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.