Mysterious Ways

You know the saying… that God works in mysterious ways… and also “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much” NIV Luke 16:10 well I just had first hand experience with that. Back story…

My grandparent’s wanted an 8′ plastic folding table for Christmas. I found one online for $120 that even folded in half for easy transport. Come to find out, they probably would rather have it as a solid 8′ table, but it was already ordered and I couldn’t cancel it in time. Well, I opened it up in my living room to a.) make sure it was in working condition and b.) to see what an 8′ table actually looked like in our dining room because we have been wanting to get a large dining table for quite a while now. More on that later… anyway, I opened it up and discovered a manufacturing defect with the latch so the table wouldn’t sit down 100% flat… kind angled up in the middle. So I contacted the company about returning it. They were really nice and tried for a couple of days to figure out who was going to pay the $40 for shipping it back since we weren’t asking for an exchange. I felt bad that they’d spent $40 on shipping this $120 table that we no longer wanted AND was damaged.

Meanwhile… I am liking the looks of an 8′ table in our space, and Jason has just in the past 3-4 weeks received 3 performance bonuses for the projects he’s working on. All told, it was enough to set aside $2000 for dining room furniture and pay off one of our 2 remaining credit cards. After much deliberation though, I decided the responsible thing to do would be for me to give up my dreams of a big new dining table before our annual Christmas dinner party this year and we should use that $2000, we had set aside for it, to pay off the 2nd credit card and be completely out of credit card debt. A tough choice for me, but I knew it was the right thing to do… to finally pay off the last of that $6000 foundation repair we’ve carried on the cards for the last year and a half. But that left me with the question, where the heck am I going to seat these 12-16 dinner party guests when I have a round 4-seater table and a 4-seater card table?!

Answers the Lord, “You seat them at this semi-defective 8′ plastic table that the company has refunded you for but has said they don’t want to pay to ship it back and you may keep it to do with what you will. Congratulations on making the right decisions with the money I have entrusted to you, you get a free table.”

Awesome how God works things like that. I just had to share!

Oh no! Elmo, here we come!

As you all know, from a previous post on the subject, I have tried to keep cartoon character infatuation at bay, in order to keep the more expensive/lower quality “licensed character” items out of our house. Well, I’m here to admit that I’m bringing this soon-to-be Elmo infatuation on myself, and I’m even asking for your help to do it!

We’re about to start potty training soon, and as I started reading the library books I checked out on the matter… most techniques seem to encourage the use of a few teaching tools, to help make potty training into a big deal. They say to have a potty weekend where that’s the focus of everyone’s attention, all weekend long… kind of a “coming of age” thing for the trainee. They say to start off by helping your kid “teach” a doll how to potty, then let them read books and watch dvds about pottying. Then start hourly potty-sits and give rewards or stickers on a chart for good tries and even the smallest of sucesses. By the end of the weekend, the kid should pretty well have it down, and to celebrate that, some say you should have a potty party to invite a few friends and family over to congratulate them on their potty success.

So after reading all that, I’m starting to feel a little overwhelmed. I did sit down and start a shopping list of supplies that to get the ball rolling. A potty book, a dvd, a potty doll of some sort, and a progress chart w/ stickers. Once I started researching what was out there, I discovered a major money pitfall… most of the stuff is geared for either a boy or a girl. I have one of each, and I don’t want to have to buy this stuff twice, cause it’s expensive! So, I needed to find something gender neutral.

I first found a pretty cool potty monkey doll that came with a book for the kids and one for the adult. But being that I had already checked the adult book out from the library, I really wished it had come with a dvd instead. Then I found a a wide variety of potty bear items, but no cohesive set, which I feel would make it easier for Jonah to understand the relationship between what the character is doing in the book/dvd and what we’re trying to get the doll to do. Then I stumbled across Elmo. There is a complete line of Elmo potty training products out there, and since Jonah’s never really watched much Sesame Street, Elmo will be new to him.

I was going to put a big Amazon.com order together with everything we’ll need for potty weekend, but then I decided that I might have friends who might have some of the stuff on my shopping list that might be wanting to sell/get rid of it. So let me know if you have any of the following to offer up for borrowing/buying/giving away!

Potty Time Elmo Doll -OR-  A Plain 1-2′ Elmo Plush Doll that we can teach to sit on Jonah’s Potty Chair

Potty Time With Elmo Little Sound Book

Elmo’s Potty Time DVD

Potty Book Coloring & Activities With Elmo (Let me know if you know where I can find this new in stores anywhere… I imagine if you own it, it’s already been colored and the progress chart used up)

Anyone’s leftover Elmo Party Supplies to make a VERY small (like maybe just us if that all we can get) Potty Party with (preferably ones that don’t say happy birthday on them, like the Hooray for Elmo or Elmo Loves You supplies, but beggars can’t be choosers right? hehe)

a rough night

ugh. very rough night. jason went to bed at 10:30 and so did i, but carly didn’t stay down. she of course stayed up screaming off and on till 1:15. then jonah woke up crying at 2:45 at which point i discovered he’d puked in his bed i got jason up for that one cause i told him “jonah just threw up and that falls outside the realm of cranky baby in the middle of the night. i need your help” and he got up and didn’t complain… well that was until jonah threw up on the bare mattress pad after we had already started the 1st puke laundry load, he was pretty pissed about that, but what can you do… and then once we got him back in bed and had just laid down ourselves, he got out of bed and stood in the window and puked a 3rd time. :-\ so we were back up changing jammies and cleaning up for a 3rd time. as we got back into bed at 4:00, carly started grunting like she was stretching to wake up (probably from all the commotion) so i laid there in our bed listening to her grunt for about 15 minutes, waiting for her to cry cause sometimes she likes to nurse at 4 anyway, but then i drifted off. Then she finally did wake up at 4:30. after she ate she didn’t go straight back down as usual (probably because jason had just asked if she usually did and i said yes. stupid murphy) instead she would drift off and i put her in the crib and got in bed myself only for a few seconds before she was screaming again did that 3 times before i finally lost my temper and just got her and went to go sleep with her in my arms on the couch at 5:30. then jason woke up for work and took her to her crib at 7:00 before he left for work. i kept sleeping on the couch until both kids woke up at 8:00. I haven’t even attempted to try to calculate how little sleep that was last night until now… 4.75 hours!?

sheesh. no wonder i am having a hard time keeping my eyes open.

Got Alot Done

With my mom hanging around and helping out last week, we got WAY more done than any couple with a nearly 2 year old and a 1 week old should! My mom is a major DIY handy-woman, and just couldn’t contain herself when she came to stay. By the end of the 1st day she was just itching to get started on some projects. Who am I to complain?! I knew it’d happen, so that’s why I had already started a list of little projects around the house that needed doing, that just haven’t gotten done, for whatever reason. She actually started working on things while we were still in the hospital!  My to-do list that my mom tackled this week… as you’ll notice, she didn’t leave us much to do after she left! hahaShe got Jason involved in a lot of the projects too, and some of these he actually did on his own.

• Install Handheld Showerhead & Caulk Around the Ring
• Install Blinds in Our Bedroom
• Fix Drippy Master Toilet
• Fix/Oil Master Closet Door Knob
• Fix the Storm Door Alignment so it’ll Actually Close
• Remove the Satellite Dish
• Remove the Antenna
• Put a Piece of Screen Over the Chimney to Keep Birds Out (need to call chimney sweep first to get current nesting birds out)
• Put Hinges on the Sandbox Door
• Re-Configure the Sandbox Lid Boards to Make an Easier To Open Lid
• Dig Out the Rose Bush in the Front Flowerbed
• Dig Out the Bush Stumps in the Front Flowerbed
• Check on the Roof Leak and Seal Where Possible
• Hang the Letters for Carly’s Name in the Nursery
• Fix the Wet Bar Cabinet Door that’s Sagging
• Install Trim Around the Guest Bath Mirror (need to buy trim)
• Change Light Fixtures in the Guest Bath (need to buy light fixtures)
• Install and Overhead Light in the Garage (Bonus! They ended up re-wiring a bunch of stuff and putting in 2 new outlets too!)
• Paint the Nursery Furniture (need a non-muggy day to paint)
• Some Projects she thought of that I hadn’t -
  • Replace the Missing Toe Kick Under the Dishwasher and End Cabinet in the Kitchen & Install Trim
    
  • Fertilize the Yards
  • Replace Missing Pickets on the Fence
  • Replace the Damaged Board Around the Garage Door (We discovered ACTIVE termites there! Yuck! so had to get that treated first, so that project is sitting unfinished right now.)
  • Clean Some Previous-Owner Junk Out of the Attic

It was such a busy week that I’m probably forgetting some of the other stuff that got done, but we always appreciate having my mom come stay for a while! Jonah CERTAINLY enjoyed having his Mamaw around to play with, and to “help. work. hammer. outside. saw. ears. noise. loud.” with!

The Main Reason for Coming

The Other Main Reason for Coming

Jason Helping With the Projects

Jonah Helping With the Projects

This Thursday

This Thursday is going to be some wild crazy fun, I tell ya! I volunteered to host our playgroup’s Easter Egg Hunt Party at my house this Thursday, and so far, from the looks of the RSVPs I’ve gotten on the e-vite, it looks like this may be our biggest turn out for a playgroup yet! Including Jonah and myself, we’re going to have 13 moms and 19 children between 0-3ish years old! Holy moly that’s a lot of people, but I think I can handle it, and I’m really looking forward to it! I’m sure a lot of people think I’m insane for hosting a party of this magnitude at 36 weeks preggo, but this is going to be a blast! I just hope I have enough food and such!

Wanted to post a couple of pictures from the insanity:

Playroom Starting to Fill Up

Getting Ready To Unleash the Egg Hunters

The Mad Dash to Get Eggs

Moms Showing the Younger Ones How

People, Eggs, Bunny Ears, and Cameras Everywhere!

Jonah Wouldnt Wear Them, So I Did

The Pile-o-Diaper Bags

All the Little Booster Chairs Lined Up for Lunch

Jonah and His Friend (And the Car Easter Basket Jonah Stole From Him)

Haven’t Felt Up to Posting Much

I know I haven’t been updating here, or anywhere really, very much the past couple of weeks or so… but my heart just isn’t in it. It’s breaking for several of my friends right now. I’m sure they could use the prayers, and I could use some myself… to have the right words to say to them… because right now I’m at a loss for words with some of their situations. I think to help myself navigate through the pain I’m feeling for them, it’d help to share the issues (not their names obviously) but maybe some of you have helped others through tough situations like these before and can give me some advice. For now, all I can do is pray diligently for them.

• a husband who was caught sending inappropriate texts to a female co-worker by his wife. thankfully they seem to be working things out.
• a husband who has unrealistic expectations of his (2nd) wife when it comes to bodily appearance and upkeep of the house when she is working full time to provide the family with insurance (so he can run his own dream business), takes care of their young daughter, and takes care of HIS daughter from the previous marriage, when it’s his time for visitation. come to find, he may have been cheating on her with as many as 3 other women. they separated this weekend.
• a husband who is depressed about having failed out of the nursing program he was in, and my friend who is trying to be supportive of him, but depressed that it means she may be stuck in this full time job she hates and never get the opportunity to stay at home with their young son or have more children. we’re hoping he’ll be allowed to re-take the tests in the fall and it won’t put him too far behind schedule to still graduate.
• a husband who’s just found out that the restaurant he was recently hired to manage has gone bankrupt and he is now out of a job.
• a husband who’s had several bacterial and viral infections over the last few months that has had him in the hospital several time, missing a lot of time from work. thankfully his wife hasn’t caught anything he’s had yet.
• a long term fiance (and father of 2 young kids together) who thinks the world revolves around him, isn’t very helpful with the kids, has video game addictions, and has verbally aggressive tendencies when he feels like he was “made a fool of” whether real or imagined. very bipolar sounding from the stories I’ve heard, but my stay-at-home-mom friend stays because she has no money, no where to go, no degree and no real job opportunities to be able to support 2 kids on her own. at least he’s not physically abusive.
• a couple who just lost their baby at around 20 weeks, when they were going for the ultrasound to find out the baby’s gender, they found no heart beat.
• a couple who were trying to adopt a baby from a young, teenage, girl in their family recently found out (after several months of drama over whether the girl would give the baby up or not, who the father might be, and the girl’s refusal to get prenatal care) that the baby never even existed. at least there’s not a baby being denied prenatal care.
• a husband who’s had to move to an apartment 1.5 hours away from his wife and 2 kids to be able to focus on finishing his medical rotations, and swimming in debt at the same time.

There are probably more that I can’t think of right off hand, but needless to say, I have a lot of friends who are suffering right now… and all I can do is pray and send out lots of hugs.

Too Many Bubbles!

Bubbles Gone Wild

We had quite an exciting bathtime adventure this past weekend! Jonah wanted to have a bubble bath, and normally I do too, but for some reason I didn’t really feel like getting a bath with him that night. So I sat on the outside of the tub and started running his bath water. The nice thing about a jetted tub is that you can use just a tiny amount of bubble bath in the water and then turn on the jets for a few seconds and get some great bubbles to play with.

The problem came when I pushed the button to turn on the jets, though… the button got stuck and I couldn’t turn it off!!! I yelled for jason to go flip the GFCI outlet breaker because I was pretty sure that was the one that would kill the power to the jets. I was wrong. The bubbles kept coming and I think Jonah picked up on our panic because he started to freak out and was screaming for “done! bites!” (I think he’s a nervous eater cause anytime he gets scared or upset about something he asks for bites… even if we just finished eating. We avoid letting him indulge that habit, as best as we can, though.) Anyway, the bubbles keep coming, Jonah’s jumping up and down trying to get out of the tub with his hair full of shampoo, while Jason is at the other end of the house in the garage flipping switches on the breaker trying to cut power to the darn thing.  He cut the lights off on us twice, and THAT certainly didn’t make Jonah happy.

He finally got it turned off though, and once we got the lights back on, there was about 8″ of bubbles in the tub! They were all the way up to that ridge in the tub! I dug a hole in the bubbles (to show the depth) and took this picture about 30 minutes after the jets got stopped, but a lot of the bubbles had already popped by then. I had to pull our soapy kid out of the tub and get him rinsed off in the stand up shower in our room, with the shower door standing open making a mess on the floor and getting me soaked, and then try to get him settled down for bed. He was in hysterics the whole time, and his little heart was STILL beating 90 mph by the time we got to reading his bed time story. I was drenched, there was a trial of soapy hand prints on the walls and foot prints on the floor of the hall, water all over the floor in both bathrooms, and I was having a few belly cramps from all the comotion too. I’m still not sure that we know which breaker it was that finally killed the power to the tub, but it was definitely an eventful evening!

Name This Fail

I am a fan of the failblog.org and as I was on my way to the baby shower yesterday, I pulled up behind this truck. I just started laughing out loud and grabbed my phone to take this pic. I wanted to submit it to the failblog, but I couldn’t think of a good title for it. The red text, if you can’t read it, says “MANDATORY UP” with the arrow pointing to the left. So I think I’m going to submit it as “Mandatory” Fail. Any other good suggestions?

"Mandatory" Fail

Jason’s New Hairdo

I gave Jonah a little trim last night, with the new hair clippers I got for Christmas, because he was starting to get a little shaggy. Jason’s been complaining about needing a haircut again too, but he’s never let anyone near his head with clippers, so I’m not sure what convinced him this time. He let me use the 1″ blade guard on him and by the time we were done, I think there was more hair on the floor than on his head! I don’t think it looks half bad though… definitely shorter than he’s ever had it before. I think it looks more professional for the workplace than the crazy fro does, but I guess if he ends up not liking it, he can always just let it grow back out. If he DOES like it, then I can cut his hair for free from now on! (Sorry for the horrible flash shadows… I didn’t take time to try to make a nice picture!)

Before

After

Swiper!!!

After leaving Jonah in the play room for awhile, for his daily alone time, I went and checked my email and such. With it approaching lunch/nap time I expected to hear him start complaining soon. When I didn’t I decided I better go remind him that it was time for lunch. As I approached the baby gate, I was puzzled…

what is that on the floor?

I walked into the playroom and started look around…

is that bread crumbs?! i didnt give him any bread!

Then as I came around the corner of the couch I saw him standing there in his foreshadowing PJs… “Here comes trouble!”, they say…

what is that behind you Jonah?

As he sits down, says “bite!” and grabs a handful of crumbs, I see it…

is that the loaf of bread I just bought last night?!

oh no, Jonah! What have you done?! How did you reach that off the kitchen counter?! How did you manange to get into in and figure out you could eat it?!

he just grined like the Cheshire Cat…

Pretty proud of yourself, kid, aren’t ya?! Guess you don’t need lunch now!

but how am I supposed to make a sandwich for ME now?!

Guess we won’t be storing the bread on the counter that’s open to the playroom anymore! We have our very own little bread swiper in house!