Standing Tall

It's old news by now, but in mid December Xandra proclaimed, "Look, mommy, Aliyah's standing." Sure enough, Aliyah had pulled herself to a standing position. While I didn't see her pull to a stand, I was happy she stayed in position long enough to allow a picture of her in the act. I'm confident that the reason she stood for so long was that once she stood, she had no idea how to get back down.

Potty Talk

At the beginning of December we put away the training pants, got out the big girl panties and deemed Theia officially potty trained. Hooray! After about three and a half months of potty talk, lots of candy for successful pottying, and lots of accidents, we've now crossed into the land of one child in diapers.

It hasn't been easy. For awhile, I think the whole process was very confusing for Theia:

But now she knows: panties go on our bottoms and pee pee and poopy go in the potty.

We're experiencing a little regression this week on the pooping in your panties front, so we're back to candy and pep talks. My hope is for a short lived forray into changing poopy underwear, especially since we woke up this morning to a crib full of orange Aliyah puke.

Rolling in the Dough

Also on the tradition list at our house: Frosted Christmas Cookie Cutouts. Xandra and Theia assisted me in carefully measuring, dumping, and mixing up some dough for the cookies. After avoiding any major catastrophes and getting some usable and edible dough, they busily set to work with rolling pins and cookie cutters in hand cutting out the cookie shapes.

Theia's effort resulted in making a large mess and then eating her dough ball. Xandra's efforts also resulted in a large mess with her eating some dough and producing some recognizable Christmas shaped cookies. She was able to roll the dough out and cut the cookies herself. She only needed assistance transferring the cookies to the cookie sheets, otherwise the product was like Theia's, unrecognizable.

After baking the cookies we let them cool until Joe came home. After dinner, I frosted the cookies and he assisted the girls in decorating with sprinkles and candy. They immensely enjoyed this and were happy to put the sprinkles on one by one if given the opportunity.

A little video clip of the evening fun:

We shared the finished product with friends from MOPS, neighbors, and our Awana teachers. Xandra and I gobbled up a few, too, before they all went out the door.

Decking the Halls

In our house, the weekend after Thanksgiving is for Christmas decorating! On Friday evening we set off to find the perfect tree...at Home Depot. Where else do city folk buy their Christmas trees?

On Saturday I turned on the Charlie Brown Christmas CD and the Christmas fun began. Joe sawed off the end of the tree, brought it in and strung the lights on the branches for us. He also watered the tree, which the girls found most fascinating. Too bad after it's inital watering, our tree never saw another drop of water until after it had already died. I need someone to invent a tree stand with an alarm to alert me of low water.

Joe and his assistants watering the tree.

Once the lights were on the girls helped me decorate the tree. This was the first year they were really big enough to help and it was fun to share this tradition with them.

On Sunday we opened a nativity set I had purchased for the girls to play with during the Christmas season. It seems there is some confusion regarding the Christmas story, as this nativity set features a girl wiseman and no shepherds.

Later in the day we shared a meal with our friends the Amans. Then we set off to see the Christmas lights display at nearby Brookside Gardens. Unfortuantely, for the second time in the weekend, we neglected to bring our camera. The kids had a great time running to and fro and looking at all of the great light displays. We enjoyed chatting with James and Nancy and interacting with their three kids.

Dancing Turkeys and Cornbread Stuffing

There is much catching up to be done on The Doolittle Gambit as Christmas has come and gone and nary a post has been written. Before we tackle December, however, I must rewind to Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving Day, Joe ran in a Turkey Chase. After getting yelled at by a lady for parking on her leaves (the custom here is for everyone to rake their leaves in large piles to the curbside for the county to come and pick up with a large leaf sucking truck), forgetting the camera in the car, and almost missing the start of the race, Joe finished the 10K with a personal record of 48:03 (that's a blazing 7:42/minute pace).

The highlight for Xandra was dancing turkeys. She thought they were so fun! We snapped this photo with my phone. Funny how Joe does all the work, but the only ones who make it in a photo are Xandra, a dancing turkey, and I. I guess it is turkey day after all.

Update: I did find a few after-the-race pictures we snapped when we got back to the van today when I was downloading pictures from the camera. Here they are:

Taken using the van window...very artistic, don't you think?

The race was the start of a wonderful Thanksgiving. After the race, we enjoyed the day with Tim & Jennifer Shumann, friends from law school. We actually remembered to take the camera into their house, but neglected to use it even one time. That makes two years running we've shared Thanksgiving with them, and two years running we've forgotten to take even a single picture. Either way, we don't soon forget Jennifer's cornbread stuffing, Xandra & Theia's turkey place cards, or yummy pumpkin dinner rolls. Needless to say, it was a feast! Many thanks, Shumans, for good food and good fellowship!

D is for Disaster

A few weeks ago (it's taken me this long to be able to relive this story) I was busily working in the kitchen while Aliyah slept in her crib and the two older girls played with a fishing game in the sunroom. The fish game is battery operated and makes a great deal of noise turning in circles while you use your fishing pole to try and get the biting fish out of the pond. For about 10 minutes I worked in the kitchen while the girls played (or so I thought) with the fish game in the sunroom. I have to admit, I was impressed by their lengthy attention spans. At one point, I considered checking on the girls, but since I could still hear the fish game going, I assumed there was no need (what was I thinking?). At another point I heard game pieces crash onto the floor, and assuming it was all part of the fishing game play decided against checking on them (again, WHAT was I thinking?). After all, there was no screaming or complaining going on (why wasn't this a red flashing alarm to my dim witted brain?). After about 10 minutes of ignorant bliss and two missed opportunities to keep the girls from trouble, why should I be surprised to find this when I finally pulled back the curtain of the sunroom?

The pictures don't do the scene justice, as I didn't catch all of the things on the floor in front of and behind the couch. Just in case there is any confusion, that IS nearly every board game we own (probably 12-15 games, I didn't have the heart to count) pulled from the top two shelves of the bookcase behind Xandra, opened, and then dumped on the couch, coffee table and surrounding floor. I think the conversation went something like this:

Mamma: "What are you doing?"

Xandra & Theia: Silence and blank stares

Mamma: "Get up, now."

Xandra: "I can't."

She really couldn't move. She was barricaded in by all of the games around her.

Mamma: "Wait. Don't move."

I leave to go get the camera so I can at least take a picture of this because I'm sure no one will fully understand what has happened unless I show them pictures.


I returned to the sunroom, took a picture and then carefully lifted Xandra from the couch and sent both girls to separate rooms. I worked on picking up the games while I cooled off. For awhile, picking them up just made me more mad. It's hard to count trivial pursuit pieces when you're so mad you can't think straight.

As I picked up the games I also found that Theia had actually peed her pants while playing the games, with no thought of mentioning it to me. Really encouraging on the potty training front! She not only peed her pants, but she peed all over Chutes & Ladders. The only consolation in now having to clean up pee, games, and peed on board games, was that it was one of their games. A small evening of the score for having to pick up 100 scrabble tiles, all the cards for Apples to Apples, a deck of cards, Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit pieces, 100 Upwords pieces, 88 Blockus pieces, etc. Yes, I counted all of these pieces out one by one (several times) trying to make sure I had the games complete before they went back on the shelves. If their Chutes and Ladders smells like pee for all of eternity, we'll call that fair for me having to spend approximately 2 hours picking up their disaster.


After some time and lots of cooling off, I went to talk with the girls and hand out consequences. I then left them in their rooms to sit awhile longer while I picked up the games some more.


When I went back to get the girls, Theia was asleep. I attempted to wake her, but it was to no avail. Xandra came out to eat lunch and promised to be on her best behavior. Before I started preparing lunch, I headed into the bathroom only to find this:

In case it's difficult to tell what this is, it is a toilet with pee in it and an entire roll of toilet paper undone from the tube and dumped on top of the pee. Xandra went back to my room for another round of consequences. When we got back to my room I found that while she was in there the first time, she had taken great joy in emptying my bedside table drawer and my sock drawer. I was not impressed.

About this time, Theia woke up and had, of course, peed her pants in bed while she napped. She's wet, her pants are wet, and the sheets are wet. I got her up, cleaned her up and fed her some lunch. Xandra ate lunch in my room. When Theia went back to bed for her real naptime after lunch she was not interested in sleeping because of her little catnap before.

After naptime, in which no one took a nap, I went in to get Theia up and found this:

If the picture's not clear, that is a picture of Theia's diaper only half covering her bottom. When she pooped during "naptime" it came out of the dipaer onto the bed. Let's just say poop was everywhere. Not a happy moment for mamma. Xandra wasn't happy either as she kept saying, "Mommy, Theia's poopy is everywhere. Ooooh, gross."

At this point (about 3:30PM) I'm ready to go to bed and start again tomorrow. Joe's not expected home for at least another 3 hours and I'm left wondering what else could possibly go wrong.


Thankfully we survived the day. I'm glad I cannot recount another day in all of my mothering that even comes close to holding the disgusting challenges encapsulated in this day. May it always be so!


At the end of the day, Joe came home to my horror story and shared that he'd had his annual review. Unlike the chap who was reviewed just before him, he will be keeping his job. Nothing like a little perspective at the end of a long day. Things could always be worse...Joe could be jobless at home helping clean up pee, poop, socks, board games, toilet paper, and dresser drawers!


I also plan to hold this day, with all the pictures, over their heads for the rest of their lives. In fact, I'm already planning the illustrated talk for both of their weddings.

Dedicated

It is our strong desire that each of our girls know who Jesus really is, how He alone has the power to transform our lives, and how He himself died so they might live forever with Him. There is no greater cause to which we might dedicate our parenting than the saving and transforming grace of Jesus Christ.

On Sunday, November 8, we were a part of a child dedication at church in which we dedicated ourselves to raising Aliyah (we've already done this with the other two girls) in a way that honors God and teaches her the truths about Him and His Word. She wasn't baptized, as we understand this is a decision she must make after she has chosen to become a follower of Christ.

This is a relatively serious post, but I can't resist noting how Joe's belt buckle is cattywompus and my slip is showing. Just in case this post gets a bit too serious for you, just remember it's coming from a lady who didn't know her slip was hanging out from underneath her skirt when she was standing in front of the whole church. Just God's way of keeping me humble.

For our portion of the dedication, Joe shared his thoughts about two things:

1. We lost a friend and fellow believer we knew from Connecticut to cancer earlier in the week. When I shared with Joe I told him, "Good for her, bad for us." Meaning we'll miss her, but she's with Christ now.

2. He also reflected on the 13 lives that were taken in the Foot Hood shooting earlier in the week. He talked about how the holidays would be sad and difficult for these families.

In sharing these two thoughts he talked about how we can't prevent bad things from happening in Aliyah's life as she grows, but how we hope to give her the tools to navigate the tough times. He also said the only thing we can do is teach her to lean on God and that someday the best thing would be that at the end of her life someone would say, "Good for her, bad for us."

He read this scripture (parenthesis my thoughts): But now, this is what the LORD says— he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you (I like this reference since we're at a baby dedication.), O Israel: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine (I long for her to know that she belongs to the King of Kings.). When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze (Tough times await us all, but God will carry us through, keeping us from getting burned. What a promise.). For I am the LORD, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior; I give Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Seba in your stead. Since you are precious and honored in my sight (Oh that she would know He thinks her precious), and because I love you, I will give men in exchange for you (A reference to Jesus! I love Old Testament foreshadowing.), and people in exchange for your life. Do not be afraid, for I am with you. Isaiah 43:1-5

A friend, James Aman, prayed over Aliyah and our whole family, and then the pastor gave all of the families dedicating children a charge and prayed for the collective group.

Our friend InShil took a few family pictures outside after the service.

The pretend us.

The real us.

Of all the things we will teach you and show you, Aliyah, may the blood and love of Christ be foremost among them. Although you are small, our love for you is great. I cannot wait to see what you will become, although a part of me wishes you might stay as you are right now. May he bless you with many happy years and a heart that beats solely for him.

Special thanks to InShil Hartman for the photographs.