Traveling Medicine Cabinet

I'm the type of person who hates to have to run out for Children's Tylenol while traveling, when I know I have three bottles at home.  So when I was packing last Wednesday to leave for my parents' house on Thursday, I packed the following:  Children's Tylenol, Children's Motrin, Children's Delsym, Sambucol, mentholatum chest rub, saline solution, and a nasal aspirator.  I thought about throwing in a container of Pedialyte, and decided that was just going too overboard.

Well, since our arrival, we have used every single thing I brought...and I had to run out this morning to get some Pedialyte!  What the heck???

Though we all came with the sniffles, our colds all escalated while here.  Luke has been coughing up a lung (Sambucol, Delsym), and Anna has been running a fever (Tylenol, Motrin), as well as being really stuffy herself (saline solution, nasal aspirator).  I've used the chest rub on both of them.  Anna has also thrown up three times since we've been here, with over 24 hours passing between each time.  I have no idea what that's about.  Is it all the gunk making her nauseated?  Is it some kind of weird, mild, elongated stomach bug?  No idea.  But given the--ahem--volume of her most recent offering, I thought I'd get some Pedialyte for her, just to be on the safe side.

Geez.  What is up with my kids and traveling?

A Tale of Athletic Glory

A couple days ago, Luke came up to me in the house and said, "Mama, I got to tell you what I are."  I asked what he was, and he replied, "I are a coach."  What kind of coach?  "A basketball coach."  He had his daddy's basketball whistle around his neck, which Greg uses in coaching the high school boys on the church team.  I thought it was sweet that Luke was pretending to be his dad.  His pretending didn't stop there, however.

Luke, Anna, and I went outside a few minutes later, and while Anna and I played on the patio, Luke would stand in the backyard, blow his whistle, run as fast as he could, stop, blow it again, and run just as hard the other way.  After quite awhile of this, he announced, "It's over."  What's over, buddy?  "The basketball game."  He followed that pronouncement up with, "Don't worry.  Another game's coming right up!" 

This time, though, he needed an audience.  He brought me a stick, and told me (seriously) that every time he ran down the court, I needed to say, "Good shot, Luke!"  At this point, I was very amused, though a little confused by the prop of the stick.  When he ran down the "court," I dutifully held up my stick (a pom-pom, maybe?), and cheered, "Good shot, Luke!"  He looked at me and was not satisfied.  "Nooo, hold it lower!"  (He's gotten quite bossy:)).  I lowered it to the ground where I was sitting.  "No, a little lower, not a lot lower."  Huh?  At this point he walked over to me, and positioned my hand, with the stick, in front of my mouth.  "Now, talk into the stick."  OH, I GET IT!  The stick is a microphone!.  So now, Luke's basketball game is complete with a whistle blowing coach (Luke), a star athlete (also Luke), and an announcer (yours truly) cheering his multiple shots, apparently for both teams.  I could totally see the basketball game by that point.  That kid has quite an imagination.

Life is Too Full

So, I was going to call this post, "life to the full," but I thought that might be a little presumptuous to think that my life is currently the epitome of all Jesus promised Christians (though I kind of think it is, but that's another story). 

Doing Project 365 has busted a myth for me.  Throughout the 2 1/2 years that I've had children, I've had this nagging thought that if I just took more pictures, I could somehow hold onto these days and capture them.  Since I've been taking at least one, and sometimes multiple, pictures each day, however, I've realized that that is simply not true.  For one thing, it's impossible to encapsulate each day in a picture.  Today on my Project 365 blog, I narrowed it down to three.  Below are some "outtakes" from our day that didn't make Project 365:

If it weren't for me making my current point, these wouldn't have made any blog.  They would have probably not even been printed.  And yet each picture captures such a full moment.  But here's the thing:  there were so many more moments today--and everyday--that no camera captures.  Moments of funny things Luke says, silly things Anna does, moments of almost sublime happiness.  Like tonight, while Anna and I laid on our backs on a pile of Luke's of blankets on the floor while he jumped up and down his newly-sheeted bed trying to entertain us by being silly.  Anna was laughing like a crazy person.  I was exhausted, but I could not stop smiling at my goofy kids.  Or last night, as I was rocking Anna to sleep by lamplight while Luke played quietly in her room.  I was just about to put my sleepy baby down, when Luke crawled up on her bed and laid on his back to read a book.  He wanted me to keep singing to Anna, so I sat back down with her and rocked until she was sound asleep in my arms.  Like I said, no camera could capture my view at that moment. 

And if I hadn't written both of those instances down, I can guarantee you I would have totally forgotten them in 48 hours.  Totally forgotten them.

There is sooooo much I have already forgotten.  It's humbling.  And it reminds me that each day is a gift.  There's no way to explain it that doesn't sound horribly cliche, but these days are flying by.  They are a mist, a vapor.  Seriously.  And I just want to cherish every moment.  And even to embrace the struggle that comes with giving up my wants and needs to care for my children.  That struggle is forming me more into the person God wants me to be.  And it is more than made up by all the sublime moments that each of these days holds.

Fire Planes from a Bus!

On the way home from Wednesday night church last week, Luke was babbling to me about Moses.  I don't say "babbling" in a derogatory way (I love hearing Luke talk about what he learned about in class), but I mean that he was going on and on in a fairly unintelligible manner.  As enthusiastic as he was, I could barely catch half of what he was saying.  I would pick up key words--baby Moses, basket, river, mama, worried, queen--but there was a lot that I missed.  At one point, I thought he was trying to tell me where the story was in the Bible, and if that's so, his teachers are pretty awesome (they're pretty awesome anyway).

So anyhow, we pull up to a stoplight, and all of a sudden Luke starts excitedly pointing and exclaiming, "Fire planes from a bus!  Fire planes from a bus!"  I look around desperately for an exploding bus with, um, planes sticking out of it, to no avail.  There aren't any buses, planes, or fires in sight.  I finally figure out that he's pointing at a big clump of bushes, and saying, "Fire flames from a bush!"  Ahhhh.  See, I thought the story was just about baby Moses.

Seeing the bushes, albeit not on fire, made Luke determined to find a real burning bush on the way home.  At one point, we saw a fire burning in a trash can in someone's backyard (I know, right?), and Luke asked if that was a burning bush.  I explained that it was not, that it was simply a fire in a trash can.  Luke thought about it and replied, "But we can 'tend it's a burning bush."  Yes, we can always pretend!

Speaking of Bible stories, I have to show you Luke's Bible:

Already, it has been through a lot:).  Mainly, it has had a lot of abuse from us dropping it over the edge of his bed every night after we read it.  (If we leave it on his nightstand, he'll read it during the night.  That's less out of holiness and more out of not wanting to sleep!)

Buddies

These pictures were taken tonight before bath time.  I love sweet pics of the kiddos together: