Friday Favorites!!

I'm linking up today with Andrea, Narci, and Erika for Friday Favorites!  And hopefully my link up is not just in spirit but I can can actually link up with them from my phone. We'll see...

I only have one favorite right now and it's most definitely positively this:

It's been so very hard lately to make time to study, or read anything for that matter, but quitting the psychosis that is Facebook has helped.  I'm learning to engage myself one paragraph at a time.  It's more difficult than sitting down in a lovely cozy spot with hot tea and snuggling in for some well developed thoughts...but it's a Mom life and if I don't do it this way than I'm not learning anything beyond which diaper rash cream is best for this moment in time and temperature (also a proud learning moment...but I still need the other kind).

The author, Professor Markos, spoke at our school's commencement this past spring and was excellent.  His book does not disappoint either.  I only wish I had read it sooner, before I taught the humanities course on ancient literature and history.  He has so many wonderful insights and is making me fall in love all over again with the ancient tales, and in turn, the current one we live as we await the return of our King.

It's phenomenal, and a great read whether you are already familiar or not with the pagan classics.  

(I especially like the part where he talks about the Geek camp hehehe :-)

Sorry Dr. Markos...I couldn't resist.  That's the best typo EVER.

Happy Friday everyone!

Catching Up

I have a sweet little one asleep on me so let's go through iPhone photos and catch you up on what's been happenin' round these parts!

We celebrated Howard's oldest friend (hehe- I mean 'longtime') Elizabeth and her 40th birthday!  She lives a life worth celebrating!

This is Elizabeth's mom, Phyllis.  She used to watch Howard when he was a baby!

Jonah was in full on party mode.  It's hard to top any affair where you ride goats.  (In case you were wondering that expression is excitement.  Apparently goats are absolutely thrilling.)

And of course plenty of left-arm directions were followed by Opa.  He's the only person who will spend the time just walking Jonah around wherever he wants to go.

Howard and I had a 3-day inservice this week and on Wednesday Jonah went to his first day at his new 'school.'  (He's going to daycare this year while I teach part time.)

He always loves it when we visit there and was so excited to go.

He wasn't thrilled when we picked him up...

BUT he had a great day and did really really well.  The teachers were wonderful with him too. His little sheet that told me what he learned and did said he loved outside and the food at lunch - and that he had seconds. :-) Even though he'll only be there a few hours each afternoon they still might lose money on us!

We've had some hard days recently and I firmly believe the healthiest way to deal with emotions is unhealthy eating. :-). Blue Bell's seasonal Lemon Bliss was the perfect cure!

Howard has been cutting Jonah's hair at home and it's going great!!  This neat little device is also so much safer than the hair salon's sharp scissors that were so close to his eyes!

And as much as I love Jonah's hair, it sure is sweet to see him with it covered up sometimes.  He just looks more like a baby!  Preciousness.

Well that's about it!  We're getting into school mode and finishing up the summer to-do list, soaking up pool time, and I'm enjoying shopping and cooking from my Stocked Kitchen book.  It's a simple, wonderful life!

POD Syndrome and other illnesses

If you hang with me on Facebook you know that our poor Jo threw up all Friday night.  It was the saddest little sight to see his pale face and heaving and inability to crawl.  It was our first virus with him and we hated it! 

Howard googled and learned pedialyte was needed (I could have told him that but I guess the google powers that be carry a bit more gravitas), so he ran out at some horrible hour of the night to get some.  What a devoted Papa.

Now Howard has the bug.  We were looking forward to a respite tomorrow from the overloaded summer we've had, but it looks like I'll be playing nurse.  

My newest patient started to ask me if I had any idea what it felt like to be nauseous and get sick...but he couldn't keep a straight face (a sure sign he's not feeling himself).  I guess he also wanted to live past today.

So far I'm ok on the tummy front but I have actually been suffering from  POD Syndrome.  This disease is becoming more common among my age group, and largely targets females.  It's very difficult to live with and really has become a daily struggle.  

POD stands for Pinterest Overload Syndrome and yes, I made it up.  Scratch that.  I discovered it, and you heard it here first at The Joy!

I kid, but kind of not really so much maybe not.  It's exhausting to try and make a birthday party look spectacular, and it's even exhausting to take a stand and say I'm not going to make it spectacular because then I start gauging how much Jonah's childhood will be ruined if I don't fix my printer so I can label the bowl of Oreos with a super cute sign that says "Oreos."

And after several hours of intermittent party planning I decide I should have read a book and using my spare 3 minutes in that way would have benefitted everyone far more than me having a conversation with myself wherein I go round and round but inevitably talk myself out of making Jonah's cake.  Because I want to live past that day.

Well that's all for now.  Jonah turns 11 months old tomorrow.  I don't have a chalkboard that says that and am not even very far in filling out his baby book, so I that may be all the documentation that happens.  And you know what?  I feel like we need to forget some things once in a while just to balance out The Great Documentation.

Happy 11 months, son.  We love you with our whole Pinterest-less hearts!

Monday Mash-Up

While I have a few minutes to myself, let me share with you some fragmented thoughts and then I must clean up after the 25 pound tornado that just swept through my home.

1.  

I'm taking a parenting class and learned a trick for when you need to transition your kids - colored sand timers.  They're made by Lakeshore Learning but I wanted to try and make them for much less, and success!  This project cost me under $10 and Jonah now gets himself ready to go on time, every time.

2. 

This is the face that encourages me during a jog.  Sigh.  I need to figure out how to make a sand timer that pauses time.

3. 

I scored this scarf today at the DOLLAR STORE!  (But when you ask me, I'm going to say it's from Nordstrom.) I rediscovered the dollar store and bought Jonah some new books for the bathtub, shampoo, and a calendar for our nanny to record his diaper changes, sleep, etc. this school year.  Amazing!  And this is the part where I annoy myself.  I can't simply walk in, buy, and walk out.  No.  I have to create a whole project for myself wherein I plan Jonah's 2nd birthday party from Pinterest, but execute with Dollar Store.  I have over a year.  I can do it!!

Now see those unfolded baby clothes on the chair?!  I gotta get busy while I have the chance!

The Temporary Locale

Our sweet Elijah made sure Howard and I understood the temporality of life here in a fallen world.  He made sure we didn't think this was all life had to offer and that we had to make the best of it, but that if we really asked it to, Life would make the best of us.  "Seek and you will find," we are told.  We live beyond this short world.  Things fall apart.  Then they get put back together again.  It's that second step we hold onto.  It ends.  And it gets to begin again.  A regeneration.  A righting.  What power there is in that hope. It's not a wish.  It's a looking forward.  It's a longing.  That's what hope is - a holding onto the coming of a promise.  Life is coming.  He is coming.

Thus, we can be brave, because we cannot be eternally harmed.  We are passersby, and we might as well step up in strength while we're in town.  What else have we got to do?

 

Summer!

Here's what we've been up to lately...

Greeting Cotton in the mornings

 Playing outside (we just tell him be home for dinner)

 Cleaning out closets (I found the planner I used in college.  Look at Thursday, March 25th, 2004...  Howard's and my first date!)

Learning great hymns.  I think they are so important and so powerful.

 Watching Papa mow

 Nonni came for the Matisse exhibit...and to feed Jonah mango sorbet

 Trying to take 10 month photos

 This pretty much sums it up.  I think he was free falling off the chair.  I truly believe he watched the monkeys at the zoo swing from branch to branch and filed that away because now he just LEAPS from one surface to...who knows?!  I'm always like WHAT'S THE PLAN JO?!  THE MONKEYS FIND A BRANCH FIRST AND THEN JUMP!!

 Picking the best peaches of our lives

 Marching in the neighborhood 4th of July Parade

 Visiting Great Gape's and attending my great Uncle Jim's funeral in Abilene.  He was an amazing man and it was so neat to hear the wonderful eulogies at his service.  He earned his Ph.D. in mathematics from OU and taught at ACU.  So much like Howard.

 Testing the theory of gravity.  I think we've run enough trials we can start calling it a fact.  You're welcome, Science.

 Visiting the San Antonio Botanical gardens.  Jonah loved playing inside the Overland Gourd.

 He loves gears and levers and straps and buckles.

 Are these not the sweetest chubby little dimples-for-knuckles hands you've ever seen??

 I love Jonah.  He acts all serious and you start picturing him as a little adult going to work and being all grown up and then he shoves something in his mouth or he drools a waterfall.

 Studying...

 Explaining how it works to me.

 The Botanical Gardens have great hammocks.

 I'm not going to be cheesy and say that they came with some pretty great boys, too.  But they came with some pretty great boys, too.

 After the gardens we ate at Olmos Pharmacy.  Jonah came in on the scale at a whopping 25 pounds.  I think he was proud.

 We sat at the counter until we were strawberry malt comatose and then headed back home to a secret town which has been floating around the internet on Top 10 lists for places for families to live.  It's supposed to be a secret and it's supposed to have gates so no one else can come here.  It's perfect like it is and no, you're not welcome.

10 Months!

So my child turned 10 months several days ago, or maybe weeks...I'm not really sure...but I'm just now sitting down to blog about it.  In the 30 something culture (yes, I'm a part of that.  I know.  It's like I'm the mom now or something) to fall behind on blogging is a ghastly FAUX PAS!  QUELLE horreure!!  Because gosh darn it, if our children lead undocumented lives or our houses aren't photo-ready with every surface smothered in a good dosing of chalkboard paint then what kind of country are we LIVING IN?!

Well lemme fail ya one more time.  I have no idea how long my child is, and only a pretty good guess of how much he weighs.  And I took good photos of him in our typical chair but I'm pretty comfortable here on the couch with my phone and feel it's fairly important I stay put.  So here go some pretty Pinterest-unworthy stats:

At 10 Months Jonah...

-weighs a lot...maybe 24 or 25 pounds

-is really tall...seriously about half my height when standing

-has hair living in survival mode

-has 4.5 teeth.  None are gold (shoot!)

-still has pudgy wudgy squeezable rolls everywhere

-is looking older and more toddlerish

-is into everything...climbing the stairs, pulling up and walking along the couch, discovers things we did not know could be interesting or dangerous (yesterday he ate some crusted dish detergent from inside the dish washer door...I just told him he has one free pass if I ever need to wash his mouth out with soap...)

-eats anything available or offered and prefers to hold and bite from the whole Megillah, not torn up baby bites.  I have been photographing his meals and aspire one day to do a post on this stage of eating.  We're in between purées and 'real' table foods and it's been a little tricky to navigate.  Hopefully the meals we've come up with will help someone else too!  Look for that post soon.

Back to Jonah (ha - I'm proofing this post and I just caught that we never really left Jonah did we?  So those are the categories of my mind...Jonah and Jonah).  He...

-says Mama a lot but Howard doesn't think so.  I'm not really sure how we line up on deep and complex theological issues but we can't seem to see eye to eye on this FACT.

-also chimes in with "plah blah" for "problem" when we sing "Ol' Jo Short," he goes "Ah ah ah" in a high pitched voice when we ask what a duck says, anytime someone says "show me" he flexes his muscles (even if he person said "show me how you wave buh-bye"), and he loves to clap 

-gives me the best wet slobbery kisses and when we have a family hug and Howard pats me on the back, Jonah starts patting me too.  

-LOVES watching little boys play.  He goes into some sort of trance / study mode and everything around him goes quiet and gets zoned out as he focuses all his learning on how exactly you run from one spot to the next or plan to shoot a water gun, or throw a football, or debate the score of water basketball (he logs most of his observation hours at the pool).

-thinks it's hilarious when I speak French, so that's going great

-turns the pages of his books and loves to sit and read alone or with us. His favorites are Pat the Bunny, Baby's First Photo Bible, Chicka Chicka ABC, Skip's Big Day, In My Nest, Jamberry, and Brown Bear Brown Bear.  We work in others, but these we are sure to read multiple times every day.  He also likes magazines and newspapers.

-naps 30 minutes in the morning and, with help, a little over an hour in the afternoon.   I am beyond exhausted and am learning how to live and function in society as a crazy person.

-uses his left arm to tell us where he wants to go. Opa is the best person at indulging Jonah's requests.  They just walk around Opa's property and wherever Jonah points (well, he's not pointing...it's more of a bear claw kind of point... )that's where they go.  This goes on for at least a half hour at a time and only stops when someone interrupts them.

-has a favorite spot...the duck creek

-loves getting out and running errands and being on the go.  He tilts his head and smiles at strangers.

-plays hard and cracks up when we chase or tickle him

-initiates peek-a-boo with doors or furniture 

-drinks from a sippy cup with a thick straw

-knows prime numbers and PEMDAS

-is calmed when we sing "Amazing Grace"

-adores our cat, Cotton (who is so patient and sweet with him)

Jonah, I love how jovial you are.  You are so comfortable with yourself and just chuckle and shake your big fat belly all day long.  I think you'd make a great Santa Claus someday.  I so appreciate how rarely you cry, and when you do - like today when you were teething or when you fell and busted your lip a little, it really rattles me. You are changing so much and we hardly recognize you compared to the little, tiny, fragile thing we brought home from the hospital not that long ago (seriously - what 40 weeks ago?!).

(Photo by Nikki Peterson / nikkipetersonphotography.com)

Jonah, if you gain nothing else from this post tonight as you check your blogs from your crib before you sleep, know this:

I love you because you are my child. I love you because you are your Papa's child.  I love you because you are God's child.  And I really love who you are.  I mean you are so fun to be around and you already display so many personality traits I wish I had!!  You are even-keeled, alert and interested in people, jolly, and in general simply an old soul.  It is such a priveledge to be your mama.  I used to think it wasn't that important what you DO when you grow up but moreso who you'll BE.  Well, I have to say.  I'm so excited to see what you do.  I guess that's how wonderfully you've got the BE part nailed down.

Please don't change too much.  You can either make me eat my words or enable me to be really annoying because I'm so proud of you.

I don't want to eat these words.  I want to be annoying.  Thank you, son.