This is such a funny age

Abby's a Daddy's girl, BIG time. Tonight happened to be Ben's night to give her a bath and put her down to bed (we alternate). Ergo, she was in a great mood.

As Ben was backing out of the room, I heard a variety of little girl giggles including "Good night, sleep tight" repeatedly interspersed with a litany of things she loves. It ran something like this "Abby loves zoos, Mommy, Unca Joe, Mommy, butterflies, Daddy, zoos..." So that was funny.

Then, she kept chattering to herself after Ben finally shut the door, and since her room is right by the living room, we could hear it all. And the best part was this particularly funny exchange.

Abby singing a nursery rhyme.
*thump*
Abby: "Oww, that hurts. I hit my head." (in a silly, giggly sort of way)
Ben: If she hit her head, that means that she's not tucked in anymore.
Abby: Daddy, tuck my feet in! Daddy, tuck my feet in!!
Daddy walks into the room to re-tuck the little munchkin.
Abby: "I have poopy diaper."
Daddy: "This is what you needed to do in the potty before you laid down..."
(a few minutes later...)
Abby: "Tuck in Abby's feet! I tuck in Abby's feeeet!!" (Her pronouns are hit and miss. She still insists that the proper way to ask to be picked up is "Pick you up!" And often when she wants to sit on your lap, she'll repeatedly insist "Sit on my lap.")
Ben goes in to re-tuck one last time.
Abby: "I see Daddy's feet!"

Back to singing to herself. Her current favorite hits medley alternates between "Tinkle, Tinkle Little Star" (which I find wildly funny when she sings it while sitting on the potty) and the ABC song.

Oh wait, as I type this, she's reverted to another favorite stand-by. "Where'd Abby go?" She probably has a blanket on her head. (Which reminds me, and I'm apparently in a rambling mood, Abby likes to play hide-and-seek, and sometimes mixes it up and "hides" her favorite stuffed kitty, though always in the same spot. It's pretty easy to distract her and then re-hide kitty. So funny when she comes back to where she thinks her kitty is hiding, sure that you'll never find the toy, only to discover that her kitty is truly hiding. Where'd kitty go??)

Service

***This is the 13^th entry in my This I Believe series.***

Well, it’s been months since I’ve last contributed to my goal of completing my own This I Believe series that I began last fall with my Composition kids. I’m finishing these last couple, whether anyone reads them or not!

I know what I want to believe about service, what I feel that I inherently do believe about service, but I’m the first to admit that I am not absolute in my devotion to carving out the time necessary to make this a habit in my life. There’s always more that I, we, you can do to serve others. My belief that service is right, good, necessary all stem from my faith, but I don’t believe that it has to be. To me, it’s a bit nebulous because “we” want to stereotype that as something that “good people” do, and “good people” are those who are “religious” or “go to church” or what have you. But certainly, one can fail to fulfill their need to attend organized church and still succeed in a deep understanding of what service is to one another.

I know that service makes me feel good, but about what? Myself? My world? My community? Do I feel good because I realize anew all that I have to be thankful for? Do I feel good because there’s no greater commitment to humanity than to serve others above ourselves? I like to think that the latter is the pivotal reason why people continue to serve each other. I’m always going to play the optimist because as far as I have seen, witnessed or experienced in my few, cognizant years, people always step up and help when the rough things happen. Not only that, but who hasn’t witnessed someone perform a simple act of kindness for a random stranger for no apparent reason?

I believe that such simple acts of kindness are a necessary act of service if we are to communicate and live together as a unified society, whether that is city, state, country, or world. We must help each other out. We must. It’s that simple. I believe that to be true, fundamentally and wholeheartedly. I feel this way about service much as I do about my faith—it just is, it just must be so.

I believe that there is a variety of services that we must perform, not only to ourselves but also to our world (which, really, all comes back to serving ourselves also). If we want to live in community, we have to include service to this phenomenal world that God has given us to take care of. We are stewards of the Earth just as much as we called to serve each other.

I believe in the ideology of being a servant. We sang this hymn at our wedding, and the words are just as applicable here: “Will you let me be your servant/let me be as Christ to you?/Pray that I might have the grace/to let me your servant, too.” There’s a pretty heavy message in this simple Brethren hymn; can we not only serve each other but allow others to serve us, too?

Abby's prayer

Abby really likes to pray, specifically at bed times and at meal times. Granted, some of this is a delay maneuver on her part. Little does she know that she's actually doing what we want her to do...ha.

Until last night, Abby has always been free and easy with making prayer requests. We pray for every member of both of our families every night (it takes about 2 seconds per person), some of them repeatedly (Uncle Sam and Uncle Don...you get a lot of prayer requests). And sometimes, other things strike her fancy and must be prayed about as well--the sandbox, the swings, the slide, her stuffed kitty, etc.

Last night at supper, Abby made her prayer request; except for the first time, she wanted to say it herself, and the proceeded with this gem:

"Dear Lord, I love Mommy and Daddy. A-MEN!!"

At that point, I think that Ben and I were each adding our own silent prayers of thanksgiving for our little sweetie.

If I had extravagant amounts of tangible wealth...

This is my thought process during my shower this morning.

If I had extravagant amounts of tangible wealth, I would make these splurges priorities:
*a daily trip to Starbucks for a grande hazelnut latte, skim of course
*a Kuerig/Tassimo deluxe coffee station
*a membership to a wine club (by the way, I'm open to sharing this with someone out there who would like to get together maybe once or twice a month just to have dinner and try new things...seriously)...this makes it seem like I'm a pretty serious drinker, which I'm definitely not. I just kinda like the idea of trying new wines once in a while.
*a gym membership so that I could take yoga classes
*a summer vacation that would last for about 2 months and would take us to visit every MLB ballpark, once Abby was older
*someone to do my hair EVERY day
*weekly pedicures/manicures
*my dream kitchen
*a greenhouse
*a nanny who would not live at my house

I think that's about it. Do-able on a teacher's salary?!?!?

Busy, busy, busy!

June was a veritable whirlwind! It included, but was not limited to
4 office visits for Abby (various doctoral needs)
2 visits to the zoo
1 trip to Ft. Wayne
1 trip to the lake
4 times running the Coyote Kids race (a Kokomo thing for kids)
4 story times at the library
4 playdates
potty training part I and then potty training part II
daily walks
visits to various parks nearly every day
2 visits with two of my best buddies
1 babyshower
1 anniversary
at least 8 trips to the library, maybe closer to 12
2 trips to N. Manchester
1 meeting at church about sharing a pastor
1 cabin/camping trip with the in-law clan
1 day spent driving around looking at houses

And I thought that July was going to slow down. Not at all!

Now, Abby's turning into a potty pro, but it's still an adventure every day. And coming up soon, we have a trip the fair, a reunion, a possible trip to Jungle Jim's in Cincinnati, a definite trip to Cincinnati with a stay at a sweet little B & B and a Reds game with club seating (there will be a blog posting about this...SO excited, our first baseball game since before Abby was born, *and* club seats), a whole day ordeal so that Abby can have a couple of cavities filled which involves sedation (curse you, antibiotics!), another day where Abby gets tubes put in, a green team meeting at church, and the possibility of three more playdates/swimdates coming up. Oy! I'm kind of in a sunshine and family stupor right now as I'm typing this, too. We just came from another lake trip-then-afternoon with the in-laws that included an eye doctor trip & unexpected lunch out with the boy. How much can you jam into 18 hours? A lot!!

In the meantime, I thought about writing an entire post about our zoo trips, but it's been 3 weeks now, and I finally have my pictures put on the computer and labeled (I took around 200 just in June), so I'll just throw on some from the last month. Fun times!

This is from the Coyote Kids race last week. After every kid finishes, they get a popsicle and a...


...ribbon. :-)


Abby is BIG into "ready-set-start," and this is one of her two runner's poses. This is (as Ben informs me) her 2-count start. She sometimes chooses to start "from the blocks" in a 3-count start. I'll let Ben be the running coach. He gets paid to do it; I don't. But, I will say that this isn't her best starting form. She's preparing to run up a ramp here, and her balance is thrown off a bit. I'll just cheer and hold out a little cup of water as she zips by me.


This isn't the best picture of Ben, but it's the only one where Abby didn't have a hand in front of her mouth. Silly goose. Look how many clothes we're wearing mid-morning at the end of June! It was beautiful camping weather!!


Sometimes, you have to eat where and when you have the chance. Sometimes, you're not wearing pants when you eat.


Zoo #2: trying to be a giraffe or pet a giraffe



Zoo #2: serious. concentration.

Zoo #1: typical pose

After zoo trip #1: This isn't Abby's best picture, but Ben's face was extra goofy and his eyes are open in the picture for once, so hey, why not? She thinks that it's funny when she and Daddy wear his Colts hats together.

This has been a seriously fun summer...so far!

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

by Amy Chua (not only does she have a fantastic first name, but there are a lot of Amys referenced in this book, also)

okayihavetorefrenencethisbooksomewherebecauseit'sprettycoolsoyeah,thisisanotherbookreview,but deal,okay?

Alright, 230-ish pages, and it took me around 24 hours to read. I mean, this one reads fast. It's not like all I did was read for one whole day. Nope, just for a while at night and then during nap time. Quick quick quick.

What I most especially love about this one is that the author *completely* talks about what worked and failed, and frankly, focuses on failing quite a bit more than succeeding with "Chinese parenting." If you haven't heard of this one, it gained a lot of press when it was published a few months ago because the idea of Chinese parenting can be (in my opinion) misconstrued as barbaric by Western parenting models, which is the #1 focus of the text. Chua addresses differences between Chinese & Western parenting models, as well as admitting how she grossly stereotypes with this terminology, consistently throughout the text.

There's a part of me that is very much like "Rock on, you've got something working here!" with what she talks about. But really, the greatest part of me is more "C'mon, we need to compromise here between what you're generalizing." Truly, I see us as being (or wanting to be) somewhere smack in the middle of the two. I'm not big on sleepovers and accepting mediocrity (which she bashes), but I do see the validity of playdates and allowing your kid to have some say-so in what activities they'd like to participate in (which she also bashes). But then again, my kid(s) will learn how to play an instrument and have definite academic standards set for them (which she acknowledges as givens). It's an interesting ad refreshing perspective on parenting, and one that I frankly admire a lot because of what I understand as motivating factors. It's not that I admire the tactics necessarily employed, but I really admire the deep, intense desire to prepare your child to succeed and perform well.

Chua is funny, insightful and frank. And, she is really quite gifted at just telling a story. She's a Harvard educated lawyer who married another Harvard educated lawyer, both of whom now teach at Yale. In other words, she's a smart cookie. Okay, I'm also jealous of her but in some small, niggling way that means I would never seriously consider exchanging my life for hers, knowing what kind of life an academic (especially at that caliber) truly leads. It's intense. Really, really (really) intense.

And Chua, I like how you ended the book; the coda is truly a fitting way to end and honest to the rest of the book.

what I learned from camping with the Cox clan

We had a be-u-ti-ful weekend of weather for camping in our 2nd annual Cox family camping trip. Here are some reflections from the time well spent with wonderful people. It's a good family to be accepted into. Abby is the only grandkid on this side, so there were 8 adults and 1 toddler. Things I (or any combination of we) learned:

*In the middle of the night when you're camping and it starts storming, it's nice to be able to think "I'm glad that I'm in a cabin and not a tent." (Yeah, I still consider this camping. It's like luxury camping.)
*Abby does just fine sleeping in a utility closet when faced with a dearth of options.
*A peanut butter cup makes a dandy substitute for the classic chocolate bar in a S'more.
*My in-laws generally pronounce certain words differently than I do, namely "cee-ment" (cement) and "sa-more" (S'more).
*It's entirely possible to eat 2 breakfasts.
*When camping, it can be difficult to fit in any activity other than eating. It has to be carefully scheduled in.
*Being able to eat dinner by 6 means starting to search for "one of the really big grills" and a shelter by 3:30 in hopes to find something by 4.
*Swans honk like geese would if they were old men who smoked a lot.
*A simply fantastic adult to toddler ratio is 8:1.
*When you take along 6 extra adults with you while on vacation, it means that you get a vacation from playing with your kid and actually get to just...sit.
*Drawing a chalk line on a sidewalk that says "STOP ABBY" is all you need for ooooodles of entertainment. This sets the stage for racing. All of the extra adults take turns and you don't have to for once.
*When you send three females into a grocery store for milk & butter, it will still take 2 phone calls and a long time before they'll come back out.
*If you take the interstate around Indy rather than a circuitous route full of twisty roads, small towns, double lines, and road construction, you'll arrive at your destination at least an hour sooner.
*Spencer, IN is almost exactly 97 miles from my house, which just so happened to be the range my car told me that I had left before I would run out of gas. The gas light comes on with 25 miles left. Some gas stations are closed on Sundays. "Just for fun," I had 4 miles left when we finally succeeded in filling up after passing by all of the Indy/Carmel/Westfield gas stations because Abby was mercifully asleep.

I didn't get as many good pictures this time around, but the weather made up for it. Basically, it was simply fantastic (especially in a cabin!). :-)