Monthly Archives: September 2009

How To Get a Free Bouquet

Posted on by
Reply


Step 1: Shed those PJ’s and pull on some neighborhood worthy pants. Put some warm clothes on that baby. Grab the stroller, a pair of sharp wire cutters, a vase filled with water, and a pair of garden gloves.

Step 2: Grab your keys and head outside. Breathe in the crisp morning air. Wonder what the crew is doing to the house across the street. Put the pacifier back in your baby’s mouth and realize the sun is in his eyes. Put the shade down on the stroller.

Step 3: Keep walking until you reach the outer corners of your subdivision where neither mower nor backhoe have crawled. Scan the field for your favorite colors.

Step 4: Cut a variety of wild flowers, interesting twigs and grasses with your wire cutters. Wear your garden gloves to protect your hands from prickles. Fill up your vase. Worry about arrangement later.

Step 5: Head back to the house. Realize the crew is resealing the driveway to make the unsold house look newer. Wonder if the housing market is ever going to turn around in your area. Wonder if you’re unknowingly bringing pests into your home.

Step 6: Unload the baby, the vase, your unsightly “mom” sweatshirt and the garden gloves. Arrange the wildflowers while your baby stares. Top off the vase with water, hoping they will not wilt by tomorrow. Take a few photos since you know they will be wilted by tomorrow. Find a sneaky little lady bug in your bouquet. Decide he’s harmless and spare his life.

Step 7: Thank the Lord for gorgeous flowers to brighten your home and your day…

We Had No Idea

Posted on by
Reply
In May of 2004, Eric and I spent a week walking the same beaches, eating in the same mess hall, listening to the same speakers, hanging out with the same people (specifically my best friends from college), and frequently being photographed by the same girl (Jenny, who took the photos below). We only met once: a group of us gathered one evening in the mess hall, crowded around the coffee station, mixing hot chocolate with raspberry coffee creamer. The kitchen was dimly lit and shadows were cast across his features. I didn’t even recognize him as the same guy later in the week when a friend pointed him out. I absolutely had no idea I had met my husband… 500 miles away from home… and we grew up 35 minutes apart on either side of the state line.

Hundreds of college students were gathered at Cedar Campus that week. In a sea of denim and sweatshirts, I stuck out wearing a pair of bright yellow pants with a Wisconsin Dells logo plastered across the butt. The yellow pants, the freckles, the everything else… it left a lasting impression on Eric. Me? I didn’t give him a second thought. I wish I could go back… it would have been a fun week knowing what I know now.

Fast forward to the year’s end. Clicked on his screen name in my friend’s buddy list just for fun, and I found myself talking to the most awesome person on the planet. Loved what he had to say. Loved the way he made me laugh. Had no idea who he was. He knew exactly who I was. He had been reading my blog on and off the whole summer. He was interested in me. A few hours into the conversation, my friend and I pulled up pictures from the conference and I realized that this screen name had a face… and his face was fine.

Five years later, I look back at these pictures and laugh at how I could spend a whole week crossing paths with my future husband and not even realize it. I have so many pictures of him from that week because he hung out with my friends the entire time. How come I didn’t notice him? Why wasn’t there this big arrow pointing at his head, saying “this is the one, dummy, stop flirting with that other guy and pay attention to this one!” What was wrong with May? Why did I have to wait until January 7th to have dinner with the man who would hold my heart forever? Why did I date that other guy in the meantime? What was the purpose?

I may not know the answers to any of these questions, but it doesn’t matter. Tonight we took our son to the park for the first time, we tag teamed dinner, we managed to get the little guy to bed by 7 and spent the next hour cuddling and laughing our heads off at AFV. We shared mini marshmallows and chocolate chips. I am so blessed, I cannot even begin to comprehend the depth of the Father’s love, knowing I deserve none of this.

Being a Parent Hurts Sometimes

Posted on by
Reply

While my roast beef, Swiss and horsey sauce sandwich browns in the toaster oven, the timer’s steady ticking provides the background music to my somber thoughts.

(I fully intended that to be over-dramatic.)

I realized today that my parents probably didn’t enjoy disappointing me. They really did have my best interests at heart when they said no. They did not enjoy seeing me cry about it. No, this is not the first time I have realized this fact, but it is the first time I have really understood it from their end.

My son is evolving before my eyes and I have noticed a subtle shift in his behavior. No longer just an infant, he’s displaying wants as well as needs. For example, he was eating my mother-in-law’s hair the other day… had a huge clump of it in his mouth. When we took it out of his mouth he tried to grab it again. When she pulled her hair back where he couldn’t reach it, he screamed in protest. He threw a fit because we wouldn’t let him chew on grandma’s hair. Babies need to eat. Babies need to sleep. Babies need their diapers changed. I’m sorry, but babies do not need to suck on hair as opposed to their pacifiers, which clipped on their shirts, are more than available for all their sucking and chewing needs.

This was the context in which I decided it was time to begin sleep training my son.

(Oh my gosh, this horsey sauce is burning a hole through my nose and opening up the floodgates behind my tear ducts!)

The same changes in his little brain that allow him to prefer hair to a pacifier and pitch a fit about it, also allow him to choose to stay awake when he needs to sleep. Over the past few weeks, he has repeatedly made this choice, and he has gotten more and more tired to the point of screaming for no reason. It has become a battle of wills. Parents versus Baby. Play versus Sleep.

Last night I finally gave in to the nagging voice that kept tell me to “be the parent and make him go to bed when he needs to, not when he wants to.” I was fully prepared to hear his cries for hours. Except… he only cried for 15 minutes, maybe 20. Tonight he only cried for 18 minutes exactly. He slept. And slept. And slept. If’s he’s sleeping, he must really need to sleep, which means he hasn’t been getting the sleep he needs for several weeks now. No wonder he had such a short little temper – he was always tired like me. Now I’m slapping myself for not recognizing this sooner.

I still don’t like hearing him cry, and he protests for a lot longer during the day when I try to get him down for a nap. I think he’s just not used to sleeping in his crib during the day and that is what needs to change. I want him to associate his crib with sleeping to the point that just looking at his bed makes him think, “Hmm, I’m kind of tired, I think I’ll take a nap.”

We’ll see about that….