August 2, 2011

• Smatterings

  The Zion Child, the Zion Child.  Let me recount for you his wee hooligan ways.  The child is SINGULARLY a full-time job.  Yesterday, I:

  1. Came out of the bedroom in the morning to find him in the hall bathroom happily washing a full roll of toilet paper, and then tearing off the wet paper and dropping it down the drain, which was now (shockingly) clogged.  He moved on from that to

  2. Taking a handful of crackers, and instead of eating them, carefully crumbling them over the kitchen floor.  Then he was

  3.  Off to the boys bathroom, where he diligently washed his hands with the drain closed, and apparently the overflow thingie on the sink was not working, because the sink filled to overflowing and poured out on the bathroom floor.  

  4.  While he was in the boys room, he hastily dumped out their sock basket

  5.  And their underwear basket, both located on top of their dresser

  6. And off to find the measuring cup full of sugar for my tea, resting on the kitchen counter, which he scattered over the kitchen floor.

  All of these things were done at various points throughout the day when his parents were otherwise occupied with other things in other rooms.  And after the wee hooligan was tucked into bed for the night, 

  7.  I pulled two plastic fish out of the hall toilet, where they were swimming, and

  8.  Found my toothpaste in the sink, where it had been squeezed out in large portions onto the tube and bathroom rug at some point during the day.

  And then there are his bright little shiny eyes peeking happily over his green fuzzy blanket bunched up in his face, and his little grin just ready to erupt into a happy chortle and his whole little soft sturdy body ready to topple over into your lap for a squeeze and tickle fest.  

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  All persons should be aware:  McDonald’s small delectable strawberry banana smoothie has only 210 calories. And no artificial sugars or food coloring. This is enough to make one get up out of her seat at the computer and drive to McDonald’s to get one for breakfast, since she had been craving it to begin with.  (Why yes, I DO live too close to a McDonald’s, why do you ask??)  These smoothies are my weakness for the summer, since I can’t partake of my other two weaknesses – sweet tea and iced vanilla lattes.  SOOOOO delicious!!!!!  

  

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  There is a warm soft breeze from the open windows blowing past me as I sit here and type.  There is classical music (which I never listen to normally) playing on the radio in the kitchen, where the alarm has been randomly set, causing the radio to come on mid-day.  Makes me feel somewhat civilized, I must say.  The boys are watching Daffy Duck in the living room, Layla is sleeping, and Zion is busy in various rooms.  

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  Layla Grace is 3 months old.  She is starting to occasionally find her thumb to suck.  She also is batting at toys that hang in front of her.  She loves to “talk”, and that is usually what she goes straight to after she is done eating.  She will pull back, look up into my face and happily say “aaaahhhhhhh.  ooooohhhhh.”  She has been cooing since around a month old.  She is starting to stand on my legs when I support her.  She likes to hold her legs straight up in the air sometimes when she is on her back.  I can put her in her jumper that goes over the doorframe for a few minutes at a time, since her feet now reach the floor.  She is solidly in 3-6 month clothes and I need to move her into size 3 diapers.  She has lots of chins and rolls on her squeezy little leggers.  People still remark on how alert she is.  She smiles a lot, and laughs when we tickle her and sometimes when she is delighted over something.  She is a well loved baby.

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  This past weekend we drove four hours out to Frostburg, Maryland, for the CMC conference, which our church is a part of.  We were there from Thursday to Sunday.  This was the first year we have taken our kids.  The weekend was so much fun for me, seeing people I usually only see once a year (or less) and catching up.  The kids really enjoyed the kids activities and wore themselves ragged.  This was Zion and Israel at supper on Saturday evening.  

   

  People were so incredibly helpful with the kids and with Layla.  Lots of people offered to hold her, particularly when she was fussy,

  

  

  and on Sunday morning, Peggy M. from Greenwood specifically offered to watch her during the Sunday morning service so that we could go in and sit down and watch Gabe, who was in the children’s choir.  

  

  It was soooooo nice to sit and not bounce, walk, and readjust baby.  It was fun to watch Gabe as he sang, squintedly looked out to search the audience for us, and pretended to read the words of the songs on the paper he had with him.  :)    

  One phrase I heard over and over again as people looked at us was, “You sure do have your hands full!!”  :)  I thought it was funny that so many people said the same thing.  And it was quite true.  I actually lost a pound or two over this weekend from all the child man-handling and distracted meals and walking.  I was intrigued by the fact that I wasn’t really ready to go home when the weekend was over, because despite all of the child work that being away involved, it still felt like LESS work than being home represents, with the constant picking up and cleaning and meal prep and cleanup and laundry.  I just kind of wanted to stay away, where somebody else worried about those things.  I guess life is a little bit more work and stressful at this current stage than what I had even realized.  :)  

  • 11:40 am
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