I’m posting this out of order… but I want to remember it.
On December 23rd, my mom had the oldest five to her house for a sleep-over party to celebrate, um, Christmas ADAM. Get it? Adam comes before Eve? They had snacks and Christmas movies and a fantastic breakfast.
John and I had Katriel. JUST Katriel. It was really cool.
First, after I dropped the kids off at my mom’s house I ran through the drive-thru somewhere and grabbed her and I each some lunch.
We dined together in utmost quiet. I pulled her chair right up to mine for our own table-for-two.
I then tucked her in for a nap. She slept soundly for THREE HOURS. (Of late she’s been more of a two hour girl.) I’m guessing a silent house had a lulling effect. At first I dove into cleaning. I got a lot done in an hour. And it was SO boring. After 90 minutes I was watching the clock wondering WHEN she would get up. I decided to wrap the last few gifts and looked up some stuff online. But really – I was bored. I am not designed for child-free-ness.
FINALLY at 4 she started to make some noises. I shot upstairs to collect her.
When John got home the THREE of us (yup – that felt weird) went to the food court at the mall for dinner. I love food court Chinese and only get to eat it about twice a year. This was the night. I realized how dumb it was to buy her nuggets at lunch, b/c now what was she going to eat? She eschewed the fries and only licked the ketchup off the burger. It didn’t seem right to give her Kung Pao or General Tse chicken, either. After we poked around JCP for a few minutes we decided to head home for my $10 off coupon at JCP. Except when we got there we couldn’t find it. So we went to Wal•Mart instead. And that is where John did something I’ve never done before. He let Katriel walk in the store. You can imagine when I take kids solo into Wal•Mart that I NEED to contain the smallest ones. I’m the lady with that monster-sized cart with the big plastic fore-piece where I can buckle in Johanna and Katriel. But tonight, Katriel delighted in the opportunity to use her own two feet to navigate the store.
We headed back to the baby section where so I could find some onsies for her. (Yes, she was seeing her Christmas gift.) As I considered the merits of the different brands and sizes she and Daddy checked out one of those things where you can push the squares representing all the children’s CDs for sale. She pushed and listened and danced.
Dayspring Disciples 
