Sick Day

So…..we took a sick day today.  I am actually feeling much better, but it felt fantastic to just laze around.  I got up to get Mattie ready for school and just as I was about to climb back into bed, Reese came walking in.  No back to bed for me.  So we did the next best thing, I turned on the tv for him, set him up with the very manly “My Little Pony”, and the I huddled up in the crook of the couch and took a two-hour nap.  I have to say, there are some weird dreams that come with napping to “My Little Pony”.  I finally woke up to the sound of voices that didn’t belong to any unicorns or Pegasus named Rainbow Dash…..Chelsea was awake and feeding Lila breakfast.  Oops, I may have let that nap get a little out of control.

We spent most of the day on the couch, and it was wonderful.  Chelsea has introduced Reese to his new favorite family, The Brady Bunch and he can now sing the theme song word for word.  The pledge of allegiance he has no clue about, but the theme from the Brady Bunch…..check.  We also introduced him to a great new neighbor, Mr. Rogers and let me tell you, those two are tight now.  We learned all about toilets today and if we all weren’t potty trained before, we sure would be now because Mr. Rogers covered everything and was so thorough and convincing that using the big people potty was the most incredible feat ever.  We even got to watch a cool little movie, brought over by Mr. McFeely, that showed us just how toilets were made.  I noticed that tonight when Reese took off his shoes, he did so in a very particular and familiar way….I won’t be surprised if he asks to wear a sweater tomorrow with a zipper….like his new friend.  Kind of like he also would love for me to let him get into the car through the window the way another hero of his does.  Let me tell you though, getting into a racecar through the window looks much cooler than attempting it in an Acadia.

I finally got myself dressed in “unpajamas” (yoga pants….work clothes) at around 2:30, but only because I had to.  Someone had to pick Mattie up from school and though its somewhat okay to drop ones child off at school in your pj’s, it’s not at all okay to pick them up 7 hours later still in your jammies.  Especially, the same ones you were wearing earlier.

I would like to take a second to show off what my daughter did at school today:

I always hoped and dreamed that my daughter would be good at drawing pirates.

And I love that when she sketches pirate ships, she is careful to include bottles of rum floating around beside it.  This, along with her telling me that the Salvation Army were people who took care of the children of men and women who had died in the Civil War, makes me question some of the curriculum that is being taught in 2nd grade.

After giving each other our own My Little Pony Names, and singing the Brady Bunch song using our new pony names, we decided it was time for baths.  Mattie begged and pleaded for a bubble bath in the big tub and because it seems like so many other things I have to say  no to when she asks (can we have a pony, can she learn to drive this weekend, can she have a sandwich made with donuts as the bread, and can we send Reese off for a while), I was happy to say sure.  Unfortunately, we appeared to be all out of any sort of bubble bath.  So I used the next best thing……Palmolive dish soap.

This may have been a mistake on my part, but it was a fun mistake.  And how often do you get to take a bath in what looks like a huge vat of mashed potatoes?

I do have one complaint for the day, and that complaint goes out to the makers of Cepacol cough drops.  Dear Cepacol – I’m not sure what it would hurt if you could make your soothing, throat numbing, happy place taking lozenges a touch bigger.  Dime sized seems like a mean joke.  I can understand not wanting to get in trouble for make choking hazards, but they do dissolve and I promise not to give one to my infant daughter.  But maybe quarter sized?  That would be so much better!

I hope if you are sick, you are able to have as pleasant of a sick day as I have.  And sick or not, you should all try to catch an episode of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood as soon as possible.

Sick

Yesterday’s post was brought to you by the word Gross, today’s will be brought to you by the word Sick…because that’s what I am.

I started to feel a little less than great on Sunday afternoon.  Yesterday afternoon I was pretty certain that I was on the verge of getting sick.  But last night at around 3:00 a.m, I was 110% certain that I was indeed unwell.  I was not only tired and in great pain, but also very angry that my body hadn’t decided to attack itself while I was still in the comfort of my parents house this weekend. If your going to be sick, having a nurse for a nurse is the best way to go.

I woke up this morning convinced that I either had mono, strep throat, or some sort of mystery illness due to the decomposing body stuck in my ceiling.  Turns out, there is no body up there by the way, my friendly plumbing service provider got everything squared away in a very timely manner this morning.  For the frist time since we’ve lived here, I won’t be going to sleep to the sound of the faucet dripping in my bathtub tonight. I was also convinced that I needed to get myself a good hearty dose of antibiotics and maybe something that had a numbing effect to it.

Thankfully, I have a wonderful Chelsea here at my house right now so she could keep my kiddos while I went hunting for an urgent care clinic.  I was pretty sure that Kroger has something called, The Little Clinic and turns out that they indeed do….just not at the Kroger that’s closest to my house.  So I headed down the street a bit to my local Walgreens….home of the Take Care Clinic.  Except that the Take Care Clinic doesn’t have a home at that particular Walgreens.  About 45 minutes after my search for health care began, I finally walked up to the self check-in kiosk ready to get my healing on. You can imagine how excited I was when I had only read 3/4 of a page in my new book when my name was called.  Now that’s some service!  Turns out though that this was just the name calling to get me all checked in and to have a very thorough throat culture taken.  I’m pretty sure that this nurse could have taken my tonsils out while she was culturing and she seemed not at all surprised when I immediately started gagging.  At least she was effective and we only had to do it the one time.  Unfortunately, that was just the check in portion of my visit and the medical staff would be taking their lunch from 1:00-2:00.  It was 12:15 at that time, but there were two other patients ahead of me, which meant I would be waiting a while.  Some of you might find this maddening, but being a person who doesn’t get to just sit in a chair and read by herself very often, I actually enjoyed my little wait.

When my time finally came, I was met by the loveliest Nurse Practitioner who had the calmest, most soothing voice.  She gave me just enough sympathy and when she was probing around on my neck checking for swollen lymph nodes, if I closed my eyes I could swear that I was sitting at home with my mom.  She was just wonderful and I am tempted to go back tomorrow to see if I can just have 15 minutes of her time to sit on the examining table and maybe have her play with my hair.  I’m not sure how they would bill that to my insurance though.

I have tanked up on ibuprofen, taken my first round of amoxicillin and am currently sucking on a cepacol throat losenge….hopefully tonight will be a better night.  And hopefully, tomorrow’s blog title will have a more positive feel to it.

Gross

That’s the only word that comes to mind when I think of the things which I will be blogging about today.

The first is a little story about my eldest child, a little something that happened on Friday afternoon.  Something that I am about 40% sure is a bad idea to be sharing with the public but the other 60% just thinks it’s a crazy enough story that I can’t keep it to myself.

So Friday, we were planning a little weekend getaway to Nene and Papa’s house in Nashville and while we were waiting for Brandon to finish up at work, I told the kids that they were to stay outside getting all their wiggles out.  IT was a beautiful day, it was Friday, it was relatively warm and I had floors that needed cleaned desperately.  So I let them take whatever toys they wanted out into the great outdoors and told them they couldn’t come back inside until Daddy got home.  It’s funny how children chose which of our parental instructions to follow.  How many times have I asked Mattie to just consider hanging up her towel after she showers, or at least take it back into the bathroom?  Daily, I have to remind Reese to please turn around and eat over the table and that when mommy says to put away your shoes, behind the guest bathroom toilet is not where I am meaning.  Seriously, that last one happens every day.  If shoes come up missing, we always look behind the guest bathroom toilet and you are sure to find at least two pair.

But this particular instruction, “stay outside” on this particular day, they took very seriously.  So seriously that when they finally did come inside, Mattie was carrying her socks and Reese her panties, and they greeted me with a jolly, “Sissy had an accident!” The panties being off for an accident I could understand, her brother being the one to be carrying them…that was a little odd.  But the socks?  And she was wearing her shoes so what in the world had happened to the socks?  Part of me didn’t even want to know, just toss it in the dirty clothes and let’s think about it later.  But that other part of me, probably the part that also was in favor of sharing this story, just needed to know more.  So I asked…….”What kind of accident did you have, Mattie?” You always know its going to a bad place when your child starts their explanation with, “Remember how you said we had to stay outside and couldn’t come in?”  So it seems that Mattie had to go to the bathroom, number 2 and being the exceptional child that she is, ever obedient at all costs, she decided it would probably be best to just go outside.  Let me take this opportunity to state that I have never, NEVER encouraged my children to defecate outside.  The only child who we make use the potty outside is the canine one.  I have never ever suggested that the backyard could be a possible option for bathroom activities.  So where she got this idea that even though she needed to go pooh she couldn’t come inside, I have no idea.  Okay, well the story was starting to make a bit more sense, but what about the socks in her hands?

So I asked, “what happened to your socks?” Mattie’s response was a very calm, “Oh, I took my shoes off while I was poohing (logical enough, don’t we all take our shoes off when we go…..no) and then I lost my balance and that how my socks got yucky.” So not only was my 8-year-old poohing in the backyard, but she decided that it would be best to take off her shoes to do it.  I really didn’t know what to make of any of this, especially the fact that she and her brother thought nothing of the whole incident.  I feel like I have failed them somewhere along the line.  I’m not sure at what point you are supposed to have the “don’t pooh in the yard” talk, probably somewhere between “stranger/danger” and where babies come from.

So all I have to say about that is……Gross.

My next gross happened this morning.  I went to make coffee and to my surprise, I saw brown coffee filters in our cabinet.  I knew that we had about ten filters left sitting on top of an unopened package of new ones, and on Friday they were white.  Not sure where these brown ones came from, but that was okay they would work just the same…..get ready for the gross….except they were wet.  They were brown because they were wet with some unknown brown wet something.  Upon closer examination, I found a puddle of the brown juice in the unopened filters, too.  Then I saw that it was coming from the top of the cabinet.  I decided that’s all I needed to see.  Brandon was getting ready for work and I told him that I was pretty sure we had a new, expensive problem lurking up in the space between the floor upstairs in our master bathroom and the ceiling in the kitchen.  Your mind goes to all sorts of yucky places when there’s brown liquid leaking from your ceiling.  I’m really looking forward to the repair man who is supposed to come for a visit tomorrow morning, but in the mean time, all I can think about is that no matter how much I sweep or clean off the counter tops, there is still a body possibly decomposing and dripping through my kitchen ceiling.

Gross……

That all seemed like enough gross for a good month, but then I realised I was eating ramen noodles today out of Reese’s Grave Digger mug that his father got for him at Monster Jam.  I’ve even included a picture so that you could get as close to the full effect as possible.  Gross right?

Then I lost Lila’s shoe.  Not just any shoe, but her special one of a kind, made by my dear friend Pam little russian doll shoe.  I love those shoes.  We lost them twice during our errand running, but each time I noticed right away and was able to back track and find them.  Still, somehow I only managed to make it home with one. I wanted to cry.  I still want to cry.  I was going to save those little shoes forever.  It might not be brain noodles in a skull mug or pooh on socks, but it’s still gross.

Gross is also waiting to find out test results for someone who means the world to you.  Bracing yourself for the worst, trying to remember to breath.  That’s even grosser than the dripping ceiling.  Luckily, that one had a better finish at the end of the day.

So, gross.  What has been your favorite gross moment of the day?

Books and Belts

So there has been a little table of books for sale in the hall at Mattie’s school.  I believe that these are books that they have been clearing out of the library, as well as the classrooms, and rather than just throw them out they are selling them for the very reasonable price of a quarter or something like that.  Mattie thinks its awesome and once a week I will give her a bit of change, maybe even a dollar if she’s been especially good that week and she always brings home some incredible additions for our own home library.  I thought I would share with you our latest treasures from the “Book Bargain Table”.

You’re jealous aren’t you?  We haven’t quite figured out Mattie’s method for picking books, though these are a little bit better than the 7th grade social studies text-book she brought home about a month ago.

The saga of Mattie and her school belt has finally been resolved, but not before escalating. So as I may have mentioned before, after receiving her dress code violation for not wearing a belt after it magically broke, I was very frustrated.  The thought of driving back to the uniform place that’s way across town just seemed like an impossible task, and I decided that it would be much easier to just order a new one from Amazon. And that’s what I did.  And after a week of Mattie just wearing her jumpers, which meant I had to iron more frequently that usual, we were thrilled when her belt finally showed up.  Thrilled until we realized that it was black instead of navy blue.  So back to Amazon it went and I also ended up having to pay more for postage back then I did to get it here in the first place.  So after what has seemed like about a month, It so happened that I was going to be across town during the uniform store’s business hours and I decided that it wouldn’t hurt to just take the broken belt and see if maybe, just maybe they would let me exchange it since those things should be high enough quality to last for a full year.  And if that didn’t work, I could just get a new one and Mattie could wear pants again.  By this time, not having to iron was going to be worth the $15.00 to buy a new belt.

I walked in, placed my belt on the counter and before I even got into my sob story that I had rehearsed, the woman simply asked me if it was less than a year old and then told me to go grab a new one.  After all the hassle that has come with that silly belt, I felt like hugging the woman.

And Mattie and I have been thrilled for the last two mornings at her not having to wear a jumper, which requires an ironed, little white shirt.

And lastly, we have been unable to find Bane for a few days now.  It appears that he has gone on some sort of extended stay mission trip.  I am sure the other residents of Gotham will miss him dearly.  We will be out-of-town this weekend, but Reese says that Joker will take a turn doing church next time if Bane doesn’t show back up….since he is an elder.

Fascinating day here at the blog, I know.

Date With Dr. Love

Happy Valentine’s Day…….a week late.

Our day started out with the odd sound of Brandon cutting up vegetables early in the morning.  I walked downstairs to find my dear husband not cutting up vegetables, but rather trimming roses for his two little loves.  I have to take a minute to brag on my husband just a little here.  I love when he gets me flowers, but what I love even more, is that ever since Mattie was born, he has always made sure that on special occasions he gets his little girls flowers, too.  We have also discovered that Brandon has quite a talent at flower arranging and he rather enjoys going to the store and picking out flowers to make his own arrangements.  If this whole neuro things doesn’t work out, at least he seems to have other skills to fall back on.

The plan for the day was for Reese to take Lila and I to the zoo, as I had mentioned before, and we seemed to be right on track for that little adventure.  I had planned ahead and had clothes laid out and the diaper bag all stocked.  What I hadn’t planned on was that while I was putting Lila in the car,  Reese would be messing with the door to the house and in so messing, would accidentally lock us out.  I had the two kids, the diaper bag and all our gear…..except the keys.  So there was no leaving the house, but no getting in the house either.  Lucky for us, I leave the back door (that opens out into the backyard) unlocked all day.  I already had Lila all buckled in the car and I told Reese to go ahead and sit in the car and I should just be a minute.  We have a very proactive security man who drives around all day in our neighborhood.  He takes his responsibilities very seriously, which I appreciate, but to the extent that if I take too long getting the groceries out of the car and leave the doors open, I will find him either in my garage or at my front door making sure I haven’t been attacked or something.  So that last thing I wanted him to drive by and see was Reese roaming the garage alone while his mother was scaling the fence.  So I secured Reese, got the step stool for a little extra boost and over the fence I went.  We were running a touch late by now, but that’s okay…no big deal.  And then I discovered that I had picked today to be responsible and lock my house.  Now we were going to be running a lot later it appeared.  Back over the fence I would go.  Easier said than done.

On the way over the first time, I had used a step stool for my accent and then on the way down, there were boards on the opposite side of the fence to use for foot holds.  I hadn’t taken into consideration that though the boards would help me get up on top of the fence, I wouldn’t be able to quite reach the footstool for the way down.  I also hadn’t thought about the neighbor lady that walks laps around the block all day long.  She came walking past our house and decided to stop and admire our blooming daffodils, as I was hanging onto the fence trying not to look like a burglar and also not to fall.  It was about this time that I also discovered that Reese wasn’t in the car anymore, but rather roaming around the yard. Walker Lady finally moved on and I could pull myself up on top of the fence, where I had to shimmy down onto the neighbors brick fence that is a bit shorter and stabler.  Jumping was a lot easier from there.

So that little problem was solved without having the police called on me and without losing Reese again.  But we were still locked out of the house and had a useless car.  I then did what I always do in a difficult situation….called Brandon.  Luckily, he wasn’t with a patient but was instead getting the oil changed.  The car didn’t end up getting its oil changed, but we were rescued and that’s what mattered most anyway.

Then it was off to the zoo.

My handsome date for the day, Dr. Love

 We made our first stop to see  Reese’s favorite exhibit…..the gift shop.  It was here that Lila fell in love with her very first stuffed animal.  It’s always interesting to see which animal your child is going to latch onto.  With Mattie, it was first her penguin, Reese has an unexplainable love for the fruit bat and Lila……well, she took immediately to the hippo.

Lila and Bo the Hippo

I didn’t see that one coming at all.  Reese got a new bat, immediately named Batter.  It seemed to complement Bat Bat and Batty, the stuffed bats he already has, quite nicely.  And then when I found out that the bat house was closed for a month for its annual cleaning, he also got this silly bat mask….because I was suffering from a huge case of mommy-guilt.

Reese and his awesome new bat mask

After some tears regarding the absence of bats for the day, we went on to the farm portion of the zoo and enjoyed a little bit of lunch on the farmhouse front porch.

A little sibling love

Feeding Batter a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It was blackberry jam, perfect for a fruit bat

It was about this time that things took a real turn for the terrifying.  Reese was strolling along, being precious and telling me what a great mommy I was.  I will admit, I was really eating it up, too.  Especially after the eventful morning that we had already had with the whole key/ fence situation and then the bats.  So after all the buttering up, he asked if we could go see the Komodo Dragon’s next.  If some of you are new or don’t remember the last experience with the dragons, lets just say that they are not my favorite.  And if you are still interested, please check out this post, from September.  After being brave last time and having Reese lead me along the sidewalk while I walked with my eyes closed, I figured I could manage that again.  We began our trek through the Dragon’s Lair and after a few feet, Reese informed me that there weren’t any lizards out in their yards.  I will be honest, I didn’t believe him and not until we reached the end and I saw a sign that said, “We are inside” did I really trust that there truly weren’t any dragons.  Of course, after reading this sign, I also knew that we were going to have to actually go inside the scary dragon building.  I have been known to send Mattie in by herself and wait for her at the other end, telling her that I would count to 30 and if she didn’t come out by then I would send a zoo worker in after her.  However, after our Code Adam incident at Toys R’Us a few days before, I felt that plan wasn’t going to work with Reesie.  So I did it.  I had Reese open the door and confirm that the lizards were only located on the left side of the building.  I walked in, positioned Lila’s stroller just right so that I could push it with my back to those terrifying things and I immediately started a texting conversation with someone who would distract me.  I don’t plan on doing that again anytime soon….maybe in another year or two.

How Lila does the zoo

Another highlight of our zoo trip was seeing this precious little girl, Mauliki, who was born on January 16th.

The new little baby giraffe

And a favorite moment, when Reese and I were admiring the otters he asked if we could next go see the grown up otters.  I was a little confused and told him these were all the otters that the zoo had and I thought that they were the grown-ups ones.  He insisted that no, these were the babies and he really wanted to see the grown otters next….the ones that do the little show over by the polar bears.  Turns out that in Reese’s world, otters grow up to be sea lions.

We had a lovely valentine visit to the zoo.  Didn’t end up getting our salads with red tomatoes though and missed the bats, but overall, I think the love was definitely felt by all.

A little “Family” photo

Road Trip With My Girls

So I took a little, unintentional blog vacation.  I had every plan to blog all about Reese and I’s Valentine adventure.  But as often does, things came up Thursday evening and blogging was the last thing on my mind.  And then Friday, well the girls and I took a little trip to North Carolina.  I’m not the most exciting person, but I can be spontaneous.  And a little over a week ago, I had a rather spontaneous idea.  Mattie would be having Presidents Day off and usually, that meant we travelled to Mumsey and Poppy’s.  However, Brandon had got tickets for he and Reese to go to Monster Jam, and I couldn’t very well not take Reese on a visit to Mumsey and Poppy.  But we needed to do something…..what could we do?

And then it hit me.  I  missed my friend Stephanie…..and I wanted to see her.  And so it was set, I would drive to North Carolina with the two girls and stay for the weekend, while Brandon and Reese stayed here and had a bit of a man weekend.

So Friday afternoon, after a bit of a delay do to a nasty diaper, we were headed out.  We had a pretty uneventful journey, except for the fact that my map app wouldn’t refresh and there were a few panicky moments of not knowing if I was headed in the wrong direction or not.  I also really appreciated how it gave me the next turn to take, but it never told me where this turn would be.  All I knew was that I was to go  from I-40 to 74.  Where 74 was going to show up, that was a mystery.  Turns out that 74 is about an hour away from my final destination.  I guess my anxiety and constant checking of all road signs for any clues as to if 74 was coming up actually worked in my favor because I was wide awake the whole time.  Another thing I learned but traveling late at night with two little ones is that it’s not very easy to stop to go to the bathroom.  For some reason, draining one’s bladder doesn’t seem nearly as important as not waking up those sleeping little travelers.  Also, the pain of a full bladder helps to keep you awake and alert.

It was a good trip though overall, the girls were excellent travelers and unlike the drive to Arkansas, there were no hour-long delays due to “road work”.

Our weekend was wonderful.  Steph was recovering from a bout with pneumonia and we are pretty sure that she has managed to fracture a rib or two, but even with all that, we had a great time.  There was a lot of curled up on the couch time, wearing cozy sweats and when we finally felt that we absolutely must get out and do something, Mark kept all 4 girls while Steph and I had a great time digging through treasures at Goodwill.  Steph and I both enjoy a weekly trip to just check things out at Goodwill and are always calling one another or sending pictures of our finds and let me just tell you, it is so fun to finally get to go and hunt together.

I think the girls had a good time too.  Mattie seems to have fallen in love with Uncle Mark all over again after they spent some time together Saturday night while Steph and I made a Target run.  And then Sunday, in the 27 degree weather, Mattie, Rosie and Uncle Mark went out and did a fun run.  I don’t know that below freezing weather was the best start for Mattie’s running career, but she still seemed to enjoy herself.  Lila loved crawling around amongst the girls and was especially fond of the animal magnets that decorated the dishwasher.  We did have a few hiccups in communication between Mattie and Rosie.  At one point, little Rosie came downstairs to inform her mommy that Mattie was going to break her foot and could she just stay downstairs with us instead.  She was very calm about this request, not trying to tattle on her friend at all, just highly concerned about the safety of her bones.  Needless to say, Mattie was quickly apprehended and questioned about her threat of violence.  When I asked Mattie why she had told Rosie such a thing, she quickly responded that she didn’t want to hurt her friend at all, but instead had suggested that they play hospital and they could pretend that Rosie had a broken foot.  I guess there is a bit of an age difference between the two and its possible that Mattie didn’t take into consideration that Rosie is still very much in the stage where what we say is taken very literally.  It’s not like Mattie doesn’t live with a sibling of roughly the same age, but in the case of she and Reese, it is possible that there may be a real threat of a broken bone so it’s always best to find out what the real intentions were.

I would like to take a moment to give a big thank you to Mark.  Whenever possible, he handled any task that there might be.  From fixing the girls snack, changing diapers, putting babies to bed and entertaining the 8-year-old.  He let Steph and I just take it easy and enjoy our time together, even when that meant that we were both lying on our own couches taking little naps.  Mark, I really appreciate your childcare services and my stay at the Murrill Bed and Breakfast was incredibly relaxing.  Thank you so much.

I don’t have a single picture from the weekend.  I didn’t even get my camera out of the trunk of the car.  But that doesn’t mean I didn’t have a wonderful time.  And really, I don’t know that you would have wanted to see pictures of all that our weekend consisted of.  Something tells me photos like, “Steph in her pajamas coughing on the couch”, “Kaylee wrapped in her favorite blanket lying on her left side”, “Kaylee wrapped in her blanket lying on her right side”….you get the idea. Sometimes more than an exciting adventure, what you need the most is some time with a person who knows you best, who understands your heart and wants the best for you, and to just unload the things that have been weighing heavy.  And that’s what we did.  Our problems aren’t solved, our hearts still hurt over certain things, but I think we both felt more confidant and a little bit more prepared to face them.

The return trip from North Carolina was a bit more exciting.  We took the longer route and stopped in Chattanooga to pick up our Chelsea.  We also got to make a surprise visit to friends the Wilders, and since we were stopping in Chattanooga, Stephanie had sent a coat back with us to return to another friend that lives there and had left it at their house when visiting a while back.  Mattie got sick and did a little vomiting and we drove through a hurricane for about 10 minutes outside of Jackson.  I also found it sort of funny that in one day, I managed to visit all the major Tennessee cities.

So we are home again, a fun weekend behind us and a new understanding that Memphis and Asheville really aren’t that terribly far away.

Tune in tomorrow when I tell you all about Valentine’s Day with Reesie….complete with pictures.

Be A Little Light

Just a little update, Pennies For Parks goal for $3,000.00 dollars has officially been met as of 9:50 tonight.  Thank you so much to everyone who participated.  This was meant to be a blessing for someone else, and I still believe it will be.  But even more, it has been a huge blessing for me.  Only 1 or 2 of the people who donated have even an inkling as to who Parks or his family is, yet they gave.  None of the givers asked if they could sign their name on anything or be mentioned to Parks’ parents so that they could be formally thanked later.

I have said it over and over, but I am so humbled by everyone’s generosity.  Whether you meant to or not, you have each been little lights to me.  What is a little light you might ask?  Have ever heard the song, “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.  This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine let it shine.

All around the neighborhood, I’m gonna let it shine

All around the neighborhood, I’m gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine

Cover it up with a bushel, NO! I’m gonna let it shine

Cover it up with a bushel, NO! I’m gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine

Won’t let Satan blow it out, I’m gonna let it shine

Won’t let Satan blow it out, I’m gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine

Let it shine till Jesus comes, I’m gonna let it shine

Let is shine till JEsus comes, I’m gonna let it shine, let it shine,let it shine, let it shine

My parting words with Mattie every day are to “Be a little light”.  That whether you say a word or not, her actions would show that she has Jesus in her heart.  Jesus is love and loving those around you is being His little light.  And you all have been a huge light, a reminder that God loves this little boy and his parents and their parents, and He loves me and He has placed me amongst people who have Him in their hearts.

Thank you so much to everyone!  And though the pennies will be paid tomorrow, Prayers for Parks can go on indefinitely.  Thanks again!

Three Things….Or More, I Don’t Know Yet

I have three things to share today, actually make that 4.  Well, you know what…I say all that but really who knows where this may end up.  So lets just start with number 1 on the agenda and see where it leads us.

I would like to apologize to everyone who is participating in Ash Wednesday.  I haven’t been out and about much today, but everywhere I have been, there have been a few of you with your ashy fingerprint on your forehead and each time I see it, it startles me.  I try to play it cool because within seconds, my brain kicks in and I remember why it’s there.  But those few seconds leading up to the recognition, I know each time I have had a very confused expression on my face that I am sure you couldn’t hep noticing.  The first man I saw, his ashes were slightly clumpy and for a brief moment, I thought they were some unfortunate skin tag/ mole thing.  I think the look on my face was a bit more than confusion.  And you Mr. Banker with the very polished looking suit and slicked back hair, your forehead ashes really perplexed me for a bit.  And now that I have gawked foolishly at around 35 people today, and now at 9:15 seem to have a handle on it all – tomorrow when I would be all prepared for it and not be phased in the least….the ashes will be gone.

And on the subject of apologies, I think that the parking lot security guard man who was sitting on the tailgate of his truck watching me struggle with opening the door for my kids, carry Lila in her carseat and then hoist the car seat into my tall car  – all while holding a pizza and bag of bread sticks in my hands owes me an apology.  I know you were sitting there on the tailgate of your very intense looking Toyota pickup fighting and preventing crime, and I hate to interfere with that, but I could have really used your help.  And dropping my bread sticks, which caused us to lose about 5 of them and the marinara sauce to splatter all over the street, well, that sort of was a crime.

And the 2nd apology I think that we deserve, and by we I mean the entire city of Memphis – is that maybe you shouldn’t do promos for the evening news with a story about the Klu Klux Klan, complete with footage. We rarely watch tv, but it was on while we were looking for a charged up PlayStation controller to use to get us to our faithful after school Peanuts cartoons on Netflix.  Thankfully, I was sitting right next to both little sets of eyes and I have cheetah-like reflexes that have been finely tuned to cover up little eyes and ears, before they realize what’s happening.  I guess the KKK is planning a little visit to Memphis in the next month or so to demand that a park be returned to its previous name.  Hopefully, their exact travel plans with also be on the news so that we can avoid them.  I’m pretty sure Mattie saw a glimpse of them, but at least didn’t hear anything.  She asked me why those people were wearing those masks and I just told her I wasn’t ready to talk about those people to her yet.  All the words I would use, she wouldn’t really understand, but that mainly they were just people who had ideas about things that weren’t very nice.  And they wore their masks because they wanted to be scary bullies and because it’s a lot easier to say mean things when you are hiding.  She wanted to know why they were on the news and I said I hadn’t bothered to listen because they don’t matter to me.  I have no idea if that was a terrible thing to say or not, maybe it was just as mean and wrong of me to be mean about them.  I’m not sure, but I think that maybe a promo about the weather would be better next time, channel 5.

One of my favorite people Steph drew 2 little trees for me to use as “guestbooks” for Lila’s birthday party.  I had this weird idea that since people weren’t supposed to bring gifts, they might not bring cards either and I wanted Lila to have some way of knowing who all had celebrated with her on her first birthday.  I have seen these finger print trees done at weddings and I thought it might be a cute idea for her birthday, too.  The only problem was that I can’t draw worth a hoot.  So I called Steph.  She’s my resident artist (who actually lives in North Carolina, thus making her not really a resident at all, but she’s my go-to for all things drawn and has never let me down.) and within what seemed like minutes of my notifying her, she had not one but two tree truck options for me.  I couldn’t make up my mind, so I had my guests print on both of them.  I still haven’t made up my mind yet.  But I’m sharing them because I think they are darling and I love how they turned out.  I also love that even though she wasn’t here to fingerprint on them, they were sketched with my Bestie’s hand so she’s still a part of it.

And that is probably about all for today.  A certain little boy, who I plan on wearing as a backpack or sweater tomorrow so as not to lose him, and I are going to the zoo to look at the bats first thing in the morning.  We will then be getting smoothies and salads with red tomatoes for lunch. He would like to buy me a present, something nice like a package of Ziploc baggies or maybe a cushion to put on my seat in the car, have you seen those “Forever Comfy” cushions? That’s what he’s referencing, that boy loves him some infomercials and “as seen on tv” products. None of this was my idea, but when the boy asks you on a date, you go and you do what has been planned for you.  And in my case with this particular date, you also pay for it all. Oh future girlfriends, you are in for a special treat! With the way he woos his mama, I can only imagine what he has in store for you.

Happy Valentines Day to you all!

Where Are You Batman?

Before we start in on anything else here at the blog, I would like to inform you all that my local Toys R’us/ Babies R’us is very professional when it comes to their Code Adams.  For those of you that don’t know what a code Adam is, that would be the code for lost child.  We were on an errand to return something and to pick up something else from the Babies section of the R’Us.  I had promised Reese that he could have 5 minutes of staring at the Batman toys if he didn’t complain during our errand portion of the trip. Upon completing his 5 minutes, he was still not quite ready to leave…..shocker, I know.  At about minute 4:45, he had found a comic book and plopped himself on the floor, with not intentions at all to leave.  And like so many times before, I lt him know that his time was up, we were heading on our way and he needed to keep up or he would get lost.  Then, like so many times before, I walked away.  Not completely out of the store, but I headed back towards the baby section where I remembered I needed to look at one more thing.  From where I was standing, I could still see his Batman aisle quite easily and I assumed that when he got up from the floor, I would see him just fine.  My boy must be shorter than I thought because after a while of standing and still not ever seeing him get up, I went over to check things out.  Of course, he was gone.  I really have no idea how he completely disappeared with me staring right at him….or so I thought.

So I started that panicky sprint through the aisles, trying to scan down each one as quick as you can just in case your little one is a second head of you doing the same thing.

No Reese

I went back to his aisle and he hadn’t returned.  I walked back to the baby section where I had been standing thinking maybe he would go back to where we had already been early.  I have no idea why that made any sort of sense to me, but keep in mind, I was trying to think like Reese and his rationale for things doesn’t always make a whole lot of sense.  It was during my 3rd spin around in the main center aisle with what I can only assume was a look of absolute terror on my face that a kind man politely asked me if I was having a hard time finding something and could he help me.  Yes, I was having a very hard time finding my little boy.

And then they went into action.

Out of nowhere, came a walkie-talkie and this man said to all hands on deck that they had a code Adam and within seconds, the doors locked and from off the shelves or so it seemed, came several other R’Us team members.  They very calmly asked me details about what exactly Reese was wearing, how old he was and then very quietly began a search through the store.  They were like robots, quietly searching for something and I just stood there calling out to my little guy with no answer.  After I called and called for what felt like forever, one of the robots tapped me very softly on the shoulder and let me know that they try not to call the lost kiddo’s name because that often makes them think they are in trouble and they will hide rather than answer you.

So there I just stood….telepathically calling Reese’s name as loud as my heart and my brain could yell.

I then heard over the radio that someone had seen a little guy go out the front door.  Already on it of course, some of the Toys R’Us people came in from the front door and radioed back that there was no one outside, but two cars had pulled out of the parking lot.  I wanted to throw up.  I was starting to get woozy.  And now instead of calling out Reese’s name, I was just calling out  God’s name…thank goodness He doesn’t hide when He hears me.

And he must have heard me because after what felt like days, but was actually only about 4 minutes…..I heard over the radio that they had him.  I ran, it wasn’t even all that far, but I ran anyway.  I ran with a baby on my hip as fast as I could through a practically empty big box store to my little guy who stood there looking like he didn’t know whether to cry because he was in trouble or cry because he was scared, but crying was definitely something he wanted to do.  He didn’t though, and fact is he wouldn’t even look right at me.  I think the whole thing scared him so much that he just didn’t know what to make of it.  I guess he had gone outside and was roaming the parking lot, and after circling the perimeter and not seeing me, he decided to go back inside.

How in the world my little guy not only got out of his aisle but out of the store, while I thought I was watching him, I have no idea.  But he did.  I asked him if he had been scared and he said no, he was pretending to be Batman.  I guess I was scared enough for the both of us then.  What a way to start the day.

So tomorrow, when we go out to run errands, Lila will be riding in the stroller and I will be carrying Reese, strapped to my chest in the Baby Bjorn so as not to lose him.

We also had a little lesson in where to go should you get lost in a store and to always try to find someone with a name tag, because they can help you, even if they don’t work there.  But never, ever, ever go out of the store or whatever building you are in…unless its on fire.  But in that case, the name tagged person will probably help you figure out what to do.  But really, the best thing is just to stay with mom.

Every since then, I know I have felt a very intense need to stay close.  I have followed him around like a little puppy dog all day today.  I was sort of hoping that the whole situation would have created in him a sense of need to stick with me, but either way, we have been very close and I wouldn’t be surprised at all if I woke up with him next to me.  It also wouldn’t surprise me if it was me that had crawled into his bed.

On a lighter note, lets take a moment to enjoy a little Lila picture.  Here she is all decked out in her Razorback gear this past Thursday.  Its funny, that red hog is almost monster looking and yet I readily mix it with gingham and polka-dotted bows and splash it across my precious little girl.  If anyone out there reading this is a hog fan and has or will be having a little girl, you might want to get in touch with me.  To saw I have a few hog themed outfits would be putting it lightly and they will need new homes when the day finally arrives that Lila grows.

Also on a lighter note, this past Friday night, Reese was playing his usual Batman-type game.  Since it was past sundown by this point and now our Sabbath (crime-fighting doesn’t really seem a very holy day sort of activity), we suggested that maybe Reese find a different game to play.  Joking, I told him that Batman also needs to keep the Sabbath.  A few minutes later, I looked in the living room to see this:

That would be Reverend Bane preaching to an audience made up of several other variations of Batman, a robin, 2 or 3 Jokers, a penguin and a few others.  Reese told me that they were having church and Batman had picked everyone up in the school bus since the Batmobile wasn’t big enough and made too much noise. Apparently crime also rests on the Sabbath….at least in our house, and enemies put aside their differences to worship together.  Also, who knew that all the citizens of Gotham City were Seventh-Day Adventists?

And last but certainly not least, here is a little picture of Mattie and her Russia project from Sunday at the education fair.  This holiday is a bit like Mardi Gras here.  They live it up for a week before Lent eating Blintzes, which are like crepes and enjoying all sorts of dairy goodness.  There is much celebrating and then when it’s all over, they burn up whats left of the dairy products and Blintzes and set them on fire along with this huge doll made of straw.  We didn’t let Mattie set a doll on fire, but she did make Blintzes (all by herself…they go great with her coffee) and got a lovely green participation ribbon.  She and Brandon are chomping at the bit for next year when they will officially be allowed to compete for a real prize, until 3rd grade it’s just the same ribbon for everyone.

I was pretty impressed by her free hand drawing of St Basil’s Cathedral in Red Square

And one last little P.S – today is just about the last day that you can send money for a Pennies for Parks donation, that is unless you overnight it or you live here in Memphis and can just give it to me.  I will admit, I am a little disappointed.  I am only $214 away from us having a solid $3,000.  Three-thousand dollars when I was hoping for at the most $300.  So if you or anyone you know might want to help out, this is your last chance.  Surprise me readers.  We are so, so close!

Pictures Round 2 and the Unicorn in the Airplane on the Ark

What in the world, there have been 70 some odd people here today (on the blog, not at my house) and I feel so embarrassed that I didn’t have anything new for them to read! I have had several little things to share, but alas, life has kept me busy.

So, we did Lila one year picture retakes the other day.  These went a little bit better than the first round.  However, it wasn’t until hours afterwards when I was looking through them all, that I noticed that Lila’s bow was over her ear.  Instead of looking like a cute little accessory, she instead looks like she has a toothache or something.  Oh well, we tried.

And then as she was sitting on my bed while I was trying to change the sheets, I thought that the lighting was just lovely.  So off I went to get the camera thinking that maybe I had just stumbled upon a little something wonderful.  It went pretty okay for about 10 seconds…..then things took an all too familiar turn and I decided to just focus on the sheet putting on and put the camera away for a while.  Clearly, Lila was over it all.

This face is becoming particularly familiar in our photo sessions

 

And just for fun, here are all three of the kids posing with the little white rocking chair for their one year pictures.

 

 

This past Wednesday, was Lila’s 12 month Well-Baby exam.  I usually really enjoy the kids doctors appointments.  WE adore our pediatrician and the nurses are pretty great too.  But this time, we started the visit off by irritating our nurse and things never seemed to improve after that.  As we were settling into our usual exam room, Nurse Tracy asked me about Reese starting kindergarten this next year.  Completely joking, I told her that Reese wouldn’t be starting school this fall, but instead, I planned to keep him out of school as long as was legally possible.  Rather then getting any sort of chuckle or laugh, or even a smirky smile, she said simply, “Are you serious?”. I told her of course I wasn’t serious, but he wouldn’t be going this fall either.  I reminded her that Reese would just barely be 5, and he’s a pretty immature little guy as it is.  She informed me that this was a terrible idea, speaking from her own experience, since he would be older than the other kids, they were all most certainly going to tease him.  They were definitely going to assume that he had failed or was just stupid.  Personally, I thought those were some pretty large assumptions about his future kindergarten classmates.  I told her that though I appreciate the concern.  He was really only going to be a touch older than the other kids, and I myself had started kindergarten at 5 and turned 6 in september.  This put me graduating high school at a ripe ol’ 18 and 3/4 and college at 22.  AFter that little exchange, Nurse Tracy’s opinion of my parenting and decision-making skills seemed to have gone down several points.

Then she weighed Lila

When she handed the girl back to me and said simply, “I’ll see you all when the doctor is finished.” I knew that we had lost any status that we may have once had.  I was an imbecile to her now, that was obvious.  Not only was I not educating my boy, but we clearly weren’t feeding number 3 either.  Lila had only gained a few ounces since her last visit at 9 months.  In all of our defense however, at a day before her first birthday, Mattie Belle also only weighed 15 lbs 4 ozs. (Lila was 15lbs 3 ozs).  I assured them that we Baughman girls just tend to run rather small during our first few years, no need to be concerned…..we are going back for another weigh-in in 6 weeks. I guess I wasn’t very convincing.  So that’s always nice, to leave the doctor feeling like an unfit parent. Especially when you’re there for kid number 3, you should definitely know better by number 3.

I licked my wounds, called my mom and got a little pep talk and then decided not to let it ruin my day, because I was getting a haircut later that evening.  Haircuts are a big deal for me because they usually only happen about twice a year.  I’m sure Ms. Nan would prefer that I have them more often, as my hair usually looks pretty terrible by that time, but getting haircuts also means getting babysitters and that’s often complicated. But tonight, Brandon was playing single parent to all 3 and I was spending a relaxing hour with Nan and then having a little girl time with Shannie.  I got a whopping 5 inches or so cut off and my hair felt like a wig….or like Debra, Mattie’s styling head.  My own hair hasn’t felt that healthy and lovely in years.

Shannie and I had a nice little dinner at Panera, then decided maybe it would be fun to go and look for some “Ball Gowns” for my upcoming event.  Let me just say, there is not a huge market for formal wear for someone who is a little past the point in their life for prom wear and not quite ready to marry off their daughter.  I was willing to try on something quite matronly, if that’s what it took, however, nothing was sized in the single digits.  Shannon and I did see that there appears to be a gigantic market for full-body spandex outfits with either cutouts or transparent mesh running down the entire length of the leg.  So coming into that knowledge made the shopping trip not a complete waste of our time.  I know how much you were all hoping for stories from the ball, but it doesn’t appear that this Cinderella will be attending after all because unless the little mice in my attic are creating one for me, I don’t know where else one is going to come from.

Now, I need to be going, we have had a very busy Sunday – it being Mattie’s education fair and all (pictures to follow tomorrow). But I want to leave you with a few things.  Thursday marked the opening day for this springs consignment sale season.  Reese and I really enjoy going to these sales and seeing what sorts of unique toys we can find.  You might recall, last fall we found the F-150 pick up truck that many a little boy has loved in the last 6 months that it has been living with us.  So, we were very excited by this first day of treasure hunting and I was thrilled when I found this little toy.

 

It’s a wooden Melissa and Doug ark puzzle/shape sorter.  And instead of being actual shapes like squares and triangles and such, they are the little animals. Upon getting the toy out here at home, we discovered that a few of the animals were missing their mates.  Reese didn’t seem too bothered by that, but the one thing about this puzzle set that did cause a bit of a disturbance was this:

I don’t recall reading anywhere in any version of the bible ,about the emergency airplane that Noah and family had stashed on the ark just in case they needed to make a getaway before the land was completely dried up around them.

 

This little discovery triggered a memory about another Noah inspired puzzle that we found last year.  This one was actually a puzzle and the animals went in order from A to Z, starting with alligator.  Once the kids and I started putting it together, we realized it was missing M and S, but other than that, things seems great with it.  A cute little find….a treasure.  But then we got to letter U, of course, the animal for the letter U in our Noah and the ark puzzle was a unicorn.

 

I have been able to explain certain creatures that we don’t see on a daily basis or in the zoo, as having maybe died in the flood.  Or that they are just imaginary.  But having a unicorn in our biblically themed puzzle has really shaken up my children’s views on things.  The getaway airplane has now stirred up this pot of confusion once again and I’m pretty sure Reese asked his teacher in Sabbath School if Noah’s airplane was like the big ones we take to Nana’s or the smaller ones they use to fly over the fields on the way to Mumsey’s (crop dusters).

And the last little thing that I would like to leave you with, we met my latest Parks goal this weekend, but now – I’m aiming really high and would love to come up with $314. 50 by Thursday.  If we can do this, we will have exceeded my original goal by 10 times.  So again, should you want to be a part of something that will leave you feeling all warm and cozy, there is still time.

Have a great Monday friends and hopefully I’ll be back tomorrow….and so will all 74 of you!

P.S – On a completely random note, my family didn’t notice until yesterday on the way to church that I had cut such a significant amount of hair off.  It took 3 days.