So, Wednesday night I went up to QC to do a little reading at Starbucks.  Just me and a book and a vanilla latte.  Yum.

Tonight Kelly went to Iowa City.  He first got a load of wings and took them to the U of I Hospital to share with some friends who has someone close to them there (we’re praying for you, Jessie!).  He was then going to go to the new James Bond movie.

Harrison and I had a fun evening together.  He is really starting to say quite a bit more, and I have to really pay attention.  He will repeat something several times and then I will usually get it.  And today, for the first time, he sang the alphabet song with me.  He didn’t say all the letters, of course, but he had the tune down pat, and he would get some of them right.  In between the right ones, he would just repeat the vowels over and over again. 

He is just so stinking cute, I can’t stand it sometimes.  Believe me, we have our moments.  And lately, we have been having more.  And I blow it.  And I need frequent breaks.  But I love him so much, and am so proud to be his mommy.  I find it such an honor to be able to stay home.  I really can’t imagine doing anything differently right now.

That’s it for now.  Night.

Nooma- Rich

He’s not saying these things to make you feel guilty.  He’s not saying these things because he thinks we’re better than others.  He’s saying them for awareness.  So people know.  So people know there’s a need.  So people will take action.

“I’m consumed. Every single time I brush my teeth, take a shower, wash my hands, do a load of laundry, a load of dishes, fill up a glass with ice, I think about those who don’t get to do that. Those who would give anything to be drinking that water that I’m flushing down my drain.
It could have been me. It could have been my kids. I do not deserve this water any more than the woman in Africa, I just happened be be born in America.
Bono’s quote keeps running through my mind,
“Where you live should no longer determine whether you live.”
I’ve been listening to a podcast series from Mosaic Church. I have quoted McManus several times on this blog and I love so much of what he stands for. Mosaic is his church and I love to listen to their messages.
ANYWAY…the series I have been listening to talks about “What if everyone…”. Last week it was What if everyone CONNECTED? What would the world look like? And today I listened to “What if everyon SERVED?” What would the world look like?
I found it so interesting that they first talked about relationships. It has become so obvious to me that movements are built on relationships. We cannot do it alone. We cannot knock out the water crisis single handedly. But suddenly our relationships come into play.
I’m so excited about this. And suddenly my mom is so excited about this…because she loves me and she has felt my excitement through our conversations. And suddenly, Melissa, on the other side of town is excited about it and wondering if she can implement it at her place of employment, and then Jennie gets excited about it and decides maybe we don’t need to do that $10 white elephant gift game. And then Kelly from Phoenix emails and says she wants to implement it somehow in her classroom and suddenly the word is spreading to Arizona. And then Lisa sets up a table in her deli in Seattle and Kelly’s dad is setting up a table in Nebraska. And Larry’s wife in Baltimore “is like an amimal”, setting up tables all over town. Courtney in Virginia is selling shirts and Christa, a college student in Missouri, has designed shirts and is selling them and Taylor and Joanna have designed water bottles in Pennsylvania and Jill and Josh from New Zealand set up a facebook group that quickly grows to over 1300 memebers and Naomi and her mother in Colorado set up a gift wrapping station and on and on.
Relationships.
Water.
Friendships.
Water.
I’m amazed by this. And reminded how important we all are to eachother. And what a difference we can make if we all band together instead of working against eachother.
Colorado, Iowa, Missouri, Virginia, Maryland, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, New Zealand.
All for water.
We are all connected.
All brothers and sisters.
And it keeps ringing truer and truer in my ear…
“Where you live should no longer determine whether you live.”"

But please, please don’t make the same mistake I did of reading the comments.  It will just make you mad.  At least it made me mad.  I know everyone has a right to their opinion, but come on.  Some people should just keep their traps shut.  Or computers off.  Whatever.

Is Your Gas Light On?

Playing with his cars…putting them in a line.  (Karen B- I think Harrison and Gracie are a lot alike!  He hides from me, too, like she hides from her teachers.) 

Hiding under the easel while un-snapping his outfit.

Anyway, he played it the whole way home and the whole time getting ready for bed.  He did not want to put it down.  Finally I had to take it away from him, and he sounded so miserable, whining “Hiyayayamonica!  Hiyayayamonica!  Hiyayayamonica!” over and over again for like 10 minutes.  It was funny, despite the fact that it took him a while to get him settled down.  I think we have a new favorite toy!

Here’s some random pictures.

Playing with his friend Abigail in his Clifford house.  Should I be worried that they’re under the blanket together? 

Pulling Harrison and Jack after group one night- notice how red Harrison’s cheeks are- they were having fun!

Today while Abigail was here- it was getting towards the end of the day and I needed them to let some energy off!!  Notice how in both pictures Harrison is pretty much air-borne. 

She has a tab at the top called ‘water’ that will get you lots of good information.  They are now selling t-shirts, bracelets, water bottles…and even dancing!

Or you can simply donate here.  Please use the red donate button.

If you’re in the Lincoln area, H & S Auto, owned by Kelly’s parents, will have a display set up soon where you can add your donation to a huge water bottle.  Let me know if you want to know where they are located.

All of the proceeds will be going to Water For Christmas, through charity:water, to dig wells in Liberia, to bring clean and healthy drinking water to those who need it.

There is now even a Facebook group…yesterday morning we had 150 members.  Tonight we are at 550.  And we have a challenge.  If each member donated just $10 a week, we could have 1 new well PER WEEK!  That would be like 7 new wells between now and Christmas!  And that’s not even including the people donating that aren’t in the Facebook group!

Water is something I so take for granted.  I’ve been trying to remind myself how blessed I am to have it for cooking, washing clothes, showers…the list could go on.  This has changed my view.  This has changed my heart.

So imagine my surprise last night after church when I picked him up from his room and the lady working said, “He told me he needed to go potty, so I took him in and he tinkled in the toilet.”  I was totally shocked, but excited!  When he saw me he says “PAH-DY!”  He was really excited.  It was cute.  She told me that there were a bunch of other kids waiting in line to go at the time, so we think maybe he wanted to join in and go, too.

He’s gone twice in the toilet today, and I’m using some pull-up pants for the first time.  We’ll see what happens!  It’s been kind of funny, though- every time he goes he HAS to wipe his bottom, even though he’s only gone pee.

He’s had a really bad cough the last two days or so, which is from his throat condition (he has some extra tissue in his throat that he hasn’t “grown into” yet).  He gets to coughing so bad he chokes- he’s thrown up twice this morning from coughing so hard.  It makes his colds worse and makes it sound like he constantly has croup…which he doesn’t.  I got the ok from the dr. to give him some steroids that I have from a previous episode, which reduces the inflammation in his throat and helps him to not have coughing spells.  Hoping it works fast- usually he’s better within 24 hours or so.

That’s all the excitement going on in the Gubser household this weekend. 

Harrison got to see it snowing outside, but he didn’t seem too interested in it.  Maybe when it starts accumulating and he can actually go out and play in it. 

Speaking of playing, I am a little nervous about what this winter will bring as far as being able to let Harrison get rid of some energy.  I am thinking of getting him one of these:

Do you think that will work?  :)  I am really very, very serious.