My Sweet Babies

My kids have been so precious lately I just feel like I need to write this all out today so that I won't forget it! This is one of the reasons I wanted to blog in the first place, to use it as a diary in a way and write down the things that I want to remember. Abby asked me two hilarious questions today....The first one was "Mommy, if I get gum on my favorite night-night(what she calls her fave blankie), will the workers at the hospital be able to use scissors to get it off?" I had to explain to her that we don't take blankies to the hospital, just people. Then later on in the car she asked me why we had to have a sky. I just told her God made the earth that way...He wanted us to have something to look up to I guess.
Caleb was funny last night......Right before bed he asked me if Matt and I first met on the day of our wedding. I told him that we met way before that and had to decide to get married after we knew each other for a long time. "Why did you get married?" was the next question. I told him that we loved each other and that someday he may find a girl to love and that he may get married when he grows up too. I could tell that this idea was not thrilling to him.......He went to bed and I heard something from his room...At first I thought he was singing but then I realized he was sobbing! I asked him what was wrong and he told me that he did NOT want to get married, did NOT want to leave his mommy and daddy, and was so afraid that when Abby grew up that she was going to live in a different state and not be with him. Bless his little heart; he loves his little sister so much right now. Little does he know that in a couple of years he is probably gonna want her in any state but the one he is in!

Em's 7 Quick Takes Vol. 1

Well, I am loving everybody's 7 Quick Takes on Fridays. What fun! A wonderful blogger, Jennifer, at http://www.conversiondiary.com/ has started a really cool trend where on Fridays you just blog about 7 random things on your heart and mind. They can be silly or serious, and I love reading everybody's thoughts! So here goes...

1. So today was show and tell at Caleb's preschool.....Several weeks ago Matt found our old digital camera in the attic and we gave it to Caleb to play with. He loves to take pictures and decided in the last minute rush of the morning to take the camera to school. After I took him in and dropped him off I realized as I got in the car that I had not gone through and deleted the picture that he took of me sitting on the potty the other day. I don't think that it showed too much but I am going to be mortified if his teachers look through those pictures. Maybe they won't. But I probably won't know if they do.......Yikes.

2. So, I really need to clean out my refrigerator. A last year when we bought it new the guy that delivered it told us to clean all the shelves with baking soda to get rid of that "new fridge chemical smell". Well, I tried it and it just ended up leaving this really bizarre residue all over the shelves that I couldn't get off. I was looking in there this morning while I was putting away groceries and am annoyed with myself that since that point I have not taken the shelves back out and tried to scrub them. And now there is just the normal fridge junk on top of that....Yes people. I am saying that I have not cleaned out my fridge since we bought the thing. Shocking and disgusting to some of you.....Strangely comforting to others of you who let things go like I do!

3. So the FOCA thing has really been on my heart and mind this week. I don't think that I have ever been so worried or fearful of a law being passed in this country. I really think that God is telling me to step it up a little bit......It is time to get serious. I just can't believe that my tax dollars may fund late term partial-birth abortion.

4. So, I don't think I want my kids to watch 'Higgley Town Heros' on the Disney Channel anymore. For a very long time I was greatly annoyed with that show but really couldn't put my finger on why. But as I have prayed about it, God revealed to me why I am annoyed. The show makes heros out to be average people doing average things. But the Bible shows us the real heros are average people doing extraordinary things! Because God uses their lives and their circumstances to glorify Him! That is why David was able to defeat Goliath, why Joshua was able to bring down the wall, why Daniel was able to sleep with the lions! Heros are not people who do the average....They are people who accomplish great works for God. I want my kids to really understand what a true hero is.

5. So, I went to Walmart today to buy a random family in need a complete Thanksgiving meal. Our church is doing that for a service project and I thought it would be really fun to participate. Ok, so this is what I bought.....A big ham, gravy, corn, green beans, fruit cocktail, sweet potatoes, cake, stuffing, etc. And some paper plates, napkins and a table cloth....And a big laundry basket to put it all in. This all cost $110.00. I was a little shocked. It is not that I don't want to spend that on a family, because that is fine. It is just a little shocking to me that one meal for a family of 6 costs that much! And at Walmart!

6. I am getting really excited about Christmas!!! I think I will try to decorate the weekend after Thanksgiving. I just need to clean, clean, clean first. It makes me feel better to know that I am decorating a clean house. I will just have to make the kids buy into that......."Listen kids....You can't scatter Legos all over the floor or get your Thomas trains out or play with your Little People downstairs because it's time to get out the Christmas tree!" I don't think they will go for that...

7. So, I am enjoying blogging a lot. And I am enjoying reading other people's really insightful blogs even more. Go bloggers!

Abby's Wreath

My three-year-old little girl, Abby, has a fascination with all things 'sparkly'. She loves the glam and the glitz. Everything that is anything to her has to be sequined, glittery or bedazzled. So when we went into Michael's today to get her some new stickers for her potty chart, her little eyes were as big as saucers taking in all of the Christmas decorations. Every single Christmas item in Michael's has at least one layer of glitter, so it is all right up her alley. As we passed the wreaths, I realized that they had all of their 'wreath decorating' stuff on sale.....They had the plain green wreaths for about $3.00 and then all of the floral items for around 50 cents. I asked Abby if she would like to pick out some things to help Mommy make a Christmas wreath and she got very excited. She stuck her little hands in the bins and to my surprise actually picked all these beautiful items in various shades of pinks and purples. Now, pink and purple is not really my style, but it is definitely hers and I was excited that we would get to go home and make a wreath that would really be all hers. We came home and I helped her arrange it all....She went to play while I did the hot gluing. When we were done, I was actually really thrilled with the result...I now have a Christmas wreath that I can keep for a long time that really reminds me of the sweet time I am having with my daughter right now.....A time of pinks and purples and glitter and glam.

Material Girl

Ok, so I learned several weeks ago that Madonna is getting a divorce. And yesterday in the Target checkout line I learned that she is in custody negotiations with Guy. She is making bizarre demands about what her children can eat, what they can watch on TV, etc. One of the reasons that she doesn't let them watch TV is because she says that TV is just crap and there is nothing on there spiritually edifying for her children. Let's see, maybe crap like Madonna rolling around on stage touching herself in her white virginity garb? Or maybe the Pepsi commercial where she burns the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ? Or perhaps she doesn't want them to see what the rest of the country has been subjected to a million times......her kissing poor Britney on the VMA's with tongue.

The bottom line is that I am tired of Madonna. Very tired. Bone weary if I have to hear any more about her life I may scream tired. I realized the other day that Madonna has been part of my life for 25 years. That is a quarter of a century. A quarter of a century of her shenanigans, of her trying to 'reinvent herself'. Ever since I was nine years old and heard 'Lucky Star' on my parents radio, she has been a part of my life. Her and lots of other celebrities.

My question is, why do I know the things I know about celebrities? Why do I know that Suri still takes a bottle? And that Britney has a new nanny? Or that Nicole Ritchie breastfeeds? Do I want to know these things? My brain just sucks up these facts while I am standing in the grocery line or while I am flipping channels on TV. It actually scares me a little to know that I have thousands of celebrity facts floating around in my cerebellum.

Americans love to worship celebrities. They are our royalty, our gods. I believe that people were created to worship. It is as much a part of us and encoded in our DNA as much as breathing, eating, loving. It is how God designed us, except that He wants us to worship Him. My prayer is that I do not put anybody or anything else in His place. So God, help me not to worship money, food, stuff, or celebrities. Because I know that Madonna is a very poor substitute.

Running Like the Wind

Well, in April I started running everyday. I had a goal....that by October I would run the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. I had remembered that the year before someone had challenged me to walk it and I had wimped out. Pretty sad. But at that time I really honestly didn't know if I could walk a 5K. Sounded long to me.
But last spring I was changing my tune. I was getting tired of being pleasantly plump. Christmas of last year I weighed the most I had ever weighed (except when I was pregnant, and it was getting dangerously close to pregnancy weight for a while there) and I knew that I needed to stop the madness and the shoveling in of oatmeal cookies. But, after the Christmas goodies were over and January rolled around, I had lost five pounds. Five pounds! Halleluiah, the weight was just going to fall off because I wasn't stuffing my face with pumpkin roll, right? Wrong. I leveled off quickly and still continued my love affair with raw cookie dough.
But there is just something about spring....Knowing that you are getting ready to be hot and knowing that you have to wear shorts or you will melt. And trying on your first pair of shorts of the season. I remember looking down at my legs and realizing that even the front part of my shins (down the bone I tell ya!) had fat dimples. Good grief.
So, I knew then. I knew that it was time. Time to do something. Time to start taking care of myself without the mommy guilt seeping in. Time to move, time to groove, etc. Time to come up with an effective exercise plan that will fit into stay-at-home mommyness.
I have to say I have never exactly been what you would call athletic. I played outside when I was a little girl and rode my bike a lot. My mother always weighed 102 pounds, so I can safely say that she really had no reason to exercise or worry about poundage. Our family had an aversion to sports....It was called the "I don't really want to pay for this or take you there" aversion. The best I can remember about my childhood foray into sports was trying out for cheerleading in third grade...Let's see, I was the only girl in the 45 tryouts who could not do a cartwheel. And there was the fourth grade basketball team which to date has been my one and only organized sports experience.
That basketball team thing was a hoot. My dad was proud....Until he realized half-way through the season that he was carting me to the elementary school so that I could sit on the bench in every game. Bless his heart, I do remember that I made one basket during the whole season. It was during a practice, so it wasn't even in a game. But that did not stop him from grinning at me cheshire style while he was driving me home. I still remember sitting in the back seat of the car and him turning around to say "Em, that was real good. Real good."
Middle school was a nightmare sports wise. PE was a horrific experience. Same for high school. I remember playing dodge ball when I was a junior and thinking "if I can't do this by now....."
But lack of sportific ability wanes in college. There are other pursuits and people don't really care if you can't serve the volleyball. That is the time that I just revelled in the fact that I didn't have to do anything physical for 4 years....except that darn PE credit again. One semester of badminton. Which I made a C- in by the way. Lowest grade of my college career.
There is a point in our adult life where being athletic kinda goes by the wayside....and it all becomes about 'working out'. People ask each other "Do you work out?" All the old sports heros of yesteryear are on the treadmill with everybody else. So, adulthood brings a more even playing field in that respect. At least to me!
So, what were my options? Going to the gym and elipticalling myself to thin, or doing the weight machines that I can never figure out how to use correctly. Or I could work out to my superduper workout DVD's in front of the TV downstairs while trying not to slip on toys or kick my children in the face. Or I could run....
I chose running. The first thing I did was download my training schedule off the internet. 'From Couch Potato to 5K' it was called. The couch potato part was certainly appropriate. My friend Gina and I made a pact that we really would run the Race for Cure in October......and I was off and running. Ha! Well, I was actually more like off and jogging for 30 second increments.
There were some rough days ahead. There were days when I really wondered what the heck I was doing....There were days when my legs and my feet and my back hurt so bad that I took 3 ibuprofen instead of the 2 that the bottle recommends. There were days when I barfed, days when I would almost pass out, and my favorite...the days when I really did feel like I was going to have a heart attack because that little vein in my shoulder was pulsing and I felt pain down my arm.
I made my goal...And not too shabbily either. I ran two 5K's in October. Ran both races at about a 10-minute mile pace. I have to say that I was really proud of myself for making a goal and sticking to it. And I was proud of myself for another reason too.....I can actually do something physical that most other people can't do. For the first time in my life. And I am proud of myself that even though my races are over and it is cold outside, I am still running.
Running itself is a beautiful thing. It is a mental exercise as well as a physical one. Some runs are so hard it feels like you have a snow plow tied to your back. Other runs, like my run tonight, are spectacular.....energy courses through your veins and you really do feel like you can run like the wind.
Am I really running like the wind? Absolutely not. And in all actuality, I am probably more jogging than running. But this girl feels better and is 20 pounds lighter than the pumpkin roll Christmas of last year. Sure, I could be upset that technically I am probably still considered clinically obese by health insurance standards (just ask my husband...he just changed jobs and is downstairs wrestling with health insurance papers right now!) but I am not going to let that get me down. I am just going to keep running. Running like the wind.

A Death in the Family

Almost 9 years ago Matt and I decided to get a dog. Well, it really wasn't as cut and dry as all that; we were actually gently conned into getting a dog by one of my friends and coworker, Tara, who had gone to the pound for a service project. She found the sweetest little female mutt and took her to the nursing home for the day; everyone there loved her and Tara fell in love with her too. She loved her so much that she even took her home to meet her beagle, but her beagle was not too keen on the newcomer so Tara took her back to the pound. She came into work the next day full of love for this dog, bound and determined to find her an owner. On our lunch break a week later she dragged me to the pound and the rest, shall we say, was Timbs family history.
I wish that I could say that the first moment I saw her I fell in love with her, but that is not really the case. She looked a little ragged around the edges. The pound said that she had just had puppies...in fact, one had come in with her but had already been adopted. She really was a mutt....The Good Lord only knew what genetic material this dog was composed of. But she was sweet and calm, which went a long way with me. I was not into yip-yips and hate it when dogs are all crazy and jumpy. I brought Matt in to see her and we decided just to go for it...You only live once, right?
We adopted her and they immediately sent her to a local vet to be spayed. I had a crazy job where I was out of the office most of the time and did not receive the frantic calls from the vet the day of her surgery....It turns out that she was pregnant and that when they went in to spay her they were really performing an emergency C-section. At the end of the day when I got these messages I completely flipped out. I knew that we could not have more than one dog in our apartment and I felt lied to by the pound....She had not already had puppies....They were in her tummy and had not made it to the world yet! The vet ended up saving the puppies and keeping them at the office. Various people adopted two of them and one lived (and may still be living) at the vet's..He became their mascot.
We get this poor dog home who has just had a horrific month....Too much pound, too much puppy trauma, etc. But after the first couple of days she shaped up to be an incredible dog. So sweet and loving. Very calm. Very good. And already house trained, which was a huge bonus and pleasant surprise. We decided to name her Ivy. I have no recollection of where we came up with this name or even who thought of the name first; for some reason it seemed to fit her and we loved it.
Ivy dog was precious to us. We loved coming home from work and spending time with her. We loved cuddling with her after a long day and taking her for walks in the park beside our house. She was practice....something to be responsible about and to before we took the plunge of having real babies to take care of. And when it was time to take the plunge into realy baby world, for some reason we thought that we would still love Ivy the same and that Ivy would love the new baby as well! But it really didn't turn out that way.......
Ivy did not like the new baby at all. She always acted slightly disgusted around him; he had infringed on her territory I guess. And then several years later when baby number two arrived it really sent her over the edge. She was still the same sweet loving dog, but she did a lot of things to let us know her displeasure over the children. Lots of sighing. Lots of whining. And lots of peeing in the house, which she had never done before.
I guess that after having kids my views changed a lot on Ivy as well. I still loved her and knew that she was a rare jewel among dogs, but I realized that back when I thought I loved her like a baby, I really did not. The love for the dog paled in comparison to these little precious people I had birthed. Maybe Ivy sensed that as well, she knew that she had been demoted in our hearts.
Last Saturday we had to put Ivy dog to sleep. It was a horrible time, and a hard time for our family. We didn't want to do it, but who does? We knew that she was not going to get better...we had been treating her for a fungus for over 4 months and nothing had helped. She was old and her immune system was not fighting the disease. She was miserable and suffering.
I think that one of the hardest moments of life is when you have to say a final goodbye. To pet and human alike. Knowing that you won't ever talk to that person again, or see someone gesture, or catch a smile on their lips as you glance at them. Or knowing that you won't hear that long suffering sigh when a three-year-old pulls a tail, you won't hear whining to go outside, and you won't be cleaning up pee off the rug. Goodbye Ivy dog. It was a great 9 years.