Christmas

My heart is a little heavy this morning.  I've thought a lot this year about how we as believers celebrate Christmas.  I read an article on CNN today--it was a compilation of people who would categorize themselves as non-believers, describing how they celebrate Christmas.  The quote that really struck me was this one: "We exchange gifts, have elaborate meals, and spend time with our family and friends, many of whom are believers and know we are not. Sharing, giving, and loving are traits of humanity -- not divinity."— David Lilley.  The thing that bothered me was how much alike our celebrations are.  Just two days ago, I spent three days cooking this huge crazy meal for some friends for Christmas, but in the midst of all of that, where was Jesus?  I yelled at my child for crying (because his needs were interrupting what I wanted to be doing).  As parents of young kids, I really want to be teaching them from an early age that Christmas is about Jesus (not about gifts, not about Santa, not about getting stuff, not about decorations, not about consumerism, not about certain kinds of music, not about special food).  But I want that to be what Christmas is about in my own heart first.  After reading this article, I was so humbled and challenged-I have such a long way to go before I feel my celebration of Christmas will really reflect the One whom I claim to love and follow and worship.  I read on a friend's blog not long ago, "I love Jesus, and sometimes I act like it."  I felt like that was a perfect description of me!  Ugh!  I had been feeling kind of happy (proud) that whenever Maya sees a Santa, she shouts out, "Snowman!"  She has no idea who Santa is.  Aren't I spiritual?  Aren't I a good Christian parent?  GROSS!  Jesus birth was humble.  Unassuming.  He announced His arrival to common shepherds--the least of these.  Last night we went for a walk in a big shopping district near our house because I wanted to find a special hairbow to go with Maya's Christmas dress for church on Christmas day (I know, I am completely shallow and ridiculous--once I found the bow I had been dreaming of, Matt said it looked like road kill so that helped snap me back into reality!).  While we were walking along, a little girl came up and asked for money.  She had three little packages of chicklets gum she was selling.  We chatted for a while and I learned she was only nine years old.  No dad.  Sick mom.  She comes every Friday and walks the streets trying to gain some sympathy from shoppers, or people coming to pray at the mosques.  I bet her mom would like her to have a pretty bow too.  Yah, Jesus got some fancy gifts from the wisemen, but his parents couldn't afford to buy the standard sacrifice when they took Him to the temple to be dedicated, so they had to buy the birds instead.  If Jesus had been born in my lifetime, would I recognize him?  Would I be like Anna and Simeon and the shepherds, or would I be too busy hanging out with the Pharisees, proud of how "good" I am and how "good" my kids are?  Oh Jesus, show me how to make Christmas about you in my heart and in my actions.

Two Years Old!

Maya turned two today.  She sang happy birthday to herself all day.  We ate lunch after church at one of her favorite places: Fuddruckers!  The way that she says it is so funny!  She just learned to count from one to ten in Arabic (she mastered 1 to 10 in English weeks ago) and she knows the entire alphabet.  She loves to sing and is probably better than me at carrying a melody line already!  She loves her brother and has been super sweet with him.  Yesterday we had a big party for her birthday and it was so fun to see people from so many countries, religions, races, and socioeconomic levels brought together to have fun celebrating this little social butterfly.  She brings us so much joy and helps us to see things anew.  Happy Birthday baby girl!

Here are some pics of the awesome pie crusts I made for thanksgiving this year.  And a pretty cute new family pic.

 

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150994063800204.776042.626700203&type=1&l=74080a4c57

 

The finished pie shown was a chocolate walnut success.  Heavely, really.  The other pie (not pictured) did not turn out quite so heavenly.  During dessert, Matt very quietly leaned over to me and said, "This one (pointing to the chocolate walnut pie) is excellent (insert dramatic pause here), this one (pointing to the pumpkin pie) seems like it might be missing something."  So I took a bite.  Do you think I should have put sugar in the pie, possibly? . . . Oh brother.  Sadly, it tasted so bad that it ended up in the trash.  I should have taken a picture of that.  It was such a pretty little pumpkin pie. . . :)  But we had a fantastic Thanksgiving feast together with the best family-away-from-family a girl could ask for.  So thankful for them. 

Thankful for visitors

This is our paper chain countdown--only 10 more days until Grandpa and Nana come (my parents)!  I am SO extremely thankful that some of our loved ones can come and meet Zain and see Maya.  Matt's mom is also going to be able to come (in December)!  We are so blessed and excited!

Thankful

The month of November is thankfulness month in our family.  I can't remember when I started this tradition--maybe the first year Matt and I were married?  We began by writing down one thing we were each thankful for every night at dinner for the whole month of November, and then on Thanksgiving day, we read through all that we were thankful for and it made Thanksgiving day so much more meaningful.  Each year I did something different in terms of how we collected/displayed these things.  The first year I think I did something like feathers cut from construction paper stuck into a pinecone to look like a turkey (I think we may have done this at some point as a kid?  mom?).  Eventually it morphed into a scrapbook page because I wanted to be able to keep a record of what God had done and what we were thankful for from year to year.  Now that we are here, I have no idea where those pages are or even if we've done this activity in the last few years, but by golly, this year we are starting back up and I've already got the pages designed and the squares for each day cut out!  We have so much to be thankful for I wanted to make sure we got a jump on it and started from the very first day of November! 

Sorry this pic is sideways, but you get the idea. . .

So, since it's thankfulness month, I thought I would post about a few things this month that I am thankful for.  Today, I am thankful for blogs.  Not just any blogs, but blogs that specifically give me ideas for activities to do with Maya.  Being a mommy of two kids under two, living in the middle of a big city with few free options for kids' activities, I have to be creative.  While I tend to be a pretty creative person, I still feel like such an amatuer when it comes to how to incorporate a curious, messy, uncoordianted toddler into my crafty dreams.  But with extremely limited time (and energy, really) I'm just not going to do a craft project if I can't in some way include Maya and make it something that she can learn from and have fun being included in. In my quest to learn how to craft with kids, several blogs have been really helpful and I'll link them here, in case you're in need of the same kind of resources!

http://www.craftjr.com/

http://www.icanteachmychild.com/

http://playathomemom3.blogspot.com/

http://www.breezyacresblog.com/

What blogs do you guys find inspiring when it comes to crafting with and teaching your kids? Please let me know in the comments!

Random Moments

With the recent addition of a family member, I've fallen behind in a few things.  Blogging.  Showering.  You know, the non-essentials.  I've written a jillion blog posts in my head.  Sometimes I even lose track of whether I've posted them!  We are having a blast with our latest addition.  Maya loves him and so far our biggest problem between Maya and Zain is that she loves to get right up in his face to kiss him and at the same time, leans her full body weight on him!  At some point I want to write a post about Zain's birth story (before I forget it!).  Right now I have a few random Maya moments to share.  Because of her blonde hair and blue eyes, her extremely gregarious personality and her ability to speak a little Arabic, people everywhere seem to love her.  She is such an answer to prayer, in that she opens doors all over the place.  She also gets a lot of free treats. . .

Free ice-cream at Chili's (only for her, there was no free ice-cream for us).

This place is called Pinkberry (I think it's a U.S. chain) and it's frozen yogurt.  I think it's the most excited we've been about any chain coming to our city!  They loooove Maya there and always give her gummy bears and animal crackers.

We're doing a lot of policing of this right here.  Maya is just so in love with EYES!

We're very excited about a trip we are taking to Turkey next week, and we've only got one more step to accomplish before all of Zain's paperwork will be done and we'll be okay to take him out of the country.  We have his passport and record of birth abroad, we just need to get a visa put in his passport before immigration here will let him leave, but as soon as we get it, we only have seven days before we have to leave, so we had to wait until next week to go and get it.

Nice To Meet You

Zain David Jacobsen was born on October 4th at 3:38 p.m. in Beirut, Lebanon, weighing in at 3.435 kg (7.57 lbs ) and 50.5 cm long (19.88 in).  Nice to meet you!!!

The plans of men, the itching, and the new due date

Well, after weeks (months really) of thinking, conversing, worrying, speculating, weighing and praying about whether to do a repeat C-section or to go for a VBAC (vaginal birth after Cesarean), the decision has been completely removed from my hands-YIPEE! My due date was October 13th, but we need to travel Nov 4th, which means we would have had to accomplish the following between his delivery and our travel date:

 

1. Get hospital birth certificate
2. Take hospital bc to our neighborhood official to get it made “official”
3. Take bc back to hospital to have Doctor sign and stamp new official version
4. Take new stamped and signed version to neighborhood official
5. Neighborhood official issues government official version
6. Government official version gets officially translated into English
7. Get a passport picture taken (not easy—they have to have their eyes OPEN!), get the correct size printed
8. Fill out 5 forms for the U.S. government
9. Take official English translated government version to U.S. Embassy (we made the appointment a month before Zain’s due date to make sure we could get in)
10. Embassy issues U.S. passport and report of birth abroad certificate
11. Take new passport to a place called General Security to get a visa stamped in it, so that Zain can legally leave the country

Because of that, there was no way that I could go overdue with Zain and still make our travel plans, but the thing we are traveling to happens about once every five years and is a super encouraging time to get to meet up with people like us who work around this area that we never get to see or learn from . . . so we really wanted to go! So I was hoping that Zain would just come on time, on his own (because you can’t induce a VBAC), we would miraculously get his papers done, and I would even be feeling good (no C-Section to recover from) in time to travel. But then we decided that if he hadn’t arrived on his own by the 11th, we would schedule a C-Section for the 12th or 13th. And then the itching started. . .

 

My hands started itching like crazy. Random, right? Like I couldn’t stop thinking about how bad they were itching, couldn’t stop scratching them. And then my feet started to itch too. Fast forward two days. Zain had been pretty quiet and hadn’t been moving much, which was not normal for him. I had the sense that I needed to get online and look up pregnancy and itchy hands and feet after we got back from the beach that evening. I discovered a thing called Cholestasis of pregnancy. I was freaking out. The words stillbirth and intracranial hemorrhaging kept running through my mind. I told Matt about it, but it was already 11 p.m., so there wasn’t much we could do other than wait till morning so we could call the Doctor. I laid there in bed and prayed that if Zain was okay, would God please make him move. He did. Not a big movement, but enough for me to know he was alive (I was imagining the worst at this point). All night I dreamed that I couldn’t get my fingers to work to send the text to the Dr. (that’s how you communicate with your Dr. here—you send a text message and they text back). I kept trying to make the message shorter, or get my fingers to work, or my phone. By the time I hauled my exhausted self out of bed, my wonderful husband had already texted the Dr. and she had actually CALLED him back and told him we should come in right away for some testing. So we threw ourselves together and walked to the hospital (it’s faster than driving b/c of the bad traffic). My precious precious Doctor called the Labor and Delivery Suite 6 times between when she heard from matt and when I got there and got hooked up to the fetal monitor. She was so concerned about our baby! She is the same Dr. who delivered Maya and she is just a gift from the Lord. Anyway, as soon as we got there, we realized that Maya was not allowed into the Labor and Delivery area, so matt and Maya waited in the waiting area while I got hooked up to the fetal monitor.

Just as soon as those monitors came on, Zain started to perform a tap dance! He was moving and kicking so hard you could see it from the outside. I was very relieved, and so was our Dr.! They did a blood test that didn’t show anything abnormal, but went ahead and put me on medicine. Fast forward one week. When the Dr. saw me again she asked how the itching was—gone. Completely gone. She said this indicated that I was responding to the drugs and that I for sure have cholestasis. Then she said, we need to schedule you for a C-section! So, long story long, Zain’s birthday looks like it’s going to be Tuesday, October 4th, just one day before my birthday! Matt was so funny (and charming), while the Dr. was looking to schedule the C-section on Oct 6th, Matt was saying, are you sure you want to be preparing for Zain’s birthday on your own birthday every year?  It ended up that she scheduled him to be born the day before my birthday so it all worked out!

 

We are so thankful for amazing medical care right here in our city, a Doctor who truly cares about us and our baby, and the fact that we were able to catch this so quickly after it developed. I went in for a Non-stress test for Zain yesterday and he’s doing great, so we are thanking and praising the Lord for His hand of protection being upon us and upon our little boy!

 

 

 

Maya and Hannah

Did I already post this?  I thought that I had posted it a long time ago, but it was labeled draft, so here it goes again.  I'm feeling guilty for not posting for the last month!  I've been trying to get a few projects done around the house since we're nearing the arrival of Zain David. He is due, according to the Dr. on Oct 13th, but according to my original calculations, he's due the 7th, and I've started having Braxton Hicks contractions, so maybe he's gonna show up early and bless his momma!

They look so sweet, but I'm pretty sure this lasted about 4.5 seconds before Maya pushed Hannah for holding her hand.

I think our water must come from a well, because even in the summer, it is COLD!

 Do you see all the water flying through the air?!  Love Hannah's face in this one!

A true friend--Hannah is always ready to offer a helping hand.

And another helping hand. . .

Maya's face in this one just defines JOY!

Splash!

They really do like each other.

See?

Hannah's sister Breeley trying to edge her way into the action.

I feel as though Maya is defying gravity here (that's some bubble blowing, in case you're wondering).

Such pretty girls, and so much fun!

Year and a Half, Sort of

Because I haven’t kept a baby book or a scrapbook and I rarely have time (or make time) to journal these days, I’ve been wanting to write a post about what Maya has been up to recently. I missed her year and a half mark, so this is kind of a belated year and a half post.



Maya baby, you bring so much joy to our lives. You are a little over 20 months now.  You are learning things SO quickly. You often repeat the last word of every sentence we say-English or Arabic. Some college-age visitors recently taught you to give the fist bump. You love anything having to do with water—everything from your baby pool on the balcony, to a glimpse of the sea. When you see the sea, you say “May” (Arabic: water) over and over. You also use the word, “wa-wa” for water, and milk is, “Me-me”. You’ve just started to say things are pretty, and you love babies. You’re a little dangerous around actual babies, as you enjoy pointing out all of their body parts, especially their eyes (and you’re a little unaware of personal space and kind of sit on them a little bit). After baths I wrap you up in a towel and hold you in front of the mirror and call you my little baby. Then you let me snuggle you. I love it! When you want us to do something, or feed you something you’ve asked for, you nod your head up and down emphatically and make a little “um-hmh” kind of sound (and sometimes add in eyebrow raises for effect). I would love to catch this on video, but when a camera comes out, you want to see it, rather than be seen by it. You have started to learn the names of all of our friends and family and your tone of voice is so cute, especially the way you say please and thank you. You also do the intense nodding while saying please if you really want something. You are a GREAT eater and almost never reject food that we offer you. You’ve just about mastered eating with silverware (well, sort of mastered).


Much to my surprise and delight, you still take two naps a day, which has helped me so much (I need two naps a day too!) You wake up early in the mornings and have special time with Daddy while he gives you milk and reads you books. You still love to read books and you’ve just started to ask to watch videos occasionally, though I try not to let that happen too often (you know, I don’t want to kill all those brain cells). You are extremely cautious when walking over anything slanted or bumpy or raised--to the point that it’s kind of comical, but you’ve saved your face and teeth a lot of pain by being so careful. That may be the only thing you’re really careful about! You are fun-loving and you love to play chase (which is more like hide and seek) with Daddy and you like to wrestle and tickle too. You still love the song, “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” (because we row you like you are the oars) and you've just learned "Ring Around the Rosies". You are learning to count, but most of the time, you just like the number two. You hold up your fingers and point to them while saying two over and over. We were at the pool last week and we would count to three and then you would step/jump into the pool. You got very brave and let us hold just your hands while you kicked your legs. You have also recently learned to blow bubbles and have done that in the baby pool, the big pool and even the bathtub. You are friendly and sociable, even when there are a lot of people, unless too many people get in your face at once. We are trying to teach you to at least give a polite greeting to anyone who greets you (a lot of people want to greet you here b/c you look so special to them with your blue eyes and blonde hair).  You have been out of your crib on your very own "big girl bed" for about two weeks now, and you handled the transition like a rock star! 


I never could have anticipated how much I would love you or how much joy you would bring to our lives!

Baby Charm?

Hey all, I need some help.  I am hoping to get a special gift for our OB/GYN who delivered Maya and will be delivering baby boy.  I'm thinking about a charm/necklace that looks like a baby.  Anybody know any good Etsy shops that sell silver stuff--particularly something that would be a cool gift for our wonderful Dr.?

SEVEN years!!!

Seven years ago today, I married my love!  I loved him before I ever met him.  No joke.  I don't have time to write about how amazing and wonderful he is because I need to get to bed because he's taking me out of town tomorrow!  Without our child! (of course, in-utero boy is coming along)  We're going to stay in a hotel--for TWO NIGHTS!  We're going to swim!  We're going to eat every meal prepared by someone else!  We're going to run the A/C non-stop at ridiculously low temperatures!  I may even get COLD!  Hah!  So excited to be sneaking away for two nights together.  Away.  Alone!  Just me and my MAN!  We'll have adult conversations, unpuncuated by whining!  We'll sleep as late as we want, without our human alarm clock saying, "Mama!" (even though her daddy is the one who takes care of her first thing in the morning).  We will do our yearly ritual of writing on a greeting card all the memories we can think of from the last year.  My amazing friend Kendra has volunteered to keep Maya in addition to her two ankle biters, while her husband is out of town!  Isn't she the most amazing woman you know?!  Kendra, I owe you big time!!!  There's ice-cream in our freezer for you! :)

First Finger Painting

Awesome family members sent us some non-toxic, washable finger paints recently, and a friend sent some throw-away plastic smocks, so Maya and I had a crafty morning.  Right after she got started I had the thought that we should use a canvas to capture Maya's first attempt at painting forever.  I'm so glad we did--it turned out GREAT!

 getting warmed up . . .

 This is messy!

Can I paint the other side?

A new color!

How does this stuff taste?

Ew, it feels squishy!

Clean up is FUN!

Water, water, WATER!

I forgot to take a picture of the final product, but she's clearly a little artist in the making :).  She also sang the entire time she painted.  FUN!

Taking a Dip

Hello people who read my blog.  I have missed you.  I had great plans of uploading all sorts of video to the blog while we were in another country last month with faster internet.  And then it didn't work.  I have no idea why.  I'm not techy.  I'm too old.  We had to have search engines explained to us in college.  And my husband is even older.  He typed papers for a little extra cash when he was in college.  And when I say typed, I mean on a type writer.  And yes I know that you're not supposed to start a sentance with and.  And I probably just spelled sentance wrong.  And today I don't care (and I usually really do).  I just want to get this post posted so all of you can smile at how cute my kid is.  Or how cute her little bikini is.  Or how cute it is that she is still in the running between the two of us to win the "biggest belly" contest.  I love her.  Some day soon I'm going to write a belated Father's day post.  And a year and a half post for Maya.  And some other posts.  But in the meantime, hopefully this will tide over my mom, and anyone else who finds their way over here to Life Over Here.

The Picture to Prove It

To read what posessed this self-inflicted humiliation, read this post. 

Bangs and a Perm

I just woke up from a dream (nightmare, really) that I got bangs and a perm.  It seems that I did it in order to witness to someone (gallant, I know).  With no thought to the child in my womb being completely poisoned by the fumes and the chemicals, or the fact that I would look really dorky, I plunged bravely into this new style!  This woman needed to hear the Good News, after all, so let's spend the next two hours or so together.  It turned out very similar to my very first perm/bangs attempt.  I knew instantly that it was a huge mistake.  Those bangs fell right in my eyes.  And they were so itchy.  And hot.  And annoying.  And I immediatley doubted my ability to rock the bangs look.  It's so cute on other people (my sister and half of my sisters in law, to name a few), but with the heat of summer about to descend upon our beautiful but humid city, I was in no position to be getting bangs for the first time since. . . . . . middle school?!  I remember the process of growing my bangs out being quite socially painful.  A boy in my basic studies (Cane Lyons, a skater boy whom I had a crush on) telling me that I wore my hair pulled back too tight.  He also called me a hoe.  Pretty sure he was the first and last to ever call me a hoe.  But his comment about my hair hurt just as bad.  I wore my hair pulled back too tight.  What he didn't understand was that my generation of girl was on the tail end of the big bang phenomenon, and it was time for us to move on to something bigger (well, smaller, really) and better.  But growing out your bangs is so awkward.  Either they are too long and in your eyes and in your face, or you slick them back into your half-pony to keep them out of your face, but they are really too short and so you have to keep them kind of tight.  That and I have really flat/smooth/body-less hair so it appears tight just because it lays very flat when pulled back.  All that to say--I knew that bangs were a mistake and as soon as she cut them, they immediately started to itch my eyes and feel like a combination of my mom's allergies, and Chinese water torture.  And then I woke up (well actually, then I dreamt that I went and played volleyball with some girls I played with in high school, forgot that I was pregnant, and attempted a dig--all while wearing a long prarie skirt, and having bangs in my eyes).  I am so relieved that it was all just a dream.  While I really could use a trim, and possibly something new to make my long, straight and boring hair look like I actually have a style, the bangs and a perm were all just a bad dream . . . (as was the pregnant volleyball in the prarie skirt, thankfully).  Tomorrow, when my husband is not in bed asleep in the room where I have an old photo album, I will try to find a picture of myself so you can see the days when I rocked the perm and the bangs (as well as the big red glasses).  Until then. . . sweet dreams.

20 Weeks

Well folks, we're halfway there!  20 weeks down, 20 to go.  I have heard of women who just love being pregnant, but I can't say that I'm one of them (I have to admit I have questioned the sanity of such women at various times over the last 5 months).  I'm fairly certain we will never need a wide angle lense just to fit all of our children into a photo . . . )  To celebrate the fact that I am finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, here's a look back at how things have gone so far--just for "fun"!

Well, it all started with the Morning Sickness-puking morning afternoon, and night.  Just yesterday I was in the bathroom getting ready and Maya wandered in and leaned over the toilet and started making a puking sound--- if that gives you any idea of how often it was happening for a while.  I'm still taking medicine to keep things under control, but I am sooooo excited that I don't feel nauseous all the time anymore.  During the worst of it, I experienced a major change in my appetite and could hardly make myself eat anything--I didn't eat chocolate or drink diet coke for weeks, if you can believe that!  Next in line was constipation.  Not much to really say about that, other than, things got more than a little backed up.  Next up in the lineup of pregnancy moments to treasure--Restless Leg Syndrome.  This one has gotten worse lately--almost as if it's taken up the rallying cry of the Morning Sickness.  When I try to rest, my legs twitch and spasm to the point that I can't even stand to lay down and usually give up and get up (although I was reading yesterday about what you can do for RLS and one tip was to put a bar of soap under your sheet?!  Huh?).  I think the twitching legs have led to the next gem of being with child-extreme fatigue.  Between that, and the unmedicated Narcolepsy (which makes me have pretty interrupted sleep anyway), I just seem to feel tired all the time.  I keep reading that in the second trimester you should see a surge in your energy.  Liars, liars, pants on fire(s).  While we're on the topic of pain, I occasionally have a painful pinching in my low low back that shoots pain down my right leg as well and makes me groan out loud.  Much less significant, but still annoying are swollen fingers (I had to stop wearing my wedding ring at least a month ago--maybe that's not swollen fingers, maybe that's just fat fingers!), growing pains, and the fact that Mosquitos now consider me their very own all-you-can-eat-buffet (no screens on widows here).  How do women do this over and over?  I mean really.  The good news is, we're halfway there and the very worst (the morning sickness) has backed off enough for me to behave like a semi-human being!  I even cooked a big breakfast for our team the other day, including Cinnabon-clone cinnamon rolls (thanks to my amazing bread machine my hubby got me for mother's day)!  I am so thankful that God has given us the children that he has, and I'm sure as soon as I meet this little man, I will say it was all worth it. . .  until he becomes a teething toddler--but that's another post altogether!

New Adventures in May

 Maya really enjoys helping me bake.

 She tries to taste everything so she's had some funny surprises tasting things like salt and flour.

This is as close to the outdoors as we get around here, and our gardening capacity is pretty limited, but we do what we can to let Maya experience growing living things.

Maya insisted on being in control of the trowel, so the whole balcony got a dusting of dirt, but she had fun (until the clean-up bath happened, and then the fun ended very quickly).

 

Grammie sent this cute Easter card that came with a page of stickers.  She had never used stickers before and she had fun, but couldn't quite get the hang of how to get the stickers off of her fingers, onto the page.

This activity is called water painting.  My friend Laura's mom is a child education specialist, and Laura has all kinds of good ideas from helping her mom--including this one.  (I think she actually remembered this one from when she was a kid)  It's way less messy than actual paints, and Maya loved it.  Laura wanted to point out that we were painting with water, right beside the electrical outlet!  Safety here is defined a little differently . . .

Water painting soon became water playing.

 

The wetter she got, the happier she got (and it was not really very warm out at the time).

The water dish (once completely dumped on the ground and on herself) made a great hat too. . .

I am trying to learn to do more planned activities (like the planting and the painting) with Maya to keep from losing my mind with the monotonity and sometimes tedium of parenting a toddler.  She's been sick a lot lately too, so we've really needed some activities to distract us from feeling icky.