November 21, 2007
A New Eating Record
Gideon is a painfully slow eater. We're talking about the boy who at a year old would still be chewing green beans literally two to three hours after a meal. He's either moving his mouth constantly with a story, playing with/trying to play with a car, planning the moves for playing with the car when he's done eating, or trying to control someone somewhere. He's a first child to a tee. Lately we're learning about graphing and today I decided we'd graph everything we ate. Oh. My. Word. I was worried it would add an extra hour and a half to his already stretched eating schedule, but I was wrong! This has given the boy focus! He counts how much of one type of food there is & concentrates on eating it all so he can color in the blocks on his graph. Then he does the same with each and every item on his plate! Meal time has never been easier with him! He did end up with a total of only nine snap peas after lunch, though. So he had to request one more to have a nice even ten. First child control freak. 
November 16, 2007
No Greater Love. . .
So we're back from Chattavegas. It was awesome to see everyone. As usual a whirlwind, but nice. When are the Knutsons just gonna move out here with us anyway? My oldest friend in the whole world - almost a quarter decade now - met the boys and me in Atlanta to help us fly back w/out Andy. Wow I miss that girl. You know how it is to be w/a friend where half the time one or two words is all you have to say for them to know exactly what you mean? And the other half just a look will do. Karen's hilarious and has a low enough standard for her humor that she thinks I'm funny, too. She was here only two days but managed to make: yummy salmon, homemade spaghetti, pumpkin pie, apple pie, pumpkin cookies A-AND a clean kitchen! Gid pretty much followed her everywhere and now once again there's a big Karen hole in our hearts.
I haven't been feeling well lately so my kids are getting to know PBS pretty well. They're loving Super Why! and a show their older cousins (five and six years old, you know) introduced them to, Word World. They're discovering Sesame Street for the first time in their wee little lives and lovin' it. Feeling yucky this week has shown me what dear friends God's given us here. Tuesday our neighbor Zach had the day off and took all three boys to the library! Gid and Isaac had art class and Phin spent a good hour with his idol's undivided attention. Then on Wednesday I had an appointment at nine fifteen for Phin to get a physical therapy evaluation. My friend Chelsea got out of bed with her two and a half year old and one year old and drove thirty minutes to my house at nine in the morning to watch my older boys! I don't care what the Bible says; greater love has no one than this, that a friend would wake up early w/her toddlers and babysit for you (tongue in cheek, Mom, tongue in cheek). Then as if you're not getting emotional enough over the sacrifice of my friends, yesterday Andy wanted to go to the store yet none of the boys wanted to go w/him and get out of my hair. Just as Gid was saying we should get Zach's wife, Dani to watch them she called. So Andy and I took forty-five minutes of pure marital bliss and went grocery shopping alone together! Be jealous if you must.