Mrs. Rufflepants

Mia and Maggie are in the corner by the sofa which has, sadly, once again been consumed by the pile of laundered clothing that needs to be folded and put away.  They are doing business.  Some kind of mercantile from what I can tell, they are exchanging their chore money and checking everything for barcodes to be scanned.

Mikayla is wandering around the living room.  She's walking.  It's her preferred mode of locomotion as of this week.  She just discovered an old Valentine that has a sucker taped to the inside and I fear that the pretty card will be no more quickly as she tussles with the lollipop.

She just took it over to her sisters with a demanding, "ahh, uh!" as a request to them for help with the sucker.  

They looked for the barcode and then gave it back to her.  She is unimpressed.

I'm watching all of this go on, listening to Chris Tomlin sing The Wonderful Cross, which just may be my very favorite, most intensely inspiring worship song ever.

I was watching the buying and selling and sucker grabbing and idly wondering how long it would be until the girls were old enough to do laundry themselves and imagining how the Duggar household must have looked before their kids got old enough to be given serious household chores.

(I hope the Duggar house of 15 years ago was filthy.  And disorderly.  Because, I tell you what, I look at their pristine house on TLC and think it sets an unhealthy standard for the rest of us who only have minimal kiddos in comparison.)

(Does that make me really mean-spirited?!)

Right in the midst of my contemplation Maggie glanced over at me, smiled super big and asked, "what's your name, miss?"

It was SO cute.  I started laughing and she covered her face in both hands and hid, peeking out between her fingers, cheek dimples showing around the outside of hands that are still pudgy with baby fat.

The dimples on the knuckles of her fingers are almost completely gone now.  Mia's baby fat has vanished and she has grown a fine layer of hair on her legs and arms.  Only Mikayla is still fully baby, covered in soft pudge, squishy in all the right places.

I told Maggie that my name was Mrs. Rufflepants.  She thought that was pretty funny.

It's a boring afternoon, a snapshot of the longest hour of my day, the time between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m., when Daddy gets home most days.

Today was a particularly long day.  We have had some discipline issues at the college and I was up with the sun for a meeting where I fired a staff member.  Then I ran to the school to take Maggie on a field trip to the airport.  Finished that with 10 minutes to get to Mia's school to pick her up, 15 minutes from there to teaching class, 30 minutes to get Mia after class and head back to Maggie and Mikayla's school to pick them up, then home for time with the girls when I do my best to make it just about them.

Maggie got to sit in the cockpit of an airplane today!

Tonight we're having dinner with some soccer recruits at at a restaurant because I didn't have it in me to get the house clean and make dinner.

Epic fail.

But good food to come, so that's a bonus!

Isaiah will be home in a few minutes, then we're off for dinner with the recruits.  After that I'll put the girls to bed while he runs a soccer work out (and I was supposed to speak for the Girls Night at the college on purity of thought but I begged off as Unqualified :)  Actually, I didn't want to have anyone to stay with the girls.)

These are the days when I want to just collapse for awhile.  And the days when I so desperately need to be Mrs. Rufflepants and see the mystery, beauty and fire of my daughters.

I don't want to miss all the fat dimples and first words and funny statements and questions about how the world works.  I don't miss them… I'm right there.  But I'm always scared I'll blink and they'll be adults.  Yet I desperately need a nap!

While I've been writing Mia has located Isaiah's house slippers and is stomping around the living room.  Maggie and Mikayla are in the bathroom and Maggie just reappeared with a soap "worm" she wants to use to wash her hands.

Writing break is over – Mrs. Rufflepants is back on duty!