Two Mommies

I caught Noah saying yesterday, but I don't really know who Mamaw is. You say she is your mom, but you have two mommies.

I am one of those people that when I begin talking about my family the song "I am my own Grandpa" comes to mind. I'm not kidding.

When I was 12 my mom was unable to take care of my brother and I so we moved into our grandparents home. This is my mom's dad and his wife. We refer to them as Nan and Pop. When I was 16 I asked if they would adopt me. I had lived there since I was 12 and it was the most stable home environment I had ever lived in. It just made sense. But mom was still Pop's daughter and she was still my mom. So I have 2 moms.

This summer the kids went on what I call a week tour and literally visited every set of grandparent(s) they have. This included Mom, because she was in Savannah helping Grammy out at the time. They had a blast staying up until literally 1:00 am watching movies and giggling in the living room. I am so blessed that they were able to have this time with her before she passed away. Because the kids then visited Nan and Pop right after that the relationship of who everyone is begins to get a little confusing to the kids. The kids know the difference between Mamaw (mom) and Nan, but it was getting confusing for them to call both of them my mom. I knew at some point I would have to explain it a little further then what I have in the past. I won't even go into the fact that Tracy is my sister/aunt, Ted is the uncle/brother, Pop is the grandpa/dad, etc. Whew. No wonder everyone gets confused!

I don't do this often

Hear is a story from this week about Noah that is worth remembering.

Noah, this past Monday you had gotten up first and had already settled in front of the TV and was eating breakfast. AnnMarie came in and sat next to you but she was not ready for school yet. I had asked for you to turn off the TV so sister would change her clothes. Once the TV was paused you attempted 3 times to take the remote and restart the show before she was ready. On the third time you did it anyway and at that point I took you to the bathroom and had to give you a pop on the hiney. We didn't really talk about it because it was now time for school to start. About 20 minutes later Daddy had to come and tell me about Mamaw and how she had gone to Heaven. Mommy stayed home that night but the next morning Mommy left and spent 3 days with Grammy. When I got home on Thursday night we had the following conversation:

Noah: Mommy, you had to do something you haven't had to do in a long time.

Me: Do you mean when I had to spank you on Monday?

Noah: Yeah, you haven't done that in a long time.

Me: Do you know why mommy had to spank you?

Noah: Yes Ma'am. I didn't listen and then did what you said not to.

Me: As long as you know why Mommy had to spank you, we don't need to not listen to mommy.

Noah: I know. I'm sorry. But I didn't tell Daddy. If I did he might want to spank me again.

Me: I didn't say anything, I was trying not to laugh.

We ended with a hug and kiss. I think perhaps the events of the week had Noah thinking about doing the right thing. In light of the events of the week I am just glad that Noah understood why he got in trouble and he learned from not listening. Mission accomplished.

Didn't you know I'm Crazy?

We were traveling this weekend and AnnMarie was sitting in the back of the durango and she had gotten her Daddy's DS out. His has the capability to record video and take pictures and we could hear her directing her own video. This is how the conversation went:

AM: Here we are riding in the car and Daddy is driving. Say hi daddy.

Dad: Hi AnnMarie.

AM: And right there we have mom, (in a low whisper) and she's crazy.

All I can say is I hope that she wasn't really recording and she was just playing. 'Cause I'm crazy like that :)

8 days and counting

8 days and counting to our big suprise for the cauble family. So sorry I can't tell you what it is either, it's a secret. Actually Noah and AnnMarie don't even know something is coming! I sure hope I can keep this in for that long.

As you all know we love to be spontaneous. But both CJ and I are planners (I am being picked on for mapping out day care and child care arrangements for the next year including next summer by Kristin) so it's kinda wierd to make that comment but the thrill of saying, I don't want to spend the night at home tonight, lets drive to Atlanta (I did that back in May), is exilirating and so fun to pick up the kids and say, "we aren't going home, we're going on a little trip". They kinda have been trained, unknowingly but it makes sense, that anytime Mommy and Daddy show up together something special is about to happen. But we don't even have to take an over night trip for it to be cool. One of the neatest things we did recently was pack a picnic dinner and take some stale bread and eat at lake robinson and feed the fish and geese. We had a blast, it was a last minute decision and we made memories that will last forever. (however I think one of the memories of the flies being AWFUL while we tried to eat is really had to forget...it was so bad we took a piece of the bread we were giving to the animals and put it on another table to try to trick the flies to go elsewhere...it only worked for a few minutes)

Tonight I got home and CJ was playing UNO with the kids. Remember UNO? I remember when Noah was just old enough to recognize the numbers. AM does great with her colors and now it's like she suddenly knows all of her numbers. Remember me mentioning that earlier this week? CJ said she had no problem calling out the number when she threw it on the stack. Of course Daddy won because he always does. To which AM noted that he didn't because it was really a game for Noah and her and they were the winners. So go play uno with your kids. I promise it's still fun even as an adult and obviously even a 4 year old can play.

Letters

So I've experienced twice this past week of friends telling me how they write letters to their children for them to gleen on when they get older. In one situation one of the parents has just passed away, so these letters are dear and precious to this family. In the other situation the mom is creating a blog of letters to explain things to her son all the things he doesn't understand now. So I think this is a really cool idea because I forget everything! Noah just asked me what was his favorite movie when he was 2, and I had no idea. Now really...I am sure that I watched whatever movie it was 100000 times and swore to myself that I would never forget, but here we are and I have no clue what he "favorite" was. So I thought I would do better at writing the little stories and explanations for when things are just to darn confusing for a 4 or 6 year old to understand.

So here are two tidbits of info for today:

AnnMarie insisted on going to school dressed up as Cinderella today, headband and all. (I'm suprised she didn't insist on the dress up princess shoes).

Noah has been drinking fruitables juice boxes like they are soda and here is the part that he is going to be so upset with me when he figures it out...each juice box contains a serving of fruits/vegetables. HA! If anyone has experienced supper at our house you know it is a challenge getting Noah to get veggies. So I have decided I will buy stock in these juice boxes and he can have 10 a day. Not only does it have veggies but it's organic and no sugar added!!!! How good for you can you get? And it's working!!! So everyone run today and purchase a whole case, if they work for my kid there's no telling what your kid will do with them. But shush...don't tell him just yet please. He's going to be able to realize the name is a mush of fruit and vegetables soon enough on his own :)

Fruits of the Summer

This summer the family has enjoyed planting a garden and reaping the fruits of the garden. In the beginning the kids would fight over who got to take their watering can and fill it up with fertilizer water and water each plant. Then the garden got so big that the kids couldn't walk up and down the rows without stepping on the plants. Most of the garden is done producing but we still have tons of peppers, sweet and hot, and we still have another round of tomatoes to come in.

With all of the produce we have I have become a canner. I've never really canned anything, just froze stuff, but this year I have a pile of green beans, a few bags of corn, about 5 cans of tomatoes, several cans of pickles, a few jars of pickled okra, some really really good peaches (didn't grow them but made jam and boy are the peaches good this year). It's kind of become like a hobby that I really enjoy. I'm looking forward to getting some more okra to pickle and more peaches. And even during the fall looking forward to canning apple butter instead of freezing it this year.

We are attempting to grow pumpkins for the fall and soon we will begin planting the fall garden. It's been so hard to want to go out there with it 105 degrees in the evening but the fall should be really enjoyable. Have a great night!

A Change to Caubles.blogspot

I am so sorry for the lack of blogging. There is really no excuse. We have been busy and I would love to tell you that I had a burning urge to update everyone but I did not. Life has just been happening and it seems like everytime I turned around there was something else to do. So I can give you updates in bullet style fashion. I tried adding a picture to this post only to find out that there aren't any real new pictures on our camcorder, so an entire vacation and not a single picture to show for it!!! I am really sad that they aren't even available to reproduce for myself let alone to show. So we have our bullets and then a new adventure I will tell you about.
*Noah turned 6 this year and AnnMarie turned 4!
*I started a new job in June at the hospital working as a systems analyst. It involves a lot of research and a new list of events every day which never leaves me bored for the most part. I just beg for something new to do and that's never an issue.
*CJ starting being the youth pastor at our church, Ridgeview, this past March. We are enjoying the activeness of teenagers again and realizing that we are not 21 anymore!!!
*AM (AnnMarie) busted her chin this summer requiring 7 stitches. Not something I would like to relive but I do feel as if I'm a better person for having survived it. That's right, Momma survived it, not AM.
*The kids get to enjoy spending a week without the parents this summer. They got to spend 4 days with my family and 4 days with CJ's parents. The spent all day at the pool and are the brownest babies I have seen in a long time.
*Noah can swim like a little fish and AM thinks she can. By next summer she should be able to with no problem. Her issue now is she isn't tall enough for most pools so when she's tired you have to pull her in. Next year she should be fine.
*Speaking of tall enough. Noah is standing tall and up to my shoulders and AM is about 7 inches behind him. Thank God that the kids got CJ's height and not mine! According to the doctors and their growth charts Noah should be close to 6 foot and AM will be close to 5'6". Whew!
*Noah starts first grade in a few days. AM didn't get into k-4 because Momma didn't register in time and now the waiting list is way to long. Which I must say that Noah is not happy about because that means he went to school a year longer then AM. Noah loves math and amazes me with what he is able to do already at 6. AM is just now learning her letters but like her brother is having no issues with learning her numbers. At the check out row at Walmart AM points out which number is lit and tells us what it is. She's good up to 9 but when we got to aisle 10 yesterday she said "0". But hey, she is only 4.
*The kids love power rangers now. Who knew there were so many versions of power rangers, we like the SPD version.
Well folks it's getting late for fuddy dud me. I hope to update more soon.
Shaneki