Schedule

I love looking at my calendar. I am so excited about so many things coming up in the next days, weeks, months and years. I look at dates and think, "OOOOoooo, it's only two weeks until that event is two weeks away, and when that two weeks is up, all I have do is wait that amount of time once more." I really get into this and will do it for weeks in advanced, "only two more weeks till break, then two weeks of break, after that the semester is half over and we only have 5 weeks left! These first three weeks of class went by so fast, the next two are going to go by just as fast. Just like that half, of the semester is already over and the second half is only going to go faster because all of my students are going to be stressed out. Wow,  February is so close."

This probably came about from my family's trip around Kansas. Now, when I say around, I really mean, around. We went to each corner, and then drove to the middle. "We've already made it to one corner, and that was a really long side we were just on, the second corner is only going to take half as much time as this last one to get to. Then I only have to do that 3 more times. This trip is almost over!"

A cow. That is what I want for Christmas. I will also need a small farm to keep my cow on.

Changes

Driving down the road the other day I was reminded of our trip back to Missouri two Christmas's ago. We drove my little bmw coupe 1200 miles to Missouri. . . with our two dogs in tow. I took out the back seat (leather), built a wooden platform, and somehow managed to unfold their gigantic metal kennel into the backseat. It was a very cramped drive. Our seats were about as far forward as they could go, and were also as upright as possible. But our dogs? Oh, they were very comfortable.

Though it was snowy I made sure to stop the car frequently to let them out and go to the bathroom, to let them run around. It was a fun trip. One of the things I remember the most was being worried about their sleeping schedules. Alexis stayed up with me through the night. I would look into my rear view window and there she sat, just gazing out in front of her. Oh, I was so worried about how tired she was going to be!

When we got to my parents house, Kyle and I talked about how we were thinking about getting a new car because their just was not enough room for the dogs. This was a real reason why we were thinking about getting a new car. My mom took it as code for, "Kyle and Caitlyn are going to have a baby."

Turns out she was right, and I had been thinking about how impossible it would be to get kids out of a two door car.

With Jonathan almost 15 months old now, I laughed in the car as I remembered this story. I cared about the sleeping schedule of dogs. With a baby it now seems so silly that I should have cared so much about my animals. Obviously they were important to us, and I think it is important to take good care of your pets. . . but, they were grown pets perfectly capable of taking a nap whenever and wherever they wanted (Alexis illustrates this perfectly in the last picture. . . that is my luggage she is curled up in), but I was just so sure that they were going to be so tired!

We now drive a station wagon. I purchased the station wagon because it had a big enough back area to put the kennel in. We no longer have the dogs, but that space is put to good use. . . a stroller, toys and portable crib. . . because, I am still worried about sleeping schedules, and there is nothing worse than a tired baby. 

Matching

Last Christmas our family was gifted this outfits from Aunt Angi and Uncle Remy. Jonathan's is still a little big, but, today just seemed like the day to finally take "the photo." So we headed outside with the tripod and camera and had a little photo shoot. A woman and her children walked by, we said, "Hi," she almost walked past us without acknowledging us, and then said (to Kyle and Jonathan), "oh, you are wearing matching outfits" and then "Wow, you are all matching."

Jonathan thought it appropriate to make a toy out of a plastic bottle he found lying in the grass.

Children's Stories

I have no words of my own to speak right now, so I share these wonderful words by George McDonald with you. From At the Back of the North Wind;

You see when he forgot his Self, his mother took care of his Self, and loved and praised his Self. Our own praises poison our Selves, and puff and swell them up, till they lose all shape and beauty, and become like great toadstools. But the praises of father or mother do our Selves good, and comfort them and make them beautiful. The never do any harm. If they do any harm, it comes of our mixing some of our own praises with them, and that turns them nasty and slimy and poisonous. 

and;

His father had been very gloomy--so gloomy that he had actually been cross to his wife. It is a strange thing how pain of seeing the suffering of those we love will sometimes make us add to their suffering by being cross with them. This comes of not having faith enough in God, and shows how necessary this faith is, for when we lose it, we lose even the kindness which alone can soothe the suffering. 

and while I'm at it, from another work of his, The Princess and Curdie;

The must be something wrong when a mother catches herself sighing over the time when her boy was in petticoats, or a father looks sad when he thinks how he used to carry him on his shoulder. The boy should enclose and keep, as his life, the old child at the heart of him, and never let it go. He must still, to be a right man, be his mother's darling, and more, his father's pride, and more. The child is not meant to die, but to be forever fresh born.

This is the kind of treasure some of you are missing out on by not reading more "children's stories." Why would you want to have anything other than the true heart of a child in you? May I never grow up,

Caitlyn