So when E started asking for a doll whose clothes were “made to come off” (I’ve strongly discouraged her babies’ clothes from coming off and thus getting lost), Barbie was, naturally, the first thing to pop into my head.  Off to the store I went for her third birthday.

Please, someone, tell me Barbie dressed a little more decently when I was a kid.  Or maybe this is why I remember so many clothes in her wardrobe that were made by my mother.  I finally settled on a Barbie with non-removable clothes, ordered some dresses off Etsy, and got the supplies to make my own (with E’s help, of course!) in the near future.  Making them is of course much much cheaper, but if memory serves, it’s not the easiest to turn such little seams.

I did not, unfortunately, find very many very good sources for either premade clothes or free patterns.  Here’s what I did find:

Premade Clothes

• gordon4aday – lots of dresses for $4-$5 each, almost always with matching purses.  Some highlights: a pretty pink formal dress, $5; sleeved casual dress, $4.50; formal gown and cape, $14; casual strappy dress, $4; pants and shirt, $3. Cheap shipping. Some hats.
• TheDesigningRose – lots of dresses with fine details; more sleeved options.  $4-$8, or so.  Highlights: skirt-shirt-look dress with hat, $8; cap sleeved dress, $4; classy business dress, $6; severely modest dress, $5; belted 50s style housewife dress, $6; swiss-miss style dress, $8; shirt and skirt, $5; full short sleeves, $6; ball gown, $15.
• onholiday – these are the cheapest I found, usually $4. Lots don’t have sleeves (or straps), but this set is cute ($12 for 3) and this style might also be acceptable (also $12/3), although personally I don’t like the V.  There have been some cute “old-fashioned” sets there before as well.

Sewing Resources

Honestly, I finally gave up trying to find a good printable pattern online, and ran off to the store for one of Simplicity’s fashion doll pattern sets instead.  But the following sites all had either useful information or good ideas that I want to imitate when I do try to sew my own:

• Janel Was Here has an entry on making a Barbie Strapless Dress, which could of course be easily converted to a sleeved dress with a bit of lace or ribbon (or, you know, actual sleeves…), and another entry on sewing Barbie clothes.  I wish she put her patterns out for download, but you can get a good idea of how to make your own, and see roughly how the pieces should be shaped and how they should fit together.
• Niki Jin Crafts has an entry (again, no downloadable patterns!) on making quite a few different clothes. The thing I really love about hers is the shaping she gets out of her patterns—they somehow manage to look cute while still being quite a bit more modest and non-tight than any of the ones I’ve seen elsewhere.
• Here are instructions for making a cute peasant blouse for any doll.  This looks fool-proof and simple. I also saw somewhere the suggestion of doing this same kind of thing with a sock, which will of course stretch to fit the doll perfectly (and tightly), but also very, very simple.  Few seams and you’re done.
• Lastly, Modest Barbie makes and sells the clothes – lots of great ideas here, until she comes back from vacation!  She also has a tutorial on a princess dress.

Every time she exclaims, “but there’s a monster!” and refuses to go into a room (or refuses to be left alone in one), the nice, pat answer pops into my head: there’s no such thing as monsters, sweetie.

But really, by what definition is that true?  No scary beasts? What are pythons, hippopotamuses, whales, sharks, cobras, or hyenas? No invisible, silent killers? Like viruses?  Nothing supernatural, profoundly evil, and devious? There’s fallen angels and demons.  Rare but human evil? Serial killers, child molesters, genocidal dictators.  Nothing commonplace and evil? We need look no farther than the mirror.  I can’t tell her monsters don’t exist.  It’s not outside of the sovereignty of God that there could indeed be a murderer lurking in the closet, after all.

So what can I say?  I can dutifully go and look, and inform her that there is nothing there.  But lately we’ve been working through our own little monster catechism: Who is bigger than the monsters? God.  Who is in control over the monsters? God.  Who created everything, even the monsters? God.  Who is the only one Who can keep you safe from the monsters? God. Who is always with us, always watching us? God.  So should you be afraid?  No.

I’m struck by the questions that are missing from our little rehearsal. There’s no promise of safety, no promise of a monsterless room, no promise of protection.  This is one of the times when I’m deeply feeling the difference between being a Christian parent and being a lost one.  I’d like to tell her some empty platitudes about how everything is going to be all right, there’s no such thing as monsters, that Mommy’s going to keep her safe.  But that’s not true, and I’d rather teach her that there is One who is completely capable of keeping her safe, One who is perfectly good—and teach her that she can depend on His goodness and mercy whether there’s a monster in the next room or not, whether the monsters are banished or whether they have her for supper.

She’s beginning to grasp some of this.  “I can go upstairs because God will be with me?” Yes. “I don’t have to be afraid?” Yes.  She recites our little litany herself now, and it actually works.  While I can’t persuade her with promises of chocolate (yes, I’ve tried), she apparently can be persuaded by the very idea of an invisible God.  It’s thoroughly cool, and also terrifying, because I want her to have a right vew of God, and it’s so hard to explain Him to a two-year-old.  Has she noticed that I haven’t promised that God would keep her safe, only that He can? Is her idea of God like a cosmic Santa Claus? Am I communicating also the incredible depth of the justice and righteousness of God? His fearsomeness? That He is, in fact, more worthy of fear than any monster that could ever haunt her dreams? It’s complicated to communicate all this to her.

For Mommy, though, this has all been a really good reminder.  I shouldn’t be brave because I’m grown-up enough to think that the monsters don’t really exist.  Whether the monsters are imaginary ones lurking in the garage, or real ones lurking on street corners, I should be brave because God is God over them as surely as He is God over me.

[E, 2 years; R, 1 year; L, 2 months]

But as it turns out, Seth’s job has turned into one with a good deal of long business trips, which leaves me home with the munchkins all day and all night for days.  We survive, and honestly I enjoy the change of pace every once in a while.

Prioritize.

This is a two-step process: figure out the things that are really, really hard to do with just one pair of grown-up hands, and then do everything possible to make those tasks go smoothly.  Things that fall in this category include: bathing the children, bathing oneself, and putting the children to bed.  Getting a bath myself is the hardest task for me, but I’ve learned that if I time everything carefully, I have a few minutes in the morning when the girls are fed and will play very happily by themselves, and L will usually sleep. Sometimes the girls even set up playing shop in the bathroom, which is fantastic, and I enjoy taking the longest shower I can.

Take full advantage of help.

Remember the priorities you just thought of whenever another pair of helpful hands walks in the front door.  What can you do in one-tenth of the time if someone else is there to entertain the kiddos?  DO THAT.  Or, if you’re going absolutely nuts by yourself for the week with no adults to talk to, then throw the todo list away and just talk.

Stagger bedtimes.

This is pretty much essential even if there are two adults in the home, but this is the one task that could truly be nearly impossible if all the kids go to bed at the same time.  You only have two hands, but toddlers at bedtime can be a nightmare!  Keeping even the most well-behaved child in Place A while you struggle to put another child in Place B is unspeakably difficult.  Stagger bedtimes.  Also, make it a habit to not let them get up in the middle of the night. With just one adult home to fetch and soothe them in the wee hours, it’s just not possible to get up two or three times per child!  Zero is good.  Daytime is tiring enough without adding night wakings into the picture.

Go out.

Back when there were only two, sometimes it seemed like the day would stretch on forever and ever and ever.  And maybe it’s intimidating to haul all three off to the mall, but it’ll entertain everyone, use up a lot of time, not create any mess at home, and if it turns out to be too much work, then you just go back home. Be chill, have no expectations, and enjoy the ride.

Schedule.

I’m not normally a very scheduled person, but when I’m the only grown-up around, everything turns into a hyper routine.  Our life becomes a series of blocks of time: first we’re going to get some milk for breakfast, then we’re going to get dressed, then Mommy will get a shower, then we will go downstairs for the food component of breakfast and Mommy’s coffee, then we will clean up and do morning chores… and so on.  With no deadline of “Daddy’s coming home!” there is no accountability for me to get things done properly, and also no major obvious breaks in the day.  Scheduling keeps things sane and also helps us move through the day more pleasantly and smoothly.

Minimize weaknesses.

I am not a morning person.  Seth gets the kids every morning and I silently go get my morning shower, preferably without talking to anyone until I’ve been up at least a half hour, and without actually doing anything until I’ve had my coffee.  The girls, on the other hand, are definitely morning people. They come chipperly chirping into my room before I’m even awake, much less ready to address two cheerful but hungry toddlers. I hate mornings.  So, the night before, I get their breakfast all ready, get my coffeemaker scheduled to be piping hot and ready to drink by 7am, so that when they come running into my room, all I have to do is creep downstairs, pick up everything and bring it upstairs, then crawl back under the covers until I’m a little more happy with the world.

Experiment.

There is great consistency in the house when there’s only one grown-up around to give directions, and toddlers love consistency.  I’ve found it to be a great time to change sleeping schedules, make a child learn to sleep through the night, initiate potty training, and so on.  “Daddy will be so proud when he comes home!” is also a great motivator.

Cook.

I don’t care very much what food I eat, and would happily eat pizza for dinner every night.  Toddlers are very much the same—they don’t distinguish much between macaroni and cheese or coq au vin.  So, when Seth is not home, our dinners focus more on being basically nutritious and less on being culinarily impressive.  I use the chance to try new made-up meals that might flop, and I also do a lot of baking instead of cooking.  Sometimes it’s hard to do both, and baking usually takes the hit, so it’s a good chance to make some cookies and cakes!  (Of course, then I have trouble not eating them before Seth gets home, but that’s another story!)

Do everything with the kids.

When you’re alone with the kids, the most precious commodity is time alone without the kids. Don’t waste it by using it for chores! Whether it’s laundry or mopping the floors, try to do it when they’re awake and demanding, and save the naptimes and nighttimes for the things you really need to be child-free for–or just to breathe. Or sleep.

Expect some tears.

With three quasi-rational children around, you’re guaranteed to have a few moments where you just can’t make them all happy fast enough, and there will be much more screaming than there would be if another adult was around.  But it’s okay.  Just attack their grievances methodically one at a time, stick one child in a crib in another room while you deal with the other(s) if they keep setting each other off, and patiently work through all the problems until all is right with their world again. No matter how loudly they all scream, eventually you’ll work through it all and there will be quiet and peace in the house again.

Find zones.

Find, or create, childproofed areas to put your kids for a few minutes or more.  Know where you can put the youngest safely away from the older ones.  Know where your children can play happily and safely while you run to another room to put a baby down, to put on a load of laundry, or to use the bathroom!  Get as many gates or childproof door locks as you need to make it happen! When you’re alone around the clock, the tasks you usually save until there’s another adult around still need to get done.

Pray.

I don’t mean pray to make it through the week, although that might be necessary! But I find that the house, and my mind, are much quieter when Seth is not here.  The children are much quieter (probably more bored, but still), and I have more work to do, which means my whole self is more focused and reflective.  I  have a lot more time to think, and study, as I go about my daily business, and so these weeks are often some of the most helpful to me spiritually.  It’s always good to be unable to be idle.

The biggest focus for me on home-alone weeks is trying to make our days go by smoothly enough that Seth doesn’t feel badly about leaving, or like he’s creating a great burden for me.  We talk all together on the webcam before the kids go to bed, and the kids always get all wound up and happy about that.  They make crafts for him while he’s gone (although they often get disassembled before he actually comes home!) and we’re very excited when he finally walks in the door.

We tell our children stories—bedtime stories, childhood stories, true stories, moral stories, all kinds of stories.  One of my favorite quotes in the context of parenting is of G.K. Chesterton: “Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.”  There’s an important role for fairy tales.

But we tell some other crazy insane unbelievable tales in this house, too.  We talk about fire raining down on a city, dead girls coming back to life, young men being thrown in a furnace, chariots of fire, old ladies having babies, a great King on a horse, streets made of gold, eternity made of fire, a land with no need for a sun, dead people walking around, food falling out of heaven, rivers turned to blood, oil that never runs out, young boys slaying bears and giants, men walking on water, donkeys that talk, and of men thrown to lions.  And every time I tell one of these stories, I’m struck by just exactly how fairy-tale-like they are.  Hansel and Gretel sounds downright factual in comparison.

But they’re true.  Does it hit you, ever, how utterly crazy our faith must seem?  If I heard of some remote tribe that believed all this stuff, I’d think, wow, they’re really superstitious suckers.

I want our children to believe in this world that must seem like make-believe to the outsiders; I want it to be as natural to them as breathing.  I want them to believe in miracles, to trust with all their hearts that God is sovereign over the food they ate for breakfast, the paving-stones their feet fall on as they walk to class; the moment of their awakening and the moment of their slumber.

I want them to know the True Stories, to know them inside and out and know that the craziness isn’t make-believe, that it’s all real, that we’re real children of a real King, with real justice and real mercy and a coming real kingdom.

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,      
 
    “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
        and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
 
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.
(1 Corinthians 1:18-21 ESV)

I honestly don’t spend very much time pondering the subject. I know that God is both gracious and good, and that the ultimate course of her life is already written and wholly unalterable by me. I know that in heaven I won’t struggle to praise Him for sending even those nearest to me into an eternity of judgement and pain.  But I do find my heart sharply pricked by one little phrase in Scripture: come, Lord Jesus! Part of me–still a sinner!–wants to temper that cry with a “not yet.”  Don’t come back until our children are Yours, Jesus.

It doesn’t seem like a terrible error.  I can still scoff at people who say foolishness like “but I want to get married before I go to heaven,” right?  After all, I’m not putting some vain earthly pursuit ahead of my earnestness for Christ, this is my children’s salvation I’m talking about. And it’s not like I’m not still looking forward to Christ coming back, I just want our kids to be out of limbo-land first.

I was really convicted yesterday about this. Eternity is about Christ, not who else He brings there, and nothing must stand between me and my longing for that day, longing to see His face, longing for His glory to be made known from the furthest reaches of space to the depths of the earth.  I should want our children’s salvation so that their voices would add to His praise, not because I want to hold onto them.

I never cease to be amazed by my ability to be distracted from Him.

Yes, it’s another product review.  I just honestly have been so impressed by this bouncer that I had to share.   Someday I’m going to write an entry about pacifiers and breastfeeding, too, and then I think I’ll be all product-ed out.

Fisher Price makes “rockers” that convert from a stationary bouncer to a sort of rocking chair for toddlers.  This is what I asked for, and received, at the baby shower for our first child, and I’ve been very happy with it—it has made it through three children (often more than one at once) with aplomb.  It’s still going strong.  I had another bouncer, a much cheaper second-hand item, that I kept on the other floor, though, and it was biting the dust.

I should perhaps add here that I’m not a fan of swings.  A baby that’s happy in a bouncer will be equally happy on a pile of blankets at someone else’s house, or in a carseat; a baby that’s happy in a swing will be happy… in a swing. That’s my experience, anyway, and so this time around we aimed our two swings at the dumpster and decided to invest in a second bouncer instead.

I seriously considered getting a second one exactly like the first, but then I saw this one.  It’s a little more expensive, maybe simply because it’s newer, but I loved the idea that the toy bar swung out of the way, and also that the bouncer itself folds up for easy transport and small storage.  I was a little worried about its plastic construction—the cheaper bouncer-rocker is made out of metal—but it’s still rated for forty pounds, which means it can still easily handle our toddlers if they rebelliously venture into it. It’s also a little more matchy with our living room than the blue one is.

So I ordered it, sight unseen, and very excitedly pulled it out of the box and put it together.  We love it.  Baby and I, I mean.  What you can’t really tell from the picture is that it’s very broad.  It doesn’t seem to take up more floorspace than the other bouncers I’ve used, but it’s a lot more bed-like and supportive.  It has a pretty good range of tilt to the seat, too.  It’s also a lot more sturdy than I expected it to be, and the legs work well.  You can definitely drag it across the floor without the legs folding under, but it also has enough grippiness that it stays still when one of the girls knocks into it.  The toy bar folding away is every bit as convenient as I hoped it would be, and honestly I’m kind of glad that it doesn’t make a lot of noise like most bouncer bars!  (It doesn’t make any noise at all, in fact.)  The toy creatures are a little frightening—child the eldest asked why the bugs had so many eyes—but bright and colorful and positioned at a good height.  The whole thing is a little brighter than it looks in the pictures, honestly, which is one of the few negatives since I was hoping it would blend with our décor.  Also not obvious from the pictures is that the bouncer is quite low to the floor, much more than the other bouncer-rocker.  This too is a good thing with toddlers around the house: it would be really hard for them to purposefully or accidentally knock the bouncer over, but it’s still high enough and sturdy enough that they’re unlikely to fall into the bouncer the way they do with a regular, close-to-the-floor bouncer.  (Our first daughter occasionally flipped over her sister’s bouncer—happily I caught it and no damage was ever done to said sister—it was scary, though!)

In short, this is the perfect bouncer to have around when you have two under two, or three under three.

(a swaddled, newborn E)

So, I’ve had three little babies so far, and swaddled all of them to varying extents.  I’ve done blanket swaddles, which always make me nervous because it’s a blanket, which everyone knows you’re not supposed to have within 10 feet of a newborn, but I’ve mostly used the different swaddling products.

First up, we have the SwaddleMe, which was all I’d heard of or seen in stores when our first daughter was born.  We thought it worked just fine, but then other swaddlers came out and I began to wonder.  There are three main points I think it’s important to make about the SwaddleMe: 1) it’s a pain with a newborn, because you have to unswaddle to change their diaper.  Not something I want to do in the middle of the night.  2) the different fabrics result in very different swaddles. The bamboo is the stretchiest one I’ve used, and consequently works the least well—although it is very nicely lightweight.  The cotton one seems the stiffest and best overall, but I’m currently using the fleece and that is working okay as well.  Lastly, 3) you have to swaddle tightly to have a tight swaddle. I’m convinced this is where the “but my baby wiggles out of it” negative reviews come from.  I don’t just wrap the baby up like I’m trying to keep it warm, I wrap it up like I’m squeezing all the life out.  (And, obviously, I check to make sure that I’m not really accomplishing that!)  None of my three children has ever, a single time, come out of their SwaddleMe.  Their arms don’t escape, and they certainly don’t end up near their face.

I’m still a fan, in other words.

But what about those newer, better swaddlers?  First up is the infinitely expensive Woombie, but let me conflate it with what I presume is a total imitation product, the Swaddlepod.  They’re more or less identical, except the Swaddlepod has a zipper closure I like much, much better (the top zipper disappears under a tiny flap, with MUCH less bulk than the Woombie’s velcro-over-zipper at the top), and the Woombie definitely has less stretch (which is a good thing).  I find both these swaddlers to be great for newborns, because they make it a breeze to change diapers in the middle of the night.  It’s worth it just for that.  I like the Swaddlepod better, thanks in no small part to its lovely price tag.  They’re also much cooler than even the lightest SwaddleMe, because there are so few layers.  But my son wiggled out of them before he was even two months old. The swaddle is just not tight enough.  It got to where every night his hands were stuck up through the neck hole, and they woke him up. So back to the old SwaddleMe we went, and since he makes it through the night without a diaper change now, Mommy and baby are both sleeping much better.

There’s yet another type of swaddler on the market, made by the same company as the SwaddleMe, which seems to be the best of both worlds: a bottom-opening zipper matched with the custom fit of the SwaddleMe’s arm-like wrapping.  I haven’t tried it yet, and it only comes in larger sizes, unfortunately.  But if they made it for newborns, it’d be just about perfect.  Until then, I’ll keep using a Woombie/Swaddlepod-like wrap while the nighttime changes persist, then switch back to the old standby SwaddleMe (I have a bajillion of them in the baby closet anyway!).

Now, there’s a real limit to that.  I’m not suggesting a lack of discipline, or a messy house, crazy noise levels, or food-streaked faces.  I’m not saying that we should abandon order.  But with three under three—with small children, period, perhaps—there will be chaos sometimes, and sometimes you’ve got to just learn to roll with the punches and keep your eyes on eternity.  God made kids.  Then He gave us these kids.  He didn’t give them grown-up brains or grown-up emotions or grown-up self-cleaning abilities. This is life, and it is good, in a tainted-by-sin-but-still-in-His-image kind of way.

(If I were a more laid-back person naturally, my message to myself might be find the order or something like that, but I’m the sort of person who over-stresses and gets wound up about the little things.  Chaos is not my desired cup of tea, although this is not to be confused with neatness, which is another issue for another post.)

There’s one giant, simple lesson that has come out of this for me: messes usually look bad, but don’t really take long to clean.

(Or: messes aren’t worth the emotional investment and stress that I attach to them sometimes.)

Let’s say one-year-old grabs the rice off the counter and upends the entire box onto the floor.  It’s a disaster, it’s loud, and if I see it happening and can’t stop it, there’s a lot of despair that passes through my mind as I watch the sea of white scattering over the floor.  A lot of hideous, ungodly, selfish despair.

And guess what? The whole mess can be cleaned up in well under five minutes, and the financial damage is probably less than that candy bar I just ate.  If you stop to think about it, there’s very, very few messes that a watched toddler can make that can’t  be cleaned up in less than five minutes.  The big unearthly messes are pretty flukey, or else I’m not doing the “mommy” job very well.  (Or, perhaps, the house hasn’t been properly outfitted for toddlers.)

I can’t tell you how much energy I waste being stressed out about messes, literal or metaphorical, that are pretty easy to clean back up.  I’m finding that it really helps me to take a millisecond to step back, evaluate how much sacrifice is really required to “fix it,” and base my response on that rather than what the mess looks like itself.

So, when those giant-looking messes unfold before my eyes, I try just to take a deep breath, evaluate the damage, and plod along to clean it up. Hopefully without getting unjustly angry or selfishly snippy towards the offending child in the process. 

It might be a little bit of chaos, but it’s usually going to be okay, and sometimes, it might even be fun.

Well, yes, yes you are, little one.  You don’t even know how bad you are.  Mommy’s bad, too.  It’s called sin. It’s called needing Jesus. It’s called deserving hell.

Needless to say, I agreed with her out loud, and the dialog has been ongoing ever since.  We were driving back from the farm last week, and her little voice calls me from the back of the van, completely out of the blue: “But does R sin, Mommy?”  Her questions are kind of endless and often off-topic, but it’s beginning to be clear that she really, truly understands after all this that she is bad.  And that Mommy is bad.  And that bad people deserve punishment.

That’s all the farther that we’ve gotten. She knows about heaven and Jesus, but clearly isn’t grasping yet that bad people don’t go to heaven except by His grace and His blood.  Still, this is a little piece of the Gospel she’s grabbed a hold of, and it’s so very exciting to witness the pieces begin to fall together, wherever God takes her.  And it’s been a really good reminder to me of the Gospel itself, as I struggle to put it in two-year-old vocabulary.  (The biggest stumper so far: she asked me why Adam and Eve’s sin meant that all their descendants would sin, too. I couldn’t begin to string together an answer that made sense to her.)

C. H. Spurgeon had been announced to preach at Haverhill in Suffolk, and—an exceptional incident—he was late in arriving. So his grandfather began the service and, when the expected preacher did not arrive, proceeded with the sermon. The text was "By grace ye are saved." He had gotten some way into his discourse when some unrest at the door made him aware that his distinguished grandson had arrived. "Here comes my grandson," he exclaimed. "He can preach the Gospel better than I can, but you cannot preach a better Gospel, can you, Charles?"

There’s so much grace—so much truth—in that simple assertion! The best preacher in history still can’t improve on the Gospel.