The Beaver Family Blog

Gone. Whew!

2012-02-04T12:30:00.004-06:00

First, I'm going to say again and again how grateful I am that there are people in the world who want to spend the day with my children while I'm at work. So, thank you to Elsie's first caregiver, Miss J; to Oscar's first (Elsie's second), JC, and now to K and JS (my sick-day back-up) for being so good to my children.

So, during my weird weekend a week ago, we had a spend-the-night guest at the last minute. He was 4. He came over, watched an episode of VeggieTales, went to sleep, woke me up at 6 ready to greet the day, and was picked up at 8:30. Really, it was only 3 hours with him awake, but I started watching the clock at about 7:30. When would he go?

Well, before she left him that night, his mother (an acquaintance, really) told me that she was in a bind this weekend and needed a babysitter for Friday night. I said he could come sleep over again because I truly, honestly, wanted to be able to help her in this time of need, and this was before he stayed over, so I didn't know any better. Come, he did, and he stayed for about 6 waking hours longer.

What this weekend and last have made abundantly clear to me is something I'm going to be completely honest with you about: I still don't like little kids. At least, I don't like other people's toddlers. No offense to any of my friends out there. I hope you'll understand that I'm a middle school teacher for a reason. And it most likely has nothing to do with your child specifically, but instead is a conflict with my tolerance and their ages. In fact, the children of my friends are generally children I would want my children to play with--they are well-behaved and mind their parents. Just don't ask me to babysit unless you are in an absolute bind (until about 5th grade or so).

I love my kids, obviously. But, I'm still not comfortable with them at the ages they're at. It's a learning curve. I'm even less comfortable with other people's kids, especially if they're at an age I haven't encountered with my own children. I mean, I have no problem telling them what to do or correcting them (Did I mention that I'm a teacher? I've reprimanded children at the Chick-Fil-A play place for bullying children that aren't even my own), but how to deal long-term with the high pitch shrieking every time E doesn't want to play "Police Mans" the way he wants to, the poor cats running for their lives because he just wants "to pet them" or wants to make them sleep in his bed, the yelling at my children to "shut up" when they are talking in their room in the morning, the jumping from coffee and end tables to couches, teaching my children behaviors that I loathe??

Easy. Find a different solution next time, because I won't be available.

To be clear, this boy that was here was not a bad child. He went to bed pretty easily after I convinced him that the cats would come sleep with him when he fell asleep. He's potty-trained, and generally respectful in his verbal dealings with adults (though not with "peers"). I just had to keep correcting him over and over again (stay off the stairs, leave the cats alone, share please, don't push him--he's little and doesn't know any better...again and again and again), and I had to pray to the Lord (literally) that he would not remember it as me being negative, even though sometimes I was. But, I think he gets away with a lot more at home, because he has babysitters every night of the week while his under-30 single-mother works full time, goes to grad school, and plays on a university club sports team, and still finds time to party with her friends. It's the truth that parents are doing the best they can, wherever they are, whoever they are, and in whatever circumstances they are. In my day job, I get paid to meet those kids right where they are and make the best of it, and I do it willingly, even when I'm exhausted when it's time to interact with my own children. And while I did enter into this weekend and last willingly, I've learned that I'm not cut out of that cloth seven days a weeks and need very much to have my own time with my family as I learn about their ages and stages (husband, too, haha) and decompress and rejuvenate for the week ahead.

And that is why I'll be unavailable.

On the bright side, I've been a little bit cured of my recent desire for another child (for now). Just like watching my nephew being born when I was sixteen was great motivation to not have kids for another 14 years, so was watching someone else's toddler at a time when it seems everyone I know and love is having another baby and I feel a little bit left out and incomplete. Though, I won't wait 14 years, but you get the idea.

Cheers.

February 2012 Debt Update

2012-02-01T09:18:00.004-06:00

February is here--already!! I honestly have no idea where the month has gone. I'm overdue for an update on the children, but that takes a lot of thought and energy. I'll do one soon--I promise.

In the meantime, January was a good month for paying off debt. Eli had some funds save up to cover his trip to Scotland, and when he got back, he put any excess on the student loans. That put us up to 2/3 of the way done with the first debt thermometer! I think with tax refunds and good stewardship, we'll be done with this thermometer next month following March payments. I'm excited about the momentum--being roughly ~20% done will feel so good!

First 10K Chunk, started 10/1/11

Fundraising Thermometer

I've been working on our taxes, and it looks like we'll be getting a little refund. Glad it's a refund and not taxes to be paid, personally. I'm willing to overpay a little rather than have to scramble to find the funds to pay the IRS. We're not way overpaying, though. The average tax refund is reportedly a little over $3000. We're no where near that, so I don't feel bad about it.

Also, can you believe that it's already time to talk about summer plans? I was asked to teach summer school again. I think I'm looking forward to it, too, particularly in light off paying of debt since it pays twice what Sylvan did. Last year I taught math, and this year I'll probably be teaching the Language Arts side of it. It will be good. Even with paying for childcare, we will still come out ahead enough to make a dent in the next thermometer. :)

Cheers.

Weird Weekend

2012-01-29T21:32:00.003-06:00

This was indeed a weird weekend. Friday night Eli went hunting and we had a last-minute pint-sized spend-the-night guest. That story is a little too much to go into right now, but let's just say that I learned that Elsie doesn't like to share with people other than Oscar, either. And she's bossy with other kids. And she doesn't understand what personal space is. Ah, my pride and joy.

Saturday evening, I let a Kirby salesperson in my door when she offered to shampoo my carpet for free. She stayed for a couple of hours, demonstrating how everything worked, dusting my ceiling fan, vacuuming the register return for the A/C and using the Kirby to vacuum couch cushions and pillows. It was quite a show--it was fantastic. The kids enjoyed watching all the vacuuming and touching the attachments. I put Oscar to bed before she put down the foam. Elsie loved the bubbles. Every time the girl went to put another attachment on, Elsie would ask her excitedly, "Are you making more bubbles?!?"

To be fair, I actually didn't know that she was selling Kirby brand exactly until her trainer brought in the equipment. Then I knew that I wouldn't be buying anything. They did give me a great quote if I ever have some cash to burn. I talked to the girl while she was there by herself, and she seemed like a very interesting girl. She had only been selling for two weeks. I told her the cautionary tale of my neighbor's brother when he worked for Kirby, and I gave her a monetary tip as well, just so that if/when she gets ripped off, she has at least a little something to show for her tireless work.

As we talked, she told me about wanting to move to Colorado with her husband to build an earthbag home--something about Colorado not having such strict building codes? I had to look this earthbag thing up because I had never heard of it before. Weird. But not as weird as the monolithic dome houses on I-35E north of Waco.

Anyway, time to get back into the mindset of the work week.

Cheers.

Jill

2012-01-28T11:08:00.001-06:00

I've had this post sitting in the "draft" folder since the first of the year (along with four other posts, haha), but it's time I share this.

Back in the fall of 2008, we stepped out of our comfort zone at the new church that we were attending and went to a Sunday school class as well as to the worship service. As I looked around the sanctuary where this particular class was held, we were among the younger people attending the class of about 10 to 15, except for a girl sitting a couple of pews in front of us. She was obviously a college student. She had that sense of verve and optimism that only comes from those fresh from the roost. She smiled, she talked, she shared--she had opinions on theology. Uh. I was floored. I was 29, and I was still very timid about sharing my theological points of view. To say this was intimidating was a little bit of an understatement. She wasn't there every Sunday, but she was there often.

Then, in October, our church hosted a Fall Festival. There was a fantastic turnout from the community. I had volunteered for the face painting booth (remember, this was pre-Elsie), and as I got overwhelmed with children wanting designs on their faces, a scarecrow came over and sat down with me, helping me out. That funny scarecrow was none other that college girl from Sunday school. We finally met, and we hit it off big-time. Her name was Jill, and she was not intimidating at all, not in real life. She was the definition of "people person". We talked and talked and talked.

We would make a point to seek Jill out at snack time and chat it up. She brought her boyfriend to church one Sunday and introduced us. She came and made cards at my house when I had people over. She brought her sister to hang out and watch movies for a girls' night (I still feel bad that I picked terrible movies). She came and visited us in the hospital and took the most amazing pictures of day-old Elsie. In fact, our pastor asked me if we knew her when he came to visit me at the hospital, because she had posted on her Facebook page about getting hold a day-old baby. Yup. We knew her. She told people we were her "married friends." Haha.

I needed a last-minute babysitter for Elsie once, and I called her, then wrote her a thank-you note for being available at the last minute, and she commented that she hadn't received a thank-you note for babysitting before; I had to remind her that this was because I hadn't called her as "the babysitter" but as my friend.

Jill always had something brewing. She loved people. She loved travel. She loved photography. And she loved to talk. (Me, too!) And we loved having her around. We prayed her through her summers on mission in Latvia and Tunisia, and called on her more and more to come sit in the house after Elsie was in bed while we went to Christmas parties, etc, because she was so chill about it--she would study for finals while the kids were asleep. She became an RA in her dorm, so we talked residence life (Eli & I met through RA stuff in college). She came and visited us after Oscar was born. She went with me to see Tango Inferno at the OPAC while Eli was gone to JAG school. She worked the nursery and Sunday school, so she got to see the kids pretty often, and I got to see her when I worked the nursery on the same Sunday. She was a busy girl as she got further and further into school, and we didn't see her as much.

And so it happened that Eli was checking Facebook from Charlottesville, when he saw that Jill got an internship for the summer after graduation and was looking for a place to live on the cheap. He told her to call me, and she did. It was perfect. Jill came to live with us the week after graduation. She was a PR intern by day and a second mother to my children by night. She was not afraid to change diapers, bathe them, and put them to bed. She would take out the trash when it got full, and empty and reload the dishwasher of her own volition. I joked with Eli over the phone that she was a better wife that I am. (But was it a joke? Probably not. Haha.) And Jill was willing to be silly with us, dressing up like cows for Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-Fil-A. Now that's true friendship. :)

During the summer, with my people-loving friend around, I went out on a limb, out of my comfort zone, and hosted a weekly dinner for some of the young singles and college students from church that were hanging around for the summer with nothing to hook them in (our church doesn't do Sunday school classes in the summer, and we didn't do small groups, either). We had a blast. I never would have had the guts to do that without Jill around because she's just so easy with people when I feel terribly awkward.

When the end of the summer came, Eli and I went out on a date, and a good portion of the wait-for-your-dinner time was spent talking about Jill. We loved having her around. It was coming close to the end of her stay with us, but we let her know that she could stay with us as long as she needed to since her job extended her employment until October. We were delighted when she said yes.

Elsie and Oscar loved having Jill here, too, by the way. Jill's way with people extends to the shorter crowd. She's the oldest, so she's had younger people around her for most of her life. I'm the baby, and I never really did, so I loved watching Jill play with the kids. They loved playing with her. Oscar loved cuddling with her (still does).

When Jill moved home in October, it was hard to readjust to life without the extra set of hands, without the girlfriend to talk to about anything and everything after the kids were in bed. The room at the end of the hall, which was supposed to be Elsie's big girl room, still sits vacant, and Elsie still thinks of it as "Jill's bed." And when we see a green car, she points out "Jill's car." We miss her, but we are so excited for her newest adventures.

Two weeks ago (already?) we drove south of Atlanta to watch Jill be wed to a really amazing man. The wedding and reception were beautiful and a perfect mix of "Jill" and "Scott" styles. And there was dancing! With two toddlers, we didn't stay for the whole thing since the kids were getting antsy (okay, intolerable), so we didn't get to say goodbye before they left for their honeymoon road trip to their temporary new home in the cold north. Thankfully, they will eventually be settling in the same town as my in-laws, and we will hopefully get to see them a few times a year. Oh, yeah, and we have cell phones and Skype now, too, in this millenium.

So, my friend Jill, in all her youth, is refreshing for me to be around. She loves God and she loves people in a way I only wish I could. And she's very honest--maybe transparent is a better word--but not in an offensive way. I love that about her. Along with a million other things. I don't think that at 22 I had half as much going on as she does. I just consider myself blessed that she doesn't think we're too dorky (or too old!) to associate with. :)

Jill, we love you. We're so proud of you. And we're proud of the way you and Scott are starting your life together. We're excited for your adventures, because I can't imagine you not having adventures. And I will continue to pray for you and Scott and your future, sweet friend.

Cheers.

(P.S. You called earlier when I was in the middle of finishing this. Coincidence?)

New Year Debt Update

2012-01-01T07:51:00.003-06:00

Just a quick New Year's Day debt update. As predicted, we didn't do much more than pay minimums on loans in December. But, we did pay cash for all of Christmas (including gifts, gasoline, baking ingredients & gift packaging, postage, etc.), cash for much-needed car repairs, and cash for Eli's trip to Scotland to see his best friend.

First 10K Chunk, started 10/1/11

Fundraising Thermometer

And we have a revised plan for debt repayment. I'm bound and determined to be debt-free except for the house before I'm 35 or before Elsie starts kindergarten. That's the same year--2014--just different parts of the year. That's under three years.

WE CAN DO THIS!!

I've looked at our budget and trimmed some fat. Without really stretching we can put double our minimum payment every month toward debt reduction by cutting some things that are luxuries. It just awaits final approval from the husband when he returns from his overseas adventure at the end of the week.

My general philosophy on this type of thing is that anyone can do anything for a limited amount of time. Two years really isn't a long time. I mean, the four years since we took FPU have flown by, so what's two more?

And based on this plan, we can blow this thermometer out of the water by the end of April. Something to look forward to!

Stuff

2011-12-31T09:33:00.001-06:00

I look around me and see stuff. Lots of stuff. Not a Hoarders amount of stuff, but a real lot of clutter that has no home except my home at large. I open my pantry and I’m stressed out. Once, there was order in there. Now there is not. I open my fridge and I cringe—how long ago did we make that penne pasta? Last week? Last month? The plastic-ware in the kitchen is crammed into cabinets, with lids and cups falling on you as you open the door. Dishes pile up in the sink because nobody cares to look in the dishwasher to see if it’s empty, because if it’s not then we’d have to take the time and energy to empty it before putting the dirty stuff in there. It’s just easier to pile them in the sink.

The living room is usually pretty clean—wait are those ants carrying off the latest toddler crumbs?—except for the toys. Lots of toys. Toys that stress me out because there are so many little parts. I want to get rid of some of them, but I think maybe another child of mine who is not soon to be present will want to play with them…someday. And for some reason, that’s enough to keep the blasted toys and the books that I hate to read.

Up the stairs, there’s a door to the right that remains closed. Always. The spoken reason for this is so that the cats don’t get in there and put their “predator scent” on the hunting stuff. The unspoken reason is because the “office” is a storage closet of randomness—office supplies, musical instruments, boxes of stuff from our closets from when we lived in...Waco? Surely not. It’s overwhelming at best.

The master bedroom is another matter entirely, and it’s really my fault. I’m a piler, people. When I don’t want to deal with things, I put things in piles. And then I put those piles in boxes, and then I stack the boxes out of sight, out of mind, in Elsie’s “big girl” bedroom. That worked until it was time to make the spare bedroom a place for a person to actually sleep, and then I moved the boxes into our bedroom, into the little sitting room nook, where they’ve sat, basically untouched, since I moved them months ago. The toddlers help to unpack them, piece by piece, leaving junk everywhere. We then ignore the mess like it doesn’t exist, until we step on it in the middle of the night and say made-up curse words as we hop on one foot into the bathroom. Stress and overwhelmedness have nothing on whatever constraining feeling has a hold of me when I think about the “sitting room” in the bedroom. If the mess that I try hard to ignore is even brought to my attention, my first instinct is to get defensive. Look people, I work full time, have two toddlers, and no spare time. I CAN’T DO IT ALL! But I know that only I can remedy the situation because it’s MY junk.

Just so you can get the full picture, I need to tell you about the rest of the house. The master bath is now clean on the surface. It feels like the cabinets and drawers are full of junk—haircare products, first aid supplies, never-used makeup, random samples of hygiene and cosmetic products--but if they all stay closed, I can forget that it’s a problem. Until the toddlers go drawer-diving and come up with stuff they shouldn’t have (please hand over my deodorant, and quit eating the Chapstick). The walk-in closet is usually maneuverable, just so long as you can step around the giant pile of dirty clothes in the middle.

The kids’ room is clean, except for more toys. But the dressers are empty. The closet is full of boxes of newborn clothes that Elsie outgrew over two years ago. And the rest of the clothes—those that currently fit, those that will fit, and those that will not fit again—are in the bedroom at the end of the hall. On the floor, on the bed. A room FULL of clothes. And I need to go through them and put the ones that currently fit in the dressers, get the ones they have outgrown ready to sell/give away, and box up the clothes that will fit next season. But it takes time and motivation, two things which have been lacking recently.

And then there’s the garage. It’s actually not that bad. But there are boxes of memories in there, and I’m not sure what to do with them right now. And there are recyclables that need to be taken to the recycling center. And currently there are various and sundry things left over from our garage sale blocking one side.
So why have I given you the run-down of my cluttered life? 1) Because I want you to feel better about yourself, if possible, and if not, just feel okay that you and I have something in common. 2) Because in my effort to be a transparent wife, mother, friend, I want you to see that appearances aren’t entirely reliable (the oatmeal smeared on the shoulder of my shirt is 100% authentic, though). 3) Because once people know about how I live from day to day, I hope that I will be motivated to fix the problem—not from shame, but from accountability.

Look, I’m not insane. I know it’s not going to fix itself overnight. I was doing well with the FlyLady while I was on my own last spring, but once Eli came back, I got lazy again, and lazy breeds lazy. I make excuses:

“I don’t have time.” Right. But somehow I have time to blog? To cruise Facebook? To read others’ blogs? To watch full episodes of USA Network shows on Hulu? To watch House Hunters International? But somehow I don’t have time to take care of my environment. Wrong. I’m just not using my time well.

“I can’t do anything with the kids around.” I admit I use this excuse a lot. The kids “help” me, and most times it is counterproductive. It is definitely easier to get stuff done when I’m by myself, but let’s face it. I’m a mom. I can’t even use the restroom by myself. So, if I’m waiting for all this elusive “alone time” I’m dreaming. Besides, if I do get precious alone time, I’m not really keen on cleaning. But the little ones have to sleep sometime, right? All kidding aside, I am going to try to do more with their “help.”

“I’m tired—I just want to veg out.” Every. Night. From wake-up to bedtime, I’m wife, mother, teacher, and with each of these comes its own responsibilities. From bedtime to wake-up, I’m exhausted.

“I’m so busy.” This goes back to the time thing. Yes, we are busy. Yes, we have to set out our weekly schedule at the beginning of the week to make sure we aren’t two ships passing in the night. But it’s a choice, I know. I think I’ve come to accept that we are just at a busy time in our lives, and if I use that as an excuse, then I’ll never do anything. I have two children, a husband, a full-time job, some friends who I rarely get to see, and a church family we are devoted to. We’re going to be busy. I have to get over it.

Well, guess what? I’m tired of making excuses. I’m tired of being overwhelmed. Just like our debt situation, I’m not going to face the whole hog at once—it’s too much to swallow. I’m going to break it up and take care of business. And I hope that by this time next year I will be able to say that I’ve “trimmed the fat” around the house. I don’t know what this will look like, exactly.

I turn 33 this coming year, and I acknowledge the blessings I have received from my faithful Father. I’m going to try to be a better steward of them, Lord willing.

Potty Training, Day 3 (Updated with Photo)

2011-12-30T20:50:00.003-06:00

At some point in the night, I heard a child cry out, and I thought for sure that Elsie had either peed the bed or awakened needing to go potty. I rushed into the bedroom and...she was fast asleep. It was Oscar talking in his sleep. But while I was in there, I checked, and she was dry. That was at 3 a.m. So, she went at least seven hours dry.

And then, because I stayed up too late watching the Baylor game, I snoozed through my alarm, and jolted out of bed when I heard a child cry out at 7 a.m. I thought for sure that it was Elsie again. But, alas, it was Oscar, awake. Elsie stirred, and informed me that she needed to change her jammies. Then she refused to stand so that I could strip her down. She wanted to lay down and cried to me that she wanted a diaper again. I told her no, and went and put her on the potty. She turned into spaghetti and wouldn't stay, so I let her get off. Then she remembered the chocolate, smiled at me and said, "I want chocolate," and went and sat on the potty on her own. But she didn't do anything.

And then, the rest of the day:

10:15 a.m. -- PEE IN THE POTTY -- Elsie was watching TV in my room, stood up and took off her panties. I said, "Elsie, you need to go to the potty! Hurry!" And she went and peed.

Noon-ish -- Fashion Diva -- Elsie decided that she didn't need to use the potty, but that she wanted to wear flowered underwear instead of what she was wearing. Um. We don't have any flowered underwear. After a minor tantrum, she settled for stripes.

::whistling to pass the time:: And the day continued to wear on. I kept reminding Elsie to tell me if she needed to go potty, and she'd say, "Okay."

3:45 p.m. -- PEE IN THE POTTY -- Finally, since it had been five and a half hours since she peed last, I may have mentioned something about the chocolate in my pocket when she asked for an apple. She went into the bathroom and peed on the potty.

4:45 p.m. -- PEE IN THE POTTY -- We were playing in the kitchen, and Elsie said, "Mom!" So we went to the potty, and she peed some more.

7:30 p.m. -- PEE/POOP IN THE POTTY -- Bath time. Elsie gets in the bath and then we realize that she needs to potty. So, she sits on the potty and pees, and then has a little bit of poo, too. Yeah!

So, no accidents today, aside from the nighttime wetting. All human waste went where it was supposed to. There's a part of me that is ecstatic. Then there's a part of me that thinks it was too easy--I must have done something wrong, and she's going to relapse. Which she may.

So, is that it? Is she potty-trained now, you know, aside from night-time?

I will continue to remind her to tell me, and I'll make sure I have a spare set of clothes for her on hand. And we'll work on the night-time stuff.

But really. Is that it?

It just seems so anticlimactic...

::knock on wood::

So, yeah. We'll enter the new year with a child who uses the potty. Peasy.

Cheers.

Potty Training, Day 2

2011-12-29T19:46:00.005-06:00

Well, the day started earlier than expected. I knew that Elsie would probably wet the bed without making a noise (that I heard), so I went to sleep with a spare sheet, blanket, pillow, set of jammies, and underpants at the foot of my bed so that I wouldn't even have to think when I finally heard her.

And that cry came at 4:15 this morning, accompanied by a pleading child who very badly wanted a diaper. I told her no. [It was obvious that she had peed some time earlier just in the way the items on her bed were situated. She had moved her pillow over the wet spot and was curled up on top of it.] Stripped her down, sat her on the toilet, and put a blanket around her shoulders so that she wouldn't be too cold while I did my magic. Fresh sheet, fresh blanket, fresh pillow, fresh jammies, fresh underpants, and she went right back to sleep.

As a result of this early wake-up, I scrapped my 5 a.m. plan and just slept. At seven sharp, I heard a sound and rushed in there ready to whisk her to the potty again, and she was asleep, but Oscar was smiling up at me from his bed, so I got him instead. Elsie stirred and then informed me that she wanted to sleep, so I let her.

She got up on her own at 8:30, and she was still dry (!) so I reminded her to tell me when she needed to use the potty. So, here's the daily recap:

9:45 a.m. -- Little accident (pee), to which she said, "I have a poopy diaper." She was a little wet, but not enough to get past the undies, showing me that she exercised some sort of control which was evident when we rushed to the potty and she peed and peed and peed. And then wanted some chocolates.

10:30 a.m. -- Accident (BM finally!) in underpants. She was just playing, no noticeable interruptions in her talking, and I look over to see that her undies were shaped strangely in the back. So we went to the potty and put the poop in the the potty and sat for a while to see if there was anything more. (There wasn't.)

(Again, no nap today. I hope K doesn't kill me next week.)

1:00 p.m. -- PEE IN THE POTTY -- This was the beginning of success, I hope. She was sitting on the floor in the kitchen and looked up at me and said "Mama!" in an urgent voice. I whisked her to the potty. She was dry, and she peed and peed. And then wanted chocolates. I had reminded her about ten minutes before to tell me if she needed to go pee since it had been over two hours and I was ready for it. It still took me by surprise.

2:10 p.m. -- PEE IN THE POTTY -- Jill was here and asked Elsie to see her new potty seat and show her how it worked. Well, it worked like a charm. And she wanted chocolates.

5:30 p.m. -- PEE IN THE POTTY -- I was getting dinner ready and it had again been over two hours since her last visit to the Dora potty seat, so I asked her. She went. The 3-day method doesn't want the parent to ask, but to remind the child to tell the parent, but I was afraid that I would get busy with dinner and we would have an accident.

7:45 p.m. -- Accidental discovery of skid mark(?) and then PEE IN THE POTTY -- We were getting on the potty before bedtime and she had a little bit of poo in her panties. So we put it in the potty and finished up with a lot of pee. Otherwise her undies were dry. We put on pajamas and she insisted on going right to bed. No rocking, no singing. Her one request was for some water, which I obliged (but only a little bit).

For tomorrow, I'm going to push fluids a little more. She didn't really drink much today.

And since I gave her water tonight, I may try to wake her up to go potty again after the game tonight.

And now how about some Baylor football??

Sic 'em, Bears!!

UPDATE: Dang it. Each night I have read through the potty-training e-book and realize all the mistakes I am making (playing next door yesterday, not being as completely focused on Elsie as I should be). The good news is that I can get better tomorrow. We'll see how tomorrow goes. :)

Potty Training, Day 1

2011-12-28T19:39:00.010-06:00

So, I have three days with nothing else on my schedule, so I decided that this would be an excellent time to finally get Elsie to use the big girl potty. Of course, I had no idea what I was doing, but I knew there was a magic number three, and something about potty seats, potty watches, panties, and M&Ms.

A friend pointed me in the direction of the 3-day potty training system, so I stayed up late reading the book last night and want you to know that even before I woke up this morning, I was skeptical. One, I don't think I have the focus this is going to take. I'm not ADD or anything, but watching Elsie's *every* move for 72 hours is really more than I can bear. Two, I'm not perky enough to pep up a toddler. I mean, I tried, but she saw through it, telling me, "You're not so happy." I took that to mean, "You're faking it, Mom." Dang it.

Anyway, this is Day 1. I'm going to give it a full three-day shot.

We ate breakfast this morning and then I put Elsie in a tank top and panties, and I told her to keep them dry, and that she needed to tell me when she needed to use the potty. We played upstairs in the morning, and then next door in the afternoon when Oscar woke up from a nap. Yeah, Elsie didn't nap today. And I'm the failure here, I'm sure. Not Elsie. So, here's the recap of how the day went:

8:00 am -- Put Elsie in panties.

10:30 a.m. -- Accident (pee) while playing in her bedroom, while wearing three additional pair of undies at her insistence. She yelled "Pee!" at me, but it was too late. I may have been otherwise distracted.

12:45 p.m. -- Accident (pee) while playing in downstairs bathroom sink. She also alerted me to this, after-the-fact. I was right outside the door. O was asleep, I was otherwise distracted.

2:30 p.m. -- PEE IN THE POTTY -- but only because I told her we wouldn't go next door until she used the potty. And she peed a lot. I thought we would be good for another two hours or so, since this was her pattern heretofore. Oops.

4:00 p.m. -- Accident (pee) while playing at the neighbors. The irony was I was looking right at her taking a picture of her playing with our neighbor to send to Eli and had no idea. Right on the linoleum. This is how I know this is a mommy fail. See the picture? I'm a nitwit.

EDITED TO ADD: That is a plastic hot dog on the floor to the left. Thank you, Dad, for requiring clarification.

[And I feel I must clarify here that a child peeing on the linoleum is not a big deal next door, since the other cutie in the picture is also potty training right now..]

5:50 p.m. -- Accident (pee) after dinner at the neighbors'. She was in the living room and yelled to me that "I have a poopy diaper!" Um, you're not wearing a diaper. Oh, crud. Turns out it was pee. It was just a little bit, didn't get on the carpet or anything. But it was a killer for morale. [Right here I should mention that I'm wearing my AmeriCorps hoodie today with the pocket full of M&Ms and spare panties so that I'm prepared whether we are upstairs, downstairs, or next door.]

7:00 p.m. -- PEE IN THE POTTY -- Elsie is actually still in the tub, and I'm rocking Oscar to calm down the maniacal screaming that commenced the second I took him from the bathtub and continued while I diapered and jammied him up. Elsie gets quiet and starts grunting. I nicely throw O into the crib and rush in there, and she is hunched over, concentrating. I snatch her up and put her on the potty, wrap her with a towel, and she pees a lot. Grunts a little, passes a little gas. But nothing else.

By 7:37 p.m. she was asleep in her panties and pajamas on my bed. She wanted me to hold her hand as she went to sleep. It was small and warm, and it she was so sweet.

So, the plan is to wake her before 9 and have her potty again before putting her back in her own bed. And then I'll get up around five and put her on the potty and then put her back in bed. I'll have to set an alarm.

Anyway, she only asked to put on a diaper once today. She told me many times that she didn't want to go to the bathroom (many, many times I would tell her, "Don't forget to tell Mommy when you need to potty" and this was the response). And she told me a couple of times that she couldn't go to the bathroom. I'm not sure what this means.

Should I be concerned that she didn't have a BM today when she typically has several in a day? I don't know.

I'm glad I wrote down the details of our day because while I feel like a failure today, I think that armed with this information, I'll know more about what to look for tomorrow. I have no doubt that tomorrow will go much better than today. Positive thinking, people. Positive thinking!!

Cheers.

UPDATE *9:00 p.m.* moved Elsie to her own bed with a pit stop at the bathroom. Nothing but big, wet tears. Setting alarm for 5 a.m.

UPDATE -- Go Here for Day 2 Recap.

Bah humbug?

2011-12-22T22:57:00.003-06:00

If you were to come to our house right now, you might think that we don't celebrate Christmas. That is, if you measure the celebration of Christmas by the amount of decorations on/in the house.

This year, we don't have any exterior decorations. (Have we ever? Maybe a paper wreath or two...)

We do not have any interior decorations. Not even a tree (second year of no-tree-having).

In fact, the plastic tub of decorations is still in the attic. So, we don't even have stockings out.

Some years, I cut out snowflakes and hang them on the windows. I made a fleeting effort this year and was thwarted by a toddler who wanted to use the scissors to make her own "snowflakes".

There have been a few moments when I felt like I *should* have something festive out, particularly since I love Christmas decorations, but honestly, it's just not worth it this year, not with a child who pulls tablecloths off of tables (Elsie) and a child who shreds anything made out of paper or paper-like materials (Oscar). And I don't even want to think about the monumental effort that would be required to keep the ornaments on the tree with the two of them running around.

And then there's the expense of decorating. A tree costs money. Lights on a house and on a tree cost money in addition to the regular electric bill (though LED lights are less-costly). And if you have stockings, you need stocking stuffers--that cost money. We still have a bag of nuts from last year's stockings somewhere, so I guess we could recycle. Ha.

Some day, I will have wreaths to hang on my exterior windows. Some day, I will have beautiful winter linens for the tables (when I don't have a little magician around). Some day, my house will be beautifully decorated for Christmas, Southern-Living style, with a white cake under a dome waiting to be eaten.

Some day. But not today.

Not this year.

This year, we'll enjoy other people's decorations and trees.

And this year we'll celebrate the birth of Christ Jesus with the minimalism (albeit, American minimalism) that greeted our Savior those millenia ago.

Cheers.

The Gray Debate

2011-12-21T06:48:00.002-06:00

I'm going to generalize and say that most women probably come to the point in confronting their age that they must decide: to dye or not to dye?

For me, the decision was made long before I ever had a single gray hair on my head. After watching other women that I know and love color their hair to cover the gray, I decided, probably in high school if I remember when, that I would "go gray gracefully." That is, when I found my first gray hair on my head, I would not dye my hair, but just let it go.

The summer after my junior year in college is when I found it.

I was sitting in my air-conditioned car, taking one last look in the mirror behind the visor before dashing into work at Sylvan in Fort Worth. I moved and something on my head glinted in the wake of the hot Texas sun. What?!? My first gray hair. When I originally made this pact with myself, I didn't figure that I would find a gray hair until I was thirty, at least. I mean, that's when I would finally be old, right?

To be honest, at that time, I also didn't ever anticipate teaching middle school, and I feel quite certain that this is the source of the other gray hair that has grown meanwhile.

I have not dyed my hair since that summer of 2000. In fact, I remember that I dyed it last on 9/9/99. I went to my friend Megan's apartment to do it. I'm a numbers person with a random memory.

I'm a little OCD with my hair (and I'm pretty sure I meet the clinical definition), so to say that I practiced great restraint in not removing any of the said gray hairs manually is an understatement. Eli's time in law school was a stressful time for me, too, for various reasons, and at some point during that year, I broke down and spent some time in front of a mirror extracting gray hairs. There weren't that many. I mean, I was maybe 28. And thus it began.

If I found a gray hair on my head that was long enough to get a hold of, I would just pull it out. Voila.

Something this last year has changed. Suddenly, my temples are more and more populated by the silver dust, fine and shiny. They have crept up on me. And they are too numerous to remove. So I'm at a crossroads now.

Do I continue to try to removed what I can, ending up with the accursed "unicorn" gray hairs sticking straight up on the top of my head but eluding removal? Or do I just let it go. Let my gray hair grow and be a part of the rest of my hair. At 33, is it time to start being graceful?

I wish that I could sit behind myself at church, and stare at the back of my head during the 40-minute sermon to see exactly how things really are. I can't tell much from the front-view in the mirror, in the light of the bathroom mirror.

I don't know what I'll do. Probably the latter option of letting it grow. We'll see...

Cheers.

Encouraged

2011-12-13T21:55:00.003-06:00

I just got home and should be asleep, but I need to write this.

Tonight was the choir concert at school. I had planned to go for a while, and I have been very excited about it. I got to sit in and listen to the choir one day while I was getting my observation (we have to do one peer observation each semester) out of the way and that sounded fantastic, enough that I wanted to hear the whole repertoire. I was not disappointed.

After the concert, I headed over to the downtown pub to have an impromptu, last-minute night out with the girls from church. I tell you, I crave this interaction with other women and I honestly don't feel I get enough of it. So when I received a text message this morning about it, I was ecstatic because I was already scheduled to be out of the house for bedtime for the concert--I would just tack one more thing on.

I sat at a table with seven other women and there were multiple conversations going on at once. I was so encouraged by the openness and honesty of these amazing women. Hey, you know what? I am not alone. These feelings I have about being busy, about balancing work and motherhood and having friends (or lack thereof) are not unique.

I'm not the only one cycling through three pairs of pants because none of my clothes fit me. I'm not the only one who feels awkward when hanging out with people, even people I know. I'm not the only one who feels busyness that is overwhelming. I'm not the only one who feels lonely at this motherhood thing. I'm not the only one who is exhausted at the end of the day. I'm not the only one who considered not going tonight because of the aforementioned exhaustion.

It's so strange, but I feel like a burden has been lifted. Could I even go so far as to say that a veil of conspiracy has been lifted--the conspiracy to isolate women/mothers? Well, yes. I could say that, but honestly, I think we do it to ourselves. I know I do. I don't want people to know that I'm not perfect. I don't want people to judge me, my clothes, my children. I don't want people to reject me--the new me, the identity I've found in my new role. It's just easier to stay home, right?

Easier. But maybe not best?

I am not alone. I am deeply encouraged.

And it's with these two refrains that I say a prayer of thanks to sweet Jesus, and then put this weary girl to bed.

Cheers.

Body by Beaver

2011-12-11T07:55:00.004-06:00

A couple of weeks ago, I was walking up the hallway at school on my planning period and a parent who had been at a parent-teacher conference with another team was walking back down the hallway toward me. She was a cute, waddling, pregnant lady. I smiled because I couldn't help but smile at the way she was glowing.

And then the bomb dropped.

As she passed me, she rubbed her belly and said, "Looks like you're doing the same thing I am."

Uh. What?

And then I realized that she thought I was pregnant, too.

Boom. The bomb exploded.

I don't remember if this was before or after my nurse friend the nurse assumed the same thing and then went on to chat about the pros and cons about belly fat, but does it really matter when it happened?

Then the weather here changed, and I pulled out my heavier winter-wear: sweaters. Unfortunately, sweaters cling more than the baggy shirts I've been wearing, so more than once I've had students ask me if I'm pregnant (even though I've explained to them that the courtesy is DON'T ASK). No, kids. I'm not.

Last Saturday, I dragged Eli to our teachers' Christmas party even though he was feeling rather unwell (he's such a trooper). He ended up in the TV room upstairs munching on Chex mix and watching the football games on TV with most of the other males at the party. I stayed downstairs chatting it up those who were not interested in football, and in walks a teacher we used to work with that has since moved to another position in another building. We started talking, and she said, "When are you expecting?" She gestured vaguely to my mid-section. I'm not sure exactly what came out of my mouth--some form of verbal diarrhea--trying to tell her that I am not pregnant, but in my mumbling, fumbling, embarrassment, she still didn't get that message, and I finally just said, "I'm not pregnant." She was mortified (though not so much as me, I'm sure), apologized and changed the topic quickly. And then I eased away into conversation with other people in other parts of the house.

I tell you these extremely embarrassing recent encounters because yesterday I got a different message. It's a drill weekend for Eli and one of the other JAGs was getting married, so he was a part of the saber guard. The kids and I drove down to Troy for the wedding and reception (possibly more on that later). At the reception, Elsie was a rocket, firecracker, endless ball of energy, running around, running away, dancing, spinning, turning, making laps around the whole ballroom. Do I even have to mention that I didn't get to eat dinner? She tried to get up on the stage area with the head table, and I had to pull her down. One of the older ladies there was trying to tell me that it was okay if she went up there. I told her that it really wasn't because Elsie would try to jump off the stairs. She laughed and said, "No wonder you're so small--I'm sure she keeps you busy!"

Now, to her credit, I was wearing all my gut-sucking undergarments under my dress (Thanks, Spanx!). But still, the compliment was unexpected.

I have never been a person with negative body image issues. Never. I've never even been on a diet in the fad sense. I have cut foods out (like the time I was able to cut out sodas and drop 10 pounds in six months while simultaneously Jazzercising), and exercised so that I could eat whatever I wanted (when I took up running and training for a marathon--before I was pregnant with Elsie). I've watched my weight peripherally over time, and by that I mean that I don't even own a scale and that I just make a mental note when I got to the doctor for various things. And yes, I've watched it go up, mainly.

And these recent encounters (prior to yesterday's wedding) have caused me to pay more attention. Look--I'm not fat, or overweight, or obese. I know this, but the shape of me is all wrong, and it doesn't help that I have terribly bad posture that emphasizes my shape. "Thick around the middle" would be a good descriptor at this point, but you probably could have guessed that based on all the preceding stories. I don't really have any clothes that fit or flatter me. My clothes are either too big or too small. I bought the big ones to fit me last year when all my clothes were too small, but I've since lost some inches (not sure about if I've lost weight) and I'm in between somewhere. My belt doesn't have enough notches, so my pants are a little droopy.

So here I am, almost 33 years old, and I finally have a complex--let's call it the spare tire complex. I know that I don't have to pay someone to tell me that I need to eat better and exercise more, while paying special attention to those problem areas. And I have plenty of excuses about why it's still a problem, even after the first person mistakenly assumed I was pregnant. And then I filled out 2 pages of a survey that one would fill out if they were going to a physician's weight loss clinic, about eating habits and weight gain, and I forced myself to answer the questions. And I didn't like the answers. Again, I don't need to pay someone to tell me to eat better and exercise--I just need to do it.

I've always been a "group exerciser" and don't do well on my own. So, I've talked to the librarian at school whose baby is a little younger than Oscar, and we are going to be accountable to each other in the spring semester, working out after school. Another friend recommended the book Made to Crave and I think I'm going to get it. Anyone read it yet? From what I understand, it's a Bible study of sorts, and it's supposed to be really good.

Now, all this to say that I'm looking around and am not happy with what I'm seeing--with my body, with my environment. And things need to change. Soon. Or I'm going to go crazy.

Cheers.

Korea

2011-12-09T07:10:00.004-06:00

In the last week, I had the opportunity to interview for an international studies initiative that sends teachers from Lee County to Korea for a couple of weeks in the summertime to study Korean culture and education. The Korean car industry is king in this part of Alabama, with Kia just a few miles up the insterstae toward Atlanta, and Hyundai about an hour away, just south of Montgomery on I-65. Ajin USA has funded this grant as a way to mutually benefit the school systems and the families of their workers.

I did not get chosen, though the odds were good with only four people interviewing for two spots for my school district. I figured that I may not be chosen since I already have a lot of international experience, so I'm really not all that disappointed. It was going to be a lot of work, and I was overwhelmed thinking about it, but I couldn't have regrets about having an opportunity to apply and not even try!

The reason I'm even mentioning this at all is that I want to look back and reminded that God is faithful. Why I need that reminder, I do not know, since he is faithful all days in all way, but I admit that I'm human. I forget.

So, when I was feeling overwhelmed, like maybe this was not what I needed to be doing, I prayed that the Lord would make the decision very clear--if I was not supposed to go that I wouldn't be chosen for the initiative--since my discernment skills when it comes to something that I want (waaaaah! I'm a big baby) are rather poor.

And you know what? The Lord is faithful. I knew that.

Cheers.

Debt Update

2011-12-03T17:27:00.006-06:00

Last month was a good month with some extra income to get us to a third of the way through our first debt thermometer.

First 10K Chunk, started 10/1/11

Fundraising Thermometer

We paid off $2234 in debt last month. Looking at the big picture, it seems like nothing. But looking at the small picture, the debt thermometer, that's almost a quarter! And that is exactly why we are using the debt thermometer system. Small victories! Our current debt-load (not including mortgage) is $47,514...and shrinking!

This month will definitely not be as successful, but it's exciting to see that number drop no matter how much debt is being paid off!!

On another happy note, we're in talks with our church elders about offering Financial Peace University at our church. I'm so excited! I hope they let us lead a class!

Cheers.

2.5 and 15 months (a month late)

2011-12-02T21:11:00.002-06:00

I've blinked and time has passed so quickly. Oscar is now as old as Elsie was when he was born.

Wait. What?!?

I remember that feeling of bringing O home from the hospital only to realize that E was not a baby anymore, and that she probably hadn't been for a while--I just hadn't known! It's easier for me to see with O because friends are having babies, and he is such a BOY.

We went to the doctor late, so at 15 months and 3 weeks and Oscar was 29 inches long and 21 pounds 2 ounces. Can't seem to find Elsie's stats anywhere to compare, but I know I have them. I'll keep looking.

At 15-months, Elsie was meowing like Coco, saying no (at least, she least she learned it just as my family left after O's birth), and she said "Hi" to everyone--familiars and strangers alike. She was (is) a very outgoing child, and she loved (loves) people.

Oscar is not Elsie. He's not what you would call outgoing. He mostly doesn't mind if other people are holding him, particularly if they have some sort of food in their possession, but he prefers the familiarity of his mama and his daddy (but mostly his mama). He is only saying a few words still ("Ball!" for the first-word WIN for over a month now, "Co Co" in two separated syllables for the cat, "Mo!" with the occasional "Mo! Peeeeeeee!" when he really really really wants something. He hasn't said "chicken" again, but he did it twice in one day. One time he kept repeating "Lie!" and pointing up at the lights, but he hasn't done that since. And the caretaker swears he says something akin to "juice" but I haven't heard it. And within the last two weeks he's starting crying "Mamaaaaaaaaaa"...but only when he cries. He may have picked that up from Elsie's wailing in the mornings. He understands a TON, though. Tell him we're going upstairs, and he heads for the stairs. We're going to take a bath, and he tries to climb into the tub. That's trash, and he puts it in the trash can. The boy loves to eat. Oh yes. And he still loves to shred tissues to pieces. What a weird habit. Still has head issues, but it's been a full two weeks (wow!) since he had some unsightly lump on his forehead.

And Elsie?

Elsie's started screaming the phrase, "I want my mommy" when I'm dropping her off at daycare, or when Eli tells her no. Yeah. So. It begins.

I'm pleased to reflect that 2.5 is much better than 2.0 as far as age is concerned. There are still tantrums, but they are fewer, and more easily tamed since Elsie has access to so much more language. Oh, the language. Something amazing is happening and I can't even quite put my finger on it. Adjectives? Adverbs? Prepositions? Objects of the preposition? Pronouns? Language acquisition is amazing.

And Elsie's memory is just downright amazing. She remembers things she's only heard or seen once or twice and pulls them out WEEKS later. She associates family members to each other even when they are not anywhere near each other (to Ms. E: "Where's Jacob?" [her son who was not even present]). She associates houses with people when she's only been there once or twice.

She's fascinated with whether someone is a boy or a girl, and she'll just start listing people/animals off and categorizing them. "Mama is a girl. Daddy is a boy. Oscar is a boy. Elsie is a girl. Coco is a...girl? No. Coco is a boy. Mimi is a girl." And so on.

She loves birthdays. Candles automatically signal birthday and require extinguishing.

She senses when things are out of the ordinary. At sunset a few days ago, she was astonished that there were pink clouds. She kept repeating it over and over, "Mama, there pink clouds!" Finally, she got funny. "Where blue clouds? Where purple clouds?"

She loves pointing out the moon when it's visible during the day. And if she doesn't see it, I'll hear from the back seat, "Where moon, Mama? Where moon?" And if we turn a corner and she can suddenly see it: "There it is! I found it!"

I've started talking about the drive home like it's a Dora adventure since we make the same drive every day. "Under the bridge, over the train tracks, turn on our street." And she remembers! One day we approached from a different way and she was upset that we didn't go under the bridge, but was appeased when we went over the train tracks and turned on our street anyway.

And a final cuteness story (maybe? ::cuts eyes at husband::) I left for three days to go to Phoenix to visit D, so the car seats got moved into the Subaru, the loud, turbo charged Subaru, so that Eli could haul the kids around out to the hunting camp, to church, etc. The Monday after, instead of moving the seats back, I just drove the Subaru to daycare and then to work. When I picked the kids up, Elsie was adamant:

"Go fast!!! Turn music up!!"

Ah. When the cat's away, the mice will play?

Cheers.

Updates for the Fall

2011-11-26T14:48:00.002-06:00

Yeah, so, I haven't been updating because our Internet has been so slow. I took advantage of the faster Internet at my parents' house in Texas to do a little uploading.

http://beaverfamilyblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/o-turns-one.html

http://beaverfamilyblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/many-faces-of-dr-no-also-known-as-elsie.html

http://beaverfamilyblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/curls-are-for-girls-os-first-haircut.html

http://beaverfamilyblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/day-at-park-and-playground.html

http://beaverfamilyblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/halloween-2011.html

http://beaverfamilyblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/jack-o-lantern-lane.html

http://beaverfamilyblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/bama-babies.html

More to come...

Cheers.

Bama Babies

2011-11-19T14:26:00.001-06:00

The first (of presumably many) Alabama football games for the kiddos. Great weather, good game. Nice to be with the Beavers..

Hello, November..

2011-11-02T20:59:00.004-05:00

Yup. It's November 2. And I've decided not to participate in NaBloPoMo no mo. At least not this year. I have a ton of other things going on that take precedence. You know, like survival. This is a busy month where we are going to travel at least 3 of the five weekends. One of them I'm headed to Phoenix to see DJ, another we're headed to Tuscaloosa to take Elsie to her first Bama game day experience (and maybe game?) and then we're heading to the ol' motherland for Thanksgiving, planning to see my sister in a musical (I'm jealous) and possibly go to the Baylor game at Jerry World. Ah, we'll see.

I do have a special project I will be working on this month. More on that to come, but first I wanted to update you on how our debt thermometer is looking:

First 10K Chunk, started 10/1/11, paid off as of 11/1/11

Fundraising Thermometer

After this month is over, we should aaaaaaalmost be halfway there. And then things will slow down considerably. We did have a yard sale, so that's fun. Didn't make too much, a little over $100. Our yard sale philosophies were a little different (Eli: get rid of stuff, Me: make money to pay off debt), so the next time we do it, we probably need to meet in the middle. Oh, well.

My projects for this month, about which I will write more in depth later, are:

1. Complete our Legacy Drawer (a la Dave Ramsey)
2. Complete the Holiday Control Journal (a la FlyLady)
3. Complete the Regular Control Journal (also FlyLady).

One and two are my priorities...

Cheers.

Halloween 2011

2011-10-31T14:07:00.000-05:00

Honestly, I had already decided not to do Halloween costumes this year. There's been so much going on that I just didn't want to stress myself out about it. But, the daycare provider wanted the kids to come in costume for a little party, so I looked around. In a box of boy clothes that Aunt Bev had sent, I found a Spider-Man costume. Score! Free costume. Then a friend at church mentioned that her son was going as a cowboy since he still had his hat from Elsie's party, and I thought, hey, that's not a bad idea. So this year, no family theme, just Spider-Man and the cowgirl, and Daddy Sheriff. We went trick-or-treating to a couple of the neighboring houses. Elsie loved it. People gave out SO MUCH candy to a 2-year-old. I wanted to scream, "Are you CRAZY??" But then, I knew that the adults would eat most of it, so it was okay. Haha.

Jack-o-Lantern Lane

2011-10-30T14:21:00.000-05:00

Last year we went to the Farmer in the Dell pumpkin patch out highway 14 toward Loachapoka. It was nice, but it was dusty and there wasn't a whole lot that was friendly for the little little ones. This year we tried a new place. We went out to Jack-o-Lantern Lane in LaFayette, AL. It was a hit. They had an inflatable park ("I wan play!" -- Elsie), train ride, tractor ride, petting zoo, and pumkin patch. We might go back there again next year. It was definitely worth the drive.

I'm sorry, but...

2011-10-30T14:17:00.003-05:00

No one held a gun to my head and made me take out student loans. In fact, going to a private college was my choice when public universities wanted me to go for considerably cheaper. I understood that I was going to be paying on those loans for a long time after I graduated--and I chose to sign my name anyway. I could have gone to a public school, 2-year, or 4-year. I would have had less debt. But I didn't. This decision had many consequences:

1. I didn't drop out of school when it got hard. I knew I needed to see a return on my investment.

2. I worked at least two jobs all through college, until my senior year when I could only contractually work the one.

3. I valued all aspects of my schooling more, because I was paying for it. I didn't waste meals on my meal plan, and I didn't blow money on stupid stuff. I didn't party, and I didn't join a cost-prohibitive sorority.

4. I spent two years working for AmeriCorps, away from the man I was going to marry, getting my feet wet in the field of education, with the bonus of an education credit to use toward my loans or toward graduate school (I used it for both). I worked extra jobs on top of my 50 hours a week of volunteer-work, not because I *had* to, but because I wanted to. I knew that I had to make a dent in my debt-load at age 21. And I did.

5. I paid double payments on my loans from the very beginning of repayment, even when I only made $700/month. When we got married and joined our finances, this was a non-negotiable. Double payments. And so, within seven years of finishing my master's degree, I was rid of those dang loans. Thirteen years early. Because that is what I CHOSE to do. I could have spent that extra payment-worth of money buying lots of stuff that the Jones' have, but I DIDN'T.

This whole Occupy Whatever seems to be a lot of blame-shifting. Yes, there's corruption in government, but I'm going to share a secret with you. Shhh.. Don't tell anyone: The government is PEOPLE!! It's PEOPLE!! (Think: Soylent Green). People are sinful, corrupt. So, therefore a government of the people, by the people, and for the people cannot be and should not be expected to be perfect.

I am NOT a victim. I am the product of my choices through God's will and grace in my life. I will not blame anyone else for my situation, because there is no one else to blame. I will not judge others in their choices, but I will not listen to their false cries of victimization. I will continue to pay my taxes and let Caesar use those taxes to do what he will. I will continue to vote to convey my preferences for how my taxes are used. And I will continue to give to God what is God's. (Ref. Matthew 22:21).

And there is no such thing as lucky or unlucky.

That is all.

In over my head

2011-10-28T20:40:00.003-05:00

So, I've failed at blogging for the last...2 months? I'm still not going to succeed too much tonight, except to tell you all that we are busy. Too busy. Whenever we drop an activity to salvage some sanity (goodbye Kaplan, being greeters at church, working the nursery), another one creeps into its place (hello kickball, Coast Guard, eLearning classes, church dinners, small group, church committees, worship team). No, really--did anyone else notice that we dropped three activities and replaced them with..SEVEN? It's a sickness.

Eli's work schedule has been hectic with trials and dockets, etc. My schedule has been exhausting, and I'm still not getting everything done that I need and want to get done, including updating the blog. Unfortunately, this season of life is not soon to pass, and our internet is not soon to get faster, thus uploading photos takes forever.

I do have a phone again (thanks, Mom). But I'm having to rebuild everything from my SIM card that was stolen. So, I probably don't have your number anymore. :( Five years on that SIM card. Five years. If you're reading this and you have my e-mail address, I probably had your number in my phone. Can't hurt to send me an e-mail and give me your digits again, right?

So, what's been happening in my otherwise-charmed life?

I went to the dentist. I have three cavities that need to be filled early December. The dentist and hygienist made a joke of me (not about the cavities, about my response to if I floss--yes, but I ran out and haven't replaced it because it's not in the budget this month) and wouldn't let it go. But I did get an extra free sample spool of dental floss and was told that when I run out I can come back and they'll give me more. Thanks. I'm never eating sugar anything again. And I might switch dentists.

A friend from church came up to me while I was holding Oscar and touched my belly and asked, "Another one in the oven?" No, just fat. And then she started talking to me about belly fat and recommending some books. I'm never eating carbs again. (She's a nurse, so I'm not that offended. To her credit, I do stand with my hips pushed forward as my natural posture, and for some reason, it's exaggerated when I'm holding a baby on my hip. Oh, and I have belly fat.)

Oscar ran into the table at daycare and has a shiner. It's an O around his eye. Just like in the movies. Who knew?

Elsie has been a two-year-old, but believe it or not, it has improved as she's made it further into her third year on the planet. More words and communication mean fewer tantrums. More sass, but fewer tantrums. I'll take what I can get.

On the flip side, O is all about the instant gratification. And when he isn't instantly gratified, our eardrums border on rupturing from his pathetic screams of injustice. It's a put-on, because once he gets what he wants, he gives this little half laugh ("heh heh"). But I sure hope this phase passes soon, because it's just not cute. I also noticed tonight that he looked at me when Elsie pushed him, waiting to see if I noticed (I did), and then he started his crying, looking right at me and conjuring enormous crocodile tears. Ugh. Toughen up, kid. Welcome to your life as a little brother to Hurricane E.

So, yeah. We're here. Keep us in your prayers. :)

Cheers.

A Day at the Park and the Playground

2011-10-22T13:52:00.000-05:00

Town Creek Park

Dean Road Recreation Center Playground

Cheers.

The Many Faces of Dr. No (also known as Elsie)

2011-10-16T13:31:00.000-05:00

We went to Guthrie's before Oscar got his hair cut. Ignore Elsie's hair. It had been wet, and then it dried. Mostly, she was just hamming it up while we ate. She cracks us up.

Cheers.

Curls are for girls (O's first haircut)

2011-10-15T13:43:00.003-05:00

Broke my hear to take my sweet baby boy to have all his curls chopped off, but it was time. (So said Eli.)

Cheers.

Debt Transparency

2011-10-01T22:22:00.007-05:00

Conversations with friends, family, and acquaintances about money have been coming up over and over again in the last six months or so. Through these conversations, I have been very transparent with our debt, where we've come from and where we're headed. A big shout-out first to God for his grace, and a secondary shout-out to Dave Ramsey for teaching Biblical principles for handling money.

If you're reading this and you are lost financially, or you feel like you could be doing more, I'm going to direct you to Dave Ramsey, to his book The Total Money Makeover, to his baby steps, to his fantastic class, Financial Peace University, and to his movement, The Great Recovery.

Now, on to where we are. We took FPU in February of 2008 at our church in T-town. Then we moved,had two children, and bought a house in the middle there. And we just kept trucking along, adjusting our monthly cash-flow plan and debt snowball (Baby Step 2) to roll with the punches. Almost a year ago, we paid off my student loans. Earlier this year we paid off our both our credit cards. Aside from the mortgage (which is Dave's Baby Step 6), the only debt we have left is student loan debt--$52k of student loan debt. Feeling disheartened, thinking that we haven't made a very big dent in the overall debt, I decided to go back and get all the records I could from February 2008 to present and find out how far we've come, and I'm equally excited and pained to say that we have paid off more than $53,000 in debt in 44 months (thank you, homeowner's tax credit, for the boost)! We are halfway there!

I went onto the forums on mytotalmoneymakeover.com (subscription membership is so worth it for the entirety of Dave's daily 3-hour radio program) looking for motivation while staring at defeating our remaining debt, and someone suggested breaking that debt into small chunks and working it from there, using a debt thermometer to track progress. Excellent idea!

I hereby declare war on our chunks, $10k at a time. So, I'm going to post our progress on each of 5 chunks of $10k in the form of a debt thermometer, updated monthly (or more often if I'm particularly inspired). And yeah, it still might take us 5 years to pay it all off, but I'm hoping it doesn't! And yes, there will be more than 5 chunks of 10 once interest is said and done, but we have to start someplace, right? So, in October of the year 2011, we start with our empty, new chunk:

First 10K Chunk, started 10/1/11

Fundraising Thermometer

Cheers.

Thirty-nine and counting

2011-09-30T20:14:00.000-05:00

The end of September marked my parents' 39th wedding anniversary. Amazing, isn't it?! The negativity of today's press would have us think that this doesn't happen anymore. But I know it does! It's not and never has been a perfect marriage--do those really exist when it's made up of two imperfect humans?--but it is one that, through God's grace, has weathered almost four decades. I am humbled to be a product of such a union.

Eli and I have been married 8.5 years (man, time does fly!) and my parents have been married 5 times as long. That's crazy! On Thursday morning, I announced to my homeroom that it was my parents' anniversary, and told them how long they had been married. "So lucky!" one of my star students said (and it should be noted that his parents are divorced--though I never would have guessed--and in his words, they can't stand each other, but they parent together). Lucky, huh?

I've caught myself recently trying to downplay the purported existence of luck. It's been such a cultural norm to say "Good luck!" to people as they face a trial, or to tell people how lucky they are when something good happens to them. I have recently consciously been saying, "Do your best!" or "Be your best!" and recognizing God's blessings in life.

So, no. My parents 39 years together has not been the result of luck. I bet they'd be the first to tell you that it's been a lot of hard work doing the best they can do through trials and tribulations, and that the years have been bathed in prayer and God's grace.

What a blessing to me, my sisters, and my family. Thank you, Mom and Dad, for your commitment and devotion to each other. And thank you for your faith in a God who bridges the gap for your shortcomings and imperfections--that is what makes a marriage "perfect".

I love you.

Frustrated

2011-09-21T21:13:00.002-05:00

You know, I used to think that checking e-mail on a telephone was a stupid thing to do. I was probably just jealous. Because just last week I was saying that I can't imagine life any other way.

And then Monday at school, my iPhone was stolen off my desk by one of my students. I didn't realize until it was too late in the day to do much about it except take statements, and I honestly have no idea who it was.

I think one of my faults (or, as a teacher, it usually a strength?) is that I think the best of people; somehow I'm the eternal optimist. I think that 95% of people, given the opportunity, will do the right thing. Given a second chance, I think that 80% of those who made the wrong decision the first time will make it right. (That leaves 1% of the original group that is just...mean or dimwitted.)

Remember the Baylor men's basketball scandal in 2003? No? Just me? Well, I was a big fan and supporter of Dave Bliss, an excellent coach, a positive role model, so when allegations about unrelated faculty/staff NCAA misconduct arose after investigations into the murder, I stood firmly next to Dave, sticking up for him, defending him (in a figurative sense--we weren't friends or anything). And then one day, my programming was interrupted by a news conference with Baylor's head coach where he was accepting full responsibility for and knowledge of the misconduct and resigning from his position. Wait. What?!? I felt so betrayed...

And Dave Bliss never coached college again (so far), but went on to coach prison basketball leagues. Do I think he was paying penance and trying to make it right? Yes, yes I do.

So here I am with my phone missing, and that sickening feeling in my gut that any one of the students I smile at, cheer on, encourage, could be the very child who stole from me; I have been betrayed again. Strangely, I'm not angry yet. And I hope to the Lord that I can be spared that.

The other adults want me to tell lies and scare the poo out of the kids about the lengths I can go to to recover the phone. I don't want to lie. That's part of the issue here anyway--one of the kids is lying to me and I refuse to stoop to his level. I just composed an e-mail to my colleagues whose numbers were stored in my phone and let them know of the possibility of receiving stupid text messages from some student who now has their phone number. I hate being that idiot who let this happen.

"You're certainly taking this well. Better than I would."

Yeah, I've heard that from several of my colleagues. But why waste time and energy getting angry when I have a shortage of both? I was very honest with them yesterday and told them that there are things more important to me than electronics, and that they should also take stock of what is invaluable to them. "You don't care, Mrs. Beaver?" Yes, of course I care. But I think I'm more worried about this student and what his motives are.

In class, we just read Langston Hughes's "Thank You, M'am", and I only wish I could be as noble as Mrs. Louella Bates Washington Jones when the boy tells her he tried to steal her purse because he wanted to buy himself some blue suede shoes. "You coulda' asked," she told him. "M'am?" the boy asked in disbelief. She made him wash his face, she fed him, and then she gave him some money and sent him on his way, admonishing him not to steal from anyone again. "Shoes got in devilish ways will burn your feet."

Well, I'm praying for this student, and I'm telling my students that phones got in devilish ways will burn their ears.

And I haven't decided if I am going to get another phone at all. I may just pay to break the contract. It's kinda' freeing being untethered like this. And I can't afford a new phone, nor am I going to ask anyone else to shoulder the expense for me again. All I need is an answering machine and I can go back to being old-fashioned. Haha.

So, I don't know what I'm supposed to do or how I'm supposed to feel, so I may be a little cuckoo/confused/depressed/frustrated for a while. Jill baked me cookies last night, and that made me smile. And yes, out of two dozen, I probably have eaten 16 of them in the last 24 hours (not including the 3 dough balls). And Eli gave me a big hug. And Mom tried to track the prankster who texted her. And Stacey wants to come BE the police. Love you guys.

Cheers.

Somnambulent

2011-09-14T21:03:00.002-05:00

The babysitter asked me today if Elsie talks in her sleep. Not an odd question since I probably do, and so does Eli from time to time.

But, then she told me about something that Elsie did during naptime today. They sleep on nap cots, and about an hour after they laid down, Elsie got up from her cot, rolled up her napper (blanket thing) and put it in her drawer, and then went and sat on one of the other children. The other child woke up screaming, and then Elsie woke up screaming, and then all the children were screaming.

She's a sleepwalker! The babysitter said she watched this unfold just to see what Elsie would do. This freaks me out a little bit. I can't forget to close the gate at the top of stairs before bed ever again.

Cheers.

Hurricane Elsie

2011-09-07T20:01:00.004-05:00

I have a lot of catching up to do. It's been a busy month. Oscar turned one last month and I have posts in my brain waiting to be written, but school also started and Eli had his two-week drill, so maybe this weekend. But, while I have the little blond hurricane on my mind, I figured I'd go ahead and do an update, because, really, grading papers can wait...again.

Elsie's month was something like this:

Our neighbor let us borrow their toddler bed, so Elsie is in a "big girl" bed, and Oscar is finally in a crib (and not the pack'n'play). I was going to say that she's been doing a good job staying put, but I hear the pitter-pat of feet upstairs, even after using the SuperNanny method of putting her back. She has no fear.

We just had a long weekend, and Elsie had three good days. Not too many tantrums, thank goodness. But, alas, tantrums are still the norm. I can deal with them until she gets physical and starts taking out her anger by hitting or spitting on me, or by pushing, kicking, hitting, shoving Oscar. Then I have to keep my temper at bay.

She mostly refuses to sit in her high chair. Instead, she wants to pull a chair up to the high chair and still eat off of the tray.

We haven't really potty trained, but sometimes Elsie asks to go on the potty, and she does. And because a mother never really gets any privacy, so I've found out, she's apt to tell me "good girl" for my efforts as well.

Toothbrushing is a chore...again. She goes in fits and spurts. We've tried Elsie's turn followed by Mama's turn. But then some days she doesn't want Mama to have a turn and then it turns traumatic. Jill got her to brush her teeth without incident one night while Elsie was in the bathtub. No fair. :)

Her language skills have taken off. She's creating sentences for situations she's never encountered before. The pages of a book were stuck together and Jill was trying to get them apart, and Elsie admonished, "Don't break it!" She's consistently saying "Yes Ma'am" to me. And she knows what is expected when we say she needs to apologize to Oscar. "I sorry, Oscar." Yup. She says Oscar now, instead of Ah-kur.

And the singing. OH, THE SINGING!! Mr. Bill, her old Sunday school teacher, burned us a copy of Steve Green's Hide 'em in Your Heart album (ca. 1990) and I pretty much have it on constantly in the car when the kids are in the car. She loves to sing along. It is the cutest thing to hear her little voice from the backseat.

And she loves to read. Here, with our favorite neighbor:

Here, with her doll:

I will get caught up soon. Promise.

Cheers.

O turns one!

2011-08-27T13:05:00.004-05:00

Twelve months passed too quickly. Here are some highlights from O's first birthday, a gathering of a smattering of our friends.

And big sister gets in on the act...

Cheers.

Update on E -- Terrible Twos

2011-08-07T19:50:00.003-05:00

Sigh.

Most days I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry because this is a turbulent age, indeed. I don't remember my mom telling stories of my twodom, so I'm not entirely sure if this is a case of payback.

Elsie is two in the most stereotypical sense of the word. She is PASSIONATE! It's almost manic in that she'll be really, really happy, and then without batting an eye, she'll be really really angry. It's worse around drop-off at care in the morning, dinner at night, and bedtime. Wait. Those are the times when it's typically just Mama and Elsie. Coincidence? I hope so, or I'm going to have a complex for the rest of my parenting life..which is the rest of my life.

Should I be concerned when everyone I meet tells me that three is worse than two? Because I'm starting to get concerned.

Aside from the stereotyped behaviors, Elsie is funny, and silly, and...territorial. She likes to dance and quote lines from Yo Gabba Gabba (this morning I went in and she was jumping on her bed singing, "Go crazy! Go crazy! Go crazy!" from the Dancy-Dance segment of the show; the other day we were sampling at Sam's Club and the lady had yogurt and Elsie said "Try it! You'll like it!", also from YGG). She asks to see "Bob Mato" on a regular basis (aka Veggie Tales and Bob the Tomato).

She LOVES her new care provider. From day one I dropped her off and was kneeling down to tell her that I would be back for her, yada yada yada, and she interrupted me and said, "Goodbye," then turned around and started to play. Wow, that was easy.

Every day when we get in the car she says, "That fun." Good.

Now I mentioned above about her throwing a tantrum during dropoff, and yes, that happens sometimes--she usually stalls outside the door and does not want to come in the door. If I have to force the issue and drag her in (since I'm carrying Oscar), she does not take too kindly to that. But once she's in the playroom, it's like there never was a tantrum. Like I never made her mad.

So, that's all I can think of right now. Pray for me.

Cheers.

2011-08-06T07:17:00.002-05:00

I'm excited about school starting with students on Monday. Did you know that this is my eleventh year of teaching? I include the first two years I spent in AmeriCorps in Austin to reach that number. For pay scale and retirement purposes, this is only year nine, but it all counts. Also, strangely enough, this year I have my tenth principal in those eleven years. My first two years at this job (last year and the year before) were the only two years in my career where I had the same principal two years in a row.

In grad school we were always told that the burnout for middle school was three years, and this is my seventh year teaching middle school, so I guess that makes me a tried and true lunatic. To think I thought I wanted to be a high school teacher (and I was for two years) but this age group has really grown on me. Why does it always seem to surprise me that the Lord knows what he's doing?

So, we went back to school on Monday for teacher stuff. This week back at school was short. Very short. The longer I was there the more things I realized I still need to do in order to be ready for students to come on Monday. We had meeting after meeting and even a good chunk of time to spend in the classroom working, but sometimes that was impossible because at the beginning of the week coleagues would come by with questions and concerns, and at the end of the week, students would come with their parents and would peek their heads into the classroom to get a sneak preview, not wanting to bother us and not knowing that they weren't the only ones to have that great idea.

I was blessed this week with the help of two of my girlfriends. They offered and I accepted. M came on Thursday and helped me clean off my countertop (which runs the length of one wall), move my computer to the other end, since I moved my desk to the other end last spring, and move books and adjust shelves above the countertop. It is sleek, clean, and uncluttered (for now). Then she came back Friday and teamed up with J and they tackled my classroom library, labeling the books with their AR levels and quiz numbers. Something that would have taken me a couple of weeks of planning periods working by myself they accomplished together in less than six hours. THANK YOU, LADIES!!

Eli is out of pocket this weekend at a military law symposium in Tuscaloosa. I knew it was coming, but for some reason I didn't realize how much I would need to get up to my classroom and get things done--and there is sooooo much to be done: I need to find a place for everything that is still out on the desktops, I need to dust the room and clean the desks, I need to work on my lesson plans and blocking out the semester's activities, I need to map out my procedures and print CHAMPs posters (it's a classroom management thing), I need to print rosters and put seating info on desks, I need to work on my helper chart, and I need to think through my first day.

And then there's a thousand other little things I have to do that I won't be able to remember until I'm standing in my classroom. I've started a list and we'll see what I can accomplish before 7:25 on Monday.

Cheers.

Summer's End

2011-07-31T17:54:00.002-05:00

Where did the summer go?

I guess I had a week off, and then I taught summer school for two weeks. That was immediately followed by a week of the trip to the Great North. And then it was July, and tomorrow it is August. And I'm headed back to work.

Summer regrets:
1. We only went to the Splash Park once. Perhaps that was influenced by the e. coli scare. Perhaps not. I'm just glad we didn't get a membership to the Sportsplex just yet.

2. We didn't get to hang out with the next-door neighbors as much. But as I think about it, we mostly hung out with them after school started last year, while I was on maternity leave, and while it was not as hot outside.

3. We didn't spend as much time outside as I would have liked. But it was hot, shade or no shade. Ugh.

4. I didn't get enough "me" time. That is, I had lots of great plans for getting ahead for the next school year, but was not as successful in finding the time to develop them sans toddlers. Not a huge deal, but still a little disappointing.

But, I do love school. And I LOVE August because school supplies are on super sale. I like to stock up for the year. This year I feel I did a good job keeping it to stuff I actually need. I have several packs of Crayola markers and colored pencils at school, purchased in years previous. Just because they are priced under $1 right now does not make it something I need. Idon'tneeditIdon'tneeditIdon'tneedit. Repeat 1,000,000,000 times and quickly exit Wal-Mart.

Another sadness is that my Monday nights will be changing as the college kids and young professionals from church get back into their grooves that don't include us (and vice versa). We've been hosting dinner for them on Monday nights and I've been so pleased with the turnout. I've made new friends. Old friends have made new friends. I've had a reason to keep my house clean.

Sigh. Another year. Another crop of young minds to mold. Or to give penicillin. Whichever results in them learning.

So long, summer.

Cheers.

The Great Recovery

2011-07-24T19:00:00.006-05:00

Last Thursday night, July 21, Dave Ramsey delivered a free simulcast message called, "The Great Recovery." We watched and decided to formally join the movement at www.thegreatrecovery.com. Go to the website and take a look around.

Essentially, in this time of national debt crisis, Dave is calling for a movement from the individual, to the family, to the neighborhood, to the community, to recover our personal economies by saying no to debt, by being educated financially in this respect, either through his program (Financial Peace University) or through other God-centered programs like Crown ministries. He calls for us to put our hope in Christ Jesus and to learn to handle God's money the way God instructs us in the Bible.

In Dave's words (from an e-mail I received today):

"We believe that by helping our own families out of debt and into a life of saving and wealth building, we experience a personal recovery. Our giving increases and our churches benefit. Our spending increases and our communities benefit. It's an upward and positive cycle happening in towns all over this amazing nation.

"Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law he meditates day and night."
— Psalm 1:1–2

We tend to look to others for the answers. It's easy to ask, "What can I do?" and hope someone else will fix things. But, we're underestimating ourselves. One believer standing up, doing the right thing is like one lamp lit. The darkness around isn't quite as dark. Then another lamp is lit. And another. And another. All that light chases the darkness completely away.

It's kind of like that with this economy. One family inspires another family, and so on. Someone has to lead. Someone has to be the first to go against the grain of society and declare, "No, I don't want to do things the way everyone else does. I'm going to live like no one else." The Great Recovery can reverse the tide.

Debt is not one of life's pains we just have to live with. We don't have to accept that credit cards and car payments are a way of life. It's bondage! We can live differently, and we should. Faith is a funny thing. We don't always see a huge impact from our first steps. But those first steps mean everything. You've taken your first step by joining The Great Recovery."

I hope Dave doesn't mind that I shared his words with you here. Eli and I feel very strongly about this and are working to get ourselves out of debt. As of this past spring, we have only a mortgage and Eli's student loans until we are FREE! Praise God for His provision! We still have a lot of debt, but if we don't take care of our personal economies as directed in the Word, who will?

I hope you'll take a minute to consider joining The Great Recovery and making a difference in your community, one family at a time. It's not easy, but it's definitely worth it. To totally steal Dave's line, there's only one place to find Peace, and that's with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.

Cheers.

Sweet Little Moo Cows

2011-07-12T20:49:00.006-05:00

As luck would have it, Eli was not with us for Cow Appreciation Day on July 8. He was up in Anniston working for the National Guard. But, not one to let free food slip through my fingers (this really is a theme for my life), I decided to get us all dressed up and go to Chik-Fil-A. I asked Jill if she wanted to come with us, and she agreed. She's up for most anything, and I love that she's such a good sport!

I think what I am most proud of this year is that I did not spend a single dime on these costumes. Yes, I wanted to go to Hobby Lobby to get stuff, but I made it work without. (Mantra: getting out of debt getting out of debt getting out of debt)

For Elsie's costume, I got one of the little while undershirts that I bought her previously and used a Sharpie marker to draw the shapes of the spots and used craft markers to fill in the spots. I found a pair of too-short 12-month black pants and slapped them on her--instant capri pants.

For Oscar's, I got a long-sleeved onesie that he used to wear (size 6-9 months) and made it into a short-sleeved onesie (that still fit, mostly). Then I made spots on it the same way I did for Elsie's. I also found the cow print legwarmers that Elsie wore two years ago when she was 9 weeks old, and he wore those

Both children had liquid eyeliner on their noses (couldn't find my black acrylic paint and my artist neighbor was out of town). The adults had dark eye shadow on our noses.

Jill and I taped on spots cut out of black construction paper. They didn't stay on great, particularly with having to carry children around, but they were good enough. We both wore white shirts.

And then I made ears for everyone out of construction paper, too. For the girls, I punch holes and put hair elastics through each ear. We wore variations on pigtails and attached the ears to our piggies. Oscar got a head band with smaller ears. The old man behind the counter at CFA told us we had the most authentic ears he had seen all day. Score! So, now that you know our story, here are our pictures (courtesy of Jill, and some random woman who took a picture of all of us together):

Cheers.

11 Months of O

2011-07-12T07:45:00.005-05:00

I'll continue to say this because it will continue to be true: wow, time is flying by!

I didn't do a 10-month update on Oscar because it was a busy time as we were getting prepared to have Eli back with us and getting ready to go on the Grand Beaver Tour. Sorry I let it lapse. So this is pretty much an update covering the span of two months, and a LOT can happen in two months.

For instance, when we last spoke exclusively of O, he had just finished cutting his bottom center teeth. While we were in Canada at the end of June, Oscar cut one of his top front teeth (his upper left), and the week later he cut the other one. Now my boy has a sweet little gap-toothed smile. (Sweet, except when he's trying out his new chompers on my knee, then it's a sharp gap-toothed smile.)

Also when we last visited O's development, he was just beginning to pull up. Yeah, that lasted all of ten minutes before we was a cruising machine, hanging on to furniture and making his way around the room. In the last week or two, he has been letting go of whatever he's holding onto and standing unassisted for around 10 seconds at a time. He also has started coming up behind me, grabbing onto my pant legs and walking with me as I walk..very slowly. He's going to be walking on his own very soon. Then the family dynamics and child-proofing shift! What did Eli say to me the other day, kinda' dumbfounded like? "We're going to have two toddlers." Yup. It's the end of the world as we know it, again.

As for food, I haven't been really consistent with solids, but he's starting to eat anything. Last week I made sweet potato fries, and he loved them. I wasn't sure if he would go for the whole lumpy texture, given his gagging history. Light night, Eli said he pretty much put away a whole spinach manicotti like it was nothing. He's eating animal crackers and gets all hyperventilate-y when he sees me with them and I'm not giving them to him fast enough.

Two connected things also happened in the last month: Oscar started sleeping "through the night" (aka, we let him cry himself back to sleep) and I weaned him. We had dropped down to only nursing at night when he woke up every 2-3 hours, and finally once he started eating solids better, I made the decision that this mama needed to get some decent sleep again soon. So, the weekend we got back from our trip, Eli went to B'ham to watch soccer with some friends and that night Mama slept. Since then, he wakes up about once a night and puts himself back to sleep. That is, until 5 a.m. Where he got this ludicrous time, I do not know. Pretty much since school has been out, he's been waking up earlier. Boo. Used to be I could put him in the swing in the morning and he would go back to sleep for an hour or so, but then he got too strong for the swing and was trying to lean forward out of it, burning up the motor and scaring his mother. So, we get up earlier than during the school year most days. Ugh.

Last night, however, Darth Vader woke up screaming at 2 a.m., so for the first time since he's been born, we had to use the NoseFrieda snotsucker to get him breathing through his nose again, where he could go back to sleep. He didn't hate it. He didn't like it, either. I'll take that any day.

Some cute pics of Oscar:

The Kleenex didn't have a chance:

In Cheerio heaven, little rascal:

Some cute sibling pics:

Coloring in the front hallway (book courtesy of Aunt Julie!):

Sharing a ride at Kroger yesterday:

Some other cute things about Oscar:

*He loves balls of all shapes and sizes. Want to get his attention and be his new best friend? Get a ball!

*He loves the cats, smiling whenever they are near and often chasing them to say hello. The other day he tried pulling Coco off the arm of the chair by Coco's tail, and had the claw marks on his face as evidence that Coco tried very hard to get some traction to get back on the couch to counteract the pulling.

*He plays with the little retro Chatter telephone like it's a car, pushing it around the floor like little boys do.

*He's incredibly sweet and will put his head on my shoulder to snuggle any time I pick him up.

*He loves to bounce, particularly as I put him on my hip and we go up the stairs. His little giggle just melts me.

*He's obsessed with opening and closing doors. If he sees a door open even just a little bit, that's an invitation for him to play with it. Any time the door to the backyard is open, he tries to make an escape. More recently, this is true to the inside door to the garage.

*His new nickname around the house is "Shredder." If it can be shredded, he's on the job. Kleenex, TP, tissue paper, newspaper, notebook paper, magazines--he does not discriminate. He does not, however, like the fact that dryer sheets are difficult to shred.

*He's got noggin issues, and it's not even that big! But he bumps it on everything, every table lip and low clearance objects that he encounters. Even funnier, he'll clear his head under the coffee table with ease, but then will try to sit up and hasn't cleared his body for sitting up right there, so he bangs the back of his head on the table. He is just beside himself when this happens. And at least two times a day, he smacks it on the floor (usually with a little assistance from Elsie). Poor kid.

*Playing at the water table, he doesn't seem to mind when Elsie pours water over his head. Now that's a good brother.

*He's obsessed with toilets, particularly the little caps that cover the screws that hold the toilet down. He loves taking them off and putting them back on. I discourage this behavior, but he has a big sister who opens doors, and again, when he sees an open door...

*He still uses one knee and the other foot to get around in a crawl, so the "knee" leg is rug-burned, dirty, etc. The only time he crawls differenly is when he's out on the patio and it's painful to drag his "knee" leg under him, so he gets up on two hands and two feet in a full-on bear crawl. It's so cute.

I can't believe he's almost ONE!! Sigh.

Cheers.

Library Bureaucrap

2011-07-11T11:08:00.005-05:00

Forgive me this post. I'm just looking for a place to share my frustrations, and I might even delete it eventually. We'll see.

Today, I'm at the local library, taking the kids for story time. Wouldn't you know that O stayed put and listened to the story while E ran around like a crazy child? Not really surprised, are you? Two weeks ago (they were closed July 4) I inquired as to what it takes to apply for a library card, and the woman told me I needed picture ID and a utility bill or something that proved I live in the county. Oh, well, maybe next time. She mentioned I could bring my car registration, and I considered going to get it, but on this day I didn't park anywhere near the library, so I decided for sure to wait until next time.

Yesterday, I had a copy of my mortgage statement, but threw it away when I was cleaning up because all that stuff is online anyway. Today, I kicked myself for doing that because all the utility bills are in Eli's name. Boo. So I went to the library and fished through the glove compartment for the registration, and at a glance, my signature was on the bottom, so I grabbed it and went in.

After story time, I got Elsie busy coloring at a table while I made my way to the circulation desk to apply for a card, Oscar on my hip. The woman behind the desk asked if I needed help so I told her what I wanted and she said, okay, come on down here.

I thought I asked politely enough if I could just stay where I was, at the bottom of the U-shaped desk, and do the sign-up from 10 feet away so that I could keep an eye on my toddler (since this position was the only place at the circulation desk I could see her and they are very strict about supervising children--as well they should be). The woman, who is older than my mother, looked at me with a look of annoyance, took my license and registration and then rolled her eyes as she moved down the desk toward the computer. Yes. She did.

I decided to just grin and bear it, because what could I do? There are very few opportunities for me to go to the library (or anywhere) without children these days, so if they couldn't accommodate me in this way then I would probably not ever be a patron of this library. Besides, I didn't think it was an unreasonable request, was it?

After a minute, she comes back down the desk and looks at me. "It doesn't have your name on it." What? I was confused. I looked down in her hand and saw my name on it, so I pointed it out to her. Yes, she said, this is proof that you were the person to register the car because your signature is on it [believe me, she did a Sherlock Holmes-style comparison between my driver license and the signature on the car registration] but it doesn't have your name on it. It has his name. But not yours.

Please note that her delivery of this news was in no way friendly or helpful, not even very customer service-y. More, it was suspicious and accusatory, as if I was trying to pull one over on her, and it got my blood boiling. I just gave her a big fake smile and a used a high-pitched I'm-not-going-to-scream voice, and said, "Okay. Thanks." And walked away, grabbed my purse and diaper bag, and my toddler who was not very happy about leaving and we left, thanking the children's librarian for story time on our way out.

Two things that frustrate me about this situation.

1. The librarian at the desk was not very nice or helpful. I was pretty sure that librarianship (ism?) is a part of the service industry in the same way that teachers are, but maybe I'm wrong.
2. Bureaucracy sucks. I had car tags with Eli's name, our address, and my signature, and then I had a driver license with my name, our address, and my signature. Sherlock Holmes would have figured that out. Or at least suggested another piece of documentation that could be helpful. She didn't. (In my mind, I was asking flustered-like, "What do you need? A marriage certificate??, And you know, that would have been a reasonable request.)

Alas, next time I go, if I ever go again (because honestly it's a lot of work to get out of the house with two kids and then be treated like I'm somehow inconveniencing the librarian) I'll bring better paperwork. Unfortunately, my mortgage statements are quarterly, so it will be another three months, if then.

Yes, the not being able to get a card is my fault. But not being treated kindly by this woman was pretty low.

I went to Sonic to calm my nerves and E and I shared a Wacky Pack. All better, particularly now that I've blogged this. Okay, okay. I got a milkshake, too.

Cheers.

Little Miss Verve

2011-07-07T10:17:00.000-05:00

Since Elsie turned two, I stopped keeping track of how old she is in months, and then wasn't doing updates here, either. So, I've decided that I'm going to keep on updating just on E once a month, here, on the 7th of every month (or really close to it). I'm backdating this blog to put it on July 7.

So, Elsie is a hoot. She is full on toddler. She very often seems to be a caricature of a toddler, she's that animated. I'm just going to list some vignettes of life with her as the meat of this update.

*We normally have oatmeal and fresh fruit for breakfast. This last week Elsie almost had a meltdown because she wanted "Manoni cheese!" for breakfast. It took me a minute to figure out what she was talking about. I just want to say that we've never had Macaroni and Cheese for breakfast, but that I might go to Kroger and invest in the Easy Mac bowls that are fifty cents each right now if you buy ten (normally $1 each).

*She's learning names really well. It's freaky what she's remembering, who she's remembering. She knows all the names of her friends at church.

*We read a book or two every night when putting her to bed. Dmitri the Astronaut is in the circulation right now. Never read it? That's because it's not very good, but she loves to point out the "as-roh-not" on every page, and then squeal at his little friend "Wuwu." (Elsie doesn't do the L sound right now.) There's also a picture of a man in his bathing trunks and she loves to point to him and yell, "Naked!"

*Her memory for books is increasing daily. She'll crawl up into the rocking chair with Goodnight Moon (which we've been reading nightly) and start reading it to herself. It's very amusing.

Sometimes I will find her with Baby Bear, Baby Bear, or Brown Bear, Brown Bear, saying "What do you see? I see...and then gibberish." One of those books (Polar Bear, Polar Bear or Panda Bear, Panda Bear) has a walrus in it, so no matter which book we're reading she frequently guesses WALRUS! excitedly.

*She likes to throw everything out of her crib so that she can use it as a bounce house of sorts. I went in her room the other morning and said, "What are you doing?" and response was "I jumpin the moon!" I laughed. In Goodnight Moon there is a picture of the cow jumping over the moon. She remembered and connected. Crazy!

*She's a pro at my iPhone. And that's not really a good thing. She figured out, through watching me do it only, how to press the home button and slide to unlock, so she turns on my phone regularly. She rearranges my icons and deletes apps. I couldn't find the "Phone" icon the other day because she moved it off of the bottom menu. Her favorite apps are "Dress Chica" and "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", with "Paint'N'Wash" coming in a close third. These are all free of course.

*Elsie loves to sing. The songs that come in her daily repertoire include "Jesus Loves Me," "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," and the alphabet song. At appropriate times, she'll bust out with the Clean-up Song from Barney (she learned that at church).

Here's an example of her artistry, until she got distracted by my phone:

*We've been hosting dinner at our house on Mondays this summer and so we end up with a lot of 2-liters. She is obsessive about carrying these bottles around, moving them from one location to the next. From the stairs to the bench and back. From the table in the kitchen to the table in the breakfast nook. And then she counts them...inaccurately, but still it's cute.

Relating to Oscar, she looks out for him and makes announcements to us. "Ah-kur sleep." "Ah-kur wake." "Ah-kur seepy." "Ah-kur crying." She also likes to tell him "It Ehsie turn" when he has something she wants. When he goes to bed, she says "Night night Ah-kur" and when he's doing something she doesn't like, she says, "No, Ah-kur--No! No! No!" When he wakes up screaming, she puts a hand to her ear and asks, "Hear Ah-kur?)

Developmentally, she's got all of her basic colors and shapes recognized and enjoys pointing them out. She knows a lot of animal sounds, and particularly likes the ones that say "Raaahhhrrr!" Often, out of nowhere she says, "Mama! Raaahhhrrr!" She's a pretty good communicator, but there's still a lot of things that she says with such meaning, and she'll repeat them if we ask her to, but we still have no idea what she's saying. We say, "Oh, okay." This might come back to bite us later, haha.

Potty training is right around the corner. In the next couple of months, if not sooner. That's all I can think of for now, but I know there's more. Lots more. She keeps us entertained.

Cheers.

All Creatures Great and Small

2011-06-30T13:43:00.003-05:00

Concluding the Grand Beaver Tour, we ended up in the Land of Beavers: Canada!

While there, we stayed at a Fairfield Inn in Guelph, Ontario. Where? Right. It's about an hour west-ish of Toronto, and it took far fewer hotel points to stay there for two nights than it did to stay in Toronto for one. In fact, the Canadian Border Patrol agent, upon hearing that we were going to Guelph, said, "Why?" in what was probably a little bit derisive tone. To its credit, it really is more of a nerd convention town than a vacation destination. We were at home, though, for obvious reasons.

Our first full day in Canada we knew we were headed to Toronto. It was my responsibility to decide what we were going to do in Canada, but of course, with summer school and two kids, I didn't, so we were winging it. Eli just wanted to see BMO Field, where the Major League Soccer team, Toronto FC, plays. So, the plan was to drive by the field and head on to other kid-friendly endeavors. However, when we drove by the stadium, something was going on, so I jumped out of the car and asked at the box office, and it turns out that there was an open practice for Toronto FC. Without even asking Eli what he wanted to do, I got four admission tickets (free, but you had to have them) because I knew he would want to go. We spent the morning with Elsie running around the stadium getting her exercise, while watching the practice and the freestyle performers that came on at the end (it turned out to be an event for local school children to learn about healthy lifestyles).

We got back in the car and both children crashed before we even made it to the ferry terminal to do research about going out to Center Island, so we decided to head back to Guelph and stop at any interesting landmarks along the way. Just in case you find yourself driving in Toronto, it is important to note that outside of the multiple-lane highways, there is no fast way to get North to South in the city. I suspect the same holds true for East-West travel, but we didn't go that way.

Once we finally got back out on the Canadian interstate equivalent, we saw a sign for the Apple Factory Farmer's Market as a point of interest, so we decided to investigate. It was not so much a farmer's market as a food boutique, but Elsie loved that there were chickens in the side yard. They had a double-Beaver gumball machine (told you Canadians love Beavers!) that dispensed chicken food. After that, anything that even remotely resembled the granular feast was labelled by the toddler as "Chicken Food!" and she pointed it out everywhere.

How we decided what to do the next day was really decided for us by the toddler. Elsie is addicted to brochures. I mean, we can't stop at welcome centers along the interstate without her emptying a couple of racks--one brochure at a time--and bringing them to us, shoving them in our hand saying, "Here," and then going back for more. Same with hotel lobbies. Which is how we found out about the Cambridge Butterfly Conservatory. So, on our way out of town, we headed to Cambridge, Ontario to see the butterflies. We pass the Beaverdale Country Club on the way out, just in case you wanted another example of Beaver love.

The Butterfly Conservatory was so beautiful! It was a just large enough greenhouse environment that the toddler had room to walk (or run, as the case may be) around and observe butterflies, birds, and koi, but small enough that the parents didn't have to stay right with her 100% of the time. There were hundreds of butterflies just flying around and sitting on plants and eating fruit. Elsie loved it. Oscar just tolerated it. Haha.

Looking at a butterfly with daddy:

Playing in a bowl of butterfly wings from the previously deceased:

Look, Mama! Budderfy!

She's starting to get sleepy. Did you see her highly-apropos shirt? Just coincidence.

Proof that O-man came on this jaunt with us, too:

We also found this magnetic treasure in the gift shop and couldn't pass it up:

I know, right? Perfect souvenir.

After the butterflies, we got in the car and drove to Detroit. The original plan was to got to the Henry Ford Museum, but it was later than expected, and so we stopped to eat dinner instead, with a plan to go to the Meijer and get some swim wings for Elsie so we could skip the museum and swim in the hotel pool that night. Guess where we ate? In Marysville, MI:

Thursday morning we got up bright and squirrely and drove to Cincinnati for this leg of the journey home. On the way, we stopped in

(Ohio) for lunch. I already knew before we even left home that I wanted to go to the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Gardens. We've never taken Elsie to a zoo before, and my first zoo memories were from this same zoo, as far as I can recall. The zoo was fantastic. If we lived there, we would be members.

Elsie was most enthralled with the gibbons on Gibbon Island. They were LOUD. She loved the "muckeys". She also enjoyed showing the lion how it's done as far as roaring goes. Once she was done, he responded back. But, by far, her favorite part was the train around the park. Here are some pictures from that trip:

Choo choo!

Show us your new tooth, Oscar! (The land of Beavers inspired a new one..)

Gorilla Girl!

Ooooh! A lion! (Very little in the background above his hand...)

Ridin' nerdy:

To end the night, we met my sister and nephew and niece at IKEA in Cincinnati since they were driving through on their way home to Texas from the wedding (after a week of photogging and mucking around in cemeteries for genealogy stuff). We love them so much. For days, Elsie kept talking about them, bringing their names up randomly in conversation, pointing out people who vaguely resembled them (there was a girl at the hotel who was tall, thin, had long light brown hair and glasses, and from far away Elsie thought it was M and got so excited). As a bonus, I got to walk around IKEA. Score!

The next morning, Friday, we got out of the hotel and drove as far as Chattanooga to go visit with Eli's aunt and uncle who live there. They got us tickets to the Creative Discovery Museum in Downtown Chattanooga, so we took the kids in the afternoon.

Elsie playing the guitar:

Oscar trying his hand at the harp-thing:

Oscar needs a hat in the Bob the Builder exhibit. Elsie said so.

Pretend-a-saurus meets fabulous archaeologist hat:

Finally, Saturday, we drove the last leg of the trip home. Ah, home sweet home. Glad to be here.

Cheers.

The Grand Beaver Tour

2011-06-28T06:30:00.007-05:00

When we were looking at the second leg of our trip and planning what we wanted to do and where we wanted to go to use Eli's free hotel points from all the weeks the Army made him suffer at the Marriott Residence Inn, I had a stroke of brilliance to break up the monotony: why not find Beaver locations along the way? I mean, Canadians LOVE beavers, right? Surely there would be Beaver landmarks in other places, too. To start, I plugged Beaver and Pennsylvania into Google maps to see what came up since that was where we would be starting and I was delighted that Beaver, PA, was near my cousin's wedding, just the other side of Pittsburgh. (This is actually how I eventually found the church in Beaver, PA, that we sadly did not get to attend.)

We could have gone a little crazier than we did, and had we been 5-8 years younger (i.e. newlyweds without two young children in the car), back in our "road warrior" days, I think it could have been insane. But, alas, our age, "maturity," and sense of responsibility kept us in check.

Without my knowledge, Eli started the Grand Beaver Tour without us. Haha. On his drive up through the mountains of West Virginia, he saw that off the beaten path, but still in the right direction lay the town of Beaver, WV, so he swung through there and snapped a picture:

On Monday morning, the Beaver clan loaded up the car, said our goodbyes to Mimi and aunties and cousins and made our way to Niagara Falls, NY, via everything Beaver:

In Beaver Falls, PA:

Headed toward the falls:

In NY, right before the Niagara Falls exit (it's an island--wish we had had time to stop!):

And our intermediary destination:

Elsie really loved all the water and was anxious to get in it. It was very difficult to explain that that was not an option. At one point, Eli had her chasing seagulls across the grass in the park. She wanted to walk a lot of it, which was fine with us since we'd been in the car for hours and she needed to burn her energy. After spending a couple of hours at the falls, we got in the car and headed across the border into Canada...

To Monongahela and beyond!

2011-06-25T21:29:00.007-05:00

Now that we're back, I'll let you know that we were gone. These days, I'm cautious about making an announcement that I'm on vacation, that my house is standing vacant, and that you are more than welcome to come and illegally help yourself to anything I left behind. That's part of the reason I don't use the Check-In function on Facebook, too. Not that I have anything at the house that someone would want to steal (well, except my compact OED).

Now would be a good time to let you know that my house did not, in fact, stand vacant while we were gone. Yes, Timmy and Coco were here, but so was Jill. I haven't mentioned it here before, but my friend Jill is living with us this summer while she works an internship in Montgomery. It was actually Eli's idea when Jill mentioned that she was looking for a place to live, and I immediately agreed that it was a great idea. We knew we would be gone for over a week this month and it was perfect that Jill would live here and take care of the cats, the house, and *most importantly* the garden. Haha. It also doesn't hurt that she loves my children and is not afraid to help out in feeding, bathing, or changing them, and that she also helps out with the little tasks--taking out the trash, loading/emptying the dishwasher, cooking dinner once in a while. And did I mention that she's been babysitting the kids for me on Tuesday nights while I go run the Summer Swing 5K, one of the only things I get to do for myself? LOVE her. She sure made the last five weeks of Eli's absence run very smoothly.

So, anyway, we've known for a while that my cousin was getting married Father's Day weekend, so we already had vague plans to use this trip as the first leg of our 2011 summer vacation. The original plan:

1. Drive to PA for the wedding.
2. Go to Niagara Falls, NY.
3. Cross over into Canada and visit Toronto.
4. Come home. Voila. Vacation.

But, as the date came closer and closer, we knew that Eli was going to be in training up until the day before the wedding, so we had to regroup. Here's the recap of the first half of our trip.

On Wednesday, my sister Stacey and her two teenagers drove from Texas to Alabama to pick us up and take us to Pennsylvania.

On Thursday, we got out the door by 6:30 a.m. 17 hours later (11:30 p.m. CST) we arrived at our hotel in PA, where Mom, my sister Julie, and my cousin the bride were present to help us unload and get the kids to bed. The kids (both teens and tots) did great in the van--moms in the front, boys in the middle, girls in the back. It was nice to not be on a timetable, so it wasn't too stressful to be stuck going eight miles in 1.5 hours as we tried to cross under the mountain into West Virginia. Note: This was my first time ever in West Virginia--another state colored in on my "States Visited" mental map.

On Friday, we had a leisurely day, going into town to find a K-mart/Walmart to replace forgotten toothbrushes, etc., then going to my aunt's house for some non-hotel time. In the afternoon, we went to the church for the rehearsal and delicioso spaghetti dinner. Oscar got some good chugga-chugga-choo-choo action with Aunt Julie. When we got home, the kids got baths and went to bed surprisingly easily for being in a hotel room with 2 Pack-N-Plays.

[Sometime during the day on Friday, Eli graduated from DCC in GA. He would be meeting up with us the next day.]

Saturday morning, I heard from Eli that he slept about 3 hours later than he meant to, so he wouldn't be to PA in time for the reception (we knew he wouldn't make it for the wedding). We headed out to Kmart again because I remembered that I had this fabulous dress and no shoes to go with it, and also I needed to find a sewing kit because the ruffle on the petitcoat on Elsie's flower girl dress had come unstitched. We later dropped Stacey off at the church (she was the photographer) and grabbed some lunch before heading up to the church ourselves (me and the four kids) where Elsie got her nap in the carseat of the van in the parking lot of the church while family members arrived. Oscar was whisked into the church by Great Aunt B. When the flower girl awoke, she was fed and dressed just in time to walk down the aisle. I handed her the basket of flower petals with directions to take it to Mimi (my mom's grandma name) and she set off. I went to stand up and the heel of my shoe was caught in the overlay of my dress, ripping it, and I couldn't get it untangled, so I hopped on one leg out of the view of everyone except my cousin bride and my uncle-father-of-the-bride and wrestled it all back to normalcy except for the giant hole. By the time I stood up and made it to the side door, Elsie was already all the way down the aisle. I missed it! Darn dress. Darn shoes. She was reportedly really cute, though.

The bride and groom were adorable, and the reception was a blast. I got to use my sister's fancy schmancy camera to help take crowd shots. There may have been a lot of shots of my children, too. I mean, how often do I get to use a good camera to take pictures of them? Never. See why it was necessary? And then there was dancing. Oh, how I love dancing. I just really wish that my favorite dancing partner had been there. I still killed the Chicken Dance, though--oh yeah.

And then there were tired children. Oscar wanted to got sleep for a while, but there was so much going on that he just laid pathetically on my should while I danced. Finally, he fell asleep in Mimi's arms. She gave him to me, and I ultimately put him in his carrier. Elsie got a second, third, nay, FOURTH wind and just wanted to keep dancing. And snagging cookies from the cookie table. And eating M&Ms. Oh, and running her cousins ragged. Haha.

When we got back to the hotel finally, I heard from Eli that the weather was bad and that the stripes in the road in West Virginia were not reflecting well in the rain, so he pulled off for the night at a hotel, but he would be with us when we woke up.

And he was. Pretty much. We had planned to go to church in PA; I had already gone online and scoped out an EPC church in Beaver, PA (not a coincidence), but when I logged onto their site to verify directions, turns out that they changed their summer worship hours since I looked four weeks ago and we wouldn't make it in time for church. Boo. So we went to Denny's with the Aunt B and her friend, to Best Buy to get Eli's Father's Day/Birthday present, and then went to hang out with Aunt D and Uncle D and Cousin A at their house for a bit in the evening. We said our goodbyes and went to sleep, dreaming about the Grand Beaver Tour to come...

Cheers.

On Bitterness

2011-06-07T23:15:00.004-05:00

Bitterness is a funny thing; like heartburn, it tends to bubble to the surface when you just want to enjoy the food just eaten. Last week I spent some time in my classroom getting ready for a new school year (fueled by enthusiasm from having a contract renewed for another school year) and I was sorting through boxes of random "school stuff" that had been so labeled and sitting in our dining room for months before I finally stacked them in the front of my classroom. I opened a box labelled "Professional Paperwork" with one objective--find a professional development certificate from my Lee v. Macon awareness training I did when I lived in Tuscaloosa. Every teacher in Alabama is supposed to have this on file with their current district, but, alas I do not because I never got around to it when hired at my present job.

I was completely unsuspecting of the emotions, thoughts, and feeling that would greet me upon sorting through the contents of the box. Let's just say that I didn't leave Tuscaloosa Middle School willingly in 2008, but rather, at the hands of a vindictive assistant principal, and this box contained copies of all the evaluation reports that she compiled and submitted for my permenent file.

And I was suddenly angry about the situation all over again.

I stewed for a couple of minutes, and then I closed up the box, and started thinking about all the ways my life has changed since being pink slipped in '08: I live in a town I adore. I have a job that I love. I have two children that I can't get enough of. I have a husband who makes me so very proud of him. I have a garden that has hundreds of tomatoes in it. I'm a homeowner. I have fantastic neighbors (all around). I'm a member of a church that is challenging me in wonderful ways. I'm three years older and wiser. What's to be angry about?

Hindsight is 20/20, so the saying goes. Yes, the circumstances in the moment were hurtful and taken oh, so personally, but only good things have sprung forth from that experience.

God was moving in my life in ways I didn't understand, in ways that I would not have chosen for myself. It's a dang good thing that I'm not actually in control, or I could have really messed this up. Really.

But, God is faithful and good, just and sovereign. He is, was, and ever shall be. I am humbled. Again.

Cheers.

How Does My Garden Grow?

2011-06-04T20:40:00.006-05:00

I've never had a garden. Really, I've never been able to keep plants alive. There was this one time when I was in fourth grade and we were studying life cycle of a plant that we germinated lima beans and planted them. Mine grew to be the tallest plant and I was pretty proud. I took it home and I don't remember what happened to it (coincidentally, the one food my mom won't eat is lima beans, so there may have been foul play). That was the last time a plant in my care lived for any length of time.

Since we moved into the house, we talked about planting a garden, but since Eli was going to be away we considered not doing one this year because I know nothing about gardening. I was more concerned about taking care of the weedbed on the corner (which we did). But while shopping the high school's FFA Plant Sale this year for flowers to go around the house, on a whim I bought a flat of garden plant seedling since it was only $10 for six six-packs. I got what they had, which was Sweet Baby Girl cherry tomatoes, Monster tomatoes, Black Beauty eggplant, giant jalapeno peppers, green bell peppers, and then some Giant marigolds because they supposedly keep the bugs away.

When the Beavers were here to help with the yard, they used the tiller and tilled up the weedbed that was under my kitchen window and got some MiracleGro Garden Soil and planted 3 of each type of tomato, 3 eggplant plants, and 2 each of the pepper plants, then covered the bed with mulch. One of the monster tomato plants had broken and was probably going to die, but father-in-law stuck it into the side of the bed anyway.

I kept the leftover plants in their original containers and offered them to anyone who wanted them, but I didn't have any takers, and since I had paid for them, I didn't wan them to die, so I bought some pots and planted the rest of the eggplant and peppers in the pots while I was re-potting my Target plants from cute little pots. And then I had four tomato plants left over and they grow too big for pots. These ones were pretty close to biting the dust. I tried again to get someone to take them off of my hands, but ended up having to plant them on the other side of the patio, under the living room window in the red clay to try to keep them alive. I thought for sure they would die but planted them anyway, just in case.

Remember, I've never done this before. I didn't know that having 11 tomato plants in the ground was going to be a lot of tomatoes. Each monster tomato plant will yield 10 tomatoes total for the summer, and the cherry tomatoes would yield about 25-30 each. Right? Right?!? Yeah, so like I said, I've never done this before.

My cherry tomatoes started having flowers. Lots of flowers. And as I learned from the peach tree (and probably should have already known this, but if I learned it previously it went to the backburner of my brain) that fruit grows where the flower was. And now, the three plants that are in the MiracleGro soil are scaring me. I've only harvested 10 so far (Elsie ate 9 of those) but there are over two hundred tomatoes growing and hundreds more flowers. Oi!

This is a picture of the three Sweet Baby Girls under the kitchen window. (These pictures were taken last week, and the tomato count and plant size has doubled already!):

Here's a cluster of tomatoes on one of my plants:

The monster tomato plants have been growing and I would check them every day and not see any fruits, in comparison to the cherry tomatoes. Then one day, I was pulling off dead leaves and I came across this hanging on the back side of the plant behind lots of leaves (it's the size of my fist!):

Since last week, I've spied about 10 little monsters starting to grow. The mini-me in the picture above is already twice as big. Everything is still green though, even the big'un.

This is exciting. These plants are growing in spite of me. I'm learning as I go, and I've learned that plants like water. Basic, right? And I'm learning that plants grow in clay, too, but not as big and not as fast. I had to buy tomato stakes for the plants under the living room window, too, and the cherry tomatoes are starting to produce. My peppers and sweet basil are flowering, and my eggplant leaves are growing bigger and bigger and will hopefully soon flower, too.

Something else I've realized is that the smell of tomato plants is a distinctive nostalgic smell for me. I didn't realize this until I had to get up close and personal with them as I tied them to the stakes. That smell is the smell of my grandparents' garden. I smelled it and was immediately taken back to my childhood vising my grandparents' farm in northern Ohio. I'm always amazed at the power of smell to conjure memories. Maybe Elsie and Oscar will have good memories of tomato plants, too! :)

Eli has been laughing at my enthusiasm for gardening. Who knew I would like it this much?

Cheers.

Changes

2011-06-03T14:48:00.004-05:00

I have a ton of other things I've been meaning to blog about, but this is the one that seems most pressing at present.

I've spent the last two years working on a team of FANTASTIC teachers, and we just work so well together! In fact, this last year, every team in the building got swapped around except for us, and I like to think that's because the administration saw that we had a good thing going. And we did! I have already been mentally preparing for our awesomeness next year.

And the ball dropped today.

Our social studies teacher is moving to the high school. They're out a football coach and they want him there. He loves teaching middle school, but he really wants to coach high school football, and this is the only way with the way the school schedules work. Not that they asked him. They told him they would be moving him, and he's going. I was up at school today working on my lessons for summer school when he stopped by my door and told me that it was official (he had mentioned on the last day of school that it was rumored, but that he didn't know anything for sure). In a move of maturity, not making it about me and how I feel about the situation, I said, "Congratulations!" He just kinda' shrugged and made an "eh" sound. He's conflicted, but I want him to go with confidence because 17- and 18-year-olds are not 12- and 13-year-olds, and as far as I can tell (and remember from my days of teaching high school), that's a good thing.

But it changes everything, leaves open a wild card spot on our cozy little team, a scary, gaping hole that could be filled with who-knows-who come August. I have to remember that not so very long ago, I was the wild card, and it turned out well (I think). So, I'm venturing into a weird area here. I'm going to start praying for my new coworker, whoever he or she is, and for Mr. Social Studies as he heads into a whole new adventure.

Cheers.

Cute Little Pots

2011-06-01T21:26:00.006-05:00

I have a summer job working for the National Writing Project e-Anthology E-team. People who participate in the NWP summer institutes post their personal writing on the e-Anthology to get feedback from other writers, and in turn comment on each others' writing. At the height of the summer, more institutes are in session, more people are posting, and more pieces get left unnoticed--in theory. That's where the 12-member E-team comes in. We spend the summer trolling the anthology primarily for pieces that have no responses (and then when all those are addressed, the pieces that have only one response) and we give feedback, so that every person who takes the time and guts to put their work out there gets a thoughtful response. I really love this job.

Part of the e-Anthology's launch in May required the E-team members to have prepared pieces to populate the anthology so that summer fellows wouldn't feel like they were showing up to a ghost town. I composed the poem, "Cute Little Pots," for this purpose. Mostly, I was trying to showcase the multimedia features of the e-Anthology by including photographs of something bizarre that Elsie did, but I failed miserably. I'm posting it here as a guinea pig so that I can try it again with pictures on the e-Anthology. I don't usually do poetry because I feel like it's too forced, but prose didn't really work so well with this. I hope you don't hate it, and maybe even get a chuckle out of it. :)

Cute Little Pots

Three little pots
with cute little seeds
to become cute little
basil, parlsey,
and strawberries.

Little plants tended,
watered, and sunned
are little plants that
outgrow little pots.

Cute little girl
(not a day over two)
finds empty little pots
and lines them up
three in a row

and plants her own
to watch them grow

in cute little pots.

Cheers!

Corner Lot

2011-05-28T07:56:00.009-05:00

One of the draws of our house was that it was situated on a corner lot. There are only 4 corner lots in this subdivision that are interior (the others are exterior and open onto a busy road). This is what the house looked like when we bought it:

I want to draw your attention to the bed of pine straw in the foreground surrounding the street sign. The builder also put pine straw all around the permimeter of the house in "flower beds." I'm pretty sure it was just because they were too cheap to sod the 3/4 of it where they didn't plant "builder bushes." Anyway, we did nothing with these "flower beds" because I was 8 months pregnant with 2.0 (now known as Oscar) by the time we moved in, and then he was born, and then it was fall and Eli started a new job. All to say that the "flower beds" soon became a slumber spot for the ugliest, nastiest weeds, and the neighbors loathed us because our nasty corner "flower bed" caused all the property values on the block to drop (I'm exaggerating, but it was really bad--so bad that I didn't take a picture because I didn't want there to be evidence).

The last weekend in March, the in-laws came up to see the grandchildren and to also lend a hand in getting the yard ready for summer. I had been to the OHS plant sale the week before and gotten some flowers and vegetables, but didn't have a plan for them. I had also scoped out the mulch business in town at the request of my father-in-law. They brought a tiller and a truck, and also tons of lillies and irises that they had thinned from family members' gardens, and a few crape myrtle seedlings and treelets (yes, I made that word up) from outside their kitchen window. I hate being outside in the direct sunlight (shady spots are best for this girl's blindingly white complexion), but that day I spent all day outside helping. I took the truck (first time I've ever driven a pickup) to get mulch, and ended up getting two loads--one of decomposed black stuff to mix in with the tilled clay in the flower bed by the street sign, and another to put on top of the flower beds all around the house. When I got back with the second load, the Beavers had already planted lillies and irises into what had earlier been the weed bed on the corner, and we covered it with real mulch. The lillies, having been dug up for a few days, looked pretty sad, but we had hope that they would "perk up." Here's what the corner looked like when we were done:

Six weeks later, things were starting to look more alive--the lillies weren't all laying down and I couldn't remember what it had looked like earlier. It doesn't look too different, but it does look alive.

Well, after Elsie's birthday, we started to see flower pods shoot up (I learned that plants grow when you water them...AMAZING!) and had the first of our blooms. So far, these are the different varieties of lilly in our yard and I think there's at least two more:

I'm amazed and underwhelmed by the lillies. They are beautiful, but they only bloom for one day.

I just ran outside to see if there were any new blooms, and took yet another picture of the outside of the house to leave you with on this Saturday morning of a long weekend. Imagine the mailman driving by right then and sounds of a little blond girl with wet blond curls screaming and laughing in the backyard as she plays with her new sprinkler and her pool, but most importantly her daddy.

Cheers.

Doctor Updates for E & O

2011-05-16T22:14:00.002-05:00

Fun day. Double doctor day for the kiddos. I paid my babysitter's daughter to come with me to the doctor's office since both kiddos were getting poked and prodded. Overall, it was not terribly traumatic. Here are the stats, for posterity's sake.

Elsie -- 2 years
Weight: 26 lbs. 4 oz.
Height: 34 inches
Head: 19.75 inches

Oscar -- 9 months
Weight: 17 lbs. 12 oz.
Height: 28 inches
Head: 17.75 inches

Time is flying and my babies are a-growin'!

Cheers.

9 Months of O

2011-05-12T08:12:00.003-05:00

Nine months. Oh, my. My little man is growing up. This month he's starting to try to pull up and to crawl, but isn't fully coordinated yet. It's going to happen any day now. He does love to stand and hang on to the sides of the crib or the rungs on the back of the chair. He got his second tooth two days after the first and I suspect that he's teething now because he keeps putting things in his mouth to suck on, particularly fabric items (burp cloth, towel, pacifier tether). He talks whenever he can get a word in edgewise and says a lot of "da da da," though the other day Elsie said "No!" to something, and Oscar said "Nooooooo." Just the once, though. He also likes the sound made when he's making a sound mouth open and puts his mouth on my shoulder and takes it off and puts it on and takes it off. It's a sound akin to the war whoops of my childhood. He also does this with his fist when my shoulder is not available.

We've finally had some success with solid foods. He's had a gag reflex that is super sensitive and would end up throwing up the contents of his stomach if he started gagging. I tried cereal and oatmeal, and neither one was met with success, so I decided to just start on the foods. Pears and peaches have been met at first with confusion and then with success. Oscar also loves the little cereal puffs that melt in his mouth. Elsie used to pick them up one by one, exercising her pincer grasp. He just gets a handful of puffs and just shoves in the general direction of his mouth hoping that some of them land there. I also suspect that some of our issues so far had something to do with texture issues, hence the gagging.

Oscar's not sleeping very well, and I suspect that is tied to the food thing. I think that once he gets to eating solids better, he'll sleep better. I've pretty much decided that one weekend I'm going to sleep on the couch while he cries it out overnight. Not yet, but before the summer is over. I'm so tired and exhausted all the time, something needs to change.

We go to the doctor for 9-month/2-year checkups on Monday. More to come..

Cheers.

24 Months, or Welcome to the Terrible Twos

2011-05-08T19:16:00.005-05:00

My baby turned 2 yesterday. I can't believe it has already been two years! What an adventure we've had in the last two years. Where does the time go? Her big day started with a big tantrum. She didn't want to wear the birthday outfit I made her, she didn't want to do anything except lay on the floor and scream. It was reminiscent of Easter day. So, when her party started, she was up in her room screaming. Yay.

This year we had a joint party with our little friend J, whose birthday is Monday. They're two days apart, and it seemed like (and turned out to be) a good idea to just put their parties together. We have a lot of the same friends and rather than have a ton of two-year-olds sugared up two times over, we decided to do it just once.

The theme was a kind of cowboy/cowgirl, country western, Texas-inspired motif. We decorated with bandanas and gave out cowboy hats as favors. We had fun, lots of sugar, and no real naps later. Here are some pictures from the day:

(Photo credits: Jill Clair)

Eli was home for Elsie's birthday and after cooking us waffles and wishing me and his mother a happy Mother's Day, left this morning for his next phase of military training. The next six weeks are going to be long ones, but we'll be okay. Hope y'all had a good day!

Cheers!

Latest, Greatest Obsessions of a Toddler

2011-05-02T20:52:00.002-05:00

My sweet Elsie is obsessed with:

1. Water, anything that can hold water, anything that can spray water, baths, faucets, sinks, hoses, sprinklers.
2. Yo Gabba Gabba.
3. Hats, anything that can be worn as a hat, anythings that resembles hats...except hats that I want her to wear.
4. Sleeping in only her diaper. If I bother to put pajamas on her, she bothers to take them off. It's gotten to the point where I don't bother anymore, and there's less drama at bedtime.

Oh, to be two years old.

Short post, I know, but it's a busy week. My other half is coming home for a couple days this week! I can't wait! Come home come home come home come home!

Cheers!

Almond Blossoms Step-by-Step

2011-04-30T07:00:00.009-05:00

Here's the series of pictures that outlines the process. There was a lot of detail, but not as much as my Starry Night imitation, so it took some concentration. I feel that the night, though enjoyable as it was, would have been more so without the drunk ladies sitting by me. Well, that and the double vision I've been experiencing. I couldn't tell what the teacher was doing because from where I sat, she had LOTS of branches and flowers. Upon closer inspection, she didn't have as many as I thought. More about the vision thing later. Now, without further [edited to say "ado" for you, my love]:

First, the background:

Then, the chunky branches:

Then the little branches:

Applied a little light brown to highlight the branches:

Then some light light green that you may not even be able to see, but it added yet another color dimension to the branches:

Then add a splash of white flowers with yellow centers and a signature for the final masterpiece:

The artists, bleary-eyed at 11 p.m. (at least I was, anyway):

I love Sips N Strokes. Thank you youngest sister-in-law for the gift card! I love that my family takes care of my creative interests. :)

Cheers.

Sips N Strokes tonight

2011-04-29T23:59:00.003-05:00

Quick update before I pass out.

GR and I went to Sips N Strokes in Auburn tonight. There's a new store in Opelika, but I have looked at their calendar and haven't found anything I wanted to paint. GR, however, has had her eye on this one for a while. It's inspired by Van Gogh's Almond Blossoms. I have a picture of the two of us on my actual camera, but I can't get my card reader to work, and it's midnight--2 things working against me.

So, here's the painting, from a picture I took on my phone.

I had a great time. Thanks, GR, for going with me. :)

I'm going to bed. Cheers.

He Is Risen

2011-04-24T16:54:00.006-05:00

What a wonderful day to celebrate the great sacrifice that our Lord made for us. Church this morning was nourishing, and we had lunch with sweet friends afterward. Some pictures for you:

Outside our house before church this morning:

Elsie was in a foul mood, so I wasn't able to get a really good picture of her with her hat and gloves before those went the way of the ground.

And then some pictures from after church, at my friend's house:

Happy Easter!

Cheers!

God is sooooo good!

2011-04-22T20:30:00.002-05:00

I don't know when it started, but at some point in my life I started funneling my anxiety into my dreams. Have a major paper due for class? I would dream about NOT turning it in one hundred times the night before, so that when I woke up (in a panic, usually) I would be exhausted from the drama, and relieved that I had one last opportunity to do it right. Getting married tomorrow? I spent the restless night before my wedding dreaming about every worst-case scenario possible. This probably actually worked to my favor because then I was relaxed--everything that could go wrong already had, in my dreams anyway. Those are just two of hundreds of instances where my dreams reveal my real anxiety, no matter how much in denial I am.

A week or so ago I had dreams about my pending observation at work. I'm surprised I didn't wake up crying more than once, because I certainly woke up with a feeling of despair and defeat since all scenarios ended in my termination. Admittedly, this anxiety is stacked upon piles of previous anxiety-inducing experiences. So, in plain terms, I am feeling very uncertain about whether I will have a job next year.

Our revamped teacher evaluation system includes a scheduled observation and an unannounced observation. My scheduled observation came shortly after the meningitis fiasco of 2010. And I've just been anticipating my unannounced for weeks, since the beginning of March. My small group has been praying for me and my anxiety, and I'm so thankful for their intercession.

But Wednesday morning I started to become anxious in real life. During my planning period, I mentally started to beat up on myself for my shortcomings as a teacher this year. I had to get a hold of myself and make a conscious effort to not let it take me over, deciding that I did not want to let it control me to the point where I would be needing Zoloft or Xanax. I stopped and I prayed for release from this torture, and I e-mailed Eli and asked him to pray for me, too. And this is how the rest of my day unfolded:

- A meeting I was dreading because I was unprepared was postponed until next week.
- With my time freed up, I was able to get everything done that I needed to before my students came back from exploratories.
- A student's "attitude adjuster" [probation officer] came to sit in my class to observe the student during 3rd period.
- My principal showed up 5th period to observe me. My lesson was fully developed, and the kinks had been worked out with the first two classes, and I'd already been indirectly observed, so it was all good.

Thank You, Lord, for taking this burden from me!

Cheers!

8 Months of O

2011-04-12T21:15:00.002-05:00

We had a sweet dinner tonight with our friend from church and at some point she asked if Oscar was teething. Nah, I said. Elsie didn't get her first tooth until 10 months, and so far O has been behind her in everything.

After dinner I picked him up, since he was starting to get hungry and restless, and he started gnawing on my thumb joint. Ouch! It was sharp!

What? What?!?

O has a tooth! Woot woot! It's his bottom right tooth. The left one is under the surface and should push through pretty soon.

As for my previous statement about him being behind Elsie on everything else, he's still holding the line. He's rolling around like a champ now, with destinations (objects) in mind. He is not getting up on all fours and is not close to pulling up or crawling. He is, however, leaning way over to grab a toy and sitting back up--abdominal muscles are getting stronger! He also likes to stand up, and tonight he really liked standing while holding onto the coffee table.

His little neck is ticklish and he has the sweetest laugh.

He's wearing anything from 6-12 months in size, depending on the brand.

He's still not really eating solid foods, but soon and very soon that will change.

When we got back from spring break I chose not to swaddle him anymore, and he did okay. He's still not sleeping through the night. We'll tackle that when his daddy gets back, or when we get a big girl bed for Elsie. One of those things has to happen soon or I'm going to lose my sanity...

Bedtime for me.

Cheers.

My friend had her baby...oh, girl, did she..

2011-04-08T22:50:00.005-05:00

I mentioned that last weekend we went to a play date that was a surprise baby shower for a friend from breastfeeding support group from when Elsie was little?

She had her baby today! That's exciting! But probably not as exciting as baby girl's arrival story!

I don't know the details, but I do know that S was in labor for under an hour, didn't make it to the hospital in time, and ended up having the baby at home. She said her husband had their 22-month-old in one hand and 911 on the line in the other.

Wow. I'm pretty sure Eli would have not been very helpful had this ocurred with us [edited to add: because he would be passed out on the floor]. Thank you, Lord, for blessing us with this house so close in proximity to the hospital!

Congrats B family!

Cheers!

23 Months of E

2011-04-07T20:59:00.004-05:00

Ack! It's already 9 p.m.--I should be in bed, but I wanted to tell you about my sweet girl and share some pictures. We're one month away from being TWO! Did you hear that? I've been putting this post together in my head all day to tell you what she's been doing (climbing the fence, jumping off the bottom stair, going up and down the stairs indepedently except when she wants me to hold her hand, taking her clothes off during naps and sometimes [unsuccessfully] trying to put them back on, communicating complex ideas) and now I don't have too much time to explicate.

I'm still so amazed by the language explosion ("I got you shirt, Mommy!" as she's tugging on my shirt) and interaction with Oscar ("I got you Ah-kur!" as she's touching him on the head). I sat down on the bed to feed Oscar this evening and she brought me the remote control and asked "Wan watch TV?" It was definitely a question the way she lifted the last syllable. Amazing. Her ability to pretend is also increasing exponentially. We went out in the front yesterday and she kept saying "sheck maaal" over and over again and I couldn't figure out what she wanted. Then it clicked. Oh. Check mail. So I let her go "check" the mail, and she brought me back some imaginary envelopes from our mailbox. "Here you go." Thank you, Elsie. She's also attempting to repeat longer words and phrases now, too. We were eating clementines (small oranges) and I was telling her about it being good for her, with all the Vitamin C, and she looked at me and said, "Vymin See." Yes, I told her.

Not to totally jinx it, but since Eli left, she has let me brush her teeth 90% of the time. There's still some tantrums when I just have to sit down and bend her back over my leg and brush her teeth while she's screaming, but for the most part she doesn't fight me. I think she likes the taste of the toothpaste, and she for sure loves to spit.

This month, perhaps because it is warmer, has brought a fascination with water. Water from the bathroom sink (she stands on the training seat to reach the sink), water from the refrigerator, and water from the yard that has been collected in otherwise empty flower pots and frisbees. She likes to try to pour water from one container to another. Most of the times she is unsuccessful. I can't leave a cup of water laying around because she'll pick it up and either fish the ice out of it or drink it, and then pour it all over the place. Nice.

So, here are some pictures. I was playing around with an app that a friend recommended called Instagram. You can filter your pictures through various light schemes. These are all different filters.

Today, Elsie was eating an orange. She was not going to open her mouth to show me. No way.

Bath night last week consisted of a rare sighting of the bare-bottomed reverse-horned unicorn:

It always makes me smile to see Coco curled up with my girl:

I mentioned Elsie's water obsession? This was today. She climbed up on the bench at the breakfast table, grabbed my water cup and tried to pour the water into a clean cup she had plucked from the dishwasher that I forgot to close. Then Oscar, who was playing on the carpet, rolled over to investigate and ended up being the human mop for this mess. He was not happy about it.

Saturday I took the kids to Sam's club to eat samples for lunch (I know, we're living large with Eli away). This marked the first time they they ever sat in a cart together. I have another equally impressive photo of Elsie grabbing something from a screaming Oscar.

Of course, you know if I have a sleeping pic of little girl, then I have to include one of little boy:

This was taken this weekend as my little man sat in the grass. I really like this filter. Striking.

I was trying desperately today to get a pictures of O's curly locks that are coming in. It all starts with one little curl.

And finally, Eli's peach tree flowered about three weeks ago. I was out there today and saw little furry fruitlings:

We're surviving here at home. It's getting old. I'm ready for my other half to be back in proximity.

Y'all have a good one.

Cheers.

VA pics

2011-04-02T06:56:00.005-05:00

Tomorrow, next week, two weeks...what's the difference? We were in the middle of state testing, and very busy, and I looked up and suddenly it had been two weeks since spring break. What?!? Well, I guess that's the easy way to get through the many weeks without Eli. Speaking of which, we have four more weeks until he's back for 3 days, and then he's gone for six weeks again. But who's counting?

This weekend we are headed to a surprise baby shower for a friend from the breastfeeding group at the hospital from when Elsie was a baby. It's doubling as a playdate, which is wonderful because I otherwise wouldn't have anywhere to leave my children so that I could attend.

So, I promised some pictures of my children. Some of you may have seen these from our trip to VA, but I haven't shared them here, so without further adieu, here are my children.

From the Virginia Discovery Museum (a concept I might like to imitate if I weren't currently teaching..)

Elsie and Oscar at the coloring table purportedly making Mongolian flags (it was part of an exhibit). Elsie just wanted to color.

Oscar inspecting my cell phone and deciding that I needed a new one.

Elsie climbs into a boat-shaped teeter-totter thing and can't figure it out. Later she climbed in with another little girl and kinda freaked her out by rocking the boat.

Amazed by the money going around and around. Elsie loves anything that she can consider money (i.e. flat and round).

Putting a ball into the air tubes to see where the air takes it. This exhibit was at the front of the museum and the kids could put scarves and balls and pompoms in, flipping levers to change the path through the tubes where the object was ejected. It was pretty neat.

We had fun. Eli was in class every day so we had to find ways to keep ourselves busy, so this was a good diversion for Elsie. I somehow managed to not get any pictures any other time while we were visiting Eli. I have more to share from the week at home but I have two screaming babies so I better get to it. :)

Cheers.

I don't care if I go crazy, 1-2-3-4-5-6 switch!

2011-03-17T23:00:00.005-05:00

Crazy go I if care don't I, 6-5-4-3-2-1 switch!

We went to Virginia this weekend to see Eli. (Yes, me and two kids under two in the car for what could have been potentially a disastrous journey, but it wasn't.) I took the camera, and...shocker...I actually took some pictures, which I'll put in another post tomorrow. No pics of Eli in his camouflage, none of the whole family, but I got some of the kids.

The drive up and back was pretty gruesome (for the driver, anyway) but the kids were great. Though, there have been some signs that perhaps we were in the car too long (taken today):

Evidence 1 -- Elsie has laid out the baby doll and wipes to change the baby's diaper on the seat of the car. Wonder where she got that idea? (Clarification -- there were no police cruisers involved in our trip.)

Evidence 2 -- My child now thinks that dirty flower pots are hats.

More pics soon, I promise!

Cheers.

7 Months of O

2011-03-12T18:51:00.000-06:00

You might have noticed that I'm trying to catch up with kid updates. There's so much else I want to write about as well, but I know that most of you are here to read about the kids, haha. So, here's Oscar's 7 month update.

It has been eventful, for sure. My sweet little boy who was prodded and poked in the emergency room after he caught his father's virus in November (yes, the one that caused meningitis in daddy), started wheezing and not feeling well this last week. I was sick on Saturday, so I waited until Sunday when I could safely be away from my bathroom to take him to the after hours clinic at our Pediatrician's office. I couldn't find anyone on the spur of the moment to help me with Elsie, so I took them both--heretofore my greatest nightmare. Thankfully, the office was mostly closed, so Elsie just ran around wearing herself out while Oscar tried desperately to sleep. The pediatrician on call diagnosed him with RSV and an ear infection but cleared him for daycare.

Needless to say, he didn't do so well because he was feeling miserable, so I took a half day on Monday and half day on Tuesday in order to spread out my ONE sick day for the month. My dear friend who was a pediatric nurse watched the kids on Tuesday morning so that they wouldn't be with the other kids at daycare. Our pediatrician is her sister-in-law, so I told her that if she felt like the kids needed to be taken back, then take them. She did, and it turned out that Oscar's ear infection had turned into a double ear infection, and that Elsie also had an ear infection (her first). Fun.

So, if I recall, Oscar was upwards of 17 pounds when he went on Sunday. I tried to make a mental note, but lost it completely. He is the sweetest baby. I just love him to pieces. He's started sitting up pretty solidly this month (you know, except when Elsie tries to sit on him or just pushes him over because it's funny to her). He's also talking so much (da da da, ya ya ya) and making raspberries like they're going out of style. The toes have been found. He prefers to be just in his diaper, and the weather is starting to be more conducive to that.

Alas, we are not eating solid food yet (though Eli did shove some mashed potatoes in his mouth at dinner tonight!). Soon. Soon. There's just so much other stuff going on, and he has shown mostly no interest in food. As for sleeping, he's still not sleeping through the night, and I've been trying really hard to leave him in his bed, but I'm just exhausted, so I have, on weekend nights, been moving him to a pillow on Eli's side of the bed. after feeding him, since he's just going to wake up in two hours anyway. I don't remember what it's like to get a whole night's sleep.

And yes, I did say Eli shoved mashed potatoes in his mouth. We are on spring break, and I drove 10.5 hours with the kids today to come up here and see him for a few days. They were rock stars in the car. But I'll write more about that later.

Cheers.

22 Months

2011-03-07T16:16:00.003-06:00

In no time, I start counting by the year instead of months. I'm still in disbelief that my sweet little girl will be two! The time is particularly flying by since it's just the three of us with Eli gone. I haven't had much time to blog, but have put together several posts in my head--this is one of them. So here goes.

The big shocker this month: Elsie can open doors. Doors with knobs. That push or pull.

This truly is the end of the world as we know it. Nothing is safe anymore. She likes to play in the sink in the downstairs bathroom, getting water everywhere. I had to go to extreme measures to keep her out: lock the door from the inside.

I'm not so lucky when it comes to the pantry, becaues the pantry doesn't have a lock. She came wandering over to me the other day with fruit snacks in her hands. Where did she find those? That's when I realized her new skills.

This month she also started using understandable sentences. She was mad at me because I wouldn't let her have Oscar's pacifier one day when she wasn't feeling well. The babysitter had given her her "emergency" paci before we left and I let her bring it home, so I said, "Where is your pacifier? Is it by your bed?" She left the room and came back a few minutes later proclaiming, "I foun it! I foun it!" It took me a minute to figure out what she was yelling. So I asked, "Did you find it?" She turned the corner to where I could see her, thrust the pacifier at me and triumphantly said, "Yes!" She also uses the phrase "I dop it" when she's dropped something, anything. And I feel like at Kroger today, that cashier said thank you and Elsie turned to him and said something that sounded like "Have a nice day." !?!

She loves to color. Though when she says it is sounds like "car" or "kerr". No els to be found. Pens, pencils, crayons. She doesn't care. She also likes to write on herself.

She has said "thank you" for a long time, but this month just started tacking "mommy" onto it when I give her something. "Thank you, Mommy!"

She also has gotten pretty proficient with the spoon. Now, most mornings as she eats her oatmeal, she comes up clean--no globs in her lab or drops on her shirt. I'm impressed.

And finally, she has started to confidently climb the stairs. We haven't had a gate at the bottom of the stairs for a while because she doesn't play on the stairs. We're probably going to have to put that gate back because she's become more and more bold, and with that she is much quicker. There's no running upstairs for something without Elsie following me.

I feel like there's so much more. She's growing so fast!

Cheers.

Blessed with a nap.

2011-02-27T15:14:00.004-06:00

We are still here. Somewhere.

This week that just passed in the blink of an eye was very hectic. I think a lot of it was that we went to B'ham to see Eli (he had a weekend pass to come down that far with another driver) and I didn't have the weekend to prepare for the week coming up. Also, this week I was just so tired. Every day.

In that time frame, we had friends who came over and loved us. I was able to spend some time kid-free doing things that needed to be done, that I wanted to do. Friday night, three of my girl friends and I went to go see Tango Inferno, a performance by professional tango dancers, with four tickets given to me by the school superintendent. Saturday afternoon, some church friends came by to sit with the kids while I ran errands and took dinner to our friends who had a baby one week ago. Saturday night I was invited to a Ladies' Night Out at a friend's church (free babysitting). It's probably only 20 minutes from here, tops, but after about 45 minutes of driving the little back roads of Alabama and winding up right back where I started without finding what I was looking for or doubling back on any roads, we gave up and came home. I had left my phone at home to charge so we were literally out in the middle of nowhere, in the growing darkness, with no gas stations or anything else around. Just driving and singin the alphabet song at the top of my lungs to vent my frustrations. I got suspicious at some point and consulted the atlas that we always keep in the car and realized that I was nowhere near where I thought I was. I was very frustrated--even more so when I realized that both children were asleep (someone stopped singing her ABCs with me), and it was an hour before bedtime. I made it back in town, got myself a mini Blizzard at Dairy Queen, and headed home. Needless to say, I was asleep by 8:30 Saturday night.

If only that had helped. Oscar decided to wake up every two hours, all night long. 10:30. 12:30. 2:30. 4:30. 6.30. I was a zombie at church today, and I made sure the nursery peple kept O awake so that we could all take a long nap. They kept him awake, but he was asleep before we even left the church parking lot. So, we grabbed Little Caesar's on the way home for a quick lunch. ["How about pizza for lunch? Is that okay?" From the backseat--"Yes! Yes!"]. The Lord has blessed us today, and I just woke up after two hours of nap. Both children are still sleeping. Hallelujah! I feel sorta' human again.

The week coming up will be just as hectic. I wasn't observed at work last week, so I feel very certain that it will come this week. I already have high anxiety levels. Please keep me in your prayers.

Cheers.

Before Bed Routine

2011-02-18T16:29:00.006-06:00

I was talking to my mom last night and I mentioned that this week we've done pretty well getting everybody out of the house before seven in the morning (well, except this morning, but it's Friday, you know?) even on days when I woke up at six. She was amazed that I could wake up that late and still make it out the door on time and I said, "Mom, it's the before bed routines."

That's right. I have a list of things that I do before bed every night so that should the morning start off late, for one reason or another, it won't be hectic. This routine is written on my bathroom mirror in window crayon so that when I'm brushing my teeth at night, I can double check my list and make sure I'm ready for morning. I do most of this after the kids are in bed (7 o'clock bedtime).

And here it is, my before bed routine, tweaked from the Fly Lady's to fit my life:

Downstairs:
1. Pack O's lunch.
2. Shine sink, which includes doing dishes.
3. 5-minute room rescue, usually the living room, putting up E's toys.
4. Put out a "hot spot" – 2 minutes, usually the kitchen counter and the breakfast table
5. Put items on my "Launch Pad" for morning/load the car.
6. Put phone on charger, if needed.
7. Find my keys.
8. Check my calendar for tomorrow's events. Also, look at my perpetual calendar (Power of a Praying Parent) and pray for my kiddos..

Upstairs:
9. Lay out clothes for tomorrow.
10. Brush teeth/wash face/take meds.
11. Go to bed at a decent hour (9 o'clock is the goal!). I deserve my rest.

Yeah, so that's it. Seems like a lot, but I started small, with just shining my sink every night, and I've added things little by little, and I can't tell you how peaceful my life feels when I can start the morning without being frazzled. I am especially grateful when I have two cranky children in the mornings, or when Oscar wakes up for the day earlier than I anticipated (before six!) which throws my morning routine off a little bit.

One thing I have been doing is picking out the kids clothes for the week ahead. One night during the week I run a load of kids' laundry. Then, on Saturday, I pick out clothes for the next week, including socks (man, I hate finding socks that match, especially at the last minute). My sister suggested that I use a shoe organizer to store the clothes "tacos", and I thought that was a splendid idea, so I went to Target and found a 10-pair shoe organizer that sits on the ground has fabric bins. Five bins for each child, for five days of the week. I have noticed that Sundays are a little hectic if I haven't picked out clothes for the little ones, so I think I'm going to get better about that now, too.

Anyway, that's how I make it out the door with two little kids before seven, even if I wake up at six.

Hope this helps someone. Credit to the Fly Lady and all her common sense.

Taking Care of Business

2011-02-17T14:06:00.001-06:00

For a couple of years now, I have been asking Eli about getting wills drawn up, and after much delay, we finally got it taken care of during Christmas break. It's not morbid. It's responsible.

I did something today that I also have been meaning to do for a long time. I now have life insurance (don't get any ideas). I'm not getting any younger, and now that we have two children and a mortgage, it was a necessity. I have inquired before but never followed through, and it has been eating away at my mind since Elsie was born…almost two years now? I don't have the level of life insurance that I would like, but I figure that something is better than nothing, so the amount I got is enough to pay off our mortgage in the event of my death. I jumped at this chance because I don't have to do a health assessment to be covered through my work, it was reasonably priced, and coverage started the minute I signed on the line. It's 30-year term insurance, which is portable should I change jobs, and I got as much as this plan would offer, though it is only about 1/3 of what I need. Like I said, though—something is better than nothing.

I also have invested in some long-term disability insurance through my school. Why did I do this, you might ask? When I had Oscar, I had to take some time off of work for maternity leave, and while I didn't end up using any unpaid days, I did use up all my sick days and personal days, and borrowed from the sick bank, so that now I am 15 days in the hole—I have to pay 10 back to the sick bank and then come up with the five that I originally donated. We only get nine sick days per year. That means I will have to use all of my sick days for the next school year and a half to get back my time, and that's assuming that I don't have any children who get sick, requiring me to take time off of work to take care of them. All this to say that when we're ready for #3, in another couple of years or so, I won't have six weeks' worth of sick leave saved up. I may have paid back my five days (Lord willing), which will allow me to borrow 15 total again (and I'll be in the same pay-back predicament), but that's only three weeks of leave. So I will have to be out of work, unpaid, to take the rest of my maternity leave. (I came back to work when O was 7 weeks old, and that just felt too soon.) This disability insurance has maternity coverage that will cover up to five weeks of missed work (7 weeks for C-section or other complications). Additionally, there is an accidental death benefit associated with the policy that should cover my cremation, if needed, so that my life insurance will actually go to covering the mortgage.

What is it they say about being able to sleep at night? I think I will rest easier. I'm not done taking care of business. There's still stuff to tweak, but for now, I know that I have done something to take care of my family should I become disabled or die. Again, not morbid—responsible.

My Valentines (pics) and O's Doctor Update

2011-02-14T21:21:00.006-06:00

We don't really ever do anything huge for Valentine's Day, but it's still lonely without him, you know? So, it was really sweet when I got some two-lips from 1-800 Flowers at school today--a vase full of kisses. My students didn't get it. I laughed. And it really made my day.

You know what else made my day? Receiving two valentines first thing this morning with prints of my two littlest Valentines. Our babysitter is an amateur photog, and she surprised all the mamas with sweet pictures of their babies. And it's just in time, too, because as I was making O's six month post, I realized I haven't taken pictures recently. Before I share those with you (she gave me the digital files also), I want to recap O's doctor's visit today.

At six months:
Weight: 16 pounds, 14 ounces
Length: 26 inches
Head: 17 3/4 inches

To compare, here were Elsie's six month stats:
Weight: 16 pounds, 14 ounces
Length: 26.5 inches
Head: 18 inches

Dr. ST said she wasn't worried about O not rolling over, that he may just skip it altogether since he's working on being a pretty good sitter. We discussed introducing solids and getting him to sleep through the night while Daddy is away. So, we'll see.

Now, without futher adieu, my two smallest Valentines:

I'm in love all over again and again and again (see, times 3, one for each of my Valentines).

Cheers.

6 Months of O

2011-02-12T21:39:00.003-06:00

No way.

No.

What?!?

My baby is six months old?!? Where did the time go?

This must just be how it is with every child, particularly every child after the first. Everyone is growing up so fast. Remember when I was agonizing about him not being 12 weeks old and he couldn't be in the nursery yet? Man, that was so last year.

My little boy is looking more and more like Elsie's little mini-me these days. There's a picture of her at six months on the mantle, and if you put him up to it and take away all the pink that Elsie is wearing, then you almost wouldn't be able to tell them apart...almost.

I think the most startling transformation has been in me, though. I suddenly like babies. Not all babies, mind you--just mine. But that's a huge step in the right direction. Elsie was my guinea pig, and at the time I just tolerated babies (I loved her, yes, but I didn't really know what to do with her). And now that I have a toddler to compare the baby to, I'm thinkin' babyhood is the way to be, because toddlerhood is a mess. So, Oscar is really benefitting from my experimental motherhood/parenthood with Elsie. They are both totally amazing, though, even with the screaming and crying and poop.

So, today I was giving Oscar a bath, and Elsie came in and saw this. She left the room and came back with a bath toy and small travel-sized bottle of baby shampoo. She thrust them toward me and said, "Her," which is here way of saying "here," because I evidently say "here" when I'm handing her something. (Eli pointed this out to me.) I laughed and took them from her. Where did she get the shampoo? I do not know, but she knew what it was. See? Amazing.

Oscar has his six month doctor's appointment on Monday. We get to see Dr. S T this time. We haven't been able to get an appointment with her since O came into the world (we've seen her around at church at Christmas, etc.) so I'm excited. She's just pretty spec-dang-tacular. Personable, agreeable, positive. The other doctor we had been seeing is also very good, but she's no SST.

Milestones for O this month:

::crickets::

I would like to say that he's rolling over like a pro, but I would first have to be able to say that he's rolling over, and I can't say that. He has done it before, but he's just not doing it now. So... I feel quite certain that, in proving once again that he is not Elsie, in one fell swoop he's going to flip over and crawl over to the coffee table, pull himself up and then cruise around. And then within a couple of days he's going to walk on his own. I just know it. He's saving it up.

He is, however, starting to sit like a pro. He still tips over from time to time, but those muscles are definitely gaining strength.

We *finally* used up all our size 2 diapers. He's probably been too big for them for a month, but I had so many left that I couldn't bear to waste. And just in time for Luvs to change their #3 diaper style to green and purple monkeys. I guess Blues Clues is passe'.

Also, Oscar has started uttering noises. Before he was cooing (and it was oh so cute), but now, sometimes I can't tell if it was O or E who made a funny sound because they sound so similar. He's going to be a talker to. We're doomed Doomed DOOMED!

As for solid foods, Elsie was given solid foods on her six month birthday. I think I'm going to save this first foray until next weekend when we are in B'ham visiting with the love of my life, who has his only weekend pass of his absence to come down that far and no farther.

We're making it here. One week down...not counting the rest.

Cheers.

21 Months

2011-02-07T20:11:00.001-06:00

My little girl is still in the midst of the vocabulary explosion. In the morning, during breakfast, she will start proudly labeling everything on her tray. "Mik" [milk] "cup" "omeal" [oatmeal] "anna" [banana] "poon" [spoon]. Speaking of spoon and oatmeal, I've been letting her feed herself without freaking out about her getting oatmeal all over her clothes. Some days she only drops a little bit down her front. Other days, I wonder if she was at all successful in getting any into her mouth. But she is persistent. We laugh because when she drops some in her lap, she tries to pick it up and put it back in the bowl--when our first instinct is to put it in our mouths. She's so tidy, even when she's messy.

Last night we had dinner at our neighbors' house--steak and potatoes. Elsie pretty much ate my piece of steak as fast as I could cut it into small enough chunks for her to chew. And then she kept saying "more meat". I finally had to give her some baked potato so that I could also enjoy the fabulous carne.

Today, in the car on the way home from the babysitter, she drank all her milk and started asking for more. My hands were tied, of course, because we were in the car with no milk nearby, so I kept telling her we were almost home. By the time we pulled into our driveway, "more milk" had turned back into "more meat", and by the time we were in the garage she added a "more juice" in there, though she hasn't had juice (at least from me) in a long time.

More stuff:

-She is becoming more and more aware of dirty diapers. The other night she came and showed me a diaper (Eh-see's dyter, she says) and then lay down on the floor in my bathroom waiting for me to change her. I had to run and get wipes--it was a change to not have to fight her!

-She hates brushing her teeth, or having them brushed for her, but loves spitting in the sink. So, at least the trauma ends on a high note.

-She got a "Hide 'Em in Your Heart" CD from her Sunday school teachers and we listen to that frequently now (I'm dreaming these songs, people--it's scary) and she likes to sing along...sometimes. But it's cute when she does, because it's surprising.

-She has been carrying my Cabbage Patch (a preemie boy named Vick) around and mimicking what I do with Oscar. She pats him on the back and bounces with him. It's pretty cute. She sits down with clippers and tries to cut his nails. And she lays him on the floor and tries to change his diaper. She also puts the baby doll in the jumparoo, the bouncy chair, and the car seat carrier attachment.

-The other day I had to take the SpaceSaver Highchair off the chair and put it on the floor. Elsie thought that was the perfect place for her doll. Later I hear her saying "eat, eat, eat" and when I went into the dining room, there was a plate of plastic cakes from the Say Please Tea Set on the doll's tray. The next night, I gave her some animal crackers, and when I walked by the dining room after returning from the front door, she had put some crackers and her actual milk cup in front of the baby. Now, when you give a fake baby fake food, that's one thing...

So we're still just a-be-boppin' around here, usually to the tune of the ABC/Twinkle Twinkle.

I can't believe my baby is almost two!

Cheers!

Still here.

2011-01-31T20:41:00.003-06:00

Don't worry about us. We're still here, but we're trying to get our stuff together as our time together as a family becomes less and less. Eli leaves this weekend for training. I'm still in denial, or something. I might be too busy thinking about what I'm going to do while he's gone to make the most of the time that he's here.

This is my last week at Sylvan until July (maybe, we'll see), and I worked tonight, and will finish out the week on Wednesday. The new director asked me tonight if I wanted to work tomorrow night, too. I was already armed with my sarcastic reply, but somewhere in me, somewhere deep down inside, the mature Erin responded politely that I did not, that this was the last week with my husband at home and I was going to spend my free time with him.

And how do we spend our last days together? He was asleep by 8 this evening, and I'm headed to bed as soon as I brush my teeth. Yes, quality time for two exhausted, working parents.

Cheers.

I can't make this junk up

2011-01-24T19:48:00.006-06:00

I haven't posted in a week, I know. We're running around crazy with our heads cut off. Eli is trying to wrap up some stuff at work before he leaves, so he's spending a lot of time at the office getting stuff done. In addition, he started his first jury trial this week. He's overwhelmed. (Pray for him, please!)

I'm not going to update with personal stories too much more (it's a time/sanity thing right now) but I had to put this next part down. This is not a reflection on my school or anyone I work with (or myself, I hope), but merely a reflection on the idiocy of preteens, which I believe is only seen in the microcosm of my particular school but can be generalized to preteens the world over.

Today is Monday.

This is the first Monday we have had school this month.

Something was bound to go wrong.

In homeroom, before I was even finished taking attendance, before EIGHT O'CLOCK in the morning, I had two boys get into a fistfight. I mean, really? On MONDAY? And it was over something really stupid that neither of them thought to come tell me about, following the whole chain of command thing. Nope. One kinda' playfully popped the other one on the chin. The second one took issue to the first and a fight ensued. See? It's always fun and games until someone gets hurt. I, of course, yelled the obligatory, "Stop!" because if we don't tell them to stop then the punishment is not nearly as severe, so I did my job, and they continued to fight, ensuring at least three days of out-of-school suspension. Then I called for the social studies teacher next door to come help, and he dragged both boys to the office. Had the fiasco stopped there, I might have survived. But I teach middle school, so it's never that easy.

No, it can never be that simple.

In the fight, when desks and belonging were being knocked around (but not people--not a single child got up out of his or her seat to vacate the area surrounding the fight! They all just leaned out of the way while continuing to sit in their desks and calmly watch...) a binder ended up on the ground, and out of it slid

a skin mag.

Yeah.

Like I said, I can't make this junk up. I honestly didn't know what to do, so I picked it up, touching as little of it as possible, and put it on my bookcase and put a Sport's Illustrated (no, not the Swimsuit Edition) on top of it until I could figure out what protocol was for this type of thing. We switched classes into reading and in the nanosecond that my students were in the hallway, word spread and several boys from one of the other classes who are in my reading class came in and made a beeline for my bookcase. They did not get an eyeful, however, because I knew what they were up to. I had to report this incident to my assistant principal and he came to my classroom to retrieve it and had to roll it up in the SI because the cover was that racy! Sheez.

Same students, later class: one young man brought a can of beer to school and was showing it around discreetly (I really should have been suspicious, looking back on it, because every day, without fail, this student tries to bring his backpack into my classroom when he knows full well that the rule is NO BACKPACKS, and that they are to go to their lockers first--well, today, he didn't try to bring that bag into my classroom). At one point this afternoon, so that he wouldn't get in trouble, he opened the beer and poured it out onto the carpet right in front of his locker.

That's right. Carpet.

In front of his locker.

Nobody will notice. Really.

REALLY? Are you kidding me?

When I sent my last period class to their lockers, several came back and told me that there was beer poured in the hallway. Of course I thought this strange and thought they were mistaken or overreacting, but sho nuff. The office dealt with the boy swiftly and severely, as I hope his mother will also. I think what the was most disturbing to me, though, was that my students knew for certain what they were smelling. I, on the other hand, was not as certain until the can was found (in the kid's backpack--empty, go figure--and no, I do not know why he didn't just throw it away, except to say that he's twelve or thirteen and is just not a problem solver...)

And that was my Monday adventure as a middle school teacher. The other teachers on my team joked that we just needed a flasher to complete our awesome day, but thankfully that did not happen. Oh. So. Thankfully.

Have I mentioned how much I love teaching middle school? :) (Because really I do--I get to tell the best stories...)

Cheers.

E-Mealz, Revisited

2011-01-15T22:14:00.003-06:00

We've been using E-Mealz for six months now, and I wanted to come back and give you an update as to how it has been going.

For us, this has been a great investment. Why? First, I really dislike grocery shopping, so it's nice to have a concrete list of things to buy, aisle by aisle, so that we can get in and get out quickly. Secondly, we're actually eating. Regularly. Real food prepared in my kitchen. That's a vast improvement over the past seven years. Haha. Plus, I'm still making things that are very easy to make, but I never would have thought of!

We have a subscription to the Walmart plan for two, and it really has been enough to feed us plus a toddler. Leftovers, when stored in individual containers get eaten as lunch the next day, or dinner for the toddler the next night. We really have saved money doing it like this. I'm amazed.

We've also learned to tweak some of the meals to suit us. For instance, we don't eat bread with our meals enough to warrant making a side of cornbread or buying fresh rolls. Now, it's a different story when it comes to frozen Sister Schubert rolls (YUM!), which we can keep frozen and bake as necessary. We also buy a bag of frozen chicken breasts instead of paying more for fresh. It costs a little more but lasts longer so is better for the budget. And, of course, Eli has this really expensive hobby called hunting. But, the expense is worth it if he kills a deer and we have a freezer stocked with ground meat and various steaks and sausages to work with for a whole year. Rarely do we buy anything but chicken. And rarely do we buy fish, since my coastal-native husband has a rule of thumb about eating seafood away from a sea [that is, he doesn't]. Plus, he'd much rather catch his own fish, but that's neither here nor there.

What has also helped is that our neighbors frequently invite us over for dinner, so that's one less meal we eat a week. Have I mentioned that I love our neighbors? She's a really good cook! Haha.

We just renewed our subscription to E-Mealz for another three months, and I plan to use it even when Eli is gone to training so that I will eat, and will have leftovers for lunch.

So, if you're interested in looking up any information, click the button below (there are referral perks for me!). And if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.

Cheers.

5 Months and 1 Day of O

2011-01-13T20:11:00.003-06:00

I'm really glad now that I didn't get to post about O yesterday. Why? Well, because yesterday I would have written about how he hadn't rolled over back to front yet and how I have just accepted (for the umpteenth time) that he doesn't have to do everything that E did when E did them. (She was rolling by 4 months.)

Tonight, I was doing the dishes and I put O on the carpet in the living room in a swaddle. He wiggled his arms out and then, half-swaddled, just rolled over. He just did it. It was crazy.

But, of course, he wouldn't do it again once I got out the video camera. Darn thing, scaring the children.

So. Five months. I don't remember what I said about him last month, so I'll just tell you that I love this little boy. His laugh, his guffaw. He is soooo adorable. He's a drool monster still, no teeth. He started drooling a full month before Elsie ever did (he started at three months, she started at four), and he goes through several bibs in a day, soaking the fronts of his clothes. He reaches for stuff that he wants, but is still working on his gross motor skills so there's a lot of flailing involved.

Something very different about him is that he still loves to be swaddled. And he hasn't slept through the night for a while. Here's hoping??

I don't know if I've mentioned it here, but Eli will be gone from the beginning of February to the beginning of May. Then he'll be home a week or two, turn around and go back to finish his training for the National Guard. Tonight as I was cleaning up the living room (maintaining, if you will), I had flashbacks to sleep training Elsie. Man, I do NOT want to go through that again by myself, but if I don't do it early enough, O may not end up being a good sleeper like E is. Bah. Suckarooski.

And, on that note, will you let me know if you or someone you know in my neck of the woods is trying to get rid of a twin mattress set? And a dresser? We've waffled about the toddler bed and I think we've just decided to go with the twin bed set-up for Elsie. The intermediary choice just seems pointless.

Cheers.

20 Months

2011-01-07T21:28:00.001-06:00

I think I probably need to start planning a birthday party for a two year old!! I at least need to think about it, anyway. Time is flying by, and both children are getting soooo big!

E & O just finished up their first week at the same caretaker. Elsie loves being around all the other babies. I think she especially loves that those babies have names, and is particularly proud to have some sort of ownership of Oscar.

Her hair is getting long and I have no idea what to do with it. I know that if I cut the curls out of it, they may never come back, so I'm going to leave them for the duration. But, her hair is so thin, like mine, that it doesn't make a very good ponytail. I could put a clip in her hair to keep her bangs out of her eyes, but she hates having anything in her hair so it's almost pointless. Since the air is so dry, she spends a lot of time looking like she has her hand on a Van de Graaf generator. I keep an unscented Bounce dryer sheet laying around to rub on her head whenever it gets bad. :)

That's all I can think of for now.

Cheers.

There and Back Again

2011-01-03T21:54:00.001-06:00

While Eli would have probably titled this post "Self-Inflicted Torture", the title I chose is the subtitle of The Hobbit, a book that is painful to read because Bilbo Baggins makes this treacherous journey, and then when he accomplishes his goal goes home, but instead of Tolkein magically transporting this poor hobbit back home and ending the story, the readers have to trudge all the way back the way he came, following his travels. It's painful.

As the author of this blog (which may also be a prelude, in its own right, to some epic tale), I will not do that to you. So, here's the really big nutshell, summing up our Christmas adventures:

We spent a quiet Christmas day at home, and even spent a little time next door with the neighbors and their extended family. Elsie got her Police Car, and Oscar got something fun to chew on. On Boxing Day, we drove down to Mobile and celebrated Christmas with the Beaver clan.

Then, the next morning, we got in the car and started the long drive to Texas. We didn't know if we would make it in one day, so planned to possibly take two days to drive, but we made it. We did take one long stop in Bossier City, LA, to take advantage of a $15 jeans sale at Old Navy. Elsie got a bouncy ball from the giant Beaver brand gumball machine and chased the ball around the store while Eli tried on jeans.

It was nice to spend some time with my family. I appreciated the extra day there to keep from feeling like it was a whirlwind visit.

On Wednesday of that week, Eli, O & I made the long drive to Houston for the Texas Bowl (Baylor vs. Illinois). On the way we stopped at Buc-ee's and got some Beaver Nuggets and Buc-ee t-shirts (Power to the Beaver!).

Baylor bit it. BUT, on the bright side, I did get to see some of my college friends that I haven't seen in six or seven years. I thoroughly enjoyed sitting with M & E and talking the whole game (I don't actually go to football games for football--heaven forbid--and never have!). It was great to see CM and DJ and R&P and SE and KE and well, even PC, really. Then, as a final surprise, TGJ had my cell phone number and she came over to see me. Like I said, I had a fabulous time. And Oscar was a doll for the whole game, and pretty much for the ride to and from Houston, because yes, we turned around and drove right back to Crowley. (Yes, we're crazy, and it suits us just fine.)

Thursday, Eli, my dad and Nephew went to the Armed Forces Bowl in Dallas. I spent the morning with my friend E and her daughter. And in the afternoon I spent the afternoon with Stacey and Niece at the studio. We tried a painting craft with Elsie, but, well, toddlers and paint are not really compatible, so we did the best we could. Mom and Dad took everyone out for fajitas, and when we got back the cockatiel laid an egg. Weird.

So, we got in the car the next morning to drive back before the new year, but got caught up in bad weather and ended up getting a hotel room in Tuscaloosa (so close, yet so far!) before driving home on New Year's Day. I was the only one to greet the New Year, because Eli and Elsie were asleep. I was about to close my eyes when Oscar woke up to eat. After he went back to sleep, I was still awake for a little while. Happy 2011 to me!

Really, the kids were actually pretty good in the car for the whole journey to and from TX. It could have been much, much worse, so I count my blessings where I can get them. It was great to get off of the road, finally, and be in my own home in my own bed, which is where I'm going now.

Cheers.

A New Decade

2011-01-01T19:03:00.003-06:00

Crazy. With the turn of the year, it has been almost a decade--A DECADE!!!--since I graduated from college. I just can't believe it. So, to usher in the new decade, I have some new goals for my year. Resolutions, maybe. Hopes, dreams, desires, yes.

1. Take more pictures. Of us, of the kids. Oh, and also print off some of those pictures and not just let them sit in digital purgatory.

2. Go on more dates with Eli, or at least set aside a "date night" that will be screen-free (i.e., no phones, no computers, no televisions).

3. Stick to the budget; pay off our credit cards; pay down our other debt. We're down to credit cards, Eli's student loans, and our mortgage. I sure would like to end this year with only student loans and the mortgage.

4. Get a household management routine in place, even if it's not perfect. This would include housework, yard work, laundry, cooking, etc. This will start/continue with FLY Lady (http://www.flylady.net/).

5. Minimize. Get rid of my piles, my junk, and anything that I don't just LOVE. I think I'm going to try to use the 52 missions from GetOrganizedWizard.com.

6. Pray for my family, by name, daily. (Attributed originally to AAH's resolutions--what a great challenge.) Pray more, pray often, pray with my husband and children at times other than meals. Use my Power of a Praying Parent prayer calendar.

7. Run. Or do SOMETHING for exercise. I miss running, but it requires kid-free time and motivation. I don't have much of either.

8. Read more, craft more, bake more, have more intellectual/creative pursuits in general. I need the outlet.

9. Get my junk together at work. I love my job. I need to make sure I keep it.

10. Spend more time with friends. Friends are important. It's too easy to get caught up in the tedium of being a working wife/mother. I could (and do) fill my days doing things for others, but I need a place where I can just be me, however boring I'm turning out to be, haha, and can relax and shoot the proverbial breeze with the girls (or have some of those creative pursuits mentioned in #8).

So that's the plan for the year. We'll see how it goes!

Next time, I'll tell you about our holiday travel adventures. Mwahahahaha.

Cheers.

Backdating

2010-12-31T20:05:00.004-06:00

I'm backdating this post so that it sits as a final post for 2010 (I'm actually writing this on January 1, 2011). In January 2010, I set some goals for the year. Here's how I did:

1. I didn't spend as much time with Eli as I wanted to. Is this what happens when you have children? We're busy. But this next year I'm going to make that a challenge. We're going to celebrate eight years this year. We've grown and changed together, and I want that to continue. None of this empty nest "Hi, who are you?" junk for us 20 years down the road.

2. I didn't take as many pictures as I would have liked. But, on the bright side, I think we had a great summer with Elsie. In fact, being home with her during the summer and during my maternity leave left me with a profound sadness at being a working mom. I'm excited about this coming warmer weather--she'll be a lot more interactive and we'll have a lot more fun exploring the simple pleasures in life (like sprinklers!).

3. The doing nothing on the computer thing didn't get worse, but it didn't get better, either. I think writing in my blog, reading others' blogs, and getting caught up with status updates on FB sucked a lot of my time away. It sure would be great to see some of my friends in person instead of having to catch up over the computer.

4. Hooray! One I can call a success! I spent less, saved more, and PAID OFF MY STUDENT LOANS EARLY! Hip hip hooray!

5. Yeah, about that exercise...I was pregnant most of the year. And big and fat and tired. And then I went back to work. We'll work on it this year.

6. I did a lot of purging when we bought a house and moved. But, I'm still a piler, and I'm working to get better at maintenance. Baby steps. Baby steps. (And the totebag collection disappeared with the move!)

7. And, finally, I did read more! I started the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher, and just finished book...8 (?) tonight. It's been good. But I would like to keep it up, and maybe make a pre-bedtime reading routine. Sure would like a bedside lamp... Except that there's the whole toddler-clears-off-my-rickety-bedside-table-daily thing to dissuade that purchase.

Lessons learned? I need to take care of me a little better, and I need to care for my marriage more deliberately. My husband is pretty spectacular. :)

Bring on the new year!

Cheers!

Christmas Hymns

2010-12-24T22:30:00.001-06:00

I love Christmas music--not cheesy commercial songs, no no no no. Christmas hymns. Songs of praise and worship that are not contemporary. I think I have narrowed down my top two favorite Christmas hymns. Sometimes I get carried away with the singing and don't pay attention to what I'm singing, so here I'm posting the lyrics of these beautiful songs for reading and appreciating (but you can sing them if you want).

What Child is This?

What child is this, who, laid to rest,
On Mary’s lap is sleeping,
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet
While shepherds watch are keeping?
This, this is Christ the King,
Whom shepherds guard and angels sing;
Haste, haste to bring Him laud,
The baby, the son of Mary!

Why lies He in such mean estate
Where ox and ass are feeding?
Good Christian, fear: for sinners here
The silent Word is pleading.
Nails, spear shall pierce him through,
The Cross be borne for me, for you;
Hail, hail the Word Made Flesh,
The babe, the son of Mary!

So bring Him incense, gold, and myrrh;
Come, peasant, king, to own Him!
The King of Kings salvation brings;
Let loving hearts enthrone Him!
Raise, raise the song on high!
The virgin sings her lullaby.
Joy! joy! for Christ is born,
The babe, the son of Mary!

O Holy Night

O holy night! The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of our dear Saviour's birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
'Til He appear'd and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

Fall on your knees! O hear the angels' voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born;
O night divine, O night, O night Divine.

Led by the light of Faith serenely beaming,
With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand.
So led by light of a star sweetly gleaming,
Here come the wise men from Orient land.
The King of Kings lay thus in lowly manger;
In all our trials born to be our friend.

He knows our need, to our weakness is no stranger,
Behold your King! Before Him lowly bend!
Behold your King, Before Him lowly bend!

Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother;
And in His name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
Let all within us praise His holy name.

Christ is the Lord! O praise His Name forever,
His power and glory evermore proclaim.
His power and glory evermore proclaim.

-----
Hey everyone! Go tell it on the mountain! Jesus Christ is born!

Cheers!

Green and Gooey (I hope you've already eaten breakfast)

2010-12-23T09:17:00.003-06:00

It really is that time of year. I feel bad that both of my children got my proclivity for snot production. We are the three of us Darth Vaders lately. Elsie has spent the last two or three days with the goo coming out of her nose at a constant rate. Oscar is more suffering from drainage and has developed a productive cough, even though he can't spit, so he swallows. Gross, I know. But this is life. This has been my life for over three decades, and this is just the beginning for los dos ninos.

I have used the Snotsucker on Elsie, but it's almost not worth the tantrum because the snot has developed the amazing ability to regenerate, starfish style. Last night she has some major bubbles coming out of her nares. Commence extraction. Commence tantrum. Commence more snotskies. I lose.

As a result of this latest mucous development, we have all turned into mouth breathers, particularly at night. So, last night, for the first time, I left a water cup in Elsie's bed with her. I mean, I've been waking up with cotton mouth multiple times during the night, so I keep a giant cup of water on my night stand. I have been nursing Oscar more often because he wakes up with a dry cough that I interpret as cotton mouth, and Elsie had been doing some middle-of-the-night screaming. She didn't scream last night. I went to get her up this morning and the cup was almost empty. Coincidence that she was in a much better mood this morning?

On a completely separate note, O has started reaching for objects. And his grip has improved. Yesterday Elsie tried to pull something away from him and he held fast. She was frustrated, but she didn't scream. He just went back to what he was doing (drooling and gumming).

E & O make me smile. I love my children.

Cheers.

Two Things

2010-12-20T21:19:00.003-06:00

Eli is bugging me about updating the blog, so here I am, with two vignettes for you.

1. I went on a shopping spree at Kohl's the beginning of December with a gift card that was given to me by three lovely ladies at Oscar's shower. They made me promise to use the card for myself. Gulp. The truth is that since Elsie made her debut, and then Oscar, I really don't spend all that much money on myself outside of drinks from Sonic and the occasional shake from Chik-Fil-A. It's hard to spend money on myself, particularly at a place like Kohl's. But I did it. I went and got some clothes to wear to work.

I held onto that gift card for so long becuase I guess I secretly hoped the pounds would melt off without much work on my part aside from breastfeeding. I didn't want to buy clothes that would be too big. But, you know, at some point it was prudent that I stop wearing maternity clothes and wear real clothes. Turns out, I'm between sizes (in a happy and sad way) but really needed pants, so I bought the bigger size. I'm pretty boring--same pants, four different colors. And then for shirts, I bought three solid-color, long-sleeved, crew-neck tees (same style, different colors); two striped, v-neck, long-sleeved tees (same style, different colors), and one stiped v-neck sweater. Yep. Boring. Perhaps someone needs to refer me to What Not to Wear or another similar show.

On another bright side, I got some Kohl's Cash with my purchase, so I went back and got something for the kids for next summer. And I didn't pay a dime. Sweet.

2. Last Thursday was our behavior incentive for 7th grade. Remember I had been sick on Tuesday? I was feeling better, so I decided to put some skates on and just give it a whirl (totally disregarding the fact that I pinched my sciatic nerve on this same activity last year, and totally disregarding my terrible dreams on severe injury the night before). All was well. The kids were great; we all had fun. I raced some of the other teachers and lost, but I never fell on my rear--not once!

The other teachers decided that we must just be planning incentive trips around things that I do well. I laughed. Sadly, this just means that my golden years were those of middle school in Altus, Oklahoma. Seriously, I bowled with YABA at the base lanes on the weekends, and attended countless birthday parties at the local skating rink. It was awesome. Yep. I'm a middle school teacher for a reason--it's all becoming so clear.

Cheers.

O 4 month Doctor Update

2010-12-17T21:46:00.002-06:00

On Tuesday, I took O to the doctor for his 4 month well-check, but I haven't posted about it yet because I was siiiiick on Tuesday and decided that curling up and dying was more pressing than updating the blog. A lot has been going on around here in my overwhelming life, and I will update soon, but I don't want to forget these stats(and, heck, it's been three days, so I can't guarantee the accuracy of my brain or these numbers):

Oscar, 4 months & 2 days
Weight: 15 pounds 7 oz.
Length: 25 inches
Head...It was an even number, but I really have no idea...

Cheers.

4 Months of O

2010-12-12T19:50:00.002-06:00

Another month has vanished!

Oscar is four months old today. I know every child is different, and I'm experiencing it firsthand. I just went back and read Elsie's 4 Month blog update and have been reassured that Oscar is no Elsie.

Some notes: Oscar has been in size 2 diapers for over a month, but won't last in them too much longer (another month or two at most), and he's just now starting to wear 6-9 month clothing regularly, though some 3-6 month stuff still fits him.

He has been giggling since the weekend of November 6-7, long before Elsie started giggling. I remember when he started giggling because Elsie was eating her breakfast and Oscar was on the pink c-shaped chair and Elsie did something and I started laughing, then Elsie started laughing with me, and then Oscar started laughing, and then it was just contagious. So, we called and left a voicemail for Eli (who was at drill) with lots of giggles, and then we called my mom. I couldn't let those giggles go to waste. Rest assured it quickly turned in into crying all around, but it was memorable.

I haven't done "tummy time" with him since he was about a week old (meaning tummy on the floor time, not tummy to tummy, which he actually likes), but today he was in a good mood, so I put him down on an activity mat on his tummy and he promptly rolled to his back. I put him back and he did it again. And that was it. After that he was done with being on his tummy and just cried.

I try to put him on his back on the floor as much as I can when Elsie is not around, but he doesn't seem to be too close to rolling over, which Elsie was doing by now. And he's not scooting around any. He does have good abdominal muscles though and prefers to sit up to any other way of holding him. He's started holding on to objects for brief periods of time and putting them into his mouth when he can, so I'm doing his Christmas shopping based on this.

Like Elsie's hair, his is also falling out and growing in blonde. (In fact, the second picture on the Elsie 4-month update looks pretty much like Oscar.) The other day he was on our bed with the sun shining in the window behind him and I got a glimpse of what he's going to look like with blonde hair as I witnessed his sun halo. He already is so cute, but he's going to do some major heart-breaking.

He still wants a swaddle, and he'll scream if he manages to get an arm or two free. So, we get up in the night, tuck his arms back in, plug him up, and he goes back to sleep. He is still sleeping in his Pack-N-Play bassinet in our room (in the sitting area) but I think we're going to make the whole rooming transition after the holidays, after our family has gone and we can set up a bed in the second bedroom. Oscar will go in the crib in what is now Elsie's room, and Elsie will move into a different bedroom with a different bed. But what kind? We're still determining what to do. Maybe a toddler bed AND a twin bed in the same room? I don't know.

It's very interesting to see how two children can develop differently. I'm not worried about Oscar--he'll do stuff at his own pace. He'll roll over. He'll pull up. He'll grow hair. He'll crawl. He's his own person. Love him.

Cheers.

19 Months

2010-12-07T21:56:00.006-06:00

Where is the time going? My baby is 19 months old? Already! And there's no going back!

I remember back in the early months, Elsie was changing very rapidly, and then she seemed to hit a plateau as far as noticeable growth and change. But now that she's started using words, we're on again. I'm so amazed. So, so amazed.

She has an incredible temper (where did she get that from?), so it didn't surprise me the other day when she started throwing a fit when the tray wouldn't come off of Oscar's Bumbo chair, try as she might. He was sitting playing with some toys and started getting upset at her outburst, so I redirected her. I was folding laundry, so I didn't see how this interchange started, but as she will always do, she came back. This time I watched.

She looked at Oscar and then asked him, "Done?" She used the sign language for "all done" and then tried to remove the tray again. I was in awe. This is exactly the same ritual we use when Elsie is done eating. We ask her, "All done?" while also signing it, and then remove her high chair tray before lifting her to the ground. Where is my baby?

This last month has been an understandable vocal explosion. Some of the ones that I can remember are listed below.

If you sneeze, she'll say "shoo shoo" every time. Bless you?

In addition to "Thank you," which she says quite clearly, she now is saying, "Thank you, wah wah." Welcome?

She will also say, "All gone!"

Any time she sees football on TV, or even pictures of football, she'll raise her arms and exclaim, "Touchdown!" and frequently follow it with "Yay!" She also does this randomly when there is not, in fact, anything football related around.

She loves pointing out anything and everything that could possibly be a "cup."

She likes repeating, "Go, go, go!" and "Up, up, up!"

The other day I was doing something and she told me to "Stop!"

She's also picked up the ever-dreaded "Mine!" (Where did that come from?)

She loves saying Oscar's name. If she hears him crying, she will alert me to that fact by saying "Ah-kuh."

Instead of just "Hi!" she now says hello, but it sounds like "Hewo." Unless of course she's speaking Spanish, in which case she'll say "Ah-la" while sticking her tongue all the way out.

Oh, and she very clearly says "apple" and "car."

Turns out that she's also very adept at the body part finding game. I have to remember to leave "Where's Elsie's nose?" for last, because she always, ALWAYS, puts her finger up her nose. :) If I forget and ask, "Where's Elsie's eye?" or "Where's Elsie's ear?" she will always put the offending finger immediately in those locations, boogers be darned. (And she IS my child, so there are always boogers. Haha.)

She likes pointing out "mama" and "dada" and "ah-kuh" and "eh-see" in family pictures likes the ones hanging on our fridge. Tonight at dinner she was naming family member, and at one point I think she actually said "mama and dada". And then she said someone else. I asked, "Who?" And she turned to me, very calmly and said, "Who?" like I was the one who had just said something weird. It was funny.

She has also started verbal pauses. "Elsie, do you have a stinky diaper?" She says, very automatically, "Umm.." before answering in the negative. It's always a negative when it comes to the diaper. :) But when it comes to food, it is frequently affirmative. That's my girl.

One bad habit that I am looking for ideas for curbing is biting. I was pushing the cart at Wal-Mart tonight and she leaned over and BIT the top of my hand when I wouldn't take it off the handle. (What is it about biting the hand that feeds you?!?) And frequently when she's mad, she bites. Ugh.

Finally, she also thinks it's funny to have my hair in her mouth, and I frequently have to avoid her leaning over to lick my hair. Yes. I said lick. And she comes in tongue first, so there is no question as to her intentions. It's. just. weird.

But that's my weird flesh and blood. So it had to come from someone. Haha.

Cheers.

Voiceless Hoarse

2010-12-05T20:54:00.003-06:00

It's that time of year again. This year has been a little worse than before as far as the sinus drainage accompanying the weather changes. (I'm afraid little O has gotten my predisposition for mucous. I'm 2 for 2 with the mucous and allergies, and Eli's 2 for 2 with the blond hair and blue eyes...) Anyway, I was tutoring at Sylvan on Wednesday night and I realized that my voice was starting to sound adolescent. The next morning, I was completely hoarse. My students would imitate my voice cracking and then laugh. I tolerated their joking. By Friday, I was mute.

Now, my students were actually very good while I couldn't talk, and thankfully it was a library day, so there wasn't much talking to be done anyway. But what is a teacher without a voice? It made me really wish that all the technological equipment was already set up in my classroom so that I could have easily weathered this storm. Instead, I had a designated student speak for me. I would whisper to them and they would make the announcement. It was actually kind of funny. By the end of the day, I had a typed, numbered list of everything I needed to say and I would just have to say numbers to my vocal representative. Eli was at drill this weekend, so I couldn't even talk to him on the phone Friday night--we had to Google chat.

On Saturday, I had a little squeak back, and I had to go to the bank. I didn't think this through before I left and realized halfway there that I would have to actually speak to the lady through the drive-thru speaker. I tried really hard, and their end must be very sensitive because she seemed to understand all my little squeaks. The lady said that I sounded a little hoarse and wanted to know if I was getting sick. (She was kind--I was pretty much voiceless.) I told her that this was actually the sound of me getting better!

We had the pleasure of spending Saturday celebrating Christmas with our fabulous neighbors. His 4-year-old daughter is here for three weeks so they did early Christmas for her so she can play with her toys while she is here. I had dinner with them on Friday night and she asked me why I was whispering to her. I tried to explain about the drainage, but really, how do you explain that to a 4-year-old? Even the phrase "lost my voice" was incomprehensible to her (I'm pretty sure I saw the wheels turning as she wondered where I could have lost it...). Finally, she just turned to my neighbor and said, "A---, why is she being quiet?"

So Saturday, with the whole family around, I felt really stupid because I couldn't really talk to anyone and socialize. Thankfully Elsie puts on a really good show and she did all the talking that needed to be done on behalf of the Beaver family. She was a hit.

Today I went to church not realizing how traumatizing it would be to sit in the service while everyone sings the Christmas hymns that I love and not be able to sing the alto parts (or ANY part) that I know because to open my mouth would unleash a flurry of squeaks and cracks. It was both humbling and painful. Anyone who knows me in my adult life knows that I just love hyms and SATB parts where I can read the alto part (something that I picked up from being a Beaver). I've been doing it long enough now that I do a pretty good job with hymns we sing regularly. At first I viewed today as lost, a missed opportunity to show my stuff, but then I was able to concentrate on the words to the hymns without worrying about the music and finally the focus was in the right place. To God be the glory.

One thing that has become painfully clear is that I still, after all these years and all those admonishing report card notes, LOVE to talk. I found myself the other day dreaming about what a nightmare it would be for me if the voicelessness were a permanent condition! What a handicap to have! Would I even be able to have one of those little computer microphones that reads my voice box vibrations, a la Stephen Hawking? (We had a family friend who had had throat cancer when we were little, and she used one of those--we thought for sure she was a robot.) And then I wondered how I would feel about my children never hearing my voice again. It would be weird and heartbreaking for me.

Thankfully, my voice is coming back. There is actual vocalization today, but I've been trying to minimize it. It's the little things that we take for granted. Again, thank you, Lord, because I'm not a very good mime.

Cheers.

Familia de Castor

2010-12-01T19:48:00.008-06:00

Despite all the catastrophic events leading up to Thanksgiving, we made the decision to go to Long Beach, MS, to Aunt B's house to spend the holiday with the extended Beaver family. PawPaw is not doing well, so it was important that we spend this holiday with them, despite the need to recover from our vacation. Here's a picture of Eli's immediate family (clockwise from upper left; bro, sis-in-law, Dad, Mom, O, Eli, me, E, PawPaw's wife M, Paw Paw, sis).

A picture of my little man:

And my favorite picture of the day:

Evidently, Elsie and I were asleep during all the picture taking since it was her nap time and she would only sleep amid the chaos if we held her, so I held her and took a nap, too. And when we weren't napping, we were swinging on the swingset in the backyard and sliding down the slide.

Oh, and just in case you're wondering, I did not get any pictures of our Orlando trip. Not a one. I mean, who wants to see the insides of hotels and hospitals? ;)

Cheers.

Photo credits: E. Beaver Photography (Eli's cousin)

Getting back to...normal?

2010-11-29T22:09:00.003-06:00

We're here. Eli accused me of giving up on the blog. Haha. I told him I needed to give everyone a chance to digest our adventure, and us time to recover. So, that's done then.

We're both behind at work, but we're trying to keep with it. Please keep us in your prayers as we try to get caught up.

So, for now, as I'm trying to be responsible and get everything done, I'll leave you with a picture of us from October 3o at our church's Fall Fest. I know, I know. It's a month late. And four weeks is HUGE in the life of a baby. But still, I think it turned out okay.

Cheers.

Vacation Finale

2010-11-24T17:24:00.004-06:00

I marveled to Eli that I must live such a charmed life because I'm resilient and can find the humor and ridiculous irony in situations. I tried to laugh throughout this experience.

So, here it is, in the biggest nutshell you've ever seen, our awesome vacation (with prologue):

Last fall I was hired to work for the NWP on its E-team for part of the year. The initial commitment is three years, with the perks being a summer job that I can work whenever my schedule permits so long as I put in the requisite hours per week, and a free trip to the Annual Meeting each November where I could attend any of the sessions, but was required to be present for a day-long meeting on the Saturday of the conference. No prob. I immediately started making plans for this year's meeting, which was going to be in Orlando, at Disney World. We were going to leave Elsie with the grandparents and go, just the two of us. And then a month later, we realized that it was going to have to be three of us, not including Elsie. And being a breastfeeding mama, there wasn't really another easy alternative, so Eli would be with 2.0 (as we then referred to O-man) while I went to my sessions. Eli would be the babysitter.

Fast forward eleven months, and it's time to leave for Orlando. I had been very organized and put in my request for professional development leave back in August, and had a couple of weeks ago gotten a sub for the three days I was going to be out. In a twist of nicety-turned-terrible, I ended up letting the math teacher on my team have my sub, who is a retired middle school math teacher, since we would be out simultaneously, and I tried to find another sub. I found a sub for Wednesday and Thursday, but how was I supposed to know that every teacher was going to be out on that Friday?? I left school on Tuesday knowing that I would need a sub for Friday, and that I would be spending part of my time away to find one. I pretty much tried to avoid thinking about it. [I spent part of Wednesday and Thursday calling up random people from the sub list, to no avail. Once I finally found someone, I called to let the school know, and they said, "Oh, we just got an e-mail from central office saying he can't ever sub for us again." Great. I ended up not finding a sub and my team had to split my classes on Friday.]

I took Elsie to the doctor for her 18-months appointment in the a.m. so that I could legitimately use a sick day for travel, and my MIL came and got her to take her back to Mobile for the week. I packed and got things ready at home. Eli came home from work and changed the oil on the car, and then told me that we needed new tires, we needed them now, and we wouldn't be able to make the trip to Orlando without them. My plans of leaving by lunch time were thwarted, but not to worry. We had other errands to run while waiting on the tires. At the appointed "we'll be finished in about an hour" time, I dropped Eli back off at the tire place and headed home to wait for him to come get O and me. And then Eli called. The car was not ready. It would not be ready for another 45 minutes to an hour. Ugh.

Needless to say, I could have saved myself a sick day. We rolled out of town after four o'clock. And we drove into the darkness. Oscar actually did a pretty good job in the car. At one point I did have to climb into the backseat to sit with him to calm him down, but for the most part, he was a good sport (at least that's the way I'm remembering it now--it's much easier this way). In an effort to avoid paying any tolls on the Florida Turnpike, we took a bunch of state and county roads to get into Orlando. At one point, we pulled over to consult the atlas.

We pulled back onto the road, and something happened. I couldn't figure out what it was at first, but then Eli said it. The high beam headlights had turned on all by themselves. Yeah, that was it. However, strangely, they would not turn off. We turned the car off, the headlights off, and put the parking brake on--a sure recipe to be sitting in the dark--yet the high beams stayed on. Having no solution to this problem, we forged on. As we drove on in to The Happiest Place on Earth, we were sure that we would be pulled over for a DUI, driving at two in the morning with our high beams on. I started counting how many people flashed their headlights at us.

Once we got into the Disney Vortex, it became painfully clear that I did not actually have directions to the hotel, as I thought I did. So we drove around for a while, finally stopping to ask for directions. We found the resort, checked in at the hotel, and were unloading the car when Eli popped the hood to inspect the headlights--and they caught fire. Of course, he tells me this nonchalantly, saying something like, "Well, I hope the whole car doesn't explode." I looked at him for a second, and then quickly retrieved Oscar from the backseat just in case.

Our hotel room was okay, nothing fancy (although, I guess if I hadn't lived in Texas for so many years, the Southwest/Incan motif might have been special). We set up the Pack N Play, looked at some of the check-in literature, and then crashed. The next morning I got up early to find out where I was supposed to be. I left Eli and Oscar in the hotel room, out to look for free Internet in the business center or something, since it was $10/day in the room. Turns out the business center was ~$7 for TEN MINUTES!! I told the lady a sob story about our travels into town and how I didn't know where I was supposed to be, so she let me pull up my e-mail and get my itinerary. Turns out all of my meetings were in the other hotel that the NWP/NCTE booked for this conference. Stink.

I went to my morning session and then we went to eat lunch at Wolfgang Puck's restaurant in Downtown Disney. <--Highly Recommended. Eli and Oscar stayed at the hotel for the afternoon session, and when I came back we made a grocery store run to go get bread and peanut butter and jelly for the rest of our trip. We ate our sandwiches and then went for a walk around the resort lake. It was nice. And Oscar actually didn't mind being in the stroller.

The next day, Friday, was a lazy day. We set out right before lunch to go to Sea World since Eli got free military personnel tickets. It was fun watching the shows. I'm still very much in awe of those animals. Amazing. I would go back and do some of the behind the scenes stuff if I could. But, the day was a little tainted by Eli not feeling well. He started the day complaining of a headache. As we strolled around the park, he would stop at intervals to work through a pain in his neck. He would stop suddenly, incline his neck, close his eyes, and breathe. It reminded me vaguely of when I was having contractions with Oscar. It was weird. His pain was ever increasing, so I knew it was time to leave the park. Plus, I really wanted to get back in time to go to the NCTE Expo (read: free books!). At one point, I had asked him about how sick he was feeling, "Sick enough to end up in the emergency room?" His response, "I hope not."

As we got back in the car, Eli put on a fleece jacket. I mentally noted that it was 80 degrees outside. When we got back, Eli told me that he would be okay after he slept, so Oscar and I went to the Expo, where he was a hit with the ladies and scored me some free stuff, just on the cuteness factor alone. :) I also had an aha! moment while walking around, as the word meningitis came to mind. I sure hoped not. When we came back to the room, Eli was piled under all the covers and not looking well. I used an ear thermometer that I just happened to toss in with all of Oscar's stuff, and his temp was 102. We started making phone calls, trying to reach anyone we knew with medical expertise. I wanted to run his symptoms by a medical professional to see if this was something that would warrant a trip to the ER. The first person to call us back was my FIL, a nurse. His advice was basically, "Get thee to an emergency room." He dropped the M word that I had been thinking. I called the consierge to get directions and we were on our way.

On the way over, we talked about what this might mean. Eli said something funny to me (sorry I can't remember what), and my response was "Thanks for that." And then to get back at him, I joked about the long giant needle they would use if they had to do a spinal tap. "Thanks for that," Eli ribbed. Since I had Oscar with me, I didn't want to go into the hospital with Eli, so we sat out in the car until we got an update. They had him back in an observation room, and were going to do a lumbar puncture. At this point, I decided that I did not want to wait in the car, so we went into the spacious waiting room, where there was a kid's area. I watched the entirety of the Hannah Montana movie on the Disney Channel while Oscar slept. No word from Eli. It was getting late. And I was very tired. So I bundled Oscar up and we went and sat in the passenger side of the car and slept, awaiting news.

At one point, I went to go ask questions of the nurse, and they directed me to the business desk, where I paid my emergency copay while I was there. That was when I knew that Eli had meningitis. Why? Because the copay was equal to the "extra" amount of money we had this month that Eli told me just to leave in my account until all the bills were paid before using it to pay down debt. This was where we were supposed to be.

I don't know how long I was there before Eli called to tell me that it was indeed meningitis and that they were admitting him to the hospital. I went in and talked with the doctor about what this meant for us and our vacation. "He's not very good with needles," she says. (At some point in the evening they put the spinal tap kit in the room with Eli and left it there for him to look at for about two hours, building up his anxiety, before they actually used it, so that by the time they did the tap, he pretty much had an anxiety attack.) She told me they would have to keep him for at least 48 hours until they got their cultures back.

With nothing more for us to do, O and I went back to the hotel and slept.

At some point in the evening, I realized that I was going to have to miss my Saturday meeting, the whole reason we even made this stupid trip to Orlando anyway. I looked in my phone, and sure enough, I had saved the phone number of my group leader back when he called me in June, so I called MR (who, mind you, I had never met) and apprised him of my situation. He told me that I shouldn't worry about the meeting and that I should just take care of my family, that he would inform everyone what was going on. I insisted on coming at least for breakfast in the morning to put faces with these names that I had been seeing for the better part of a year. MR called me again on Saturday morning and wanted to know what kind of help I needed. I told him that ideally, I needed someone to watch Oscar while I was getting everything together to check out of the hotel by 11 (since we originally were going to leave on Saturday after my meeting, we had to be out). He told me that his wife could probably help me.

I made it to my meeting, had breakfast, met everyone and told them the same story I'm telling now, and then Mrs. MR came back to the hotel with me to watch O while I packed and loaded up the car. She was a blessing, a true angel. I would have managed, but it was so much easier to have another set of hands. People who think the kindness of strangers is a thing of the past are so terribly pessimistic! We made it out of the hotel, went to visit Eli at the hospital--he was still in the ER until they got him a room and the nurse held Oscar while Eli and I conversed--and then I took O to the airport to pick up my mom. Another godsend. We found a hotel to hole up in and then waited, making trips back and forth to the hospital to check on Eli, who was bored and tired, and headache-y.

During all this, I realized that we would be missing the long-awaited Thanksgiving lunch at church, and that I would not be making it back to school on Monday, at least, and maybe Tuesday. What a mess. I don't have any sick days, so the days I was taking off were unpaid days. I thought over the sequence of events that brought us here. I only haphazardly brought the thermometer and had it in the hotel room with me. We left the ibuprofen at home. Had we had it, Eli would have taken one and gone back to bed, and who knows what would have happened?

To make this long story longer, Mom flew back to TX on Monday p.m. About two hours later, Eli was discharged from the hospital with a diagnosis of viral meningitis. I brought him back to the hotel room where he slept hard. We got up bright and squirrely to drive home. And on the way Oscar started running a fever. He was very hot to the touch. I didn't know what to do, given all we had gone through with Eli.

We got into the town of Moultrie, GA, and I tried to go to an Urgent Care place, but since he was so young, they would not see him and directed us to the ER at Colquitt Regional Medical Center. They ran Oscar through the rigamarole, and several hours later told us that yes, he has a virus, and that it didn't take a doctor to tell us that he got it from Eli. And that there was no telling what this virus would do, and no indication as to why it had decided to attack Eli's brain. So, we were sent on our way with the most expensive dose of Tylenol ever, an infant-come-pin cushion, but at least with a peace of mind. The ride home took forever, with O screaming every hour or so, and we had to stop frequently. But last night, at 8-ish, we got home. Fourteen hours. (Orlando is 7.5 hours from here on a good day.)

Then today, we drove to Mobile to retrieve Elsie and to spend Thanksgiving with the entire Beaver clan tomorrow--the first time this many Beavers have been together since Eli's grandmother died some fifteen (?) years ago. I'm here. Ready for bed. And ready to NEVER go back to Florida. "Florida hates us," Eli said. [And remember, we've been trying to laugh at all of this when we can...there was a lot of funny in the midst of the stress.]

And somehow in all of this, my watch now beeps at the top of the hour. I have no idea why it started doing that and I have no idea how to stop it. So, every hour is yet another reminder of the vacation that was not meant to be. Awesome.

Cheers.

(And if you made it to the end, bless you!)

In this episode, The Vacation from..

2010-11-20T16:09:00.006-06:00

a Place Hotter than Orlando in November!

Let me just start by saying that the journey to and the stay in the Magic Kingdom has been a disaster for the Beavers. But, it has been a disaster that we are taking in stride.

I would love to entertain you with tales of possessed high-beam headlights and consequent fires under the hood, but perhaps I will save that for a later date. Instead I will tell you this:

Eli is currently in the hospital in Orlando being treated for meningitis. And that's that. I don't really know much more. Since I have O with me, I haven't been able to go visit Eli, just talk on the phone. Now my mom is here from TX (bless her!), and I will be able to go to the hospital tonight and leave O with her.

Please just say some prayers as they try to figure out whether this is the viral or bacterial form of the disease. Bacterial = bad. Viral = not as bad, but still bad.

And now that I've failed at NaBloPoMo because of Walt's OUTRAGEOUS Wi-Fi access prices, I will give out updates in due course, whenever that may be.

Cheers.

18 months doctor's visit

2010-11-17T10:33:00.003-06:00

A quick update before our day's adventures really get under way:

I took Goldilocks to the pediatrician today for her 18-month check-up. Just so I have them in one place until I get around to updating her baby book:

Weight: 23 lbs. 11 oz.
Height: 31.25 inches (Umm..She shrank a quarter inch since the last time? Something's amiss...)
Head Circumference: 20 in

Across the board, she's in about the 50th percentile.

She got 2 shots at 18 months. We were two days early to get her Hep A shot, so we'll wait until she's 2. For the most part she did well. She did not hold her breath and try to pass out as she did two months ago. She, did, however, not like getting shots. The nurse was telling me that now when she's walking through Wal-Mart or the mall, random children will just burst out in tears when she's around. Haha. I told her Elsie probably would do that, too, if she saw her in public. What a job!

And her latest language update is that not only is she labeling objects with names, she's now giving them possessives of sorts. "Mama shoes" when she picks up my shoes, or "Ah-skuh socks" when she picks up Baby Bear's socks.

I am amazed!

Cheers.

Still so far behind...

2010-11-16T20:58:00.001-06:00

Well, I did make the choice last night to go to bed early, and it was a great decision for my health and for my body. However, it was not the best decision for my sanity. I went to bed with full knowledge that I may not have clean clothes to wear to work, that Elsie might not have a matching pair of socks for morning, that I would have to wash dishes before going to work to make sure all my pump parts were clean, that I would have to wake up bright and squirrely and head to Kroger to pick up some produce to help me with my under-the-weather-ness and some canned goods for our canned good drive at school, that I STILL did not have lesson plans for the days I planned to be out.

Sigh. But it all gets done in the end, doesn't it?

So here I am, at 9 o'clock at night, sitting down to work on lesson plans for my absence from school, knowing full well that I will have to get up even earlier in the morning than I did today to go leave sub plans at work. Ugh. Why do I do this to myself?

I haven't packed the kids. I haven't packed me. I haven't packed Eli (or checked to see if he packed). I guess I'll have a 1/2 tomorrow to get that done.

Wish me sanity!

Cheers.

Halfway there

2010-11-15T19:36:00.002-06:00

It's raining. Still. I welcome the rain, but I already feel pretty under the weather, so all I want to do is curl up in my bedcovers and go to sleep. It's really tempting, but I have to go downstairs and put some stuff in the fridge.

I have other stuff to do to get ready to travel, but I think I need sleep more.

We're halfway through NaBloPoMo. The challenge come up this week and next.

I think I really am going to bed. No joke. Look at the time stamp and add ten minutes, and I will be asleep.

Cheers.

Small Groups

2010-11-14T21:41:00.005-06:00

Last year, our church started doing small groups in some form or fashion. Originally, the group was a fellowship/prayer group. We started out in the "young adult people" group, but then we ended up splitting into "young adult people" and "young adult people with screaming children." And though Elsie was still just a babe and did not run around screaming, it was bound to happen (and is now my reality), so we ended up with the latter group. It was nice getting together with other parents of small children and just being in fellowship with people in the same stage of life. Those were my friends, my compadres, my sanity-savers. We thoroughly looked forward to that group once a month.

This year, our small groups were reorganized. I suspect this was partially to accommodate the influx of new attendees, but also to narrow the focus of the group. Yes, we fellowship and pray, as before, but we also discuss a designated Bible passage and the sermon that went with it. Instead of monthly, now we meet weekly. Sign-up was not based on stage of life this time, but rather convenience of time and locale. We had to sign up for a group that met on a day when we weren't working with Kaplan/Sylvan, and met at a time that would still get Elsie to bed at a decent hour. It was a toss-up between two groups, who met at the same time on the same day but on opposite sides of town. We chose the group that was closest, e-mailed the groupe leader, and signed up for this group with no knowledge of who was in the group.

And then we got traded.

I'm pretty sure I still have the e-mail that asks if this is okay, and assuring us that the demographics of our new group are similar to the old group. Of course this was okay. We love our group leaders, and as I said before, we only arbitrarily chose a group based on perceived geographic distance. But you know what? The demographics are not the same. No. Where. Near. Had we stayed in our old group we would have been the second oldest there. Now we're the fourth oldest. And honestly, this is just....

AWESOME!

When we were first married and we lived in Waco, we started by attending UBC, which is the same church where the Dave Crowder Band leads Sunday morning worship every Sunday that they are not touring. I love David Crowder, don't get me wrong, but the church just didn't feel right to me. The age demographics were just too one-sided. It felt like 99.9% of the attendees were undergraduate students. The only children belonged to the pastor and his wife. The only mature adults were a handful of professors who attended. I was done with college. I desired a population more...heterogenous. I wanted to learn from my elders. This church had very few.

Fast forward 5-7 years. FPCO is very diverse, and has become more so since we first started attending in September (?) 2008. And I think our current small group is such a dynamic reflection of this diversity.

Here's the breakdown of the 17 people:
2 couples old enough to be our parents (not entirely sure about the Zs, but they're at least a decade older than us)
1 single adult female professional (at least a decade older than us)
2 couples with young children (that includes us)
2 younger couples with no children
1 single adult male professional our age, or close to it
1 single adult female graduate student
2 male college sophomores

I particularly like that the two college guys come to our group because there actually is a dedicated college small group and yet they choose to hang out with us old folks (haha). And our grad student is working on a degree in English, but sometimes I wonder why she's not pursuing theology--I am constantly just in awe of her knowledge/interest in the workings/history of the reformed tradition. As I said, we love our leaders and our site hosts. And it's nice to hear from the 5 older people (one a member since birth, two others members for 30+ years, and two others with an international foundation). It's been nice to get to know another young couple from our church (both grad students), and our friendly car guy. In this group, when we have discussions, I feel like I'm the weakest link. Soaking a lot in with not a lot to contribute. It's not necessarily a bad thing. I'm being challenged, and I'm definitely growing and stretching spiritually in a way that I have not grown or been stretched in a long, long time.

Had we stayed grouped as we were last year, we really would have missed out on this wonderful opportunity, meeting and fellowshipping with these wonderful people, and having honest conversations that cross generational gaps. The Lord is working, and He knows what He's doing.

I still miss my friends from last year's group. We are all busy with our families and our socializing has pretty much been limited to a brief hello as we pick our kids up from the nursery on Sunday mornings. I wish we still had a designated time to get together with our peer group for fellowship and church-building. And with all the new people at church in our same station of life, I feel like I'm missing out on making new friends.

I just miss them.

Junk in the Trunk

2010-11-13T11:37:00.006-06:00

I've always been jealous of people, who when they open their trunks, have NOTHING in them. I always think, "How is that possible??"

I'm a teacher, so I'm the WORST about keeping junk in the car. Before I left Chambers Co., I made the effort to get both cars cleaned and detailed so that they would be clean before Elsie came. This was just the interior of the car, not the trunk. I've gotten most everything out of the car to "clean" it since then, but there were some untouched frontiers.

A couple of weeks ago, I don't remember where Eli was but both kids were napping, I got out the vacuum cleaner and the trash bags and the Armor-All and cleaned the front seat of the Saturn (baby steps, baby steps). Well, this weekend's list of things to do included cleaning out the backseat of the car. So, while Oscar slept, Elsie and I dragged everything out of the backseat, except the carseat and base. We got out the vacuum cleaner and took care of crumbs, leaves, pebbles, etc. And when she became distracted by pushing the stroller around the garage with her baby doll in it (she went into the house to fetch the baby doll to put in the stroller), I decided to tackle the...gasp...trunk. Dirty. Little. Secret. I haven't cleaned out the trunk in...a long time. Let's just say that there were some pre-Chambers Co. things in there, posters and whatnot. Lots of whatnot. So, it all got sorted, trashed, brought in the house--and then vacuumed. And by this time Elsie was bored of the task and we were done. Oscar woke up and Elsie was hungry. The timing was perfect.

Among the treasures uncovered was a coupon for pizza...that expired in 2004. You think I'm kidding. I did end up leaving a few things in the trunk: a can of Fix-A-Flat, a first aid kit, jumper cables, the windshield shade, rope (in a draw-string Gap bag), sunscreen, trailer hitch and accessories, a roll of duct tape, and the umbrella stroller.

Not bad, right, for a car that's 11 years old and just turned over 192,000 miles?

Now, the challenge, with two kids, is to keep it clean. And traveling and keeping the car clean is also a challenge. So, wish me luck.

Cheers.

3 months of O

2010-11-12T18:47:00.010-06:00

I bet you thought I forgot yesterday to post about O being 13 weeks. I didn't. I just stopped counting after 12, and have now moved on to months. Now time for some pictures of the kids from the last few weeks.

From a Halloween playdate:

Sleeping Baby Bear:

And adorable Baby Bear feet (again, this one's for the old ladies):

Baby Bear got hot (and a little cranky):

Goldilocks crawls like a puppy:

Goldilocks couldn't find a chair that was juuuust right. (Though later she found the hostess's Cinderella couch that is just like her Mickey couch, and that suited her just fine.)

And finally, we got a box of goodies from Texas. This was early the next morning when it was time to leave for work/sitters, and Elsie refused to leave the Grinch or the Wocket at home. (I tricked her, and we left them..haha).

Happy Friday!
Cheers.

Veteran's Day

2010-11-11T05:53:00.002-06:00

On a quick side note, that post yesterday was my 400th post! So crazy!

Today is Veteran's Day. I'm posting early so that I'm not distracted during my productivity today. Eli is headed to B'ham with his Coast Guard Auxiliary Unit to march in a Veteran's Day parade. It's evidently a big deal. I would have taken the kids and gone with him had I been caught up, but, alas, I am not.

Before I go, I want to say a BIG THANK YOU to all my friends and family members that have served in the Armed Forces. I couldn't do what I do if you didn't do what you do/did. A particular thanks goes to my dad, a 20-year veteran of the AF, and to my mom who served right along with him (but on the homefront, in the domestic campaign).

Cheers.

Floor Time

2010-11-10T20:12:00.002-06:00

I'm working on some assignments for the online classes I'm taking right now, and I put Oscar on the floor next to me. He's about to go to sleep.

But, I've been thinking. How much time does he get to be unswaddled on a hard surface? Around the house, if we put him on the floor, Elsie is sure to come over and body slam him, or trip and fall on him, or do something else that Oscar construes as traumatic. So he doesn't get much floor time here--in fact, I think this is the first I've put him on the floor for any length of time.

The rest of the time he is on a flat surface is when he's supposed to be asleep, so we swaddle him so that he doesn't startle himself (or us) awake. For the last hour or so he's been kicking his legs and flailing his arms, fussing occasionally, but mainly just being content. It's been nice.

And I just finished my assignment for my Using Google Documents in the Classroom course. Early to bed! Wahoo! I don't have school tomorrow, but I'm treating it like a regular day, taking the kids to their respective places and heading up to the school to get things done, get caught up. We'll see how much I get done.

Cheers.

18 months (and 2 days)

2010-11-09T19:19:00.002-06:00

Sunday was when Elsie turned 18 months. No, I didn't forget. Okay. I remembered on Sunday, but forgot when it came time to blog. And then today someone asked me how old she was and I thought, "ACK! I forgot to blog about it!"

So, our little girls is 1.5 years old. Time sure does fly. We go to the doctor next week and I'll report on her stats then.

After school today, I went and picked up the kids and went to the first middle school basketball games of the year. I know. I'm crazy. Or brave. Or something. I of course imagined the worse case scenario before we went in (that is, having to leave with two screaming children, or trying to chase Elsie around while Oscar was inconsolable and needed to be held), but I went anyway. And, for the most part, all was well. Elsie was a little frustrated that I wouldn't let her out on the court to play with the ball. Oscar started screaming at the first horn, but the others he didn't notice--and thankfully he was content enough to stay in his carrier, wide awake, watching everything. I let Elsie climb in the stands a little bit and run across the end of the court during a time out, so she remained relatively happy. M brought her two boys and shared her pizza and popcorn with Elsie. We stayed to watch the pom dancers dance the halftime show at the girl's game (Elsie to dance right along with them...wish I had my camera with me then!) and then came home.

Now, it's only 7:30, but I feel like I need to go to bed...after I eat some Bluebell Pistachio Almond ice cream that my MIL conveniently left here. Mwahahahahaha!

Cheers.