My Father's Day

No I'm not a father, but I had a FABULOUS Father's Day.

It started out with my little man waking up earlier than usual. How is that a fabulous day, you ask, well that part wasn't.

Nathan has managed, for the last couple of months, to not get upset when we leave him in the nursery during Sunday School, so that was extra nice. And I've been trying to acclimate him to singing in church. The first time I brought him into church for the singing since he was an infant, he sang louder than anyone else around us, causing people to turn around and take notice. The next couple of times he was more interested in trying to get me to stop singing by saying in his high-pitched, squeaky voice, "No, No, Noooooooo!"

Well, the singing saga has improved. He no longer holds his hand over my mouth nor looks at everyone else around us in disgust.

But Father's Day, oh very cute. Our church lovingly passes out roses to the mothers on their day and fathers get . . . . . . candy bars. Katherine and Nathan both cautiously made the trek alllllllll the way to the front of the church, with the help of Bekah's guiding hand, and brought back two candy bars for daddy.

And then it happened.

(No, I did not eat the candy bars in church! I do have some cooth.)

My little boy fell asleep on my lap!

My little man, who is too busy to be still. The little boy who can't miss anything going on around him. The kid who rarely likes me to hold him even when he's sick. Yes, the one that is allergic to cuddling. He settled right down in the nook of my arms, got real still, and was rocked to sleep by my swaying while singing.

Which all of that in mom-terms meant that lunch was going to be a little bit more pleasant and talk-friendly because of our well-rested child.

It was a very selfish Father's Day for me. My husband is a phenomenal father. He deserved to be able to hold our baby while sleeping (but that would have made both of them too hot and sweaty). He is transforming into this incredibly selfless, thoughtful, caring, gentle, God-seeking, getting-easier-to-talk-to man. And I am so thankful for him.

He did manage to fit in one really important life lesson that day: how grasshoppers can be really cool to play with.
Someone was not afraid.

Someone wasn't so sure.

Happy Father's Day Jim!

Friendly faces

We had the opportunity to spend some time with our friends and their kids.

They all played so well together. We ate pizza and strawberry ice cream.

It was welcomed chaos. I absolutely loved the sounds of their little feet running around and all the giggling.

The two 4-year-olds hit it off quite well.
And apparently, our daughter has never seen kids making funny faces before.
They were a hoot and a pleasure to be around.

That which trumps all grossness

It's official. I have been grossed out beyond any measure I thought was humanly possible.

I am a self-proclaimed gross girl. Ever since my teenage years when it was cool to gross out my parents (especially my mom), I've been able to endure and/or produce grossness more than any other girl I knew of (except for maybe my girl cousin T who helped fine-tune some of my talents). Nothing was too gross for me, too disgusting, too slimy, too bloody or too real.

My younger brother was grossed out as a 3-year-old by a fishing worm and I was the one holding it, trying gently and lovingly to get him to touch it.

My parents would tell me all the time "you're going to embarrass yourself one day acting like that." I would roll my eyes and shrug it off in all of my 17-year-old know-it-all glory.

Dissecting the frog in high school biology class - piece of cake. It was neat to finally see how it all fit together in a live being. The guts dried really cool, almost like glue, on my fingers too. Med school, here I come.

Watching my dad castrate and poll cattle - it's just part of the process. Throwing the "parts" to the dog for him to eat was what I got to do.

Watching a bird's eye view of babies being born through the lens of a camera on TV - that's getting to watch God's miraculous hands at work.

Cleaning up every single bodily fluid a baby is capable of producing off of his/her body, the changing table, the floor all the way to the bathtub and some off the walls - that's just part of the job. Usually completed sans the hubby because he's gasping for fresh air.

I've even successfully grossed out my husband.

But tonight. Tonight was different. I won't go into detail, but a dear acquaintance of mine was diagnosed with Enterobius vermicularis, which is a fancy name for pinworms. I've heard of them, along with various other parasites, and I probably got to gaze at some floating around in a jar filled with dead organism liquid. I'm sure I was fascinated with their ability to adapt, complete and sustain a successful life cycle by being nourished and transported by the very organism they were slowly destroying. It was all very scientific and matter-of-fact back then.

Well, it's different now because someone I know has it. Those white, small, delicate, disgusting nematodes have invaded a body and my confidence in the natural cycle of life.

Jim and I thought it would be fun to educate ourselves, via Google, on them. But much to our dismay, about 10 minutes into our research we ran into a video.

A video of live pinworms.

This video showed them living and squirming inside some poor soul's body. And I was...








s p e e c h l e s s









My mouth fell open, I gasped in horror, my left hand slapped the side of my cheek and I literally was frozen with disgust. I could feel chills run through my body and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. It was the grossest thing I have ever seen in my entire life. Bar none. Hands down. It gets the 4 ft. trophy for being Grand Champion of Grossness.

So take that for what it is. Queen of I-can-handle-anything-gross was unwillingly dethroned. God help me now if there are grosser things in this universe because I might just need a barf bag.

Fun at the beach

We had a fabulous trip to the beach. Fernandina Beach. Just me and the kiddos and another mommy friend with her two little ones. The daddies had to stay back and work, it's a hard life I tell ya.

No, but really. Planning, packing loading, driving, entertaining, referring, feeding, bathing, dressing, wiping and watching over two little ones in a new environment, with stairs, by myself, was hard. Yes, we had some beautiful rewards, but it was hard work.

We were invited to this beach house from a friend's brother's friend. However many degrees of separation really didn't matter, the kind gesture was very much appreciated. And this house was beautiful.
It didn't take Nathan very long to find and enjoy something he could only find at a beach house. Vertical blind cords. Ha, ha, ha, they're everywhere. Could you sense the sarcasm? It felt like an eternity trying to pry him away from this cord in particular. The up and down mechanics were way more exciting than anything I could have suggested.

We did bring the little inflatable pool and set it up in the back yard. Thankfully, because I think our kids are still a little young to enjoy the waves, and even the sandy beach wasn't always their idea of a grand time.
I think they did enjoy digging the large holes in the sand and playing in the water puddled in the bottom. They all did a great job of filling in all those crevices that make going to the beach so scratchy and uncomfortable.
We saw some dolphins...
fishing boats....
and collected lots of shells.
Katherine smiled ever so nicely when I bribed her with popsicles...
and other times, even popsicles didn't work.
Nathan stayed true to his nature and found some type of stick/tool to carry around everywhere we went.

Taking a picture of all the kiddos was a challenge. Even popsicles weren't keeping the little munchkins still and smiling pretty.

All in all, it was a fabulous 4 days. They eventually became familiar with the house and the new routine and had a good time. Mommy included.

Water kiddos

Sometimes when sister gets gutsy and decides to play in the sprinkler, he'd rather just watch.They are showing very promising signs of growing gills by wanting to be in a natural or man-made body of water often.But sprinklers, ehhhh, not so much.

African violets

When I was in college, I was introduced to growing African violets by a gentleman that enters competitions showing his home-grown and stunning camellias blooms. He had a little bit of experience with African violets also and explained to me that they were actually very easy and hardy plants, they had just been given a bad rap. Well, I heard "easy" and "hardy" and thought maybe one of them could survive my college-lifestyle house.

That was 1997 and that same plant is still blooming in my dining room's north window. In my little world, they are easy because they would rather have too little water. And guess what, I forget to water them a lot. So you see, we're a perfect pair.

For Katherine's birthday I got her a self-watering plant pot and started a leaf shoot for her. The leaf and stem are placed inside a glass of water, held still by some aluminum foil stretched over the top of the glass. We got to watch each day the very slow growth of African violet roots and talk about what was happening. A month later the roots were well established and we filled the pot with soil and transferred it. After what seemed like forever, the leaf stem showed signs of new growth. Hot dog!

It has it's new home in her room, safely away from curious little hands, and is thriving. She is very excited to see it's first flower. So am I.

The finished product

Tah dah!

Katherine's big-girl room makeover is finally complete, put together and ready to take pictures of. I love it. It's very bright and girly.

I purposely chose a quilt that would go with the colors that were already in her room. Er, uh, I mean Katherine chose a quilt that she liked that also meant mommy and daddy didn't have to repaint her room. :)

Some Design on a Dime things I did:

• re-painted her name letters and replaced the ribbons hanging them with some I already had
• painted the center flower pictures myself (saw some at Target and I attempted to copy them)
  
• bought cheap white picture mats and painted them myself
• found really nice gold frames with glass on the 60% off aisle and whitewashed them
  

• bought a yard of fabric that matched her quilt
  
• re-purposed curtains given to us by making and sewing ruffles on the top
  
• re-used the existing lamp shades and hot-glued on ruffles to match
  

I'm finding that this pinching pennies thing can be fun. Before it used to be all about buying it all and getting the room done in one afternoon. Well, this one took about a month but definitely has some personal touches.

Jim swears Katherine will be driving before he repaints the bottom of her room. That was all taped by an 8-month pregnant mom-to-be and painted in 3 installments by the reluctant father-to-be. She might be stuck with green gingham for a while.

Overall, I love it and think it fits her personality. She's pretty proud of it also.

Candy Land's life lessons

While Nathan was sleeping yesterday and today, Katherine and I had some much needed one on one time with each other and we played the game Candy Land. It's such a simple game, but she's learned some important life lessons so far.

To name a couple: how to take turns and how to follow rules.

She won both games yesterday and the first one today. Winning the first 3 games certainly lead to a little over-confidence in Little Miss, so when I was one card-to-be-drawn away from winning game 4, the bottom fell out.

Her head hung down, her shoulders were heavy, the tears started and she limply fell into my lap sobbing. I did the best I could to hold back the laughter and just held her for a minute. Then, while wiping her tear-streaked cheeks, I explained to her that she's not always going to win.

I also threw in all those things Moms are supposed to say but hated when our own mothers said it to us, like: being a good sport whether you win or lose, and how you can be proud of yourself even though you didn't win, and how you can be proud of the winner even if it's not you and the all-time favorite of it's just a game.

She reluctantly dried up her tears, won the next game and all was well.

When I was talking to her daddy later on, I filled him in on the game and her reaction. He said, "Well, I tried to run away when my dad won the first checkers game we played together."

I'll take a couple tears for sure.

Sweet Saturday

Sometimes they play soooooo good together. It's days like today that give me a needed recharge. Kids played well together, lots of laundry got washed and put away, the hall closet got cleaned and the house was "clean."

It is absolutely amazing what she convinces him to do. It won't be long before sitting in a cushy Cinderella chair, propping his feet up and allowing her to groom him will be out of his comfort zone. She enjoys practicing her hair, make-up and teaching skills and for now he just enjoys all the pampering.

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While attempting to get him to outgrow his two naps, this afternoon he was a tad bit on the whiny side. But never fear, Big Sister is here! She wrapped up her painting project, started playing with him and gave me over an hour of uninterrupted, no hassle and no refereeing time to prepare supper. I could hear them over the monitor and all sounded well, so what else is there to do? Why get the camera of course.

How did she get him to be quiet for so long? She managed to convince him to sit still, on top of her pillow, with a blanket over his legs and read books. Only she could do it because you know what would have to freeze over before he'd sit still like that for me. And it lasted for a long time!
At one point I thought to myself, it sounds too good in there, maybe I should go check on them. And quickly it was overruled by, nah, I'm sure what they've done to that room isn't so bad that a little little picking up or cleaning can't fix. Another perfect example of how motherhood has forced me re-prioritize.

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He still asks to drive the lawn mower about 20 times a day and now he's added wanting some keys to go drive it. He sees daddy reaching into his pocket for keys so if there are pockets on them shorts, he's wanting to fill 'em with keys.

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If you have a little boy who loves any and all trucks, Twenty Trucks is a worthwhile investment. It's his new favorite movie and was worth every penny.

Mark another one off

A girl who appreciates to-do lists: