My friend, Kayla, tagged me to answer a few random questions.  I am always happy to respond to randomness, so here it goes.

1.  What's your favorite holiday? Christmas, because I love picking out presents for all of my family members.  Also, I love my kids' birthdays.  Planning parties is so much fun!

2. When you were young, what did you want to be when you grew up?  A pianist.  I practiced hours on end, but eventually decided the visual arts would be more lucrative (hahahahahahaha).

3. What hobby would you like to take up if you had more money/time? Printmaking.  I do a little lino-cutting at home, but I would live to have my own printing press so I could do dry points, etchings, and embossments. 

4. What TV shows do you currently watch? At the moment, I am going through Everybody Loves Raymond on Netflix. As far as current show, though, my favorites are Psych, White Collar, and Parks and Recreation.   

5. How long do you spend getting ready on a typical morning? Mom of two.  I don't get ready on a typical morning.

6. What does your name mean?/Why did your parents choose your name? Kalyn doesn't really have a meaning.  My parents picked it because it is pretty.  I think that is a good reason to pick a name, and I'm quite happy with their choice.

7. What's the best gift you've ever received? My dad built me a doll house when I was about 7.  It rocked my world.  I can't wait to re-gift it to Lydia in a few years.

The New Road Trip

Sorry for the delay.  I was unable to get a blog post done before we left town to come down to Menard because I was trying to prepare four people for a week away from home.  It was chaos.  Then once I got to Menard, well, it's Menard.  Internet-y things are sometimes hard to accomplish.  But the important thing is that we are here and having a wonderful time.  Shepherd and Lydia are basking in the attention of Mamm, Pap, Uncle Bro, and Aunt Stephanie. 

BJ and I have always loved road trips.  They've been part of our relationship from the very beginning.  This November marks eight years since we started dating, and there have been many extended road trips in that time to Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, and many places throughout Texas.  Basically, we have travelled all over seeing our friends and family.  As a minister's family, these little outings are restorative and necessary perhaps because we are going to see people who haven't always known BJ as the preacher and me as the preacher's wife.  We love our church family and our role within that family, but we sometimes need to take off those hats.

Of course, our road trips have made quite an evolution.  Used to, they were filled with BJ and I listening to our favorite music, finding NPR on the radio every time we neared a college town, talking, talking, and more talking about theology, politics, the meaning of life, and much more, and often reading books aloud to one another.  Our road trips are still all of these things, only now they are done against the background of our children screaming at us for restraining them in the evil car seats for hours on end and me occasionally popping to the backseat to try ineffectually to pacify their tortured cries. 

I had one moment Monday afternoon that really highlighted for me how much times had changed.  We had made a quick pit stop, not to get a drink or use the bathroom or get gas, but rather to change diapers, nurse Lydia, and let Shepherd run out some energy.  BJ and I both immediately got out of the van, retrieved the child that was on our side from the back seat, put them on our seat, and started changing a diaper.  When I looked up and saw this:

I knew our lives had really changed.  And despite the fact that we were standing over dirty diapers and children who had been screaming at us for the past hour, I couldn't help but feel a little happy that this is mine and BJ's life now.  And despite the craziness, I think I'm okay with the new road trip.      

In Light of the Blog's New Title, a Moment in the Park

While taking the kids for a walk in Ardmore's beautiful Regional Park, two years of reading children's books caught up to us.

Me: We're going on a bear hunt. We're going to catch a big one. What a beautiful day! We're not scared! Uh, Oh, a cemented path.  I smooth, nice cemented path.
Me with BJ joining in: We can't go over it, we can't go under it.  Oh no, we've got to go through it.
BJ: Steady Gait, Steady Gait, Steady Gait.
Shepherd: Steady Gait!
Me: We are such nerds.
Lydia: (snoring)

 

Sibling Bonding

Watching a sibling relationship develop is a fascinating experience.  I love seeing Lydia and Shepherd's interest in each other grow with each passing day.  So far, here is what the relationship between a two-year-old brother and three-month-old sister looks like:

-Shepherd regularly yells, "Tickoos," (toddler for tickles) and pokes, prods, and harasses Lydia.  While it looks unpleasant to me, she thinks this is great and rewards hims with big, open-mouthed smiles.

-Shepherd is always running around being noisy.  Lydia quietly sits on my lap or lays on the floor following him with intense interest.  I suppose she is learning a lot while watching.  I also suppose that should worry me.  One day soon, I'm going to have two toddlers running around being noisy.

-Shepherd is really into coloring right now.  When he is inside, he colors with crayons, and outside he colors with sidewalk chalk.  While I try to keep his coloring to coloring books and sidewalks, Lydia is often times his canvas.  Many of her clothes now have miniature artworks on them.

-Shepherd loves to identify all of Lydia's features (eyes, nose, ears, etc.).  His favorite is her mouth.  When he says, "Mouth," he immediately sticks his finger in her mouth.  This makes Lydia smile until he sticks it too far in, and then it makes her gag. 

I could list several other things, but suffice it to say, their little sibling relationship is truly budding.  As someone who has always been close to my own brother, I love watching it.  Siblings our such a blessing.  There is know one else who witnesses one's life quite like a sibling.  Siblings are there from the beginning (or almost the beginning), and they are typically with you through all of life's ups and downs.  I am glad to see that even in the earliest moments, Shepherd and Lydia are building a foundation to what I pray will be a blessed, life-long relationship. 

A few things

-As we have been experiencing fall weather off and on for the past month, I've come to a pretty major epiphany. It seems that my entire life has been leading to the moment when I would have a little girl and the weather would be cool enough to put her in tights and leg warmers.  This is what it is all about, people.

-I have finally found a way to exercise that I love: spinning.  Spinning meets my three criteria for a good work out:

1. It requires no flexibility. (A 2 by 4 plank is more flexible than I am.)
2. It does not require any learning of choreography. (I am as coordinated as Popeye's Olive Oyl.)
3. And, finally, it isn't jogging. 

-Yesterday was Halloween!  Shepherd and Lydia wore costumes made by their Nana.  Aren't my little dragon and sweet pea adorable?!

-BJ came home from work yesterday declaring that he is tired of Shepherd's current toddler phase that consists of not wanting to eat half of the time and playing with his food.  Apparently, BJ returned to work after lunch to find rice in his hair.

-I recently purchased a pair of colored pants.  They are a nice peachy-pink.  I think they are adorable.  BJ hates them.  Any thoughts on the recent trend of colored pants?

-A cousin of mine pointed out this week the pressure people feel to give an outside appearance of perfection.   So in the interest of candidness and for all the mothers out there who constantly beat themselves up because their house isn't as clean as it was before you had two kids sucking all of your time/energy/resources, here is a pictures of my living room right now.  (FYI, for all the people who don't have kids yet but still fall behind, my house used to occasionally get this messy even before kids.)

It's Fall!

This afternoon, we took Shepherd and Lydia to a pumpkin patch.  It was a beautiful fall day, and we had a wonderful time.  Here are just a few pictures from our outing.

 

 

 

 

The New Title

For three months now, I've had a daughter, which means that for three months, Just Me and My Boys has not been an appropriate title for my blog.  I hadn't changed the title yet, though, because I could not come up with a good replacement.  But finally, I've decided on a title that fits what this blog has always been and hopefully will continue to be: Doing Family Nerd Style.  Since deciding, I've had several moments of confidence about this title.  Here is a list of just a few:

-BJ turning on a podcast of Hardcore History about Genghis Khan for the two minute drive from the YMCA to our house.

-Me reading Stanley Hauerwas's Hannah's Child: A Theologian's Memior aloud to BJ as road trip entertainment on our way to Ft. Worth.

-Us showing off Shepherd's "Little Trekkie" t-shirt at his birthday party. Shepherd loves their theme song.

-Watching the presidential debate with Lydia in her "Babies for Obama" onesie.  Lydia is such a nerd.

-Going to a museum exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls with BJ, and BJ excitedly buying a t-shirt that says, "Hebrew? It's Greek to me."

Yes, I'm pretty sure this title will work.

Look Who's TWO!!!

Monday, Shepherd turned two years old.  I can't believe it.  And I really can't believe that on his second birthday, we have a three month old.  If you had told me that two years ago, I would have laughed, and then maybe cried a little, and then laughed some more.

We had a wonderful time watching Shepherd open presents.

Notice Lydia's participation.  She is pretty content to chill on the sidelines.

The night before, I stayed up until one in the morning decoration and cooking.  BJ walked out of our bedroom at 12:45 to find me hanging the bunting.  His exact words: "Seriously, Kalyn?"  Yes, I seriously decorate for my son's birthday.  Seriously.

Monday evening, we had some friends over to celebrate.  There is nothing like celebrating the birth of your wonderful son with wonderful friends who also love him.

Before everyone left, I asked Steve to take a picture of the four of us.  The kids weren't that into it, so BJ and I overcompensated with ridiculously exagerated smiles.   We look wierd.  So all in all, a pretty accurate family portrait.

Lydia then got tired of the party.

That pretty much sums up the day.  Needless to say, it was a wonderful day, not despite of all the chaos created by my children, but rather because we were specifically celebrating Shepherd and his chaos-inducing little self.   I love my little buddy.

For anyone and everyone with a "baby itch", look at your own risk.

In the comments for my last blog post (the one concerning my chaotic Sunday at church), my dear friend, Carolyn, thanked me for posting something that cancelled out all of the cute pictures I'm always posting of Shepherd and Lydia.  Apparently, the pictures had been giving her the baby itch, but my post brought her back to reality.  Well, since I do love babies and I think Carolyn and her husband would have very cute babies, I decided to spend this past week collecting adorable pictures of my children.  Here we go.

-All little boys need a fort, so while I was cooking lunch the other day, I helped Shepherd assemble his first fort under our kitchen table.

-This is just Lydia sleeping.  I thought I'd also post a close up of her sleeping, because babies sleeping are incredibly cute.

-While baking cookies with me, Shepherd accidentally burned his hand.  The only way we could console him was for him to lay on BJ (who was sick) and hold my cold water bottle.  They both fell asleep during the process.  I thought it was pretty adorable.

-This picture is of my children's faces.  I love their faces.

-This is Lydia and BJ sharing a moment.  Is there anything cuter than a father and daughter sharing a moment?

-Here are some more angles of the moment.  Are her ears not the coolest ears ever put on a child?  When I'm feeling blue, I just lay her on my lap and stare at her ears.  It makes me happy.

-This is Shepherd ready for our first really cold day this fall.  Love it!

-This is Lydia being Lydia with her cute scrunchy face.  Enough said.

-To really pack the cute punch, I dressed both of my children in overalls today.  Overalls+babies=bliss.

-And the grand finale: The Kiss!

Public service announcement: If anyone suddenly feels compelled to toss out birth control pills, I've heard doing it in the toilet is bad for the water supply and the environment.  Dispose responsibly!  

Navigating Sundays

As a minister in the Disciples of Christ, BJ sits at the front of our sanctuary for the entire service.  This means that from 10:40 a.m. to 12:00 noon every Sunday, I'm a single mom.  While I was pregnant with Lydia, I kept thinking to myself, "This is going to get really hard when I have two."  Turns out, I was right.

Here is a quick recap of yesterday's church service.  As soon as the organ started playing to cue people to sit down, Lydia decided she was hungry, but not just hungry: she was in fact famished.  I left Shepherd on our pew with Steve and Lana and went to the small sitting room in our ladies' bathroom to nurse Lydia.  After a quick feeding, I returned to the sanctuary.  About 10 minutes after returning, Lydia wet a diaper and demanded I change it.  I got up to leave once again, but Shepherd quickly made it clear that if I left without him again, he would be deeply heartbroken.  So to avoid a scene, I took him with us back to the ladies' room.

I changed Lydia, and decided to nurse her just long enough to put her to sleep before returning.  While nursing her, Shepherd snuck into the connecting bathroom.  He came back with a wet hand.  Guess how it got wet?  I cleaned him up one handed without Lydia ever stopping her nursing (she had apparently decided to make this intended snack a drawn out feast) and returned to the sitting room bench.  Shepherd then started examining some artificial flowers in a large, beautiful vase that decorated the space.  After pulling one flower for closer examination, the vase fell to the tile floor and crashed into a hundred pieces.  I was mortified.  Lydia was still eating.  About five seconds after the crash, a wonderful woman (another young mother) came running into the bathroom to check on us.  She was gracious enough to sweep up the mess.

Just as the mess was cleaned, Lydia unlatched and immediately pooped.  Of course, as luck would have it, I was fresh out of wet wipes.  So after putting my boobs back in place, grabbing the diaper bag and Lydia, and holding Shepherd's hand, I started to journey over to the nursery.  On the way, I took communion at the back of the church.  When I got to the nursery, Shepherd immediately feared I was going to leave him there and broke down sobbing (he has recently decided that he wants to be in church for the entire service).  I had to pass Lydia off while I comforted him, but I was finally able to change her diaper and we headed back to the service.

We made it for the beginning of BJ's sermon.  I laid Lydia next to me on the pew and Shepherd set on my lap happily eating bunny grahams and watching his dad.  Of course, by this time Lydia was tired from eating then peeing then eating then pooping.  So she lost it.  Shepherd was totally un-phased by this and just stayed right on my lap not caring that I needed to comfort his sister.  I managed to get Lydia into an awkward side hold that allowed for some semblance of bouncing.  She found it all very unsatisfying.  Thankfully, one of the ladies came and offered to take Lydia for a walk.  Lydia immediately fell asleep and the remaining 10 minutes of the service where uneventful.

Needless to say, by the end of this I was fried, but what I kept telling myself was that I could not let this really horrible, no good, very bad morning get to me.  The fact is, any standards we mothers put on ourselves and our babies is put on by us and/or societal expectations.  God sure as heck isn't doing it.  He just cares that we were there and we were trying.  My hope is that seeing the preacher's family in total disarray will make everyone else feel a little more comfortable when it is their kids having the especially bad morning.

Next Sunday, me and my two hooligans will be back with my total lack of knowing what I'm doing and their total lack of sophistication to worship God again.  I'm actually not at all sure that what we did yesterday morning wasn't worship.  Lydia was fully and unabashedly human.  God loves that.  Shepherd was curious about the world around him while also totally devoted to being with his parents while they did this weird thing they do once a week.  God loves that, too.  As for me, I was being humbled by the incredible chaos my beautiful children are capable of creating.  I think that might just be worship, too.        

What I Proudly Told BJ Tonight

"I know my way around a video game.  You hit Alt+Tab and they disappear."

He was so proud of his wife.

My Favorite Things About Lydia (in no particular order)

-Her gnome ears.  Although I said this was in no particular order, this is in fact my very, very favorite thing about my daughter.

-Her angry face.  If she wants us to take her seriously, she should stop being so cute when she is angry with us.

-Her lack of reserve. Who can pass gas for the camera?  My daughter can.

-Her tendency to make her mouth as small as possible while making her eyes as big as possible.  It is like cute on steroids.

-Her coos. No picture can capture coos, so just trust me on this one.  They are better than Shakespeare. 

-Her lopsided grin.

-Those big eyes.  Just like Shep's in every way but color.  When I look at the enormous eyes on each of my children, I know God had fun making them.