My Bizarre Bengals

This is the first installment of my bizarre bengals...heck they probably need a blog to themselves. This one is dedicated to Aggie, the smaller of the sisters. I catch her nearly every morning staring at herself in my bedroom mirror....even in the dark. I think in this photo she was trying to hide her obsession by looking a tad snobby! (or the flash bothered her, I dunno!)

The Never-Ending Duck Loop

Someone on facebook triggered a memory from the weekend through their status post and I thought I should probably blog it since it's cute and I'll want to remember it.

Zachary has been learning to play Duck Duck Goose. You know the childhood game where kids sit in a circle and someone is "it" and they walk round and round the circle tapping the kids on the head saying "duck, duck, ....Goose." Then the "Goose" has to get up and chase the "it" kid around the circle. If the "it" kids makes it back to the empty spot in the circle without being tagged, the "goose" kid becomes the "it" kid and the game repeats.

Well, if anyone knows Zach, they know of his notorious reputation for hating sleep. I've never seen him willing fall asleep anywhere. He usually fights it with all his being. If you see him start to drift off, he starts to move his body in some way to wake himself back up...or he asks to go potty, drink water, sing a song...all the age-old toddler, sleep avoidance tactics...EVERY time.

Lately, he's been using the DDG game as a sleep aversion tactic. He'll be laying semi-still and quiet and all the sudden, under his breath, nearly inaudible he begins saying "duck...duck...duck...duck...duck........duck.....duck...............duck." Finally I say "GOOSE! Now hush and go to sleep." He'll say..."not yet, mommy...duck....duck...." At that point, I just have to kiss his little head and leave the room, which rarely ends the sleep aversion. The only thing that ends it is complete exhaustion. I'm surprised the kid sleeps at all.

He's gonna be a rocker, I just know it

Zach is so interested in music and it seems his favorite thing to listen to is anything with a lot of intensity in drums/guitar/bass. So yeah, he may be heading for a future of guitar attachment and riding buses from town to town haha.

Seriously though, there are very few "kiddie" songs he likes. He's very content to, and even asks to, listen to the radio or my CD collection. He's especially fond of some groups I followed around and hung out with in college (Cross Canadian Ragweed, Mike McClure Band, Stoney Larue, etc.) This would make my friends in these bands happy I'm sure...a two-year-old fan club member. It just cracks me up. I am thoroughly grateful that we don't have to spend long hours listening to Veggie Tales and Barney - it's definitely a perk.

Yesterday morning we had to sit in the car in the driveway of the babysitter's driveway so he could finish listening to a CCR song. He was jamming in the car seat, bobbing his head, kicking his feet to the rhythm and moving his fingers for some reason...either the air guitar or the air piano...whatever. It was entertaining and he was enjoying it so much. He also yells for me to turn it up loud...to the point that I cannot hear him talking. I try to oblige him as much as I can, but I think if we got it loud enough for him, it would damage his ears for sure. I'll try to go find the song he was listening to....

I'm a techno idiot today apparently...I can't figure out how to post a song on blogger grrrr. It's Wanna Rock & Roll - CCR.

The Nursery Files

I wonder if the nurseries of other churches are as challenging as ours? In a big church, there are a lot of children, which requires a large number of volunteers. Ideally, everyone who has children volunteers in the ministry in some way. If that happened, you probably wouldn't see frustrated, burned out children's workers. Most ministries have fewer volunteers than participants and children's ministry is certainly no exception. I think it's really great to see people volunteering who don't have young children, it's quite remarkable if you think about it.

Being able to leave your child in a fun, safe place with interactive volunteers whom you trust is a luxury for certain. I "teach" the creepers Sunday school class at my church and I love "my" babies. We have a great time blowing bubbles, finding suitable art projects and singing songs and I'm blessed with responsible ladies who rotate in each week to help out...Darlene, Terri, Michelle, Kathy and Abby and Rachel...you girls are awesome and I'm never worried that you won't show up without calling or trying to swap dates if you have conflicts.

However, we've had a problem lately with the reliability of the workers who relieve us in time for us to go to choir/church service. Sometimes they just don't show up..or only one of the two does. They don't call to let anyone know or try to find a replacement. Not all of them do this, but take yesterday for example...NO ONE came. Thankfully I was not scheduled to sing on praise team and Michelle and I were able to stay. Three times in the last month, one of us has had to stay for church because of a no-show. Usually I didn't find out about it until afterwards because when one of the workers comes, I leave to go sing.

I guess I'm just venting a little because I certainly don't mind taking care of the kiddos. I love them like my own when they are in my care. But, I have other obligations too that require me to rely on the responsibility of others to remember when they are serving. I didn't think that was asking too much, but apparently it is.

Pretty much everyone who reads my blog (that I know of) takes their responsibilities very seriously. The ones who need to hear what I'm saying will never read this hahahaha, isn't it ironic?

What's on my belly?

I had a lot of fun today and got 40 pages done in Zachary's digital babybook. I'm using Blurb.com software and it's awesome! I spent the day at an all-day crop with our church's Stepping Stones scrapbooking group. They cut and glue and maneuver photos on paper; I do it all on my computer. It's still fun to sit together and talk about our lives and look at each other's photos...even though I'm doing things different than they are doing it.

After David took Zachary to gymnastics and gymboree without me this morning, they stopped by the church to bring lunch and eat with me. Zach was looking at my laptop screen and saw a picture of himself. It was taken just after he was born and he was in his birthday suit with an oxygen sensor taped to his belly by a gold hear sticker and the plastic doo hickey they put on the umbilical cord area. There were also bracelets on his ankles and a wrist. We asked him who was in the picture and he said it was Zachary. Then he said.. "I a baby on your puter?" But then he just stared and stared at the screen and started to ask what was on his belly. I explained about the heart sticker and the doo hickey. He was still concerned and kept looking under his shirt at his belly button and asking me what was wrong with it on the puter.

It was really cute, but even after we dropped the subject, he kept walking over to the computer to stare at that photo; he just seemed so confused.

When I came home, I showed him all the pages I'd finished and we came to one where I was feedin him from one of those tiny bottles they give you at at the hospital. He was wrapped in a blanket with a little knitted hat on his head. Zachary was staring at this photo asking me what was on his head...I told him about the hat and he said:

"NO, what is coming out of my head?" He was talking about the bottle haha. It was too cute!

Blog Neglect

I've neglected my blog for more than a week and it's just unacceptable to me. So many things have happened where I've thought, "I really need to blog about that." Then, I totally forget, run out of time, etc. It's awful, because I get frustrated with other people for not paying their blog the attention it needs and here I am doing the same thing!!

It's probably that I've just been so daggone busy the past 10 days, but I'm not going to make excuses. I did get around to taking Zachary's fall pictures last weekend which was a huge accomplishment. It seems that every time I planned to do it over the past month, he always ended up with some kind of head wound that prevented me from doing it. There was the mosquito bite that swelled up his entire right eye for several days and then he got bounced out of the inflatable slide by the big kids at Trunk R' Treat. I guess with little boys the list goes on and on and it will for eternity :) But FINALLY, his bodily harm and injury schedule cooperated with Mother Nature and we had 15 minutes of perfect sun on Saturday afternoon. Here's a few of those shots.

Well, that's all for now, until I find something more philosophical to say!

Trying to stay positive about the next presidential administration

I used to be intensely political and I guess I still am at times, however; I get more and more frustrated by the process as time goes by and the world becomes more liberal. I'm not a right-wing extremist and I've actually agreed with a few liberal points of view here and there. But usually I end up on the moderate to conservative side of things. I am sure there are some who would say I am VERY conservative on a few issues and well, that's fine with me. It's who I am; it's what I believe and I'm not apologizing for it. It's my right thanks to the sacrifices of so many people's lives over the years the United States has been a country.

I don't see how people can be so naive as to think that one person can actually fix all our woes in this country. Some politicians seem to have a cult-like following and there's just so much misinformation out there, I don't' see how people can follow that blindly.

I never vote for someone I have not read about, no matter what party they are affiliated with. I do take recommendations from trusted friends, but ultimately I am the one responsible for my decisions and I try to be as informed as possible. I will admit that occasionally I've gone to vote and been unaware of a few questions or judgeships at stake and I've picked randomly and I am not proud of it. I think you can only be so prepared. I really have a hard time leaving something blank, but I've committed to do that if I don't know anything about that particular question, position, etc.

I also don't apologize for basing many of my voting decisions on whether or not the candidate is pro-life. I know sometimes that's an unpopular way of sorting candidates, but I don't care. It's important to me and that's my right to do it. What I can't stand is how some people think their opinion is someone more important than mine. Did our soldiers fight harder for one opinion or another? NO, unless you consider that opinion to be democracy and free speech which covers all other opinions on either side of ANY issue. We ALL have a right to that and should not be demonized, criticized or ostracized for voicing it!!

Even though I'm not overly excited about either candidate, I will go to the polls tomorrow and vote for Sen. John McCain. I do not agree with everything he says, but the other option makes me cringe at the thought of this country heading toward a more socialistic form of government...dare I say communistic in some ways based on my understanding of Obama's ideas.

I think we need to take a good hard look at our constitution and decide to actually live by it. I don't believe we need bigger government; we need bigger people who take responsibility for their place in this world and for their families and who rely less on what the government can "do for them."

Hmmm maybe I'll write in Ron Paul; nah, that'd just be like voting covertly for Obama.