It would appear that I have fallen off the wagon quite early in my resolution to post more frequently on the blog this year. And I guess I have to own up to that. I feel like we've been running at a pace that I'm having a hard time keeping up with-- or at least that I have a hard time keeping up with WHILE ALSO blogging daily. And I guess that's OK. But today it was definitely time for a little catch up. So here are a few things that we have been doing lately...
Both Joshua and Lauren are involved in Upward Basketball with our church. This means two separate nights each week that we are at the church for practice. And that most of our Saturdays are also spent at the church for their games. They don't seem to play close to the same times (except for this week...let all the saints be praised!) but it hasn't been a large enough gap to make the trip back home to our house seem like a good idea. So we have either been sitting at the church watching other kids play, or running to do pickup for Joshua at the school for his musical practices. Generally there is a Happy Meal that is being shoved into the kids at some point along the way-- or else a lunch a la concession stand at the church in between games. I guess we're making it, but it isn't always pretty. I have felt the worst for Mara in the whole situation-- as she is stuck sitting for large chunks of time. And the only thing I have to offer her is junk food from the concession stand, or silly games on my lap that really only hold her over for a few minutes at a clip. Such is the life of the littlest in line, I suppose. And I guess this will give her something to discuss in her therapy sessions one day.
Joshua's schedule has gotten more hectic as he is preparing to be part of the school's musical, Beauty and the Beast. Their performance is a short 2 and a half weeks away, and everyone is getting really excited. Josh is a Villager-- so he gets to participate in just a few scenes. But he does have one solo line to sing, and apparently he tells us that in one scene he gets to be carried across the stage by two high school girls. He declares that is his favorite part. Starting next week, the rehearsal schedule gets very intense-- with practice nearly every day for 5 hours or so. Up to this point, it hasn't been too bad for his level of involvement, but I have a feeling I am going to need an intervention after this is all said and done.
This happened one day a few weeks ago. Mara's hair has to be the thinnest, most wispy hair I've seen, and although it was growing long, I couldn't do anything with it. Here is where our hair dresser extraordinaire, Janelle, comes into play. I thought she cut Mara's hair perfectly and made it look really cute. Mara felt like such a big girl with her fancy new hair-do.
On February 9th, I got the opportunity to celebrate the 100th Day of Kindergarten with Lauren and her class. We counted things to 100 until our heads hurt. But the kids were so excited. My job during the whole thing was to man the physical activity station-- so the kids had a list of 10 things that they had to do 10 times each. (To equal 100....get it?) And so we counted sit ups and push ups and hula hoops and bouncing balls and stilts and potato sack hops until we couldn't count anymore. They have been counting the days of school on a special chart that has ice cream sundaes on it, so they celebrated with an ice cream party. And just in case you were wondering, that was just as bad of an idea as you would suspect at 10:30 in the morning. All of the kids were bouncing off the walls, had no interest in lunch, and had blood sugar to rival a diabetic who has taken leave of all dietary control. It was a mess. But we had a fun time anyway.
Since that whole week was the week that I pretended I didn't have a job and was just a school volunteer, Mara had her class Valentine's party at school on Friday morning. I am her class parent, so I was responsible for getting other parents to bring the snacks and to help during the party. It was a fun day, and Mara was thrilled to have me there.
After the party was over, I picked up Lauren and her friend, Alice, and brought all three of the girls home with us. Lauren had been wanting to have Alice over to play for months, and so it was fun to allow her to do that. I have to say, though, that I realized that three children is enough for me. The noise level with 4 was deafening. (Alice is not a quiet child, though.) Jason took one look at the situation when he came home at 5:00 and declared that he had a meeting he had to go to that night. On a Friday. Yeah right. We deposited Alice back into the loving arms of her mother at Lauren's basketball practice that evening, and said a little prayer of thanks that I was only taking three back home with me.
I will say, though, that just having a house full of happy, giggly children was such a blessing on that particular Friday. Without getting into a lot of details that may not be appropriate for me to be sharing on the internet, there was a middle school aged student at Meadowbrook who attempted to take his own life in a horrific way that same morning. I learned of it because the middle school students from the school were gathered just down the hallway from Mara's classroom to pray together. The details were unknown at that time, but they knew he was in surgery fighting for his life. And so they did what they could and prayed for him. I can't tell you what it did for my heart as I stood in that hallway and tears poured from my eyes to have heard those children praying for their friend. I can only think that as sad as God was about the actions Jacob took that morning, that He was smiling knowing that all of these other children were turning to Him. It has united the entire Meadowbrook family in prayer and support for another of us, and the more I think and pray about the whole situation, the more I realize how fragile life is, and how precious it is. This particular day started like any other, but yet this poor 12 year old child was feeling so horrifically about something that it made him think he had no other option but to end his life. If you have room in your hearts to pray for this family, please do so. He is still not out of the woods and needs all of the prayer support he can get from people who are willing to storm Heaven's gates on his behalf.
I should report that, although I have fallen off of schedule with my blogging, I am doing relatively well with the other things that I vowed to work on in this new year. So far, my FitBit and I are doing great with steps. The weather was so gorgeous today that I ended up taking the time that I would have eaten lunch at the office to walk a few miles on the Rail Trail. Tell me that isn't a gorgeous view! The treadmill has not become a clothes hanger because it is getting a good workout at least once a day. I continue to love my 5:00 workout time, and have found some great things that I enjoy listening to while I walk. On days when I need some pep in my step, Pandora's "Salt & Pepa" station gets me going with some good 90's rap, although I find myself in awe of how raunchy many of those songs really are and end up "thumbs downing" quite a number of them. I can't believe my parents were ever OK with us listening to that stuff, or having it played at high school dances. There are many questions about the supervision of my listening material that will likely remain unanswered. I guess I listened to enough Amy Grant and Debbie Gibson in those days to make my parents believe that the Salt & Pepa wasn't doing any long term damage. Except for the fact that I'm still listening to it to walk. Anyway, I digress. After a few minutes of some good 90's music, I spend the rest of my 50 minutes listening to podcasts on my iPhone. I have been listening to a lot of Joyce Meyer, Focus on the Family and also some sermons from Gateway Church in Texas (that my aunt and uncle introduced me to). I cannot recommend enough that you download the Gateway app-- you can watch church services live on there (I did it last evening) as well as watch the play back of the Sunday sermons. They are excellent and have been such a blessing to me. I love starting my days the right way....ahem....after I've finished listening to Push It to get my feet moving. In terms of weight loss, I am happy to report that I am down around 10 pounds. I've lost a pants size and am feeling pretty good about things in that department. There is still quite a bit of work to do, but I am feeling good that the changes I've made and the sacrifices of sleep in the mornings are paying off.
So...there is an update. And I've saved a few little things to hopefully post tomorrow. Fingers are crossed.
