Wednesday, September 29, 2010

He speaks!

Warning ~ Proud Mom moment...
Be-still my heart. My son spoke... yes, he said it, the word that makes all proud Moms instantly melt into a puddle of the warm fuzzies. My boy said "Momma". I cannot begin to describe the swelling of the heart with love when your Little calls your name out for the first time. It turns a regular day into something extraordinary! My girls both said "Dada" first. Not this little guy, nope... he chose me to "speak to" first. (Holds my hand over my heart and sighs with a smile.) Dad says he kept telling him he better say Momma first, after all, I am the milk supply. ;-) Now that he speaketh, there will be no silencing his little voice, and that is fine with this Momma. I cannot wait till the first time he says "I love you Momma". I know when Abbie says it, she melts her Daddy and I into a big puddle of "you can have just about anything you want at that moment".

I cannot believe around this time last year this was my Son (My Son. I like the way that sounds). Nestled all cozy inside baking to perfection, while Momma, Daddy and Sister were loving him from the outside (I will never forget how Abbie would pull my shirt up and put her doll bottle in my belly button and tell me she was feeding her brother).


 Now here we are, getting closer to a year later. I feel like just yesterday I was cradling him and taking in every detail of his tiny face while whispering "Hello handsome, I love you" in the birthing tub. Where does the time go?

Gotta' go, Littlest Little is climbing in my lap as I type sharing the tiniest nibbles of cake with me... his Momma. :-)



{This post's tune: "Loves me like a rock" ~ Paul Simon}



Sunday, September 19, 2010

Standing room only...

This is it...as of the weekend, he stands and now cruises the furniture (insert Chariots of Fire music and lots of applause here). Oh how my heart skips a beat with pure joy and a proudness only a parent knows, and at the same time a deep sadness that he is in fact, growing up, no matter how hard I try to close my eyes and "will" him to slow down. Littlest Little has now decided that any room he is in, is a standing room only. He will inch worm his way to whatever he can find in a room to pull his little self up with a huge smile on his cherubic little face. He decided that learning to crawl was a waste of time I guess. He does his little inch-worm crawl... kind of pushing himself up into a push-up stance and then flinging his roly poly body forward. Well, I say that, later on in the night, he decided to just pick it up and crawl as if he knew how to do it all along. Not long now, and he will be upright walking on his two pudgy little feet. By Christmas perhaps, he will graduate to a walker.

Houston, I do believe we are ready for take off.


Josh is fascinated with the computer on the fireplace (there for the kids to play with). He likes to hit the buttons on the keyboard and knows where the button is to put the PC to sleep. He will hit the button and look at me and I will "wake" the computer up, and he will hit the button to make it go to sleep again and smile. 



Before I know it, he will be grown... a man. No longer a wee one to cradle and delight in his "newness" any more. That newb stage doesnt linger for very long... in a flash it is gone. Oh, how sad that makes me to think about. At the same time, I am excited to see where he goes in life. And, I don't care how old he is, he is my baby. For now I just enjoy every second, all of it.

So important to snap up moments any chance you can, freezing them in time. Rather, documenting life as it speeds by. I want to be surrounded by photos to spark the details in my memory when I am old and gray. I want to not only remember when my Littles did their "firsts", or everyday life adventures with family and friends, I want to keep these visual moments forever, then pass them on.


{This post's tune: "When I'm 64" ~ The Beatles}

Friday, September 17, 2010

All decked out...

I had my mind set on a small covered deck for our postage stamp sized back yard, something I could use for the kids to play on, do some outdoor yoga on, use for some natural light photography when needed, but more so just to hang out with the fam.

The hubby, well, he loves me, what can I say. Without question, he was up for the task and ready to saw, drill and hammer to make this momma happy. He spent hours at the hardware store going through three pallets of lumbar to pick the perfect boards, free from ink stamps and as straight as he could find. A labor of love.

I should have posted about it when he built it a couple weekends ago, but didnt (shame on me). Have been enjoying it as much as I can... will be better once the weather gets cooler and the mosquitos leave. Now I am on a mission to find the perfect patio swing and cushions to swing bundled up Littles on and sip coffee in the cooler months. Oh, and I cannot forget the draped cabana lights... I'll need some of those too, to complete  the ambiance.This will grow into my "vacation  staycation" area. My own little private island.

 The ground breaking...






Something about watching him work with his hands and build. Tough, strong hands that at the same time, are soft and gentle. It is beautiful. I have always loved watching him use his hands, whether it is building/repairing, playing the guitar, cooking, giving a good hug, or comforting and sweetly wiping the nose of a crying wee one, etc.. It is amazing what a persons hands can do in a lifetime.




Daddy's little helper and supervisor.



My score, found at Target on clearance... $25.00 for an outdoor rug!!!
Woo-hoo, yeah baby, I was stoked!


And about 8 hrs from start to finish... Dad's hard work. We spent the evening playing on it. Abbie showed us it's also her entertaining stage too... yes, cant wait to get that patio swing up and cabana lights to sit back and watch her sing and dance on her lit up stage.


Watching (supervising) Daddy water plants...


Thank you honey... I love my special island and I love you.



Saturday, September 11, 2010

Chuck E Sleeze, good friends & remembering....

Today was a birthday party day! A 4th birthday party for our cutie-pie nephew, Denim, to be exact. Yes, 4 years old! A big boy now! Birthday party was held at Chuck E Cheese Sleeze. This is a special kind of torture for some. I will NEVER, ever, go back there again. Okay, I shouldnt say never, but seriously as of this moment, I will never go back. I am going to have to be brainwashed into thinking this place is cool before I can subject myself or kids to this again. Sorry Chuck E rat dude, but your place just isnt what it once was. It was, of course crowded (that is a given) and full of nastiness, RUDE people and a quarter, if not more, of the rides/games did not work right.

Upon entry into this crowded rat village, my first impressions were;

  • Children, small children, running loose with no adult supervision. Would be different if you could actually "see" your children running around and not have to worry about people being rude to them, them getting molested or God forbid, stolen. (To those who say, yeah but they have those kid checkpoints... yeah the one hubby walked right out of with Littlest Little at first... had he kept on walking, he could have just walked off with someone elses Little.) 

  • Some of the above mentioned children gave new meaning to the word stink. My gosh, if I could smell the dirty diapers 10 ft away, why couldnt their parents?

  • Middle Little needed a diaper change, took her into the restroom to use the changing station, with our diaper changing pad to avoid germs, and we had to practically step over a woman changing her baby boy on the floor, NOTHING under his little bum protecting him. Yes, you read that right. I so wanted to hold her face to the bathroom floor and make her lick the cold nasty tiles. I was so sad for that little boy.

  • Ahhh, and the rude adults that need classes on how to act in public with small children.
Thats just in the first ten minutes of being there, before we even got to the table. I wont even go into the rest of the time we were there. But you know, the kids love these places, so sacrifice our sanity we did. The tiny ear to ear grins make it better.

The birthday boy, Denim. Happy 4th Birthday handsome!

  




 



The smile makes it all worthwhile.




His first ride... he was checking it all out... much fun!





Our girl and her legwarmers. This Little has a thing for knee socks/legwarmers. If allowed access into the closet sock drawer, she will choose her own legwarmers/socks. Fashionista'.



She had me rolling... so funny to watch her get after it with the mallet, some serious business.




As she buckles her sealtbelt... a squeeky little voice says "Safety first!"
We always tell the Littles this.




At this point she was getting SO tired. Past her beauty sleep time... this was right before it happened..... yes, rat village turned into melt-down city.


Think she had more fun feeding coins to the machines than anything.


One gloriously happy Little enjoying the sugary highs of cake icing.




And one not so happy Little who was up past her beauty sleep time and had a major meltdown that cupcakes wouldnt even fix. Daddy says as he wipes her nose and streaming tears "You are supposed to leave this place happy, not sad."  ;-( 



It was time to go, time to leave this rat village and head back to our own casa and have a little rejuvinating rest before our playdate and good friend came for a visit.

Once home, first thing first, wash hands and little faces. Yes, rid them of the nastiness leftover... I would almost rather them dig in a trash receptacle in a park full of wine-os than go back there. Okay, not really, but you get the idea, the place was just gross. Once cleaned up, time for a cat-nap, no problem for either of the Littles, they were worn out.

Evening rolled around and our good friends Melissa and her daughter Hannah, showed up for a playdate. Melissa is one of those real friends they say you can actually count on one hand... a "true" friend. More like family. We met off of the internet many moons ago. We love her and her family, good people.

A nice relaxing evening full of big people talk and watching Littles play...


Beautiful little Hannah. I think all babies are miracles.... this one is an extra special miracle. It took momma and daddy a lot of time and work to get her here.  A precious little soul. Love her.







Cheesecake brownies and a couple glasses of sweet wine, made the evening even more delicious. (Thank you Melissa for the treats, you know how to treat a girl right! :-)




Once we said our goodbyes, it was time to get the pajama clad Littles snug in bed and enjoy some Mommy/Daddy quite time before saying goodnight to the day. Good times.

Edited to add: I realized after the day was over, that the date was 9/11. Then the remembrance and sadness hit. Thoughts of all the families affected by that tragic day, Tuesday, September 11, 2001. I think everyones world was affected in some way. I know mine was. I remember standing in front of the TV's breaking news with my jaw dropped in disbelief and being the first and pretty much only parent to rush to the elementary school that was on lock down that morning, to pick up our now oldest daughter. I remember being shocked that more parents did not pick up their children after the news recommending it due to terroristic threats that were being made. I was not about to sit at home and watch and wait to see what happened next without knowing Biggest Little was at least safe and sound with us. Watching it all unfold was horrendous, scary and disgusting. The world can be such an ugly place, and yet, over the next few years, once all the healing and rebuilding of lives began, you could start to see beauty again. So this day, we remember, we pray and we hope for all things good for the future.