My Budding Artist

This post is a little bit Mother's Day continued, because my mom and my mother-in-law are probably the only other 2 people on the planet who feel as passionately as I do about Sarah's artwork.  So, this post may elicit a well-deserved eye roll or two that I have become one of "those" parents, but that is OK with me.  Because, in my opinion, the process of seeing Sarah go from a toddler who just enjoys the action of scribbling with a crayon across a page to actually being able to draw something that resembles something in reality (all this in only about a year's time!) has been nothing short of incredible.

This is from late fall, when Sarah was in her very prolific painting blobs of non-sensical color stage.

More recently, this Spring, she was doing lots of multi-colored scribbles, many of which I loved, like this one.

Then, all the sudden one day about a month ago, out of nowhere, she draws this.  I was astounded!  I immediately took a picture with my phone and texted it to David.  I mean, not that long ago, she was a BABY, for goodness sakes, and now she draws little people!  It's just miraculous, seriously!

And now she draws pictures with stories, like this one which is a self-portrait, but with long hair.  She added an "S" on the side, since she knows that is the first letter in Sarah. :)

I found this little guy on a receipt I had left lying around; she informed me this one is a "king." In fact, pretty much any paper surface she can get a hold of these days is quickly decorated with one of these (adorable, in my opinion) little figures: grocery lists, the inside covers of books, old church bulletins, etc. I have to say, I am head over heels charmed by these little guys!!!

Ten Things I Love About My Mom

She is the first person, next to my husband since I’ve been married, I want to call to talk things out with when something hard or confusing happens.

Though I know she was exhausted a lot when we were growing up, I never remember her complaining about it.

She was never too busy or too tired to give me encouragement or support or lend a listening ear.

She always helped me finish school projects I had procrastinated on, cheerfully and without told-you-so-ness, though I certainly would have deserved it.

She makes amazing French toast.

She always loved taking my sister and I out for a yummy lunch and shopping.

When I was at camp and early in college, she would write me a hand-written letter nearly every day.  Now she writes emails.  She has almost certainly written me thousands of times, though I have replied to maybe 1 in 10.

She is incredibly compassionate.  Karen Tarver was one person, among so many others, whom she befriended out of a compassionate spirit.

Her laugh—when you really get her going, she will laugh so hard she stops making any noise.  Mostly her son-in-laws do this to her.

Her persistence.  My mom is a lady who gets things done.  Period.  She will keep making phone calls, keep sending emails, do whatever it takes to see a thing through.  Here she is helping me potty train Sarah over Christmas.  She spent literally hours doing this during that visit.  I am totally convinced Sarah would not be [mostly] potty trained today if it weren't for my mom!

Mom, I love you so much!  I could name a hundred things I love about you--in fact at least 5 more things I should have put on this list today have come to mind as I was putting the photos into this post--but I will save some for next year. ;)  I am so thankful the Lord gave YOU to me as my mother!  So much of what
I do in mothering Sarah is inspired by you. Happy Mother's Day!

Backyard "Chalking"

I love our backyard. This is probably only the beginning of your hearing a lot about how much I love our backyard and our deck, especially this summer. Seriously, though, this backyard thing is brilliant.

Sarah loves it too. Yes, she also loves wearing butterfly wings, why do you ask? She also loves "chalking" on the little patch of cement at the bottom of the deck stairs. We spend a lot of time doing this. Oh, and about those "weeds." Well, some of them really are weeds. Tricky things get big quick here in Missouri with plenty of both rain and sunshine recently! But see the tall skinny things? Those are wild onions (chives?), of all things! I love to pull them up and smell the roots--heavenly. Actually, our whole yard does have the faint scent of onions. David thinks I should try to harvest them and cook with them, but I am not so sure . . .

Sarah is also a fan of the dandelions.

"Hmmm, what shall I draw next?"

Mest

Sarah and I reading a library book in a "mest" of her building.

"Mest" is one of David's and my favorite words that is a part of Sarah's 3-yr old vocabulary, if not necessarily one of my favorite concepts, per se. You see, she thinks the words "nest" and "mess" are actually the same thing. And she loves to build them all over the house. Particularly in her own room, but in Sarah's opinion anyplace is a good place for a mest. And so, because of the confusion of these two words/concepts, she can tend to equate messiness with coziness. In fact, she cried last time I cleaned her room. So, I am trying to be more intentional in teaching her the value of neatness. Still, I love her creativity. I love that she likes to create cozy little places. And, lets face it, most of the time our home is kind of a "mest." I'd say Sarah fits right in here!

Ballerina

We have a little ballerina on our hands! Sarah's reward for potty training was getting to take an 8-week ballet and tap class at a nearby YMCA. Potty training had been, ahem, a work in progress for a looooong time, most of this year in fact, when my mom came up with the idea of a ballet class as a reward/motivation to help Sarah get serious about using only the potty. Aren't moms the best? They come up with just the right play at the right moment, winning the game. You were MVP of this one, Mom!

Sarah doing a little ballerina twirl.

This is a girl who LOVES to move. Loves it. The only time she isn't moving is when she is sleeping. And she loves dancing. And moving and dancing all while wearing frilly pink clothes? Pretty much a dream come true for this one!

Also, its a very good opportunity for this one to learn a little about authority figures who aren't mom and dad (this is the first time she's ever had a "teacher!"), and about following directions. She has had 2 classes thus far, and she has done pretty good at listening and following directions. Well, pretty good for Sarah, at least. She did better the first class, only directly disobeying directions twice when she just couldn't hold it in anymore and wait for her turn to go skipping across the studio. For those of you who know Sarah, you know that 2 times in 45 minutes is, like, amazingly good behavior for her. Before we went to that first class I pretty much drilled it into her head that she must, must, MUST listen to the teacher and follow directions. I feel like she actually took it pretty seriously, which I was glad about.

The second class, last Saturday, I forgot to really drill it into her about following the teacher. She did OK, but there were several notable exceptions. Like when the teacher was demonstrating how to point your toes and Sarah ran up to the teacher and *gently* and playfully kicked her in the foot she was pointing. Or when they started the tap portion of the class and Sarah, wearing her tap shoes for the first time, just couldn't keep herself from stomping and tapping as loud and as fast as she could even as the teacher was explaining this was the most important thing NOT to do if they were ever going to learn any actual dancing in the class. Or when they were supposed to be learning to do plies and instead Sarah was jumping up and down, her energy and excitement overflowing. At one point, the teacher (who definitely knew Sarah's name right off the bat) looked at her and said, "Sarah, I've got your number little girl!" Thankfully, this teacher seems to have a lot of patience and experience dealing with over zealous and headstrong little girls.
So, we've still got some things to work on in the listening and obeying department. But I think/hope dance class is going to be a great motivator and chance to practice those very skills.

Back to Blogging . . . I hope!

Hello friends, both old and new! This here is my "new" blog (that I created before I left China last Spring, actually). Those of you who've known me a while know that I used to have a little blog over at http://marianneslifeinasia.blogspot.com. It wasn't anything too significant, mostly photos of sarah and some stories of what life was like living in china. Nearly all of it was pretty mundane stuff, but it was a good way to stay connected to friends and family on the other side of the world. Since we moved back to the U.S., I haven't blogged. The new friends I have met here in St. Louis don't know I even ever had a blog. Anyway, I figure the new year is as good a time as any to get back into it! After all, it is a great way to record the daily happenings in our life that will become treasures later in my life around the time I start telling young, exhausted mothers what a precious time in their life it is when their kids are little. And I still have friends (family, really) living on the other side of the world that I want to stay connected to! Plus, it turns out the U.S. is a pretty darn big place, and there are a lot of folks we may see only just as often as we did when we lived on the other side of the planet. Thankfully, we have this little thing called the internet! So I am going to try to be better at using it. Downloaded the blogger app for my phone, finally, so that should help! What you find here will probably still just be the mundane daily happenings of our lives. But, I realized today how much I LOVE reading about even the most mundane things on others' blogs, because I love the people who are writing and living those lives. If one measure of true wealth is how deeply and broadly you've loved others and been loved in this life, well, I hate to brag, but I am kind of a rich lady! Man, has the Lord blessed me with the most incredible friends and family, both new and old, both local and far, far away. So lets stay in touch, for real. Thats what I hope this blog will help do!