When Dad's in charge.....

Dad's aren't like moms. They try their hardest and love their deepest, but it's not quite the same when Daddy is in charge. I've been sick all weekend and spent 2 full days in bed resting so Dad's been the boss.......

When Dad's in charge.....

time doesn't always work on the right baby schedule
messes tend to get bigger than the confined space allowed for the mess
too many snacks are consumed and not enough meals
diaper capacity is tested
poop ends up on shower floors because shaving takes too much time
t.v. limits are pushed way too much
nap time either goes way longer or way shorter
a plethora of dishes need to be cleaned at the day's end
playgrounds are visited frequently to break up the day
a lot of prayers of safety are said
toys find new homes in odd places
important items typically get misplaced
dinner is take out
other helpers are employed to keep the dad sane and help with the baby
baby falls asleep dirty and daddy falls asleep exhausted

So goes the days when Daddy is in charge of the house for a few days. Then when Mommy gets better, there's one big mess of a house to clean up and set straight. Thank God there's two of us to keep up with one of him :)

Christmas in July craft fair

So last weekend Cassie and I split a table at the Cultural Center's Christmas in July Craft Fair. While it wasn't a great financial weekend, it wasn't necessarily our target audience, we did have a good time. We're very excited about the upcoming baby expo in September. Katherine and Finn even came by to give us a smile and check out our table. What fun!

A day of fun at the aquarium

Well with a summer of budgeting and having to visit family we weren't able to take a family vacation just the three of us. But that hasn't stopped us from having a fun summer doing things around us just the three of us. Today's trip to the aquarium was quite a blast. Mason had a fun time watching the fishes and we had fun just watching him. Angel, Cassie and Annalisse got to come meet up with us and we had a fun morning.

So just some things to remember today:

Mason can run much faster than we think when he wants something or wants to get away from us.

Being almost two makes him more squirmy for snapping posed pictures.

He says EEEZE when taking a photo instead of CHEESE :)

Mason blew kisses the fishes he liked, it was too cute.

Mason loved leading Daddy around and staring at fishes.

Happy family days like today are what build us up and give us memories to remember when times get tough.

Praying for Meikah and praising for moments with Mason

The hardest thing to endure as a mother is the pain of your child. When Mason falls and gets hurt, bonks his head, is sick or has surgery, my heart fears, waits and gets anxious. I'd do anything, give anything, endure anything to protect my child. Especially since he's so little that he can't physically, verbally, emotionally, etc. protect himself from harm. So many times I have to be the one that protects him from himself as he often runs toward things that might injure him.

So as I read updates and information on Meikah's progress and struggles through her disease, surgeries, and so much more my heart breaks for her parents. So young and so uncertain of her future. It makes me grateful for every healthy moment with Mason. And it reminds me to slow down, take a break and just savor the time I have with him. Because none of us are promised tomorrow.

Because of all that, I've sat in really teeny tiny places today to play with him, wound up race cars a million times, ate ice cream with him in front of the tv an hour before dinner, took him to the potty after he went pee, just because he wanted to, bit into a felt banana because he insisted on feeding me, and gave up time with my friends because Mason came first. Today he's healthy, happy and right now wrestling with the dog. For each moment of happiness I'll give thanks.

To follow Meikah and her progress check out http://cotaformeikahh.com

Thank God for the joy you have with your children today. You'll need to remember it one day when you have to endure sorrow with them. You'll treasure those precious moments.

Music Up and Running

I love music, but unless I'm in the car I hardly ever get a chance to listen to it. My iPod is always dead and the baby is usually asleep when I have time at home, and God knows I'm not about to play music and risk waking him.
So when I finally got enough time to sit down and flip through songs for my play list I had some fun. If you're going to read about me you might as well hear music I listen to and like. :)

New things to say

The past few weeks at home with Mason have been awesome. I love watching him learn new things.

The other day he played at Abbie's house while I was at the craft fair and when it was time to leave he wanted to stay and play with the swim pool set up out back. "I want that." was what he said plain as day. Several times too. It caught me off guard because it was random, unexpected and the first sentence he's said like that.

Then Sat. night at a church concert he went poop in his diaper and when I went to change him he said, "I poop."

I know they're silly little things to most, but to me it means the era of babbeling is going to be coming to an end soon and he's going to be communicating like a really big boy.

Amazing sometimes how you blink and they're born, and you blink again and they're all grown up. For now I'm going to treasure his little moments of speech.

I swore I would never....

Feed my child a lollipop to stop crying
Swat my child in public
Lose my temper at my kid because I was mad at someone else
Let him watch t.v. so I could do something else
Play with toys at the store we weren't going to buy
Eat ice cream before meals
Pull him out of the crib because he just didn't want to sleep at bedtime
and so many more........

But then reality hits and your child really will stop screaming in the store if bribed with a lollipop, your kid does something inappropriate in public and you have to discipline with old ladies staring at you, you do get mad, and sometimes they're just the ones in front of you when you lose it, not all t.v. is bad, and I have to shower :)
How bad is it really to let him play with the truck so I can do my shopping in the store? Ice cream has dairy in it so shouldn't it be allowed before a meal?

Disappointed with Sale Ads

Okay so this afternoon, after a full morning of cleaning and a moderate nap time I decided to venture out with Mason to try and find new shoes. I've scoured all the store for summer shoes in size 7 for little boys with no success. So I attempted the last possible place, K-Mart. Mind you it's been forever since I've been there sine Wal-Mart and Target are my first shopping places.

As we get out of the car and load up into the stroller, I see these signs everywhere, "Extra 50% off of clearance toys." I think this will be great. Maybe I can find some fun summer toys for Mason at a great price.

Was I wrong! Not only were their clearance prices more than the regular prices at Target, but there were only a few toys on clearance to begin with. Hardly worth putting up a sign for. They didn't even have enough toys to fill an aisle shelf.

I hate when stores advertise to get you in and what you find is hardly worth coming for. Reminds me of why I don't shop there first.

Frustration and faithfulness.

A day for the blog.... So my morning started an hour and half earlier than normal with my little angel's voice screaming through the monitor. Okay, I can handle this. Turn on the Curious George emergency dvd and plop him in bed between my husband and I. Works for about one episode (14 min.).

Okay, let's go with the flow. We'll go shower, get breakfast, clean up the house before our mall playground play group. 4 minutes into the shower as I'm rinsing out my shampoo and trying to not step on the little one under my feet, the water pressure starts to slow down. I figure Tim's turned it on to shave at the sink. Wait a minute, the water pressure isn't slowing down, it's disappeared!!!! Yup, no water. None, zippo, zilch. Anywhere in the house.

Okay, we'll get this taken care of, jump out, dry off get pump figured out. Tim goes out the check the pump, goes to work, makes some calls, all the while I try to figure out how to feed Mason breakfast without making him dirty and having to rinse him off. Cheerios. Thank heavens for cereal.

Don and Tim check it out, think they know the problem. Part estimate = $600! Yeah, too much money. Tim figures he can fix it with the parts but can't do it till tomorrow.

My day hasn't been so great so far. Trusting God through this, because after I sat down and paid bills and budgeted out the rest, there wasn't an extra $600 in the books for new parts plus the cost of everything else to fix it. All the while I can't get a hold of my mom. At least I can cry to her. So as Tim and Josh are outside trying to investigate, I'm inside on the verge of tears with a dirty house, cranky baby and no dinner because I had no water all day to cook with.

God's gotta come through, because I'm about to lose it! And sure enough, He does. Right at the moment of my breaking point. I hear, "We've got water!" from the outside of the house and sure as day, I turn on the faucet and water flows out. So what do I do? Feed Mason dinner, put on a movie for him and hurriedly clean the house, mop the floors, wash some dishes, put in laundry and get both of us in the shower, you know just in case.

Then God comes back with some sweet surprises, a new posting on my Etsy store sold and one of my items got posted in a treasury. Okay, a better ending to the day than a beginning. God is faithful, all the time. And I'm more grateful for working water pumps. For the record, gummy bears do not come out of clothing well with just baby wipes :)

In Obama We Trust

In Obama We Trust.

As I walked into our mall this morning to do a return and scout out some more clothes for Mason, the kid grows like a weed on steroids, this is what I read on a bumper sticker. As it caught my eye, I read it, stood in shock for a nano-second and then read it again. It was as if my brain didn't register the meaning, or perhaps it did and I had lost my breath. "In Obama We Trust." Those words have haunted me all day.

Now before this gets political, it's NOT. All politics aside, no Republicans, Independents or Democrats. Think about the words for a moment. "In Obama We Trust." Take the politics aside, and think about the meaning, the emotion, the implication.

When I first read it, I felt disgusted. As I thought about it, I felt sympathy. And as I write about it I feel a sense of hope. Let me explain the process.

Seeing those words brought about a day of serious thinking on the state of human relationships one with another. For so many years people have been trying to take God out of everything, especially the founding phrase of this nation, "In GOD we trust." So to begin with, the changing of the statement felt blasphemous. How can you equate the status of God with that of a man? Then as I thought about it I remembered that there are so many millions of people out there that do just that. At God brought to my mind, that there have been times in my life that I have been guilty of such behavior. They have no concept of the life changing power of the Almighty and live their entire lives with their hope bestowed in another human like themselves. So I began to feel sorrow for people out there who are in such a place where they place their hope in imperfect people. As the day went on and I tried to go to bed, the words lingered in my head and God brought such a sense of hope into my heart.

For, as humans, we all long to place our hope into something or someone. We want to feel validated, completed, and connected as humans. We want our hopes, dreams and aspirations to be shared and validated by another. Therefore we seek to entrust people or objects with our most scared possessions, our trust. We enter into relationships, marriages, friendships, partnerships, etc. with one another in order to find a greater sense of hope in this world than found in just our own being. We entrust our sense of power and control, our trust, into others in the hope that they will in turn make us feel connected and satisfied as individuals.

It was in considering all of this that God gave me hope. Because for my life, I have learned that to trust in another man, no matter how great or charismatic or honest or kind or attractive or anything else is simply foolish. Because no matter who I choose to trust, they are no more and no less than what I myself am, human. And in that humanity comes so many failures and shortcomings. But it is when I place my trust and confidence in the Lord that I am satisfied, completed, accepted, encouraged, strengthened, and feel as if my life is truly being witnessed by an audience that cares about my growth, happiness, well being and so much more. Humans long deeply to trust in someone. The bumper sticker this morning proved it. The question simply lies in, what are you willing to put your trust in? A man, or God.

When I trust others, I am certain of finding them lacking because no one is perfect. But when I trust God, who is Himself the very root of Trust, then I am sure to find trustworthiness and faithfulness. So "In God I Trust."