you get to read amazing little gems like this that ENCOURAGE!

it takes you until 2:30 in the afternoon to realize that your shirt (a black turtle neck) has been on inside-out since you put it on earlier that morning.

and nobody in church told you that it was backwards.

it's kinda like having broccoli stuck in your front teeth.

after kenny and i said goodnight to rowan and sawyer and closed their bedroom door this evening...

Sawyer: you're too far away! i can't see you!
Rowan: i'm right HERE!
Sawyer: Are you a airplane?
Rowan: No
Sawyer: Are you sailboat?
Rowan: No.
Sawyer: Are you Rowan?
Rowan: YES!
Sawyer: Are you Sawyer?
Rowan: No.
Sawyer: Are you Sadie?
Rowan: No.
Sawyer: Are you Gabe?
Rowan: No.
Sawyer: Are you Ramona?
Rowan: No.
Sawyer: Hey. Where Sadie live?
Rowan: Michigan.
Sawyer: Huh. Michigan?
Rowan: Yep.

the conversation continued. but i almost felt as though i was eavesdropping on a special brother-bonding conversation.

every once in a while, i'm floored that i actually am part of the creation and growth of three little human lives that breathe and eat and converse and interact. it's only a little overwhelming at times. enough to make you momentarily breathless. enough to make you incredibly thankful.

...there is a writing contest at another favorite blog of mine that i'm entering. it's a contest using the I am From that i did back in october. so i'm entering the contest, especially since the prize is a book...and i'm a sucker for books. the host of the contest has really good taste in books, so i trust that the winning book will be worth entering the contest.

so...head on over to Mary's blog. the blog is a great read! pull up a chair and read a bunch of her archives. leave her a comment and let her know that i sent you there.

and hey - enter the contest yourself! the more, the merrier!


I Am From...

...rainbow shirts and friendship bracelets. From the Atari 800 and one of the last-purchased VCRs on the block.

I am from the city-suburb: an inbetween of city-lights, and suburb-quiet.

I am from milkweed pods in October and dandelion fuzz in July. From the pungent-orange of Grammy's marigolds, and the sting of the crab-apple fights with my brothers.

I am from Cheerios eaten in our rooms on Christmas morning. From the public library and the natural history museum on Saturday mornings.

I am from Jameses and Eugenes, Myrtles and Marjories. From liverwurst at Nana's and rutebega at Grammy's. From the Scotch-Irish and the Germans.

I am from conservative, orthodox presbyterianism, who didn't (and still don't) allow women to speak during worship. I am unfrom them now.

I'm from St. Elizabeth's hospital on Ash Wednesday, 1973.

From the spires of Oxford, the charasmatic Anglican church that changed my parents' (and eventually my) belief of worship. And perhaps God.

I am from white-framed paper photos stuck to black-paged photo albums on Mom's closet shelf. I am from wood and metal framed photos on the second floor wall of my childhood home. I am from dozens of Hallmark-store diaries with cheap locks, and shoes boxes of letters from penpals, now ashes.

a while ago, i was whining and complaining about the lack of snow in december - the time of year when even people who hate snow want at least a little dusting - preparing for christmas is so much more cozy with snow softly falling around you as you sip cocoa from under a warm, knitted afghan in front of a roaring fireplace (how many imagery-cliches can YOU fit into a single sentence?).

FINALLY...we've been getting steady little snow showers for over a week now, and we have a lovely little winter wonderland of our own.

the boys are loving every minute of playing in their big back yard full of snow. they like to eat it. they like to throw it. and they like to ride on it. kenny's having just as much fun as, if not more than, rowan (3 1/2) and sawyer (2 1/2). you see, kenny got himself a snowboard from craigslist for christmas. technically, it is my christmas present to him, but he did all the research and purchasing legwork. i won't say TOO much about the rendering of the scantily-dressed woman on the front of it, but let's just say, a very young and single man owned the board before my husband did. ;) i'm very impressed with how quickly he's picked it up. the first wobble ride he took was a bit on the slow and unbalanced side. since then, he's flying down the hill with the greatest of ease (and he's really only been out on the snow a few times this month!).

between snowboarding, he helps sawyer build snowmen (sawyer's still obssessed even though most of the blow-up snowmen have been removed from people's lawns), teaches rowan how to throw snowballs, and takes them down on the toboggan. i get to watch all of this from behind closed windows since adam (7 mos.) is not yet into the excitement of snow (it makes him crabby). next year, at 18 months old, he'll be hobbling through the snow, and adding only about 26 minutes to the getting-dressed-with-bootshatsglovesandcoats ritual.

thanks to a pretty spiffy masthead at a favorite blog of mine, sawyer insisted i find a scarf for his snowman. he spotted a picture of a snowman at the blog and asked about the scarf around its neck. he then told me that his snowman was cold. he's got such a big heart for snowmen.

[link(pics/jan_07/blog_rosaw_snoman.jpg)][thumb]pics/jan_07/blog_rosaw_snoman.jpg[/thumb][/link] [link(pics/jan_07/blog_snowman.jpg)][thumb]pics/jan_07/blog_snowman.jpg[/thumb][/link] [link(pics/jan_07/blog_snowboarding.jpg)][thumb]pics/jan_07/blog_snowboarding.jpg[/thumb][/link]

this time last year, our lives revolved around football. our social lives consisted only of football-watching gatherings with friends, food, nail-biting, yelling at the quarterback, and yelling at the referees. the radio stations kept playing that horrible, "here we go" song, and the grocery stores were filled with things like black and gold totilla chips and Roethlisberger beef jerky.

we had a great, relaxing day yesterday talking with friends over glasses of wine, gourmet appetizers and desserts. but we were pretty tired come 9:30. so kenny and i crawled into bed and realized that it was the 4th quarter of the AFC championship game between the Patriots and the Colts. it was also a tied game. we both agree that we don't want to see New England win yet another Superbowl (sorry, Greg!) so we were happy to see the Colts win the championship game and advance to the Superbowl. but we weren't clutching our pillows and gritting our teeth in this very close and exciting last quarter. (i think i might have even dozed off during the last play).

although there is something really fun when your city is in the Superbowl, it's also a really tense and nerve-wracking time of year. i guess i'm a "fair-weather fan" or i'm just not a good football fan in general, but i was actually relieved when the Steelers didn't even make it into the playoffs this year.

our fingernails are intact. our lives don't revolve around the next game. and we can easily watch the Superbowl without worrying about a possible big loss that will send the city into a deep depression. the most relaxing way to enjoy the playoffs is watching them when your hometeam is not in the them.

(go Bears!)

it was something we do on a very normal basis: pile in the car and head out to run errands as a family. yesterday it was to get kenny's annual haircut. he wanted to boys to see him get his haircut to show them that haircuts, in fact, do not hurt. rowan and sawyer seem to think that having your hairs cut shorter involves pain. they cry and scream when we try to cut their very straight (and very hard to cut) hair. of course, watching their daddy get his hair cut doesn't always work. and it didn't yesterday either.

on the way home, the boys and i were chatting about dinner: i told them i had chicken waiting to be cooked, and they responded with their typical response, "i don't like dinner. i want a snack!"

about 6 miles from home, the dreaded "thump-thump" was heard first by kenny, then by me. we had a flat tire. it was darkish, cold, and snowy. kenny was insistent on changing the tire himself (what guy wouldn't insist?).

we pulled over to the most level ground possible (this is hard to do in western pennsylvania. there are hills on the hills here), and he opened the back of the van and proceeded to find the jack and spare tire. it was then that adam decided to scream. i pulled him out of his carseat and found a banana in the diaper bag from a car trip earlier in the day and started to feed him. it satiated him for about 3 minutes. he was mad. kenny was struggling to remove the spare tire from the back due to some "poor engineering." and then...God sent his hands.

i'm not one to say that angels are watching and protecting us. i never got into the widespread love affair the world had with angels a few years back. i know God speaks of angels, but i don't think we fully understand them if we describe them only as "passed loved ones that watch after us." we are to be the hands and feet of christ on earth. this is why i think the man who stopped his car and asked if we needed help wasn't an angel. and he might not even believe in jesus. who cares? but he got the tire out of the poorly engineered back of the van (he used to work in a garage), and started to jack up the car. hooray! five more minutes and we'd be on our way again.

at which point the jack broke. in half.

this is when God sent his feet. a man wearing the coolest trucker hat (it had a built-in light on the front of it) pulled up behind the man already helping us. he said he had a bigger jack a few miles away and he'd return with it in 10 minutes. adam was inconsolable at this point. the only thing that we didn't try yet was to walk him around outside. kenny bundled him in his blanket and walked him outside while he and the first man waited for the built-in-light-on-his-hat-man to return. adam was happy as a clam on the outside of the van.

i am truly impressed with how many people stopped and asked if we needed anything. there were, of course, drivers who passed us by (a few even waved!), but several stopped and asked if they could help.

i am also truly impressed with the way my older boys handled the situation. they sang songs with me and talked about dinner some more. i promised them they could have anything they wanted to eat at this point. of course they chose to have cereal for dinner. their favorite food in the world.

the second man (with the cool hat) returned, just as he promised, and the spare tire was on within 5 minutes flat (no pun intended). we returned home, gave the boys cereal, crackers, apples, and cookies for dinner while kenny and i cracked open a bottle of red.

i know what you're thinking. it was only a flat tire. what is the big deal? i guess it's the little things that make it a bigger deal to me than it was. it could have been worse: we could have blown a tire on the highway and lost control of the car. i could have been alone with the boys. nobody could have pulled over to help us. the boys could have been sick and irritable.

God sends his hands and feet in any form and in any problem. No matter how small.

every momma secretly (or openly!) loves that their baby only has eyes for them. adam has always been a momma's-boy. he lights up when i walk near him, never lets me put him down, screams as though he's being pinched when i walk away. he loves his momma.

a few weeks ago, he discovered the cats. and now, it's all i can do to get his attention when they're in the same room.

he's feeling much better, but still a bit on the wonky side. so we're trying all sorts of ways to make him happy today. playing with him, giving him toys, snuggling with him just weren't working today. i set him down on our bed and greymalkin, our 16-year-old-tortoise-shelled deaf cat jumped on the bed, and adam was a bundle of giggles. an eruption of laughter. all smiles. i could have walked away and he wouldn't have noticed. but when the cat jumped off the bed, he screamed as though i were pinching him.

too bad cats don't make good babysitters.

i'm happy to say that adam's eyes are in no way, shape, or form "sunken in." whew.

but we're not out of the woods yet. he's just not keeping much down, so keeping him hydrated is still important.

soooo....i need your clever ideas on keeping small children (under a year of age who hasn't had a huge variety of foods except a few pureed fruits and veggies) hydrated. the most clever, the better as we've tried nearly everything i can think of. and he is not a fan of pedialyte (who can blame him? it's so salty!).

if you'd rather send me your suggestion via email instead of leaving me a comment, my email is: elizabethsmith at zoominternet dot net

thanks. :)

mommas and daddies: when the pediatrician tells you watch for signs of dehydration in your sick baby, has s/he ever asked you watch that your baby's "eyes aren't sunken in?"

really....what is that supposed to look like? would i actually recognize it? do the eyeballs actually sink into the sockets? or do they fall behind the cheekbone? will he wake up tomorrow and i won't recognize him? doesn't the pediatric nurse know that i'm already paranoid about adam becoming dehydrated from this dreaded stomach virus? now she's added another thing for me to be paranoid about: not recognizing a symptom of dehydration.

did anyone else learn their alphabet from The Letter People?

i remember the pictures of each letter person pinned above my kindergarten chalkboard (it would have been when i was five, which was 1978)...but more specifically, i remember the "dance time" the class had when learning a new letter.

ironically, the videos highlighted in the wikipedia page i linked to above are the letters that i remember most: horrible hair, tall teeth, and munching mouth (my favorite). i remember the disco music accompanying Mr. M so vividly, i can picture me and my classmates dancing around the room while he sang about his "munching mouth."

i want to order these for my boys - songs and all. sawyer's already got the dance moves for the music.

now if only i can find the multiplication tables set to music that i learned in 3rd grade (NOT school house rock)...

for the first time in just over four years, kenny and i slept all night, slept in (7:30 IS sleeping in!),and showered and dressed all before breakfast. and that is how we ushered in 2007.

my parents were courageous enough to offer to watch the kids for new year's eve. we decided on a night at a local bed and breakfast with a few of our friends who also could revel in a childless evening/overnight. it was lovely. (and if you look at the online guestbook, you'll notice that there is a quote from one of my favorite actresses who happens to be married to one of my favorite actors from one of my favorite shows, thirtysomething.)

first of all...BIG props to my mom, who spent the night with adam. because of a fever/cold, he's not been sleeping all that well recently, especially during the overnight hours. so she had her work cut out for her that night. while i got to sleep all night long, she woke up several times with adam, and spent 11:30-2:00 a.m trying to get him back to sleep.

and big props to my dad, who bedded down the older two, and tired them out with walks around the property until we arrived home later that morning to another laughlin-family-tradition of bagels and luncheon meats, wine and eggnog with our friends margaret and ellen.

but lets return to that Bed and Breakfast, shall we? i know that i've talked before about my dream of running a Bed and Breakfast. and now i'm even further convinced that kenny and i could do this. someday. it's not that i don't think we can handle it now. it's that i think i don't want to do that alongside of raising of children while they're so young. in 20 years, i'll have more time on my hands to properly spoil, feed, and comfortably house guests in a decadent Bed and Breakfast. that's the kind of B&B I want to run. not a simple one. a simply lovely one. cozy and comfortable. restful and blissful. and the things that i want to provide for my guests just couldn't happen while raising three young and energetic boys.

so of my two dreams...raising a family and running a B&B...i'm happy to be doing one at a time, on a fulltime basis. i love focusing and diving into the dream of raising and possibly educating our children, all the while keeping house. that is fun in and of itself. the cool thing is, i can practice the B&B dream on my family. i can provide decadent breakfasts (and lunches and dinners) for my kids and husband (and the occassional guest). kenny and i can begin planning the B&B, taking notes from various visited ones, and then diving into that dream once our boys are old enough to fend for themselves.

and then, someday, they'll return home for a visit to be the honored family guests at our B&B home.

happy 2007!