this is what my life has come to...

is it a bad sign if i look forward to going to the gynecologist as a break?

mother goose pales in comparison...

harper has been studying nursery rhymes at school this month and every day she comes home reciting a new one that she has learned. it has been entertaining to listen to her recite memories of my past but even more fun to listen to her botch the classics that have helped shaped so many childhoods.
in all of this, calvary simply thinks that harper is making up little rhymes and he always wants to play along.
on the way to school this morning, harper recited, "humpty dumpty sat on a wall. humpty dumpty had a great fall. all of the horses and men that work for the king couldn't fix humpty because he is an egg."
i laughed.
then calvary, not to be outdone by a goose, offered his own nursery rhyme:
"there once was an eyeball that sat in a tree. he fell off and broke his knee."
i laughed.
i only hope that they have children that are this funny one day.

weird things i have done (or do) while my kids nap...

i have a one and a half hour block in the afternoon after lunch and before i have to leave to pick harper up from school...somedays calvary and oliver jack nap the entire time and other times my break is cut short, but regardless...that time is precious. as i sat in my car today eating an apple, i wondered how many odd things i have done while my children have slept. the list below is undoubtably short--

1. take showers with every electronic noise making machine within arms reach.

2. attack all fed-ex, ups, us postal service, and sales people before they dare ring that doorbell.

3. clean. just joking. i don't do that. which is probably weird since it is really the only time i have to fully commit to cleaning.

4. do silent yoga. between knees cracking and my less than limber body being comprised into expletive inducing positions, this is actually harder than one might think.

5. blog about weird things i do while my kids sleep.

6. sit. without moving. without thinking. without doing...anything.

7. jump on the trampoline. it is fun and it is good exercise.

8. talk on the phone in my car. quiet AND warm.

9. fill up multiple shopping carts online which i never intend to purchase.

10. eat junk food. no better time really. there is no need to share and i can feign healthy choices for my kids later...win win.

oliver jack is 10 months old!

the tenth month has been an eventful one. we have finally purchased baby gates (and the voice of dr. w. echoes in my head as she says, "good parenting doesn't require baby gates") and our lives are so much easier. he isn't walking yet but he is fast and quite capable of getting himself into trouble. baby gates just allow me the time to clean my house without having to save oliver jack from pulling a chair down on his head, throwing toy pizza into the toilet, or eating various toy dresses, shoes, or army men. sigh. life with three children is certainly fast...

he has changed so much in the past month. i decided to trim the point of hair once it made its way to the middle of his eyebrows...i also trimmed the hair off the back of his neck because it was beginning to look a bit mulletish and i am just not ready to go there...not even for cute baby hair.

he has started doing tricks like playing "night-night" and patty cake. he gives high fives and kisses. and he gets quite proud of himself whenever he accomplishes anything. he loves to put food in his hair and as fast paced as he is, he sure loves to cuddle.

i cannot believe that in only 2 months he will be one year old! everything about this boy has been pleasant. and i am patiently awaiting what the future will bring.

making the world better one baby at a time :)

my friend lori just posted the trailer to the movie "motherhood" on her blog, http://www.anewjackson.blogspot.com/, and i just found myself so revealed. maybe it is the fact that uma's character looks tousled and frazzled, or maybe it is the fact that she is trying so hard to balance the expectations of her children with the expectations of the rest of the world, or maybe it is how, in that brief 2 minutes, she manages to capture the impossible love of a mother in such a profound way that i am almost scared to see the movie.
who was i before i was a mother? i'm pretty sure that my former self would not recognize the person i am now---for better or worse.
i used to dream of being a writer; now, this blog is all that i write--mostly about parenting.
i used to dream of being an artist; now, every creative thing i do is rooted in my children.
i used to dream of traveling all over the world; now, the only traveling i do is back and forth to schools, doctor's appointments, soccer games, church, grocery stores, parks, and dance classes.

the crazy thing about all of my past dreams and aspirations is that i feel like i should miss it or feel like i am half of a person or feel like i have left some part of me unfulfilled, but i don't. motherhood has not limited my dreams; it has only changed my inspiration. if my children can look back on what i have written and know with certainty that i love them-if they treasure the things that i have made for them because they know that my hands only wished to make tangible my adoration of them-if they find their passion in school or dance or soccer or wherever my humble vehicle takes them then i can think of no greater sense of fulfillment.

i used to say that unless a person has a farm, then there is no need to have more than two children. perhaps the sane side, or the side that likes to take showers or wear clothes that aren't stretchy, still believes that. but mostly, i realize how much God has blessed us with children. watching the faith of my children reminds me that their is hope for this world. with every child that is born in the world we are given the gift of the chance to start anew. they are not perfect, nor are they born that way, but we are given the gift to focus on God and to teach our children that our purpose is not to write, or play sports, or be a mom, but to use these gifts as a way to bring glory to Him. harper believes that when she prays that her fever goes away, or that grandmommy feels better, or calvary suddenly whisks away to the north pole that God hears her prayers. calvary believes that God put the moon in the sky to follow him wherever he goes to make sure he can see. somewhere along the way i have forgotten how intimately God cares for me. my children are a reminder that as intimately as i care for my own children God cares for each of us infinitely more intimately. and i pray that i can help my children not lose sight of that ultimate intimacy....

quirky or just weird?

our conversation this morning at breakfast--

me: calvary, why were you in harper's room last night while she was sleeping?

calvary: i was covering her up.

me: well, that was sweet.

harper (giggling) : i didn't even see you in there!

calvary: did you even feel me touching your hair?

a quart low...

after we returned from georgia calvary developed a high fever and an attitude. i called the doctor and i was instructed to bring him in as soon as i could. once i got him there, dr. walker immediately told me that they had hand foot and mouth disease. i think i audibly voiced my shock by saying, "really?" she then showed me the spots that were developing on the palms of his hands and the blisters in his throat. i left thinking that life would return to normal in the next few hours. boy was i wrong. everyone i had ever spoken to about hfm said that it was a pretty inconsequential illness...harper had the same spots on her throat and was unfazed by it for the most part. enter calvary.
every waking moment...literally...was miserable. he refused to eat or drink because of the blisters on his cheeks, tongue, and throat. all of this led to our arrival at the hospital on friday evening. he had gone 21 hours without peeing.
at this point i realized that my congratulations for staying dry through the night were a bit near sighted. he hadn't really accomplished anything outside of demonstrating an iron will to starve himself to the point of dehydration.
i'm impressed.
and mad.
once we arrived at the hospital he was hooked up to an IV and given an entire bag of fluid. he didn't make a peep except for the occasionally flirtatious giggle at the nurses the entire time they stuck his teeny arm....but the minute they brought in a popsicle and medicine they saw the crazy side.


calvary's eyes in this picture shows just how listless he had become...i called my ped this afternoon and said i must be a terrible mother to have let my child go 21 hours without peeing and not realize he was dehydrated...she assured me that since he had only taken one bag of fluid that he was "just a quart low"...

this picture shows how quickly the loratab and fluids worked to improve his demeanor and spark. at this point i thought we were smooth sailing...

once again...i knew nothing.

the weekend was nothing short of misery. every meal. every nap. every night was a battle. we weren't going to fill the prescription for loratab because i thought that it was a bit too heavy for such a little boy, but by saturday afternoon we were at our wits ends. we headed off to target and were ready to give him his first dose in the parking lot. he screamed. he spit. he took the medicine. we looked forward to a nice nap but loratab seems to have the opposite effect on calvary; needless to say, he has not been given another dose.

this is how calvary spent saturday. the grin is only a sinister, sadistic display of his satisfaction with the misery he put us through. i think. i thought he was stuck that way forever. i was buckling myself in for the long haul and then on monday morning he did something pure. he smiled. a sweet, pure smile crawled across his face and it wasn't until that moment that i realized that i had not seen that smile in a week. monday was riddled with outbreaks of madness...but tuesday has been better. i would have never thought i would hate a childhood illness so much. i can handle quite a bit but this little illness truly kicked my behind.

calvary at the hospital

progress...

yesterday i squeezed myself into my size 6 jeans. squeezed is the word of truth but also a word to which i will pay little attention. sure, i could barely move. sure, the flesh of my belly looked like a tucked in shirt slightly fluffed out. but these jeans now represent hope to me. hope that bodies, while they may not be taught or bikini ready, can return to some state of normalcy. in the meanwhile, i am taking on the french mindset that mireille guiliano discusses in her book. i've got beautiful babies and i rarely notice the weight of other people, yet somehow i maintain a fixation on my own. it's time to free myself from the expectation...i mean i can "wear" a size 6 now :)