Dirty laundry

I've got some dirty laundry I'd like to air out because frankly, I'm tired of holding it in.

Elisabeth has been having a lot of potty accidents during the day. A lot.  She's actually been having them on and off since we started at KinderCare, right before Sydney was born.  That's when I started feeling like my little girl was very fragile and I was afraid I would break her.  We have tried just about every potty training and parenting technique to try and alleviate the accidents, all of which have not helped.  We recently took her to get an abdominal ultrasound and x-ray to see if there was something physically wrong. Everything looks normal.  We are now seeing a child psychologist to see if she can help us figure out how to emotionally fix it.  We have one session under our belt, four more to go.  Please pray that this works. Because I can't bear to hear the school nurse tell me again that she doesn't consider Elisabeth to be potty trained.  If I have to hear it again I may climb thru the phone and smack that woman who is actually very nice, so it would't be so nice for me to do that.

I am embarrassed about Elisabeth's accidents and often worry that people will think we are bad parents.  Yes, I know that's crazy.

My dad has prostate cancer.  He is having his prostate removed in a few weeks.  I'm pretty confident that my dad is going to be just fine, but that C word is scary as hell and really bothers me. A lot.

I have a lump in my neck, just below my ear.  I don't really think it's anything to worry about, but I'm having a cat-scan to check it out and figure out if it's a cyst or an enlarged lymph node which would need to be biopsied.  I'm a little neurotic these days, so it's a little bothersome to me.

Mark's dad has been in the hospital twice in the past few weeks and he is fine, but it has not been a fun rollercoaster.

My grandpa Marvin died in January. I miss him dearly and can't get myself to post anything about his death and his amazing funeral.

I am totally stressed out and working really hard trying to relearn everything at my job.  I am in love with my job, I'm just working some long hours and it's hard for me to balance my career and my family at the moment.

I had a dream the other night that Elisabeth had cancer, so I told Mark about it last night.  He confessed to me that he had the same dream recently but didn't want to tell me because he knew I would freak out.

Officially freaked out.  One dream is okay, but two separate parties having the same dream is a bit profound, don't you think?

I feel like I have a lot on my plate.  It's been a long year, and I'm tired.  I think back to after Mark's heart attack and how clear everything was to me, and it makes me chuckle because now that he is fine everything is muddy.

What the heck is that all about?

Cool like fi-yah

Did you hear the story about the 7 year old boy in CA that grabbed his little sister and a telephone and locked themselves in the bathroom and called 911 when some burglars broke into his house and said they would kill his parents?

Holy mackerel! (Pardon my French.) I had such mixed emotions when listening to the 911 call on the news.  What a brave and smart little boy!

We took that story as a reminder to have the 911 emergency talk with Elisabeth again.  It had been a while.

So we asked her: "Elisabeth, do you know what you would do if there was an emergency and mommy and daddy couldn't help?"

And this was her simple response:  "Well yeah, you call 911.  Don't you know the song that teaches us about that?"

Uh, no.  How does the song go Elisabeth?

Cue the music. (That means click the little triangle "play" icon in the blue rectangle below for those of us that could also use some help programming our VCR's and Blackberries.)



Who knew this guy called "Shawty" was so educational?

Birds of a feather

Some of you who know me well would say that I'm stubborn. But let's call it spirited instead, shall we? 

And most of you who know Elisabeth would say that she is spritedly stubborn as well. 

She and I are two of a kind. As stubborn and spirited as they get.  Which is why when I heard the following story about a recent stay at Grandma's house, I had a newfound appreciation for my eldest's ability to get out of anything.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene: Grandma and Elisabeth, snuggling in bed together. Way past Elisabeth's bedtime, but I won't get into that. 

It was a dark and stormy night...

(okay, not really dark and stormy)

Grandma:  Now Elisabeth, if you are going to stay at Grandma's house, you need to behave.

Elisabeth: Why?

Grandma: Because if you don't (insert grumbly "Where the Wild Things Are" monstery voice that only my mom can do so well), I'm going to tie you to the tree outside!

Elisabeth: That's okay Gwamma, because the birds will just eat the string off of me for their nests, and then I'll come back inside!

Insidious laughter ensues by all.  End scene.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That's my girl!

drowning

Do you ever feel like you can't keep your head above water? With all of the career stuff, mom stuff, wife stuff, and just general life stuff going on?

Yeah, me too.

Soak it in

I'm not going to make this a cliche' post about how fast time flies and how it seems like just yesterday that my children were helpless newborns.   (Although it's true -- and I will use the cliche' another time, you can count on it!)

Instead I will tell you about yesterday.

The children in our church collect coins for children in Peru.  For just pennies a day our children are able to help feed hungry families that can't afford to eat. It's quite an amazing program, and the kids take such pride in donating their coins.

Sydney is no exception. Although they are not necessarily her coins, she still brings a handful of coins from where we sit in the back row, all the way up the center aisle, puts them into the big jar and goes back to her seat.  Usually we kind of walk up with her and help guide her.

But yesterday I decided to guide her to the center aisle and then let her go on her own.

I let her go.

She walked so carefully down that center aisle, so slowly, with such a beautiful smile on her face.  She looked from side to side, smiling at all of the people sitting down.  Every eye was on our sweet little Sydney, and I stood there at the back of the church and just watched. I soaked it in.  This was our baby, who was proudly walking down the church aisle, who was somehow getting everyone else to soak her in.  With every step she took, she seemed to give off this amazing, addicting energy that I can't even put into words.  She continued to walk to the front of the church, and when she got to the jar she carefully placed each coin inside. One at a time, she lovingly placed each of her special coins into the jar to help feed the children in Peru who are not nearly as fortunate as we are.  With all eyes in the room on her every graceful move, I was told that I wasn't the only one with watery eyes.

As she turned around to slowly walk back, she continued to smile her sweet little closed-mouth smile that she smiles whenever she is proud of herself, and continued to watch every single person that was watching her.  And when she saw me standing at the back of the church, my knees bent, my arms wide open, her smile grew ten times larger, her eyes grew ten times brighter and she ran for me with her own arms wide open.  I grabbed her in my arms, scooped her up, showered her with kisses and told her how proud I was.

The whole thing kind of happened in slow motion.  Sydney's very slow and methodical pace had a lot to do with that, but as I watched it all unfold, I was so filled with pride that I could almost feel her growing up before my eyes.  I could feel her doing amazing things with her life with that same purpose and that same captivating grace that she showed yesterday as every eye in the church followed her every move with anticipation and delight.  I could feel her walking down the same aisle as an adult, her daddy by her side. And I could see myself with her as well, looking back and thinking about how she once walked down that aisle as a toddler to put her pennies in the jar. 

I soaked it in.

Because these moments don't happen every day. 

Life is often quite rushed for us. I don't always remember to stop and just let the moment happen.

Yesterday I did, and I soaked it in.

I heart Valentine's Day

We have a tradition of making a heart shaped pizza on Valentine's Day.  This year, considering we now have a very cute live-in raccoon as well as a bird-turned less-of-a-bird, we figured we'd better make two.

The less-of-a-bird decided that her heart would have a face on it, complete with black olive freckles. 

Mad cute. The pizza and the bird, that is. You can ignore the mommy in the photo, if you don't mind.

The raccoon's pizza had a ton of toppings on it. The Dad may have had something to do with that too I suppose.

In any case, both pizzas turned out pretty darn good! 

We had a fancy dinner in the dining room.  Take notice of Sydney's favorite Mr. Potato Head glasses that she is wearing. She would wear them everywhere if we let her!

Our fancy pizza dinner ended with some equally amazing cherry Jello, fresh strawberries and whipped cream. 

Don't get me wrong, the pizza was good.  But it's apparent that the dessert was good.

And of course the night wouldn't have been complete without some giggles, some craziness and lots of love.

I heart Valentine's Day. Nights like this make me remember how much I heart my family as well!