Flowers for Mommy

I do love the flowers the children bring me. Here in Belize we do not have a huge selection, but every little one counts. Jessica brought me a bunch the other day. Not wanting to be outdone, Timothy brought me some as well.

 Not just the flowers, but stem, roots and all!!! Thank you sonny! You are priceless, and so are your flowers...even if they come from my flowerbed.

Two of my 'real' flowers.

From the mouth of a three year old

Those three year olds are always entertaining, aren't they? Here he was sweeping the puddle when I asked him what he was doing. He was just "sweeping it so it wouldn't be so full"!

Here are some more sentences for kicks..:

"When will I be bigger than Daddy?"

"Is my mouth bigger than a dinosaurs' mouth?"

When told he was a Banman, (from his mommy's side), yet only wanting to be something his daddy is, he wants to know, "Is Daddy a Banman too?" 

 "No, he's not." 

"Well, then I'm not a Banman either".

Where's the whipping???

  Tonight, we had a lovely supper. Or dinner, dependin on where you live. I cooked some chicken noodle soup, and had made some chocolate pudding pie for dessert. It was a wonderful rainy Saturday night, so I do what we sometimes do in the situation. Turn off the light overhead, light an oil lamp, and a few pretty candles in this case, and simply enjoy the sweet and simple things in life. Quietly we finished our soup while talking about the day, all the while listening to the thunderstorm and rain outside.

When I dished out the pie, Jessica asks, "Mommy, where's the whipping?" We cracked up laughing. Earlier, she had made the whipped topping. No, she did not get a whipping, but she did get a good serving of topping.

Life is sweet!

5 AM. Time to get to work!

 Tap, tap, tap. I turn in bed, vaguely wondering what that noise was. TAP, TAP,TAP,TAP. I look at the clock, it's 5 AM. What IS that noise? I open the curtain to peek out of the window, and through the early morning mist I see men on the church house roof. (We live right next to a mennonite church building) What better time to replace the old roof than starting at 5 in the morning?... After all, it's not hot that time of day. And most guys don't have to go to work before another few hours. I'll bet that breakfast at 7 tasted mighty good that the women folk cooked...

The Shampoo is in the Fridge

You know how those shampoo companies that make kids' shampoo ALWAYS make the holes too big for the shampoo to flow out, and your kids end up wasting lots of it because they can't control it? I got so sick and tired of it, and couldn't believe how fast one bottle emptied. All it takes is a few drops at the most to get one hair washing done. So, I decided to do something about it. I took a small empty mustard bottle, and cleverly filled it up with shampoo. The first time we wanted to use it, it was not around! I immediately call in the youngest, who is famous for schlepping things like this all over creation, and demanded to know where the shampoo had gone. He wasted no time in leading me to the refrigerator, and sure enough, there sat the mustard bottle of shampoo...

Have a great sunday! ;)

That will be Tennessee

Tonight at supper I remarked what a lovely place this world was to live in, as the weather is very nice lately; but then I went on and said the next world will be even more wonderful. It will be paradise, like the garden of Eden.

Then Joseph chimes in, "That will be in Tennessee".

Too Hot!

Last night was one of those interesting nights that every mom experiences now and then, and here's how it went: 

I decided we would have some escabeche for supper. I had, after all, bought some jalapenos for just such an occasion. I love to add one whole to the soup toward the end, it gives a wonderful flavor but no heat that way.

Soup is done and on the table, and I realize I had forgotten to add the pepper! I decide to still add it some to my soup...

I bite into a jalapeno, and declare that it is not a hot one. So, Jessica takes a bite as well, probably into the seeds, and ouch, is it hot! "mommy, mommy, what will stop the burning?!" I quickly get her some milk to soak her lip.

Meanwhile somebody is honking a horn outside, and I send Joseph out to see who it is. Sounds like he needs to talk to me so out I go, sending him away to see Daniel, who just happened not to be home from work yet. 

While I am trying to get Jessica calmed down, Timothy starts whimpering. I look at him and see he has gotten a hold of the habanero salsa and has put some in his soup and then he spits out the chunk of habanero that is not supposed to be eaten! O dear! I give him some milk too, he drinks it and is fine...tough little man.

But Jessica, her face red from crying, is not happy yet...I add some sugar to her milk and that seems to ease the burn a little.

Back to eating the escabeche; I finish my bowl and realize I forgot to heat up the corn tortillas that are supposed to go with the soup. I return about half of the thawed tortillas to the freezer because we probably won't need that many since the children are done with their soup...I turn the toaster oven on, in case someone will still want some and at least they will be hot when Daniel comes home. After the oven has clicked away for a while, I go to take them out, only to realize they are STILL COLD! I check and sure enough, the cord is unplugged...O well, plug it in and try again.

Daniel comes home, sits down to eat, and everything is back to normal, as if nothing had ever gone wrong....

...the end.

Feeding an 8 month old

How do you teach a big baby how to eat? I exclusively breastfed him longer than my other babies, and now he seems to have no interest in it! I am sure there is no hurry with trying to feed him, but sometimes I think it would be nice, just so he's not so attached to me, especially if I want to leave him somewhere for a short while.

Are we ready to try again?

Ugh-argh-grah

Chew and swallow it, baby.

It's yummy banana!

O well; I guess we'll try again in a few more days; for now, you can keep on being my little sucker, I actually don't mind it...