I don’t know why my stories of Tia always involve her doing gross things. No dainty little girls for us! So, while this isn’t nearly as disgusting as her chewing on Landon’s umbilical cord, it’s still pretty yuck (if you’ve not heard the story, click the link. Just don’t eat while you read). Yesterday it was a whopping 40 degrees out. Not warm enough for shorts and a t-shirt, of course, but still seemed balmy and pleasant after several days in the 20’s. Anyway, because it was so warm, all the ice is melting into a nasty, slushy mess. While I was busy getting Landon and other things out of the car, Tia went to splash around in the muck on the driveway. When I looked over at her, she was sitting in the garage, scraping the slush from the grooves of her shoes and eating it. Why on earth she felt the need to eat the ice off the bottm of her shoes and not just pick it up off the driveway is hard to say…

I went to Target today to buy a new swimsuit. Guess what I came home with? Two cases of SlimFast. *sigh*

Hey everyone,
A friend of ours just released a new CD and it’s awesome! His name is Jerod Starkey. Jerod and I sang together in college – go BRH!!! Jerod also sang in our wedding. He’s got an amazing voice and he’s a very gifted songwriter and musician. I highly recommend you click over to his website and purchase his CD.

If you guys get a chance, I wouls highly recommend you click over to my sister-in-law, Becke’s site and read her latest post. It will encourage you greatly and move you and hopefully spur you on to a deeper knowlege of God’s grace. I’ve always admired Becke’ for the way that she so deeply seeks to know and understand who God is. So many times when I talk with her on the phone she is on the internet researching some aspect of God or the Bible that she wants to know more about. While I find myself reading the latest celebrity gossip, she is seeking God’s face. Plus, Becke’ is just good fun to be around. It has been a really hard week for her and for her family, yet she has been gracious and strong, not on her own, but through the strength of the Lord upon whom she so faithfully leans. I am so honored that she is a part of my family and that I get to learn from her.

We went to the mall today and went to St. Louis Bread Company for lunch. While waiting for our food, an older gentleman walked by using a wooden cane. Sloan, in his highest decible voice, points and says, “Look, it’s Moses. It’s Moses from the Bible.” Sheesh. Poor guy.

We were iced in yesterday due to an ugly winter storm. Lee got up at 5:00 to leave for a breakfast meeting then catch a flight to Reno for four days. More on that later. The kids, naturally were up at 6:40 because why would they want to sleep in when they could wake mommy up and torment, er, love on her all day long! Anyway, by 10:00, we were all stir crazy. The kids had already plyed Ply-Doh for an hour, had a snack and watched a movie. Of course they picked the shortest movie we own, only 30 minutes and our rule is only one movie per day…most days anyway. So, what else to do? I must confess, I considered telling them it was noon anf feeding them and putting them down for naps, but I resisted. So, we built a fort. A stroke of genius on my part as that occupied them until lunch! And, Lee’s flight and trip got cancelled due to the ice and my desperate prayers so he came home at 3:00. Today it’s not so bad so we’re leaving the house and going to the mall because we’re stir crazy. Oh, and kudos to my friend Nicole for all she got done yesterday. While I had the opportunity to be just as productive, I was not because I was tired and felt like a slug. I did get the laundry done and folded but not yet put away because I hate doing that. Ah well….

I’ve been meaning to post about this for awhile but keep forgetting. Lee and I went to the best play last Sunday. Actually, I saw it a couple of weeks ago and liked it so much I took Lee back to see it with me and he loved it. It’s called Parenting 101: A Musical Guide to Raising Parents. For all you St. Louis people, you should really go see it. It’s at the Westport Playhouse, which is an awesome theater. It’s really small so there’s not a bad seat in the house. You can get tickets through MetroTix. Anyway, the play is made up of four actors, two guys and two girls and they sing songs about parenthood to the tunes of popular songs. Sample lyrics that I can remember:
(This is a girl singing about labor to the tune of Somewhere Over the Rainbow)
Oh God, when will the pain end?
Wish I were high.
Natural childbirth was clearly
Thought up by some dumb guy.

She later sings “It’s My Potty and I’ll Try if I want to” about potty training and “I Will Always Hate You,” as a bratty ten year old who is mad at her mother. They sing Stayin’ Alive as they attempt to teach a sixteen year old to drive a car and We will Rock you to a newborn that won’t stop crying. They cover every topic imaginable from puberty (a hilarious number) to the death of a pet (Another Pet Bites the Dust) to finding out Santa Clause isn’t real. The singing is awesome, the actors’ comedic timing is perfect and it’s all around a great show. I want to go see it a third time!
Here’s another link that actually lets you watch a little of it. You have to click on the watch vidoe button. It’s not the exact same show they do at Westport but it’s close.

I took Sloan to the dentist yesterday to have his teeth cleaned. He walked right into her office and hopped up in the chair, informing her that he didn’t like the spicy toothpaste so could they please give him something sweeter.
“Will bubble gum do?” she asked.
“Oh sure!” Sloan said. “Go on ahead.”
Looking at me with an amused smile she asked Sloan, “How old are you?”
“Well, I’m just four,” Sloan said with exasperation. “I’m still four. I’m four everyday!”
“Are you ready to be five?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “I just want to be six.”
Why are they alwasy in a rush to grow up?

There are many things I love about St. Louis. The free Zoo. The pretty scenery. The Arch. The fact that there are parks on nearly every corner and there are so many free things to do for families. What do I not love about St. Louis. The freakin’ weather! We get a conglomeration of all the crappy weather from around the country. Case in point, the flash blizzard that sprung up on Monday morning. At breakfast, the sun was shining and the air was bitter cold. At 8:10, I look outside and literally it was a white out. Snow was flying everywhere. I’ve never seen anything like it. The wind was whipping and little tornadoes of snow flakes swirled around our house. After about 15 minutes it stopped and the sun came back out. It was then that we discovered that our umbrella was missing off our back porch. Sloan was very concerned about this and wanted me to go out and look for it. I matter of factly informed him that I do not go traipsing about in 20 degree weather. He wanted to know what traipsing meant…Anyway, when we left later, I did scan our backyard and our neighbors backyards for the missing umbrella and it was nowhere to be seen. As we pulled out of the driveway, Sloan came up with the solution. “I guess it flew up to heaven,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders. “Why would an umbrella go up to heaven?” I asked. “Well,” Sloan replied, “God just needed to protect his head.” And with that satisfactory answer, we went on our way, though I must admit I was still perplexed about that actual whereabouts of that umbrella. Later that day, however, my neighbor solved the mystery when she emailed me and said, “Hey did you know you have an umbrella on your roof?” Ah ha! I walked outside to the other side of the house and low and behold there was the missing umbrella. When I told Sloan later that it was on the roof he furrowed his brow up at me. “Oh. Well, I guess God was all done with it and just threw it back down on our house,” he said. And because we’re hoosier and it’s cold outside, the umbrella is still sitting up there because Lee doesn’t want to climb up and get it.

I take Sloan to speech therapy on Thursdays to work on a minor dysfluency problem. That’s fancy talk for stuttering. The boy can sometimes bump painfully through his sentences. Anyway, nearly every Thursday, Tia and I sit in the little library of the preschool while we wait for Sloan to finish. It’s an interesting experience, I must say. When we first get there, it is usually blissfully quiet, but that does not last long as the children are let out of school about half way through Sloan’s lesson. When that happens, the library fills up with noisy, rambunctious children and their parents. There are two groups of moms that have been especially interesting to observe. The first I like to refer to as the Harried Mom’s Club. This group is made up of three mom’s and a grandma who come in, plop themselves down in the little miniature chairs, their knees up at their chests, and gossip for a half an hour while their children wreak havoc on the joint. The head honcho of the group is particularly amusing. She usually comes in with her youngest tucked under her arm, and yelling at her oldest to stop running or else. Or else what she’s never said, though I think both her son and I would be interested to hear her actually finish that sentence. Once she’s assumed her position around the table, she shows very little interest in what her children are doing behind her and rarely acknowledges them unless they happen to get in her direct line of sight (something that’s hard to do since she usually has her back to the room. If, however, she does happen to notice her children, she just opens her naturally beady eyes so wide that they almost swallow her face in what I’m assuming is her “stop it now or else” look. She then makes some kind of threat in a form of a question: “Do you want to leave right now and go take a nap with no lunch?” What she doesn’t know is that her child essentially laughs at her as soon as she turns back around. Needless to say, her children are the worst kids in the area. This last week, I had to physically pick up her youngest and remove him from my side as he was constantly trying to pick Landon up out of the car seat.

The grandma of the group is a hoot. Her favorite phrase in “Cut it out,” which she yells constantly at her grandson, who, incidentally, never cuts it out.

Then there is the soccer mom. This is the lady who comes in with four children under about the age of five and spends most of her time dolling out snacks to keep them happy, which only starts fights as every kid in the library then wants their snacks. It’s a wonder she doesn’t feel a hole burning in the back of her head as the rest of us glare at her for sending our children into a frenzy over snacks that they can’t have.

Finally, there is the follower. This is the woman who actually attempts to keep her child in line but always ends up fighting a losing battle as her son gets riled up by the other hooligans. Poor woman usually gives up about 5 minutes in realizing that she’s not going to win.

The second group I like to call the West County Whities. These are the ladies that have oodles of money and wear it. One of them honestly has such big implants that it’s hard not to stare at her bulging chest. Their hair is piled high on their head and their kids come in dressed in pristine smocked dresses. They are adorable, but bless their hearts, they are hardly allowed to breath for fear of messing up those fancy outfits. These women sit next to each other talking animatedly, their huge diamond rings blinding the rest of us. Their topics range from the latest spa treatment to the plot of Desperate Housewives. I know this because they talk really loud as if they want to make sure the rest of us know that they have money. We get it ladies, we really do.

Then there are the middle grounders like me who take great delight in observing these stereotypes in action. We have a special bond built through silent headshakes and sympathetic smiles.

It’s a unique group of people, all meshed together in a little area. I find myself fighting off laughter a lot of the time, and sheer annoyance the rest of the time. You gotta love speech therapy!