Adjusting.

Evan went back to work today. After two weeks of being home, adjusting to the medicine for his blood therapy and slowly healing, he went back to the real world today. I've called him at least 3 times and emailed him more to check on him. He says he's doing fine.

Julia misses him like crazy. She asked for him 3 times in thirty minutes after waking up. She wanted to go visit him at his office. I told her that some day this week, we'll stop by to say hi to Daddy.
I'm feeling overwhelmed lately. I don't think it's necessarily holiday related--I'm almost done with the gift buying and wrapping and I've still got some baking to do, but I typically find that more of a therapy session for me. I don't know what's overwhelming me...
Part of it is doctor visits and how we seem to have been visiting some sort of medical personal quite a bit this past month. I hate asking people to watch Julia while I go to an appointment and I feel like I've had to do it a lot lately. I really wish doctors' offices had a small nursery that you could drop the kid off at--like the gym! Just sign them in, let them play, pick them up after the appointment's over. It'd make my life a lot easier.
I am also out of my routine. I haven't been to the Y in weeks and I need to go back...
So, to help with the overwhelmingness, I've started to de-clutter out home. I'm thinking of the move that we'll be making in the summer and trying to start organizing for it. I realize that it's 6 months away, but people, that is not a very long time. I need to go through things in our closets and under beds and in the basement to see what we're holding on to that we just don't need.
Maybe that's part of the issue. I've been thinking more about leaving and I'm sad. I love our life here and I have started saying things like, "We need to do this before we leave" and "Ooh, I need to finish reading the books I've borrowed to give back to my friends before we move". Yes, I'm still excited about exploring a new city and making a home there, but that doesn't out weigh the sadness of leaving Colorado.
I'm also running out almost every night and trying to capture this brilliant view with my little point-and-shoot camera.
Elisabeth likes to yell at me as I'm running out the door, "Better hurry up, Mom! The sky will never be like that again!"
Totally throwing my own words back at me. She's so smart.

10 on 10: December

Take 10 pictures for 10 hours on the 10th day of the month.

(Today is extra special because Owen is 6 months old today. I get to see him this month!!)

My 10 on 10:

A different perspective.

Last week, Ebeth had a sleepover at her friend Mabel's house. Evan and I took this opportunity to go out to dinner with our youngest.

Evan'd been home for a week and felt he could walk from the car to the restaurant without crutches (which was a huge deal last weekend!). He'd been a prisoner to our recliner and he wanted to breathe fresh air and see things outside of the walls of our home.

Julia, who's been more than thrilled to have Evan home 24/7 (seriously, she'd love him to be the stay at home parent), was also feeling a bit of the cabin fever as well.

We have the nicest little Chinese restaurant by our house. It has honest-to-god the best fried rice I've ever eaten. It's not big and there are never a lot of people in the restaurant when we go. So, basically, it's a very quiet dinner atmosphere.

While we debated what to order, Julia began singing. Loudly. She started with "Jingle Bells" and soon started only belting out her "ABCDs". She wasn't being obnoxious on purpose, but if the other patrons had wanted a quiet dinner, Julia definitely ruined those plans.

We encouraged her to use her inside voice. We really did! But, there's only so much you can do to control a 2 year old's exclamations in a quiet restaurant. So, when she started happily yelling:

"I need meat!!"

"I so thirsty!!!"

"People on the bus go up and down!!"

"I love my apple juice!!!!"

"Daddy, I need to lick your tongue!!"

We did what all parents do--we texted people what she was saying and took pictures of her with our phones.

I chalked it up as a loss. She wasn't crying or whining or screaming out in rage or anger. She was smiling and chipper and happy to be out of the house. I inwardly apologized to the other customers and ate my unbelievably delicious sesame chicken.

Imagine my surprise when an elderly man who'd been sitting in the booth across the room from us with his wife and older grandchildren, tapped me on the shoulder. "You sure did a good job teaching her her ABCs. She did a great job singing them." I managed to stammer a thank you as he smiled at Julia, patted her on the head and walked out. Evan and I exchanged smiles; at least we hadn't ruined those people's dinner.

We finished eating and I went to go and pay while Evan gather Julia's pink baby and coat. As I signed the merchant receipt, one of the employees came out of the kitchen and asked if I was the mom of the little girl who'd been singing so loudly. I said yes, I was the mother of the loud child. The employee then said, "She sang her ABCs so well. She's beautiful. Thank you for bringing her."

And that's when I realized that the behaviors I had worried were too loud, too intrusive, too much for the small restaurant were actually noticed in a positive way from Julia's audience.

It's something I had not thought of and it took two other people's perspectives of Julia's behavior for me to realize that a loud, happy, singing two year old is not an obnoxious two year old--she's a loved two year old by others besides myself.

Virtual Coffee

Hello! It's Tuesday and I have coffee waiting for you. I know it's kind of late, but I had a dentist appointment this morning.

Yes, I am one of those people who hates going to the dentist. I hate everything about it. I hate the tiny metal piercing tool they use to scrape the crap out of your teeth. I hate the flossing. I hate the rotating toothbrush from hell that uses coarse, mint flavored sand to "polish" your teeth. I hate the freezing cold water they use to rinse your mouth out.

And don't get me started on fluoride. The bubble gum flavor forever makes me think of vomit and I dislike gum because of it.

But, here's the deal--I always have the nicest dentists. Polite, friendly, competent. The hygienists are always friendly, always listen when I tell them about my fears and sensitive teeth and always respect my wishes. So, it's not the people. It's never the people. It's the objects touching and abusing my teeth.

I hated the orthodontist too.

But, one of the reasons that I hate going to the dentist is that I have had issues with my #28 tooth since I was 10 years old. It grew in partially dead and they had to do a root canal. Then when I was 17, then needed to put a permanent crown on and did another root canal. When I was 27 and 7 months pregnant with Julia, they had to surgically go through my gums to do ANOTHER root canal because I'd been getting serious infections in that tooth for months.

Well, guess what? Yep. It's infected. Again. I have to have surgery. Again. Same tooth. Again.

Plus, this time, I have 2 cavities that need filled. I have never, ever had cavities before. Sigh.

I'm so sorry. I just realized that I have spent our entire coffee time moaning and groaning about my teeth. So, how are you? How's the weather where you are? Cause it's in the 40s here and super sunny. We may venture to the park later today.

Well, I need to go and finish up some cleaning and baking and wrapping. I'm so glad you stopped by for coffee. If you're looking for more coffee chit-chat, please head over to lovely Amy at Lucky Number 13. There's always a great conversation going on over there!

I stopped baking for 3 seconds to come say hi to you all.

One of the reasons I love Christmas time is that I can bake to my heart's content and no one objects or whines or cries about how much time I'm spending in the kitchen and how they are being neglected. This might have to do with the fact that I shut them up by giving them cookies to eat. I make batches and batches of cookies and put them in my Christmas tins until all the cookies we could possibly ask to have made are made and I then make gift tins and pass them out to people.

I love baking cookies.

A few weeks ago, Pioneer Woman talked about these cookie cutters:

and I knew I needed them. I needed to make gingerbread men like these to make me giggle. So, I bought them and I used them last night.

I also purchased an advent calendar this year. Well, I try to purchase them every year, but they're always the ones you open and then throw away. Some years I can't find them and then Ebeth is sad. This year, I was searching for them at King Soopers and I could not find them! I asked an employee to help me and he said they were sold out. I told him I hate when that happens and started to leave the store. He then said to me, "Why don't you just buy a wooden one and fill it in yourself every year and you won't have to worry about finding them every year."

I apologized to the King Soopers employee for being a complete moron and bought this lovely advent calendar:
Yes, I keep my wine behind the advent calendar. That's normal.

Right?

Hanukkah is still going strong in our house. Julia asks for Hanukkah early in the morning and we have to remind her that we have to wait for it to get dark out before we have Hanukkah lights. She likes watching us light the candles and loves listening to all of the books I borrowed from the library to read before we light the candles.
I will tell you what, some of those kids books have been the best thing about us celebrating it for the first time this year. One of the books has the prayers that you say, the song you sing, the rules for how to play dreidel, and recipes for latkes and applesauce. Yes, the characters are mice, but it's been my favorite book and Julia always asks, "Mama, you got your mouse book?" before we start our Hanukkah celebrating.
Last Thursday, we had Thursday dinner with Rachel and Kim and their families and all the kids participated in the book reading and the candle lighting and the gift receiving. They didn't know much about Hanukkah and Ebeth felt very proud to be able to share how much we'd learned.
When we were reading the story about how the Greeks put statues of their gods and goddesses in the Jews' temple, I pointed out that the statues would have been of Zeus and Apollo and Athena because those were the gods that the Greeks worshiped at the time. One of Rachel's kids has been reading a lot about Ancient Greek mythology and he found that very interesting. I do too. You learn about mythology in school, but you never really learn what other people at the same time period believed in as well. You never hear that the story behind why Jewish people celebrate Hanukkah took place when Greeks were ruling and believed in their gods and goddesses.
I'm sorry. My dorkiness just took over that last paragraph. I will try to keep my love of history to a minimum.

Instead, I will tell you how hard it is to get Ebeth to take a normal picture so she looks like a normal person with a normal smile.
Sigh. Eight year olds are such weirdos.

It's kind of working...

this whole potty training thing.

It's one of the most mundane, frustrating, tedious things about parenting (in my humble opinion), but I'm not near as irritated this time around. Part of that is because I told myself when Julia was just a floating gummi bear in my belly that I would not let potty training this kid get the best of me.

So far, it's totally worked.

And I know she gets the idea. When she's in her cloth underwear, she'll tell us 90% of the time that she needs to go and will barely have wet her pants at all before she gets to the toilet.

It's just the training pants. I haven't been brave enough to just give up on them completely, so she still uses them in public and sometimes at home. She only tells us 7.5% of the time that she needs to go when in training pants. Otherwise, she uses them like diapers.

I guess I need to start pep talking myself into taking her out in cloth. I'll ponder that tomorrow...

But, I totally know she's getting it because she plays "toilet" all the time. When she plays with her Fisher Price Little People they are always using the toilet. Baby Jesus is constantly being asked by Mother Mary if he needs to tinkle (we have a play nativity scene that stays out all year round). Her princesses take turns using the toilet.

She has never, ever used this little toilet. It was never taken out of the box for Ebeth when she was training. But, lots of toys have used this toilet.

She will do our whole toilet routine with her toys--reading books, singing songs, reminders to keep underpants dry.

Pooh Bear did a great job.
But that Mickey Mouse?
He needs to quit crapping all over the place. It's disgusting.

Around here...

We've decorated for Christmas.

My Fat Santa has made his appearance on the tree.

He is my absolute favoritest ornament and I make a big production of putting him on the tree and emphasizing how no one can touch him because he is so breakable. This year Elisabeth asked, "Mom, when I move out, can I take Fat Santa with me for my trees?"

"No."

"Oh. Will you always have him on your tree?"

"Yes. You can have him when I die."

"Ok. I'll make sure and tell Julia when we're older that he's mine after you're dead."

My North Pole village is set up and Julia likes to pull up a chair and watch the Wind-Up Toy factory spin around.

We've started on the Christmas cookie baking. Yesterday was the peanut butter cookie making day. Julia was so super proud of herself that she was my helper.



But, mostly there's been a lot of reading going on; especially since Evan's still pretty much immobile due to his leg.


I do so love when my family reads. :)