I'm well into the time-frame when I get all angsty and emotional about my child's birthday. Ella will be 7 tomorrow and I can hardly believe this is the same baby we first moved to Ireland:



Ireland was rough on her at first. She was known to eat sand by the plastic-shovel-full and frequently fell into the saltwater tide. We suffered along with her during the early days of car sickness when, exactly ten minutes after every arrival, she'd lose her lunch.



For the newbies, you should know we've lived here before. I repeat this fact all the time, whenever they hear my accent and want to know when we came. I tell them January, but I'm quick to clarify. First, it was Meath, I say. For two years. Two long, hard, beautiful years. And in that time, our lass changed from this:



to this:



And now, three more years later and on the precipice of 7, she has become this:



Her hair is wild and her room is blue. She wears black and turquoise on the days she's free from navy blue pinafore and oxford tie. She is making strides with reading and occasionally cheats at her maths. Like her mother, she loves the sea and has an irrational fear of Willy Wonka. And she's not sure, yet, if she wants to become a mother.

She defies every expectation we had, making our hearts grow and quiver with every wall climb and high jump.

And she still asks us, months and years and houses later, if this is where we'll stay. She's moved seven times in seven years and her adventuresome heart longs for a place belonging just to her. When we say, yes - yes, this is where we're staying, indefinitely - she decorates her walls and hardwood floors with permanent marker. I try to discipline her, but she's not buying it, "You said this is our home, you know."

Yes, I certainly did. You go right ahead and we'll explain it to the landlord later.

Five Friday Favourites

1) 32 birthday gift ideas for girls who don't like princesses :: I remember, before she was born, praying for our sweet little girl and asking God to make her however He wanted her. I prayed she would feel free to be or do or go wherever, that she would never feel hemmed in by her gender or her age or her circumstance. I want her to be fierce, God, I prayed. Fierce and wild and strong. And He said, Sure thing, Karen. So that's how we got Ella. I love this list of birthday ideas for non-girly girls, which will help immensely when her 7th (7?!) birthday rolls around in October. Thanks, Rookie Moms!

2) Mornings with my boys :: Matt's been working an actual normal schedule this week, and with Ella @ Camogie Camp, just me and the boys have been chillin'. These guys... they play hard and fight hard, and Jack is so patient with Ash, and Ash is so in love with Jack. "My brother!" they both cry, frequently, in good times and bad. Love them.



3) Date nights in the garden :: You know how people say, "You should do regular (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, whatever) date nights. Married people need date nights!"? Well, they're right - we do need date nights. But the euros required for actual date nights are few and far between. So we do date nights with Doctor Who on the couch. Or we do date nights in the twilight of the back garden. This week we sat back there, after the kids were in bed and the daylight waning, and we listed our missed things, well-loved things from back home. Top of the list: the people (family, friends, Crossroads, community group), then places (River Market, our park in the city, the Grand Balcony), then food (ohhh, Margaritas, how I need you!). It was bittersweet, but good to remember. And truly, we have traded quite nicely. Date nights in the garden... what will we do in winter?

4) What Missional Communities Do :: An acquaintance on Facebook shared this, and it's totally our jam:

What Missional Communities do:
You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew,
rebuild the foundations from out of your past.
You’ll be known as those who can fix anything,
restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate,
make the community livable again. 
Isaiah 58:12 {The Message}

5) #IrishHeatwave :: Want a dose of happy? Search the instagram hashtag #irishheatwave. We may not have any air conditioning, nary an outdoor swimming pool or splashpad, but we've got beaches and oceans and loads of shiny happy people frolicking in this unbelievable weather. Thanks, God, for your good common grace.

***

Ok, that's my list. What's yours? 

Camogie Camp, a restropective

DAY 1
I watch for her, sweaty children in masks making their way from the clubhouse. Her pink backpack precedes her and I wait, anxious: Did she make it ok? Sid she stay dry? Did she love it? As she turns, her frown confirms my worst fears. Slowly, she makes her way towards me, her arm juts out, middle finger upturned in my face. Oh no! I think, Already? She's turned on us already? It takes a moment for the flesh-coloured bandaid to register. "I got hit," she says. That's a relief!

DAY 2
Fumble. She goes missing for a few minutes in the locker room whilst I wait outside, camera in hand, to take a picture of her with helmet and hurl and smile on her face. I find her crying on the bench inside, knee banged up, all determination and joy gone. We cuddle for awhile, get her helmet fitted, take a couple of very sad photos, then the smile returns. This picture is for Papa, I say.

DAY 3
The boys and I arrive early to catch a glimpse of our little camogie darling. It is hot as all get-out and it's hard to find her in a sea of small people with caged helmets and green uniforms. Finally we spot her and watch her stand there, walk aimlessly for a bit, and then break out in a dance when her team scores. "Did you see me make a point?!" she asks. "I saw your team get a point, " I say, afraid I'd just burst her bubble. "Oh yeah, that's what I mean!" Joy undeterred. She is pink as a grapefruit.

DAY 4
"I scored 100... no... 1000!" ...Questionable.

DAY 5
We are now both adept enough to get her helmet securely on, and we take action shots for the family back home. I promise to arrive early to catch a few minutes of her last match. But... I get that sinking feeling all parents get when they drive into a parking lot only to see it completely full, knowing that you must've missed something. Sure enough, it's the award ceremony. I spot her in the middle of the huddle, all shiny and exhausted. And when she finds me, I get two big thumbs up. She is wearing green, white and orange. Her new colours, and one shiny medal.

***

So this is what we did this week... plus drama workshop, plus grocery runs, plus temper tantrums in car parks, plus sun sun sun. What did your week look like?

The bend of her bow :: 31 days of messy parenting {day 4}

We're bent the same, she and I. They say that it's the one who is most like you - the one struggling with your weaknesses, the one mastering your strengths - who will exasperate you and frustrate you and push you to your fraying limits.

She's mine: my tiny, brown-eyed twin.



It's not that she's disobedient or bad or anything like that. On the contrary, she wants to please... so much... so much that it hurts (literally) sometimes. We used to say, when the wee lad was born, that she might accidentally kill him with kindness (this was when she'd run and jump over his wee newborn body or lay on top of him, smothering him with kisses). But she didn't and he's still around, calling after her in newly pronounced Ls.

"El-La, El-La."

He chases after her, which is what we all do. We can't keep up. And we can't keep her down. She's a sly one. Free-spirited. Creative. Wild. Brave. All the things you wish for in a girl, things that will make her strong and independent. Things that will help her in the future when she auditions for her first play, or goes toe-to-toe with the boys on the hockey team, or applies for the job she's always wanted.

She got those things from me. But she also got the the stubborness, the talking more than listening, the allergies, and the temper.

And this is where we push and pull. Her strengths and weaknesses, all jumbled up with mine. We both yell and stomp and flail arms around, trying to match the other's logic with reason. I fight with her more than I do anyone else. I sigh at her, walk away from her, question her, punish her. And in doing this, I fail to recognize the me in her.

It is me she is chasing after. And what she sees (and feels in her bones, marrow from the woman who bore and nursed her), she mirrors right back at me. Round and round we go. Chasing.



Oh, Ella, Ella. It is your 6th birthday. And I still don't yet know you, I still fail you, I still misguide you. We are the same, but you, you... you are so much more than the emotional, wild, stubborn streak I gave you. I'm sorry I don't see you. I'm sorry for not leading you better, in the way you should go. I'm sorry I'm still struggling at being me, unsure of how to empower you being you.

I will learn the bend of your bow, the bend of mine. We can string them together, and our arrows will fly.

Do you have one, the child who is most like you? The child you don't really know, but are somewhat sure you're probably messing up? Let's give one another (and them) some grace here.

The grand eczema experiment of 2012

Our girl has eczema. Severe eczema. This is nothing new, but it comes and goes in waves, in accordance with the weather or the location or the food touching her sweet pink face. I've got it too, but I could live with it - the itchiness, the pain, the oh-so-attractive red bumps - if it weren't for my little twin, staring back at me, scratching every part of her tender body.



As a newborn, this was her forehead, eventually spreading to the rest of her face and body...



At this point, we began a fun twice-daily regimen of bathing her, covering her with lotion, hydrocortisone, and aquaphor. She became quite slippery and had a glow about her:



For most of her five years, variations on this treatment sufficed. And we began to discover things she was sensitive to: peanuts, strawberries, fragrances, soaps, animals, dust, etc, etc, etc... We treated her like any allergen-contaminated specimen, adjusted her diet, made our own laundry detergent, and bought every fragrance-free dermatologist-recommended body wash imaginable. Some years, there were many more good months than bad. But this year we've had several bad months. Patches on her neck, shoulders and legs became so scaly and infected, nothing we did to her or for her seemed to help. I rang the doctor three times in a week, desperate for answers. And this is what she told me to do.

Wrap her in saran wrap.

So twice a day, we lather her up in the good stuff (TAC in Aquaphor), wrap her legs and arms in damp towels, cover the towels in saran wrap, and wait. I've heard similar variations on this experiment - damp clothes, wrapping overnight - and one week later we are seeing her infection die down a bit (thanks also to some strong antibiotics).



She is a trooper, this girl. On our first bout of wrapping, she sighed as I pulled and tightened, saying, "I just want to be normal." But as I put the finishing touches on her saran wrapped arms, she looked up at me with those big, brown, hopeful for normalcy eyes, and said, "I. AM. A. RO. BOT... I can't wait to show Dad!"



It seems that eczema is more common than I knew - nearly every parent friend of mine has an eczema child. What do you do for yours? Any advice on soaps, detergents, foods? 

Forgotten Girl

In all the hubbub of Jackson's life changing drastically, I realized Ella-centric posts on this blog are lacking. So let me tell you a little bit about our girl:

Our somber little non-smiler appears to have changed overnight.  She is simply boisterous. She laughs and sings and dances and speed walks (her favourite olympic event).  She loves to tell jokes, and loves even more to laugh at them.  When Skype opens up on our computer, she runs into the dining room, yelling: "Gramma! Jessica! Papa! Grampa Huber!" We can't leave the door open for a mere minute without her escaping down the street. 

Her best friend (besides Jackson) is our baby neighbour, Rachel. They exchange greetings every morning, love to say eachother's names over and over again, sharing pacifiers and little buggies and laughs and tickles. 

She has numerous "babies", all named Emma or LarryBoy. She eats sand by the scoopful, licks rocks, and loves to fall bum-first into the surf of the Irish sea.

She's also a great little sidekick for Jackson. A gift we thought we'd never have.