Heaven - It's a long trip

Yesterday we were driving in the car down the beltway and we passed the giant cross Sagemont Church has erected. Lauren has recently become very aware of crosses and and what they symbolize.

Lauren: Look, a cross! Jesus died on the cross.
Rebecca: That's right.
L: But he came back to life and then went to heaven.
R: That's right.
L: Momma, how do we get to heaven?
R: Jesus has to take us there. He is the only way to get to heaven.
L: Why hasn't Jesus come back from heaven?
R: Well, Jesus promised that he would come back one day and take us all up to Heaven.
L: But how do we get there?
R: Well, no one knows. You have to wait until it's your turn to go and Jesus will show you how.
L: (looking up at the sky) Heaven is a long ways away. When Jesus comes to take us we better pack some movies for the trip.

:) Little kids have such an innocent understanding.

Bad Day

Some days are so hard. Today was one of those days. It rained ALL DAY. Not like rained a little and then stopped and then rained a little more. ALL DAY. Like poured down rain, then slowed down a bit and then poured some more. Normally a rainy day wouldn't bum me out too much because we usually get out in the rain and try to run some errands. But this was pouring, cold, flood the roads rain. So we were house-bound.

The day started off okay. We got up and made breakfast and watched a movie - Marley and Me. But by lunch time when it was really pouring and Lauren was bouncing off the walls, I had had enough. I decided to let her help me make some cookies and decorate them. I was hoping this would occupy her a little and help with the stir crazy, but it didn't.

Shortly after the cookies, Brian noticed water coming in our kitchen window. This was at the height of the rain and when he pulled the blinds off the window, the water started pouring in. Yuck! He rigged some plastic both outside and inside the window and it helped direct some of the water to the sink rather than the floor and counter tops. Tomorrow, he is going to take a look at the window and decide if it's something he can fix or if it's something we need to call someone out to look at. Ugh.

Nathan has always been a bit attached to me. Like, if I walk into a room and he sees me or hears my voice then he insists that I hold him. It has recently gotten much worse. Like he cries and screams until I pick him up. Very irritating at times. Today he was particularly bad. He insisted that I hold him all day. He cried if I put him down or if Brian held him or if I held him but didn't pay attention to him. (He had to be facing me in my lap in order to be happy. Just sitting in my lap facing the room was unacceptable.) I'm sure there will be a point when I will really miss this attachment and I am trying really hard to enjoy his unwavering affection, but seriously, I have to be able to put him down at some point. People have to go to the bathroom. Or do laundry. Or pay attention to their other children.

I say all of that to say this: the fact that he was glued to my hip today only made the day that much worse. Picture if you will 12 hours of being stuck in the house with a neurotic dog that is afraid of the rain and needs to go potty but refuses to go outside in the rain so she paces from room to room. A 3 1/2 yr old that is bored out of her mind so she is getting into everything. Trashing her toy room, coloring on herself with markers, cutting paper into teeny tiny pieces all over the floor, and asking to go outside in the rain every 10 minutes. A 6 month old who refuses to be put down, even to sleep. He cried and moaned and groaned and kicked and spit and was generally unhappy all day. To top it all off, we have water pouring in from our kitchen window. It was a bad day. The weather man promises tomorrow will be better. He better not be lying.

So, Brian and I decided to take Lauren and Nathan out of daycare. Mainly because we had someone offer to come to our house and watch them for the same price of daycare. She is the wife of a co-worker and she is super nice. I am really excited and hopeful about the whole experience. Lauren met her for the first time this past weekend and she has not stopped talking about her. I am so relieved. I was really worried that Lauren would have an issue with someone she didn't know coming in our house but she seems really happy about it.

I think I am most looking forward to more consistent care for Nathan. In the four months that we have been at the daycare, he has had four different teachers, with the most recent one being my least favorite. She is very condescending and she just rubs me the wrong way. Oh, and I forgot to mention that she told Brian that Nathan would be over weight in elementary school. Right? Are you also at a loss for words? That's how I was. Who in their right mind would tell the parents of a SIX MONTH old that he will be fat in elementary school? I was so mad. I called up there and spoke to the director and the teacher apologized the next day, but the damage was done.

Anyway, fingers crossed that this new arrangement will work out. She starts Monday. Please pray that she doesn't immediately regret her decision. ;)

Candy

Lauren never stops amazing me. Before Easter I bought a bag of the Reeses Peanut Butter Eggs - I love these and they are only out at Easter. Like all candy that is brought into my home, it has to be hidden both from my daughter and my dog. So I had stashed the bag on the counter behind some things. One day after work, while I was making dinner and Lauren was outside playing, I decided to have one of the eggs. I quickly ate it before anyone (Lauren) saw me. In our house we have a rule: "No snacks before dinner." So if I was going to break my own rule I had to make sure no one saw me. :) Not more than 30 seconds after I swallowed the last bite, in walks Lauren.

She immediately stops in her tracks and says "What are you eating?"
I lie, of course, and say "Nothing."
She stares at me intently and then sniffs the airs. "I smell peanut butter. Did you eat peanut butter?"

I about fell over when she says this. At this point, I am amazed at her perception and so I give in and let her have one of the eggs. Seriously, I can't believe she could smell the peanut butter from the candy!

Earrings

I had Lauren's ears pierced when she was 6 months old. To anyone with a daughter, I highly recommend doing it when they are little. She only cried for a few seconds and she has no memory of it hurting. Anyway, she went through a couple sets of earrings the first year or so until I finally bought a set that had screw on backs. I've taken them out periodically to clean them and clean her ears, but the last several months or so, I've noticed that they seemed to be sinking into her ears. I think the post is too short and they are growing into her ears. So I finally bought an adult pair at a jewelry party and I got the earrings today.

Let me mention that for some reason Lauren has convinced herself that it is tremendously painful to remove her earrings and will not let me touch them. So when I showed her the new earrings, she was less than thrilled about putting them in. After a few threats of me holding her down and removing the old earrings, she finally agreed to let me take the baby earrings out. Now, here's the tricky part. I had promised her that it would not hurt to remove the earrings. That was before I had a chance to fully inspect them and see that her left ear was trying to fuse with the earring. Yikes! So I begin trying to pull the earring out and it is stuck. She of course can sense my nervousness and begins to whimper. Her whimper turns into a cry which turns into an all out fit. After several tugs, the earring comes out. Well, now there is no way in hell she is going to let me put the new earrings in. I convince her that it is not going to hurt and let her rub the antiseptic on her ears and on the new earrings. Then I tell her it's time to put the new ones in.

R: Okay, let's put the pretty new earrings in your ears.
L: (crying) No, it's going to hurt.
R: No it won't. Do you want to do it?
L: (still crying) Yes.

I hand her the earring and she begins stabbing herself in the ear all over the place. After a few seconds, I grad the earring with one had and grab her hands with the other. This sends her into a tizzy with lots of crying. I stick the earring in and say "There, it's in." She pauses and kind of half laughs and half cries and says "Do the other one."

Once the earrings are in, she parades around the room and checks herself out several times in the mirror, before announcing that she will not take a bath tonight because she doesn't want to mess up her pretty new earrings. We compromised with taking a bath but not washing her hair.

She really takes a simple situation and turns it into a dramatic one.

Bluebonnets!

So we went to take the annual pictures in the bluebonnets... I'm not sure why we put our kids through this. Well, I do know why. We want these pictures to remember them at this age and the Texas wildflowers are so beautiful. However, what I remember from the last three years is lots of crying and whining and pouting and begging and threatening and promising, and not just from the kids. :)

I absolutely LOVE pictures. I have them all over my house and all over my desk at work. I love to be able to look up at any given moment and see one of my beautiful kids, posed sweetly, smiling at the camera. However, it takes A LOT of effort to get those sweet pictures. Case in point, we met the Jordons in Brenham this morning for what has become a yearly tradition of taking pictures in the bluebonnets. (Brenham has a wonderful spread of those pretty little blue flowers.)

So we pull up to the first location and we begin walking out into the field to find our spot. (One where no one else is walking around in the background.) You know, we want it to look like we were the only ones in this giant field of bluebonnets. ;) I plop Nathan down and begin taking pictures. About this time Lauren decides that she will not sit on the ground - she needs something to sit on. (Seriously, I don't where she gets this from. This is the same child who comes home from daycare everyday with dirt under her nails because she was digging a hole with her hands looking for worms.) So, Brian runs back to the car to fetch her majesty some sort of blanket to sit on. She sits and I get a couple of pictures of the two of them. Then Lauren decides that she has had enough and so begins my day of pleading with her to look at the camera and smile, not stare blankly at the camera, SMILE! We come home from this adventure tired, cranky, and sunburned, but by God, I got my pictures. :)

Here are a few of them. The rest will be on the shutterfly site in the next few days: http://barkerfamily2.shutterfly.com/

I forgot to mention... it was VERY windy and Nathan kept trying to eat the flowers. :)