went to Orlando, FL this past weekend for my Mom's birthday celebration, catching one of the last flights out of DC on Friday before the storm hit. Of course my return flight was cancelled on Sunday, so my parents and I took matters into our own hands, rented a car and drove two days to get home before the next storm hit on Tuesday. Our neighbors, who have been down there at Disney for the past week, were also scheduled to come home Sunday, and couldn't get another flight until this coming Friday. Ella is anxiously awaiting the return of her friend Nora.

2. The Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang kept us amused throughout the mess. They theatrically coined last weekend's 2 feet storm as "Snowmaggedon" and yesterday's storm of an additional 1 foot was deemed "Snowverkill". Other terms such as "snowverwhelming" have been thrown around. One thing I love about DC is that it has a great sense of humor. If you haven't seen the Post's Peep's Diorama contest at Easter time, take some time to laugh. Or have you ever been part of a sing-a-long while jammed with thousands of other strangers in a metro station after the downtown 4th of July fireworks? The comments on the CWG's blog left us chuckling.

3. If there's one thing a little bit of snow does to Washingtonians is cause panic en masse. And when you get a lot of snow, imagine the horror. Tuesday morning I went to pick up a few things at the grocery store after having been gone the whole weekend and before the next storm hit. Not surprisingly, I joined hundreds of others in the store who were cleaning it out the best they could. Here's a snapshot of the produce section.

4. Brian has spent hours digging us out of the storm. He has bonded with the neighbors and the lack of older children outside helping created firm ideas about the work ethic he plans to instill in his daughters. I'm glad the storms created an opportunity for such enlightenment.

5. We're bored. There are only so many games to play, movies to watch, times to put snow gear on and off (plus the snow is way too deep for quality play), crafts to do before your head starts to spin. This is what we've been reduced to.