I literally prayed for a new camera, I even told Tyler to - I don't usually pray for luxury items like that. And, tonight I received an early Mother's Day/Birthday present from Scott's parents... a new camera! Plus, it's way nicer than the one that broke and ... it's PINK!
I'm reading a book called "The Power of a Positive Mom". In general, I would describe myself as a positive mom anyway but some of the exercises have been really neat reminders of how cool my kids are. It's gotten my mind on all the things I like about my kids. For example: Today Eben was on the phone with Nona (Scott's mom) and wanted to show her his "binoculars". He doesn't understand yet that she can't see him so he "showed them to her" and she played along. But, I went ahead and took this picture with my phone and sent it to her so she could truely see him with his "binoculars". These are some of the other things I'm loving about Eben right now: he uses his "binoculars" all the time, he wears plain blue footed pajamas (see picture) and says they're Spiderman pajamas, he calls his tricycle a "motorcycle", he gets on and off the big potty all by himself, he plays "I spy" with me in the car. He is hilarious!
Today we went to Gulfport's St. Patrick's Day Parade after church. First, it's weird to me that Gulfport has a St. Patrick's Day parade. Second, it was so funny to be there and see young dads with their beards dyed green, old men jumping for green beads, everyone dressed in green. The throw the traditional bead necklaces but also wooden nickels, cabbages, potatoes and carrots.
Highlights of the day:
A man that had to be 90 years old with a green sequined hat on, pushing his oxygen tank with a big tobacco chew in his cheek. I was beside him when he reached down to grab a handful of beads and then he looked at me and said, "I hit the jackpot"
Tyler being handed a paper flower by a man in the parade who stuck out his cheek to receive a kiss from her and she drew back, he stuck his face out further, she drew back further, etc.
Eben holding his sweet hand out about an inch from his chest hoping beads would magically fall into his hand and then giving up to eat a peppermint.
Scott holding kids on his shoulders the whole time and also getting plugged in the face by flying necklaces.
Tate sleeping in my new (borrowed) mei tei through crazy loud music, me leaping this way and that way to avoid various "throws" that were being pitched in my direction.
The downer of the day: I was holding our digital camera in my hand when a huge bunch of necklaces hit it and it flew out of my grasp and onto the road. It's broken for good - I was able to rescue these pictures off the card but otherwise, it's a goner!
Today Tyler had her first backyard batting practice to get ready for the upcoming T-ball season. She had great aim but was pretty timid until Scott told her to get the mad at the ball. And then she was awesome!
By the way, Tyler's head coach is none other than ... her dad!
On Friday, we journeyed into New Orleans to go to the Audubon Zoo. Scott felt like hardly anything had changed since he used to go as a kid and he told all the kids about his favorites: the sun bears, climbing "Monkey Hill", eating sticks of fresh taffy.
The kids had a great time and we had fun too because it was basically a complaint-free day. It was good to get away from Gulfport as a family and take a little breather together and enjoy the beautiful weather we've had lately.
The above is the title of the article documenting Eben's miracle birth in Human Pathology, a medical journal. The article focuses on the placenta and is chock-full of medical jargon but it's still exciting to see in print. A sucessful abdominal pregnancy is rare enough but even more rare is the opportunity to examine the placenta. Usually the placenta is left in the mom because removing it is very dangerous since it typically is attached to necessary organs. In my case, the placenta was attached to my right fallopian tube and ovary which were also removed. So, the chance to examine the placenta was a pathologist dream come true.
If anyone is interested, here's the article. Beware there's a fun (read: disgusting) photo of my placenta, fallopian tube and ovary lying on a counter - ugh!
