If you were a fly on our wall...

...you would have seen Ellie peering curiously into our master bathroom tub the other day, and then carefully spitting into it. Yes, spitting. I caught her in the act and said "Ellie! What are you doing?! We don't spit!" She replied calmly, "Mom, it's just a little spit. It's just a little spit, riiiiight?" Me: "No Ellie, we do not spit at all." (Nice try, sweetheart.)

...you would have observed Robbie staring at the daisy flower window clings in the kitchen, and then announcing "Those yellow things in the middle of the flowers are the eyeball."

...you would have been there when Robbie said to Maddie over breakfast one morning "Welcome to our land, Cakers!" and then turned to me and tenderly said "I missed her, mom. When she was in your tummy, I missed her in our family."

...you would have needed to hold back laughter with me at the table when Robbie was disobeying me and I said to him "Robbie, you need to obey". "Why, mom?" "Because God wants us to obey all the time, everyday!" And without missing a beat he said in all seriousness to me, "But I don't have the Holy Spirit today, mom."

...you would see a few rare and precious moments in which Maddie had woken up in the night and was pleased to be rocked back to sleep, sweetly snuggled up chest-to-chest with me. My favorite thing in the world.

If you were a fly on our wall, you would probably wonder why I am still not 100% unpacked yet from the move, you'd see Maddie practicing standing all by herself, and you'd have watched Robbie steal Reese's Pieces one morning before I was awake and hide them in his closet to be found by me later that day. You would have overheard precious conversations between Rob and I and Robbie about the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and all the ways and times that we can pray to God. You would see Ellie with too much food in her hair too much of the time, and crusty snot smeared across sweet little cheeks since we are all sharing a cold. You would probably be ashamed of how much TV I allow my children right now, since that is what keeps them calm enough for me to focus on unpacking for any amount of time. You might be glad for my family that I have taken up cooking dinner again, but you would probably be disappointed in the menu. Mostly, you would be glad to see that all is well in our household, that we are settling in and that this new place has come to feel like home sooner than we thought it would, and that we are content and happy together.