A Typical Day in the Life of Catherine

Catherine wakes up at 8 am, crawls out of her baby bed, moves a kids-size chair over to the bedroom door, opens the door, and comes downstairs. She sees that Lincoln has taken off his PJs (he was hot) and decides to imitate him. So off come her PJs and diaper before I can give her a good morning hug and kiss. I put on her first outfit of the day and make her a bowl of Cheerios. She eats all of the Cheerios out of the bowl with her spoon and I think "Wow, she hardly spilled any of the milk" and turn to the sink. Mistake. I hear Lincoln say "Mommy, Catherine has made a big mess." I turn and see that she has emptied the milk on the table and is attempting to crawl across the table to where Lincoln is coloring and "writing his letters". I scoop her off of the table and clean up the milk.

It's now 9am, Coleman has woken up (he was up at 6am, ate, and went back to sleep). I sit in the recliner/rocker to feed him. Lincoln is watching something on TV and Catherine is here and there. I try to keep up with her by listening to where she goes. She is playing with Lincoln's Magnets and legos... so I think. It is nearing 9:30 am. I have completely fed Coleman and burped him twice. I turn to find Catherine and notice she isn't where I thought. She is like a stealth fighter- she goes undetected. I call for her and she enters the room without her pants or diaper and with her sleeves on both arms very wet. I know exactly where to go- toward the bathroom at the laundry room.

Catherine loves the toilet, she would sit on it and flush it over and over if I let her. And sure enough, she has visited this one. There is a collapsible crate in front of the now open bathroom door. She needed that one inch collapsed crate to elevate her to the door knob. Her pants and diaper are on the floor in front of the toilet. Her potty seat is on there crooked. And there is toilet paper in the clean potty and wet toilet paper on the floor around the potty which explains the wet sleeves. Ick!

I clean up the bathroom and put the crate on the washer to keep her from entering that bathroom again. I walk back through the den to get outfit number 2 and then the 4 of us go to Walmart. We had a great trip- everyone was well behaved. I put away the cold stuff and sit to feed Coleman again. I just KNOW that Catherine can't get in any of the bathrooms so I don't pay as close of attention. When I get done feeding Coleman, I find Catherine sitting on the floor looking at a book. "How sweet" I think as I go prepare their lunch. Catherine apparently followed me in the kitchen because I hear her say "uh oh". Dreading what I am about to see, I turn around and see Catherine with her pants down around her shoes, no diaper, pointing to her pants. They are wet. So I go back to the den and see that not only was she reading a book, she was tinkling on my carpet. Lovely! However, it could have been worse (And the worse did happen later in the day on the hardwood floor. I am just trying to cover the morning).

After lunch, Coleman is ready to go to sleep. I walk up the stairs, put him in his bed, and come right back down. I don't see Catherine in the den with Lincoln. Knowing she can't be in the bathroom again I look down the hallway just to make sure. And right there before my eyes is a Jack in the Box right in front of a now open bathroom door. To know what happened next, please re-read the second half of paragraph 3.

Should anyone ever wonder why things don't get done around here? This was just Catherine's account from the day. There are 2 other accounts that could be told.

God has blessed me with a precious little girl. She gets into everything but keeps life interesting! Know that I am lovin' it despite the bathroom mishaps.

I hope everyone had a nice Easter weekend! Here are pictures from ours- it shows just how life is these days. I learned at Christmas not to stress over pictures. So now it is one or two pictures and that's it. If 3 of the 5 of us look decent then hey, we've got a picture.

Lincoln, Coleman, and Catherine at my parents.... I think this is cute even though Coleman is screaming and Catherine is so serious!

Here is our family picture. The one that I didn't post captured Catherine's hand right in the middle of Coleman's face and Lincoln's face is smiling but his eyes were watching Catherine touch Coleman. So, here is our picture with 3 of us looking decent.

Here are the kids after hunting eggs. Anna Lea is holding Madeline. Tyler is sad because he thought Lincoln had more eggs. What he didn't know was that Lincoln had easter grass in his basket making it look like more eggs. Anna Lea was so sweet. She gave Tyler half of her eggs and said "Here Tyler. I don't care how many eggs I have."

Other cute happenings:

Lincoln likes to ask questions about my wedding rings and why "daddy" gave them to me. After I answer all 50 questions he says "Mommy, I am going to marry you and live with you forever!" I just savor it because I know in 10 years that won't be the case.

Catherine is turning two April 23 and we are practicing saying "two". While Catherine likes to talk and sing, her words are far from clear. We have been practicing saying "Hi. I am Catherine. I am two." The only thing that's clear is "HI" and "two". She holds up all 5 fingers for two. It is so cute!

Monday, Catherine walked to our bathroom, pulled her pants down, took off her diaper, and said in her words that she wanted to go tee tee. Honestly, I thought "Great, this isn't what I wanted to do yet." But I went along with it and by the end of the day she had gone to the bathroom in the potty. However, the next day she went to Mother's Day Out and since then she hasn't been extremely interested (except in flushing the toilet and putting her hands in it- yuck). I am somewhat relieved. We will go back to it soon- just not today or this month.

Catherine finally weighs 20 pounds! Just this week. Coleman weighed 11 lb 4 oz this week at his 2 month appointment. He will weigh more than her by the time he is 6 months!

I am starting a Beth Moore series with some of my friends from church. It is the Breaking Free series. I am very excited about this study. Have any of you completed it? We just finished week 1. I know God will do great things in ourlives through this study.

Blessings to all of you-

I can't believe it has been a MONTH since I last posted. The beautiful weather is partly to blame b/c we were outside enjoying it, as well as, little man not napping as well. But ALL of that has changed, and now I have a moment to write.

A few funnies/sweet memories:
For my family- I heard Lincoln's class singing "Little Bunny Foo-Foo" on Tuesday and I immediately thought of Aunt Lynn, who first taught me that song when I was little. I could see her and hear her sweet voice singing it in my head. :) My question is when she sang it, did the good fairy turn Little bunny into a "goon" or did she say something else? Susan, Sandy, and Sarah may have the answer to that.

One thing I am learning w/ 3 is that I need to do as much as possible the night before school/church just to make it anywhere on time (doing everything last minute doesn't work well anymore). So tonight, I was making Lincoln's sandwich for school tomorrow and he asked me to make it in a circle (using my handy Pampered Chef tool). I told him that I would and instead of him leaving the kitchen, he begins to rub my back and belly with his hands saying "Keep it on your mind, keep it on your mind" over and over until I made the sandwich. You see, a couple days ago he asked me to make his sandwich in a circle and I forgot- he got squares and was very disappointed. So he made sure it didn't happen again! It was humorous!

Coleman for the past 2 nights has been sleeping 7 hours straight (10pm to 5am). So tonight at church he fell asleep. At 9pm he was still sleeping and I began to get concerned that his 7 hours was beginning. So, I smell his diaper and what do you know, he has a poop. I can't let him sleep in a poop, now can I? I decide he must be changed. I get him out of his car seat and begin to change his VERY poopy diaper. I must have been really concentrating on his bottom, because I failed to notice that he began to pee ON HIS FACE until he woke up and began to cry out. Poor little guy, what a rude awakening. And to add to it all, he began to poop again before I got the pee off his face or the clean diaper in place. It was amusing!

Now for the pictures-


Amy and the kids came up one Friday and we had a great time. The kids have SO MUCH fun together and Amy and I actually had conversations while they played. I miss my sister living in Cookeville!!! I have to say that Amy is amazing for many reasons, but today I am talking about her lightning fast cleaning abilities. She had my kitchen cleaned up, den dusted, and floor swept in like 10 min. Now, if you had seen my house that day, or any day for that matter, you would know that that would have taken me a good 45 minutes. It was VERY MUCH appreciated by me.... and Brad!! :)

Lincoln's soccer season began on a 47 degree Saturday! He loves soccer and will tell you that he is very good at it. He will also tell you that he is on the blue team and that blue is Jake's (one of his buddies) favorite color. Green is Lincoln's. Brad and a good friend coach the team.

Coleman's expressions at 6 weeks old.



Brad's work had an Egg Hunt. Lincoln found a Golden Egg with $10 in it. He came home and put it in his piggy bank. What a good saver!

I will post again after Easter!

With big sister at Mother's Day Out, Coleman can enjoy his swing and even take a nap without fear of "hugs", love rubs on the head, or having his eyes poked out as Catherine names his facial features.

Sir Linc-A-Lot on his....horse protects baby Coleman from the feared Lasagna kisser below (it's all around her mouth).

Ahhh, sweet Catherine. My wild haired girl!

It is hard to believe that Coleman was 4 weeks yesterday. He is out of preemie clothes and into newborn and smaller 0-3 month clothes. He has had some nasal congestion which caused some scary nights since he hasn't really learned to breath in/out of his mouth. It doesn't help that when he spits-up, it occassionally comes through his nose. The doc said he would eventually teach himself not to do that as well. It is interesting what these little babies have to learn by themselves in their first several weeks of life.

About 2 weeks ago, I took Catherine to the doctor thinking she had bronchitis. Her symptoms were fever and a tight cough. I find out that no, she did not have that. Instead, it was a double ear infection and the flu!!! I was shocked. The way the doctor (not our usual one) looked at me told me she couldn't believe I had no indication of her ear infections. Looking back, I had 2 clues but they were a WEEK before. I did feel terrible, but at the same time I was glad to know that maybe Catherine wasn't ignoring me. She just couldn't hear me! It was a blessing that the flu was VERY mild, and she never complained about her ears.

A Catherine story: At 10:45 pm the other night she wakes up. I go check on her, try to figure out what was wrong. Could her ears be hurting as they heal? Is she hungry? She didn't eat much supper or snack. I couldn't really come up with anything. So, I gave her a dose of Tylenol just in case it was her ears and put her to back to bed. Well, I hear her whinning and talking to "ga ga" (who is Lincoln sleeping across the room). At midnight, she starts to cry and I ask Brad to go back up and check on her b/c I was feeding Coleman. To my surprise, he is back down in just minutes. I know he didn't sing to her or rock her like I had done a couple of times b/c I didn't hear it on the monitor. So, how did he get her to be quiet so fast? He says, "I told her that she had cried enough and it was time to go to bed. And if she kept crying she would get a spanking." We usually save spankings for defiant issues so I was surprised he said that, glad she didn't test him on it, and was somewhat jealous. When I tell her that she will get a spanking for 'x' behavior she just smiles or laughs. So I am making sure now that I am consistent with Catherine and that I follow up with whatever I say. I was like that with Lincoln at this age, and it worked so why not with Catherine? Who knows!

Are you wondering what my verdict is on 3 so far? At a big 4 weeks in? Well, it has not been as bad as I thought it would be. Of course I think, well, I stressed with Lincoln b/c he was first and I had NO clue what was going on. I stressed with Catherine b/c she was tiny and had the "failure to thrive" title. All I thought about during her first year was how much she ate . And so far with Coleman, I have none of that. Once we get through with this congestion, I pray that he continues to do well. Please, continue to keep us in your prayers as well!!