Finally happy at swim class

I forgot to post the pictures of the last week of swim class when Everett actually liked it (it was a two week class). He asked last night when we got to go again, not until next year buddy. He is actually smiling in the first photo. He still did not like swimming on his own, but before swimming class he would not put his face in the water or blow bubbles. Baby steps, baby steps.

I remember talking with a mom about how her older child could swim but her younger child could not because they had not been as faithful taking their younger child to swimming lessons. I totally related. For three years I took Madeleine every Saturday to swimming class (from the age of 2 to 5). Going with my sister and her little girl was accountability. My sister Kristin continued without us this past fall and her 3 year old little boy is a great swimmer now. So, this spring I will begin taking Everett every week to Emler's as well.

My foot hurts!

Thursday night I was doing one last errand before going to bed. I had my hands full with stuff to put in the car, so I didn't turn on the light as I came into the room. I proceeded to walk right into the ottoman and hit my foot. It hurt! I dropped what was in my hands and proceeded to curl into a ball on the floor as I cried out for Lee. I could move all my toes, a little, so after a bit I went to bed.

On Friday morning I was supposed to walk 3 miles for my 3day training, but I could not put my foot on the floor without crying out in pain. I was able to drag my foot along, but I could not imagine how I was going to drive Madeleine to Vacation Bible School or keep Everett home with me and keep him amused. Lee decided to stay home from work (Bless him!) and be my chauffeur. As we picked up my niece Sydney for VBS my brother-in-law, Doctor Andy, checked out my foot for free. He said my 4th toe (next to the little toe) might be broken, but only an x-ray could tell for sure. I made an appointment with my doctor at 11 am, but Doctor Andy's advice was the same as the doctor that I paid for!

After Lee drove all over town to take the girls up to Richardson for VBS, then to downtown to take Everett to school, then to Garland to pick up his computer for work, we stopped at the doctor's office near Presbyterian Hospital. An x-ray later and some advice to elevate and ice, we went home where I took a 3 hour nap!

After some motrin and a nap I was able to put on my tennis shoe without too much wincing. I could not believe how much my foot hurt! (Or I could just be a wimp) When I woke up I called the doctor's office to see if the toe was broken and I almost cried when the message said the doctor's office was closed. It was only 4:30 (on a Friday). I don't know why an official diagnosis seemed so important, but it did. I started to make dinner and could not believe it when the doctor called at 6pm. My toe wasn't broken, and somehow that news made me happy and sad. Happy that it was not broken, but sad because I wanted there to be a reason for the pain. My wife bruised her toe and there was soft tissue damage did not seem like a justifiable reason for Lee to have taken the day off of work!

I am so thankful for Lee who took care of me all day, for Doctor Andy who is in our family and only lives 1.5 miles away, for x-rays, and that my toe is not broken. I could not believe how much my toe hurt yesterday, the pain radiated through my body all day long. My toe is not throbbing today, and I will try to elevate and ice as I get ready to do a wedding on a golf course tonight and preach both services tomorrow. I did not have time to have a broken toe, though it would have been exciting. I have never broken a bone in my body!

Thankful for a Good Samaritan

This morning on my 6 am morning walk (can I call it regular if I have been doing it for 2 weeks?), I encountered two amazing things. One was while I was on the White Rock bike trail near Greenville and Royal. I was walking along listening to NPR on my radio walkman thing and all of a sudden there was a huge, gorgeous, black horse walking the opposite way. I told the man atop the horse, "That's a horse!" To which he replied, "Yes, it is." I then said (remember it was about 6:30 am so my brain was not yet too active), "It's huge!" I was busy thinking about the horse and how wonderful it was to see such a beautiful horse in Dallas, what would I tweet when I got home I wondered?

I had now completed my stretch on the bike trail and was on Fair Oaks heading to Abrams when I encountered something scary on my walk. As I approached I could see that there was a black dog in the street and the cars were slowing down. I thought how nice it was that the cars were slowing down so that they would not hurt the dog. As I got closer to the dog I noticed that it didn't have a collar and that it didn't look so happy. Its face looked very dirty and it started to growl at me. I was across the street of a 4 lane road but just when there was a break from the cars the dog started to run at me. I started to scream and looked at my precious water bottle, it would not do much damage since I had drunk most of it. I thought about running to a house that was right behind me and ringing doorbells. I tried to slowly keep walking while still maintaining eye contact but the dog would just growl and try to run at me. I was really scared. I had decided when the next car came I was going to wave it down and jump inside to get away. Just then my Good Samaritan appeared. That story has been on my mind since Pastor Derrick preached on that passage on Sunday at Oak Lawn UMC (Luke 10:25-37).

My Good Samaritan was in a pick-up truck and I waved him down pointing at the dog. I was screaming and jumping up and down. The man got out of his truck and pulled a rake out of the back. I started to walk towards Abrams while looking behind me to keep looking at the dog. I then broke out into a run (while trying to look behind me) because the dog was holding his own against the man. It was super scary and I am wondering where I get some mace! But doesn't a dog have to be pretty close to you before you use the mace?

I had been thinking about tweeting about how thankful I was to see the horse, but now I am thankful more for my Good Samaritan. When his truck pulled alongside me at the light at Abrams I told him how thankful I was.

I am getting ready for the 3 day in November so my morning walks will continue, but it will be a while before I take that same route.

Swim class

We are taking a 2 week swim class at our local Recreation Center with the City of Dallas. Everett goes first from 5-5:30 and Madeleine is 5:30-6:15pm. It was only $30! Everett loved it on days 1-3, but on day 4 not so much. Of course day 4 was the day that I remembered to bring the camera so I decided I might as well document! One more week left...




saddest boy ever...

What words are bad?

It started innocently enough with my daughter repeating something that I say all the time (or at least, I used to say all the time). "Oh, my gosh!" I heard Madeleine say when she was about 5. Coming out of the mouth of a 5 year old it just seemed so close to taking the Lord's name in vain, "Oh, my God." I thought when I said it it was so different, but really, "Oh, my gosh" are not the best English words ever. So, I have tried (really, really) to stop saying, "Oh, my gosh."

Then, Madeleine went to kindergarten where her classmates were teaching her all kinds of words and phrases. We had the discussion about the word hell. I told her it wasn't a bad word, it just wasn't a very nice word. We had talks when Madeleine would use words that weren't very nice or just not very becoming for a young child to be saying.

A few months ago Madeleine said, "What the...?" which Lee says all the time. Lee does not say another word after "what the" and Madeleine copied him exactly. It made me laugh so much. Children pick up on everything that you say and then, they repeat it!

Yesterday Madeleine said "heck". I don't know why it made me stop and think, it just seemed like a word that an older person should be saying, not a 6 year old. I say it, Lee says it, but should we tell her not to say it? (I did tell her it wasn't a very nice word to say).

What words are bad and what words are inappropriate for our children to say? And if they are inappropriate for our children to say, why are they okay for us to say them? There are those words that George Carlin talked about, and those words that you know are bad words, but what about those words that are somewhere in the middle? They are just not nice, or don't sound like a child should say them. But they hear the adults around them saying them...

A memorable wedding that I did in Krum was when a man asked me to speak on the passage in James that talks about how our mouth gets us into trouble. I was expecting the love passage in 1 Corinthians, but this man knew what he needed help on for his marriage!

From James 3 (The Message version)
"We get it wrong nearly every time we open our mouths. If you could find someone whose speech was perfectly true, you'd have a perfect person, in perfect control of life. A bit in the mouth of a horse controls the whole horse. A small rudder on a huge ship in the hands of a skilled captain sets a course in the face of the strongest winds. A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything—or destroy it! It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell."

stats

When a baby is born their stats are so important. Everyone wants to know them, when were they born, how much did they weigh, how long are they? When you visit the pediatrician's office 10 days after the baby is born, you are hoping that they are back up to their birth weight. You worry about what the stats will be. At the pediatrician's office on that 10 day visit, I got a book where I could keep my children's stats for each doctor visit. There would be a lot of visits, at the 1 month mark, the 2 month mark, the 4 month mark, 6 months, and then a jump to 9 months. I remember fretting, what if something happened, maybe I should make a drop-in visit just to make sure that the baby's stats were good. After the 12 month visit, it seems like the pediatrician is breaking up with you, see you again when the baby is 18 months they say. What? Did we do something wrong? Why do we have to wait so long? After you become comfortable with going to get your baby's stats every 6 months then the big shocker, you only have to come once a year. Of course, there will be the visits for the flu shots, the ear infections, the fevers, the coughs.

I try to remember about a month before a birthday to make an appointment with the pediatrician. And then it cracks me up because the insurance company only lets you go a year from the last appointment, so even though Madeleine turned 6 June 20, we couldn't visit the pediatrician until after July 2 because we went July 2 last year. The earliest appointment time was July 6. So, I took Madeleine to see what her stats were now. From 19 1/4 inches on June 20, 2004 to 46 1/2 inches on July 6, 2010. She has been consistent with her growth curve for about 3 years now, she is in the 75% percentile for height. Her weight went from 6 pounds, 12 ounces on June 20, 2004 to 45.4 pounds on July 6, 2010. She has also been consistent with her growth curve for about 3 years now with her weight, she is in the 50% percentile for weight.

Time to get out her growth and development record book that I got on that 10 day visit and put in her new stats!


Madeleine getting her first blood pressure reading.