How Cool Is This?

It's colored sand by Crayola! I did not know they made big bags of colored sand! And it was all f-r-e-e! How? Well, ya know Brad works for the city's Parks & Recreation Department. And apparently our Wal-Mart donates busted bags of sand to the city. The bosses did not want to put pink, green, and blue sand in the park so Brad got to bring it home to our little sandbox! Gogurt and Poptart were so excited to play in the colored sand.....!

I have never even pretended to have a green thumb and one look at my yard will prove that. However, in the last few years I have gotten interested in planting flowers and improving the way our yard looks.

You'd think being married to a turf guy would mean having the best yard on the block. But no. That's okay, I enjoy doing it myself.

I could not stand it any longer so this morning I went and bought my first plant of the season. A simple fern to hang on my backporch. Not knowing how much cold weather we are yet to have, I restrained from buying more.

Last year I tried to concentrate on buying plants that would grow back each year. I have seen some of them sprouting already, and our crepe myrtles have lots of new growth on them as well.

Hopefully I will have pictures to share with you when everything starts blooming. I can't wait!

New Beginnings

Before I start my post, I must give a "Hallelujah! He's finally here!" shout out to my blogging friend Kingdom Mama. She gave birth to a beautiful son yesterday. All is well, and we will be waiting to hear more from her soon........my sincerest congrats to Sarah and her family!



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Yesterday was quite a day. Nothing bad happened, no major trauma or anything, but I was extremely busy. Was at preschool until 1:30. When I got home I had so much typing to do I wanted to cry. One of my doctors is trying to catch up with his work and is dictating before hours and after hours. Good for the next paycheck, bad for my emotional stability.



The point of this post is NOT to gain self-pity. As I said in my last entry, I am so very blessed to do what I do. The point of this post is in fact to tell you what an amazing man I am married to.



I had barely sat down to start typing when he got home from work. He saw my fragile state and took control.



He made our menu for next week. He made the grocery list. He went to the grocery story and bought the groceries. He came home and cooked supper. He cleaned up after supper.



As if this was not enough, he skipped a once-a-month hangout-with-friends night to stay home and do all this for me.



A few years ago I would have struggled to find much of anything positive to say about my marriage. Some of you know the story. Some of you don't, and that is okay. Just know Brad and I have not been immune to Satan's attacks on marriages today. But God restored our marriage, and that is never far from our thoughts.



So, Brad, if you ever read this, thank you. For everything.

Let's Pretend.....

If you have children, you will no doubt be able to identify with what I'm writing about tonight. If your children are young, you will be experiencing it as we speak. If your children are older, you will have to remember back when.

I'm talking about the age when kids pretend. Pretend to be everyone else and anything else but themselves. Pretend ordinary things are unordinary and make the mundane exciting. Poptart is definitely in this stage. Almost 4, she lives in a pretend world.

We have been kidding her lately that every single sentence she utters begins with the word pretend. Here's an example of what I hear regularly from Poptart without her taking a breath.

"Pretend I'm your friend and I come over to your house and we play school and pretend you are the teacher that says Good Morning and pretend you tell me to get out your Show & Tell and then let's pretend I have to go to the bathroom, but my momma gets here to pick me up from school so pretend the bed is the car and my momma drives me home and ........"

I'm sure you get the picture.

Now I'm all for using your imagination and spending quality time with your children as they involve you in their imaginary world. But, be honest, (because I desperately need to know I'm not the only bad Momma out there) after a while, it just GETS OLD.

I find myself pleading with Poptart. "I have an idea! Let's pretend I'm the Momma, you're my daughter, and this is our house." That never gets very far.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad Poptart has an imagination and is using it, but for heaven's sake I think I'm gonna go crazy if I hear her ask me one more time to pretend something. And remember, I am in a room of 4-year-olds three days a week so I hear them pretending there and then I come home to even more pretending.

Here is where I should fill you in on one of my weaknesses. Guilt. I suffer with a mother's guilt. I feel as if I should stop and play with my children every single time they ask me too. I know that is crazy and unrealistic-no matter, every time I say no to them guilt overwhelms me.

I blame my typing. I spend a few hours each day on the computer, therefore limiting my time to just play. Gogurt is totally comfortable with this. I've had this job since he was 2. I know Poptart will get to this point, but until then, I deal with guilt.

The three days I teach preschool is even worse on the guilt front. We're at preschool and then as soon as we get home, I have to start transcribing. Oh, it hurts me. But, my family has developed some bad habits, like eating, so I must continue on. Especially now that Brad changed jobs and is making even less than before. We couldn't make it without my income.

I'm blessed, very blessed, to be able to do what I do. I have not worked full-time outside the home since a month before Gogurt was born. He is 8. I have however been working inside the home for going on 6 years. I have never had to experience the guilt of leaving my babies at daycare, but I have experienced the guilt of being here but not being home. Of having to continually say, "You know Momma has to work so go play by yourself."

So let's pretend I get rid of my guilt.
Pretend I never again feel my working is negatively affecting my children.
Let's pretend they grow up and realize Momma and Daddy worked pretty darn hard to provide for their needs.
Then let's pretend they grow up and have children of their own.
Pretend Poptart is an awesome Mom and Gogurt is a terrific Dad.

And then let's pretend they say they learned from the best. Pretend that doesn't make Grandma cry.

Sitting at lunch with my preschoolers today, I was asked one of those questions.

You know the kind. Just out of the blue a question comes you weren't quite prepared for.

So, I was asked, "Who made God?"

I tried to answer best I could, sounding as smart as I could while eating a ham sandwich. "No one, God has always been here and He will always be here."

That seemed to suffice for the moment. But then the boy replied, "And if He gets killed, He can just come alive again, right?"

"Ummm, right, except God never gets killed."

My only guess is that He's been hearing the Easter story and was referring to that?

How would you have answered his question?

I had a profound post bouncing around in my head all weekend, and I was planning on writing it when we returned from church last night.

But then Poptart could not find her favorite stuffed animal at bedtime. She has had this particular stuffed animal for a few years now and it is very important to her. Gogurt never really got attached to a stuffed animal, blanket, etc. so when Poptart bonded with this animal, we thought it was really sweet.

The problem is we lose the thing at least three times a week and end up searching for it before bedtime. I like to think of the search as having three levels:

Level 1: We find it simply by walking through the house and glancing in each room.

Level 2: We find it by looking under couches, in closets, the pantry, and perhaps even the fridge.

Level 3: This level is the extreme despair and panic level. There is nowhere else to look. We begin to feel as though we have seen the thing for the last time.


We were at Level 3 last night. After exhausting Levels 1 and 2, we arrived at Level 3. Poptart was walking around the house wailing, "I'm NEVER gonna sleep without him." "My life will change FOREVER" What will I do if I never sleep AGAIN?" I was trying to comfort her, but I was a little afraid she really would never sleep again, and then what would I do? I was about to have a meltdown of my own when my beautiful, smart husband came walking down the hall holding the sacred, searched-for stuffed animal. He had found it!!!

I know you want to know where he finally found it, so I'll tell you.

We had company over this weekend and Poptart and her cousin slept in sleeping bags in the floor. The next morning I rolled up the sleeping bags and put them away. Little did I know Poptart had "hidden" her stuffed animal deep down in the sleeping bag.

So our beloved stuffed animal had been rolled up into the sleeping bag and stuck in the top of a closet! Poor thing!

I don't know what made Brad think to look in the sleeping bags, I know I never would have thought to do it. Well, on second thought, I do know what made him think to do it. I think it was God having mercy on me and my family.

With Poptart holding her favorite stuffed animal close to her chest, she asked me to rock her. I gladly agreed, and she was sound asleep within minutes. Whew. That was a close one.

This One's For My Niece.......

From this........

To this.......

You've Come A Long Way, Baby!!! Congrats!