Time Marches On

Days often move by too quickly to notice little changes or mini-milestones in my childrens lives. I actually recall and recorded in my journal the first time my baby Katie reached out for me for comfort as well as the time she figured out how to put something in my hand and let go of the object. Now, it seems that most of the time I take notice of how much my children have grown when we measure their height on the wall in the garage on New Year's Day or when I kneel beside their sleeping bodies the night of their birthdays and stroke their sweet faces. On Monday, however, something inside propelled me to take notice of some of the little ways they are growing up right before my eyes. I thought I'd share some of those tiptoes of time here.

• Kate's hands are now bigger than mine.
• Keaton, my kindergartener, read a bedtime story to me which included the words "plight" and "delayed".
• Shelby was determined to get a weekly agenda made up and printed out for her classroom under the stairs to ensure she was ready for "teaching" this week.
• Weston had a conversation with me that included the phrase "I have bad news and good news", proceeded to tell me what the news was and he was exactly right on. (The drink is gross and I like you, respectively)
• Kate washed and blew dry her own hair and it looked good.
• I registered Weston for kindergarten August 2008.
• Kate picked up something on the floor, put it away in the cupboard and closed the door...all WITHOUT being asked.

I know these are just little things but I wanted to slow down the march for just a few moments to take it all in.

Pretty vs. Practical?

A few months ago I bought some pretty hand towels for my guest bathroom and my bathroom as well. I am sure you all know what I am talking about...the kind with the strip of decorative fabric and the cute beaded tassel trim on the edge. I knew they were not the most practical towel...but I will admit it....sometimes I am up for impracticality if it looks good--like a really fabulous looking, but uncomfortable shoe.

My first clue that this idea may have not been the best idea is that Brian would hang the towel up either backward or so that the back, unbeaded part was hanging around to the front of the towel.

Next clue: The downstairs towel looked a little unused...so I bought a few additional towels to lay out on the sink so people would have somewhere to dry their hands. Pretty soon, I notice an ugly, old faded pink hand towel hanging up in my bathroom in place of the pretty one. This is getting serious.

Well, the final straw happened yesterday...doing the laundry. As I was pulling out a load of clean, wet laundry I noticed a few little gold strings on the clothing. Pretty soon I realized it was more than a few strings--it was an explosion of strings on everything! I quickly found the culprit--a detasseled hand towel. To say the least, I was not happy about picking little strings off of practically each item in the wash.

So, moral of the story is: Sometimes beauty is pain and sometimes beauty is just a pain in the neck.

My New Favorite Lipgloss

I love this lipgloss, my favorite color is Vogue...it is the perfect pinky sheer and smells like bananas! Plus it is fun to squeeze out of the tube.

God Works in Mysterious Ways

Being a mother of four children, often I am reminded about God through them. Sometimes it is a sweet moment where one of my children is spontaneously and truly kind to another. Sometimes it is Keaton's scared voice in the night, asking me to pray with him to help him feel brave, and then other times, it was like last night...

Weston has been experiencing "potty training" issues, on and off, for two years. Let's just say that yesterday was on "off" day, to say the least. (Something involving poop in the bathtub with a toilet paper clogged drain--yuk!) So after the mess was plunged, cleaned up and his little body rebathed, he was in bed for the night--EARLY!

Needless to say, he was very unhappy about this. I routinely ignored his crying out as I still was feeling angry about the whole episode. I was making my bed with newly laundered sheets when I heard his pleading voice from down the hall, "Mommy, I'm really, really sorry! In God's Way!"

Now, I am not exactly sure what he meant by God's way, but somehow those three little words replaced the anger I was feeling with a little tenderness for my sweet, albeit often stinky, little boy. Mysterious, indeed!