We just wrapped up our first Thanksgiving meal of the week and most of us are indulging the tryptophan by lounging in the living room and
watching The Wizard of Oz. I figured
now was as good a time as any to make my re-entry into the world of blogging. So this is me, waving an enthusiastic "Hello!!!" to you through cyberspace!
The break has been good. It’s actually been nice to not feel the guilt when I’ve gone a few days without posting. And you know, I’d really like to keep that going. I need to write, that’s certain. But whether I post every day, every other day, or if it ends up being a week or so in between, I need to be ok with that. I’m going to do what I can do and I need to learn to be content with that and not feel guilty if it’s not up to par with what the standards of the rest of the blogging community.
I’m going to try to go back a bit and sometimes just write
regular old family updates, posts that originally built this blog. Well, that
and posts about how angry I was at Brett Favre for signing with the Jets. But I
refer to the Green Bay Packers with the pronoun “we” so I think that totally
counts as a family update.
Isaiah – We just
had his parent/teacher conference a couple weeks ago and he is really doing
very well in school. He is reading above his grade level and excelling in so
many areas, including math and art. He has the incredible gift of a mind that
can both compute and create. From what we can tell, he continues to be a real
ladies man who charms and befriends girls easily. This is the kid who came home
from Kindergarten with a girl’s digits No joke. Lock up your daughters,
friends.
Micah – This kid
continues to surprise us at every turn. He knows most of his letters and is
actually ahead of most of his 4K class when it comes to this. Where he
struggles in with several speech sounds and few processing situations. His
teacher works with him one-on-one quite a bit because he has a hard time
focusing and understanding instructions when he is in a group setting and she
described a situation where the kids all had a little pile that consisted of a
number of pieces of three different objects – candy corns, acorns, and
pumpkins. The students were instructed to sort them into collections of like
objects, but Micah just lines them up end to end. We have started the referral
and evaluation process so we are looking forward to seeing how some additional
services will help Micah learn more effectively.
Thomas – Thomas
is such a hoot. He has developed this very mischievous laugh that lets you know
he is either plotting world domination or preparing to poop his pants. We’ve
tried four times to potty train this kid and he is having none of it. He just
turned three at the very end of August so I know it’s not something that’s a
now or never kind of thing, but I certainly would be in favor of sooner rather
than later. His teacher is just as impressed as we are with his knowledge of
letters, numbers, and shapes and his vocabulary continues to grow every day.
Sometimes the things that come out of this kid’s mouth make us laugh and shake
our heads.
As for Evan and I, our lives have been busy but fulfilling. Evan
interviewed for a new position at work and landed it shortly after, so he is
currently filling two roles at work until someone is hired to take over his
previous position. It’s been an interesting transition for him to move from the
quality department where he has worked for the last ten years over to the
operation side of things, but I know he is going to thrive in his new position
as a project manager. I got a teeny taste of what I might be like to be a wife
of someone in upper management a couple weeks ago when Evan invited me to come
along to a business dinner when two guys were visiting from one of their plants
in China. I found a last minute babysitter and Evan taught me the names and
positions of everyone who would be there as we drove to the restaurant. I got
to put my schmoozing skills to the test around a hibachi grill and I'm fairly certain I didn't embarrass Evan too badly.
My job at the church has really been wonderful with the
exception of that one day when I took a wrong step and fell head-over-heels
down an entire flight of stairs and smacked my head on the floor upon landing
in full view of no less than a dozen people in the Chapel lobby. I tried to
play it off and save face as best I could, but when I limped my way down to my
office and found the door locked and nobody around to open it for me, I just
crumpled into a heap and cried. If I’m being honest, that day wasn’t so great.
I may or may not have jumped down my office-mate’s throat as soon as he walked
in the door because CLEARLY my misfortune was all his fault! Other than that
one day, I have nothing but great things to say about this new position. We
have really exciting things happening in the ministry as we enter the months
before the big conference; auditorium tickets sold out in only 13 minutes this
year! I’m working hard on designing the apparel collection for this year,
writing a intro-level Bible study for men to download after the conference,
filling in all the details for the program, and setting the groundwork for some
cool new projects and products for future development. It’s really a whole lot
of fun. The best part has been the incredible group of people that God has
placed in leadership that I have the privilege of working with every day.
Of course, managing all this craziness continues to be
exhausting. To be honest, I’ve had to write this very blog post in three
shifts. Shift number one came right after our Thanksgiving guests had left and
the kids were quietly settled in to their movie. I had to quit about ten
minutes in because I couldn’t keep my eyes open, so I blew it off and went to
go take a nap. Two hours later, I tried to write again, but it turns out that
those same kids needed to eat AGAIN. I mean, hadn’t we just fed them at lunch?
Am I the only one who sometimes gets legitimately surprised at the fact that my
children expect me to feed them actual meals multiple times a day, each and
every freaking day? After I had prepared them a home-cooked meal of organic
produce served with wild caught fish and they sat quietly, savoring every bite.
Whatever, so I spooned some Greek yogurt in some bowls, threw some raspberries
on top, and called it dinner. One of the three may or may not have had a bowl
of dry Kix. But here we are! Happily clicking away at the keyboard for the
third time this afternoon!
But now I’m going to have to call it because it’s getting to
be bedtime already and I can almost guarantee the kids won’t do it on their
own.
It’s good to be back.
