a part of a poem?

something about "spontaneous [toddler] kisses, drippy/sloppy with cheetos"

yeah, iris just came up to me and stuck her face up to kiss me. it was precious and gross...cause she had been eating cheetos.

an historic moment

Tonight, I french-braided Iris's hair. I had to bribe her with milkduds to make her stay still enough to do so, but I did it!

I thought I had more to say, but I forgot it.

i feel a blog coming on...

Well, on Sunday, I'll be eleven weeks pregnant. So that's exciting. I'll take any soft tacos from Taco Bell you want to bring me.

This is my fourth pregnancy. It looks like this baby is gonna make it, but I don't like calling him/her our second baby. Just an FYI. Having healthy babies doesn't fix the grief and hurt of losing babies. That said, I don't want to be someone who is all into an identity of baby-loss. But sometimes, it does just bubble up.

I just made eggs and sausages for breakfast (right after I wrote that previous paragraph). But they didn't really make me happy, even though Roy and Iris enjoyed it. I ate some, though, and hopefully it'll be enough to hold me over. Besides the tiredness, the not-enjoying-eating is what gets to me the most about pregnancy. However, it's a good sign of little JoLo's health, so I am trying not to complain TOO much.

We have a contract on a house in Huntsville. We are not going to be making a big deal about it until we close, though. I didn't really realize how much buying a home was a process, not an immediate thing. But hey, time to be grown ups! There will be more details when we get to close, which, Lord-willing, will be the end of the month.

I got to go to Jackson State's RUF last week because Roy preached. It was really fun--like, REALLY fun. It made me really excited about having "our own" students at A&M. I don't know if the students at A&M are like the JSU students, but hopefully, they'll be as excited about RUF.

Iris is learning and growing like CRAZY. She can say all sorts of fun things, including "no-mi" [no ma'am] (okay, so that one isn't as fun as others), and she's talking ALL the time, even though we don't usually know what she's saying. She calls most animals "dau-ee" [doggy], but sometimes she also says "bird" or "kitty." She has also started using silverware. I am absolutely thrilled about this one (or I would be if I didn't have a thousand other things to worry about), because I mostly let her eat with her fingers, and didn't even feed her with utensils, but she has decided that she wants to use utensils. Now if I can just figure out how to make her keep her spoon right-side-up, we'll be golden. She also really likes our broom. We're going to have to get her a little one so she won't knock stuff over with the handle. It's so fun to think she'll be a big sister in just what...crap, I'm so bad at math lately...eleven minus four is SEVEN. SEVEN months she'll be a big sister. well, I guess, six and a half.

I had to give my two weeks notice at work on Thursday (well, two weeks and one day). It was really bittersweet. Of course, I am so excited to go to Huntsville, have another baby, minister to students, etc. But I LOVE(d) my job. It really matched my gifts and abilities, my co-workers were great, and I got to help make and sell BOOKS. I love books, and we make really good ones at the press. I have four more days there (since I only work two days a week), and I'm hoping that I won't be too sad. It's funny, it is true that now that I know when I'm leaving, the foibles of my co-workers really have been getting to me, so on the one had, leaving will be a relief, but I'm still going to miss it. I am hoping that maybe I can do some sort of work for them in Huntsville, over the internet, but I don't know if it'll work out.

Um, oh what else. Oh, I read two books lately, well I've read more than that, but only two are worth of comment. One I forgot the title of--wait--I remember, BETWEEN THE TIDES. It was alright, except that it was set in the Carolinas and had a SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY in it. IN CAROLINA! I couldn't believe that they had somehow missed that there was already a Southern University in Louisiana...and theirs definitely didn't have the same racial makeup as the real one. So I was really bothered by that, even though the story was fine. The other book I read was THE HELP. That of course, has a lovely story, but it was written in presence tense. It was set in the sixties but the speakers/narrators were speaking in the present tense. I don't understand why people think that's cool. So annoying. However, it was funny to recognize names and places in the story. Did anyone think the present tense HELPED the story? (ha...pun not intended).

Well, I think that's about all for now. Talk to you later.