Tell me again why I'm doing this?

Last evening was a whole bunch of running around. And the whole time I was doing it, I was wondering...why am I doing this? Is this really important enough to warrant this amount of juggling? It was the first Parent Partnership meeting of the year at Meadowbrook. We didn't make it to any of them last year since Joshua began nursery school mid year. I really didn't know anything about what happened at these meetings, but being the conformist that I am, felt guilty for not having been present when our presence was requested.

So, I rushed home from the office to feed Lauren, get supper ready and shoveled into the rest of us and out the door at 6:00. Joshua and Jason stayed home to play a little bit and get ready for bed while Lauren and I went to the meeting.

For most of the meeting, I was standing in the back of the room bouncing Lauren around to keep her quiet and still. When that didn't work, I was wrestling her out of the bags of the people who were seated around us. I spent more time bending over to pick up the trail of Puffs that she left on the ground like Hansel and Gretel than I did watching and listening to the presentations. It ended up being good information, but nothing that was earth shattering or seemingly worthy of the amount of schedule reorganization that was required to get there. I could feel myself getting a bad attitude.

Until they started sharing what they called Meadowbrook Moments....times when neat little things happened that show what a special place Meadowbrook is. There were a lot of stories, unsolicited, but that parents just felt like sharing. There were great interactions with teachers, between students...kind gestures that show the heart of the kids there. The last person to talk said that he wasn't sure this would mean much to anyone else there besides him, but that his son, Hayden, has a severe peanut allergy. He said that his Meadowbrook moment has happened over and over again throughout the past few years that his son has been attending school there. He said that his heart is moved so deeply every single time he hears one of his son's classmates say, "Did anyone check that snack for Hayden? You know he can't have any peanuts, right?" or when parents call ahead to talk to them about a birthday party, making sure that Hayden won't be left out. I had tears in my eyes as I realized why I was there last night.

After the small (although thankfully uneventful) peanut scare we had with the M&M mix up a few weeks ago, I think all of our confidence was a bit shaken over the vigilance necessary with helping Joshua to stay safe when he's as small as he is. But I knew why I had felt led to be at that meeting last night. And I'm so glad I followed that urge, despite the circumstances of the day trying to convict me otherwise.

I'm pretty sure there was nothing accidental about that.

I'll end with a few pictures....

Here's what has been happening in the evenings. Joshua CRASHES. These early mornings are doing him in. But we can tell he loves school because he is always excited to get ready once he wipes the sleep from his eyes.

Where's Lauren's tongue? She can now show you her eyes, ears, nose, tongue, head, hair, fingers, toes and tummy when asked. Cracks me up!


I'm already seeking counseling to help get over the fact that she'll be one next week.
Tell me that's not really happening...

The Weekend Where 75% of Us Got Knocked Down

Thirteen days of school in, and Joshua has missed two. Percentage-wise, that can't be good. What we thought was an allergy issue yesterday turned into a fever and throwing up this morning, so we thought it best to let him puke in the comfort of his own home today. Nice of us, huh? All of the upchucking seemed to have leveled off this morning when it came time for me to leave for the office, and after a successful breakfast and then a rest period with no activity, I thought I'd go ahead and come to work. Poor kid. Hopefully tomorrow he'll be back in the fold with the other K4 kids.

So that's the first of us, down for the count.

We skipped church yesterday because Joshua was starting to act icky (with what I thought was just seasonal allergies). I felt bad about not being there, but I have to say that I accomplished a whole lot during that time. Sheets are changed on beds, all of the laundry was washed/dried/folded/put away and all of the fall decorations found their places in our house. (Oh how I love seeing pumpkins and scarecrows!) Joshua was resting on the couch or sitting at the table coloring while all of this was going on. Lauren was either in my arms or walking around the living room getting into everything...because that's just what she does. On one of these walks, though, she must not have seen the dining room chair that she was about to hit. Because she went at it full force. And promptly fell to the ground with a crease in her forehead from the impact. But our little linebacker just kept trucking along after about 7 tears. She wouldn't let a goose egg the size of a golf ball stop her! She's got herself a nice bruise this morning.

Two Dugans down.

And then there's the true klutz of the family.

Here's where I really wish I could tell you it's Jason. But...it's not.

We were leaving the Kiwanis picnic last night in the midst of a rainstorm. The kids were soaked. My back was soaked from standing out of the car enough to buckle Lauren into her car seat. Somehow, in my rush to get into the front of the car and take off, I opened the car door into my head. I really could not make this up. I saw black and then a bunch of pretty stars before Jason came back into view again. And today, I have a bright red spot on my head that screams, "MORON!"

And there ends the weekend.

But we've still got pride!

Lots of great things happened this past weekend.

1. Brooke turned 2! I almost can't believe it. If you haven't seen Libby's blog for the videos and pictures of her party, you'll have to check it out. She was adorable and wonderful as always (Brooke....not Libby, although Libby was pretty wonderful too).

2. We got to spend a weekend at Nana and Pap's. After picking Joshua up at school on Friday, we packed up and headed for Lewistown. It was a whole lot of fun. Our plan was to be there for Brooke's big bash, and then stick around to hope that a whole bunch of good family vibes would help the Nittany Lions to upset the #1 Crimson Tide in primetime with the whole world watching.

3. The kids got to sport their new PSU gear to show their pride. It was adorable. See?

Big hill....little baby!

There was LOTS of running!

And sadly, this was our best effort at a group picture. Pitiful, I know. But you should have seen their bad attitudes and squirminess.

So, that was the good stuff. There were a few not-so-great things that happened this weekend too.

1. Pap's back was out so he was in his bed for the entire weekend. He did get to walk around a bit as the weekend progressed, but it wasn't Pap as usual this weekend. Dr. Joshua was "on the case" as he put it, though. I'm not sure the quality of the medical care he provided, but at least Pap had some company.

2. We won't dwell on it, but all of those people who were watching in prime time saw what "Roll Tide" meant.........Roll over PSU, I think! It wasn't pretty. Maybe next year.

But we still had a whole bunch of pride!

First Day of School

So I guess it's official. Nursery school days are gone. As of yesterday, Joshua was a big K4 kid! He looked so grown up to me yesterday with his loaded backpack and brand new sneakers. He picked the shark shirt just for the occasion.

I know that this isn't about me....at all....but since I'm the one writing this, I feel like I have the right to tell you. I wondered yesterday just how many different "new normal" routines you have to come up with before you're in a pattern that is going to last a while? For the past year I feel like I've been doing nothing more than tweaking a routine, only to get settled into it and then need to tweak it again. For example---- I was home with the kids from October to January. That was new. Then in January, I had to adjust to getting back to the office and being away from the kids. While nursing exclusively. That was a biggie for me. In February, we added a layer by sending Joshua to Nursery School three afternoons a week. That meant pick-up and drop-off at school around Lauren's feeding/pumping schedule, on top of work schedule. Then came summer. Phew--- no more school picking up and delivering. Now yesterday we adjusted, yet again, to a MORNING school routine 5 days a week. Jason is doing drop off at school on his way to work, and I just need to get up there each morning at 11 to pick up our little buddy and take him home to Grandma and Lauren. I consider it a blessing (a gift really) that Lauren seems to want to eat around that time, so I'm significantly limiting pumping in favor of actually nursing her when I come home with Joshua.

I think yesterday went about as well as it could have for Joshua. Drop off was painless and smooth. Jason said that he went right to his seat and got started on his activity while the others were arriving. He said he was a little overwhelmed, but didn't melt into a puddle of tears. And with Joshua, that's a victory...a major one. When I got there to get him, he was seated quietly with his backpack on, and when Mrs. Deitrick called his name he came running to give me a big hug. (Can't tell you how much I love that!) She said he had a good day. They had talked a good bit about school and how it works, Mrs. Deitrick's rules for behavior and had read some stories about going to school. He colored an apple for their apple tree and a yellow school bus. He chose orange juice as his drink for the day, but quickly declared that he didn't like it, so he won't be picking that again. He said he'll stick to white milk from now on. (Way to branch out, little man. Good effort.)

When I picked him up, I was given a homework assignment. Seriously! As if getting him up, dressed, fed and out the door by 7:45 wasn't enough. But I was asked to cut out the 16 little red apples for the classroom tree with the kids names on them. I was happy to help, but found it a little funny that MOM had homework on the first day.

The only hitch in the system yesterday was that Joshua's nose was running like a faucet when he came home yesterday at lunch time. That quickly escalated into a full fledged cold complete with fever, stuffy head and a cough by last evening. This morning, he was in rough shape. I hated not having him at school on the second day of class....I mean really, who is sick on the second day of school? But I thought about what I would want another mother to do if her child was the one who was spraying germs all over kingdom come. And I decided that I'd want her to keep her child at home to get better. So that's what we did. I let poor Joshua sleep it off a little and told him to take it easy today at home so that hopefully he can go back tomorrow. Our house has been sickness free since Easter, and whammo.....first day of school and we're nailed.

In case you're wondering, Jason went to the school this morning at 7:55 to drop off the 16 little (neatly cut-out) apples for the 8:00 start of K4. I felt a little like I used to in high school where it was your responsibility to get your assignment turned in even if you couldn't be in class.

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And here are a few quick pictures of Lauren that I snapped yesterday morning when I was back to having only one child to take care of before getting out the door. I felt so free!

Lauren took every opportunity to play with every single one of Joshua's toys while he was gone at school. The theory of "when the cat's away, the mice will play" certainly held true. I could almost see her looking around waiting for him to swoop in out of the blue and yell at her for touching his things.

Tooth #4 is almost through her little top gums. Nothing like waiting 11 months to get teeth and then getting them all in the span of a week.

Getting Oriented

With one day left before the start of Joshua's K4 adventure at school, anticipation is in the air. Last night was his orientation night- an opportunity to see his new classroom, meet his teacher, and see some of his friends from last year again. It was a bit chaotic, but it was the whole school all meeting at the same time, so there were big kids and small kids alike, all milling around the school between classrooms and the big meeting in the gym for everyone.

Joshua's new teacher's name is Mrs. Deitrick, and she seems like she is going to be such a blessing to him. From our first interaction she seems warm, friendly and super caring about each one of the kids in the class. Just as a teacher should be. We also found out that his class has 16 students in it this year (quite a jump from the 6 in his nursery school class last year!) There are 16 more K4 kids in the afternoon making Joshua's "class" quite a large one. Amidst the craziness, she even took a few extra minutes to talk with me about Joshua and the peanut situation, so I think we're both feeling a little better about that. I have a list of things to check on today so that I can get her a list of safe options out of some things that she says she occasionally uses as snacks during the day, and we're going to provide a bag of safe snack choices for Joshua to pick from on the occasion that an impromptu snack is brought in by a parent that we hadn't planned on.

The big, all-parent/all-student meeting wasn't anything too earth shattering. They did mention that there are 60 new families attending Meadowbrook for the first time this year. I thought that was a lot.

So, tomorrow morning marks the beginning of another adventure for Joshua. He'll go to school every morning from 8-11. Can I just say how happy I am that we went through the spontaneous Nursery School thing last year? I can only imagine the basket case I would be right now if I had the whole year to think about his first day of preschool being tomorrow. I'll be thrilled to report on his first day after I pick him up tomorrow. It would be fine if you prayed for Joshua, Mrs. Deitrick and go ahead and throw me in there. It can't hurt!

Finally, here are a few pictures from the weekend that I thought you might enjoy...

One very hot, sweaty, red-faced Joshua driving the fire truck at the park on Sunday afternoon.

Lauren being a big girl walking with Daddy at the park. You can see in her eyes that she's looking for mischief.

I don't know what to say about the funny little spots on this picture. But photos of the two kids together are so rare that I really don't have the luxury of being picky about what I post.

I nearly forgot to post that Lauren, our newly turned 11 month old, has really stepped it up in the teeth department over the weekend. Her one little chomper has turned into three--- she got one more on the bottom and one on the top since Friday. And, as you can see in this picture, she really likes raisin toast. I know Grandma Mary is smiling from Heaven about that. It used to be one of her favorite things to make for Libby and I before school in the mornings, usually to go with our scrambled eggs.

More tomorrow!

The view from here...

This is what it looked like at our house this morning as I was getting my things gathered up to head to the office. Joshua was playing with his walkie-talkie pretending to be the crocodile hunter guys that we watched last night on a show called "Swamp Men" or something else gross like that. Lauren was bee-bopping around the house (with Joshua's stick horse) babbling "Mum-Mum-Mum-Mum" while she pointed to me in the most adorable way. She was wearing a little dress that she's quickly getting too big for and really showing off her walking skills.

They were almost so cute that I thought about staying home with them for the day.

Until Joshua threw a fit and hit my car with his walkie-talkie.

Said walkie-talkie is now in my vehicle under arrest. Which is where I'd have liked to put my son. Instead, he was put onto the couch and had his television privileges revoked for the next 60 minutes. You'd have thought I had sentenced him to life without parole by the size of the tears he cried.

I then got into my car, turned up the music and thanked God for my job. Does that make me a bad Mom?

A peek into the weekend...

Weekends go by so quickly at our house. Does that happen to you too? It seems like, when we reach this point in the summer, we're in this grand rush to squeeze as much stuff into the few remaining days as we can. I always think that we won't make that same mistake next year, but I'm betting we probably will.

Friday evening we decided to make a final summer trip to Knoebel's. Joshua has been wanting to go, and we had promised him that we would go again before school started. Unfortunately, everyone else on the planet, it seemed, had the same idea. With Little League World Series families looking for something to do, people doing the same "last trip before the summer ends" stuff that we were, and a cheap hand stamp night ($7 for Josh to ride all night) things were a little....crowded. I really am thankful for the experiences we've had there to this point because truly it was the first time Joshua has really had to wait in any lines to ride rides at Knoebel's. But that made for a good bit of standing around time, which was not to Lauren's satisfaction. She wanted to be down walking around, and made it clear to everyone within a 3 mile radius how awful of a mother she had for not allowing her to roam the park freely. Aren't I a meanie? It was a late night Friday, but the mission was accomplished. Joshua had a blast. He awoke on Saturday morning still talking about it and declaring that we were going back to Knoebel's that evening too. Um................no. But here are a few pictures.

Joshua's maiden voyage on the Frog Hopper (he LOVED it!).

And here he is "shooting Captain Hook". He left home with a pocket full of quarters for this water game and honestly would have stayed there all evening if we would let him. With all the things there are to do at Knoebel's, it's amazing to me that he loves this so much. But, he's definitely into all things pirate these days.....thanks a lot Peter Pan.

Other weekend highlights:

Lauren is now walking more than she's doing anything else. She can walk the entire length of the house without stumbling and can even change direction and start/stop multiple times en route. It's so much fun to watch. The climbing continues to escalate into a problem, although she is getting a little more steady. I found her on the top of the couch (as in, standing on the top of the back of it) looking out the window the other day. After I caught my breath and started my heart beating again, I got her down, only to have her scale right back up again. She's unstoppable. Here are a few pictures of her from Saturday morning while she was still playing in her pajamas. I don't know what the fascination was with the Mickey Mouse ears, but she was cracking me up. She insisted on having them on for most of Saturday morning. Seeing her in them makes me want to book a trip to Disney World right now.

In eating news, Lauren is showing major interest in table foods. She downed an entire pancake on Saturday morning along with about 1/4 of a banana. Sunday morning she ate an entire piece of toast with banana pieces. She's less and less enthused about baby food by the day, but seems to love getting her hands on anything that she can chew up on her own. She's showing no signs of slowing down on the nursing, as I would have expected her to. We're still doing that at least 5-6 times a day (down to once through the night). It'll be interesting to see how/when she decides she's had enough of that. I honestly have no idea how that's supposed to work.

And, although I don't have any pictures of it, Joshua came home from the toy store on Saturday evening with a SWAT team play set. Yep....handcuffs, night stick, walkie talkies and a whistle. And a nice helmet. It's funny. We had gone in search of some more substantial toys for Lauren. She spends her time playing with Joshua's things because the rattles and baby toys just aren't cutting it with her. So we came home with a phone, one of those pop-up boxes with the 5 different knobs/latches on it and a Little People Noah's ark for her. I had to laugh yesterday afternoon because Joshua had all of the animals lined up to march onto the ark and Lauren was sitting with his night stick. What can I do besides just go with it, right?

I am absolutely LOVING where we are right now. Lauren is so fun to be with and it's increasingly amazing what she's learning how to do. And if I could just bottle Joshua and freeze him just how he is, I would love to. He amazes me daily with his sense of humor and the things he says. And he melts my heart when he cuddles up in my lap to tell me he loves me. I know a day will come when he won't do that anymore. I am blessed in abundance beyond what I deserve.

Blogging can be bad for your shopping habits.

It's funny (at least to me) how a simple thing like a blog has connected me to parts and people unknown. It's probably funnier that I had no earthly clue what a blog even WAS until Lindsay left on her trip to London and sent me a link to the blog that she had set up to share pictures and stories from the other side of the pond. Joshua was nearly one at the time and I immediately marvelled at her genius and wondered how I could possibly be so far behind the times. I mean, it was 2007 and here I was going about my business without even knowing that such a genius thing existed. Being one who loves to write (I didn't say succinctly, did I?), the blog became a perfect outlet for me...a place to write, to share stories and pictures of Joshua and eventually Lauren, to record things for the sake of not wanting to forget even the teensiest, tiniest little detail of what life with small kids was like. Although I couldn't possibly have understood it at the time, I had been told that you do actually forget what it's like to have little babies, and that you do forget the funny things your toddler says while learning to talk like a big person. That did totally happen after Lauren was born, and it's so nice to be able to peek back through old blog posts and remember...for my sake and the kids'.



Blogging has touched my heart in a deep way with stories about super special kids and families who are going through unthinkable things. It's a wonder our keyboard still works after the number of tears that have fallen into it. I've been able to pray for people that I don't even know, but count it a huge blessing to be able to do so. I've learned a lot about how others deal with a tragedy or a challenge with their kids by reading their words, and that has also blessed me.



Blogging has connected me with people I'd have never dreamed to meet in our day to day circles- from all over the place and with all kinds of backgrounds. The world sure is a lot smaller than I'd have thought. It's even connected me closer with the people that I DO have occasion to see in person, and truthfully, that's just the best. To know what's happening in each other's lives and be able to learn about each others' families in an honest way is so special, and I'm so thankful for that.



But...to take a turn into the world of superficiality...



Blogging has also opened up new worlds of shopping to me. When you're getting to snoop in on people's lives, you also get to see what their kids are wearing and how they're decorating their homes, nurseries, etc. When I read Kelly's blog about a month ago and saw Harper wearing one of her adorable dresses, I took the plunge and made my first blog inspired purchase. See?



After a little back and forth with the seamstress in Arkansas, Lauren was able to wear her very own Harper dress to church yesterday. She was super cute! The dress was a little on the big side, but she wore it anyway---- after the scumpteen emails and two dress creations that we tried to get one to fit, I wasn't about to let the hot summer go by without wearing it on her.



There have been other blog inspired purchases....some of which I can't disclose for fear of ruining gifts for others, but to find hand crafted things that are really special is such a treasure I think.



I'm sure the people at Visa are quite happy that I've fallen victim to the marketing ploy that is the blog. My husband...not so much.

Long Overdue

Let's just call a spade and spade and say that this week has kicked my rear end.

Here are the photos I eluded to on Tuesday, but haven't managed to scrape together the 2 minutes required to upload them until Friday.
Here's Joshua enjoying Pap and Nana's dirt pile last Friday when we were at their house for a homemade ice cream party in honor of my Aunt Pattie's visit from Florida. It was a really nice evening and we all enjoyed being together. I was so glad that I had previously scheduled to have the carpets cleaned and booked a room at Chez Mom and Dad's (about 6 months ago) so that we could just happen to be in town for the festivities.

Beacuse of all the fun at Nana and Pap's, Libby's car was parked in on Friday night, so we decided to tub the kids together there. Luckily, Mom just happened to have PJ's for Brooke. So Josh and Brooke tubbed together and managed to get along relatively well despite Joshua's declaration of "BUBBLE FIIIIIIGHT!" a few times. Then they camped out on Nana's couch with some marshmallows and watched the Lion King.

Here was the gang at the Richard Reunion on Saturday. This was the photo we took of my generation....which, by the way had the poorest showing of all of them. This is the one time of the year that we're all together, and I hate to admit it, but it was a fun afternoon. Joshua had a blast and Lauren behaved relatively well. I count that a victory.

After the Reunion, we headed back to Nana and Pap's and spent the rest of the evening there. Lauren absolutely loved playing with the toys and exploring the house. She got into her fair share of mischief, but looked adorable doing so, as always.

Darn you, Gymboree for luring me in with the overabundance of color-coordinated cuteness. I bought this outfit MONTHS ago, but loved finally seeing Lauren in it. I mean, really....could this be any more precious?

And finally, look what I got a picture of this morning at the house! Lauren is standing!! This is what she does most of the time now. She's on her feet most of the time, walking from thing to thing. It's not always graceful, but she seems to be preferring being upright now that she's getting the hang of it. She absolutely loves this ball popper. It was one of Joshua's favorites as well. I get a kick out of how differently they play with it, though. Joshua preferred chaos when he was Lauren's age. The balls were always going every which way and he would giggle and then have fun chasing them. Lauren prefers to manage the situation and keeps all of the balls on the track as much as she can. Most of the time she tries to grab them as they pop out of the top. So, Aunt Libby, your gift lives on. The one thing that I was thinking about last night is that we've never changed the batteries in that toy....ever. Joshua played with it hard, and Lauren is too. How in the world is it possible that my digital camera batteries are constantly dead, but the batteries in this toy that makes me crazy with its incessant music NEVER EVER DIES?

Happy weekend everyone!

My little Frankenstein

I should say that there are about 50 good pictures sitting on my camera that are begging to be uploaded. I should also say that I am down one team member in my office until August 18th (but who's counting) and any flexibility I might have for things like blogging is slim to none. Closer to none is truthful.

However, I have to record the happenings of yesterday. I don't know at what point you actually define your baby as starting to walk. In retrospect, I remember being just as confused when Joshua was starting to toddle around. The first question everyone asks you when you say you have a 9-10-11-12 month old is, "Is he/she walking yet?" To which I always reply, "Just about!" But yesterday, 4-5 wobbly steps turned into 8-9 purposeful controlled steps on a very consistent basis. Two things cracked us up. The first is that when Joshua saw Lauren walking all the way across the living room, his mouth dropped to the floor and he yelled, "LOOOOOOOK! She's walking!" For a moment, he almost seemed proud. It quickly turned back into annoyance with Lauren and her (now faster) ability to get into his things. But for a moment, there was a glimpse of love and appreciation and I enjoyed it. The second funny thing is that when Lauren walks, she puts her arms straight out in front of her. So as she comes walking toward you, she looks like Frankenstein. Hysterical. I was so entralled with watching it all last night that the camera and video camera were both tucked away. Hopefully tonight I can catch some of it. I have to tell you that it was fun to just sit and watch her, clap for her and celebrate the success she was having instead of feeling like I had to snap a zillion pictures. (That's saying a lot for me, I know.) But it was a simple moment that was kept simple. I should do that more often.

I'll work on those pictures from our trip to Lewistown this weekend for a few family events. Let's just say I'm still digging dirt out from under BOTH of the kids' fingernails.