Graduations, Parties, and the Great Teething Monster

Wow—these past few days have been crazy! One thing in youth ministry that, for some reason, I didn’t see coming, was the madness that surrounds each year’s graduating class. We arrived back from a relaxing trip to Macon around noon on Saturday, only to go straight to four graduation parties. Luckily, I only had to go to every other one b/c Luke napped in between, but Greg was going non-stop. Then, Sunday, Greg had two graduations to go to and another graduation party. That, together with church, took up his whole day. Plus, we have our Senior Banquet tonight, and Greg has spent the nights making the Senior’s slide show videos. So yeah-pretty crazy.

All of that wouldn’t have been so bad if Luke hadn’t been TEETHING. Honestly, I didn’t know what TEETHING was until now: I knew what “teething” was. Luke had a couple of fairly cranky days preceding his first two teeth, and I thought, “Oh, he’s TEETHING.” No, he was just “teething.” It was definitely not legit. But yesterday, he began the real deal. It started when I got paged from his cradle roll b/c he was so cranky—I can’t remember when we’ve last had to go get him. And it was downhill from there. He’s been running quite the fever since Sunday night, and he has some diarrhea (don’t you love that I feel comfortable enough to share that with you!). And he has been clearly in A LOT of pain. I’ve tried to check his gums periodically to see if his teeth are making any progress, but he is NOT having it. He is also very attached to us—especially me. And he’s been waking up every hour or two throughout the night. So last night, I finally took him to bed with me, while Greg slept in the guest room. He only woke up once, but otherwise slept from 11:00 until 8:00. So we might be repeating that again tonight. And so we continue down the road of “bad habits” to break…

A close up of motherhood

I feel as if everyone should know that I am married to a fantastic mother. It's really quite unreal. I feel like watching Kim with Luke is kind of like watching a great artist paint a masterpiece or a composer write a symphony. The girl has some talent. It is very difficult for me to believe that she and I became parents at exactly the same moment. Because most of the time I feel like I don't have a clue what I'm doing here, but she makes it look easy. If you've never seen her in action, you're missing something. Over the past several months, I've been amazed by the self-sacrifice I see from her every day. She always seems to have the energy to teach, take care of, and play with Luke. She's always singing a song, playing a game, changing a diaper, feeding some green peas, reading a book, or some other care providing activity. On top of that, she manages to keep our house in pristine condition, manages all our finances, ministers to the teens in the youth ministry, teaches a 5th and 6th grade Sunday School class (and this Sunday School class rocks - I kind of wish that I could be in 5th grade again to do all the fun stuff they do in there), and publishes a monthly newsletter for the parents. I'm not gonna lie, it can be a little intimidating to be married to such a capable woman. But then again, it pretty much awesome that such a capable woman is on my side in this thing called life.

I grew up with a great mom. My mother took incredible care of me and my brothers. I am pretty sure that Chris and Ken would agree that any levels of success that we've been able to achieve on personal, emotional, spiritual, or professional levels, we owe a great deal to our mom for being there for us and investing so much time making sure we stayed pretty much in line. I am so thankful that Luke has the same type of mom. I felt the rest of the world (or at least the 20 people that keep up with our blogs) should know what a great mom Luke has.

To Kim and my Mom, I'd like to wish a Happy Mother's Day

G-L-A-M-O-R-O-U-S

Well, I realize that, when it comes to the internet, my world is really compartmentalized. For instance, I have this blog (even though it's technically Greg's:)) where I basically write about Luke. I don't mean to; that's just how it happens. Well, I also have a myspace blog, where I blog more about spiritual matters and life in general. The myspace one is a lot more interactive, and a lot of people leave comments, but it's more of a ministry tool than an electronic brag book (like this one is turning out to be!).

Anyway, in the spirit of wholeness, I thought I'd post my most recent myspace blog here. Just to give a nice change and to prove to people that I can write about more than just Luke! So here goes:

G-L-A-M-O-R-O-U-S

We flying the first class

Up in the sky

Poppin' champagne

Livin' the life

In the fast lane

Listening to “Glamorous,” by Fergie today in car, two things came to mind. One, the girl likes to spell. She spells “glamorous” in this song, and in another one, she spells her name, along with the words “tasty” and “delicious” (these are really great songs, if you can’t tell). She must have been into spelling bees as a child or something, because she just can’t resist showing off her skills! [Note: I later posted as a comment that, as it turns out, she mispells "tasty." So much for the spelling bee theory!]

Secondly, I was thinking about people I know who probably really like this song (okay, I admit, I like this song. Sue me.), and for the first time, I realized something: there are a lot of people I know who wouldn’t want my life. Honestly, that thought had never occurred to me, as arrogant as that sounds. I think I’m the luckiest girl in the world. I think my life is so good, it’s almost embarrassing how blessed I am. I think I have everything I’ve ever wanted, and all my dreams have come true. In short, I feel like I’m “livin’ the dream,” as corny as that is.

And then I listened to Fergie and was like, Holy heck—I bet there are people I know who would rather be shot than have my life. I mean, think about it in terms of these lyrics. Or the “MTV standard” of the high life. I’m not rich. I don’t own my own home. I live in a parsonage, so my life literally revolves around church. I don’t wear designer clothes. I don’t turn heads when I walk into the room. I’ve only flown first class once in my life, and that was b/c of the airline’s mistake. I don’t have money, fame, or power, which it seems like a lot of people want in life. And really, my life is 0% glamorous. No glamour. At all. Take today. It was GREAT. I loved it. And what did I do? I went to the opthamologist and paid $300 to hear them tell me I needed new contacts (okay, so I didn’t love that part.) And then I came home, picked up Luke, and we went to Chick-fil-A for lunch. Splurge #1. Then we went to Target to buy Sunday school prizes, and I bought $10 worth of scrapbook paper. Splurge #2. I came home, played with Luke, vacuumed the whole house, scrapbooked some, ate dinner, bathed Luke, and then spent an hour rocking him to sleep. When Greg gets home, maybe we’ll watch the extra features of “The Holiday” or return it and get another movie. Since my life is all about taking care of Greg, Luke, and my house—not to mention the teens at church—this day was a treat! It was beautiful weather, I got out of the house, I splurged on something I really wanted, and I had fun with my husband and son.

So where am I going with this? I guess it’s not a huge point. It’s just that, despite my realization that my life isn’t glamorous or the model that everyone aspires to (not even close!), I’m perfectly, completely, 100% content. And ultimately, isn’t that the dream?

Personas

Personas

Well, I could write about the youth ministry or Grandma’s visit last week or several other random happenings, but honestly, Luke continues to be the big news around here. He definitely changes and develops way more than we do. It’s been great watching his personality surface and seeing his curiosity about the world around him. Here are just a few of his new roles in the Kirby household:

1. Baby Magellan

Luke now seems to understand the layout of our house, and apparently believes he has the run of it, as well. So we might be playing back in his nursery, when he decides that, no, he would rather play with the pressure cooker in the laundry room. Or the exercise ball in the corner of our closet. Or maybe he wants to climb the stone steps. So off he goes, crawling as fast as he can until he gets to his destination. He definitely has his favorite spots, and besides the three I listed above, there’s also the stereo. Which brings us to…

2. DJ Luke

The other day, he turned on the cd player and started blasting “Life is a Highway” (thanks, Nationwide, for the free “Road Tunes” cd), then opened the three disc changer , took “Road Tunes” out, closed it back, and turned to Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” (not the first song on the disc.) Who knew you could do all that by pushing random buttons?

3. The Toilet Stalker

Luke loves toilets! A major goal in his life is definitely to reach in one and splash around. However, a major goal in OUR life is to make sure he doesn’t do this, so we always keep the lids down. The only time they’re up is when…um…one of us is using the bathroom. And that’s when Luke seizes his opportunity. He totally takes advantage of us being good parents and not closing him out by himself in another room, and so he comes and pulls himself right up by us, just waiting for us to stand up. And then he stares at us. The whole process—including the mad race to stand up, flush the toilet, and put the seat back down before he can reach in—is rather awkward.

4. Luke-apotamus

Luke has been really amazing us lately at how much he is EATING. He is apparently quite the talk of the cradle roll b/c of how many goldfish he stuffs in his mouth! We’ve heard comments like, “Well, Luke won the goldfish eating contest today,” or “Luke sure does love snack time!” Yikes. Our pediatrician says that babies his age usually drink around 30 ounces of formula and 1-3 jars of baby food a day. Well. I kind of hope she’s wrong about that little stat b/c Luke drinks over 40 oz. of formula and regularly downs 4 jars of baby food, plus whatever table food we give him. The thing is, though, he’s not really that chubby. He’s only in the 50% percentile in weight, and he’s definitely more long than wide. So maybe he has a high metabolism. Here’s hoping…