I'm back ... maybe!

Well, my last post on here was about 9 months ago, and began with a desire not to let time slip away from me.

Oops!

Since that post, my little brand new baby boy has turned 10 months old and is now pulling up on everything taller than himself, eating markers and stickers that Anna leaves within reach, and winning this mama's heart more every day.


Anna is three and a half, and is learning learning learning about her world! (More on that in a minute.) She is so stinking smart. This is getting both of us in trouble as she tries to reason me around to her point of view MANY times each day! She is a fabulous big sister who loves her little brother (except when he is impatiently and loudly waiting for his meal in his highchair) and helps me take care of him.

Mark has graduated from residency and is working in St John Urgent Care sites around Tulsa. His hours when he's working are loooong. BUT - he only works 14 shifts a month, praise God! So we are seeing a LOT more of him than we used to. This has been a learning curve, and we are still working out how to adjust our home routine on days that he is here. But it is fun :) We are chipping away at our school debt (both medical and nursing), and should have it all paid off by this time next year. Again - praise God! We're looking at our options for overseas missions once we're debt free.

And me? Well ... every day looks a little different for me. I love - LOVE - staying home with my babies. One morning a week I work on a mobile medical van for Good Samaritan Health Services. We function out of a church in North Tulsa (on Tuesdays, at least), and I am very much enjoying being a part of clinics. The rest of the time I am managing things on the home front! I certainly have my rough days, and struggles or challenges running around in my mind, but on the whole I am so happy with where my life is right now.

Part of the reason I have decided to try blogging regularly again is that Anna seems to be entering a new phase of learning. I want to record this somehow, and I'm not sure whether it will be on this blog or on a separate one. For now, it's here.

In the last couple of months she has started asking questions that have involved me looking up answers for her. Actually, what this more often looks like is the two of us sitting down at the computer and researching her question. For example, she has a book that tells the story of a little girl who had to kill a dragon. The dragon had green blood ... and this prompted questions today about the colour of other animals' blood. (She already knows that blood travels around the body in little 'tubes', and that when one of the tubes gets cut, we bleed.) So we got online and looked up the circulatory system of a fish and a spider. How fun is that?!

Now - I know that this is not likely to be information she retains into her actual 'school years'. But right now her desire to learn is very strong, and I want to capture some of what we learn together so that one day she (and I!) can look back at what she achieved and was interested in during these months.

And if I have extra time and energy, I may even try to post semi-regular updates on the rest of our lives too! We'll see... :)