Daniel never ceases to surprise me with the things that come out of his mouth. 

Daniel was just explaining to me how goofy stands in this one cartoon video he likes to watch.

Daniel:  It’s like this mom (he proceeds to put one leg out from behind him)

Holly:  Oh, that’s lovely.

Daniel:  Yeah, it’s really funny.  It’s like he’s doing an arebesque.

Holly:  An arebesque!?

Daniel:  Yeah.

Holly:  How in the world do you know that word?

Daniel:  I don’t know.  I just know it.

Several years ago I read “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families” by Stephen R. Covey and in it he suggested that every family have a mission statement.  I thought that was pretty cheesy and unneccessary and never considered doing one. 

But today in church I was reminded of something little that happened back in December:

It was the week of my birthday and Daniel was SO excited for the primary kids to sing “Happy Birthday” to me during primary.

Well, it didn’t happen - I guess the primary presidency overlooked my name on the list of birthdays.

Daniel was so disappointed, so I just said, “Maybe they don’t sing to the teachers anymore.  Maybe they just sing to the kids.”

The following week in primary, Daniel unexpectedly walks up to the podium while the primary president is giving the announcents.  He asks, “Um, do you guys still sing ‘Happy birthday’ to the teachers, because you guys didn’t sing to my mom last week.”

They laughed and of course I got my chance to be sung to. 

On the way home from church, Ep said to Daniel, “I’m proud of you son.  That’s what Vojt’s do.  We have each other’s back!”

I smiled at that and thought, “Boy, I should cross-stitch that and put it up somewhere in my house” (I did think that, but as a joke). 

I really do like that motto though: 

Vojt’s - We have each other’s back. 

I am going to answer the two questions I seem to be getting on a daily basis:

Question 1:  Are you still planning on moving.

Answer: Yes, we are…unfortunately.  Eppie is VERY excited about moving and has been trying to convince me that greater things exist outside of Hershey, PA.  

We’re selling our house on our own and we’ve had probably about a dozen people look at our place.  We’re not in any rush because Eppie’s fine with commuting so far and thankfully his brother lives out that way - so Ep crashes there a lot of times.

People ask all the time if it’s super stressful selling a house.  For us - No.  We don’t have a deadline.  Plus, we’re going to rent somewhere when we move instead of buy…most likely.  We just think that’s the smartest thing to do right now. 

Question 2: Are you going to have another baby?

Answer:  Have you met my daughter?  Probably not, because then you wouldn’t be asking me that question.  I love Elizabeth and all, but she is a pickle.

Call me selfish, but I thorougly enjoy my sanity.  

Besides, I’m just not “baby hungry.” 

“Pregnant hungry” - That’s a different story.  

For most of the year I feel like a traitor because I think that the Snickers Bar is the most delicious candy ever made, with M&M’s coming at a close second.

 But then the Easter season rolls around and I’m reminded once again that, no, the snickers bar is not the greatest candy.  The greatest candy ever invented - The Reese’s Egg!!!!

These things are irresistable. 

When we get to heaven, I hope we all have a chance to see selections of our lives here on earth, because I  would really like to see a re-play of what happened to me today:

Eppie had just left to take the Honda serviced and I had just gotten out of the shower.  I went to check on the kids and found that Elizabeth was unwrapping another chocolate egg from her easter basket.  I scolded her for disobeying me, put the egg back in the basket and picked her off her stool. 

She was Furious!!!  She grabbed my wet hair and began pulling.  I started hollering with pain.  Daniel, who was watching the whole thing, got nervous and began screaming.  So here we are - Elizabeth, Daniel and me all screaming for different reasons. 

I didn’t know what to do.  Every time I tried to get Lizzie’s hand out of my hair she pulled harder.

She then grabbed my hair with her other hand.  I was in so much pain and so much fear that I would have two huge bald spots on my head. 

With all three of us still screaming, I laid Lizzie and myself down on the floor and tried tickling under her arms.  Daniel thought I was abusing her and started to scream louder. And the tickling did not solve the problem.

What did I do next?  I basically started wrestling with my one year old daughter and somehow managed to get myself free from Lizzie’s grasp.  I kid you not - it is very hard to wrestle a toddler.

I was so upset with her that I picked her up, went upstairs and put her in her crib for several minutes. 

But then I could not stop laughing.  Daniel, who was still in shock over the whole incident, kept asking me what was so funny and he just couldn’t understand why in the world I would be laughing at what just happened. 

Yes, I want to see a re-play of that moment.  It would definitly have a shot at winning ”Heaven’s Funniest Home-video’s” (ha ha - so cheesy). 

There is a quality that almost all women share.  I’m referring to multi-tasking. 

I’m not so good with the multi-tasking.  In fact, I’m horrible.  And one very specific kind of multi-tasking: talking on the phone and doing something else…anything else.  I simply can not talk on the phone and do something else.  Impossible.  Eppie would always joke with me that the house could be on fire and I would never notice.  I thought that comment was an exaggeration, but sadly enough, it is not.

I was not aware of the severity of this problem until a few months ago when I was talking to one of my sisters on the phone.  I hung up and saw that the entire floor was covered with papertowels.  “What did you do?”  I asked Daniel. 

“I tiled the floor.”

“Why did you waste all these paper towels?”

“Mom, you were watching me the whole time.  You GAVE me the paper towels.”

Oh yes.  That moment kind of scared me.  Really, it did.  Am I that out of it when I’m on the phone?

 Well, it happened again tonight.  I got off the phone and found that every item in my house that could be misplaced, was misplaced.  Every diaper, every book, every toy, every canned food, every plastic tupperware.  EVERYTHING. 

I laughed, even though I wanted to cry inside.  Not that my house was a disaster.  More that my brain is a disaster.  My house is still not completely picked up.  I’d rather write in here than pick up another case of macaroni and cheese or some other random item that my kids decided to get out. I’m tired of picking up. 

Here’s the good, but bad news.  I figured out what my problem is with why I can’t multi-task on the phone.  I have diagnosed myself with APD (Auditory Processing Disorder).  I found out about this a few weeks ago while I was doing research for something else online.  I was so happy when I found this and realized it was really a problem. 

This is a quote from a webpage about APD:

“Using a telephone can be problematic, due to low quality audio, poor signal, intermittent sounds and the chopping of words can be a problem for someone with Auditory processing disorder to cope with, in comparison with someone with normal auditory processing (hearing).^[3] Many who have auditory processing disorder subconsciously develop visual coping strategies, such as lip reading, reading body language, and eye contact, to compensate for their auditory deficit, and these coping strategies are not available when using a telephone.”

That was it!  That was all I needed to read.  But I researched it more and learned about the other problems I have associated with APD. 

The best way to describe it -  it’s like I hear something, my brain “get’s it” and then I lose that information…unless I’m really, really concentrating.  Which is why I have to really, really concentrate when I’m on the phone.

But it’s not too bad of problem to have.  I mean, it can be kind of embarrassing when someone has to repeat their telephone number to you like four times before you get it right, or you can’t remember the punchline of a joke two seconds after you’ve heard it.  There are worse things to have.

I write a lot about Daniel because I have great conversations with him. But Lizzie doesn’t really talk yet, so she doesn’t SAY anything that I can write about. But she did DO something pretty funny today.

We were coloring with markers and Lizzie kept wanting to color the table. I said, “Lizzie, if you do that one more time…”

“YOU’LL GO TO YOUR ROOM!” screamed Daniel.

Lizzie laughed. Colored the table one last time. Got off her chair and walked upstairs to her room and stayed there.

Maybe I should think of a harsher punishment for her in the future

My conversation while tucking Daniel in last night:

Daniel: Mom, how many more days until the Easter Bunny comes?

Holly: Three days. You have tomorrow, Friday and then Saturday.

(Pause)

Daniel: I’m going to go up to the sky with 17 flashlights. I’m going to turn them all on for a few seconds and then I’ll turn them off. That will be one day. Then I’ll do that two more times. Then it can be Easter in a few seconds!!!

Holly: (laugh) It doesn’t really work that way.

Daniel: I know.

(pause)

Daniel: Mom, can’t God make the earth rotate faster?

Holly: I’m sure if God really wanted to, he could make the earth rotate faster.

Daniel: I wonder how he would do that.

Holly: Don’t know

Daniel: I bet he would blow on it.

Holly: Probably. That’s a good guess.

 Here are some pictures from the past 6 months or so.  Now that we’ve got our website up and running again, we’ll try to post pictures more frequently (and group them more sensibly), but for now, this hodge-podge collection will have to suffice.

To view a larger version of any image with a caption, just click on it.