I.AM.GOING.TO.BLOG

I think. Anyway, I will click "Publish Post" no matter how much I've written. ha ha The phone just rang.
Noelle's two bottom molars are slowly coming through. Life is settling a bit more back into something like normal. :-) I was just thinking today as Nathan and Noelle were playing some crazy game together that Noelle's teeth have really been stifling their play time together. The last few days there have been so many moments of "Where are my kids? Oh, they are off playing together...nicely." Makes me feel like I need another baby. ha It's amazing how one can go from the breaking point to "this is easy" overnight (and back again).
Last month the end of February (when Evan takes his last test) seemed like an eternity away; now I'm finally feeling like we're headed downhill. The weather has definitely helped. And Noelle has, too. For a couple of weeks she was scrambling my brainwaves EVERY SINGLE DAY. Screaming, throwing fits, horrid, hateful attitudes. More screaming.
My Noellee. I love that chick so much. Sometimes I'll be talking to her and she will reach up and just start stroking my face. She loves to make us (especially her bubba) laugh. She and Nathan are constantly getting each other so wound up. Nathan handed her a green bucket today and told her to put it on her head and be a green monster. She was chasing him around the house with a bucket on her head, growling, while he ran around yelling, "The green monster! The green monster! It's going to get me!!"
Yesterday they were both in their tent, and they kept running from their tent to get under the kitchen table while saying that a warthog was going to get them. :-)
Right now we are on a "Poppleton" book kick. There is one story in "Poppleton in the Fall" that Nathan can almost quote word-for-word (with Noelle joining in at the exciting/yelling parts). Noelle calls the book "Johnnycake/Spicy Nut" because that is some of the words the lions were calling while they were flipping pancakes. The favorite line is "BECAUSE THEY'RE GOING TO EAT ME IF I ORDER PLAIN!!!!"
Nathan is just growing up so quickly. It's so easy start getting harder on him. I start seeing his little quirky things and his inattention. But he is a great kid. He has been struggling with his attitude, and I have been struggling with how to deal with it. ha The quickest way to deal with his attitude is to need his help. The other day I showed him how to tighten the hinges on my kitchen cupboards, and he got BUSY. :-) A few days ago he totally cleaned out, rearranged, and straightened the cabinet under my microwave. And it was a MESS. He did a great job. :-)
Both of my children are loud. They love to sing. They love, love, love to run. Their personalities are both so "go get 'um" that it makes me think of the Scripture that says, "Zeal without knowledge is not good; a person who moves to quickly may go the wrong way." Thinking before acting is a HUGE area of work around here. Probably more for Nathan than Noelle. Sometimes I think she knows full well what she is doing and decides to do it anyway. Like the other day when she was standing at "the line" at the end of our driveway and suddenly took off and started running down the street. I run a lot. I pray a lot, too.
This morning we actually went to a museum that was having free admission today. They both did respectably well. We left when I thought we were starting to get close to our breaking point (which is much easier to do when you haven't paid for the experience), and they both had a good time. Nathan would be a delight to take by himself. He gets so caught up in experiences like that. :-)
Speaking of having Nathan by himself, we were in the middle of Noelle's terrible days when Nathan called me in his room before bed. He said that maybe one day Daddy could take Noelle somewhere and he could just stay home and have fun with me. Because he loves me. ;-) And I love him, even though he still does stupid things like put glue on the dogs.