Graduation Weekend

HCS had graduation on Friday night. These kids are getting younger and younger! Next year, the graduates will be the kids who were in my very first class at Howardsville. Will I ever feel old then!!


This was the first weekend Clint had to work - I do NOT like being a single mom on weekends, but it's inevitable - he has to work one weekend a month, so I must get used to it. *Sigh* I really don't know how single mothers function. I am so thankful my hubby is an active dad! For example:


This weekend we had two open houses to go attend - the first being a Hawaiian luau thrown by our Pastor for his daughter - whom Gracie just adores. They had leis, palm trees, and a ton of food. They also had 5 gallon jugs with pink lemonade in them. The spigots on those jugs just fascinate Grace. She loves to push them. We no sooner sat down with her and our plates of food, her with a cup of lemonade, then she takes a drink, sets down her cup and with a gleam in her eye announces "I'll be back in a minute."


Yikes - when a 2 year old announces this, and she was crystal clear, you just know she has a plan. All she wanted to do the whole time we were there was pour cup after cup of lemonade from that spigot. She wasn't even drinking it! She was wearing most of it. At one point we did get a reprieve from the lemonade and a 7 foot plastic palm tree tied to the deck caught her eye. To which, she of course pulled on a ripped off. We tried to get there as fast as we could, but Pastor said she could play with it and to leave her alone. Hims a good Pastor! So, rather than a cup of lemonade, there's Gracie walking all around the tents full of former colleagues, students and friends of mine - palm tree in tow. Only she's not exactly managing it gracefully - she is tripping and tugging and at one point she had it straddled and then it flipped on top of her. And she wanted to bring it into the tent! Hello my love - not going to happen. On top of that, she's got a shiner on her cheek from a run-in with a table at the pediatrician's office and she has a very deep gash on her forehead that EVERYBODY asked about. And she didn't mind telling everybody the story, but good grief am I raising Ramona Quimby here?

"What happened to your head Gracie?"

"Robby hit me in the head with a brush"

"Ouch! Why did he do that?"

"I pushed him off the stool."
"Ohhhh, why did you do that?"

"I had to wash my hands"

I must have heard this conversation about 20 times this weekend - no joke. People are going to think we are abusing this kid!

Clint and I take turns running after her, so the other one can visit and feel like a normal person - otherwise, why go anywhere just to chase your kid around? What's the point? If I didn't have him to tag team with, I would be dead tired and lonely to boot.

Gracie funny: Well, it's a little traumatizing, but my daughter just cannot seem to watch where she's going and of course she doesn't walk anywhere - so she is running into everything and not even knowing what hit her! Literally because she's not looking. At the doctor's office I watched the whole thing play out - There were about 12 kids in the waiting room. Well, she was across the room and I called to her to come over. There was little girl wearing a REAL Dora backpack (complete with Map) and Grace could not keep her eyes off of it. Well, she looked at that thing the whole time she was running towards me, tripped over a different the feet of little girl who was kneeling at one of the activity tables and went cheek first into the corner of it. We had to ask the nurse for ice! I know it was painful to her, but man it's funny to watch someone crash into something when they aren't looking - even if it is your own daughter!

Annie update: She is sleeping through the night! Woohoo! We're talking 9pm -5am just in time to have a bottle and go back to sleep so I can take a shower and be out the door by 6:30! All right - she's getting so responsive too - talking back and cooing and focusing when people talk to her - it's fun to see her develop into a little person instead of just someone who cries and sleeps. I think she's going to have the sweetest personality!