Never a Dull Moment

With two boys under the age of 4, there is truly never a dull moment. Today is but a simple example of the adventures that we experience daily as stay at home mothers of toddlers.....

We had just finished lunch and my boys jumped down to embark on a game of hide and seek before nap time. This alone is comical enough because the rules of hide and seek are very specific to a 3 year old, and that doesn't always transfer to a 2 year old mind or even correspond to the actual rules that the rest of the world adheres to. Either way, I stay at the table to help the little girl I keep finish her lunch so that she can play too. As a mother you become an expert of sounds.... there are sounds that you're used to (banging, yelling, laughing, the clanging of certain toys or objects etc.) and sounds that alarm you (like the jiggling of a handle that won't open, or comments of a toddler like..."i didn't really pee on the floor Sam, I was just pretending").

As I helped Anna eat I heard what sounded like someone stuck in the closet. Assuming it was my youngest, I yelled for Steven to open the door for him. To which he responded, "I can't." Sigh says the 6.5 month pregnant mother as she rises from the table to take care of the problem herself. I get to the linen closet door and realize it is indeed locked and Sam is indeed inside. I actually happened to be talking to my mother-in-law on the phone at the time and she calmly suggests getting an ice pick - the obvious response, we all learned to pick doors as children right?

Well, I didn't, my sister was the champion of that at our house. But it is currently beside the point, because this happens to be a door that needs a key to be opened. To further complicate the situation I have NO idea where the key is and my husband is unreachable. I find a key that fits the lock but it won't turn. After walking through several options with Sally.... looking for external screws, ways to take the handle off.... we conclude that we may have to call the fire department. Somehow Sam is in there quietly playing with things on the shelf and completely oblivious that this is a big deal. I try coaching him on how to turn the internal knob lock, but frankly I'm not even sure that door has one, and he responds with, "I can't, I'm busy."

I happen to look out the door and see my neighbor, a man in his late 50s with daughters my age who are both currently pregnant. I figure if anyone will help me, it would be him. So I sprint across the lawn (I didn't even think I could run at this point - how wrong I was.) and ask him to come help. He calmly walks in and after about 10-15 minutes of unsuccessful attempts he manages to pop off the hinges and pry the door open from the wrong side (this was trickier than you would think since it was locked). I hug the man.....a man whom I have maybe spoken 15 sentences to in my life, and then continue with the beginning of nap time procedure.

The thing that sticks with me through this was how unaffected Sam was. He walked out smiling and when my neighbor Keith asked him if he had a good time in there, he smiled and said, "yeah." He even, just before we pried the door off, started sliding photographs under the door out of a miscellaneous box of things I need to scrapbook. Sigh.... children. So now I sit on my couch with a latte wishing it were a glass of red wine - but for many obvious reasons (pregnancy, 2 in the afternoon, babysitting other peoples children while mothering my own), I stick to other addictive substances like caffeine and sugar.

So now the door sits propped against the wall in the hall, awaiting the return of my husband who is in for a good story, some handy work, and turning the knob of that door around so it can never be locked from the inside again!

Thank you Sam for teaching me something I otherwise would not have learned, how to take locked door off its hinges. I'm sure I'll be able to thank him for many other bits of information as I raise him as well.

My how time flies

I listened to Sam singing Itsy Bitsy Spider in his bed and marveled at how quickly time flies. It is so true that the days are long but the years are fast. I can't believe my baby is over 2, my oldest is almost 4, and there is a little girl in my belly who is about to begin the cycle again. I digress. I suppose my point is that things are moving forward. Bunk beds sit stained downstairs, two new quilts for the boys are purchased, and our X Terra is listed. Onward we head to two boys in one room, a nursery, and a van. I am constantly amazed at the blessing that God has bestowed on our family. From the ability to have these things.... to the new life we are awaiting. Thanks be to God.

Third Time is the Charm

Looks like we're having a baby girl. My mother and mother-in-law were able to come to the ultrasound with me and Steven - they were all giddy to say the least. We picked up our first bits of pink and purple on the way home and my husband was glowing the entire visit. The best part of the visit was finding out that my liver counts had gone down since the last visit. We'll keep hoping and praying for a normal pregnancy this time!

Endless Winter

If this is Narnia.... I want to know who the white witch is, because I have some complaints to lodge. I know she allowed Christmas.... but I'm done with this. It's only January 12th and I'm wishing for parks, sunshine, and picnics. Enough of this COLD!





I'm starting to see why Beth was never excited in NYC. Sigh. I miss the child-like excitement.

A Month in Pictures

Almost a month ago my computer power cord quit working. And since my laptop battery died over a year ago I was without a computer for quite sometime. The first day it felt like there had been a death in the family.... but gradually I realized.... "I don't have to check my email 20 times a day or look at my homepage every several minutes." Either way, by the time the cord came in, I was glad to have it, but was no longer stressed about not having a computer. My blog has been totally neglected because of it, though. And since we are currently being hit by another southern snowstorm (8+ inches and still coming) I have time to upload some pictures from the past month! Enjoy!

The Perfect Snow Day

Today was the perfect snow day. We got around 3 inches, which was plenty to play in, but not enough to making walking impossible for a toddler. Then the temperature rose to around 36, which felt incredibly warm. Somehow 36 on a snow day feels quite warm, but 36 on any other day is the type of day that I want to stay indoors huddled by the fire. Why I wonder?

Either way, it was the perfect temperature to spend an hour and a half doing all types of fun snow games!

Sledding..... can you still see the smiles as they topple? They're there!

Snow ball fights.

And of course.... a snow man! Don't you love the hair! That was the Daddy's touch. Well - most of it was Daddy's touch, but they loved it. Then Daddy threw a snow ball at it and based on the slight slant of our hill, he tumped to his death. But he sure was fun while he lasted!

Our boys loved EVERY minute of it. And just like their momma.... we have to convince them to wait until 9 to head outside. They wanted to be out by 7 when they awoke and saw the ground covered. And we had to use hot chocolate and Charlie Brown Christmas as motivation to head back inside as Momma and Daddy were spent from a million hikes up our hill. For many of them, Daddy had boys in tow on a sled. No wonder he is their hero.

Punch Cards

What ever happened to punch cards? You know..... you eat here 9 times and the 10th one is on us! They used to exist, but I never see them anymore! Panera used to have one for hot drinks (of course Starbucks is too good for this....) but it disappeared almost a year ago. I think it was a great idea! A kind of "frequent buyers" card. Never the less, they are not found at the places I frequent.... and the past 10 weeks for me it's been Chick-fil-a. They do have the calendar, but they load the front half of the year with the good coupons and by November all you get is a free coke zero or a bottle of Dasani water. Seriously? You think I want to come to Chick-fil-a for bottled water? I think not. Why the rant, Courtney? Well.....


As you can see from picture.... we're pregnant (Steven Edward is holding a picture that says, "I'm going to be a Big Brother). I'm a bit over 14 weeks right now and this baby is making me earn it. If you had asked me in my first two pregnancies if I had morning sickness I would have responded by saying, "it usually comes in the afternoons, but yeah." But now, I scoff at the idea that what I had with the boys was even close to nausea. This time I've been suffering since about four weeks, wearing sea-sick bands daily since about 5 weeks, breaking blood vessels in my eye and making my nose bleed... I'll stop there. I suppose the point is it could be worse. It is often hard to believe that it could be worse in the middle of it, but when my eye had popped a blood vessel, I had a friend tell me about someone who had all 4 parts of her whites red (unlike mine - which was only one!). I had another friend detail for me her sickness runs in the corners of the subway stations in Manhattan.... luckily mine has been outside, on the side of roads, but mostly in the comfort of my very own bathrooms (if you can call crouching on the cold tile floor with your hair pulled back and glasses off comfort).


Eventually my doctor prescribed a medicine that I can take to help with the nausea. I hesitated to take it at first, but eventually I started taking it daily - as it seems that once the day starts to go bad it is hard to recover it. But before I was taking that the only thing I could keep down was Chick-fil-a. I went from running all the time and being a reasonably healthy person.... to refusing vegetables and water, and only desiring things fried in peanut oil topped with a pickle. It is a bit sad really. As I wait in the drive-through line I can feel myself getting fatter... but as any pregnant woman will tell you.... at the time, you don't care. I can't run, I can't enjoy a glass of wine with my husband, and I'm generally miserable all the time, so why not get a number one from Chick-fil-a with a half and half sprite/lemonade (not that I've done that before). Who cares about the food budget (show me a family who has had a sick pregnant woman in the house who has stayed within that!) or the amount of calories I'm taking in? Give me pancakes every morning, protein all day long, and chick-fil-a when I can't stomach anything else.


Well - I'm 14 weeks and this should hopefully be ending soon. I tried to go a day (today) without taking my medicine....

11am - start to feel gross
11:15am - take medicine
11:30am - vomiting
11:45am - take medicine again because you're sure the first never made it in your system
12:30.... waiting in a drive through line.

I actually saw a friend through the plate glass window and she looked at me with a knowing smile. Hopefully in a couple weeks this will be gone right? I'll like vegetables again, think hydrogenated oils are icky, and carry my Nalgene around full of water? Only time will tell.