Amélie Funnies

On Saturday night we participated in Earth Hour.  Amélie was incredibly excited about the whole thing, mainly because we got to come home from church and light a bunch of candles.  She was dancing around the living room by candlelight while Matt was drumming on his djembe when I decided that Earth Hour called for a teachable moment.  I very seriously told her that some people don’t even have electricity.  She looked at me and chirped,  “Oh, then. They’re good!” (good as in, they don’t need to turn out their lights b/c they’re already off! How convenient for them!)  So much for that teachable moment. 

Tonight I was reading Amélie the story of Naomi and Ruth.  After reading the story, I talked to her about loyalty and how important it is to be loyal to her friends.  She asked me what loyalty was, so I told her that an example of being loyal to a friend would be to stand up for that friend if someone else was making fun of her.  She looked at me like I was an idiot and asked, “Why would I need to stand up?” 

Then, I talked to her about how we should be thankful for our friends, and I asked her who her closest friend was.  She thought for a minute and then responded, “the little girl who just moved in across the street.”  My first response was, “huh?” b/c she’s only met this little girl twice, but then I realized she meant closest as in closest in proximity.  When I cleared up the idea that “closest friend” meant “best friend” and asked her who her best friend was, her immediate answer was “Carley.”  Here are the two of them at their preschool Valentine’s Day party:

Aren’t they cute?  Here’s the really horrible thing, though.  Carley is from Louisiana, and she is moving back there in two weeks.  Amélie is heartbroken.  Really and truly.  It’s killing me to see her so sad!  I have never seen two little 4-year-olds with such a strong bond.  They just adore each other.  The thing is, not only does Amélie really like Carley, but I also happen to really like Carley’s mom, Ashley.  I don’t think I’m going to let them move away.  Today we hung out with them for hours and hours and hours, and we all had a lot of fun.  We’re going to miss them dreadfully when they move away.  *sniff sniff *

Earth Hour…tonight!

http://www2.earthhourus.org/

Reflections on the Lent that…wasn’t

Back in early February I wrote this post on Lent.  This morning after I tucked little Jack in for his morning nap I read it again.  And I cried.  Granted, my February post on Lent was wary.  But I was also hopeful.  I felt like I had dipped my spiritual toes in some holy water, and I hoped I would find myself, at the end of Lent, no longer tentatively dipping my toes into the pools of this sacred water but swimming through it with swift, sure strokes. 
I pictured myself as a sleep-deprived ascetic who still managed to glide peacefully through her day because she had perched herself at Jesus’ feet and shared with him her early morning cup of coffee. 
I crafted a poetic picture of this journey through the waters of Lent.  I knew–or at least I thought I knew–that the waters would sometimes be rough.  I imagined that, at times, I would feel waterlogged rather than weightless.  But I thought I could do it.  I didn’t conceive of the audacious notion that, as soon as the waters rose above my head I would lose my footing and, spiritually speaking, drown.
But I did. 
Apparently, when Lent moved from the poetic to the gritty, I couldn’t take it. 
What does that say about me?  One thing it says about me is that I’ve read too many books.  Lent does not follow the plotline of poetic prose. 
That’s the least of what it says about me, though.  I don’t like to think about what else it means. 

So here I am, on the other side of Lent.  I found some redemption in our church’s Tenebrae service.

But just some redemption.  Mostly, I feel like I’ve crawled out of the holy waters of Lent and onto the very rocky shores of disappointment in my lack of discipline, my humanity, my failure.  I stand here dripping wet, cold and shivering, and looking back through wet eyes at what this experience could have been, what it might have been, what it wasn’t.

Happy Easter

This song is probably more appropriate for Tenebrae than Easter Sunday, but I’m still sort of stuck here….

Rx advice

Does anyone know if amoxicillin can cause agitation…anxiety…intensity…and otherwise “beside oneself” behavior in a 4-year-old taking 400mg twice a day, or is my little girl just still really sick? 

Being a mom is so hard sometimes.  I don’t know what to do with her!  She can’t articulate anything that feels bad, but then, she had/has a bad double ear infection and wasn’t able to pinpoint that her ears were hurting!  Her behavior is off-the-charts.  She is highly emotional and very intense and agitated.  She doesn’t seem to know what to do with herself.  I don’t know if it’s medication or sickness.  I guess I should call her doctor.  We’re in KC, though, so it’s not like I can go back and see him again.
<sigh>
Why isn’t there some sort of master parenting book???

my handsome (and healthy) little boy and my pretty (but sick) little girl

Today I took this little guy to the doctor for his 10-month check up.  Here are his latest facts and tricks:
He weighs a chunky but healthy 22 lbs, 6 oz.
He crawls everywhere, especially towards the dog water, dog food, and toilet bowl.
He cruises around any available sturdy object, including furniture, legs, and dogs.
He stands by himself for about 30 seconds.
He likes to throw his arms up in the air for “Jack is SO BIG!”  Mostly he combines this trick with the standing by himself trick, and then he plops down on his padded bottom.
He like to practice walking.
He can say “Mama,” “Dada,” and “Ba” (for ball). 
He likes to mimic our noises (yesterday Matt was getting him to “Arrrrr” like a pirate).
He follows me around like a little puppy dog. 

And then there’s this little girl:

She has been so sick this week.  She has had a fever all week.  I took her to the doctor on Monday, and then this afternoon at 4:00 (after already taking Jack into Wichita earlier in the day for his check up), I decided that the poor little girl needed to see the doctor again.  We got in at 4:50.  She checked Amélie’s first ear and told us there was an ear infection in that ear.  Then she checked the other one and said there was another ear infection in that ear.  She asked Amélie if her ears had been hurting, and when she responded “No,” the doctor commented that she must have a high pain tolerance.  Poor baby!  She’s just been so sick.  She’s taking medicine now, and hopefully she will be back to her spunky, perky self soon. 

I sure do love those two kids….

Battle of the Bags

 

Check this out.

Then….get yourself some reusable bags and recycle.   

(Thanks to my green friend Rachel for sending me this link.)

All in a day….

We went on a walk this afternoon.
Amélie rode her tricycle.
I pushed Jack in his stroller.
We exchanged pleasantries with neighbors about the weather.
An old man reclined on his porch drinking an icy Coke.
Three teenage girls sat on a porch swing and chatted on the phone.
Amélie peddled her trike over our town’s buckled and broken sidewalks and asked about people’s lawn ornaments.
Jack soaked in the sights of spring bugs, leaves, and twigs.
We all stood under the budding weeping willow, and I thought that perhaps Spring was on its way.

Back home, we sat on our wrap-around porch and ate popsicles.
A stray dog showed up in our front yard and played with Ed and Molly. 
A big burly man walked down the street with his dog.  My dogs ran out to say hello.  He yelled at them and at me.
I spat out a name in his direction and suggested that while my dogs were friendly he, most certainly, was not. 
Apparently some leftover winter bitterness remains.

And the winner of the worst mom in the world award goes to….

…that would be me.

Here’s what happened:

A couple of weeks ago we made cookies for some new neighbors across the street.  They have a little girl named Alexis, and Amélie was very excited about the prospect of a new playmate right across the street.  I was excited for her.  There are a couple of kids she plays with who also live across the street, and while they are nice enough, they do annoying things like come to my house with lice.  But that’s another story, and because it’s one that involves manic spraying down of the house with evil pesticides and frantic and paranoid checking of hair for lice that, thankfully, never arrived, I’ll spare you the details. 

One day last weekend, Alexis’ dad came to our door with an invitation to a princess birthday party for Saturday night at 7:00.  I swear he said Saturday night.  The reason I swear he said Saturday night is because I mentally calculated in my head how we were going to pull this off since we have church on Saturday night and also to ask who in their right mind would have a 4-year-old’s birthday party at 7:00 in the evening.  I decided that one of us would stay home and let Amélie go to the birthday party and the other one (I was hoping it would be me) would get to go to church. 

Every day last week Amélie counted down the days to Alexis’s birthday party. 

Yesterday morning she woke up, and the day had finally arrived.  She kept asking when she would get to go.  I kept telling her it wasn’t until the time we normally dump her in the tub.  She waited. 

Right before lunch, I decided that I would look at the invitation just to make sure the party really started at 7:00.  I couldn’t find the invitation anywhere.  Of course, my not being able to find important documents is not exactly unusual.  Last week I was on a frantic search to find Amélie’s birth certificate, which I need for this week’s kindergarten roundup.  I couldn’t find it anywhere.  I knew where it was supposed to be–in Amélie’s bottom dresser drawer (which isn’t exactly a good idea anyway)–but it wasn’t there.  I dumped and re-stuffed her drawer approximately ten times before deciding to call my mom and express my frustration.  She suggested that I look in my dresser.  I told her that was crazy.  Why would I put her birth certificate in my dresser?  A few minutes later I called her back.  I had found the birth certificate.  In my dresser drawer.  In an envelope with our Amtrak tickets from our train trip to Maine three years ago.  But of course!  That was perfectly logical.

I called my mom yesterday to see if she had any bright ideas where the party invitation might be.  She didn’t.  I found the invitation a little later tacked to the bulletin board in the pantry, which is exactly where it was supposed to be, which is precisely why I hadn’t looked there yet.  When I opened the invitation my eyes widened in horror.

The party had been the night before. 

I felt awful.  Really awful.  I slowly trudged upstairs to Amélie’s room with the invitation in my hands.  I sat on her floor and broke the news to her.  Her eyes looked just positively smitten with disappointment.  She threw her arms around me and cried.  I cried too. 

I basically promised we would do whatever she wanted to do that night, even though our original plan had changed because Jack and I were both sick.  The new plan was that we were going to all stay home and spend the evening wearing our pajamas and blowing our noses while Amélie dressed up and had a fun evening at her party.  Instead, we spent the evening at Burger King, where Amélie spent almost two hours playing in the indoor play place and Jack and I contaminated the air with our germs. 

She seemed to get over the disappointment pretty well.  I think that I was more crushed about the whole situation than she was, and she was easily placated by the promised trip to Burger King.  I still think, though, that I deserve the worst mom in the world award, and as I stumble to the podium to accept this award, I have no one to thank for helping me earn it but myself. 

We Are the Ones

The quality is a lot better if you watch the video at http://www.dipdive.com/.  I couldn’t get it embedded from there, though.