Through The Eyes of A Child

For myself, the ten minute firework display at the Rice Festival is not really even worth fighting the traffic. However, watching my children watch the fireworks... Now that is worth fighting all the traffic in the world.

Who?

Since our anniversary was this week, I decided to pull out some of our wedding photos and look though them with the boys. They always want to know why they are not in any of the pictures! Jonah was doing a pretty good job of recognizing people until we got to this picture...

Me: Who is that? (Pointing to Joe)

Jonah: My Daddy

Me: And who is that? (Pointing to myself)

Jonah: Ummmmm....JESUS!

My children certainly do think of me with high regards!

Seven Years Ago Today

On an old plantation...

Beside tables covered in crisp white linens and fresh flowers...

I got all dressed up...

Walked down a chair lined aisle under ancient oak trees...

And married the man God picked just for me...

Lovely Letter L

Noah has mastered saying the letter L!
He was born a little tongue tied and has had a little bit of trouble pronouncing certain letters. (I am slightly tongue tied as well. I never even knew it until a dentist pointed it out when I was a teen.) Noah's pediatrician suggested at birth that we wait and see if he would be able to adjust before we did any surgery. Up until this week he said wisten, wuv, and wost instead of listen, love, and lost. He has been working so hard to get it right and this week it finally clicked.
Six years ago, I never thought that I would possibly get excited over a simple letter of the alphabet. Now I can't seem to get enough of the letter L. Every time I hear it I get a smile on my face. Isn't it amazing the things that motherhood can do to you?

Camping Out

We had a great spring break. I think this was my favorite spring break ever. Aside for the one day that I took Jonah and Micah to the beach, it was definitely NOT your typical spring break! We spent the entire week doing family stuff and just enjoying each other. Noah went to work with Joe two days. We all went to the junkyard together one day.

We rode with Joe as he hauled a load of junk cars to sell for scrap. The kids loved the junk yard. They enjoyed watching the cars get crushed and Noah learned a lot about recycling while we were there. We ended our spring break with a camp out in the backyard. Joe set up the tent and we cooked supper (hot dogs and marshmallows) over a fire. We actually all made it until about 6:30 the next morning before we abandoned the tent for the comfort of indoors.

The only bad thing I can say about our spring break was that it made coming back to real life almost unbearable. I dreaded sending Noah off to school today and Joe off to work. It made me realize how much I love having them here and how much I miss them when they are gone. I have to keep reminding myself that there are only six weeks until summer...counting down the days!

Apple Pear Combo

*****DISCLAIMER*****

Those of you who thought that my "growing old" post was too much information, please stop reading now.

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I have never been one of those women who can look at a body type chart and fit themselves into any certain category. You know the ones I am talking about. You see them in nearly every fashion magazine. You are supposed to choose which body type best describes you and follow the tips to accentuate your positive assets and hide your negative ones. I just happen to have never seen a body type chart that fit my body. I have never been an apple, pear, or banana, and certainly never an hourglass.
For example, some people keep all of their "junk" in the trunk. Personally, I have always kept my "junk" up front in the glove box. I have never had much "junk" in my trunk...until now. I happened to notice (in one of the FOUR full sized mirrors in our bathroom ... whoever came up with that idea needs to be shot!) upon getting out of the shower this morning that not only do I have "junk" in the trunk and the glove box, I also have "junk" in the fender walls, the front seat, and the undercarriage. I seriously need to clean out my car!
Now I could blame this current "junk pile" to the fact that I have birthed three children, but I think it is more my fault than theirs. In fact, I know that it is my fault. I got here because I put myself in this shape and I will get out of this shape only if I choose to change things in my life.
So the choice is made today. No more eating leftovers from the kids plates...heaven help us if we waste food. No more eating the Easter candy so that it does not make the kids hyper. No more driving the car to get the mail. No more circling the parking lot for ten minutes waiting on a close space. No more late night snacks and certainly no more McDonald's.
I will exercise with my children. I will take the time to eat healthy. I will walk instead of ride and more than anything I will hold myself accountable.
So why do you need to know all of this? Well, I hope that you hold me accountable too. I will never be an hourglass. I don't want to be a banana, apple, pear, or any combo of the three. I just want to be a healthy me...with a lot less "junk"!

I've Joined The Bandwagon

The cloth diapering bandwagon, that is. I said I would never do it, but I am learning more and more that you should never say never. With all of Jonah's issues we were spending over $25 per week just to keep the younger ones in diapers. I an NOT a fan of poop, but I decided to try the cloth just to see if it would work for us and ended up loving it! I wish I had done this way back when I had Noah in diapers. We have been going strong with cloth for nearly a month now and I have to say that it is so much easier than I anticipated.

Cloth diapers today are NOTHING like the ones that my parents used on me. I could go into detail, but my friend Melissa has done such a good job of explaining it on her blog, that I will direct you to her posts here if you are interested. They are actually so easy that even Joe is using them. (On the children of course, not on himself!)

The number one reason that I switched to cloth diapers was cost. In just three months, I will have "broken even" with my up front costs of cloth diapering by just not having to buy disposables. Add to that the fact that we will be cancelling our trash service this month since the only reason we were using it was for diapers as everything else is either recycled, composted, or goes to the rabbit, chickens, or dog. I will also be saving on disposable wipes since I have switched to cloth wipes. In total I figure we will save over $1,000 in one year.

I still don't like poop, but I love saving money! And how can you complain about the poop when they look so cute in those little cloth diapers?

Teeth

Micah has been grinding his teeth for a week now.

Just this morning I noticed a one year molar poking through.
Maybe the grinding will stop now???

How Did You Get So Smart?

It seems like a lot of our teaching moments with Noah are while we are riding in a vehicle. I guess when you live as far out in the boondocks as we do you have to do a lot of driving. Anyway, the other day Joe and I were explaining to Noah the importance of observation. I tried to tell him that he always needs to listen to what is going on around him because one way that we learn new things is from other people's experiences.
For example, Joe does not have much in the way of a formal education, but he is one of the smartest men that I know. He can do or fix anything. A major part of his "education" was watching and listening.
That is the background, here is part of the conversation...

Me: Noah do you think your Daddy is smart?
Noah: Yes Mam!
Me: Now how do you think that he got so smart?


.....a long pause here....


Noah: By listening to YOU!!!

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

There you have it...from the mouths of babes. I'm telling you, that kid is a genius for sure! Of course Joe did not think that was the least bit funny. Perhaps he is not as smart as I thought he was. Needless to say I laughed so hard that I forgot all about the point I was trying to make. Oh well, I guess we will work on observation skills another day!

The Big Sandbox

We made our first trip of the year out to the river this week. Tuesday I took Micah and Jonah to the "big sandbox" for a day of fun with my mom, my aunt, my cousin, and her three boys. Noah stayed with Joe since sand and water do not mix well with a cast.

The weather was perfect for digging, splashing, sunning and napping. Hopefully it was the first of many more trips this year.

Good News

Good news, good news, good news, good news!!!
Jonah's Dr. called this morning to say that all of the tests they did came back in the normal range. I am not sure what the next step will be but at least we have ruled out some big bad things and that is great news!
Since the last colonoscopy, his tummy issues have seemed very minor, so now if we can just get his skin under control we will be all set. Wouldn't it be great if it all just cleared up and we did not even have to have a next step to figure out? I keep hoping and praying that one day we will get there.

It's A Bad Sign...

...When the E.R. registrar knows your entire family by name and can recite all of your pertinent information just as well as you can.

Last Wednesday evening, Noah asked me if he could jump on the trampoline. Joe was already in the backyard and dinner was about five minutes away from being ready so I told him to go ahead, but make it quick because I was nearly ready to put dinner on the table. As I sat the dish of asparagus (Noah's favorite) on the table I heard the screams from out the back door. Noah had fallen wrong on the trampoline. Not off of the trampoline, just landed wrong when he was jumping. I have no idea how it happened since I did not see it and every time I ask, I get a different version.
I could tell his arm was starting to swell and he was really in a lot of pain, so I left dinner on the table and Joe taking care of the babies to rush Noah to the E.R. Turns out that his arm was broken just below the elbow and just above the wrist. They put on a temporary cast and he had to see the orthopedist the next day for his full cast. Poor guy is spending Spring break in a cast.
I asked for the darkest color they could find because I knew how it would look after just a few hours, not to mention a few weeks. Unfortunately they ran out of dark blue and had to use white! It is no longer white, but is now an awful shade of disgusting. He had a couple of rough nights at first, because he had a lot of swelling and it would make the cast tight in addition to the pain, but now he is doing great.
The doctor also reamed me out for letting my kid jump on a trampoline. We have not decided yet what we are going to do about the trampoline. Joe wants to get rid of it, but I feel like it was just a freak accident that could have happened walking down the steps. We are always very careful with the kids on the trampoline, they have to have an adult watching and only one can jump at a time. But as the Dr. so rudely told me, "There is no careful with a trampoline!" So what are your thoughts...freak accident or an accident waiting to happen?

Procrastination

***If you are not into rambling, you may want to skip this post!***
I have not blogged in a while. I could come up with all sorts of reasons, but there is really only one. Every time I sat down to blog, I felt the need to blog about Jonah and I just was not ready to do that. The last time I gave an update on Jonah it was here, and I left off with the gastrointerologist wanting to check for a zinc deficiency. They did check for that and turns out that is not the problem. Up until that point the doctors had been testing for various diseases that they thought were causing the problem and we were sort of hoping that he actually had one of those things because that would mean that we knew what was causing the problem and could treat it relatively easily with either medication or avoidance of certain items.
That line of reasoning went out the window a couple of weeks ago when we saw Jonah's allergist again. They drew a boatload of blood and started the testing for things that no parent "wants" their child to have. Things that scared me to my core. Things that I did not even want to think about, much less blog about.
I am a bury your head in the sand type of person. As crazy as it is, I still believe that if I ignore a problem long enough, it just may go away. I was supposed to call in this past Friday and get the results. I put it off because it was Good Friday. (At least that is what I convinced myself the reason was.) I put off calling yesterday because I worked outside the home all day. I could not come up with a reason NOT to call today, so I bit the bullet and put in a call this morning. Of course the morning that I get the courage up to call, they tell me that the Dr. is out of the office and will not return my call until tomorrow.
I sit here tonight waiting and worrying about what the call tomorrow will bring. I'm scared and a part of me does not even want to know what the Dr. is going to say. I am trying to remind myself that just because they tested for something, it does not mean that is what he has. We have had multiple negative tests come back before. I know that there is a great chance that these tests will show nothing. But I also know that there is a possibility that they will show something or else why would they bother to test? Ugh, I want the wondering to be over, but If the results are not what I want to hear, then I don't even think I want to know them.
I just reread what I have written and realized how many times I used the words "I" and "want". The truth is that "I" have no control over the situation whatsoever. The One who does have the control already knows what the results are. If I believe Romans 8:28, (which I happen to believe) then I have to believe that the results whether bad or good are what God has planned for our lives and that plan is what is best for us. He is in control. He always has been and always will be, no matter what results we get.
Okay, I think I am done rambling for now! I can't say that I really feel better, and reading back over this it is just as jumbled up as it is in my head, but at least I got it all out of my head. Thanks for "listening" to my thoughts!