Convicted

Yesterday at church, I was handed a book in passing. The woman handed it to me and said "I know you didn't get a chance to go to this Bible study because you had other commitments, but I thought you might be interested in reading through the book." I thanked her, and went on with whatever it was that I was doing. I figured that I would flip through it and see if there were any nuggets I could gather from it. We've been having some anger/tantrum issues with both Gabriel and Graham - they just seem to have been so angry over the past week or so. Since my night was so quiet last night, I was able to get most of my Monday morning housework done before I went to bed, and so this morning, while there is still a lot I could do, I decided to sit down for a bit and read the first day of the Bible study. That's when it hit me. Literally. I am totally floored. The study is called "Creative Correction" and here I am on Day 1 already feeling God's hand in this. Today's lesson was that we as parents are to mirror God's love for our children. That we are models of God's love to them. Then it asked the question "How does your reflection of God look?" I was speechless. Here I have been more concerned with how my children were behaving, and making sure that I was teaching them manners and social skills, and I have been personally neglecting their relationships with God. I guess I was leaving that up to their teachers at church. I had been feeling particularly unsuccessful given the recent rampage of horrible attitudes in my house. At the end of today's lesson it listed a few scripture verses to use when key issues come up like motivation, peer pressure, pride - and the one that convicted me, speaking unkindly. I took a mental inventory of the way that I have been speaking to the boys over the past few days after I read this verse, and my response was "OK, I get it. Thank you Lord, for pointing it out to me, for laying it so heavily on my heart and mind, please forgive me for not showing my children how much you love them by showing them how much I love them, and please help me to live this verse. Amen." The verse? Proverbs 15:1 "A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger." God is good - all the time!

Oh Geez!

"Last post April 2, 2009" ?!?!? Boy, am I behind! But only by about 6 months *cringe*! Sooo much has happened since then. It will take me some time to catch up, but I assure you that I will try. I am currently hiding in my room (yes, from my children) while I am waiting for Troy to come home. I just need a break! I've kept repeating that to myself today like some kind of mantra, which it is as far as any mom is concerned. I am looking forward to this Sunday, not only because it is my 24th birthday, but also because troy will be beack from chaparoning our youth group on a weekend trip (he leaves tomorrow night). His parents are out of town, his brother is out of town, my mom will be out of town, and so will Troy. Just me and the babies all weekend. Hmmm...

Graham has discovered my hiding spot and is handing me everything that is on my floor - which is a lot of stuff because the boys were playing in here today and made a huge mess out of my Avon samples. Hey, at least he is picking them up.

Gabriel is in the front room watching a movie and at this point in the day, I don't feel bad in the least that he is so zoned out he wouldn't notice if the house burned down until the TV stopped working.

Gabriel starts preschool in a few weeks, and I am thrilled! He needs some new stimulation, and I just don't seem to be able to provide it. I will look forward to having lesson plans from teachers that I can center our days on during the week. His third birthday is Tuesday. I can't believe that he will be 3!! We are having a spider man party for him and he is so excited!!

Graham is walking, talking, throwing, chasing, feeding himself, AND teething. This is all fun except for the last part.

My parents will be here any minute for an authentic Mexican feast which I have yet to start, and so I will sign off to get that ready.

Enter Cheyenne

Ah! We have a new dog! One that has lasted!! Yay! She is a 3 year old black lab named Cheyenne, although Gabriel calls her Shy-dog and Graham says 'doh'. We think she is the best thing ever! She is so pretty and smart, and lets the boys climb on her and pull on her and drive cars on her. She also doesn't put up with any nonsense from Abby, either, which has really won me over. I'll have to post pictures in a bit.

Cute Stories

This is my favorite part: sharing the adorable things that the boys do and say, and saving them for ammo to humiliate them later! Love it!!

It's been quite awhile since I did these, so they aren't going to be in any kind of order... my apologies!

Gabriel:
"Mommy, I don't feel good. I have a temperature"
"Do you want me to take your temperature?"
"No, I just want to keep it."
"Oh, well when I use the thermometer that is called 'taking your temperature'".
"... no its not..."

"Does Spiderman poop in his spidey-suit? No, it makes him so sad!"

When I was pretend fighting with Troy over who got to take a shower first on Sunday:
"It's ok mommy. It's daddy's turn now, it's your turn next. Don't cry."

Graham:
Now has 6 teeth - 4 on top and 2 on bottom.
Learned how to climb up stairs today at church.
Is quite possibly the silliest little guy you've ever seen.

Wow... 3 months changes EVERYTHING

OK, so here is the update:

Graham finally got over his ear infections - that's right... plural! He had to get some kind of amped-up antibiotic to get better though. He had a check up today and what did we find? An ear infection. There has been talk of possibly needing tubes in his ears, but I am praying that we won't need those. He turned one on Saturday, and it is crazy to think that my tiny little baby is now 1. I don't like it. His party was fun - at the park with all of our friends - and the weather was beautiful. At his appointment today he weighed in at a hefty 19 pounds and is now 28.5" TALL (not long anymore, as he is not a baby). He's still below the 5th percentile for weight and the 10th for height, but he's getting bigger so they are not concerned. As long as he is growing he's fine. We're getting words now, too. Mama, da, ba, bubba, do, dis, dat. Fun fun fun! Also, we got the go-ahead today to try and give him some cheese. BIG steps for us! We are going to wait until the weekend when both mommy and daddy will be home, incase of upset tummies.

Gabriel is now 2 1/2 (more accurately, 2 and 7 months) and weighs 33 pounds. He's been to see the doctor a couple of times in the past few weeks, because he has had non-stop diarrhea for going on 7 weeks now. After doing all kinds of tests and trying to eliminate certain foods, we are now scheduling an appointment with the GI doctor to do a 'flexible sigmoidoscopy' on him. This is the test that Graham had done at 3 months that determined he had colitis. They are thinking Gabriel might have a similar condition. Bummer! On a happier note, Gabriel is now potty trained (mostly) and enrolled in preschool. School starts in August, and every time we drive past it he waves and says "hi, preschool!".

Troy and I are doing well - just busy coping with everything. On top of all this, we are experiencing some serious issues with our van, and are currently working with Chrysler to buy our van back from us, so that we can purchase another one. Just one more thing in the series, right?

Gabriel, Graham and I witnessed a robbery yesterday, too. That was not fun. We were leaving the health food store where I purchased a foul-tasting tea that I am supposed to drink twice a day to help with nursing. As we headed out to the car, a nice gentleman from the store offered to hold the door for me. Just as we went out, we all noticed a man run out of the $.99 store with a bunch of stuff in his hand and dash into a car that was waiting in the parking lot. The man that was with me called 911 and told me I could leave with the kids and that he would stay behind to talk with the police. While I was buckling Graham into his seat and telling Gabriel to sit in his, the car returned and the man dashed back into the 99 cent store! The man on the phone with the police told me to get out of there, and jumped in his car. I slammed the door shut on the van and peeled out of the parking lot to the other side of the street where I could make sure that the man was OK, and buckle the kids into the car. It was crazy! Oh, the joys of living in a big city.

Why I LOVE Having 2 Boys (pt. 3)

18. Again - anything is a weapon, even a cast.
19. "I'm not spitting, I'm just washing this window."
20. "Here mommy, its a treat for you" (when handing me boogers)
21. "I'm nudie cutie!"
22. "No, that's not a dinosaur, its just a toy."
23. "Mommy, you can give me candy, its OK."
24. "Gabriel, what do you get when you mix a brown cow with a brown chicken?" "Brown chicken brown cow!"
25. When getting the 'silent treatment' while putting him back in his bed for the umpteenth time "Mommy, talk to me!"

It must be raining...

Wednesday morning began much like any other day... I had just fed Graham and was still trying to screw my eyes shut against the increasing daylight outside. Troy was getting ready to hop in the shower, I was thinking about what needed to get done around the house and whether or not we would need to go run errands. Then we heard a 'thump' from Gabriel's room, which was shortly followed by a shrill little scream. When Troy ran in there, Gabriel was sitting on the floor and crying. Troy picked him up, soothed him, and set him on the sofa so he could get his shower before work. I came in with Graham and we all spent a little 'down time' just relaxing on the sofa. Then I got up to get breakfast ready, and when I called Gabriel, I noticed that he was crawling to his table. I thought he was being goofy - since Graham just recently started crawling, maybe he was imitating his brother - and set him in his chair. While he was eating, I was getting dressed when I turned around and Gabriel had joined me in my room. He was playing quietly on the floor until it was time to leave. I helped him to his feet and that's when I realized what had happened. He couldn't take a step on his right foot, rather he tried to, and fell down. He had been crawling all morning because he knew he couldn't walk on his foot and he was compensating. He just never said anything to me. I called his pediatrician who got him in in about an hour and sent him for x-rays. Try giving a 2 1/2 yr. old an x-ray. It is not pleasant. They could hear him fighting and screaming out in the lobby! After the x-ray the doctor called us and said that she couldn't tell if there was an injury to his ankle or not, except that there was an effusion (read: fluid in his ankle) which was obscuring the image. I'm thinking that all the kicking and fighting that was going on during the x-ray probably didn't help the image, either! We decided to take him to a pediatric orthopaedic surgeon who felt his little leg and ankle and promptly said "This is fractured." 30 minutes later Gabriel and I were headed to the car sporting his brand new cast.

He's handling it like a trooper, though. Any thoughts that a cast might slow him down were way off. If anything, he has a new weapon in his arsenal - a 10 pound foot! After he woke up from his nap on Wednesday he looked at me and said "OK, I take off this cast now." We explained to him that the cast has to stay on for quite awhile, until his bones are all healed up. Then he stubbed the toe of his other foot, and said "I need a cast!" When we went to the grocery store the other night, he kept mispronouncing the word and was telling everyone in the store "I have gas!" So I was very loudly explaining that his CAST was going to make his leg better, and wasn't his CAST a pretty shade of red?

Human Wrecking Balls

Have you seen this show? It is awesome! I am infamous in my family for finding these obscure reality shows (which I am hopelessly addicted to!) that no one has ever heard of. Some of my favorites are "You Are What You Eat", "How Clean Is Your House?", "Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares", "Repo Men: Stealing For A Living" and now "Human Wrecking Balls". It follows the Pumphrey brothers who have a few world championships for breaking things using only their bodies. They are crazy! We just watched them demolish a bowling alley, but we've also seen them demo an office suite, a hotel room and a box office/movie theater. It is amazing what they can do! What really cracks me up is that they're just a couple of good-ole-boys out having a good time while they're destroying all of these things! I think I'm going to go watch them Pumphrey-ize an airplane now.

Early Spring?

It would appear that Spring has come early to Tucson. The past few days it has been about 80 degrees. Our dryer is broken, so this weather is a blessing - all of my laundry dries in just an hour or two once I hang it outside. We were in the backyard today and I was hanging laundry while Gabriel played in his sand box. Graham was more or less happy in his playpen. Then I cut some beautiful coral pink roses to put on my dining room table, and Gabriel and I picked a ton of lemons off of our lemon tree. I have the feeling we'll be doing a lot with citrus around here for awhile. Lemon meringue pie, lemon-poppyseed bread, lemon tarts, lemon chicken... lemon lemon lemon.

Graham is continuing to make great strides in his development. He pulls up on just about anything now, and that includes me if I am standing still long enough. He is getting over an ear infection so he's not in the best mood, but he's still so dang cute you could just eat him up. Or "just lick him" as our pastor's wife, Dee, says.

Gabriel is starting to mellow a little bit. We had headed into some pretty rough times with temper tantrums and sharing, but hopefully he's moving past that now. Although, today he did throw a complete tantrum which ended only because he had induced an asthma attack and wasn't able to cry and kick anymore because he was coughing so badly. Nap time goes pretty smoothly right now, so that is a blessing, though.

Troy interviewed for a promotion last Tuesday and we are still waiting to hear the results from that. We are really praying that he will get this job - it would allow him to leave his desk to go out in the field and do auto damage evaluations. It also comes with all kinds of perks, so that is helpful, too. His hunt for a motorcycle continues and he is so excited about the possibility of owning one.

For me it is same old - same old. I am teaching Sunday school this week for the senior high school class at church, and I am really looking forward to it. Troy and I just got involved with the youth group recently and so far, I have just been sitting-in on their Sunday mornings, getting a feel for how things go. I hope it goes well, and that I can start doing it more frequently. I have to be honest, I feel like a goober sitting in the youth group on Sunday morning and not really doing anything. Troy and I led the recreation this past Sunday night, and the kids had a great time with that. Hopefully they will start relaxing around us soon. I have known most of these kids since I was taking care of them in the nursery or helping in the children's choir, and since I started helping in the youth department, they have taken to calling me 'Mrs. Coleman'. Ick! I am really hopeful that they will see that I am closer to them than they think I am, and that I will be a great resource for them, and a great friend.

President Obama

We were watching the Presidential Inauguration today, and I had to keep myself from having a panic attack. What is going to happen to our country now? Or - more accurately to my current thinking - forget the country, what about my kids? Will they know what an amazing place America is? Will we still be amazing when they are old enough to realize that they should consider themselves lucky to be Americans? Will they even BE lucky to be American? I don't know. All I know is that this is most definitely something that is out of my control, and so I have to make the concious effort of leaving the worrying up to God. I support the President because he is my President. I don't think it has anything to do with race. I could care less if he was purple. My only concern, like I've said, is what happens to our country and my family. So long as President Obama upholds his responsibility to protect us and act in our best interest, he'll be doing a great job as far as I am concerned.