WWJB–Summer Camp 2010

So emails are starting to fly amongst my gal pals, we are starting to plan for summer. Starting to plan because weeks and weeks on end with no plan at all sort of stresses me out. Mostly because without a goal each day, I’d sit here, on the Internet while my kids zone out at the TV until at least noon every day. We are looking at the free movies, the library reading programs and maybe jazzing up the around-town itinerary with a scavenger hunt or two.

As we were figuring out who was going where when, the topic of Vacation Bible School came up. MaM’s been looking forward to going to our Church’s program, and I’ve been planning what I could do for two hours each morning with Junior while she sings Kumbayah.

Then we registered this past weekend. And VBS this year is 6-8 PM. There goes that plan. Of course she’ll still go, of course she’ll still love it, but there won’t be that week of “this is why we are getting dressed before noon, and Junior, what would you like to do today” .

Then a friend shared that her boys were going to VBS at a church near their house, not their actual church. And then she threw out the name of a church near us that has a morning VBS one week in June.

AND THEN I GOT AN IDEA.

What if we church hopped all summer? What if each week I sent MaM to a new VBS? The price can’t be beat (most are $20-$30 for the week), and who couldn’t use more Bible schooling?

AND THEN MY FRIEND GOT AN IDEA.

(clue for week 1) This church has a fun festival and living Nativity at Christmas. Do you know what church this is?

What if we church hopped all summer, scavenger hunt style?

(clue for week 2) This church is across from your favorite park. Do you know what church this is?

Each week, the kids would get clue, and once they figured out which church it was, they could go to that VBS.

Theme for the summer:

Where

Would

Jesus

Be

(clue for week 3) We pass this church every day on the way to school. Do you know what this church is?

Punishment Stool, circa 2010

My quick post on MaM’s “punishment stool” from 2006 still gets a lot of hits. Sometimes I can tell it’s a query about toddler discipline, sometimes it’s from something freaky (my favorite query? “diaper discipline for girlfriend).

I look back on the post and laugh-Jr is SUCH a different toddler than MaM was. I go to that post and think, “wow? did she really do that?” And then I think back to all the chairs I had to move into the bathroom (because she was standing on them), I think about the fact that we DID buy a new dishwasher because that knob she liked to turn was going to be the death of me, and that the following spring we had a whole debacle on Spring Break I now dub, “The Spring Break Nap Time Smack Down” (there was no smacking, but there was JUMPING off of dressers!!).

Jr is so different. Now granted, I’m probably different. I’m older. I know there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.

Jr listens when I say “no” the first time. If he doesn’t, he calmly ( and sadly) goes to the time out step. What happened to the stool?? Well, a few weeks after that first post, the stool was thrown. After that, I started putting her on a particular step.

Maybe it’s because we let him watch more TV. Maybe it’s because “the MaM show” distracts him. Maybe it’s because his more challenging time will come closer to age three. Maybe it’s because he still doesn’t sleep through the night and isn’t well rested enough to really put up a fight.

Maybe he’s just a different kid.

I don’t know, but I’m going to enjoy my fairly laid back toddler while I can!

I Learned How to Be a Mom from the Best

Always listening to my crazy tales

If you haven’t seen it already, Grown In My Heart is hosting a Mother’s Day photo contest/carnival  this week. I’ve known about this project for almost two weeks, but here I am, getting my link in under the wire.

This project has been good for a few things, including bringing to my attention that I don’t have many photos of my mom on my computer. Also, I either need to steal my dad’s files that he’s been scanning for the past 5 years or start getting my printed photos on a portable hard drive somehow.

Anyway……this photo was taken almost seven years ago at my surprise 30th birthday party. I have . NO idea what I was telling her, but she, as she always is, was interested. Because she’s my mom and she’s awesome.

(an aside…that’s my grandma (dad’s mom) in the background, at the time she was not quite 90, now she’s a spry 96.5!!!)