our soon-to-be abode!

Phew! We found a house! After an excruciating, oh, seven or eight days, we didn't think it was possible, but on the seventh day, it was good!

In all seriousness, it felt like we looked forever and had exhausted all possibilities. Keep in mind that we've been perusing the internet and driving through subdivisions for about a year, now, keeping an eye on our price range and watching for just the right place to open up.

Things did not look good for a while. Needless to say, the price range of the market out here is quite different--higher--than Missouri. That took some adjustment, and then we had to let go of our desire for a ranch with a finished basement unless we wanted to raise our price about 200k more, which we didn't. So once we adjusted to both of those things, we were on our way, but anything we liked that fell into our price range was not in the right school district or something similar.

I can be relentless and obsessive, however, when it comes to something like this, and knowing the neighborhoods that we'd like to live in, I was just driving around constantly. It worked. This house was for sale by owner and did not show up on our realtor's listings, so I sent it to him. Thank goodness! We close on September 22nd.

So I stalk the place, driving by about three times a week, wondering at the possibilities and

imagining scenarios. How long will we be there? Who knows, but there's a great chance that both of our kids will leave for their first day of kindergarten from that very house. We have had the bikes in storage for a year, so hopefully they'll both learn how to ride their bikes there. We will go trick-or-treating this very fall in that lovely neighborhood, and for who knows how many more years?

Admittedly, I am personally quite excited to exit this apartment and have elbow room, to get back my stuff that's been in storage, and to feel like we can finally start living in Colorado, now that we've been here a year. But I'm most excited for my kids. Aidan, who remembers everything, forgot that she owns a bike. I guess it's just been that long since she's seen it. They will have a backyard to play in and tire in and about three times as much space to roam around inside than we have had for a year. Aidan can help me water flowers again, and Taylor can pretend to mow the yard with Daddy. When it gets cold, I can actually tell Aidan yes if she wants to go outside and play in the snow.

I'm not sure how much Aidan remembers of our last house in Missouri, but I know Taylor doesn't remember it at all. So I'm not really sure they actually get how cool it will be to have this house, though we keep telling them. For now, I'll just keep imagining the activities that will take place and the possibilities, but in one month, I'll be able to share them.

Taylor reminds me about unconditional love

I won't go into why my computer was on the floor in the first place, but it was. I had just returned home from the gym and commented on the odd placement to Terry, and then ran to take a lightning fast shower so we could make our plans on time that evening.

As soon as I reached down to turn off the water, I could hear Terry talking about how we had a serious problem. I pulled open the shower curtain to reveal him with my laptop in one hand and about fifteen to twenty of the keys and their parts falling out of his other. What happened? Well....Taylor.

My first reaction was to just put my towel over my face in devastation. I do not know much about the mechanics of how computers are put together or anything of that nature; I only knew that at appearance, it looked really, really awful. Something like the picture here, though I had to pull this one from the web since I was in no mind frame to actually think, I should take a picture because this will be great for my blog! No, no...quite the opposite, actually. I am ashamed to admit how much anger just started to run through my veins or bloodstream or whatever at that moment. I wanted to shut the shower curtain, retake my shower, and erase the event. All I could think about was how much money, time, and effort it would take to replace my laptop, and that it would all have to get done in a few days as I'm gearing up to teach another round of classes online starting this Sunday. I dried off and got ready to find the culprit, and--yes sir--to punish him. I was so angry! I had heard Terry already reprimand him a bit, but I wasn't satisfied. It was my computer after all, and hadn't I told him so many times before not to touch computers?

At that moment, he, the culprit, TAYLOR, came around the corner into the bedroom, sucking his thumb, looking up at me, clearly knowing he had done something really bad.

Do you know what happened? I didn't feel anger at him, just this overwhelming bubble of love. Yes, he needed to know that he did something wrong. Yes, he needed to learn not to do that again. But yes--I loved him even more and felt compassion for him.

It didn't occur to me right then, or even that day, really, that this must be similar to what God feels towards us (namely me) when we "mess up." I grew up with the incorrect notion that my relationship with God was better and stronger when I was "messing up" less. If I'm totally honest, sometimes I still find myself in that mode of thinking. It's just not correct. God loves us no matter what we do, and while that's not a free pass to metaphorically pull all of the keys off the computer of life, it certainly is freeing to know that He still loves us infinitely, even when we're not so lovable. Just like I felt for Taylor, except my love can never go as deep as God's.

Maybe you're thinking, yeah, I knew that already. Well, so did I, but it's easy for me to forget. I love that God can use my kids to remind me of the quietly simple and profound aspects of serving Him.

(Terry ended up getting the bulk of my keys back on, by the way, so the tragedy has been mostly averted.)

Sick = Freedom?

I think the Kelley family just experienced the craziest week since we moved to Colorado. It never sounds as bad when you say it out loud or start writing down your activities, but it just seems we're meeting ourselves coming and going lately, and on Friday, Taylor had apparently had enough.

I noticed Thursday he was acting weird, like in this picture when he crawled up in the chair next to Terry and promptly went to sleep right after lunch. He's not a cuddler or anything close, and he definitely prefers sleeping in his crib over just about anything else (except maybe the car seat). Imagine me trying to convince Aidan to go in and take a nap in her bed when Taylor was sound out on the chair--with Daddy, who was working from home that day. Anyway, that was really the only unusual thing that day, and when he woke up, it was time to leave again and go spend the evening having dinner at some friends' house. Go, go, go.

On Friday, though, I made pancakes for breakfast, something usually reserved for Saturdays, and he wouldn't take one bite. He crawled up to the dining room table and watched us as he sucked his thumb. I had an unusually large to-do list for Friday, and we were to go to more friends' house that night, and I was taking dinner for the 10 of us. Just as I got up to clean the kitchen and shower, Taylor started crying and asked me to hold him. We made our way over to the comfy chair because I thought he felt warm, and guess what? We didn't move from that chair until about 4 p.m. He wouldn't let me put him down. He slept off and on, cried, and oh yeah--vomited on me twice. I cancelled our dinner plans and just gave up for the day, making a conscious decision to put everything off "until tomorrow." There's a certain freedom in that, isn't there? When you can't control your situation, so you just let it go? That's what I did. We sat. We watched Sesame Street and Oswald and Dora. And about 8 others in between naps. I snoozed when he snoozed. Aidan fended for herself, pulling the chair over and getting her crayons off the top of the fridge (I don't know how and I don't think I want to), then turning the other direction to the pantry and getting snacks.

When Terry finally got home, I peeled Taylor off of me and gave him to Terry so I could finally shower. It wasn't but about five minutes later that Taylor threw up on Terry. He had to even it out, right? I resumed responsibility after my shower, almost admitting to myself that maybe one more day of this would relieve me of a number of duties that I wouldn't mind losing. Hmmmm...

Saturday dawned, and I expected the worst, especially when he refused his breakfast again. However, it only took him being awake for about five minutes for me to see the difference in him. Soon he was playing and laughing and screaming, and I realized my to-do list was back in session. I immediately felt tired thinking of that list, and my taste of freedom from the responsibilities of the list slipped away...

an average day contains...

An average day in the Kelley household contains any of the following happenings:

1. Aidan will crawl into bed right next to me before the hour of 7:30 a.m. She is our alarm clock most days, and while sometimes she'll lie there semi-quietly, most days, she grabs my face with her hands and whispers into my ear, "Let's go get some squares cereal!" (that's Life cereal, by the way)

2. I will walk out of the bedroom, expecting the goldfish to be floating on the top of the bowl finally, but it will be swimming around. We inherited this goldfish at a birthday party, and though the average life expectancy of a household goldfish in a small bowl is three weeks, and though every other goldfish given away at the same party died at least two or three weeks ago, our Dorothy persists and lives. I'm starting to root for it/her.

3. I will set up the dining room table for the kids to color, and we will end up with markers all over the floor, markers without lids suddenly, and markers all over the kids. These pictures show an average day of coloring after Taylor decided to color his and Aidan's noses black. 4. The same markers will also end up on the table, wall, and anything close when I'm not watching Taylor. When I ask the kids to pick them up, Taylor will start singing, "Clean up, clean up, everybody clean up!" as he throws them on the table. Half of them roll off, and Aidan has to do the brunt of the real cleaning up. She is quite good-natured about that, usually.

5. When I ask the kids what they want for lunch, their answer will always be mac n cheese. Always. Sometimes I run out, and when I do, Aidan's next request is always fish sticks. That's what she was eating in this pic with her black nose. I always give them some kind of fruit and have to forcefully coax them to eat it.

6. Someone spills something, at least twice in any given day, and I have to sweep and mop under my dining room table. Every. single. day.

7. We are in the middle of potty training Taylor, and while a couple of times a day he goes with my prompting on the big potty chair, at least once a day, he decides on his own that he has to go and goes to sit on his little chair. This usually happens when I am in the other room or not paying close attention. Aidan plays mommy and tries to "help" him, he misses the potty chair completely, and she either gets peed on or gets all serious about cleaning up his potty all over the floor. It's gross, I know, but cute nonetheless.

8. Taylor will predictably draw in his breath in surprise and say, "She say no!" when Aidan won't let him play with something, or when Daddy or Mommy says no. It is one of my very favorite things he does right now. So dramatic; so predictable.

9. Once a day, it seems, I have to tell Aidan to pick up her room. Strangely enough, if left on her own, she'd throw all clothes and shoes all over the floor, which just leads to anything being strewn all over and mayhem. However, once I tell her to pick up her room, she turns into OCD child, and every single thing must go EXACTLY in the right place and be facing the right direction. She gets upset sometimes when I try to help her, because apparently I don't clean her room the right way.

10. Taylor will pull a chair from the dining room over to the pantry closet at least four times to look for a snack. On the way, he will drag the kitchen rug, knock things off the counter, and move half the things in the pantry to look for the snack in his head, even if I tell him we don't have it.

11. And finally, my kids will break into spontaneous song together. All the time. And I will laugh, especially when the song is something like "Go Cubs, Go..." Indeed.

visitor on stage

It was bound to happen sooner or later...

It was a very busy and musical weekend for our family the past few days. Since we've moved to Colorado, I have sung in the worship services about once every two months. I sing for a number of reasons and know that I need to for those reasons, but it does add a certain element of stress to the entire weekend.

Timberline only opens the childcare area 15 minutes before the services. On the weekends that I sing (and of course, Terry does, too), this can be difficult, to say the least. This morning, I did a quick sound check with Terry for the "traditional" service, and down the hall I ran with the kids. Aidan started crying that she didn't want to go to her class. She started this last weekend, and they actually had to page me because she wouldn't stop crying. It was the first time that's ever happened. Today, when I tried to explain to her why she just had to go, she ran away from me down the hall. Finally, I checked Taylor in and realized that I was supposed to be on the stage five minutes prior...so I grabbed Aidan's hand, we ran to the South auditorium only to hear Terry starting the service, and so I plopped her down in the third row and told her not to move or make a peep. I ran up the steps and grabbed the mike.

This traditional service contains somewhere between 100-200 people (I'm not great at those kinds of numbers) and they are mostly above 60 years old, I'd say. This service so far has not been as successful as the other two types (Edge and Main), so Terry really wanted to knock it out of the park. Also, this was his very first time in this particular service. We needed things to go seamlessly, and here I was running on stage a bit late, and breathless, at that.

We got through the first two songs, and I regained my focus. I just decided to ignore the fact that Aidan was sitting to my far left. I trusted her to be that "good girl" I knew she could be. That was my mistake.

Why would she stay in her seat when she's free to run around during practice?

Why would she do what I told her to when she hadn't so far that day?

And why, oh why wouldn't she run on stage when she does any other time she's in that room?

(she's never there during real church)

We were almost done with "Amazing Grace" when my peripheral vision caught a small person running up the stairs on stage. Yes, that's what I said. Here comes Aidan in her Easter dress (pictured above), running straight for us. During the last line of the song, she just bear hugged my leg. I acted like nothing happened and kept singing my harmony.

Once the song was over, Terry got ready to start the next one, peeked over and saw her, and handled it like the pro he is. He made a joke, a good friend of ours ran up and coaxed her down, and we went on. As they went down the stairs, Terry had everyone give her a hand.

So what was her reaction later? We were in the greenroom, relaying the story to the band from the other auditorium, and all Aidan had to say was, "They clapped for me."

If that weren't enough, her last line on that topic? "When I get a little bigger, I don't even HAVE to go to my church class anymore, because I'm going to be singing with you and Daddy." Pause. Eye roll. "Mom, you KNEW that."