Updates

Oh, blog, you have been so neglected the past 2 months! I have been so busy using every kid-free moment preparing for my weekly bible study that I was teaching and getting continuing education credits to maintain my ACRP certification. But, alas, we meet again!

Jackson has been doing well with school. He has made 4 friends that I hear about regularly: Jonathon and Janae (twins), Anshu, and Nicholas (who is reportedly "very quiet". I think it's possible that English is his second language, but I'm not sure. It's funny only getting your information from a 4-year-old and trying to piece together what the truth actually is! I can't wait to get in his class to volunteer so I can see for myself what he's doing and meet his friends). I've been working with him on reading a lot. He's starting to sound out 3-letter words. It's so exciting to see the light bulb come on for him! He is totally shocked with himself when he figures out the word. He has little patience for it, though, so I have to catch him in a moment that he's in the mood for it, and even then I know I only have about 5 minutes. Right now, that's enough. I'm just trying to introduce the concept of sounding out words, but mostly just maintain his love for books. The TV passes are still working well for controlling the TV time.

Selah has been sick for about a week and a half. Just a cold, but babies are so pitiful when they're sick. She has been sleeping through the night 7:30pm - about 6:30am consistently ever since we got home from Alabama...about a month now! I completely finished nursing her the day we came back from Alabama, and I think that's what did it...who knew?!? Although, since she has been sick she has not been napping well. Of course, maybe it's not the cold. Maybe she's shortening her morning nap getting ready to transition to only one nap a day. Time will tell. The biggest hassle with her being sick is her clingy-ness. She has been acting a lot like the Sharpie baby lately. However, I will say that her almost constant begging for me to hold her really makes me appreciate the rare moments that she does play independently. She likes to occupy herself with pulling all the Tupperware out of my drawers or the box of extra bottles, sippy cups, spoons, and other baby supplies out of my cabinet. Today I sat in the kitchen floor with her while she carefully put baby spoons in a bottle and then dumped them out, only to start over again. It was cute and actually quite soothing!

Halloween was so much fun this year! Jackson dressed as Captain America, and Selah was an adorable pumpkin! We carved two pumpkins. Jackson insisted that they be scary this year and not funny. We had a blast trick-or-treating in our neighborhood with our friends Jennifer and Jon and their kids, Malcolm (Buzz Lightyear) and Anna Claire (Ariel - perfect for this red-headed girl!), who are the same age as our kids.

The newest addition to our house has caused quite a stir! We got a "playground", as Jackson says. We have a friend who moved into a house recently, and the previous owners left a great swingset behind. Since she had no use for it, she told us that if we hauled it, we could have it! Jackson and Selah have both loved it. It even has a tiny picnic table under the slide! We've had neighborhood boys to our house the last 2 days to enjoy it, too. Yesterday, Jackson got to play with our neighbor, Carter, who is a sports fanatic. This kid is very athletic at only 5 years old. He lives sports...he even watches ESPN faithfully, and actually understands it all! They played football in the yard yesterday, and it was so cute to see them tackling each other and wrestling. Carter said that I had to be the ref and "peel them apart" when they both piled on a fumbled ball to determine who had possession. Every once in a while he would say "OK, ref, this is another peeling situation." =) I was thinking, "Jason will be so glad that when he gets home from work today that Jackson already got the wrestling out of his system!" Poor Jason gets attacked as soon as he walks in the door every evening. Mommy just can't play rough like Daddy does! Little boys just need other little boys to play with!

Getting this awesome "playground" for free made me thank God for all the ways he has blessed us. I started looking around our house and realizing how much stuff we have that was either a gift or a hand-me-down. I'm going to get on my soap-box for a minute and say how much I love used stuff! It is both environmentally and financially responsible to buy/be given used stuff. Half of my closet is stuff that someone outgrew or got tired of a gave to me. I buy most of my kids' stuff at consignment sales. I recently got all this stuff at a sale for $132.

The carseat alone would have been $100 brand new. Honestly, when did the "American way" become spending all our resources to get brand-new stuff? People throw away perfectly good things not because they're broken or unusable, but because they're tired of them! I don't think that's the way America started. We're filling our landfills and going into debt over boredom! We're obsessed with clean, crisp, new packaging without flaws or dents. I'm not immune to the allure of new stuff, and I certainly fall into the trap often enough (i.e. we just bought a brand new car after sinking an exorbitant amount of money into our used, piece-of-junk Jeep in the last year). But the never-ending obsession with it is toxic. If you think about it, the "I like things to look beautiful and new" philosophy not only gets us into debt and wrecks our enviroment (as I mentioned above), but it also pervades the way we treat people. We like them to look new and bright and shiny. Without flaws or dents. We cast them aside when they're a little broken. Why else to actresses and models struggle to get jobs as they age and rush to surgical procedures and extreme treatments just to maintain their "shiny-ness"? I was thinking about the inscription on the Statue of Liberty recently: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door." It never said "give me your beautiful best." So, for me, I say give me the wretched refuse of your teeming closet! You can call me cheap, but I'm a proud used-stuff-wearing, recycling, hand-me-down using, consigment-store-shopping, and coupon-clipping queen! Now I will step off my soap box.