Circle of Life

When I was young and we'd drive to northeast Texas to visit my grandmother, I always looked forward to the fabulous meal that she would have waiting for us, but I dreaded the conversations I knew we would have while eating it. They usually went something like this:

My grandmother to my dad: "Do you remember Joe Wilson who used to run the feed store?"

My dad: "Yeah....he's a nice guy. How's he doing?"

My grandmother: "He died last month."

My dad: "Oh. That's too bad."

My grandmother: "You know Ethel from church?"

My dad: "She goes to the same beauty parlor as you, right?"

My grandmother: "Not anymore. The cancer's eaten her up." (I always loved how she said "the" cancer)

We used to laugh about these conversations on our way home. We didn't understand her obsession with death. But now I completely get it. Because now when we go visit our parents, Ryan and I get to hear all about the latest funeral or cancer diagnosis. It's downright depressing.

In the last few weeks, three of our friends have lost their fathers. As I type this, another friend is sitting by her father's bedside watching him take what are most likely his last few breaths. Her father happens to be one of my parents' best friends.

And while I know death is just another part of the life cycle, I'm still not used to dealing with it. And explaining it to Sydney makes it even worse, especially since she's really curious about it and likes to talk about it a lot. I'm honest with her (sparing her the adult details, of course), but it's still hard. Sometimes being an adult/parent just stinks.

So if I'm a little quiet this week, you'll know that I've got a funeral to go to. And I've got another sympathy card to buy. The fourth one in as many weeks. See? Downright depressing.

Fortunately for my emotional state, the circle of life in my little corner of the world is continuing: a dear friend of mine got married yesterday and I have several friends who are expecting babies in the coming months. Heaven knows we deserve to hear some happy news after the month we've had.

Updates and Such

Sorry for the lack of posting lately. The weather has been phenomenal so we've been outside quite a bit to take advantage of it. Despite the piles of oak pollen polluting the neighborhood, we decided to have a picnic at a nearby park on Saturday.

Sydney enjoying her pb&j:




Evan after a lunch of peas:




Liam, man on a mission to hit me in the head with a tennis ball:




Having fun on the seesaw:




Going for a walk around the lake:




Liam, refusing to rest with Ryan:




Sydney, practicing her balance beam skills:




Evan, playing with a bunny:



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The spring cleaning is going slowly, but it's going. I've already filled a box of stuff from our closet (including about a dozen pairs of shoes) and plan on cleaning out my clothes next week once the dining room is available (post book club) as a storage area for the giveaway piles. I've already packed up my nursing tanks and bras since Evan is down to two feedings a day. Needless to say, I will not miss the icky nursing gear at all.

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Speaking of the dining room, I bought a cute new table cloth for my book club hosting next week. (By the way, you know you're getting old when you have fun looking at table cloths.) Alli asked me if I'd settled on a menu yet and I think I have:

Pulled pork
Fresh green beans cooked al dente with slivered almonds and a spritz of lemon juice
Sliced tomatoes and cucumbers in a light vinegarette (as the salad)
Biscuits
Cornbread
Banana pudding

I figure it's southern, but not too fattening. I'll let you know how everyone liked it next week.

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It's supposed to be cold and rainy the next few days, so hopefully I'll have more time to post. Until then.....

Food for Thought?

I'm set to host one of my book clubs week after next and I need some help with my menu. For the record, this book club leans toward "book themed" meals to add to the ambience of the discussion.

For example, for our Wicked discussion, we had key lime pie for dessert since the main character in that book is green. For Animal Farm, we had beef stew and breadsticks shaped like dog bones. The book we're reading for my date is To Kill a Mockingbird and I am so excited because it is one of my all time favorite books.

Since the book is set in Alabama, southern foods are a must. I'm thinking about having crock pot pulled pork as the meat since Scout dressed up as a ham at the end of the book. And I'm pretty sure I'll have both biscuits and cornbread available because you can't get much more southern than that. Sydney said she'd help me make banana pudding for dessert.

But now I can't decide what kind of vegetables to serve. Normally, I'd make cole slaw and potato salad, but those are really summertime dishes. I don't want anything too heavy (like green bean casserole) because the pork and banana pudding will be quite rich, but I can't think of any southern-style veggies that don't contain lard, butter or heavy cream. Also, I don't think I want to go overboard with the whole theme thing. The pork, biscuits, cornbread and banana pudding are probably enough for everyone to get the point. But, since I'm from the South, I don't really know what other kinds of veggies to pair with the foods I've already chosen.

Any thoughts?

Spring Cleaning

I have a problem. I'm a keeper. I like to keep things for a really long time, longer than they need to be kept. This is not to be confused with hoarding, though. We don't have twenty multipacks of two ply toilet paper stacked in a closet somewhere or piles of newspapers lining the hallways of our house.

I simply have a hard time getting rid of stuff. Random stuff. Like the typewriter/word processor thingy that my grandmother (who passed away a few years ago) gave me as a high school graduation gift. I used it to write my papers in college and haven't had an actual need for it since then, but I find myself struggling to get rid of it. Ryan and I have discussed this one particular item and its need to find a new home more than once. Our conversations usually go something like this:

Ryan: Can we please get rid of this thing?

Me: But what if we need it?

Ryan: We have a computer and a printer. I don't think we'll need it.

Me: But what about the typewriter function? What if we need a typewriter for something?

Ryan: We won't need a typewriter. Everything is computerized now.

Me: But my grandmother gave this to me.

Ryan: She also gave you her pearls, her silver and her coffee table. I think you're set.

Me: But......

And on and on it goes. And not just with the typewriter, but with a lot of things. Like my clothes. Sigh.

I really need to clean out my clothes. There are things hanging in my closet that I've moved four times and never worn. The wind suit I wore in the early 90's is an example. Or the green suede jacket my mom got me for Christmas my freshman year of high school. Yes - my freshman year of high school which is longer ago than I care to remember (let's see, my ten year reunion was five years ago, so carry the one and well, you get the point). My problem is that I'm emotionally attached to things and I just can't give them away. Seriously, I cried when I had to sell the first car I ever bought all by myself. Little green Honda Civic, how I miss you still.

I have no problem getting rid of other people's stuff because I'm not attached to it. Before we moved, Ryan cleaned out his side of the closet and I had no issues helping him make a giveaway pile of his clothes. I didn't really clean out my side of the closet then because Evan was only one month old and I wanted to get back down to my pre-pregnancy size before tackling the job. Deep down, I know I could have done it, but I used the "I'mstillfatfromhavingababyandIreallywillwearallthisstuffagain" excuse to avoid doing it.

I'm aware this is a problem and I am doing my best to ensure that my kids do not inherit it. Sydney likes to keep every single thing she makes at school and church. We're talking 3-4 little projects/coloring sheets per day. For a while, I threw things away while she was at school (nothing important, just letter tracing worksheets) and let her fill a box with the art I didn't throw away. A couple of months ago, I made her go through the box and pick a few things that she wanted to keep. We took pictures of other things that she liked, but we didn't have room for (like the huge Cinderella mural thing she painted in neon pink) and then I had her throw the rest away. I want her to be able to be sad about getting rid of things, but more importantly, I want to teach her to actually get rid of them despite feeling sad.

Well, I've decided that I've got to practice what I preach and get rid of some stuff. A LOT of stuff. Maybe we'll sell it or just give it away, I haven't quite figured that part out yet, but there are a lot of things that just need to go away. There will be tears involved, I'm sure. I'm tearing up just thinking about the two bins of maternity clothes that I'll never wear again and the baby equipment that we've outgrown. But it's time for this to happen.

I'm sure I've bored you to tears with this post, but I really believe that professing something to the world makes one more accountable for the actions that have been promised. So here goes:

I, Jana the emotional pack rat, pledge to clean out the closets, garage and attic of all things that have gone unused and unworn for the last year.

Wish me luck!

The New Dwarfs

Snow White had seven dwarfs as roommates, but our house has five more that could easily fit in at their little cottage in the woods:

Liam's dwarf name is Wheezy. Poor little guy caught a cold and it moved into his lungs. He woke up Friday morning coughing and wheezing and his shallow little breaths had me worrying. We spent two hours at the pediatrician's office so that he could get examined and have a breathing treatment. He was not fond of that AT ALL. Holding him down reminded me of the time I tried to give my parents' cat a bath: lots of clawing and screaming. He's now on an antibiotic (since his ears didn't look all that great, either) and a steroid inhaler. We're hoping they work and he'll be back to his old self soon.

My dwarf name is Achy. Like most moms, I caught my child's germs. Sore throat, stuffy nose, achy muscles.....I've got it all. I'm tempted to take a couple of puffs of Liam's inhaler, but I guess I shouldn't steal medicine from my child. :)

Ryan's dwarf name is Drowsy (he's cousin to Snow White's Sleepy). A huge project at work kept him out late Wednesday, Thursday and Friday evenings. He even had to work this morning for a while. You can imagine how tired he is after working 14-15 hour days with very little sleep. I joked that he was apparently giving up his children as his Lenten sacrifice seeing as the kids hardly saw him for a few days.

Sydney's dwarf name is Whiny. She hasn't gotten a whole lot of attention lately due to Liam's illness and Ryan's work schedule and boy has she let us hear about it. Hopefully we'll have some time to dote on her tomorrow.

And Evan? His dwarf name is Smiley. The boy loves to smile. And after the last few days, those smiles are certainly a welcome sight in our house.

Move Over, Thomas Edison

If I were an inventor, these would be my next few projects:

* Chauffeur's windows in minivans so that when the crying/screaming/whining gets to be too much, parents can simply push a button and isolate the noise.

* Teeny-tiny garters to hold up baby socks.

* A fridge lock that a two year old can't figure out and/or break within 24 hours of installment.

* Little screens for the backs of vehicles that display messages like "Quit Tailgating Me!" and "Please Turn Your Blinker Off".

* A school bus GPS tracking/parent alert system that lets parents know exactly when they need to leave the house to get a child off the bus (and thus help them feel less guilty about leaving two napping children in the house while they wait at the corner).

* Diet, caffeine free soda that truly tastes just as good as the real thing.

* A kitchen floor that somehow repels the spills, crumbs and various vegetables that children launch from their plates and bowls.

* A magic potion to stop time so that parents can keep their children in a favorite developmental stage forever.


How about you? Anything you'd like to see invented?

Poor Middle Child

After giving both Sydney and Evan posts of their own last week, I decided that poor middle child Liam needed a post of his own as well.

He's now 27 months old and is such a little boy. He is into absolutely everything and while he is adorable about 85% of the time, the other 15% of each day is the stereotypical terrible twos. I wouldn't be surprised if his first full sentence wasn't "Go to your room" or "Get out of the fridge" seeing as those are the two phrases he hears the most.

His favorite thing to do is to open the refrigerator and either grab his milk or steal a grape or two. We finally put a lock on the fridge after he snuck a handful of raw chopped onion and green pepper that I'd prepared for dinner (boy, was he an unhappy camper after chomping on those for a few seconds). The next day, I caught him pulling his chair over to the fridge and studying the lock. The day after that? The fridge lock was magically broken. So Ryan is installing a baby gate across the kitchen entrance as I type this.

He is also talking a lot more than before. Ryan and I are still the only people who understand most of what he's saying, but he's adding one or two new words to his vocabulary each day and has finally started using the all-important two word phrases that our pediatrician was looking for at his two year appointment back in November. It's so cute to hear him ask, "Where's Daddy?" or "Where's Sydney?" He's also repeating everything Sydney says. Ryan and I find ourselves cracking up throughout dinnertime.

As for potty training.....He's interested in the whole process, but I just don't think he's ready for the all out potty training boot camp yet. So I think we'll wait until summertime to start pushing him a bit in the potty department.

I've had all sorts of fun taking his picture the last couple of months. Here are a few of my favorites: