another quick jesse story

my dad, aka papa, has created a monster. when we were in bend for easter, papa took jesse for a walk. on this walk they talked of many things - secret things between a papa and a grandson. but one thing they talked about and learned was picking flowers for mommy.

it was so cute. jesse came back with some beautiful pansies for me.

but now he is a flower picking fiend. it is great because i get lots of flowers. at the moment the only flowers in our yard are dandelions. so i get the lovely yellow flowers and he gets the lovely yellow hands.

i am so amazed how quickly he learns and how much he remembers. with the flowers it's not like my daddy spent hours talking and showing him how to find the flowers, pick them, and bring them to me. it was once or twice but jesse remembers it and he remembers it was papa who taught him. how incredible it that!

i'm back - niiiiice!

ok. it has been forever since i have blogged. i fell off the blogging wagon but am ready to get back on. i am going to blog something every day, even if it is just a saying, a complaint, a big yea!!, or a story about my day. i love writing but am always worried i won't have anything to say. so i am going to say something every day.

today is a jesse story. this is tale of realization that my 2-year-old is listening to everything i am saying. scary!

the other day jesse and i were going out to run errands and shocker of shockers it was sunny. so i asked jesse if he wanted to wear his sunglasses. he said yes in his own grunt of excitement. i handed him the sunglasses, he put them on, looked at me and then said, "niiiiiice!"

i about fell over. it was so hilarious. i say that to him all the time when he comes out in one of his dress up outfits or if he does some thing new. i just never thought he was really picking up on it.

but it got me to thinking. if he is hearing "niiiiice!" come out of my mouth, he is hearing everything else. oops! i really have to think more before i speak, before i yell at the person who cut me off, before i say something not so nice about someone who pissed me off. yikes! Lord, i need help with this.

who am i?

i have been doing a lot of thinking lately about who i am and what i have to offer. i know that i am a wife and a mother, a daughter and a sister, an admin assistant, a person who loves to sing and play the piano, a person who loves to create things. but i don't feel like i am really good at any one thing.

i could have been or maybe still can be. i have never taken the time or the effort to push myself in any one thing. do i regret this? yes, sometimes. i wish i had taken more piano, voice lessons, more training on computers, spent more time with creative things.

so i am thinking - do i pick something now and try and focus on that or do i just keep being a jill of all trades?

maybe the answer is just to keep being who i am but push myself to do more with what i have now.

just some thoughts.

getting started again

i know, i know. i have so dropped the ball with my blogging. but i am ready to get started again.

sometimes i don't feel like i have anything to say - not enough going on in my life to write about. i could write about jesse every day because he does amazing things all the time. but i want this to be about me too. so it is hard to figure out what to write about.

today i have been struggling with thoughts about my weight. i want to lose weight. i don't need to be skinny, just comfortable. i came to a realization today. hold on to your hats, people. it takes work to lose weight. i know, a shocker, huh?

don't worry. i've always known it takes work to lose weight but i had to remind myself of that. i need to make a plan. i tend to try and take the easy way out but look where that has gotten me. so i am going to get a plan together and get started (again). i have made a start more times then i can remember. but i know that i am not giving up. so i start again.

i will probably write about this some in the days and weeks to come. i know i have issues with food and i know i am not a huge fan of exercise but i will be working at them both. i want to change this part of my life. i want to be different.

sometimes it just hits me

today was a rough day. i wasn't feeling well and things weren't going my way. i was in a parking lot talking to my husband on the phone and things just kind of all hit me at once and i just started crying. i was crying and sniffing and feeling sorry for myself when all of the sudden this incredibly amazing sound came from the backseat.

my son, jesse, was laughing his head off. i have never heard him laugh so hard. i looked back and he was just exploding with laughter. every time i sniffed he would just start all over again. so of course, i couldn't help myself and i started laughing too. philip, my husband, heard him over the phone and started laughing as well. it really just turned my day around.

it seems that a lot of times when i am feeling down, overwhelmed, or just plain done, the Lord uses jesse to remind me i don't have it as bad as i build it up in my mind that i have it.

we went camping over labor day weekend with some our of best friends. we met jay and tina in our adoption classes. we have been so blessed to have them in our lives. they adopted their son, brennan, 9 months before we adopted jesse. anyways, we were camping with them this past weekend and it was so great to see the boys together and to know that God planned and placed these very special boys in our families. He knew we needed them and they needed us.

we went swimming when we were camping and it was so great to see jesse playing in the water with philip. one of the neatest things for me was to see how safe jesse felt with philip. jesse would come to me for a few minutes but it was very apparent that he wanted to be with daddy. he let philip dunk him under water, spin him around, throw him in the air and it all included lots of laughing and yelling with excitement. i love to watch him with his daddy. it does my heart good.

thank You, Lord, for my son.

learning new words

my son, jesse, is starting to talk with words that we sometimes can understand. he is really good at mama, dada, nigh night, nanner (banana), and biper (diaper). but he is also learning work - because all day long he is asking where daddy is so he is learning daddy is at work. and lunch is a new word. it is so cute to see his little tongue come out to make the "l" sound. he is definitely doing more copying - trying to do and say the things we do. yikes, is that scary.

i was watching a documentary awhile back about a deaf boy who was getting cochlear implant. it talked about his thoughts and feelings about the whole thing. one thing he really wanted was to hear his girlfriend say his name. he got the implant and had to wait two weeks before they turned it on. so he goes to the doctor to turn it on. they tested it and then turned it on. he was in shock when he heard his mom speak to him.

then they left the office and just walking to the car overwhelmed him. all the noise we take for granted - people talking, cars driving by, radios blasting, even the wind blowing. after total silence for his whole life, there is all this sound in his head.

but the thing that just struck me was that he has to learn the language. i didn't even think about that part. i just was thinking he will get the implant and be able to talk and communicate verbally with people. but he has to learn what the words mean. he's never heard them before. just like a baby, the words are just sounds till he can associate them with what they mean. it just blew me away. they were saying it could take as long as 2 - 3 years for him to understand everything.

i'm sure his mom is just as excited as i am about my son learning new words and being able to communicate verbally.

why can't i sleep?

have you ever had insomnia? i do. not as bad as i used to. when i was single, i would clean my house at 3o'clock in the morning cause i couldn't sleep. since having jesse, my insomnia isn't as bad. guess he helps me be more tired at night.

but sometimes it isn't even about being tired. like tonight, i am really tired. but thinking about going to bed just makes me feel restless and jittery. so i know if i go to bed i will just lay there looking at the ceiling, checking the clock, and my mind will be running a mile a minute. not very restful.

i have only taken over the counter sleep medicine once or twice. now with jesse i am afraid if i take the medicine i won't hear jesse if he wakes up or if i hear him i will be too groggy to be of any use.

sometimes insomnia can be put to productive use - like cleaning the house, blogging (tee hee), paying bills, answering email, etc. it is one of the few times i am alone. so sometimes i don't mind it. but it seems to happen a lot when i really could use the rest for the day to come. i'm sure that is part of the problem - my brain is planning for the day ahead and is trying to get a head start.

anyways, tonight seems to be one of those nights. i think i might read instead of laying and looking at the ceiling. i am reading a jd robb book that is pretty good. maybe i will finish it.

good night, all.

i wish....

in a blog a couple weeks ago i wrote about my grandmother and going to see her and introduce her to my son, jesse. yesterday morning she passed away. and i felt a deep sadness. not necessarily that she was gone but a sadness that i never really knew her.

as i have been thinking about her this morning, i wish i had known her. i wish i had had the kind of relationship with her that i could had talked to her about her childhood, her school years, jobs she had, hobbies that she loved. i just wish i could have seen more of her and not just the hard, brusque outside.

i know that parts of her life left her hard and angry. i know that things probably didn't turn out for her like she wished or dreamt them. i know she shut people out to keep from getting hurt again. but i wish i could have or would have tried harder to get inside.

she and i never saw eye to eye. from childhood i felt i never measured up to her standard. even as i got older, we just never could seem to find common ground.

i think we could have enjoyed more time together if we had tried harder. we both loved ceramics and crocheting. i think she liked reading and i know that we both do crosswords - she was great at them.

but it never happened. but i know that i loved her anyway and i know now that she loved me even if she couldn't show it.

so i am sad that we never really got to know each other. i think we might have liked each other.

delores storey 8/17/08

a new milestone

my son has started walking. it is so exciting to see him gain confidence with every step and to see the pride on his face as he walks toward me. he thinks he is so big as he is walking across the room. you can just see that he knows it is a huge milestone and he expects for it to be acknowledged. so when he reaches his destination, he looks at us and starts clapping. and we had better start clapping too.

but then he will come to a point where he just doesn't want to walk anymore. if we try to get him to walk more, he just sits down. we can try all the tricks and it doesn't work. he just sits down.

i know i can be like that in my life. i take huge steps in my life and am moving forward. i feel great accomplishment and know that i am moving to the next level. but then all of the sudden, i just stop. i'm not sure if it is fear of the unknown, fear of failure, wanting to stay in my comfort zone, or just plain laziness. when i get to that point, i really have to push myself to keep moving. i don't always do it. but i hope that i keep trying.

moving forward, growing isn't easy. it means change, growing pains, giving up things that are comfortable. but the rewards are so much more than we will ever believe.

miracles happen every day

i know, i know. it has been forever since i blogged anything. but i have been on vacation and then trying to get back in the swing of things after the vacation.

we had a good time but were in the south in august. yuck!!! last day was 103 degrees with about 70% humidity. again, yuck!!! but we got to spend time with lots for family and friends. so that part was great.


one couple we got to spend time with were our friends, russ and jenn. we have been friends with them for a very long time. they got married a year after us. and like us, weren't able to have children. but about 9 months ago we got a call from russ and they were pregnant!! it was an amazing thing to hear. we got to stay a couple of days with them and see God's work in person. she is due just about any time now. philip got to help hang up some art that spells out their baby's name - parker. it is so incredible to see what God has done for them. He is blessing them with a miracle baby just like our jesse. the miracles just happened in different ways.

and that is something that i keep learning. we have in our minds how we think God should do things. and most of the time we get it wrong. sometimes because He does it differently than we are expecting, we have a hard time seeing and accepting His miracles. i know i have missed out on a few because my stubbornness has kept me from seeing what i need to see. how stupid is that. God puts something amazing right in front of us and because it doesn't look, smell, taste or sound like we think it should, we totally miss out on it.

Lord, forgive me for missing Your miracles. help me see the miracles You have for me and not let my perceptions keep me from what You have for me.