Wednesday, January 30, 2008

fun with the kids

This evening I was at a loss for what to do with the kids. We had eaten dinner, there was nothing on TV but the news, and daddy was still at work. I decided to put on some music (a CD that our kids at church did about 5 years ago) and we could just dance around and sing. About halfway through the first song decided that maybe the dog should go in his kennel because we dance, he jumps around and bites. Then we just had fun.
I love moments like that. I think when I'm old and losing my mind, I will always remember dancing in the living room with my kids. The way Aaliyah crawls over to the stereo and sits on her knees just laughing and bouncing...the way Kyler plays the air guitar and dances around...the way I just act silly and don't care what I look like. Then I started singing with the CD and realized that we weren't just dancing in the living room to some random CD. We, in all our silliness, were praising God and worshipping right there at home. There is something about worshipping in song at home that always gets to me. Singing always makes me feel emotions a little more raw than I would normally (part of being a musician, I guess). I picked up Aaliyah so we could dance together and asked Kyler if we were praising Jesus. He lifted up one hand and said "I can play guitar and praise Jesus at the same time!" Wow. From the mouths of babes. The he went on as the CD continued through a few more songs and said, "mom, God is right there watching us (he pointed to the kitchen) and Jesus is up there (pointing to the ceiling)." Then he kept calling me a singing angel.
Some would just say he's being a 3 year old playing pretend, but I know he's not just pretending. When he was a baby, he would look up into the corner in his room and just smile real big. At first I thought, what is he looking at? Then as it kept happening I thought, my son is looking at angels in his room! Do I belive that angels exist? Absolutely. Have I ever seen one? Nope. But it's amazing what kids can see that we don't.
Take some time this week to turn on the music, dance around like a little kid, and just praise God for who he is...and know that he is watching and smiling.

Monday, January 28, 2008

funny conversation

Ray: Kyler, do you want to build something today? Do you want to build grandma a birdhouse?
Kyler: Grandma a birdhouse? No! Grandma's not a bird!

HA!!!

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

What happens if...

There comes a time when every boy (or girl for that matter) discovers the game "What happens if...?" It's usually around 3 or 4 years old. For Kyler, it was yesterday. For Aaliyah, it was a few weeks ago.
Three or four weeks ago, Kyler was using the restroom (no. 2) and Aaliyah crawled her way into the bathroom. When I got Kyler up off the toilet to wipe his bottom, Aaliyah thought it would be fun to be curious and put her hand in the toilet. I thought I got her hand out in time, but as I grabbed her hand to keep it out of her mouth (it was headed there) I saw it...poop...on her fingers! I can't believe how fast she was. Funny thing is, I was just talking to Ray a couple of days earlier about how she will be the one to take off her diaper and smear poop all over the house!
Now to yesterday. Kyler has hit the age that he wants to know what will happen when he does something. Forget if I tell him what will happen, he wants to see it for himself (I call this disobeying, my mom calls it misplaced curiosity). First experiment - He took a case that holds a small memory card and put it down his throat. Result - gag...cool...let's do that again! second time - gag, throw up...mom yelling...spanking...mom yelling...timeout...mom yelling...cleaning up...mom yelling...crying...mom yelling. result - let's not throw up on purpose again. Second experiment - drink some of sister's bottle. [sidebar - now I don't know if dad made him do it or gave him the idea or if he just did it all on his own, I wasn't home at the time] Result - gag...throw up...cool, red throw up (because of Kool-Aid he just drank).
I hope we don't have any more throwing up experiments any time soon. I'm tired of cleaning up puke.

Friday, January 18, 2008

Why...part 2

Awhile back I posted a list of "why" questions. It was an idea I got from another blog that I read and I found it quite freeing to write my own list. Here's the next installment.

Why...
do I find it easier to parent in public than at home?
is my daughter so resistant to my ideal schedule and sleeping through the night?
have I become so unorganized?
doesn't someone invent a self-cleaning house?
can't I seem to get my business off the ground floor?
do dogs sleep so much?
can't marriage be easier after you have kids?
do I look at other people and think "but your life is so much easier than mine?"
do I write a blog that only 3 people read? :)

What are your whys?

Thursday, January 17, 2008

What was Jesus like at 3?

As I was sitting in choir last night at church recapping my pitiful, lousy, horrible, no good, very bad day to my mom and another friend, the thought occurred to me...what was Jesus like when he was 3? This is a question I usually ponder around Kyler's birthday because he was only 6 weeks old at Christmas and that year I remember thinking a lot about Mary and what she went through. Aside from the fact that she had just given birth to the Savior of the world and that she was a virgin when she conceived, what was it like for her? Like all of us parents, she was a "newbie" at this mom thing. She had given birth in a barn (basically) with no epidural and no doctors that we know of. How long was she in labor? How long did she have to push? Did Jesus nurse well? Was he a happy baby or did he cry a lot? etc, etc, etc. These are a few of the thoughts that went through my mind that year. So every year around my son's birthday I think about Mary and what she might have been dealing with at this age. For some reason the thoughts came back last night even though Kyler's birthday was in November. What was Jesus like at 3 years old? Did he drive his mother nuts? How many times did he ask "why" every day? Did he ask "why" at all? Was he so curious that he took things apart? Did he always listen the first time she told him to do something or does that fall under the sin catagory? I think I'll change the "people I would like to meet" section on my MySpace to say "Mary the mother of Jesus...I have a lot of questions for her."

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Who Knew???

How many wives have wondered what happened to the men they married? More times than I care to admit, I have wondered that same thing. When Ray and I got married he knew how to do laundry, he could (and would) cook, he knew how to clean, and he even put the toilet paper on the roll! Then came the gold band of forgetfullness. The day we got home from our honeymoon, he changed. All of a sudden he had forgotten how to cook, clean, and do laundry. He even forgot how to put his clothes in the closet (forget the basket, just the closet will do). Before long I was picking up clothes from the living room, home office, bathroom, and bedroom floors like I lived with a family of 20. Then, the first of many fights about my "inability" to clean house and our bad habit of eating out because it's so much easier than cooking and cleaning dishes. I thought this would change or at least get better if we talked about it and worked out some sort of schedule. HA!! Kyler came a short 16 months after we got married and then my husband lost all memories of EVER having done anything around the house. I was working full time as a new teacher, had a new son, Ray was working from home AND keeping Kyler (and I admire him for that). When I came home from work, there were bottles to clean, dishes to pick up (because they somehow didn't make it back to the kitchen), dinner to be made, laundry to do, and some cleaning happened in there somewhere. When did I become responsible for two children? Last time I checked I only gave birth to one!
Fast forward to this weekend. In our almost 5 years of marriage we have had many fights and almost always they return to my "inability" to keep the house clean, laundry done, and dinner interesting. I read this week in "His Needs, Her Needs" that this is normal. In fact, it's one of men's top 5 needs...Domestic Support. WHAT!!! Men actually need their wives to clean all the time, cook for them, do their laundry, and take care of the kids???? The book goes into much more detail and, by no means, gives men the right to walk all over their wives, but it was interesting to learn that all of our fights come back to this because it is a need that I am obviously not meeting completely for my husband. Who knew??
Okay...this is too long...laundry to be put in the dryer, bathrooms to clean, floors to sweep, windows to clean...oh, and the princess is up from her nap. Gotta go! What am I making for dinner????

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Christmas Pictures...finally!

We only got pictures of the kids when they first woke up to open presents from Santa. Apparently I over-charged the batteries (didn't know you could do that) and they died after about 5 minutes. Funny thing is...at Ray's parent's house, no one had a camera that was really working either. That's okay. I don't have any pictures of Kyler's 1st Christmas. At least we got a couple of Aaliyah.

Here's Kyler in his new PJs we opened on Christmas Eve. This is the truck he wanted. It turns into a gorilla! He was so excited.



Aaliyah with a present...not too awake and not too sure what to do with it.




Kyler opening his new Transformers toothbrush and cup holder.



Kyler with his V-Smile game system...he plays this everyday!



The kids and me in our Christmas Eve PJ's and Aaliyah's new Fisher-Price Laugh and Learn puppy. She cracks up at this and dances to the songs like a maniac...maniac...



Aaliyah looking and wondering about this colorful thing in front of her.



Trying to figure out what to do...am I supposed to eat the paper?



Finally...some progress. For those who want to know...it was a glow worm.


All in all it was a good holiday. The kids got way too many toys and everything was way too chaotic. Maybe we'll be able to calm it down next year...yeah, right!

Saturday, January 5, 2008

Conversations with Kyler

We just finished our lunch of mac-n-cheese and there was a CD playing in the living room. Part of our conversation went like this:

Kyler - this is Rock Star (from PS3)
me - actually, this is music about Jesus...but Jesus is a rock star, huh?
Kyler - yeah
me - Jesus is the ultimate rock star
Kyler - Jesus is the BIGGEST rock star...and he plays the drums
me - really? maybe that's the thunder...not so scary now, huh?
Kyler - yeah it is
me - what does God play...guitar?
Kyler - yeah
me - and who does the singing...oh, I know, the angels sing
Kyler - yeah
me - heaven will just be one big rock concert...that's cool, huh!
Kyler - yeah...I'm gonna be bigger than Jesus
me - you can never be bigger than Jesus
Kyler - Jesus is this tall, and I'm gonna be that big, too


I love my son! We have the best conversations. I just wish I could remember more of them to write them down.

Friday, January 4, 2008

good book

It doesn't happen very often, but I'm reading a book! I can't remember the last time I actually got to read a book and remember what I read. When I get to read, I like to read books that help me improve myself as a wife, mom, woman, christian, etc. I'm really not into fiction stuff. I figure that if I have the time to read a book I had better make the most of it and have it actually mean something. Now, to the book.



This has been around a while and I wanted to read it right after Ray and I got married, but it just never happened and now we are coming up on our 5th anniversary in June. So...my mom was cleaning out some her and dad's books and came across it. It's called "His Needs, Her Needs" by Willard F. Harley, Jr. The subtitle is "Building an Affair-proof Marriage," but I think that anyone who is married can really take a lot from this book. I'm only on the fifth chapter but I have learned tons about how men and women differ in the way they view responsibilities in a marriage. One of my many goals for 2008 is to do everything I can to improve my marriage (on my end, at least) and this is definitely helping me understand why my husband does (or doesn't do) some of the things he does and why I feel so unfulfilled and frustrated in some areas.

5 most basic needs for men:
Sexual fulfillment
Recreational companionship
An attractive spouse
Domestic support
Admiration

5 most basic needs for women:
Affection
Conversation
Honesty and openness
Financial support
Family commitment

No wonder marriage is so hard! We tend to give the way we want to receive and men don't want or need long conversations and hugs and women don't need just sex!!!

Off Day

Today is one of those days when you fall off the "resolution wagon." You've been doing great and then you wake up one day and nothing feels different than it did before New Years. You wonder why you even bothered to try and make changes at all. I woke up, after a rough night, at 5:00 because that's when the princess decided to wake up, again. Long story really short...my husband said something to me later in the morning and I snapped at him and he gave me one of his "looks" and I muttered something under my breath. I've been snapping at my son all morning and just want to go hide under the covers and start the day all over.
I made it a goal of mine to change my perspective this year. To try and be positive and have fun with my family instead of always trying to be the hard-nosed mom. I wanted to stop yelling at my children and husband and try to keep a level head about the small things. This morning, that didn't happen. I remember thinking how was I even going to make it through the day...I'm too tired and have way too much to do. Then I flipped to today's bible verse in the calendar my mom got me for Christmas..."The joy of the Lord is your strength" (Neh. 8:10).
Okay, God...I get it...you are who I need to rely on...can you help me, please!