The Past Two Weeks in Bullet Points

• We spent an entire week in Alton, IL with Nana and Papa.  Shepherd had a wonderful time playing outside and "driving" Papa's red pick-up truck.  Unfortunately, Lydia got a virus while we were there, so she spent much of the week as a grumpy, limp noodle.
• On the drive home, we arrived in Norman, OK at the same time as a tornado.  It was terrifying.  We could not find any cover, so we scootched up against a bank building and waited it out.  I covered Lydia with a pillow, and BJ put Shepherd in between him and the car seat.  Once the danger passed, I broke down crying.  I've never been that kind of scared for my babies and our family.  I said a lot of prayers during that 15 minutes, and I feel so grateful that we came out unscathed.  I can't say the same for our van, though.  It is likely that our insurance company will classify it as totaled once they get around to our claim.  
• Being an Oklahoman is a mixed bag of emotions right now.  I feel anxiety about the ferocity of our weather, and I saw that anxiety mirrored in the faces of my neighbors every time clouds have blown in this week.  (The tornado sirens went off for us Monday evening, and BJ could see rotation directly above our house).  I also feel in awe of the heroism and courage exhibited by so many during these storms.  And of course, I feel sadness and mourn with all those who have lost their homes, and worst of all, a loved one.    
• On a happier note, my parents are visiting us this weekend, and once again, Shepherd is having a blast.  He hasn't napped since they arrived, and I don't think I've ever seen him go full force for so long.  Lydia is getting in on the excitement, too.  She is even occasionally letting people other than me and BJ hold her.  Occasionally.
• Also on a happy note, my brother, John, and his wife, Stephanie, came up to Ardmore today for the first meeting of our three-person book club.  We all read Northanger Abbey over the past week, and we sat down to a lovely discussion and some hot tea and coffee at Ardmore's local coffee shop.  Yes we are nerds.  But we are happy nerds.
• Last but not least, a picture of Lydia in her St. Louis Zoo cap Nana and Papa bought her last week before she got sick and a picture of my son doing his goofy picture grin:
   
  
  
  Okay, okay.  If you insist, here are two more pictures.  One of Lydia experimenting with how large she can make her eyes while eating.  And one of Shepherd with a bucket on his head.
  
   
  

He is totally my son!

Shepherd has a very different temperament from me.  While there is a stunning resemblance between him and pictures of me in my toddler days, it sometimes seems that the similarities stop there.  Now let me be clear: I am completely okay with this.  I love that little guy to pieces, and I don't want him to be just like me.  I want him to be just like him.  But it has still been fun the past month seeing a little of me peeking out in Shepherd.  Here are three recent moments when I had to sit back and admit that we might be more alike than I'd realized:

1.  I am known for being neurotically careful.  It is a trait I inherited quite honestly from my father.  My dad puts so much stock in being careful that he would stop at nothing to make sure my brother and I followed suit.  For example, when he was teaching us how to drive, he would sit in the passenger's seat telling us stories about wrecks that had happened in whatever location we happen to be driving by.  Twisted? Maybe a little.  Affective? Absolutely.  But that was a tangent.  Back to Shepherd.  So Shepherd was playing on the wood beams that make our raised garden bed.  He was walking very, very slowly and concentrating completely on each move. After making it around a few times, he proudly announced to me, "Look, Mommy.  I be careful."  That's right.  My 2 and a half year old is careful while he plays.

2. I have always warned Shepherd to stay away from very dangerous objects by saying that they could hurt us. What can I say? I've got my Dad's parenting skills. It's never been much of an issue, but now that Shepherd is getting older, he is a little more aware and frightened of pain.  While working at the church garden a couple of weeks ago, I warned Shepherd to stay away from the tiller because it could hurt us.  Throughout the evening, he pointed at the tiller repeatedly and said, "That can hoot us."  I didn't think much of it until a week later when I told Shepherd we were going to work in the church garden, and he immediately said, "The tiller can hoot us."  That level of anxiety can only be attributed to my side of the gene pool.

3.  And lastly, I'm not just a ball of neurotic anxiety.  I'm also really good at positive reinforcement.  So the other day, Shepherd asked me for some "swawberwies."  I told him I'd be happy to get him some and went to the kitchen to wash and cut them into bite-sized pieces.  Shepherd followed me and was watching me when all of the sudden he said, "Good job cuttin' swawberwies, mom."  Thank you, son.  I do have some superb strawberry-cutting techniques.  Since my kids are too young to get me anything for Mother's Day, I'm considering that compliment my Hallmark card. 

I won't be posting for a bit because we're heading out of town tomorrow to spend the whole week with Nana and Papa in Alton, Illinois.  Shepherd has been talking about it non-stop, although he hasn't yet realized that over 10 hours in the car proceed actually getting to see Nana and Papa.  We'll see how that revelation goes tomorrow afternoon.

Boys start being boys at a very young age

I work out several times a week at the YMCA just down the road from our house.  While I work out, Shepherd and Lydia stay in the nursery.  Typically, it is all relatively uneventful, but last week it was made quite clear that Shepherd is such a boy.

First was when I went to pick the kids up from the nursery Wednesday morning.  All of the toddler girls were huddled in the corner glaring at my son.  The nursery attendant (we'll call her J) was crouched down with Shepherd having a little talk.  Apparently, he had taken a T-Rex with a functioning jaw and chased the girls around biting them with it.  I talked to him about it when we got home, but overall he seemed pretty proud of himself for getting the girls with a T-Rex.  It is hard to decipher all of his toddler jibberish, but I'm quite confident that I caught him bragging about it off and on all day.

When I went to the nursery Friday morning to retrieve my kids, J informed me that Shepherd had been picking on the little girls again.  Apparently, he would grab their toys and them stand back a few steps and smile coyly at them.  This upset them greatly.  J said that she kept telling the girls that if they wouldn't get so mad at him, he'd probably stop doing it.  He mostly does it for the reaction.  Thankfully, J thought it was hilarious and wasn't too upset with my offspring.  She just laughed and said, "He is such a boy."

Here are a few more things that make Shepherd such a boy:

-He loves frogs and bugs and dinosaurs and cars.
-He makes up songs about bacon and poop.
-He loves to play in the dirt.
-He incessently picks on his little sister.
-He never stops running.
-He is obsessed with choo-choo trains.
-He smells bad most of the time.
-He gets excited every time he passes gas.
-He picks and then eats his own boogers.
-He's a glutton.
-And most importantly, he loves his mommy.

Anything but the chicken!!!

Nine months is the recommended age to add meat to a baby's diet, so this week I made some chicken baby food for Lydia.  Shepherd was never a picky eater, but Lydia almost never likes something the first time I introduce it to her.  So I wasn't all that surprised when I got the following responses to her first chicken meal caught on my cell phone (hence the poor picture quality).

With Lydia, it typically takes trying a food about 2 or 3 times before she decides I'm not in fact trying to torture her, so I was optimistic when I set down last night for her chicken dinner number 2.  Here's how that went:

After getting this look more times than I can count, I am now fairly certain that Lydia's first words are going to be, "Seriously, Mom?"

Happy Birthday, Papa: Our second attempt at a birthday video-card for a grandparent

Happy birthday to my wonderful father-in-law, Papa!

A Great and Productive Weekend

After months and months of participating in the soul crushing activity that is searching for a rental in Ardmore, BJ and I have decided to make the best of a not great house and just try to fix up the rental we have.  This past weekend, BJ's mother (aka Nana) flew down to help us with this undertaking.  As a result, we spent most of the weekend like this:

After two full days of doing nothing but painting, we managed to get the living/dining room, bedroom, and bathroom all painted.  Here are a few picture of the bedroom.

For the bathroom, I did three paintings last month of monsters doing bathroom type things (brushing teeth, washing hands, and flushing).  Dad built some frames for the paintings, and we painted the bathroom a light blue green.  I never thought I would say this, but I now sort of love my ugly, brown-tiled bathroom.  And Shepherd is enthralled with the monster paintings! 

And last but not least, the living room.  It is just a nice beige.  Painting the horrible white walls that have been the bane of my existence for the past year and a half was wonderfully therapeutic.   It feels so much more like a home now.

Thankfully, painting wasn't the only thing we did.  Here are some pictures from Nana's camera of the kiddos thoroughly enjoying her visit.

Happy Birthday, Pap!

I know it is a pretty unimpressive video, but it was the best we could get a half hour before bedtime.  At least Shepherd was into it.  We can hardly expect Lydia to be nice about things like birthday wishes.  I mean, it's Lydia.  But seriously, happy birthday to the sweetest dad on earth!

Easter 2013

I hope everyone had a happy Easter.  Ours was really wonderful.  BJ and Greg (our worship minister) constructed a truly inspired service that made for a beautiful celebration.  BJ still manages to blow me away with his sermons every once in a while, and today was certainly one of those days.

Of course, in the background of the religious holiday was the fun of dressing up my kids and doing an Easter egg hunt.  Here are two pictures of Shepherd in the vest and tie Aunt Marcy sent.  I really need to start dressing this kid up more often because he did not know what to do with himself this morning.  He kept yanking at the vest and tie while moaning, "I stuck, I stuck."  And not surprisingly, he bolted out of the church once, got his hands muddy, and immediately rubbed them all over his pale yellow vest.  That's my boy.

Overall, Lydia was pretty impressed with her get-up this morning.  She looked so adorable I giggled for about the first two hours of the day.  Unfortunately, the awesome dress didn't make her any nicer.  While she did smile at me, BJ, Shepherd, and occasionally Mamm and Pap, everyone else got the icy cold glares to which they've all become accustomed.

Lydia isn't much for bows, so the only way we kept it on for half of the morning was by giving her plenty of entertainment.  Her she is with an absolutely fascinating plastic spoon and two Easter eggs.

BJ is significantly harder to entertain.

And last but not least, here are some pictures of little man's Easter egg hunt.  I had ten eggs (2 year olds don't have the longest attention spans), and each egg had 4 m&m's in them.  Each time he would find an egg he would open it up, say "mmm, more m-m's," and eat each m&m slowly while telling us what color they were. It took a really, really long time.

Like I said, it was a fantastic holiday.  I wish I had more good pictures, but my camera batteries died (boo).  Anyways, thanks to Mamm and Pap for making it so special by spending it all with us.

Favorite Moment from the Past Week in Mommy Land

Yesterday, my two-year-old gave my 8-month-old a time-out.  When Lydia is really happy, she screams so loud you can't hear anything else and you can hardly think.  Yesterday afternoon, she got really happy.  Apparently, Shepherd had enough of the screeching, so he went over to her, pointed his little finger right at her, and said, "No, no, no! Time-out!"  She didn't take him too seriously.  In fact, she found it entertaining enough to scream about for several more minutes.  You've got to give Shep kudos for trying, though.  

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?