another arlo nugget..

Today is my little man's birthday so of course I need to share something he said. Last night after we put the boys to bed we heard Arlo singing, sweetly,"Silas is a dummy, a dummy, Silas is a dummy, yeah!" We yell,"that's enough of that.." A little lower we hear,"Papa is a dummy, a dummy.." We call him into the room and tell him it's not nice, we don't want to hear that, ect... He looks at us sweetly and asks, "then WHO can I call a dummy?" we say "Nobody!" Arlo:"I need to call something a dummy then!" We tell him he may call his stuffed gorilla a dummy (hoping he'll loose interest). Next thing we hear on the top of his lungs, "DUMMY, DUMMY, DUMMY, YEAH". and not just once.

another day...

So I cleaned the the carpets this last week. It took me three days so I could allow for routes to the bathroom etc.. I'm finally finished and proud of myself for doing it slow, ensuring there were no mishaps... yesterday as I'm putting everything back Arlo is screaming for me....he had an accident that included poop all over the bathroom and through the house to the garbage and back!!! lesson learned? Pride goes before the fall:) Thank God I still have the carpet cleaner...

just thinkin'

My only question is, "how hard can it be to clean a small house?" I used to fly through it and be done but I can only get the first three rooms done. Then I start the next day trying to finish and the first three rooms are trashed. I do this over and over... But on the bright side school has been going super good, looks like I finally found my groove. And I'm still working on the smallest Hammond. I wonder if it's true about redheads having the worst tempers, because I have a redhead with a major temper problem, and patience isn't my strong point. Ahh, more areas that God can mold..poor God. After all I am not three but...much older. I am actually beginning to see the areas I am most overwhelmed in with the kids, I myself have residual if not full blown issues in. Well maybe I can work through stuff with them, and be a little bit more understanding.

taking time

Fog

Last night I was driving home from a refreshing night out with other moms and the fog was so thick I could barley see to drive. As i drove along I began to think how at times my life seems like fog, sometimes dense, where I can't see where I am going but other times I break through and see so clear (or feel like I do). It brought to my mind a time I was driving through a fog so thick you couldn't see the end of your car.
I was with a friend and my mom on a long trip in a strange place and we couldn't decide if we should just pull over or make it the last 50 miles to our destination. We decided to go on and were praying, "God help us". About that minute a semi got behind us and i pulled over to let it pass then followed it the whole way through. But what was so memorable about this was that when we got through that fog, the taillights we had been following were gone. Vanished. I knew then that God had answered my prayer for help.
Then I thought a little more about my life as the fog, and realized that this little memory could be just that answer to my recent "God help" times. Why do i forget that he can lead me through these rough, foggy times as he has in the past? It makes me recall a scripture I read in Isaiah once, "He gently leads those with young." I remember finding that verse and being awed by the way he leads...gently. So today i need to remember to keep my eye on the tail lights and not to be frightened of the fog.

blah, blah, blah...

Today I'm having one of those days. You know the ones where you think it would have been wiser to "skip" today, stay in bed away from everyone? It seems everything I touch crumbles and I can't seem to get much done. School turned out to be a flop, cleaning also, and i fed my family crap. Arlo has said mama, mama, mama over and over until i can hear it in the quiet. The boys had a contest to see who could reap the most destruction and I'm feeling like,"OH Well". I often wonder if all i expect from myself is even possible. I've always been the super clean, organizing type freak who couldn't do a project or even read if the space i was in wasn't spotless. I'd get up early clean and start on fun things, now I live to have the house clean for one day and not get anything out in case it's me who messed it up! But that doesn't even work anyway cause I live with a barrel full o' monkeys. I'm living in this weird little place, the place where your split in two and the halves are at war. The biggest delights of my life are stressin' me out! And I would really appreciate if they could become hideous creatures when they're naughty so it wouldn't be so hard on the heartstrings....

We made it: Minus Arlo...