The Daily Burns

Asher and Grace are still sleeping, but I think I hear some stirring so I’ll make this short…actually it might be long but I’m going to cut & paste so it will be short for me. Asher turns 4 today. I can’t believe how much has happened in 4 years and the fact that it’s ALREADY BEEN 4 YEARS…i’m sure i’ll say that at every child’s birthday every year. I imagine my parents will be saying it in a few weeks when their middle child turns 30.

Back when ryan & i had separate blogs, I wrote a lil’ something about 2 of my favorite memories. Gonna cut & paste the second one here:

I had asher on a Wednesday and we came home that Friday. Not too long after we got home my mom came to stay for a week (and ryan’s mom came for a few days as well), which was great b/c we were both kind of thinking, “who decided that we’re fit to be alone with this little human??” (well, at least I was). I couldn’t even change the kid’s diaper for the first few days (I was afraid to touch the sore little….well, the circumcision was a little more traumatic for me than I expected). So it was nice to have an experienced person around. After that week was over my mom went home. I feel sort of choked up even thinking about it. I remember crying really hard as she drove away, slightly scared, slightly excited. For the fist time I was alone with my baby (ryan had gone back to work). After I got over the shell shock, I had a really lovely afternoon. I didn’t put him down for one of his naps (I was a schedule nazi in the beginning, which I will be again with #2, but I cheated every now and then) and just ‘spoiled’ him (and myself) by holding him the whole time, enjoying our first day alone together.

Before getting to preview this, the kids have woken up. Grace is having a hard time accepting that it’s ONLY Asher’s birthday…looks like this will be a good lesson in not being selfish today (for her anyway…). Asher is disappointed because he’s not bigger than he was when he “was 3″. I told him we’d look at pictures later today of when he first turned 3, so he can see that he is bigger than a year ago anyway. I keep meaning to start a growth chart & forgetting…

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It’s a good thing the kids and I are learning Hymns together. Theology set to music….very helpful for days like today when for whatever reason (or a multitude of reasons) i just feel like crap & want to hide under the covers all day, cry and drink hot chocolate.

thus far I’ve accomplished 1 of the 3….about to be 2 (hot chocolate is in the works). The kids make the first task difficult. This is probably a good thing. Anyhow, decided at noon to pack up lunches & have a picnic with ryan in his office. Get out of the house, something fun & the kids were missing daddy this morning (probably b/c mommy’s a weepy grump today). Not really “feelin” it, but trying to put on the happy face….after all, as Asher’s been reminding me today, “But it IS well with your soul momma.” Yes, yes it is. Someone let my brain in on that secret please.

Anyway, about a quarter mile from the house we got gently rammed in the side by a teenager whilst driving through a roundabout. Thankfully not hard, since it was on Asher’s door that got hit (passenger side). No injuries and it would appear the damage to the van is only cosmetic (though there was a new weird noise on the way home…), and no one hurt in the other car, just a scratched bumper. long story but it’s quite possible i was an idiot & screwed up our odds of having their insurance pay for it….guess time will tell.

BUT, as Asher reminded me on the way to Ryan’s office, yet again, “even though we had a little accident it’s still well with our souls!”. That is true. AND things could be a lot worse.

Had a nice little lunch. The sun made an appearance today, so I took the kids to a nearby parking lot to ride bikes. Discovered 2 toddlers on bikes, who don’t know how to ride bikes + 1 momma = a not fun experience. Exasperated we came home in short order & put the kids to roomtime/naptime as quick as possible. Called insurance company, who advised me to just wait till after hours and call customer service center…. um…I just want some advice ‘yo. Not filing a claim. No, same answer, you just need to wait till after 5 (when our office is closed) and call back.

Ok. Passed that one on to the angry husband via IM (angry at the non-helping “good neighbor” company..not me). Have i mentioned i haven’t come up with a dinner menu for this week or gone grocery shopping? This always sets a foul tone for the week….i’m such a slave to a schedule these days.

Oh yeah, and seem to have taken a few steps backward today in the potty department (note to self: remember, it always gets worse right before it really clicks). Can I send her to your house until she’s finished learning? I’m apparently giving off a bad vibe & messin’ with her success.

I think it’s time for some hot chocolate. Maybe play a few hymns on the ipod.

Grump grump grump.

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So as I mentioned last week, this past monday was “d-day” for our second round of potty training Grace. She still had a good grip on the process and only had one “#2″ accident (i use “accident” loosely here) this week. On the other end of the spectrum, monday seemed sort of pointless, other than testing my mettle. Tuesday was hit or miss, and I don’t think any of the “hits” were instigated by her. I grit my teeth preparing for a long road ahead. But we’re not giving up this time, no sir-ee. If she can grasp #2, I’m sure she can figure out the latter. I’d like to stop here & thank you all for your prayers. I never felt the anger/frustration that has crept up in the past. In fact on tuesday evening I had a moment of light where I decided when she had accidents I would work to show neither disapproval or encouragement. Just clean it up as quick as possible and change the subject just as fast. Grace seems to be drawn to any kind of attention whether good or bad, so I decided to try to eliminate the bad. It totally changed the tone of our experience.

Then Wednesday morning we had a “breakthrough moment”. I saw the lightbulb click. Tuesday night we opened a belated christmas package from Ryan’s sister. In it, Grace had received two girly puppets. Once princess and one mermaid. She loves them. So wednesday morning “we” had an accident around 9am. A little later we were playing with the puppets and I was thinking it was time for a potty run. So “the mermaid” said, “Grace, I need to go potty. Can you show me how?”. She was MORE than happy to do so. The mermaid was a little scared, so she “needed” Grace to go first. The mermaid was VERY impressed and proud of Grace. Then Grace got to get down & taught the mermaid. It was all very exciting.

We haven’t had an accident since & twice she’s told me she had to go. I’m not generally a fan of “puppet parenting” (it’s actually a thing…that kids apparently listen to puppets more than their parents, so you can use them to talk through things & get them to eat their veggies…). I mean, i want my kids to talk to ME..and i’ll leave my opinions on that matter there….however when it comes to potty training I’ll do *almost* anything to make the process smoother…and successful. I’m not expecting we’re totally free & clear yet, but it does appear Ms. Mermaid has come to the rescue.

So thanks again for those potty prayers.

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Ryan & i practiced our annual New Year’s Eve festivities last night. Watch TV and go to bed well before midnight. Last night it was the movie “Hancock”. I really enjoyed it even if the end was a bit….i dont’ know. something unsatisfying about it. Though I was grateful they spared the morbid unhappy ending. I watch movies for happy endings, ‘realistic’ or not. so there.

We are Tre cool for sure. I don’t even own a little black dress. I do own a long sleeved turtle neck sweater black dress though. What’s the deal w/winter formal dresses being made for people who live in tropical climates? I couldn’t even FATHOM wearing a strappy dress in december here! I’d never be able to take off my coat. Silly.

Anyhow, I do however do the cheesy “resolutions” thing. I’m never very serious about it & thus not sure if i’ve ever stuck with any (or even expressed them outside my brain), but I make them anyhow. This year I’m trying to be very realistic with it. Go small or go home baby.

So here we go: Resolved:

- Read & meditate on the Bible ‘regularly’. kinda cheating here since I made (& mostly kept) this one last year, but I figure it’s a good one to keep refreshing. This means more than once a week. Preferable MUCH more often than that (& it usually is), but wanted to give myself some flexibility here. I am after a “rule-follower” so I’ll beat myself up when (yes when) I fail. Probably not God’s intention that I put him on a “to-do” checklist.

- Make & drink Beet Kvass ‘regularly’. Also intend for this to be near-daily. but ya know…. I *almost* enjoy my kvass. Not “dishish-oso”, but not gross. MUCH cheaper than spending $50/month on probiotics. Oh yeah, and offer it to the kids regularly in the hopes that leading them to water will encourage them to drink. a girl can dream.

- Last but not least: As I commented on the blog post I’m about to link to: “enjoy them now” (in each “now” phase they go through!), “there are no one-size fits all (even in the same family)” & “Love God over all else”. Being a rather impatient person who loves to get opinions from other people & books on how to do things, It’s easy for me to rush past all the “now”, NOT enjoy the kids where they are & think I have to everything in ways that other people do (or say they do). I still think it’s good to “take polls” & read books, but in the end we need to do what is best for our individual kids/spouses/families & circumstances. I forget all that far to easily. Written in a much more eloquent way: Just Live Life with your Kids!

Happy New Year!!! Any “resolvers” out there?

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Most mornings, the kids & I start our day with “circle time”. After breakfast & getting dressed, we gather in the office, read a chapter from a kids bible (since we do the Jesus Storybook Bible at night we’re going through The Big Picture Story Bible right now), pray together, work on scripture memorization (been on a break over the holidays), and then sing a hymn. This week we’ve started learning “It is wll with my soul”.

So today we talked about what the words in the first stanza & refrain mean. Asher latched onto the concept immediately & delved into discussion about heaven. Questions like, “will there be toys in heaven?”

Later he hurt his thumb and fussed and then said, “it’s okay though, it’s still well with my soul”.

I so enjoy getting a front row seat of his mind at work.

Anyhow, during the heaven talk he got excited & did his “smile & lean in conspiratorially” thing saying, “and when Jesus comes back we’ll get to go back in Eden!”.

I almost cried. I swear i’ve never told him this…at least not in one coherent thought. But it was a logical piecing together of what he does know. I just find that piecing together so fascinating. Kids really are amazing!

A few weeks ago in the beginning of The Big Picture Story Bible, when Adam & Eve are sent from the garden, there is a picture of angels with flaming swords. He asked about it when we read that. I explained how Adam & Eve (& all people) were no longer allowed in the garden. That was the end of the discussion. Other than liking the swords he didn’t linger on it. Just when you think they’re not paying attention.

Course if you ask him to go upstairs & get his slippers that are sitting on the floor right next to his bed, under his calendar. He will come back down empty handed declaring, “i can’t find them. can you get them for me?” And then Grace will go up & find them immediately. Go figure.

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Before I start, I would like to clarify that we DO pray for each other & ourselves when we’re sick. I do not think any healing comes our way outside the mercy of God. However, I also believe God (usually) uses “earthly” means to do so. Just like we trust God for our care, and still go to work. It’s not as though because Ryan works for a paycheck he’s not “trusting God for our provision”…God IS providing through his job. That could all be it’s own post though. I just wanted to clarify for those that will read this & think I see it all as being “in MY hands”. I do not.

Last Sunday, Ryan started coming down with a chest cold. Despite his good effort with “obeying” my cold fighting regimen, it has continued for 8 days now. Now…for the record, though he has been good about taking raw garlic by the spoonful, drinking lots of herbal teas & taking extra vitamin C, he hasn’t quite done it to the level that I do when I’m fighting something…I do the garlic & C every 1-2 hours (at least the garlic, the C about 4x/day +/-)…. But I’m not criticizing; he doesn’t have the benefit of a good Catholic upbringing, which gives way easily to self-flagellation.

Anyhow, come Tuesday, Asher started to succumb. So the boys hacked and wheezed & talked funny through Christmas and into the weekend. There’s not much I can do for Asher since he CAN’T take garlic, and WON’T drink hot tea, broth, or eat soup. Best I can do is give him vitamin C, extra probiotics, some cherry bark tincture and try to bathe him more often (than never)….for the steam.

It appeared as if the girls were in the clear. I stopped the garlic regimen on Wednesday. I started to get cocky. Then yesterday Grace started coughing. Thankfully (Lord bless this child) she will drink tea and despite it’s nastiness will (resigned but w/little complaint) swallow spoonfuls of garlic infused raw honey for me. It seems a little better today. Better for both of them, but especially Grace.

Today I have had a slight runny nose. No signs of anything else, but to be sure I’ve gotten back on the garlic wagon. You might want to make sure to avoid our house if at all possible. I’m sure we all smell delightful.

Given the apparent voracity of this little bug I’ve decided to take out the “big guns”. I’m making a “tea” for myself (& anyone else willing to drink it) that was recommended by one of my health-nut weirdo friends. Our internet is down (typing this out in Word at the moment), so I can’t remember all the measurements, but here’s what I’m going with:

4 cups Pre-Brewed Red Raspberry Leaf Tea (loosens phlegm, antiseptic). I’m already drinking 3 cups/day of this anyway to alleviate some ‘female issues’, so this could be an aide for why I haven’t ‘caught’ it yet.

3 (ish) teaspoons of Fenugreek Seed (I forget what this is for, other than it’s a mid-eastern folk remedy for the common cold…I think another phlegm helper)

3 inches of fresh ginger peeled into small pieces. usually I use a vegetable peeler & just peel into the pot, but I broke it yesterday…cutting cold butter…don’t ask. So today I whirled it through my black & decker “handy chopper” (for tea, I use the whole thing, ‘skin’ & all). Anyhow, ginger is antiviral, and “warming” (warm bodies fight germs easier).

put all into a pot, bring to a boil, then let steep for at least an hour…or longer. The original recipe calls for mullein flowers too (for congestion, which none of us have had thus far), but I don’t have any.

Strain into a glass jar (I use canning jars) then add:

1-2 tsp. Cayenne pepper (yikes! Think we all know what that’s good for!)

However many cloves of garlic you think you can handle (more than one folks). Garlic being an anti-bacterial & anti-viral agent. I’m probably going to go with 4 big guys. Crush, chop or press & dump in the jar, put on the lid. Swirl around & let sit a few hours to overnight. Swirl before pouring & drink as much as you can handle throughout the day till you’ve finished the quart. Repeat as needed.

If it doesn’t kill the cold, at least it can double as penance….right?

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It’s the day after Christmas…the kids are both wearing some new clothes from the grandparents. Grace is prancing in her new “princess jewelry” and pushing her baby around in the stroller. Asher is absorbed in his new “Where’s Waldo” book. Me? I’m thinking about Potty Training. Merry Christmas.

As some of you may remember we started potty training Grace this past summer…only to have a major revert the week before we moved here to WA. I decided it would be in the best interest of all involved to throw in the towel for the time-being & wait till we were “more settled” to try again. Grace embraced diapers again gleefully….enjoying pretending to be a baby during changes & the whole nine-yards. so…uh…yeah. I guess she wasn’t “ready”. Live & learn.

Anyhow, I decided “after the holidays” was my goal for re-introducing the concept. As much as I’m never going to be “in the mood” to do this again (esp. now that we’re renting with wall-to-wall carpet…i’ve never done this with carpet…), I decided to get the ball rolling again starting this coming Monday. I vacillated between waiting till after Asher’s birthday (the 5th of Jan), but decided that I will come up with endless reasons for delaying if I cave to that mindset. So today while changing her diaper, I mentioned that on Monday we were going to start potty training so she could wear “big girl” underwear & go on the potty ect. She clapped her hands & said, “I so cited!”. It helps that her friend Luke trained recently & she would LOVE to be “big” like him.

So I’m going to try to make it to Target today to have her help me pick out some “special” pretty underwear that she gets to wear when she starts getting the hang of it, and some stickers. We’re gonna go the sticker-reward route this time (last time i tried “just praise” as a reward). She was VERY keen on the sticker idea.

Here we go….Lord, grant us mercy!

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Just sitting here waiting for the children to wake up and remembered that I forgot to mention that I was mildly famous the other day. It is a long story, but I’m featured in an MSNBC.com article about people who can’t be with family over the Christmas. The journalist also interviewed mom, so she gets famous on page 2. I’ll post the opening of the article here and you can follow the link for the rest of the story:

For the first time in his life, Ryan Burns can’t afford to go home for the holidays. During Christmases past, he and his wife and two kids have traditionally spent much of the day in the car driving from their home in Orlando, Fla., to gatherings with their parents and grandparents, who live in various towns in Georgia.

But in October, Burns, 30, had to take a job that relocated the family to Bellingham, Wash., even though he’d been looking for one that would have kept them closer to home. Just a few weeks ago, it hit him that he couldn’t afford to travel for Christmas this year.

“I just had that kind of homesick feeling when I realized I’m not going to get to see my mom, my dad, my brothers and sisters this year,” says Burns, who works for a company marketing Bible study software.

read the rest of the article.

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A few days ago I joined a “liver challenge” on the Traditional Foods Forum I frequent. It was started by a gal that was wanting to up her liver consumption for energy problems (B vitamins & iron), but couldn’t afford a quality liver supplement (yep, you can take liver in the form of pills). Really, liver (as a food) is such a great nutrient-dense food…and SO CHEAP. From a ’supplement’ stand-point, it can make one downright giddy considering the savings.

However, most people don’t exactly have a TASTE for the meat. Lucky for me, I was blessed with a very impressionable personality, and began liking liver when I was 10. Exactly 10. We got to have a ‘big’ birthday party every 5 years, and on my 10th I had a slumber party, where I managed for the first time in my life to stay up “all night”. Needless to say, I took a big nap that next afternoon, and when my parents woke me for dinner they apparently did not REALLY wake me. We had liver & my mom noted that I was unusually quiet with a lack of grumbling about the dish, then went right back to bed. When i woke up later, asking when dinner was going to be, we realized i sleep-walked through dinner (not entirely surprising, i was a somewhat avid sleep walker/talker). Anyhow, my mom told me we had liver & that I liked it. I figured at that point, “oh, i guess i like liver now”. I’ve liked it ever since. So my “challenge” will be to cook it even though I’m the only one eating it. I’m not a fan of extra cooking JUST for one person.

So the ‘liver challenge’ is to aim for at least 2oz. of liver into your body each week. Until just a moment ago though, I thought it was each DAY. That’s a big difference. Some are going the ‘raw’ route, just slicing it up into pill-sized pieces & swallowing it raw (from organic/grassfed animals, frozen at least 14 days to kill parasites), others cooked. since I don’t trust my ’source’, i’m going with cooked. Yesterday I cooked up a pound of chicken livers into some pate. I think i’ve eaten far more than 2oz thus far. it’s REALLY good. I got the recipe from KerryAnn’s Recipe Archive & made a few modifications b/c I didn’t have ALL ingredients on hand. Basically it was livers, bacon grease, onions, mayo & run through the food processor. mmm……I should probably ration it out or i’ll end up not fitting my jeans anymore. I’m all for “real” fats, but increased calories are increased calories and that is one high calorie snack!

Anyone want to join in? Anyone?……Bueller?…..Bueller?…. :enter chirping crickets:

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I’ve never had a big brother, but growing up i remember wishing I had either a big brother or a twin brother. I had some romanticized notion of him basically being a knight in shining armor to defend my honor or something equally silly. So I tend to project these desires onto Asher & Grace I’m sure. In general, he is a sweet caring big brother who enjoys helping to ‘teach’ his sister & ‘keep her safe’. She is his princess. However, they definitely have “their days” where one or the other or both just want to BUG each other. Yep…normal kids.

I suppose most younger sisters recall their childhood to be something more along the lines of this:

“Sweet” Sibling Sled ride from Ryan Burns on Vimeo.

The humor was not lost on me in the moment either. Note the “trying not to laugh while reprimanding” voice. I did manage to regain composure after turning off the camera.

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