A Mother's Day Poem

I once had a mom who changed my diapers
What rhymes with diapers?
Nothing rhymes with diapers.

I once had a mom who taught me to clean up
everybody clean up
everybody clean up.

She taught me to love and to be a good friend
She always made me dinner
And told me I'm a winner

Now I have a mom who is my friend
We chat and we giggle
And we both hate our feet being tickled

Now I have a mom who helps me with my kids
She still makes me dinner
But she doesn't change my diaper

You wonder how it's possible for one mom to do all this?
That's what so amazing
She really is amazing

I'd never ever switch my mom for another
She's the one that I needa
Her name is Carina.


I love you mom. Thank you for being my friend, you truly are wonderful. Happy Mother's Day.

Laura

Tunnel Vision.

To say that this past week was fun would be a completely obsurd lie. There were parts of it that were fun. My mom came for a visit, that was fun! The week has ended, that is also fun. Let me break down my week for you.

Last Friday my one year old Jackson woke up from his nap with a fever of 102. He was super fussy for the next two days. That's fine, we can make it through that. Sunday he broke out in a rash. Monday when I brought him in to the doctor -he was pulling out his hair, literally, he was so itchy - he had to get 3 tests done including blood work, a urine sample and a throat swab - all are awesome tests to run on a one year old - because they thought it could be the measles. Both my boys were now quarantined at home for the rest of the week until we got the results. (I recognize that the sentance before the last was a majorly long sentance)

When Linden turned one there were all those rallies against immunizations because of a possible relation to autism. We opted to wait a bit and do more research before getting his 12 month and 18 month shots. So Linden hadn't been immunized either. So....Tuesday morning Mike and I brought the boys in to have their shots. I now understand why they give the shots at one year old and not three years old. A three year old is very aware of everything.

By Tuesday afternoon Jackson was almost better. The rash was almost gone and I really didn't think that it was the measles, he didn't have some of the very obvious symptoms that come with measles and he was recovering very quickly. But I still had to keep them home until we found out for sure. Thursday I called my doctor's office three times to find out, they were so patient with me. (smile) I just explained, kindly of course, that I have two children at home who can't leave and we're going crazy, and if I don't find out before the weekend I'll have to cancel all my plans including Mother's day stuff because of a possibility that it could be measles. The front end gal was very understanding and I got the test results first thing friday morning. NO measles. Praise the Lord!!! Now my boys are immune from the shots and I don't have to worry about them getting it. If the rash that Jackson had was that bad (it actually was just a common cold virus that showed itself in the form of a rash instead of the normal symptoms) and it wasn't the measles, I NEVER want my kids to go through actually having it.

........sigh..........

I think that sometimes I can get tunnel vision when I'm having a rough week. I'm sure my husband has known this about me for a long time because I'm also sure that he takes the brunt of my frustration and worry. When I look back on it now I can see that there were good things to my week. I got to get my hair cut and I'm soooooo happy with the result! My momma was here and I also got to have some girls over last night for a fun night of learning, laughing and of course, eating! Mike and I also got to go on a date to a new restaurant in town. Tonight we have a banquet, and tomorrow I get to be celebrated for all my greatness (Mike, I hope you're reading:). If I could only remember the good when the bad seems to take over I'm sure the bad wouldn't seem as bad.

Anyways, I'm hoping that Jackson wakes up sooon from his nap because my street is buzzing with people and cars, I think there's a huge garage sale near by. So....I might go encourage Linden to stomp like a dinosaur and bang some pots together to see if we can get him up and go check out what all this craziness is.

Have a great day and may your tunnel be bright with light today. Mine is.
Laura
p.s - I'm not actually going to try to sabotage Jackson's nap. That'd just be mean.

p.p.s - I'm a mom. I'm a good mom. I'm a loving mom. But I'm not a perfect mom. So when I say 'celebrated for all of my greatness' I'm just being cheeky and trying to get nice presents from my man.

p.p.p.s - I don't know if ppps is right, but it'll work for now. I also would like to add that when I said at the beginning of this post that 'to say that this week was fun would be a completey obsurd lie' I was still seeing through my tunnel of negativity and perhaps a bit of self pity. I have now stepped out of that tunnel and can see the brighter sides of the week too. Thank you. That is all.

I dreamed a dream...

Linden is sitting up stairs in my room having 'quiet time' with some books right now because he won't go to sleep. He is happy to sit on my bed and read if it means not having a nap. Before I went up there and gave him some books I thought he had been sleeping...an hour went by! Then I heard him start crying and screaming so I thought he had fallen off the bed, I ran up there and he had certainly not been sleeping. He had been sticking his feet in the slats on our bed and had gotten one foot jammed in there. Turkey!

What I want to know is when is the right time to start taking out day time naps all together? I don't feel like Linden is ready for that - oh my, I hope he's not! - but every so often he just won't go to sleep. Then on other days he'll sleep for 3 hours in the afternoon.

I seem to remember my own parents enforcing afternoon naps until I went to school. Now, the memory of my childhoon is often blurred and I have been known to think that things really happened when infact I either dreampt of them or just imagined them happening. One example of this was when I was a kid and one night we were sitting around the dinner table all laughing and sharing funny memories. I piped up and laughing so hard I said, "Remember the time I was Gumby for Halloween and couldn't climb up our neighbors stairs because my legs were too stiff in the costume?? Ah hahaha!!!!" Suddenly there was an awkward silence followed by an outburst of laughter by my parents. "Laura, you were never Gumby for Halloween, you saw that on America's Funniest home videos!" My siblings then added to the laughter and I have never lived that moment down. Thankfully, I now know that I possess this amazing ability to make dreams a reality and have gotten over myself. I can laugh at myself in these times and really....I quite enjoy them when they come. It does, however, usually make me nervous when I am telling some amazing story that I may have actually made it up. Back to napping as a child, THAT I remember. Even when we were older my parents always had us nap on Sundays. I am so thankful for this, though I wasn't at the time, and regularily nap on Sundays (and any other opporunity).

So...what did you do? When did your kids quit the afternoon nap? How did you make the transition? I do plan on having my kids nap until they go to kinderschool and even then will have them nap on Sundays...but it's good to hear other people's stories! Am I dreaming to think that my plans are possible? Perhaps this is one dream I can't make into reality.

Linden is now downstairs asking me as many questions as humanly possible. I must give ear. Thankfully, he's a happy camper even though he didn't nap today. I love my boys.

LAUR.

PS - If you are a person that I have told some crazy story to and are now questioning my credibility, please know that I am an honest person with a lot of true stories....it's just that some times some stories I only think happened. Oh boy..... I'm starting to sound really bad... I have good intentions..... oh man.....

La la la lasagna.

I made an attempt at making a lasagna last night for dinner. You might ask, "But Laura, you mean to tell me that you've been married for 5 years and have yet to make a lasagna for dinner?" Oh I have. I have failed dismally a couple of times. The issue? Those fantastically frusterating 'oven-ready' noodles. They are supposed to save you time. My lasagna's either end up like a noodle soup in a shallow dish, which is just altogether bad, or it ends up dry as a bone with a nice crunch as you bite into it.

Time consuming, difficult to make and oh-so fattening, my lasagna last night was my first semi-success! It's a secret family recipe and so I can't share it with you, but actually Kraft parmesean cheese stole my recipe years ago and posted it on the back of their containers so you can get it off there if you want. I added a layer of ricotta in and probably will use cottage cheese next time. And I think I'll try the traditional pre-cooked noodles. And maybe take out a bit of the mass amount of garlic I added. But other than that I really enjoyed it and so did the fam. I do feel this morning though - thanks to dinner and the terrible quantity I ate - that if I were to jump into a pool I'd actually sink.

I hope today, wherever you are, is a sunny day. It's beautiful here today. Kids are up......gotta go!

Acting on Motivation...

What a fantastic weekend. I love Easter. I love it because it is a beautiful celebration of the life of our Lord. There is such joy in Easter weekend. While we remember the sacrifice made on the Cross we also get to  remember what side of the Cross we live on. What an incredible gift of love given to us, the opportunity to live on the redeemed side of the Cross. Where death is beaten and sin is forgiven, life is freely offered and received. Healing is normal and joy is natural. I love it!

Some times I wonder if God's grace is blind. If God knew who he was extending grace towards he'd probably change his mind. The crazy thing is, grace is not blind. That's why it's called grace. This unmerited love and favour is not given because God is blind or ignorant, it is given in spite of our imperfections and blatantly ugly sins. God sees it all my friend. That's what makes his gift to us so amazing. Grace is incredibly motivating. I am not guilted into living for Christ. I am motivated by grace to live for Him. He is the only one who can love me unconditionally because He is the only perfect love. That leads me to search my life for things I can change. I want to learn to love perfectly.

Sometimes I feel bad about putting so much emphasis on Easter. Sounds strange doesn't it? But I think to myself that I should remember the Cross and celebrate Christ's resurrection daily. I shouldn't have to wait for one weekend out of the year to celebrate. Not that I go through the rest of the year in complete disregard for this, but it just seems like Easter dulls the rest of the year and makes it feel like I haven't remembered.

This is crazy thinking though. While those thoughts have come into my head, I must say that they are brief and quickly diminished. I'm sure that God loves all the attention that Easter brings! And why shouldn't he?! It brings our eyes back to the Cross, back to his Son, back to the reason we have hope. What great things to think about. I'm sure he loves any opportunity to draw closer to his children. People who don't normally go to church will go on Easter Sunday. Instead of feeling bad about not celebrating the rest of the year, let's act upon the excitment and joy of Easter and use it to launch us closer to God.

Perhaps Easter is a Christian's New Years, if you will,  a time to measure our values and priorities and make changes where needed. We often think it's lame to set new years resolutions because everybody's doing it. A bunch of people with 15 pounds to lose buy passes to the gym and get motivated that this year is a new year. You know what? I didn't set ANY new years resolutions for that very reason. Everybody's doing it. And you know what else? Shame on me. Good for those people who acted on their motivation, who shamelessly marched into that 24 hour fitness and signed up for a year pass. I didn't act on that motivation and now it's gone. I'll have to find it somewhere else now.

Anyways, back to Easter. How does grace inspire you? Does it compel you to draw closer to God, or perhaps a friend in need? Act on it. Do it now before the motivation gets lost in busyness.

For me, this past weekend reminded me that it's all about people finding Jesus. I heard some amazing stories of how Jesus has transformed families and individual lives recently. I am motivated to love the people around me with selfless love. My neighbors need to know Jesus. I can help make that happen. I can love. I will love.

Sometimes we just need to put down what we're doing and do the right thing.

Laura

P.S - I don't know how exactly that last line fit into what I was saying........but I thought it sounded pretty cool.

Taking it all in...

I don't even remember what I wrote about last time.........it's been so long. Oh ya! I like my salad plate. huh. Funny I wrote that then, cause right now my lil precious salad plate is starting to dip in the middle. Ok, I guess it'd have to be made of playdough to do that.

A little update on the life of the little momma that could.

Not gonna lie, life's been a challenge as of late. Linden's got seemingly endless poo issues, Jackson's got an ear infection and trying to cut ten teeth at the same time and learning that pushing buttons on everything is really fun......for HIM. Oh, he also likes to throw things. Big, small, wet, sticky, hard, soft, round, not round, if it somehow gets in his hand he'll throw it.

Jackson is at a really fun age right now; learning everything and it's all such an adventure for him. Just tonight, he was starting to go down the stairs head first so I grabbed him and turned him around. Pulling his leg down towards the next step I tried to show him how to go down backwards on his knees. I thought it was a silly attempt on my part but the little turkey got it! For the next twenty minutes he climbed up the stairs, down the stairs, up two stairs, down two, etc. The only time he got confused was when he reached the landing and had to keep going down the next set of stairs, he had nothing to hold on to so he just went head first and then sorted it out once he had a hold on something. Did I mention he just turned one last week? Yup, he's smart.

While a fun stage, it's also tiring. Mike (my husband) put it well that, to Jackson, everything is a game right now. It seems to us like he's testing us but he's not testing us...he's playing, we're just being tested by our lack of patience (paraphrase). He doesn't know he's pushing our buttons, or disobeying - he did, however, just go for the power button and stop and look back at me today - he's just playing, discovering.

Linden has an appointment with the pediatrician next week. Let me just put it this way...he's on day five of adult doses of adult laxative and he still hardly has soft poop. Any other kid would be nothing short of a fire hose......nevermind, that's rude. I feel so bad for him.

Sometimes I feel like my problems are so small in comparison other peoples. And really, they probably are. I feel like I shouldn't be stressed about things, like I should be able to handle what comes my way, that I shouldn't complain. When I hear about other people's problems I feel bad that I even feel tired or frusterated myself. I am learning, though, that my reality is my reality. Everybody goes through hard times and, yes, the pain and terrible things that some people go through far outweigh the challenges that another person may go through. But in no way at all does that cancel out the person with the lesser issue's stress and pain. It doesn't devalue your situation. So, instead of feeling bad about feeling bad about my situation because of someone else's situation (ya following? :), I can instead see them making it through their struggles and be inspired to do the same.

I apologize to you for my rants and raves lately. When I first started this blog I said in my very first post that I was always going to try to find the positive in things. That's been hard for me lately, speaking truthfully. Someone wrote to me recently and told me to value the hard times, take them in...because then the good times will seem even better. It's hard to remember that when you're lying on the kitchen floor with a 2 year old in your arms screaming cause he's scared to go to the bathroom and the 1 year old is screaming just cause he thinks it's fun. BUT, looking back at that episode from today I see how special it was. My two year old loves me and trusts me to hold him when he's in pain and my one year old thinks that screaming is fun.

Life is hard, but life is sweet. Life is tiring, but it's also so rewarding. I'm taking it all in tonight. The good and the bad. Because I know that the good times are real good if I let them be.

I borrowed "English Grammar for Dummies" from the library. I was a bit worried that my homestay students would think that I brought it home for them because I think they're dummies. They think it's funny that I have a book on learning proper english grammar and I don't think they're dummies. I'm gonna get good at english. I'm learning things I never knew. I'm in the chapter on linking verbs vs. action verbs and tenses of verbs. Did you know that in the latin language verbs have over 120 tenses? Yuck. No offence latin, but I don't want to speak you. English, I will take your six verb tenses and be happy.

Heading to the mainland for a couple of days. We're so excited to be going to the wedding of one of the girls that we had in our youth group for 5 years (I actually think it was longer). She's the gal that if we could have adopted her we would have. The only problem was that there was no problem and she has really awesome parents and they love her a lot and raised her really well. Plus she was already a teenager and it would have been weird if Mike and I, being so young and newly married, adopted a teenager who had no problems and had a great family. Mike has the honour of being the officiant at their wedding ceremony this weekend. So fun. So great to see two really awesome people get married and love God together.

Well, good night friends. May the Lord bless you and keep you, and make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, and may He give you His peace. Amen.

I like my salad plate.

Welp, it sure seems like my posts have certainly been few and far between lately. I apologize for this - to you, and to me. I love to write and feel like it's somewhat theraputic for me, I know I've said that before, but it really is. It's funny, however, that when life gets stressful we put the things that we need the most on hold until all the crazy stuff settles down. That date night, or taking time to journal or write - I hate journaling by the way - or even spending much needed time with the Lord (I don't hate that!). If I could somehow remind myself that those things would HELP calm the craziness down it would sure be helpful!

Life has been quite the ride for me lately. There are some things that we're needing to iron out around here - and I sometimes have to stop myself from just throwing the iron through the wall. ha. Don't worry, it's not my marriage or my kids... we're having some issues with our students, but for confidentiality purposes I won't talk about it here. I will say that I am starting to realize the importance of doing a life survey every once in a while. Just to check up on how things are going. You know? Ask yourself some questions, see what you can do to make things better or ease the load. I have to admit, I am not a person with a large plate that can hold many things at once. Some people have GIANT plates and seem like they can take on the world. Me.....not so much. My plate is more like a salad plate, and I can't say that I don't like it like that. I like my salad plate.

I was driving today and thought to myself, "huh...haven't seen many eagles or deer lately." Now, for those of you who do not live where I live, these two beautiful creatures are a daily treat to view in my town. I kinda thought it was too bad that they all went away - seeing them usually brightens my day in a lovely way. They point my thoughts to their Creator and I like Him a lot. And thinking about Him is good. I drove home and didn't see any. Then I was out driving again and a thought popped into my mind, perhaps I haven't seen any deer because I haven't been slowing down (to the speed limit I admit) to spot any. Perhaps I haven't seen any eagles because I haven't been looking up. I guess I have had my head in the sand quite a bit lately. Something that is really great about living on Vancouver Island is that the pace of life really can be slower if you allow it to be. You can just drive the plain old speed limit and people just coast along behind you and enjoy the ride. You can slow down and enjoy the drive along the ocean and watch the eagles and seals...and the road of course... I haven't been doing this lately.

I've gotten caught up in just getting tasks done and not enjoying life as it is; enjoying the pleasant moments that are quietly offered for my taking but I avoid as to not 'waste' time. Today, I am thankful for the friendly reminder to slow down and enjoy the view. I did look up. And guess what? The sea food shop along the ocean was feeding the eagles. What a sight!! There must have been 40 bald eagles all feasting and flying through the air. It was so beautiful and such a treat. I slowed down, and so did everyone around me and we all just enjoyed it.

As I write this I am learning a lesson on slowing down and just enjoying a quiet moment. I received a promotion thingy that gave me a free download to a movie (don't worry, I'm not pirating, in no way to I support downloading illegally.) and my 'high speed' internet is currently downloading a 908MB movie at........wait for it....wait for it.....a whopping 120 KB per second. So, I have 2 hours before my movie will be ready for viewing. Instead I'm sipping 'Sleepy Time' tea and happily waiting for it to finish downloading, and I'll watch it another time.

Jackson had his first birthday yesterday. What a turkey. I love him so much. He's into yelling right now. Not bad, yucky yelling, it's actually really funny yelling. It's kind of like he's a car reving the engine. He's so delighted in himself when he does it. We had a fun day. It snowed, so randomly, on his birthday. I had planned a fun walk around the air strip but we ended up walking around Superstore instead. It was still fun though. Today the boys had great naps because they were so wiped out from yesterday. Jackson woke up crying in the monitor. Let me just say that when you can smell it down the hall and down the stairs, you know it's gonna be a major clean up operation. Needless to say, it WAS. You see, he's also into this whole filling-your-diaper-during-your-nap-time thing. He wouldn't even stand up when I came into the room. He just sat there, still, like he was sitting in a mine field - of poop - and one tiny move could cause an explosion. Bless his heart for not moving. Enough said about that. Well, ok...when I plunked him onto the change table he had such a sneaky pleased look on his face, like he had just really proven his diaper filling capabilities. If he can study one day like he.....nevermind. I said enough about that.

[sigh] My tea is kicking in, I'm starting to get sleepy. My movie is 56% downloaded and it's been at it for an hour...so I think I'll just go to bed now. Tonight is the time change, Spring forward this time. For all you parent out there, this is the AWESOME one where your kid sleep in an extra hour cause they don't know you changed the clocks and you trick your mind into not thinking there was a time change at all. Don't worry, I've finally figure this out. When Linden was a baby and it was the 'fall backwards' time change I prepped him all week long leading up to the time change by putting him to bed and hour early. When the time change came and I realized that now he was going to bed at 5PM in the afternoon it wasn't fun. I did it the wrong way. Ha. After that awesome move I worked really hard to understand the time changes so I'd never do that again. Poor kid.

Ramble ramble. Good night friends. Have a deep sleep.
Laura
P.S - Linden was singing the national anthem tonight and it went something like this, "Yo Canada, we stand on Arc." That was it. And that was enough to make it the best national anthem ever. Although he doesn't call it the national anthem. He just calls it the hockey song.