Nurture My Heart

Its way past time for me to follow up on my post entitled "Shortcomings" that I made almost two months ago (I can't believe its been that long), to share the answer that God gave to me. I was looking for compassion for the kids because I didn't seem to have enough of it and to my amazement, I did get an answer, loud and clear. "For out of the overflow of the heart..." The overflow of the heart... Hmmm.... my heart. What overflow? I don't even have enough for myself. I'm running on empty. Mom said something about it (overflow, needing a surplus) on the phone the next day and BAM I knew it was meant for me, even though she wasn't talking about it in that context (not like "I was thinking about you and..."). Then someone said something about it in care group that Wednesday, too. It wasn't until Thursday, when I was sitting at lunch with Nathan talking to him about care group and how excited I've been to be getting involved with people from the church that I made the connection with my blog post, about waiting for an answer, and that that was the answer. Women's bible study, here I come, and I need to be spending time with God myself every day. I have sat down with a book a few times but unfortunately I have not gone to the women's bible study yet, and I have used the excuse that I'll wait until they start a new study rather than go for the first time in the middle of one. My excuse for that has run out and I will be attending when they start the new one, I think next week, but I need to confirm, and I have no idea what study they'll be doing.

Tonight I went to Holly Sanders' house, even though it wasn't care group night, because she had a girls night. It was Holly, Maria Stout (who has a son Callia's age), and me. I had an excellent time. We basically did nothing but sit and talk and eat strawberries and blackberries with chocolate dip and soy based cream cheese dip (since Maria is allergic to milk, and it was actually very good). We talked about gardening, house cleaning, children, and health problems, among other things. Maria said something about "out of the heart the mouth speaks", saying Peter (her son) has really latched on to that because a woman at the church taught it to the kids with hand motions, and he seems to really understand that when he is talking bad his heart needs some working on. That really amazed me and I'm going to have to use that when talking to Callia, too, because lately that is something I am seeing as a big issue with her. I am so bothered by the little "insignificant" things I'm hearing her say because I'm worried about her heart. I have had a very difficult time communicating it to her, and all I can seem to do is stumble around talking about decisions and attitudes. She does her best to ignore me and avoid eye contact, which is another symptom of the same problem. But scripture is good for teaching so tomorrow I'm 99.99% certain that something will come up to provide the perfect opportunity to talk about it with her.

Age Comparisons According to Callia

Today Callia had me put a diaper on a teddy bear for her, and she pretended it was her baby. She named it Star and said it was 3 months old. She said "When I turn five my baby will be four months old". What makes it so funny is that her fifth birthday is 11 months away. :)

Fun Fists

Thaddeus discovered his hands the other day. I grabbed the camera this evening to take some pictures of him checking out this amazing thing that is always available for chewing.



He would hold it in front of his face to look at it and then really go to town chewing on it. He was making gurgly cooing sounds, too, and had me cracking up!



Its hard to look at things when they're so close to your face! He has been crossing his eyes trying to focus on close things quite a bit lately.




Holly Sanders, who hosts a caregroup at her house that we have been attending lately, said a couple of weeks ago (as we were being so entertained by watching Thad in his carseat doing basically nothing), "Its like baby TV". And this is it. I could watch him doing things like this for hours.

A Conversation with Callia

I was talking to Nathan on google messenger online today while he was at work (just a few minutes ago) about a van we're thinking of buying, and he apparently had something to do and quit talking to me. Callia came up and started talking to me and I started typing in what she was saying. I copied and pasted it here at Nathan's suggestion. The train of thought (or lack thereof) cracks me up.

me: "I don't have any more panties because I peed in all of them again"

"Mommy, why are you giving the pink purse away?"
"But I want you to keep it because I like it!"

"I love you, mama (blows kiss). I gaved you a kiss mama."

"Daddy says we see about that. I told my daddy can we play paper mario when you get home?' and he said we will see, and thats what he said to me"

"Mommy I'm ready to go. I'm ready to go somewhere to buy a car. I want to go somewhere and I want to buy a car at."

"I can't find my other flip flop, either!"

"Man! Errr! I can't find my other green one and I can't find my other pink one!"

"We just usually can't find the other green one and the other pink one. Just the green one and just the pink one. We can't find the missing green one and we can't find the missing pink one. Those are the two we can't find. Mama I just feel we have to find them".
"Mama, do you like that Annie bandaid? Do you like that June Bandaid? Do you like that Leo Bandaid?"

"Mama my knees are getting better. This knee is getting better. See? Its getting better!"

"But I don't think I'll be able to find the other pink one or the other green one."

"Oh, just the two brown ones. Those don't match. (her outfit)"

Nathan:
me: I know you're probably not reading all this but she really is a funny girl.

Nathan: I just read it all

that's hilarious

me: Now she has on two unmatching pink flip flops and is holding up one foot then the other and saying "I think these look like they match"

Nathan: you should put all those up on your blog

me: yeah that would be funny

Nathan:

take a picture of the flops

I need to go...

bye sweety!

I didn't take a picture of her with the two mismatched flip flops on because she didn't want me to. It was serious, not a time to be taking pictures!

Bathed and Beautiful

Today I gave Callia and Thaddeus a bath in the middle of the day, which is not normal, but they both had a good time. Thaddeus had so much fun in the tub! He kicked his legs so much he flooded the floor and next time instead of putting his baby tub on the floor while Callia is in the tub, I think I'm going to have to put his tub in the tub. There was just too much water and I was damming it up with towels to keep it from running into the closet. He had a blast, though. Here he is nice and refreshed. I wish I had remembered to take the camera into the bathroom with me!

Backyard Swimming

Callia has been enjoying her pool lately. Every day she wants me to go out there and dump yesterday's water so she can refill it and play. The weather is still off and on, so some days it is not warm enough.

I have probably let her swim when I shouldn't have, because I enjoy gardening when the weather is nice, but she rarely gets sick and the pool is just so fun!

Little Sunshine

Thaddeus has a little yellow sleeper outfit that has a sun and a giraffe on it and says "Jungle Friends". One day a couple of weeks ago he was wearing it for the first time and Callia and I were singing "You are my Sunshine", which is one of her favorite songs. I said "Hey, Thaddeus is a little sunshine today, isn't he?" She loved the idea and now every time he wears it she coos over him and calls him a little sunshine. Last night after Callia went to bed I put it on him and Nathan and I talked about how she would probably say something about it. Sure enough, when I lifted him out of his crib this morning and Callia was there, she said "Good morning, little sunshine"! Isn't she a sweety? :)