Headed Home...

I still think of mom's house as home.  Will I always?

Anyway...we are headed there in just a little while for a much needed visit.  After so much time in Scottsboro right after John was born, we decided to stay put for a while as we adjusted to being a family of four.  And now it is high time we got in some Alabama time.  And we will end the week with some time with Scott's family.  To say that Ada is excited is the understatement of the century.  We have been marking off the days for weeks now.

So...next time I talk to you will most likely be from Alabama.

"See" you then.

Big Sister

Milla asked how Ada was responding to John's grumpiness.

I think this conversation best sums it up.

Ada, "I want mom to go back to the hospital.

Scott, "why?"

Ada, "I want them to put John back in mommy's tummy.  I don't want to be a big sister anymore."

So, really, she's doing great with it all ;)

Great Blog. Great Dress.

I have already mentioned this on here, but I can't say it enough, I love this new blog that I stumbled on.  I can't even remember how I found her, but everyday I am awed by her affordable fashion blogging. 

Well, right now she is doing a give away.  Giving away this dress.  Isn't it great?

Have you heard of Shabby Apple?  So cute, so modest.  What a great combination.  Now, the prices are higher than, say, my 6.00 Target finds ;), but not too much for the occasional special occasion.  And probably not too high for everyday wear for many of you lucky ones out there. 

You should head over to her blog and get in on the giveaway and her great fashion finds.

Grumpy Baby

Dear John,

we need to talk.

You're nearing five months old, buddy.  What does this mean?

The fussiness has to go.

The waking up all night?  That's got to go too.

I was counting on a happier baby at six weeks.

Six weeks passed us by.

Then, I began to talk about three months.

That will do the trick, I said.

Three months passed us by.

Sweetie, as much as you would love it if I could just sit all day and hold you and cuddle you and feed you.

Let's face it; there are other things that I have to do.

Such as sleep.

I know this is bad news, but booger boo, it's growing up time.

It's time to smile for goodness sake.

I've got mouths to feed

other than yours, I mean.

Clothes to wash and beds to make

and other lives to shape

Yes, it's true.

Little Ada, needs me too.

It's best you learn it early.  It is, I'm sorry to say, not all about you.

think about what I've said.

I love you, booger boo, but please give me a tiny little break.

But really, I love you, my grumpy little baby

Making a Home

First you build the house

Then you fill it up with good books.

And good food

And if you run out?

you get in your car, and you drive (backwards?) to the store to buy some more

More Conversations with Ada

I think this is going to be a reoccuring thing on my blog, "conversations with Ada."  There are just so many things I want to record!!

The chosen topic of late is, "when I grow up," and the conversations go as follows.

"When I grow up, I am going to be like Barney.  John, you can be like Baby Bop.  Mommy, do you want to be like Barney like me?"

"When I grow up, I am going to be a red sucker."

"When I grow up, I am going to be a baby in your tummy."

"When I grow up, I am going to be like Jesus," --Ada.   "That's great, Ada, Jesus will help you to be like Jesus," --mom.  "No, I am going to be like Jesus in the book.  It's going to be dark in there," --Ada.

Can you imagine what it's like to truly believe that when you grow up you can choose to be anything--food, characters in a book, cartoon characters?  The possibilities are endless.

Good Morning, Happy New Week

Happy Monday morning, everyone.

I feel like every Monday holds so much promise.  This is the week that Ada will obey...I'll get a laundry plan in place...John will sleep through the night (or longer than three hours at a time)...I will run more than once in a week...and the list could go on and on and on.

Who knows if any of those things will happen, but Mondays have more possibility than, say, Thursday.  (Though Thursday hints at the weekend, so it wins).

So what are the big plans for this week...the promise that this Monday holds?

Well, first things first, the kitchen must be cleaned and made ready for another day of meals.

The bed must be made.

The laundry must be folded and cycled in and out of the washing machine and dryer.

And then there are the bathrooms.

And after those things get done, we are headed to the pool.  Great news for Ada, and terrible news for John.  I am praying that he will sleep in his stroller in the shade. 

The other thing on my mind this morning--feeding my family real food.  Food that provides the most, nutritionally speaking.  I am in the information gathering stage, and I am tempted to spend all day and night reading and re-reading this website.  Check it out.  I can't stop reading and thinking and contemplating and praying over some of the ideas.

But...for now, I will do small steps.  I need to get my beans slow cooking on the stove so that they will be ready for dinner tonight.  (First I soaked them for 24 hours.)  Baby steps, as she says.

Happy, happy Monday and happy new week.

Father's Day

We are a blessed crew to have Scott as our husband and daddy.  We love him, love him, love him.  He puts up with my crazy up and down emotions and Ada's endless energy and John's need to wake up at all hours of the night.  I mean this in all truthfulness, Scott is probably the most patient man I have ever met.  He quietly walks through this life with me, and I am so glad that he is my partner.  Truly, if I were to describe Scott using two words, I would say patient and kind.  Always patient and kind. 

Ada adores him.  No one makes her laugh like her daddy.  He makes her laugh deep from her belly.  I am unable to produce those laughs from her.  He comes home from a long day of work and he plays and plays with her, running around the house and flipping her upside down, while I stand in the background saying, "please, Scott, be careful," and they always ignore my warnings. 

I know that John will soon adore him; probably in a way that only a son can.  I see it in Luke and Andrew as they love Steven and my own daddy.  Though Andrew is still young enough to prefer Near a lot of the time.

I am also thankful for my own daddy, and Scott's dad.  We were given such a gift in fathers who were faithful to our mothers, who worked hard to provide for their families, who were very present in our lives and continue to be present in our lives and our children's lives. 

I posted this poem two years ago, but I have to post it again.  It is one of my favorites and it certainly speaks of the love of my own father, Scott's father, and now Scott.  Parenting, it's a thankless job most of the time, but I am surrounded by men who fully embraced what they had to do. 

Those Winter Sundays 

Sundays too my father got up early
And put his clothes on in the blueback cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?

--Robert Hayden

(photography by Cindy Stansberry Photography)

Lately

Guess what?!!!  The internet is fixed, and I can finally post pictures.  So...this post will contain lots and lots of pictures that I have been taking over the past couple of weeks.  If you aren't family, you may want to skip this post. 

And...having nothing to do with the pictures below, but I have to share...I just found a dress for 6.00 on the clearance rack at Target.  It doesn't get much more on sale than that.

Now for the pictures.

Family, I am dying to know if John seems a lot bigger to you.  Those legs and cheeks are no joke, right?

John Thomas...an update

Still no pictures.

A friend of Scott's from work came by Monday to try to fix the wireless internet, but no such luck.  I am not sure what the next step in the process is.  Until then, I suppose I will blog without pictures. 

No fun.

Anyway...John is just growing like crazy, and I feel the need to update for my own records and for the few of you who might be interested.

As I already mentioned, he continues to nurse all of the time.  Nursing was the main thing I prayed about during this pregnancy (along with his health, of course), so I am very thankful that God chose to say YES to that prayer.  Thank you, Lord.  He has settled into a good, every three hour schedule during the day, which took a while.  I thought he was going to nurse every two hours forever.  He is beginning to go longer stretches at night, doing six hours about every other night.  He goes down great.  I lay him down on his tummy, put his little blankie in his hand, and walk out of the room.  I rarely hear from him after that until it is time for his next feeding.  Because he wakes up so much at night, he still sleeps in the pack-n-play in the master bedroom closet.  When his nights become a bit more consistent, I will move him down the hall to his room, but for now it is much easier to walk into the closet and bring him back to my bed to eat.

The past couple of weeks he has become a happier baby.  He smiles a lot and is beginning to "talk" quite a bit when he is most content.  He always responds to our talking with his own little sounds.  Just this week he has discovered his feet, and he is loving playing with them.  He also likes his bouncy seat for limited amounts of time.  He continues to be happiest when he is cuddled up next to me, though.  He can now reach out and grab things, and Ada thinks it is such fun to bring things to him to hold.  I have to keep my eye on that because whatever is in his hand ends up in his mouth.  He refuses to take a pacie (or a bottle), but he loves, loves, loves to chew on his fingers.  If he is not eating, he is chewing on his middle three fingers.

He is a big four month old, already wearing a size three diapers and 9 month clothes.  He is so chunky, and I love to squeeze those fat baby legs. 

Ada continues to love him, and is very hands on, which can be a problem at times.  I say, "be gentle," probably 100 times a day. 

He is my precious, precious boy.  He and Ada both make my life so very rich.  Hard and exhausting for sure, but oh so rich.

Same Old Story

No internet still.  I mean, I have internet, just not wireless, which means no way to post any new pictures to this blog.

John is crying right now, for no apparent reason.  He was sound asleep at 8:30, after eating for a good 20 minutes, but why not wake up an hour later and cry?  I love him so much, but he is so unpredictable compared to Ada.  I can't believe that at four months I am still struggling to get him on a schedule.  It's about to drive me crazy, but at the same time I am so thankful for all this milk and all this nursing.  Such a contradiction.

Anyway...just wanted to say hey.

I am worn out because we all, all four of us that is, tackled Kroger tonight, and the grocery list was long.  After eating out of the pantry for most of the week, I had lots to buy.  I didn't have to spend lots, though ;)  Thank you coupons.

By the way, the transition back into tutoring has gone surprisingly smoothly.  John has been very willing to eat right before I leave, so there has been no fear of him getting hungry while I am away, and my new student is shockingly well-behaved.  It makes for a very pleasant hour, and I just like anything having to do with education.  Tutoring not excluded.

And one more thing.  I finished Pride and Prejudice, and I too can't believe I had never read it.  Wow.  I am starting Sense and Sensibility now, only because the book is from the library, and it is three Austen novels in one.  Thanks for the suggestions, though.  Please keep them coming.  While a student and teacher, I spent much time on Shakespeare and Chaucer, and even the more ancient works such as Beowulf, but I never quite made it to Austen's era.  Though I love to study and to teach Shakespeare (particularly Macbeth), I must confess that Austen is much more enjoyable to read, so again, keep the suggestions coming.  I might have missed some of the best "reads" out there.

Still Here...

Good news--I found the camera.  I am so relieved about that one. 

I was sitting there last night, ready to fold a basket of laundry, and looking for the remote control.  I stuck my hand down into the couch cushions, thinking I would pull out the remote, and instead, out came the camera.  I was so excited!!  Thank you, Lord.

Also, something I haven't mentioned on the blog (I'm not sure why I haven't mentioned it), our downstairs air conditioning hasn't worked for several weeks now.  We have had someone out to look at it, and he couldn't figure it out, and we were discouraged that it was going to be really difficult to fix it.  Plus, we felt discouraged by the fact that the air conditioner is only two years old.  But...the same guy came back yesterday, and it was a very simple procedure that he overlooked the first time.  So...ta-da...we have air conditioning again.

I was in a great mood last night.

The only negative is that he had to cut the power for a minute to work on the air conditioner, and it messed up our wireless internet somehow.  I am able to use Scott's lap top at night, but I am still unable to post any pictures to the blog, leaving me very unmotivated to blog.

Other than that, things are moving along, same as always. 

I am still reading The Shaping of a Chrisitian Family, and I continue to be encouraged by it.  For fun, I am reading Pride and Prejudice for the very first time (can you believe it?!!!), and I can hardly put it down.  I read Wuthering Heights earlier in the summer, and it was such a dark story, that I had to force myself to finish it.  Not so with this one.  I am loving it.

Ada is still being her almost three year old self.  She is trying my patience every minute of every day, and I find myself having to ask her for forgiveness often.  We are really working on obedience, and it is one battle after another.  I am exhausted at the end of the day.

John is still eating around the clock, though I am letting him cry if he wakes up before the three hour mark.  I know that he could probably go longer without eating at night, but my milk supply is really flowing, and I want to keep it that way.  I think when we have a few more months under our belt, I will see if he can go for longer stretches at night.  For now, I am thankful for all of that wonderful breast milk that he is getting.

And I think that's it with us.  Hopefully in a few more days I can begin to blog with pictures again.  Until then...

Checking In

I haven't been blogging much this week because I have misplaced my camera, and I hate blogging without pictures.  I say misplaced because I am praying, praying, praying that it turns up.  It's not a nice camera, but it gets the job done, and John is changing everyday.  I really need to find that thing!! 

I am no good with cameras or phones.  Have you noticed?

Which by the way, Scott is going to get me yet another phone tomorrow.  The newest one that I had, broke, and to get it fixed, it needed to be sent away.  Not worth it!!  On top of all of that, it had no service in Alabama, which made it mostly useless to me.  So...I will be getting yet another one tomorrow.  This one should be around for a while.  It does mean that I will have another new number, and another empty contact list.

John is still being a little stinker when it comes to sleeping.  In fact, he is "crying it out" as we speak.  He has not had a quality nap today, and it is already 2:00, so I am trying my hardest to ignore his cries.  I think I must have taught him that I will always respond to his cries.  I didn't mean to, but I have a feeling that this is mostly my fault.  Hmmm...I am trying to remedy that.

Other events from the week.

On Wednesday, Ada, John, and I went for the first swim of the summer.  Thanks again for the invite, Jess!!  Ada loved it and has not stopped talking about it.  It was crazy what a difference I could see in her from last summer to this summer.  Last year she was very timid in the water and didn't seem to like it very much.  This year, as long as her floaties were on and she had on a "ring" float (again, thank you, Jessica--and Hannah and Grant), she was miss confident, kicking her legs and saying, "look, mommy, I'm swimming."  She also liked for me to hold her on her stomach so that she could kick her arms and her legs at the same time.  For the past two days, she will say, "mommy, do you want to talk about swimming?" and then she will go over everything she can remember about the day.  (Oh, and John was wonderful, falling asleep in his stroller for most of the morning).

And finally, this is my most recent read.

I am loving it, to say the least.

For me, it has been the most encouraging book about motherhood that I have read to date.  (My own mother gave me the book--is that correct, mom?  Did you give me this?)

It is a biography written by Elisabeth Elliot about her own mother and the way "things were done" in Elliot's house when she was growing up.  I love how Elisabeth Elliot is never concerned about culture or being politically correct but only about what the Bible has to say.  And she is not afraid to say it like it is. 

It also has much to say about Fatherhood and parenting in general, but I can't really see Scott picking it up and reading it.  Hmmm...I'll see what he says.  However, I do think Elliot's book, The Mark of a Man is a must read for men.

I have found such encouragement that I have been almost in tears more than once.  It has served as such a reminder of the importance of motherhood.  I often can't see past the dishes and the diapers and the meals and the budgeting to see what it is I am working towards.  This book quickly puts it into perspective.

Let me share a few of my favorite things so far, but please feel free to skip this.  I know this is getting long:)

The process of shaping a child...shapes also the mother herself.  Reverence for her sacred burden calls her to all that is pure and good, that she may teach primarily by her own humble, daily example. (99)

[referring to the birth of her younger sister]Once again we washed Birdseye diapers in the old machine and put them through the ringer by hand and pinned them to the clothesline outdoors and brought them in and folded and folded and folded them.  So, like Mary the mother of Jesus...and all the mothers of the world, my mother was again..."a quiet servant of necessity," doing the work no one would notice or thank her for--no one, that is, except Him to whom it could be offered as a daily sacrifice of love. (100)

And lastly, a conversation that is recorded in the book.  I loved this.

A talented woman was asked by a friend, "Why have you never written a book?"

"I am writing two," was the quiet reply. "I have been engaged on one for ten years, and the other five."

"You surprise me!" the friend said.  "What profound works they must be!"

"It doth not yet appear what they shall be," said the woman, "but when He makes up His jewels, my great ambition is to find them there."

"Your children?"

"Yes, my two children.  They are my life's work."

And so for mother, we six were her life's work.  She asked for no more.

Okay, finally, that's all I have to say.  And John has finally stopped crying, so I may take this time to snooze a bit myself.