A Happy Day

Today is Hannah's fourth birthday. For months she has been telling me, "Four in June, four in June." And here it is. She is finally 4 in June. I tried telling her that her birthday is June 8th, but that was too much information. Hannah has had a nice birthday so far. We went to church this morning. Then we went to Burger King (her pick) for a family lunch. I brought a homemade cake and one birthday present with us. I remembered candles but forgot the matches. Thankfully, a man offered to light the candles for us. (I guess sometimes I am thankful for smokers). She enjoyed her birthday lunch, her cake, and her present very much. We intend to have a friend birthday party in a couple of weeks. We want to wait until Hannah's cast is removed so that we have more party options. We have even considered combining Hannah and Katie's birthday parties. Katie's birthday is in August. Hannah wants a princess party with a princess cake and a princess crown and a jumprope.

The Robot Park

The children and I had a wonderful time visiting my family in Texas during the month of April. We spent time with my Grandmother, my parents, my brother and his family, my sister and her husband, and my youngest brother and his wife. I even spent an afternoon with my aunt and uncle. Over all we had a wonderful trip. We took the children to the zoo. That was a huge hit! We visited all my favorite restaurants in Fort Worth. Mmmm. Rosa's Tortilla Factory. *sigh*

One of my favorite places to visit was the Robot Park in Benbrook, TX. Benbrook is just next to Fort Worth, in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. My family lived near Benbrook until I was a preteen. The Robot Park was my very favorite park as a little girl. It was awesome. It had swings, slides, a catepillar climby thing, a baby swings, a merry-go-round, and best of all, a robot. Yes: the Robot park was named (at least by my family) for the giant metal robot.

If you look at the picture, you can see a ladder under the robot. You climb the metal ladder up into the robot. The lower level is fun to play inside. My brothers, sister, and I always pretended that we were trapped and would call to our parents to help us. Such fun. When Hannah and Katie climbed up into the lower level, guess what they did. They pretended that were trapped and called to my mom and I for help. So cute.

Once inside the lower level of the robot, you can climb another ladder to the middle level. From here, you can slide down the robot's arm slides. These slides are scary. They are very steep and fast and dark inside. I don't remember the last time I went down them. I did not go down them when I took the girls to the park. I was too scared. No, I'm not kidding.

There was once a ladder leading up to the robot's head. It is very high up there. It was a scary thrill as a kid. The ladder to the robot's head has now been removed and the entrance is sealed up. The metal on the floor of the head level is rusting out. Instead of removing the entire robot, the park people (whoever takes care of parks) opted to remove the ladder, making the robot safe for children for years to come.

It was so special to take my children to this park. I really had a wonderful time with them. All the equipment is the same. The robot, the swings (at least the metal frame, I'm sure the actual seats are not 30 years old), the caterpillar climby thing, the spiral staircase slide, the merry-go-round, the bouncy animals. It's all the same. Very cool. I took a lot of pictures with my mom's camera when she and I went. I hope to get them soon and post them.

The last Friday that I was in Texas my sister and her husband wanted to spend some time with me and the kids. I suggested that we go to the Robot Park, since the kids had enjoyed it so much. Heather and Jimmy agreed, so I met them there. We had a nice time. The kids played on everything. I put Elijah in the babyswing and Jimmy pushed the girls on the merry-go-round. The girls don't usually play on the merry-go-round, but there were not many kids that day so it was fun. Hannah decided to get off the merry-go-round and push it. Another little boy did too. Jimmy stepped out of the way so they could push it together. Hannah ran around the merry-go-round pushing it and laughing. Then she tripped. The little boy was running around also and tripped on top of Hannah. She started screaming like crazy. When he fell on her, it broke her leg. The tibia is broken just above the ankle. The growth plates are fine. She is scheduled to get the cast removed on Wednesday, just 3 days after she turns 4 years old.

Quick Catch-Up

Okay, faithful readers, it's been over a month. Let's do a recap of the Mook's lives:

April 5-12
Jesse's mom came to SC for a visit.

April 15-May 6
I flew to TX with the children to visit my family.

May 7-today
I have been recovering from my trip and trying to get a grip on taking care of three kids and a home.

So, in the past two minutes all three children have gotten up for the day. Hannah is eating cereal, Katie is half-asleep on the couch, and Elijah is crawling around the living room, looking for something to conquer.

I'll write another post at naptime.

Enjoying my Children

At the beginning of April, my mother in law came for a week long visit. A few days after she left I flew to Texas with the children to visit my parents. I have been here in Texas for about 10 days and I have another 10 days before I will return home. All of this vacation time has been a treat. Because I am staying in my parents home, I don't have much housework to do. My kids and I pick up after ourselves, but I am not really keeping the home like I do in South Carolina. I am not cooking or grocery shopping or organizing closets. It is really nice. I have had a lot of time to just enjoy my children. I am surprized to notice how little I enjoy them when we are at home. I am not good about sitting to read during the day or playing hide and seek. Typically I am folding clothes or cleaning up a mess of some sort. Being here is prompting me to really declutter my home so that I don't have to spend so much time cleaning house! I just might go home and get rid of all the stuff we don't use and don't need. It seems silly to reorganize my dresser to fit all my clothes when I don't wear most of my clothes. I'd prefer to just spend some time with my kiddos.

Speaking of my kiddos, they are amazing. I will do individual post on all of them in the next few days. They have all changed and grown so much lately. Kids sometimes mature steadily but other times they take a developmental leap. My kids are leaping!

A Blog Well Written

Hello, my faithful readers! It's good to see you all in blogland. After a two week hiatus, I am ready to begin writing again. It is a personal fault of mine to get extremely excited about a new thing, take blogging for example. First I talk about it, then I research it, then I do it with utter abadon, and then I feel satisfied that I have done a good job and so I quit. This is a real pattern in my life. Two years ago I decided to make Easter dresses for my daughters. I thought about it, talked about it, shopped for patterns online, went to Wal-Mart to check out fabric. I finally purchased fabric and a pattern. I cut the pieces and stitched the dresses. I hand embroided applicaes on the front of each dress. I stayed up half the night on Easter eve completed the dresses. They were fabulous. The girls looked adorable. Everyone at church raved about their cute dresses and then raved again when I confessed that I made them. I felt very satisfied with my work: a job well done. I haven't sewn anything since.

So, when my dear husband reminded me that I have not blogged in over two weeks, I had to evaluate my priorities. Would blogging be like so many of my interests? Would I stop blogging simply because I have learned how to do it? Would my sense of satisfaction at a blog well written cause me to stop posting? I think not. Blogging is on going accomplishment. A good blog is updated regularly and an excellent blog is updated daily. It is time to renew my commitment and interest and blog daily.

Grandma's Here!!

Jesse's mom flew in for the week. He picked her up from the airport this evening. We are so excited to have her. We're looking forward to showing her the sites. I hope to be blogging this week but if I don't, please know that we are busy having a great time with Grandma!

And the Verdict Is...

A few weeks ago I took Katie to the doctor. This is big for me. We are not 'doctor' people. We don't do well baby check ups. We don't do immunizations. We actually don't even do hospital births. Well, we did one time but I didn't like it and vowed to never do it again. Katie was born at a birth center and Elijah was born at home with a midwife. (Yes, it was cool. No, I wasn't scared.)

So, I took Katie to the doctor. She had been acting weird. I realize that many of the readers of this blog have never spent time with Katie, so let me tell you about her. She's two years old, my middle child. She is very high need. She needs to be held, a lot. Like a lot, a lot. I wear her on my back at the grocery store. I carry her on my hip while I cook dinner. She sleeps in my bed every night. She needs a lot of physical touch. I'm okay with that. I don't focus on being fair and giving each of my children that exact same thing. Instead I focus on carefully giving each child what they individually need. Katie needs a lot. I have often wondered if she is not okay. Maybe not healthy like my other two children.

Back to my actual storyline, Katie had been acting weird. She cried for two days straight. Even holding her non-stop did not help the crying. There was nothing visably wrong with her but she was not okay. Maybe a headache? a stomach-ache? low blood sugar? Two year old children can't explain it all, so she just cried. By the third day, I was going crazy. I had to find out what was wrong with her! Jesse and I talked about it. I really believed that she had a food allergy. I had nothing to go on, maybe God was telling me or maybe my mommy-instinct was kicking in. Jesse agreed that we should take her to the doctor to be tested.

The doctor's appointment went great. The doctor is a family practitioner who focuses on natural healing, meaning he's more likely to tell you to eat right and take vitamins than to prescribe the latest drug. He talked to us to a long time (like 45 minutes) about Katie's behavior and my reasons for suspecting a food allergy. He did a finger prick blood test. The results of the test came back today.

And the verdict is:

Chicken.

My two year old is allergic to chicken.

And eggs.

And soybeans.

And milk.

The chicken and eggs tested as severe allergies. Meaning a good mother would not let her have them again.

Soybeans and milk tested as mild but should still be avoided.

So, everyday since she was weaned, she has consumed at least one food that she is allergic to. No wonder she seems a little needy. Poor baby, I'd want to be held all the time too if I was constantly eating foods that made me feel horrible.

Chicken, who in the world is allergic to chicken?!

Excuse me while I freak out.