Thank God for Big Sisters!

Solveig was able to attend 2 three-hour courses while I attended the adult sessions at our educational conference at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis on Saturday.  Here is Solveig with one of her projects - making race cars and a garage for them, and learning about what materials and building techniques make for the most effective results- a fast car!  She had a blast designing the cars and racing them against the other students in her class.

We got back from our trip on Saturday, and 4 hours later I was ill with the stomach flu and all the icky things that go with it.  I was unable to separate myself from bed/bathroom Sunday morning to take the kids to church, and since the pastor has other obligations on a Sunday morning, Solveig was employed as chief child-care provider for the day.

I am so blessed to have a wonderful daughter who not only kept a 7-year old and 2-year old entertained, out of trouble, dressed and fed, but also thought enough to bring me a Mickey Mouse plate with 4 saltines on it, arranged on top of a folded paper towel with a heart sticker placed carefully in the corner.  

How thankful I am that I have been entrusted with this wonderful young lady! When I am highly irritated by the dirty laundry and piles of books on the floor, lost jackets and mittens,  and the ever-increasing-in-frequency eye rolls of tweendom, I will try to remember what a sweet and kind girl she is, and how God has given me a tremendous gift in having the opportunity to raise this child.  

My dad often requests the "cute thing of the day".  Well, last night, right at prayer/bedtime, Jonah and Anju appeared wearing partial costumes from the dress-up box over their pajamas, and holding orange McDonald's Halloween buckets.  Jonah and Anju both said "Trick or treat" (or something close to it).  We said it was time for bed, but they could play that tomorrow.  Instead, Jonah took Anju over to the pantry and "trick or treated" from the pantry.  She came into the living room with her eyes bright and showed me, "teet!  teet!" in her bucket- a package of raisins Jonah had given her.  Jonah thought it was hilarious to trick or treat from your own stock of food, and Anju was delighted to have gotten a treat.  

Yard clean-up pictures

Anju picking up yard trimmings. 

Her barette is clipped to her dress, so she looks like a shaggy dog.

Anju with her "trail of leaves".

Jonah found a ladybug while he was loading his wheelbarrow.

Road Trip for Big Girls

Solveig and I will take off in about an hour for a mother-daughter road trip.  We will drive down to Minneapolis to attend an all-day conference tomorrow, and will return tomorrow night.  We are also going to do a little shopping tonight after going out to supper.  It'll be a quick evening, as we probably won't even arrive until 7, but we're "big girls", so we can stay up a bit late, right?  We anticipate sharing a quiet and peaceful hotel room where Dora will not be watched.  :-)

I look forward to having this time with just the two of us, to talk about what's going on with her, and have the opportunity to do some "big kid" things without having to gear our activities toward a toddler.  Solveig has been such a great big sister this past year- especially with her new little sister- that she deserves a little one-on-one time.

Be praying for Shawn who will be caring for Jonah and Anju this afternoon through Saturday night.  When Solveig and I get home tomorrow around 9 or 10, I hope to find the house still standing!

Armpits and Naptime

One year ago today, I booked our tickets for our trip to India and was frantically searching the internet for a hotel in Delhi.  Today, my daughter ran around the house yelling, "Aaaaymeee!  Aaaaymee!  Ahm-peh! Ahm-peh! (Armpit!)  She wanted deodorant.  

She's napping, so I hope to get the living room cleaned up for our 2 pm visit from her teacher.  The church had the carpets cleaned when we were gone last weekend, so everything got moved around and displaced- but I now see what the real color of our carpets is.  Anju believes that when it is naptime, that I also nap in my bed.  I haven't corrected this idea.  I carried her up to nap today, and as usual, she pointed at my bed and said "Mama bed na-nite", to which I replied as always, "Yes, Mama sleeps in her bed."  Not a lie, right?

Then, Anju wants a sippy cup to bring to naptime.  As I pick it up from the dresser, she says, "Mama cup na-nite caff-ey".  So, apparently, I need a sippy cup of coffee when I take a nap.  

"Aben girl"

Tonight, after supper, Anju said "baby".   Exactly right.  "Bay-bee."  We couldn't believe it.  She's been saying a 2-syllable gutteral noise for "baby" for nearly as long as we've known her.  It's not really very exciting, I suppose, but we've been trying to get her to say it for months now.

So, I ask her to say "Anju baby" (what she calls herself) to hear if she'll say "baby".  She says, "No Aben (Anju) baby (gutteral noise), Aben GIRL!"

Yes, we're still alive.

OK-- illness (Anju), church/school events, travel (husband at a conference for a few days + family trip to the cities), illness (Solveig), cleaning and illness (Shawn) have kept me from finding time to blog.  Now that there is no longer any vomiting going on, I'll hopefully be able to stop doing so many loads of laundry and spraying everything with Lysol, so I can devote myself to wasting time on the computer again.  Yay!

Our little princess has become the queen of sassiness and quite the handful lately. She was exactly 2 1/2 on Friday, and I'll tell ya, they don't call them the "terrible twos" for no reason.  I don't know what these 70-year old women in Europe are thinking when they have their "medical miracle" babies when I- in my 30's- am completely exhausted after caring for her some days.  Of course, she is also an angel at times--especially when she is tired or asleep--and we can't imagine life without her.

We just got back last night from visiting the Twin Cities to celebrate my parents' 40th wedding anniversary.  We went to the Mill City Museum:

We also had a family picture taken and ate at Noodles & Co.  Not a gluten-free weekend.

A week or so ago (before she got sick), Anju had a fun day taking care of all her babies.  We had babies with blankets going na-nite all over the place, and babies who needed "baby cookies" and raisins for snack time in high chairs and doll strollers.  I was kept quite busy seeing to all the needs of Anju's babies.  Fortunately, the babies enjoyed naptime for hours at a time so Anju and I could get other things accomplished.  (The babies in the picture are "baby", "Anju baby", and "Priyanka"- named by her siblings after a Bollywood star.)

Today we had a family work day outside after church and a pastoral visit by my husband to a hospitalized member.  Our early snow caught us with none of our fall clean-up done, so we got about 3/4 of the way done with that today.  Anju really enjoyed being introduced to the wheelbarrow.  I have pics in my camera that I'll have to post later.  

More about Letters

Anju has gotten in the habit of bringing me refrigerator magnets while I cook.  She brings me all the letter T's sometimes (we have multiple sets of letters and numbers on there).  This causes me to sing this song from Sesame Street:

She also sometimes brings me all the letter A's.  A few days ago she brought me two letter A's, and I made the mistake of saying, "one "A" for Amy and one "A" for Anju!" because now she's been calling me "Amy".  She'll yell up the stairs, "Aaaaayyyymmmeeeeeee".

Anyway, I find it interesting that she has a fixation on these two letters.  These are the only ones she brings me.  And always a bunch of the same one.  No mixing or matching.  

OK- now the serious part of the post.  This past week Anju has been making the sign for "hurt" or "owie", and pointing to her back.  She makes the sign for "kiss" and wants me to kiss her owie back.  I am hoping that this is not the beginnings of trouble with her tethered spinal cord- as this is one of the symptoms we were told to look out for.  Right now I'm kissing her back and sending her on her way like there isn't anything more to it.  I'm trusting that if it really is a persistant pain, she'll come back to me.  When I kiss it, she doesn't complain any more.

Things are going so well for her right now.  She seems to be blossoming in so many areas.  Her spinal issues just seem to be a cloud hanging over us.  We never know when -or if- the rain will come, and then we don't know if it will be a sprinkle or a tornado.  I guess we just need to appreciate these sunny days the Lord is providing us with, right?

Lotsa prayers for our friend Nisha and her family who have had discouraging medical news this week.  Keep them in your prayers.