My Overthinking

Philly Area mom, Life forever changed by adoption

Sunday Snapshot: {Our Ever Helpful Big Sister}

Ashlyn: “Mom, I changed Lydia for you ’cause she woke up.”
Me: “What? You changed her? Really? The last day of summer and now you learn how to change her diaper???? Let me see.”

Lydia: “Yup, she changed me.”
Lydia: “What do you think? Not bad, huh?”
Lydia: “I can do the China squat still.”
Lydia: “And, I can walk around pretty good.”
Lydia: “Let me show you that squat again. I rock at it.”
Lydia: “Wait…not good.” 
Lydia: “Mama, could use some help here. Can you put the camera down?”
Lydia: “Ash, please. Mama’s just taking pictures of my embarrassing moment here.”
Ashlyn: “Oh! Oh no! Did that diaper come off? Here you go.”
Lydia: “I don’t know about this.”
Lydia: “Mama, not sure if this is gonna work.”
Lydia: “I’m feeling a bit insecure.”
Ashlyn: “Now, there you go. You’re okay.”
Lydia: “Okay…okay…I think we’re good now.”
Lydia: “Phew. Thank you, God, for my big sister. You can put the camera away now, Mama.”

Ni Hao Y'all

I’m tickled pink (with whip cream and sprinkles) that Stephanie over at nihaoyall.com picked my last Sunday Snapshot as her favorite. I’m doing a little happy dance (that won’t be caught in pictures). Gotta say–not surprised that my donuts and ice cream post was her favorite after I read her post about s’mores! 

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Our little Collector

Have you seen the TLC show “Hoarders: Buried Alive.” Scary. Mark had it on the other day as I was working on the WAGI site. And, this is the kind of thing I looked up from my Macbook to see:

Yeah. That’s enough to freak me out a bit.
(NOTE: This is NOT Ashlyn’s room. This is a picture from the tv show. My husband told me today that some people sounded like they thought this was in our house. No, no, no!!!)

Over the next couple days, I realized Ashlyn and Lydia’s room may eventually come to this. Ashlyn is a collector (that’s the nice word for hoarder). She likes lots of little things–a bead or button she finds somewhere, happy meal toys, gumball-machine-like figures. If it can fit in a pocket, she loves it. Problem is, she loves about a gazillion of them.

I have finally had enough.

When I couldn’t put the girls’ clothes away because there was just too much junk in their room to figure out where to put the clothes, I knew something radical had to be done.

What was supposed to be just Mark and me discreetly cleaning the room became a family affair. All 6 of us were in there with a couple cardboard boxes and a bunch of trash bags. This was the deal–we wouldn’t throw anything out (within reason…we did throw out trash we found like tags and pencil shavings I’m so embarrassed). Instead, everything would be put either in the basement storage room or the playroom attic. IF Ashlyn asks for something specific in those boxes in the next 6 months, she can keep it. If she forgets all about it, it’s gone (unless it’s something Lydia may want…did I forget to mention that the hoarding tendencies may be genetic? My younger sister confirms this.).

Then, we found this. 

Totally not kidding. Seriously. It was in her room, 
buried under Puppy in My Pockets and pipe cleaner thingies. 

Lesson learned. And, (insert sigh of relief here) we have a clean girls’ room, everyone. 

Just don’t talk to me about that storage room, okay?

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Treasures

Dear Ashlyn, 
Today was our last day at the beach. Our last look at the ocean for the summer. And, I want to remember it. And, I want you to remember it.
You and I headed out to the sand and waves for one last hurrah.
As I relaxed on a towel, you gathered sea shells, working so hard, looking intently in the surf and the sand for anything that sparkled or caused the water to part a little. You would gather a handful then run back to me to show them off.
“Oh, Mama, look at this one!” “Look at the colors of this one.” “Mama, feel this one,” you said.
I marveled at the treasures, 95% of which were common and broken. We looked at your seashell book and tried to match them up to the ones shown there. But, we didn’t find any conches or keyhole limpets today; you didn’t care. I placed them carefully in the pockets of your coverall, handfuls of them. And, I talked to you about how pearls are made as we looked at tiny grains of sand. Something wonderful out of nearly nothing.
A little summer rain didn’t stop you, though many others left the beach. You just kept happily gathering.
I asked you, “Are you ready to go?” “When my pockets are full, we can go. That will be the timer,” you answered.
My heart warmed as I watched you so intently searching for your treasures, not seeing their flaws at all, just appreciating them, each and every one. 
Your pockets were just about full when the sky got dark and we heard the roar of thunder. The life guards called everyone out of the water, and I told you we should go. “Why did God make thunder? Does it do something good?” you asked me. “I don’t know, honey. But, it certainly shows God’s power, doesn’t it?” You nodded, and we walked off the beach.
As we stepped on the hot sand, you said, “Look at all these pearls we’re stepping on!” “They aren’t pearls yet, Ash. But, they could be. You know, the Bible talks about that—God can take something really little and make something really valuable out of it.” “What’s valuable mean?” you asked me. “It means something really special, worth a whole whole lot.”
And, that was our time together. We walked back to the house hand-in-hand, and you sat and washed each shell and dried them each carefully—each one something little that had become something valuable. They had just been just floating around in the surf aimlessly and now were someone’s treasure.
Thank you for our time together today, Ashlyn. You are such a special girl—totally uniquely made. There is no one in the world just like you. And, God chose to place you in our family. You are a treasure, a treasure infinitely more valuable than your seashells or even a pearl that takes an oyster a couple years to make (I promised you I’d look that up). Though one day, I expect you will grow out of collecting seashells, don’t grow out of the heart behind it, my dear. Don’t see the broken pieces and the dull colors; marvel at the simple things. I wish I always did.
Maybe next year we can bring Lydia out to the beach with us and teach her about the shells and pearls, okay? You are such a good teacher, Ashlyn.
Love, Mama

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