i have a bunch of recent pictures on my camera that i need to download onto the laptop. until i get around to doing that, here are a few of rowie when he was a bit younger, from my camera phone. i love looking at these. : )

there are way too many sweets in my house right now. it's girl scout cookie season - plus, i made brownies the other night, and there's a whole tupperware full of them leftover in the pantry. and i have a gallon of milk in the fridge. i'm in trooouuuuble...

in other news, tonight josh and i applied to lease that house in west garland that we love. even if we pass the credit check, another tenant might be able to beat us to the punch, because we still can't pay the deposit. but if they approve our credit, that's one step closer to getting the house.

i feel... young. and behind. i think other people our age have stable jobs, or are well on their way to establishing themselves in their desired careers. other people our age have mortgages, not leases.

i feel like i want, all the time. i want a minivan. i want a king-size bed. i want some new clothes and shoes, that fit and that i like. i want to lose weight. i want a new entertainment center. if i acquire all these things, will i just start wanting other things? does this feeling of never having enough ever go away? it makes me feel materialistic and ungrateful - two character traits i would really rather not see in myself.

micah gave me a scare last night. she had a cold and a cough, and her breathing started to be affected. her chest was retracting just the tiniest bit, and her abdomen and chest looked like rowan's did when he had epiglottitis last year. normally when you breathe, your chest rises and falls. when you're having trouble getting air in, though, with every breath the abdomen protrudes and the chest retracts in an effort to suck more air into the lungs. that's what micah was doing last night, in her sleep. she had a runny nose the past couple of days, and started coughing last night, but right before bed i really noticed her wheezing, and josh pointed out that her chest and abdomen looked funny. needless to say, this made me panic, and i sat up watching and listening to her breath for a while. this morning, she seemed fine, and i put a little dap of vic's vapo-rub in a bowl and poured hot water over it, and had her breathe in the vapors (my dad and grandfather made me do this countless times growing up; i had a little trouble with asthma as a child). immediately afterward, she coughed up and blew a ton of mucus through her nose, so i think it helped. i haven't had her do it again since this morning, because she complained about the "minty taste" in her mouth and her eyes burning from the vic's... but i'm going to have her do it again before bed tonight. i'm also going to have her sleep propped up as much as possible; this is hard because she likes to sleep on her tummy with her arms tucked underneath her body, laying flat on the bed.

rowan's nose is runny today, too. we didn't get to go to the toddler la leche league meeting this morning, which i was looking forward to, since there hasn't been a meeting since november. i also had to reschedule micah's first dental appointment. now i'm stressed out about rowan's teeth. when i took him last week because he tore his gum, the dentist said he had calcification spots on his top two front teeth, which are the beginnings of cavities. now i can see the spots myself... ugh, i just know he's going to have my dental problems, and micah got josh's perfect teeth. he never had a cavity until he was an adult, and i think half my baby teeth were capped.

here it is, my 100th blog post. : ) don't get excited, it won't be anything too interesting...

rowan can say "micah" now, but doesn't really say it to her or about her. he just says it when he feels like it. the only other things he says with regularity are "dada" and "bye-bye". he doesn't even say "mama" that often. he has this one little series of sounds he makes when he wants something, but i couldn't spell it if i tried. it's just this one phrase of babbling, and it's usually accompanied by hand gestures. i can tell he's talking, in his own language, when he does it. and i try to answer back, and figure out what he's asking for. he has this cute cautiousness about him that i find irresistible. when i offer him a bite of something i'm eating, he reaches for it, then pauses and looks up at me like, "are you sure it's okay?" sometimes he needs lots of reassurance before he'll actually try it... or take the new thing i'm handing him, or walk into the new environment, or whatever the situation is; it's not always about food. he's such a sweet boy. oh, and the piece of gum that he tore by his upper lip and top two front teeth is looking much better already. it's not inflamed and doesn't bleed when i brush his teeth.

micah impressed me by counting to seven in spanish without any prompting or help from me, earlier today. we were reading a book together that we'd read several times before, and when i turned to the page where the numbers one through seven were printed, she just rambled them off in nicely-accented spanish! it must be all that 'dora the explorer' we watch. : )

i really hate it when micah falls asleep in the car, and i try to carry her in to bed, and she wakes up, and she will not go back to sleep, no matter what i do. i feel like the only way to avoid this scenario is to quit going places in the evening. but that pisses me off. i like going places in the evening. i like going out to eat occasionally, i like hanging out with my family. tonight was my dad's birthday party at my grandparents' house, and we stayed until about eight o'clock. micah's been up since nine this morning and hasn't napped, so of course she fell asleep in the car on the way home from the party. i'm thinking, this is great, i'll get to stay up for a while with josh, maybe do some reading, get on the computer, etc. but, no, micah wakes up and won't go back to sleep. i laid in bed with her for an hour, watching mind-numbing dora the explorer, getting more and more annoyed every time i'd glance down and see her, eyes wide open, watching the TV instead of falling asleep. i tried turning the TV off and whispering a story to her, which has worked in the past, but she just cried and said she didn't want to go to sleep, and that she wanted her daddy. so now it's after ten o'clock, she's in josh's lap on the couch, and i'm very grumpy.

i had a fun afternoon, though. katherine (my best friend from church and high school) and i met at panera bread in plano for a late lunch. we ate yummy soup and bread and chatted, and for desert we each had the most delectable, rich, buttery piece of shortbread i've ever tasted. it was heaven. : )

naomi, my sister who lives in austin, surprised me today by showing up at my door after sneakily telling me she wouldn't be able to make it for daddy's birthday because she couldn't get off work. she loves surprising me this way, because it always works. she tried to surprise daddy, too, but he knew she'd be here. i am always gullible. back in may of last year, i was setting up the table at the park for micah's 3rd birthday party, sad because naomi couldn't be there, when i glanced up and saw her jogging across the park towards us! it was awesome. today, i jumped up and shouted and ran to the door, and we laughed and hugged. i think she loves my reactions; maybe that's why she always tricks me.

micah and i are going to go a new church in the morning. my dad and vesta have been attending a church right down the street from our house, trinity fellowship church, and they seem to like it a lot. two of my close friends from church and high school attend there, and they enjoy it too. so micah and i are going to check it out in the morning, while josh and rowan play at home. rowan is too little and too active to sit quietly during service, and too attached to me to stay in the nursery.

i was getting the kids ready to go to our regular south garland library storytime this morning, and was just helping micah on with her socks and shoes, when rowan tried to scoot out of the office chair and didn't quite land on his feet. instead, he landed hard on his face, with his pacifier in his mouth, and the little plastic knob of his paci that sticks out (where the little handle is) hit the floor, jerking his top lip up hard and tearing the part of his gum that connects to the inside of his upper lip and goes in between his top two front teeth, and connects to the roof of his mouth, behind those top teeth. it bled profusely, and i couldn't tell where the blood was coming from at first. it wasn't until i was showing alison at the library, an hour later, that i could see where his gum had torn. i figured it would heal up nicely on its own, but just to be on the safe side, i took him to a pediatric dentist after storytime. the dentist said his gum would heal in two or three weeks, and he also gave rowan his first dental check-up while we were there. one down, one to go! micah has her first dental appointment next tuesday.

my brother came over tonight to watch a movie with me. it was fun; i love hanging out with him. i love the close relationship i have with my 22-year-old sister, naomi, who lives in austin, and i want the same closeness with caleb, who's 18 and lives here in richardson. so any time i rent a cool movie i think he'd like, i invite him over to watch it with me... but we usually end up talking about other things the whole time. like last night, for the first couple of hours he was over here, he told me all about his new girlfriend; how they met, what their first date was like, the hour-long conversation he had with her mom. by the time we finally got around to putting the movie on, we were both yawning. it was still fun, though. : )

i stayed up way too late last night, chatting with alison on the phone and trying to straighten the house a bit. then, right before bed, i sat down with the last two orange sweet rolls leftover from breakfast, and a glass of ice cold milk. i have the worst habit of snacking on really unhealthy foods right before i go to bed. i have got to stop that. everyone in my family has been commenting on my weight loss lately - even my grandfather, who i was really surprised had noticed - and i know i have lost weight because the pants i bought at christmas time are now falling off of me. i just can't fathom how the weight loss occurred, because i eat horribly. and constantly. the only explanation i can come up with is that i'm chasing two kids around, now that rowan is extremely active and adventurous. i still have a very yucky tummy chub that i would love to make disappear. i know there's not much i can do about the skin in that area bouncing back to its pre-kiddo appearance, but the fat i can do something about.

delivering meals on wheels this morning with just micah and lina in tow was a breeze. my dad stayed at my house with rowan. i just put lina in the sling and micah walked beside me at the apartment complexes. micah loves to stand in front of the doors and hold the meals while i knock. she hands them to the elderly or invalid people, and they get such a kick out of seeing her and lina. it was dreary and drizzly today, but we had fun anyway. at the houses, the girls just stayed in the car while i ran up to the doors with the meals.

at our first stop today, one of the apartments, we discovered the lady for whom we'd brought the meal had passed away last night. her son and daughter were there in her apartment, taking care of things. a man was bringing all sorts of medical equipment and stuff out into the hallway as we walked up - a wheelchair, mattress, oxygen tank and stand, etc. - but i didn't think anything of it; i just thought it was being sent out to be cleaned or serviced. the daughter invited us inside and told us her mom had died. i hugged her, and i told her i wished her and her family peace today, and that i would take care of notifying the meals on wheels office.

on the way back to the car and to the next apartment complex, micah and i had this conversation:

m: "but i thought we were supposed to give the meal to the lady."
h: "well, she wasn't there. she wasn't in her apartment."
m: "where was she?"
h: (pause while i tried to figure out what to say) "she doesn't live there anymore. now she lives in heaven with the angels."
m: "you mean she died?"
h: "yes, she died."
m: "when's she coming back to her apartment?"
h: "she won't be back there. she doesn't live here on earth with us anymore."
m: "she didn't live with us, at our house."
h: "i mean on earth, with everyone. she lives in heaven now, with God and the angels."
m: "why?"
h: "she had lived a long, long, long time, and her body and her spirit were tired. she was very sick. now, in heaven, her body is perfect, and she can dance and play. she sings all day long."
m: "couldn't she sing in her apartment?"

this calm, matter-of-fact conversation about death with my sweet daughter made me realize what a tremendous responsibility i have to provide her with true, unbiased, unemotional answers to the big questions in life. i don't know if i did it right today. maybe including God and heaven and the angels in my explanation was biased... or maybe it was true. it was certainly emotional, because i was choking back tears as i spoke to her. especially when i explained who the woman in the apartment was, and micah said, "that was the lady's daughter, her little girl?" and i imagined micah, a long time from now, in my apartment, taking care of my affairs... and missing me, her heart aching for me, like i'm sure that woman's heart was aching today, looking at the little cellophane-wrapped chicken and rice we'd brought for her mom to eat off of a tray table, probably, in front of the TV. her mom, who is gone from this earth now.

micah and rowan rely on me and josh for all the answers, all the explanations, all the truth. the information we give them about anything, everything, will form the basis of what they think and feel. one wrong word, one faulty reasoning, and their view may be skewed... and we won't know the ill effects until they're grown, and micah says, "do you remember that time we went to that lady's apartment and she had died? i've been terrified of death since that day."

maybe i'm taking this all a bit too seriously... but it is somewhat overwhelming to me, suddenly, that my children will be so heavily impacted and impressed by me, and my words. it kind of makes me want to get a blank book and write down every heavy question they may ask me during the course of their lives, and practice my answers.

never before have i felt that foreboding sense of, "what if i get it wrong?"