A Word of Advice

I've been thinking about two things.

1) Most of the time when I talk about how having two small children is tough and I don't know what the heck I'm doing, I honestly don't want someone to jump in with their "Oh, you just need to...." or "God will never give you more than you can handle", (Someone actually said that to me just recently). Because, gee, that really helps. You know? Sometimes, I'm just venting. What I really want to hear is, "You know, you are in a very hard place right now, and I want to pray for you that God's grace will be all over your life so that you can be the best mom possible to those two little boys." Or, "Having little ones is tough" is just fine, too.

2) There are times when I really do want advice. But there are very few people I feel comfortable taking advice from. If I don't know that I'm going to get a straight answer, no matter what it is that needs to be said, I don't really want to hear it. It's just wasted breath if it's not Truth. I know that when Kris tells me something, he's not going to say something just to make me feel better. He speaks with wisdom. When I talk to my mom and sister, they will tell me exactly what I need to hear, even if it's not what I want to hear.

I'm so grateful to have them in my life. I'm grateful for the other friends I have in my life who will do that for me, too, and also the ones who know how to say, "Yeah, I understand."

For all the other people, should I wear a sandwich sign that says, "I'm just venting. No advice necessary."? Or would that be a little much?

And Another

Because, like I said, I'm excited.

Boys in the Pool

I've figured out how to put videos on my blog with Youtube. So, if I go overboard for a little while, I'm just excited about my new abilities. This is the boys in the pool tonight. It was really funny to watch Eli trying to maneuver with his diaper so huge.

I'm All Better

Thanks for the encouragement and for the "I'm feeling you's". All it really took to dig out of my hole of self pity was a long walk with some good worship music and some concentrated time with Jesus, and I wasn't so bad off anymore. My house, on the other hand, needs more than Jesus. (Unless you want to send a legion of cleaning angels, Lord, and then that should probably take care of it.)

I finally decided to let the house totally go until Eli quit teething. Not like I could do much for it anyway with him glued to my leg like a monkey on a banana, but just saying, "Okay, I'm not going to worry about the house until Eli quits teething" really helped my stress level. Then he got sick, then Luke got sick, then I got sick. Some 24 hour bug. Times 3.

It was pretty pitiful around here. Luke was so bad off that he just laid on the floor whimpering. At one point I asked him if he wanted me to hold him, and he just said, "Nooo." Then I asked if he wanted to watch a movie, and he said, "Nooo." Now anyone who knows my Luke knows that he will watch a movie ANYTIME he's given the opportunity. That's when I knew it was serious. The only thing that perked him up slightly was the mention of a popsicle. We had Daddy pick some up on the way home from work, and that helped a little. But at 7:30 that night, he turned off the TV and said he was ready to go get in the bed. Now that is sick. Now we're all pretty much better, I just still have a sore throat.

One bonus of sickness, the boys are still sleeping in and taking long naps for their bodies to fully recuperate. I'm going to go enjoy my time that's left of this naptime....

I've Spared You the Drama

I know it's been a while since my last post. But I have to be honest. The last two weeks have not been fun, and I haven't had any desire to write. You remember how I wrote about the ten things I love about blogs, and #'s 4 and 5 were about having perspective? Well, not even blogging would have helped with the perspective problem. Let's just say that husbands working a lot of hours, potty training and cranky babies do not make for a very pleasant experience.

I'm trying not to open the flood gates here, so I'll make it brief. Potty training is hard. I don't want to do it anymore. And here is some additional info for you.

Teething baby = cranky baby.
Cranky baby = crazy toddler(And who can blame him, it makes me feel kinda crazy too.)
Cranky baby + crazy toddler = stressed out mama.
Stressed out mama = God revealing many things that need working on in me. It's been down right ugly around here. Which is why you should be grateful I haven't been blogging.

I'm digging out of my hole of bad attitude and selfishness. I'll get back with you in a few days.

My Big Boys

Well, um, I think we're potty training. I say think because we just kind of fell into it. Kris bought some undies yesterday, and we figured we should just go for it while he was excited about them. He being Luke, not Kris. Although, I have to admit that we both kept holding them up last night and talking about how cute they were and how cute Luke's tush looks in them. Okay, we were WAY more excited than Luke was. So far, we're at 75%, meaning Luke has gone in the potty three out of four times. Thankfully, the fourth time was outside in his last clean pair of big boy undies. (I'm not counting poop. I don't want to mess up our average, and I need the high numbers for encouragement.) After that, I just took his undies off. I've had him naked most of the morning. I really hope I'm not traumatizing him. He keeps asking for a diaper. He is really modest and doesn't really like to be exposed. But, if he has on a diaper or undies he just goes in them. So, if he's a nudest in his adult years, it's all my fault. And as a disclosure, if you come to my house anytime in the near future, just know that Luke's naked (clean) hiney has been on the floor and furniture. Sorry, it's in the name of progress.

Eli started walking this past weekend at the lake. To watch him now is amazing. Before, if we tried to get him to walk, he would arch his back and protest loudly until you let him go. Now, he walks around with this big grin on his face, and you can tell he is SO proud of himself. He wanted to do it his way, I guess.

So, I have two big boys. Crazy - two and a half and one. They are so big and growing up so fast.

Just Keep Swinging

I'm on a roll today with the posts, just catching up after the long weekend.

Luke loves tools. Today he wanted the hammer. So, I got the hammer, a nail and a board for us to hammer the nail into. After trying a few times and missing more than hitting, he didn't really want to hammer the nail anymore. I told him, "It's okay to miss, just keep trying." As usual, there was a spiritual lesson for me in that.

I get so afraid to miss, so tired of missing, so aggravated with not knowing "how to do it", that I quit. I give up after a few swings. In parenting, in friendships, in my spiritual walk, in stepping out in obedience to God. At what point did God tell me that I have to hit the nail on the head every time? Would I ever say that to Luke? No, I'd tell him to keep swinging, and he'll get better with practice. So what if the nail goes in crooked? I'll pull it out. So what if you miss. The nail hasn't gone anywhere. So what if you aren't sure you'll ever get the nail all the way in. You have to be willing to miss to hit it and make it go in at all. The more times you swing, the better chance you have of hitting it and the better you'll get at it. Just Keep swinging.

"Seeing the Holy in the Ordinary"

I stuck my head in the door this morning to tell Kris that our neighbor wanted to talk to him, and when he started to come to the door, I heard Kris say, "Oh, no, Eli!" I went in to see that Eli had dumped all the contents of a cereal bag onto the floor and was shoveling handfuls of cereal into his mouth. The closer I got to him, the faster he would shovel. Little booger, you would think we never feed him.

I got the broom and started to clean up the mess. I swept a pile up and started on another section of the floor, and by the time I got back to my pile, Eli had swiped another handful. I guess he swiped it just right because what was left was in the shape of a heart.

You know when you have those thoughts that just pop into your head that you think, "That was God." I looked at the heart and immediately felt God saying, "Hi. I love you. Isn't this fun?" And I knew it was a beautiful, silly lesson that God loves to show us the Holy in the ordinary. What could have been an inconvenience or irritation became a reason to smile and feel God's pleasure over me. Wow!

Our Fun Weekend

Let me tell you my million dollar idea. FedExing your children to your out of town destination. I know there are a lot of logistics that would have to be worked out, but really, it could be a hit. Honestly, if it never caught on and only worked for us, I would still be happy. We decided at 3:00 on Wednesday that we wanted to go to Camilla. So, by 4:00, after packing, getting the boys up from their naps, changing diapers, filling sippy cups, giving Eli a bath to wash the spit-up off of him (He hasn't spit up in months, yet he spit up during his nap that day.), we were on the road. Eli was not a happy traveler this trip. It was reminiscent of his baby days. The ride back was way worse. Let's just say we won't be doing any traveling for a while.

Aside from the travel, we had lots of fun this weekend. The boys were sweet and played well with their cousins. We went to lake on Friday and spent the night. Luke loved driving the boat, and Eli liked riding as long as we went fast and kept his face covered and had a bag of cereal for him to hold. I wish we had a picture of Eli sucking his thumb on one hand and holding his other hand in the bag of cereal while snuggled down into my chest under Mama's jacket. I just enjoyed the snuggle time. Luke got on the tube with me. We didn't go very fast, but he enjoyed it. He called it the "yellow tire". Luke also loved the canoe.

I think my favorite part of the weekend was just watching Luke have so much fun. He's getting so much more grown up and can have more freedom. He was playing in the yard at the lake, and the next door neighbor's dog, Maggie, who is a yapper, was yapping away at Luke every time he was outside. He was loving it and laughing like crazy. When Maggie would go inside, Luke would say, "Where's Maggie? Maggie! Where are you? I want to play with you!" At one point, Daddy called the neighbor to see if Maggie could come back outside. Hilarious!

I guess this weekend was a little view into what is to come with the boys. Trips will be more fun and we'll be able to enjoy being away and out of our routine. We are looking forward to out next lake trip.

Now, if we can just figure out how to get Eli there...