Who Am I? An Exercise in Getting to Know Myself

Several months ago, I read another blogging mom's profile. I was amazed to see all that she could say about herself...all that self-knowledge really "wowwed" me!

It made me start to wonder...

Do I really know myself that well?
Am I really all that special?
Who am I?

I decided that a good exercise for me...and a challenging one...would be to write down what I do know about myself. I also thought that it might be fun for my kids to read and hang on to.

I have this "thing" lately.
I find myself wondering what kind of legacy I'm leaving.
I wonder how I will be remembered when I'm gone.
I wonder if I'm the kind of person now who will really be missed later on.

Pretty deep for a Saturday morning, huh?

So, here it goes.
These are just a few of the things that I know about myself.



























I am an organization-lover who is not very organized.
I am a home-cooked meal lover who does not like to prepare meals.
I am the daughter and granddaughter of farmers and gardeners who does not have a shade of green anywhere on her body.
I am the granddaughter of a talented seamstress who does not even own a needle.
I am the lover of a clean home who cannot seem to keep her home clean.
I am the admirer of a well-kept, manicured lawn who has her own crop of dandelions.
I am a stay-at-home lover who goes on her daily "guilt trips."
I am the lover of the simple way of life who just seems to have a knack at keeping her life complicated.

I love to homeschool.
I love to bake.
I love to sit down with a good book and a cup of coffee.
I love to mow the yard.
I love to go barefoot all year round. My tough, calloused feet are a witness to that.
I love to feed the birds that frequent my yard.
I love to be silly.
I love to wear over sized sweatshirts and baggy pants (sorry "What Not To Wear!).
I love my family and friends.
I love my dandelions.

Most of all, I love my husband and my children.
I adore being a wife and mother.
I cherish being my kids' teacher.

And you know what else?
I love being the daughter of The King.
I am thankful that I am saved by Grace and forgiven for all the dumb things that I do and say.
I love knowing that God created me just as I am...quirks and all.

777

Joshua: When my phone gets plugged in to service, how can I call Heaven so I can talk to Tiff?

Mommy: I think Heaven's phone number is 777.

Joshua: Like this? 77777777777777

Mommy: Yeah, just like that.

Joshua has one of our old cell phones that can still be plugged in and take a charge. It holds the charge for about 2 minutes before it powers down.

He often wants to call his favorite people using this phone, and I have to tell him that he has to use the house phone if he really wants to talk to them. His phone doesn't have service. You have to pay for that.

So, when Josh's phone "gets plugged in to service," he has some people, and tadpoles, that he would like to talk with.

I remember when the best dog in the world, Duke, died, William was a little boy...maybe just a little older than Josh is now. He asked, too, what Heaven's phone number was. Then, usually when I was driving, I would hear this little whispered voice in the seat behind me talking to Duke. Duke told William all kinds of things.

As we get older, you realize that you can't call Heaven using 777.
But even age can't keep you from wishing that you could.

A Sad Day

This will be a sad day in our home.

Like every morning, I woke up and went out to the kitchen to make Paul's lunch and start the coffee.
Like every morning, I went to the drawer that holds the remote for the television, so that I could check up on the weather for the day.
Like every morning, I said a quick, "Good morning!" to the tadpoles that are quickly changing into frogs.

But this morning, something on the kitchen floor caught my eye.
One of the tadpoles, the one Carrie named Tiff, I think, had leaped out of the aquarium and landed on the kitchen floor. She had to have been swimming awfully fast to have missed the counter top and landed on the floor.

At first I was a bit nauseous.
Then I was a little emotional.
I was torn between going to wake Paul (I think for moral support more than anything) and just taking care of it myself.
I even filled another cup of water to put her in...just in case she could be revived.

Finally, after pulling myself together, I used a paper towel to pick her up and realized that it was too late for her.

I'm just very sad now.
Zac is swimming alone in the tank. I've put a cooling rack over the top of the tank to prevent him from leaping out too.
Had I known that she could get out, I would have put the rack on the tank earlier.
She was the faster of the two...lots of energy. She swam so fast around the tank. We described her as flighty.
But I never saw this coming.

Who knew?
She was so close to becoming a frog.
Both tadpoles had developed their back legs and were using them to swim. They both had teeny tiny little front legs too. They were also eating quite a bit now. All that was left for her was losing her tail.

It's just so doggone sad.

The instructional guide that comes with the tadpoles says that success doesn't depend on your tadpoles reaching adulthood. Success is measured by how much you learn about frogs. Death is a part of life.

Blah, blah, blah.

Maybe it would have been different if she would have died of "natural causes" or because of water contamination or overfeeding. Those are the things that the instructional manual warned about.

But leaping out of the tank?

Please learn from me...put a screen of some sort on your tadpole tank after your tadpoles develop back legs. The combination of a strong tail and back legs are a recipe for disaster.

Tot School--"The Days of the Week"

**Josh is 46 months old...a very proud 3 1/2 if you ask him!**
**Matthew has now entered "Tot-Schooler." He is 14 months old.**

For Valentine's Day each year, we do a very simple treasure hunt. It has to be simple, because all of the clues are hidden in the house somewhere.

At the end of the hunt lies the treasure...usually a cardboard box filled with stuff. Stuff like their favorite breakfast cereal, some chocolates, a small toy...

This year, I found water bottles at Walgreens. The red water bottles were filled with stuff. Stuff like Kleenex, hand sanitizer in a tube, and these nifty little pill boxes.




I decided that since I am so bad about remembering whether I give the kids their vitamins each day, I would store the vitamins in these little pill boxes. They have helped my memory tremendously!

And the added bonus?
Josh has learned the days of the week!

Talk about "accidental teaching" on my part.
Josh's teaching, though, is a little more purposeful...



Just this morning, I sang the "Days of the Week" song with Josh before giving him his vitamin, and he said, "Are we going to Blake's house today?"
He right!
This is the day that the big kids usually have piano lessons, and Josh gets to play with our piano teacher's son, Blake.

He's putting it all together!
Don't you just love it when little ones start making sense of their world?!
It's so exciting!
This is just one of the many reasons that I am thankful that God called us to homeschool. I get to be present to see that light turn on...and then am able to share how good God is.

He is so good!

The Plunge

That's right!

We took "the plunge." We bought a frog hatchery kit about a month ago. It's one of those kits that comes with everything you need to watch a tadpole turn into a frog...everything except the tadpoles. You have to send for those.

Several years ago, we tried the butterfly hatchery kit. That was very fun! We sent for the caterpillars and then watched them metamorphose (is that right?!) into butterflies. Then, one sunny afternoon, Carrie, William, and I released them onto our butterfly bush in the flower garden. It didn't take them long to start flying happily around the yard.

Frogs, I have learned, are different.
You can't release an African water frog into your environment because it will cause "an imbalance in your ecosystem."

Oh.

If...and I say if because we've been warned that many tadpoles don't make it to froghood (I know that's not right)...if our tadpoles do grow to be healthy adult frogs, then we either have to keep them as pets or we have to find a suitable home for them.

The good thing about the African water frog is that he lives in the water all the time and doesn't have to eat live food. If we had received leopard frog tadpoles, we would have had to prepare a terrarium rather than an aquarium.
And provide live food.
Or put liver on a stick and train the frog to eat it.
The African water frog really is less work and maintenance than the leopard frog.

I guess.

This video was taken about three weeks ago when they were just itty bitty tadpoles. They were so itty bitty that I had to take a video of them...a picture wouldn't pick them up.




They aren't so itty bitty anymore.
Today, they are about three inches long, from their heads to the end of their squiggly little tales. They're huge! We catch ourselves saying, "Good morning, little tadpoles...I mean, big tadpoles!"

And they get bigger everyday!

They were shipped to us in a tube of water packed inside a very well padded envelope. We received three live tadpoles and, we think, the remains of one that didn't make it...although it was so small that we're not sure that's what it was.

One of the tadpoles died after just a week. We were sure that the other two would die soon after, but now after almost a month, we still have two very big, very healthy-looking tadpoles.

I think they look healthy. I don't know...I've never had tadpoles before.

Well, that not true.
When I was a little girl, my brother and I found tadpoles in a water-filled tractor tire track down the lane from our house. We collected them in a cup and brought them back up to the house so that we could watch them change into frogs. We knew that we had to find a "just right" home for them, so we put them in the best place we knew...our cows' drinking trough.

Hmmmm. How smart were we?

I digress...

I'm now getting over thinking that they are kind of creepy. I still won't set my coffee cup beside their bowl, but I do enjoy just sitting and watching them.

Carrie has even given them names now. The calm one is "Zac" and the flighty one is "Tiff."

I love that they come to the side of the bowl to watch me when I am close by. I love that they have little mustaches. I love the squirmy little tails that flutter continuously.

When we received them, I didn't picture us having pet frogs, but now I wonder how I could ever say goodbye to these two little guys.

Anyway I hope they're both guys.
Or both girls.
Not one of each.

You know.

So Sad

My camera is broken.
I have to take it to a repair shop...very soon!
How am I ever going to blog without it?!

Until my camera is up and running again, here is a picture that was taken before the unfortunate event...taken by Joshua.



This is Joshua.



How did my camera get broken? What was the unfortunate event?

Live and learn.

Mommies shouldn't leave their cameras where they can be knocked off the table by their camera-loving 3-year olds.

It really wasn't his fault. It was mine.
He actually did take some pretty good pictures before knocking it off the table.

And maybe this will encourage me to do some catch-up blogging.

So, until my camera visits the camera doctor, here are some "lost episodes" and blogs without pictures...also known as...well, blogs without pictures. Not creative enough? How about "What's Inside My Head?"

So, are you ready to know what I'm thinking about?
Tune in.

Flowery Words

I love flowers and gardens...flower gardens and vegetable gardens. All kinds of gardens. All kinds of flowers. All kinds of vegetables.

When I was a little girl, my mom and grandma had a huge garden that took up the entire yard beside our house. There were no trees to shade this garden. It was close to the house, so it was also close to water. I remember long, hot summer days of weeding in that garden. Did I mention that it was in the sun...all day long?

I didn't love the work that it took to grow a garden, but I did love that garden. I was more than just a bit sad when it was tilled up and planted into grass years and years ago.

I've often toyed around with the idea of planting a garden, but I never get very far. And now, this year, I have the perfect spot for a garden. We had several trees taken down last summer because they were growing into the electric lines. Now I have a spot that gets sun all day long and is close enough to the house to get the water that it would need.

What keeps me from growing a garden? I think that more than all that weeding, it is my own insecurities. I do not have the green thumb that my mom had...I think I've mentioned that before too. I really don't know all that much about growing a garden. And have I already waited too long? You would think that the daughter of a farmer and a green-thumb gardener would not be so hesitant to "dig" in.

Will we start a garden this year?
I guess only time will tell.

I haven't been afraid, though, to try out flowers around the house.
Disappointed and impatient, but not afraid.

Why disappointed?
I don't do the research, so many of my plants end of dying.

Why impatient?
If my plants seem to be struggling--even in the least--I pull them out and call them a loss. Paul has helped me a lot with this one. When I start whining about a plant that looks like it's about to bite the dust, he calmly tells me to be patient and leave it where it is.

"Wait and see."

That "wait and see" policy has led to much more success around our house than the "yank-it-out-of-the-ground" technique that I practice.

So, are you waiting for the "flowery words" that I teased you with in the beginning of this blog?

How about a few "flower stories" instead?

On the year anniversary of my mom's death...May 2,1994...I bought a rose bush.
I had never grown a rose bush, but my mom had. She had rose bushes along the back of our house that had belonged to my grandma. I think that they had come from the house where my mom had grown up. Old rose bushes that had been cared for by the green-thumbed women in the family.

I decided that a rose bush would be a great way to remember my mom.

Remember now, the combination of deficits I have already exposed...
Lack of green thumb.
Disappointment.
Impatience.

After planting the rose bush by my house, it began looking pretty sad.
I was so disappointed, that with tears dripping off my nose, I impatiently dug up that dumb rose bush and moved it very far away from me and the house. I moved it way across the yard--as far away as I could go in our yard.
I left it alone.

Here is my rose bush today.




It's such a "wild thing." It reminds me of my mom. Untouchable...wild...beautiful.

And the scent! I love mowing that yard, because I catch a bit of its fragrance every time I drive by it.

Sometimes I just stop to admire it.

I claim nothing.
I give all the glory to God and thank Him often for this rose bush.

It means a lot to me.



Something else that means a lot to me are marigolds.

I consider them "Mom's Flowers."
She planted them everywhere...I guess because they are hardy. Even I can grow them. She planted them around the mailbox, around the flagpole, around the front porch...
And, as you can guess, I love marigolds.

The first summer that we lived in our house, I had a dream.
Our house, at that time, had this sweet little front step with a curved sidewalk that extended to the driveway.
One night I had a dream. In that dream, I could see my mom standing at the end of the sidewalk motioning with her arm to the sidewalk. She didn't say a word. She just smiled and motioned. When I woke up, I just knew that she was wanting me to plant marigolds along that sidewalk.

So I did.
For several years, I planted marigolds along that sidewalk.
They were beautiful big bushy things!

When we added onto our house several years ago, I lost my front sidewalk, but I gained a front porch. I haven't really thought much about marigolds since then, because we have been busy "landscaping" around the front of the house.

This year, I decided that it was time to try out some marigolds again.
Aren't they cheery?



One more story...this time about my neighbor.

When we moved into this house, we were blessed with beautiful neighbors.
Paula lived right next door to us...across a white picket fence that her little boys would climb in order to visit with me.

Paula loved flowers too, but she could claim a much greener thumb than I had. We would share stories about our moms' flowers. Her mom had died of cancer years before.

Paula liked to plant rose moss because it reminded her of her mom. Usually she had a big pot outside her back door, full of the pretty little flowers. She often had it planted in a "tough-to-grow-anything-in" spot close to her garage too.

Paula died of cancer several Januaries ago. Because she had been sick for a couple of summers, fighting the cancer, she didn't get out to plant anything. That spot next to her garage stood empty.

That spring following her death, I noticed pretty little flowers blooming next to the garage. When I asked her husband, Jerry, about them, he told me that, no, he had not planted them. They had come up all by themselves.

So this year, I planted rose moss too.



Flowery words?
Maybe more like flowery memories.

Mom memories.
Paula memories.

Several years ago, a friend said that she thought it would be neat to plant a theme garden...a "Friend Garden" or a "Memory Garden." I loved that idea, and many of the plants around my home remind me of someone special.

I often think that I could never move away from this house now because of all the hand-me-down flowers, plants, trees, and rocks that I have surrounding my home.

Rocks?
Yes, rocks.
Remind me to tell you someday about all the rocks I've hauled from my childhood home to my adult home.
One rock at a time.
O.K...maybe more accurately...one van load at a time.

I love flowers and gardens...flower gardens and vegetable gardens. All kinds of gardens. All kinds of flowers. All kinds of vegetables.

And rocks.

Peek-a-Boo, Matty-Boo!

Seat Shifting

Believe it or not, Matthew is ready to move into his new front-facing car seat.
What a milestone!

The problem?
No new front-facing car seat.

The solution?
WALMART!

Sunday afternoon, the whole family jumped into the car and headed for Walmart.
Paul and I had car seats on our mind.
Joshua had a new pair of Crocs on his.
Carrie and William? Guitar Hero.
Matthew? All he knows is that when he enters those big electric doors, he will be there awhile. No cart!

So, off we went.

First stop...new car seats!
Yes, Carrie and William, you can go play Guitar Hero.
Yes, Josh, we'll stop to look at Crocs.
Yes, Matthew, Daddy will carry you through the entire store.

O.K. Now it's time to look at those car seats!
The question is...do we get a whole new car seat, or do we get a booster seat for Josh? It's kind of like the question we asked over a year ago...do we get a new crib or do we "kick" Josh out of the crib before the baby comes?

Well, the whole crib thing worked out. He loves the bottom bed of the bunk.
Maybe it would work out just as well for the car seat. It sure would work out well for us...seeing that it would save us over $100!

All it takes is a little salesmanship on our part.

Look at these cool seats, Josh!
You would get to wear the real car seat belt...just like Carrie and William!
Your feet won't fall asleep on long rides anymore, because they won't hang off the seat!
You can use those cute doggy seat belt covers!
Look! This one has a cup holder too!

It has a cup holder?!
Hey, Mom, look at my new car seat!

 

And here's Matthew in his newly acquired front-facing car seat.
He looks so little!

 

Da Boyz...



Da udda boy...

 

Da girl...

 

So, there you have it.
Smiles on faces.
Well, except for Matthew.
His facial expressions these days include those of wonder and amazement. He points and babbles.
But he doesn't cry!
Ahhhh...the sweet sound of success!

Wordless Wednesday..."The Many Faces of Joshua"

Smile and Say Cheese!

We went to The Children's Museum last week.
A long-promised, long-anticipated trip to the museum.
We spent the whole day there...the whole day.

Instead of buying expensive museum food (which we usually do, because I'm lazy when it comes to packing lunches), we decided to pack our own morning snacks and lunches (that's where yesterday's upside-down peanut butter and jelly sandwich ended up too).

Following is what transpired during morning snack time...

I packed banana "puffs" for Matthew and a cheese stick for Joshua.
Somehow, they ended up trading their snacks.

Here's Matthew giving his newly acquired cheese stick a not-so-sure sideways glance.



And here is Joshua checking out the situation to see if his cheese stick has been kindly accepted, while Matthew is trying to decide whether or not to take a bite.



And still trying to decide...



Going for it...going for it...



"Hey Josh, are there any puffs left?"



Here's the funny thing.
As much as he seemed to not like the cheese stick, he couldn't help himself from trying it over and over again...each time making the same "yucky" face.

Another funny thing...
Check out his little pinky finger. It's as if he really doesn't want to even be holding the cheese stick at all.

"I think Mikey will eat it. He eats everything!"
Did I just date myself?

What's a Girl to Do?!

There was a little game that my dad and I used to play.

Before Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder had a name, I suffered from it.
For example, if I turned around in one direction, I would have to turn the other way before being able to continue what I was doing.

Today, I have to cut the fringe off my rugs, because I cannot stand for the fringe to be all messy looking.

Your fringe? That's O.K. Your fringe doesn't bother me. It's my fringe--the fringe that I have to live with--that bothers me.

My OCD? It's not what I would call extreme.
It's really just...a bother.

I have passed some of the tendencies on to my kids, genetically speaking.
Or maybe I should say, I have passed the tendencies on to some of my kids.
Notice the change-in-placement of the word "some."

That's right.
I have a son who does not seem to be bothered by, say, which way the bread on his sandwich is placed.

As I was saying, there was a little game that my dad and I used to play.
And now, I see, I am playing the same game with my son...in reverse fashion.

Picture this.
A mom (me) makes a simple peanut butter and jelly sandwich for her beloved son (Joshua) to take on a trip to the museum.

Suddenly, Joshua begins "messing" with his sandwich.



"What are you doing, Joshua?"
Response?
A smile. Just a smile.



Joshua peels the top bread from the sticky insides of his sandwich, all the while, smiling.



Then, just as quick as you please, he flips the top bread. This causes the top of the bottom bread to be lined up with the bottom of the top bread!
Are you picturing this?!
This sandwich is all backward!

And the crazy thing is, he did it on purpose.
And he is totally enjoying his sandwich this way!

As for me?
It absolutely drives me crazy!



Many moons ago, my dad would do the very same thing.
He would sit there, right in front of me as he was making his sandwich, and with a flourish all his own, he would slap that top bread on upside down.
And smile.

Try as I might to switch it around...sometimes even on the sly...he would catch me and put it back the way he made it.

It became a little game for us.
One that I secretly enjoyed.
And one that I had nearly forgotten until last Thursday morning.



Teasing=Love in our house when I was a little girl.
And apparently, it still does.