Rite of Passage

"Mommy, Mommy, I have a loose tooth!!!"

Mandy came running in yesterday morning, loudly and proudly announcing her big news. Two hours later, it was so loose that it was bothering her and she started whining about it. So, I asked her, "Do you want me to pull it out for you?" She nodded her head, though she was clearly uncertain about it. I asked her, "Are you sure?" and when she said she was, I pulled it out. It came out very easily and boy, was she proud!! She went around showing everyone her "gone tooth". And then, this morning, Collin heard her say:

"I have lost one tooth (opens mouth and points at toothless gap). Help me find my lost tooth. Click on me to begin."

Now, tell me again that "educational" computer games are harmless???

Phonics 101

A brief reverse lesson in phonics at dinner tonight...

Mandy: What does "Amen" start with?

Me: "A"!

Mandy: "Name!" You know, like, "In Jesus' Name, Amen!"

Guess I should have known!

Time for an update

Okay, I think I've effectively procrastinated long enough. It's now been over three months since my last post - even my dear friend Aubrey, who has even LESS time for this kind of thing than I do, has posted on her blog more than once since the last time I did! It's a new year, and I resolve to update this blog at least twice this year. I'm halfway done!

I'll try to remember the highlights of the last quarter of 2008, even though it's late on Sunday evening and I should be going to bed. Good thing I slept for two hours this afternoon.



First week of August - my parents moved here from Tulsa! HURRAY! We got them somewhat settled in the house they're renting from my in-laws. It was a real blessing to have that house available and ready for them to use while they look for a house to buy.

September - Started school, piano lessons, and Fabulous Friday classes!

We also enjoyed a visit from Gary's uncle, cousin, and her husband, from Germany. I'm glad at least two out of the three could speak English. And it was good for Gary's uncle that Gary could speak German.

And, that's all I can remember of September at the moment. Educating my children pretty much occupies my entire existence.

October - FINALLY feeling a lot better after having my gall bladder out. That was LAST October. I'm off the prescription medication and only using the OTC stuff. Now that I can eat real food again, I'm inevitably gaining back that few (okay, eight or nine) pounds I lost. Now maybe my mother-in-law will stop griping that I look too skinny. What is it about Germans that makes them think that way?

Oh, and I think we had to take a week off to recover from the flu or something.

November - My in-laws celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary! We had the blessing of celebrating with our whole church family, as well as both of the out-of-town brothers who made the trip to be with us, too. We had a great weekend with them! We took them down to the coast and walked around on the beach for an hour or so...


Mike tried to rescue a washed-up jellyfish. I'm not sure it was really worth it...

and then we went for a tour of the USS Lexington. Big boat!


We also enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving at their house. It's such a blessing to have both sets of grandparents in the same town so we can all be together for the holidays! My parents were there, too -- how come they're not in this picture???

December - The boys had their first piano recital. Josh Dowling is their teacher and he's doing a great job with them. They're really enjoying it!


I had to remove the entire contents of my closet because the shelves were collapsing. Turns out the builders really did screw the shelf support brackets into the studs...except that the screws were fully half an inch too short. So, only about an eighth of an inch of the screws' length was actually in the wood. These were professional builders? Let me guess -- union workers.

I had in mind to use part of Christmas break to paint the closet after the shelves were repaired, so I didn't worry about putting all the stuff back in. Now my room is...oh, never mind.

We started our Christmas break a week early to help my parents move into their new house!

The weekend before Christmas, I took my cat to the vet and had her put down. She was at least ten years old, and had developed some kind of gastrointestinal ailment with which she suffered for the last four or five months. We tried putting her on some very expensive prescription cat food, and while it did help with her vomiting, she continued to waste away. She was a small cat to begin with (her normal weight was only 6 lbs.), and at the end she'd lost literally half her weight. By the middle of December, she could hardly walk without staggering. Her hindquarters were so weak that she couldn't even jump up onto my lap.

What really gripes me is that it might have been something that could have been easily treated, too, but only for those cats whose owners are wealthy enough to afford hundreds of dollars' worth of testing. So, I had to make the decision to let her go rather than let her continue to suffer. I miss her.

We decided not to get another cat, because Amy is allergic to them.

We had a really nice Christmas. We didn't have to go out of town to be with the grandparents, either, because they went to a LOT of trouble to have Christmas with us here! It was fun.

I spent the last week of Christmas break trying to get the house in order. My own room took two days because I had to put things back in the closet. I'm glad I decided not to paint it after all. It's just a closet, for Pete's sake!

Okay, that's about all I can remember for the moment. I'm sure there are plenty of things that happened, but at this hour it's all kind of a blur. It's now Monday morning, and I'm going to spend the first six hours or so in bed. I'm going to be pretty worthless today, I think.