5 years

Robert C. Dodds - The goal in marriage is not to think alike, but to think together.

I think we’re doing ok at 5 years of marriage and a little over 6 years together. There’s always room for growth, and improving on oneself and as a couple. In 5 years, we’ve faced our share of what others may define as adversity.

In a little over 6 years of togetherness total – we’ve had a lot to think about ‘together’ as Dodds says in his quote above. On Jonathon’s birthday, the same year we met and began our relationship – my dad had quadruple bypass. Jonathon held my hand, and showed me understanding though a tough time, right from the very start. Not too long after that, Jonathon was in a pretty nasty car accident and managed to be ok with little injury. Then we were onto a nasty, emotional battle for custody of Jonathon's son, which ended in our favor and honestly, for the best – literally a miracle (for any father to get custody – IS a miracle now that we’re aware of the ‘justice’ system first hand) - at marriage I became a mom! January of 2005 Jonathon goes for a check up because he’s short of breath helping a friend move, and is ordered to do a stress test, at which he has a heart attack – we find ourselves at 2pm that afternoon making a decision together for major heart surgery. Life for us, changes… 5 months later, a total surprise and blessing, we’re pregnant! My pregnancy, while high-risk, was a pure joy, and ended with a quick visit to the O.R. after 20+ hours of trying to get the baby here the ‘regular’ way, our son was stubborn and not at all positioned right! There have been 2 deaths of grandparents on Jonathon’s side of the family. My step-mother loses a long, hard, and courageous battle to cancer. And then, my brother passes away unexpectedly this year.

It may seem to others looking in that we’ve really had our emotional fill. I can say, first hand – that for each of the struggles, have come equal blessings. We have two healthy, happy kids. We learned early on in our marriage, that you hold close to you those that you love; and we should take no day for granted. We have our health, and we’re more conscious of our daily habits because of what’s happened in our lives, and in the lives of those we love. We have each other, and we’ve stuck by each other during our ‘better or worse’ moments thus far. It would seem that we can face anything! We sure try!!

On our wedding announcements, on a whim – I chose a old verse as the quote. It couldn’t be more fitting for our lives.

Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be… ~Robert Browning

What's in a word?

There are a few blogs that I follow weekly, this was posted recently and it caught my attention. I’ve always thought that words like this can become overused, and lose their meanings to a degree. Each person has their own feelings on what sacrifice is – this blogger really put this into perspective in a unique way and made me think. I thought I’d post it, more just to revisit the word and it’s said/understood meaning. For me personally, the blogger really achieved his/her intent – in making me consider the word’s meaning and value for what it means to me.

BEGIN POST:
This is another one of those words that is used so commonly, I sometimes think that what a sacrifice is may be lost to an extent.

From a dictionary, you will basically get this:
1) The giving up of something for the sake of something else having a higher claim.
2) Loss incurred for selling something for less than it's value.
3) To surrender or give up , or permit injury for the sake of something else.

This does define the very basics, but when something becomes sacrificial, it has fuzzy edges and a whole lot of opinions.

When we decide to have children and give until it bleeds, is it a sacrifice? When does child care and raising become a sacrifice? (or does it at all?) If only one of the couple wants children and the other doesn't at all, does the latter sacrifice a good part of their life?

When does care of another become a sacrifice? I know several people who have virtually given up what anyone would call a normal life for another. If you ask them they will tell you they wouldn't have it any other way out of their love for the person. Would that still be a sacrifice? There are points where this does become sacrificial, right?

For those who are not wealthy, but still give heavily economically, is that a sacrifice? Or is it only sacrificial when it takes something from the family? Or is it even then if all are in agreement?

If I join the military, wanting to risk my life for my country and am killed or wounded, is it a sacrifice? Or did my family sacrifice instead, or did both?

If someone or some thing has a higher claim than I and I give, am I sacrificing?

How do you define a true sacrifice? Is it when you don't want to but do anyway? Is it when you do want to but it takes too much? I know there are thousands of situations and examples, but when does anything become true sacrifice?
END POST

Fall is finally here!

With the official beginning of fall recently, and this weird weather pattern - I am waiting patiently on the cooler days, fall colors, etc. I was looking through some pictures from last year this time, and found this beautiful shot of the leaves changing in our neighboorhood entry. I'm so glad that October is here!!! I love this time of year, fall leaves (beginning to change a bit now), more comfortable temperatures, holidays just around the corner. This month we’ll celebrate 4 family birthdays, in order: Hannah (10/4), Ezra and Denise (10/8), Jonathon (10/31). We will celebrate our 5th year anniversary 10/4, and then the fun of decorations, costumes, and candy on Halloween! It’s one of my favorite times of the year!!

This year we’re going to a few festivals for October, there’s a special Hallow-Fest at Carowinds and I think we’re going to go in the next 2 weekends. Ezra’s school is doing a FunFest next weekend as well, so we’ll pop in to participate in the fund raising there too. Happy Fall to everyone!

Having a ball!

I was in KB Toys looking for a birthday gift for Ezra, a specific one, and found myself looking at this ballpit. We bought Ezra one when he was about 2.5 years old and he adored it. This was on sale for 12.99 and I thought, ok, that’s not bad (it came with the balls also)! I have officially realized that 5 years ago it was MUCH easier to get IN the ballpit… But, you do what you have to do for your kids, so Jesse wants me in there – he gets me in there, out of shape and all!!!

Jesse and Ezra get in there and have fun making the balls pop up like popcorn. The primary colored balls are great, it is helping Jesse learn his colors!!

Keeping Busy!

This morning while I was making muffins, Jesse (my 20 month old) was curious. I love the age he’s at! He wants to be so helpful and learn everything I do around the house… I decided to give him his own muffin pan, a mixing bowl with ‘ingredients’ (plastic balls from his ball pit) a plastic spoon, etc. He played with this for a bit – and then eventually moved into the room where the ball pit was to get more ‘ingredients’. He sat and played muffin maker for a half hour.

Lesson of the day - you CAN entertain without TV, all while managing to get things done!

Road trip

Off we go to Wilson, NC today! Jonathon and Ezra stayed home, relaxing and enjoying some guy time and went out to eat with Mimi and Papaw (why do I always miss out on dining out?) As planned, Jesse and I go to Wilson to visit Haleigh (Mike’s daughter) and Renee (Mike’s fiancé). Nicholas (Mike’s son) couldn’t hang out today, he had band competition. I will see him on the next trip up in about 3 weeks. I’ve made a personal commitment to visit each month at least once.

Haleigh and I played ‘Mrs Mary Mack’ and M.A.S.H. – a lot. Things are much different with a girl (I have all boys, remember?). Haleigh is such a deep thinker, and is far more logical then I would have thought. She’s truly unique! I think maybe I shocked her by knowing what Mrs Mary Mack was, and how to play M.A.S.H. We had a great visit! Made it back home by 830pm, and Jesse was wide open for about 30 min when we got in - he missed daddy and brother!

Oh no!

Word of the day = ‘Oh No!’. Jesse has a new word combination!! I’m sure he’s been working on it anyway – I just helped it along this morning. I was coming around the corner of our bar, where I had placed Ezra’s book bag propped on the floor at the corner. Evidentially the bag slipped, and I stepped on it, lost my footing and landed 100% on my right knee. I was speechless it hurt so badly (still hurts badly). Jesse was in my arms, and landed safely on top of my leg, on top of my knee! I set him beside me on the floor and I said ‘oh no! Mommy fell’, right then he started repeating ‘oh no!’

Note to self – watch what you say, toddler is repeating things now…

All better now!

Update on the sick – they’re better for the most part! Jonathon’s only lasted about 48 hours, and Jesse is left with only a random cough. We're still giving Jesse some meds for his cold that the pediatrician suggested, otherwise he's great! As for myself and Ezra - no colds for us!

Talking Hands.

Signs Signs Signs! Since about 6 months old, we've randomly incorporated sign language into Jesse’s routine learning and play. He’s mastered several ASL signs so far, with ‘help’ and ‘shoes’ being his latest additions. We don’t do signs all day long, just play and learn type teaching. He’s adapting to them quickly, it seems that he’s really in a developmental growth spurt. So far he has learned to sign milk, drink, eat, cat, dog, bird, duck, car, shoes, airplane, help, more, and book. Out of those he can SAY (in order and spelled how he says them) mil, dink, eat, cat, daoo, high pitch b sound for bird, duck, sees(shoes),aapane, no word for help, sometimes he says eat for whatever he's confused about, and booooo for book. He also says go, there (dare), bye-bye, dada, mama, Ezra, outside, bear, car.. I’m sure there’s some I’m leaving out, but that’s the most common words so far… We’re working with him on pronouncing the ending consonants – those seem to be missing on most words unless they end in ‘t’. He’s good at‘t’! Ezra does signs along with Jesse at random, and this seems to encourage Jesse even more. Both boys gab with one another each morning and afternoon in the car on the way to and from school. It's funny, because Ezra is so analytical most of the time, yet with Jesse's baby gab he seems to figure it out and just go along with it talking with correct grammar to Jesse as if Jesse will talk right back with it! Little does Ezra know, he's teaching him just by talking to him!

It's all Elementary.

With the new school year, brings a new school! It's 16 miles away - which seems close, but it takes 40 min to get there through city traffic. Even with that, we love the new school, it’s a very small school in the center of a well established community in the South part of the city – most of the homes look to have been there for 20+ years, and the school is very ‘family’ oriented. The man that stands outside and directs carpool traffic LITERALLY knows each kids name. He impressed me with this on the 3rd day of school. Each kid dropped off (I see about 50+ cars daily while I’m there alone) he speaks to, and says their name!

Ezra’s IB class (International Baccalaureate) is learning about Electricity and Magnetism for this part of the quarter. The class is teaching him about how electrically charged particles attract or repel each other, how electrical energy can be converted into ‘power’ heat, light, motion. He’s also learning about magnetism, where he will continue to work in small groups in the IB class to create a compass and other magnet driven items. They’re also focusing on how energy/electricity affects our present lives and comparing to how life was without electricity. I don’t recall ‘changing classes’ in 4th grade, but they do at his school. He leaves his homeroom class for the IB classes – the school is a prospective IB school, so they’re really pushing IB profiles (understanding behavior and character and personality type are part of the profiles) and learning. He’s in a rather large class for this (20+ students) and seems to really love learning about this so far! He tells me all about lightening and how it works!

He is also learning simple algebra this year, along with Spanish. We didn’t have Spanish in 4th grade!! He’s adapting to it quickly and is above grade level on all areas of his academics except for penmanship. We’re going to start some small creative writing exercises at home to bring that to where it needs to be. He just went through some very aggressive testing to see where he stands with his IEP needs, the testing pushes the student to attempt all subjects beginning with lower then grade level problems, and then advancing to upper grade level. Ezra did well, and didn’t become frustrated with the testing.

We also found out this week that with Ezra’s tested reading level, he will be assigned again this year to a community helper job! He will help K5 and 1st graders and their reading. This is something he did last year as well – a few AR students each year who are willing, are assigned to a buddy to help them learn to read. This gives them about 20-30 min of the day to go into either the library or in that students reading group, and sit and tutor them with areas they struggle in. I love this – and it really helps his self-esteem! He enjoys helping others understand and sharing his knowledge. I'll post some more as we move along with school; there's so much going on this year with 4th grade, and so far, we're absolutely impressed with this school !!