What Me, Shep, and Lydi Do When BJ is at Board Meetings

 When I was Shepherd's age, Randy Travis recorded "Forever and Ever, Amen." It was my very, very, very most favoritest song of all time ever.  Tonight, while having a youtube dance party with my children, I stumbled across a video of my favorite band, the Avett Brothers, doing a cover of my favorite song from my toddler years.  Of course, I immediately played it for Shepherd, and turns out, the kid inherited his taste in music from me, so we listened to it about five more times.  Here is the video for anyone who has ever really loved a song or a band or a toddler.  Enjoy.

The One Glaring at You

Anybody who has ever known me at all knows that I am no social butterfly.  I'm shy upon meeting people, and I keep a fairly small circle of very close friends.  Basically, I am a dictionary definition for introvert.  Lydia apparently got this particular gene of mine, and seeing a baby introvert is both fascinating and hilarious.

Lydia's introversion primarily makes itself noticable at Walmart and on Sunday mornings at church.  In fact, for the past few Sundays at church, Lydia has managed to go the entire 2 to 3 hours we're there without smiling at a single person.  What is sad is that people are trying to get smiles out of her.  That are trying hard, but this kid doesn't know the meaning of a cheap laugh.  I don't know how many times at Walmart or church or the Y or the library someone has come up doing baby talk and a little tickle only to get a cold, assessing stare out of my daughter.  Of course, as soon as we enter our house and it is just Mom, Dad, and Shep, she is all smiles and giggles.    For a visual, here is a picture of Lydia in her Sunday best giving her now famous Sunday look.

I know a lot of people worry if they see that their kid is going to be an introvert, but I'm completely okay with it.  I figure that introversion has served me pretty well in life, and I'm sure Lydia will navigate it's waters just fine.  And in ode to the adorable little personality I see developing in my petite munchkin, here are a few of the things I imagine Lydia is thinking while she is making so many baby lovers feel an inch tall after there failed attempts at getting a smile or a giggle:


-Who exactly are you?

-I'm not ticklish there.

-This is probably wasting both of our time.

-My brother can make that sound, also, and he's two.

-That wasn't bad, but I've seen funnier.

-I've had gas bubbles that made me laugh more.

-Personal space, people.

-Technically, yes, you could hold me, but with mom and dad here to hold me, I can hardly see the point.

-I'm sorry, was that meant to impress.

Learning Niceties

I've never thought much about how I acquired manners.  I am a reasonably nice person. I say "please" and "thank you," "excuse me" and "yes/no, sir/ma'am." But I never really considered the process that educated me into civilized society.

Watching Shepherd be shaped from a little caveman into a somewhat mannered little boy is a fascinating process.  Suffice it to say, manners don't come naturally to him, but he is making a concerted effort.  Here is an exchange we had yesterday afternoon after he picked up Lydia's blankets for me:

Me: Thank you, Shepherd.
Shep: Your welcome. (thinks for a moment and then comes over and shakes me hand) Nice to meetchya.

I guess he figure that while we were exchanging niceties, he'd better cover all of his bases.  I honestly don't know where he picked up "nice to meetchya," but I'm assuming he's been paying attention to social graces at church.

Right now Shepherd and our neighbor's little boy are playing outside.  They aren't being well mannered at all.  In fact, they are behaving more like their dogs with whom they are also playing than like anyone or thing you are ever likely to encounter at a tea party.  But that is okay.  He is two years old, so being civilized is a perfectly acceptable part-time gig.  As Shepherd so elegantly put it when I was wrestling him onto his changing table the other morning to get him dressed for the day, "I can't coperate right now." 

Itty Bitty Lydi

In the past month, Lydia has hit that stage where babies decide that the world is too exciting of a place to sleep.  As a result, BJ and I are deeply and profoundly sleepy.

With that in mind, here is a conversation BJ and I had earlier this afternoon during Lydia's "nap-time" while watching our daughter not nap:

Me: Just try to think about how her hair sticks up and her ears stick out and those things make her pretty cute.
BJ: That's kind of hard since, as I mentioned earlier, she has broken my brain.

Speaking of hair that sticks up and ears that stick out, here is a picture of Lydia with my mother from last week in Menard:

What I've Been Reading

Well, I've been busy working on my sort-of resolution.  I have found that my list of genres has forced me to diversify my reading habits.  Here is the list with the addition of the four books I've read and a short synopsis on each book.

1. Theology - The Mystic Way of Evangelism: A Contemplative Vision for Christian Outreach by  Elaine Heath; A few weeks ago, BJ was accepted into the Doctorate of Ministry program at Lipscomb University (YAY!).  This particular doctorate is focused in spiritual formation. The books for some of BJ's courses are starting to trickle in, and I picked this one up on a whim.  I'm so very glad that I did.  For one thing, it made me really excited about what BJ is going into.  But also, it gave me new ways to hope for the future of American churches.  On a purely entertaining level, I loved reading the brief bios of mystics throughout history.  I would definitely recommend this to anyone in the mood for a little theology.
2. Pulitzer Prize Winner
3. Mystery
4. Thriller
5. Trashy Romance - Years by Lavyrle Spencer; Best Trashy Romance Ever!  Seriously though, this book was really well done.  It wasn't in fact trashy.  It was just a beautiful story about romantic love.  It was predictable, but sometimes predictability is reassuring and lends a book an atmosphere of warmth and welcome to the reader.  There were multiple layers of stories within the overall book, and all of them prooved to be important and valuable to the broader narrative's development.  In other words, this book may never be read in an English college course, but I think it was extremely well done, and I suspect that I will be reading it again in the future just for the heck of it.
6. A Vampire Book
7. Children's Lit
8. A book that has or is being made into a movie
9. A Collection of Poetry
10. A Shakespeare Play
11. A book of historical non-fiction written by Doris Kearns Goodwin
12. Biography
13. Memoir
14. Comedy
15. British classic and/or a Booker Prize winner
16. An Agatha Christi - Peril at End House; This was a classic English mystery set in an eery English mansion.  It was a Poirot mystery, one set later in Poirot's life.  I enjoyed it immensely, and it is very possible that I will be picking up many more Agatha Christi's to come.
17. Young Adult Lit
18. The Bible - Read through Chapter 18 of Numbers so far...
19. SciFi or Fantasy - The Once and Future King by T. H. White; F-A-N-T-A-S-T-I-C.  Did I make that clear enough.  Of course, this is a novel about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.  It was whimsical and tragic in the same breath.  Instead of droning on about it, I'm just going to give a quick excert that I think brilliantly demonstrates the quality of the writing and the poignancy of this particular rendition of King Arthur, Lancelot, Guenever, and Merlin's story.  This passage is about Arthur's reaction to Lancelot and Guenever's affair, and how that reaction was shaped by his childhood education under Merlyn:

"Arthur's feeling completed the misery of the court.  He, unfortunately for himself, had been beautifully brought up.  His teacher had educated him as the child is educated in the womb, where it lives the history of man from fish to mammal--and, like the child in the womb, he had been protected with love meanwhile.  The effect of such an education was that he had grown up without any of the useful accomplishments for living--without malice, vanity, suspicion, cruelty, and the commoner forms of selfishness.  Jealousy seemed to him the most ignoble of vices.  He was sadly unfitted for hating his best friend or for torturing his wife.  He had been given too much love and trust to be good at these things. Aurthur was not one of those interesting characters whose subtle motives can be dissected.  He was onle a simple and affectionate man, because Merlyn had believed that love and simplicity were worth having."

20. Graphic Novel

An Entirely Inappropiate Story of Male Bonding

Let me preface this post by saying that I will be using a word of which I don't entirely approve. Here's why: BJ and I disagree on what words we should teach Shepherd to express the bodily function of passing gas.  I believe in saying "passed gas" or "tooted."  BJ says "fart." I hate that word.  But anyways, BJ is winning the argument.  Shepherd has taken to what I like to call the other f word.

So here is the story.  BJ and Shepherd had just finished with Shep's bath, and Shep had asked to pee-pee on the potty.  Shep was sitting on the potty, and BJ was sitting directly across from him on the edge of the bath tub.  All of the sudden, BJ did a very BJ sort of thing to do: he passed gas.  Shep excitedly said, "Dada farted."  Then Shepherd strained, and strained again, and strained one more time really, really intensely, and finally, a tiny, itsy-bitsy toot escaped. Shepherd, utterly pleased with himself and extremely happy, proclaimed, "Shep-ud farted!!!"

That's the whole story.  Hope you enjoyed.

"I like bouncing."

I should be cleaning my house right now in anticipation of our Monday night Bible study group that meets here.  Instead, I just spent the past 20 minutes documenting Lydia's love of bouncing.

That was a good way to spend my time, right?

Shepherd's Newest Musical Composition

Sung while running around the kitchen as I cooked him breakfast:

"I like bacon. B-b-b-b-b-bacon. Bacon, bacon, bacon, bacon. I like bacon."

That's my boy.

Just Random

A few things you should know about my family this past week:

Lydia: For the past week, Lydia has been waking up around 4 to 5 in the morning and making happy noises for about an hour.  Happy noises include the squeals heard in the video I posted last week and continuously blowing air through pursed lips to make bubbles.  Although we start out in our room, BJ and I have been finishing each night in the guest bedroom.   

BJ: When asked what he would like to have for lunch this week, BJ requested that tofu stuff I make.  I am doing something very right.

Shepherd: While playing outside this weekend, Shepherd made up a song about Gus's poop.  It went like this: "A dog, a poop.  A dog poops poops.  A dog, a poop."  After repeating this many, many times, he would then look up at me and say, "Eat it?"  No son.  We don't eat it.

Gus: For information on Gus, see Shepherd's song.

Yep, that's about everything for this week.

This will probably only be of interest to the grandparents, but...

I'm going to post it anyways.  Here is Lydia happy.

The Struggles of the Second Born Child

 
For the first year of a baby's life, parents are preoccupied with making sure their baby sleeps enough and isn't bothered when they are catching those zzz's.  With Shepherd, this was fairly easy.  I would rock him to sleep in the peace and quiet of our room and then tip-toe softly out the door.  Lydia, however, doesn't get the hours of rocking or the quiet nap times or really any peace whatsoever.  Turns out, when you are the second child, the first child is like a little tornado wreaking havoc all over your bedtime.  Here are just a few of the ways Shepherd has interrupted Lydia's sleep:

-Ever since Lydia was born, Shepherd has enjoyed identifying all of her body parts, especially her facial features.  Imagine being woken because I toddler is picking your nose while proudly yelling, "Nose," or poking you in the eyes and ears for his own personal anatomy lesson.  From Lydia's reaction, I deduce it is unpleasant.  And very hard to sleep through.

-While putting Lydia down for a nap this past weekend, Shepherd stormed into the bedroom with my pie crust shield around his neck screaming, "Pie hat! Pie hat!"

-Shepherd is like every other human being on earth: he wants what he can't have.  This means that if I close a door, and he and I are on opposite sides of that door, he officially wants me more that anything ever ever ever.  Every night, I close my bedroom door so that I can get Lydia to bed, and on those unfortunate nights when Shepherd sees me do this, a scene soon follows not unlike Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire.  However, instead of wailing "Stella," Shepherd is screaming in utter agony, "Mama, Mama!"

-Most of the time, Shepherd does realize that when mommy is putting baby to bed, he is supposed to be quiet.  However, when he thinks "quiet," he doesn't think "no talking." Instead, he thinks "whisper," and if you've ever heard a toddler whisper, you probably know just how loud a whisper can be.  I can't count the number of times I've had Lydia asleep only to have Shepherd tiptoe in with his little pointer finger over his mouth, look at me very seriously in the eyes, and then whisper in the loudest whisper I've ever heard, "Baby sleeping."  Baby doesn't sleep long after what might as well be the cacophony of her big brother's well-intentioned whispers.

So if the next time you see Lydia, she seems a bit sleep-deprived and grumpy, cut the girl a break.  She has a tough time catching a nap around this place.

The Very Bad Cold and My Very Strange Son

Over the past week, I've battled what I'm convinced was one of the worst colds ever in the history of mankind.  I did not like it.  I didn't like the flaming red, scale-y rash spreading from my nose due to excessive wiping. I didn't like the sinus headache and ear ache that came with a stuffy nose.  I didn't like having bloodshot, burning eyes. And most of all, I didn't like being unable to taste food. I made a delectable cauliflower cream soup full of complex flavors, and I couldn't taste a single one of those flavors until it was a two-day-old leftover (incidentally, it was quite good even as a leftover.)

As a result of this cold and the fact that I've spent the past week hiding from the world, I have very little to write about, so instead I'm going to quickly relay a story that happened about a month ago.  BJ and I are in our church's bell choir, so through out December, we were going to practices for our Christmas performances.  During these practices, I would wear Lydia in her Baby K'tan wrap, and Shepherd would play with some toys I would bring him.  Near the end of one of these practices, Shepherd started getting bored with the toys I'd packed him.  He came to me and begged for me to hold him.  With out missing a beat on the song we were currently playing, I told him I couldn't hold him because I was wearing the baby, and then I said what all exasperated parents say when they don't know how to meet their toddler's needs: "Go tell your father."  Now BJ was on the opposite end of the next row, so Shepherd passed about six people on his journey to his father.  He arrived at BJ's side just as we were finishing, and I turned around to see the whole back row laughing.  Apparently, on his way to BJ, Shepherd pinched the butts of every bell choir member he passed.  Let me repeat: All six people's butts had been pinched by my son.  What possessed him to do such thing, I do not know.  But he did. 

When your toddler does something this embarrassing, it is only natural to cringe at what you imagine other people must be imagining.  If I were one of the pinch-ees, I would be thinking, "Wow, in the Gensic household they must pinch each other's butts.  It must be a game.  How very odd they are."  Let me just say, I did not teach Shepherd to pinch butts, nor did BJ that I know of (all though that is not outside of the realm of possibilities.)  All I can say is that toddlers are wierd little people, and my son is no exeception to that rule.

My Sort-of Resolution

I typically do new year's resolutions, and in fact, I love them.  I love the feeling of a new beginning.  I love goals pushing me towards improvement.  However, this year I am making a very conscious decision to not have them.  Here is my thinking: resolutions are about rearranging priorities for the coming year, but when you have two kids under the age of 3, priorities are already set in stone.  Basically, I don't want to spend this next year feeling guilty over unmet resolutions when the reason they are unmet is because my kids require a lot of time and energy.  I figure if the house isn't consistently clean, it will be cleaned in 18 years when my kids go to college.  And if this last five pounds of baby weight doesn't come off, so be it.  I've had two children.  This little pooch of mine is not my shame.  It is a battle scare.  It was earned with dignity.  It was totally worth it.

So that being said, the only goal I'm setting this year has to do with my reading habits.  I typically read 30 to 40 books every year.  While this is a respectable number, I'm always left a little disappointed with myself at the end of each year because of the lack of variety in those 30 to 40 books.  I tend to get in ruts where I'll read mysteries by one author for six months, and then whittle away the rest of the year with fluff romances.  So this year, I've chosen twenty criteria I want at least one book to fit.  My brother is doing this (with a few revisions to the categories) with me, and I'd love it if anyone else who wishes to would join me.  I'll try to occasionally update on my progress.  For now this is the list and the whys of the list:

1. Theology - I started reading theology books two years ago so that I'd be better equipped to converse with BJ on the topic about which he is most passionate.  About 50 pages into my first N.T. Wright book, I discovered I love theology.
2. Pulitzer Prize Winner - Many of my favorite books have won this prize (Empire Falls, Angle of Repose, Gone with the Wind)
3. Mystery - I'll probably read far more than one of these.
4. Thriller - This one's broad.  It could be another mystery, a spy novel, or any number of other categories.  It just must be thrilling on some level.
5. Trashy Romance - I say this tongue in cheek.  I'm not talking about a book with Fabio on the cover.  Rather, I'm talking about fun, mainstream romances that lean towards a soap opera feel.  Why? Because I'm a housewife, and this is supposed to be our genre.
6. A Vampire Book - I find it fascinating that books with vampires have almost become a whole new genre in the past ten years.  I've read many of them and enjoyed them, so I'll definitely fit one in this year.
7. Children's Lit - Because kid's books rock.
8. A book that has or is being made into a movie - Because I love complaining about how movies ALWAYS fall short of the book.
9. A Collection of Poetry - Just because I love, love, love poetry. 
10. A Shakespeare Play - I haven't read a Shakespeare play since my senior year of high school, so I'm due for one.
11. A book of historical non-fiction written by Doris Kearns Goodwin - Goodwin is my favorite commentator on The Daily Show, Colbert Report, NPR, and PBS news programs.  I've meant to read one of her works for years.
12. Biography - This is just to try something new.  I've hardly ever read biographies.
13. Memoir - The best book I read in 2012 was a memoir, Hannah's Child by Stanley Hauerwas.  I'm hoping to find gold twice.
14. Comedy - Cause they're funny.
15. British classic and/or a Booker Prize winner - Another category I typically read every year.
16. An Agatha Christi - I grew up watching my dad read Agatha Christi books, and now my brother is a big fan.  I want to see what exactly it is everyone likes so much.
17. Young Adult Lit - This category also consist of many of my favorite books.
18. The Bible - I've committed to do this with BJ and several other people from church. 
19. SciFi or Fantasy - Because it is good to occasionally read something strange.
20. Graphic Novel - For a totally new experience.

And now, to make up for a boring blog post, pictures of Lydia "waving" and laughing.  

 

The 10 Best Photos from Christmas

1. Sunday service the day before Christmas Eve was beautiful.  Besides the meditation on the true meaning of Christmas and the gorgeous Christmas music, the best part of the morning was dressing both of my kiddos up in festive, Christmas-y clothes!

2. While I cooked all morning for the big meal Chistmas Eve night, Shepherd played with play-doh and Christmas cookie cutters while Lydia observed closely.  They do a pretty good job entertaining themselves.

3. I'm a sucker for generational pictures.  Here's three generations of Pierce women in the kitchen!

4. A two-fer.  Everybody contributed something to the meal.  Here are a few of us working, and then to the right, the fruits of our labor.  It was tasty fruit.

5. This was my first year being Santa Claus.  I had a blast stuffing Shepherd and Lydia's stockings!

6. This was Shepherd's face at the precise moment that I told him Santa Claus had come the night before to fill his stocking.  He'd watched Santa Claus is Coming to Town enough times to know what that meant.

7. Shepherd got a tent from Mamm and Pap.  In this picture, he had managed to talk his dad into joining him in the tent.  He was obviously pretty proud of himself.

8. Nana made Lydia this hat.  Lydia + fluffy pink hat = cuteness overload.

9. This is the grandparents on Christmas morning.  I wish we could have all four of them every year for Christmas.  It was truly a wonderful holiday, and it was made special by each of them.

10. One last two-fer.  Ardmore had their first white Christmas since 1914 this year.  Here are some pictures of my guys taking advantage of it.  Shepherd really liked eating the snowflakes and ice cicles. 

I hope everyone had as wonderful of a holiday as we did.  Thank you to Nana, Papa, Mamm, and Pap for making it so much fun!

Sweet Lydia

Don't be fooled by her size or by the fact that most of her clothes are still 0-3 month sized.  This little girl is 5 months old today! 

After thinking about the passage of time and how she is rapidly approaching half a year old...

...she decided that it is all pretty awesome.

In fact, she rocks 5 months.

And for the record, those happy pictures aren't a fluke.  This kid is happy all of the time.  She probably got that from BJ (cue the laughter.)

To Potty Train or Not to Potty Train (yet)

Shepherd is getting to a phase where he doesn't want to lay still long enough to get his diaper changed, and I'm getting to a phase where I'm tired of wrestling him while simultaneously cleaning him and putting on a new diaper.  I've been hesitating to start potty training simply because a) the parenting books say to wait until a child is bothered by dirty diapers and can recognize the urge (the latter, yes, the former, not so much), and b) the average potty training age for boys in America is 39 months, so I'm not sure if trying it at 26 months would be premature and frustratingly futile.

With all of this information running through my head, I've basically been putting off the issue week after week.  However, something happened last week that has me seriously considering the issue.  It was early in the morning, and Shepherd was watching Dora the Explorer in the living room while I was nursing Lydia in mine and BJ's room.  Since BJ had gotten Shepherd out of bed that morning, Shepherd was in his diaper and nothing else (BJ does not understand the point in dressing our children, so he never does it. Ever. If our children have clothes, you can bet it was my doing.) 

So I'm nursing Lydia, and Shepherd runs quickly into the bedroom naked carrying his diaper.  He says, "Dipe-a, poopy," sits the diaper on the floor, and then starts running back down the hall with every intention to sit on the couch and resume watching Dora.  I quickly deposited a not-too-happy-to-be-interupted Lydia into her bed, and started chasing my dirty-bottomed little boy.  Thankfully, I caught him before our couch was defiled.  I carried him back to his room at arms lenth, cleaned him up, and put a new diaper and clothes on him.  When I laid him on the table, he looked up at me and said, "Thank oo, Mommy."  I'm not sure what I was being thanked for, but I'm glad the kid is polite.

With this memory all too vivid in my mind this week, I'm left to wonder if it is time to bite the bullet and potty train this kid.  To my dear readers, do you have any advice on how to potty train an ornery, 2-year-old little boy?  If so, please, I'm desperate.

Interacting with a 2-year-old

Shepherd: (in a loud whine) P-ease, p-ease, p-ease, p-ease!!!

Me: Can you say please nicely?

Shepherd (suddenly cool, calm, and collected): P-ease nicely.

The One Picture

With a baby, getting a good picture is a matter of random luck.  But every once in a while, you get a picture that perfectly captures the little personality you've been watching develop for the past few months.  For Shepherd, it was the below picture that I snapped during some family cuddling time on the couch.  Even today, this picture is still a perfect capture of Shepherd's joyfully and wildly mischievous nature.

Today, I got one of those pictures of Lydia.  Lydia is sweet and funny and she always leaves me suspecting that she knows something I'm not in on.  To me, this picture says it all:

How the Grinch Lost His Wife in an Outdoor Shopping Mall (and nearly his mind)

Before I begin this Christmas tale, here are a few things you need to know:

-Unless he is sitting in his desk chair buying computer parts, BJ hates all forms of shopping. 
-BJ hates moseying, meandering, or browsing in stores. 
-For BJ, Christmas shopping is simply a necessary evil.
-BJ does not know the difference between a Payless Shoes and a Nordstroms.  He is oblivious.

With that said, let me begin.  This evening, BJ and I had two errands to run: we needed to exchange a bad box of Christmas lights at Lowe's, and we needed to pick up a couple of presents at Stages, a clothing store in an outdoor shopping center near Lowe's.  We decided that BJ would drop me and Lydia off at Stages while he and Shepherd ran to Lowe's.  Unfortunately, we both forgot our cell phones, but we figured it would be easy enough for BJ and Shepherd to find us in Stages, a fairly small store.

So BJ dropped off me and Lydia in front of Stages.  We went into the store and started looking around.  Soon after arriving, Lydia started showing signs that she may not be up for shopping, but being the determined shopper I am, I started picking up items here and there.  Over an approximately 30 minute span of time, the little fusses started getting more violent.  It was getting harder for me to hold her and the couple of items I had, and I was starting to get looks, the looks that say, "Why are you subjecting civilized society to that child of yours."  All I could think was, "Where is BJ?!?"  Lowe's is literally right across the street, and he was doing a quick exchange.  And surely I couldn't be that hard to find in Stages considering it isn't a large store and I was carrying around my very own foghorn.  Eventually, I started apologizing to the people around me and explaining that I would have left already if only my ride had arrived.  Finally, I decided to check out the items I thought would work well enough (I could hardly think over the screaming) and stand outside.

Back up thirty minutes...
BJ and Shepherd dropped us off and headed straight to Lowe's where they quickly exchanged the lights.  They returned to the shopping center and went into the store to find us.  Soon after coming in, Shepherd, who BJ was holding, had a diaper leak causing his pants and, thus, BJ's arm to get soaked.  Between having urine on his arm and just generally hating being in any store whatsoever, BJ was very anxious to find me and Lydia as soon as possible, but he couldn't spot us anywhere.  After about twenty minutes of futile searching, BJ started asking store clerks if they had seen a woman with a baby.  No one had.  With his levels of anger, frustration, and anxiety about to shoot through the roof, he decided that he wasn't waiting for me in some stupid clothing store any longer, and he headed toward the Petco two stores down. 

Back to where we left off with me and Lydia...
So I checked out and walked out of Stages' doors.  As soon as I exited, I saw BJ walking down the sidewalk toward me.  It took about half a second of examination for me to see that steam was emitting from his ears.  When we got close enough to talk, BJ immediately dug in: "Where have you been?" I replied that I had been walking all over Stages with a crying baby and asked where he had been.  He angrily said, "I've been looking for you all over in there while carrying Shepherd who peed all over my arm."  This whole time he was pointing to a Ross Dress for Less.  "Why were you in Ross's?" I asked.  Suddenly, the anger drained out of BJ.  "What?"

After our tempers and frustrations cooled down and I had the time to say, yes, it would be horrible to be peed on while stuck in a store, and BJ had the time to say, yes, it would be horrible to have a screaming baby while stuck in a store, I asked BJ if he ever wondered if he was in fact in Stages, our agreed upon meeting place.  BJ replied, "Well, it was a clothing store."

So the moral of our Christmas story is this: While all Stages are clothing stores, not all clothing stores are Stages.  Ah haa.

Five Things Shepherd Did Today (just an ordinary Saturday)

1. Sang the alphabet all the way through for the first time, and then proceeded to do it multiple times throughout the day.

2. Rubbed apple sauce into his hair.

3. After having bacon at breakfast, begged for bacon every time he walked into the kitchen.  Like a dog.

4. While in Walmart, picked his nose multiple times while yelling, "Booger!"

5.  Stared at his own reflection in the mirror, and then spit at it so he could watch the slobber run down the mirror.