It is Finished.

Soccer season is now finished.

The team competed in the NCCAA Regional Tournament yesterday and lost to a team they had beaten earlier in the season.  Which was a bummer.

But there's an element of joy to the knowledge that I'll get to see my husband around a bit more.  And that I don't have to drive to Nebraska for about a year.

The girls have been such troopers through all of our travels.  They love the team and the women on the team are incredible with them.  

Last night, particularly, they were awesome, because we stayed in Lindsborg, KS (a place with a lot of Dala horses, which I call Swedish ponies) to watch the men's soccer game.  It was freezing.  Actually, it wasn't literally freezing, I just checked the weather and it was a balmy 34 degrees.  Which is a significant two degrees higher than freezing.

Isn't it amazing what Google can do for you these days?

Anywho, Google can't come up with the creativity it takes to wear sock mittens and zip your child inside your jacket!  Maggie was bundled in my fleece blanket, all except the time when she burst out and tried to take her shirt off because she was half asleep and had had her head covered.  Isaiah called it a delusion brought on by hypothermia.

Our children are sometimes awesome, sometimes bizarre, sometimes naughty.  For example, right now Isaiah and I are not feeling so perky, having received about eight hours of sleep in the last 72.  We'll make it, but tonight was supposed to be a quiet, calm, sleepy family time.  I kicked it off with a mandatory bath time.

At the moment that I was discovering that Mikayla is really mastering backward scooting locomotion on her own Maggie howled that Mia had pooped in the bathtub.

I've heard other parent's stories about this little phenomenon but have never experienced it myself.  And never wanted to, frankly.  I am still in a state of disgusted shock that Maggie wasn't joking and I actually had to say, "We don't poop in the bathtub!" to my four-year-old.

Don't some things go without saying once you've been introduced to a toilet?  Guess not.

Anyway, I've written a story about the game and it's on the okwueagle.com, the student publication for the college.  Feel free to check it out – the website content is from the writers that I teach and torture each semester for fun.  The design is from my boss and friend and you should say nice things about it.  He (and his students) are amazing.

Because I'm tired and brain dead, I'm just going to put up an assortment of comments from my kids that I got a kick out of over the last few days.  There are none from Mikayla.  It's not because I don't love her or that she no longer exists, it's because all she does is growl right now and that's kind of hard to type.  Or understand.

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Maggie wants Isaiah to take her to outer space with him.  I'm not allowed to come.  It's a date, just for them.

Mia: "Mommy, why does oatmeal stay so hot?"  Me:  "I don't really know, Mia"  Mia: "Let's ask Daddy.  He knows a lot about snakes so I know he knows a lot about oatmeal."

Maggie, observing me taking some Advil, wanted to know what I was eating.  I told her it was medicine for my headache and she nodded wisely, saying, "I had a headache too when I was growed up."

On the way to lunch we passed a hitchhiker.  Mia asked what he was doing and I explained he was trying to get a ride somewhere.  "Oh!" Mia said, "I thought he was giving us a thumbs up because we were driving so good!"

We also had a discussion about hunting after Mia announced, "Jackson Stewart's dad gunned a deer and then put it's head on the wall.  Why'd he do that?"