The Goodnight Song

Preface: This post contains music theory references that I simply do not have time to define.

Long before we had kids, the hubs and I made up some lyrics to the lullaby song. We knew it had lyrics, but couldn't remember, so we made up some of the stupidest words ever. Little did we know that this song would become part of the nightly routine for our boys. They LOVE it. The hubs changes it up every now and then, and it doesn't really matter that the number of syllables outnumbers the allotted number of beats in the phrase. He just crams them all in or adds a 7/4 measure (for all you music geeks).

One night, out of the blue, when hubs reached the end, our 3-year-old broke out into his own tag ending...and now, every night, he changes it up. We never know what he's gonna come up with, but we do know that even if he changes key initially, he finds his way back to the original key with a V-I ending.

The Goodnight Song

Go to sleep. Go to sleep.
Go to sleep my big, huge boy Little Man**
It is late and you are tired, so just close your eyes and dream.
When you open your eyes, the sun will be awake.

Tag ending (usually in half-time and sung by Little Man):

and I will go potty and get back in bed and my brothers will go to school

or

and I will go potty and get back in bed and ride my bike

Usually the potty and bed part stay the same. After that you never know what's gonna come out. Sheer cuteness, folks. Just ask Webster.

***Obviously, in "real" life, we use his name, but the innerwebs gets his nickname.

Homemade Laundry Detergent

By request, I am posting this recipe for Super Cheap, Super Awesome, Homemade Laundry Detergent.

You will need a 3 Quart pot to melt the soap, a grater, and a 5 gallon bucket with lid to store the final product.

Ingredients:

1 bar Fels Naptha laundry soap, grated
1 cup Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda
3/4 cup Borax

Combine soap and 4 cups water in pot and melt over low heat, stirring occasionally. While the soap is melting, fill 5 gallon bucket with 3 gallons of warm water. Dissolve Borax and Washing Soda in bucket of water. Pour melted soap mixture into bucket and stir until thoroughly blended. Cover and let sit over night. The detergent will solidify on top of a layer of water. Stir until blended. The final product will be a gloppy mixture (for lack of better way of describing it).

Use 1-1.5 cups per load depending on amount of dirt and size of load.

A few notes of my own:

• The original recipe calls for only 1/3 bar of soap. I use a full bar to make a super concentrated detergent. My husband is military and I have three boys, so I REALLY need something that will remove odors and stains.
• You can use any bar of soap, but I have found that Fels Naptha and Zote (available at a Mexican grocery store) work best.
• I stir with a slotted spoon because it helps break up the final product better.
• If you like scent to your detergent, just add 1oz of pure extract of your favorite scent, available at Hobby Lobby or other craft store. Or just use Fabric Softener.
• I actually marked the water level on the bucket so I wouldn't have to measure every time.
  

Give a Little

Five years ago, when we were broke and finally decided to do something about it, one of our motivating desires to be debt-free was having the ability to give above and beyond our tithe to God. At the time, a close friend of mine was struggling financially after her newborn son spent the first 2 months of his life in the NICU battling life-threatening birth "defects" (he is now a healthy, brilliant, active pre-schooler). I remember wanting to help them financially, and at times we did, but my husband and I wanted to do MORE.

Suddenly, we began to imagine the seemingly impossible. What if we paid off our stuff so that we could help others who needed stuff. What if a friend mentions that she needs a new washer dryer because hers broke, and we BOUGHT it? What if a stranger needed food and we PROVIDED it? What if a single parent needed a car, and WE HAD THE ABILITY TO BUY IT FOR THEM?

What if a sibling group needed a home and we GAVE it to them? Yea...that'll NEVER happen.

This past Christmas, I wanted to do something special for my OB/GYN who helped me through years of physical pain and illness, eventually performing the hysterectomy that radically changed my life. In her office, a rare thing happens when pharmaceutical reps come to promote their product. They are met with a sign that says if they want her business, they will bring, not the usual fare of cookies, cakes, and coffee, but rather donations for the local women's and children's shelter. So after much thinking and no planning, I sent out a call on Facebook for my local friends to donate items and bring them by the house. The response was overwhelming.

Most of those who donated didn't settle for generics. Instead, I received bath wash, sheets from Better Homes and Gardens (yeah, the $35 dollar ones!!), stuffed animals, two cases of toothpaste (from a friend who works in a dental office), blankets, kid's sheets with actual kid stuff on them, candy canes, scented body lotions, name brand diapers and wipes. Many of the women who donated actually bought stuff they would have bought for themselves, and even though I didn't reach my goal of filling a U-Haul truck, I was able to drop off over TWO SUV CARLOADS worth of donations at her office, all of which was picked up that day by the local shelter.

Truly amazing!!

And being a part of something that actually makes a difference is addicting.

Over the next few weeks, I want to compile a list of ways to give money, time, and goods in the community. For now, leave a comment about ways you have found to give in your area.

Mother May I

I am not a morning person.

I used to work in a real coffee shop as the OPENER, which meant I had to get to the shop at 6:00am. I lived 30 minutes away. I earned the nickname Morning Glory because even though my regulars loved me (I knew them so well they didn't even have to order, and I usually had their drink on the counter before they even made it to the register), they knew I wasn't a morning person and found my grunts and snide comments amusing. Endearing...really.

Now that I have three boys, you would think that I would adapt to mornings, but alas, I am just more grumpy because while I have learned to appreciate the silence and slowness of the a.m. hours, my children will somehow jump out of bed with energy unparalleled by even the most skittish of creatures.

So this morning when I rolled out of bed at 9:00 (shut up! As my cousin pointed out, any hour before noon is understood to be morning), and before I even had my coffee made Boo was saying my name from the den (because God forbid we actually walk into the same room and speak in a quiet voice), I decided to implement a plan my husband drew up a couple weeks ago.

PERMISSION SLIPS!!!

I don't know about your kids, but mine ask permission to do EVERYTHING, which I guess is better than the alternative, but really, they will ask me permission to turn on the t.v., or do their chores, or go in the backyard, blah blah blah. I can be nursing a sucking chest wound and my son will ask me if he can have a glass of water. And when I tell him yes, he will get a glass and then interrupt my death AGAIN to ask if he can put ice in it.

But I digress.

The slips give the boys permission to ASK a question...but don't guarantee permission to do what they ask. It works like this:

• The boys get five permission slips. Being the creative person I am with extra time on my hands, I gave them solid white blank index cards.
• If they ask permission to do something, we take a slip.
• If they interrupt us while we are working, just to say our name but not actually ask anything, we take a slip.
• When all the slips are gone, they are not allowed to ask permission for anything else.

SHEER GENIUS, folks.

Even if it doesn't work***, I still love the idea.

Surely I am not the only mother to deal with this. What have you done to curb the incessant asking in your kids?

***about an hour after we explained the rules, my husband found JC sitting at his desk, writing feverishly on each of his cards. Apparently, he was writing down on each card what he wanted to get permission for. “I want to go fishing” was on one. Um yeah...it would appear that the rules were completely lost on him.

The new blog title

I must admit...I <3 James Brown.

Well, maybe not all that cocaine drama, but the music? Yeah...that's good stuff. But the title of my blog is multifaceted. If you read yesterday's definitions of "bridge," you learned that the bridge of a song is, more or less, the middle part that differs from and serves as a transition between the beginning and the end.

As a Christian, I live on the bridge between who I was before Christ and who I will be when I stand before Him in Heaven (Philippians 3:13; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Philippians 1:6). More than ever, I have been longing for that meeting in Heaven, not in a "I hate my life" way, but more in a "I REALLY want to be with God" kinda way. But in the meantime, I live my life under grace on Earth, striving to be and do all that He desires. That sounds really awesome, so I feel compelled to admit that I usually suck at it.

As a writer, this blog is where I go when I finally have the time to pause and reflect on the many aspects of my life. Usually, I try to process moments or events and try to see them in ways I didn't see them when they actually happened. Remember? I suck at living the life God desires, so I use my 20/20 hindsight to help me.

As a new mother, I find that now (more than ever) my life is just one big transition. When I continually asked God to show me what He wanted to do with my life, I had no idea He would ask me to adopt three brothers and actually trust me with the responsibility to train them in the way they should go (which currently involves an interesting mix of food, love, and discipline, probably in that order). Apparently God sees more in me than I do because honestly, adopting three kids all at once is sheer craziness, especially since my first experience as a parent happened the day they came home. Yep...baptism by fire.


On this blog, since it is new, I hope to have a little more structure and purpose. In the past, I just vomited my thoughts on paper, which is great for me...not so much for my readers. I have been blogging almost 2 years now, and I am finally getting the hang of it. Here are a few topics that will regularly be addressed here:

God, faith, and all that stuff
adoption, more specifically transracial/sibling group/domestic/foster system adoption
Freedom from the Lender...or living a debt-free lifestyle so that we can GIVE
Recipes for the Rest of Us...who don't count anything about our food except the extra helpings.

And throughout all of it, I throw in some random thoughts that have little to do with anything. Of course, I'm always up for suggestions. And since I also plan to have more involvement from my readers, I plan on asking questions at the end of each post (we'll see how long that lasts). So here you go:

What would YOU like me to write about?

Welcome Back!!

Yep...I'm already up and running again.

I will be getting a new look and importing past posts over the next few days, so all that adoption info you've been craving will be here soon.

As for the new title, I'll explain more later. For now, wrap your brain around these definitions that adequately describe life as I know it.

Hmmm...let's see:

pause and reflect?
build toward a climax?
smooth out an abrupt modulation?


Yep...that's my life.