30 October 2007

Snippets.

  • Daniel has graduated out of the travel system car seat. That means he weighs 22 lbs. He is a CHUNK. It's crazy how different he is from Annalivia. He is in 12-18 month clothes as he approaches his 9 month birthday. Annalivia was wearing 12-18 month clothing when she was 2 years old. Annalivia was always a 50th percentile child and for girls that's less than boys. Daniel has been at the 75th percentile and he's right on track, I guess. He seems huge. But maybe that's just because I tote him around.
  • The farm that Dennis and I have coveted for almost 5 years went on the market this weekend. We have an appointment to see it on Saturday. If it is to be ours, a number of truly miraculous events will need to occur. We'll see how it all unfolds.
  • We had a great visit from Annalivia's godfather, Jimmy, this weekend. It was lovely to see him.
  • I preached a terrible sermon while Jimmy was at church. There were many mitigating factors, but it just stunk big homiletic doo-doo. One of my favorite parishioners came up to me afterwards and gushed on about how great it was. Then she called me today and talked to me again about how much it helped her and spoke to several circumstances in her life. I'm so grateful that God works. Even when I don't.
  • Flylady and I are friends again. I'm sort of doing what she tells me to do. Whenever I do that, life goes so much better. I should just listen to her all the time.
  • My childhood best friend and her husband, one of my dearests from seminary, and their family, are moving to the twin city across the river from me. He is going to be the associate at the Disciples church over there. I'm excited. Friends! Here! Less than 3 hours away! I'm giddy with excitement.
  • I thought Annalivia was getting better at sharing things with other kids. She had done REALLY well at some different public places sharing toys and, um... intellectual property. But today I had some blood drawn at a clinic in Dixon where they have one of those intricate bead toys attached to a table and when we were leaving, she ran over to it and pushed a child who was considerably younger than she was who dared approach it. The mother looked like she was about to slap Annalivia so I grabbed her and apologized profusely while moving quickly towards the elevator. Luckily someone was holding the door so we had a pretty fast getaway.
  • Today while hanging out at our favorite bookstore, Books on First, in Dixon, a place we go at least once a week which is entirely too often, I found out that Dixon has a free concert series put on by the Episcopal church called The Canterbury Concerts (I love those Episcopalians and their gift for naming.) I also found out that our area has a community concert association and we can pay for a subscription and get tickets to some very cool concerts. Last year, Eileen Ivers was one of the featured guests. I think we'll try to subscribe next season. I'm so heartened to find out, after 7 years of living here, that there is some underground cultural opportunities. Lovely.
  • Today I got to meet Andrea for the first time! Our husbands drive to work together, so we probably should have met in person long ago, but we met first via blogs. Andrea is young and gorgeous and has a very handsome husband and beautiful, probably very well-behaved, children. (right, Andrea?) Her children were so sweet and her blog has a precious picture of them.
  • We met Andrea when we all happened to be at Woods' annual Halloween thing for the kids of employees. This is the first year that we made the trip. Annalivia did pretty well saying, "Trick or treat, please." But not so well with, "thank you," "hello," "I'm fine, thank you," or any of the other social niceties. Daniel was just pretty happy, which was good.
  • On the way home, I got to drive the van by myself and Dennis took the kids in the truck. 35 minutes of me-time. I spent most of it talking to Dad. It was lovely.
  • We are now into week 4 of no television at our house. It is interesting how my desire for media has diminished to almost nothing. I used to be an information junkie -- on the internet a lot, listening to NPR constantly in the car. Now I get online in the morning, sometimes, to check email and then when the kids go to sleep. I do my blog-jog, but don't comment usually because it takes too long. So apologies to Heather, Amalee, Jan, Jill, Amy, Amy and Jim, Andrea, Kalin, More Cows, other Andrea, Dusty, Geoff and Holly. Among others. I read; really, I do. Keep writing.
  • Even though I watch no television and spend less than an hour on the computer, I never get to read. How do you folks with 20 children find time to read? I need to know the secret.

Edited to add: The arm is better (thanks, Julie, for asking). I have a short cast on it and will, hopefully get it off on Nov. 7. The bone graft site is not so good. I still have burning, aching, shooting, prickling, any-other-sort-of-adjective pain every time I walk or stand for more than 2 minutes. I hobble around a lot, but I am choosing to believe that it will all be ok in the end. I'm alive. That's what this has kept in constant focus for me. I'm alive to enjoy my family. And that's more than enough.

4 comments:

more cows than people said...

thanks for the snippets, april. it is always good to get a window into your life.

i'm honored i'm a part of your media reduced life. good for you on that by the way.

Andrea said...

April-

It was great to meet you yesterday as well. Sorry about the the little conversation, my mind was in other places with the kiddo's.

Thank you for the nice compliments! As for the children's behaviours.. haha! Landen was so shy it was like we didn't have our child in the lion costume. We kidnapped some shy little guy and took him instead of our candy grabbing, non-sharing, sweet thing. =)

Thank you for sharing how Annalivia is about sharing. THANK goodness we are not the only ones with this issue. We had a similar situation last week, when Landen decided to throw a puzzle piece block at someone b/c it was HIS puzzle. We were at the library.

Great with the media situation. I monitor everything, but we still watch too much television. Blah.

Oh, and btw.. I never get to read!
LOL

Jim and Amy Rennie said...

It's funny how perception can make things seem so different to two people with individual experiences . . .I always think Daniel is TINY because my neice is in the 99th percentile for size and is absolutely enormous. She is 10 months old and wears 2T clothes. hahaha

The Waltons said...

I'll be brief, but all over the place: Good to hear your news bits! Joel and Hanna both were/are small for their age. Hanna's in 12-18 mo. as she approaches her 2nd b-day. At 20 lbs., she almost dwarfs her cousin who's 10 months and 22 lbs. Eileen Ivers is one of my FAVORITES! I play her all the time for my 4th graders- they love the "Gravelwalk" album. I hope all your miracles happen in your quest for the farm. Obviously, I don't have 20 kids, but Andy and I read every night when we crawl into bed. The kids go down at 8:00pm, I make a cup of "Sleepy Time" tea and sip it while I read--if even just for a short time. I cannot live without my books! I've slowed down on communication/blogging as well. It will only get worse as Xmas approaches...I get wrapped up in preparing for the musical at school. Hey, did we ever pick a date for the reunion? Should we just put one out there? We've let that one slip, eh...
LOL! -Heather