Mom Moments of Confession

I absolutely love being a mom. Little H3 is a very energetic child who is pretty much a hurricane of energy from the time she wakes up until the time she goes to bed at night. The noise level is equivalent as well. She has two volumes: loud and louder. Well, maybe three, if you count the sleeping volume. That volume isn't entirely silent either. She often sings in her sleep. I've found each stage of her three years to bring delights and challenges. So many moments I want to hang onto and never let go. And then there are other things that I can't wait for, like her being able to make her bed. Yes, I know a three year old is capable of at least pulling up the covers, but from ground level, H3 cannot reach her bed. It's a pretty high captains bed, with storage drawers underneath.

Something else I'm looking forward to is better focus on cleaning up toys! H3 is pretty good on a small scale when I ask her to pick up the toys in her room. Today was not such a day. The best way to put it, I suppose, is to say that it looked like her room barfed all over my house. How one little child can create such chaos in a matter of a couple hours, I'm not sure, but she certainly succeeded. It was far beyond her ability to clean quickly, so I wound up doing a good portion of it. Generally that's just something I just chalk up to being part of the territory of mom-hood, but once I have to start moving furniture to chase down the stray toys, I blame it purely on my mischievous munchkin!

Something I am proud of her for though, is her memory. I find a child's mind fascinating. She was taking a bath earlier and singing Romans 6:23 "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Thanks to my college roommate Bethany and her gift of GT and the Halo Express last year, I often hear my daughter singing Bible verses throughout her day. Granted, she doesn't always get the references in at this age, but just the fact that she is already hiding God's word in her heart brings delight to this mom! Children's minds are like sponges. They soak up everything! Good and bad. I have another story about that too, a more embarrassing one.

My friend Robyn and I were in Williamsburg shopping one day. We stopped in a Victoria's Secret store to check out their semi-annual sale and H3 was with me. This was months ago. She pointed to an article of clothing and asked if it was underwear. I told her no, it was called a bra. My mistake. Since then, H3 has regularly pointed out bras, much to my dismay and despite my attempts to explain to her that it isn't really appropriate to discuss undergarments in public. The worst case was on Thursday, when we were sitting in the waiting room at the Sussex County Health Department. There were quite a few people in the room. Out of nowhere, H3 walked up to me, pointed to me, and said quite loudly, "Mommy has a bra!" I wanted to melt into the floor. Again with that whole child-has-a-mind-like-a-sponge thing!

On another happy note, it is once again a beautiful day in the 60s. H1 is working today for Surry Parks and Rec, helping them out with the multiple basketball games that are running today. H3 and I had a leisure morning, for once. We took a walk around the neighborhood early this morning, while it was still chilly, and came back inside for warm cocoa with multi-color marshmallows. Yum!

I have Monday and Tuesday off before returning to work on Wednesday. I'm looking forward to spending some quality time with H3, and seeing another friend with her daughter on Monday!

~H2

A Breeze through January

We have had an unseasonably warm winter so far, with quite a few days in the 60s. On one such Saturday, H1 and I took H3 to a park for an hour in between shopping trips. H3 loves this tall slide!



A friend was kind enough to watch H3 for a Sunday afternoon and evening so H1 and I could go out for a movie and then dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings. The Green Bay/NY Giants game was on that day. I’m a Packers fan and H1 is a Giants fan. It was a fun and relaxing date day for us!


Last weekend, one of my college roomies (Auntie Amber) came over and spent the night on Friday. Saturday morning I made cinnamon rolls—yes, homemade from scratch. They turned out quite yummy and fluffy, much to my delight. H1 is usually the baker of cinnamon rolls around here, so I was pretty happy with myself.



H3 has a set of blocks in her room that she loves to play with. She spent a while building towers with Auntie Amber.


Sunday after church found H1 and H3 back in her room, building towers yet again!



I am still substituting up at the middle school. Up until this week I was working as a second teacher in both 6th and 8th grade classrooms. This week was a testing week for the school, and next week I will be filling in for the Spanish teacher. After that, I’m not sure. I may be done at the school or I may still be substituting. That part is up in the air right now!
Progress towards closing on our new house is continuing fairly smoothly. There’s a contractor working on the house right now, and he plans to be done by Monday at the latest, which is in plenty of time for the Feb. 10th scheduled closing. I’m getting a whole new bathroom out of all this, complete with a new tub and shower, and new tile that I even got to pick out! I was so surprised when we got a call last Friday, asking if we wanted the original tile back in or if we wanted to pick out something new. Off H1 and I went to Lowes and found a nice new tile. I can’t wait to see everything in place! After closing, we’re planning to spend the rest of February painting and changing a few things before we move in at the end of the month. As soon as we get things ready, I’ll be taking pictures!

Ok, just a brief note since I’ve got to get dinner ready for my hungry family. Blessings!

~H2

January, week 1

Well, I survived! I made it through the first week of school substituting for the special education teacher who left over Christmas break. I've been juggling 2 sixth grade classes (Physical Science and History) and 2 eighth grade classes (Physical Science and English). I have to say that I am very impressed with the teachers I've been working with. All the classrooms are inclusion classrooms, so I work with another teacher to aid specific students in the class. I have found these teachers to be very caring and they have given me so many ideas for ways I can adapt to teaching H3 at home. Given that my substituting position will be for an undetermined length at this point, I'm thankful that I enjoy working with these teachers, and with the students. The principal has told me that I will be working at least through next week, and possibly longer, until they are able to fill the position. I miss being home with H3, but it's nice to be able to help out the family.

H3 is staying with a woman by the name of Jackie during the day. She wakes up each morning asking to "go see Ms. Jackie." When I drop her off, I rarely get a goodbye, unless I ask for one. H3 takes off for the toy room and has the biggest smile on her face when we arrive at the house. Jackie is a very sweet Christian lady, a young grandmother, who watches a few children in her home near the schools. There is a fun playroom, complete with tent, and the kids also get to help her out in the kitchen. She has a fabulous fenced in play area out back, and during the week, she'll take the older ones over to the hen-house to help feed the chickens and gather eggs. Stories are read to the kids everyday, and there are weekly trips to the library. I prefer to have H3 at home with me, of course, but since I have to take her somewhere, I'm so thankful to have found Jackie!

Time to make dinner. Homemade pizza and wings are on tonight's agenda!

~H2