Why I cried over my dinner

July 2, 2014

I salted my dinner with tears. Happy-sad tears. I knew it would come. Somewhere in my brain I knew it. But how? How is it that a whole year has gone by since this fuzzy little duckling joined us? How did that little lump turn into a walking, talking, opinionated little jokester of a person? Oh, Blythe Penelope! You are one charming creature, even if you do refuse to wear your hand-made-with-love party hat.

These days Blythe is most likely to be found patrolling the premises on foot, searching for leftovers missed by the broom, grooving to dance music, or relaxing in her high chair being waited on hand and foot, eating almost anything she is offered. She entertains her sisters with her naptime shenanigans (like peek-a-boo games or smashing her goofy little face up against the mesh walls of her play pen, eliciting shrieks of laughter from them and shooshing from me.) She tortures her seatmates on long car rides with her sticky little feet, grabbing their hair with her toes and/or kicking them in the face. I think we've got a bonafide tease on our hands. She periodically bites her mother during her meals and has been known to bite her father during his kisses, always with an impish little half-smile on her face. But notwithstanding her pesky ways, she is darling of the family, doted on endlessly by her big sisters, and pretty much everybody else she encounters!

Happy birthday, little twerp. We couldn't love you more.

Confessions of a Swamp Witch

Okay, this is hard for me to admit on the interwebs. I'm a Yellow-White after all. I like to be liked. But I have to say: I'm kind of a rotten person sometimes. The term "swamp witch" comes to mind. I do not know where I picked up this term, but it's perfect. For me it conjures an image something like... well, like this:

When Chace was in the states for two weeks, the first days were rough. Rough because I'd been making excuses for my rotten-ness when what I really needed was just a swift kick in the beezer (Mikkelsen-ese for "hind parts"). I was cranky and I did a lot of blaming. I blamed the neighbors buzzing me to let them in late at night when they forgot their keys. I blamed the rain (If we could just get out of this stuffy little apartment...!) I blamed the fresh local meat and produce for going bad so quickly (WHERE are the preservatives, people!?) I especially blamed my kids. For making messes, for needing meals and naps and stories, for not appreciating this opportunity.

Imagine me, a grown woman (sort of), blaming my children for being children. I think I resented the fact that they are more interested in puddles than the Pieta and more excited about building sand castles than about touring ancient ones. I felt this sense of urgency to soak up all that Italy has to offer in the short time we have here, and I'm being thwarted. I found myself wishing the girls were old enough to appreciate this experience more. Or that this move had happened four years ago. Or even that we just had one or two kids to travel around with. Three is just insane, as the flabbergasted woman at the salumeria told me this very morning. "Three girls?! All yours?! And you travel with them?!"

Yes, ma'am, we travel with them. Sometimes against our better judgement. I had to breathe deeply and count to ten a few times in Venice to keep from wringing a couple of little necks and screaming like a crazy lady, "Don't you understand the gravity of this vacation?!" We just got back from a week in Sicily vowing never to try it again. But we will. We must.

We are slowly figuring out our system and our limitations. Just like life anywhere else, our children will both restrict and enhance this experience. The restrictions are pretty obvious. It's a lot of work to travel with kids. Everything takes longer, there's more to pack and there are countless emergency pit stops along the way. But the trade-offs are sweet. For one thing, when I take the time to stop being whiny and selfish, I really, really enjoy my kids. I enjoy them more than art and architecture and beautiful views, even slightly more than a quiet, relaxed Italian meal. They're awesome girls and they're fun to be with. Also, Italy with kids is so fun because Italians love kids. Everywhere we go, the girls are hugged and kissed and fawned over by pretty much everyone we encounter. Most of the conversations I have and the connections I make with people here are because of the them. People aren't interested in me. They want to practice their English asking Eloise her name, or asking Tilly how old she is, or commenting on Blythe's amazing blue eyes. They're delighted when the girls speak their language or enjoy their cuisine. The majority of my interactions with Italians are because of the girls, so I really should be counting my lucky stars that I have such irresistible little sidekicks.

Having kids here is like having kids on Christmas morning. Yeah, you'd rather sleep in longer and you're annoyed that they ate all the minty bells from your stocking. You were up most of the night wrapping presents and you'd kill for a nap but they're all hopped up on candy canes and someone gave them kazoos for Christmas, so that's a no-go. But the joy and excitement and wonder those little rascals radiate just grows and multiplies and fills up the house until, in spite of your grinchy self, you concede, you wouldn't have it any other way. That's what I'm coming to feel about this little sabbatical of ours. It's kind of like a little microcosm of normal life: I'll give up certain things and for certain seasons and be happy with just exactly what I have right now. My kids won't appreciate a lot of the places we drag them to, just like they won't appreciate it when I hack into and peruse their Gmail accounts when they're 15. Such is life.

But really, the bottom line is, if I had a friend who came crying to me and said, "I have a kind, hard working, foxy husband, three darling daughters, and I get to live in Italy for a year. Mourn with me!" I'd just want to laugh. Or slap her. Or both. And who knows, maybe I can have my cake and eat a little too. Today as I cuddled with Eloise on the bottom bunk at nap time, all was quiet and I assumed Matilda had fallen asleep when she whispered from overhead, "Mom? Do you remember when we went to Assisi and saw the place where St. Francis lived?" "Yes." "Can we go there again? I really liked it." "I hope so. It's one of my favorite places. What did you like about it?" "I really liked the little rooms and the little halls and the little windows. It was really cool."

Maternity Test: Pass

I'm turning into my mother. And my daughter is turning into me. Grammar Nazi.

Me (in my best Barbara Streisand voice): "Put on your Sunday clothes when you feel down and ouuuuut! Strut down the street and have your picture toooook! Dressed like a dream, your spirits seem t--"

Matilda: "Mom, it's taken. Not took. That song is wrong. Can you sing it again the right way?"

When in Rome... skip Ikea.

Chace had to return to the states to finalize his visa, so we went with him up to Rome to see him off. We spent a gorgeous Friday afternoon together visiting the Catacombs of St. Callisto, the Forum and the Colosseum. 

And here we have a little known Michelangelo sculpture near the Forum called... oh wait, that's just Chace stretching. Magnificent nonetheless.

Then we stopped by the church of San Pietro in Vincoli (St. Peter in Chains) which houses the shackles said to have been worn by Peter as he went to his death. The church is also home to Michelangelo's beautiful Moses. 

After pizza and gelato, we walked back to the car, past the Colosseum, just as night fell. And even though I know what horrors that building represents, I still think the sight of it all lit up at dusk is one of the most spectacular things I've seen. 

We stayed the night near the airport and Chace caught an early flight Saturday morning. The girls slept late and by the time we finished breakfast and missed the shuttle downtown, I wasn't quite sure what to do next. The only must-do on the itinerary was getting a high chair at Ikea. (After putting it off for weeks, I had finally been to the Bari Ikea a few days previously only to find that the high chair I had driven 2 hours for was out of stock! So I was not leaving town without it!) I figured the least painful thing would be to stop there first while the girls were freshly fed and rested and then go from there into downtown Rome and maybe explore the Trastevere neighborhood for the afternoon before driving the 4 hours home to Manfredonia.

Little did I know what a zoo the Rome Ikea would be that morning; I had forgotten that it was a holiday weekend. The place was packed. I decided the only way we would make it out of there in one piece would be to wear Blythe on my back in the Ergo and buckle the other two into the stroller. Which I never do. Which they hated. Which I hated. Which left my sanity hanging by a thread two hours later when we finally got out of the maze that is Ikea. I only wish I had documented the pandemonium with a video or something. But I was a little busy... By now it was the napping hour, so we ate a quick lunch in the car and I decided that, loathe as I was to miss out on precious time in Rome, I just was not physically or emotionally equipped to deal with the throngs of tourists and my throng of daughters on a holiday weekend during nap time. Then it started to rain. And that sealed the deal: we were going home.

As we drove out of Rome, I talked myself into and out of turning around and just braving the crowds, naps be damned. Who knows how many times we'll make it to Rome? Then when I saw the sign for Tivoli, I decided we'd go there instead and stop by Villa D'Este, take a little tour of the house and then let the girls run wild on the grounds. Win-win! After a half hour or so, the navigation on my phone stopped working and I had no idea where I was going. So we were lost for a little while, driving around tiny little cobblestone streets looking for signal, during which time all the girls fell asleep and it started to rain in earnest. I decided to forget Villa D'Este and call it a day. But the detour sure was beautiful! In fact, I find that it's often the detours I enjoy the most on these adventures of ours. 

Mat-EEEL-day!

This girl turned four last week and we celebrated with grilled octopus for lunch and McDonald's for dinner (both by request of the birthday girl). We also enjoyed one bite of the grossest cake in the world. But did it ever have sprinkles! Now she enjoys her new self-appointed privileges of having not three, but four scoops of gelato, four olives or four minutes more on the iPad, because, obviously, she's four years old now!

You knew her as "Matilda" but she's taken to the Italian pronunciation and loves to introduce herself as "MatEEELday." She is jumping right into the language and has begun to ask me, "Mamma, come si dice _____ in Italian?" ("How do you say ____...?") She is a great mimic and has a really good Italian accent, which she also applies frequently to her English. She's also experimenting with other accents, like the one I use when I read Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby. She is quite the girl and we are sure glad she's around to keep us in line!

Ciao, Tutti!

Well, since it's been a coon's age since we last met and I've been pitifully and inexcusably negligent in keeping my dear friends and family up to date on our comings and goings, let's recap shall we?

After leaving Chicago and spending months with parents, in-laws and in rental houses, we started looking for a house to buy. Chace found the one, exactly what we were looking for, while I was away tending my sister's kids. He made an offer immediately. A couple months later, we had a baby on a Tuesday and moved in on Friday. We spent the next months trying to whittle down the endless list of house projects and figuring out our new normal with three wee lassies.

Always interested in travel and in the possibility of returning to his second love, Italy (where he lived for two years as a missionary for our church), Chace got involved in a project with one of Boeing's partners in Italy. He was thrilled when the new year took him there on a work assignment for almost a month, during which time he got an offer to move there on a short-term assignment (9-12 months). And so the push began to complete the next year's worth of projects in a matter of weeks and pack for Italia!

So a month ago now we flew to Rome, where we spent a couple of blurry days trying to muster the strength to sight see after a grueling bout of the flu that hit all of us but Eloise during our flight. Then we headed south to Manfredonia where we stayed in a hotel for two weeks. We've now been in a little apartment right across the street from the beach for almost two weeks as well, where we'll be until the home we want to live in permanently becomes available later this summer. 

That's the last year or so in a nutshell. I'm going to try to document the beautiful places and people we encounter here on the ol' blog. I don't get many points for consistency, but I'll try to make it up to you with cute pictures.

Deal?

For my sisters and my thrifty Portland friends (everyone else, you just won't get it):

Just now at the dinner table, Matilda said, "I'm going to tell you a story. Once upon a time there was a little girl named Blythe who was grown up, but she was still a little girl. And her mama left her at home all alone. And a woman came and knocked on the door. She came in and said, 'Where's your mother, little girl?' And Blythe said, 'She's at the store.' And the woman said, 'What store?' And Blythe said, 'Red, White and Blue.' The end."

That girl. At least she knows where my priorities lie.

Conversations, on the Wilcoxson Channel

Not quite as inspirational as these conversations (which I love) but pretty spot-on, if you ask me.

Eloise (thumbing through Richard Scarry): Mama, what's this pig doing?
Me: He's vacuuming.
Eloise (brows furrowed skeptically): Hmmm... I've never seen a pig vacuum.

She's quite the little book worm and loves being read to, but I always love it when I come upon her reading aloud to herself or her baby sister. This time she was reading "Baby B" a book about lemurs. When she got to the map page, she couldn't remember where lemurs live, so she asked me.

Me: Lemurs live on an island called Madagascar, remember?
Eloise: Oh yeah, Madagascar! I loooove Madagascar. And Mada-Pink car. And Mada-Tilly's car and Mada-Mama's car.

Me (showering and trying to distract Matilda from terrorizing her sister): Tilly, come in here. Can you tell me a story?
Matilda (begrudgingly): Once upon a time, there was a girl named Lulu who was nice to her sisters and her mom and her dad and her bear.... And she was really nice... The end.
Me: Okay. That was good. But usually in a really great story, there's something exciting that happens to the main character--the person that the story is about. Something happy or something sad or scary or surprising. Can you tell me a story like that? Where something interesting happens to the main character?
Matilda: Okay. Once upon a time there was a carrot with mane. Like a horse...

And a not quite so spot-on conversation over breakfast scripture reading:

Me: Okay, who remembers the names of the first two people that lived on the earth?
Matilda: I know! Jane and Michael Banks!

Eloise for President!

Eloise woke up and said that for her second birthday, she'd like to be president. Or, at least, that's what her hair said. Behold:

I took one look at her and her little outfit and decided all she needed was a string of pearls to shut down this shutdown. I mean, duh. Wouldn't you work for this chick free of charge?!

And if she can't preside over the nation, she'll settle for the Relief Society. In fact, some of her aunties have seen her on other such fabulous hair days and predicted as much. With hair like that, she's destined for greatness.

But what am I saying?! Destined nothin'! She IS absolutely one of the greatest things that has ever, will ever, could ever happen to me and to this little family. She is one spunky, sweet, succulent, saucy, simply delightful little person. She is quick to laugh, quick to dance, quick to fetch a diaper for her "Baby B", quick to share all she has IFF you ask nicely. But as nicely as I ask, she just won't quit growing up.

Say it ain't so!

This little bundle of perfection is two years old?

Make it stop!

Blythe and Clive

Talking to my sister Anna, she mentioned the uncanny resemblance between my sweet baby Blythe and our dear old friend Clive (Staples Lewis). She even sent me this side-by-side to prove her point. 

At first a little offended at the suggestion, 

I have to concede... she's got a point. 

See for yourself!

My babe is The Babe!

Two weeks ago during a planning meeting at work, I let the guys know that based on the way Rivka was feeling, she thought that she was probably going to have the baby on Tuesday of the subsequent week, so they could expect that I would be out of the office. They laughed and made wisecracks about crystal balls, but they don't know Rivka. She is the Babe Ruth of all things child-bearing. She's an all-star, laborer of the year, M.V.P. (Most Valued Pregnant-lady) etc., etc. Like The Babe, she called her shot, and the rest is history. She is truly amazing.

Not only did she call the "when" of little Blythe's arrival, but also the "how". I'm not sure if I am just the worst planner in the world, or a masochist, or both, but it seems that every time we are having a baby, I throw us into some sort of topsy-turvy life event. With Matilda, we had just moved to Chicago in the dead of winter and bought our first (and very fixer-upper) house weeks before she was born. With Eloise, I was contemplating career changes and we were steeped in remodel projects (including the bathroom wherein she was born). Now, just to top them all, I decided that we should buy a very "needy" house, while starting a new job, while getting out of our crazy landlady's rental place early which caused us to have to live at my parents' house on an air mattress since two of my siblings and their spouses are also living at home for the summer (there goes my chance at husband of the year), while we work like dogs to make the house habitable... I'll just leave the rest of the details out. We may need to stop procreating, because I'm afraid of what kind of mess I'll get us into the next go 'round.

Anyway, back to the "how"... Since our life was/is so up-side-down, and since Rivka's labor with the first two was so lightning fast, she had very specific plans for how she wanted things to go with Blythe's delivery. First, although our experience having Eloise at home was wonderful, Rivka ABSOLUTELY did not want to have Blythe on the air mattress in Mom and Dad's study (strange, I know), or anywhere at their home for that matter. Second, she did not want to have Blythe in transit to the birth center (like what almost happened with Matilda). Rivka wanted to have an unhurried, stress-free labor and delivery (something we really haven't yet had). So, our plan was to leave immediately at the very first sign that things were happening. I know that the Lord hears Rivka's prayers, because we got exactly the "how" she was hoping for.

Tuesday morning, at about 12:15AM, I was gently encouraged to wake up with the words "I think this baby's a comin'..." I shot up, gathered my faculties and began asking some of the typical questions about contractions, where's the bag, etc. I got dressed, made Rivka a bed in the back of the van, and we were off. We made excellent time and arrived at the birth center a little after 1:00AM, greeted by our wonderful staff of midwives.

Although something was definitely different with Rivka's contractions, etc. things did not progress as quickly as we are used to. We spent time lying in bed, munching on cereal, talking with the staff and walking around the parking lot. I admit that I was feeling kind of silly about having come all this way and having woken up the staff. A little after 2:00AM while Rivka was in the W.C. and I asked one of the midwives when we would call it a false start and go home. She said that Rivka was progressing and that we would stay until progression ceased or reversed.

Sometime just before 3:30AM the progression accelerated and Rivka asked for the tub to be filled. She labored in the tub for the next 40 mins or so and then with no more than 2 good pushes, Blythe Penelope Wilcoxson entered the world. She (Blythe) cried immediately (so did I), and took great big breaths. She started nursing right there and has barely stopped eating since (she gets that from me). When she isn't eating, she sleeps and sleeps (she gets that from her mama). I'm happy to report that she grows cuter by the minute. I can't wait to see her little personality start to shine through.

I am incredibly blessed to have another little lady to adore. I'm so grateful that everything went perfectly well and that everyone is safe and sound. I am again in awe at my amazing M.V.P. of a wife. I really think she hit a homerun with this little girl.