Happy May!

Being a parent is always challenging. I’m not sure that anyone who tells you it’s easy would be entirely truthful. However, for every difficulty comes a hundred joys, so it pretty much just balances out in favor of having billions of kids. It’s been a while since I posted, so I’ve got a lot to say. Again, for your reading pleasure, it’s broken down. Read a paragraph a day for the next three years…

Gavi’s Bear Crawl: Little guy is really starting to try to crawl, but can’t quite get the knee motion right. So he pulls himself up on his very tippie toes and moves around that way. Actually, it’s starting to look like he’s trying to get to a standing position because he pulls his hands down close to his toes. It’s just hilarious to watch.

Poo-apalooza: Caleb occasionally likes to go “potty in the toitet,” and even though I’m not keen on potty training right now, I appreciate the desire. So we go to the bathroom, and I take down his pants and diaper so he can go potty. Unfortunately, there was a poo in said diaper, and it hits the floor with a thud, causing Caleb to jump back in alarm. Stepping in it, of course. Then as I’m frantically trying to grab him, he starts running, spreading poo from the shoe all over the bathroom floor. When I finally get him by the hand, he falls over backwards, further fostering the poo spread into the hallway. I’m avoiding stepping in the multiple poo prints, but then when I picked him up, I slipped and had to step in a pile to avoid dropping my sweet boy. Our bathroom looked like the site of some strange poo ritual. I cleaned carpet for the rest of the day.

Two bowls down, Cap’n: One of the mornings that had already started off a little rough became comically bad thanks to our sweet Gavi. He’s become very grabby, for lack of a better term. You can’t hold him and try to drink anything anymore because he’ll get a finger hooked around the rim of the glass and yank. On this particular morning, I forgot about his full range of motion, and placed his bowls of food within lunging reach of his highchair. As I went to get him a bib, I hear Caleb say, “Oh no!” and I was just quick enough to get back to the room to see him dangling the rice cereal bowl from two fingers. As I ran in slow motion, he released his grip, and the cereal joined the carrots and zucchini on the floor. I cleaned that one for about a half an hour. Luckily, I have orange carpet.

Fun on Stage: Two weeks ago at church, the children’s church overseer had all the kids from the fifth grade and under come up on stage just to show the people in the church how many of them there were. Then she said, “Let’s pray.” This was the first time Caleb had been on stage at church, and Jonathan and I were beaming in pride as he folded his hands, closed his eyes and bowed his head. Seriously, I was crying. He was such a big boy, and all of a sudden I felt like he was growing up too fast. Halfway through the prayer, he and another little boy started wandering the stage and happened upon a banjo sitting in it’s stand. And they started playing with it. The lady just kept praying as my tears of pride and joy turned into the weeping of a woman who doesn’t know what to do. Do we interrupt the prayer? Haul him off stage? Fortunately, she stopped praying and dismissed them all to Sunday school, and Caleb only stayed on stage for another minute to mistreat the banjo.

Gavi’s Dedication: It was so great! The Fashbaugh grandparents, the Garmane grandparents, Unka Chris and Sisa and Auntie Cristina joined us at church for Gavi’s big day. Pastor Jay did the dedication, and everyone joined us on stage for the “vows.” It was a little different than I expected, but incredibly special. And Gavi was such a sweetheart! He only interrupted once during the prayer to grab Jay’s microphone! And Caleb ran around from relative to relative until my dad grabbed him and held him. After all, there was a banjo on stage to be avoided!

Flowers for my hair: Anytime my Caleb starts to really get to me, I just remember how precious he is with flowers. He is now picking every dandelion he can find to bring to me. He makes me so happy. “I pick a flower for you, Mommy!”

First teeth: Gavi’s two bottom teeth were just below the surface for about a week, and then during Mom and Dad Fashbaugh’s visit, they both popped out within twelve hours of each other! I was so happy, thinking that his teething fussiness would start to abate, but there’s a whole mouthful of those suckers waiting to come in!


Gotta get this posted before I forget again and go another month without posting! Since this is my alternative to a scrapbook, I'm kind of doing a lousy job!