4:30- Cole wakes up, as usual.  I nurse him in bed.

5:15- Move Cole up to my pillow (he’s asleep).

5:18- Cole is hogging the pillow.

5:23- Surrender my pillow, my feet are touching the foot board of the bed.  Which reminds me of how much I am looking forward to trading in our double bed for a queen.

5:46- Cole requires cuddling.  I don’t mind.

6:00- I pray and pray and pray that that’s not Nora in the room.

6:01- It is Nora.

6:02- Adam escorts the 3 year old out of the room.  He moves to the couch, convincing the girls to go back in their room.

7:00- Cole wakes up, grabbing fistfuls of my hair.  I begggggg Adam to let me sleep a little longer.

8:00- Feed Cole again

8:30- Adam leaves.  I shower, the girls dress themselves.

8:47- I do my best to explain to Alanna why the hot pink skirt doesn’t match the stripey yellow shirt.  She gives in without to much of a fuss.

9:00- Move the laundry along, fix girls’ hair, brush girls’ teeth.

9:01- Praise God Cole doesn’t have mobility, hair, or teeth.

9:25- Almost ready to go the grocery store.  Finally get Cole dressed.  Girls get their socks and shoes.

9:27- Nora FREAKS out about the toe seam on her socks for the 7 bazillionth time.

10:00- In the car, wondering what happened to the past 30 minutes.

10:10- Arrive at the store. Lots of shopping today as today is day one of, “Operation get rid of postpartum back fat and other flab,” begins today.

10:20- It takes me 10 minutes just to get everyone outside of the car.

10:30- We make our way through the produce department, Cole in the baby sling type thing I own, Nora in the shopping cart, Alanna riding on the side.  I feel like a pack mule.  Alanna gets bags for me and helps pick out fruit and veggies.

10:40- Nora holds a naval orange, saying, “Mommy, this orange is broken!” pointing at the navel part.

10:50- The girls get a free cookie at the bakery.

10:52- I wish it had taken them longer to eat said cookies.

10:58-  Alanna touches everysinglebox of cake mix on the baking aisle, asking if we can buy them.

11:05- I laugh at Nora saying the word, “Schaushage,” instead of, “Sausage.”

11:10- Cole has fallen asleep in the sling.

11:15- A really nice employee goes and brings me dehydrated onion since I can’t find it.

11:20- I make it to the milk and dairy section finally.

11:25- I pace the frozen foods for filo dough.

11:30- runpasttheicecream

11:32- Where IS that filo dough??

11:34- Durn, I forgot part skim mozzarella cheese.

11:35- Filo dough? Try again in a minute.

11:37- Pass by the employee doing a dog food demonstration (???) in front of the cheese section, again.

11:38- Find the cheese.

11:42- I’ve gotta find that filo dough.  Maybe it is in the bakery?

11:43- Not in the bakery.  Pass by dog food demo lady again.

11:44- Ask an employee where the filo dough is, she says, “in the frozen section,” in a tone that communicates that I am a moron.  She takes me there.

11:45- DING DING DING filo dough!!!

11:45:30- Surely wonton wrappers are next to filo dough.  Same girl tells me it is in the produce section on the complete other side of the store.

11:46- Wonton wrappers- CHECK!!!

11:48- Check out- finally!!!

11:50- Really nice bagger takes our groceries to the car and insists on loading them in… he talks to Nora as he pushes the cart out.

11:50:30- I remember how much I love the South.

12:00- Finally leaving the grocery store.

12:10- Home. Everyone in, shoes off put away, haul groceries in.  Nora doesn’t put up a fight when I tell her to go and pee on the potty.

12:11- I start to unload groceries, Nora FREAKS out about the toe seam on her sock for the 7 bazillionth and first time.

12:12- 12:30- I unload groceries and make lunch.  I feel suddenly ADD as I shuffle through doing both tasks at once.

12:30- Lunch time, while I nurse Cole again.  I feel bad that it has been so long since I last fed him, but as usual, he hasn’t complained.  I feel really bad when I drop a piping hot onion from my burrito onto his chubby cheek.  He complains about that. Poor little buddy.

1:00- Clean up after lunch.  The girls have free play.  The goldfish box from Costco entertains them quite nicely.

1:15- Cole and I play on the floor.  I “type emails,” on his tummy while making obnoxious beeping sounds.  He thinks it is hilarious.  I give him lots of hugs and resist the temptation to eat his cheeks.

1:45- Time for Nora and Cole’s naps. Nora goes down without much resistance.  Cole… not so much.

1:55- Nurse Cole again (he has a cold, so I feel bad letting him cry).  I can hear the clink clink of Alanna getting pens out of her art supplies.  I love that she is so artistic and creative.

2:15- Put Cole in his crib and he goes right to sleep.  yessssss.

2:15:30- Alanna is being very creative.

2:16- I have a laundry situation.

2:45- Laundry situation taken care of at the table while I chat with Alanna.

2:45- 3:05- Complete Monday’s house keeping chore of cleaning the bathrooms.

3:05- Alanna and I make a snack- apple strudel (a healthy version… remember, it’s day one of get-rid-of-back-fat mission).  Alanna is actually getting helpful in the kitchen, stirring the apples, sugar, and cinnamon, putting the butter away, etc.

3:20- We put the strudel in the oven.  Alanna thinks it is a present.

3:20- 3:50- Alanna and I do some math games on the computer.  Cole wakes up, quite sad.  😦

4:00- Cole (happy now) sits in the bumbo on the table while me and Alanna eat our strudel.  She doesn’t eat the filo (does she know what I went through to get that filo dough???)- she thinks it is wrapping paper (see 3:20).

4:10- I nurse Cole again while reading, “Horton Hears a Who,” to Alanna.

4:20- I encourage Alanna to tell me what happened in the story once we finish reading it.  She needs some help remembering, but does a pretty good job.

4:30- Alanna asks to go and wake Nora up so that they can play dress up.

4:45- I finish feeding Cole, he does a mini barf on my shoulder.  (Thanks, buddy).  Girls appear all clad in the girliest dress up clothes ever. I am proud of Nora for getting her outfit on all by herself.

5:00- I decide to play the piano for a little bit, explaining to the girls that the piano is my toy and I want to play with it, haha.  Nora says, “Mommy, that’s not a toy, that’s a piano, you silly.”  I love that kid.

5:10- I start playing, everyone is within 2 square feet of my and the piano.  I encourage the olders to go and play.

5:10- 5:40- I play some Prokofiev, and then decide to pull out a Scarlatti piece that I played in high school.  I see my piano teacher’s (from high school, my favorite teacher ever) handwriting and wonder how she is doing.

5:45- I feel bad that I haven’t spent hardly any quality time with Nora today.

5:46- Time to make dinner.  Tell girls to clean up and put their normal clothes back on.  They actually do it.

6:10- 6:40- Dinner.  I feel bad that Cole has been hanging out by himself for so long, even though he’s been happily playing on his little mat right next to me this whole time.

6:40- Nora’s walking on her tip toes which means that I need to make her go and poop.

6:40:30- I clean up dinner while Nora goes poop and Alanna gets ready for bath time.

6:45- I find both girls staring into the toilet.  I look in there and then see why. How can such a little girl… (you get my drift).  I’m sure Nora feels muuuuuuch better now.

6:50- Both girls are in the bath,  Cole is still hanging out on his mat, this time outside the bathroom door.

6:50- 7:00- Girls get bathed.

7:00- 7:10- Cole gets a bath in the baby bath tub that I filled up and set on the bathroom floor before I filled up the big tub.

7:10- 7:20- I get Cole out of the bath, pjs on etc.  Girls clean up their bath toys, get out of the bath, dry themselves off with towel that I laid out, go into their room, pick out pjs and put them on.  Alanna puts towels away.  I am proud of them for being so self sufficient.  But also a little sad that they are growing up so fast.

7:20- Brush girls teeth and comb their hair.  Back on the mat Cole goes.

7:20:30- Praise the Lord Cole doesn’t have mobility, teeth, or hair.

7:30- Nurse Cole while I read Bible story to girls (we all sit on the floor).  We sing songs and pray together.

7:45- Alanna tells me she has good news.  “Mommy, I love you a million gazillion hundred thousand sixty five hundred times.”  That is good news.

7:46- Nora attempts  to tell me the same good news.  That is also good news.

7:46- 8:10- Nurse Cole to very drowsy in his room in the dark.  I think, “this would be a fun day to blog about.”

8:10- Cole is in bed.  I put more laundry in the wash (where DID this laundry come from???), clean up some random toys, including a tangled up slinky and toy cell phone on the couch.  I turn on the olympics and am a little bummed that it is ice dancing again tonight.

8:15- I start this blog post.

8:20- Cole starts screaming.  I wishfully think he’ll just go back to bed.

8:30- Back in Cole’s room, give him one last top up.  I attempt to continue this blog post, which reminds me why I don’t blog much anymore.  The only time I get on the computer is when I am nursing, which leaves me one handed.

8:45- Cole in bed again.  Back to ice dancing and blogging.

9:48- where did the last hour go???  Cole’s next feeding is in 45 minutes.  I wonder when Adam is going to get home from his long day at work.

*Edited to add:  I realize this is incredibly long, it is more for myself… I think it will be neat to have in the future.  🙂

Dear Cole,

Your dad has been out of town for 2 weeks and just got home yesterday.  The word, “relief,” has all new meaning now.  Don’t get me wrong, you weren’t hardly any hassle for those 2 weeks.  Your sisters on the other hand, well, they are at, “special,” ages to be a single parent for 2 weeks.  We had plenty of good moments, but the rough moments.  They were rough.  Fortunately, you are a pretty easy going guy.  Unfortunately, your needs were often the last ones met, because you can’t run away, steal toys from your siblings, or pee on my floor.

You’ll have your day I know.

Today is Valentine’s Day.  One of the best gifts your dad gave me was a break. He took the girls to church (shhhh, don’t tell that a future pastor’s wife skipped church).  So that leaves you and me at home.  Now, I had grand plans of doing nothing.  You were all fed and ready for a nap.  Well, you can guess what happened next.  You had grand plans of not taking a nap.

I wanted a break. Actually, I needed a break. Yes, there were things to be done, but more than that, I just wanted to do something not in the presence of a child.

I won’t lie, I got frustrated.  You were crying crying crying, and not sleeping.  Finally I went and got you out of your crib (again, I had already calmed you down a few times).  I sat on the couch with you.  House a mess, a heap of pillows and blankets on the floor, dirty dishes in the sink, the dishwasher halfway unloaded with the door folded down.

And then that voice.  That voice that all mothers hear.

“He won’t want you to hold him and rock him to sleep for much longer.  Take advantage of these moments, because they are fleeting.”

So here we are in the red chair.  You asleep on my chest under the quilt that I made for you while I was pregnant.

And I’m loving it.

I have been such a blogging slacker.  I know, I know, I always say that I’ll do better.  But then I don’t.  All of those empty promises, ha!

I’ve been busy (of course), but the main reason that I haven’t blogged is because I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.  About our time in Scotland.  Well, mostly my experience of it.   It isn’t something that I’ve written about much.  Mostly because it was a really difficult season for me personally.  Don’t get me wrong, it was a great season.  But it was hard.

It was a very lonely four years. For various reasons.

Other than the lonely bit (albeit a big big), there were lots of good things that came out of my time in Scotland.  I became a mother there. We saw people come to faith there.

I met some amazing friends in our latter years there.  Friends that taught me  Christian community.  A great friend wrote to us at our going away reception (don’t get a big head, you know who you are), “that very rare sense of kinship that one experiences with only a few people in one’s lifetime is to be denied by this parting. “ That is how I feel about the friends that we met in Scotland.

I fell in love with the country itself.  I really do think that Scotland is the most beautiful place on Earth.  You know, minus the weather.

But really, it is a beautiful place. When I think about not ever getting to live there again, my heart hurts.

You’ll have to forgive me.  I am so not good with words.  So, cue the pictures, ha!

Back in November, a few weeks before we moved, we decided to take one last trip to the highlands.  We knew that it would be a challenge, what in the Volkswagen Borat (or was it Bora?) that we ended up driving our last few weeks there.  We took all three kids with us too.  They were troopers and did amazing on the car journey, including Cole, who was still a newborn at the time.

Our first stop was Loch Lubnaig.

So pretty.

I just love the highlands.  We got out at our most northern point.  It was colllllld.

While we were walking around, this glen (Scottish for valley) caught my eye.

Here is that same valley again.  The Scottish sky is always changing.  So, when these clouds rolled in, the glen looked completely different.

Cole was warm in his ride.

And then the sun peaked through the clouds just as it was setting.

Meanwhile, in typical Mabry fashion, we decided to take our very first family picture of all 5 of us.  Yes, you calculated correctly, Cole was 7 weeks old before we got a picture of all 5 of us.  Woops.

Adam started to put the girls back in the car.  The glen caught my attention even more.

And I thought it was fitting to get this shot on our last trip to the highlands.  So much like my time in Scotland.  Very much like a glen, but beautiful.

And with that, we drove off, stopped at one more spot, where I clicked my very last picture of the highlands.

I miss it.  But I have a lot of joy and peace about where we are presently.  More on that later.  (Maybe).  🙂