A week's worth of blogging

Wow, getting each day's blogging done has really eluded me this week. I have the highlights of Tues-Fri that I'll combine here.

(Tuesday)
Today was the last day of L's vacation week so we decided to spend it at Devil's Lake. We brought J's favorites to keep him occupied like his now-favorite books, his dinosaurs and a box of dominoes. The dominoes are a new thing. I brought them to our mom's night out Monday and thought he may like playing with them. Boy does he ever! So this was a winner. He started out calling them "dominicks" but I think he's got the name now. Once we were hot (which wasn't hard since it was 85+ and super humid) we went swimming. I wanted to do some more work with J so we stayed in shallows. He gets pretty upset if I don't carry him in the water and doesn't like to stand or walk around the shallow water. I tried walking on my knees and holding his hands but he didn't like it and was crying. Then I walked away a little bit and held my arms out to him and once or twice he did walk to me. Then daddy played with him to help him gain more confidence and I went to swim a bit. When I came back he didn't want me to leave him again and kept asking for uppy. We all had lunch and then after a bit we swam again. This time I brought J's toys (it's funny that it took me so long to have this idea). We had his dinosaurs, a fire boat and a few cars that I put at the edge of the water and just sat there playing with him. We found a log and he loved trying to balance the dinosaurs on that calling it a boat. He seemed to enjoy this until I would move away, then he'd get upset. He didn't like to walk to me either, he'd stand there crying not wanting to move. He really doesn't like this part of being in the water. He just wanted to be carried and wouldn't stop saying "uppy mommy". Plus it was getting close to nap time so he was really upset and wouldn't stop crying. Finally, he took several steps to me and when he was a foot away he actually ran the last few steps and into my arms. I'm serious though, he is that scared of walking in the water. He was fine at the Edgewood wading pool when we walked in, but maybe it's the unsteady sand that really freaks him out. We'll keep working on it whenever we can.

When we got home I had just enough time to prepare a little dinner, get J up from his nap and then my friend Cecile came over. She's the one I'm meeting with for spiritual accountability. It is very, very good to get together and share. We shared about our weeks, talked about my vacation and things God was showing me. She shared challenges she is having with her kids and it was funny how I could see J in some of the situations she was describing. L and J came back from the Y. It was nice that he took J there so we could have the time alone. Unfortunately, we hadn't gotten a chance to pray. L said he was crying off and on and kept asking for mommy. L tried to get J upstairs to go and read some books but he said NO and put a book in my lap saying "mommy read it". So I let him stay while L went upstairs and we prayed. He bowed his head with us it was so cute.
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(Wednesday)
Before breakfast, we played with dominoes. That's the first thing he went to. I left them out after bringing them to my mom's night out thinking he might like them. He loves to put them all in a row so I built alongside his and we made a parking garage and a tunnel. We had the cars going in and out. I stopped for a bit to read some of the paper and J let me know he didn't like that. He said "all done paper mommy" and tries to take it away. I finished my article and went back to playing with him. He took my hand.

We had a play date set up with my friend Eileen but she called early to let me know it wasn't going to work out. While cleaning, she had discovered a mildew problem and she needed to deal with that. That left the morning open for doing the overdue grocery shopping. It seemed today I had a hard time with deciding so it took me longer than normal. J lost patience and kept saying "go check out mommy?" or "I wanna go home mommy" then "uppy mommy". That one he kept saying over and over starting to cry so finally I took him out setting him free. He liked pushing the cart but I had to keep him away from the low things on the shelves. At checkout when I put him back in the cart he had another outburst and was not happy. We stopped at Walgreen's too and I found some really good sales including 75cents for huge jugs of bubbles. Once we got home, we played with bubbles for a while and J ran around trying to pop them.

I let him watch a little of the videos I picked up from the library. The one about dinosaurs he didn't really like, maybe they weren't enough cartoon-like. He wanted to watch Stellaluna. This was a story he looked at on the library computers and would talk about for days after. We finally got the video. Then he did some more playing and it was nap time.

J got all ready to eat spaghetti, was in his chair, had his fork and then just refused to eat. I hadn't given him the normal half hour or so to wake up and the melt down came with me needing to put him in his crib for a bit. Then we went to the Y and when I dropped him off he got the SADDEST little face. He was asking for uppy but instead I put him inside the child watch area and he looked lost. He started walking a little bit then turned around & saw daddy and I and his face just fell looking like he was going to cry any minute so (although torn) we left quickly. When we picked him up, the lady was commenting on his vocabulary. She had been a teacher at a private school and was saying he is really advanced for his age. We don't have anything to compare him to, but I'm starting to hear that more. On the way home I was talking to J about what they are teaching him in church, that we can talk to God anytime or anyplace. We talk to God in our prayers. So J says "Hi God. I want brown muffins God." Then we were getting out of the car and he says "I want to give my brown muffin to God." Once outside, he walks around and says "Where are you God? Where did God go?" This was just adorable! It was a little past bed time yet he seemed wide awake, wanting to watch videos. Went up and read a couple books then colored a little then prayers and sleep.

(Thursday)
J woke me up today after 8am. I had a huge headache so we went in "the big bed" (mommy & daddy's bed) and lay down for a while. It wasn't very restful though with J crawling all over me, pinching my nose, throwing blankets over my face, things like that. I decided not to go to the Titus group park date since I wasn't feeling so hot, plus the weather was super hot and humid.
We played some dominoes again. This time we were focusing on colors and patterns in lining them up together. We also watched video called The Big Race which teaches good lessons like sharing and helping. There are fire trucks in this video so he had to wear his fire hat. He came running to me with his extra helmet saying "come fight the fire mommy!"

For lunch since he is picky, I thought I had a great idea with a lean cuisine of spanish rice (which he loves) and enchilada. He wanted pickles and wouldn't eat anything else. Back to the drawing board. Off and on today he was asking me where daddy was or saying he wants daddy. Every time he brings up daddy I use that as a reminder to pray for him. I'll tell J he's at work but then say we can pray for him and I'll pray for his day.

After lunch, my headache came back. I mentioned going outside and J then said he wanted to stay inside (which he never does) but finally I coaxed him to go play outside with me for a bit. We did some bubbles since they are so fun yet it was SUPER hot & humid! After nap and dinner, our friend Dave came over to watch him while we went to a class at Blackhawk called The Bible in the Making.Our instructor said we are officially Bible geeks to give up a week night to come study how the bible came together. It was really interesting to learn about. J really didn't want to go to sleep. He wanted to keep playing. Daddy read him a couple books but still he didn't want to sleep. Then we did our prayer time and he let me tuck him in without complaining.

(Friday)
I can't believe how late we slept this morning! I woke up and it was 9am and J was still not awake. My headache had returned so I lay back down and by 9:30 I got up and J was still sleeping! It looked like it would be a rainy day and it did turn out that way. After breakfast and some play time we went to the Y. Again, J seemed sad when I dropped him off with the sad droopy lip but was really happy when I got back. I was in the driveway when J and I started to talk about McDonald's and he was so excited. He says "mommy's turning around" so I thought why not, and we went. I was not paying attention but I went to sit and all of a sudden hear someone happily calling our names and there is my friend Carolina with Nikki from Titus. This week J had been asking for Carolina and her son Steffano. This was great. We ate and hung out for at least an hour in the play area. J went back and forth and was saying "there are too many kids mommy" so he hung out with us at the table a lot of the time.

Once we got home, J went right down for his nap. It kept raining and we ended up with a big pond in our yard from too much rain too fast. After dinner, we had some friends over; Curtis and a couple Sherry and Ron. They have all been to India for mission work too and we've known them for many years. J was acting like a goof ball but staying pretty close to me. We got to hear about Curtis' trip to Europe after India and shared what's been going on in our lives. He brought his guitar and played a couple worship songs he learned in India in the Telagu language. It was late when they left and L was doing the night routine with J but I could hear him crying and saying "I want my mommy". I had to go up there and right away his arms were out to me so I stayed and read him a few books, prayed, sang and then he was ready to be tucked in.