a new day....

What am I thankful for today? Camille's big squishy hugs. She told me yesterday, "You hafta always be my Mommy. Even when you are a Gramma. You hafta stay my Mommy. Even when I am a Mommy, you still hafta be MY Mommy." hmm. She says this in all seriousness with her little hands on either side of my face, looking me in the eye. How can a four year old be so aware of aging and mortality?

Charlotte Claire is a sweetie too. She always catches me by surprise with her declarations of love, and her little snuggles.

These two little treasures, my number 15 and number 16 children...would not be here if we were practical and reasonable. I mean, after losing Robert and then having Jonathan, then having those miscarriages, I could have been done. But God knows best, and I am so extremely thankful this morning for these two little girls.

So one little girl wet the bed, they both had showers, bedding into the washer. Rosie had to go out, I did a little picking up and straightening and read the girls a book...now here I sit. They are watching, "Sammy's Story Shop", as they are the only children awake at almost noon. Sonja K. and Jonathan are at Emily's apartment spending the night...

As Emily so eloquently put it on her recent Facebook status, there is work to do at home. She puts it better than I ever could, but her desire to help and encourage and work with the souls here brought me to tears. It is a huge responsibility raising these kids. It is challenging to feed and clothe them, but that isn't the extent of my calling...to KNOW them, to connect with them, to be able to discern what to say and when to say it...those things are not for the clever, but for those who have humbly prayed for wisdom from God. Of which I need much much more. I am thankful for Emily, that she has such a heart for her siblings. She gives her time and her money and her life for them.

I took Mirielle and Margaret shopping yesterday...we had too much fun at Kohl's...$443 worth of stuff for $43! I do call that fun. I had $20 in Kohl's cash, and a few things I returned, and a 15% off card...jeans and a shirt for Joseph, a nice winter coat for Charlotte Claire since her sleeves are shrinking on hers, two shirts for Emily, one for Mirielle plus a dress for her trip, a sweater for Margaret, and a bear for Miss Mali who loves bears. Not a real bear, unfortunately....just a stuffed one.

At Wegmans, we made total fools out of ourselves buying marked down Christmas chocolate...only one dollar each for tubs of dark chocolate non-pareils! Two dollars for one pound Swiss chocolate Christmas trees! One dollar packages of yogurt covered pretzels, and chocolate covered Oreos! Marked down Hershey kisses! I wanted to tell the cashier how many kids I have, but that would have embarrassed the girls more than what I did say, which was, "The girls are hungry." If they were ever going to kill me, it would have been then.

But it was funny.

And after our taco salad last evening, which Emily and Abigail joined us for, it was really nice to have some treats to bring out. I was careful, of course. I don't eat chips with my taco salad anymore, but I did have a few broken ones this time...when I asked for the bowl, one of the kids said, "Mom, I thought you don't eat those!" It's nice to have help, not.

Oh, when we were gone yesterday, Joseph and Aaron cleaned up the kitchen. Swept and mopped and cleaned counters and did dishes...it was so very nice to walk into with all those bags of groceries.

Today we are going bowling, to the place which has the one dollar per game special. The girls still have colds, so do I, but we are going anyway. I am not sure how many of us are going yet. A few of the girls call it, "Social Suicide", to go with the whole family, afraid of seeing kids from school...