Archive for October, 2006

Up close and personal with the gorilla

Jay's New York trip was delayed a week, so he decided to spend the week at a Red Hat training class near Kansas City, MO. At the last minute, we decided that we would all drive up there together! The fall leaves are just reaching their peak in the Ozarks, so the drive was beautiful. We even got to stop in Fayetteville to see Tanner Riley and his wife Thelma. Tanner was our choir director in Starkville, and he was the minister that did our wedding ceremony. It was so much fun seeing them and showing off our kids! We got to our hotel late Sunday night. We actually stayed just over the border in Kansas in an area called Overton Park. Staying in a hotel with two kids for a week is pretty crazy, but we made it. Eliza had a cold all week and was a little fussy, so that made things even more interesting. We spent most of our time at the zoo and the mall. I took the kids to the zoo on Tuesday, but we couldn't see everything in one day, so we went back Wednesday. We are members of Friends of the Zoo at the Little Rock Zoo, and so we got into the zoo for free. The Kansas City Zoo is a lot bigger than the Little Rock Zoo, though! Our most memorable events there were feeding the lorikeets (they landed all over us—Eliza even had one on her head!) and seeing the gorilla up close (less than a foot away!) through the plexiglass wall of his enclosure. The Oak Park Mall was just down the street from the hotel, and it had a carousel and a train that the kids really enjoyed, and I got to do a little shopping. The weather was either cold or rainy all week, but for our drive back on Saturday it was beautiful. We stopped at War Eagle Mill along the way, and drove through Eureka Springs where there were people everywhere! We got some great pictures. We had a good trip, especially because we got to be with Daddy, but it's good to be home. We are already missing him, though, as he is in New York City all this week. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly time flies!

Jay started his new job last week, but instead of spending a leisurely week at orientation like he was supposed to, he was told last Friday to fly to San Francisco on Sunday to spend the week helping to fix some problems. He felt very unprepared, but managed to make it through and leave the "customer" fairly happy on Friday. He made it home Saturday morning. Back at home, the kids and I made it through the week just fine, with no major problems. The weekend was crazy, trying to squeeze a week's worth of stuff to do into a day and a half, on top of regular weekend stuff like church and a Sunday School picnic. We took Jay to the airport this afternoon to fly to Boston for a week of training. He'll fly to Memphis next weekend to meet us for a family reunion on my mom's side of the family, and then he'll fly from there to New York, where he'll be going for the next three weeks. And so it goes, I guess. I think the weekends will be the hardest, because they are so precious and short. The kids have been surprisingly unaffected so far. Because the concept of time is still fuzzy, it's like they think of Daddy being gone for a really long day. They are very excited to see him when he gets home, but they don't act like they miss him too much while he's gone. I guess that's how I am going to have to think of it, too. The week is like a day, and the weekends are our evenings. Right now, it's much harder on Jay and me than on the kids. It was an emotional kind of weekend for both of us. This is not going to be easy, but we knew that when we signed up for it. With God's help, anything is possible, and he hasn't failed me yet!

Eliza continues to learn new words, and has recently begun putting words together to form short "sentences". We were walking by James' room the other day while he was taking a nap, and Eliza said, "Jah nigh-nigh," which I immediately recognized as "James night-night". I often have to translate for Eliza because she is difficult to understand, unlike James, who was talking pretty clearly at this age. Whenever I give Eliza something, she has started saying "Tah-tuh, Mama." Sometimes, though, she shortens it to "Tah Mama." I guess she is used to me giving her things, because she said this to James when he gave her something recently, to which he responded, "I'm not Mama!" Eliza's hair is getting longer, and I have started putting a clip in it to keep it out of her eyes. She looks so much older and very girly!

James is right on the verge of reading. He can sound out words with a little help, and he gets excited about figuring out what something says. On our trip to Lake Chicot a couple weeks ago, he said, "Mama, what does K-O-O-S-H spell?" He had seen it on his kid's meal bag from our fast food lunch, and it was the first time he had ever asked that question. He wears big-boy underwear all the time now, even at night. They are both growing up so fast!

We are in for a crazy year, I think. But we will make it.