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.