A Day at the Beach

It's Monday now, and I have just a few more days with my most wonderful aunt. She has helped me with almost every household chore and changed almost every diaper and given every bath. The two of us have been discussing that even with the both of us, it's still really difficult to manage both of my rugrats! It makes me feel a little better that I seldom leave the house!

So even though we were afraid of going on a big outing, we decided to go to the beach today – the Lake Michigan beach in South Haven, MI. It's about a 1½ hour drive from Battle Creek. I knew Stella would love to go and also wanted Aunt Edie to see the beauty of a Great Lakes beach. I also wanted to go there because I'd never been.

Well ... we don't have many complaints! It went really well. Stella enjoyed the beach and A.J. did okay too. Here are some pictures:


Unfortunately, Stella is not afraid of the water .... at all. This is very distressing to me. But at least she is darn cute.


A.J. is a different story. He tensed up everytime Aunt Edie put his feet in the water. Of course, it was pretty cold!

Yesterday, we visited the Historic Bridge Park between Battle Creek and Marshall. It's a little park alongside the Kalamazoo River where old 1800s and 1900s bridges have been restored and are displayed. Everyone enjoyed that.


And Aunt Edie, who loves a silly picture, insisted I show her throwing mop water out on our street!


I wish Aunt Edie could stay with me forever, but I know she is missed back home! The Amtrak train will whisk her back to Kansas on Thursday morning .... [SIGH]

Aunt Edie is here!

Right now, Aunt Edie is mopping my upstairs bedroom. She says not to feel bad about it, because that's what she came for ... to help me.

Yesterday, she changed all the poopy diapers and gave both kids baths.

She's read stories, sang songs ... and I took a nap.

Have I died and gone to heaven?

I told Aunt Edie that whenever she passes on, I will nominate her for sainthood and probably erect a statue in her honor. She told me none of that was necessary. The best thing I can do to pay her back, she says, is help someone else someday when my life gets less stressful.

She took the Amtrak train to get here. My cousin Jerad dropped her off at the train station in Kansas City, and she road the Amtrak "Southwest Chief" until she got to Chicago, and then she hopped on a commuter train that went through Illinois, Indiana and finally Michigan, bringing her right into Battle Creek.

On the train ride here, she met some Amish folks who were returning from Southeast Kansas where they were helping their son. And their son lives on the same section of land that Aunt Edie and Uncle Jerry used to live. Small world!

Stella has really taken to her and AJ loves her too.

And I am relaxed for the first time in months.

God bless Aunt Edie.

More pictures to come later . . .

Your weekly update and other ramblings

Stella is becoming an artist. Or should I say "arteeeest." She loves her big bucket of crayons and to sit at the table and "draw." She goes through each color methodically and commits a few seconds to putting it on paper, and then she goes to the next one.

It's really amazing to see because we have not had much experience with seeing Stella sit for long periods of time. It's actually quite difficult to get her up from the table and interested in something else. We are quite taken with her "drawings."



It's beautiful, isn't it?

I wonder sometimes if this is the way she sees the world, full of color and vibrance, but very chaotic and confusing.

Today is her last day of her summer program, and also her last day with Miss Nicole, who has been wonderful for her. Like I've mentioned previously, Stella will continue at this same school in the fall, but with a new teacher. I met her new teacher today, and she seems really wonderful, too.

Last year, Stella was traveling to Albion to school on the bus to a satellite classroom, but now she'll remain that the Doris Klaussen Developmental Center with her new teacher. I got a tour of the building today, and they have an OT room, a sensory room, a pool and a huge playground. And it's close to home, only 5 minutes to get there if I take the back way.

Now that Stella is out of school, we're going to try some private speech therapy and a parent-participation gymnastics class.

But one of the best things for Stella is her relationship with her baby brother. These two sibs are very happy together:



In other news ...

I love radio. It's my favorite media of all, especially since I don't have time to sit down and read like I used to.

So John went to an estate sale a couple of weeks ago and got this:



It looks like something you'd see on That 70s Show, but it works really great! Unlike the little portable radios we have in the house, this thing picks up stations really well, even the most important station of all ... the faraway NPR station out of Grand Rapids, West Michigan Public Radio.

I'm an NPR junkie. I enjoy almost every program on there, including the BBC World News, The Diane Rehm Show, Talk of the Nation, Fresh Air and This American Life.

NPR is great stuff!

John and I have also been listening to a Kalamazoo station that plays pretty good music , but way too much Journey and Don Henley.

John is into vintage audio. Every week, he combs our local free paper, The Shopper, for garage sales and estate sales where he might find old equipment but especially records. He's got tons of records and a few record players. Since we don't get to do much, we often sit in the basement and listen to old records. It's quite fun!

And just because he's cute . . .

Here is Albert John breathing new life into one of the toys Stella doesn't play with. He's a sensitive guy and he doesn't care what anyone says about it!

Rolling here and there

I hope you all don't mind a little tiny brag. My son has reached a milestone kind of early. He can roll from belly-to-back and back-to-belly. In fact, he started doing this at about 3½ months, but it's just gotten to the point where I'll find him on the floor 5 feet from where I laid him down because he just rolls.

I swear it hasn't been that long since I felt like I was torturing the poor boy by putting him on his belly for "tummy time." He would just scream and acted like his poor head was just too heavy.

Not anymore!


He can even push himself up on his feet. When he had his well-baby check last Friday, he even demonstrated his rolling abilities right on the table for the nurse practitioner. She said, "It looks like he might crawl early. Most 4-month-olds can't do that!"

So we're all happy for the mighty A.J.


This rolling ability has done a number on his sleep, though. It's been a rough week. And I think he might be getting some teeth too. But last night was pretty good and we had a nice morning. Here they are with Dad:

Just because I have nothing better to do . . .

Well, not so, I guess. I do have a lot of things that would be a better use of my time besides writing on the blog, like washing sheets, cleaning, tidying ... the endless stuff.

Things have been a little bit difficult lately. Stella is out of school this week, and it's quite frankly impossible for me to take both kids anywhere, so I am pretty much stuck in the house. By the end of day when Stella goes to bed, I'm too tired to go to the store, Target, etc.

I've got a figure out a way to adjust to the 2-kid thing! I have not had an easy time with it!

But I do have very adorable kiddos! And I do enjoy 90% of my time with them, and I say a little prayer every day in thanks that these beautiful little souls were given to me.

I've discovered a problem that many parents face when they have more than one child: getting them both to smile for the camera at the same time . . .



And here's my little rock chalk jayhawk!

She is doing really well swinging in her swings on her new swingset. And her new favorite treat is jelly bellys. She loves her little brother. Loves him! She always asks to hold him and just can't stay away from him. It's so cute.

Albert is coming along great too. His 4 month appointment is tomorrow and we'll find out how much he weighs and his length. So far, he is just a milk-man (no solids), and it feels like he's growing like crazy. John calls him "pudge boy."

Southeast Kansas Flood

High water in Kansas

I found this video on Youtube and I thought I would share. It's from a storm chaser and shows high waters going over highways. I talked with my dear Aunt Edie last night and she was telling me the extent of the flooding. I couldn't believe my ears! She said my cousin, Jerad, (her son), was worried about returning to Kansas City from SE Kansas because a major highway might be too flooded! My Aunt Sherrie, who is a nursing home administrator, is considering evacuating all the residents, but the only way out of the town of Fredonia is through a back country road.

I've never heard of flooding this bad. The floods of 1993, when I was at KU, don't sound near as bad as what's going on now. Keeping all of you Kansans in my thoughts and prayers!