Have you ever been flabbergasted? That happened to me a few times today. I’m not sure which moment tops them all, but it’s somewhere between the romper and going upside-down. This evening Jack and I went to Elijah’s last basketball game of the season. Afterwards, the boys wanted to go to the mall. This has been a twice or thrice yearly occurrence in our household, in my estimation. I’ve been wanting to try on a pair of jeans for a few weeks now, so thought I’d utilize this opportunity to do so. I grabbed what I thought was a super cute shirt to try on as well. Since I was there. It was super challenging to pull over my head and felt very twisted around. After taking it off and examining it a little closer I found out it was indeed a romper, not a shirt. I had stuffed my entire body through one of the legs. I kind of felt a bit flabbergasted to be wearing a romper. I think the last time I wore one, I was my daughter’s age. But it was cute and the red color made me think of another moment of shock I had today.
It was the afternoon chaos of snack time and getting myself ready to head out the door to Elijah’s game, when my cell phone rang and the caller ID read “Arizona”. I almost always answer my phone, because you just never know who might call. My surprise wore off about five seconds before I hung up the phone. So basically, for the entire call, I walked around with a big grin on my face while making wild and crazy hand motions at my kids. Harry was crying in the background. It was Plexus corporate calling to congratulate me on last month’s rank up to Ruby. There was a whole room of people cheering for me and I just stood there dumbfounded and shocked. I knew it had happened, but the past two weeks have zoomed past me like a bullet train and it hasn’t sunk in for real yet. What a special treat to receive such a fun phone call!
Every day I’m flabbergasted by the insane amount of growth I see in each of our kiddos. Harry especially makes me chuckle and sigh all in the same millisecond. He trots around with confidence and can’t decide whether he loves books or snacks best. 
He loves to drag things around, like heavy bags of rice, or his little toy train attached to a string. Ninety percent of his vocabulary consists of the word, “buggah”, with the inflection on the “a”. It means everything from hungry to bagel, to water, to milk, to every other food besides banana… which of course is “nana” or “noo-noo”. His lips make the most darling “oooh” shape and always get a kiss when he says it. His baba is his pacifier and his bobo is his elephant. His elephant which I hope we never lose, because it is no longer made or sold by the UK-based company. He takes after his brother Jack by eating a man-sized portion of oats every morning. I have never used soap on his skin before, since we only use water and everyone has their own special body cloth for all of their showering/bathing. This week he got a bottle of shampoo, which I thought was empty, and there happened to be some suds left in it. I peeked over to him crying in a pile of bubbles, unsure of what was going on around him and scooped him up laughing. Fifteen months old and he’s never had a bubble bath. 
Another flabbergasting moment today was when I found myself actually flipping upside down in the basement on our pull-up bar. It’s been a couple years since I did that move. The best part? When Elsie exclaimed, “Mommy’s still cool!” Then Jack looked at her and said, “She’s always been cool, Elsie.” Insert as many laughing emoji’s as possible here. What a way to make this mama feel amazing! Because at that particular moment, every muscle was yelling at me for the strange contortion I had put it through and my inner ear buzzed a little at the notion of being upside down. But this mama has goals, and they don’t happen by being sedentary.
There is always more to write, but I need sleep like I need that romper… or something like that.
Last night also brought some much-needed healing to a rough patch we were having. I’ll be honest. The last few months have held a boatload of challenges. The last fourteen days alone have felt like a few months worth of struggles condensed into two weeks. There is a war going on, and we are being distracted to death to try and forget about it. The enemy isn’t interested in messing with you if you don’t pose any threat to his agenda. And his agenda is pretty simple really: to make us ineffective. To get us to quit trying and to quit working hard on things which bring God glory. When we no longer feel like something is worth fighting for, we quit.
The following days were spent playing “Where’s Will”, and we ran into him a couple times each day, somewhere on the island.
Another one of my favorite parts of our time there was every morning. We would wander downstairs to the cafeteria, which was under the hotel. It faced the ocean, and we would order hot coffee or tea, a delicious breakfast, and simply be. No agenda but to sip tea and snuggle a baby.
We really enjoyed going to a Gumbalimba Park one day, where we went zip-lining, held macaws, monkeys and more! I was totally impressed by Betty, who fearlessly zipped her way through the canopy.
It has been our dream to return, since Matthew and I lived there for six months when Nadine and Elijah were babies. Now, thirteen years later, we are.
As Betty squealed with excitement over her shorts still fitting her, it slowly started to sink in today. The last time we traveled outside of the country was to Belize, when Jack was Harry’s age. I guess I should start thinking about fitting into my bathing suit. Stupid chocolates.
Grow Old With Me 