The Brick-ays Are Here!

Wow! Much has happened in the last few days with one of the more exciting events being the delivery of our bricks! Hooray! T and I feverishly waited all morning for their arrival. We were actually outside when the truck pulled up – it was HUGE! The driver untied the load and lowered this tri-wheeler and spent the next ten minutes unloading and driving five palettes of bricks and one palette or mortar! Yea! The process was quite fascinating to watch and now our little parking pad on our driveway is covered in Old Chicagos! We’re pumped to say the least. We were like kids on Christmas morning. As soon as the guy left, T loaded up our little work-horse wagon and pulled a load to the front where he spent the next several minutes laying out “our” pattern. MW and I stood on the porch watching and together (that’s MW and I) picked the border. I am so excited! It was amazing to see how different the sidewalk will look bricked! Just that little taste of it! Amazing! So the plan is to begin work on the sidewalk and front patio in the next few weeks.

The morning the bricks were scheduled to arrive we made a trip to Lowes to purchase two new saw blades so T can halve the bricks. I’m thinking I might let him write the entry on the bricking process, as he’s perfected this “make your own pavers, stretch a buck, and make it look like the real deal” thing. He’s pretty amazing!

So about that trip to Lowes…we were keeping a friend's little girl, Av. Let me just tell you that a trip to Lowes with three is a lot different than a trip to Lowe’s with two. Yikes…we were outnumbered! Ok, interesting, we put our purchase items below the basket, ‘cause the basket was full of little Indians! At least that’s what you’d have thought if you’d heard them. MW, Av, and T3 were all making “wha-wha-wha-wha” sounds with their hands patting their mouths…thank goodness the old man standing beside us found them cute instead of annoying!

We also took all three to the pool. Av, who is a year younger than MW, can already swim and jump off the diving board. So…we had "fearless boy" – a danger to himself (T3), "fearless girl" – we had no idea what she’d do (Av), and “I’m terrified of getting water in my eyes, but I can’t let “baby Av” do something I can’t do” girl (MW). All of that said…I strapped T3 in his stroller (which I locked the brakes on so it couldn’t roll anywhere) and made a bee line for the diving board…because MW was about to jump…well that’s what we all thought. Turns out she got to the edge and chickened out. “I’m going to let Av go first.” And with that, she backed off the board, never to set foot on it again.

The pool was a fun experience, even with the craziness of three! T3 only went under (as in, went under and couldn’t get himself back up) once. Every time that happens my heart stops. I feel like I’m moving in slow motion, but I’m certain from the pounding in my heart post “water breath” that I must’ve been moving at the speed of light! Watching how quickly he can lose his footing and slip under water, without even a sound, reinforces the absolute importance of keeping my eyes on my children EVERY second we’re around water. I’m always thankful to see others who’ve circled their wagons and are camping out at the baby pool. It’s nice to have a little company.

In spite of MW being a bit timid when it comes to jumping off the diving board into her Daddy’s arms, she is braver than I’ll ever be! Last night – ugh…do I admit this on my blog? Will you judge me? I’ll just have to take that chance…last night MW and I headed upstairs to get her ready for bed. I flipped on the light in her room and out of the corner of my eye I saw it…a roach…running for her bookcase. I squelched the immediate impulse to shriek in terror. Great, add in the fact that T is NOT home! It’s up to me…and I must act in secret! So I sent MW out of the room for about seven different reasons – go potty, go get your brush, are all your toys in the playroom put away?, etc., etc., etc. I pushed books, I moved books, I shoved them. I beat on the sides of the bookcase…no roach. I can’t stand that! Is it dead? Is it hiding? Did it slip out somehow in the blink of an eye? Where is it and what if SHE sees it? I couldn’t put her off any longer, so I went ahead and reluctantly tucked her into bed. (I mean, I so live in America, where else does a mother reluctantly tuck her child into bed because she saw a roach! So anyway, reluctantly I tucked her into bed. I turned to leave her and she says, “Mama! UUUuhhhhh!” and pointed to the wall. There “it” was! With one hard wack I killed him! He fell beneath the window shade and then tumbled behind the bookcase, which I promptly moved and, just in case that wack with the shoe didn’t get him, I proceeded to flatten his body between the carpet and the giant wad of tp I held in my most unfortunate hand. MW insisted on seeing his remains. After declaring him dead, MW sent me to flush him. With all of that done, I just knew she’d want to sleep with me. And I was wrong. She snuggled under her covers and told me good night. She went right to sleep. Amazing. She definitely got that from her daddy!



Monday night, thanks to the generosity of a friend (no offense to Little Debbie lovers – I’m convinced those things cause cancer and I refuse to buy them…ever! Just the plastic taste of that nasty icing thickening on the roof of my mouth…ick! I think my cholesterol just shot up thinking about them!) (in all fairness, I should admit I eat cheese from a can at football games - you know, on the nachos...probably not all that different...), we found ourselves with a few Little Debbies. MW got one after dinner and we let T3 try his first Little Debbie. As you can see, he doesn’t share our (mine and T’s) feelings for the little cancer causing snacks. And as a note to all my dear friends who, after seeing this picture, will undoubtedly let us know it's past time for T3 to have a haircut- please know that if you didn't point it out, we'd never know. I personally love taking T3 for a haircut. He's always so cooperative and MW NEVER needs me while I'm supposed to be holding his head in a death grip - did I say death grip? Oops! Anyway, it's just always such a stress-less experience. In fact, I seem to always feel refreshed after the experience. And T3 certainly enjoys it! I just love taking all of us home for a bath and changing everyone's clothes the second we walk in the door. The way MW tells me there's itchy hair down her shirt makes me smile. Add in the massive amounts of free time I have all day every day and well, I just don't know why I put off scheduling that appointment. Hmm...



After watching a batman cartoon, my little super hero came down wearing her Superman outfit. She also adamantly declared she DOES have super powers! Superman, in ruby red slippers? Hee, hee!

Tonight we all crunched around our little round table in the kitchen for dinner. I’m cleaning out all our food. I mean all of it. I’m ready for a fresh start on everything, so our meals have become a bit creative, shall we say? So tonight’s menu was blackened tilapia (one piece each), steamed broccoli, edamame, and French onion soup. Well…I found some peppers I’d frozen after picking them from our garden last summer. I couldn’t remember if they were hot or sweet, but figured they’d be good in the broccoli, if they didn’t add to the flavor, certainly they’d add some color. I sliced ‘em and smelled ‘em and decided they must be sweet. That’s what I thought, until I took my first bite of broccoli…they were hot! Oh yes, they were hot. The broccoli was quite spicy! Spicy, spicy! But, it was good. I don’t think I’ll do that again.

So anyway, about crunching around the table…something no one told me before I had children was that once you have children you’re never allowed to have your food or beverage all to yourself again. For the first year of your child’s life, they eat everything you eat and then some! And after that, they want a sip of this or a bite of that. MW has a reputation for stealing meat off my plate. She just reaches over and snags what she wants. Tonight I had my one little piece of fish and she snagged at least a quarter of it. She kind of ticked me off, so I told her she would eat EVERY bite of her dinner. If she didn’t finish it tonight, she would eat it for breakfast. She would eat EVERY SINGLE bite! Right after making that threat, T3 pulled an “I’m fifteen months old and I can do whatever the heck I want, no matter what you say” move. He looked T in the eyes after being told not to throw his food, and threw a chunk of fish. Post spanking, he was in my lap…eating fish off my plate! Whatever! So anyway…An hour post dinner, MW was still sitting at the table…eating. And then it began…what I predict was the first of what will be many such instances. You see, T3 has learned, just today, how to climb up and down on the kitchen chairs. Oh, he thinks he’s big stuff. He climbs up, screams with delight, claps his hands and then climbs down. Aside from all the risk of heart attack (that would be me having the heart attack as I watch him in action), not to mention head injury, he’s becoming quite sure of himself. So MW is still camped out at the table. T3 saunters into the kitchen and climbs into the chair beside her. He rarely turns down food. As soon as he sees what’s on her plate, he starts grabbing food and shoveling it into his mouth. MW sees the opportunity and quickly helps T3 shovel food into his mouth. He’s on a roll, so she lays down on the chairs (which she’s scooted together like a sofa) and waits for T3 to finish…what’s a mother to do? And why did I immediately realize that the day will soon be here when T3 will be cleaning up after the rest of us…that was my Dad’s job. He always took care of any leftovers or anything we left on our plates. For some reason, I’m thinking left overs aren’t going to be a problem around here. And kudos to MW for conning your bro into cleaning your plate. And yes, I let it go. He didn’t eat it all, and I did make MW finish it. What’s worse, eating it ALL by herself, or eating what T3 played with? I’m not sure, but I think probably the later of the two!


And, one more thing, without going into super detail, I had a pretty amazing experience this week…two different encounters with hope. The kind of hope that comes from Christ’s redeeming work. Once it came in the form of a dear and precious friend calling, actually shouting to me that God had brought the rain after a long and unpromising year of drought. We screamed and whooped and hollered together on the phone! Ahh…the joy of hearing one give credit and praise to God for bringing precious drops of rain! And then another encounter with hope…that accompanied a brief glimpse of seeing what God has done in the heart of a little girl who was born to a single mother. That rich experience of tasting God’s goodness and seeing Him reflected in her life and the sweet and tender expression of my Savior reminding me that none of us are beyond redemption. That even when we are caught off guard by things that happen, He is not. He is, in fact, completely sovereign.