Jacob the (almost) Wonder Dad

I'm currently coaching 6th grade volleyball. It consists of me yelling at the girls "ARE YOU KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW? RETURN THE BALL!!!" Or another favorite, "WE CAN"T SCORE POINTS IF WE CAN'T SERVE THE BALL!" I actually really do enjoy it, and I love the girls I work with, they try hard. That being said though, I come home from games a bit frazzled. Apparently all the LACK of competitiveness I have in my personal life is channeled into coaching. I tell you ALL that to tell you this.

My loving husband decided he was going to have everything settled for me when I got home last night around eight. He did it all. He did the dishes. He made dinner. Took out the trash. Cleaned the dinner mess up and DID THE DINNER DISHES (unheard of behavior for him normally). Got the kids ready for bed and all tucked in. The man even did some laundry. I got home and all I had to do was heat up some leftovers and sit down to relax. I was impressed and relieved to not have to drag my tired butt through all the motions of the evening. He and I are just talking when I very innocently asked him about the kids soccer practice that night.

......

......

(Realization slowly dawning on us both that Jacob totally forgot to take the kids to soccer practice.)

........

"Crap. This ruins my Super Dad night doesn't it?"

And really. I was just too happy to be sitting there on my butt to care. So thanks, babe. You almost did it all.

This may be awkward later...

Keegan is stubborn. Once he makes his mind up about something it is almost impossible to convince him otherwise. For example, when Sophie had her birthday Keegan was convinced that he got older as well. To this day if you ask him how old he is he will reply "three" and there is no telling him that he is still two. He will fight you to the death about it. If you persist in telling him that he is only two he lowers his voice to a raspy growl and says "No I NOT, I THREE." It's just how is he. Stubborn.

I tell you that to tell you this. A friend asked Sophie the other day if she had a boyfriend. She said no, but then Keegan piped up "Yes, I am Sophia's boyfriend." And there is no telling him he isn't.

To Pee or Not to Pee

Well, I called it. Keegan was definitely fibbing when he said he was going to start going potty like a big boy. I'm stumped. Sophie was so easy to potty train. She woke up one day, I asked her if she wanted to try to go potty, she said yes, and then she did. I told her we were going to try to do this all the time and she was all about it. With very few accidents she was potty trained in about three days.

Keegan, once again proving that he is an independent kid who was not made to follow in Sophie's footsteps, has gone to the potty once. And I honestly think that was an accident. But I'm unswerving and steadfast in my goal. I'm armed with Diego and Elmo underwear, candy and enough people who have offered him surprises if he goes that he will eventually have a Nerf gun arsenal. And just to show him I mean business I may start only letting him have chocolate milk if he goes potty. Chocolate milk is pretty much what this kid lives for. He's addicted to it like a hooker on crack. I'm playing hard ball. The diapers have to go.

Back At It

After a summer long hiatus it's time to return to writing down the event of our lives. It was either this or finish the kids baby books, and this is way less work than that would be. Since catching up would be almost impossible, I'll just throw out a quick list of what is currently going on.

1. The kids have been sleeping in a tent in Keegan's room all week. Sophie got the tent for her fourth birthday. Holy crap, my Sophie is four. Let's move on before I think about that too much.


2. Sophie, at her tender age of four, has already mastered the guilt trip. I finally broke down and told her that Jacob and I were going on vacation without them in a few weeks and Sophie said, with tears in her eyes, "Mommy, don't you love us?" Yeah. Nice. She got over it once I told her she got to spend the night with Mamaw all week. That kid would do anything to keep from sleeping at home. She doesn't even spare my feelings about the matter. "Mom", she says quite matter of factly, "I do not want to stay with you at home. I want to stay somewhere else. I want to go to _______ house and stay." EVERY NIGHT we have this conversation. I don't think being independent will ever be a problem for little miss.


3. I am slowly.... ever so slowly.... plodding along to my weight loss goal. Actually, I already hit the one I set at New Years. (How often do you see that? An accomplished resolution.) So I set a new one, and I've lost 27 out of 30. In fact, I just gave away a ton of clothes. That feels good. Now I don't have many clothes though. That's not so good. But at least I look better while I am wearing the same clothes over and over again.

4. Keegan told me this morning that he was going to start going potty in the big boy potty. I am skeptical to say the least. The idea of life without diapers seems like too much to dream for. Besides, he also told me that his motorcycle could fly so that shows how much you can trust what he says.
5. Life is good.

Pictures

I've been getting griped at for not blogging, and it's true it's been a while. I still don't feel like it, but I'll post some pictures I've been meaning to get to.

The kids and I went to Momma Sherie and Pops house the other day. Sherie made the kids a little slip and slide to play on. She's cool like that.




I get one pedicure a year. It's my Mother's Day present. This year Sophie went with me and got her first real pedicure. She loved it!





It was also her first year for Vacation Bible School. She went to my momma's church to go. She really loved it, came home talking about her lessons and singing songs. We went to her program on Sunday and watched as she did EVERY motion and sang louder than anyone. We were so proud of her!

An Upside

The upside of Jacob working four on and two off is that he gets more one on one time with the kids. While I am at work he gets to stay home and play with them. They go everywhere together, and he often has great stories to tell me about the kids when I get home.

Sophie asked Jacob if the guys that drive the airplanes are very small because the airplanes are so tiny. Jacob about snorted his ice cream up his nose.

Keegan and Sophie both got new tackle boxes, filled with an assortment of brightly colored worms that they will no doubt lose in about a week. In the meantime they are so stinking excited about having their very own tackle box and we get asked to go fishing about every four minutes. On the way home from picking them up with Jacob Keegan was struggling to get his open. After trying and grunting and pulling, he finally resorted to singing the Open Up song from Little Einstein. "Open up, I want to get in, open, open, open, open, open open upppppppp." It didn't work, but if Jacob had ice cream with him he would have snorted it up his nose.

The kids went to spend the day with Aunt Ruth the other day. While we were getting ready to leave Sophie eyeballed a magnet on the refrigerate that was silver and said "Princess" in big pink letters. Ruth kindly gave it to Sophie who was. of course, thrilled. On the way home the kids were very quiet. Keegan was asleep, and we thought Sophie was as well until she piped up with the following question: "Mom, Dad.... will you buy me a frigerater?" It turns out she didn't want to share her magnet, thus requiring her own refrigerater for her to put her magnet on. We assured her that she could put it on ours, and she was okay with that as long as we promised that it would only hold her own stuff.

Fishing

In no particular order, because I am tired and ready to go to bed, here are the pictures from today's fishing adventure. Keegan was in a weird mood and suddenly became a big ham for the camera and I took advantage of that as much as I could. We had a great day.

There are some repeats on here but for some reason it won't let me remove them.









This is Rowdy, our fishing buddy. He belongs to the good friends who generously let us use their lake.

Just a few pictures

Sophie at her friend Sorsha's party. I could never get them to hold still long enough for a picture together. :(

This is Lindsey, the girl Sophie wants to marry one day.

The kids and my dad. He is crazy about them, and they are crazy about him.

The Going Ons

I'm having some troubles getting my camera to load pictures. I have some to put up but it's being ornery so I'll get them up when I can.

The weather here has been beautiful. The kids are playing outside every day and we have been to the park many times. Keegan is the king of the tornado slide. He runs himself ragged going up the stairs then sliding down and sprinting from the end of the slide back to the stairs again. Sophie busies herself by befriending every toddler at the park whether they want to be her friend or not. She's an insistent little thing, I'm not sure where she gets that!

We have been doing Resurrection Eggs with the kids as Easter approaches. I'm omitting some of them since they are still so small and most of it seems to be lost on Keegan, but Sophie is picking up quite a bit of it. She brought me some play coins the other day and when I asked her what we had just learned about 30 pieces of silver she told me about Judas. It was tentative and vague, but she's getting it.

We dyed eggs the other day leaving Keegan looking more than a bit colorful. His idea of getting the eggs out was to plunge his entire fist into the cup of dye. We had a lot of fun, both Keegan and my nephew Tobin toppled over their dye cups leaving some new floor coloring on my mother in laws kitchen floor. Luckily she and I are of the same mind, that it's just stuff, and she didn't even bat an eye. It's nice to have that sort of folk as family.

We haven't bought Easter clothes for the kids. Jacob doesn't see the need for it and when my only reason to buy them was so that we could take pictures of them it did seem a bit silly. A new pair of jeans would get more use, and to be truthful a new pair of sweatpants would really make the most sense. Is our society ready for Easter Sweatpants? Hmmm...

Keegan continues to tease us with his potty training efforts. He wants to go all the time. He will sit and strain and turn red in the face and nothing will happen. Until he gets his diaper back on. Then he poops. Sigh.

This weekend we are building a fence around our backyard. I am so excited to have a place where the kids can run around while I am working in the garden. It's nerve wracking to have them with me as it is since the road we live on is busy enough to be a major concern. I'm always afraid that if I take my eyes off of them for one second that I will regret it forever, which makes gardening a lot less enjoyable I'm sure you can imagine. Once it's done Jacob and I are building a raised bed for my garden this year (yay) and putting in a cheapo swing set for the kids. I am looking forward to a happy summer outside with the kids.

Poor Jacob has spent this week preparing for the fence to go in by removing my old garden. That doesn't seem so difficult until you realize that the old garden is lined in a double row of mortared brick that is buried two feet underground and two feet above ground. I think it has a brick bottom as well. I have no idea what the people that built this were thinking, or what it was originally for. We always thought it was just one line of bricks above ground, imagine our dismay when the relatively easy job of pulling up bricks turned into a substantial excavation job. "Conveniently" I pinched a nerve in my back this week. While he was a busy beaver with a sledgehammer in the yard I have been slouching around the house with an icepack and some pain killers. However, I think I would rather be out there with the hammer because this whole nerve thing is not a good time.

The kids are growing like weeds. They both are getting so tall and have stayed so skinny that finding clothes that fit them is a challenge. Watching Keegan run around lately has made me realize that truly I don't have a baby anymore, I have a little boy. I'm not sure how I feel about that and quite frankly I have avoiding thinking much about it because it makes me cry. I guess that tells me a bit of what I think about him getting bigger.

However, they are a lot of fun right now (when they are not fighting). They are both learning so much so fast, and hearing Keegan mimic Sophie is a hoot. They have conversations about things, show each other things that they have found and make each other laugh. I'm blessed that I get to be part of their little worlds.

Odds and Ends

So my mom informed me yesterday that it has been five weeks since I blogged, not that she was counting or anything. Let's catch up, shall we?

Spring is fast approaching here, the first flowers are starting to bloom and it's been warm enough for us to play outside, go for walks and just enjoy the thaw. I despise winter with an unholy passion so it's been a good time for me. The kids have been playing outside and the unexpected side effect has been a much earlier bedtime. I had forgotten how much it tuckers them out.

The officer that Jacob was filling in for at the schools returned from Iraq safely. (Thank you, Jesus.) Once he got back into the swing of things he reclaimed the schools and Jacob started third shift again. He is happy as can be, third shift truly does fit his personality. While Jacob enjoyed working with the kids at the school, he hated the hours and how slow it could be so he is happier at work now than he has been in a while. We are slowly readjusting to life with dad asleep all day, though it's hard for the kids not to yell and thump around the house.

Sophie is on a marriage kick. For a long time she wanted to marry her friend Lindsay. In fact they are so smitten with each other that they can't sit next to each other in gymnastics anymore because all they do is giggle, talk and hug and kiss each other. Jacob and I continue to explain that girls marry boys but she will have none of that. In fact when I was explaining that God made girls to marry boys she stopped me and said, "I will ask God. God, can I marry a girl?" Then she dropped her voice down as low as she could and said "Yes." She lit up like the sun, looked at me and said "God said YES! I can marry a girl!"

Through sheer tenacity Jacob and I have convinced her that she needs to marry a boy. Her suggestions were Keegan and Daddy. I told her that she couldn't marry them either, that God had already given me to Daddy and that Keegan had a wife somewhere out there, too. Her little face just fell, tears welled up in her eyes and she wailed "There is NO ONE for me to marry!!!"

Keegan is talking in complete sentences which makes him seem less and less like my baby boy. Momma calls Sophie Pete and Keegan Re-Pete because whatever she says he will repeat instantly. It's like living with a constant echo. He is by far more stubborn that Sophie was. I didn't know that was possible, but apparently it is. He is getting very interested in going potty though he still has never gone. Jacob and I are very excited at the prospect of a diaper free home! Momma bought him some Elmo big boy underwear for Christmas and now that warmer weather is here he will be running around the house in that soon in an effort to get him to go to the bathroom. If you knock and a scrawny little boy in Elmo underoos answers the door, ask him if he needs to go potty.

Spring break is coming up and I am going to try to get out and clean up the yard a bit. The kids are big enough to take out with me now and stay close so hopefully this will be easier this year than last. Sophie and I already planted some flowers in a pot to keep in a window. They bloomed last week and she was so proud. Keegan is just interested in the dirt.

In an effort to blog again soon, I am going to stop now and pick this up again later.

Keegan Laid there Like a Slug...

When Keegan gets tired he tends to flop on his face and lay in the floor whimpering like a kicked dog. This is most distressing to Sophie. A few days ago as bedtime was approaching, Keegan was doing just that... laying on the floor bemoaning his existence. Sophie was trying to get him up, pleading with him to come play. It went something like this:

Sophie: Keegan, do you want to come play with me?

Keegan: Mphhhhfff

Sophie: Keegan, do you want to watch a movie with me"

Keegan: MMMMMMFFFFFFFFFF (swats in her general direction with one stubby arm)

Sophie: (getting more determined now) Keegan, do you want to play kitchen with me?

Keegan: NNNOOOOOOOOOOOO. MMMppppfffff (another, more adamant swipe of the arm)

Sophie: Do you want to race?

Keegan: ...... Yep. (arises from the floor majestically and stumps off in his weird little run/shuffle as fast as he can)

Sophie: (looking very smug, runs after him)

I had a Christmas Flashback

Today I swear I had visions of The Christmas Story running though my heads as I watched the kids pretend to be Atticus, my mom's dog, as they were eating their breakfast. As you can imagine, this was with their hands in their laps, utensils forgotten and their faces planted squarely in their food.

Prayers with the kids

Bedtime prayers with the kids are usually very sweet and always very interesting. Keegan only wants Daddy to pray with him, and he very diligently repeats in his Keegan babble every single word that Jacob says. Jacob asks him every night what he wants to pray about and the answer is always his bear and "Desus".

Sophie only wants to pray with Mommy. I make her say her own prayer before we pray together, and the resulting talk with God is usually pretty awesome. The other day she prayed that God would give Jesus a very special hug for her. She has prayed about monsters and things that scare her. Her sweet little voice has lifted up her friends in prayer, prayed for healing for others and herself and in the next breath thank God for her butterfly sticker. But last night I was more than a little confused when she thanked Jesus for Samson and Buster and told him she wanted to be brave like them. After she got done I asked Sophie who exactly Buster was, and she said "you know, that little girl who saved the Jews." We have been reading about Esther, the little girl who saved the Jews. At least she remembered that SOMEONE saved the Jews, be it Buster or Esther.

Snow Day

And for fun just a few of the kids jumping.

Keegan's first "real" sentance

The other day on the way home from swimming with the kids Keegan piped up from the back seat, "Mommy, I spend night at Mamawland, please?"

And if you can believe it, he didn't. Mom's are tough like that sometimes.

The Crap in the Bed and other Odds and Ends

Sophie spent the night with Mamaw the other day and slept in Carly's room. As I was leaning over to tuck her in she said "Wait, we need to get the crap out of the bed..." I was getting ready to sputter out that there wasn't any crap in the bed when she finished "because last night it bit my hand off." So in Sophie-land crap = crab. Good to know.

She has thing thing about dreaming for a while now that there are things in the bed. A few weeks ago she spent the night with our friend Sherie and she woke up because "THERE IS AN ANIMAL IN THE BED!" Of course at their house it was true, their dog Cooper was in the bed. But that wasn't it... she was worried about the worms that were under the blankets. So they got up and went to lay down on the couch and Sophie wouldn't quite settle down. Finally Sherie told Sophie to go to sleep and Sophie said "Did you hear that? They are TALKING to me!!" She apparently has some vivid imagination happening.

Keegan has been busy worrying Jacob running around in dress up clothes with Sophie. Head bands, purses, barrettes, if it's girly he's got it. But he makes up for it by stomping around in said dress pretending to be a dinosaur. And leaping... have mercy the boy loves to jump. A few days ago he climbed up on the arm of the chair, which is just a bit shorter than he is, steadied himself just long enough to get his balance and then jumped as high as he could. I laughed and laughed and my mom about had a heart attack. The kid is completely fearless when it comes to that type of thing.

However, he is not that thrilled with the spray park at the YMCA. Jacob and I got a family membership at the beginning of the year so that we could lap swim, which is about the only thing I can manage because my knee is still injured. Afterwards we go get the kids from the child watch center and take them swimming. Sophie is all about it, Keegan is... not so much. He is much more reserved in the water than Sophie is. Where Keegan will jump off of anything, Sophie will do anything in the water. She's a lifeguard's nightmare.

These kids just make me laugh. Sophie told me today that when she gets older she is going to "get a job, go to the YMCA and exercise and drink grown up drinks." And Keegan is convinced that every time we sit down to eat it's time to "go poop in potty." He has NEVER pooped in the potty in his entire life. He's never done anything in the potty. But Sophie has this thing where she wants to see the bathroom in every building we go into. This means every time we go to a restaurant she immediately needs to go potty, so now Keegan does too, but he waits until the food gets there to say it. After a few weeks of this, with me taking him to the potty and him not going, now I just tell him to go in his diaper, because I am eating my food while it's hot. He seems to be okay with this, and so am I.

I bought a new digital camera with my Christmas money, so I have a few pictures to post of the kids playing in the snow. I'll do that in the next few days.

Keegan is Two Today

My little man is a year older today. To celebrate we are going to go to a local spaghetti place (his favorite food) and go see a Christmas light display. I think he will like that. We had his party on Sunday and having an epic Mom-Fail moment I got too busy and didn't take an single picture. Luckily my mom did, so you can check out her pictures here.

I've got mixed emotions about his birthday. On one hand I am sad to see my baby getting older, but on the other hand I'm glad he gets to. The lady I work with had her only grand baby die over the summer and yesterday would have been his first birthday. Watching her deal with her loss so close to Keegan's birthday puts things in perspective, but it also makes me even more emotional about it.

I thought that Sophie was going to be our strong willed child. I was right and wrong about that. She is for sure strong willed, but not nearly so much as Keegan is. He is stubborn, stubborn, stubborn. He is also much more affectionate as a rule than she is. He doesn't follow anyone's lead, he is a leader. He loves to be read to, his favorite question is "what's that" and he loves to play with anything that makes noise. And trucks. And any form of ball. He is all boy.

For example: Our friend J0sh, who is a state trooper, gave the kids a play police set a few months ago. It had the usual gambit of stuff with cuffs, badges, riot shields and a baton. Sophie pulled the baton out and said "What's this for?". Jacob and I looked at each other, eyed the kids knowingly and did the only thing we could think of. "To poke things," we lied. She immediately lost interest and dropped it. Keegan waddled over, picked it up, studied it for about .02 seconds and proceeded to beat the snot out of the bush next to him. No instructions required for him... he's a boy.

Keegan brings us so much joy. I'm glad we get to celebrate his birthday today. Hug your kids a little tighter today and be thankful you have them there to hold.

Kid Tidbits

At Thanksgiving we always go around the table and say what we are thankful for and this year was no exception. With Sophie in my lap we sat there and listened to a few of the older kids say what they were thankful for so that they could go play. Without warning Sophie suddenly piped up and said that she was thankful for her mommy and daddy, and her family, and for pie. She is for sure her father's daughter.

Keegan suddenly cares what he wears, so now the cute sweaters he used to wear so willingly have all but been shunted out of his wardrobe. His pick: sweatpants, t-shirts and a hoodie. He is for sure his father's son.

Every evening when I am praying with Sophie we pray for her one-day husband, that he is having a good life and being raised to love God and such. In the middle of our prayer the other day she stopped me, stating very emphatically that she was NOT going to marry a boy because boys are gross. Rather she is going to marry Lindsey, her new friend from gymnastics. I have yet to shake her from this idea, as evidenced tonight when Lindsay and her family came over to play and when they were leaving (and I swear to you I am not lying) she kissed Lindsey on the lips, said "I like the way your lips feel. I'm gonna marry you." I'm still not sure what to do here. Advice welcome.

Keegan is getting more and more BOY everyday. It is almost comical to see the daily one-eighty as he is sweet as can be to Sophie, right up until the point where he body slams her.

Sophie is so ready for Christmas that I had to make her a calender to mark down the days. I am just waiting to get up and find all the boxes exed out in unsteady crayon hand, as if by magic, overnight. She is just sneaky enough to give it a go.

Keegan has decided he loves the David Crowder Band. He sings "he loves us, he loves us, he loves us, he loves us, OOOOOO he loves us". Any attempt to sing along with him is immediately squelched with an intense "SHOOSH, MOMMA". The first time he did it I looked to Jacob and was like, did that just happen? Really?

Life is good here. The kids are well and we are having much fun together.

K-Man

Keegan did not get to take a nap yesterday. This means that we had to deal with kidzilla last night. It got to the point where Sophie was saying that he needed to "be in trouble, get a spanting and doe to time-out." That's pretty intense.

I checked out Keegan's development chart and according to it he should be able to jump soon. That made me laugh since he has gotten so good at jumping that he clears several steps at at time. It makes my heart just about stop, but he just laughs and climbs back up to do it again.

He is developing an incredible case of separation anxiety. He is okay once I leave, but the leaving process is horrible. Sophie never went through this so I'm a bit unsure how to deal with it. It's so bad that he won't stay in the nursery at church anymore and even throws a fit every so often leaving him with Momma. Any advice here would be welcome!

Potty Humor

My kids think that passing gas is the funniest thing ever. Even Keegan. Keegan walked up to my momma the other day doing his little laugh and saying "I fawted. I fawted, Mamaw." Yesterday Sophie cracked herself up in the kitchen while she was helping me do dishes last night. She tooted and then about fell over herself with laughter as she was saying, "Excuse me, I TOOTED. Did you hear that? Is it stinky? Is it TERRIBLE? I TOOTED. EXCUSE ME!"

I try not to laugh. I don't want my kids to develop a habit out of fart jokes, but I can't help it. Once they get to giggling it's all I can do not to bust out in hysterics myself. This Mommy business is tough stuff!