Blowed Up

As we do every year, my family has started fighting the seasonal allergies. It's come a little late this year because of the warm weather that hung on until just recently. My son seems to suffer more with allergies (congestion, sinus drainage, etc.) than his sister, but they both have their share of "burgers" (what they so delicately call the crusties in their noses).

Saturday morning I heard my son getting out of bed sniffling and snorting. He turned to me and hoarsely stated, "I got burgers in my nose again, Mom."

"So I hear," I replied. "Let's blow your nose."

In the 2 seconds it took me to respond to him, he had gotten enveloped in cartoons. Getting anything done at this point takes a lot of fast maneuvering and prayer. He's very good at dodging me as he has incredible peripheral vision!

With a sigh I started toward him with a kleenex. I sat quietly down beside him as if interested in the cartoon and whipped out my kleenex. Swiftly positioning the kleenex over his nose, he slid deftly from it, his eyes not leaving the television. With a small grunt of frustration, I started positioning the kleenex again, this time from the opposite side. I noticed Benjamin glimpse at me from the corner of his eye and move away. So, of course, I had no other choice but to grab him by the back of the head and position the kleenex. "Aaahhh!" he yelled, "I can't see the TV!"

Ignoring that statement, I said firmly, "Blow!" (Fortunately for me this time the task turned out to be relatively easy.)

Gathering up all the wind from inside of him, he blew. Man, can that kid blow! I'm surprised that he hasn't popped a blood vessel in his eye yet. Anyway, we continued with the other side and got that over with. Then, I told him to look up so I could check the inside of his nose. I guess I took too long because with his little face turned up toward the ceiling he said, "Mom! It's all blowed up!"

Hmmph! Go figure!

Taking a Ride Around the Bluegrass

Mom and I took the kids driving around some of the back roads of Lexington the other to look at the beautiful scenery. Here are some of the pictures I took:

Some of the pictures were taken out of the car window, so it may have a slight glare on some of them.

My friend Greg

So today a friend of mine, Teresa, and I went to the home of another friend of ours, Greg. He has Alpha One Antitrypsin Deficiency which causes him a lot of trouble breathing. He only has 23% of his lungs to breathe with and has to be on oxygen all the time. So Teresa and I went over to his house to help him by doing some of the things he can't do, like clean.

He's such a positive, loving and caring person. I love being around him. He's a lot of fun, great sense of humor, all smiles! Last Friday night my husband, a friend of ours, Patt, Greg and I all went to an Alpha One social, a dinner cruise on the Ohio River. It was so much fun!!! We had a blast! It was all paid for and all we had to do was show up! We ate dinner, talked, walked around the boat, laughed and sang.

Greg is truly one of the sweetest people I know. He makes others feel good just by being around him...he's like a ministering angel here on earth. He's a blessing to everyone who knows him and a good friend. I feel so blessed to be able to know him!

Whoever said that two's are the terrible years?

Terrible Two's - I don't think so! Anyone who says that two's are terrible, hasn't lived with my sweet, precious, ornery, defiant children. I'll admit that the defiance starts around that age, although I think with my daughter the word "no" came out much earlier. But my three year old son looked at me the other day and screamed, "No, I don't want to!" at the top of his lungs. I'm concerned that he may get nodules on his vocal chords before I can "cure" him of his screaming.

The last couple of days have been dubbed (by me) "The Testing of Mommy". I've never had part of me that just wanted to sit down on the floor and throw a temper tantrum myself until just recently and have the other part of me just shake my head in disbelief with mouth wide open, jaw to the floor, that these are my two children who are acting like this. Tuesday, as I was getting ready to leave for Bible study, my son dumped coffee grounds and salt on the kitchen floor. Fortunately my husband had just walked through the door, so he got to deal with it - I'm not sure that I could've constructively dealt with that at that moment.

Anyway, before I left, I called my children into the kitchen and asked them if they had made this mess. Rachel just forlornly looked at the floor knowing that she was about to be in trouble, AGAIN, and Benjamin, just nodded his head and said, "Yep! I did this!", looking at me straight in the eye. At least he was honest this time, most of the time he tries to cover it up. So I turned to my husband and suggested that he deal with their punishment since I neither had the strength nor the time to deal with them (picture the back of my hand laying against my forehead just for dramatic effect). He nodded with a grim look on his face as I started putting away dishes from the children's dinner. Benjamin just looked up at me with a small smile on his face and said, "You hafta say Fo' Cwyin' Out Woud, Mommy!" Sighing in exasperation and amusement I just nodded my head and said, "Yes, for crying out loud, Benjamin." (I apparently say this more than I thought) He proudly smiled, nodded his head and said, "Yep, that's it!"

Good grief!