Praying for Oklahoma

Praying for Oklahoma. 

My heart is heavy tonight.

I can not begin to even imagine if my child were one of the one's missing.

Such devastation for so many.

Chronicles of the Mommy Diaries: Episode 1

I decided to start blogging once a week about the humorous things that happen during the week. I want to be able to look back and remember all the funny things my kids have done. It's so easy to forget things in this crazy hectic thing called life. 

On our weekly shopping trip to Target this week I decided I HAD to have a box of chewy chocolate chip cookies (along with some sour patch kids and a gallon of ice-cream). Pregnancy is bringing out my inner fatty. E is in that phase of if you are eating it, he wants it. Especially when it pertains to snack food. So I had to secretly eat my cookies during his nap time, in my bed. Yes, in my bed. Being the lazy prego that I am, I just placed them on my night stand when I was done. Fast forward to the next day. How half a day went by without E seeing the cookies on my night stand, I'm not really sure. But when I woke up the next morning I told myself "Self, put those cookies up." Did I do it? NO! E and I had a lunch date with a friend and so our morning was super busy getting E fed and dressed and getting Mommy ready. E's new thing is opening our shower, which he's not allowed in yet. That's a habit I'm not entering into. So I was trying to soap up with one hand and hold the shower door with the other. E would give up and go into our bedroom and grab a toy and come back and sit at the door and then repeat trying to open the door. After about three attempts of breaking into the shower, E rounded the corner with the cookies. And the happiest look on his face. So proud of himself. Two things I thought a. how in the world does he even know what those are, because I've never given him any (the boy's smart) and b. there's no way he can get into them. Wrong. Took two seconds and E was double fisting cookies in front of the shower. There are some things you will just let your kids do just to get yourself ready and this was one of them. For that one hour it takes me to get ready, as long as he's not doing anything to hurt himself I'm game. Lesson of the week: Break those cookies out sooner next time.

Mother's Day 2013

In the complete madness of the past week, I completely forgot to blog about Mother's Day. (Chris has been in class from 8-5 EVERY day, along with working his normal fire department schedule. So he has been home MAYBE a total of nine waking hours.)

Friday I came home to flower beds full of flowers. My usually horrible gift giver of a husband completely surprised me. For the last month I've been talking about how bad I needed to do our beds. There honestly just hasn't been time. And when there is that little sliver of time I'm quite frankly tired. So sitting in the hot sun and digging in the dirt just doesn't sound appealing. Chris found time to run to Home Depot and plant them before I got off at 3:00. Did I mention he was in charge of E that day? I'm sure to some it doesn't sound like much, but goodness E is an all day job. He's at that age of being into everything. You can't take your eyes off of him for one second or he's throwing dog food, or has climbed on top of the bed.  I was highly impressed. 

Saturday I got to spend some quality time with my grandma and mom. We went to the movies. Movie of choice: The Great Gatsby. The reviews on it weren't all that great, but we really enjoyed it. Goes to prove that those people who review the movies have no clue what they're talking about. I wasn't the only one who got a surprise for Mother's Day. My grandmother came home to find that my dementia grandfather had moved her car. I forgot to mention, he's been legally blind for at least the last fifteen years. Scary, I know. His attachment object is his keys, so to be without his keys would seriously send him over the edge. Needless to say, some key switching has been done. No more car keys for Paw. 

Sunday was family day. Lunch was at my mom's house. I tried to coax her into letting me cook, but she  didn't fall for it. Drives me crazy. Either a. she just doesn't like my cooking and isn't trying to hurt my feelings or b. she's just that dang stubborn. I'm leaning towards b. Lunch was great of course and the company was even better. Once Chris got off we headed to the MIL's hacienda. A huge surprise was in store for her. Chase, Chris's younger brother, was making a surprise appearance. Mrs. Carol had no clue. All three of her kiddos would be there. Her expression when she saw him was priceless. I love surprises like that. We had dinner at a local Mexican restaurant. My fav. It was overall a wonderful day spent with some of the most important people in my life. Many of them mothers who I look up to. 

As an added bonus to Mother's Day, I also got an iphone 5. My poor little 4, which I've been rocking for the last two years, was giving out on me. When your phone informs you it can no longer take any more pictures, you know it's bad. And I had deleted every unimportant picture I had. I definitely went up in storage space on my 5. Mama takes a crap ton of pictures and videos. Add another amazing Mother's Day to the books.

Me and my little man

The SIL, MIL, and me

Wonderful mothers to look up to.

I forgot my camera and didn't get any pictures of my side of the family :( 

At least I got one of E and me (compliments of the SIL). 

Scary news

A couple of weeks ago Chris and I got some pretty scary news. We had a doctor's appointment and this was the appointment where they ultrasound and checked to make sure all of the organs were there and growing appropriately. All of the organs were there and everything looked great, EXCEPT, for two "minor" issues- as the doctor described them. Evan had a choroid plexus cyst and an echogenic focus. The cyst is just a small pocket of fluid in the brain that contains cerebral spinal fluid, it has no effect what so ever on any development of the baby. The echogenic focus is a small calcium deposit on the heart, once again has no effect on the heart function. Both generally go away before birth. So what's the big deal? Both are minor markers for Down's syndrome. Off to a specialist we went. 

Mentally I prepared myself for the worst, our baby would have Down's. It's by no means a death sentence. It could be so much worse. God would just give us a special baby that would need a little extra loving. Granted, everybody wants a perfect baby, nobody wants to be told something might be wrong with this tiny miracle growing inside of them. But God never gives us more than we can handle. And I knew he had a plan for me and I was ready for it. So for a week I worried, panicked, questioned, googled, and pretty much just needed an immediate answer. A little piece of the impatient person I was before E came along came back. I had one breakdown, tears and all, but I knew everything would be okay. The only thing I could think was how other people would treat my child. I knew I loved Evan no matter what, but it was how others would treat him that bothered me most. 

Skip forward a week later, time for a visit to the specialist. The specialist made us feel so much better. He said he didn't really even think the echogenic focus was an echogenic focus, rather part of the leaflet of the valve opening and closing. As far as the cysts, he said lots of kids have them (his middle child did). And they usually disappear at 26-30 weeks. He reconfirmed that there were no other ultrasound markers to be concerned with, and offered a blood test for Down's that takes the baby's DNA from the mom's blood. The test is 99% accurate. Unlike the quad screening that was offered early in pregnancy to test for Down's, which we refused because many times it comes back false positive. The test usually took two weeks to come back. Ahhhhh another sit and wait game. The bright side is the doctor made us feel so much better, so my anxiety level was a lot less. 

Today we got the call from our blood test results and it came back NEGATIVE. :) All that worrying and fretting and what ifs for nothing. 

When E came into this world he came in full force. Everything I had planned didn't quite go as so. No vaginal delivery, no breast feeding, no three month old sleeping through the night. Well it looks like this go round Evan is starting a little earlier than E. Just a pleasant reminder that I am NOT in control. One of the many life lessons I have learned through parenting. 

Gender Reveal Party: What will it bee?

Our "theme" was What will it bee? We had such a great time. All of our close friends and family were able to attend (with the exception of the out of town people- completely understandable). Thank goodness for FaceTime! I am so thankful we have such amazing people in our lives. 

Future BIG brother

Ultrasound pictures

I covered the doodle with bee stickers.

The Old Wives Tales predicted a girl. 

Winner on guest's predictions is a she. 

Won by a landslide. j

I found the picture of the bee online and just printed them off and cut them out. 

Each of the little bees had the name of the person who voted. 

The amazing cake my mother made. 

Super talented lady.

Most important part: food!

Chicken spaghetti/salad/ and bread was on the menu. 

The chicken spaghetti has a whole story behind it. I was tripling the recipe and thought "Oh it will be easy, boil some noodles and chicken and whooola." Wrong I was up until 12:30 just preparing it to heat for the next day. Next time I will take the help offered to me. :)

Reveal time. 

We revealed with blowing up balloons. Whoever blew theirs up, that's what the sex was. 

I decided to be a trickster (in typical Brandi fashion) and started blowing mine up first. 

Everybody was yelling I knew it, little did they know I would quickly be deflating mine.

Little Evan it is. 

Finding great humor in my trickery. 

My blessings. 

Back in the game

After a two month hiatus I am back in the game. I've completely neglected the blogasphere. Life has just been WAY too busy. A one year old is no joke. All day long we go, go, go. I seriously can't take my off the little bugga. I have a ton of stuff to post about, but instead of flooding this one post with it I'm going to split it up. Here's just a sneak peak: we know the sex of our sweet baby and we have a name, we had a super fun gender reveal party to share with all of our close friends and family- pictures coming soon, baby room planning has begun, E has learned to hit and throw toys (in the process of correcting this behavior), hard to believe with my previous statement, BUT, E is at a super fun stage right now, E's already a little ballpark boy- got to get them started at an early age, E is completely obsessed with cars, and that's just some of the fun we've been having.

So to my first order of business:

We are having a boy!!!! And we are beyond excited. Chris is a little scared, because he thinks since it's not a girl I'm going to want to have a third. I hate to tell him, but the sex of the baby has no effect on whether I want more :) To be 100% honest, if all I had was little boys I'd be A okay. They will always love their mommys. I think I'm kind of partial since my first was a boy. I just don't know if I'll be done at two. Chris has informed me that come October (opening of hunting season) when the boys get older I'm going to be all alone because they'll be at the deer camp until December. I informed him I will tagging along. I love the fact that boys play in dirt and bring home frogs and worms. Little boys don't care about what they wear, throw an old ratty shirt and some shorts on and call it good. There's no pinning them down and putting bows in their hair or screaming while your brushing the tangles out of their hair. Oh what fun we're going to have!

Second order of business: name. Evan Reid it is. I stuck with E's because I think it's cute. This name was definitely a little bit harder than the first to pick. It kind of started out like Ethan's did. We had a middle name we liked, just had to find a first name that was the perfect fit. As every day passes I get more and more excited to meet this little guy. Will he be wild and outgoing like E? Or will he be shy and introverted? Will he be serious? Or will he be full of laughs like E? Will him and E be best buds or will they hate each other until they're eighteen? Hopefully the first. At least if their mommy has anything to do with it.

Stay tuned for more of what's been going on in this household of E's.

*Please keep my sweet little family in your prayers.

The week of doctor appointments

As you can see my posts seem to be more and more spread apart. 

It originally started as a daily ritual, then every other day, then weekly, now to once every two weeks.

Flat out, that's just the life of a busy working mommy. 

I use blogging as a journal for my personal journey through mommy hood, trying to highlight all the crazy, wild, funny, serious, sad, and thought provoking moments that mommy hood has given me. 

So here is what has happened in the last couple of weeks :)

My "sickness" has subsided some, not fully, but good enough to appease me. I learned if I eat every hour I won't feel as sick, which has magically made my waste line HUGE! So huge at my doctor's appointment yesterday I urged the doctor to make sure there weren't twins that were missed on the first ultrasound. Because I literally look like I did when I was five months pregnant with E (I'm only three months). Needless to say, there was only one baby (thank God!). I guess I just have to accept that this is just how the second pregnancy is. Baby Mo is growing wonderfully with a speedy heart rate of 173. There is something so magical about seeing that sweet baby on ultrasound. Every time I hear that heart beat and see that little alien-like body it makes me tear up. I'm sure that surge of emotions has nothing to do with my peaked hormones. Come on September 22. Our next visit will be to see if it's a boy or girl. Let the shopping/remodeling begin!

Here's our sweet little alien in action. 

Not only did I have a doctor's appointment, but so did little man. 15 months! Where does time go? After my last visit alone, I made Chris attend this visit with me. E acted like such a donkey at his twelve month checkup that my muscles hurt from wrangling him. Tag Chris was it. 

One of the many reasons I love E's pediatrician is because I feel so refreshed in my parenting ability when I leave. E is my strong willed child. He is stubborn and hard headed and I love that about him (crazy I know). As Doctor Carroll said, "One day that will be a wonderful trait. He will be a leader."  

He cries hard, he laughs hard, and he loves hard. 

My mother says he acts just like I did when I was younger, I can't imagine that. lol. I must say, I think I turned out to be a pretty awesome person. Sometimes the crying hard part can be very trying. There's good days and bad days. Just when I think oh we've fixed that- BAM! it's something else. Parenting is no joke, or at least being a good parent is no joke. 

I rambled to Dr. Carroll about all of our current problems- picky eating, temper tantrums, and the lack of words, only babble, from my child's mouth. Her answers filled me with reassurance that it's all going to be okay. That parenting is a journey and there's no right or wrong way. As she described it, there is no "perfect" family or baby or child out there. It may appear that way, but everybody is fighting some battle with their little one. Just what I needed to hear to help me trudge along in this battle zone known as parenting. 

This little bugger was at least in the 75th percentile in everything. We got a monster boy on our hands. 

Notice anything that's the same in these two pictures?

Hint check out his hands. 

This boy is in LOVE with some trucks. 

Typical boy. 

Until the next time.......hopefully it won't be three weeks. Not making any promises.

Cupid and Haircuts

Valentine's Day...oh how I love thee! I love Valentine's Day because Chris and I are "simple" people. We really don't require much, but each other and of course our sweet E. For all of the Valentine's Days since 2005 (when I was in school, busy studying my life away) (dang that seems FOREVER ago!) we have always done take-out. Usually Chinese. This year we decided to make it a hot date with the three of us. Originally the menu was steak, E threw a gargantious fit before we left and we settled for Olive Garden. We didn't want to go anywhere too fancy with a raging one year old. We should've just stuck with the good ole take out. Never fails us. But prego right here wanted to "go out." Dinner ended up being great, but by the time we got home I was exhausted. Luckily, E decided one fit for the day was sufficient. Cupid made a special landing for a sweet (despite the fits) one year old. E has a new love for animal crackers and puzzles :)

The day before Valentine's Day I ran ALL over town looking for a stupid Valentine's Day shirt. Let me go ahead and tell you, there is no such thing that exists for little boys. Yes, I should've planned better. My excuse- I'm pregnant. Yes, I can use that excuse for the next seven months. My excuse after those seven months- I have two kids! hehe. Since there were no Valentine's Day shirts, this is what E settled for. I still think he's the cutest thing ever, real Valentine's Day shirt or not. But I am extremely biased. 

Jumping forward to today.....Today was a BIG day. First haircut! And my mommy instincts were correct- E was going to absolutely, positively hate this. The child hates Santa and the doctor. There is no way in hell he was going to like a haircut. My poor child is so sheltered, but I'm okay with that. We went to Sports Clips, somewhere where making a scene wouldn't be too big of a deal. I'm sure all the twenty something, childless men loved having a screaming infant sitting next to them. Hate it for them. But this mama was desperate to rid her sweet child of the mullet. E was originally in my lap and as soon as the lady attempted to put the "batman cape" on E went ballistic! My child literally turned into the exorcist. Screaming, body throwing, the whole shabang. Ten minutes later and in Nonnie's lap, pretty much in a headlock the shears were broken out. About fifteen minutes later and pouring a sweat from dancing around like a monkey, my child had his first haircut. I thought this moment would be extremely emotional (especially with my wacked out hormones), wrong! Instead, I was drenched with a headache that I would've sworn my head was about to launch off my shoulders at any minute. But E turned out super handsome and so grown up. Goal achieved. My mother got great pleasure in this haircut, because I acted just like him when I was little. So much determination in that little body. I can't wait to see how the Easter Bunny and dentist goes. NOT! The things we do for our children.

E semi-entertained.

By this point I'm sure you are thinking "Dang that kid's a little turd!" But he really is such a sweet boy. He has his flare ups, but overall he is so funny, and caring, and loving, and playful. I love him to pieces, even his fits. They kind of make me laugh, because I see so much of myself in there. My take on it right now is it's a phase. My plan of execution to rid them is to ignore them. I figure if I don't pay attention to them, he'll stop throwing them. I know he will grow out of the fit phase, but until then I will pretend they don't exist. 

Things not to be missed in the first tri

I do believe the first trimester is by far the hardest trimester. When I was pregnant with E I literally just laid around all day. I was tired constantly and nauseated ALL the time. I had no such thing as "morning sickness". I had all day sickness. Well, not much has changed with baby number two, except I chase after a one year old all day. No laying around all day feeling woe is me. By the time I put E down for bed this mama is tired, better yet exhausted! Yet, I am still forever grateful for this sweet baby in my belly. I would take a whole nine months of tiredness and nausea to have a healthy baby in the end. 

Here is my list of things that I will not miss about the first trimester: 

1.  The fear of miscarrying. Never had one. But I am a worrier, and it's always in the back of my mind.

2. Lack of energy. I'm so ready for that second trimester burst of energy! Chasing a wild one year old around while already running on zero cylinders can be trying at times. I find it especially difficult after working all day. Luckily, I have the most amazing husband EVER, and he lets me sneak in hour long naps every now and then. I feel like a different person after those naps.

3. The relentless waves of nausea. This week I learned if I just eat all day I feel less nauseated. That worked for about three days and just when I thought I was over the nausea hump.....BAMMMMM! Yesterday I felt "blah" for the most part of the day. I would keep snacking throughout the day in hopes it would make me feel better. Never really saw any improvement. As a last ditch effort to curve my nausea I decided I had to eat dinner. Leftover red beans and rice. Four bites in and it was all coming back up. Thankfully little man was enjoying his supper in his high chair so mommy could enjoy her volatile hurling all by herself. 

4. The appearance of a fat roll/possibly baby belly. This is always the awkward phase for pregnant women. It's that phase where you kind of start showing, but not really. People easily mistake "it" for gained weight, specifically excess flubber around the mid section. Luckily, I'm not an obsessive weight watcher so this one doesn't bother me too much. I just wear looser shirts. 

5. Sleep intruders. For some strange reason, in the early weeks of my pregnancies I have crazy dreams! Dreams about people dying who I haven't seen, or thought about,  in years. This was one of the first reasons I knew I was pregnant. I'm blaming this on hormone changes.

6. The acne that has decided to pop up ALL over my body. Face, back, neck. You name it it's there. I look like a thirteen year old boy making his flight through puberty. Shooooooot me!

So there it is....three more weeks. And hopefully at least the first three will be gone :) On a more positive note, I'm  going to live it up and enjoy sleeping on my belly while I can!!! Before too long it's going to be too large for tall that jazz. 

My sweet friend Christie got me the most perfect gift. A pregnancy MayBook! I'm a MayBook aholic.

Sorry for the crappy quality- too lazy to bust out the "real" camera. 

Next blog post (hopefully in the next couple of days!) a Valentine's Day recap.

Baby Mo

It's official like a referee with a whistle....there is a baby in there!!! And just ONE! Thank you Jesus. He knows how much I can handle- and I do believe that is not twins. 

Baby Mo's sweet little heart was fluttering away at 155 beats per minute. 

Mo was two days behind on growth for age, which isn't anything to freak out over. As long as baby keeps growing. September 22 is the due date, but considering that is a Sunday, and the fact that I had a c-section with E, baby Mo will probably be born that next week. Unless Baby Mo has a plan of his/her own. Which, being my child, I don't doubt. 

Here are some early fetus photos.

Just a little bean bouncing around in there. :)

I changed physicians with this pregnancy. I was/am still a little bitter about having a c-section, that I felt was possibly unwarranted. But I have a healthy little boy so I'm not too bitter. And I was not pleased with my hospital experience. So it was time  to try something different this go round. I have heard wonderful things about my NEW doctor. I've actually been around her once when my friend had her baby and I loved her bedside manner. I think working in the medical field I hold physicians to a different level and know what I expect out of them. I think Chris and I were in awwww when we walked up to the office. It was a smaller office in a clinic with two doctors and a nurse practitioner in it. There were only two other ladies sitting in the waiting room. At our last doctor's office there were at least 25-30 women in the waiting room at all times, granted there are like five doctors in that office. I felt this office was more quaint and personal. My ultrasound was on time, as well as my appointment. At E's first fetus appointment we had an ultrasound and were told the doctor wouldn't be back for three hours, so we could go run around town and come back. Which is what we did. We knew no better. I understand OBGYN doctors deliver babies and babies come on their own schedule, but goodness! Three hours later?! When Dr. New came in the room I felt like I'd known her forever. 1/4 of the time we talked about baby and the other 3/4 we talked about anything and everything. She was amazing! I am so pleased I took a leap of faith and made a change. This doctor is notorious for delivering all of her babies- which I really admire. I can tell she really loves her profession. And to make everything  even better, she delivers at a hospital other than where E was born. All plusses and no minuses.

On another note, poor E isn't feeling so hot. Not sure if it's teething or virus or an ear infection or what. But he was pretty pitiful today. He perked up after a dose of Ibuprofen. So I'm hoping he sleeps okay through the night and wakes up a new boy. If not, this mommy will be tracking it to the peds office in the morning. I have a feeling the next year will be spent in doctors offices, between E and I. Mid as well get used to it now, I'll probably have an assigned chair at the peds office once numero dos gets here. Stay tuned: next blog post- what I won't miss about the first trimester. 

HUGE HUGE HUGE news

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about some really exciting things coming up for my family and me. Well (drumroll, please) here it is :) 

E'S GOING TO BE A BIG BROTHER!!!!

Very unexpected, but nonetheless we are thrilled and thankful. With E it took us a year and a half of trying to finally have a swimmer worthy to be our E. This time it took one time, yes I said one. God works in a very funny way. The good man upstairs obviously shares my sense of humor, or maybe it's me that shares his sense of humor. I guess you could say we weren't technically trying, but we weren't preventing. I had a sneaky feeling with my crazy dreams, broken out back (yuck), and upset tummy that I could possibly be prego. Not wanting to freak out my worrisome husband, I took a pregnancy test bright and early one morning- 4:45 to be exact- before work. After seeing that bright positive sign, partly out of complete shock, I ran over to Chris who was peacefully asleep and began shaking him and telling him to wake up I need him to look at something. Chris had to get validation from the box. Validation confirmed. Chris's next response, "What are we going to do?" Typical worry wart Chris. I mean what are our options? lol. I'm going to blame his unclear head on his early morning wake up call. My response, "I know what I'm going to do, what are you going to do?!" As you can tell Chris was completely shocked.  A twenty-two month old and a newborn- our life is fixing to get very interesting. What an adventure! From the girl who never wanted kids. What was I thinking?! Life has been so much more fun with a kid, I can't imagine the fun to be had with two. 

Our great reveal was with E in this shirt. Nobody even read the shirt because they were so excited to see E. We had to point out to read his shirt. Jennifer- my SIL- just thought it was a Valentine's Day shirt. That's the effect E has on this family. Center of attention. Hopefully he's willing to share a little of that attention. I know he's going to be a great Big Brother. 

Our first doctors appointment is Thursday. Fingers crossed and prayers answered that there's a sweet little heartbeat fluttering away. I've already noticed many symptoms already setting in. The tiredness has swept over me. My energy level is chilling at a big fat zero. Sleeping isn't as easy as I thought it would be. For some reason I toss and turn all night, possibly hormone changes? Nausea is a frequent lingering feeling that comes and goes. But I know in the end every single bit of it will be well worth it. Just a small price we pay as mommies. 

So the age old question arises, "What do you want, what do you want?" And the 100% honest answer is we don't care. A healthy baby is our only request. Another boy means less $$$ spent (we already have tons of boys stuff) and E will always have a best friend chasing after him. And as Chris calls it, he will have his own camando squad. A little girl means we have one of each and E will always be there to look out for his little sister. 

I can't wait to see zygote Mo on Thursday. Please say a little prayer for us, that all is well. 

Friends and Kids

I always wondered why my friends ditched me after they had kids. What do you mean you don't have time? How much time can a kid really take up? Well let me go ahead and tell you- kids take up every single minute of every single day. Needless to say, I'm now in the other shoes. 

But I'm okay with the other shoes (actually I wouldn't have it any other way).

E goes from sun up to sun down. If I had half his energy I would be in good shape. It's like watching a ping pong game. Left, right, left, right. Ripping shoes out of the closet, yanking shampoo from the shower, snatching clothes out of drawers, throwing toys down the slide, kicking balls around the house. Not to mention, E has been boycotting every nap. Wait, I take that back- he'll take a forty-five minute nap in the morning. Do you know how little I get done in forty-five minutes? I might have time to pick up a third of the mess he creates. As always, I have a plan waiting to spring into action: out with two naps, in with one nap. We will be trial and erroring this plan this week. Hopefully it will stretch that forty-five minutes into at least two hours. Asking too much? 

Not only is E a busy, busy body, but E has turned into quite the talkative little creature. His vocabulary consists of daddy, da-da, ma-ma (my favorite, of course), ball, pa-pa, bye bye. And it keeps growing daily. Some of the sweetest sounds I have EVER heard.

Chris was apparently very bored tonight and decided to go over our text messages between each other over the last year. They were quite humorous. Reading those texts it made me realize, our world truly does revolve around E 100%. For a long time Chris and I didn't want kids, but when that switch clicked and we had a change of heart, I knew my life would no longer be about me. My life would be dedicated strictly to my child/children, the way I believe it should be. Chris's text messages validated our dedication. Here are just a few samples of some of the texts.....

"How did E do last night?"

"How's tot?"

"What time did angel wake up?"

"Playing with boy, what you doing?"

"Have you seen him get flustered on the changing table and throw his hands in front of his face real fast?"

"What'd weezy eat for breakfast?"

"Chuey update."

"Boy up yet?"

Notice all of our crazy nicknames? It's so funny looking at the really old texts. The ones back when he was still waking up in the middle of the night- it just seems so long ago!

In the next few weeks I'm going to have some very exciting things going on. Can't wait to share with my blog family :)

Leash the kid

As a parent I have said "I am never going to.....," and I have done just about every single one of the things I swore to never do. From making my house into a one year old playground to letting my child watch television. I have erased "I am never going to" from my verbal dictionary. 

E goes non-stop ALL day long. One minute he's in the bathroom breaking a bottle of perfume and the next minute he's in the laundry room holding a Coke can he found in the garbage can. The garbage can  he's not supposed to be in. In a matter of seconds he can cause mass destruction in our house. Every nap/ feeding break/ bedtime I spend thirty minutes picking up E's chaos. Saying all that, now I understand why people put leashes on their children. I still don't think I could leash E up (it would have to be extreme circumstances), but I SO get it! I pledge to never again judge the parent of a leashed child. My busy, busy, busy one year old has truly opened my eyes. 

Starting the new year off right

Welp, our household has started the new year off right. 

Chris (on the nights he's here) usually does night time bath/get ready for bed duty. 

For some reason- that reason probably being a wild one year old on the changing table- Chris put E in a regular daytime diaper. The cheapo Target version. For night time we put E in a Pampers, because they seem to hold pee better. So guess who woke up soaking wet. Yep, E. Today was supposed to be stay in your pajama day, change of plans. 

We got little boy dressed and decided since we ended up dressing him we'd go get breakfast at the local Waffle House. Thinking my day was as interesting as it was going to get, WRONG! I thought since we went at 8:00 in the morning all the weirdos wouldn't be there. Ha! Jokes on me. While at Waffle House, a teenage meth head decided to take interest in my child. She stood at our table for about five minutes (too long) trying to give E his cup and talk to him. E was of course completely uninterested, but the girl just couldn't quite take the hint. I swear if she would have touched him I would've lost my marbles. I kept giving Chris my big bug eyes- meaning tell her to leave. Finally she leaves, only to return a few minutes later holding her arm out to me. Having no clue what the heck she was doing we had an awkward stare down for about a minute. Finally bitch mode came out in me and I responded to her crack-headish behavior. My response, "What, what do you want?!" She wanted to show me her pink watch. I said that's pretty and she walked away for good. It stresses me out just typing it. I'm so worried about offending people or hurting their feelings, but dang girl go away! The way this world is going you never know how somebody is going to respond to you, and I try my best to not respond to strangers in an aggressive way. Needless to say, we will never be returning to another Waffle House with child. Too many creepers.

We got home had a nap, ate lunch, did our usual.
I snuck off to the laundry room, because I have to hide in order to wash clothes so that E won't get in  our trash can. While in the laundry room, Chris made a gruesome discovery. Picture to follow.

Yes, that is what you think it is. And I have NO clue how it got there. I guess gravity took it's toll and it simply rolled down his leg. Ewwwww. I'm assuming his diaper was not on very tight and it simply plopped out. Early bath time for E. 

After E's bath I put his clean sheets back on from his morning leakage. It's easiest for me to just take the whole mattress out than to try and maneuver around the crib bumpers. E loved playing on the mattress on the floor. An easy fifteen minute distraction :)

Hope everyone had a fabulous New Years!