Carrier monkey

Poor Eli. Sick as a dawwg.

For a month. The entire month of March.

Today, after our fifth trip to the pediatric clinic this month, I was sternly told by our pediatrician that kids get sick.

Me (whining): Yeah, but, but...but what am I supposed to DO? He cries all the time and he's just so sad. And it's been a MONTH! What do parents do? What am I supposed to do? How do people keep their jobs?

Dr: Well, your options are these: Quit your job. Pull him out of daycare. Become a stay at home mom. Aaand..he'll still get sick. This means you'll have to deal with the fact that he is going to get sick.

Me (trying half-heartedly to save face): Well...I know that. Of course he'll get sick. Yes, that's true.

Silence.

Crickets.

Me (I've never been one for silence): But look at him! He's limp and sad. And he isn't normally like this! He cried for 3.5 hours this morning. In a ROW. TODAY! Nothing I do makes it better! And he's normally such a happy boy. I could just cry!

Dr: waiting for me to finish...with that look in her eye. Ear infections hurt. I'd cry too.

So then I started crying. 

Sigh.....poor baby.

Poor mama.

I just wish he'd get better.

PS. The antibiotic eye drops went over well tonight.

NOTTTTTTTT.

Here's hoping for a better (healthier) tomorrow.

THAT kind of girl

Me: Sophie. Go outside. You are driving me crazy! 

Sophie whines: But Olivia won't play with meeeeeeee!

Me: Go ask Johnny to play (her best friend next door). 

Sophie: He only ever wants to play fighting games and killing!

Me: Well, I thought you wanted to be a boy. You should like that stuff too then, right?

Silence. Thinking.....

Sophie: Well! Boys are so....so....so GRROSS! 

Me: smiling internally...

Me: Sophie, I hate to be the one to tell you, but it's official.......

you

are 

a 

girl.

Sophie, trying to hold back her smile: Well. All girls are into fashion and that crap and I'm NOT! 

Me: Deal. 

And Sophie went out to play. 

I love that kind of girl. Specifically, I love this girl. 

The End

Weekends!!!

I never thought I'd be in the terrible blogger category. But here we are. And I'm a terrible blogger. 

Something about living a normal DAY life makes things so much more busy. Or perhaps I have more energy to do things other than blog in the middle of the night at work when things were slow which was nearly always. Now, my days are full and busy and bright and lovely. Poor blogging. Now so neglected. 

Things have been going great since the Great Occupational Move of 2010. We have actually gone places on the weekends together. Like, last weekend, we surprised Lianna and Shawn at Lenora's dedication at church. And speaking of church, we go now....regularly...instead of a few and far between events when I could manage to drag myself out of bed before work that night and drive separately from my family to West Des Moines and then report to work while Steve drove the kids home after church. Those days are over, thankfully. Life just seems so much more normal. Normal is ok for a little while....right?

This is what we did last weekend:

Swinging! What a Spring-like thing to do, you might say! Eli loved the swinging as long as we didn't push him too high. We all had such a lovely time, except Steve, who was slaving away in the background, picking up a truckload of dog poop from the winter of Rosie ruling the back yard. All that fertilizer will equal a luscious green lawn this summer, right?

Poor Steve. 

Poor Steve turns 30 this weekend. HA HAAAA!!! That's what I tell him anyway. This time of year is great for me. This time of year he turns 2 years older than me so I can point out how much OLDER he is than me. This year shall be no exception. 

We're excited for Steve's big day! 

Following "Steve's big day", we'll call it from now on, we're getting Sophie and Eli baptized. Olivia was baptized as a baby at my home church in Pomeroy. Steve and I were also married there. Sophie was dedicated as a baby at our then church in Iowa City, who didn't believe in infant baptism. Now we're members of Hope where they do infant baptisms. Read about it here. We'd like the kids to all have the same experience so we're having both of the kiddos baptized this weekend so we have a whole family of baptized little believers. Isn't that lovely? Now regardless of your thoughts and feelings on the subject, I personally think my child will not be shunned at the gates of heaven because he/she was baptized as a baby and therefore it doesn't count or something. But this also doesn't discount the awesomeness of believer baptism either, which I'll encourage the kids to do when they are older if they'd like to choose to reaffirm their faith. 

There's so much to-do about the whole deal. I'd like to get caught up in it, considering the different denominations of our family and friends, but I won't. We're excited for this weekend. We believe in what we're doing for our kids. We love them. We're happy about this. You're invited. And if you want, come and be happy with us!

Cheers!

PS. Eli is 7.6 months old. Isn't he a stud?