Bye Bye Nana, Hello My Reality!

It's been a somber day in the Holland household today. Nana flew back to Arkansas today. She was here visiting for a week. We've had such a good time with her. She and I got to spend more time together this time than in past visits. Since the girls were both in school, she and I did a lot of shopping and eating lunch out. It was so much fun! The girls have really enjoyed her too.

I have decided that I need Nanny. A live-in one! This past week has been so nice having Mom do my laundry, pick up after the girls, help me cook and then clean up the kitchen. She probably got home this afternoon and crashed from exhaustion.

In addition to helping me out around the house, she also made 4 dresses for the girls on Tuesday and Wednesday. They each got a new sundress and also a new dressy "church" dress. They all turned out so cute. I made hair bows and covered headbands to match them. I got on the sewing machine once to sew together two strips of grosgrain ribbon to cover a headband and I had thread coming out of that thing something awful! Looked like a rat's nest when I finished. Also in that one setting I de-threaded/un-threaded (whatever the word is) the sewing machine needle TWICE! Now how does THAT happen?? I still don't know for sure what I was doing wrong. Finally after quite some time I managed to stitch the ribbons together with machine and all ten fingers still in tact-a miracle in itself. The whole episode reassured me that me being a seamstress is not my calling. I'm clueless and a disaster when I touch a sewing machine! But I can make a mean hair bow and headband! ~just don't look at the underside where the stitching is! :)

So, I guess it's back to reality for me. LITERALLY! My live in "Nanny", shopping buddy and doting Mama is gone and Nathan left today as well. He'll be gone until Saturday night. So I'm back to single mommy mode for a while. The girls have nearly done me in today. They are breaking me back in quickly!

Just after leaving the airport this morning, heading back home, I get a call on my cell phone. It's the school nurse. (I'm thinking, "Here we go, reality is setting in all too quickly!") Taylor is in the clinic with a "terrible" tummy ache but doesn't have a fever or anything. I talked to her and told her that she has to go back to class as I am in Orlando and can't come pick her up and her daddy was out of town as well. I sweet talked her into eating lunch and then seeing how she felt. I promised I'd call and check on her as soon as I got home. Her teacher called me this afternoon and said she was doing just fine. Whew! Considering she puked last night in the middle of the night, I felt I had dodged a bullet of possible stomach flu. Actually I think it was what she ate for dinner that upset her tummy last night. That's why I sent her to school in the first place.

I've had Emma home with me all day today. She was pretty good this morning but as the day went on she fluttered back and forth between sweetness and terror. She's been in time out today more times than I can count. I definitely think that the "three's" are going to be much worse than the "two's" were. She is so strong-willed and into EVERYTHING! I have to constantly know exactly where she is and what she's doing at all times. Today I saw her sitting at the dining room table and she told me she was working on her craft. (Her craft is rearranging the pins in the pin cushion Mom had used while sewing.) I opened the refrigerator door to grab a bottled water and when I closed it (THAT QUICK!) I see her with the sewing scissors about to cut the power cord to Mom's sewing machine. I screamed NOOOOOOOO! and went running toward her. Luckily my scream scared her and she dropped the scissors and started crying because I had scared her so. After hiding the scissors and calming her down it was time to go get Taylor at school. On our way to the car, she spots Taylor's Leapster handheld game and wanted to take it with her in the car. I was glad to find something to occupy her time and her mouth while we were in the car. I gave it to her and she threw it, got this terrified look on her face, threw up her arms and started screaming. There was an ant on it. OH MY GOODNESS! So I brushed off the ant and checked it for more. I tried giving it back to her and every time I'd get it close to her it was like I was handing her a snake. She'd scream and wince but then when I'd go to lay it back down in the garage she'd scream and cry WANTING it. AHHHHH! It was a no win situation for me. After five minutes of this back and forth, I finally threw the game down got into the car and let her scream. ~all the way to Taylor's school. Lucky for me it's only a mile down the road! She finally hushed after I threatened to leave her in the car once we got there to pick up Taylor.

Another new thing for her lately has been while we're driving down the road she'll ask "Mama, are there any policemen around?" So I usually say "probably, they're everywhere!" I tell her this because not long ago she used to take her arms out of the straps of her car seat and could literally remove herself from her seat with the belts still buckled! How she manages to do it, I don't know because I make sure the belts are snug on her. She's like some Houdini! 5 point harness, my butt! So back then I told her the police would get her if she got out of her seat or took her arms out while we're driving. So she has sort of become obsessed with wondering where policemen are. ANYWAY...back to my story. Wednesday night we'd gone out to eat and on the way home she kept putting her wet shoes on the back of the seat in front of her and kicking it. I asked her a couple of times to stop and Nana who was sitting back there with her got her feet down a couple of times and told her to not do that. I looked back at her and she was going to put her feet up again and I said "Don't you do it!" She just looked at me and did it again! UGHHH! The nerve of that child!! At that exact moment, my Dad called my cell phone. His ring tone on my cell is a police siren. When we heard it I looked out my window and said "Look Emma, here is the policeman right here and I'm telling him to come and get you for not minding me!" She went ballistic! I figured since she is so brazen she'd not think a thing about it. She started screaming and crying "No, no no! I'll stop! Don't let him get me!" She wouldn't stop screaming and crying, terrified, until I let her hear my Dad's voice on the phone and we all were assuring her that it was just my cell phone, not a police man. I felt terrible after that. Wanting to feel like she got what she deserved for her behavior I still felt so bad for scaring her like that. I also didn't realize she was actually afraid of the police. I'm going to have to change that. I certainly don't want her to fear them. But we did all get a good laugh later at her episode of freaking out.

Among the drama, the crises, the whining and crying and nearly making me lose my mind, my children reminded me tonight of how intelligent and comical they are. How? I'm glad you asked. I couldn't write this blog tonight without telling you about THIS one! I am just amazed some times at how smart they are...tonight Taylor had just gotten out of the shower and Emma was getting ready to get into the tub. So they were both naked in the bathroom. I'd walked out to come into the office to check an email right quick while Taylor was finishing up in there and I hear them talking. Taylor says, "Hey, lets make ourselves be bunny rabbits!" So when I hear this I figure I'm about to be in for a couple of naked children hopping around through the house. No, no. They're much more clever than that. They come into the office where I'm at my computer and say "Look, Mom! We're bunny rabbits!" They both turn around and sticking out of their naked butts are big wads of toilet paper made into balls. -bunny rabbit tails! It was disgustingly humorous. I suddenly forgot about all of the happenings of the day that have pushed me near the edge of insanity. I think they do things like that on purpose...to give me a fresh new start for the night and into the next day.

One more episode before I could get them settled into bed. Buddy went missing. Buddy would be Emma's ratty pink elephant that she sleeps with EVERY night. The one thing we could NEVER do without! I put him in her bed when I came upstairs to get them ready for their shower and bath...thinking I was pretty clever to do that so that I wouldn't be searching for him after I put her in bed. ~as I do nearly every day at nap time and every night as well. Well, what do you know, bed time comes and Buddy is gone. I'm talking M I A...GONE!!!! I can't find that 'dead gum' stinkin' little thing anywhere. I searched and searched every room in the house, even going back down stairs to look. I finally consoled Emma by telling her I'd keep looking and IF I found him I'd bring him to her. On my way back upstairs after searching again downstairs, I reached to turn on a lamp that sits on the landing half way up the stair case. Who do I find, stuck BEHIND the lampshade sandwiched between the shade and the wall? Buddy! I think he got there when one of my precious angels threw him over the balcony trying to make him hit the floor below. They missed and essentially put him in the greatest Buddy hiding place in our entire house. I didn't ask them how it happened. At that point I didn't care. All I cared was to get that child her night-night Buddy and finally be done with the bed time rituals!

Well, I must go now...my TV show is coming on soon and I don't want to miss it!! More stories on the way...

New Recipes Added

13 new recipes just added to my website.
The list is posted on the right under the web address.

Out of hibernation...though possibly only briefly

Hey there! Sorry it's been so long since my last post. I've been in hibernation. No, really! Except for waking up to do the things that I have to do, I've been sleeping for the last three weeks. And eating...hence the expanding waistline!

Every spare moment I've had to nap and sleep, I've slept. I have been so exhausted from the time I'm forced out of bed in the morning until I can get back there at night. I'm just barely functioning. A "normal" side effect of pregnancy, I guess. My kids just look at me like "what is wrong with her?" as I sit on the couch nodding off and fighting to stay awake to watch them play. They're smart though, and know that it's at these times that they can pretty much ask for whatever they want and if its something they can get themselves, I'll say sure, whatever. They're taking advantage. But who can blame them?

When I am awake, I'm hungry. If I don't have food on my stomach at any time during the day, I'm nauseated. But it's all good. I'm beginning to feel like I'm on the down side of it all as the past couple of days I've not had to take an afternoon nap and haven't felt quite as nauseated. I'm beginning my 10th week so I'm getting closer to that 2nd trimester mark where things (usually) begin to look brighter.

I had an ultrasound a couple weeks ago and everything is looking good. The baby looked like a little bean with a heartbeat. My due date remains the same, November 8th, however my doctor said that November has an ugly birth stone and I will probably want to deliver the end of October. (That's the moment when I fell in love with him.) He said that if it's another girl, I will for sure want her to have October's birth stone and not November's. Interesting that this man knows so much about birth stones. I found out later in that visit that it's because he was born in November and hates the color of his birth stone.

I was really nervous when I went to my first visit with this doctor because I had been thinking about me being down here in FL when my mom and all other family is at least a two hour plane ride away. I didn't want to have a doctor who would force me to wait until my water broke or I went into labor on my own, as many of them do. I wanted someone who'd let me choose the day to be induced so that I can better plan and make darn sure my Mama is here! Not that I don't have friends here that I can call on for help but when you're having a new baby, you just gotta have your Mama there. Or at least I do. Anyway, at my first visit I asked him what his policy was on inducing. He told me that he pretty much didn't have any policies on anything...that if everything was going well and things looked good, he had no problem scheduling an induction. He said it helps him to better plan as well. I thought right then, "We are gonna get along great!" So then after he suggested that I have the baby 8 -10 days early so that it'll be an October baby, I almost shouted out loud "WHOO HOO"! I had to restrain myself not to hug him and tell him how great he was and how much I like him.

The girls are still pretty much oblivious to the fact that there's a baby in my tummy. However, last night Emma says to me "Mama yuh belwy wooks full. Is dat way-uh duh baby is?" They both have said that they'd like to have a baby brother. Occasionally they'll say a sister would be good but for the most part they want a brother. My brother and sister in law just found out that they're having a little boy in Sept. So I've been trying to convince my girls that Lesley can have the boy for us and we can just have another girl. I've sort of been there, done that with girls and know what to expect with them. I have some little girl stuff and can be easily prepared for a little girl. So it's no secret that I'd just as soon have another baby girl.

We have, however, come up with a boys name that we all like. (Or at least I like it right now-that could change in the future depending on hormonal changes.) If it's a boy we're thinking of naming him Jack Henry. Nathan really likes the name Henry. I'm not very fond of it but it was my Papaw's middle name and I was absolutely crazy about him so that made it easier for me to stick to Henry. So far we can't come up with a girl's name that we like. I have so many girls in my family that it's hard to find a name that's not already used. So if you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them!! Email them to me or leave a comment on this post.

Okay, that's more than enough "baby" talk. On to something else...

Last weekend, I went with my friends Bridget, Karen and Karen's daughter Brittany to the Beth Moore conference in Jacksonville. It was amazing! We had such a great time and Beth was wonderful. We were all impressed that she doesn't have her topic already chosen months before the conferences start. She prays about each one and then speaks on whatever God lays on her heart to speak about. I heard more than just us say "Her message was aimed right at me!" A few ladies behind us said "Was she in our car on the way up here?!!" It was really something that each one of us 14,500 women needed to hear that same message. I've embedded a video clip from the conference above this message . This is a recap of pictures from the event...and listen to the song by Travis Cottrell. He is the worship leader for her team and he has the most beautiful voice! This was one of my favorite songs that he performed there.

Nathan kept the girls that weekend while I was gone. I left on Friday afternoon before they got out of school. On Saturday, he had to get them to Taylor's t-ball game at 8:30 and then to a birthday party at 4:00. He managed to get everywhere he was supposed to be and the girls survived. I had laid out and ironed their outfits before I left and when I hung them in the closet I did so in the order that they'd need to wear them and looped their coordinating sandals and crocs over the hangers as well. I instructed him not to let them talk him into letting them wear different outfits or shoes. They have their own ideas about what "matches" and looks good which differ greatly from mine. I told him he was on his own with the hair and just to do the best he could with it. When I called him Saturday morning before the ball game, he was a little frustrated and said "They are NOT making good choices this morning!!" I just said "Yeah, well, welcome to my world. Have a good day!! Bye!!"

On that Sunday we all went down to Fort Lauderdale to see my friend Amanda. She's one of the only friends from high school that I've kept in touch with since graduation. She is a doctor in the Navy now and her ship was docked for the weekend at the port down there. She'd called and asked if we'd like to come down and see her ship. We had a lot of fun with her. She took us all over her ship. It was so neat! The girls just loved being there with her. Several days in a row afterward Emma would ask to go back to "Wah-duh-day-uh" (Lauderdale) to see "Amana". When I told her that "Amana's" boat was way out in the ocean taking her back to her house in Virginia to see her husband and little boy, she'd just cry and cry. Once they saw that Amanda was fun and she played with them a little bit, they never stopped talking to her - constantly! We barely got a word in. They jabbered the whole time! She was probably worn out after our visit. ha!

Nathan has drill at the Air Force base this weekend so the girls and I are just hanging out and being lazy today. Last night he was at the base for a while so the girls and I had gone to get something for supper and on the way back Taylor and I got into a deep discussion about Heaven. As we were driving home, she said, "We're all going to die." "What?! What are you talking about?" I asked. She said "We are! We're all going to die." I told her yes that one day we would but that it wasn't something I wanted to talk about. Then she says, "I don't want to go to Heaven." When I asked her why she said "because there aren't any toys in heaven. It's boring!" I tried to explain that in Heaven she'd have everything that she'd ever want or need. Then she said "yeah, but you have to wear dresses EVERY DAY!" "What?!" "Yes, Mom, I know because I've seen all the pictures and even the men have to wear dresses!" Again I said "What??!!!" "Yes, I'm right, Mom because every picture I've seen of Jesus at church and in my Bible, he is wearing a white dress with a red belt and that's what we have to wear too! So I don't want to go." I just said "Oh, good grief!" I was at a loss as to what to say to that. She doesn't want to go to Heaven because she doesn't like the dresses that she'll have to wear. Finally I just told her "Taylor, when you die you have only two places that you can go...Heaven or Hell." To which she replied "What's Hell?" "It's where Satan, you know, the Devil, lives and there is fire and bad things there and the people that go there are on fire but they never burn up they just hurt and cry and it's really a bad place." At this point when I turned to look at her face I knew I'd said way too much. She was just looking at me with her eyes wide and mouth open. She said "Well I don't want to go there! I guess I will go to Heaven then. But Mom, you said that I'll have everything that I want in Heaven, so will I have that other webkinz animal that I want?" I had nothing left. I said "I'm weary child, go in the living room and watch TV."

Well, I've got to get busy cleaning up my house. Hurricane Emma and Hurricane Taylor came through this past week and left disasters in every room. I've put off mopping, scrubbing bathrooms, etc...for as long as it can be healthy to. I'm dreading even starting it but it just HAS to be done. By the way, I'm in the market for a free housekeeper. If you know of any good ones, please let me know!

Hope you have a great weekend and I'll try not to wait so long to post the next message. Talk to you soon!