We tried to keep cool by going grocery shopping, going to the Museum of Science, eating popsicles, and then by filling our little pool. R and I spent many hours in there over the weekend.
Before it was insanely hot, we did this (notice how I'm wearing a jacket):
Besides trying not to melt away, there's been a lot of little things going on. After getting into a bathing suit for the first time, I hopped on the South Beach Diet. It's going well so far, although in the first two weeks, you're not supposed to eat any fruit, and we just bought some gorgeous cherries and nectarines, so I've been cheating there a little bit. I don't think eating fruit is my problem anyway.
Operation Snooze has been a mild success. We eased off on forcing R to fall asleep by himself - sometimes he'll do it, other times we don't want to mess with things because he's already super cranky or completely wired. But I've been firm about not sleeping in his bed when he calls me in during the night. Sometimes he'll sleep in his room all night (and very soundly); other times, if he wakes up, he just marches himself into our room, climbs up between A and me, and goes back to sleep. It's amazing, but either way, I've been able to get up in the mornings and get ready for work without R waking up. That alone has been a miraculous change!
In other R news, he's had some issues with school lately. We've had a few rough drop-offs and sometimes he decides to spend the day in his old classroom instead of the new one. He likes the new one, but there are a lot more kids in there (18, compared to seven or eight in his old class), and even though there are three teachers, it is quite a bit noisier and more chaotic than his Pre-K-1 class. When he arrives in the morning, he doesn't get a circle of friends surrounding him and giving him hugs and shouting his name in excitement. But they give the kids time to transition, so it's fine for him to move back and forth. On Monday this week, though, he was distraught about going to school from the second he woke up in the morning. He was so upset and pleading with me that I decided to keep him home because I work from home on Mondays. The idea was for him to see that if he stays home with us, it's not fun. We have to do work, we have to clean the house, we can't play with him. I stuck to that for the most part on Monday, and R helped me with cleaning and spent a lot of time playing by himself, but I didn't ignore him either. I read him some stories, we took a lunch break in the pool, we played with Legos for a little while. But my plan worked. At the end of the day, he told A that he did NOT have a good day. So he was excited to go to school on Wednesday morning. (Of course, they were having Field Day, complete with games, hot dogs, and popsicles, so that helped!)
Let's see ... other news ... our bathroom renovation project is finally starting next week! We've picked out and ordered almost everything. We just have to find a medicine cabinet and light fixture and order our tile after the tile guy tells us today how much we need. We found out yesterday that we'll only be without a bathtub for two days, which is wonderful news. Especially because we are going to be taking showers/baths at our friends' house during that time. And, they are expecting their twins pretty much at any time now. So we don't want to be inconveniencing them for a long time while they're trying to get settled at home with two newborns. (My friend isn't actually due until late July, but from the looks of her, those babies are coming sooner rather than later!)
In the evenings, I've been reading the Bible more and getting to bed earlier, which is lovely. I was going to participate in Trish's 40 Days of Faith "project," but I wasn't sure what specific thing to pray for. I had two ideas in mind, and when I asked God what to do, he laid something else on my heart. I needed to pray for a specific person in my life and give up after-dinner snacks. This was the same message I got from Him for Lent this year. So I'm re-Lenting. LOL. But when I prayed about this, I had a lightning bolt moment where I realized that praying for this person was directly related to the two things I was thinking about asking God for for myself, so who knows how it will all work out. I just know it will work out because God's in charge. :-)
Tonight I'll write about my little miracle/message from God I got yesterday. It was really cool! But I need to actually do some work now...
Oh! Just one more thing: Last night, we went out to eat at a country buffet place nearby. We like it because it's relatively cheap, and we can all get something we like, plus dessert! (Well, options were a little limited for me this week because of the diet, but whatever...) So, while we were there, we noticed two other tables where people were bowing their heads, holding hands, and saying grace before dinner. A said that he has noticed that at this place before. I have to tell you - that is a RARE sight 'round these parts. But it was refreshing, and I thanked God for it. It made me wonder, though: Is that common where you all live? Do you say grace in public? I'm ashamed to admit that we rarely do. We'll go through spurts where we do it all the time, and then there are dry spells. So I'm just curious about y'all. :-) (Apparently, the country buffet has affected my speech and writing...)
Happy Friday - and Happy Father's Day to my dad friends!
10 comments:
You post always reminds me of how it was raising small children.
We are having such nice weather, I wish I could send it to you, but looks like you are handling it great with the pictures.
Really nice.
Yeah...we say prayer at meals in public.
Sweetheart,
I went to the country buffet once with my brother. All of the time we were going in my brother kept saying to me "Don't drink the milk.".
I was amazed at how much food my brother was able to consume, ribs, ham, roast beef, roast pork, and various chops. I filled up very quickly, the mashed potatoes and gravy did me in. After we left, I asked my brother how he was able to consume so much when I wasn't. He told me "I told you not to drink the milk!".
I am glad to hear that the sleeping situation is slowly resolving. I was surprised to hear that you are going on a diet. I never imagined you having a problem with weight. Make sure that you take vitamins. The French ladies that I know swear by their soup regimin. They have a bowl of hot soup with every lunch. They can lose three or four pounds a month that way and are never hungry,
all of my love to you and your family, daddy
I don't see too many people saying grace in public, but I've done it before when I'm eating by myself. I don't typically say anything out loud, just bow my head for a moment before eating. I'm glad the heat finally let up - R looks wilted in that 2nd picture (and we had the same thing happen here - it was awful for a couple of days).
You sound like you are handling life pretty well. Glad you are ok & R's sleeping habits are getting better.
It's been really freaking hot here too and it probably won't let up for some time. I have huge fat chickens sitting their butts in water to cool off (I've never seen that before) and during the heat of the day you would think there were no animals at all in the back yard because they are all hiding in shade.
Here the praying thing is much more common. I'm not completely sure that is better in any way since here this "Christian Culture" is so pervasive. It is sort of like two classes of people. You have the members of the club who would always make it a point to pray in public just so people will know they are part of a church or in ministry. Then you have the people who openly reject all religion and God. Both really common here and I can't say for certain that I always feel the "praying" ones are the best examples to follow.
Sorry I am just kind of disillusioned about Christianity as a culture. I think here more than a lot of places, you can see it for what it is. It's big business that has nothing to do with loving Jesus or your neighbor.
Sometimes we pray in public too over a meal. But Jesus told us to pray in secret, you know?
Oh, and how do you need to lose weight? Aren't you a size 4?!? I don't know if it's possible, but maybe if there's a Y around, you could sign R up for an activity, and go lift some weights - that way you get toned up, but don't have to eat less. This is always a better strategy in my book :)
I've seen a lot of families praying in public here, working in restaurants. Mainly families with young children, although I might not be right at the table at the moment another age group is praying. It's really nice to see. But here we have a lot of Christian radio and bookstores and bumper stickers, and giant McMansion churches(right across the street from each other, dueling denominations). We do, sometimes, but a lot of times most of our energy gets sapped from trying to get everyone out from under the table, and trying to keep them from throwing things at each other. All my kids say the Lord's Prayer by heart, but they sometimes fight over who gets to say which part("temptation" is exclusively Calvin's word). As Dad says, I look at the picture of you, and I see that you barely have flesh surrounding your skull and wonder why you would be concerned about your weight, but my experience with South Beach has been that a little cheating in the phase one part doesn't matter too much, I lost 17 pounds still occasionally grabbing a few chips and drinking the occasional regular soda, so a few pieces of fruit probably won't make much difference at all. Good luck with your bathroom, and can't wait for twins, hope she is ok and not panicking.
That first R in the pool pic is so awesome. Give him a huge kiss for me. Can't wait to see our 3 boys together in July/Aug!!!
R will adjust to his new school, I am sure. We don't say grace nearly enough even though I always thank God for what I have. I do see other doing it from time to time in resturants though.
Wow...you've got a lot of cool stuff going on! And re-lenting in the middle of it :)
Happy summer!
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