Makin' stuff again.

A couple of things I've been working on this week.

Mia's super duper Christmas Candy outfit! Sucker was a lot more work than I expected. She loves it, though, which is all I care about. Any opportunity to bring out her Cindy-Lou Who-ness, I'm on it.










This necklace is for the kids' favorite babysitter, "Miss Sara." She leads worship on Sunday mornings at our church, and she sings like an angel. We are also making her a very sloppy card to go with it.

Mind vomit.

SO MUCH on my mind lately, I can barely settle down to blog about a fraction of it. I'm just going to throw it all out there. Hang onto your hiney.

On the home front, Mia's finally showing some strides with her potty training. We were doing so well for a while, and then we started regressing when preschool started. The kids' school has a policy that you can't bring your child in underpants until they are close to accident-free, and that meant we were having to switch back and forth between undies at home and Pull-Ups at school. She's no slow-wit; she's well aware that Pull-Ups are really just expensive diapers. When you're wearing your own toilet, why bother using the potty at all? So last week her teacher and I chatted and she gave me the green light to just bring her in undies. After a rocky start, she's doing really well these days. Still reluctant to deposit #2...is this a girl thing?



Connor continues to have good days and bad days in Pre-K. Things got really bad a couple weeks ago when his teacher pulled me aside after class to chat about his progress. He's having fewer emotional outbursts (he and this kid Dylan continue to tango, but they really provoke each other. I'm not going to chastise my son for retaliating if the boy throws a rock at his head. I'm just not.), but she's having difficulty getting Connor to "engage" in class. He only participates in activities that interest him, and then he checks out and starts entertaining himself at random. She cited "rug time" as an example: the rest of the class sat and listened and he felt compelled to run circles around the activity table. I suspect a great deal of this behavior is boredom. Still, he has got to learn that participation is not elective. He is a compulsive "doodler" (Golly Moses, this was ME as a kid) and often decides he'd rather "illustrate" the back of his paper instead of practice writing lowercase "M" on the reverse. Getting his attention is a challenge--he has "selective hearing..." She said she caught him urinating on the playground once a couple weeks ago, and when she caught him, he could not understand what the big deal was. "I went behind the playhouse so nobody could see me!" he reasoned. She was even recommending professional evaluation, perhaps by a pediatrician. Not because he peed on the playground, but because he can't seem to focus with the rest of the class. She suggested blood sugar issues and this has been noted in the past, because he does have dramatic mood swings and has to pee a LOT. I may consider that. I'm starting to think maybe we just have a massively bored kid on our hands who also has a maturity issue in that he hasn't learned self-control yet. In the weeks following our conference, Connor's shown more of an effort to complete his handwriting practice pages, and he's had more good report days than bad. As for the public urination, he's four. And he's a boy. And little boys love peeing outside. Why else would they be such big fans of camping?

Still praying and considering what to do about Kindergarten next year for Connor. Number one on my list right now is Chattanooga Christian. I'm in love with their curriculum, their education policy, even their website. The real question...where the heck are we going to find the tuition?? Open House is Thursday. We're going to do some investigation. I want to feel PEACE about a decision soon!

Christmas looming. Mia is so excited about seeing Santa, she can't sit down. I'm trying to convince her to enjoy Thanksgiving first. Wants to put in her request for "Strawberry Shortcake doll." She's also been memorizing the American Girl catalogue. Oh my. She wants to trick out her "Bitty Baby" that she inherited from my cousin. Points to every item and declares she "needs dat." Boy, are we in trouble. Connor has already gotten half his Christmas present from us (I'm getting to that), but from Santa he wants a microscope. This kid is so into science and geography, it's ridiculous. Today he drew (free-handed) a disturbingly accurate map of the continental US and placed the state of Tennessee on it, then marked where the capital city is located. As far as the microscope goes, he loves cellular biology. Loves it. Especially blood cells and their functions. I told him if he wanted to see blood cells under the microscope, he'd have to draw blood...which isn't fun, and makes him faint (really. He did. Right after his flu shot. It was awesome...). We'll see what happens. More than likely, Mom or Dad will become guinea pigs. Anything in the name of education, right?



Beignet. It's no longer just a delicious New Orleans breakfast. It's our new puppy. Connor's Christmas present. She's adorable. However, I am now potty training two individuals in our house. We're going thru a lot of paper towels. And I am attempting to control three willful spirits and keep them from completely destroying the house. I think I'll just build a bunker in the basement and let them have it.


MORE TO COME.

Hallo-whine.

I'm afraid I've fallen out of the blogging habit. Much like falling out of the exercise habit, which I've also done. This week I got back at it with a vengeance, and now my body feels exactly as though vengeance has been wreaked upon it. It literally hurts to take a deep breath. I suppose I deserve this.

The forecast is threatening rain for Saturday's tricks and treats. I dare say the kids won't miss a beat whether we go door to door or not. In similar fashion, I would welcome an excuse NOT to go for another walk this weekend...




Check out that wig.

Mimi's ordeal

I remember growing up with asthma, and I remember it was unpleasant--scary at times. But I never experienced it from the perspective that my mom must have...until now.



God bless my sweet little princess. What a trooper. She went from THIS (see above) to THIS:


All within the space of just a few hours. Can you imagine? Here's the email I sent out to our church:

Mia's been at Children's Hospital Chattanooga since Monday afternoon, in respiratory distress. On our last day at the beach, she developed a bit of a runny nose which progressed into a cough, and over the course of a few hours had seized her lungs. By the time I pulled into our driveway Monday afternoon, she was grayish, barely responsive, and struggling a great deal to draw breath, so I rushed her to her pediatrician, who after examining her, determined that she needed to be hospitalized immediately. They had to call us an ambulance to transport her to Children's. The hospital has been administering steroids, IV fluids, albuterol treatments, and oxygen, and she's been slowly improving. Our hope is that we get to take her home tomorrow, if her oxygen saturation levels remain high overnight. We will be meeting with her doctors to discuss a long-term maintenance plan for her asthma so that she doesn't end up back in the hospital any time soon. Pray for our little girl!

We were blessed to be at Children's Hospital. Every doctor and nurse treated her with such TLC (as she began to feel better, she was nicknamed "the chatterbox" by a few of the staff!), and we could not have asked for more. Cinderella came to visit her, as well as a therapy dog or two! We're so relieved to have her home, and although we're grateful for the loving care she received while in the hospital, it's my hope that we never have to see those folks again. I said that in April. I still mean it.

My gratitude goes out to all of you who prayed for my sweet girl. She's doing great today, and we are managing at home with new meds. Hopefully, the maintenance drugs will keep us out of the hospital from now on.

His first work of fiction

Today, Connor came bouncing home from preschool as usual, just bursting with new information.
"Guess what, Mom? A person who writes words is an author and a person who draws pictures is an illustrator!" I told him that was right on, and then asked him if he'd like to try his hand at authorship and illustration. Here is his first creation, destined to become a bestseller:

EDEN AND SARAH
by J. Connor Medlin, age 4

Once there was a cat named Eden.



She lived in a house that was right so close to a fire station.




She put on all her stuff and she liked to get in the fire truck. One day, the fire alarm went off. Eden hurried to the fire truck. The truck hurried to a house that was on fire.



The fire fighters went inside and started fighting the fire. Eden ran up the stairs and found a little girl named Sarah hiding under her bunk bed.




Sarah followed Eden out of the house. And they were happy because Sarah was saved.

THE END.

At the peak of ripe-ness

I can't stand it any longer. I have to photograph those little chocolate sprinkles on my boy before they're gone with the summer breeze. Somebody gimme a spoon.

The young artist at work:








This face? That's all Mommy:




Now...this one? Unmistakeably Daddy:




Oh, World. Are you in trouble.

Mommy's Nail Salon

It's a mani/pedi sort of day.