Little Giraffe Shaped.

A conversation with Ezra at the bookstore:

"What is your favorite color?"

"Red!"

"Favorite song?"

"Happy Birfday!"

"Favorite Sesame Street character?"

"Elmo!"

"Favorite Choo-choo Train?"

"James!"

Favorite Bob the Builder truck?"

"Roley!"

"Favorite animal?"

"Giraffe!"

"Favorite shape?"

"Little giraffe!"

"Uh... yeah, ok! What's your favorite food?"

"Birfday!"

"Huh? Maybe cake? Birthday cake?"

"Yessss."

"What's your favorite drink?"

"Coffee!"

(?!)

Other bookstore phenomenons:

• Every time we go to Barnes & Noble, Ezra runs up to the train table and immediately has to poop. Whaaa? It's sort of like how I instantly feel like I have to pee every time I go into a dressing room at Ross. Did I say that out loud just now?
  

• The train table had been getting worse and worse at the B&N by our house-- they were down to two crappy beat up caboose trains and no engines. The bridges were busted and had turned into sharp little toddler-arm traps. The table itself looked like it had been covered in syrup and then rolled around in the dirt. And Ezra was quickly losing interest.

But, the Holidays must be coming because today there was a BRAND NEW train table and alllll new toys on it! Shiny toys! Bright, lead-free toys! And Ezra sat and played at that table for almost two hours. His favorite?



Cranky. He was mesmerized.

It made me want to buy him everything on the table. (Brilliant marketing.) Of course, we'd have to sell the house to make that happen, but hey! Two hours of uninterrupted play time? I feel like it might be worth it!

A (non-bookstore related) momentous occasion that occurred today:

I switched the thermostat from COOL to HEAT.

I am officially a happy woman.

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I will post more about yesterday's funk later.
(Um, maybe. If I can think of a way to make it sound even slightly interesting.)

Meep!

My Favorite Post.

I'm re-posting my favorite post that I've written so far. Because I can't muster up anything else to say right now. I feel blank and troubled and confused as to why. I feel like something in me has given up, but I don't know what it is or why its little knees have suddenly given out. When I got out of bed today, I felt like a different person. And this is unsettling at best.

This post is from last December. I titled it "Heart Dust."


I woke up this morning and reluctantly crawled out from under my warm blankets. The old heater was clicking again- the sound of the temperamental pilot light that won't ignite until I flip the thermostat
on and off.
on and off.
on and off.
I crouched by the closet door and waited for the deep hum that told me she was lit and waited for the warm air that would once again push through the floor vents like a sigh of relief. I felt quiet inside. My heart felt raw and withered. The yard sparkled white and the heater took deep breaths and my busy mind said nothing.
I wrapped my cardigan tight around my body and went towards the morning whimpers. Ezra stood in his crib. His hair reached upward on one side and lay flat on the other. His right ear glowed red from being smooshed against the sheets and the warm air drifted up out of the vent across the room. He rubbed his eyes.
Slowly, I turned the blinds to reveal the snowy landscape and I whispered in his bright pink ear "This is snow."
That pile of leaves I never gathered up was now an unidentifiable white mound in the yard. A single pair of tire tracks in the street spoke of an early riser. He stared out the window as if still dreaming and yawned. His body shook with chills and he wrapped his arms around my neck. The heater breathed deeply. The house slowly warmed and creaked. The yard sparkled.
My heart shook off its gathered dust, gave in, and sparkled back.

Have I Ever Told You?

Is it just me, or are we making the EXACT same face in this picture? Creep-sauce.

I was recently tagged by Piper to tell you all seven random things about myself. So, here ya go! Thanks Piper!

Seven Random Facts:

1. I am EXTREMELY sensitive to yawns. If I see you yawn, I will yawn. If I hear someone yawn, I will yawn. If I hear someone talk about yawning, I will yawn. If I hear someone talk about how they are even thinking of yawning, I will yawn. If I READ about someone yawning, I yawn. (This applies to all cartoons characters as well as real life people.) And animals. If an animal yawns, I WILL ALSO YAWN. I yawn a lot.

2. I used to watch MASH when I was a kid. And I loved it. Now, it kindof makes me sick to my stomach when I see that it is on and I don't know why.

3. Yes, I have entered Ezra into the 'Baby Gap Casting Call' competition, and I am fully expecting that he will win. Heh.

4. I used to have my eyebrow pierced and I am seriously contemplating having it done again.

5. I didn't know that only men had 'Adam's Apples' until I was A LOT older. I only found out about this when I told a friend in high school that mine hurt.

6. I have never eaten seafood. And if you try to convince me to do so, I will laugh on the outside but be really annoyed on the inside.

7. Backing the Badge and Other Thoughts on Life is one of my favorite blogs. Go. Peruse. It's got honesty coming out of its ears.

Now I tag Yellow Polka Dotted Slugs and The Happening Cheatwoods!

Happenings.

We've had a busy weekend around here, beginning with Chris jetting off to Miami for a last minute gig at a Campus Crusade Conference with Joel. But it wasn't the Miami you all are thinking it was. It was Miami, Oklahoma. (pronounced: my-am-UH). This Miami has fewer beaches and flashy celebreties, and more mining museums and paddlefish. It's about three hours away from here, so Chris drove up there Friday afternoon and returned Saturday afternoon.

While he was away, Ezra and I went to a friend's birthday party.




Mmmmm, cake!



Umm, more peese?

That evening, Chris and I decided to do something crazy so we all went to Macaroni Grill to use the gift certificate we were given oh, I don't know, LAST CHRISTMAS or so. Chris, Ezra, and I had a blast. Chris and I drank wine out of glass tumblers. Classy. Ezra charmed his way into an ice-cream sundae. Or maybe it just came with the kids meal.

That night I read a book that I had found behind the seat in Chris' truck. I read the whole thing in one sitting. All 200+ pages of it. It was a book about a man who was killed in a car accident. An hour and a half later, he came back to life. The book is called "90 Minutes in Heaven". Interesting stuff.

Sunday morning, Chris played drums for a church north of here, while Ezra and I went to Bridgeway. (our lovely home church here in okc.)

Sunday night was girl's night, where we giggled and drank expensive wine and prayed for each other. When I left girls night to head home, it started storming really bad and I was convinced I would be sucked up in a tornado before I reached my house. I was in Chris' truck and couldn't figure out the windshield wipers. Then, I got stuck waiting at the train tracks as I helplessly watched the storm intensify over my head. Lighting. Hail. Trains. Oh my! I felt like a tiny ant next to that roaring train and that roaring thunder. I vaguely remember yelling at the top of my lungs, "I'm officially freaked out now!" at the train that rumbled past my truck. Ha. I was SO relieved when I finally made it home.

Currently, Ezra and I are lazing around the house and enjoying the cloudy and frigid 48 degree weather that is hanging over the house. Ahhh, I LOVE the cold. I think I'm going to pack the boy up and head to Barnes & Noble, where I will sip a Cinnamon Dolce Latte and start my new book, which I have NEVER read before, "To Kill a Mockingbird".

I hear it's a pretty good one. Heh.

The (itty bitty) Piano Man.

Cameron posted the shots he took of Ezra and the green piano. Click here to see the rest! I'm thinking of having each of them made into 8ft X 12ft prints? Or perhaps they could make them into wallpaper so that I could just plaster them over every inch of wall space in my house? I wonder how much it costs to rent a billboard by the freeway?

I've Done Something Drastic.

I have done something drastic.

And for those of you who are of the female gender, you know EXACTLY what I'm about to say next.

I cut bangs.

My hair was just, I don't know... BLAH up front. And I figured that Operation: Grow Hair! didn't exactly state that I couldn't cut bangs, it just said I had to grow my hair out long. Which I am totally still doing. In the back.

OhDearGod when I say it that way it sounds as if I have given myself a mullet. Perhaps I have. *hyperventilate*

I know they are ghetto bangs and not the "fancy fringe" I would have gotten had I paid someone to do it for me, but it was completely sporadic and unplanned for. (Harmony, you would have killed me! Heh.) I was looking at this FANTASTIC vintage clothing site on eBay and suddenly decided that I must have heavy bangs. Like, NOW.

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Ack! There's a spider on the wall by my desk! LKJHWG^@ET_)@&*@@(*!!!
It's crawling CLOSEEERRRR TO MEEEEEEEEE!!! I'm now typing while standing up just in case I need to deftly lunge away from its ferocious spider claws.
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Anywho- I chopped the front of my hair off. And now it looks like this:




So far, I love it. My hats look cool again. I can wear scarves in my hair again. And, best of all, it has been hubby approved. He likey mucho.


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Spider Update: It is now climbing up the wall towards my tin sign. From here it looks as if he's hungry for human. Ooooh I hate this spider.

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In other news, we had to call the Roto Rooter guy out because our tub just mysteriously stopped draining yesterday. We've had to call them twice before and every time they come out they ask if they can borrow an old towel. And every single time, they hand the towel back with permanent black sludge all over it. Lovely. You'd think they would have drop cloths or old towels of their own for that sort of thing? I have a new slogan idea for the Roto Rooter Company:

"Roto Rooter. Dirtying precious towels across your city with slimy pipe sludge since 1935."

I'm sorry. Do I look like I own "spare towels"? Every towel that I own is crucial and was probably purchased on sale at Ross for $3.99. Next time? BRING YOUR OWN DANG TOWELS.

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Yesterday we had really weird weather here- there were severe storm alerts all day and tornado watches to boot. We didn't get too much action here, except in the afternoon where within a span of 5 minutes all of this happened:

- (one) HUGE gust of wind. Windows flexed and I gathered Ezra up into the center of the house.
- Sky got darker and it started to rain. No more wind.
- All of a sudden there was ONE loud peal of thunder.
- HAIL. Dime sized. For about 20 seconds.
- Then it stopped completely.
- And became really really sunny outside again.

Craziest 5 minutes ever!

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Third and final spider update: He was attempting the difficult transition from wall to ceiling while I ran to the doorway lest he plunge into my hair. Then I looked up and he was gone. I died a thousand deaths. He'd landed next to my desk on a side table. He sat there for a really long time like he was in shock. I don't blame him at all because he'd just fallen approximately one trillion spider lengths. Now, he is limping around looking all confused and, frankly, I feel sorry for him and am thinking of scooping him up into a nice little spider habitat I'll make inside of a mason jar. I think I'll name him 'Brave Guts'.

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This post reads like a piercing migraine.

Apologies!

Edited to add: I had kept my feet up off of the floor since the spider disappeared because I just knew it would crawl on my foot the second I dropped it to the carpet. After about 15 minutes of this, my foot fell asleep, so I put it down on the ground. I just looked down and the spider was about ONE INCH away from crawling up onto my foot. I have since moved to Alaska, where I'm told spiders are illegal.

Fresh Starts.

You know how people always tell you that communication is the most important thing in a marriage? I've heard it so many times. But I've always shrugged it off and thought, "Chris and I communicate just fine. We talk. No worries."

A couple of days ago I realized that I had been, in short, fooling myself. I am horrible at communicating, and I suddenly found myself in a place that I really really didn't want to be. It was one of those moments where your eyes are suddenly opened to see the other person's perspective, you take the time to put yourself in someone else's shoes, and you can see that they've been getting the short end of the stick. For far too long. And it's no one's fault but yours.

It felt awful.

Chris is an amazing communicator. He always has been. In disagreements, he is level-headed and fair. He does not clam up or disappear (like yours truly.) He does not act like it never happened and shove it under the rug until it sticks (like yours truly.)

I am difficult to communicate with verbally. It makes me uncomfortable and I feel attacked when asked questions out of the blue like "How is your heart?" or "How have you been feeling about God lately?" It's literally like the words stick in my throat and I want to run away and lock myself in a room somewhere. Chris, on the other hand, is very much a verbal processor. It helps him think clearly when he's able to talk about things. Outloud.

Here's the catch: The only way I've found for me to really get myself across well is through writing. I can write my heart out onto paper without batting an eyelash. That's why this medium has been intensely healing and freeing for me. So, we've got a VERBAL processor and a NON-VERBAL processor living under the same roof. Eeegad.

The other night, I was feeling like I didn't really know Chris very well anymore, and I started to think it was all because he wasn't talking to me very much. Hmmm. I wonder why.

He then gently told me that he feels like I don't enjoy listening to him when he tries to talk to me about serious things. He feels like I clam up. (I do.) He feels like I don't ask him questions about his day or his life or his heart. (I don't.) It's like I'm afraid of engaging with him in that way because I am not able to express myself as well as he does- and then I feel puny. Misunderstood. Frustrated. Attacked.

I realized the other day how selfish I have been. My husband needs engaging questions and a listening ear in order to communicate. In order to feel heard and appreciated. And I have been completely withholding that from him just because it's uncomfortable for me. And our communication has suffered greatly because of it. And for him, I can imagine it is somewhat disheartening to learn new things about his own wife's heart by reading it on this site along with all of you guys. I'm sure he'd like to hear it from my own mouth first. Intimacy is lost when he is learning about me from a computer screen.

So, I need to learn how to communicate better with him. And when I first realized this, I felt really freaked out. I felt like I had to force myself to open up in a way that has frustrated me so thoroughly in the past. But then Chris reminded me that there are LOTS of ways to communicate. And there are ways to be creative about it too, so that I don't have to feel trapped by it.

This is one of the beautiful things about marriage. We have a whole lifetime together to adjust and change and figure these things out. It's hard work, but it's the only way to survive. It's about flexibility and realizing when you need to scrap the old way and start all over again. It's about knowing that, in fifty years, you might need to go allll the way back and start from square one again. And again. And again. There is no plateau, no cruise control, no retirement track where marriage is concerned. And that is completely freeing for someone like me.

Because I need all of the fresh starts I can get.

The Aftermath.

Our {fantabulous} company left early Monday morning, and I spent most of yesterday catching up on sleep. I took a FOUR HOUR nap yesterday, and this is crazy because I DON'T NAP. EVER. I hate naps with a burning ferocity.

We had such an amazing time with our friends, and I stayed up waayyy too late every night playing Wii having deep conversations about life.

Here is a really high quality photo I took of us. Ha.
(whatever you do, don't enlarge.)

The last night everyone was here, a gragantuan thunderstorm moved in and so we turned off all of the lights, opened up all the doors, lit candles, poured out some wine, and got to listen as Chris played the viola for us. It was one of the best nights I've ever had in my life. At about 12:30AM we decided we wanted to make some breakfast food, so we made eggs and toast and pancakes and bacon. By the time we all stumbled into bed at 2:30 or so, there were only three hours left to sleep before the crew had to be back at the airport. (hence, the reluctant nap.)

Much too early to be having breakfast.

Here's a video of Chris playing his viola along to a song that he wrote. Um, why is he not famous yet?




Cameron took some crazy awesome shots of Ezra-- involving his vintage fedora and our green piano... you'll be seeing those later I'm sure. He's an amazing photographer. These shots he took are making me seriously wonder if I should get this kid an agent. He's getting cuter by the day.

Now we are looking forward and preparing for our two month long hiatus in Reno that's coming up in about two weeks. Our good friends will be staying at our house while we're gone, which is going to be a great situation for all of us. Can you even believe that the Holidays are so rapidly approaching?

I am off to go organize my house and clean a little bit. I'm watching a little one year old girl for some friends tonight, and I can't wait because she's so cute and yummy that I go cross-eyed when I look at her. And then want to have babies.

Tomorrow I plan to write about some things that have been bouncing around in my brain for a couple of days- involving marriage and communication. And how I am pretty much total crap at it.

Weekend Update. (AKA Avoiding Housework.)

My house: Laptop Central.


Girls Gone Wii.


Boys can Wii, too!


Joel decided to chop off the hair.


We think he looks dashing.


Cameron. Man of Wonder.


Anna. The Gaming Queen.


Chris. Wearing my favorite shirt.


Good buddy Jamie.


Jeremy. Probably doing something crazy.


Tribal Council.

Heartbreaker Indeed.

Check out a few of the pictures Cameron has taken of Ezra so far by clicking here.

(caution: your heart will melt. Into goo.)