Busy Times

I feel I have abandoned our blog lately, due to typical daily busy times! We finished up the summer term of preschool and will be beginning the new year this coming Wednesday. I will be teaching Little Philip in his 4K class along with a co-teacher. Helen will be starting in the "bunny" room just down the hall from the two of us. I am excited about meeting all of my new students and look forward to Helen continuing to improve in her anxiety as she departs from me. Lately, there have been no tears as I drop her off each morning and if she catches a glimpse of me during the day, she rarely cries or falls apart anymore.

Big Philip has started his fall marathon of visiting area high schools, following up with prospective students for MSU and attending area college fairs. He continues to enjoy his work with MSU.

There is nothing else to share at this time. We lead pretty boring but blessed lives lately!

Simple Things in Life

You know you are easy to please when the highlight of your day is when your free bra you sent off for 6-8 weeks ago finally arrives in the mail. Pure bliss.

Roger Day!

If you have not had the pleasure of taking your little one to see or hear Roger Day in concert, I highly recommend it. He's sort of a toddler celebrity around these parts but travels all across the country to do children's concerts. Tonight he were able to see him again at a local church and Little Philip got all his sillies out!

Cauliflower

Once upon a time, there lived a darling little girl named Renie. Actually her name was Little Irene, because that's what you do to your children when they live in the South, especially anywhere near Mobile, AL. You always confuse them and everyone around them by naming them after you so that every time someone calls on the phone you must clarify which Irene the caller desire. I decided to repeat this torture with our son. But I digress...

So anyway, this little girl named Little Irene hated oatmeal. I don't think instant flavored oatmeal packets were invented yet and if they were, Little Irene's parents surely did not buy them for their perfect daughter, so the only option was old fashioned steel cut oatmeal, like what horses eat. So one morning before school, Little Irene came downstairs in her Catholic school uniform and found, in horror, that her mother had served hot old fashioned oatmeal for breakfast, complete with raisins, butter, and brown sugar. She sat down and begged not to eat it but her mother forced the issue, saying "IRENE BOYCE PORTER YOU CAN SIT THERE ALL DAY LONG FOR ALL I CARE BUT YOU ARE NOT GETTING UP FROM THAT TABLE UNTIL YOU EAT YOUR OATMEAL!" And so, Little Irene sat crying, whimpering about the fact that she would be late for school if her mother did not relent. All the while her mother babbled about starving children in Africa and what a sad thing it would be to have to confess to Father what's-his-name than you did not eat your oatmeal, blah, blah, blah. Finally, in obedience to the desire to remain a perfect daughter, Little Irene held her nose as she shoveled the goopy meal down her throat. She was then allowed to get up from the table. When she did, she promptly threw up all over the floor. Little Irene was very late for school by this point and so she had to go to the school office. There sat Sister Joan, the principal of her school. When Sister Joan asked what was the nature of Little Irene's tardy arrival, Little Irene's mother nudged her daughter to explain. Feeling sure that a Catholic nun would take pity on her, Little Irene blurted out "my mother made me eat my oatmeal and it made me sick so I threw up." Why Little Irene thought a Catholic nun would take pity on this situation, she'll never know but sure enough, Sister Joan replied saying "I am sorry Little Irene, but I am afraid that is an unexcused absence." At this point, Little Irene pondered this and realized that at eight years old, big whoop if it was an unexcused absence. Later in life, Little Irene would become Presbyterian.

Fast forward to this evening and you will find my son at the dinner table, refusing to even try a teeny-weeny morsel of buttered cauliflower. We are talking about a piece about the size of a pea. My only rule is that you have to at least try a new food by eating one bite. If you don't like it, you do not have to eat the rest but you must at least try it before passing judgment. I refused to let Little Philip have his chocolate pudding unless he tried his cauliflower. Mind you, my husband was sitting across the table trembling that I might make him take a little bite too. In the end, the power of warm chocolate pudding was too much and Little Philip attempted to try it. As he tried to swallow, he upchucked onto the floor. Somehow the above memory of being forced to eat oatmeal alluded me until the fateful moment that Little Philip's stomach emptied itself onto the kitchen floor.

Yep, I have officially become my mother.

The Three Philips

We have now lived in Birmingham for five years and wanted to make a visit to Selma to see our Uncle Buddy. Uncle Buddy is Philip Ball Moss, both Big and Little Philip's namesake. While we enjoy seeing him at family weddings, we wanted to have a visit on his home turf so we invited ourselves down for a visit today!

As always, Uncle Buddy was the picture of graciousness, and we enjoyed learning more about the Moss family history as well as our driving tour of Selma. After a delicious lunch we returned to Buddy's house to swim with his grandchildren. When Helen's eyes started looking a bit sleepy we began our goodbyes and prepared to drive back to Birmingham. It was at this point that Little Philip announced that he wanted to spend the night with Uncle Buddy. He repeated this emotional request several times, even throwing his arms around Uncle Buddy and sweetly repeating his request in his ear. While it was tempting, we figured that we should depart before our little darlings turned back into pumpkins. And so, we dragged a sobbing Little Philip to the car, explaining to Uncle Buddy that he should consider this a great compliment. We had a wonderful time and hope to return for another visit soon!

Budding Artists

This past week, Little Philip's friend, Emory, came over for breakfast while her mommy and daddy went to the doctor, and what we hope will be her last doctor's appointment before her baby brother, Ethan arrives.

Little Philip and Emory are quite gifted in the acrylic painting department. I love the layering techniques both children used, playing on the patterns of light in this work. Notice the abstract ability to capture what they deemed to be "a day at the beach with friends" with bright contrasting colors. Maybe this was the case but most likely, there were four buckets of paint and each stood guard over their respective two buckets. Still, a work of art in my mind!