I feel like this blog has been dedicated to my struggles with my two year old son–maybe I should change the title to "Help Me Please"–but sometimes, it’s the safest place for me to vent. I’m so sorry to those of you reading this. It’s why I deleted my previous blog. I promise there are good times, lots of them, but right now, they’re being far overshadowed by all the bad.

I have been reduced to a short-order-cook, and right now there’s nothing I can do about it. Isaac is ridiculously picky about his food, and I really try to make him something I think he will eat, but it all depends on his volatile mood swings. Last night I gave him the "offensive" dinner of chicken nuggets (something he usually likes–but again, it all depends on his current unpredictable mood), but found out too late that he didn’t want it, so he screamed off and on for 3 hours, either at the table or in his room where we sent him when we had enough. Finally, at 8:00pm, I put the chicken nuggets in his hand, and made him take a bite, and he finished off the rest on his own.
I don’t get it.
Every time I decide that this is the night he’s going to eat what I give him, we have to battle it out for 3 or 4 hours–more often than not, he just doesn’t eat at all–and frankly, I’m just too worn out to listen to that long of a temper tantrum so I usually make him something different just so he eats something and gets over it.
The hardest part is guessing what he will eat. Last week, he only wanted to eat Yoplait’s Thick and Creamy strawberry yogurt. Now, after I’ve stocked up on it, he only wants to eat Disney Cars fruit snacks. For about a month, he only wanted to eat peanut butter toast, but now he won’t touch that. Of course I don’t give him only these things at each meal–but it does mean I have a tougher fight when that’s all he wants to eat. Doctors say to not make meal time a battle; that he’ll eat when he gets hungry enough. He must be an exception to that rule, because no, he won’t eat when he’s hungry enough. Not if it’s not what he wants. Believe me, I’ve tried. I wasn’t joking when I told Adam last night that we may as well dump our savings account down the garbage, because that’s where most of our food goes.

It’s lunch time. Sigh. I don’t even know where to start and I don't want to.

In 2007, Adam and I made our resolution be to read the Bible straight through. We did it, but then in 2008, I made too many excuses and I'm ashamed to admit it, barely opened my Bible outside of church. Stupid. I realize I've left God out by not spending time with Him. Soooo, this year, my resolution is pretty much the same again: read the Bible through again, but this year I altered it so that I'm reading part of the Old Testament along with the New each week. I've even got my list up above my computer so I can cross off each week's passage (I am such a list person--I get this weird satisfaction from crossing a line through something). I got a late start, though, so I'm still finishing Genesis. I'm getting excited, because each time I do this, I learn something new or find a new way for what I'm reading to be applied to life.

So, for those of you outside of Oregon, we've been hit with an arctic blast. And boy, have we. It is currently 23 degrees outside, and that's warming up. It snowed all day yesterday, we've had freezing rain today, more freezing rain expected tonight, and the wind chill makes the temperature actually below zero. Highways are closed, freeways are closed, and Adam is currently walking to Fred Meyer's to buy chains because no one is allowed on the roads without them. Need I say it?--brrrr.

See the snowman in the below picture? Didn't think so. It's there, under all the snow in our front yard. Adam and Isaac built it about three days ago, and it disappeared pretty much overnight.

Here's a few more pictures of the snow around our place:

Isaac keeps looking out the window and wants to play with his dump truck. Sorry, dude, not going to happen for a while.

Before the real arctic blast hit us, we did get to enjoy some time outside. Here's a couple pictures of us sledding on our street. Notice the pavement? Can't wait to see that again. Hopefully it shows up before Christmas....

When we bought our house, we inherited a fridge in the garage--you know, one that was made before the stone age and probably consumed 10 times the electricity a normal fridge does. We hadn't gotten rid of it because we didn't have a way of driving it to a recycling or appliance drop-off center. Three years later (geez, what took me so long!?), I discovered a way of getting rid of it--Energy Trust of Oregon has an old fridge recycling program, where they come and pick it up, they recycle it, and--here's the best part--they pay you! They took it this morning and will send me a check for $30 in about a month! Whoo-hoo! Let me show you a picture of all the space I suddenly have in our garage:This was taken 2 minutes after the guys picked up our fridgeso I haven't even picked anything up. Here's what I envision with all this extra space:
Sigh. Yeah right. Complete with new truck and everything.