Budding vocabulary

Nathan's vocabulary is really starting to flourish. For a while there, all I could really understand him saying was "juck" for truck and the usuals like mama, dada and bye-bye. But don't get me wrong, he was saying more, I just couldn't understand it.

You see, before kids came along, I was under the impression that after the usual first words barely being understandable that the next set of pronunciations would be clear as a whistle. I would hear shoe instead of "soo", thank you instead of "deh ooh", sister instead of "dihduh". But one child down and another one coming up in the ranks of language development, and I'm still being reminded daily that this extremely complex skill of speaking will take a while.

I did hear him try to say something that only a mother would hear. (Kudos to you, mom. Keep workin' on it.) On the way to Katherine's school and church there is a road-widening project in the works and we pass by it 3 times/week. From the back seat my little man had a stream of words coming forth from his mouth like, "juck", "sdat mama" and "eh-duh-veh-ta". That last one got me really excited, you see, because those words translated mean: "truck, what's that mama, and excavator." Whoo hoo, mommy gets real excited when she hears her little guy try to pronounce a 4-syllable word and after explaining it to Katherine there was lots of hootin' and hollerin' in praise for the little guy. He could have cared less though, he was still screaming from the back seat "sdat mama".

Lately I decided, for journaling purposes, I'd start writing down the words he is saying that I can barely make out. Although, something tells me that a trained ear might be able to hear more.

The obvious words a stranger could understand:
down
up
off
on
shoes
drink
juice
mama
dada
out
hi
bye-bye
hot
tree
boo
eat
poo-poo

The more difficult ones he's probably been saying for a while, I'm just not picking up on.
dah-din Katherine
doo-dih Good girl
deh-cee Gracie
dih-down Sit down
buh-duh-duh Bulldozer
all-duh All done or All gone
dirh Shirt
diss Kiss
ooh-del-dum Your welcome
duh-dem Button
na-nah Banana
i-puh Diaper
Seat
I see you
deh-he-is There he is
dah-duh Tractor
(can you tell he's mastered the sounds we make with the tip of our tongue, like "d"?)

His animal sounds are coming along also. He can tell us what sounds these animals make:
horse
cow
dog
cat
tiger
bird
duck
fish (smacks his lips)
bunny (tries to scrunch his nose)

Don't ask me why I thought a 12-18-month old would say "cat" and it would sound like "cat" instead of "cah". One semester of Early Childhood Language Development apparently did nothing for me 15 years ago.

"Haven't I been saying that to you?" - God style

When our first little bundle of 7 lb. 1 oz. joy was born, I was thrust into the world of loving more than I ever thought was possible. That baby became my every thought, every dream, every waking moment.

Soon after her birth was when my eyes were truly opened to how much our Heavenly Father loves His children. It took having a child to begin understanding the tip of the iceberg of the love He has for us.

Drawing the first correlations to God's love for me occurred when all I wanted to do was stare at her, the infant, all day long. She really didn't do much at all, but I was fascinated with everything about her. I wanted to watch how she moved her lips, watch her growing, sleeping, breathing, eating, changing before my very eyes and all her little daily routines. And I thought, I betcha God wants to know all about my day too. Then when she started walking, I wanted to encourage her, congratulate her, assist her, coax her to walk a little further and reassure her that I was there to catch her if she fell. It dawned on me, God desired to do all those things for me too. Then when she was able to start talking, I craved to hear to her squeaky little voice, teach her more and have her talk back to me. God desired to do all those things with me too.

Another kid added to the mix and four years worth of realizing how much God desires my attention and thoughts really brought out the mirror in my life. The mirror isn't visibly there (thank goodness), but the mirror in my words, actions and thoughts revolving around these two kids that reflected God's own desires for my life.

I can't count how many times I've said something out loud, especially to our two children, and thought, I wonder how many times God has said that to me and I just wasn't listening. Sometimes, the words are quite humorous and others are just plain heart-wrenching when I realize how much I truly don't include Him in my life.

I have this picture of a typical day: God is up in heaven, munchin' on some warm, soft, fresh-out-of-the-oven chocolate chip cookies (this is my vision ok, that's pretty close to heaven for me). He's watching the boob tube, with a Live Feed pointed directly at and in my house. Reality TV at it's finest, I say. And as he listens and watches our mostly mundane, yet somewhat hilarious lives unfolding, he hears me parenting two children. Occasionally, he's proud of my words, actions and thoughts but mostly he's left speechless with his mouth wide open, crumbs falling out, and is flabbergasted with the irony attached to my parental words of wisdom. For instance, I have just said to the biting child, "I don't care how tired you are or how awful you feel, that still doesn't give you the right to bite, hit, scratch or pull hair." Don't you know God's thinking, "wasn't it just yesterday, after church, she was exasperated in the car because Nathan was tired and all she could do was whine and get snippy with the whole family and her excuse was 'I'm tired'?" The main difference: about 30 years. And considering how long God has been around, it's negligible.

I've been keeping a mental note of the phrases I say all the time that could easily be turned around for God to say back to me. There are many I can't remember and many are still yet to come, so I've listed out the ones I do remember with the hopes and prayer that I'll bring more self-awareness to my deceitful behavior and God will find mercy upon me to bring about a change in my parenting techniques.

I first read through these phrases imagining me saying them, then read through them again imagining God whispering these words in my heart after I've acted like the child I'm attempting to parent:

"Are things really that bad to cause you to be so dramatic and throw yourself around?"

"Don't you know, I'm on your side? I'm here for you and I need you to trust and believe me."

"I guess I'm gonna have to just let you hurt yourself."

"I just want to hear about your day. I'm your biggest fan. I wasn't there to see you and I enjoy talking to you and hearing your stories, that's why I ask about your day all the time."

"Will you hurry it up! Why does it take so long to get out of the house, I'd have more luck mobilizing the army!" (although I think they might be a bit more efficient and that one might be for more of my husband saying it to me instead of God)

"You can make this hard, or choose to do it the easy way. It's your choice."

"A little hunger pains don't warrant that type of reaction."

"Come here. Come here, come here, come here, come here, come here. Put the stick down and come here."

"Your teeth hurt? Try having kids!"

"You want me to put a band-aid on that?"

"Come here, can I just hold you?"

"I love you more than you'll ever know."

It could be that I just haven't experienced it yet, but I can't imagine anything getting to the heart of a believer, any faster or straighter, than having children. Thank you God for the children you've blessed us with and for your gracious love paralleled in our lives.

Quick updates

Even after a nap today, I'm still tired. So today's update will be fast. I'm itching to talk more about these. Maybe later.

Mr. cutie-patootie

My precious laundry helpers

Nathan giving George a kiss

Our trip to visit a field of flocks

Wise no more

Friday, I completed a rite of passage for many adults:

My wisdom tooth was removed.

You heard me right, my wisdom tooth, not teeth, but one lonely, fight-till-the-end, determined to undo thousands of dollars my parents spent of braces, little tooth. I don't know what happened to the other 3 'wise' teeth. I either soaked up all that wisdom and caused them to disintegrate or I was never intended to be that wise.

So, since Friday morning, I've looked like:

• a lopsided chipmunk
• a redneck with a 'chaw' in her mouth
• someone who got stung by a bee and had a horrible reaction
  
• a tired mother who lost a "don't bring that stick inside this house" battle with her 18-month-old son's kicking feet
  

I'm trying to avoid public places as much as I can and praying it doesn't start turning blue/purple. I don't think I can stand anymore painfully truthful statements from the 4-year-old like, "Mom, your cheek is REALLY big" or a quick rebuttal from her loving father smirking from ear-to-ear like, "In more ways than you know honey." Even the boy will occasionally take a long glance at my face from side to side to side, then look up at my eyes and cautiously say, "Mama?"

Thankfully so, the pain has been minimal, nothing a little Tylenol can't handle. Just interested to see what my face morphs into next.

The "Beat It" beat down

Since being married, I have been painfully reminded that I'm no where near as funny as I think I am. Although, I run into fresh meat every now and then, and they miraculously find ways to think my dramatic antics are hilarious at first, then I believe it starts to wear on them. So, I really enjoy running into new people who take the time and energy to laugh when I'm trying to be entertaining.

Enter in children. Boy, talk about fresh meat. It doesn't take much to make a 6-month-old smile or an 18-month-old laugh, especially if you know all the right tickle spots. Well, I have a brand new 4-year-old that is starting to test the waters of joke-making (and I mean test the waters). Her idea of a joke is usually something like this:

"Hey mom. Are we going to eat ... a ... CHAIR for lunch?" with insane laughter to follow.

So my story begins with a typical evening of attempting to feed two kids that are trying to survive on approximately 25 calories per day. I prepared a meal I knew they liked and have eaten before, with no snacks before hand and knew they ate enough to satisfy a newborn hummingbird for lunch. So, they should have been eating more.

I found myself repeating "just eat it" about every 10 seconds and it really started to get old. All that repeating the same thing over and over again lead me to start singing "eat it." For those of you from the right time period (boy, am I telling my age), you'll remember there was a song Weird Al Yankovic sang called Eat It that was a parody of Michael Jackson's song Beat It. I've never been good at remembering a whole song's lyrics, other than the majority of the chorus, so I started singing, "Eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm eat it" over and over again.

An interest was sparked and the biggest bird-eater asked, "Mommy, what are you singing?"

"Oh honey, there was a song when I was growing up; it was a silly song; that had those words in it. Eat it, eat it. Just like I wish you would do."

The perplexed look on her face made me realize that attempting to explain that it was a parody wasn't going to make any hill of beans difference so I got up and decided to find a video on YouTube and turn it up real loud so they could hear it from the office. I found a video of Weird Al, but decided to play the real thing: Michael Jackson's Beat It.

Both children were in their seats, not eating, but sitting patiently and the song started to blast from the little computer speakers that came with the computer (I'm sure they weren't made to play that loud). I turned it up pretty loud to make sure they could hear the music real well and I noticed it. "It" was a captive audience that occasionally finds me funny, with some really good music playing.

I couldn't hold back. The beat from Beat It triggered something in my bones and the urge overcame me. I started to dance, in the kitchen, in front of this captive audience. The type of dancing the Spartan cheerleaders on Saturday Night Live or Elaine from Seinfeld would be proud of. Four and a half minutes worth of sideways finger v's uncovering my eyes (from Pulp Fiction), Rockette-style high leg kicks, lots of hip-shaking, spinning around, snapping to the beat, jerky head motions, Jersey Shore fist-pumping, raising the roof, contorted facial expressions, peeking around and dancing next to the door jamb, anything and everything I could pull from my dance moves folder was used and with much gusto and passion. The grand finale was topped off with a big "whoo!", hands in the air, spirit sprinkle, mouth wide open and a "ta da" look on my face!

And my children were paralyzed ...

and ...

speechless.

Through my labored breathing, I sat down at the table, smiled, said real sweet and Mommy-like, "What's wrong, you didn't think that was funny?"

They were still paralyzed. I've seen that look before because I know my brother and I made them more times than I could count. We made that face usually after one of our parents did something that embarrassed us so much we prayed the heavens would open up and swallow us just to save us from the wrath of ostracizing that was soon to come. But four years old and 18-months? Are they embarrassed already?

I'm pretty sure it had more to do with, "Mom complains about sitting on the floor to read me books and she's capable of all that?" or most likely "What the he** was all that and what does it have to do with eating?"

I think when Katherine finally spoke, she said something random like, "Mommy, do kitty cats like to play with dogs?"

The children managed to sit still and quietly for the majority of the next two songs, Thriller and Billie Jean, but they made it very clear what I was doing was not amusing AT ALL to them. Now, if I would have sat at the table and crossed my eyes while sticking out my tongue, THAT would've been funny.

I guess the biggest lesson I got out of my little dancing routine was that in the midst of my "actions" I think I'm funny. I probably wouldn't think I was that funny if I was watching me either, but acting out the video reels constantly playing in my head is quite amusing and entertaining to . . . only . . . me.

So now, instead of having just one big person who doesn't think I'm funny, I can now add two little people who are rather confused when I act out my silliness.

Oh well, paybacks I guess: practice for their teenage years. :)

Self-feeding pics

Little man is becoming quite adamant about feeding himself. So, after reminding myself that they're just pajama clothes that can be washed, I gave in and have been letting him do just that, for whatever food he desires. His favorite food for self-feeding is every morning's cup of yogurt.
And today we got to enjoy some of the remnants of Easter's desserts. It was going to be easier for clean-up so we went outside and had some cupcakes with loads of icing on top of them.
He got thirsty and what could be more convenient than the hose I'm already rinsing him off with? But did you notice the chunk of cupcake still in his right hand? That baby fell down on the ground, was covered with leaves and had a stick poking out of it, but no sirree did he let me at least pick out the yard parts. That was his and he wasn't letting me get to it.

Easter day pictures

More pictures from Easter day...

Kids playing on top of the recessed portion of the water meter grate. Nathan has a car-cleaning brush as the "tool" he chose to carry around the front yard that day.
And these beautiful little flowers are trying to take over our yard. They're also the flower that Katherine picks a bunch of at least once a day and delivers to whichever recipient she has chosen for that time being, then quickly declares, "They need to be put in some water because they're thirsty."
Nathan looking up and pointing to the orange blossoms.

Zoo trip

Our Christmas gift to B & P was to take them to the Jax zoo. We saw jaguars, lions, monkeys, elephants, snakes, turtles, frogs, zebras, herons, rhinos, cheetahs, anteaters, a very large and disgusting rodent, tapirs, peacocks, gorillas, koi fish and lots more I can't remember. We had a great time and had two very tired kiddos by the end of the day.

I put these pictures in here of the giraffes because my mother-in-law talked about how graceful they are, and I never really noticed it, but they are. I also thought that their markings were very pretty and another mark of God's awesome creation and imagination.
Katherine is commenting on something not smelling so fresh on the train ride.
Nathan is in awe of whatever his grandfather is saying.
One very tired little boy.

There's definitely gonna be some new protocol for Easter 2011

Easter. (cue the happy music with birds chirping)

The most beautiful time of the year, in my opinion. New life, warmer weather, freshness in the air, beautiful flowers, rebirth... Ahh, it's just gorgeous to me.

Time to celebrate the most significant event associated with being a Christian. Sunrise services. Easter lilies. Cute little outfits for children. (happy music comes a screeching halt)

Whoever thought of that ridiculous idea anyway? I mean, don't get me wrong. They're cute and all, but OH MY THE PRESSURE I put on myself.

You've heard about my laboring with sewing her dresses, which in the grand scheme wasn't all that much. Well, now that they're finished and still stain-free, I feel the desire welling up inside of me to vacuum-pack them away inside a Hope Chest or something so she can save them for her little girl to wear one time for a picture.

But no, that would be ridiculous. Voice-of-reason Kel says to Irrational/Emotional Kel, "let the child wear the dress to Easter, that's what you made it for, right?" Ok, Ok, Easter it is.

We managed to get out the door in time for Easter breakfast and lo and behold they're serving CHOCOLATE PANCAKES and who wants to eat those? None other than my beautiful child wearing an all-white dress!

I believe that's when my stress-level hit the ceiling and, like a spastic cat, hung on to the ceiling with all 20 claws for the rest of the morning.

Voice-of-reason Kel: "Ok, eat the chocolate pancakes, here's a bib. Daddy, make sure you help her eat and please place her gently, without rubbing, on the bench seat that is covered in 'outsideness' so it doesn't leave any marks on the seat of her dress." deep sigh and severe eye-roll

Time for the egg hunt! Oh perfect time for those adorable kid pictures reaching for eggs hidden in the grass.

Not quite. My sweet girl isn't one for new adventures so she quietly asked me to hold her hand while we searched for the 3 eggs that weren't gobbled up by the other eager beavers. No problem, egg pictures really aren't that important anyway. Doesn't she look relaxed?
The problem with the egg hunt lied in the location: the playground covered in morning dew. Nathan wasn't that excited about searching for eggs anyway, he was more interested in collecting mulch in his basket and trying to find puddles of water that had collected at the foot of every slide out there.
It didn't take much of me barking out "Get off of that" and "You can't ride that" to realize that if I wanted to salvage what might be left of these Easter outfits (so we could get some cute pictures of course) that we better leave the playground. The khaki pants were quite wet and a little dirty up to the knees on the kicking and arch-backed child that I was carefully holding away from my Easter clothes and minimal dirt got on the white dress-ed child.

Cat still hanging on to the ceiling real tight.

After setting the stressed-out-mother tone during breakfast, prying one child away from the playground and constantly telling another one they can't play on anything, what better time would it be than to take some pictures?

My first job was to get them away from the temptation and our normal parking spot up by the church just happens to be by this contraption. Don't ask me what it is, possibly some type of water hook-up for fire? Regardless, it must the the north end of a magnet and my son is the south end, because he can't keep his hands off of it. My feeble attempts at getting a cute picture of them together in their Easter clothes was trumped by this industrial prop.No amount of whistling, calling, demanding, or enticing could get him to move away from it and to top it all off, he always insists on putting the metal chain that dangles from it in his mouth. Sweet Easter pics, Kel. I did manage to convince Katherine to stand in front of the object and this would be the best picture I could muster.
So next year, I've decided, with Daddy's full support, that we are going to show up to the breakfast and Egg hunt in all-out play clothes. Stained, mis-matching, dirty tennis shoes, pile it on. I don't care what they look like for the eating and egg-hunting part anyway. Get dirty! I might even encourage it just to make up for this year's disaster. There's some time between the egg hunt and Sunday School to clean them up anyway. I'll just bring their cute Easter clothes with us and change them there. I'm all over that. Because this attitude of "Jesus is risen but don't get dirty" just wasn't cutting it for me.

Confidence - part deux

Now, if you would have told me before this little guy was born, that he would be doing certain "boy" things or showing certain tendencies at such a young age, I would have written you off as "delusional" or "imagining things". So, as fun as this may be for you mother, I stand here humbly and admit, there are certain things that are just built into little boys that no one can teach them. God made them to operate differently, with a purpose and it was and still is all part of His ultimate plan.

This little guy already has a swagger.

Yes, a swagger.

How do I write out what is vaguely hard to notice visually? When he walks, there is already a confidence that surrounds him. Something about his shoulders being off-balance, the way his hips barely move, and the shuffle of his feet. He's already oozing confidence!

What! He didn't get that from me. I know exactly who he got that from and I will confidently point the finger at his father. There's a story or two to go along with that, so here goes:

When Jim and I were in two classes together at the University, for one of them he sat in front of me. He didn't have much to do with me, and I the same for him. We both chatted with other people mostly, except when it came time to get our test results in. I remind you, I don't know the guy sitting in front of me and I barely talk to him except for maybe a clarification on homework, a test date, or whatever.

But, every time test scores would come in he felt the need to turn around and ask me what score I got on my test. I'd reply, mostly out of confusion that the stranger in front of me was all of a sudden interested in what my score was, and say, "Oh, an 85." And that was it. No more. I didn't care what he got on his, and frankly in that class, I was happy to get an 85.

He'd say, "Oh, I got a 94", give the ever-so-slight smirk and turn around.

I remember looking at the friends sitting next to me, scrunching up my eyes and mouth the words to them so he couldn't hear, "Who is that?" with the ultimate eye-roll to top it off.

The next semester, fate had it that we would have 4 classes together. Well, you're bound to get to know someone a little better if you have 4 classes together so we started talking more. I remember us starting out with small talk and the first or second question lead us to realize we were both born and raised in the same town. Oh cool, we're bound to know some of the same people.

He started out naming off family members like they were as famous as the Kennedy's and I quickly pointed out that I knew none of them.

So, what does all of this have to do with a swagger? It's that whole confidence thing. His dad had a hard time reigning it in in college and now he's got it also! Nathan was born with it, it oozes from his body, in his trying-to-talk-with-a-deep-voice when playing with hammers and examining wheels, in his walk, in his excitement when he sees heavy equipment, in his lack of desire to smile for the camera, in the way he props his arm up on the chair's arm-rest and even when he has to be reminded to hug his mommy gently and don't pull hair.

It's there, he got most of it from his dad and that just makes him even more the cuter little man.

God, please mold this little boy to be the man you'll have him to be. Help me to be your gentle conduit. ~Mommy

A busy birthday week

We had quite the busy week, that week of March 21st, and a majority of it revolved around or featured Little Miss.

It started with her first school-related performance. Daddy was prepared for Mommy and stuck a nice clean hanky in his back pocket, but I managed to get by on some used tissues tucked away in my pockets used to wipe Nathan's runny nose. She didn't act nervous before the performance or during, just liked picking at and twisting her hair.
Two days later, it was her Birthday Party! Whoo hoo! Watch out she's four and ready to boss around anyone who gets in her way. She got to hang out with her best buds from school, G and S. It is truly heartwarming to watch her little budding friendships. We had 10 of her closest friends and cousins there, plus their chauffeurs.
The cake was none other than a long, twirly dress (although she's too young to know that Barbie's top reminded me of a painted on outfit).
And the next day she sang in front of the church, for the first time, with the Children's Choir. Here she's giving the shout out to her best bud AC sitting on the sidelines.

* * * * * * * * * *

Some quotes and funny stories from her birthday week:

Me: Katherine, I am so impressed. You are so smart!
K: No, I'm a LOT smart!

* * * * * * * * * *

While waiting patiently, no longer than a usual trip through the drive-thru line, she proclaims loudly and irritated from the backseat: "Come on lady."

* * * * * * * * * *

"This is taking for a long time, Mom."

* * * * * * * * * *

"I loaded my pants with lots of toots. Oops. He he he he."

* * * * * * * * * *

She affectionately refers to her brother as "Bubbilicious"

* * * * * * * * * *

There's not a patch of wildflowers or weeds we pass in the yard, parking lots, other people's yards that she doesn't notice the flowers. No matter how tiny. She notices them, picks them and declares who the recipient is. We usually have to go put them in water immediately and try to remember them when we're on our way to "deliver" the beauties.

* * * * * * * * * *

Sometimes, her innocence is quick to point out how I'm not as good as I think I am. She certainly doesn't do it on purpose, but her lack of interest brings me back down to reality and I am reminded once again that sometimes, I'm just not that interesting.

We got these great Resurrection Eggs. She is ever so eager to open them up and hear me tell the story about each one, but before we just start tearing into them, I want her to understand why we're telling the story about Easter. What happened? Why was it important? Who is the story about? You know, basic stuff.

My easy questions were not being answered, at all, so I quickly tried to redeem the situation and start explaining in age-appropriate language what all this excitement is about. She is ever so still and obedient, intently listening (or so I thought), hanging on to my every word and I finish what I considered a short-version of explaining Resurrection Eggs with a VERY simple question she would know the answer to.

She's quiet, thinks for a second or two and says, "Mommy, did I have my vitamins today?"

I was once again reminded that when I think I'm doing something really good, usually I'm not. But then I'll catch her helping her brother, giving him hugs, reading to him or trying to comfort him and I am reminded that when I think she doesn't see anything good that I'm doing, she is.