But I had to take a second to write because I saw something incredible this morning and, once word is out about it, I’m afraid there will be a stampede to your local Target store and you’ll lose out on this good deal and I cannot let that happen.

Pretend that, right here, you see a picture of HALF OFF BUMP-ITS!!!

Listen, I should have gotten a picture for you but I had two little girls with me, a birthday shopping list and a raging case of “I-have-no-energy-left-thanks-to-mono.”  But, picture or no picture, I couldn’t keep from sharing this shopping miracle with you, my fellow big hair lovers.

Now, I didn’t buy any because, hello, I already own them in all available sizes.  But for those of you who have felt the urge to buy the Bump-it but have resisted, well, now is your chance.  They’re 50% on your local Target endcap (near the hair product section, obvs) and I want to assure you that you will not regret spending that $4.98.

I have a four year old in my lap singing Happy Birthday to me (we’ve been practicing today, in honor of tonight’s party) so I must go.  Live long with high hair and prosper, my friends.

(And wait until I tell you what I did last night.  You’re going to flip out.)

(I didn’t go on a date, lest you think my Friday nights have suddenly become miraculous.)

(It’s even better than a date.)

(Well, maybe.)

(Okay, probably not, but let’s pretend like it was.)

On our way home from the park, I suddenly felt like I was in the mood to cook.  I sent a text out to my college girls and it turned out that several of them didn’t have dinner plans, so dinner was on at my house!  MacKenzie and Aviean absolutely love my college girls, so they were very happy to have a house full of them and you should know by now that I’m always happy to have a house full of them.

After we ate dinner, we played a bit of Wii before I made myself go back into the kitchen to face the task ahead of me: baking a whole lot of muffins.  You see, I work with a woman who is currently in the process of adopting a daughter from the Philippines. She and her husband recently went to the Immigration office to apply for approval and were told that it would take around three months for the approval to be granted.  Although they didn’t want to wait that long, they were also thankful for the time because they needed to use the time to save up the $900.00 needed to submit their dossier to the Philippines.

You can imagine how surprised we all were when Immigration sent their approval immediately after they applied!  This, of course, meant that as soon as they had the $900.00 in hand, they could send their paperwork overseas.  I immediately rounded up my office student workers and we came up with the idea of doing a bake sale for donations.  I emailed a bunch of staff members and faculty from the University and, to make a long story short, by Friday afternoon I found myself with orders for 15 dozen muffins and 15 dozen brownies to be delivered on Monday morning.

Um, oops?

Another coworker of mine immediately offered to bake some of the muffins, so that left me with only eight dozen muffins and 15 dozen brownies to bake.  I dutifully went to Sam’s to buy the mixes, eggs, etc. and, as I was leaving, I saw a woman carrying a tray of pre-made brownies straight from the bakery section.  I immediately wanted to exchange my many boxes of brownie mix for pre-made brownies but decided that, no, I would make those brownies from scratch because I am every woman!

As it turns out, however, I am not every woman.  I am a woman who can handle two little girls, two puppies, go to a Dr. Seuss birthday party, spend a few hours at the park, cook dinner for my college girls, bake eight dozen muffins, attend church, etc. all in one weekend whilst still recovering from mono (oh yes, it is still here).  But I cannot, on top of all of that, bake 15 dozen brownies.

Thankfully, Sam’s Club was ready to come to my rescue.

That’s right: on Sunday afternoon, I took the walk of shame to the service desk at Sam’s Club and exchanged my boxes of brownie mix for eight containers of pre-made brownies that could be simply cut (thank you, college girl Anna!) and delivered.

On Monday morning, Anna came to my house and helped pack up the 15 dozen muffins (thank you, college girl Kimberly for helping me bake on Saturday night!) and 15 dozen brownies and, before long, we were off to make deliveries!  Anna and I delivered muffins and brownies for several hours and I’m happy to tell you that we raised the entire $900.00 dossier fee for the McMullin family just from a few hundred homemade muffins and store-bought brownies.  I loved being able to do something practical to help and I was so glad that MacKenzie and Aviean got to “help” me during the weekend as I’m trying to instill the value of caring for others early on in their little hearts.

Of course, I also instilled the value of purchasing pre-made brownies instead of baking your own but all I have to say about that is that sometimes it’s good to learn early on in life that there’s nothing wrong with a few pre-made brownies.

Last weekend, after I got off work, Aviean, Jay / Rose and I drove to Knoxville to pick MacKenzie up for the weekend!  We got back to Cleveland fairly late, so all three of us were off to bed not long after arriving home.

On Saturday morning, after having breakfast in our pajamas, the girls and I headed to see the doctor and by “doctor” I am, of course, referring to Dr. Seuss.  It just so happens that one of our local libraries was celebrating the 50th “birthday” of his books and by now you should know that I’m not one to miss a good birthday party.

Things I would like you to notice about the following picture:

1. Yes, the girls are wearing matching shirts.

2. Yes, the girls are wearing matching hats.

3. No, I don’t have a full wardrobe of matching clothes for them.

4. Yes, Aviean looks very afraid of Thing 1 and Thing 2.  Remember that face; you’re going to see it again in this post.

I actually call the girls “Thing 1″ (MacKenzie) and “Thing 2″ (Aviean) all the time, so it was pretty funny to watch them try to explain to the characters that they also share their names.  All I have to say is I’m glad they don’t also share their hair because I just don’t feel like blue is really the girls’ color, you know?

They had all kinds of stations inside the library where the girls could do different activities, such as decorating green eggs in honor of Dr. Seuss’ classic Green Eggs and Ham book.

Or making birthday party hats since we were, after all, at a birthday party.

They had at least 15 different stations set-up for the kids, including dancing, building things, more crafts, etc.

And face painting, naturally.  What good birthday party doesn’t include face painting?

I found another kitten, too.

The minute I saw these two kittens together, I just knew we were going to have trouble when Snuggles y Cuddles found out that I was bringing home a couple of new pets.

Our last stop of the birthday party was to have our picture made with the Cat in the Hat who, it turns out, was a local female college student forced into dressing up as a pretend cat in order to earn some service hours for a class.  Otherwise known as the worst Saturday morning of her life.

And, well, the worst Saturday morning of Aviean’s life, too.  But can you blame her for being scared?

That’s one sad kitten, my loves.  One sad kitten indeed.

]]> http://ministrysofabulous.com/2010/03/10/to-be-honest-i-was-a-little-scared-of-that-cat-too/feed/ 0 http://ministrysofabulous.com/2010/03/10/jay-rose-the-adventures-of-a-curious-pink-puppy/ http://ministrysofabulous.com/2010/03/10/jay-rose-the-adventures-of-a-curious-pink-puppy/#comments Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:16:46 +0000 Amy Beth http://ministrysofabulous.com/?p=6538 Listen, we need to talk about something.  Namely, the Jay / Rose situation.

If you’re not familiar with Jay / Rose, perhaps you should revisit the post where I explained the whole Jay / Rose name situation or, if you’d like to hear it straight from the child’s mouth, perhaps you should view the video where Aviean and I discuss Jay / Rose.  If nothing else, you should go watch that video right now just to hear the way she says “Hellwo, Amy Beff” and then you will understand why this four year old child has turned my life absolutely upside down in the best way possible.  Be forewarned that you’re probably going to fall in love with her immediately upon hearing her precious little voice.  I can’t be held responsible, people.  She’s just that darling.

If you’re a longtime reader of the blog, you might remember that, in the summer of 2008 right after our family found out about Aviean’s, um, existence (surprise!), she was admitted to a nearby children’s hospital to be treated for some health problems. Even though I hadn’t known about her (or much less known her) for long, I was already absolutely smitten with her and spent quite a few nights on the fifth floor of that hospital with her.

While she was in the hospital, Jay / Rose was accidentally picked up with her hospital bedsheets and lost forever.  Jay / Rose, who was simply known as Jay back in those days, is a pink puppy she’s had since she was a baby.  Jay / Rose goes everywhere with Aviean and, when I say everywhere, I literally mean everywhere.  We had a situation on our hands but, thanks to some quick blog readers, a new Jay / Rose was on it’s way to me (she’s never figured it out, by the way).

Since I’ve had Aviean with me so much over the last five months or so, Jay / Rose has become a part of my everyday life.  When Jay / Rose falls out of the bed during the night, Aviean somehow knows and I am woken to do a 3 a.m. search for him her it.  When we go to Cracker Barrel for dinner, Aviean orders “pantycakes” and Jay / Rose eats some, too.  When we go to the park to play on the swings, Jay / Rose wants his her its own swing, too.

So you can see how, when Aviean and I went out to play in a fresh snowfall the other day, I naturally assumed that Jay / Rose might want to join us.

It turns out that Jay / Rose loves snow, except for when it gets on his her its head (if you’re wondering how I know this, why don’t you know that Jay / Rose whispered it to Aviean and she informed me?).  Jay / Rose spent some time frolicking with us through the snow and, as we carried him her it around, I started thinking that, do you know what we need on this blog?  DO YOU KNOW WHAT WE NEED?

We need a semi-regular peek into Jay / Rose’s world.  And, by goodness, my camera and I are going to start providing it for you and stat.  I’ll occasionally put up picture posts for you whenever Jay / Rose does something exciting and I’ll continually update this post (and link back to it in each Jay / Rose update) so that we can follow along with his her its adventures.

Where oh where will Jay / Rose take us next?

Once again I fail at keeping my promises.  I promised you pictures of my fun weekend and do I provide them this morning?  No, no I do not.  This is partially due to the fact that I couldn’t find my camera cord until just a few minutes ago and partially due to the fact that I couldn’t be bothered to get out of bed early enough to properly search for it mainly due to the fact (do you like how I’ve managed to slip that phrase into this sentence three different times?) that I basically no longer sleep past 3:30 a.m. and I have no idea why except, actually, I think I do and it’s called anxiety but it’s starting to get a wee bit annoying due to the fact (four!  four times!) that I tend to love and properly appreciate sleep.

Are you impressed with that sentence length?  I love to write run-on sentences when I’m functioning on just a few hours of sleep!

– — –

Things I have been doing lately in no particular order:

Taking my cousin Marisa to dinner for her birthday.   Planning a birthday party at my house for her (this coming weekend!).  Not getting home last night until right before Life Group began and finding two of my college girls (who will remain nameless Nina and Keri) jumping up and down in my yard because they needed to use the bathroom and were locked out of my house.  Explaining to Aviean why we don’t hide from Amy Beth when we’re running late for church.  Missing Cate because she’s moved to the town where her Army fiance is stationed so that she can see him before he deploys for a year.  Missing my college roommates and, dare I say it, even my dorm rooms.  Being glad I finally found curtains that I like for my living room.  Working.  Working, working, working.  Telling Snuggles y Cuddles how much I love them.

So, basically, just the usual going on around here.

“When are you due?”

I thought she was asking when something was due.  Like an application for admission to the University.  Or maybe a scholarship application?

“I’m sorry, when is what due?” I said, totally oblivious.

“When is your due date?” she said, looking at my stomach.

– — –

We now pause for things I wish I had said at this point in the story:

1. “Actually, I had her six years ago.”

2. “Tomorrow.”

3. “Not for another seven months, but it’s twins!”

4. “Not for another seven months, but it’s conjoined twins!”

5. “No, are you?”

– — –

We now return to our story.  I said “Well, I’m not pregnant.”  She looked confused, pointed to my stomach and said “Oh!  I’m sorry.  Your shirt just makes you look like you are!”

Would anyone like a navy blue empire waist shirt because I suddenly have one available and will happily mail it to you this very day, the eighth of March in the year of our Lord, two thousand and ten.

That is, until there was a silent moment at the table when she felt the need to say the following –

“Amy Beff, you USED to have a boyfwriend.”

Why, thank you, Aviean.  I think the only thing dinner was missing was an awkward moment during the main course.

– — –

On the way home last night, I suddenly heard tears from the backseat.  I asked what was wrong and –

“I just wish I could be a mermaid, Amy Beff.  I’m never going to get to be one because I’m a human gwirl!”

– — –

She’s currently sitting beside me forcing Cuddles to be Pocahontas.  Poor Cuddles.  First he gets a girl name, then he has to a female Disney character.  Life is so hard sometimes.

– — –

I just told her I’m writing about her to my friends (oh please, like we wouldn’t be friends if I knew you in real life) and asked if there was anything she would like me to tell you.  She wants you to know that “Snuggles and Cuddles are very nice to Aviean.  Snuggles and Cuddles love Miss, Miss, little Miss Aviean.”  Good to know we’re mastering the art of speaking about ourselves in third person, no?

– — –

You’ve seen it before, but I think you might need to see it again just to make your Monday morning a bit more bearable –

See you later, alligators.  Afterwhile, crocodiles.  And, my personal favorite: holla, koala.

“Amy Beff?  What is love?”

Before I could answer her –

“Is it a kiss, Amy Beff?”

I giggled, because it would be Aviean who would ask me about love, now wouldn’t it?

I had to think about it for a minute because, despite her young age, Aviean has a very good memory and I knew that whatever answer I gave would be remembered and repeated.  The problem is that I’m not really sure what love is, much less how to put it in words.  And so, my answer ended up being the only thing I could think of while I sat twisted in the driver’s seat, looking at my darling in her car seat –

“I’m not certain, but I think that love is everything I feel inside when I look at you, Aviean.”

She smiled and fell back asleep.

1. Yesterday in the campus Dining Hall, I bumped into (literally — my body hit his body) a man speaking to the President of our University which caused the man’s bowl of chicken tortilla soup to be slosh over onto the President’s suit.  I profusely apologized; he laughed.  At this time, I’m still employeed by the University.  I’ll keep you updated on future developments.

2. Travis Cottrell was on campus yesterday to lead worship in chapel.  If you don’t know, Travis leads worship at Beth Moore’s events.  Because I’m staff, I was on the front row.  For 55 minutes, I had to resist the urge to hold up a sign that said “HOW DOES SHE GET HER HAIR SO HIGH?”  It was a long morning, but I persevered.

3. I’ve never mentioned this, but sometimes I dream in words.  Like, when I’m having a dream at night, I “read” it instead of seeing it.  I’ve done it several times this week and, one night, I dreamt about people’s Facebook statuses, specifically Cate’s.  It was kind of awkward the next day when I made a comment about something she had written in her status only to realize that I had dreamt it, not really read it.  She was confused.

4. I just did a search to find out if I should use “dreamed” or “dreamt” in the above mini-paragraph.  My research revealed that “dreamed” is more common in American English and “dreamt” is more common in British English.  In other words, I must now begin finding ways to work the word “dreamt” into my daily conversations.

5. I’ve spent a lot of time with both Cate and Marisa this week which means my head is about to explode with wedding information.  Last night, Marisa and I made a list of everything she needs for the wedding and reception and it stressed me out so bad that I jumped out of my chair and said “I really need to dance right now!”  We turned on some music courtesy of my iTunes and danced around my living room for a bit.  I felt better when we were done.

6. This is sad, but since I had mentioned it already, I’m going to follow-up about it.  Aviean’s dad isn’t living with us anymore as of earlier this week.  I had hoped it would work out for her sake, but it didn’t.

7. This means that Snuggles y Cuddles are, once again, the reigning males of the house.  They’re hoping I never get married because they’d rather not abdicate their throne again.

8. Speaking of my never getting married, one of my college girls, Anna, has mentioned to me on several different occasions lately that she hopes I never get married so that I continue to have my evenings open for my college girls.

9. Anna also asked me yesterday if I ever get “blog fan email” asking for more stories about her.  The answer was no.  But I promise you that, within seven minutes of posting this, I will get a text from her that says “You mentioned my name twice on the blog today!!!”

10. Speaking of my college girls, we had the most interesting Life Group this past Monday night.  A few of my girls were sick, so all of the girls who were there — with the exception of one — were seniors (I cannot talk about the fact that a large portion of my college girls are graduating in May because I refuse to acknowledge that it’s actually happening).  Cate joined us, too, and as we did prayer requests, we ended up having a really deep discussion about fears that come up during major transition stages in life such as graduating from college.  There were some tears involved, but it wasn’t too bad because, prior to our conversation, we had baked brownies and removed them from the oven before they were fully cooked in order to enjoy them in their gooey state.

11. Speaking of that, one of my college girls has to write a paper on her observations of any group she belongs to.  She picked our Life Group and, as she started to walk out the door on Monday night, I asked her if I could see the “observations” she had written down during the night.  You’re going to love this:

a.) Conversations over brownies (gooey) and milk about how life is going.

b.) At times it can get sensitive as we discuss how God changes the events in our lives.

c.) Each girl gives insights on problems (unless you’re me, I usually keep my mouth shut).

d.) The one thing we all have in common is that we were part of the last leadership team of Starlite Ministries.

e.) Later in the evening, things get competitive as Dr. Mario ensues.  Occasionally yelling occurs because of various winnings and losings.

Y’all thought I was joking when I told you about our obsession about playing Dr. Mario but you should know by now that I would never joke about something that serious.

After I wrote this, I saw that Kelly asked people to write about their typical day. Mine is a typical week, but close enough, right?

As I was praying, I kept feeling like the word “intentional” was something I was supposed to think about in regards to both MacKenzie and Aviean.  I wasn’t sure how it would play out but, as the first couple of months of the year have slowly passed, I’ve seen quick glimpses of how my intentions towards them as well as about them matter.

Earlier this week, I told you that I got up early and went to MacKenzie’s apartment to pick her up and take her to breakfast before dropping her off at school.  What I didn’t tell you is that, when my alarm went off at 4:45 a.m. that morning, I wanted to go back to bed.  I was tired and sleepy.

But I got up.  I got up and got in the shower and did my hair and left the house before the sun was fully up.  I drove to her apartment, put her booster seat in my car and took her for doughnuts.  I drove her to school, gave her a small pink box with a cupcake inside and kissed her cheek before she went inside her classroom.

I’m not telling you this to make myself sound wonderful or because I have some hero mentality about myself.  I’m telling you this because, right now, this is the chapter being written in my story of life.  This is the chapter where God takes a 25 year old girl who asked Him for a husband and children of her own and instead gave her an eight year old without a mother and a four year old without stability in her life.

As my weeks and months with having the girls in my life go by, I feel like I discover a new reason for their presence in my life on almost a daily basis.  Perhaps the biggest lesson right now is that which I illustrated earlier with the story of how I wanted to sleep a couple of extra hours instead of taking MacKenzie to school.  The lesson I’m learning right now is that it — this story, my life — isn’t actually always about me and what I want and even what I think I need.  Sometimes it’s about getting out of bed and taking that girl to school because she’s never had a day in her entire life when a maternal figure has dropped her off to school, much less taken her to breakfast first.

Sometimes it’s about showing up at the school later that day to have a conference with her teacher so that she can update me on MacKenzie’s progress in class.  Sometimes it’s about the teacher handing me materials to work with her on when she’s with me on the weekends.  Sometimes it’s about teaching Aviean how to count to ten, how to say her ABC’s night after night.  Sometimes it’s about not buying new clothes for myself because I need to purchase clothes for Aviean instead.

And do you know what the best thing is?  Never do I say “sometimes this is worth it.”  Always, every day, every single time I choose to do what I know is right, it is worth it.  It’s worth it whether I can see the effects of my love of these girls now, it’s worth it if I won’t see the effects until I’m in heaven.  It’s worth it when I take them to the aquarium and it’s worth it when I take away privileges.  It’s worth it.

And so that’s what I’m doing in 2010, this year of my life.  I’m being intentional about my love, intentional about my care, intentional about my discipline.  I’m being intentional about driving the miles to pick MacKenzie up for the weekend whether I’m tired or not.  I’m being intentional about letting Aviean stir the brownie batter even though I know it means I’ll have a mess to clean up when she’s done.  I’m being intentional about not favoring one girl over the other and spending time alone with each of them.  I’m being intentional about the way I spend my money so that I continue to have fresh fruits and vegetables in my refrigerator to feed them.  I’m being intentional about losing weight so that I can more easily chase them around the park this summer.  I’m being intentional.

I’m being intentional because, when I looked at the girls as I prepared to take the picture you see above these words, I suddenly felt like I couldn’t breathe.  For a moment, from behind with their hair and long limbs, I saw them at 13 and 15 and 17 years old.  I saw them making decisions and making promises and making mistakes.  I saw them in their futures and I saw that, what I do today, matters more than I could ever imagine.

And so, my love is intentional.