I am fascinated with Evan's comments on God. He has so many questions. He knows a lot of Bible stories since he goes to a Christian day care...and I can supplement with my own religious training. I really want him to know about many religions, but I have to admit I don't know as much as I could about the others. Evan came downstairs while I was watching Grey's Anatomy today. During this episode, the doctors were taking care of kids from Africa with medical issues. One particular child had a deformity where his heart formed right next to his skin and you could see it through his skin. Evan was concerned about the little boy and asked me why he had that problem. I told him, "Remember we talked about how everyone is born differently? How God made us all a little different? Well, that little boy was born like that." Evan said, "Oh. Why are they fixing it?" I said, "Well, it is dangerous to have your heart close to your skin." Evan said, "Did God know that it was dangerous when he made the little boy like that?" .............. "I don't know, Evan." My little philosopher.

Keeping Busy

I am fully aware that I owe a blog or two. We have been drafting at work and are very busy...and I can't seem to bring myself to write much else on those days. Tonight Evan was giving me the "I'm Bored" speech. He kept asking to play different video games. I told him, "You don't always have to play a video game. Find something else to do." He said, "Like what?" I said, "Play with your Batman ["No"], Play with your trains ["I don't wanna."], You can help me fold laundry ["nooooo...."], I have toilets you can scrub." He then said, "Ok." I said, "Ok, what?" He said, "Ok, I want to scrub toilets." LOL. So I set him up with a rag and scrub brush, and sprayed down the toilet myself. I, then, gave him some instructions on what to do. He very seriously told me, "I know. I did this when I was 4." After the toilet, he vacuumed the living room.

Embarrassment

Tonight I was doing my best parenting (i.e. letting Evan play his Wii game and letting Delilah watch a DVD on the little DVD player so I can cook dinner). James came home and we were chatting about the day. I could see Delilah dancing and trying to sing to the DVD. She hasn't really done this before, so I called James' attention to it. I should mention that she is obsessed with The Chipmunk Adventure. This is circa 1987, and my sisters and I recorded this movie one of the times we had free HBO and/or Disney Channel. It was also one of the first times I ever made my own soundtrack to a movie (by holding my tape recorder up to the tv and praying that no one walked into the room and spoiled the awesomeness). So, let's just say that I have all the words memorized to the songs. Anyhow, so Delilah got to this part of the movie and was singing and dancing along: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7YQhYYVPO0 (I would embed, but Blogger is being a DB). She put her fist in the air and said, "Rock!" just like Brittany does in the movie. James and I were smiling and saying mouthing how cute she was before this, but when she did her "Rock!" move, James imitated her. She turned around like she was busted, and burst into tears. She cried for a good 10 minutes. I think she was embarrassed. It was so funny and sad at the same time. And then we sat down to dinner, and Evan, who had been complaining of a headache, threw up onto his dinner plate. As you can imagine, dinner just wasn't the same after that.

Cluttered

I have been feeling overwhelmed by the clutter in my house. It is a constant battle. The basement is a disaster. I have been reading this book on cleaning up clutter...written by one of the guys on Clean Sweep on TLC. I read it right before bed and it affected my dreams. All night long, I cleaned and organized my basement. Not the best way to spend my sleep time.

It is really interesting though. The book has some of the reasons we keep things around and some of them really resonate with me.

First, "I might need it some day." I come by this one honestly. My dad always keeps stuff he might need on hand. Like if I went to him and said, "Do you have some cardboard, baling twine, and fertilizer?" he would have everything I needed to make some MacGuyveresque contraption. So, I keep boxes on hand (so if I have to ship something at Xmas, I will have a box), but then I realized one day that I had WAY too many boxes. Or if one of the kids' coloring books comes with crayons, I add those crayons to our already large stockpile of crayons. Because you can never have too many crayons? And being unprepared is one of my worst nightmares.

Also, "But it is worth a lot of money." This is another big one for me. We keep things around because we paid money for them and it seems a shame to waste that money. This applies to so many things in our basement. But mainly, childrens' clothes... Sitting on a goldmine of childrens' clothes. Good stuff, too. It is so hard for me to think about just throwing away piles of money. But things are only worth what people want to give you for them. I have tried a couple of things with the clothes. Consignment shops, but oh man do they make me mad. Another rant for another day. Ebay...I ended up paying more for the shipping than I made on the sale. I have given them to friends.

Then there is the emotional attachment to things. This is probably my biggest crutch...for the things that may seem the most worthless. I read tons of journal-based novels as a young girl, and fancied that someone would someday want to publish my journals. So I wrote journals after journals for years. I kept boxes of notes passed during middle school. The further the distance from that time period, the more obvious it is that rollerblade box in my closet is full of paper...not memories. There was a time when I thought those were the best days of my life and I wanted to hold on to them forever. And they were fun times...and maybe I am afraid that if I throw that box away those funny times that made me laugh until I cried will just cease to exist. Already, Aimee or Jamie (my BFFs from grade/middle/high school) will remind me of something and I won't have any recollection of that moment. And how could that happen to me?! I have the best memory... And all those ratty pieces of paper that are folded into special shapes are my back up hard drive of those days. But who I am kidding?! No one will ever even consider my box full of paper as memories when I die. Delilah and Evan will open it up and see piles of paper so old the pencil and pen writing can't even be read on it and see it for what it is...trash. And quite honestly, I would die if they ever read my journals...so it would be good if I was already dead...because that would be awful. (note to self: research ways to shred entire journals.)

These are the things swirling through my head last night as I tried to sleep. I want a way to clean up some of that clutter for we have space for this life. I am also wanting to help Evan to learn some good habits when it comes to limiting yourself and getting rid of things we don't need. We haven't done a good job so far... you can tell by the bins overflowing with trains ("But they are worth a lot of money!") and books. And I have hard time making him get rid of something that he used to love so much....but maybe we can learn together.

Just for you, Jen ;)

This morning, I took the kids to school, and we were jamming to Lady Gaga's Born This Way. The hook goes: "I'm beautiful in my way, Cause God makes no mistakes, I'm on the right track baby, I was born this way"

Evan pipes up from the back seat, "God makes no mistakes?"

I said, "That's right. The song means that no matter what color you are, or what you look like, you are perfect in your own way because God made you that way." I was sort of impressed with myself, being able to impart my child with such wonderful wisdom.

"Yeah, God made my Batman game, too."

*sigh*

Heh.

Tonight, Evan was tormenting his sister as usual.

I told him, "God doesn't like for you to push your sister."

He says, "God doesn't even know me."

Two Whole Years

Well, my girl is now two years old. She had her birthday yesterday. She enjoyed getting toys and was so excited. Today at her two year appointment she measured in at 33.5 inches and 23 lbs. So she is still a little one, but getting bigger. She entertained the doctor by cleaning the office with a wipe.

Then and Now