Wet And Wild Water Fun!

Yesterday we made our first trek of the season to a local spray garden. My boys are never happier than when they're in the water, so of course they had a fabulous time! This was Soren's first adventure of the kind and to say he was thrilled is an understatement! He couldn't crawl from one area to the next fast enough and he seemed flabergasted that such a water haven existed! We'll be back again soon!

Oh yes! Summer is the best!

What Could Have Been...Twice

My dreams of seeing U2 in concert have been deferred twice. Todd and I purchased tickets to see them down the street in Oakland next week but Bono injured his back and needed surgery. He's laid up for awhile and their North American tour has been postponed until sometime in 2011. No dates have been set yet...there's nothing to look forward to.

When we purchased the tickets to see the 360 tour Todd asked "Will you finally stop telling the other story now?" I agreed. But now that we're not going to see U2 anytime soon, I have to retell it here because it is something I will never forget as long as I live...

Todd and I had been married for a year or so when the Vertigo tour came through in 2005. I was busy working in the classroom and Todd worked for a company that had ties with different concert promoters. We were able to get tickets to quite a few fun shows through his job. On the morning of the U2 concert at the LA Staples Center one of Todd's buddies called him and said "Hey, I've got a pair of tickets for the show tonight. The seats are in a VIP box. If you want the tickets they're free and they're yours."

Here was my husband's response: "Thanks man, it would be great. But my wife's a teacher and she goes to bed early on school nights. Maybe another time."

I was completely unaware that this conversation took place that morning. Todd didn't bother to call me at work to even check to see if I'd want to go. He assumed he was taking care of my sleep needs by refusing the tickets. At home that night he casually mentioned that he was offered tickets for the show and I literally had to lie down on my bed to keep my composure. I wasn't angry. I wasn't hurt. I was in pure utter amazement. This could only happen to me kind of amazement.

After I stopped hyperventilating and he realized what a colossal mistake he had made I crawled into bed that night in a fetal position and eventually drifted off to sleep from my semi-catatonic state. I would have walked on a bed of nails and crawled on hot coals to be there! Screw going to bed early on a school night! I didn't care if I had to call in sick the next day because we didn't get home from LA til 2am!

Shock. Still. To this day.

It's no surprise why Todd doesn't want me telling this story. It wasn't his finest moment as a husband. It wasn't my finest moment as a wife, for that matter.

So hopefully the third time (sometime in 2011) will be a charm. I'm waiting for Bono and I have to believe that he's waiting for me, too.

School's (Almost) Out!

Nolan with his teacher, Miss D

Nolan's last day of "regular" school is next Thursday, the 10th. He loves going to school and I couldn't be happier that he loves it so, but I am definitely ready for a different "summertime" rhythm to our days. Right now he attends school from 9:15 to 3pm every day, but summer school will give us a reprieve with shorter days and interspersed week long breaks. I think we're all looking froward to his one week off in June, one week off in July, and two weeks off in August. It will be so nice to simply let him play like a typical three year old kid without an agenda to adhere to. We'll hit the spray gardens (multiple times--they're the best and cheapest form of summer entertainment around!) make good use of our zoo passes, spend time at the beach, enjoy the county fair, and go on play dates with non-school friends. I miss the spontaneity we had before he was in school and I long to be carefree and spur of the moment with him again, yet I know that the structure of school and therapy are what are helping him achieve so much in such a short amount of time. Summertime, here we come!

Summertime...And The Livin' Is Easy

Memorial Day has come and gone and I am so ready to welcome summer. Here are just a few of the many fabulous summertime treats I'm looking forward to...

popsicles on the patio with my kids

barbecue...corn on the cob, skewers, hamburgers, steak...mmm!

vacation time with my family in Lake Tahoe and SoCal

8:30 pm sunsets

ice cold watermelon

walks in my neighborhood at dusk

celebrating my 6th wedding anniversary with Todd

Soren's first birthday

reading poolside

Brooke and Matthew's wedding

freshly freckled faces

Tooth Proof

Excuse the messy shirt and dirty face...but we have a tooth! Soren's first pearly white came in on my birthday, May 19, at 9.5 months old. He's ahead of the game already! Nolan's first tooth didn't come in til 16.5 months. Watch out, Big Brother, I'm gonna beat you in the tooth game!

Keep On Truckin'

I drove 400 miles on the I-5 today. We left our house before sunup (at 5am on the dot) and arrived in the OC at 12:18pm. Not bad, considering I had two little people in tow and we stopped twice. I have always been an "inquisitive driver" (and passenger, for that matter) and my vivid imagination is always concocting scenarios of where the other people on the road are headed, what they do for a living, where they live, what they ate for breakfast etc. But I'm most intrigued with the truckers. Where are they going? Did they sleep in their cab last night? What do they do to keep themselves awake? Do they listen to music or audio books? What's it like to eat at a truck stop? Are they desperately lonely or is there a "family of truckers" they belong to? All I know is that I couldn't do what they do for a variety of reasons. The most obvious one...I couldn't stand driving so darn slow! My friend Priscilla told me not long ago that as a little girl she really really wanted to be a truck driver when she grew up. I think it's hilarious and wonder what the appeal was. As I sped past hundreds of trucks today I made up many stories in my head...not one of which included Priscilla. I just can't picture it. She'd be the cutest truck driver ever...but whatever.

I Should Be Fixing Dinner But...

I committed to this whole "blog for 14 days straight" thing. So here's a bunch of randomness...

• Dinner is actually in the crock pot so I don't need to exactly fix it. Scalloped potatoes and sausage. Yum!
• Nolan has a few new phrases that are cracking me up. My favorites are "Wait your turn!" and "Let go!"
• I have made a very last minute decision to drive to OC for Memorial Day weekend. One of my BFFs since high school is in town from Atlanta visiting her extended family. We haven't seen each other for 3 years! We haven't met each other's youngest kids! I am SO excited!
• Today was a much better day than yesterday. And I haven't even had any chocolate.
• I am sick to death of all this rain! It should be sunny and 85 by now. It's the end of May! Memorial Day weekend is right around the corner. It's the unofficial start of summer...and yet rain is in the forecast. Again. Blech!
• Note to self...get vacuum serviced soon. It doesn't suck...so it really sucks. Get it?

Because Cookies Are Cheaper Than Therapy

And much more enjoyable.

Today started off on the wrong side of the tracks. I had a fitful night's sleep due to allergies that kept me sneezing and rubbing my swollen eyes for most of the night. At about 4:30 I succumbed to the peace that only Benadryl can bring, but it was short lived due to a short person (who shall remain nameless) who routinely gives me a 6:30am wake up call. In a haze I stumbled out of bed stuffed up like a Thanksgiving turkey and fed my hungry babe. Then I laid on the couch with said babe in my arms, turned on the ever-blessed Nemo, and drifted til 7:15 when another short person demanded waffles. Waffles were made and consumed and this taller short person played happily until it was time to get ready for school.

Nolan hates Tuesdays because he doesn't get to ride the bus in the morning. His bus driver Teri has high schoolers to transport on Tuesday in addition to her preschool crowd so she would have to pick Nolan up at 8am instead of 8:50. To have Nolan ready for pick up by 8am would require a supernatural act so I drive him to school in the car on Tuesday mornings. He HATES this. He cries, doesn't want to get dressed, won't open his mouth to brush his teeth, demands Miss Teri and shuns me. He is just a general pain in the you-know-what on Tuesday mornings. This morning was especially painful since my normally delightful Soren decided to throw a tantrum at the same time.

Mommy is sick. Mommy has had about 3 hours of sleep. Mommy is hormonal. Mommy yelled alot. Mommy was physically forceful with the taller short person and scared him. Mommy went a bit Mommy Dearest this morning.

After dropping Nolan off at school (where I profusely apologized to him for not being a very good Mommy) I came home and napped when Soren napped. A bit of sleep can work wonders. It was good. Very good. It helped clear my thoughts and pushed me to begin thinking rationally again and got me out of Mommy Dearest mode. But my mind churned all day about how I had wounded my child's spirit. My sweet little boy who has trouble processing change. How can I fix this awful thing that I've done?

After school we came home and baked cookies and it was as if the bad day just melted into ooey gooey chocolate deliciousness. Cookies have magical power in my house. They can assuage the guilt, make my little one smile like nothing else, and send love straight from the heart to the tummy. Much cheaper...and better...than therapy.

I Don't Know How They Do It

There are a dozen or so blogs that I try to read on a daily basis. Most of the these bloggers are moms like me who blog every single day and at minimum five times a week. How in the world is there that much to say? I can scarcely think of anything noteworthy once or twice a month. The funny thing is, these bloggers that I enjoy so much don't have all that much to say either, when it comes right down to it! It's just everyday life from their perspective, yet I somehow am drawn in. Cyberspace is a crazy CRAZY place. I highly doubt that I'll ever meet many (if any!) of these people but I feel like I kinda-sorta know them. They seem real, transparent, likable and down to earth in real life. (Of course I'm not naive enough to think that everyone's telling the truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God! No doubt there are a billion blogger "personas" out there!) Nonetheless, these gals seem like the kind of gals I want to sit and have coffee with and laugh over the silly things our kids do and say. It's strange...and a bit creepy. Sometimes I feel like a stalker, but I'm really not. Promise.

And although these bloggers seem friendly enough I confess that they also intimidate the heck out of me. Could I ever have a "following" like some of these gals do? Not that I particularly want a following, it just would be nice to know that there are people out there who are truly interested enough in my family's life that they'd want to "check in" and see how we're faring. My life is a rather ordinary life, nothing fancy or full of jet-setting adventures...but it's my life nonetheless. It's a life that I love and a life that I am blessed to live. I don't seek the "approval" of others when I write on my blog, nor am I living vicariously through other people's lives when I read blogs. More than anything, blogging is one of the many wacky ways I feel connected to something bigger than myself.

So I'm going to give myself a little blogging challenge...just for grins. I'm going to commit to blogging for 14 days straight. I am hoping that this challenge will push me to think about my life in a different light. It will help me be bold. It will help me, hopefully, be a little more transparent and not so self-conscious. So if the next few entries make little to no sense, flow haphazardly in a disaster of stream of consciousness, or are full of nothing...it's because they are. Let the experiment commence.

Jumpstart My Heart

Being a parent is one of the most rewarding yet downright terrifying things I have ever set forth upon. In the past couple of months my children's lives have flashed before my eyes not once, not twice, but three times! If I think about what could have been my blood courses through my veins at warp speed and I start spinning into panic. When I think about what was I am more sure than ever that there is an ever-present huge God who loves us more than we can fathom and takes care of us in His perfect way.

Unfortunately, Nolan inherited the klutz gene from me. I have two left feet, poor balance and even worse hand-eye coordination. He is aware that the stairs can trip him up and is quite careful most of the time. Except for that day. The day I watched my little boy fall head over heels down our entire flight of thirteen stairs, landing in a crumpled heap at the bottom. I don't know what was worse, seeing him immobile for just a split second on the landing or the fear in his eyes and the guttural howl that came from his throat as he tumbled...and not being able to do a darn thing from my vantage point. I thought for sure he had broken his neck, or his arm at best. Fortunately, God was merciful and Nolan came away from the ordeal without a scratch or bruise.

A few short weeks later Nolan was completely unaware that his life was hanging in the balance, but I have had nightmares frequently ever since. During the week of parent-teacher conferences school let out early for the older kids, but Nolan's class and the other special ed classes dismissed at their regular time. Because there was very little traffic and very few kids at dismissal time a teenager, busy texting on her phone and driving 40 miles an hour in a normally busy school zone, zoomed around the corner and swerved toward the boys and I as we were stepping off the sidewalk to cross the street. Nolan was holding the stroller as he always does, but he was one step ahead of me...and less than a foot away from the speeding car. If I hadn't reigned him in he would have been hit. Oh yeah...the teenager was none the wiser and I was shaking so badly that I didn't have the wits about me to take down her license plate.

And then last night baby Soren almost choked to death on a sticker he found on the floor. I had to fish it out of his throat and wait what seemed like an eternity for him to start breathing in a regular pattern again. As he was straining to breathe I prayed that he'd vomit up whatever was causing the obstruction. He did, with gusto, and I was never so happy to be covered in puke.

Thank You, Lord, for protecting these children. You are the only defibrillator I want and need.