End of an Era

I found out this morning that my babysitter is no longer my babysitter. She has decided to take a job with her uncle that will pay her a WHOLE lot more money, and she'll get to go to school at the same time. She needs to get some higher education, and she needs to see how life is after high school, while her child is off to Pre-K. She doesn't need to sit around and wonder what he's doing all day while sitting at home with other kiddos... even if one of them is mine. I'm happy for her, and at the same time, terrified. Now I have to find a replacement for the best thing that could have ever happened to my child. God directed us to her two years ago, and now I'm asking Him again for guidance in the right direction. We have one recommendation from the sitter, but I'm not completely sold on her yet... I guess tomorrow is an on-the-phone day, calling everyone I know to put some feelers out there. We'll see what I get.

In other news, the student of mine that is like my child had her baby last week, and I got to go see them yesterday. She is absolutely beautiful! The little baby girl looks just like her mom, and she is great! I'm so proud of them both!

Quick Clean

Know the fastest way to get your house clean?

Invite someone to come over that you've never met before. If you already know the person you invite over, you won't clean, because they know you're lazy anyway. But if you don't know the person coming over very well, then they don't know that you're lazy and don't like to clean. So, you have to make a feeble attempt to look like you're not.
Of course, I think the dishes in the sink that didn't make it into the dishwasher before they got here probably gave me away.

Accomplishments

Today I emptied the dishwasher, loaded all the dirty dishes into the once empty dishwasher, and put off doing everything else so that I could go swimming in the pool with Little Man. (Because after two weeks of being under repair, it is finally swimmable!) And today we had a first! He didn’t freak out when he got water in his mouth, and we’re working on kicking and paddling all together. He even let go of my hand and "swam" (with floaties) to the steps by himself! Three times! I’d say that was a full day.

What is a cebu anyway?

My mother warned me a few months ago that the little cute television shows that Little Man was watching then wouldn’t be what he wanted to watch pretty soon. I’m okay with that, except if it means that we start watching shows that I don’t really want him to watch yet, like Sponge Bob or other cartoons made for older children. We shall see. But for now, Little Man has decided that he has a new favorite movie. We have been infatuated with Finding Nemo for a little over a year now, and he still really like it, but now he wakes up asking to watch the space man and the Cowboy. What a boy. Now that it’s summertime, the television stations know that no one is home watching tv, so on Saturday nights, they have been playing Disney Movies. It’s been fun. So, we’ve been using our DVR and have been recording the movies, and for the past two weeks, the movies were Toy Story 1 & 2. Now that we have it recorded, I don’t even have to go and get the DVD out, all I have to do is push a button and the space man comes back. It’s fun. He gets so excited, and if you’re not in the room watching it with him, he’ll run around to find you so that he can tell you about what’s going on at that point in the movie. He also likes to be a space man himself. He’ll dump out all of the 30+ pieces in the Mr. Potato Head Family Bucket, and then put it on his head and tell me he’s a space man. "Wook at me, Mommy! I space man!" He’s funny.

He also likes to watch any of the Veggie Tales videos. His wonderful aunt bought him the Ultimate Silly Song Collection and now he has a few favorite songs that he asks to hear. Then his Grandmama bought him the CD so that he can listen to it in the car, and now all we hear about are hairbrushes, cheeseburgers and cebus. And what is a cebu anyway? According to Larry the Cucumber, it’s the cousin of a bull… like a cow. Just watch the multi-media event, then you’ll know. Cebu-moo-moo, achoo-moo-moo, boohoo-moo-moo, cebu-moo-moo, cebu-moo-moo , cebu-moo-moo-moo-moo.

Birthday Wishes

Just a quick note to tell you all to go to my little sister's page and wish her a very happy birthday! I won't tell you how old she is today, because that would then imply how old I am, and I try very hard to hide that... :)

Go see her! Wish for her great things!

Hurry Up and Wait

Yesterday was Little Man's 2 year-old well baby visit. He was also scheduled to get a shot as well, which is why I asked The Husband to go with me. This messed up his planned morning, and he had to adjust his schedule to accomodate ours... strike one.

Then we forgot about the shot record until we were pulling out of the driveway, and still couldn't find it when he went in to look for it, which then made us run a little later than we wanted to, so that's even more fun...

When we got there, The Husband sees the waiting room full of people and sets an hour time limit. If we're not out of the waiting room in an hour, we're gone. And then we have to set a time limit for sitting in the exam room, too.

We sit, and we wait, and we play with blocks and read books, and keep away from other kids that are actually sick, and then we wait some more. After about 45 minutes, we are finally called back to get weighed and measured. Which L.M. doesn't like, and Mommy and Daddy have to do it so that the nurse doesn't touch him, because that's what makes him scream. Strike two...

We are taken back to the Nemo room, thank God we were away from the Barney room... where we waited, and waited, and waited some more. While we waited, since it was now WAY past lunch time, we munched on pretzels and strawberries and animal crackers. All the while The Husband is staring at his watch. He says, "They have 19 minutes to get in here, and then we're gone." Nine minutes later, he says, "Put his shoes back on him, they're not going to make it, we'll just leave." And then she walks in the door. Thank God! But then she says, "Sorry you had to wait, I've had to wait before, and I don't like to make you wait." Strike three...

We really like this doctor, she's always been nice to us, and she's really good with Little Man, but I'm really tired of waiting two hours to see a doctor for seven minutes, and then the nurse to come in and give us a shot and we're out the door fifteen minutes after the doctor first walked in. Why does it have to take two hours for a fifteen minute appointment? For two years, we've been saying that she always makes up for the wait because she's always apologetic and nice and worth it. But now we're just plain fed up. When he was an infant, it was easy to wait with him, because he just slept, but now that he's older, a two hour wait for anything is RIDICULOUS!
So, I guess that puts us on the doctor hunt.

So here's what I need to know... I'm not a good interviewer, and I don't ask all the right questions. What questions do I need to ask a potential physician that I could take my two year old to see, and then later also take a newborn (when the time comes... don't jump ahead of me.)?

Wants VS. Needs

My child has learned how to get what he wants... and Daddy hasn't figured out that he knows this yet... should I tell him? Or should I just stand back and watch my child get away with it for a little while longer, only for the sheer humor of it all.

While at a pricey sporting goods store, we happened upon a huge display of John Deere toys and things. While still holding my hand like he was supposed to, my child leaned down and inspected every single little yellow and green toy, oohing and aahing each thing appropriately. And then he did it... "Daddy, I LIKE that blue tractor!" And then we walked away, because we were done looking at everything. A few moments later, Daddy met up with us, one hand behind his back, holding that blue tractor, with the comment that "every little boy needs a tractor... and it's a Ford like my dad's." I just laughed. And they say that little girls can wrap a daddy around a finger... It was priceless.

The Color of Envy

Yes, that is the color of my pool right now.
A week ago, there was no sound coming from my pool in the afternoon. That may be not so bad to some of you, except that no sound meant no pump. No pump means no moving water, which now means that the pool is "broken." So, I spent all day calling pool places, and then finally found what I needed cheaper online, so I ordered it, and am still waiting. A certain delivery service that has ground and air and other options is not as good at keeping up their website as a certain brown delivery service. So, I had to call. And now I find out that it won't be here until tomorrow. Argh.
So now, I am green with envy that other people can go outside and cool off, and I can't. Darn.
That's okay... I have a whole list of things that I want to get done this summer, even though one of them is getting a tan... I guess I can get the inside things done. Wish me luck, I'm going after all the spider webs first. Hope your summer is going better that mine so far!

My Angel

I never thought that I would have called my two-year old son that screams “No, Mommy! NO!!” an angel, but today he actually was. Not for me, mind you, but for a 63-year old woman that really needed him to be one today. It was very special.

We had some errands to run today, so we were in town when it came to be lunchtime. Seeing as it was noon, I knew that everywhere would be busy, and knowing that I have a finicky eater with me, we opted to Run for the Border, because it seemed to be less crowded than other “fast food” places. Unfortunately, there were plenty of other people that had that same idea… along with a church group of high school kids away at camp.

So, while we waited for our food, my son decided to strike up a “conversation” with a woman sitting all by herself. She was waiting for her food, too, so they had a little something in common. She was so sweet, asking him all the right questions that he knew how to answer, all the while looking at me to make sure it was okay to talk to her. Then he did it. He climbed up into the booth opposite her and just sat there, talking to her all the while. I tried to get out of her way, but she told me that he was just fine where he was, and I saw a look in her eyes that I knew she meant it. When she got her food, he continued to sit there, talking about the taco that he was going to eat for lunch. When our food was ready a few minutes later, I told him that we needed to go and eat our food, and she looked at me and said, “Please, just sit here with me.” It was sweet. There were plenty of places available for us by now, as the high school group had finally left, and here she was offering us a place to sit and eat together. So we did.

They talked, we ate, and there weren’t any awkward moments of two strangers sharing a table or anything like that. I asked at one point whether she ate lunch alone often, and she told me that her husband had been gone for 12 years, and being alone wasn’t always what it was cracked up to be. She said that she was just thinking about how nice it was to have someone to share lunch with today. It almost made me cry.

The entire lunch, he behaved as if he had never thrown a fit in his life, and she told me how sweet he was, and precious he was, and how much I need to enjoy the time now, because while you’re young, you don’t think you’ll ever get old, but then one morning, you wake up, and you’re 63, wishing you were still 23.

When she stood up to leave, she told us her name, and I told her mine, seeing as she had already asked Little Man what his was at the beginning of our lunch. She thanked us for sharing lunch with her, and she was on her way. When she left, Little Man told her to have a good day, and upon prompting, said “Tank you shawing wunch!”

In the last two years, I have had more emotions than I have ever known possible with my little man. And today, he added a moment of pride. I’m so proud to say that my little man has been an angel for someone else today, too.