Another reason to miss her

I was browsing vinyl lettering yesterday and came across one the said "Grandma's house- where cousins go to become best friends". I haven't cried about mom in a long time, but I cried over that one. There's one more thing that isn't fair about her being gone- Hope and Chloe will never get to go to Grandma's for the weekend, nobody will take them on little trips together, she won't teach them to bake cookies or let them destroy her house and not make them clean it up when they're done. Not that Jen and I are close now, but it was always fun when the five of us would go to Oma's- there's just something about being somewhere that isn't your own house. No real rules, minimal authority- just do whatever you want and have fun with each other while you're doing it. I suppose the kids could go to dad's--ok, not really. Going to Oma's house was always special, and my kids don't get to have that with mom. Going to David's parents is special too I guess, but they invite them to come spend a few days once every.....lifetime (so far it's only happened once, anyway). But my kids don't really have an 'over the river and through the woods' to go to, and although they don't know any different, I do. I know how different it could be.

Another smartmouth comment by Joel

I know what he's being told at daycare, at least. I laid down with Joel for awhile last night and put my arm around him. He swatted my arm away and told me to "keep oo handth uh uhthelf". Thats 'keep your hands to yourself' for anyone who doesn't speak joelese.

Binkies

I took Joel's pacifier away when he was 15 months old. David gave it back to him when he was about 15.5 months old. And he's had it ever since. A 2.5 year old with a binkie isn't so horrible; a 2.5 year old who looks like a 4 year old is.

A few weeks ago I had an epiphany. We'd gotten back from camping and I was putting Joel to bed. I grabbed the binkies that we'd brought in from the motorhome and headed upstairs behind him. While he wasn't watching, I stuck them in the closet, and then when he asked for them, I said "Oh no!! We left them in the motorhome! I guess we'll have to wait until next weekend to get them." He wasn't too happy but we just kept telling him they were in the motorhome and we'd get them next weekend when we went camping. I did take the pacifiers and gave them to him while we were camping, but again 'forgot' to get them out when we unpacked the motorhome. This weekend I didn't take them, and he never has asked for them after that second weekend when we were back in the motorhome.

Last night I was entertaining Joel and asking him what certain animals said. He knew a bunch of them. He says 'poink poink' for pigs- it's so cute. But when I ran out of animals and asked him what a Joely says, he yelled "I want my binkie!!!".

One Step Behind

I really thought I had this parenting stuff all figured out with Hope. I sorta thought I had it pretty much down with Naomi. Joel has proven I have little clue what the heck I'm doing.

He figured out how to get out of his crib last December. Thankfully after a few nights, he quit climbing out. After Daniel was born and I couldn't pick Joel up, he started using a footstool to climb into his crib when I'd put him to bed at night. I guess that reminded him of how to crawl out of it too. After we got back from our trip to Oregon, he started getting out of bed whenever he felt like it. In our attempts to deal with his escapes, we've been one step behind him the entire time.

-We put a gate up in front of his room so, even if he got out of his crib, he couldn't get out of his room, so he figured out how to unlatch the gate and leave his room. Then we.......
-Took apart the bunk beds and put him in the bed that has a rail around it. At least, we thought, he'd feel somewhat contained and would stay in bed. And we played up the big boy bed idea and let him listen to VeggieTales when he was falling asleep. And we put up a different gate with a harder latch for him to undo. But then he got out of bed at 4 or 5 in the morning to turn Veggies on full-blast. So we.......
-Left him in the big boy bed but put Veggies on repeat so they'd play all night. Maybe if he had music to listen to, he'd stay in bed and go back to sleep if he woke up early. He enjoyed the music, but he got out of bed anyway to play with the toys, and woke Naomi up in the process so she got up and played too. So the toys got put up in the top of the closet to minimize the distractions for him....
-Still didn't work. He was up at 5 the next morning pulling clothes out of the closet. I put him back in bed and told him to go back to sleep. Yeah, right. He got back up and, instead of mastering the latch on the new gate, just pushed hard enough to knock it over.
-Back to the crib for him. We told him if he got out of bed, he'd get spanked. We left the spoon in plain sight to remind him he'd get spanked. He got out of bed, and got spanked, several times. So...
-:( He started getting spanked with no diaper on. Maybe it just wasn't providing the motivation to obey because it really didn't hurt much with all that padding. And voila, he stayed in his crib..........
-For two nights. Then he was climbing out again. So I found a crib tent on Craigslist. WooHoo- now he can't get out- there's a cage over the top of the crib! But after one night, he......
-Figured out how to unzip the tent. I tucked the zipper into the pocket so he couldn't get his finger into the zipper, but he stuck his arm under the rail to reach the zipper and open the tent. Sooooooo, we.....
-Turned the crib around. He can still open the zipper on the tent, but with the opening against the wall, he can't go anywhere.

I have no doubt that in a few days, he'll figure out how to push the crib away from the wall and escape. I've really thought about turning the pack n' play upside down and putting it over him in the crib, but he'd pull on the handle to collapse the bottom of it. I am completely at a loss. How do I keep him in a bed? He can reach and unlock the deadbolt on the front door, and he knows if he gets a stepstool he can reach the garage door opener, so if he wanted to he could get out of the house while we were asleep. I have no clue, short of locking him in a room, what to do about this kid who is always one step ahead of whatever I think will keep him contained. To be continued, I guess..............

Answered Prayers

I was browsing through Psalms looking for one that would be good for Hope to memorize, and I saw a section of highlighting. I underline in my bible, but I don't think I've ever highlighted, but once I read the verses, I remembered why they were highlighted.

After I'd been on the worship team at Faith for a year, I was seriously thinking about quitting both choir and worship team. Even though I am a morning person, I was tired of having to be at church at 7:00AM every Sunday of the year. It'd be nice to be able to sleep in until 8 or just skip a week if I wanted. And there was a lady who had joined choir and I knew she'd make worship team and she annoyed the heck out of me. She really wasn't that great of a singer, but she just wormed her way in and became friends with Betsey. She acted like she had a music degree, but then she'd mess up something and tell us all we were doing it wrong. See, I still don't like her, although I found her blog and have realized she was just as insecure as I was. But I really thought I should just quit choir and started praying about if that would be ok or not. One morning as I was praying about it, I felt like I was supposed to quit praying and open my bible. "Ok, fine, I'll open the bible and read wherever it opens to." I read Psalms frequently, so it wasn't surprising that the pages flipped open there. But the verses at the top of the page weren't what I expected to see.

"But I trust in your unfailing love;
my heart rejoices in your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord,
for He has been good to me."

Thanks for the subtly there, God. Fine, I'll stay in choir and quit complaining about having to get up so stinkin' early.

Those two verses were a specific answer to prayer. Guess I didn't want to forget that sometimes God does just say "here ya go. that's your answer."

My own personal cheerleader

The first time Joel noticed me pumping, he asked, "What doing?" I told him I was making milk for Daniel. "Oh, miylk for Ganyo?" So now whenever he sees me pumping, he has to check that I'm still just making milk. But lately, he's stood there and really watched. And he doesn't seem to understand personal space. He leans right in against my legs and puts his chin in his hands and scrutinizes things. He puts his hands around the horns to see what everything feels like while the pump is working. And he tells me that the milk is for Daniel. "Not Joel's miylk, Ganyo's miylk." Today he was very concerned when he didn't immediately see milk. I told him to be patient- there would be milk in a minute. He leaned in and examined everything, and when he finally saw milk, he started clapping and saying "Yay miylk!" At least in the making-milk department, he's easy to please.

And then there was Junebug...

Sugarbug, Snugglebug, Stinkbug, and Junebug- as David has started saying "all mine, all planned, all done". It isn't sad, exactly, knowing this is my last baby- maybe more just sentimental, but I've been sitting around holding this little boy a whole lot more than I ever did with the other kids.

Birthday for Hope

I kept telling Hope she couldn't have a birthday because I didn't want her to be any older than six. But she had one anyway. She had to wear most of the jewelry she owns to daycare, and took cookies so they could celebrate her birthday.


For dinner she wanted to go to Red Robin, mainly because she knows she'll get a sundae if she tells them it's her birthday. Joel found a half-inflated balloon floating around our table, so he played with that most of the evening and actually behaved himself! Poor Hope's sundae was forgotten about, but she wasn't too disappointed because she knew she had cake and ice cream waiting for her at home. A month ago Hope was grocery shopping with me and wanted to look at the cakes in the bakery. She found a Belle cake that she said she wanted for her birthday, so I ordered it for her and had David pick it up on his way home from work. During dinner he 'whispered' to me that they'd forgotten to make her cake and all they had left was a big football cake. Hope said that was fine- she didn't care what kind of cake she had. But she was awfully excited when we got home and she saw the Belle cake!

I've been buying her a hardback Little House on the Prarie book for her birthday and Christmas for the last two years, so she got the next Prarie book. Since she finally got her hair cut off last weekend, she got some cute headbands and hair clips to keep her hair back out of her face. And David wanted to get her a movie, but most of the disney movies we already had. So David got her E.T.- now maybe I'll finally watch that movie. The one thing I remember about it is that dad promised us he'd take us to see it when we lived in Coulee Dam and he never did. Pathetic thing to remember, isn't it:)

And silly Joel- on the way to Red Robin, he started saying "Key-no" as we passed the casino that's right off the freeway. I thought he was saying casino, but I had no idea how he'd know that word. Then on the way back, as we passed the casino again, he said "Key-no, right dere." Who knows how he knew it was a casino, except that there's a big Orca whale statue that Hope always wants to see, but usually we say to look at the whale, not look at the casino. Who knows. And during dinner he got chocolate milk with his meal, and when it was gone he handed me his cup and said "Want more chocolate please". Alrighty Joel.

Old dresses

The girls both wore one of my old dresses to church today.

The material on the top of Naomi's is some weird polyester, and while I'm sure it was cute enough 30 years ago, I don't think we'll be wearing it again.

Hope's dress is still nice enough although completely out of style, but she's six- who cares about what's in style. That one I think we may keep in the closet for Naomi to wear. And check out my wicked awesome braiding skills! Mom wouldn't be impressed, but I am:)

Manners

Joel has become such a polite little man. Everything is 'Please' and 'Thank you'. We've always made him say those, but lately something has clicked and he remembers to say them by himself. When we get him a drink of water, he says thank you. Even when we put his food on the table, he'll say thank you. Yesterday he was into something he knew he wasn't suppposed to play with, and I asked him if he wanted to get spanked. His reply? "No, thank you".

Bad Timing

I just found an echo job in Tucson, at what I would consider the best place there for David to work. It's at the university's hospital, so I'd assume it would be a good learning environment, and he'd see more than just post-heart-surgery patients that are genenrally boring and routine. When I showed him the posting, he told me to fill out the application for it, so I guess that means he'd be interested in the job. But he didn't seem to care much, and I'm sure I can guess why. Right now would be about the worst timing in the world to move. In January or February, his old job at Swedish was open, sort of, and we discussed the same thing then. Of all the times to move, now really stinks.

First is the house. I hate to even look anymore at what houses around us are listed for. In order for us to have a chance of selling, we'd have to list it so low that we'd lose about $150K. That's almost what I paid for my house in Spokane. I cannot imagine purposely selling a house, knowing you'd lose that kind of money. Especially when it isn't the hypothetical, 'my house was worth this three years ago and I could've sold it for that much' type of loss. We'd lose $150K off what we paid- cash that for a few days in 2006 graced my savings account.

And then there's my job. Todd has finally mellowed some, at least most of the time. I actually don't dread going to work most days. I hate it when I take the kids to daycare, but once that's over I don't mind. Todd still has his days where he's a pain to be around- a few weeks ago I got lectured for putting my gloves on too loudly- but the days he's fine far outnumber the bad ones lately. And our daycare- I actually really like this place, and I'd hate to start looking all over again. The lady who owns it looks just like David's stepmom, and she's about as nice. Naomi comes home singing songs that they sang during worship time; at their old daycare, Hope would get in trouble for talking about God, and now they have organized time to worship! Although I'd love to find Mary Poppins to deal with Joel, I think this is a great place for them to be.

And Zachary. He really wants to go to UW. I don't know that he'll get in, but maybe at the Bothell campus he'll have a better shot. Part of me would want him to live on campus and get the "freshman experience", but he could also live here and save everyone a wad of money. The kids all love it when he's here, and if he'd just learn the purpose of a laundry basket and dresser, I'd enjoy having him around too. It wouldn't be very nice of us to move away right before he moves here, especially since he was the main reason I finally said we definitely should move back to Washington.

The other day David asked me if we won the lottery and could live anywhere we wanted and didn't have to worry about jobs, where I'd want to live. Four years ago I would've said Tucson. Even two years ago I would've said Tucson. Now I don't know. I would love to move back to Rockford. Barring any big changes at Swedish, David would be happy working there indefinitely. Rockford doesn't have everything in the world to offer, but being an hour from one of the largest cities in the world provides most anything we'd need. But winter..........how I loathe thee. And humidity- I'm not a fan of sticky, sweaty, can't-cool-off heat. I don't know that I'm a fan of blazing-hot dry heat either, but I think it would be preferrable to Illinois summers. But in Tucson, we have the same problem we have here- we basically don't have anyone around. David's mom, I'm afraid, would be hit and miss. Depending on her mood, she could be a huge asset or completely absent as a grandmother. David said he wouldn't mind moving back to Spokane, mostly because of the amount of family we have there. Again, we have the winter issue, but I agree that other than snow Spokane is a nice place. What makes me sick is that, when David took this job, there was a job at some cardiology practice in Spokane too. He didn't even consider applying because he'd heard the practice was having problems and he didn't want to get involved in a practice that was going to have all sorts of changes in the near future. Given what he's working for now, we both would've put up with a crappy practice in Spokane versus a crappy practice in Everett. So many hypothetical options, such bad timing for any of them. Except staying put. The one thing neither of us really want, the one thing that makes the most sense.

Gracker!!!

Right now, Joel loves anything that is big and moves. He announces "Oh-Oh-ome" anytime he sees a camper/trailer/motorhome. He tells us Gruck if he sees a semi or larger truck on the freeway. Recently there were three big tractors parked at the fire station by our house. He started saying Gracker whenever we'd go by them. I realized after a couple times that he was trying to say tractor. The past week or two they've been gone, and now when we drive by, he says "Gracker gone".

The other night on the way to Hope's dance class, we drove by a spot where five big tractors were parked. We also drive by a big bus parking lot for the school district. I figured he'd notice the buses, because there's a whole bunch of them right off the road. But the tractors were just off in a field, and off a highway where we were driving 55mph, so I didn't think he'd even have time to see them. But holy cow, he noticed! "Gracker, gracker, mommy, gracker!!!"

Friends this week

Mostly, Hope would rather be an only child. She plays with Naomi because there aren't many other options, but she doesn't like her and certainly doesn't try to be nice to her.

The last week or so, Naomi has decided she wants to sleep wherever Hope is. If Hope sleeps in Zach's room, Naomi camps out in the hallway because Hope will just kick her out of the bed. But the other night, Naomi just waited until Hope went to sleep and then crawled in bed with her. They were still there the next morning, so Hope either never woke up or put up with Naomi being in the sacred territory of Zach's room. Saturday night both girls wanted to sleep in Zach's room, so in order to not have a fight ensue, I told them neither could sleep there, but they could both sleep in my room. They hopped right into our bed and went to sleep without any audible fighting.

Last night when I went upstairs, Naomi wasn't in her bed. I figured she had gotten in my bed, but she wasn't there when I checked. After I started looking around, I found her in bed with Hope in the top bunk. They both slept there all night. Hope says she woke up in the night and realized Naomi was in her bed, but she let her stay there. I cannot imagine how uncomfortable it would be to sleep with Hope in a twin bed; I don't enjoy sleeping with her in a queen bed where there's room to escape her flailing limbs. But Naomi loves her big sister and is a little scared of being alone, so she'll put up with being smacked around in the night to be close to her big sister.

Little Readers

Joel LOVES to be read to these days. He started liking it a few weeks ago with a Dora book of Hope's. He'd name all the things on the pages- ball, backpack, tree, umbrella, octopus, water. There was one picture of a goldfish. When we asked him what is was, he said 'cracker'. It took a minute to figure out he thought it looked like a goldfish cracker. He still says cracker; he'll point to the fish if you ask where a fish is, but if he's naming pictures, he says cracker.

Now he's much less picky with books. He still loves the Dora book, but he likes lots of others too. Several times a day he runs to wherever David or I are sitting and says "read book, read book". After every page or two, he'll say "the end" and try to close the book. I think grandpa needs to visit for a day or two so someone else can read book, read book.

Befores and Afters

Haircuts for Joely

David took Joel to get another haircut tonight. He said he was going to get a crew cut; I wasn't thrilled but I also wasn't volunteering to take Joel to the barber. When they walked back in the door, my child was almost bald. I got a little teary because I didn't like it and it was such a big change. Joel said "Mommy crying?" and then hugged me and said "Sorry mommy". Even he knows this isn't his best look.

RV

So, after much searching and talking myself out of it and searching some more, we finally bought a motorhome. I am entirely too picky and only wanted certain floor plans. There was one motorhome in Spokane that I really liked, but there was one thing about it that I didn't want. But I hadn't seen another one with this particular floor plan, so I was leaning towards buying it anyway. Or is it just toward, not towards? Anyway, David brought home an rv trader magazine that I skimmed through and saw a dealership I hadn't checked out before. I think my exact words were "Oh crap, I like this one and it's too expensive" when I saw the motorhome on their website. But we bought it anyway. So let's hope that we don't regret our purchase and everyone enjoys it and Joel doesn't wander off and get eaten by a bear.

Ok, now it's bad

Today the taco time lady told me I needed "like, a frequent flyer card or something".

I'm so glad you were paying attention....

Yesterday I was explaining Hope's language assignment to her. There were a few sections, so I went though all the directions. When I was done, I asked if she had any questions. "Yes.....how did Harry Potter get that scar on his head?"

Is it bad that lately the Taco Time drive-through lady doesn't need to ask what I want to drink or if I want hot sauce with that?

I Forget

So, I finally wormed the real Chex Mix secret out of Bryn. It was fairly close to what I already had tried, but a little different. I made one batch and tried to improvise a little; it wasn't real great. So I made another and followed what I was supposed to do. As I was eating it, I thought "So does this taste like mom's?"

In all honesty, I don't know. I can't remember exactly what her Chex Mix tasted like anymore.


No big deal, right? But what else have I forgotten? Do I remember all her goofy expressions? Or the way she used to run up the stairs with her hands tight against her chest.....

Will there be a day I can't instantly picture her in my mind? I always can look at pictures, but will I one day have to rely on them?


In 30 years, will I still be able to hear her laughing?

I'll always be able to hear her voice thanks to the "quit sucking your blanket" tape she made, trying to get some subliminal messages to work. But what else, what other memories that I formed in the 27 years with her, will I lose in the next 27.


I hate this. I don't want to forget.