SAHM I am (27 page)

What amazes me most is how quiet it is here. I thought small-town life was quiet, but this is silence on an entirely new level. You can stand outside on a still day and almost hear your heart beating. I spent most of the afternoon yesterday while Bennet and Julia were napping, sitting on a “big, round
bale” in the field near the house just listening to the quiet and letting peace seep into my very bones. It was a balm to my spirit.

We haven’t even discussed Jonathan’s job situation yet. I don’t think he’s ready to work on it at the moment. But the Lindbergs aren’t letting us pay any of the bills, despite our protests, not even groceries. And the car was (thankfully) paid for. So our only real concern is health insurance. We really should get the children on Medicaid, and just pray neither Jonathan nor I get sick or injured. But other than that small worry, we are loving it here.

Blessings,

Phyllis

I hate to sound like I’m rubbing it in, gals, but I
love
having Phyllis here! You should have seen us when they pulled up in the drive. She got out of the car and I ran out of our house, and we squealed and gave each other a hug. Our poor guys were standing behind us looking at each other, like, “Hi, I don’t know you, so I’m not going to hug you.”

And then, Phyllis and I were all, like, “You don’t look
anything
like I expected!” For some reason I thought she’d be tall, with short blond hair, sort of a squareish face, and blue eyes. But Phyllis has this elegant, oval face and long, straight brown hair and gorgeous brown eyes. When she wears her hair up, you’d swear she was a ballerina, she’s so graceful look
ing. (She’s looking over my shoulder now, and just slapped me on the arm, saying, “Oh, please!”) :)

Hi, girls, this is Phyllis writing now. Brenna exaggerates. I’m hardly graceful. She had me fooled, too. I was expecting she’d be really short, petite, with glossy light brown hair cut in a pageboy. But she’s taller than I imagined, willowy (e.g., zero body fat, which I’m trying not to be envious about), with curly hair that is long and dark brown, and a sparkly smile that lights up her whole face. No wonder Darren was swept off his feet when he met her! :)

Okay, Brenna’s back—zero body fat, whatever! Anyway, as you can tell, we’re having fun getting to know each other in person. We were thinking that sometime, maybe next year, we should all try to get together somehow. Like a Green Eggs and Ham retreat somewhere. Wouldn’t that be fun? We could leave the kiddos with our DHs and have a girls-only weekend. :) Hmm, I’ll be fantasizing about that for the rest of the day!

Okay, I’d really better go mop that floor…the mud is launching an invasion on my house.

Brenna

Whoo-hoo, girls! I just got Tom to help me take my measurements to send to Jeanine so she can get my dress for the
wedding. (He enjoyed “helping” me way too much!) But I’m dancing around the house, chanting,

I AM DOWN TWO SI—ZES!

I AM DOWN TWO SI—ZES!

I think Tom thinks I’ve lost my mind. But he doesn’t realize how hard I’ve worked! Yippee!!! Lower me from a star, Jeanine! Bring on the drinking straw dress! I’m ready! Lithely yours (well, okay, maybe not quite lithe, yet, but definitely closer…),

Dulcie

Way to go, Dulcie! Doesn’t it feel great?

By the way, how do you like having Tom home?

Jocelyn

You know, Jocelyn, that’s a very interesting question. He’s been home about a week now—with 75% bench pay, which is pretty good. It looks like he will have an Omaha assignment in about two weeks, so this is a vacation for him. And I thought I’d be ecstatic.

Can you hear the “but” in that? :) Quite honestly, it’s not exactly like I’d expected it to be. I love Tom—you all know that. But having him around all the time is…bugging me. That’s so awful to say. He’s wonderful about trying to help, but I think I actually get more accomplished without him here. Like this morning—he offered to get the twins up and dressed for me. I thought that would be great. But I discovered something. My husband cannot put on a diaper right to save his life. And we don’t even use cloth diapers! All he has to do is position the silly thing and bring the tapes up and around. But, I kid you not, both Haley’s and Aidan’s diapers were sliding off their little bottoms by the time he brought them downstairs for breakfast! I’ve never seen such a pathetic diapering attempt! Aidan’s was so loose, she leaked, and I had to find her a new outfit.

Oh, speaking of outfits! I didn’t know Tom was so clothing challenged! He put poor Haley into bright red pants with a pink-and-blue-striped top that was about two sizes too small. It wasn’t even in her dresser—it had gotten shoved into the closet and McKenzie found it. But it was the most hideous getup I’ve ever seen! And when I protested about it, he looked completely puzzled.

“What’s wrong with it? Red and pink are sort of the same, aren’t they?”

ARGH! By the time I re-changed their diapers and got them dressed appropriately, I could have had all three of them dressed and done with breakfast.

And don’t even get me started about the evenings. (But since I am started, let me tell you about it.) I must have forgotten what it was like having him home. I keep tripping over him, or his stuff. I didn’t think he had that many belongings in the hotel at KC—maybe they propagated during the trip
to our house. I always thought Tom was a neat freak and I was the messy one. Now…I’m not sure.

So he sits around watching TV or surfing the Internet in the evenings. Oh, and that’s another thing—I don’t like sharing my computer! When he’s on a job, he gets to borrow a company laptop, but since he’s home right now, no laptop. And he takes up all my e-mailing time reading programming news and looking at all the latest, greatest computer developments.

I hate to sound hard-to-please, and I do like having him home. But it’s almost like having another child around, if you know what I mean. Another person to supervise, another mouth to feed, another body to clean up after. And his constant attempts to “help” remind me of McKenzie. I think I can teach him how to do some of the chores, given enough time. Handyman he is not.

Boy, do I sound ungrateful or what? I’m sorry. Don’t mean to vent to all of you, especially when you’ve put up with my griping about him being gone. :) Just take it as a lesson, girls—be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.

Dulcie

Dulcie, you’re so funny! Don’t you know Tom’s just being a man? :) Shane is useless at choosing clothes for any of the kids. In fact, I have to help him pick out his own outfits. He has finally figured out how to diaper decently. But it did take a while.

Enjoy your man. Enjoy having him home. Forget the inconveniences and just concentrate on the perks—cuddle time, free babysitting, an adult to talk to and so on. You’ll get used to the new routine soon.

Love,

Jocelyn

Hey, Dulcie! Husbands take up a lot of room, don’t they. :) Darren has dinosaur-size feet and great big hands. I never let him anywhere near anything breakable! And I’m constantly tucking my toes out of the way so they don’t get squashed. But I honestly believe—in spite of the extra work involved—that having a husband is far superior to having a cat.

Hugs,

Brenna

Jonathan just put a stained dress of Julia’s through the wash on hot and the dryer on high. I told him he might as well have put the entire thing in the oven and baked it at four
hundred and fifty degrees. That stain is
never
coming out—and it was one of my favorite outfits for her! Does that count toward our emerging list of ways that husbands are…inconvenient? Sorry, I’m just a tad irritated. How many times have I told him to check for stains and treat them
before
putting them in the wash?

Big sigh,

Phyllis

before
putting them in the wash?>

Oh, Phyllis, I’m sorry. I really am. But I’ve been saving up this Shakespeare quote, just waiting for a time like this to share it:

Gotta love the Bard!

<“Prithee, honey-sweet husband, let me bring thee to Staines.”>

Okay, Z, out with it—tell us the truth. You had to have made that one up! Where do you find these quotes, anyway?

Brenna

Did not! Act 2, scene 3 of
The Life of King Henry the Fifth.
You can look for yourself—Shakespeare is on the Internet, my friend.

Oh,
The Life of King Henry the Fifth
…of course! I should have known. I love that play! I want to read it again—it’s been a whole three months since I last read it. But it’s going to have to wait. I’m right in the middle of
The Brothers Karamozov,
and after that, I’ve promised this will be the year I finally read
Crime and Punishment.

“Literarily” yours,

Brenna

What happened to you, Brenna? You take a Rosalyn pill this morning or something? :)

I asked Tom to set up filters on my e-mail program yesterday, so that everyone’s e-mails would go to their own folders. He saw the ones to our Green Eggs alias with “How do I like Tom being home?” in the subject line, and was curious what I’d written. So he checked my “Sent Mail” and read what I wrote, about how frustrated I was.

He’s furious, and hurt. I tried to apologize, but he won’t listen. All the stuff about the Christmas party that we never talked about came back up. To make a long story short, he says that since I don’t want him around anyway, he’s going to take that remote job after all. And he does mean
remote
.

It’s the Alaska job. For a year. He leaves Monday.

Dulcie

Holy Housewives,

Here is a topic near and dear to my heart—DAILY QUIET TIME. That blessed and sacred hour of prayer. The communion! The fellowship with God! Let’s share our wondrous experiences of walking with God in our devotional time.

I always have my quiet time in the early mornings. It’s more Scriptural that way, and it’s like tithing the first part of my day right to the Lord. I have a study guide, which takes about forty-five to sixty minutes per lesson. Then I spend another half hour memorizing Scripture. After that, I take another hour to pray through my entire prayer list, beginning with the president of the United States, and ending with specific petitions for each missionary our church supports. My husband and children take up a large portion of the time in between.