I hope that everyone will keep Owen in your prayers. He has got croup, and croup scares me. Kyra was hospitalized with it when she was a baby. I took him and Elijah to the doctor today. Elijah has a sinus infection, and is on antibiotics. The doctor prescribed Owen three different kinds of medicines, two of which he takes via a nebulizer. He didn’t like the breathing treatments too well, but it wasn’t too bad. He’s sleeping now. The doctor told me that if he gets worse during the night to take him straight to the emergency room. Hopefully that won’t happen. I am supposed to take him back to the doctor tomorrow regardless. They also swabbed his nose at the hospital to test for RSV. So, I wish everyone would pray for him. He’s sleeping now.

We just got finished with lunch. I don’t usually fix anything for lunch that we all sit down to. Chris was home today, though. He took the day off of work to catch up on some schoolwork. So, when I got hungry, I decided to make something for all of us. Nothing fancy. I just put a frozen pizza in the oven, and put together a quick salad. Kyra declined the pizza, and opted just for a salad. Chris and I watched the epidsode of Oprah yesterday that featured a question and answer session with Dr. Oz. I find the episodes with Dr. Oz fascinating. One thing that he said in the show was that, in Europe, they eat their salads after their main course. So, I was asking Chris if he saw that part, and we were discussing it. Chris said, “He also said we shouldn’t be eating ranch dressing.”
To which Kyra replied in horror, “No ranch dressing?!?”
I quickly assured her, “Don’t worry, Kyra. That’s a sacrifice too great for us.”
We do love our ranch dressing around here.

When Kyra finished her salad, she got up from the table, and, as she is walking away, says, “Thank you, Mama. It was delicious.”
Then, I patted myself on the back, congratulated myself on such a beautiful, well-mannered child who declines pizza for salad, and said, “Thank you, Kyra, and you are welcome.”

I will be signing my parenting books after dinner tonight, if anyone wants an autographed copy.

(What? No, I don’t feel the need to share that my other child told me today, “You smell like stinky poop, Mama. Ha ha!” Why would I talk about something like that? I’m accentuating the positive here.)

So, last night at church, Kyra drew this lovely picture, and said that it was me. I held it up to show Brooke and Faith who were standing there talking to me, and said, “It looks just like me, doesn’t it?”
To which Kyra said, “Yeah, except it’s prettier.”

Then, I pulled the dagger from my heart, and laughed. Kids say the darndest things, right? Yeah, right. Little brats. (Kidding!) (Kind of.) (Yes, I’m kidding.) (Sorta.) (No, I am. I’m kidding.)

Owen woke up from his morning nap, today, and I thought he looked completely adorable peeking over the side of his bassinet. Of course I ran for the camera. When I left the room, though, he thought I was just leaving him, and he started to cry. So, he looks quite sad in this picture.

Then, Kyra came along to help cheer him up.

A little kiss will make it better.

What’s he looking at so attentively?

Why, his big sister, Kyra, of course. Owen loves Kyra.

Even with the crazy, hack-job of a haircut, the cuteness is almost unbearable.

Kyra sang a crazy, made up song to Owen, and tried to hog his video.

They are just two little peas in a pod.

She’s just so darn cute!!!

Kyra took a turn behind the camera.

And we end the pictorial of our pajama party with the classic “hold the camera out and take your own picture” shot.

wife to a full-time student/40+ hour a week worker of varied shifts, and mother of three kids four and under. Yeah. Those beavers don’t got nuthin’ on me.

Life has been hectic lately. I’ll just hit the highlights.

The day before Thanksgiving, Kyra decided to give herself a haircut. Yes, I know. It was pretty bad. Thankfully, she just cut her bangs. Thankfully, as in it could of been worse had she cut the length of her hair, no thankfully, as in she did a pretty good job for a four year old cutting her own hair. Quite honestly, she did a pretty horrible job. Her bangs are about an inch long. Lucky for her, she is four. Four year olds are not only cute enough to have their general adorableness outshine the hideous haircut they are sporting, but they are also young enough that people just laugh at them in a “kids will be kids” way. She is very lucky to have a good-natured, easy-going mother who, instead of screaming at her for the absurdity of the idea that taking scissors to a perfectly good hairstyle with no mirror in sight would be a good thing, chose to laugh through the tears that gathered in my eyes and tell myself, in the moment, that they would grow back. Kyra was immediately repentant, and realized that her bangs didn’t look good. I couldn’t fuss at her, when she came to me already sorry and feeling bad that she didn’t look the best.

I’ve discovered that I quite like to bake, now that I have an enthusiastic helper (with bad bangs) to join in on the process. It makes me feel, oh, so motherly to bake cookies with my offspring.

My biggest news is that I have started the ball rolling on the process of going to college. Yep, college. I had always planned to go to college. I took college prep courses in high school, and I always made very good grades. I graduated with honors, in fact. I started dating Chris when I was sixteen, right before I graduated, and my plans changed. Instead of heading off to college, I got married, and started a family. I have never regretted doing it that way. I would do it just exactly the same if I had to go back and do it over. Now that I am through having babies for the time being, I am going to get back to the original plan of going to college. I figure that, since Chris is spending every free moment doing schoolwork for the next few years, I might as well be doing the same thing. I called today to make an appointment with an admissions advisor. I’m supposed to meet with her Friday morning at ten. I’m very nervous about it all. I realize that I am not to old to go back to school. Not by a long shot. I also realize that I somewhat intelligent, and I will do fine with the schoolwork. What everyone else doesn’t seem to realize is that I have never been a part of a traditional school setting. You know, with the teacher up front teaching. I went to an ACE christian school (the one that Kyra attends now) from pre-school until the middle of my tenth grade year, and then I was home-schooled for the remainder of my high school education. Just the sheer difference in learning/teaching styles frightens me. New things scare me. Hopefully, though, it won’t be too bad. I’m hoping to begin in January. I don’t know, yet, if that is possible though. We’ll see. Wish me luck!

With the upcoming Christmas season, I’m going to be busier than ever. We have play practices at church for the kids, family things, some Christmas shopping, and all of the normal activities to take up my time. I hope to keep this blog pretty current though. I appreciate you all continuing to stop by my blog. It’s cool to know that people are reading what I write, even if I’m not writing as often as I used to.

I’m trying to get the house cleaned up today. It kind of fell apart over the holiday, what with all of the baking, visiting, and traveling. I just told the kids that they needed to clean up the living room, which is one of their chores. They are both a little under the weather with colds and a touch of the croup, so I’m sure that is affecting their attitudes a bit. Their reactions to being told to do their chore was pretty amusing.

Kyra reacted with tears. She told me quite indignantly that, “I am not a job-girl!” I’m assuming that a job-girl is about the equivelent of a servant. I told her that the living room was her chore, though, and she had to pick up her toys. She said that she wasn’t a job-girl, and she didn’t want to do it. I told her that she was part of this family, and that families had to all help out. I told her that if she didn’t want to be a part of our family, then I guess she needed to go live somewhere else. To which my darling daughter suggested her Mammy’s house. I pointed out that Mammy had to go to work and couldn’t watch her, and then she added that Mammy didn’t have a bed for her. So, in her mind, the one choice of living arrangement besides just staying here was not an option, so she is stuck with us. She begrudgingly began taking her toys to her room, after I threatened to throw them in the garbage, while she cried, “I am NOT a job-girl!”. I’m hoping her attitude will improve when she starts feeling better.

Now, Elijah had a different approach to cleaning the living room. He had seven or eight little men in the living room floor, along with a box of hot wheels. So, upon being told to clean the living room, he used a six inch piece of string to tie around the first man, and then flew him into his bedroom, talking to himself and making sound effects the whole way. He then returned to the living room, and tied up the second man. At this rate, he might be finished by the time he starts kindergarten.

And people wonder why my house is always messy!

“I am NOT a job-girl!”.

I got up this morning, took Kyra to school, came home, fed Owen and put him down for a nap, showered and got ready, went to Kyra’s school to have lunch with her, came home, went grocery shopping with Owen, came home and baked six or eight dozen cookies and two loaves of pumpkin bread, put the older kids to bed, and let Owen go to sleep in my arms. There was a lot of diaper changing, baby feeding, two year old disciplining, and kissing going on in between, too.

I just wanted you guys to know why my blog posts have been so few and far between lately.