Six Feet Under the Table

Last night, I held you in my arms much like I've done hundreds of times in the past 365. On this day, exactly one year ago (to the hour), you made your grand exit (or entrance, if you will). You looked much different than I imagined you would. Not that I had any idea what you would look like. The doctor handed you over to me. You were screaming, and then when I started to sing, you stopped. It was almost like you were listening. You slept in my arms all night. Body curved around mine, perfectly matched to the bend in my arm. Face nuzzled in. Warm. I could listen to you breathe all night. I have loved you since I met you. Over the past year, we've watched you bloom. You're still pretty quiet, but you're the happiest little thing. You're the introvert to your brother's extrovert. Quietly watching, never really trying, but doing everything perfectly well when you are good and ready. (I love that about you.) You're sensitive and sweet. You watch, and you mimic...

Last week, I finished Insanity for the second time. My life is a little different the second time around. I'm four years older, have two kids (one that just started sleeping all the way through the night about a week ago and another that is both an early bird and a night owl, which makes evening workouts extremely difficult), have a commute two days a week, and my husband works evenings and weekends. So what does this all mean? It means that I skipped at least 1 day a week, I wasn't nearly as strong and determined, and I was not as dedicated to being on a strict diet. But I still had awesome results: I lost 6 lbs., and though I should've taken my measurements to count inches lost, I didn't. I feel stronger and am more focused now that it's done. But sometimes convincing myself to do the videos was like pulling teeth, particularly in month 2 when the workouts were an hour long. (Ain't nobody got time for that.) Thank you, Sister, for encouraging me along the ...

Yesterday was a particularly challenging day. My 2-year-old was acting like... a two year old. Thus far, the hardest part of parenting for me has been the follow-through with punishments. I'm not talking about the actual following-though part, but the emotional/mental distress it causes me to HAVE to follow through. I've found, however, that it's important to follow through and then follow up... even at bedtime. Only then can Toddler Boy and I both go to bed happy. My son is too much like me in some ways. He. Can't. Let. Things. Go. Last night, I gave him an ultimatum: "You help me clean up, or you go to bed without a song." (He already lost the privilege of having a bedtime book read.) Then, after refusing to help me pick up his legos and then taking the bag and dumping them all out again, I had had enough. I tucked him under my arm and marched up to his room. His cries of "I want to 'hep' Mommy" were stuck on repeat. I said little while...

My husband surprised me by taking the whole day off work, so we took the kids to our FABULOUS new library before bed. When we got there, Toddler Boy went straight for the train table where he took things apart and immediately asked us to put them back together about a million times. And though, truth be told, it annoys me to reassemble the same poorly designed object over and over again, he was having so much fun. Then before long, another little boy joined the table. I'm guessing he was about 3, and he didn't speak English. And I just sat there and watched them interact in the most innocent way, neither of them noticing any sort of barrier. Toddler Boy would ask (ever so politely), "May I play with that, please?" and point at whatever it was he was talking about. (If you guys even knew how proud I was of my boy... there are no words to describe it.) The other boy would sweetly place whatever train/figure/piece it was into my son's hand. He would look my son in th...

Life has been a bit on the busy side. I used to think that having two kids was easier than having one. Then yesterday, I had just one of the kids, and I realized, nope—one is definitely easier. In the last four months, Baby Girl has started laughing and babbling. She's learning to eat pureed food and follow people with her smiling eyes across the room. She's an absolute joy. (Except at 2a, but that just comes with the territory.) Toddler Boy has developed a very active imagination. His trucks now have story lines and one is always "dribing home." He's very observant, and like every 2-year-old boy, listens to every word we say and repeats it. This boy has my heart, and he knows it. Between the "I lub you back!" and "I missed you, Mommy!" ... I am in trouble. And so are all your daughters. In the midst of all the gushing, real life exists. Baby Girl is trying to get a grip on this whole growing thing. She requires more food than her brother d...

To my son on his SECOND birthday: Yesterday, you turned your favorite number: 2. It's quite fitting that you are also 22 lbs., which is roughly the size of a 1 year old. Though our doctor informs us that you have the vocabulary of a 3 year old (at least). You know a lot of words, can string together 4-word sentences (including 4-syllable words), and you ALWAYS have something to say. You are polite—most of the time, saying please and thank you at the appropriate times. You STILL don't love to sleep (much to our dismay), but you love to laugh and sing and tell me when Baby is crying... even when she's not. You love big trucks, big clocks, and big jumps. You are an excellent hall monitor at the YMCA, pointing out when someone is running... though most of the time, that someone is you. You love to run. If I asked you your favorite color, you would without a doubt tell me, "lellow." But the truth is, your favorite color is blue. I suspect "lellow" is ju...

Baby Girl is almost a month old already, and I haven't finished documenting my thoughts/reaction to her. I need to get it down in writing before I forget. So here it goes... When Toddler Boy was born, my first thought wasn't "Oh, yay! My baby is here! He's so cute!" Rather, I didn't even look at him for maybe 2 minutes. Instead, my first thought was, "He's going to be an only child." But what would you expect from someone that just went through 31 hours of labor? With Baby Girl, it was different. Because we didn't know I was pregnant until a week before my second trimester, she didn't feel new to me. Rather, when I saw her, I looked at her face and took it in... because in my mind, she's always been. I don't know when she came to be, she just was. Our associate pastor came to visit us in the hospital and before praying over her, he read Psalm 139:13-18: For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mot...