A Life Too Short

The reality of the situation hasn't quite sunk in as I just got the phone call from my mom saying my cousin Abby's husband Derek drowned in a local lake back home today. Abby is one of the 3 cousin's married this year I wrote about in a previous blog. She was the first one of the three married back in April. Her wedding was the first major family event after our grandpa died. She babysat the girls when I returned home to attend the funeral of a great aunt in May or June. My grandma is so upset she can't even call my aunt and talk to her at this point. Last weekend he sat just 2 seats away from me at the reception of the next married cousin. Those newlyweds had joined Abby and Derek at the lake today. Married 4 short months and your husband gone. I can't even imagine, don't want to imagine.

Free Birth Control

Seriously, if you are on the fence as to whether or not you are ready to have kids, I invite you to come over. My kids will help you decide. My apologies to our friends and newlyweds Seth and Jenn. Now they didn't stop by to make any future family decisions, but luckily for them they couldn't stay long before they had to move on. So much for a quick but nice visit to catch up. Shelby had to get all nuts and have a fit. I thought she wanted to go out front so she could see other kids so I said no. She finally came back and said she wanted to go out there so she could show Seth and Jenn how fast she could ride her bike. So, we went out. But the bike demonstration quickly came to an end when she saw the neighbor boys and she started messing around. They like to play Peter Pan. He is Peter and she is Wendy. Well graceful Wendy tripped over her own foot and scrapped her knee on the cement. The reaction was one of someone who perhaps jumped off the roof. 45 minutes later as I type this, things are better but every now and then I still her a painful OUCH. And when dad gets home soon, I am predicting another meltdown. So S&J, hopefully our next visit will be a little more pleasant.

Morgan Metzger or Morgan Pickles??

Not long ago Morgan decided she really liked Bread and Butter pickles. I had bought a small jar of "snackers" - the ones that are cut in small circles. After she had eaten a bunch of them Nate asked her if her name was Pickles? She would say, "No, I Morgan". She thought it was OK if we called her Morgan Pickles and not just pickles. This has been going on for several weeks now. We have also been working on getting her to say Morgan Metzger. So last night as she was heading off to bed, Nate asked her what her name was. She said "Morgan". He said, "Morgan what"? She replied, "Morgan Metzger". I was impressed because that was the first time she had said it without you telling her to. That wasn't the answer daddy was looking for so he asked her, "What is your other name"? She said, "Morgan Pickles".

Find Me..... If You Can!

When Nate comes home at night, the girls play hide and seek with him. As soon as they hear the garage door they take off running and hide. Usually in the same place, under the dining room table. He plays along by taking some time to find them and looking in places he knows they are not hiding in. And they always start giggling and give themselves away. Tonight when daddy got home, the girls had just gotten out of the tub and I am working on preparing Morgan for bed. Shelby takes off running to hide. I really did not pay attention to where she went. Nate does his thing and starts out looking in the usual places. She is not hiding in any of them. He looked all over. I looked all over. Seriously, we looked for about 10 minutes. There was no giggling. We were starting to get concerned. If it wasn't for the fact the door was locked and I would have heard her go out, we were beginning to think she went out the front door. Finally I hear a cupboard door close and I said, "Shelby is that you?". Out she comes laughing and so proud of herself. She had hid under the bathroom sink! We checked that bathroom 2 or 3 times. She was mad after her dad turned the light out and disappointed he didn't check in there again because she wanted to scare him! So parents, if you can't find your kids anywhere, don't forget to check under the sink!

I Do, I Do, I Did, I Do

The girls and I returned yesterday from a trip to Wisconsin for yet another wedding. I had 3 cousins getting married this year and one who had a reception to celebrate the private wedding she had last year. Two of those cousins are from the same family. They also had a sibling graduate from high school in May. Scary thing for me the graduate was the ring bearer in our wedding! Busy year for Aunt Christy's family to say the least. When my grandpa died in January, his obituary listed 12 children, 48 grandchildren and 32 great-grandchildren. I believe the # of grandchildren is complete but I think it will be amazing to see the # of great-grandchildren when all is said and done. The youngest grandchildren are in second or third grade so it will be a long time before they start having kids. So one more wedding in October and that should be it for this year.

Still Here......

I'm still here. I don't have much to say but just wanted to check in. I have been busy replacing the entertainment center in our living room. I got tired of looking at the eye sore the old one had become. We got it for a wedding gift 12 years ago and it was falling apart. Not only that, but it really seemed like the focal point of the room and I didn't like that. Because of the room's dynamics, I wasn't able to do exactly as I wanted but am satisfied with the end result. One of my goals was to open up the window that sits behind the TV. Up until about 4 months ago when I replaced the curtains, you would hardly know the window was back there and it has a small window ledge. It is our only window with any detail. Speaking of windows, we are getting new ones! Our old ones are so bad I can't wait to have windows I can actually open and turn off the air on these cooler days. Only problem is I have to wait until around October to get them. You know you're getting old when...... you get excited about new windows!

Team Work Equals Double Trouble

I have just returned to the computer where I had been making some changes to this blog. I had to take a break to correct a bedtime situation. While sitting on the couch watching the Cardinal game and messing with the blog I think I hear a little extra chatter coming from the monitor that is in Morgan's room. I put Morgan to bed and she has always been 100 times easier to get to bed than Shelby ever was or still is for that matter. She may fuss or even cry some nights but she always settles down quickly. Lately she has been more whiny and says she will miss me or complains that her room is too dark. I went upstairs to find exactly what I thought - Shelby sitting in Morgan's chair reading Morgan stories while she is standing in the corner of her crib. Shelby's explanation was "She was crying!". So what! is what I had to say. It would be nice to think Shelby was genuinely concerned for her crying sister but it was just another way to put off going to bed for that night owl!

Temporary Fairy

This morning Shelby came downstairs as Alice the Temporary Fairy. But she is not Alice she is just Shelby. I have plans to write about her being "Just Shelby" some day. That is her response to you whenever you call her something. She says, "No, I'm just Shelby". She made me the duchess and plans to make her dad a horse when he gets home. These are things Alice does in the book Alice the Fairy. Cute book. Thanks aunt Jill for introducing it to our family.

Mommy Morgan

Morgan has done a few things lately that just shows how much she is growing up. On Saturday she was helping me make pancakes. While measuring out the powder I was counting as we dumped. After I said 7 she continued with 8, 9, 10! I was shocked. And just a little bit ago before nap time she was playing with her baby doll. I thought she was spending a lot of time in the bathroom. She came out and said, "baby needs changed". She had the clothes off her doll and had her laying on the living room floor (that is where Morgan gets changed). She has a toy doll jar for Baby Creme and she is taking creme out and putting it on the baby's butt! That is what she was doing in the bathroom for so long. She was taking some of her skin creme and putting it in that jar. Now if she would just show some more smarts at pooping on the potty instead of hiding behind the chair in the toy room!

Dreams Do Come True

Today we attended the wedding of our former babysitter Jenn and our friend Seth. Seth played Jr. High baseball for Nate in his first years at Gridley. After leaving Gridley we lost contact with Seth until the winter Shelby was a baby. He came by to plan an internship with Nate's summer team. Jenn and Seth grew up in Gridley and attended the same church all their lives. So we did not introduce them or anything but they did attend the girls' baby dedications and birthday parties together. I dream pretty much every night. About 2 years ago I dreamt Jenn and Seth got married. I never told Seth about the dream but did tell Jenn. In fact I think it came up a couple of different times. In both conversations Jenn would laugh and say "That won't happen!" Well, on April Fools Day this year Seth called to see if he could come by to say hi to the girls. When he showed up he had Jenn with him and they were holding hands. Jenn asked Shelby if it was OK if she married Seth! At first we were convinced it was all an April Fools joke. But today their wedding proved it was no joke and Dreams Do Come True! At least mine and I guess Seth's too. For a wedding gift we got them a picture frame and had it engraved Dreams Do Come True. Congratulations Seth and Jenn!

More Comments from the Peanut Gallery

I forgot to add in a previous post one of Shelby's comments. The same day she asked the gal in The Limited if she was a boy or girl, she responded to a sales lady in another store who asked how they were doing with "Not good. My mom doesn't love me". Thankfully she was too busy to hear that answer. That has been one of her latest things. If you are giving Morgan too much attention she will walk off with her head down and a sad look and say "You love her more than me". Or if you punish her or won't let her do something she will say, "You don't love me".

Also, what I didn't mention about the gal in The Limited is she is African American. What I feared she was going to ask that day was "Why are you that color?" I am afraid the day will come when that dreaded question comes out! Thankfully she doesn't recognize that difference yet and hopefully she never will. I thought perhaps these words from a favorite book called God Loves You has helped: You can be dark or you can be light. You can be shades of the day or the night. Whatever your color, it suits you just right. God loves you just as you are. Something else that will help my kids learn to overlook the differences of others is the cousins they will soon have from Ethiopia who are being adopted by my brother and his wife. Soon our family pictures will show shades of the day and the night and they will already know God loves us just as we are!