pottywise...

those of you that have found success with the Babywise book may be interested to know that the Pottywise book is absolutely phenomenal. i have just started the re-reading process with this book because calvary is beginning to show signs of readiness. he is staying dry through naptime and letting us know when he has a wet diaper (or the alternative). he thinks the potty is all a big game right now. he goes over and squats and makes the *psssssssssss* sound with his mouth and then runs off laughing. harper was completely trained by the time she was 20 months old. i know it is ridiculous to expect the same thing but i would be lying if i did not admit that i secretly have at moments. i am learning, as we all do with experience, that the best approach is just to not freak out. i think that is why i love the Babywise series; each book pairs a little helpful know-how with a little common sense. i gain just enough confidence with the information provided that i feel like i can be creative and do what works best for my family and just enough structure so i know what to avoid. i highly recommend the book to anyone tackling this process...


http://www.amazon.com/Pottywise-Toddlers-Developmental-Readiness-Approach/dp/1932740147/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204159622&sr=8-1

i just bought calvary some "big boy pants" and i have to get the pictures of him wearing his new cars underwear up as soon as i upload the images...priceless.

have i mentioned how much i love my husband?

i am not sure i say it enough...but i love my husband more than i could ever imagine i could. he loves me because of and in spite of the crazy things i do. he loves harper and calvary with such a adorable sweetness. it is one thing to watch a man play trucks with his son, but you truly know you have married the right man when you watch them pretend to be King Triton when your little girl wants to pretend to be Ariel. i truly am blessed beyond measure...

a rich inheritance...

this week has been strangely emotional because i have been given the opportunity to make a Will. i guess "opportunity" is a strange word, but i do know that providing for my children now is no less important than providing for my children in case i am not here to provide. i have been in a strange mood and thinking quite a bit. strangely enough, every time i get deep in thought kyle thinks i am sad or depressed. i haven't been sad or depressed, only struggling to wrap my mind around the thoughts that are far too large for lawyers, life, and IRAs.

around our house we usually deal with lighter issues like sibling rivalry, respecting authority, and pudding cups. we even try to make cleaning more than just cleaning. for instance, cinderella saturday is the little name we have given to saturdays where we spend the day cleaning...we usually like to follow this day up with getting cleaned up ourselves and going out for dinner. we do not adhere to this tradition vehemently, but it does make cleaning sound a little more alluring to a 3 year old when it is named after a favorite disney princess...

today has been a cinderella saturday that will likely pour over into a cinderella sunday. instead of getting dolled up for dinner we will get dolled up for church! harper and i will be going to the Gaston School of the Arts production of Peter Pan this evening. several of my students are participating in the program and peter pan is actually played by one of my 10th grade girls! i am excited to see them in action and perhaps even more excited to see little harper's face when she sees the characters come to life. peter pan is the first disney movie that we owned and it was harper's favorite for quite a while. it will be nice to enjoy a night out with my little girl and get a little lighter entertainment...

the past few weeks have been a little stressed and for a lack of any better expression my thoughts have been focused on the macabre. the shockingly numbing effect of death is that even though people die every day, every second of every day, i have still managed to still feel somewhat immune. of course i have been saddened and grieved over the loss of people close to me, but for the most part the deaths i have experienced have been understandable. however, in the past months i have experienced more sickness and death in ways that i can never understand. having to face the deaths and illnesses of people close to me have made me face my own. ever since harper was born i cannot recall a day that i have not prayed for the salvation of my children. i clearly remember holding her one day when she was only 18 days old and realizing how completely out of my hands all of this parenting stuff was/is. i thought about how remarkably beautiful he orchestrated her protection and provision inspite of my own blundering. and i realized, that i could provide every feeding, every outfit, as much love as my heart could pour out, and yet i cannot orchestrate her life. i do not know how many hairs my son has on his head. i do not know my daughter's thoughts. i do not know the choices they will make. all of these unknowns left me feeling out of control; all of the love i could possibly imagine having has materialized into little teeny beings walking around outside of my body.

everyday i watch my heart walk around.

i have to trust God to protect and provide for my children because i know that no one will love them more than i will and yet i also know that there are things that i cannot provide. i cannot give my children salvation. acknowledging my own mortality has made me even more aware of how much i want my children to know Jesus. this past week at school was Spiritual Emphasis week. the speakers spoke on defending our faith and developing a christian world view. the more they spoke of the depravity of the world, the more desperate i clung to Jesus as the hope for my children in a world that cannot be changed from pumpkin to carriage.

i pray daily for my children; and sometimes i feel as if my prayers are selfish, but i pray that God sees past my selfish desire to see my children saved and sees my heart of wanting to share the joy of Jesus to a sick and dying world. the reality is that Jesus is the greatest and most wonderful thing i could ever give my children. he is the greatest inheritance that i could ever share...if there was a way to write that in a Will i surely would.

valentine's day and martian children...

today was a great day...yesterday was a day where i had to flex my parental muscles and today was the day that i was able to experience the part of parenting that truly grants my heart joy. yesterday when i picked harper up from school her teacher told me that harper had been bullying her brother. this was the second day i was given this news. i decided then that i had to participate and figure something i could do at home to let harper realize that it was not a good idea to bring home a negative report. sometimes i am so focused on trying to encourage the things that are praiseworthy with my children that i forget that sometimes a parent also has to discourage the negative. i always think that if i give my children enough positive feedback they will never crave the attention that negative behavior merits. but we all have to learn and sometimes we learn by walking through the fire. i sat harper down at the dinner table and had a serious talk with her. (as serious as a discussion with a 3 year old can get) we talked about what it meant to love our brothers and sisters and how Jesus wants us to treat each other. then the tough part of parenting: correction. harper's "correction" was to go to bed "early". we explained to her that since she chose to treat her brother unkindly then she would be going to bed early (15 minutes early :) ). i'm not really sure if any of this had an impact on her. i have no clue what i am doing as a mother but i figured that i *had* to do something. i couldn't just sit by and listen and passively watch my child. i guess i really didn't believe that all of this started this early. regardless, we are trying. we are trying to figure out all of this discipline and love thing and how to do both of those things at the same time while making it all make sense to a teeny child. i am sure that all parents think through things this much and for this reason it makes me laugh when people act like the sleep deprivation in the beginning is the most exhausting part...i wouldn't want to go back to those sleepless nights but at least they make sense! regardless of it all, today was a much better day. harper received an excellent report from school (maybe it worked, maybe she was just in a better mood) and we carried on with our valentine tradition...build-a-bear and dinner!

harper chose a beautiful Ariel costume for her build-a-bear and calvary, not wanting to be out done by his big sister, chose a Spider Man costume for his.

(pictures to come of these beloved monstrosities soon!)


in the meantime i simply must include this conversation i had with harper in the car this evening:
(blue text is me and purple text is harper)
is today tomorrow?
no, today is today; tomorrow is tomorrow
well is it tomorrow?
no, tomorrow is tomorrow.
when will it be tomorrow?
tomorrow.
so what is today?
today is thursday; tomorrow is friday.
oh, okay.

i have laughed everytime i think of this conversation; i felt as if i was in an old abbott and costello skit. the wonders of a child's mind are the playgrounds for genius...

baby messes...

you know that you are totally in love with someone when you even believe that their messes are cute. i have found myself laughing at messes instead of begrudging the messes and even running to get the camera to capture the moment before they clean up after themselves. (rarely do i have to run in order to catch the mess before it vanishes) most of harper's games involve proping books (several) at angles and gathering as many blankets and Barbies as possible. kyle usually refers to this game as Barbie Jonestown because all of the dolls end up face down. since calvary usually does the exact same thing that his big sister does, it is no surprise that most of his games also involve gathering as many toys and blankets as possible. yesterday, calvary was calling my name from his nap and i as i entered the room i was welcomed by a boasting baby boy pointing at his creation---every stitch of bedding was lying in a pile at the foot of his bed. he worked quietly and intently building his masterpiece, which is why i think i adore these baby messes. i love watching my children think and create and i believe these "messes" are not intended to drive me crazy but done so that i may be proud of what they create. crayon on the wall (one time), blankets on the floor, and banquets of plastic food are only a picture of why we are instructed to be like a child in order to enter into the kingdom of heaven; children live for joy and long to see their mother's and father's loving acceptance of all their little "messes".

movies....

today at lunch, i was trying to teach calvary how to give a thumbs up. at that moment harper turned, looked at me, showed me her thumb and very seriously said, "i can kill people with only this thumb." i laughed so hard but also tried to explain to her that we cannot say that to people because it could be very offensive. she picked up the little quote watching the Pixar movie Ratatouille. she has started picking up the most obscure parts of commercials and tv shows. i am glad that we have a TV Guardian because that means at least most of the *junk* will be filtered out. if you haven't thought about buying one of these protective, although a bit humorous at times, devices i must say that they are a great way to help monitor the language through tv. our kids do not watch loads of tv, but we have noticed that even the children's movies say things like "shut-up" and "stupid". those words may seem rather innocent but they were not words that we wanted to be a daily part of our 3 year-old's vocabulary. i guess one way to ensure that all together would be no tv at all...but then i wouldn't have funny stories to tell.

the magic of "snow" days...

Snow days are so much more interesting with little ones around. i remember being so excited that it may snow and the possibility of school being cancelled. i also remember my little brother getting so angry if the weather man's predictions were not exactly correct. my parents used to avoid letting him see the news because any word from larry sprinkle's mouth was considered truth and nicholas could not quite reconcile nature's failed attempts to make good on the man's word. it has not been since those days that snow has been such a charmed joy. i've always thought snow is beautiful, but it is different to look at the experience through a child's eyes. wednesday night i told harper that it may snow and could possibly be snow in the morning when she woke up. obviously i had forgotten how that one little word could stir up such excitement! the next morning she came into our room and climbed up to my side of the bed and said, "the top of the house is normally black but now it is white!" she climbed in the bed with me for about 30 minutes and i finally said, after 30 minutes of squirming, that she could choose to lay in the bed quietly or go and watch the snow. she looked out the window and watched the snow for at least 45 minutes! she did not make a sound; she just quietly sat and watched the snow fall. thursday was rather dreary because the snow stopped falling and was mostly rain. i let the kids play outside for a about 15 minutes just so that the snow did not pass without giving them a chance to play...but after that it was a day without school or any escapes! we were left to our creativity to embrace the fun of the day. after cleaning, which is everyone's idea of a good time, we put up a tent in the living room and watched a movie. at one point we even turned laundry baskets into little beds. the second snow fall was a little disappointing because we waited around all day for the 5 inches promised (kyle began to remind me of my little brother at this point) only to watch the rain give way to snow around 4 pm. once again, not wanting this opportunityto pass us by, i dressed the kids and we ventured into the dark to enjoy the snow. we have had a great time and every moment that we have like this reminds me more and more how wonderful it is to be a mother. everytime i think about the wonderful things that my mother did for us to help us make snow days magical have helped me realize how essential parents are for creating the joy of childhood. i hope that i can remember this as i attempt to help my children have truly magical memories.