Babysitter

I have the most amazing babysitter. My kids LOVE her. She plays awesome games with them, builds forts that take up my entire living room and can get Tim to take a nap so easily.

She has a real job that has been keeping her really busy with overtime which forces me to look for a new babysitter. I dislike looking for a new sitter because I need a sitter for Saturday mornings... and let's face it... not many people want to work Saturday mornings.

So my quest begins again. I've put in lots of requests with just about everyone I know to ask around. I have two weeks to come up with someone, but not just anyone... an amazing someone whom my kids will love and whom I will feel comfortable leaving them with for five hours on a Saturday.

This Tuesday, my wonderful babysitter put her mother to rest so she wasn't here. It's a night I need her while I take banking classes. I had a nice plan of how I was going to get through the evening. I took out a new movie from the library, planned to pop popcorn and even set out games for the boys to play together. I expressed to them that I would simply be in the other room if they needed me but that they had to be quiet too.

It was an interesting night. Tim cried... a lot... because I was using "his" computer! He cried because he wanted to watch Dora and not the movie we had running. He did eat all of his popcorn and for the last half hour quietly played with puzzles. The boys were so quiet for the last half hour that I feared they were up to no good. But we made it through class without our beloved babysitter. Thank heaven for the mute button on the phone. I am convinced no one heard my begging them to be quiet because I went to answer a question and was asked if I was still there. I remember the mute button and did answer the instructor and smiled knowing no one had heard our horrible evening.

Reflection

I enjoyed reading this post that someone shared on Facebook this week and I wanted to share it with you all. It's taken from "The Nine Words that make Christianity make sense."

When I talk to atheists about Christianity, one of the most common objections they raise is the existence of suffering. An atheist friend recently cited one of the more disgusting stories from the day's news and asked: "How can you believe that there's a loving God when something like that happened?"

One self-described ex-Christian explained it to me this way: "They always told me in church that Jesus died on the cross for me because he loved me. I used to believe that, and then my mom got cancer and my sister was killed in a car accident. Now I don't see why Jesus' death on the cross matters, and I definitely don't believe that He loves me."

I can sympathize with those feelings. Though I've never seriously doubted the Faith, the moments when I feel most distant from God, least able to make sense of it all, are when I hear of great injustice and suffering.

This is why we need Ash Wednesday. Because it is there that we receive the key piece of information that makes it all make sense. 'THOU ART DUST AND TO DUST THOU SHALT RETURN" These words from Genesis 3:19 are probably the one thing we can all agree. When we slide into the mentality that our eternity is here, that this world is all there is--Christianity ceases to make sense. A God who permits a finite amount of suffering & injustice doesn't seem so cold when you consider He is leading us toward eternity of perfect peace and justice. When we adopt a heaven-centered worldview, it all starts to make sense.

Where are you going? That's the most important question for a traveler. We are all living travelers. Death calls us all and moves us on. If heaven is not the answer to the question, our whole faith is false. If it is, then there's nothing more important, indeed the whole world is only heaven's womb. When you hear the 9-word-litany Thou art dust and to dust thou shalt return, we are reminded of the truth that our lives here on earth are merely a brief stay in the womb of heaven....

Leap Frog

I love Leap Frog. I like their education toys and their videos. My boys really love them and spend hours with their LeapTop, Scribble and Write and Fridge ABC magnets. We've used the magnets so much that it doesn't always work when the kids put their letters in.

I really enjoy the Leap Frog videos. They have catchy tunes and teach everything from the names and sounds of the letters, to punctuation, from basic numbers and counting to early math skills.

I thought Ryan would never learn his ABCs, he just wasn't interested and since we started watching them on Netflix or taking them out of the library, he's come a long way. Little Tim is using what he learned to read!

I thought I'd share my love of Leap Frog with you. The videos have been a great afternoon show during the winter months and I don't feel at all guilty about letting the boys watch them.

Last day of Feb.

Poof! And February is gone. We started the month with the the most awful stomach flu. Everyone of us had it and it was just plain awful. The rest of the month has been quite uneventful. We've experienced some warmer days that held the hope of Spring and then all too soon the snow and ice and rain returned.

I am looking forward to March. In the first week I get to go to a cooking class sponsored by the bank I work for. Yay! Then Saint Patty's day will roll around for one of my favorite meals - corned beef and cabbage. Lent will be in full swing and we will be awaiting Easter and hopefully Spring will appear for real this time somewhere in there. :D

Jaunary

I can't believe January is going by so quickly.

Here are a few highlights from this month:

• Tim continues to potty train. He's getting better at it and can sometimes tell me when he has to go. He's even done #2 on the potty once or twice! Go Tim!
• I turned 30. It's not as scary as I though it might have been - lol. When I realized a co-worker was 18, I felt so old. I also realized I must stop reading the "in your 20s" part of those articles that cover all the age groups of women...
  
• Ryan continues to improve his speech. He has an awesome speech therapist and a wonderful friend that he meets there every week.
  
• Adam continues to be busy at work, but we're back to our "normal lives" now that the Thanksgiving/Christmas season has past.
  
• We've had way too much snow for my liking, but it's made for lots of sledding and fort building fun!
• My boys have decided they like word shows like Super Why, Word World and Leap Frog's Letter Factory and I don't feel guilty about letting them watch them.
• Ryan can write both his and Tim's names all by himself!
• I joined myfitnesspal.com with some co-workers with the plan of losing weight.

That's all for this month. See you soon with new photos!

Merry Christmas

If we had mailed Christmas photos this year, these would have been the two we would have chosen from. Adam's schedule has been pretty busy the last two months, so I decided not to stress about Christmas cards or photos and just post stuff on Facebook and this blog. Next year, we'll take our Christmas photo in July ;)

Oh, Christmas Tree

Ryan and I decorated the Christmas tree together this year. We did it on Saturday. He was so excited to put out all of the decorations and his joy made this task so wonderful.

As I pulled out each ornament and placed it on the lid of our plastic storage container, my mind was flooded with such wonderful memories of Christmas' past. I pulled out an old paper ornament made in my college days that adorned my dorm room door of old Burritt Hall. It's two colored Christmas lights with smiling faces. I have taped them together and added string and they have adorned our Christmas tree since 2002. They remind me of the good old days with my wonderful roommate Betsy.

Thinking of Betsy and all the crazy things we did together got me thinking about good old Greenville and how dearly I miss it and our dear friends still living there. That's when I pulled out some glass ornaments that Sarah, my mom and I decorated on the first Thanksgiving Adam and I spent together in Greenville. Some have broken over the years and others have lost their bows and other embellishments, but I remember making them and the happiness I felt that day to have my family in Greenville and my friends to celebrate Thanksgiving.

On our tree, there are ornaments to mark the times in our lives.... a pregnant woman marks 2005, A John Deer Tractor and Santa mark 2008. There are precious Junkanoo dolls from home and a beautiful seashell one that I place really high so the boys will not break. There's a lighthouse from a friend's wedding, a snowman I got after my first massage, beautiful crosses made by a friend and so, so many more. Each ornament holds a story, a memory, marks a point in time.

I look forward to more sweet memories to adorn my tree in the years to come.

R.I.P. camera

My beloved camera of seven years died on Thanksgiving day. It won't ready an SD card at all. I'm guessing the SD slot is not something easily fixed. So, I suppose it's time for a new camera.

The bad news is we really have no money for a new one, especially the $500 one I really want. I am hoping Adam can snag a $59 one on sale today, but if not, I suppose I'll have to start saving for a new one.

*sigh*

Rest in peace old camera. You were good to me and I will miss you.

Rant and a request

I must rant about all the Thanksgiving advertisements. I must.

I used to feel so lucky that Adam didn't have to work on Thanksgiving. We may have had to leave the family gathering early so he could get up at 2 a.m. or something like that to be in at work, but we always celebrated the holiday together. It was the old fashioned way. LOTS of food and then games and conversation well into the evening.

This year, he's working on Thanksgiving so people can get their Christmas shopping done.

First, let me say that the real meaning of Christmas has really been so lost. People only think about what they can get for themselves and for their family rather than giving to people in need. They totally miss that the reason for this season is to celebrate Christ coming as a baby for us and later dying for us on the cross. It frustrates me!

So, in order to buy lots and lots of stuff (that will probably not be appreciated or may be broken two days after Christmas) they shop until they drop on all the days around Thanksgiving. This year, they even get to shop on Thanksgiving day.

So, what about that holiday? I think we've lost the real meaning of it also. What happened to being thankful for the little that we have instead of being so greedy and seeing how much we can get? Believe you me, I see the deals and I'd like some of them, but I refuse to shop on Thanksgiving day. I want to practice what I have been preaching to the kids about Thanksgiving and the Pilgrims and about the one Leper who came back to say thank you to Jesus for healing him. I want them to see the importance of really being thankful, not just on Thanksgiving, but on every day of the year. I want them to see the importance of family and spending quality time with them. I want them to know what our traditions are and to appreciate those and perhaps carry those on as they move out of our house.

So that ends my rant and here is my request. Don't shop on Thanksgiving. Send a message to the jerks who want to make people work so others can shop on a day that's supposed to be a national holiday. If you forget the cranberry sauce, just do without. You'll have stories to tell about it for years to come!

Thank you and a very happy Thanksgiving to you all!

It's November?

I can't believe we only have two more months left in 2010!

Today marks the beginning of NaBloPoMo and I will not be participating this year. I only ever finished one year and the other two I gave up around the 20th day.

This year, I knew right away I wouldn't set myself up for failure. I'm taking a banking class, which is so interesting and I am totally in love with it. My course has reading... lots of reading. And I have homework... remember those days? And I have tests. Add to that the usual stuff of being mummy to two boys, wife to wonderful honey and bank teller and that's about all I can handle right now.

The boys and I will spend November learning about the letter T. T is for Thankfulness... that's our theme. I was so disappointed today as we roamed around crafting stores and found zero Thanksgiving crafts. Everything in the store was either Halloween merchandise on 50% off or Christmas items. I posted this on Facebook and here's the reply one friend posted: "People would prefer to get presents than be thankful for what we have." That's reality and it's sad.

Of course, we should be thankful everyday for all the wonderful blessings God has given us!

Happy Halloween!

Apple Picking

It's apple picking time again. I LOVE going to the orchard. This is the second time I've taken the boys since the orchard started selling apples this season. Ryan automatically knows what we're going to do when I mention the name of the orchard. He says "First we'll pick apples and then we'll play on the swings." That's usually what we do. This time around we also went on a hay ride (haven't been on one of those since college!), picked a pumpkin and even ventured into the corn maze in addition to our normal apple picking and park playing.

I really love this time of year. I'm trying to spend every last minute outside with the boys before it's too cold to even entertain those thoughts any longer. I'm trying to take lots of pictures too. They seem to be growing up so quickly in these last few weeks!

Were'd the sun go?

We went from warm sunny weather to dark fall-like days so quickly. I can't believe it's already September! Where, oh where, is the year going?

Today, we're working on moving fall clothing from containers in the basement up here for the boys. I'm so blessed to have a family give us so many hand me down clothes for Ryan. And I save the really good stuff that's left over at the end of a season for Tim. I can't imagine just how much people must spend on clothing since kids grow SO quickly.

We recently had our first yard sale. It was quite the success. I was sad to part with some of the toys because it means our boys are getting so big, but it was nice to make extra room in the house. We will do a sale again... perhaps earlier in the summer next year. Ryan was delighted to help out and he loved giving the customers their change and guarding the money box. This morning on our way to the bank he exclaimed "that's where we had our yard sale. Right there. We sold lots of stuff." He's so cute.

Tim is quite the talker these days. He's discovered that he loves music and is always asking me to sing. They sing lots of songs I don't know at daycare so I've had to have his teacher teach me the songs too! Tim has also recently started putting things in order by shape, size, color... etc. The funniest one recently was his Dora fruit snacks that he sorted by color and character...

Adam and I have had lots of movie nights recently. Last night we watched Hollywood Homicide. I liked it. I also liked one we watched earlier in the week... Inkheart. I highly recommend that one, if you haven't already seen it. I suppose our movie nights are coming to a close, just like summer, as Survivor and the rest of our weekly shows will be airing soon.

Where am I?

Tim really hates changing his shirts. We've had to make a game out of this twice (and sometimes more) daily activity. When his arms are through the sleeves but his head is not out yet, I say "Where's Tim?" or "I can't find Tim. Where did Tim go?" and when his head pops out he says "Here I am!"

The other day we had to change his clothes after a horrible diaper malfunction and Adam was putting his shirt on and Tim said "I can't find me!"

We had a nice laugh.

Updates

I am loving this Maine summer. It's been so warm and so sunny. What a huge change from last year! We've done lots of outdoor things and have had such a great time. We've spent lots of time in the pool. I have two little fish :-)

This summer, Adam started working as an assistant manager. I love the three days on and three days off. Most of the time it allows me to see more of him than I had in the past. It was an adjustment for the boys since it meant they'd have to attend daycare while we both worked the end part of the week. (Adam's days rotate so he's with them sometimes on the days I work). They've both done so well there. I love the ladies who take care of them. They are so gentle and so sweet. I couldn't ask for a better place to leave my babies.

I've attempted to potty-train Tim. He loves wearing underwear and will sit on the potty, but that's about as far as we've gotten. I think I'm putting it on hold since he managed to conquer a bad habit. He stopped sucking his thumb! He had started talking to us with his thumb in his mouth and we were firm with him making sure he took it out to speak. Then, we started telling him that if he had his thumb in his mouth he'd have to nap. He didn't like that one bit. In less than one week he'd given up the habit. I think it helped too that Ryan kept saying thumb sucking was for babies! Tim does not want to be a baby anymore. He will tell you he is now a big boy.

Ryan recently spent an entire morning at the doctor's office for serious issues with constipation. Every thing we'd tried at home to combat it wasn't working. He had his thyroid tested, but that isn't the cause. He's had an x-ray to see what it looks like inside and to make sure there's no blockage. He's been set up with an appointment to see a GI doc, but they say that may take a few months. The reason for that visit will be to determine if Ryan has a food allergy that's causing the constipation. The most likely culprit is a dairy allergy, which we've suspected he's had since birth. In the meantime, he's on Miralax to help out. We took our first dose this morning and I'm crossing my fingers that it will work.

Ryan also had blood work done for some enlarged lymph nodes in his groin area. He's had these tested before and they turned out to be fine, but that was almost three years ago, so it's time for a re-check since they are still hanging around. He'll see a hematologist in a few weeks. The blood work showed he doesn't have cancer, but we're making sure that we won't have to worry about these lumps later in life.

Ryan did so good at the doctor. I am so proud of him. He didn't cry for his shots or the blood work (he even watched them take it!) and thought the x-ray was cool.

This update wouldn't be complete without an update on me. This fall I'll start the Master Teller program, which will lead to some raises, but hopefully a promotion by the time the boys are in school. I really do love my job and am excited to start the program. I just hope all these years after college, and with two kids, I can pull off all the studying!

Summer reading

Last year I signed Ryan up for the summer reading program at the library. Next week, I'll sign both of the boys up for the program. After certain milestones they get small prizes like bookmarks and tickets for ice cream and books.

I also stumbled on this website and plan to use the preschool list as a starter for choices for Ryan to read. I also plan to do my summer reading from the books suggested for grades 11 and 12. I doubt I'll get through the entire list, but I'd like to try. Since Adam been working his three days on and three days off, I've had a little more free time in the afternoons to sneak away and read and I love it!

I just finished reading The Magician by Michael Scott. I can't wait to get my hands on The Sorceress, which is the next in the series. I've been on the waiting list at the library for each book in the series and have really enjoyed reading them.

Preschool

Ryan and I started really doing preschool things at home this week. We've always done arts and crafts and reading and cooking, but nothing as focused as what we've been doing this week. Here are some photos from our adventures in preschool.

Here's Tim sorting paper clips... he tries to do preschool too.

My favorite part of the week involved this puzzle. The clown is holding an x-ray and after doing the puzzle Ryan asked if he could have an X-ray for his birthday. ;-)

Ryan sorting items in a muffin tin. He loved this and played it over and over again.


Here's Ryan working on a St. Patrick's Day sequence.

Ryan making his X xylophone.

TV

Yesterday, as I was getting Ryan dressed to go outside, our TV came crashing down.

Turns out, Tim had been climbing on our entertainment center. Tim loves to climb. He climbs everything he can and gets into a lot of trouble for doing so.

I was right in the same room when it happened. My back was turned for mere seconds when the tv came crashing down. Tim started crying and I didn't know if I should cry or scream. The flat screen tv that we just purchased last year on clearance was destroyed but my little boy was perfectly fine.

We'll need a new TV. I hadn't planned on spending the money, but the remaining TV is old and doesn't work with the new cable. It can play dvds and vidoes though.

Ryan started preschool this week at home, so we'd been using less of the tv anyway, but with the rainy weather, we haven't been able to be outside much. Yesterday, they played for an hour outside. Today, it's cloudy with a chance of showers. At this point of the winter, their toys no longer hold their interest like they did at Christmas time.

So, we're getting ready to work on things for a picnic and to play in the basement today. I hope I survive.

Something new to me

I've been looking around for things to do with Tim and Ryan that are educational. We are getting ready to embark on our very own alphabet book and I was looking for other items that would help with that. I stumbled on Confessions of a Homeschooler and really like what I see. Through her website I also stumbled on Tot School. I thought I'd share these two because they have awesome activities to do with toddlers and preschoolers and even older children. I can't imagine that I will do everything that they do, but I will use some of the ideas in my quest to get Ryan ready for Kindergarten. So I thought I'd share what I'd found with you guys in case you were looking for something fun but educational to do with your kids.

Child Safety Leash

If you'd have asked me a year ago what I thought of those child safety leashes I would have told you to free the leash kids. I hated them. I thought that every child should be taught to hold hands instead of being put on a leash. I thought they were silly.

I thought these things and then came Timothy.

Timothy is my child who will NOT sit in a shopping cart. He will stand up and find his way out. It doesn't matter how tight you put the little belt that they have in them. He will find a way to wiggle free and almost kill himself getting out of the cart. Tim will not hold your hand and stay close by. He just runs full speed to where ever it is he is going. He just goes.

Shopping with this kid is something I so hate. I've started going grocery shopping alone or just with Ryan. When we do shop with Tim and he wiggles out and we allow him to get down and hold our hands he will do all he can to get out of our grip. He will probably attempt to dislocate his shoulder or break his arm just to get free. We will say that he HAS to hold our hand or he gets picked up.

We follow through with this rule and it results in super screaming, head butting and just an all out miserable experience for all of us at the store. If' I'm alone it results in me leaving the store without the items I came for because I just can't handle my wild child.

So, I started looking at leashes. I haven't purchased one yet because I feel there must be another solution to this problem.

Any one have any experiences or ideas?