10 months!

Here is a link to a recent photo shoot that we had done for Ford. It was supposed to be "9 months" but ended up being 10 months. They turned out fantastic! Thanks so much Erin! I'm so excited that I have a beautiful photo of my kids TOGETHER! That is an impossible feat without major and somewhat divine intervention. In this case I was doing cartwheel in the grass. It worked!

www.erinnolenphotography.com/shirley5

By the way, this is not our house. My sweet friend, Dawn, offered her house for us because I've done the whole "outdoor pictures in August in Alabama" thing and decided that wasn't in anyone's best interest. She has a beautiful air conditioned home with lots of big windows and great light. Our house has not so big windows and not so great light. So even though we cheated and it's not our house I think they turned out so great that it doesn't matter. I love the ones of him with his beloved ball. That is so Ford - ALWAYS throwing a ball (if a ball isn't available he will settle for whatever is within his reach!) I hope you enjoy them as much as we did.

Yuck

Nothing is yucky about these pictures - I'll get to that in a minute. I thought it was so neat that Ford stood up (sort of) for the first time in the exact same spot where Claire did 2 years ago and I was able to catch both of them with the camera! I promise the child wears clothes! I don't know why all of the pictures on the blog are of him in a diaper. Anyway, back to the yucky part . . .
Rhett is working today so after church I took the kids to our regular lunch spot (Chipotle -yum!). We were having a lovely little lunch but I goofed and forgot baby food for the little guy. I'm trying to make the transition over to table food because despise babyfood (it is expensive and takes up space that we just don't have) so I thought "great he can just eat a quesadilla and some guacamole". He wasn't too interested in the quesadilla but slurped down some guac prety quickly. It was already late and we were on borrowed time at this point and Claire was taking her sweet time wanting to chit chat. I pulled Ford into my lap and trying to entertain him I thought "what the heck here's a little tiny piece of tortilla chip". I am normally extremely careful about choking hazards (Claire actually uses the term "choking hazard") due to all of the kids I've seen die from choking in the PICU. Anyway, I had a momentary lapse and gave him the little piece of chip. A few minutes later I guess he tried to swallow it and it got stuck in his esophagus. He started gagging and before I knew it there was a virtual guacamole volcano in my lap. Let me set the scene here - this is a small restaurant. We are sitting right next to the order line and cash register and across from the drink station. There is no way I can play this off. Guacamole is now all down my lap, on my shirt and formerly white linen pants and down his front. Then he turned his head and continued to throw up in the other direction and got my arm and his arm. Let me just say it is amazing how quickly food can go from yummy lunch to disgusting vomit when in a stomach.
I attempted to do some sort of damage control just knowing that everyone around me had to be aware of my situation. This is when Claire pipes up with an assortment of LOUD non-helpful comments: What happend Mommy? What did Fordy do? He throwed up on you? He throwed up all over you? Mommy why did Ford throwed up on you? Mommy Ford throwed up guapdamole on you? Mommy is that gross? Why is that so gross Mommy? You trying to clean it up Mommy? You trying to clean up all that gross throwed up from your shirt Mommy? Why did you say we need to get out of here Mommy?
Bless his heart. Sorry about that little man. No chips until you are 12. At that point I just tried to get enough off of us so that we could physically stand the ride home. What we both needed was a bath - quick. Ugh, I can still smell it.

names, names, names

I think names are so interesting. I love reading the Baby Name Wizard blog and getting an "expert's" analysis of names. Just a hobby I guess. I'm always on the edge of my seat waiting to find out what people name their babies. What people name their kids tells you a lot about them. Sometimes I think "out of all the names out there that was your favorite?"and other times I think "oooh, I need to remember that!". So today we got Claire's class list in the mail and I thought the names were all interesting. Aside from the two Lukes it might as well be a family of 13 kids! They all sound like siblings to me. Here they are:

Lily Grace
Ella
Evie
Lucy
Claire
Hannah

Luke
Ben
Stewart
Luke
Matthew
Henry
William

Isn't that interesting? Lucy, Hannah and Claire (obviously) are 3 of my favorite names for girls. And Evie . . . absolutely precious! I was surprised at how ultra conservative the boys names are. There's not a Jaden or Cadyn in the bunch. Even more interesting - according to the Baby Name Wizard 1/3 or all boys names today end in "-n" but there's only one -n in the whole bunch of the boys in Claire's class! Overall I think almost all of the names are great. Classic but not too trendy. That's becoming a tough combination to come up with.

I think that looking at the names of today's preschool classes are a fun way to see current trends in naming and upcoming trends in naming too. Sometimes it's really obvious like my previous 1 year old Sunday school class had - Abby, Abbey, Ava, Allie, Allie and Cally! So indulge me with the names in your kids' classes. Don't forget to put their age and your city. I'll add Ford's class next week after we go to his open house (he's at a different school than Claire since they don't have MDO for infants). Anyway, this should be fun . . . (for me anyway :)

Obnoxious bragging parent

We've all met them. You know who I'm talking about. Those parents who think their kid is cuter/smarter/more darling than all the other kids. And lets be honest, if you are a parent then you've probably have thought at one time or another that your kid is cuter/smarter/more darling than all the other kids (at least on a few occassions!). So, shamelessly, I am being "that" mom and bragging on my little sunshine. So bear with me -it will just take a second- or stop reading now :) I snapped the picture above this morning (hence the bed head and panties) after Claire spelled her name on the fridge with the magnets!!! I'm so proud of her! She loves letters and words and even spelling. We spend A LOT of time finding letters every where we go, finding familiar words and speaking a different sort of English ("Look Claire - there is a truck. Tuh - ru- ck. What letter does truck start with?). It's really paying off! She knows all the letters, their sounds and can tell you words that start with each one. She's been spelling her name out loud for a little while but this morning she was able to find all of the letters and spell out her name by herself. Did I mention she is 2 1/2? The grandparents can read this and be proud. You can insert your grumbles and groans here. I'm done.

Future Olympian

Inspired by the Olympics Claire and her Daddy are practicing gymnastics and diving (her favorite events) . . .

Into everything

lately . . .

I've been quiet on the blog front for a while. Not much has been going on around here. I consider these the dog days of summer even though someone else decided that this is back to school time. It's too hot to go to school. Let the kids play and swim for a few more weeks anyway, I digress. My kids don't start until after Labor Day so we've got a few more weeks to hang out. Claire's school starts preschool at 2K so it's the real deal (as opposed to MDO which I guess I'm labeling not the real deal). I'm pretty excited about it and plan to make pretty big deal about it since this may be her last "first day of school" for a while since we don't know what our situation will be for the next few years. She is so excited about school and can't wait to start. Ford is going to MDO one day a week so I can have the luxury of running a few errands or cleaning my house all by myself.


We went birthday shopping for a friend of Claire's today and came home with some of these for her and her friend. Look familiar??? Oh yes - they are the 25th Anniversary authentic 1984 version of My Little Ponies. I'm not sure who was more excited - OK, I was more excited. But Claire is pretty pumped too and is loving her new pony "Sky Dancer". She always picks the yellow one of anything if given the choice!

This is our little commuter! He literally "drove" like this for our entire 30 minute walk tonight. He loves the "beep beep" -what we call our little car that Claire has graciously passed down to her little bro. Occassionally she would change the music for him from Rick and Bubba to "Peekaboo I Love You" which I thought was really sweet. This kid went from not crawling one day to crawling all over the house the next day. He is SO happy that he can get around and explore. That is really what he does. He just kind of takes off and makes little stops all along his way checking things out. He loves doors - including our front door that he has nearly escaped out of a few times. Yesterday he crawled into the bathroom with one of Claire's Ariel princess shoes while I was getting C out of the tub. He pulls up on his knees next to the tub (still full of water) and throws the shoe in the water! I managed to convince Claire that it was really funny otherwise she would have done serious damage to the little guy. He crawled out and came right back in with the other princess shoe and proceeded to toss it in the tub too! He broke into a huge grin and chuckled as he crawled off to do something else! He is just precious. He is so content and is so happy to play by himself. He will just go all around the playroom by himself just investigating and playing happily. He LOVES balls. He will sit and play "catch" with you for half and hour. He is so much fun!

So I've been bitten by the Olympic bug which is why I'm sitting here watching Men's gymnastics at 1030 PM. Here are some of my observations so far:

- I was very disappointed in our opening ceremonies outfits. They were somewhere between flight attendant and sailor suit. I thought they looked like they would show us to our life boats or how to use our oxygen masks. The girls should have been dressed cuter (not the same) as the boys.

- The men divers need more coverage - not TV coverage - bathing suit coverage. Borderline obscene.

- The beach volleyball women also need more bathing suit coverage. I really don't want my husband or my 2 year old watching them run around in the sand dressed like that.

- The swimmers are way to fidgety. As they stand up there getting ready to jump in the water they pull and tug at their swimming-unitard-suit, adjust their goggles, swing their arms, adjust their goggles again - it just kind of irritates me.

- I really like the Olympic drama. It totally draws me in. I need to know that the French girl swimmer used to date the current boyfriend of the Italian girl she is about to race against. There's a lot on the line in that race!

- I became a swim fan the other night when Michael Phelps and Co. beat the French team in the medely race after the French were talking trash to the Americans saying they were going to "smash" them. Oh really? Once again - I love the drama.

I usually get burned out before the Olympics are over but I'm enjoying these games more than I have in a long time so I'll ride the wave as long as I can.

Starting to sink in

Some pieces of this very complicated puzzle that is our life are starting to fall into place and with those pieces is a sense of reality. This is really happening. We are really going to be living in Peru in 6 months. A year from now this will be someone else's home and I will be living thousands of miles from here. For so long all of our plans have seemed like a dream but now they are starting to be very real. It's like how I felt before I got married. I would think things like "I wonder who I will marry? Do I know him already? I wonder what he will look like? etc etc." Recently I've been thinking things like "I wonder where we will live? What hemisphere, continent, country? Will we have a little apartment or a little bungalow house? What language will I be speaking?". There is a definite excitement that comes with wondering those questions but also an uneasiness.

All of our plans have had a dramatic effect on how I think about things in my daily life. I realize how much I think about and plan for the future. Whether I am buying clothes off season for next year, making teaching commitments at church or registering Claire for ballet - it is all in the future. I'm constantly planning the next season while I am living in this one. But it's difficult because in our culture you have plan for the future right? I mean if I didn't plan for the future we wouldn't have anything to wear or do! Right? So the fact that our life as we know it meets a very definite end on June 30, 2009 has changed all that. I don't know what season clothes to buy for - (this one is driving me crazy! I may be missing a deal!), I don't have any activities to plan, vacations to research, work schedule to plan. It is just blank. Of course over the coming months those blank days will begin to take shape but in the mean time I'm being broken of my hyper-planning ways.

I am also being reminded in a MAJOR way how temporary everything is. It doesn't really matter what is hanging on my walls because someone else's pictures will be hanging on these walls soon. Do I really need to buy something that is going to be put into storage in less than a year? Do I really need _____ in my closet/cabinet/basement just to have it? I am struck by this because everything really is temporary. I know we've all heard this before but we can't take anything with us when we die. Aside from a few cherished antiques, heirlooms and photos most of my stuff will end up in a landfill eventually. That's sobering thought. I think that this is the mindset that God so desperately wants us to embrace. He wants us to really grasp the temporary nature of this world and the eternal nature of Him. Does it make sense to spend our time, effort, money and love on things that will turn to dirt one day or should we invest all of those things in things that will be around forever (aka eternity)? Sometimes God has to strong arm us (ME) into learning these truths. It is amazing to see how He is already working in our lives and hearts and we haven't even left the premises!

How to help a hurting friend?

Life is full of disappointments. Hurts. Sadness. Betrayal. Loss. At some time or another each of us has had to deal with this inevitable part of our human experience. Thankfully, most of us just have to deal with events in our life or seasons of our life that fit one of those descriptions. We hurt, we cry, we hide under the covers but somehow day by day it eventually starts to get a little better until one day we manage to smile again. And as tough as those times are it seems as though maybe more often in our lives we will be surrounded by others that we love and care about that are hurting.

I have a hurting friend right now and I don't know what to do. I want to help her. I want to take away the hurt that she feels everyday. She has been in a tough season for a very long time. Even more than wanting to make her feel better I want to make sure I don't make her hurt more. Let me explain that one . . . A few years ago I suffered a loss. There was only a small circle of people who knew what I was going through but even in that circle so many people said really hurtful things without meaning to. I decided that going through that situation was going to make me a better friend and, well, a better person because from that time on instead of babbling "nice" things to someone who was hurting or going through something I didn't understand I would simply say "I am so sorry. I will pray for you".

I'm so afraid that I'm being that babbling person that might be saying hurtful things to my friend. Where my theory failed me is that you can only say "I am so sorry. I will pray for you" so many times. I think it still works if it is an acute situation but unfortunately this had turned into a chronic situation. So I wonder - do I mention it? Maybe she wants a break from talking about it? If I don't mention it maybe she thinks I don't care? Am I doing something I don't even realize that is causing her pain? She has hurt so much I can't bear to think about me causing her more pain.

Eventually I come back around and realize that I "just" need to pray. But somehow that doesn't feel quite right. I mean, I need to DO something not "just" pray. At this point God is saying "Oh, Megan. I thought we'd come so far". I know, I know but the American, rugged individualist in me wants to DO something. Maybe I can make a meal, maybe I can plan a distraction of some sort or at the very least I can TELL her that I'm praying for her. The answer is so loud and clear. "No - only pray. Trust me. This is not about you and what you can do to help". In my heart I totally understand and embrace this it's just somewhere near where the rubber meets the road that I have trouble.

But for now I'm going to try to keep the right perspective and embrace what God is teaching me through this situation. Pray, pray, pray. That's it. It is sufficient. I see so clearly how God is touching so many people through my friend's journey. I am not excluded from that group. I want to be faithful to the lessons that God is teaching through them (her and her family) otherwise it would be somehow disrespectful to all the pain and frustration they have suffered through. I want to find every blessing in this situation and take it absolutely to heart.

There will be a rainbow at the end of this journey for her. We have such wonderful assurance of that. I know there are stormy days where it doesn't even seem possible that the sun will shine again. But I have confidence that it will shine again one day and I know that is going to be some rainbow!