July 16, 2010

Here are the facts . . .

Here it is. A fast run down of what we've been up to. No witty anecdotes. No recaps of meaningful parenting moments. We're in the midst of Family Camp . . . and that allows little time for anything but, well, caring for the 1500 people on the grounds during Family Camp. Every time we see her, Kyle's grandma asks, "Do you wonder what you did with your time before you had kids?" Yes, yes I do.

So, here are the facts . . . starting with the youngest.

BENNETT.


Ben's few steps have multiplied and he's becoming more and more confident on his feet. He still crawls most of the time, but he's getting there. When I went to pick him up for dinner tonight, Kylie put Ben down and as he toddled over to me, I was choking back tears. He'll be 10 months old a week from now. Where did the last 10 months go? How did he get this big?

He is not a fan of the heat and the fact that we're eating outside for every meal this week has been difficult for him. But with the breeze yesterday and today, meal times have been much easier.

He claps a lot, and will give us the sign for "more" but gets the two motions confused. He says "ba ba ba" every time he see his bottle. He opens and closes his hands when we say bu-bye, but only about half of the time. When Kyle got up and left the table today, he started calling "d-da d-da." That was a first. He definitely knows that the word "brother" is referring to Jack, and sometimes will repeat a "bu-ah" sound when we say it. He only says "ma ma" when he cries, but I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with me. Oh well . . .

He's CONSTANTLY dirty but I love watching him crawl through the sand, so I don't care. He crawls on his hands and the soles of his feet and kicks up the sand behind him. So funny. I love that kid.

JACKSON.

Jack is also consistently dirty. I can always tell how much fun my kids had in any given day based on the color of their bath water. Disgusting? Yes. True? Also, yes.

He had his three year check-up and it confirmed that he's healthy and developing normally. He's 38 1/2 pounds and 40 inches. He asked the doctor questions continuously and wanted to know why she did everything. He passed his first vision test, which wasn't really much of a surprise.

He LOVES being a staff kid and the privileges it affords. He typically has 30+ people, including his grandparents and great grandparents to give him attention at any given time. He also has two playgrounds, a lake, a petting farm, and, well, an entire camp at his disposal. He lives a charmed life. And the golf cart rides . . . oh, the golf cart rides. We can pretty much get him to do anything if bribed with a ride on the golf cart.

He'll tell anyone he meets about how he's heading to preschool in the fall, while I stand behind him trying to hold back the tears associated with my oldest child going to school. While he still throws the occasional screaming fit, they're much farther apart. I think about how challenging last summer was with him and I'm so grateful to be on the other side of that.

He still says all kinds of funny things on a daily basis. Yesterday morning, he asked which way his Dr.'s office is. Kyle said, "It's east, the direction that the sun rises." And Jack replied, "Not in my world! All things are possible with God in my world so the sun doesn't rise in the east!" There's just no reasoning with a three year old.

On Tuesday night at bedtime, he told me all about how he's going to work where his mom and dad do telling kids about Jesus. I asked what he would tell them and he said, "That he's their friend and that he loves them and that we'll see God when Jesus comes back one day." A huge thanks to our staff for the time that they invest in my kids. We talk about this stuff all the time with Jack. But when the counselors that he looks up to so much tell him about Jesus, it really sticks.

KYLE.
My dear husband spent all afternoon on Sunday installing a part on our Explorer to stop the shaking. On Monday, I drove it into town, and it died when I was about a mile from camp . . . from something completely unrelated to what Kyle had been fixing. The mechanic says that it's gone . . . totally dead. My father-in-law thinks it's still fixable, so they're going to give it a go. Otherwise, we'll be in the market for a replacement vehicle. But maybe not until the fall . . . I think we can manage with one car until then.

When they went to tow the Explorer back from the mechanic, they got caught in a bad storm and had some issues, which almost resulted in wiping out a row of vehicles at a used car lot. I gave him permission to be cranky for a while after that.

Meanwhile, we're using one car . . . the car with the air conditioning that stopped working a few weeks ago. Awesome. These 90 degree+ days have been super fun.

ME.
I've been walking/running every other morning. I've been using the C25K app for my iphone and have been fairly consistent. I can't say that I look forward to it, but I need the exercise. I've even stayed consistent through the pesky cold I've had over the last week . . . which is something of which I'm proud.

As much as I like to whine about Family Camp, I really do enjoy this week each summer. I was reminded today how fortunate I am to have my job, and how much I really do love it.

My late nights are spent getting ready for The Most Wonderful Time of the Year, and processing oodles and oodles of photos.

2 comments:

Jeni said...

So it's not just my boys that are dirt magnets. Good to know. I swear no matter what I do, or how frequently I bath them, they are likely to look like I dropped them in the trash pile within an hour of being cleaned. *Sigh*.

Wendy said...

I check in once in a while just to see how big your boys are getting. I can't believe how much Jack has changed since last summer. Hope you are having a great summer, I know it's been stressful with $worries, and sick kids, etc... beyond what I can even imagine, but you do such a great job and with such a sweet spirit. I just wanted to say hi and keep on truckin' what your doing is worth the effort.

Wendy Miller