Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Snuggly and snotty

Fall is coming and Patrick's body has noticed. It seems like Fall is a hard time on his lungs. The weather changes a little bit and changes back and he's hit hard.

He has asthma and is snotty and coughing a lot and his eyes are running like crazy.

During the day, it doesn't bother him a lot. He's a little more whiny, but he's still a crazy man. He's running around the house and pulling his sister's pink luggage around behind him and nothing slowly him down.

Last night, we were watching Law & Order and it was about a doctor who performed late term abortion. In the middle of this intense scene(I hate shows like this), Patrick starts really coughing and crying. We went to check on him and I stayed in his room and rocked him for a while.

He was sweating and had this deep cough. I snuggled him up in a blanket and rocked him in the rocking chair that had belonged to my great grandfather. He settled down looked up and smiled and sighed and put his head on my chest. I looked down at his curly blond head and started bawling.

I'm so sure that abortion was a thought that his biological mom contemplated. She knew that her relationship with his dad was in trouble and she was struggling with taking care of his older brother. But, she didn't. I'm forever grateful to her for that.

We have the most precious, crazy, giving kisses, talking on the cell phone to his imaginary friends, little boy and I'm grateful.

Monday, September 27, 2010

Wal*Mart stranger

Yesterday, I went to Wal*Mart to get some milk. As I walked down an aisle, I saw a lady that looked vaguely familiar. It's weird that people are starting to look familiar to me here. I guess I never thought that I would start to recognize people while I was out. In LaGrange, going to Wal*Mart ensured that you would see someone you knew!

As I came up to this lady, she looked like a girl that I knew from MOPS when we first moved here. I looked at her for a minute because this lady had darker hair than I remembered. As I walked by, she said, "HEY! How are you doing?".

So, I chatted with her for a minute because it must have been that girl from MOPS. I told her that she looked different and I almost didn't recognize her with her new hair do. It looked like a different color than I remembered. She said, "oh, cause it's longer?".

This was about 33.5 seconds into the conversation, I realized that I HAD NO IDEA WHO THIS LADY WAS!

I felt panicked. How was I going to get out of this conversation? I couldn't find the words to tell her that I just realized that I didn't know who she was. I mean, we had been talking for a few minutes.

She asked me what was new in my life. I mumbled something about Maggie and school and tried to gauge her reaction. Nothing. Did she know me?

Crap. I had to get outta there. I said it was nice to see her (again?) and walked away. Then, I started laughing. What a bizarre interaction.

So, if you see me at Wal*Mart, (why was I there anyway?)I may or may not talk to you. I'm a little gun shy now!

Friday, September 17, 2010

Possibly the best day ever

According to Maggie: This is possibly the best day ever.

A little back story. This week, our church is celebrating our 90th anniversary. We are having a big event in the park and a big church service on Sunday. To say that our family was busy this week is a slight understatement. We have been out or working on stuff every night this week.

While Maggie is excited about the movie in the park, she is more excited about what's happening tonight. About two months ago, Donna and I decided to take the girls to see the Jonas Brothers in concert with Camp Rock 2. Maggie and Jessica have been counting down the days for about a month.

Last night, Donna took the girls to her house to make posters. There was a great debate over whose sign should say "marry me, joe". In the end, this is Maggie's poster.
From June 2010
Notice where it says "it's me maggie". I guess that is so Joe will know which girl it was that sent him a letter in the mail about a month ago.

Maggie woke up this morning and screamed when she remembered that tonight was the concert. Fridays are an awesome day anyway because of fun school activities. I suggested that we count all the exciting things that today was going to bring. I started her off by saying that she "gets to have a spelling test today" and she said, "and it's pizza day on Friday and art class and Katelyn's coming over for a few minutes (cause her daddy's having his wisdom teeth removed) and we're going to Jonas and WE GET CHICK FIL A!"

She screamed that today was "possibly the best day ever".

While I wouldn't have normally been excited about seeing Nick, Joe and Kevin and I get them mixed up a lot. I'm very excited for Maggie tonight. We're going to have fun with Jessica and Donna and it's going to be a fun memory of her first concert.

Sometime later, I'll tell you about my first concert. Any guesses on who it was?

Monday, September 13, 2010

One time I tried to go to the bathroom by msyelf



If you have younger children, you know my dillemna.

I just want to go to the "potty" all by myself.

I don't want someone cheering for me for going to the potty or trying to stick his hands in the toilet while I am trying to wash my hands.

I just need to be alone.

As soon as I get in the bathroom, Maggie suddenly has to go "really, really, really bad" and starts saying things like, "can you hurry up, mama?" and doing the potty dance in front of me.

Since Patrick is so little, I can't really lock myself in the potty. I kinda need to know what he is doing and make sure that he is not standing on top of the coffee table in the living room by pushing up the new firetruck to the edge of the coffee table and climbing up to reach the buttons on the forbidden tv.

So, one night, after dinner, I made an announcement. I told everyone in the house that I was going to the potty. I said something like, "I am going to the potty cause I am a big girl and can go all by myself."

Nah, I think I threatened everyone in the house and made them promise not to come in the potty with me.

I repeated it to Maggie. I made her promise that she understood.

I repeated it to Steven and made him promise not to let Patrick wander into the bathroom.

I closed the door from the laundry room and from my closet. (Can you believe I am posting about going to the potty on the internet for anyone to read?)

I sat there and enjoyed the silence.

Then, I heard a scratch on the door. I thought about killing someone. Who didn't listen to me rant on and on?!

I heard another scratch.

I saw a paw.

Sparky stuck his tabby paw under the bathroom door and was trying to open it up and come in the bathroom with me.

Please tell me at some point I will miss having someone in the bathroom with me at all times.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Wee sing

When Maggie was 11 months old, we went away to Destin for the weekend. It was during a tough spot of our ministry life and we needed a break. It was a fun weekend, but definitely not relaxing. Maggie was a busy, busy little girl!

During our trip, we went to the outlets and wandered into a book store. There was a wee sing music tape. Do ya'll remember wee sing?We used to listen to it when I was little. It's little kids singing Sunday school songs.

So, we bought it or maybe Memaw bought it. I don't remember. But, I got the tape and there was a CD of the same songs, so Memaw took it. We listened to it a lot and it was fun to listen to Maggie sing along with songs.

Maggie always got the words to a song mixed up where it said, "that your joy maybe full". She would say, "that your joy is baby bull".

We put it away for a while so we could listen to "cooler music", but now Patrick loves it. He's at a stage where he HATES being in his car seat and Wee sing is sometimes the only thing that soothes the savage beast.

So, we have been listening to this tape (can you believe I have a tape player in my car?) a lot lately. We got in the car to go to Jamestown, CA this weekend and put the tape in the player. Right in the middle of "praise ye the Lord, hallelejuah", the unthinkable happened. My 6 year old tape broke.

I was already planning in my head how to download the songs onto my phone and we could listen to the music. But, Maggie and Steven had a different plan. They love to fix stuff and actually fixed the tape. I'm so glad to have it back. It really does calm Patrick down (at least for a few seconds).

So, thank you, wee sings. You have been a part of our lives for quite some time and I hope we keep you there a little longer.

And thank you for teaching my baby girl this.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Webkinz jr.





Recently, I was sent some Webkinz Jr. to try out and share with others. Webkinz Jr. are a new kind of Webkinz that are appropriate for younger kids.



Are you shocked that Maggie picked out a brown puppy to love? His new name is Duke.

We gave them to some friends. They were very excited to pose with their new pets!

We also received coloring books that we took to the Back to school night while everyone was setting up.

We have enjoyed playing online with the website. It seems to be appropriate for younger kids and not too frustrating like other online sites can be sometimes.

(I was given webkinz jr. to review for this post.)

An encounter with a grandma

This morning, Maggie asked me to get to school early so she could have extra time on the playground.

We got to school about 15 minutes early and I let Patrick hold my hand and walk with us after we crossed the street. Maggie held Patrick's hands for a few minutes, but couldn't contain her excitement and Patrick was toddling along, so she kissed us goodbye and ran towards the school.

We continued toddling towards the gate to make sure she got to the playground and several little boys stopped to talk to Patrick. He liked the attention and waved to them.

We turned around to go back to the car (cause I'm the slacker mom who drives to school even though we live a block away) and Patrick was watching the kids bounce a basketball and run towards the playground.

I was thinking about how different he is going to be to transition to school. He loves being around kids and I can see wanting to go to school next year when we drop off Maggie. Of course, he's too little and he won't like this. He is not a clingy child at all and loves new adventures and anything that he can climb!

I'm having this inner dialogue when a grandma stops me to tell me how cute Patrick is and how he will be ready to go to school soon. She is dropping off a child and says that it seems like just yesterday that she was dropping off her little boy. Her little boy is 41 years old now. She's telling me to cherish this time with Patrick and how fast it will go by.

I'm guessing she is about 65 years old. She is a sweet looking grandma with sensible tennis shoes on and I look down at her feet as she walks past me.

She has a tatoo on her ankle.

It shocked me. A grandma with a tatoo?

Is this what our generation is gonna look like in 20 years when we are dropping off our grandkids at school? Am I gonna be uncool since I am the only person in their 30s without a tatoo? Will all the other grandmas laugh at me?