It has been far too long since I recorded anything about our lives. I'm here to announce the birth of our joyful fourth child, Joseph.... a year ago :)
Ok, almost THREE years ago! I just logged on for the first time since 2017 and found this post in my draft folder. All it contained was that sentence above. Ha!
I'm going to start writing again-- realizing that nobody probably checks this blog anymore. Why now? Maybe because I realized the other day that Joseph is turning 3 soon and I'm not sure we've even taken a family picture with him in it 😳 let alone record any of the wonderful, hilarious things he gets up to. It's a shame because he is joy personified and quite hysterical.
Tonight we had some friends over for dinner with the missionaries. T and her kids live a few streets away from us, and they are very nice. R, the son, is in Kate and Lauren's grade at school (last year he was in Lauren's class and this year he's in Kate's class). K, the daughter, is 11 and she's Kate's "book buddy" (4th and 5th graders are "book buddies" with Kindergarteners and 1st graders-- not sure what they do? Probably read books and do activities about those books together.) They are a very nice family, T has an older girl as well, but we've never met her.
When we came to church one Sunday and found R in Kate and Lauren's primary class, Kate was SO. EXCITED. She couldn't believe that one of her school friends was AT CHURCH!! So we invited them all over to our house for dinner and a lesson.
I had initiated the whole thing; I picked out the date and time; I arranged it all, but for some reason as I was cleaning and cooking in preparation, my mood went downhill so fast. I was in a ripping foul mood. I felt like such a hypocrite inviting people into our home to "feel the spirit" when I was certainly not spreading joy! I kept sniping at my kids and snapping at Joseph to "get out of the kitchen! GO PLAY!" I think I made Kate cry once 😬 because I was whipping past the kids trying to clean up and happened to watch Joseph grab Kate around the waist and pull her (he was trying to play with her because I had just loudly told him to GO PLAY and leave me alone). Instead of playing with him, and probably not realizing what he was doing, she started crying because she thought he was trying to hurt her or be mean to her. She looked to me for sympathy and instead I said, "Oh come on. He's TWO! That didn't hurt. Get over it." Her eyes went wide and she looked like a kicked puppy. oops. Oh well. Kate, if you're reading this twenty years from now and you're in therapy trying to sort through all your "distant mother" issues. I'm really sorry.
The point is: I did NOT want people in my house. I was getting more and more worked up over it, just wishing we could have the evening to ourselves. I don't know what my problem was-- it's not like we have people over all the time and I just wanted time to ourselves. We NEVER have people over! I guess that's probably the issue. I'm not used to sharing my space with people and having our whole life on display. Like my family room which is in a perpetual state of "half-finished-ness." Our old rug got taken out and no new rug has replaced it. Our curtains got taken down to paint and I never put them back up because I still haven't finished painting! All the cushions on our couch are spotted with stains (actually, they're spotted with the water marks from cleaning up the stains-- so instead of having spots of jelly or chocolate or berries, we have large water rings that look like pee stains. Better? Worse? I can't really decide....) so I tried turning them over to hide the stains. Only I found that the undersides were worse than the tops! I must have tried that trick LAST time we had people over 😏.
I had my knickers all in a twist because I was worried about how my house smelled, and how my house looked, and what judgements they would make about my parenting skills because of all the PILES of toys stashed everywhere.
Anyway, I fixed spaghetti and Costco meatballs, green beans, salad, and crescent rolls. Why am I telling you the menu? Well, because when we sat down to eat, T said, "Wow! These string beans are amazing!" And I said, "Oh, thank you! Market Basket has pretty good beans." And she said, "Are these fresh?" And I said, "Yeah, they're just steamed." And she said, "Wow, that must be why.... I don't think I've ever eaten fresh green beans. We always just use the canned ones."
I did the math after they left and realized that she's almost exactly my same age. She may be 32 instead of 34. In 32 years, she had never eaten a fresh green bean. I was floored. Then I found out that MANDO had never eaten a fresh green bean before he married me!! 31 years without fresh green beans! He thought he didn't like green beans because he had only ever eaten the canned ones.
Sometimes I get so caught up thinking (assuming) that everyone sees the world the way that I see it--- I just assume that everyone is on the same page as me, for the most part. I think that everyone lives the way I live.
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