More than Adrift

My original intention in writing this was to share fun and new things we are doing around here. I am always encouraged and inspired when I hear of other moms' fun activities and often try to recreate them at our house. This week my eldest and baby are both sick. Not too conducive to fun activities, but we did our best! This week was the week of experiments for D. He was so interested when his big sister came home from school with a snow globe (made of an old baby food jar, glitter, beads, etc.) He begged me to recycle some of C's baby food jars for his own creation. And we did it! A little food coloring, an old bead bracelet that I took scissors to, an old wooden doll of my husbands, and a hot glue gun. 20 minutes later he had a beautiful (subjectively) snow globe of his own. We also did a lot of ice/water experiments since it was nice outside. We used an old tuna can and filled it with water and placed it outside of our door. Every hour we would go check it to see how mu...

Ah perspective. The ever-elusive unattainable goal. This is true for me anyways. One minute I am sitting on the rug, feeling blessed for the opportunity to stay home playing with three adorable kids, and the next minute I'm stuck in the house with three screaming toddlers with no life. What changed? Just my perspective! And yet, I get sucked in to the moment. I start feeling sorry for myself, I think what a nice life the women have who work outside of the home, with some measuring stick of their success. With consistent life form contact. With a break from the screaming, yelling, pushing, complaining, whining.... Of course my mood seeps into the children. And then, Murphy's Law....they actually start yelling, pushing, complaining, whining.  Occasionally (I don't want to overstate this, if I say 50% I am probably exaggerating) I am able to break the cycle. I take a moment. I open my bible. I pray. I calm down. I open my eyes, and like magic (or like th...

Relatively new on my radar is a claimed "treatment" for Down Syndrome.  There's a non profit organization that promotes use of a combination of medicine and vitamins that..for lack of a better way of saying it....'reduces' the effect of DS on a child.  One of these medications is (gasp) prozac ( a very low dose of it) There is some research that backs this up (on mice)  and the medical protocol is supposed to improve long term memory and learning. It's kind of expensive, but the testimonials are hard to ignore. Families from all over the country that have started their young children, and school age children, on this string of medications swear by this treatment. I'm not going into all the details here, but if you want to check out some of the more technical info on this you can see their website http://www.changingmindsfoundation.org/home.html This really elicits a lot of conflicting feelings for me. There are no studies showing long term effects of t...

Things are getting back to normal around here. K started her afternoon preschool class on Tuesday and seems to be adjusting really well. D loves having some "alone time" to play with mom, and C seems much happier to be on a normal schedule too. I don't know how I turned into a routine schedule person, but I have. Probably K has helped me with this more than anything. As Gibbs and I talked about how our days went this evening, I found myself really grateful for such a happy family life. The little things seem so much more meaningful when I'm in a routine. I suspect this is what kids love about consistency too. Knowing what our day will look like ahead of time gives me the opportunity to enjoy the conversations with D at bedtime more, instead of stressing about when I'm going to have time to finish the dishes. My improptu "airplane ride" with K, flying to Grandma's (of course) seemed more exciting than it would have if I was worried about the bil...

It's tough to put into words how I feel/felt about this vacation. I have been going to Hawai'i fairly frequently, considering it's halfway across the world, since I was 14. I had built up a romantic trip like this in my head with that "special someone" before a husband was ever seriously considered. Sunset sails, walks on the beach, stolen kisses underwater. I'm not kidding. I had created a vacation in my head full of excitement, love, adventure, relaxation....  So, Gibbs, loving me as he does, finally agreed to take me there. Even though we really couldn't afford it, even though C was really too young for us to leave for a week.... Any of you reading this know my husband? I'm sure you are laughing to yourself if you do. Excitement? Adventure? Love? My husband is the most solid, hard working, responsible man I know. He loves me undoubtedly...but our ideas/ideals differ just a bit. And also, I would literally kill him if I tried to kiss him underwater...

My favorite long distance friend and I discussed a topic I thought I would share today. Age. It's not something I've given much thought to up to this point of my life, since I'm all of 26 years old. Someone told me I was young today and, for the first time, it sounded like a compliment! Young? I have three children. Not laid back, quiet, easy going children either. Three children who spend the majority of their day describing their wants and needs in great detail to me. Asking why to every direction I give them...well two of them do this anyways :) but I am sure the third is going to be following soon! What's next? We're married, we have children, we're home buyers (and home sellers) we've graduated college, we've gotten our first jobs (well....Gibbs has anyways)  I'm just curious if this is the beginning of living through your children. I'm sure you know the type. Pushing them towards academic excellence, sports achievement, more piano les...

I wrestled with the decision as to whether or not I really wanted to become a "blogger" for weeks... Do I really want people to be able to judge my writing style, my grammar, more importantly, my thoughts, my feelings, my beliefs? It's a tough question. I give a lot of credit to those who share uninhibitedly (of course, there SHOULD be limits, personal limits set on what areas you are willing to share on...) So, here it goes! But now, there are titles, pictures, settings to choose from. If you knew me in college...well, you know that CSE101 didn't go too well for me (MSU's beginner computer course...) My title.....Adrift: aimless, without an anchor. I'm blessed to have an anchor in my life. Christ. And more physically present there are several anchors here at home. K- my 4 1/2 year old only daughter, who is stubborn, difficult, sweet, cuddly, smart, resilient, and has Down Syndrome D- my 3 year old braniac who is just like my husband, has been known to ...