Zoo

On Saturday, George and Ethan did the Susan G. Koman walk for the cure together. George's office had a whole team of employees and family either racing or walking. After the race, Ian and I met them at the zoo (I call it the aviary because it's really more birds than animals). The boys had a great time even though a bird stole Ian's lunch right off his plate:)

2am

2am and I have been casual aquaintances since I've had kids, but we were never really friends. 2am and I spent a lot of time together when the boys were babies and like all mom's, I was very glad to get rid of 2am once they slept through the night. However, my kids are not like most children. Both boys have a lot of trouble with their sleep cycles and while Ethan improved greatly, Ian has been getting me up at 2am almost nightly the past couple of months. Does he think that 2am and I miss one another? Ian is in the process of giving up his afternoon nap and only takes one a couple times a week. This really messes up his sleep cycle and he wakes up in the middle of the night and is wide awake, ready to start his day. I have informed him in no uncertain terms that our day does not start at 2am but starts when the sun rises. My body, being the traitor that it is, is now so used to getting up at 2am that it wakes me up whether or not a child is screaming. So how does one get rid of an unwanted guest like 2am? I've told 2am that I do not want to be friends and I don't want to be visited but 2am is just not getting it...

Bummer of a Saturday

We had a busy Saturday planned, two birthday parties and Ethan's soccer game. I ended up cancelling attending both parties because I'm still not up to par. I still have bouts of dizziness and I ended up staying at Ethan's game only 10 minutes before leaving again for home (shouldn't have been driving at all). I have a feeling this illness is going to drag on a while...oh well, my house will be the most organized house in the county since I've been here so much:)

Captain Underpants

Ian has been contemplating whether he wants to potty train or not. This time around I am doing more of a Dr. Sears approach and just letting him decide what he wants to do. I learned from Ethan that no matter how physically ready a child is for potty training, if they don't want to do it--it won't happen. So Ian sits on the potty about once a day. He's very smart and knows what it's all about but I can tell that he just isn't quite ready to be a "big kid" yet. I let him pick out some underwear yesterday to see if it sparked interest. He won't try them on but he's been carrying them around with him and here's a picture of him as he takes them with him in the car to school.

Going to Live

Well it looks like I'm going to make it. After I saw the dr. on Monday I kept getting worse and Tuesday night I thought for sure I was headed down the road to pneumonia. I kept hearing creepy rattling sounds when I coughed and clicking sounds when I breathed. I saw the dr. yesterday and while I am very sick, my lungs are good. So I am on lots of meds including 8 days of steroids which is more than I've ever had before. Between the steroids and the breathing treatment I had at the dr.'s yesterday, I was a jittery mess. I think I confused everyone I talked to because my mind and mouth just would not work together at the same pace. Even now as I type my hands are shaking. On the positive side, being highly stimulated with nervous energy, I have cleaned the whole house and organized the linen closet and pantry. Before its all over I will probably rearrange all the furniture in house and alphabetize my spices.

Not the flu after all

I was sick all weekend and kept getting worse so Monday morning I went to a walk-in clinic because I thought for sure I had the flu. I was supposed to be taking Ethan to his appointment for psychological testing and dropping Ian off at the sitters. Thankfully George was able to take off from work and handle all that for me. Even though I had all the symptoms of the flu, turns out I have bronchitis and a sinus infection. I was able to go home and rest all day because the sitter kept the kids at her house all day. George did take Ethan for his testing and it turns out that he does have a high IQ and qualifies for the gifted program in the public schools. We're waiting to read the report from the doctor and then we plan to meet with him so he can help us decide what to do next. So much for the lazy, quiet, non-busy January I had hoped for!

School Choices

In my last post I mentioned that Ian was sick, well I ended up getting sick too. It's amazing how everything stops and just the basics become important when you are sick. I do have to say that a shower is still a necessity for me:) In the midst of this, we've been making some progress with our decisions regarding school for Ethan in the fall. We have both come to agreement about wanting a Christian education so we toured and interviewed the principal from a local Christian school. We were very pleased with what we learned there. We're just not sure if they will be able to offer the enrichment opportunities that it seems Ethan will need. His preschool teachers the past few years have repeatedly said that he will be bored in kindergarten and that we need to test him prior to kindergarten so that he will be put in an enrichment program right away. I'm not sure how I feel about that. It could be that the reason he is so ahead is because of the supplementing we have done at home and that his peers will catch up to him in kindergarten. Or maybe he does have an above average IQ and will need to be challenged so that he doesn't get bored and cause problems in the classroom. His current teacher, as I've mentioned before, is wonderful. She has a separate curriculum just for him that he does when the rest of the class is doing their work. We know that won't happen in kindergarten so that's where is gets tricky. So I have him scheduled for some testing this week so we'll see what happens with that and maybe that will point us in the right direction. Here's quote from John Piper that helps put this and everything really into perspective "As soon as we discover we have a problem, God has already been working on it and the solution is on the way." Enough said.

Plans

Last week Ian started going to preschool 3 mornings a week; he had previously been going 2. This the first time in over five years that I am finding myself with some free time. Everyone asks me what I am doing with my free time. I have had some ideas and even some plans of things I would like to do. I joined a gym recently and am going to a women's bible study. I had also been thinking about volunteering or maybe taking a seminary class. Frequently over the past five years I've wondered and prayed about in what capacity I should be using the gifts God has given me. Over the past few years I've been offered several jobs but never felt led to take them. I have thinking of other things I can do to use my gifts including volunteering and writing. I think many Christian women who stay at home with their kids want to feel like they are impacting the kingdom by doing something in addition to their work for their family. At least I know I have. I feel like there are a lot of ways I can use the gifts God has given me and have been constrained by my job at home. So now that I have a little of bit free time, I'm anxious to explore those things. However, I am reminded that "man plans his ways but God directs his path." Ian seems like he is sick about every 10 days or so--be it an ear infection, cold, sinus infection, etc. Hard to make plans when you always have someone sick to care for isn't it? I've had to cancel my attendance to my mommy small group this week and cancel having another small group bible study meet at our house tomorrow night. So I wonder if God is saying that my ministry right now is to my family and that is where he wants me to place my focus. Maybe he wants me to just wait patiently for his timing for me and remain faithful to what he has called me to. Certainly questions to consider, don't you agree?
"Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, 'This is the way; walk in it.'" Is 30:21

Family Meeting

This past weekend we had a meeting to discuss our family's goals for this year. I guess like everyone else we've gotten off track. It's amazing how a couple of holiday's can mess up your time, money, focus, you name it. So we focused on a few passages of scripture to help us determine our plans. 1. "You must love the Lord your God with all you heart, all your soul, and all your strength and love your neighbor as yourself" (Luke 10) 2. "you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands...Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." (Deut 6) 3. Matt 25:34-46. One of my goals is to get the kids more involved with helping others hands on rather than just monetarily. And my other goal is that we are more intentional as a family with our time together and how we use it. Lastly, George and I are challenged with how we will be continually teaching them about God. Obviously this will be an ongoing thing but with how busy our lives are we wanted to get on track with having our family focus being on God and His kingdom. While most "New Year's Resolutions" are broken by the end of January, I am confident that the HS will be at work.

Ice Storm

When we lived on Lookout Mountain, we experienced our share of ice storms. They are not fun. Snow is fun, ice storms are not. I remember one time George decided to be cool and decided we should drive down the mountain in his little red sports car. It was after a storm and no one was on the road and nothing in Chattanooga was open. I really didn't think we would make it but we did and found an Outback open and George got an ego boost:) Yesterday morning when we were leaving for church, we saw icicles on our trees. It has been pretty cold down here the past week or so (LOVE IT) and has gotten down to freezing a few nights. We loved seeing the icicles on our trees and were late to church because we had to stop and take pictures. Now, just so you know, the only reason there was ice was because George forgot to turn the sprinklers off. So it was artificially made, big deal. It's so rare for it to get this cold in tropical South Florida that artificial or not, we loved it.

In Stitches

Have you ever read the story "No More Monkey's Jumping on the Bed?" It's a good one to read as it has good life lessons to learn from it. Last night Ian had to go to the ER for stitches because he split his eyebrow open from falling while playing around on my bed. Again, God is gracious to me and George was home (he in fact was in charge of the kids at the time the incident occurred). God knows that there is no way I could have stood there and helped hold him down while the dr. stitched him up. He is in good spirits today, black eye, stitches and all. I am having a vision of the future where this incident will be used over and over. "You guys are getting a little wild, you need to calm down. Remember the time you were being silly and wild and Ian fell and had to have stitches?" "I know mom, you remind us all the time!"

Science Kid

There is a show on PBS called Sid the Science Kid. I frequently say that Ethan is our science kid. Since he could talk he's wanted to know how things work. I keep waiting to see if that goes away as just being part of his age or if it's who he is. He loves reading books on space; he's long known the order of the planets from the sun. He's recently facinated with germs and microbes. Now that he is old enough to understand, we've been able to do science experiments with him. He and George have worked on studies involving the power of water and a frequent activity they enjoy is the whole mentos in a diet coke bottle. For Christmas, Ethan got an attachment that you put on the coke bottle that makes it easier to put the mentos in and run without getting soaked yourself. We've started on some of the science kits he got for Christmas and so far we are working on growing mold and yesterday he learned about yeast in bread. Sadly, his mommy doesn't know how to bake bread from scratch so our babysitter did it with him. He is very proud and protective of his loaf of bread:) Not sure where his interest in math and science comes from, certainly not me. (I chose my college major mostly based on the fact that I only had to take one science class and statistics!) What should we work on next? Make slime or extract calcium out of bones?

Oh Sleep I Miss Thee

Over the past month, I've had very few nights of restful sleep. Between traveling (where the kids rarely sleep), illnesses (too many to count), and other random reasons, I've been up a lot in the middle of the night. On one of my recent FB status updates I mentioned that both boys got up at 4:30 in the morning (New Year's Eve morning). I was very grumpy the morning both boys got up at 4:30 (Ethan called me the queen of grumpies). Maybe it was training for what was to come because last night Ian got up at 2:30am ready to start his day. Last night I handled it better. God is certainly trying to teach me something this past month. I believe that God is sovereign over everything; the most challenging and painful times in our lives as well as the little things (like being cut off in traffic and being without sleep). So in the middle of the night, I'm wondering what is that it God wants me to do or learn from this? I can barely function with less that 8hrs of sleep and when I don't get that, sleep becomes an idol for me. It's during these times of little sleep that I have to turn to God and completely rest in his strength. Then I find the next day that amazingly I can get through the day in one piece despite being exhausted. It is also during these times that I have to remind myself that my kids are not out to get me when they keep me up most of the night(at least I don't think so:) and that God is giving me an opportunity to really show my love to them. Last night I found that it was also a good opportunity to worship God as I sat in a rocking chair with Ian cuddled up in my arms singing hymns. As I start off this new year sleep deprived, I am praying that I will stop worshiping sleep and instead worship He who created sleep. And when God calls me to be up in the middle of the night, or even all night, I pray that I will rest in His strength and use the extra time he is giving me for his glory.