Insane

Our front door is insane. It is metal so magnets stick to it. And since I don't really let Jack play in the kitchen, we "display" his artwork on the front door. Nifty, huh? It looks really strange when the house if clean. So most of the time, it fits right in.

Worst Mother on the Planet

Ok, maybe not the worst mother on the planet but certainly not the best. When I dropped Jackson off at preschool this morning the director said, "We missed you last night." I said, "What was last night?"

I missed my child's Open House! I totally forgot about it. They only sent about three notes home about it in the last month. I kept meaning to write it in my planner and since that didn't happen, we just didn't go. I feel pretty bad about it. But Jackson is totally oblivious to the whole thing... I think. He may come up to me a month from now and ask why we didn't go to Open House.

I'm sure I'll do many other things in his lifetime that will make me feel a little like a failure. I guess this is pretty minor in comparisson to the other things I will surely do to cause him to go on Dr. Phil someday. Oh well, atleast I don't have any regrets about what we were doing instead of Open House. We were laying on the couch together under a blanket watching Veggie Tales and having a tickle fight.

He will survive my inadequacies. He knows he is loved.

Who's Monica?

I got to work today to find a "My First Harmonica" on my desk. One of my friends and faithful readers decided to push me along in this journey of discovery. The thing to discover being "Can I learn to play the harmonica?" And how do I thank her? I called her a butthead. Sorry, Erin. So anyway, I brought the thing home and tried it out. It was absolutely awful. When I thought it couldn't get any worse, Jackson decided he wanted to try it out. I really wish you could see and hear him play this thing. It is beyond hideous....and very funny. And it's really loud. He frantically breathes in and out into it, with his little belly going in and out like a belly dancer. And sometimes, just for an added treat, he hums while he's doing it. So, if Jackson wants to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on the "formonica" as he calls it, he will frantically blow in and out while humming the song. I told him he can only play it in the playroom and preferably with the door closed. I told him that he plays really good (I know that's poor grammar) but that it's just too loud for mommy's ears. So he has decided that it's his formonica and that I can only borrow it sometimes if he's not "practicing" on it.

More Church Stuff

I'm still reading The Present Fture by Reggie McNeal. So much of what he addresses in this book is to get away from the club mentality regarding church and more importantly, regarding Christianity.

"The scorecard is all about church membership, church participation, and church support. We are training people to be good club members, all the while wondering why our influence in the world is waning." (72)

I just want to preface my next few statements with this: I love our church. I do. The support that we have been given since we started going to our church has been unreal. We have witnessed a first-hand outpouring of God's divine love through people at our church. This is not meant to be a slam against our church or against church in general.

BUT...

Many of us certainly have a club member mentality. We take every opportunity we have to dote on our church and the great things it has to offer to the people who grace it's doors. We are proud to call ourselves "members." We spend more time talking about being a member of ________ than talking about being a follower of Christ Himself.

We had our annual ladies' retreat last weekend. It was great. There were many very good things about the retreat. The evening we spent in our cottages was a time to get to know one another. We had approximately 25 women in our cabin. After we played a couple of "get-to-know-you" games, we went around the room and introduced ourselves. The cabin host simply asked us to introduce ourselves to the other people that were there. That's all. Introduce yourselves.

Almost every single person in that room began with who they are, who makes up their family and how long they have been going to our church. How they started coming to our church. What they love about out church. No joke. The only people there who didn't give us their our church story were the two or three people who are not members of our church. And they felt the need to almost apologize for not being members of our church. It was weird. I hadn't even started reading this Reggie McNeal book and I thought, "This isn't right." Not one story about becoming a Christ follower. Not one story of a changed life. Not that I would expect someone to go into life-changing stories in an introduction, but I also wouldn't expect them to go into church affiliation either. It really was a strange phenomenon.

And even though I knew this didn't seem right, when it came to be my turn, I didn't really stop the trend. I didn't say how long we had been going or how long we had been members. But I did say that I work at the church office. What I said without actually saying it is, "It's cool. I'm a club member too."

Why do we do this? Why is it that when someone asks us something about our relationship with God we almost immediately go to church affiliation? Why is our thinking so screwed up that we cannot talk about faith or what God has brought to our day without throwing our membership into the mix? We think that for someone to experience a new life, they must "belong" to us. To US! To OUR CHURCH! It's wrong. I do not want to think like this anymore.

I hate that I was a part of making some beautiful people feel like they didn't fit. Like they weren't "in." I hate that I flaunted my "membership" because everyone else was. I hate that this is going to be a difficult mental shift for me to stop thinking like that.

This book is kicking my butt.

Church stuff

Phillip recently ordered the book The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church by Reggie McNeal. I started reading it yesterday. Anyway, I just wanted to post a few quotes from the book that I thought were particularly challenging. I'm sure as I keep reading in it, I'll have more things to post about it.

"As He hung on the cross Jesus probably never thought the impact of His sacrifice would be reduced to an invitation for people to join and to support an institution." (1)

"Many church members feel they have been sold a bill of goods. They were promised that if they would be a good church member, if they would rediscover their gifts, or join a small group, sign up for a church ministry, give to the buliding program, lean to clap or dance in worship, or attend this or that, they would experience a full and meaningful life. Trouble is, we don't have much evidence to support the assumption that all this church activity has produced more mature followers of Christ." (8)

"In North America, these people have been led to believe that their Christian life is all about the church, so this failure of the church not only creates doubt about the church, it also leads them to all kinds of doubt about God and their relationship with Him." (8)

This is the one

I've made up my mind about the harmonica thing. This is the one.

Children's Beginning Harmonica

This is the perfect beginner's harmonica!

At 6 1/2" long and 2 1/4" wide, this children's harmonica by Playwell is easy to hold onto and easy to play! Diatonic harmonica has 16 tones.

Age: from 3 years

Harmonica

I think I want to try to learn to play the harmonica. I had one a long time ago in Intermediate School and I thought I was good then, but I'm sure I really stunk. I wonder if it's a difficult "instrument" to learn. Are there any harmonica players out there who read this who can tell me if it's worth trying. I guess anything's worth trying. I also have been wanting to learn to play Bass guitar. But Bass guitars are much more expensive than harmonicas.

House for Sale

Jack and I had a picnic lunch today in our front yard. Our very nice retired neighbour from across the street came over to say hi and to let me know that there is a house for sale down the road. He was just letting me know in case I knew of anybody that might be looking for a small house to start out in.

But he said some other things too.

He said something like, "We hope a family like yours moves in over there." He said something else like, "We want it to stay a nice, clean neighbourhood." Then he looked at me and said, "You know what I mean, right?" He gave me a look like he was trying to say something without actually saying something. I just thanked him and said if I heard of anyone looking for a house, I would let them know. I am ashamed to say that I know what he was trying to say without saying it. And I am embarrassed to have been a part of that conversation. I wanted so badly to say, "No, I don't know what you mean." or somehow asked him to be more specific so I could talk about his opinions with him. But Jackson was there and so I let it go. Maybe I read too much into what he was saying, but I don't think so.

I know with every generation, the racial lines become more blurred. I wish I could say that I am completely without any racist views. But I know that isn't true. But I do feel disgusted with myself when I think or say something judgemental about another race. I absolutely know that that type of mindset is wrong. I hope my children grow to be even further down this road than I am. I hope my children and my children's children are without racist views.

So, that having been said, there's a house for sale on Redwood St. in Lake Jackson. It has only had one owner. They bought the house new in about '54. It's in good shape but I think the asking price is a little high.

Mr. Matter of Fact

I know I write about Jackson a lot. I really wish I had some other interesting things going on, but I don't. Anyway, if you're sick of reading about Jack, then just skip this one.

I picked Jackson up from preschool on Thursday and I began to ask him the typical questions about his day. Like "What did you make?" "What did you do in music?" "Who did you play with?" Just stuff like that. When I got to the last question, Jackson said, "Mom, I play with Sloane everyday. Only Sloane. Please try to remember that from now on."

After I got home from work today, I started making my lunch and then sat down to eat. I sat at the table and said, "I sure am lonely. I sure wish somebody would come keep me company while I eat my lunch." And Jackson said, "Well, I'm sorry Mom. I would like to sit with you, but I just can't right now. I've got work to do."

Keep in mind, this child is three. He will be four in May. He is so funny and half the time, he's not even trying to be. And that makes it even funnier.

Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt

I'm reading the novel Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt by Anne Rice. Anne Rice is the one who has written other inspiring books such as Interview with the Vampire, The Queen of the Damned, The Tale of the Body Thief, and Servant of the Bones, among others.

I don't really know much about her or why she decided to write a novel about Jesus after she has written so many other books about blood-sucking vampires. It seems kind of weird, but whatever.

This book is a work of fiction about Jesus as a child. Although we can't know much about the child Jesus, this book portays Him in a way that is very believable. It's cool to think about what He knew or didn't know about Himself and His own diety.

But there are so many characters in the book, it's really hard to keep up with what's going on. There are the obvious ones such as Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. But then there are many others like Cleopas, Alphaeus, Philo, Symeon, Salome, Zebedee, Zoker, and Esther. Zoker? I think I'll tuck that name away in the back of my mind to use some day for a future Hintze kiddo.

I'm kind of ashamed to say that this book has not been a real page turner for me like Interview with the Vampire was. But I do like it. I think this is one of those books that I should probably read again in a year or so to catch some of the things that I'm missing now. Reading this has really peaked my interest in reading more about Jesus' life from the Bible and that's cool. It sounds bad to say, but I haven't been real eager to read much about Jesus lately. It has seemed like I've heard and read so much about Him that the stories didn't seem fresh anymore. And that's sad. I'm hoping that even though this book is a work of fiction, it can help me to take new look at the life of Jesus and maybe learn some new things about Him and His life on earth.

RETREAT!!

I'll be going to our church's ladies' retreat this evening and will be back tomorrow. The term "ladies' retreat" sounds so goofy to me. It's almost embarrassing to say. I don't know what I expect them to call it but I don't feel like a lady most of the time. That's for sure.

Maybe I'll get to relax a little, but probably not. But atleast I'll get away from Jackson trying to boss me around for a little while. And I'll get away from Phillip giving me weird looks. I wonder what Phillip will feed Jackson while I'm gone.

I DON'T WANT TO

This is a phrase that Phillip and some of my other family members hear a little too often from me. It usually comes out sort of whiny and pathetic. I pretty much always say it when there is something I either have to do or am making myself do that I really don't want to do.

The thing now that I have to do is to start getting some exercise. And, you guessed it, I don't want to. But my thighs and butt are showing the early signs of horrible things yet to come and it scares the crap out of me.

So tomorrow morning, at the ungodly hour of 6:00 a.m., I'm going to (try) to get my lazy (enlarging) butt out of bed and go walk/jog half a mile. I realize that half a mile is nothing to most people. But I have had very little execise in the last couple of years and so I'm starting off small. I'm going to (try) to do this three times a week for now. No more excuses.

Just so all of you know, I don't respond well to traditional encouragement. I respond better to people saying "yeah, right!" and "you won't stick with it you sorry sack of...." ok, so that's a bit extreme, but you get what I'm saying. The ol' "I know you can do it" garbage doesn't do much for me. So for any of you that care about my health or big butt issues, please push me to actually stick with getting my (growing) butt in gear.

They Might Be Giants

Jackson has a They Might Be Giants DVD and it is pretty dang cool. As a former preschool music teacher, I can tell you it is really difficult to find clever children's songs. Most of them are super cheesy. There are some really funny songs on it. Most of the songs are sort of alphabet songs. There's one that I really like.

Pictures Of Pandas Painting

Pictures Of Pandas Painting
Pictures Of Pandas Painting
Pictures Of Pandas Painting
Pictures Of Pandas Painting Penguins

Penguins Proudly Parading Past
Penguins Proudly Parading Past
Penguins Proudly Parading Past

Skateboards, Skateboards
Skateboards, Skateboards

Hippos Hop from Helicopters
Hippos Hop from Helicopters
Hippos Hop from Helicopters
High

Pictures Of Pandas Painting
Pictures Of Pandas Painting
Pictures Of Pandas Painting
Pictures Of Pandas Painting Penguins

They also do the "Why Does the Sun Shine?" song. You may have heard it. I begins like....
The sun is mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace,
where hydrogen is built into helium at a temperature of millions of degrees.

Their stuff is so much cooler than "The Wheels on the Bus." My kid is too smart to be told that wheels go 'round and 'round.

Lesson #1: Home Row Keys

Jackson "types" like a maniac. As you can see, his hands are a blur in this picture.

Our first typing lesson lasted about 5 seconds....long enough for me to take the picture.

Then he went back to what he was doing before I rudely interrupted him.

Pause it

Now that we have DVR we can pause live t.v., which is pretty cool. So Jackson knows now that if we're watching t.v. and he has to go the the bathroom or something he can get us to pause what he's watching. Well, I was feeding Spiderman (the fish) and Jack was excited about watching Spiderman eat. But then he realized he needed to pee and he frantically told me to pause it.

Just a little side note....
Before we got DVR and Jack was just starting to put words together He told us one day, "Can't pause it. Need Tivo." We had mentioned Tivo to him like one time weeks before that and he remembered it. It blew our minds. That's a phrase that we still say from time to time. It's funny how things that kids say will stay with you for years.

More Jackson poop quotes

"Stop messing with me, Mom. I'm trying to poop and it's hard work."

"I'm making a whole family, a whole family of poop turds."

-Jackson G. Hintze

Priceline rules!

I just got a really good deal on a room at the Hyatt Regency near Dallas DFW Airport through priceline.com. We're going to Dallas for a couple of days at the end of March for an adoption conference through the agency we're using. I saved about 60% of the original room cost. I love getting good deals on stuff!

Little Feet

I took a picture of the corner of Evan's memory book. The hospital put his footprints on it for us. Just for a size perspective, notice the thread in the left hand corner that's unraveling from our comforter.

At the Park

Jackson and I sent to Shy Pond this afternoon. We were only there for about 40 minutes and I somehow managed to take 164 pictures in that amount of time. Some of them turned out really cool if I do say so myself. I started a flikr page and put some on there so I don't have to put a buttload of pictures on here. Here are a few that I didn't have room for on the flikr thing. Ok, so maybe I did end up with a buttload on here anyway. This new camera is really cool. It's a good thing I was able to talk Phillip into buying it.

Cousins

My mom has my brother's boys for the weekend while they scope out Corpus Christi. Jack and I went over there for a little visit and I took some pictures. Most of the ones I took turned out blurry because they wouldn't stay still for a second. Jackson really likes to play with those guys.