My World is Changing

My world is changing.

My sweet 5 year old, whom I have nurtured at home since birth, is leaving me to go to school.  I'll be putting him on a bus and sending him off to learn.  Today I realized that I will have no contact with him for the whole 8 hours that he is gone.  I guess, in this case, that no news is good news, but no news sure does make a mother lonely.

My world is changing.

Gone are the days of sleeping in.  7:30am will seem like a luxury when I have to start getting out of bed at 5:45am.  But breakfast has to be made.  Children need to be dressed.  Lunches need to be packed.  Buses need to be caught.

My world is changing.

Late nights of staying up until midnight or later will be a thing of the past.  No more late night movies or sewing parties.  Bedtime will come so quickly and I will happily succumb to the fatigue that will inevitably come over me.

My world is changing.

But I knew this day would come.  Some days I wished that it would hurry up already and get here.  Others days I relaxed and enjoyed the seemingly endless amount of time I had to spend with him.  We've been prepping him for this day for years now.  Teaching how to read and write.  Teaching him how to treat others with kindness.  Helping him to remember his manners and to share with others.

My world is changing, but change is good.

Sending Our Love

My resolution this year was to write more handwritten letters.  I always get a giddy feeling when I receive handwritten letters and I wanted to pass that along.  After telling my idea to Troy, we decided to make it a family affair.  Every Sunday would be devoted to drawing pictures and writing letters that we would then send off to our friends and family.

Like many of my resolutions, I started with a bang and as the year has worn on my enthusiasm has fizzled.  But I am determined to keep this resolution alive.  So today I staged an intervention.  A card making intervention.

I gathered the supplies.  Card stock, glue sticks, paper scissors, a ruler, stickers, magazine cut outs, and crayons (to name a few).  And as a family we started creating some one of a kind cards to send out over the next few months.

There is a certain someone's birthday that is happening in a few days.  So for her, I made this one:

"We hope you have a "WHEEL-Y" happy birthday"

We are also expecting a new baby next month:

Annie made this one for you, little baby Boudreaux!

And we know a couple of kids that are having birthdays in October.  So the boys made these:

Two candles for a sweet little girl

And a special dinosaur joke for a handsome little man

Some undetermined, but still very special, person will get this gem:

Thinking of "mew"

Hopefully this activity will reignite that spark that we had only 8 months ago.  Hopefully we can finish mailing all our friends and family in the four short months that are left in this year.  Hopefully I can keep coming up witty phrases...  There are many more birthdays and holidays before the year is up!

Chewing the Fat

At the dentist's office, not the GI's office

As many of you already know, Isaac was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis back in October of 2010.  Currently is doing well and we just had a follow up appointment on Friday to check on his progress after he came down off the steroids.  He's having healthy bowel movements and is not complaining about any pain.  If you saw him you would think he's a normal three year old living a happy life.

But if you looked at his chart, you would notice something a little off-putting.  He hasn't gained any weight for almost a year now.  He hasn't lost any weight either, so that's good.  He's just not getting over the 29 pound mark.  So now that we have his disease under control, it's time to address the issue of his weight.  We've been instructed to put him on a high calorie diet.

Some things we are going to do are put him back on whole cow's milk instead of almond milk which is naturally low in calories, start to mix a little bit of olive oil into his meals, feed him meat, give him more peanut butter and cheese, and start supplementing with Pediasure or Carnation Instant Breakfast.

As an adult it is strange to think of a diet with few restrictions.  Fat is the best way to boost calories.  It's a good way to get the most calories out of the least amount of food.  As an adult who tries to make good, healthy eating decisions for my family with the hope of raising them with good food habits, I balk at the idea of a high fat diet.  But alas, it is what we are going to try to help Isaac gain some weight.

Annie also could use some extra poundage.  She just had her 18 month check up.  She's at the top of the curve in height, coming in at over 32 inches tall.  But she is at the very bottom of the curve for weight, only weighing 20 pounds.  I feel that some of that is genetics.  I was pretty lanky as a child, also staying close to the bottom of the growth curve as far as my weight was concerned (my head circumference was another story).

So here's where I need your help.  I need some good snack ideas!  Here is one that I found on our travels in Austin.  Apple smiles.  We don't like red apples so we used green and we really like chocolate peanut butter so we called ours "monster smiles".  But I need more ideas for good, healthy-fat filled snacks (does that make sense).  I'm incredibly opposed to buying store bought snacks like Little Debbies.  I just don't like all the artificial ingredients added in there.  But maybe you know of some store bought snacks that are natural, healthy, and high in calories and would save me some time.  Otherwise I might have to make these more often:

Mini cake donuts dipped in dark chocolate with sprinkles

One of the challenges I will face is making sure that the kids get the calories, but that the grown-ups do not.  So I think snacks are a great way to help boost the calories of some but not others.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks ahead of time for your ideas!!

Repurpose!

Repurposing has got to be hands down my favorite of the three R's.  Wait, repurposing isn't actually one of the three R's.  Let's see.  There's reducing, reusing, and recycling.  Well, it should be one of them.  There should be four R's.

There are two dish towels inside each hot pad.

I can see how you could lump repurposing into the reuse category.  After all, when you repurpose something, you are reusing some or all of its parts.  But it's more than just reusing your shopping bags or reusing your plastic containers, it's finding a different purpose for your stuff.  My kiddos old cloth diapers have found new purpose as cleaning rags.  My old kitchen towels have found new purpose as hot pads.

I love the challenge of repurposing.  I asked Orry what he thought one of Daddy's old work shirts should become.  In my mind I imagined it would make a cute stuffed bunny, but he said it should make a scarecrow.  Good idea.  We'll have to implement that plan this fall if our pumpkins make it that long.

Pass me a cloth napkin! 

The other thing I love about repurposing is being able to keep using things that you really love.  I have a top that I got in Korea and I love it for that reason alone.  The bottom edge started to fray and instead of just boxing it up and looking at it longingly for the rest of my life, I repurposed it into a dress for Annie.  It's far from the cutest dress I've ever seen, but its sentimental value sure gives it a boost.

I am far from being the expert at repurposing.  Most times I just donate the things I don't want or don't have a use for anymore.  But I want to challenge myself everyday to think of new ways to use old things.  I also want to challenge my kids to do the same.  So let's get our creative juices flowing!  Leave some comments with ideas for ways to repurpose or ask for some inspiring ideas for something you have lying around.

Here are some links I found to help us get started:

• http://www.craftynest.com/category/repurposing/

• http://www.younghouselove.com/2009/02/waste-not-want-not/

• http://trash2treasure.wordpress.com/category/repurposing-ideas/

• http://simpleorganic.net/refashion-repurposing-t-shirts-and-more/

Let's have fun creating a cleaner world!

Recycle!

I hate throwing away things that can be recycled.  I hate how much garbage we can produce in a day and I hate knowing that a lot of the things that fill our trashcan can easily be recycled.  But for the past year I didn't recycle. Our neighborhood doesn't have a recycling program nor does it have a recycling center nearby.  So day after day I threw away our juice bottles, our metal cans, and our paper and cardboard.  Shameful.  I know.  So I decided to change.  

Deussen Park

For the past few weeks I have been collecting all of our recyclables.  I had a bag for plastics, a bag for metal cans and aluminum, a bag for all our plastic grocery bags (which I never did throw away, instead I periodically took them back to the grocery store for recycling), and a bag for paper and cardboard.  I told myself that I would find the nearest recycling center and I would drive there with a car full of trash and sort it out myself.  So after these few weeks, when our small kitchen was being overtaken by recyclables, we loaded it all into the van and set out to find the recycling center.

Troy had gotten directions from Google maps and we set off.  When we got to the place where the map said it should be, we were disappointed to find that it wasn't there.  We drove around a bit more, checking out the surrounding area and found a nice park and recreation area.  We decided that we needed more help and used our mobile shout out to call our sister-in-law Nicole for better directions.  With the new directions in hand we set out again, confident that we would find it.  After about an hour of driving, we gave up.  We still couldn't find it.  But we did get rid of our recyclables.  We sorted them at the local (where we were at the time) middle school.  After all the emissions we generated, our good deed of recycling hardly made up for it.  But don't fear.  We are not deterred.  We are still going to collect our recyclables and give it another shot.  Maybe we'll have better luck finding another recycling center.  

The main reason that we go though so much trouble to do these things is because we want our children to be good stewards of the Earth.  We want them to grow up thinking that recycling is something that you just naturally do.  In order for that to happen, we have to do it.  Our actions speak louder than our words sometimes.  My children will grow up thinking that cloth diapers are normal, that cloth napkins are normal, and they may not even know what a paper towel is. They will hopefully grow up with the great habit of recycling.  And I love that idea.  

Don't let other dinosaurs suffer a similar fate!  Recycle!!

Wanted: Dead or Alive

Boys will be boys.  So when I tell you that Isaac is into lizards, it should be no surprise.

Remember that dead lizard?  I do.

Annie the Anaconda

I don't know when it started.  He might have liked them before he liked dinosaurs.  He could have been born with a love of reptiles.  He is a boy after all.

Isaac recently got a chance to get up close and personal with some reptiles at our last HMNS visit.  The live animal exhibit, provided by the Ultimate Reptile Shop, allowed Isaac to pet a green anaconda and a tortoise.  He was pretty interested in the huge fuzzy spiders as well.  I was interested in the scorpion with five white babies on its back.  Bleck.

Much of Isaac's enthusiasm comes from reading books about lizards.  The current one we checked out from the library is called "Lizards: Weird and Wonderful" by Margery Facklam.  He's learned about all sorts of lizards.  Gila monsters and chuckwallas, skinks and anoles.  He has even given some of them dinosaur names.  There's the Triceratops chameleon and the Ankylosaurus lizard.

We are lucky to live where it's hot and humid and just chock full of wildlife...You're jealous, just say it.  This kind of weather makes for plenty of bugs, sure.  But that makes for plenty of lizards.  We often times catch the anoles drinking water off our sprouting plants and finding some shade near our front door.  Last night we found a gecko (Isaac's favorite lizard) in our house.  And here's where I'll fill you in our the crazy idea we've been scheming in our heads.  Having a pet lizard.  Thrilling, I know.  We still have to decide whether we'll buy one or try to catch one.  I'm for buying one because I'm sure I'm going to have to buy some "food" for it, so we might as well just pick one up from the store while we are there.  Plus, I don't want to be the fool outside in the heat trying to catch a tricky little lizard.  I'll keep you updated.

Things Isaac may want to be when he grows up:  paleontologist, herpetologist.  I'm okay with that list.

But let's stick with the live ones.  Way less creepy...I think.

Some Are Silver and the Others Gold

Friends are such a blessing.  I have been lucky enough to have lots of friends in my lifetime.  Some I keep in touch with still, while others have come and gone. But regardless of their amount of interaction in my

current life, I appreciate the ways they helped to shape who I have become.

This weekend we had the great fortune of spending an evening with one of Troy's good friends, Evan.  We realized that they have been friends for almost 10 years now.  Time spent with Evan is always enjoyable.  During the course of our conversation we talked about getting older and feeling like our friendships are more precious to us and how we feel the need to be better friends, so to speak.

I hope that my kids grow up to understand the importance of making good friends and understand the work that it takes to keep those friends.  Currently Orry is my only kid that is really old enough to "have friends".  He's had a friend before, but something about this is different.  He still doesn't get the concept 100%.  He seems to think that he can only have one at a time, for instance.  So today we sailed into uncharted waters.  We took Orry's "one friend" with us on our family outing to HMNS Sugar Land.

Ezy is a friend that Orry met at church.  They got to know each other on Wednesdays, when I drop the kids of at the church while I enjoy some crafting and adult conversation in the form of a women's circle that makes crafts for a yearly church bazaar.  This was the first time that we've taken another child along with us for a fun day.

They had a great time.  Of course we knew they would since it was a free dinosaur event...  They enjoyed joking with each other in the car and joking with each other during lunch.  They searched for fossils together and watched a show in the planetarium.  They found fossilized sharks teeth and got some cool dinosaur tattoos.  And on the way home they joked some more and wondered about the next time they could play together.

I really had the feeling of things coming full circle.  Twenty-three years ago, I'm sure that my mom was listening to Laura and me have similar silly chats in the back of the van.  And I wondered if this friendship they are forming will last a lifetime, as Laura and mine has.  Of course there is no way of telling what the future holds for our families.  In the meantime, though, I hope that I can encourage Orry to be the best friend that he can be.  I hope I can teach him the importance of listening, sharing, and caring.  I hope that I can impress upon him the fact that friends are worth all the work that it takes to have a good relationship.

I am baffled by how complex things become the further we travel down this road that is parenthood.  These complexities also offer a certain richness to the experience, though.  They offer a chance to evaluate the things we find to be important in life.  We also get a glimpse into how lives and personalities develop slowly over time through many experiences and influences.  It is an exciting journey so far and I can't wait to see where this road takes me.

And for your enjoyment, a little video that pretty much sums up why Orry and Ezy make such good friends.