THE Toilet Paper Roll

So my middle child, Noah, has an addiction these days to unrolling the toilet paper - especially when he takes more than the usual amount of time EVER necessary to have a BM. As the minutes click by, I realize how many other things that need to be done at that point of time and so will leave to go do those things and then come back to find him scurrying in "trying" to roll the toilet paper back on the roll. Needless to say, a spank is in order when I find the very clear evidence of toilet paper all over the floor.

Which brings me to think upon this after having to use a toilet paper roll UNrolled - the realization is this - I find myself thinking about the person that invented the toilet paper roll and am then thankful that they actually did it! After having to use the alternative, I discover the ease of using toilet paper that actually does what it is supposed to do.

The small things in life that we take for granted, got to love 'em!

Home Alone with 3 Children for 5 Days...

Here is a brief recount of the last 5 days - home alone with 3 children ages 4, 2 1/2 and 11 Months without their beloved Daddy...

I am hoping in the recount of this that it will seem LESS painful to me and MORE hilarious in the day's events.

Sunday night - smooth...

Monday AM - not so smooth, we had children, ALL of them, awake by 5.30AM with the youngest one being the culprit who got everyone else up. Needless to say then, by about 11AM all of them were back down for naps. We had dinner over at cousin's house which was great! And Monday PM was an early to bed night as well.

Tuesday - our nanny went home sick (read earlier post) so I got very little Marina work done and back home for child duties. We had dinner that night at Grandpa & Grandma's house - very helpful. Tuesday PM was a night better left forgotten - the lovely little lady was up from 12.30AM to 2.30AM. We still do not know why, as it seems to be the case most of the time with stuff like this. But I literally tried everything I could think of to help 'solve' the problem, from tylenol to clove oil to music to rocking to blankies, whatever I could try! Thankfully the boys slept through all of that rucous.

Wednesday - supposed to work, but our nanny was still sick. We went to Target to do some errands and shopping right after Lexie's AM nap. While there, the deal on the table was that each boy would be able to purchase 1 affordable Transformers figurine. So we did get through that experience well enough until it came time for lunch. We ate at Target, though the lunch purchasing process we had all sorts of bad behaviour from spitting on one another, tooting and laughing about it, climbing underneath and over top the cart and then Lexie trying to shimmy her way out of the strap at the top of the cart too. We finally got our lunch and sat down to eat. Towards the end of that lunch, Lexie was crawling around underneath the Target eating area tables eating her leftovers off the floor...well somethings are just not worth putting up a fight about after getting limited amount of sleep the night before. We did make it home, new Transformers in tow, happy children off to sleep.

Wed PM - my Mom (the saviour of fhe day!) comes over to bring us some of her leftovers so I don't have to cook and she finally got put away about 6 loads of laundry from Monday. That felt so good to at least get that done. I was supposed to host and lead our homegroup that evening and thankfully got that passed off to my brother-in-law and at their house right next door. All I had to do was to make a dessert :). Homegroup went well and I felt refreshed through it all - talking about the family of God was so encouraging to me! And for myself, i felt so thankful really just to know and experience the family of God that I do through Living Light Christian Church. It's amazing still to me this day that God had in store for me to take me out of the church that I was in and to put in the place where I am today - I am so privileged to be running this race with the fellow believers that I am.

Thursday AM - off to the Knapp's in Racine in the AM to take our eldest boys (Jackson & Josiah) through the church's kid's version of Vision & Commitment. We talked more about the gospel, salvation and Lindsay did a fantastic job of using the bridge illustration over a bucket of mud that the boys got to play with (mud being the very dirty sin and filth that we can fall into unless we take the bridge Jesus!). I am confident in this - that any investment of time we spend in talking to our children about Jesus reaps a hundred fold more than we could ever hope or imagine - even though at times we might not see an immediate response.

Rest of Thursday - I have to work for a bit, get an adj at the chiropractor's and then off to another friend's for dinner....

The icing on the cake - the husband will be home tonight! Myself and the children will be thrilled to have him back and we'll not be likely to let him leave again anytime soon....

Rest Time Shananagins

Today, Tuesday, is supposed to be 1 of my 2 working days slotted each week. At an urgent text from our nanny, I am notified that my 'workday' is now over and back to the care of children and house back home. She came down with the flu and so of course the sooner we get here out of here and away from the children the better!

At the point of time that I take over, I have the infant awake, the middle child still in bed and the eldest child up in his rest time. Did I mention also a hyperactive short haired pointer that needs constant attention as well? (I'm saying 'needs' here, doesn't mean that he necessarily gets it as he is last on the totem pole pretty much every day.)

So let's review what is happening during the rest time. Josiah has papers everywhere of recent transformers he has colored although they are all of 2 kinds - bumblebee's camaro and Barricade's police car. (Yes I know all too much about transformers at 33 years of age here.) He's arranging them on the bed to pick the best ones for a special surprise for Mommy. After coming into the RM to see what he is up to, he proceeds to tell me that he is supposed to be resting. So I asked him, 'Josiah do you need to rest still? Are you tired?" to which an all too mature response is as follows, "Well it doesn't matter to me if I rest or not today." Where does a 4 year old come up with that terminology and apply it to a situation like this? It 'doesn't matter to him?'. Quite funny to me...

Finally to close out the day through early afternoon, Lexie cried for about 45 min in trying to take an afternoon nap - and of course I'm blaming it on the teeth - 6 currently and counting more to come in any day now. Much better than Josiah's pattern, the poor little guy at 4 months got 7 teeth within the matter of 3 weeks. Still she has been a miserable little lady.

I did manage a lunch date before having to come home and showing a house of ours that is coming up for rent soon so productivity up to that point was great!

Now on to the rest of our afternoon....

Never an Ordinary Week

Let's see - to recount through the past week of what all has happened in the Finkler household, we've really had such a full and of course busy week...

To start off with, Monday morning incurred my full efforts into an exercise plan once again for myself. Something that has been put off continually over the years with the excuses (and rightly so) of baby after baby. But with 3, we could very well be done and the time is NOW to get back on board with taking care of my physical body. SO I took the challenge, joined jazzercise and faithfully (if you can call 1 week faithful?!) went to exercise both this Mon and Wed at 5.25AM. Yes, that's right, 5.25AM in the morning. Am I happy about that hour of the morning? I could emphatically say NEVER. Will I ever be happy about getting up at that hour? I'm trusting God for so in His help in getting me through this new discipline. And that's exactly what He has spoken to me through this, that out of Hebrews 12.11 'For the time being no discipline brings joy, but seems grevious and painful; but afterwards it yields a peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.' And yes, I do feel the painfulness of it as my body is SORE but I do believe in the results to come and so looking forward to that point of time. And knowing that discipline is good for us, for me, in training me by it that will affect so many other areas of my life as well. Just getting up earlier in the morning does me a wealth of good as a wife and mother for this household in having a better chance to prepare for them before all others are up. And I'm hoping for better time in the AM to spend with Him as well, in His Word, in His prescence. So my expectations are high! But I serve a God who never fails to deliver!

The rest of the week then and highlights as such - my sons and daughter are such an amazing blessing from God. They bring us such joy and enable us to personally have to overcome our flesh each day as well :). I have been drinking this Liptop white tea with raspberry recently. The boys asked me for some, and within that they of course really liked it. The tea itself is a light yellow color and so when Josiah came back to ask for another sip, he promptly said, "Mommy, can I have some more beer please? I really like beer!". Funny, funny, and don't be alarmed, we don't allow the children to drink beer yet...

Sharing my Thoughts...

So for the first official blog post, or really not even calling it 'blogging' but just a vehicle to share my thoughts, to share the most hilarious and sometimes not so hilarious events with my wonderful 3 children and overall our life as the Finkler's.

I feel in so many ways that our life is so full that it will not only help me to 'release' per say that build up of thoughts but also to share an inside view of what goes on with these crazy people that never seem to rest...

So to start then, I'm going to post just this and start exploring my options here!!