Boys Will Be Boys: Lord of the Rings meets Thomas the Train

Let me set the scene: There they are, chugging in a neat row across Nathan's floor, about 10-15 trains heading toward the middle of the room. Little did they know that it was bath time for teddy. Into the toy box teddy goes, and that is when the elephant comes out. "My elephant!" Nathan cries, and that is when the the trains get it. The train line is suddenly decimated by by what can only be called an "oliphaunt" by comparative size rampaging through the line scattering them across the Plains O' Nathan. Once the damage is done the scene is instantly forgotten and the stuffed elephant lies calmly on its side among the wreckage as Nathan moves on to other exploits.

At our house there is no peace if you are a toy. I sometimes find myself feeling sorry for them, a side effect of growing up in the Toy Story generation, setting them upright when they land at awkward angles or jumping to their rescue when they get stomped on by a raging three year old. But I just sit and watch as Lightning McQueen revs up and pushed Woody and RC the car off the coffee table into a pile of other toys and as a bear, a dog and a Mountie burst through the walls of Lincoln Log homes. I draw the line at crushing the Woody pez dispenser in the entertainment cabinet doors, and shoving lincoln logs into the vaccum but mostly out of a need to preserve the function of my home.

Sometimes it's enough to make you worry about what kind of a child you are raising but then I see Nathan sweetly tucking in Wembley and Woody with him when its time to sleep, and I see how he will search for the tiny skateboard as if it were the lost sheep, rejoicing when it is found. I know many a gentle man who started out with a toy pistol in one hand and a pretend whip in the other so maybe I should just accept that boys will be boys and hope that like the Velveteen Rabbit, these toys will someday receive their reward.

Dittos for Kiddos

So last night was my first experience with Dittos. It was amazing and crazy all at once! There were so many parents there, moms in particular, and maybe it was me projecting my own feeling onto everyone else but there was a sense of giddy revelry about due to the shopping without children. It was like black Friday for the frugal mom! People were dragging around laundry baskets and trash cans filled to over-flowing with items. The line to check out was about a 45min wait and that wasn't because the volunteers checking you out were slow, it was the sheer amount of people.
The next sale is in February which I think is perfect. I will be in my last two months of pregnancy and we will know just what we need to finish preparing for the new little one. I think I might try to sell some stuff this time around as well. There isn't much that we can sell other than toys and a few odds and ends because I refuse to sell clothes. I firmly believe that since all of Nathans clothes were such a gracious gift to us from so many people that I should pass that on to others for a similar price, that being, free.
So the only question I have is where will I get a rolling laundry basket?

Bulk Buying

I love buying things in bulk. I guess my hoarder instincts have to come out somewhere. It is never things I don't use all the time, for example my most common bulk purchases are the following:
Juice, Toilet Paper, Flour, Yeast, Paper Towels, Sugar...
The kind of things of which there is no doubt you will need and that are not a good thing to suddenly be out of. When I take the time to psychoanalyze my self I must admit it gives me a sense of security. A sort of, if there is no money tomorrow we will at least have toilet paper, kind of a feeling.
What I can't decide is where do you draw the internal line with that sort of thing so it does not become an actual problem, and am I putting too much of my confidence in material things? Though you have to wonder if just being aware and thinking about this things is in a sense a reassurance that you are not moving in an unhealthy direction. You could think your self in circles about this kind of thing. Who would have thought that I could make bulk buying so complicated.

Boundries

Nathan is really pushing boundaries these last few weeks and it is really pushing my buttons as well. Daniel has never been comfortable with spanking and even though I am a proponent of it I agreed to try a time out only method of discipline. Nathan responds to time out so I didn't feel that I was harming our child by agreeing to this change. I still insist on spanking for biting because that needs instant negative feedback. I think that he smelled the change in the air and decided it was time to test parental resolve on all issues. All the things we learned not to do when we were two, lets try them all again for good measure, just to see if the rules really are the same. And so it began.

We are about six weeks into the trial and I am about to lose it. I don't think that the time out isn't working I just feel that I need something in place to enforce time out. Poor Daniel has gotten a call every week saying are you sure this is what you want to do? I have stuck with it and I believe that Daniel and I are more on the same page and that things are very consistent in terms of our response to misbehavior and that is very much a good thing. But I am spending over an hour a day doing time out with my son and it is having a toll physically. I can't hold him in time out as well as I once could and when he fights being in time out it actually does hurt me quite a bit. Daniel has seen improvement and feels that things are getting better. I don't know if I disagree entirely or if I am just so close to it that realistic perspective is hard for me.

My solution: at first Daniel thought I was just trying to prove him wrong and that hurt my feeling a bit, really I am just trying to get concrete date to either encourage me or make known in a clear way what is happening at home. I started a time out log. I record the total time that the episode took, how many times he got out, how many times he was held in, and did he kick, hit, pinch or whatever at anytime during the episode. So far the results have not been promising, but it is only been 2 days so we will see where this goes.

Keep us in your prayers this will be a long road no matter what we decide. I still think in general that we have a very sweet, well behaved child, it is just that we also have a strong-willed almost three year old and that in its self includes a bit of trouble.

Hitting my Stride?

So after months of struggling Daniel and I decided to up our grocery budget and now I am in hog heaven. It is like just as we gave up on making it on less something clicked, meaning that instead of being $20 short every month, and scraping by to only make it that much, I have $30-50 seemingly extra dollars at the end of the month. I have three theories on how this is happening...

1. I am less reserved about take risks, buying in bulk and such, since I don't feel like we will be scraping at the end of the month.

2. The holiday and summer sales have made getting more for less increasingly possible and/or since gas prices have gone down slightly so have food prices.

3. I have hit my stride and have discovered more of the ins and outs of the cycle of sales and where the bargains are to be found.

I am wary of becoming over confident and blowing the budget frivolously because I think I am ahead of the game but on the other hand how great would it be to have some grounded confidence in myself in this area once again. It seems like a lot of agonizing over something that is relatively minor but I look at my ability to save us money as my job. The whole "penny saved is a penny earned" idea. If July continues to go as well as it has, and August is also a success, I think I will feel like I am in a position to relax some. It would be really nice to relax.

Ode to My Eyebrows

Ode to My Eyebrows

As much as I love a sense of freedom
and the idea of bucking the trend
As much as I admire the individual
the one who is not afraid to stand out
These are not traits that appeal to me
when I am talking about eyebrows
Eyebrows should be aligned
in neat, flat, narrow rows
No strays or gangly ends
to romp about your face
But neatly, precisely, laid in their place
And if you dare think, my little eyebrow hair
that you can seek to rebel from me
and my exacting tyranny
I will pull you out!

Knowing

This is a little personal but I want to get it out. I went to a MOPs meeting today and it was really fun and encouraging, I loved it and highly recommend it, but that is not what I need to get off my chest. There was a really sweet lady there who was pregnant with her fourth child. She had just found out yesterday that she was pregnant. I found that I was jealous of her, not because she was pregnant, that has never been something I could covet or begrudge someone else in any way, what I was jealous of was her joy, and the total lack of fear in letting the world know that she was pregnant even though it was so early. When I type it out it seems so silly to feel so strongly about something that in the grand scheme of things is so little but I wish with all my heart that I could ever feel that way. I would love to feel that because I was pregnant I could rejoice and shout it from the mountain tops and tell everyone it happened to come up with but instead I will always spend that time in fear, not wanting to tell anyone so that even though I don't get to share the joy I don't have to share the pain if it ends badly. I feel that I have been robbed and I never stop asking God why. I know that there must be a reason and sometimes it is like I get a glimpse of why this is part of his plan for my life but the answers never seem good enough and so I keep looking, and keep asking, knowing without a doubt that someday I will know, that someday the Lord will show me what his plans were and I will have such great, overwhelming, joy then knowing that I was chosen, that I was worthy of these trials. But for today I still don't have an answer. I guess that is why we are called to faith, faith that there is a Lord who loves the babies I lost, and faith that he is in control, and faith that someday we will know. I don't think it makes my faith less for the asking, and I don't think it makes my faith less for the tears or for the wishing. If anything it is stronger because if I wasn't asking and wishing I wouldn't wonder so much about his plan and there would be so much that He has done in my life that I would have missed. So I guess in part God has given me an answer, another glimpse at his purpose and in some way I am comforted. I will dry my tears, take this peace offered me, and try to give Jesus my burdens knowing above all else of his love for me.

Grocery Budget!

I have been going in circles trying to find an efficient, cost effective, low maintenance way to get a good deal on groceries. In Arlington I had it down, at least it felt like I had it down. There was always the tiny bit of wiggle room left in the grocery budget at the end of the month. But now that we have moved it seems that all my methods for saving money are useless. I scrimp, and bargain hunt to the extent which my limited knowledge of Abilene will let me, but I can't seem to get ahead. it doesn't help that while I am trying to make this transition prices everywhere are skyrocketing as gas prices move higher and higher. At least the part of out budget is smaller in Abilene. What it finally comes down to is I MISS ALDI! *sniff*

Pacifier Retrival Mission a Failure

So we tried to take away the pacifier today for nap time only. He cried and cried and eventually I went in the and laid down on the floor next to him. That was the first bad idea. The second bad idea was that I fell asleep. I woke up about half and hour later to Nathan still not asleep but just playing on his bed. I decided in my groggy state that I should go to my own bed if I wanted to sleep so I got up to leave. This created a new wave of crying which I dutifully ignored until he started banging on the wall. And then, half asleep, in my delirious half cognizant frenzy for silence, I GAVE BACK THE PACIFIER. I have just created a world of trouble for myself.

To catch you all up

Well this isn't the most interesting of posts but I need to catch you all up. My husband over the course of two weeks heard about a job, interviewed for it and got it, them over the next week we moved to Abilene. Let me tell you, I have never been so tempted to throw away everything I own as when I contemplated how to transport it all 150 miles. We are still not all out but I figure at this point we are still paying for the apartment in Fort Worth so we might as well use it to store some of the baby stuff we don't want to get rid of but that Nathan has out grown. That is the main thing holding us back now: double rent. The current bane of my existence. Daniel and I talk and talk in circles about what we will be able to do once that is over. The good news is that between the pay raise and the health benefits we come out fairly close to where we were before even with the double rent, and that is very exciting.
Now I don't have to work at all, if you call being a stay at home mother of one not working. I guess i should say, I don't have to work outside the home at all now. I love making jokes about Daniel supporting my life style, teasing that I am a gold digger and other silly things because he is now that sole supporter of our family. We love it! This is the first time in our marriage that I have truly not had any other job than housewife. I earn my keep by keeping his socks washed and making his meals, caring for his son. You know, the usual. That reminds me, I think I need to was a load of jeans.
I will be back to posting more regularly now that things are settling down.

Back out? Just shoot me now!

I decided the night before that I thought that Nathan might have and ear infection so the next morning I called the pediatrician, set up an appointment and called Daniel to let him know what our plans were. As I was on the on the phone with Daniel I found that I couldn't get comfortable on the couch where I was sitting. No matter how I sat, or adjusted my posture, this pain right under my shoulder blade kept getting worse to the point where I couldn't take a deep breath. I lay on the floor trying to stretch out my back or at least make it stop hurting. Nathan, poor baby, was crawling all over me trying to figuring out what was going on. Finally Nathan asked to watch something and I thought "That is a great idea!" I hate to, and have never before, used the TV as a babysitter but I felt out of options.

I posted a plea on facebook and then did the only thing I could think of. I took a bath, a very hot bath, shower curtain closed, door open so that I could at least hear what Nathan was doing even if I couldn't do much about it. I also sent a text message to my Dad, who has had back trouble before, asking for advice. After the bath, some vicks on my back, and 4 advil I discovered, once Nathan helped me get it out from under the sink, that a hair-dryer, carefully aimed, is almost as good as a heating pad. I finally found that I could sit and watch the end of Follow that Bird not in pain as long as I wasn't moving which is fine... for anyone without a two year old. The movie was over and I was racking my brain for what to do next. I was in luck, Nathan wanted to see another movie and who was I to complain when he even got it out of the drawer so my bending was kept to a minimum.

But all good things must come to an end and eventually is was time to go to the pediatrician. Nathan, who up until this point had been more than accommodating, chose the moment we are getting into the car to let loose a bit to twoishness. A two door car, a squirming child, and a pinched nerve is a recipe for disaster. Once he and I were both in the car I had to just sit in the drivers seat and try not to cry, or pass out, or something along those lines before I even started the car. All the way to the doctors office I tried to take deep breaths and remind myself that if I let the muscles get tense nothing short of powerful drugs would be able to help me.

Things went smoother after that and about the time we were shown into the back room at the doctors office I realized that I could take a deep breath without a sharp pain. I leaned back in the chair that I was sitting in as Nathan sat beside me calmly snacking on cheerios and thanked God for my wonderful son, my Dad with wonderful advice, and for the grace the Lord was obviously bestowing on me. I was very ginger with my back all the rest of that day and spent some quality time that evening with a rice sock from the microwave, a suggestion thanks to my facebook plea from Malia, may she be eternally blessed, and am back to normal. I just hope that I never have to do that again, but seeing as Nathan isn't getting any lighter and I really don't have a good idea as to what caused the trouble I think that I am in for disappointment. Well, now I know that Nathan can sit through a whole movie, and that, my friends, is valuable knowledge.