Happy Halloween

Little Friends

It is impossible to get multiple two year-olds to pose, but they are pretty funny when they are together. The first couple pics and Tucker and Finnan, the son of college friends. The second pics are from our Bible study on Sunday where all the little boys decided it was hat time.

Weight lifting

This is Tucker lifting weights with Austin. Sometimes he picks up real 2 1/2 lb plates and carries them around!

Cooking Tip: Peeling Squash

I have a love-hate relationship with winter squash: I love to eat it and hate to peel it. Eating Well magazine had a tip to microwave your winter squash for a minute before peeling it to make it easier to peel.

It worked! I highly recommend this as a new addition to your squash-peeling routine.

"Go that!"

Tucker is very involved these days in driving. His new thing this week is pointing out the car window and shouting for us to "Go that" (i.e. "Go there").

He often seems to shout and point to someplace random where he has never been before (like some fields on the side of the interstate), but be so emphatic that it's like we're passing his favorite Moon Bounce.

At times like these I wonder what is going through his mind. Also, by the time he can tell me what he's thinking in less cryptic language, will it really make any more sense or will his explanation simply be more amusing?

Milk!

Tucker passed his food challenge today with flying colors, and had his first glass of real cow's milk, his first taste of cheese, and lots of real yogurt. I don't think he realizes how exciting this is, but I certainly do.

Apparently the biggest reason that food challenges fail is that they can't get the kid to eat the food in question. So you have to bring them into the allergy clinic HUNGRY to make sure they'll eat whatever unfamiliar food you need them to try.

Tucker's appointment was at 8:30 am, so it was do-able to just bundle him off into the car and tell him he was going to eat breakfast with the doctor. It became harder when the doctor was running late and the challenge didn't start till 9:40 am, with one tiny cup (about a spoonful) of yogurt. Tucker wolfed down that spoonful and just broke into hysterics when he couldn't have more. The deal is you need to wait about 10-20 minutes to make sure there isn't a horrible reaction, before you can really challenge him with a serving or more of the food in question.

It is really sad to see your son begging for the milk and yogurt he sees in front of him, but not be able to give any. (I did end up pulling out cheerios to keep us sane, but still it was not a experience to repeat--next time I'm going to be looser about eating beforehand because he did not need to be that hungry.)

I thought Tucker might have an aversion to the taste of cow's milk after only having rice milk and soy milk his whole life. Not so. He hasn't remarked at all that suddenly his milk is different. And he definitely had no qualms about the yogurt whatsoever. He even liked the cheese I gave him at lunch.

Next up is an egg challenge in November. He'll like that one: real french toast (with syrup!). If all goes well we may have a relatively allergy-free holiday season (of course nuts and seeds are off limits to us, but that is easy to work around).

Oh no! Shoot!

Tucker is a little parrot right now. Whatever we say, he is starting to say. Austin said "Darn" the other day and he ran around saying "Darn." Today his favorite words are "Oh no! Shoot!" Again and again and again.

Just a side note, Tucker does NOT get bored of repeating words he likes. He loves his name and repeats it again and again ad infinitum.

Incidentally, Austin is no longer "Dada" he is now, emphatically, "Dad-DEE."

Tucker also has lots of funny phrases. When he pushes a truck the past few days, rather than making a truck noise he just shouts "NOISE" as he moves the truck back and forth. I think it's pretty funny.

The seasons are changing

Today was the first day that we've had a fire in our wood stove (we still haven't turned on our heat pump). It feels like a momentous occasion, though also a little bizarre because yesterday's high was 72 degrees. But today was a rainy day with the high in the upper 40s and even our old brick house can't hold heat in THAT long.

Last winter we kept the thermostat at 63 degrees, and that was what the house settled at today before we lit the fire. But 63 degrees today felt chilly... thankfully Virginia is good at providing lots of ups and downs in temperatures for the next couple months, so we'll be thoroughly conditioned before it really gets cold.

Helpful living hints

When you are about to put your son down for a nap, don't leave onions sauteeing in oil on the stove, even at the lowest possible heat setting. It may leave a permanent mark on the pan and your husband wondering why the house is filled with smoke.

FYI.

Thought of the day

"I am not what I ought to be. I am not what I want to be. I am not what I hope to be. But still, I am not what I used to be." --John Newton

Fireman

Tucker is so excited about his Halloween costume he had to sleep with the jacket in his bed, and put it on before he even got up from his nap.

My little Picasso

Tucker has discovered a love for painting this week. Austin is constantly painting something: the house, a door, whatever. Tucker was overjoyed when I got out the finger paints and told him that he could paint like Daddy.

Of course, it is still a bit hard to understand that Tucker only gets to paint paper, while Daddy gets to paint lots of different types of objects. Tucker also doesn't like to get his fingers dirty, and is firmly committed to paint brushes, both Daddy-sized and small ones more reasonable for a budding young artist.

There is a slight problem with this new love: it is very parent-intensive. The other day, Austin had just walked in from work and it was dinner time, and I was sick with a 101 fever... and Tucker decides it's painting time. Obviously it was NOT painting time, but it's hard to convince a paint-loving two year-old of that without a major battle sometimes.

Maria Grace Jamison - 9/30/09

I had a whole entry planned out to post this week now that I was safely in my second trimester, to announce baby #2's expected arrival in March.

I was going to tell the story of last weekend, when Tucker and I were reading a board book that identifies some body parts, the various senses, that sort of thing. There's a two page spread that features kids demonstrating lots of emotions: sad, happy, laughing, scared, etc. Tucker looked at the faces and pointed to the tired face and said "Mama." I tried to read the other faces, but all he wanted to do was point at the tired one and repeat "Mama." That is what Tucker thought of me being pregnant.

Unfortunately, we learned on Tuesday that the baby had died.

It's funny, I wouldn't have thought I'd post about a miscarriage... after all, I waited to announce the baby here until the risk of miscarriage was over. But now that it has happened I feel like it has affected our lives too much NOT to post about it.

I love that our church has a service to celebrate the life of the unborn--called "Mass of the Angels"--and love that we have the opportunity to celebrate it as a short but very real life. We decided to name our child, which we think was a girl: Maria Grace Jamison.

In no particular order, here are some lessons I'm taking away from this experience: 1) Never use a home heart beat doppler--they are misleading! We got readings of a heartbeat long after she had died. 2) If you have a first trimester ultrasound, get one after 8 weeks, when the chance of miscarriage drops to 1 in 100. Before then the ultrasound doesn't confirm too much.

But the most important thing for me in this experience is choosing to grieve knowing that this death is for my good and God's glory ("All things work for the good of those who love God" Romans 8:28). Of course it is not how I would make this world to work, and I look forward to the time when sin and death and sorrow cease, but in the meantime, it's time to look for God's grace in the hard times. From the ease of the medical appointments and Tucker's behavior during them, to the outpouring of love around us, to the fact that I serve a real God who is currently holding my baby in His everlasting arms... the list of God's grace to us right now really does go on and on. "For from Him and through Him and to Him are ALL things--to God be the glory forever." (Romans 11:36).