Snakes, Alligators, and Camping....Oh, my!

We went camping for a few days at the end of last week. We swam, rode the train (we were at the same place we camped before), and visited an alligator rescue place. The kids got to hold a small alligator (he had his mouth taped shut), and a couple of different snakes. We walked along the path and threw food out to the various alligators we saw. We also got to watch feeding time. It was all fenced in so no one got hurt except Andy who tripped and scrapped his hand. The kids all blew their allowance spending money on stuffed animals so we have a blue snake, a pink snake, and a small stuffed alligator to add to the fun.

Troublesome

I hate random spiked temperatures.
Josie has had a fever today. No apparent other symptoms except a slight irritability.
I hate random spiked temperatures during the summer especially.

A Young Jedi Practices Mind Control

This morning Doug was bothered enough by Andy to come tell us that Andy was "calling him names."
However, he was not bothered enough by it that he wanted to stop watching TV long enough to talk about it.
Jim reported a conversation similar to this:
Dad: Doug what did Andy call you?
Doug: I'm going to tell you something so that you will leave me alone. Go downstairs. You didn't hear me say that.

Decisions

I usually do fine with decisions, until they start involving other people.
I found out that one of the classes I had signed up for in the Fall is for nursing students only. So I quickly swapped classes (ah, the joys of computer registration...so much more convenient). Tonight I took a more thorough look at my choices.

There is only one class from this department that I might even be interested in taking, but I'm not real thrilled about the professor (I've heard mixed reviews). I don't actually have to have the class, but I do have to have SOME class. So now I have to think about whether to stay in the class or to drop it and take and independent study. My program chair is out of town until July 7. I have some time (well...until middle of August) to make a decision, but it is something else to think about.

Serious questions

• Would Bob be able to deal if Wendy weren't there?
• How come Manny never parks in front of his own store front?
• Will Manny ever find something that Kelly does not have?
• How come there is so much secret desire in children's shows?
• Where can I find a preschool class that has six or fewer students who are all from diverse backgrounds?

Just some thoughts....

Grace

We try to remember to say grace before we eat, especially at dinner. Usually we say "God is great" or we have used the song that the boys learned at preschool this year. When we visit places sometimes we encounter a free form grace said by one person.
Last night at dinner we got the food on the table and everyone was seated. I mentioned saying grace, and Doug just jumped right in.
Here was his version:

God our Father,
Thank You for the food.
We want to give You flowers.
Thank You for the food.
Thank You for Jesus.
Amen

Slight updating....

We bought some multi-packs of lights today. With some time and knowledge on Jim's part we have just about updated all of the lighting inside the house. We still have one set of really dated lights, but the hallway is unified and the bathroom looks better. We also found some paint off their "oops" paint shelf that we are going to try in the bathroom. We are making slow progress, but progress none-the-less.

Lost in Translation

Jim was putting something together and wanted a bag to put the extra pieces in. So he sent Doug with a message that he needed a snack size Ziploc.

The message I got was that daddy was hungry and needed a snack to fit his size.

Confession

I never thought I would do it.

We have joined the ranks of people who have enrolled their children in multiple Vacation Bible Schools.

Here is the deal.
Doug and Andy, despite having each other to play with and playing reasonably well together most of the time, need to be around other children.
Our church has VBS but is doing it every Wednesday night in June rather than in one concentrated week. Our church is also fairly small. We are fortunate in that there is a small concentration of children around the same age as Andy and Doug, but still a larger group is nice.

So....
We went to one at another (MUCH larger) Methodist church last week. I sort of forgot the first morning so we showed up late and then they only went through Thursday so we had Friday off.

At that first VBS one of the moms who recognized me from Doug & Andy's preschool (at a different church) mentioned that HER Baptist church was having VBS this week. So I signed them up. It was a different curriculum so at least they were getting something different.

I did find one for next week that is still a different curriculum, but it is in the evening so by the time we are going out of town at the end of the week, and we are going to the one at our church on Wednesday...they would only go two days so we will skip that one.

They have now seen the themes "Crocodile Dock" "Boomerang Express" and "Camp Edge (Experience + Discover God Everywhere)."
I don't know of any for July so I guess I might actually have to come up with some ideas to keep them from parking themselves in front of the TV all day.

Words

I need inspiration. I have been busy lately which is part of the reason I have missed posting some days. However, there are some days when I know something happened that might be post-worthy, but at the end of the day when I might get a moment to breath I can't necessarily remember those moments.
Part of my issue might be that there are moments I feel like I am drowning in words. I am taking a qualitative research class (descriptive research rather than number crunching) so there is a ton of reading to go with that class. I am working on an independent study so I have reading with that as well as working on my paper that was started way back when. So that has writing in addition to the reading. I am also teaching a class and helping advise and register incoming students. So I have emails and online assignments (papers!) to read for that.

Every where I turn there is something to read or something to write.

I do feel like my brain is changing being immersed in this word crazy context. I don't know if I am turning into an academic...a professor...or what, but I am turning into something.

Pool Party

It wasn't exactly a pool party we went today. It was really a baby shower where a pool was available. Of course my little water babies like to swim so we did wearing our floaty suits.
Josie was a velcro baby at first. As much as she loves showers and baths at home, the pool was just a bit big for her. The pool had a slide and she did eventually go down it with someone to catch her at the bottom.
Doug, despite eventually getting out to kick and "swim" last time we were in a pool took a little while to warm up to the swimming thing. He did eventually after being a little forced. He also went down the slide a few times as long as I was there to "catch" him at the bottom.

And then there is Andy.

Now there are times I wish that I could set my children's risk taking level to somewhere in between the very cautious Doug and whatever off the charts level Andy is at.

He was in and out and all over the pool. He was letting one of our friends lift him up high and drop him into the water in the middle of the pool. He went down the slide...on his bottom, laying down, on his back, backwards, face first, etc. He jumped off the diving board...both forwards and backwards.

I am still breathing and he did go home in one piece. He just needs to learn to stop grinning so much and actually close his mouth because I think he swallowed half the pool.

Rubbing off

My work (both school and actual work) are rubbing off on my children. Besides "playing school," my children talk about "important papers." Today Andy wanted to come help me with advising students to know what classes to take. He even picked out "nice" clothes that he put on himself (although the pants were backwards). We might have been able to use his help because there were almost sixty transfer students today.

Retro pictures

I filled up the hard drive on my laptop. It was inevitable that it would happen in that it had tons of pictures of my children, files related to the multimedia class I was taking, and various other things that needed to be cleaned out. I have been burning CDs of the pictures so that I could free up some memory and I have enjoyed seeing how much my children have changed. So here are some early pictures of Andy and Doug for your enjoyment

Fuzz

It's a fuzzy day. It is fuzzy because I have a lot on my mind, I'm waiting to see how some things turn out, and I'm slightly distracted because of it all.
Yesterday I had mostly a good day that was overshadowed by one event (that is the one even I am waiting to see how it will play out).
I didn't get to see much of my children yesterday because I was gone from 9:30am until 8:30pm. They were in bed when I got home.
As much as I realize that I sometimes get frustrated with them and there are days that I am glad that I have other things to do and think about besides just taking care of them, I realized that I missed my family during the day. I was doing intellectually stimulating things and having adult conversations, but there is just something about a child hugging you when they wrap their arms around your neck and their head is close to your head and they hug you with their entire body.
I did get to go in and kiss them good night when I got home. They were all asleep by the time I got to each of their beds. Each smelled slightly of the strawberry shampoo and was curled up under their covers all warm and cozy. They are one of the things that anchor me.

A moment

A moment is a self-defining amount of time.
It might be the amount of time if you had caught the children sooner that they might not have laid 20 or so pieces of brand new paper out on the floor and put a single green squiggle of "writing" on each of them.
It might be the amount of time it takes for you to remember that you registered the children for a Vacation Bible School that started this morning and you are two hours late dropping them off.
It might be the amount of time it takes for you to scarf down a quick lunch in the hopes that you will get to your class on time.
It might be the amount of it takes for a child to stop and hug you.

There were many moments today.

Where did that come from?

We are at a high school reunion for Jim. On the way back from the family picnic Andy started asking questions. Theological questions and detail questions about Bible stories. Questions such as:

• Why was the mean king trying to kill the baby Jesus?
• Why did the wise men do the right thing? (He was talking about not revealing Jesus's location)
• Why did the people kill Jesus?
• How did God get the people the bread? (When the Israelites were wondering in the desert with Moses)

I just kept thinking....what made you ask this now? I guess it was on his mind.

So literal

The kids were taking turns riding a "horse" (one of those on a frame with springs) at nana and pop's house. Doug and Andy kept putting on pretend hats and saying they were cowboys. Andy was even going so far as to fake cough for the horse and give it medicine to make it feel better.

They handed Josie a pretend hat.
Andy: Josie you're a cowboy.
Josie: I a girl.
Mommy: So you can be a cowgirl instead.
Josie: I not a cow.

My babies are growing up

I just feel like lately I have been realizing how much my babies are growing up. This could be partly due to the fact that we just had birthday season at our house, but there are other signs.

• Doug and Andy now can mostly handle themselves in a public restroom (we're working on the concept of not leaving the stall until your pants are pulled up).
• Josie is working on potty training.
• All the kids can put on their own shoes.
• Andy and Doug can mostly dress themselves
• They are all signed up for preschool next year
• Doug and Andy can buckle themselves in their booster seats
• We might get a booster seat for Josie at a restaurant but no more high chairs
• They are all "getting" things left and right that they didn't understand before
• Doug and Andy are getting better about being able to help with things (picking up toys, clearing their dishes, helping do a job)
• Particularly Doug is understanding more jokes
  

I'm enjoying the new phase because there are things I do not miss, and while I loved earlier phases there are times that I see people with children still in those phases and I am glad that we are done with it. I just can't believe how quickly the time has flown by.

Perspective

Today I was reminded about the importance of perspective.
I am taking a class during the Summer Term and it started today. The professor had us go around and do introductions with some biographical information included.
One of the ladies in the class mentioned that she had traveled a lot. The professor asked her what was the most unusual place she had gone. She said that, although she had been to Europe and other foreign destinations, that the most unusual place was Yellowstone National Park.

Even though I now live in the South, I grew up living in the West and was about three hours from Yellowstone. I know it has unique features and is special, but somehow with easy access to it and frequent visits I had not really thought about it in terms of being something unusual.

The Closet

This is Josie (in her first real skirt since there is no "hidden shorts" underneath it....after I convinced her that it does not need to be hiked up to her arm pits). She is standing in our game closet. It is an interesting closet (which during a round of hide-and-seek I did discover that I can actually fit in) because it has a full size door but there is a higher floor to it. The shelves don't come out to the door and it is really deep because it is above our stairs to the basement. The kids love to get in there and pull things out (puzzles, game pieces, etc.). It is a pain to clean-up and I am currently in a quandary about what to do with the closet. Do I keep it sparse? Do I unpack tons in the hopes they won't be able to get in there? Do I leave the rest of our games and such packed since I know we will likely not be here for a long time?

I'm just not sure.

I'm sort of in the same situation with the kitchen. We still have several kitchen boxes downstairs. They do not have essential things in them, but stuff that can be nice to have on hand. The kitchen is even a more complicated issue because we REALLY need to redo the kitchen. However, we in no way have the money right now to do what really needs to be done to it and if we should somehow manage to get into redoing the kitchen then I would have to pack up the stuff to get it out of the way anyway.

I don't know. Owning a house can be so complicated sometimes.