Pile

While walking through an Amish market a few months ago, I saw a Mennonite woman with three young children giving them a stern talkin' to. It looked like she had reached the end of her rope, and I still remember what she said.

"When we get home I'm going to pile you, all three of you!"

We laughed to ourselves, as parents do when we see others in the same predicaments we often find ourselves in....just glad it wasn't us that day. We have since adopted the phrase, "I'm going to pile you" even though we still wonder what exactly that means.

(I even googled it but got nothing)

If it means what I think it means, today I was definitely in a 'piling' kind of mood. Small spaces, loudness, crying, interrupting, messes, things broken, sibling fighting, button pushing, whining.

I wanted to pile everything and everyone.

Thank the heavens above for green smoothies, and consignment sales to lift a woman's spirits.

And also for the cute baby boy who somehow managed to remove his own shirt before he fell asleep in his bed tonight, (how adorable is that?)

the sweet girl with the beautiful singing voice that gets all of the lyrics to every song she knows wrong, but sings her heart out anyway...

and the freckled beauty who used the word "pardon" at the dinner table to demonstrate to me that she actually had been listening when we had our manners discussion the other night....

(even though I've probably only used the word 'pardon' a total of 3 times in my life, including the night we had our manners discussion.)

They drive me crazy at times.

Like pull out my hair crazy.

Like stick a needle in my eyes and ears crazy.

But man, do I love these kids.