Happy Birthday, Angel Boy!

What is it to love a little boy? I'm admitting now that for most of my life I had no interest in boy babies or little boys. It seemed that little boys were always holding something unsavory in their hands....or wearing it somewhere or dripping something out of their noses or making some kind of rotten smell. In contrast, little girls smelled sweet (or in my mind they always did) and brought flowers in their chubby little hands, and they stayed away from moist, crawling things and most certainly did not keep them in their pockets.

And then, on this day two years ago, I gave birth to our sweet angel boy, and everything I ever thought about little boys went out the window. For the first time I began to notice the sweet smell of a little boy. The nape of his neck was just the most perfect thing. I began to see all of the things that are totally different in little boys....from birth! This really was the way that God made us...different from birth and different for a reason!

Today I held his hands and asked, "What will these hands do?" He looked innocently at me as I asked him if they would build things, if they would drive a car, if they would cut the grass (his all-time favorite thing to do), if they would hold a baby. As he answered "uh-huh" to everything I asked, I had a glimpse of the future, of the man that he will become and of the legacy that his daddy and I hope to leave behind through our children.

How blessed am I to be the mother of this little boy who is all boy...my little boy who has been intrigued with lawn mowers and weedeaters from the first time that he saw them. How fortunate I am to have him in my life and to have the opportunity to teach him right from wrong, to love him and pray for him as a little boy and for the man that he will one day become.

What in the world have I ever done to deserve such blessings in my life? My suspicion is that I have done nothing to deserve them, but I have been blessed with them all the same. I am overwhemed with the richness in my life because I have not earned it, but it is what I have wanted and more.

My Project Is Due on Friday!

Last time that I checked, today is Wednesday, and we, I mean, our oldest child, has a project due on Friday. This is her first actual "project" involving some writing and a little tad of research on her own. The project was supposed to be about a mammal. Any mammal. That should be a piece of cake.

S picked "rat terriers" since we have one. Since we have one, all of the information should be easy enough to gather. She and her daddy went to the library and requested a book about rat terriers. It came in quickly enough, but it was very long, and you probably did need a college degree (or at least some sort of diploma) to sort through which information was relevant, and which information could be left out.

Did you know that a rat terrier, even though she has papers from the American Kennel Club, is not a pure bred dog? Thinking about it, that makes a lot of sense. They don't all look alike, lots of breeds are mixed in (that was a big clue to me), but you know, I just never really thought about it before. Never even wondered. Our terrier belonged to my sister before she passed away, and my parents said something once or twice about her having papers. "Really?" I think I asked. But then I never really gave it much more thought. Admittedly, most of my time and thought goes toward the three squiggly, giggly human bodies that run through my house and need to be fed and bathed and changed.

Back to the project. I ended up reading most of the relevant information to S and then saying, "This is important. Write this down." S and her daddy and I looked for pictures of rat terriers on the internet, but most of them were small and printed in a very fuzzy fashion when blown up large enough for her poster board. So today, while S was at school, I scrambled around through bookstores and more internet sites looking for better pictures of rat terriers. Her little brother waited patiently (okay, he tried....) in the stroller while I thumbed through every dog book on the shelves looking for a picture of a rat terrier because a book solely about rat terriers is apparently a very rare thing, indeed.

In all of those books, I found two pictures of dogs that might pass for rat terriers, and I did find some good pictures on the web. Then I went outside and tried to coax our own nervous, can't sit still because I'msogladthatyou'reouthere;you're goingtopetmeandletmelickyouinthemouthandruballoveryourwarmlap,aren'tyou,aren't you???????rat terrier to sit still and pose for my camera. That's why S picked rat terriers. Because we have one. So this should be easy.

I finally got a couple of good pictures and printed them up. I put those, along with the gold letters that I picked out when we stopped by the teacher supply store, on top of the black poster board that I picked up when I printed out her first internet picture at Office Depot. Later, I'll set up the printer and print those sentences that I dictated to S. Can't wait to see the grade that we, I mean, I can't wait to see the grade that S gets. You know, this is her first real project....

Missing the Big Event

Tonight was a big night in our house....the official beginning of the Girl Scout year and the investiture ceremony. Our oldest is starting her third year of Girl Scouts (she's a Junior), and our five year old is beginning her FIRST year. She's a Daisy! We were so excited to get dressed in Girl Scout uniforms this morning.

To our Junior, it was old hat. To our Daisy, it was spine tingling! She had been watching her older sister go to Girl Scout events ever since she could remember, and it was finally her turn! We dressed her up in her brand new Daisy apron and her special Daisy shirt and pants. Of course, she was SO cute. After she was dressed, I continued to run around getting ready to take the kiddos to school. And then it hit her--the first wave of nausea. Our Daisy was wilting...

Before I knew it, she had thrown up. But, according to her, she felt better. "Can I still go?"
Is this the difference between a kindergartener and a fifth grader? The fifth grader would already be back in her pajamas, propped up in our bed with the remote in her hand. The kindergartener was begging to go to school!

Well, things did not get better for our little Daisy until much later in the day. After several throwing up sessions, she napped and seemed to feel better, but there was no mistaking the fact that she was truly sick. There was no way that she could stand on that stage with the other Daisies and recite her little Girl Scout pledge without exposing them all to some pretty ugly germs. A sad ending to all of the excitement of the morning. However, our Junior did get to participate, and she was proud to bring home her sister's Daisy headband and a paper angel with our Daisy's face glued on top. Sisterly love. It's a sweet thing....