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!

I really haven't forgotten about this blog!!

It's just that I've been a little busy lately... where do I begin?

Amy, our oldest lamb, GRADUATED on June 14th! We had a wonderful time with our family and friends that day - pictures coming soon!

Since the Christmas play that our church did, Psalty the Singing Songbook has gotten married and had three kids! So, for the last several months, I have had the privilege of making costumes for all of them. I did, of course, have a LOT of help, but the job still took up most of my time since the last week of April. The performance was yesterday and every one of the kids did a FANTASTIC job. Stay tuned for another post on this, complete with pictures! I hope to get them posted sometime this year.

It's been nine months, and I'm still struggling with the aftermath of my gall bladder's rebellion and subsequent dishonorable discharge. The doctor calls it "Bile Acid Gastritis" and the bottom line is that I can't eat anything that has fat or oil of any kind, no spicy foods, and no caffeine. That pretty much eliminates everything from my diet except chicken breast, granola bars, and sugar snap peas. I've literally lost all the weight I have gained since getting married 23 years ago, so I'm not complaining about that part of it, but it would be nice to have a bite or two of steak without fear of reprisal. The doctor says it'll get better, but it can take a long time. Define "long", please?

Since the end of May, all of us except Gary and Collin have had some sort of virus that has knocked us out, one at a time. I just KNEW that Collin would be next, and I've prayed for the last two weeks that he wouldn't get it because of his big part in the Psalty performance. Anyhow, now that the play is over with (just yesterday!) and we thought we had a chance to recover and get our lives back in order, Collin came to me this afternoon and said those dreaded words: "Mom, I don't feel very good." He had a fever of 103, aches, chills, etc. I'm so glad he waited until after I took a nap this afternoon. Any suggestions on how to sanitize the whole house at once to kill off this thing once and for all? Stephanie suggested taking off the roof and just dumping in a few truckloads of bleach...sounds like a plan to me! How does one sanitize furniture and carpets, without ruining them? I also think we need to bleach all the chairs at church.

Amy had a minor car accident on July 7th - she wasn't hurt except for some minor stiffness and a sore neck, but that went away a few days later. I'll let her tell you more about it on her blog. The blessing of it all is that now God has provided us with a really nice van. It's a '98 Chevy Venture. Yeah, it's over 10 years old, but it's in excellent condition. It's definitely never spent a winter in northern Illinois (so there's no rust), and has only 66K miles on it. And, it has A/C vents in the back, so the kids are REALLY happy!

I finally, for the first time in my life, read all the books in the Chronicles of Narnia series. Mandy likes to have me lie down with her for a little while every night when she goes to bed. So, since I couldn't sit at the computer during my evening moments and update this blog, I decided to start reading books again. Now I'm close to finishing the second novel in the Mitford series, by Jan Karon. Only six more to go...

And, my parents' house has sold and they are moving here from Tulsa this coming weekend!! For the first time since I was 18, we'll be living in the same state! It will be such a blessing to have both sets of grandparents nearby. What a blessing that their house sold so quickly - God's hand is definitely at work here.

Here it is, late evening, and since I'm gonna have to set a timer to wake myself up every three hours to monitor Collin's temperature, I had better get some sleep. I'm looking forward to a normal life again, but I don't think it's going to happen this week. Honestly, though -- when I look at so many others close to me and compare my own struggles with some of theirs, I think I live a rather idyllic - no, blessed - life. We are truly blessed beyond measure.

Eureka!!

I've been searching for my jump drive for almost two weeks. The last time I'd seen it, it was in my shirt pocket and I was carrying my laptop downstairs to sit on the couch and work on lesson plans. I didn't get them done, though, due to other things that demanded my attention that evening (like the movie Gary was watching...). And that was the last I remembered about the whereabouts of my jump drive.

I wasn't too concerned about it being stolen, as there wasn't any sensitive information on it. It just has some of Collin's schoolwork on it and a copy of my lesson plans for that week. It has a keyring with a little tag that says "school" on it, so there's no mistaking that one with the one Gary has from work. I use it to transfer schoolwork and lesson plans from my laptop to the desktop upstairs for printing. I'd really like to have all our computers networked so I can just send things from the laptop in the schoolroom to the printer upstairs, but that's going to have to wait until Gary has the time to do it.

So, it wasn't that big a deal, but it was really driving me nuts! What in the world did I do with it??

I searched my purse, Mandy's purse (because one never knows), my church bag, my other bags, all the pockets in all the clothes I've worn for the past two months, both vehicles, all the desk drawers, and everywhere else in the house I could think of. No jump drive.

Finally, today I called in the troops. I offered a reward of a free lunch from Sonic for the person who finds my jump drive. That caused Tim to launch into search mode. (Collin would have, too, but he was working on an English essay, and Amy didn't seem too interested.)

I didn't really have much hope of anyone finding it, but to my great surprise ten minutes later, I heard Tim call out, "I FOUND IT!!" It was under the cushion of the couch in the living room. I hadn't remembered sitting there so I didn't look there. ( *smack on forehead* )

So, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to Sonic with my very happy son, and a four-year-old who needs some fries, too. And, just to be nice, I'll probably bring back a slushy for Collin who was stuck doing schoolwork when the missing jump drive search was still on.

Hairdresser-in-the-making

I've been meaning to get this posted for over three weeks, now. Sorry for the delay!!

Yesterday, a certain four-year-old decided she'd waited long enough for her haircut and took matters (a.k.a. scissors) into her own hands.

I intended to get her haircut done that weekend. I really did! It's just that so many other things got in the way that I didn't get it done. Never mind the fact that I'd been taking care of two boys with the flu!!! -- but that doesn't count, does it? I had told her on Saturday morning that I would try and give her a haircut (first mistake) but it would have to be after her bath. I don't like cutting dirty hair, you know. Well, I did what I could that day, and I barely managed to get her bath done.

After her bath, I was just sitting down to rest and she came up to me and said, "Now can I have my haircut?" I'm telling you, this child doesn't forget ANYTHING!!! I had to tell her that I was sorry, but I was wiped out and I just couldn't do it (second mistake). So, she went on her merry way and found something else to do until bedtime. And that was the end of it.

Or, so I thought.

On Monday afternoon, I was downstairs doing something in the kitchen. And after awhile, I noticed things were awfully quiet in the house. I was downstairs alone and Mandy wasn't anywhere in sight. Time to investigate.

Amy was in her room on the computer. Collin was busy doing something, off by himself somewhere. Tim was watching a movie in my room (I don't remember whether or not he actually had permission to be in my room to begin with, but that's a moot point, now). And Mandy was playing with her toys...in my room, too. All was well...

Then Mandy looked up and saw me looking at her, and with a great deal of pride she said, "Look, Mom! I cut my hair!!"

I didn't notice it at first. I wouldn't have noticed it at all if she hadn't made such an effort to show me. "You did? Where?"

"Here!" And she pulled the hair on the sides of her head around to the front so I could see. There was a lot of hair missing.

I didn't see any suspicious items (like scissors) lying around, so I asked, "What did you use to cut your hair with?"

"Your scissors."

"What scissors?"

She grabbed my hand and led me to my bathroom, and pointed to the drawer where I kept my hair-cutting scissors and electric clippers. "Those scissors," she said. The scissors were in the drawer. Further observation revealed hair all over Mandy's shirt, the bathroom counter, and the floor, but not enough to have made me too concerned. Then I saw the HUGE wad of hair in the garbage can. She had cut her own hair, put the scissors away, and tried her best to clean up the mess! I took a closer look at the back of her head, and that's when the reality of it all set in. I had work to do to fix this. *sigh* So, I gave her the rest of her haircut. And she was happy.

However, when I was done, she wasn't quite so happy. She looked in the mirror and said, "I'm a boy, now." She had lost over six inches of beautiful brown hair.

The funny part of it all is that the hair that was really bothering her wasn't touched! Her bangs had been hanging in her eyes for a couple of weeks but she didn't cut those at all, much to my relief. The hair-cutting scissors are now kept safely INSIDE the box with the electric clippers, and I'm pretty sure she can't get that box open. I have a very hard time getting it open myself.

Since then, she has mentioned that she doesn't really like her hair short and she wants it back. I told her that she'll just have to wait until it grows back and that she shouldn't cut it again.

I wonder if she'll remember that!

Mandy doesn't like tomatoes!

When we have salads with our dinner, one of our favorite things to put on them is those little sweet grape tomatoes. Only thing is, Mandy thinks they're grapes.

We've told her over and over and over again they're NOT GRAPES!! They're TOMATOES! We've also reminded her that she HATES tomatoes. She just can't seem to remember all the tomatoes we've found on the counter with little teeth marks in them because she thought they looked like apples. And the grape tomatoes, lightly chewed, that we've found in the garbage can because they looked like grapes. It usually only takes one or two tastes and then she decides that batch isn't any good. But the very next time I get tomatoes, she tries them again.

The other day, we had salads with our dinner. And, true to her tradition, Mandy had to take a grape tomato. Before we could stop her, she had popped it into her mouth. And then the "fun" began.

Her face started the usual contortions, and she said, "I don't like it."

This, time, my compassion had come to an end with this issue. I decided to make her remember that she doesn't like tomatoes. "You will not spit it out. You will swallow it."

Talking with a full mouth, she said, "But I don't like it."

"I know. I told you that it's a tomato and you don't like tomatoes. You decided to grab one anyway and so you're going to eat it."

Face turns red. Mouth desperately wants to eliminate its contents without involving the throat in the unpleasantness of the situation. She looked at me again. "I don't like it."

"I know. Swallow it."

By now, I'm hoping that Mandy is thinking that maybe she really doesn't like tomatoes. ANY tomatoes. They're not going to get any better if she waits until the next batch comes.

She looked around the table at everyone else. No one volunteered any sympathy. Everyone else had lost interest in her predicament and was involved in other conversation. She was stuck with her mouthful of tomato.

"Swallow it."

I could tell that she was suffering, but like a good girl, she finally managed to choke it down. I praised her and gave her a drink of water. "Now," I said, "you're not going to help yourself to any more tomatoes, are you?"

"No."

"Do you know why?"

"Because I don't like tomatoes."

The really funny part came when Amy, who had been watching the whole episode, commented about what Mandy's face looked like with that tomato in her mouth. "She looked like she was meeting eat loaf."

We all got a huge laugh at Amy's little slip of the tongue. I don't think I'll ever look at meat loaf the same way again!

Music Practice

My kids are watching too much TV lately, I think. They're singing a song from one of their favorite movies:

"Git along home, Cindy, Cindy

Git along home, Cindy, Cindy

Git along home, Cindy, Cindy,

I'll marry you sometime."

Mandy started it. She doesn't know all the words to the verses, but she sure knows the chorus. And the boys joined right in so all three of them were singing just now. They sound good, too! I hate to make them stop to get busy with schoolwork. I'll log it in as music practice for today!

In case you're wondering, that song was from Rio Bravo, with John Wayne, Walter Brennan, Dean Martin, and Ricky Nelson. I'd rather it be that than some of the garbage on TV these days!

Gone Fishin'

Friday was a day to remember - we all went to the coast to go fishing! This is the first time in my life I've ever done any salt water fishing, at least that I can remember. We had a great time. The weather was perfect - 75 degrees and a little windy, but not too bad.

We went to Port Aransas where Gary had gone out with his co-workers back in November. The first place we considered was right out on the Gulf, and that wouldn't have been a great location because of the wind and high seas. The waves were extremely high and I'd have been a nervous wreck worrying about Mandy falling off the pier into the surf. So, we continued on a little way and found a nice spot on a pier in the shipping channel, where it was well protected. The water there was perfectly calm (except whenever a really BIG ship went by) and by the time we arrived, several people who had been there for a while decided they'd had enough, and they made room for us.

We started out with mud minnows, and while everyone to the right and left of us was pulling in one fish after another, we were getting a lot of nibbles but didn't catch anything. Then, a little while later, a kind gentleman asked us if we wanted his leftover bait, and we gratefully accepted. It was squid, and that seemed to be what the fish were really after! At that point, we started catching more fish than we could count. They were all hardhead catfish, and there were so many of them out there that we didn't catch anything else, with ONE exception - Tim caught an eel! Several people on the pier took pictures of him with his eel! We gave it to a couple of guys who wanted it for bait. They were even kind enough to take it off Tim's hook for him, which was good. I can deal with the catfish and their spines, but I wasn't interested in tangling with that eel's teeth.

I shared my pole with Mandy, because she wanted to catch a fish, too. She reeled in a couple of them and boy, was she happy!

Later in the day, I counted at least five fish that I caught on the same squid. I was amazed at how resilient those things are! During the course of the day, though, we lost quite a few of our hooks. The fish kept swallowing them. That was kind of aggravating because they were on steel leaders.

We each caught more fish that day than we've ever caught before. We threw all but one of them back, of course, because Gary hadn't brought a fillet knife and we really don't eat much fish anyway. But a very nice guy helped Gary fillet one of the biggest fish, and we brought home that and cooked it on the grill last night. Those who like fish said it was pretty good.

Another highlight was watching the dolphins out in the channel. I wish I'd had the equipment to get pictures of them, but they were too far away for that. But, we could see them quite well and they were really fun to watch.

We came back that night very late, very tired, and very happy - God allowed us to have a fun day and kept us all safe! We'd like to go out on a boat one of these days - maybe we'll catch something other than hardheads!

Conversation with a four-year-old

I have to write this one down now before I forget about it! For once, Mandy slept all night in her OWN bed! This is a rather rare occurance. Last year, for the entire two and a half months that Gary was here in Texas and I was still in Illinois with the kids, Mandy slept all night, every night, in MY bed. Since we've been here in this house, she has been switching back and forth between her bed and ours. Actually, I don't allow her in our bed very often because there isn't room. She's perfectly comfortable sleeping on a blanket on the floor. So, it was a pleasant surprise to wake up this morning to find her still sound asleep in her own bed.

"Time for little girls to wake up!" I said as I rubbed her back.

She stretched and yawned, and in a sleepy voice said, "Can I play with my play dough now?"

I said, "Well, maybe after you've had your breakfast you can."

"But I don't want breakfast; I just want to play with my play dough."

"You slept really good last night, didn't you?" I said. "You slept all night in your own bed!"

"Yeah. I used to sleep in your room when I was a little kid," she said.

"When you were a little kid? Are you a big kid, now?"

"Yes. I'm getting old, Mom."

"YOU'RE getting old? So, what does that make me?" I laughed.

With a sly grin on her face, she said, "Getting KISSED!" And she threw her arms around me and gave me a big kiss.

I think it's going to be a nice day!

My firstborn son

This is my 12-year-old son, Collin. He is a jolly lad who loves to make everyone laugh. He can talk like Donald Duck and everyone who hears it can't help laughing! I think it's pretty certain that he'll win the vote for class clown (and anything other titles we choose to tack on!). Of course, he'll win the vote because he's the only one in his class!!! Isn't homeschooling wonderful?!?

He is Mandy's best pal. He is always so good with her, even when she's being a pest, and believe me, she can really be a pest! I'll never forget the look on Collin's face the first time he held her after she was born. He was 8 years old at the time. He gazed into her tiny face, and with a deep sigh he said, "I hope I can be a daddy someday."

"What do you want first, a boy or a girl?" I asked.

He replied, "I don't care, as long as it's a baby!"

Collin will definitely make a fine husband and father one day. But for now, he's busy learning how to be a helpful young man who is always willing to lend a hand. God has given him a servant's heart and he has been a real blessing to me, especially since having my surgery. I don't have to worry about trying to lift anything relatively heavy as long as I have him around. He accompanied me to Lowe's yesterday to exchange our propane tank for the grill. Those things are heavy when they're full and I couldn't have managed it on my own. I'd promised the boys that they could go to their friends' house down the block after we got back. Unfortunately, after we paid for the propane, which took about 20 minutes, we had to sit around and wait for another 20 minutes for someone to come out of the store and get out a new tank for us. He was so patient! I know he was getting a little antsy to go, but he didn't complain once.

He also loves nature and anything having to do with it. He and Tim were very excited to find that our new home here in Texas has LIZARDS! We didn't have those in Illinois. We have a couple of them living in our garage, and at least one chameleon that lives on the fence near the gate. Collin and I stood at the window in the laundry room one day and we watched it chase a spider (and miss), and then it changed colors! How amazing!

Once while I was out somewhere, I found a large brown garden snail. We didn't have those in Illinois, either, so I brought it home to show to the boys. We did an Internet search to identify it and find out what it eats, and Collin decided to keep it for a pet. He got some sod from the back yard and made a little habitat for it in a small Rubbermaid container, and fed it scraps of veggies. It lived happily in that little container for several months, feeding on the carrots and other tidbits that Collin stuffed through the holes in the plastic that we'd attached to the top.

Now, not too long afterward we began finding ants in the house. They invaded our house from the back door, where they must have had a home deep underneath the threshold. I vacuumed up all the ants that I could get to and then sprayed a whole lot of chemicals into the holes from where they seemed to be emerging. (And yes, I immediately threw the vacuum cleaner bag into the garbage bin outside!)

That didn't completely eliminate the problem, however. After a while, I didn't see any more ants on the kitchen floor, but now I was finding them in the schoolroom! I couldn't figure out where in the world all these ants were coming from and why they were on the schoolroom table. There wasn't any food in there like there always is on the kitchen floor. I eliminated the dozen or so ants on the table in the morning before school, only to discover a dozen more in the evening! Finally, enough ants were out one day so that I managed to trace their movement. The line of ants stretched all the way across the table, onto the wall, and then up to the top of the bookshelves, and there was the rest of the colony! Those little creatures had taken up residence in the box where Collin kept his snail! I couldn't believe it - how in the world did they manage to find that snail's habitat? They had to have come in from the back door and made their way across the entire width of the house to the front room where we have our schoolroom. Considering their size, that must have been like Columbus discovering the new world and then everyone in Europe coming to live here afterward!

So, my dear son had to give up his snail. He was a little sad, but took it really well, though. He didn't want to just kill it, but since garden snails are pests I didn't want it in our yard. So he took it to the park and released it there. Meanwhile, I dumped the "habitat" out in the grass and discovered HUNDREDS of tiny ants scurrying about trying to figure out what had happened to their world. They had made a nice colony in the sod.

Since then, praise the Lord, I have found no more ants in the house!

The Case of the Missing Pork Loin

Yesterday, I went shopping for groceries. I hate shopping - it's hard work and I can never get absolutely all of it done in one day unless I can get out of the house right after breakfast. And, lately, it's not easy for me to get out of the house at all. I took all four of the kids with me this time, because I still tire easily. They were so helpful! I let the older ones push the cart, and I just walked around and pointed out what to put in it. Mostly! I still got REALLY tired out!

Anyhow, we got home with a vanload of groceries, including a pork loin from Sam's Club. I try to get most of our meat from there because I can get the larger quantities at a slightly lower price and package it up in individual meal sizes for the freezer. I had let the kids put the groceries away because I needed to rest when we got home. By the time that was done, it was time to start supper. Thankfully, we were just having leftovers so it wasn't long before supper was ready.

About an hour later, we were finishing up our dinner when it occurred to me that I didn't know where the meat was. I was concerned that it had been put into the freezer before I'd had a chance to cut it up and package it in smaller quantities. When I questioned the kids about it, the ground beef was in the fridge, but the pork loin wasn't. I was struck to discover that no one seemed to know where the pork loin was!

We all jumped up from the table and started searching. It wasn't in the freezer. It wasn't in the van. Amy remembered putting it in the cooler when we unloaded the cart into the van, and Tim hauled that cooler into the house. So, it had to be in the house somewhere! Tim was the last one to have it, but he'd pretended it was a baseball bat and swung it around a bit; after that, he couldn't remember what he'd done with it. Collin remembered yelling at Tim about playing with his food or some such thing, but couldn't recall anything after that.

So, logically, the only one left to question was Mandy. Now, this child is notorious for swiping things and hiding them in unusual places. She's more like her big sister than Amy wants to admit! Once, when Amy was about Mandy's age, I found a shriveled up slice of mozzarella cheese in the bathroom drawer where I kept my hairbrushes. That was before we had any other children, so there was only one culprit for that. Amy liked to stash snacks in strange places for later consumption, and, like a squirrel hiding acorns, she sometimes forgot about them. But, sometimes she didn't! She came into my room one day with chocolate all around her little mouth and a sweet, satisfied look in her eyes. Upon further investigation, I found a little pile of Oreo cookies behind the couch under the curtains where she would hide to eat them.

When I questioned Mandy about the pork loin, I had to ask her in simple terms that a four-year-old understands. Things like, "Mandy, did you see the long meat?" (hands out wide for visual effect)

"You mean the BIG meat?" (Little hands stretched out wide)

"Yes, the big one."

Blank stares...more questioning..."Mandy, where is the big meat? Did you take it?"

Suddenly, the light came on and a mischievous look swept over her sweet little face. She grabbed my hand and tip-toed me through the house, all the way from the kitchen to the stairs, and pointed up. "Come on!" she whispered.

We crept up the stairs, as if the pork loin was alive and we didn't want to wake it up. She led me to her bed, giggled, and pointed to the drawer underneath. By this time I was getting a bit exasperated, but hopeful.

"Open the drawer, please, Mandy."

She struggled to open the drawer (there was obviously something heavy inside) and there, resting peacefully, was our pork loin! THANKFULLY the packaging was still intact so there wasn't any need to sanitize the drawer. It was also still very cold so I have no doubt that it wasn't spoiled by this time.

Now, I'd really like to know just how that little girl managed to carry nine and a half pounds of meat up the stairs to her room, especially without any damage to the packaging. I almost wish I'd seen her do it. Maybe she saw her big brother with it slung over his shoulder and decided it couldn't be too hard. I'd also like to know what exactly she planned to do with all that meat. That was certainly the strangest snack stash our family has come up with so far.

Whatever the motive, I'm really thankful that God alerted us to the fact that she'd swiped it, and He did so BEFORE we had to leave for Bible study. In addition to the loss of almost $18 worth of meat, I shudder to think what that would have smelled like in a day or two! A dead mouse smells bad enough...but nine and a half pounds of dead pig??? Yuck!

Folding laundry isn't easy around here!

Whenever we have bedsheets to be folded, I usually ask the boys to help. The other day, Mandy wanted to "help" as well. This "help" typically involves entertaining the boys with an opportunity to play with her!

The dry air added an extra dimension of fun for all three of them - Mandy's hair went wild!

"How dry I am....."

This weather is SOOO NICE!!!! I love this weather - low 70's, and DRY! I know not everyone likes it this dry, but I do. Yeah, it's kind of hard on the nasal passages and throat, but I don't mind that so much. A little saline solution and a glass of ice water work wonders.

When we lived in Illinois, we NEVER had weather with humidity in the 20's like this! If it got down to 40%, (which was rare) I was really happy. My allergies seem to behave themselves a whole lot better when there isn't so much moisture. Mold and mildew have a hard time causing problems for me in these conditions!

When the weather is this nice, I usually don't have to kick the kids out of the house; they go out on their own accord. The other day the boys were playing baseball in our back yard. Right up until the ball hit the back door, that is! That's when I sent them to the park that's just up the road from our house.

Today, I felt strong enough to walk to the park with them so Mandy could come along (without having to make Amy go!) They had a great time chasing each other all over the plastic playground equipment, which adds an additional dimension of fun in dry weather like this - STATIC! I should have brought my camera along. Mandy's long hair was soon standing straight up!

All three of them had great fun trying to shock each other. They were laughing so much that I had a hard time not laughing too hard with them. It still hurts to laugh too much.

It also made for a good (if rather brief) science lesson on static electricity. I tried to explain the reasons why they were getting shocked without making it into an all-out science class. They weren't too interested in making it into a school day so I didn't press it too much! Why ruin a perfectly good day off with a science lesson?

Well, I have my own opinions on that one, but I'll let it go this time!

My tummy hurts!

How do you explain surgery to a four-year-old? That is, without instilling in her an unnecessary fear of the doctor and hospitals?

I had my gall bladder removed on Friday. It's now Monday evening, and my tummy still hurts. I'm at least up and around, now, and I was able to take a shower yesterday (Sunday afternoon). For the first 24 hours after getting home, I literally couldn't move without intense pain, and that was WITH the pain medication. If I went too long without the meds, I couldn't move at all.

I've tried to stay in bed all weekend and avoid moving around as much as possible. I am so blessed to have my husband to help me with everything I need, and he and my 17-year-old daughter, Amy, have kept the household running. Amy has prepared meals for us and is doing a great job.

I'm also blessed to have so many loving friends and relatives praying for me - thank you to all of you! I know everything went well because of your prayers. Mom, I know you told me not to try to do school this week, but I do have to keep Tim up with his reading...and I made Collin keep up with his science lessons...but that's ALL! :) I'm not doing anything else - I PROMISE!

My little one, Mandy, keeps wanting to see my tummy and wants to get me new band-aids for it. She's so tender and compassionate when she sees someone who isn't feeling well. I don't know what I'd do without my sweet girl! It's hard to explain to her about why I'm in so much pain, but I think she's content to be allowed to help out whenever she can. Yesterday she "helped" me get up and walk to the bathroom, just like she saw her daddy doing.

She keeps checking on me every now and then and asking if my tummy still hurts. I'll get better really soon with this kind of care!

Sometimes our Fold is more like a zoo...

We have some other members of our family who have not yet been introduced. They're a rather exclusive group of individuals who, until recently, seemed to live a very active life. They used to go everywhere we went. One, in particular, went with Collin to every piano lesson for a year. When one of them was lost, we grieved. When a new member arrived, we rejoiced. They were included in nearly every aspect of our lives.

These family members were very instrumental in helping us teach our children about how we should treat one another, and even the social graces. Lessons in setting the table and etiquette were included.

Thankfully, they don't run up much of a bill at the restaurants.

Yes, they're what we call, "The Monkey Club." These were my boys' absolutely favorite toys for several years. They have always had lots of other "boy stuff" to play with, but these monkeys were their all-time favorites.

Just after we moved to Texas, they found a box of my old Barbie clothes and furniture. Most of the clothes were made by my grandmother when I was about 8 years old. You can tell that some of the fabrics and fashions look rather dated - I think there's still a pair of bell-bottom pants in that box. Anyway, the boys found these clothes and the doll furniture, and went to work. It kept them occupied for literally hours!

They have done lots of little scenes like this over the years. Once, they made instruments out of legos and set up a little band, complete with drum set. They never went anywhere without at least one of the small monkeys in their pockets. When one of them got lost at the airport, it was a horribly sad day. It was several weeks before I found another one at the local thrift store.

The boys are good about letting their little sister in on the fun, too, as long as she doesn't destroy their hard work, that is. And that's not easy for a toddler to avoid sometimes. After all, she has her own ideas about how to set things up. She's a "keeper-at-home-in-training" and has to learn these things.

Since I'm no longer too crazy about Barbie (she just can't seem to keep her clothes on), I think the Monkey Club will do nicely.

Cicada Wars

Collin and Tim LOVE cicadas. Every fall, they go searching for the empty shells that were shed by the the noisy things. In Illinois, they found hundreds of them and kept them in an old lunch box.

One day, I found Collin (then about 10 years old) out in our driveway with all his army men, cowboys and Indians lined up in ranks. They were all on the same side, marching to defend Planet Earth against rows and rows of hollow cicadas. I wish I had taken a picture of that scene.

I remember collecting them when I was a kid, too. I think I must have taken every cicada shell in that tree - I remember my Dad on the ground with a big jar, and I climbed higher and higher, dropping the shells to my Daddy. Maybe that's why it didn't surprise me too much to find an old lunch box packed with cicada shells when we moved last December. They couldn't come with us to Texas, though - they didn't pass inspection. Many of them were missing some legs, and more than a few were crushed. I didn't think they could take the rigors of being deployed, so they were given an honorable discharge...and surreptitiously disposed of, along with their lunch box.

The boys were delighted to find cicada shells here in Texas, too, and they're a little bigger than the ones in Illinois. I was surprised they didn't go to war this year. I guess there weren't enough cicadas to be considered a threat to Planet Earth. Good thing, too - I don't think all of the human troops were transferred to Texas, either.

Signs of Life

One of our favorite songs is "Signs of Life" by Steven Curtis Chapman. The lyrics of the third verse talk about the "signs of life" left all over the house and yard by the artist's children.

Our house and yard are definitely filled with signs of life - as I got ready for bed tonight, I emptied my pockets. Their contents weren't mine.

I have a small box (okay, it's an empty baby wipes tub) that I use for holding "pocket prizes" each night. One night a while back, my prizes included two cars, three legos and a bean. Signs of life.

Tonight's prizes were acorns - three little souvenirs that Mandy brought back from the Gonzales field trip a couple of weeks ago.

We were having lunch that day in the courtyard of the jail and courthouse in historic Gonzales. It was awfully hard for Mandy to sit still and finish her lunch because there were millions of acorns with her name on them just waiting to be picked up. The little pocket on her shirt got rather stretched out. It just wasn't big enough - every time she bent over to pick up another acorn, two or three would fall out of her pocket (much to everyone's amusement). She began to get rather frustrated, and then kind Mr. Warren came to her rescue with a ziploc bag!

WHAT a prize she had then! We came home with a whole quart of acorns that day. I told her before we got home that the entire bag would not be allowed in the house, or there would have been acorns all over the place! I let her take five acorns inside with her, and the rest had to go to the back yard. When we got home, her big brother helped her count out five acorns, and she obediently took her bag of treasure out the back door and placed it against the brick wall of the house.

Now, two weeks later, she had to say "goodbye" to the bag of acorns. Thankfully, she wasn't too upset about it, though I did it while she wasn't looking. They were badly moldy from being in that bag too long, and I didn't want her playing with them and ingesting that stuff. So, the precious acorns are gone. But before I banished them to the landfill, I buried a couple of handfuls in the mulch out back. And, I put three of them in my pocket in hopes of one day planting them in containers for future transplanting.

Maybe I should write Mandy's name on them.

Tickle Me Mandy

Our youngest child is Mandy, a precocious four-year-old who LOVES to be tickled! A few months back, she came up to me out of the blue and said, "I want you to call Grandpa and tell him to come to my house and tickle my tummy."

So, I did!

Unfortunately, Grandpa couldn't come right away (they live in Tulsa, about 12 hours' drive from here), so I was asked to take care of Mandy's request in Grandpa's place until further notice.

I've never seen a child who actually ASKS to be tickled - I think her daily tickling must be like vitamins to her. She just can't get through the whole day without a good dose of it. She'll come up to me and show me her bare tummy, and won't leave me alone until I give her my full attention! I keep tickling until she can't breathe, and then I ask, "Had enough?"

With a mischievous grin, she answers, "No!"

More tickling...face turns blue..."Had enough?"

"No!"

...and so it goes on. Finally I just have to say, "Okay, that's enough for now." I don't want her to overdose, because when Grandpa comes for his next visit, tickling Mandy will be first on his list of things to do!