WE HAVE TO DO BETTER

My four-year old's (almost five!!!) favorite verse is Matthew 22:39 "The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' He quotes it all the time. That probably has a lot less to do with my awesome parenting and a lot more to do with the fact that it is one of our house rules and he hears it all the time.

In the 22nd chapter of Matthew Jesus has been asked what the greatest commandment is. He responds with "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'Matthew 22:37. Notice how verse 39 begins, "The second is like it. . .". Some translations actually read "as important as this is. . .". Jesus is saying here that is is just as important to love our neighbors. That is BIG folks!!! Who is your neighbor? EVERYONE!!! Wow, you mean I have to love everyone? Yep!

Fellow Christians we are failing big time here. Loving involves some action. Yes we can pray for others and quietly donate our money to charities that love on others, but the responsibility doesn't stop there. Not if you are able bodied. We need to be out there loving on each other and showing Christ's love to others. It doesn't have to be huge acts of kindness or costly things. Just love one another.

Just today I was leaving Target. I was in a hurry. I had picked up some eggs and I needed to get them home and in the fridge before heading to my next client. I am a speech therapist and I do home visits. As I was leaving the parking lot I see a woman loading her kids in the car as her cart sits up on the sidewalk. A gust of wind pushes her cart off the curb and it topples. She had two of those giant bouncy balls. Her groceries are everywhere, her kids are screaming, and those bouncy balls are rolling away as fast as they can. I am in my car almost to the exit. I turned around, parked, and picked up all of her groceries while she fetched the balls.

I don't tell this story because I want to brag on my action. This action cost me nothing major. It took an extra three minutes, tops. I could see on the woman's face that she was shocked I came to help. She was very thankful. I didn't do that because I am some awesome good person. I did it because I have been there and I knew she needed a little love at that moment. I have been the woman with spilled groceries and screaming kids in the parking lot when no one stops to help. I have been the woman in line with three sick kids, one item, and a person in front of me in line with a cart full that doesn't let me go ahead. I have been the woman who while serving her kids snack at the park has all her napkins blow away and not one mother helps me collect them or offers to watch and make sure my kids don't run off while I chase this mess down. I have been there and in a million other situations where it would have just been nice for someone to help and show me a little love.

I have also been the on the receiving end of some amazing acts of love and kindness, but unfortunately those acts rarely come from strangers. When I am out and about alone I have that feeling that it is just me and I better pray nothing goes wrong. This is so very unfortunate! Where were my fellow Christians in my time of need. Where was that stranger who knew it was their opportunity to show the kind of love to a neighbor that Christ was talking about when I needed it? We stink at this. Christians, we have to do better! I am definitely including myself here. I often catch myself being too caught up in my own daily agenda to worry about those around me who may be in need. We are all great at helping those we love. We help our friends. We often rush in during their times of need. We don't do the same for strangers. That is sad. We must do better.

IT CAN'T BE. . .

After all this time? Really? Blogging again? Yep, that's me. I am back! It has been well over a year since my last post. That is an insanely long time. I made it one of my New Year's resolutions to start blogging again. Yep, it's April. Oh well, I am not known for my punctuality. Although that was a resolution too. I better stop talking about those resolutions or I will start to feel like a big failure.

So, since my last post we have added a new little boy to the family, Rowan, and we have just been living. Life gets crazy. It has been a roller coaster or a year or so. I will add in flash back posts as I feel like it. The main thing is that I wanted to get back to writing (or typing) out my experiences and thoughts. Not because I really think anyone is going to read them. I am pretty sure no one glances at my space in on the internet anymore to see if I have posted. I didn't have a whole bunch of readers anyway. The bottom line is that over the last nine months I have written a million posts in my head. Something happens and I instantly start an inner dialog about how I would narrate the experience. I think I do that because it helps me sore out my thoughts and feelings about this journey of life. I want to remember these thoughts and experiences. So here I am back to document.

WELLNESS PLAN

That is what I need. A wellness plan for our family. I am home from work sick again today. I have a horrible sinus/cold thing. Everything hurts and it stinks. I or someone else in this house has been sick every month since sometime last fall. It is beyond frustrating. If the boys get sick I stay home with them, then I get sick and miss more work because I am sick. It is a horrible cycle. Not only do I get sick, but I seem to catch whatever they have and get ten times more sick than they did. I don't know if it is because I am older, pregnant, or my immune system just stinks. Regardless, things have to change.

Yesterday I posted on FB that I am looking for ideas for ways to keep my family well. I know families out there have different wellness plans they follow (diet, vitamin routines, etc.) and I want to know what other families are doing to stay well. I seriously feel like we are more sickly than most families. The idea that we have another baby on the way makes this even more stressful. Another baby means another body for the illness to jump to and more days of recovery for our family. It also means another little person going out in the world and picking up germs to bring back to the rest of us.

So although my lack of posting recently probably means I have all of two readers left, I would like some feedback from any moms out there about what I can do to keep my family well. Grayson already takes and multivitamin and I take my prenatal vitamins. We keep the house clean and I am sure to sanitize with Lysol and Clorox Wipes anytime someone gets sick. What else do I need to be doing?

P.S. I got another old post edited and posted. Check out "From The Mouths of Babes" in August.

OLD POSTS- UPDATED

I have twelve, yes twelve, draft posts in my archive folder. I am slowing going through to edit them and get them posted. There is a lot of important memories in those archives I want on our blog. Anyway, so far I have the six oldest posted. They go from April (Grayson turning 3) to a big announcement in August.

I am not delusional enough to think that anyone is on the edge of their computer chair waiting to read what we have been doing since February. I just wanted to make sure that anyone interested knew they were there.

BACK TO BLOGGIN

Hi Strangers! I know I have been completely MIA for a long time. Too long. I have very much missed blogging. Most everyone that I knew read regularly has inquired over the last several months about my lack of blogging and a few people that I didn't know read even asked. Here is the quick and dirty. We got busy. Yeah, real busy. We had some big vacations, some big illnesses, a new pregnancy (more on that later), some struggles with my business, a big office move, and more. All of that was on top of the general business of being a family with two working parents and two very small boys. I know that sounds like a stinky excuse. Seriously, life got pretty overwhelming there for a while. To be honest, it still is on some days. However, I need to blog. I love writing about what is going on in our family. I would blog if not a single person in the world ever read it. We went on our annual family vacation to Topsail a couple of weeks ago. I always treat that as my second new year. That basically means that I use the time away to evaluate where our family is, what has been going on with us in the last year, and what areas of our life and family could use some attention. You know, a little self reflection and some time talking with God. Some time spent listening to what God would like to be doing in my life. The ultimate result is that I come home feeling motivated to keep moving forward and with some new goals. I determined then that I must make it a priority to get back to blogging. That is not that only priority rearranging I did, but that is all for another post. This post is to simply say, I'm BAAAACK. Why today? Well, we are all home sick. Yep, all four of us even Justin. That is just the way things have been lately. It is always something. I do have some archived posts that I began over the last several months that I will go back, edit, and then post. They will post with the original date they should have posted, but for the two people who might still read this blog I will let you all know when those archived posts go up just in case you care.

FROM THE MOUTHS OF BABES

My oldest son says some of the cutest things. He is seriously hysterical. The best part is that he has no idea he is so funny. He says things in complete seriousness that are off the charts funny. For a long time I have been wanting to do a weekly post to outline all of the funny things that happen in our house (most of which are things that Grayson says) Since I can't seem to get around to doing a regular post for now I will just post of some the top rated funnies so that I don't forget them before he is old enough for me to embarrass him.

As we are leaving dinner one night I need to pull out of the parking lot rather quickly (but safely) to get in front of the traffic that is approaching. I tell the boys in the back, "Hold on to what ya got! We are going!" To this Grayson replies rather frantically "Mommy, I got nothing in my hands right now!"

I was sick a few weeks ago (big surprise) and I had no voice. My mom was keeping the boys and told Grayson I had a frog in my throat. When I get home and go to give Grayson a hug he says very seriously, "Mommy is that frog gonna jump out and on my froat (throat)?"

We are very particular about making sure Grayson doesn't touch things when we are in a public restroom. A while ago Justin took Grayson to the potty while we were out shopping t0 a pretty crowded restroom. Justin reminds Grayson not to touch anything. Rather loudly Grayson asks, "Daddy, can I touch myself?" We tell him to put his hands on his stomach or knees while in a public restroom to avoid having him grab the dirty toilet. Justin, knowing that the men in the other stalls could hear tried to ignore the question (big mistake). Naturally Grayson shouts louder, "Daddy! Can I touch myself? So Justin quietly replies, "Yes Grayson, you can." Grayson then asks very loudly, "Can I touch myself all over my body?" HA!

Grayson has a female friend at school. We will call her "E". Grayson likes to pretend to talk on the phone to his friends. On one occasion he was pretending to talk to "E". I hear him say, "Hey E! What are you doin right now? Uh-huh. I like your cute butt." What?!?!? Where did he even hear that?!?!?

And last but not least, my personal favorite that is not funny but just shows how wonderful the heart of my oldest son is. . .

Grayson crawled into my lap today, looks up at me and says, "Mommy, you are my best friend."

Heaven! Absolute heaven!!!

OH BOYS!

We are very happy to announce that we will be welcoming another boy to our family in January. Yep, that's right we are having another baby and yes we know it is going to be a boy because I am already over 16 weeks. We do typically share the news of a new pregnancy pretty early on, but this one was a little different. We told our family and close friends around the 8 week mark, but decided to keep this pregnancy private from Facebook and the blog world for a little bit longer.

We kept our new baby hush for a bit longer for a few reasons. One, this baby was a very wonderful surprise and we just needed some time for the news to sink in. Two, I have a lot going on at work and needed to get some things headed in a better direction before I announced a new pregnancy. Third, and probably the biggest reason, was that this pregnancy has been so very different from the others with some nervous moments at the very beginning. I was shocked to find out I was pregnant in the midst of some spotting that I was certain was my "friend" arriving. I had not spotted with any other pregnancy and it made me worry. Then when I went in for my first ultrasound the baby was measuring much smaller than I felt he should be. Having been through a loss before, I was pretty terrified. I just really didn't want to get super excited and then lose another baby. It is hard not to get super excited when everyone around you is happy and excited for you. So, we decided to keep the news a little quiet for a bit longer than we have in the past.

Now things are going very well. The spotting stopped around week 6. The beginning of my pregnancy was actually very much like the pregnancy with the twins. I was very tired and very sick (the sickness is still going strong). In fact, it was so similar that I was a little surprised there weren't two babies in there. By week 10 the baby was measuring right on track and the due date of January 25th was set in stone. That is my dad's birthday so I was pretty excited about that. I have my cervix measured every two weeks (just like I did with Baylor) and everything is looking great.

At my 16 week appointment I knew he would take a peek at the gender just because I get an ultrasound at every appointment. The official anatomy scan isn't until week 20, but I knew the doc would look. Justin was out of town so I had my mom go with me. She has never been to one of our ultrasounds so it was pretty special for both of us that she got to be there. As soon as the doc put the wand on my belly I knew what I was seeing. Right there in the middle of the screen were two legs and a penis. I said, "Is that a penis?!" I was certain this baby was going to be a girl. After all, I felt exactly the way I did with Faith and Avery. Even the weight gain pattern had been the same. I knew we weren't having twins so it must be a girl, right? WRONG! We are having a third son and couldn't be happier. Three boys in our house is going to be amazing!!! I love my boys and I know just how much boys love their moms. I am so excited to get that times three.

Grayson is very excited about another baby. He says we need "more, and more, and more". For a while he called the baby "Noddle". All on his own he came up with that name. We loved it. I thought it was so cute he had a nickname for his little brother or sister. Now that he knows the baby is a boy, he has changed the name to Bodie (again all on his own). Yeah, I don't know where he came up with that either, but that is what he calls the baby. Baylor is going to be a wonderful big brother, but for now I don't really think he has a clue about how our family is about to change. Truth be told, none of us really know what it is going to be like in a house with three boys, three and under. God knows and He must love us a ton to keep blessing us with babies to love on. I can't wait!