Snow and ELSE

Portland has become and snowy playground.

Zion and Elise both loved exploring the snow with Aunt Lori, Uncle Cody, and Uncle Mike.

Elise in motion.


The arrival of snow brought quite the surprise. Elise can write her name! Or close to it - she forgot the "I". I had no idea she could do such a thing until she used her mittened hand to write in the snow.

A Real Tree

At home we have an artificial Christmas tree. A fake tree. I won't go into our rational now, but it should be know that every year it is with a bit of shame that we unpack our tree from its box and bend the limbs into place. This year in Portland we not only have a real tree, we got to cut down our Christmas tree.

We picked out a beautiful noble fir.


Unfortunately, the tree trunk was very large. Note Grandpa Leon sawing away in the background and the kids fighting over my lap while Zion repeated asks for "milk!" and "deat" (eat)". I think that was really toddler language for, "I'm cold. I'm bored. And I want to go home." We finally left Grandpa Leon still sawing and went home. With some help from a chainsaw, he later brought home a very lovely and very large tree.

Safe in Portland

I survived traveling from Nashville to Portland alone with my two toddlers. And it was actually not that bad. Low points included a terrible diaper rash for Z, the batteries running out of the DVD player, and making it through a long three-hour flight only to land and know that I had another three-hour flight to go. But my list of high point is longer: Zion exclaiming, "Pane! Pane!" while pointing vigorously at our plane through the terminal window. He shouted with glee and shook with excited for a good ten minutes, the whole time rotating between pounding the window with his pointer finger and looking expectantly at the other people waiting for the flight. He seemed unable to grasp why no one else was as excited as he was. Other high lights included Zion falling asleep curled up in my lap with his head tucked under my chin and Elise being sweet and obedient the entire trip.

Here are just a few of the pictures that the doting grandparents have taken in the past few days.

Aunt Lori reading to Zion.

Uncle Mike pulling "uncle duty" as he watched nature movies with the kids.

One of the kids' favorite "toy" is the trampoline. Zion can only bob his head when he tries to jump alone, but he giggled with glee when his grandpa bounced him high.

When Zion Grows Up

Recently Elise has become interested in how things will change when Zion grows up. Yesterday she began a monologue on life after he grows up, "like me".

"When Zion grows up, he will get to stay up late like me.
When Zion grows up, he will get my carseat. Then I will have his carseat. Yep, that will be exciting.
When Zion grows up, he will have my big girl bed."

At this point, Elise began to look perplexed. She studied Zion's crib carefully and seemed to come to the conclusion that she could not reclaim his crib after he grew up and took her big girl bed.

She turned to me and asked with great concern, "Mommy, where will I sleep when Zion grows up?"

Apparently she had been pondering the problem all night because this morning she cheerfully announced, "when I grow up I will sleep in your bed! Then there will be three people."

I love the naivety of childhood. Elise can't imagine herself growing up and being anywhere but here with us. And I will gladly keep her close to me until she is ready to fly.

But, she is staying in her own bed.

Awfully Good

Elise quote of the day:

Jeffrey was helping Elise use the bathroom. He made the mistake of turning on two lights instead of her customary one light.

Elise: "Daddy no! One light is awfully good enough."

Flowers and Butterflies: Elise's 3rd Birthday

Flowers

and butterflies.

The "theme" for Elise's party was flowers and butterflies. We brought a bit of Spring to a very cold park in order to celebrate Elise's birthday.

I served food in flower planters. The balloons on top were perfectly formed flowers at home, but the wind conspired against my best laid intentions and warped my flowers. Oh well.

Side view of party setup.

Zion stayed in that spot eating party food for almost an hour. His hands were red with cold, but he would not surrender his plate of gold fish, animal crackers, and Mandarin oranges.

Elise enjoying the playground with some of her guests.

The wind made lighting the candle quite a challenge. The wind blew out her candles while we sang Elise her birthday song. She just sat there puzzled, looking at her already blown out candles. But more matches came to the rescue and the birthday girl got to blow out her own candles.

Zion took a face-plant on the sidewalk. He was playing chase with his daddy when he tripped. His puffy winter coat immobilized his arms and so his nose took the brunt of the fall.

Elise was so worn out from her party that she fell asleep on the way home, at 5:15 pm. She had been too excited to take a nap earlier. I love having a 3 year old. She is grown up enough to help plan a party, play games, and hold great conversations. And yet she still sucks her thumb, rubs Lambie, and wants Mommy when she is sleepy. And I am glad to oblige.

To Elise on Her Third Birthday

Dear Elise,

You are three years old. A big girl now. You tell funny stories, sound out letters, and help out around the house. But since this is the first letter that I've written to you since I started this blog, let's go back and remember how you began.

You started life with a jolt. Or should I say a trickle. At 36 weeks (1 month early) I woke at 5am to discover that my water had broken. Your Daddy woke to hear me giggling in the bathroom and he says that he knew right away that was the sound announcing your early arrival.

At 8:20 am, you arrived in this world. While you struggled to adjust from a warm, comfy womb to this bright, cold world we adjusted from being a couple to being parents. I could not believe that you were so beautiful and so very real. A 6 pound miracle swaddled in a duck-covered blanket.

We kept the airlines busy that day with the quick arrivals of KayKay, Aunt Summer, and Aunt Amber. Grandpa Greg followed shortly along with Ryan and Sharlene Hayton. We oohed, we ahhed, and I cried with amazement too.

And we began to gain confidence as we adjusted to parenthood.

But you did not adjust so well to life on the outside. At 3 in the morning your temperature and blood sugar levels began to drop. They whisked you off to the NICU, and any confidence I had fled away too.

You recovered pretty well. Warming blankets and a bottle of sugar water had you feeling better soon. But in the NICU you stayed, for a week.

And then you came home. You were yellow with jaundice, wore a brace for congenital hip displasia, and turned your head to one side because of torticollis. And you were beautiful. And still very real.

The next few months were filled with tears (yours), adoration (mine), more crying (yours), sleeplessness (mine), and helplessness (yours and mine). Neither of us knew how to nurse. No one knew how to get you to fall asleep. And I didn't know how to sustain the pain of having a piece of me out of my womb, out of my protection, and out of my control.

You learned to nurse, as your chubby cheeks showed. You learned how to put yourself to sleep, as my diminishing dark eye-circles showed. And I began to get used to the pain and joy of watch a piece of myself become a whole separate person. But I only just began to get used to it. Sometimes I still wish that I was a kangaroo mama and could tuck you back in my pouch, away from the pain and rock you with the rhythms of my heart.

But I can't. So I rocked you on the glider and sang you lullabies. Your tears faded. Your voice grew. You sang us songs of babbling and your favorite word, "aboo." We cheered every new accomplishment. You were the center of our budding family. Adored doesn't quite capture it. With no cousins to compete with on either side, you were the star entertainment.

And you still are. Now you have Zion as your partner, but you are no less adored.

I've struggled with what to write to describe you on your 3rd birthday. But one letter just can't capture it. This entire blog is one big letter about you. And Zion. And Daddy. And me. If you want to know about you as a 3 year old, just pull up a blog entry and read about the amusing things that you say and do or the places we explore. And I hope that through these stories about you that you can hear my voice. My voice laughing at your sayings and still adoring you.

All my love,
Mommy

Black Bean Soup

Last night Zion completed a rite of passage. He, and his new spoon skills, joined in on our family tradition of black bean soup on Friday night. Friday night is a special night in our house. The work week is done. And, like our Creator at the end of His work week, we rest from sundown on the sixth day (Friday) through sundown on the seventh day (Saturday). Many of you might find that odd, but it is a tradition that repeated each week of my childhood and my husband's too.

As a kid, Friday night was my mom's night to rest. Saturday would bring the challenges of getting us all to church and feed us afterward. So Friday night was her chance to unwind. She would head off to take a bath, which was mostly an excuse to put a locked door between herself and us =) My dad then took charge of us. He read us the "Little House on the Prairie" series. And we played many loud, rambunctious games of "tickle monster". I'm sure every dad out there plays a similar game whether you call it, "bear", "lion", or no name at all. All that is needed is a ferocious father and giggling kids. I just liked that it was the one night of the week that I knew my dad was ours for the evening.

In our house we are still growing our traditions. Black bean soup is a keeper. We've also experimented with serving soup in our china bowls and adding candle light and silver. Sometimes we video conference with our families, who are also winding down from their work weeks and welcoming in the Sabbath. Sometimes the tickle monster shows up. The evening usually ends with family worship. Elise sings songs from church while Zion runs off to bang on some blocks. It is just the beginning of a tradition. But I hope that my kids someday remember this weekly event as warmly as I do.

House of Sick

We have a house full of sickness. Jeffrey has a cold/cough. Elise has a croupy cough. Zion is still recovering from a bad GI bug. And I am recovering from the same GI bug.

Yesterday I survived a day of cleaning up icky baby sickness with my own stomach swirling. Then my hero came home from work, put the kids to bed, and cleaned the house while I lay on the couch with a sour stomach and a grateful heart.

More pleasant posts will follow soon. Unless Elise or Jeffrey swap their colds in for GI fun and I am again called to nurse duty.

I Love Photoshop

Jeffrey is in Portland, OR for an interview at OHSU. The kids are asleep. And I am exploring photoshop for the very first time. What do you think of my little fairy?

Somersaults

Right now the kids are asleep and Jeffrey is at the hospital tending to the eyes of a 10 day old infant. He is on-call, but it is the last night of a week of call and then he is ours again. He was here earlier for a perfectly wonderful evening.

He came home early, in time to mow the lawn and then teach Elise how to toss seeds on the bare spots. Elise and Zion then giggled on our slide/swing set in the backyard and tried to get in as many slides as possible before the sun 'went to sleep'. Zion can climb up the ladder to the slide all by himself now, but Elise got in three slides for each one of his by sneaking up the side of the play structure. But he didn't mind. Just like he didn't mind falling on his back after each slide. Nothing could wipe the pride off of that little face.


Then we all headed in for dinner. Strapped in his booster seat, Zion frantically used all of his limited communications skills to hurry Jeffrey up in preparing Zion's food. This included a lot of 'uh, uh!' with a fair amount of 'pease!' and 'melk!' thrown in the mix.

Elise was occupied making a design with her linguine. At least I thought the circle of pasta on her plate was a design. She said she was making a Zion, and I patiently corrected her that it is called a de-sign. Then she told me that she was putting hair on the de-Zion's head, because Zion has short hair. On second look, the perfect circle of linguine actually did resemble Zion's sweet round face. Hmm.


After dinner we pulled out every car or truck in the house for a floor full of 'brrm' sounds from Zion and organized lines of cars from Elise. Jeffrey got into the mix and grabbed a bulldozer to scoot the kids across the floor.

Then came the somersaults. Elise has just mastered this skill, and Zion is in eager pursuit. He puts his head to the floor and his hiney in the air in the classic 'downward dog' yoga position. Then he waits. Soon Jeffrey or I will notice his elevated rear and flip him over in a somersault. Meanwhile Elise is somersaulting away. Again she has three flips for every one of his, and again he doesn't seem to mind a bit. He is just pleased to be a part of the fun.


The evening concluded with footie pajamas, a little curtain peek-a-boo, and then family worship. Jeffrey had to tend to his pager part way through so I ducked out to put Zion to bed before finishing worship with Elise. But Jeffrey was soon back with Elise. While I rocked my snuggling boy in the dark of his room, I listened to his Daddy reading the children's Bible to Elise .


A good-night kiss and a tuck-in later, the kids were asleep and my day was done.


So there it is, an ordinary evening made extraordinary by capturing the memory of it for years to come. I know that our family will continue to grow and change, yet I have a hard time imagining anything better than two toddlers, a Daddy, a Mommy, and the newly discovered joy of somersaults.

Pumpkin Hunt

Today I took the kids on a pumpkin hunt.

Lately I've been inspired to try new creative ideas with the kids. So this week we have been having fun with pumpkins. So far we have checked out a pumpkin book from the library, visited a pumpkin patch, and have eaten PBJ sandwiches in the shape of pumpkins. And today was a pumpkin hunt.

This game was designed with Elise in mind. I would hide the pumpkin in our room, then she would go on a hunt to find it. Then she would hide it for me. I expected Zion to not understand the game, but to smile anyhow. Instead I got a lesson on my limited knowledge of my children.

Zion loved the game. He spent a solid half an hour hunting the pumpkin over and over again. He thoroughly searched the room before letting out a gleeful giggle as he found his treasure. He was in pumpkin heaven.

Elise on the other hand was not fond of the game. She humored me for a couple of rounds then said gently, "How about Mommy read me a book while the pumpkin hides?"

It would seem that sometime when I wasn't looking, Zion grew from a smiley baby into a pumpkin-hunting toddler, and Elise grew into a book devouring preschooler.

At least that is the status today. I am learning not to make any predictions about their interests tomorrow.

Let the Interviews Begin

Today Jeffrey headed out to South Carolina for the first of his Pediatric Ophthalmology fellowship interviews. Two months from today, we will find out where he matches for his fellowship year. This means that he is fitting 6 interviews in the next 6 weeks. To put in another way, he will be out of state 12 days in the next month. In addition, he will be on-call and just about living at Vandy for another 7 days. That leaves us only around 11 days for him to do his normal work at Vandy and for us to say 'hi', do his laundry, and send him back on the road. Pretty intense.

And exciting. In two months we will know where we will be living next year. Jeffrey and I are planners. And as such, we have had many conversations that start with, "What if we are *** next year?" We then discuss details of moving plans surrounding whatever new place is on our minds until one of us, usually me, says with a sigh, "but we don't know where we will be next year. So I guess there isn't much point talking about it yet." I'm ready to start planning for real. This is a steep climb we are on right now. But I feel like we have been riding along on flat ground for too long now with this mountain looming in our path. We are ready to tackle to mountain so we can finally see what is on the other side.

But if any of you have any inclination this month to call me, write me, or have a play date - I would love the adult conversation! And the prayers.

Catch Up

It has been over a week since my last post. I don't have any good excuses for the lag. I have lots of fun activities to write about, and my kids are as cute as ever. Yet I haven't felt much inspiration to write. So here is our last week and a half in one big, picture filled blog. Enjoy.

Family picnic during Jeffrey's lunch hour. This park near Vanderbilt is often filled with Dr. Dads with their families out for lunch.

Shriner Circus. Elise and I went on a girl's only outing to the circus. It was my first visit to a circus and I think I was almost as excited as Elise. We saw elephants dancing, tigers jumping through rings of fire, Elvis impersonators, acrobats, high flying ladies, and too many Shriner cars/motorcycles to count. So much fun.

Daddy and his kids.

Titans versus the Vikings. A house divided. Actually, Jeffrey was rooting for the Vikings too, but wore Titans gear to keep hostile home field fans from attacking purple-clad me.

We need not have worried, because all though our first pro football game together was lots of fun, the Titans dominated the game and maintained their 4-0 record.

Elise and Zion's favorite before bed activity - curtain peek-a-boo. Notice Elise 'helping' Zion.

Elise and Zion's favorite part of our zoo has nothing to do with animals. They love to jump and climb in the padded toddler zone.

And what would a Colburn family post be without an Elise quote?

Elise dressed herself this morning before playing in the backyard. She wore her brown boots, white socks pulled high, red and blue shorts, her purple pj top, and a pink robe. While eating breakfast in this crazy outfit, she asked me, "Is I adorable?" Yes Elise, you are most certainly adorable.

Zion Protectors

Elise is still adjusting to having a little guy running around the house, messing with her and her stuff. Today she came up with a creative way to protect herself from Zion's little grasp.

Jeffrey came home from work to find Elise is this spot. She proudly pointed to the basket drawers that were pulled flush with the couch to form a barrier and said, "these are my very own Zion protectors!"

Bless-you-ing

Someday I'm sure that a big wet sneeze from Zion will elicit an, "Eww, gross!" from Elise. But I much prefer her response today:

"Zion is bless-you-ing. His bless-you made rain!"

Buzzed

Zion had his first hair buzz tonight. A rare candy treat helped to keep him still while Dad wielded the clippers. Occasionally Zion would let go of the candy long enough to grin and say, "buzz".

Elise helped out by pulling out the mirror so Zion could have a better view.

Zion and I with short hair. I got my hair cut today too.

Zion is covered in clipped hair on the back, green candy goo on the front, and very little hair on the top. But he still manages to be adorable.

My Favorite Place

The kids and I just got back from my favorite place in the world, my grandparents' home in McMinnville, TN. Here are some old pictures taken over the years at their home.

My grandpa Tom rocking me to sleep

Great-grandpa Tom rocking Zion


My sisters, Amber(left) and Summer(right), with me in the middle on the front porch of my grandparents' home.


All four of my grandparents on the same front porch. My grandmothers became best friends in highschool.


Me, holding Elise on that same porch swing.

A journey to my grandparents' home begins as you put on the gas, straddled the gully and bear the bumps of the steep, gravel driveway. This is the driveway where Jeffrey's car almost met its end as the bumps punched a hole in the oil pan on our first cross-county road trip. These are the very bumps that would awake me as a child in my folks' minivan, announcing that our 30 hour trip from Arizona was almost over. This driveway passes by the little school where both of my grandparents taught. It was to this school that we trekked for hot showers the Christmas that the ice storm knocked out my grandparents electricity and water.

These are just a sampling of the memories that flood over me as I drive to my grandparents' home. I've grown from a baby into a mother in this house over many Christmases and spring break holidays. And now I get to kiss my kids goodnight in the very room, beds, and sheets that I slept in as a kid. Elise sits in the highchair that I sat in, and my dad before me.


I have lived in nine states and a life on the move is the norm for me. So I am glad that although my home is wherever my husband and children sleep, I have one spot on earth that has always been my home.


Grandpa Greg and Zion

Elise asleep in the cradle my grandpa made for my Uncle Steve

Mammoth Caves

Last weekend we visited Mammoth Caves with our friends Rod and Leah Stuart. We spent Saturday afternoon in the caves, tucked the kids into bed in our hotel room that night, and then settled in for a game of Carcassonne and good conversation with Rod and Leah. The next morning was filled with more caving before heading home. Both of the kids handled the caves very well. In fact Elise didn't seem to get how unusual they were. We joked among us that kids are as excited about everyday stuff like a fun chair to climb on as they are something truly extraordinary like Mammoth caves. After finishing our caving excursions, Elise verified this hypothesis. Leah asked Elise which cave was her favorite. Elise replied, "Umm, that one." She pointed to the building straight ahead and said, "the visitor's center."

Colburns and Stuarts

The boys

Zion insisted on being in my arms almost the whole time. Those 27 lbs sure did make spelunking difficult. But I don't think I could have held a more lovable load.

Hiking with Daddy

This is Elise and Zion's new entertainment while I make dinner.

An Elly-Bean, a Popsicle, and an Elephant

If you ask Elise these days what she is, she will likely reply that she is either an Elly-Bean (her nickname), a Popsicle, or her latest - an elephant. She is quite insistent on her current status of elephant. She claims that she is a sister elephant, Zion is a baby elephant, I am a mommy elephant, and Daddy is a daddy elephant. I have mostly gone along with her game. I've even fed her peanuts and told her that broccoli is elephant food too.

While her imaginative play grows, in other areas she is entirely too literal. The other day we were riding in our car. I mentioned to Jeffrey that Zion was walking really well. Elise piped up from the back, "No Mommy. Zion is not walking. He's sitting right here in his car seat."

She is also quick to catch me if I slip up on the name of an item, or the quantity of items. We have a Mr. Potato Head set that consists of a potato head, a carrot, and a head of corn. When I suggested to Elise that we go and play potatoes, she quickly corrected me, "There are not potatoes Mommy, there is only one potato." I can't get away with anything around this girl.

We had a wonderful weekend spent with family at my cousin Andrew and Brenda's home. It was a mini reunion, including my aunt and uncle from California, my cousin Sarah from Yemen, and my grandparents from McMinnville, TN. Unfortunately we forgot our camera. So you will just have to imagine some of the highlights which included building a tower of blocks around Elise, Zion zooming up the stairs, lots of games, and my grandma's homemade blueberry pie.

Zoom Zoom

Last weekend we celebrated Owen Porter's 3rd birthday. The event was held in a car museum, which led to car theme games, cake, and treats. Elise and Zion were in car heaven! There was a large section full of any car toy imaginable.

There were cars to ride in, cars to push, car puzzles, car books, rocking cars, car video games, and Tiffany Porter even added a car version of pin the tale on the donkey.

Elise couldn't seem to understand why we were trying to put the blind fold over her eyes.

Isn't this such a neat idea? I'm keeping this photo for inspiration if we ever do a car-themed room someday.

On a side note, our water heater spilled a little stream into our garage yesterday. There isn't any damage to our garage, and we have a home warranty for the water heater so there are no major concerns here. But the minor concerns are getting to me. First, we have to shower ourselves and bathe the kids in cold water. I haven't braved cold kid baths yet, so if you might see a little peanut butter in Zion's hair. But the worst problem is the dishes. I can't run the dishwasher because it is attached only to the hot water pipe, which has been turned off in order to prevent a pool in the garage. So I'm washing all of our dishes by hand, using water heated on my stove top. I really shouldn't complain until out stove gives out and I have to heat the water in the fireplace =)

Elise quote of the day:

Elise walked up to me in the kitchen with her arms full of toys.

Elise: "I told Zion that these were my toys, but he is welcome to share them."

This elicited two reactions from me:

1) Pride: she knows that is good to share with Zion, and is even polite about it.

2) Skepticism: if she really had told Zion that he was welcome to share the toys, wouldn't the toys be in the living room with Zion instead hidden in Elise's arms in the kitchen?