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My much-loved Arkansas Razorbacks are up for the "Most Dominant College Mascot" Award at CBS Sportsline.com. If you head over here, you can vote for them. Surely, y'all, we should get some credit for managing to cheer for a pig with a straight face. Vote for us, pretty please?
There's a new review up at my product review site; at the end there's a chance to win one of FIVE free DVDs--go check it out!
This afternoon my kids were outside playing war games with the neighborhood posse of children. My six-year-old son ran breathlessly inside and grabbed a drink of water.
"What are y'all doing out there?" I asked him, as he started to dash back out.
"Defeating England," he said.
Oh.
Next Wednesday, June 6, is Works-For-Me Wednesday: The Mom-I'm-Bored Edition. Have any clever ideas to help kids beat the summertime doldrums? Please, share with all of us!
I have a date tonight with a blond-haired, brown-eyed cutie with a great laugh and an obsession with Anakin Skywalker.
It's my eight-(and-a-half!)-year-old son, Stephen.
Inspired by a similar tradition in my family growing up, we do a little half-birthday celebration in the Dryer house. On each of the kids' half birthdays, they get to go on a real live "date" with the opposite gender parent. I take the boys, and Hubs will take Corrie, when she's a little older.
In our noisy, busy family, it's so special to set aside an evening like this, where the half-birthday-boy (or girl!) gets to choose the restaurant/movie/etc for an entire evening, with one-on-one time with a parent.
So tonight Stephen and I are eating at a local restaurant that throws (actually throws!) the dinner rolls at you. Thankfully, Stephen's a better catcher than I am. Afterwards, we'll be yo-ho-ho-ing with Captain Jack Sparrow at the new Pirates of the Caribbean flick.
This fun little tradition works for all of us around here. Have a clever idea you'd like to share? Blog about it at your place and leave a link below. WFMW guidelines can be found here.
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If you have never managed, as an adult, to be in the school building with your kids when the final bell of the whole year sounds, you must. I did it, on Friday, and the whoop that erupted from every corner of that school was the sound of pure joy. I was tempted to sprint down the halls with them.
They're home! For the whole summer! I'm excited to have them here--we have some very specific goal we want to accomplish, chief among them being no one killing his brother.
I'm kidding.
(Sort of.)
In the meantime, I plan to go easy on myself in the bloggy department this summer. A mommy-blogger must first be a mommy, and I want to enjoy my little hooligans to the fullest these next three months. My posting schedule will lighter than normal, so bear with me.
I do have a couple of fun things planned, including a Very Bloggy Event in June that should result in lots of free stuff and lots of yummy traffic for everyone involved--stay tuned for details.
So here's to beach towels and mud pies and art projects and zoo trips and movie passes and bug spray--let the summer begin!
So many of you have kindly e-mailed to ask how potty training is going. Since I'm sure my daughter will, someday, be so glad to know that I discussed her urinary habits with all the Internet, I thought I'd give you an update.
Until Saturday, we were making slow-but-steady progress. I was feeling very encouraged and was sure that, indeed, my girl was proving much easier to potty-train than any of my three boys were. Until Saturday.
Because that is when we encountered the Sinister Flush of Death. [Insert scary organ music here.]
We had gone to lunch at a restaurant with my parents, and Corrie informed me she needed to go. I was so proud of her for letting me know! We hopped up and ran to the bathroom, my mother eagerly following behind us to be the Tinkle Cheerleader.
The bathroom was completely tiled--walls and everything--so it was very loud. And the potty was one of those new-fangled automatic flushers that doesn't just flush, it darn near implodes. (And by the way, I realize that automatic flushers may not qualify as "new-fangled" where you live, but this is Oklahoma, and automatic toilets are quite sophisticated to us. Don't even get me started on the motion-detector paper towel rolls. Those things could keep me occupied all afternoon.)
Anyway, Corrie was doing her business while Mom and I cheered for her. Just as she finished, she leaned forward and, in doing so, tripped off the light sensor on the flush mechanism. With a gigantic WHOOSH! the toilet flushed beneath her. But to see Corrie's face, you would think the very gates of hell had opened and were sucking her down into a watery vortex of destruction--she screamed in horror. We made a quick exit, and I resisted the urge to complain to the manager for installing toddler torture devices in their bathroom.
I had a nasty hunch that this little episode had set us back.
I was right.
For the next 24 hours, Corrie happily chanted, "No-o-o-o-o-o potty!" when we suggested a trip to the bathroom. We managed a couple of successes, but for the most part, she was done with potties and their wickedness.
After a couple of days, thankfully, she decided to give it another go. She was greatly encouraged by Hubs, who made up a little "Potties are safe! Potties are safe!" chant. He sat in the floor of the bathroom with her and helped her flush dozens of times, until she felt assured that the toilet would not be carrying her to a watery grave.
So now, we're hanging in there. One point in our favor has been that my daughter is more motivated by chocolate than any person I ever met. Except, you know, me.
She is also highly motivated by Dora the Explorer panties. And if you don't believe me, you can just ask the little old man we passed in the grocery store last week. "I have Dowa panties," she told him, quite loudly. Poor man.
I've enlisted my older boys in the process as well. Corrie loves to please her big brothers, and they've been so good to cheer for her successes. I've promised them a special family treat when she finally "gets" it, to motivate them to help.
When I started on this motherhood journey, never could I have imagined the sweetness of watching an eight-year-old boy read Chicka-Chicka-Boom-Boom to his two-year-old little sister while she tinkled.
I think we're gonna make it.
While you're enjoying the day with your families and friends, don't forget to pause in thankfulness for the sacrifices made so that you and I are safe to flip burgers in the backyard today. We're a blessed country, indeed.
Let's especially remember, with gratitude and prayers, those who are putting their lives on the line right now.
Happy Memorial Day, everybody.
I'm Sorry Shouldn't Be the Hardest Words -- Newsweek
Adoption: the Heart of the Gospel -- Desiring God Ministry
Memes List -- Heart of Wisdom
Tie One On Rick Rack -- Angry Chicken / Flickr
New Direction For Christian Publishing? -- byFaith Online
There is nothing--no circumstance, no trouble, no testing--that can ever touch me until, first of all, it has gone past God and past Christ right through to me. If it has come that far, it has come with a great purpose, which I may not understand at the moment. But as I refuse to become panicky, as I lift up my eyes to Him and accept it as coming from the throne of God for some great purpose of blessing to my own heart, no sorrow will ever disturb me, no circumstance will cause me to fret, for I shall rest in the joy of what my Lord is--that is the rest of victory!
--Alan Redpath, former pastor of Moody Church
