Well I pulled up to a seemingly crowded restaurant/park today (Padaro Grill for those who are in the know), I was amazed to find a parking space right in front. I parked and said out loud (not for the first time in these situations) “Thank you God!” Max exclamed, “Thank you Lord!” Lucy chimed in, “Thank you Jesus!” Then it took off from there: Max – “Jesus, you are so beautiful!” Lucy – “Jesus, you are stronger than a barrel of monkeys!”

You most likely have noticed that posting has been light (non-existent) for the past month of February. This is because I have transferred the server and it took a while to set up the new server. I finally got everything working and didn’t want to de-synchronize, so I made the decision to wait on posting. I have some pictures and 2-3 posts rolling around in my head that I will try to post over the next week or so to catch up.

We recently took away Lucy’s pacifier for good. We had been whittling it down for a while, only allowing her to have it for sleeping and car rides. But soon after her birthday (has Toby put those pictures up yet?) and our vacation, we had a mini party to cut up the ‘binky’ while Gran was in town. Then Lucy (with Mom’s help) took some scissors and cut up the binkies and threw them in the trash.

She’s happy now, but not for long

Toby made up a song for the occasion. Lucy has been crying alot at naps and bed time. She wants her binky, a lot. We talk about it and she knows that her binky is in the trash, but that is little comfort. Last week, I was putting her to bed and, as usual, she asked for her binky. I went through the whole rigamarole and she told me that her binky was in the trash. Then her face cleared up and she got a sly smile on her face as she said ‘Thumb binky’ and put her thumb in her mouth. Luckily the thumb was not a great subsitute and she only sucked it for a day or so. When we took away the binky, her naps went from typically 3 hours long to about a hour and a half long on a good day. It has been a rough transition for all involved.

Lately I have been wondering if Toby has pulled a fast one on me in that Max may not be my son. Over the last couple of months he has begun exercising on his own a lot. It started off with push-ups but has progressed. He does push-ups before AWANA meetings so that he can win at the games and he does push-ups before his AYSO soccer games so he can run fast. While visiting the Neinhuis’s for Thanksgiving he found a set of 5# dumbells and did curls and presses in front of a full length mirror. If it was just the exercise, I would be very pleased. But it has gotten to the point where he has become the health police in the family. Last week, I was having a grilled cheese sandwich and he told me that my muscles were going to get small because I was eating white bread. Someone (I suspect Toby) told him that white bread is not as good for you as wheat bread. He will only eat the brown bread because it has vitamins for muscles. I could even overlook this white bread thing as just some brainwashing by his mom or my dad. But this past weekend he decided he didn’t want to eat sugar any more. Now this is not something that any son of mine would ever do. He didn’t want any pie, he didn’t want any whipped cream. He didn’t even want any soda. What is the deal? The final straw occurred when we were at Denny’s for breakfast on Saturday and he didn’t want any syrup on his pancakes because syrup has sugar in it!!! I don’t think any progeny of mine could ever eat dry pancakes when syrup was available. (I got some honey packets and convinced him that honey doesn’t make muscles small, it was almost difficult.) On Sunday morning, as I was getting Lucy out the door, Max was doing sit-ups (crunches, really) in the living room while waiting for us to go out the door. I know he is my son, but where is he getting these wacky ideas, especially about our friend sugar?