Days of Duck Ponds and Bubbles

Spring has hit with all its glory, and we’re spending time outside more and more frequently.  Alex has taken to bringing my shoes to me and attempting to mash them onto my feet.  It’s his way of saying he wants to go out.  I’m loving our little town in Oklahoma for its outdoor beauty and opportunities.  We walk the Pathfinder, a trail that goes through town.  We visit the duck pond to feed the ducks and geese.  We spend time in our backyard and the field beyond.

I have days that being the mom of a toddler wears me out.  It’s easy to feel inadequate.  My child was born to older parents, and he has a mother with chronic migraine and an autoimmune disorder.  To say that I’m tired is an understatement.  And often I have the doubts that plague modern mothers: Am I teaching him enough?  Is he properly stimulated?  Is he doing what other kids his age are doing?  Why doesn’t he have more teeth?!  (That last one might be unique to me.)

But somehow, when we’re outdoors, I’m unaware of these concerns.  Instead, I’m entranced watching my child experience the world around him.  Seeing his delight as he tosses bread, and ducks swim up to eat it.  Blowing bubbles for him to chase, as he giggles with the sheer joy of it.  Tossing maple seeds so he can see them twirling back down to the ground, then watching him try to make them spin, too.

He is busy, always busy.  He grabs his bucket, which I’ve conveniently taught him to fill with weeds, and he wanders the yard, picking dandelions to place inside.  Sometimes he brings them directly to me, grinning with the praise  he receives for picking the little yellow flowers.  He finds sticks and wanders the yard, waving them about, as if conducting a symphony that only he can hear.  He bobs his head a little, then his whole body follows, as he dances spontaneously to the music in his head.

This is the stuff of childhood.  These are the days that will be seared in my mind to become precious memories in the future.  Because I know that someday, the world will cease to be new to him.  It won’t be a big deal to see a duck eat a piece of bread.  Bubbles will not be worthy of chasing.  And he may stop noticing the seeds and sticks and dandelions all around him.  But I hope the music he hears, the song in his heart, will never truly change, and he’ll still want to dance for the sheer joy of it.

DIY Mother’s Day Corsage

We always give my MIL a corsage for Mother’s Day.  We could do that inexpensively when we lived in Texas, as we’d just pick one out at the store and drive it over to her house.  Last year we were in Oklahoma for Mother’s Day, and we learned how unbelievably expensive it is to have a corsage made and delivered.  Ouch!  My husband works for a non-profit Christian organization here.  He took a very large paycut to work for this ministry we’re passionate about, and that means we really have had to cut expenses.  I started looking online for an alternative to having flowers delivered.

I first googled “DIY Mother’s Day corsage,” but that kept leading me to a felt flower corsage.  While lovely, I had no desire to cut little pieces of felt and sew or glue them together.  What’s more, I wasn’t sure MIL would care for that as much as something more realistic.  So I changed my search to “DIY corsage” and found this.  Looked easy enough, so I headed to Hobby Lobby to buy the supplies.

FYI, if you didn’t know, they sell realistic-looking flowers.  They’re even labeled as such and have minor imperfections like a real flower, as well as a realistic feel.  I bought all my flowers on a 50%-off sale, bought the wire and floral tape at Dollar Tree, and used a 40%-off coupon for corsage pins, so that brought the total cost to around $11.

Not only did the tutorial make it look easy, it really was easy!  I put a corsage together in under 10 minutes.  As a mama who can only get things done during her busy toddler’s nap, this was wonderful!  The corsage turned out beautifully, and when Steven hand-delivered it to his mom last night (he’s in Dallas on business), she didn’t even know it wasn’t real until he told her!  I’d call that a definite win.

(I did spend a little beyond the cost of corsage supplies to buy a box and some yellow ribbon for packaging, but it was only about $3 more, again with a coupon.)

I See the Moon

I see the moon
And the moon sees me
God bless the moon
And God bless me

That little rhyme is from one of Alex’s little nursery rhyme books.  I think of it every time I have a moment outdoors at night when the moon is visible.

There’s a comic strip called Rose Is Rose, which I used to read in The Dallas Morning News every day.  It’s about Rose’s life with her little family of a husband, son, and cat.  Every once in a while, the husband, Jimbo, goes outside at night and has what he calls his “garbage moment.”  He gets quite upset if anyone or anything disturbs his garbage moment, which is when he takes out the trash.  I never understood that.

Then we moved here.

Steven usually takes the trash out to the bin for me, but sometimes, it falls on me.  Because we can actually see stars here, unlike in Dallas where you can only see three stars on a clear night, I find myself standing at the garbage can, looking up in awe.  Especially when it’s a clear, crisp night with a bit of a chill in the air and the neighborhood is quiet.  Wow.  Just wow.

My garbage moment.  I get it.  Finally.  And as I stand there, just taking in the sight of stars lighting up the sky like glitter, I find myself wishing that for just a moment, the world would go dark so I can see the sky as God meant for it to be seen.

It’s Been a Year

I realized last week that our one-year anniversary of our move from Texas to Oklahoma had passed.  Reflecting on the past year, I came to the realization that I like it here.  It took me a very long time to reach that point, but here it is.  Oklahoma is pretty great.  I thought it would be nice to make a list of what I like about living here:

• My husband works 2 miles from home and doesn’t have to drive in traffic like he did in Dallas.
• Steven often comes home for lunch.  It’s always nice for Alex and me to have lunch with him.  Or, we can all go out to lunch without having to drive a long distance to meet up.
• We live in a fabulous neighborhood.  We’re on a quiet cul-de-sac where Alex can eventually learn to ride a bike, our neighbors are all friendly and helpful, and we share a fence with folks who have become good friends and even have a kid the same age as Alex.
• We’ve made some really nice friends through church and Steven’s work.
• We love our house and backyard.  The house has everything I wanted in a home, and the backyard is large with lots of room for Alex to play.
• The vet costs a lot less here.  (But for the record, while our new vet is very nice, I really miss my old vet in Texas!)
• Shopping isn’t the main source of entertainment here.  One problem I always had with Dallas is that shopping was the favorite pastime of many people.  Materialism was rampant.  I don’t want my kid growing up thinking his self-worth comes from the brand of clothes he wears or the cars his family drives.  (Materialism exists everywhere, but it doesn’t seem quite so prevalent here.)
• Steven gets to work for an organization that has been near-and-dear to our hearts for years.  He loves using his technical skills for Kingdom work instead of advertising for soulless corporations.
• My backyard has loads of birds, squirrels, and bunnies, and even turtles!  I love animals!  It’s a hoot to watch Ninja Cat get into hunter mode while watching from the window.
• There are lots of little boys Alex’s age in the nursery at church.  I love that he’ll grow up in a church with lots of kids his age.  (While we adored our church in Texas, the only other kid in the nursery with him was a little girl who was 6 months younger.)
• And then there are the amazing sunsets we see most nights:

That’s not to say that there aren’t things I miss about Texas.  There are.  A lot of things, actually, but I’m at the point now where I can’t focus any longer on the deficiencies of life here.  Life is good.

Crafty Pursuits

Once upon a time, I made things.  These days, I rarely make anything except dinner.  But over the last few months, I’ve crafted a very small number of things.

I found some spare floor tiles in the shed after we moved in last spring.  I decided to use one to make a chalkboard for my sister for her birthday.  Her birthday is in October, so obviously, I made this a while back.  (When I say I rarely make anything anymore, I’m not kidding!  I have to collect it all here in one post, and there’s not much to show.)

I liked how it turned out, so I made one for myself, too.  I used a Gorilla brand epoxy on the back to attach a wall hanger.  It looked fabulous hanging on my wall… for about a day.  The glue wasn’t strong enough, apparently, and I came home to a shattered chalkboard tile on my kitchen floor.  *sigh*  I didn’t even get a picture of mine, which was made on a green tile.

Moving on…  My niece, also with an October birthday, received a Junque Journal that I put together.  I watched videos on YouTube of how to make one.  It looked fun.  And easy.  Turns out, it was neither.  It was tedious to cut all that paper (and oh my word!  what a lot of paper!) and glue it in.  But ultimately, I really did like how it turned out.  I even used my distress stains on some white seam binding to create different-colored ribbons to use on it.  Good thing my niece is worth it!

 

And more recently, I put together Alex’s shoes from his first year and displayed them in a shadow box.  I whited out his name for privacy’s sake, but the bit of white paper in the center says, “Alex’s Full Name: The First Year.”  I love seeing the progression of sizes and that you can see when he started to crawl because the bigger shoes are all scuffed up.  I have no problem giving away his outgrown clothes, but there’s something about his darling little shoes that I have a terrible time parting with…

 

Organized Meals

I’ve recently made my life a bajillion times easier.  I’ve been loosely meal-planning for a while now, but I’ve reached that point in life where things really can’t be kept inside my head if I want to actually remember them.  Writing things down is key.  No longer can I rely on my memory to know that I wanted to cook a certain meal on a certain night.  My toddler is sucking my energy and my brain cells, apparently.

I went to Staples and purchased a Martha Stewart weekly planner that I can keep on the fridge.  It’s one of those sticky, yet not sticky things that easily peels off while leaving no residue.  I think it was a mere $5-6, and let me just say that it was money well spent!  I now spend a little time on Sundays planning out what meals I’m going to make, then I write them down on the fridge.

This has the added benefit of keeping me unstressed right now when it comes to cooking, as Alex is currently on a dairy-free elimination diet.  Everything on my planner is made without any milk products.  It’s a bit daunting to realize I can’t use butter or milk or cheese in any of my recipes, but it’s making a huge difference for me to have the whole week’s meals planned out in advance, as I can’t just run to any old, easy stand-bys, as cheese or butter often factor in.

I’m kind of in love with this thing.

And just because I love me some organization, here’s my spice cabinet.  Yes, all the glass jars are alphabetized.  It’s kind of sick that this makes me so happy.

Answered Prayer

Tuesday evening, I started noticing that our wild Ninja Cat was acting… mellow.  Too mellow.  Doogie was yelling for attention as soon as we put the baby down for the night, as is his nightly habit.  Usually both cats pile on either me or Steven the moment we sit down.  But Tuesday night, only Doogie wanted attention from his people.  I watched as Ninja, who’d been sleeping all afternoon, just burrowed under a quilt and curled into a ball.

The next day, things were worse.  He didn’t eat all of his “treat food,” which is what we call the Wellness wet food he gets to have each morning.  He lives for his treat food, so this was worrisome.  He slept all day.  I was trying to figure out if he was just cold and tired, or if he really needed to see the vet.  Then he got up.  He was limping.  Something was very wrong.  I made a vet appointment for him for the next afternoon and prayed for him.

Things were no different on Thursday.  His 4pm vet appointment couldn’t come soon enough.  The vet couldn’t feel any abscesses that would cause a limp, nor did Ninja cry out on examination of his leg, which would indicate an injury.  He had a fever and slight anemia, but nothing really jumped out to give a definitive diagnosis.  The vet even went so far as to ask where I got him, and when I gave the name of the rescue in Texas, he asked if they’d tested him for Feline Leukemia.  *gulp*  I started to panic, thinking he was saying my cat had that.  He was quick to reassure me that he hadn’t tested for it; he just needed to rule that out.  Because I didn’t know for sure without Ninja’s adoption paperwork in front of me, he went ahead and tested for it.  Negative!  Whew!

He decided to treat Ninja for a bacterial infection.   Goodness knows, this cat has had his share of them in his almost 3 years of life.  He gave sweet Ninja a shot and sent him home with another set of antibiotics.

The next day, I saw no improvement.  I was starting to freak out, thinking my cat had cancer or some other awful thing.  I cried over Ninja and pleaded with God to heal him.  He’s young.  He’s supposed to grow up with Alex.  He’s the only cat who tolerates Alex and willingly hangs out with him!  I need this cat.

But then, Friday evening, he perked up.  Woke up from his sleep.  Ate some cat food.  And stretched up to Steven and meowed during dinner, asking for food (which we never share, but he always hopes).  This was normal.  As we settled in for a movie that evening, Ninja sat with us.  Still resting, but wanting to be with his people.

Saturday morning, I woke up to a cat pouncing on me.  Over and over.  It was Ninja.  He screamed and ran for his treat food, which is his normal morning routine.  (Because if he doesn’t yell, repeatedly, we might forget to feed him, you know.)  And from that point on, he was better.  The limp is nearly gone.  He can run again.  He hangs out with the family, baby included.  He still can’t jump the baby gates and now has to meow to be let into the kitchen for his food, but he’s a billion times better than he was before.  Thank you, Lord, the Great Physician, the God of the universe, who cares even for a little Texan cat living in Oklahoma.

Our church here has a time where you can light a candle to put at the front to represent answered prayer.  We lit a candle for our beautiful Ninja this morning.