Funny Garrett Story

Today, Garrett was drawing a picture (thankfully on paper and not on his carpet as he has done lately.) He showed me the picture and I asked him what he drew and he said "God." God took up the entire page from top to bottom. Then Garrett went on to say that Superman was really little compared to God, but Superman can fly and God can't.

I said, "Well, God could fly if he wanted to. But he doesn't need to because he's everywhere all the time." Hard concept to explain or grasp, especially when dealing with a 4 year old.

Garrett focused on the fact that I said he "could fly" and said "No way. God can't fly. He has feet."

Me, "Superman has feet too and he can fly. What does that mean?"

Him, "God is a person and people don't fly."

Me, "Superman is a person and can fly. So God can too."

Him, "Well, in my Bible, the pictures do not show God flying. But all the pictures I've seen of Superman, he's flying."

Apparently we need an illustrated Bible showing God flying so Garrett can grasp that concept (and know that Momma was right about this one).

Weekend Recap

First I have to say that I'm sorry for my sporadic posts. Now that I'm working again for our church, my writing time is spent writing articles for the bulletin and other aspects of my job.

On with my weekend.

Last Friday, me and the boys went to visit my grandparents. They live about an hour away and we try to get over there for a visit every other month or so. We had a good time visiting with them along with my aunt, 2 uncles, cousin, and her daughter. We went to Fuddruckers for lunch, which is always a good choice. Before we left another uncle, aunt, and 2 cousins came by on their way to Oklahoma. So we visited with them before hitting the road to come home.

Thankfully Keith was home around 7pm that night, which is early for him lately. He's been working roughly 7am to 10pm every day plus working Saturdays. So not only did he come home early on Friday, but he was off on Saturday too. It was nice! On Friday evening, I kicked off our mowing marathon. Since we killed everything in our yard, reseeded, and have been watering and fertilizing like crazy, our new grass is growing by leaps and bounds, which requires more mowing than normal at this time of year.

Saturday was spent with more time in the yard before it got too hot. Then we went to lunch at Texas Roadhouse. I love that place. Once we got home, I vacuumed, mopped, and did laundry. In the middle of all of that, I somehow managed to break my little toe. Pretty fun. I was stepping over some toys and kicked a corner on our wall. My toe caught and snapped. Now it's swollen and purple. Thankfully I've mostly been able to walk with just a little limping. I've made sure to not wear any close-toed shoes and to keep my weight shifted onto the inside of my foot instead of the outside. If it bends a certain way or gets hit (I've noticed my boys hit and step on my feet a lot! Didn't even realize it till now.) then it really hurts.

On Sunday we went to church and then ate lunch at Chili's. We normally don't eat out twice in the weekend, but we were enjoying the fact of a "normal" weekend for a change. After Chili's we had to go shirt shopping for Keith. He has worked for the same CPA firm for 11 years now and the entire time the dress code has been business casual. Khakis and polo shirts with the occasional button-down. For some unknown and absurd reason, they've decided to implement one business dress day a month. That starts this Wednesday. Keith has a suit, a multitude of ties and several dress shirts, but most of his dress shirts don't fit him well in the neck. When we bought them, they weren't necessarily purchased to wear with a tie.

And just a brief lesson on shirt sizes (which I just learned this weekend), the bigger the neck size on a shirt, the bigger around the shirt is. Keith has a bigger neck, but not necessarily a big stomach. (He's 6'6" and weighs 275, "big stomach" is a relative term.) So the shirts with a comfortable neck look kind of tent-like on him. But he'd rather not choke to death on a tie, so we bought a couple that will work along with some button extenders for the shirts he already owns. Turns out you can buy these little things that clip onto your shirt's button and it will extend the neck size about 1/2" or so and it's hidden by your tie knot so no one will ever know.

Once we got home, Keith put together Garrett's new wagon. Keith's grandma got him one as an early birthday present. The only wagon we had was a little one meant more for kids to pull their stuff around in, but this wagon is more for kids to be pulled around in it. It has a seat with a seatbelt on it and everything.

Last night after the boys went to bed, we watched "Shutter Island". It was an interesting movie. I didn't know anything about it ahead of time, besides the fact that Leonardo DiCaprio was in it. Keith and I both thought it was good, though hard to follow at times. Now that we've seen it to the end, it all makes sense, but when you're watching it for the first time, it's confusing.

And in other news, Cooper is getting really close to walking independently. I seriously didn't think it would take him this long. He's been pulling up and walking holding onto stuff since he was 9 months old. He will now walk holding onto just one of my hands instead of two. He stands for long periods of time in the middle of the floor and takes falling steps. He's intentionally falling and he will take a step or two on the way down. I hope he'll start walking soon. Mostly because he's moving up to the toddler nursery at church in 6 weeks and around that same time, he'll start attending Mother's Day Out in the toddler room as well. I'm sure it would be a good thing if he was actually "toddling" once he moves to these classes.

How old were your kids when they started taking steps? Garrett was 10 months old. Cooper is 2 weeks away from 14 months and still no independent steps.

Our Weekend

On Friday, the boys and I went bowling. As I mentioned before, this was Garrett's first time to go bowling outside of Wii and plastic balls and pins. He actually bowled 2 spares, though I will add that his lane had bumpers on it, but it still actually possible to get a gutter ball, even with bumpers. So I was impressed. Though I will add that we still need to work ALOT on taking turns. For those of you who are interested, you can go to kidsbowlfree.com and sign up your kids under the age of 15 for free bowling games each week (assuming you have a participating bowling alley close to you). You only have to pay for shoe rental (which was less than 3 dollars for us) and you get 2 free games each day (3 days a week or something like that). Anyway, it was a good deal. Just be prepared for a headache after listening to little kids bowl 2 games. I ended up with a migraine by Friday night because of it.

Keith had to work on Saturday. He's been working a lot of hours lately. He leaves at 6am and doesn't get home till 10pm. On Saturday he worked from 7am to 4pm. So the boys and I picked up lunch for him, us, and everyone working for him on Saturday and we took it up to his office and ate with them. I'm hoping he'll get this project finished this week because we have plans to go out for his birthday on Saturday, but if he has to work, we won't be going anywhere.

Sunday afternoon, he worked a little here at home while I finished laundry, vacuumed and mopped. A pretty boring weekend.

Since Cooper turned 13 months old on Saturday, I wanted to briefly write down what he's up to this month for my own information.

He has 4 teeth, 2 on top, 2 on bottom.

He stands alone for long periods of time and walks along the wall, but still refuses to take any steps. He physically could, but he won't.

He's saying more and more and his babbling actually sounds like attempts at talking. I remember Garrett's babbling and it never really made any sense or had anything decipherable in it. Cooper seems to say thank you, done, daddy, momma, hi, bye, and night night. Daddy, Momma, hi and bye you can definitely tell that's what he's saying. The others sound very close, but not quite right.

I've dropped him down to one nap a day because he wasn't taking 2 good naps a day. He would sleep for 2 or more hours in the morning and barely sleep 30 minutes in the afternoon. That makes for a very long day. So I try to keep us semi busy in the mornings, and then put him down for a nap around 12:30 or 1 and he'll sleep about 2 hours. So far it seems to be working well.

He's outgrowing a lot of his 12 month clothes and moving up to 18 months. He's wearing a size 5 shoe, but getting close to outgrowing it.

He loves milk. If I try to give him a cup of water, he will throw it and throw a fit because he wants milk instead. He needs to drink some water because he's had a bit of an issue with constipation, but it's hard to get him to drink much of it.

He fell the other day and skinned his chin on the wood floor. I'm afraid these wood floors are going to do more damage to the boys than I'm ready for.

Weight Loss

Since I have obviously taken a hiatus from my weight loss posts, I thought I would pop in and mention it briefly. I have not given up on my attempts to lose weight, I am simply having a hard time getting back into the groove again. Yesterday, I stepped on the scales, while holding my breath and clinching every muscle in my body because I knew I wouldn't like what I saw. Shockingly, my weight is exactly where it was the last time I lost my final pound to put me at 20 pounds down. So I'm thankful to know I haven't totally ruined myself over the past 6 weeks or so.

I will admit that I have been "attempting" to watch what I eat every day. Little snacking, small portions, etc. Apparently that's been working ok. Now to just get back into my exercise routine and cut back more on my food. I'll let you know once that takes place.

My First Born

Garrett is

•almost 5 years old! How is that possible?!

•thoroughly excited about his upcoming birthday. When he asks how much longer, I always tell him that Daddy's birthday comes first, then his. He wants to argue this point every time. His birthday must come before Daddy's.

•busy cleaning for his birthday party. Ever since we cleaned house for Bible study last week, he walks around the house with a baby wipe, cleaning things and saying he's cleaning because his friends are coming over for his party. (It sounds like we never clean based on that, but we really do.)

•a non-stop talker. He always has a question, comment, statement, announcement, song, or taunt to share. I'm already praying for his kindergarten teacher to have patience, but be firm with him. There are moments when I just have to tell him that he cannot talk because I can't take it.

•itching for a constant play pal. Cooper is still too little and relatively inactive for him to be a good option as a play buddy. He usually ends up getting hurt when Garrett tries to really play with him. I've told Garrett that once Cooper is walking really well (which should totally be by the time he turns 10 at the rate we're going) then he should be able to play with him more. At least then he'll have another participant in the "run around screaming" game that Garrett loves to play all day every day.

•blessed with a great imagination. If left to his own devices in his bedroom (by force because otherwise, he wants to be around people all the time), he is always capable of coming up with some game involving lots of activity and people needing help. He thoroughly enjoys wearing all of his dress-up clothes, at once if possible. As you can see in his picture on the right of my blog, he has a Batman mask, Superman cape, and Buzz Lightyear gloves on. Sometimes he wears the entire Buzz outfit, sometimes just the gloves or wings, sometimes the Woody hat with bandana around his neck, carrying his toy machine gun, but rarely does a day go by where he doesn't dress up at some point.

•a very picky eater. At the moment, he's forcing himself to eat a few more bites of Chicken Spaghetti. (The only way he's eaten as much as he has of it is due to the "bribe" of an ice cream sandwich. I'm totally not above bribing my children when necessary. And thanks to the bribe, he's seemingly enjoyed eating this dinner. Mostly because I showed him how to twirl his fork to eat the noodles. It's better than when he gagged on a piece of raw broccoli the other day.)

•smart. Super smart. When he wants to be. I think he could probably tie his shoes and maybe be able to read some by this point if he cared. But he doesn't right now and I have no desire to push for something that he doesn't want to do.

•able to read some signs. Though I said above that he hasn't shown any desire to read yet, he can read lots of signs and has been able to for years. Since he was 2, at least. He knows the Walmart sign (even if we're not at Walmart and he just sees a semi-truck driving down the road with Walmart written on the side). He knows Stop, McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell (which is weird because we truly do not eat at Taco Bell, but he knows that's what it says), Chick Fila, and probably some others. He can also read and write his name (just first name).

•a handful at times, but really does not like upsetting or disappointing people. If he knows someone is mad at him because he's not behaving, he always says "I love you" and if you don't instantly repeat it back to him, he asks if you're still mad at him.

•extremely good at remembering things. He can remember the most vague things from quite awhile ago. He also already knows his way around town and can point directions I should turn in order to get us where we need to go. He recognizes places we go to and never forgets them or why we were there in the first place. When we drive by a theater, he immediately points it out and says the most recent movie we've seen there (we have a lot of theaters in our area and have seen movies at 4 different ones in the past year). He knows where people live, even if we don't go to their house very often. It's crazy.

I would end this with a picture of my almost 5 year old, but I'm on my work computer, which is a MacBook (Steve, it's your old laptop!) and I have no pictures on this computer. My apologies!

Our Week in Review

This past week has been a relatively busy one, so my apologies for a lack of posting here.

Our 4th of July holiday was a low-key one. We typically only do the big holidays in style, the rest of them are spent at home. Watching the boys destroy stuff and trying to keep our sanity. Garrett was particularly interested in fireworks this year. He watched some out of his window for awhile and then he and I sat on the back porch and watched more. We live out in the country (relatively out in the country) so everyone in our neighborhood was setting off their own fireworks which meant we had a pretty good firework display in our backyard.

The rest of the days leading up to this past Wednesday were spent in preparation for hosting our Bible Study group Wednesday night. Do the rest of you do this, or am I just neurotic? I spend days cleaning (not an in-depth, dust the baseboards and clean the windows, type of cleaning. Just dusting where I don't usually dust, wiping little fingerprints off of my doors, on top of the typical cleaning that's done before company comes over.) I also prepared most of the food ahead of time. On Monday, I made (my first) potato salad and we grilled a bunch of chicken. Tuesday I made a chocolate, chocolate chip pound cake and then we had to prepare for the Bible study itself. The host couple leads Bible study on their night (more on that in a bit). Plus each day was spent just cleaning up after my children's usual messes, fixing meals, and all my normal day-to-day stuff.

On Wednesday, I sliced up a bunch of tomatoes, shredded some lettuce, and set out some other stuff to go along with supper. We had grilled chicken sandwiches, potato salad, raw veggies with dip, and chips, plus cake for dessert.

Our study this summer has been on the book "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan. I've never read the book, though I've heard a lot about it. Somehow Keith and I lucked out and got chapter 5 for our week. If you've read the book, or even if you haven't, this is the chapter about how, if you're a "lukewarm" Christian, then you're really not a Christian in the first place. Talk about a shot between the eyes. It was totally fun to talk about how I didn't feel saved after reading that chapter.

"Crazy Love" deserves its own blog post and honestly, I'm not qualified to do one. But just know that it's totally convicting, so read it at your own risk.

The rest of my week was spent helping at our church's Upward Basketball and Cheerleading camp. I grew up playing basketball so it was fun watching these grade school kids learn different basketball techniques. I followed the 4th-6th graders during my time there. Which was fun, though I almost got punched by an unruly 5th grader. But, again, a story for another day.

This week looks to be a little less hectic, but still busy. Monday I'm making dinner for a family in our church who just had a baby. Plus I have to go grocery shopping because I could not do the first without doing the second, unless I serve them ham and cheese sandwiches. Friday is a church preschool playdate at a local bowling alley. This will be Garrett's first time to go "real" bowling.

Besides all the "real" bowling that takes place on the Wii.

I'm sure he'll think he's a pro before he even picks up a ball. I'm just hoping for no meltdowns due to the fact that he's a much better Wii bowler than he will inevitably be in real life.

Thankfully the days in between look to be uneventful. Though I have started back to my part time job at the church, so I'll be putting together the church bulletin and some other responsibilities during my downtime on those days.

During that time, I should probably refresh Garrett's alphabet memory. Tonight he thought an I was an L. Sounds like this summer break has caused a memory lapse. So between reteaching Garrett his letters and forcing Cooper to learn how to walk (the boy is downright lazy) and working on "work" stuff, I'm sure I'll have lots of free time.

Cooper's Eye Appointment

Cooper's eye appointment was yesterday morning. They took us back and put drops in his eyes to dilate them. Since he has brown eyes, he required 3 drops in each eye. I have no idea what other eye colors require, but I thought it was interesting that eye color even mattered. I've had my eyes dilated before and they never said anything about the color of my eyes.

Then we got to sit in the waiting room while the drops took effect. Cooper used to be pretty good about sitting in my lap and looking around in situations like this, but he's getting to the point where he just wants down. So it was fun trying to wrestle with him while also dealing with Garrett who was being particularly stubborn and unagreeable yesterday.

We finally were brought back to an exam room and the doctor came in to try and examine his eyes. Apparently some one year olds are cooperative and just look at the light that she shines at them so she's able to examine their eyes while they're doing so. However, Cooper has "a past" with her (as the doctor put it) and he wasn't too happy to even look at her after having her probe his tear duct 2 different times in the past few weeks. So the nurse came in and I held Cooper down, while the nurse held his eyes open (one at a time) and the doctor did her exam. It was quick and relatively painless.

The doctor said she sees no signs of excess watering in his eye so the second probing apparently worked! She said it's rare for a blockage to come back by this point, so we should be in the clear.

He does have a slight astigmatism in both eyes, which is normal for babies who've had a blocked tear duct, for whatever reason. And it's also normal for babies who have a parent with an astigmatism (me. And my mom. And my sister. And my MIL. And probably many other relatives in the family.) So it was bound to happen. She wants to check him yearly to be sure it doesn't get worse, which would mean glasses at an early age. But other than that, it was a good visit.

On an unrelated note, Cooper finally cut his 3rd tooth yesterday. The other bottom, front tooth. I was afraid the top tooth and the bottom tooth that he already has were going to grow in and he would look like a hillbilly with one tooth on bottom and one tooth on top. But thankfully crisis has been averted.

And on a very unrelated note, I will be going back to the job I was doing at my church when I was pregnant with Cooper. I actually start next week, so I'm excited about that. And a little nervous about juggling everything, but thankfully it's just 10 hours a week so hopefully I'll be able to find my rhythm quickly and everything will be smooth.