My dear Nathan

Yesterday morning Nathan crawled into bed with us. He was lying beside me when he said, "Mommy, you're a sweet mommy, aren't you?"
"Awwww, I love you, Boog."
"You're arm is really hairy."
"Ummm, I guess so."
Evan starts shaking and whispers, "He's rubbing MY arm and thinks it's yours!"
I finally told him that it was NOT my arm that he was rubbing. ha
A few minutes later, Evan had gotten out of bed and Nathan was still in bed with me. He asked me when we bought his room, so I explained to him that we bought the whole house. I was telling him about how Evan and I would come to the house after work (back when I worked as a teacher, I explained) and paint and work on the house.
He said, "Mommy, I wish you would go to work."
"Really?"
"Yes, then Daddy would get to stay home with me. I like Daddy more than you."
"Oh, well, that's not the way it works in this family. And if I worked, Daddy would have to work anyway because I wouldn't make enough money for Daddy to be able to stay home."
He cuddled back up and started patting my face. I love how matter-of-fact the whole conversation was. ;-) Anyway, if there's anyone who can have a higher place in Nathan's heart right now, it's Evan. If he starts naming off random people who he loves more, I might actually get my feelings hurt! ha

Conversation

We were talking after supper about where Nathan had gotten a certain shirt he was wearing. Evan said he thought he got it for him at one of the baseball games they had gone to; Nathan said, "Oh, oh, I remember. Those girls gave it to me." Evan seemed to recall that that is actually what happened. I remembered them talking about some college girls that Nathan had befriended. They had also gotten him a signed ball.
Nathan said, "They were town girls."
I said, "What is the other kind of girls? If one type are town girls, what are the other type?"
He said, "They're different; they're home girls."
"Home girls?"
"Yes, home girls. You're a home girl."
"How can you tell the difference?"
"Well, just by the way they look. Their hair is the same, but their faces are different. If I were you, I wouldn't want to be a town girl." (I'm kind-of proud of his use of the subjunctive.)
"So you're happy that momma is a home girl?"
"Yes. I know you go to town sometimes, but you're still a home girl."
Evan was laughing silently this whole time and whispered to me, "We've never even talking about anything like that with him! He just knows!"
Anyway, he made me smile. :-)

Nathan

I was trying to find a good Nathan video, but they are rather scarce these days. The good conversations we have are all done without a camera, and he just acts goofy when the camera is out. :-) This picture pretty much sums up Nathan right now: curious, inquisitive, and able to make a HUGE mess. (By the way, I still have cattail seeds floating around my house. I had no idea this many seeds could come out of ONE cattail.)

On days like today, Nathan is a joy. Some other days, I think I must be doing something horribly wrong with him. I didn't do school with him last week and didn't do much school the week before that, and I think that was definitely a recipe for disaster. He loves school; it's his mommy-time. :-) I think his favorite parts of school are the reading (we read from his Bible story book and generally one other book) and the math game. He is not ready to read yet, and I am so happy that I get to wait until he's ready to start that process. He is learning his letter sounds, and he absolutely LOVES numbers. Everything he does must be quantified. "I can eat fifty eleven apples!" "That balloon has eighty a hundred pounds of pressure!" (And, yes, that is how he says any number which he wants to be really big.)

If I don't give him that bit of "brain-tiring" time in the morning, he seems more prone to doing things like taking a bite out of all of our apples but one (he was just a bit hungry, he said) or any other one of the crazy things he has done in these last two weeks. I'm definitely going to have to start writing these things down because I can't think of anything else!

Gotta run. It's getting late.

Oh, he LOVES the farm. He is a wonderful kid out there. He is helpful and brave and talkative. It just makes me want to squeeze him. :-)

Trying to keep up

I'm really trying to be good about blogging, if for no other reason than to have some of our history down in words. :-)
I took Noelle to the doctor today to have her weight check. She's gained a pound in six weeks, even with two-and-a-half rounds of antibiotics, ear infections, yeast infections, and the whole nine yards. The doctor was happy; I was happy. The doctor was happy that she had gained weight; I was happy that I got to be my non-confrontational self.
By the way, the last two mornings I've gotten to practice my "wiping a child while holding another child" skills. I'm getting good. Nathan's body is working against me, I tell ya. He technically could do the honors himself, just not on over-sized toilets on which he's doing his best not to fall in anyway. I think everyone wanted to know that, right? I'll chalk it up to history.
Nathan said something really funny today, but I can't remember what it was. Rats. At one point this morning, as I was trying to eat breakfast and feed breakfast to a little girl, I had taken the towel off my wet hair to allow my hair to dry a bit (we had an early appointment and not much time to waste). Nathan was eating his breakfast (two fried eggs and peanut butter toast) and commented, "Mommy, I like your hair better when it's tied up...hmmm...in a ponytail, yeah." Really? You don't like my hair when it's wet and tangled and crazy all over my head??
At the doctor's office, I have problems getting Nathan to stop talking to the doctor. It takes a joint effort by the doctor and me to get him to stop talking long enough for us to have a conversation. Thankfully, the doctor is extremely good with him.
Right now I'm brainstorming ways to train Nathan to pay attention. I don't know if it's just an excuse, but I do know that his mind goes ninety-to-nothing, and he has a hard time listening if he finds the need to formulate a rebuttal, addendum, or improvement to anything we're saying (which is quite often). He also is fairly slow to obey; he'll do it, just slowly. My only bright idea at the moment is to make a chart on which he only gets a mark if he obeys quickly and cheerfully, and the only way he can have movie time is if he has a certain amount of marks. ?? We'll see.
Noelle is definitely showing her personality. She gets mad if anyone crosses her and will sit in the floor and kick her feet. Today we went through several rounds of "no, you cannot throw a fit when mommy won't let you touch the banana." I was holding her, and I would just set her down when she started throwing a fit. I wouldn't pick her up until she would hush when I told her to. On the other side, she is a very excitable little girl. Events that cause grabbing and happy squealing: Mommy getting her from her crib, seeing Bubba for the first time after a nap, seeing the dogs outside, Mommy swatting flys with a flyswatter, seeing Daddy walk down the hall. When her daddy comes home from work, she will follow him around then get up on her knees and hold her arms up. Once he finally gets the hint and picks her up she starts pushing him and wanting down. ha
Okay, I'm so done. Can you tell Evan is not home?? I would love to go to bed, but I know that the minute I go to sleep, he'll come home and wake me up. :-)

Fightin' over bones...

You'd think I never feed them!

Random things from the past few days:

-We were NOT fever-free for very long; Evan and I both got fever and sore throats on Sunday.

-Monty dug a hole under the fence into our little backyard; we finally figured out that the firecrackers were driving the dogs crazy. We had to bring them in on the 4th and 5th.

-Noelle got into a pizza box that was lying on the floor by the trash and got a banana pepper to chew on; I was just happy that it didn't seem to phase her.

-Nathan is having to get used to the fact that he is NOT sick anymore and will NOT be catered to any longer.

-My throat is still hurting, but I've had to be mean momma today and lay down the law. It's hard to be on top of my game when I don't feel well. ha

-Noelle bit Nathan's foot this morning. She pulled up to the recliner that Nathan and I were sitting in, and Nathan was pushing her with his foot. She got mad and attacked his foot. Nathan laughed then said "Ouch!" Yes, my dear, she now has teeth. Hmmm...

-Noelle is done with the antibiotic; now we're just waiting for the yeast to go away.

-Nathan told me yesterday that the night before while he was dreaming he believed in God and became a Christian. I explained that there was a little more to it than that, and he listened then said, "Let's pray, Momma."

-Nathan's attitude has been a constant source of grief for me over the last two days. I'm trying my best to handle it as I should. One minute I'm thinking I have done something terribly wrong; the next minute he's being a perfect dear and running up to tell me something exciting that he's done.

Nathan's storytelling

Nathan has begun telling stories lately. Mom and Hannah got the four-wheeler stuck in the mud, and on the way back from pulling the four-wheeler out, Nathan told Mom, "Nonni, now tell me all about it." She told him what happened, and as soon as he walked in the house (where I was) he began telling me about it. :-) Of course, in PeePaw and MeeMaw's house there is no shortage of storytelling. Here is Nathan getting in on the storytelling after listening intently for awhile.

A Few Things

Okay, I'm going to put down a few things that Nathan has done/said lately so that I remember them. :-)

Nathan saw a picture of a NY&Co model on the computer and said, "I like that girl pretty well. I think when you die I want her to be my mommy."

"Do you think she would cook for you and read to you and play with you?"

Pause.

"Well, Mrs. Sarah can be my momma when you die. That would be good."

"Hmmmm. Well, I don't plan on dying anytime soon, so you're stuck with me."

-------------------------------------

Yesterday he told me that I was a very nice mommy. When I asked him why, he said that it was because I shared my bread and let our friends help make and eat the bread. (We had a family over for a "field trip" to watch my grain, make, and bake my bread. They got to help and take home a couple of little loaves.) Anyway, he said that made God happy.

--------------------------------------

We've had issues with him running around the side of the house (which is off-limits) whenever he is in the dogs' yard. I can't see him over there from out my window, so he is not allowed over there. Whenever he goes over there he has to play in our little yard and is not allowed in the dogs' yard. Yesterday he had run around the side of the house, so he wasn't allowed in the dogs' yard until after his nap. After his nap he was excited about getting to go back in the dogs' yard, and he told me, "Mom, my good imagination is going to fight and kill my bad imagination."

I thought a minute then said, "Does that mean you are going to think and do good things?"

"Yes, then my good imagination can come."

---------------------------------------------

Nathan: "Does God have legs?" He assured me the other day that God has a wee wee. I didn't know what to say and ignored him. What else is a mother to do?

---------------------------------------------

Well, that is all for now. I just thought I would quickly post a few things. :-)

Weekend

I'm at my parents' house this weekend. I asked Evan a couple of weeks ago if he wanted to come; he said he had a test this week so it would be a good weekend for me and the kids to come. ha So he's home studying.
I'm a little on the sleepy side. Noelle isn't sleeping well here at night, and the last two nights Nathan and I have slept together (my brother and his girlfriend were here, too). Last night I got to bed around ten o'clock, and Nathan was still awake. I'd been back-and-forth with him about staying in bed and not waking his sister up. I got in bed, and I had this cheesy-smiling little three-year-old cuddled up to me and staring me in the face. "It's nice and cozy, isn't it?!" I couldn't help it; I cracked up. I finally had to turn away from him, tell him not to sleep ON TOP of me, and hide my head under the covers to keep from laughing at him.
Just had to post that. :-)

Still Queen Mommy

So, Nathan loves his daddy. He prefers him to me almost always. However, when Nathan is exhausted, feverish, delirious, and just won't sleep, he doesn't want anyone but mommy.
I went to bed around ten o'clock last night because I was tired from being up since 5:30 yesterday morning with Nathan. I don't think I actually got to sleep until sometime around 5 or so this morning and even then it was only for thirty minutes a couple of times. Nathan kept waking up crying/wailing, so I put him in bed with me around eleven (Evan slept in the guest room). We did everything we knew to help his throat feel better, but every time he fell asleep he would just toss and turn and wake up after five-ten minutes crying. Whenever his medicine wore off his temperature would go up to 103, and he would just get delirious. We went back and forth from the bedroom to the livingroom several times, and he asked me over and over, "When will my fever go away?"
I had chicken/veggie broth in the crockpot, so I got him a travel mug and kept refilling it with broth. He would wake up saying his throat hurt, and I would let him drink the broth. He even took two drinks of a lemon/honey/vinegar concoction ; the second time showed how much his throat hurt because he actually asked for it (and that stuff was awful).
His fever was back up around 103 this morning, but he seems to be doing pretty good right now. I went to bed after I fed Noelle this morning and got about an hour of sleep while Evan watched Nathan and Noelle. Of course, during the day Nathan doesn't get delirious, so he is pretty easy. I just made oatmeal, and Nathan ate a whole bowlful. I really didn't expect him to eat it, but I'm happy he did.
I guess we'll just see how the day goes.

Nathan

Today we were sitting at the table eating lunch: black beans with rice, cheese, sour cream, and hot sauce. Nathan kept asking my why we stirred up our beans before we ate them. I gave many little answers and even told him that he didn't have to stir his beans. Finally, I just said, "I stir my beans so that all the ingredients are mixed together and not just sitting on top."
He stopped and said, "What?!"
I almost never answer his first what.
Then he said, "Angry ants?" He looked so puzzled and serious that I just started laughing. :-) That laugh came at just the right moment because I was seriously struggling with being a grouch.
A few minutes later, he reached over and grabbed my hand. Instead of pulling away and telling him to eat (probably my first reaction...dirty hands, you know!), I put my other hand on top of his. He said, "You're a... What are you to Daddy?"
"His wife."
"Yes. Wife. That's it. You're a good wife."
"Thank you."
I'm not kidding. That's exactly how he said it. ha! Then he leaned over and laid his head on my shoulder. What a goof. I just love him.

This morning

This is what Nathan said to Evan this morning as Evan was getting in his truck to go to work:
Bye, Daddy!
Thanks for coming over!
It was nice of you to take me to the fair!
See you later!
Be careful, Daddy!
Don't trip and blow out a tire on your way to work!

At this point I had to pull him away from the door because I was getting cold. Evan dutifully responded to every comment/admonition. :-)
It made me smile.

Another post! WOW!

My little girl child is bouncing

off the (uterus) walls right now. She was pushing really hard down low earlier, and I pushed my hand up against her. She promptly pushed harder against my hand. No kicking, just a push. :-)

Hannah is still here, and I think she's still enjoying herself. She's been here since May 10th. We made a quilt (she did most of the work; I bossed), and we took it to a lady who has a quilting machine. I am excited to see how it looks quilted. Then all we'll have to do is attach the binding which is made of strips of all the different colors in the quilt. The only bad thing is that Hannah and I are both itching to do another quilt now. ha Too bad fabric isn't a bit cheaper. Oh well, I have another thing to look for at garage sales! ;-)

Nathan...is such a ham. I'll have to get a video of him saying, "Charlie bit me!" in an English accent. There is a youtube video of a little boy and his baby brother that Nathan watched and now mimics. ha Today he helped me in my garden and ran back and forth from the dogs' pool to water the garden. Then he was running around hollering and just being a boy. He took some water from the dogs' pool, dumped it in one of the dogs' dirt holes, and started jumping in the mud that formed. Ah, the beauty of rubber boots. I'm hoping to find him a bigger size, though; I think he was running a little funny today. ha

Nathan's feet...are huge. I measured his foot at a shoe store, and he was right at the size 10 line. I'm having to hit the garage sales hard to try to find more shoes for him. I suppose I could actually just walk in a store and buy him some, but that wouldn't be nearly as much fun. ha The last two pairs of play tennis shoes I have gotten him have been free at garage sales.

Nathan loves to help. His current favorite task to "help" me with is peeling carrots. He absolutely loves to peel carrots. You know, I can get a lot done while he peels two carrots! :-)

Okay, I'm out of steam. Goodnight!

Trying

Well, I am trying to post a little. :-) I cannot believe it is almost June. May has been a little crazy. Evan graduated, Nathan was sick, and I went to once-a-week appointments. We are still truckin' along, though, so I am thankful.

There is so much Nathan is doing and saying now that I can barely keep track in my own head. He is constantly making us laugh, either intentionally or unintentionally. He has hit a bossy stage where he likes to tell us what we should or shouldn't be doing. It's funny because most of the things he says are exactly the things that we say to him. We have to remind him that he is the child. ha

Nathan had a virus a few weeks ago and was having high fever without any other symptoms. Of course the only way a doctor can tell that it is a virus is to test every other possibility. So he had a throat swab (strep test), a nose swab (flu test), finger prick (mono test), and blood taken (white blood cell count). Having the blood taken was the most traumatic, for me and him. Needless to say, by the end of that day he was no longer my "doesn't freak out about needles" child. I am not looking forward to his three-year appointment. The doctors and nurses were very nice to him, though. He just talked away to them and even thanked (in a very weepy voice) the nurses who took his blood when they gave him a sticker. My kid can be so sweet.

So now my kiddo who would easily let me pick a splinter out of his hand or foot screams and has to be held down to get a splinter out. I honestly wouldn't have even messed with the splinter so close to the doctor's visits had it not been turning so red.

I wish I could remember some of the things he has said lately, but my mind is going blank. Yesterday we were at the library checking out books, and he asked the librarian, "Would you mind if I got a marker and colored on your table?"

The librarian said she wouldn't mind at all (it's part of a program they are doing), and I thought how nice it was to have those moments when you think, "Yes, that's MY child." So much better than the days when you think, "Surely that is not my child." ha

Oh yes, Hannah just reminded me. Nathan uses the phrase "I'm just teasing" a lot lately. You know, after telling us something crazy or even sometimes when he says something he knows he shouldn't have said. ha I have no idea where he gets that. :-)

A Short Story

Saturday morning I was trying to quickly clean up the house before Stephen came over. Not that Stephen really cares, but it gave me the motivation I needed to get it done. Nathan had been getting into things, going back into our room, and generally being in the way. I took the kitchen trash out to the garbage can and heard Nathan rustling around in our room when I came back inside. I headed back to the room, determined to catch him in his mischief and give him a good reason to “straighten up.” I got back to the room and discovered him struggling with two Walmart sacks full of trash. He had gotten the trash out of the front bathroom and our bedroom and was heading to our bathroom to get the rest. Needless to say, my frustration completely dissipated. I helped him combine the trash into two sacks, put his socks and shoes on (he HAD to take it outside), and let him put his sacks in the garbage can. How do you stay frustrated after that?
Nathan is such a busy little kid, but he truly loves to help. Lately I have not been as faithful to keep him busy as I ought to have been. I don’t think I should have to keep him busy all day, but one or two good tasks seem to help him stay happy. Of course, all of this takes planning. Two-year-olds don’t do well helping with the spur-of-the-moment cleaning. I have to be ready to have him help me. I have to be ready for the task to take two or three times as long as it would normally. Sigh. I need a plan. And I’d really like to get into more of a schedule over the next month or so. We’ll see! :-)

What he said...

I was talking to my dad on the phone, and Nathan was in a funny mood where he wanted his nose to be within centimeters of mine. ;-) I asked him, since he was so close, if he loved Poppi, and his first response was no. I said, "You don't love Poppi?"
"Yes, I love Poppi. I love Poppi sometimes when he comes to my house..."
At that point I died laughing. We haven't seen my parents in about three weeks, so Nathan has been asking them if they would come to his house. I guess he is resorting to manipulation now.... :-)

How I wish I had taken my camera...

...or that I had charged the batteries to my camera before we went to the museum. :-)
Grandmother wanted to go to a museum today. We went...with my two-year-old son... Have I mentioned that I love my son? He is a delight. ;-)
Nathan first noticed the lovely echoing capabilities of large rooms with no carpet. Of course, if a room has echoing capabilities, one must try them. He is in a "make up babble" stage, so he tried some of his babble. His wonderful mother kindly asked him to cease and desist. He actually obeyed.
We went into a gallery full of Victorian-era paintings (Grandmother was in heaven), and Nathan made several people smile, laugh, or both with his exclamations.
"Oh! Oh! Oh! Look at dat!"
"Look at dat BIG sailboat over dere!"
"Oie, oie, oie! What dat, Momma? What dat?"
"Oh my goodness!"
Of course, hearing the inflections with all the "ohs" and "oies" makes all the difference in the world. He was so excited. We would stop and talk about the paintings (many of them had animals or boats, so he was happy), and he was actually entranced. Wow. How did I get such a great kid?!
Grandmother wanted to go watch a movie about Queen Victoria and her lover, so I decided that Nathan would rather see the gardens. :-) We finally had to come back in and get Grandmother since it was past lunchtime, and we still had two other floors of exhibits to look at. Nathan held himself together pretty well, although he kept saying random things in a very serious voice at the pictures (one of his made-up words). He was tired and hungry; what can I say?

My son

I posted some randomness over on my other blog (it's in my links), so I didn't want to leave out this blog. :-) Of course, this randomness will be about Nathan.
1) Nathan loves black olives. He eats all the ones I pick off my food plus his own.
2) Nathan doesn't have a great love of potatoes, although he did eat them a few days ago when I covered them with creamed spinach.
3) Nathan listens intently to what we say, especially if I am telling a story about him. He will then start laughing and try to repeat, word for word, the story. This resulted in him saying, "All of a sudden, it was, like, WAH WAH WAH!!!" (Trying to copy my story of his turning the volume up during a song change...not good.)
4) Nathan loves to watch me cook, and he also loves to try to help. :-)
5) Nathan is not good at sharing. He also loves to say "no" to other children and make faces while he's saying it.
6) Nathan tells other children exactly why he is telling them no. He definitely is a conversator.
7) Nathan doesn't know his colors very well. The colors he knows best are yellow and black. The other colors are up for interpretation, and he will argue about it.
8) Nathan still loves books. Although he has boundless energy, he will still sit and want me to read books to him forever. I generally get tired of reading books before he does, almost every time.
9) Nathan plays with his bear, tells it "Do you understand?", and throws it in the lions' den...with "hungry lions." He also plays "Pudding on a plate" with his bear. :-)
10) Nathan has a memory like nothing else. He will see one thing and connect it back to something else that was mentioned a month ago, and then only once. I know everyone will think I'm exaggerating, but it's true. He's done it so many times that I know it isn't just a coincidence. :-) (And, yes, I know I am not a reliable witness since I'm a parent...)
11) Nathan has cuddle attacks. He will randomly want a hug, say he's "momma's boy," and generally make my heart melt. I love when he grabs my neck, says "come to me, Momma," and gives me butterfly kisses.
12) Nathan always says, "Bless you, Momma," when I sneeze (and that is quite often).
13) Nathan starts most sentences in which he is pointing something out with "Momma" and ends them with "Mom." For example, "Momma, I see a firetruck, Mom!!"

Okay, okay, I'm done now. :-)

Meltdown

I will eventually post some pictures, but for now I will just vent. :-) My son is going through something. Let's just say that this morning I was sitting in the floor of the bathroom singing with my fingers in my ears while my son was sitting on the potty screaming bloody murder. We had a long morning. He was literally finding things to say no to. For example, I was in the kitchen when I heard him saying, "NO! I don't want a tissue!" (He must've had a snotty nose and been refusing the obvious solution.) Here's another snippet from the morning's conversations:
"Here, put your pull-up back on."
"No! I don't want my pull-up...need to tee-tee in the potty!"
"Okay, let's go tee-tee in the potty."
"No! I don't want to tee-tee in the potty, put my pull-up on!"
"Okay, let's put your pull-up on."
"No..." (Repeat until you find me sitting with my fingers in my ears. Oh, and he did finally tee-tee, let me tell you.)
He even brought me a book at one point, and we repeated above conversation ("Mommy, read my train book." "Okay." "No! Don't read my train book!").
So, my creative posting juices are being drained. I can't think back to Texas at the moment. :-)

My leg hurts

Would you like to know why? Well, Evan decided to go study on the deck, and Nathan wanted to go outside, too. So, we went outside. I let the dogs in, and they started playing. Cooler weather always makes the dogs hyper. Anyway, the dogs were wrestling and biting each other, and Nathan was trying to join in. He mostly just got creamed...good thing he's tough. Anyhoo, Nathan wanted me to come play, so I started tickling him and playing. He ran up to me, mouth open wide and growling; I grabbed him and started to tickle him when he bit the fire (I should say "bit tha far") out of my leg. Oh. My. Goodness. He almost broke the skin through my jeans. I screamed like a girl (so said Evan) and tried my best not to laugh. When I finally got myself under control, I explained to Nathan that dogs play with their mouths but humans (which we are) play with their hands. He then asked if he could bite the dogs.... :-(
Oh my, here is a video of what was going on while I was typing the above story...

Just in case you wonder why I don't post pictures more often...

...this is what happened in my 30-second potty break...