Shelly says I don't need to be afraid of dinosaurs. "Do you know why, Mom? Because dinosaurs just live in the forest." Guess I'll stay out of the forest, then!

Camp G

Well I'm home. What a journey. What a blessing. Three nights with Grandma and Grandpa, just me and Elijah and the two of them. I got to witness my grandmother's happiness in holding her great-grandson, and my grandfather's pride in his family. I got to wash dishes and a few other chores and become completely sleep deprived in only three short nights. I'm not sure any of us could have survived a fourth night together, each night we progressively went to bed later (getting closer to my schedule) and woke up earlier (getting closer to their schedule). Last night I got four and a half hours. Heading for serious sleep-shortage!

Grandpa treated me to some wonderful meatballs (Grandpa's secret recipe which cannot be duplicated because he follows no recipe and says "just use a little of this and some of that"). Grandma treated me to wonderful late-night conversation. Maybe this is a girl-thing, but remember when you were a kid and had a friend sleep over and you'd stay up all night talking? Talk about boys, funny stuff from your past and dreams for your future, and everything in between. That's what Grandma and I shared. And also I made her learn Facebook. ;-)

Good food, great fellow campers, looking forward to doing camp again soon!

...you shall rejoice in all the things the Lord your God has given to you and your household.
~Deuteronomy 26:11

Apart

I'm going to take the baby and go away for a few days, off to visit Nana and Papa. So Shelly will go spend some time with Grandma Sue and Archer will be picked up after school by Grandpa Craig. And our family is being scattered to the four winds... Of course these children that make me C.R.A.Z.Y. also make me miss them before I'm even gone. So on the way to Grandma's I told Shelly that I'm going to miss her a lot. "Its ok mom, we'll be together again soon." My baby girl is getting so grown up, and sweeter every second! (Also, she gets more sassy, but that story's for another day.)

When I got home from dropping Shelly off, Elijah made a HUGE mess so I changed him right away and then within five minutes there were rumblings of more mess. I started to pick him up to get him changed again but WET! His shirt was wet. Surely not from the diaper leaking? Up to his chest? No. (Whew!) Spit up. I told him he's a multi-functional mess-maker. He just smiled. And drooled some more.

Three Hours

Today I left my baby with Grandpa for three whole hours. Our longest stretch apart so far. I snuck out the door and didn't even say goodbye to the kids. I didn't want them hugging me because I didn't want to get hand prints on my clothes. I didn't hold Elijah after I got dressed because I didn't want to risk spit up on my shoulder. I was a little concerned for Grandpa, but he assured me, "I'm not afraid of him." So I left.
When I came home he was crying. The baby, not Grandpa. I found out he'd only cried half the time and he'd smiled a bit. So I'm not sure if the few seconds of smiling outweighed the 90 minutes of crying but I really appreciate Dad's help. We'll see how soon he's willing to help again, maybe not for awhile...

Doesn't that smile just melt your heart?

Happy Birthday Shelly Ann!

Today we celebrated Shelly's birthday, can you believe she's already FOUR??? It seems like she should only be turning three. But that's just me hanging onto my little girl being little. She certainly acts older. When she opened her gifts she was incredibly excited about the clothes she received. She's going to be way more interested in fashion than I ever was. She's now in her bedroom playing "Mom and Dad" with Archer where Shelly is the daughter and Archer is the dad. And of course its the daughter's birthday.

When she was done eating her cake she said, "Mmm. That was yummy delicious!" Happy birthday baby! (Don't tell Shelly I called her my baby. "I'm a BIG GIRL now!!!")

Snow Day

It wasn't REALLY a snow day, Arch was home for MLK day but it felt like a snow day, with snow raining down on us all day long. Finally around 3:00 they decided to go out. And since I couldn't go with them, this is the only picture I could get. (Aww Mom, pictures again???)

God's Word

Tonight after David finished reading our Bible lesson for the evening, Archer decided to read the same passage David had just read to us. And he did it, with only a few helps on the harder words. I was so impressed, I didn't expect him to do as well as he did and I certainly would not have thought that a six year old could read the Bible. That really got me thinking. God, in His wonderful power did not give us His Word in a form that had to be taught by scholars to the masses of regular people. He gave us simple words to express His glory and will for us and we, regular people, can read it.

The Great Debate

Shelly believes she had staples in her head at some point in the past. She has taken her brother's experience and adopted it as her own.

Back Story: Over a year ago Archer fell down and banged his head on something, splitting it open and bleeding everywhere. I wasn't home for this little treat, David took Arch to the emergency room and he had a few staples put into his head to hold things shut. Maybe four or five staples. When I got home I was surprised to see just how much blood had been involved. But the kid was fine, the staples were removed a few days later and now its just a story in Archer's past. And Shelly's past, too, apparently.

When great minds have differing opinions, a fantastic debate surely must follow...

Shelly: Mom, you know I had staples in my head.
Me: No you didn't.
S: Yes, I did, Mom. You remember that I did.
M: No you didn't. I remember that you DIDN'T ever have staples.
S: Yes, I really did, Mom. And I puked. When they took the staples out.
M: (Trying not to laugh because she's being really serious.) No you didn't have staples. Archer did, but you didn't.
S: YES Mom! You remember that I DID have staples and I puked when they took them out!

Take above conversation and repeat it about five times and that's how the debate went until she left the room in disgust. Of course I just don't know ANYTHING and Shelly's right. I kind of wanted to call up the doctor's office to get her medical records to prove my point. But she can't read. So all we have to go on are our different memories. Which means I loose. I'm getting used to loosing, its hard to win with them, but I love it all anyway. :-)

Sigh. Sometimes I just hate...

being the enforcer. I hate when a kid does something wrong and I'm the one to dash their hopes of the fun they were going to have tonight. I was looking forward to him/her really enjoying him/herself at the event, and getting to hear all about it. Sadly, a bad decision about how to treat his/her sibling meant that one of them had to stay home while the other got to go. And I was the one to break this news, and enforce it, and listen to the tears. I sort of wanted to cry too, because I knew of the fun they'd be missing. Sigh. Hopefully the lesson will be learned.

Crazy Hair Night at church = Archer with a red mohawk and Shelly with red loops

Kids Make

- chaos
- dirty laundry (WAY more than is reasonable)
- dirty diapers (of course)
- more chaos
- fingerprints on your windows and tv and computer screen and...

Kids make things disappear. I had a notebook that I hadn't used in a couple of weeks and when I didn't find it where I left it, I automatically went looking in the kids' rooms. Of course I assumed that someone TOOK it. I made them look for it but of course its missing. So later when I caught Shelly tucking a bible under the edge of my bed I made her put it back exactly where she found it. She looked so disappointed but I didn't back down.WHY did she try to put it under my bed? Ugh. WHY do I persist in asking unanswerable questions? She doesn't even know why she did it.

The funny thing about this is that I can hear Dad's voice saying almost the exact same things to us when we were kids. We weren't supposed to take HIS pens, scissors, whatever because he knew he wouldn't get them back. And the more famous line, "I could have something for twenty years and then the kids come along and break it in five minutes." I can't count the number of times I've thought the exact same thing over the past six years. Only twenty more years to go...

Oh yeah, kids ALSO make:
- beautiful art
- beautiful songs
- smiles
- laughter
- hugs and kisses and snuggles
- love like you've never known it before.

(Artwork provided by Archer. This piece is titled "I can hop like a frog.")

Things They Say

Archer and Shelly come running into the room, Archer says to me, "She's going to tell on me!" Archer, you're telling on her that she's going to tell on you? Both of you go play nice.

Shelly was at a sleepover with Grandma and Grandpa and Archer said to David, "I have no one to play with!" What did we hear? "I have no one to fight with!" Sigh. They play nice usually. But there's the fair share of fighting too.

One or both say "I'm hungry!" five minutes after we finished eating a meal. What do the parents hear? "Its been five minutes since I told you I don't like the choices, dropped crumbs all over the floor and spilled juice on my clothes. Can I do it again please?"

Shelly finished eating a piece of bread and some peanuts for lunch (this was all she would eat, I tried offering her things like turkey but she refused). She then came to me and said, "I'm still hungry." I looked around and saw some tomatoes sitting on the counter, "Do you want a tomato?" "I don't LIKE potatoes!" And now she says, "What does T O H L spell?" She's been listening to her brother to much, list random letters and expect it to spell a word.

Shelly told me to watch her ballerina dance and started counting down from 10, when she got to 8 she switched from shouting the numbers to singing "la la la" in a high-pitched delicate voice and started gracefully swirling around the kitchen. What a perfectly lady-like little flower...

We don't want to leave anyone out... I was changing Elijah's diaper and said to him, "Honey this smells TOXIC!" I was rewarded with a nice big smile. I guess the diaper wasn't so bad. :-)

Elijah: 2 Months

Our boy smiles at us, waves his arms around as if he's going to grab something, oohs and aahhs. At six weeks old he graduated to the next size up in jammies, he's too long and his toes were getting crunched in the 0-3 outfits.

Now that he's got a little more control of his limbs, he likes to punch me while he eats. Yes, with a fist. He pulls his arm back, winding up, then BAM! Maybe its payback for making him wait too long? Too long being more than 30 seconds. Lucky for me he's little and his muscle-tone isn't too developed yet! His smiles make it all worth it, of course. He smiles when he sees us, he smiles when I'm changing him, when he's eating (how? how do you smile with something stuck in your mouth like that?), when he's sleeping... I love baby smiles. Almost as much as baby punches.

Tonight's Special Is...

Tonight Shelly is our chef. I'm making supper. Shelly asked if she could help, and then said "Mom, pretend I'm the chef." This is what she wants to be when she grows up. Meanwhile, Archer is documenting Shelly's cooking show by continuously announcing, "Ha! Now I have evidence that YOU are cooking in the kitchen!" and taking pics with my camera phone. Shelly's cooking show is progressing nicely, she dumped the noodles into the water and now she's singing the theme song. "Now you have a chef. Now you don't have the chef. No chef in your kitchen..." Archer has moved on to playing games on the phone. In about five minutes our meal will be done and I anticipate that the game of restaurant will begin, with waiter, hostess, and friendly direction about who sits where and what tonight's specials are. Tonight's special at the Fortier Family Diner: Macaroni and Cheese. Yum!

Denise, remember those projects for school that required cooking a Mexican meal and documenting the entire thing? And interviewing our parents afterwards on their thoughts about the meal?

"Assistant. Assistant!" Oh, my boss is calling me back to the show, gotta go!

(Photo courtesy Archer, world renowned photographer.)

Dear Archer, I hope you read this some day and laugh, or at the very least forgive me. Or better yet, not remember what happened at all. I'm sorry for yelling at you tonight when you licked your book. Seriously, why did you lick the book? Here we are, I'm trying to help you read a word and you were stressed and you LICKED the page. I admit, I wasn't being as patient as I could have been. And when you licked the page my response was a little over the top. Maybe a lot. I'm sorry. I apologized to you and gave you a hug and really, you were doing a great job reading and I'm sorry I wasn't more encouraging to you. And I'm sorry you're the oldest and you're the kid we're learning on, so that we can do better with the next two. But honestly, I'm not sure anything's better for them, either. While I'm at it...

Dear Shelly, I'm sorry you're the middle child. I'm sorry that Archer bosses you around (although you do your fair share of bossing him, too), and that you'll probably hold it against us someday that we let him do everything before you got to do any of it. (If it makes you feel any better, Archer claims that he NEVER gets to do ANYTHING.) And let's not leave anyone out...

Dear Elijah, I'm sorry you're the youngest and you get all the leftovers. And I'm sure we'll find more ways to mess up along the way, things we haven't even thought of yet. Sorry in advance.

How is it that normal, well-adjusted happy people can become so completely inept when they become parents? How is it that smart people become so stupid about how to do stuff? How am I supposed to respond when my kid (who KNOWS better) does something so completely ________ (wrong, weird, disgusting, whatever)?

Oh Lord, please help, because there's just no way I can do this without you. Help me remember to pray before I even open my mouth to respond to the kid who just licked a page in his book. Help me get through the next 20, 30, 50 years of parenting. Or through the next 5, 10, 20 minutes.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
~Philippians 4:6