Monday, November 27, 2017

“Dad!  Don’t eat all the pizza!”

Somebody came home wanting pizza for dinner. After waiting for what seemed like forever for delivery, she is now finishing her second and thinking about her third slice from Marco’s.

Tuesday, November 21, 2017

I took two days off work and planned to spend one of them with SJ all day on an adventure and one of them by myself for some much needed R&R. I really didn’t come up with any grand plan for our adventure. I just purposed to be spontaneous and fill the day with mutual fun. I packed both of us lots of snacks, and we hit the road. Of course we started it off with a good drink and some tater tots. Then we checked out Ollie’s – a new store kind of like Big Lots. We followed that up with a trip to Steinmart, Ross, and the toy store in the mall. We got gum balls from the candy machines and a Coke Zero from vending.

After she woke up from her nap, we went back out to Eyeglass World and Hobby Lobby. It was a full day of adventures. She really liked going into different stores and checking out what kind of stuff they had for sale. I can tell she’s going to be a shopper. We’re going to have some fun looking for great deals.

At the end of the day, we both ended up with a few treats. I got a new pair of boots on the cheap and some home decor stuff to finish out my living room makeover. Selah June got a purple “treasure box” with beadwork and a snap to close it up after stuffing it full of random finds.

November 2017

I’ve been jotting down little ridiculous things she’s been saying lately. Who knows…  She’s truly a crazy monkey.

One of the things she’s been exploring is family relationships. At school, they’re learning everybody’s last name. This week, she’s been calling herself “Daddy’s daughter” or Mommy’s daughter.” She’s not wrong, but it’s a little strange to hear a kid refer to herself in the third person but not by name. Here are just a few examples.

“Daddy’s daughter made this.”

“Sit down so I can make it really duper hard.”

“I’ll never let you down, Daddy.”

“Don’t eat yet! You have to ask from your daughter… (15 seconds later) Say thank you, daughter! …. You’re welcome.”

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Her sneakers make her feet really stinky. Usually on the way home from school, she kicks them off and starts saying “Clean feet! Clean feet!” And then wafting through the airs comes a wave of horrible stinky feet. Consequently, we’ve  been trying to give her a bath every night after dinner and before bed. She usually protests. This particular evening, she tried a particularly creative tactic.

“We don’t want bathies! We don’t want bathies!”

— She wiggles her toes and says with SJ’s stinky feet

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Abigail and Jules spent Saturday going around with us. Jeremy was out of town with the guys on a golf trip. I wanted to get a rug for the living room, and Ab offered to help me get it set up and the furniture oriented toward the fireplace. The kids had a great time playing together. I made them “butter” sandwiches, and they sat together at the bar having lunch. Jules was thirsty. (SJ is never thirsty, but she had to have a drink when Jules asked for one.)

When handing out Capri Suns to Selah June and Jules, SJ said “I want the first one! I want the first one!” I said, “Selah June, Jesus wants us to want to be last, to let others go first.” As she grabbed the pouch out of my hand, she replied, “sorry, Jesus.”  (I’m in for so much trouble…)

Friday, October 27, 2017

We experienced our first fall festival at UWF this Friday. The kids in Selah June’s class were supposed to dress up like scarecrows, but I was lucky to get her into some form of overalls. She was not interested in wearing any face paint or a hat, and I certainly was not going to get her all scratchy with straw.

The kids in her class spent days in advance making construction paper farm animals and tractors, and these decorated the big red barn backdrop for pictures.

They had popcorn and cookies and cupcakes for the kids, and Selah June was a big fan. She also was a fan of this little cow. Once she got a turn sitting on it, she wouldn’t give it up. The rest of the world moved around her while she hogged the cow. Finally, after a long time of sitting on the cow in the middle of all the action, she was willing to join me to stand in line for the tractor ride.

It was crazy to watch all the kids ride the emotional wave of excitement and overstimulation upon arrival, to crazy running around the playground chasing each other, to the sugar high and low from doing the cupcake walk and eating cupcakes and cookies, to having meltdowns as mommies and daddies left to go back to work. The center has the festival down to a science, and all the rest of us faculty parents just stepped back and watched in awe.

Sunday, October 22, 2017

We went to Jason’s Deli after church. I was really struck by how much easier it is to take her out to restaurants now than it was even just 6 months ago. I’m also painfully aware of how many times a day I call her “baby.” She recently started correcting me every time, saying “I’m not a baby. I’m a big girl.”

Jeremy arranged a trip to the corn maze in October before Halloween. I remember taking Selah June as a tiny little baby, when I was able to wear her in the Moby. It seems like so long ago and just yesterday all at the same time.

The kids had a blast, but it was really funny seeing how each of them reacted differently to the various activities. Liam was not a fan of the cow train, but Selah June wanted to ride it first thing and all by herself. She picked the very last train car, and didn’t blink an eye at the fast crazy 8 ride. She was so stinkin’ cute bringing up the rear.

At some point we got separated, and the next thing I knew she was on a hayride out the outskirts of the farm with Jeremy. Then she spent what felt like hours in the silo of corn, feeling it all through her toes, laying down in it, running it through her fingers. I had to keep an eye on things so that the boys didn’t pelt the little kids with corn. But Selah June seemed unphased.

She also had fun in the corn maze. We went through the kid maze, and everybody else went through the more challenging maze. It took us about 5 minutes, and then we waited another 40 minutes for the rest of our group to emerge from the wall of corn. While we were waiting, Selah June picked out a perfect pumpkin from the patch and helped her Daddy pull the wagon with the pumpkin in it to the barn to pay for it.

She also really liked the lemonade served in little pumpkin sippy cups. We bought her two of them so that they could become a part of our meager (and always disappearing) cup supply.