Are you for SERIOUS?!?

I don't even really know what to write.  I spent large chunks of yesterday being seriously weepy if not down right sobbing.  I blame a large chunk of it on pregnancy hormones, but I know I would have cried even if I wasn't pregnant.  So maybe having an easy out was good. :)

We spent our last official therapy session at CPD yesterday.  We took Lisa and Shirley some pictures we colored, we chewed lots of food mommy managed to bring in, Lisa gave us special papers, and mommy started crying.  For real, serious, crying.  Cried in the office.  Cried on the car ride home.  And cried at home.  Charlie sat in the back of the car bewildered and kept asking "what you worrying about Mommy?"  I couldn't even blubber out that I wasn't worrying, just this strange mix of relief/excitement/apprehension/pride/grief/tiredness.  He wouldn't have gotten it anyways, so it's a good thing he eventually gave up and just said "it's okay!  you saw a paramedic truck!".  

I did choke out some giggles.  What a relief he knows just what to say.

For three years we have have trekked to CPD on a weekly or biweekly basis.  I have made pureed foods so much longer than I anticipated.  (Till Charlie was 2 1/2 years old.)  The only peaceful meals I've had are ones where he was napping or at someone else's house (which was rare since monitoring Charlie's eating was more involved and I didn't want most people to have to mess with it).  I have chewed so much food with my mouth open, chanted innumerable times "chew, chew, keep chewing!"  "use your big boy teeth."  "make your tongue move it to the side."  "don't swallow until you've chewed it.", tried so many mouth exercises, nearly broke down multiple times over trying to do nursing, pumping, bottle feeding and bottle exercises all at the same time.  Oh wait, there were definitely break downs.  And we have been through 4 therapists.

Lisa has been our most recent and last therapist.  I forget when we started with her, but I think it's been at least 14 months or so.  She's been patient, encouraging, supportive, understanding, excited for our new addition coming up, and really encouraging through all the tired, sick pregnancy weeks where I knew I wasn't as on top of Charlie's work as I should have been.  She's been great.  We'll be sad not to see her on a regular basis now.  We'll be sad not to see everyone at CPD actually.  When you spend 3 years walking into the same office on a near weekly basis, you do become attached.

So today, we were given the golden piece of information that we are done with active therapy.  I've been dying to hear that nearly the whole time we've been going, yet I'm so apprehensive about being on our own.  Truthfully, we will most likely go back in a couple times after we get settled in with the new baby, for sporadic check ups to make sure things are still looking good.  This isn't goodbye forever.  Actually, I'd still take the baby back in to show him off, and to visit with everyone even if it was goodbye forever, because we WILL miss them.  But along with my shear joy of being released from active therapy, really does come a great deal of apprehension.  Charlie has made tons of big strides in the last 8 months.  He really has grown up and improved and overcome lots of eating issues.  But I know we aren't perfect.  I know there are textures he still struggles with.  I know this won't be the end of my chanting "chew, chew, more chewing".  And I know every meal won't be easy breezy from here on out.

But for now.  We. Are. Done.  :-D

And I couldn't be more grateful.    Thank you Lord for seeing us through.

And now it's off to another baby doctor appt! :-D

Aaaaaand it happened

Disaster struck today.  Not in the form of house burning, broken legs, credit card fraud, or early labor.

No friends, it was in the form of this....

Can't tell what's going on?  Look closer...

Notice how the finger is actually inside the elephant?  

Yeaaaaa.....  We came out to the car from his therapy today and found that Lully had magically developed a nice rip in his back.  I say magically because that was the first I saw of it.  I would assume that just sitting in the car didn't make his back magically burst open, but since Charlie seemed just a dreadfully shocked and upset as I was (just kidding...about me, not him), I assume he was at least unaware of when he aided and abetted this rip happening.  Or, you know, it happened magically.

Oh. My. Word.  The car ride home was painful with lots of weeping and wailing over Lully's sad state. Of course half way home when I asked to look at him again, (to examine him for repairs), the rip had of course become bigger due to someone picking at it, and by the time we made it home, Charlie was pulling what can only be considered the pitiful last remains of Lully's stuffing, out of the now even larger hole.  And yet while aiding and abetting Lully's growing wound, Charlie still was just as distressed and upset that Lully had a hole in him.  In fact, in the brief intervals between moaning and crying on the way home, I heard Charlie in a quiet voice, comforting his beloved saying, "Iss okay Lully.  Isss okay."

Be still, my melting heart.

So Lully is in for repairs tomorrow morning.  Why not this afternoon you ask, since this is after all the beloved lovey?  Because this is the perfect opportunity to finish gutting the darn thing, remove the rock hard broken music box that no longer works and has even given a black eye when Daddy accidentally threw Lully at an unprepared Charlie, and restuff him with fiberfill.  And I don't have fiberfill.  But my mother does.  So tomorrow morning, I will go and restuff this grubby little elephant and we will see how much more life he actually has in him.

Oh yea, the fiberfill?  He once had a belly full of fiberfill and the working music box.  Overtime it seemed to unexplainably disappear as well, till it seemed that only the hard music box was left.  Well, now I know why all we could feel was the music box.

We'll continue along in the magic vein and say that either the fiberfill managed to magically disappear out of Lully's belly, or somehow all that fluff managed to magically compact into the nothingness you see above.  (Courtesy of Charlie very distressedly pulling all the stuffing out today in the car.)

So there is today's disaster.  I knew it would happen eventually.  

Also I feel like you should know that my son came up to me this morning with something in hand and said to me "you get this at Bah-fee-ahn?"  And it took me a good couple minutes of staring and thinking and asking again before I figured out that he was saying "Bed Bath & Beyond".

Who knew the kid even remembered the store name?  So there you go.  "Bah-fee-ahn" is the new code name for BB&B.  Pass it on kids.

Horrifying experience

Yesterday I experienced something horrifying.  Not nearly so horrifying as it could have been, but bad enough for me.  Enough to truly piss me off as a mother.

When Charlie and I play outside in the front yard, he loves to run and be chased.  The way our yard is set up, we have two trees that he loves to run around.  One of them is about 10 feet from the road.  So in the process of making the run around the tree, there is about 5 seconds where he always looks like he's headed straight for the road before making the turn.  I am so blessed that he's never run into the road yet.  He always turns.  Or he always stops short a couple feet from the edge of the yard, because Mama has drilled it into his head to do so.  Really, he is so good about this, I admit to letting my guard down a bit in this area.  (Not that I am not paying attention, but I generally don't have to be middle man between him and the road at all times.)

Yesterday I was standing at our porch steps while Charlie was making his usual dash towards and around the tree near the road.  I had looked down for a moment at my shoe and looked up to catch this picture.

My son "heading for the road" in his usual manner while running around the tree and a woman in some big SUV type car, driving the entire length of our yard, WITH HER HEAD DOWN STARING AT HER PHONE.  I watched horrified, as there was that moment where, had Charlie deviated from his normal routine and continued to head into the road, this woman would have in fact run over him.  I was absolutely terrified for that moment in time before seeing Charlie make his usual left hand turn and seeing the woman leave the perimeter of our yard.

Then my horror turned to absolute RAGE.  How DARE this woman be so engrossed in her phone that she was driving while not looking where she was going?  How DARE a text be so important that it requires a reply while driving?  How DARE she look down to find a contact to call in her phone, while taking her eyes off the road on a neighborhood street where there are children?

How DARE I judge because I know I have done the same thing.

I don't text, but I have been guilty of glancing downward to quickly find a contact to call.  I try not to do it often, but I know I've done it.  Have I had any narrow misses like this woman had yesterday?  I dare say with the large number of people talking and texting while driving, it's not a matter of "if" you had a narrow miss, it's a matter of "how many" narrow misses you may have had.  And. Never. Even. Known. It.

I don't judge this woman, because I am guilty of the same thing she is.  I have no doubt her remorse would have been severe had anything happened.  HOWEVER, I don't excuse this woman's actions.  And I genuinely hope that my moment of sheer terror as a mother, spurs me on to be safer about my phone habits while driving.

Be smart.  Be safe while driving.  You never know when there is an invisible little kid somewhere and a terrified mother standing just a bit too far out of reach.

Taken Christmas Day.

I love you little man.  I'm eternally grateful every day you are alive and in my life.

Do you have a mustard pusher in your house?

Found this post in my drafts folder, sadly tucked away and somehow unpublished.  Since mustard pushing was so important in our lives for so many weeks, I decided I'd go ahead and share it, even if this was back in October. :-P

Charlie has long been obsessed with all the mustard bottles in our house.  It doesn't so much have to do with eating the mustard on every food item on his plate (in fact that phase is almost completely gone).  It has to do with him obsessing over having to have all 4 bottles out on the table when we eat, and him having to be the one to pull all 4 bottles out of the fridge, by himself, at the same time.  Which almost never works and then never fails to result in frustration and tears.  It has to do with his desire to pull the mustard bottles out at random times and tote them around the house on his little push cart.  

He is my little Mustard Pusher.  Whatever that is, he's that.

The hummus got lucky and got to go along for the ride this time too.

Mustard pushing can be very intense.  He (ahem) WE take it very seriously.

Lean into it son - mustard pushing can be hard work sometimes.

So hard sometimes you just have to pull it instead.

There he goes around the corner.

We love mustard pushing!

But sometimes mustard pushers get distracted...

...by staring at their own awesome reflection.

Organizational strategy is also key.  See, we DO take mustard pushing seriously in this house.

I'm bracing myself for the day when I find a moldy mustard bottle under the living room chair that's long been forgotten from one of the mustard pushing escapades.

"Do NOT eat the pistachio ice cream! It has turned."

I cannot tell you how many times in the past week I have heard that line.

Or oh, wait wait, "Tow mater, average intelligence."

Or I know, "Two of them sweets for me, too."


We are not Cars 2 addicts at all.  It has gone way beyond that.

It started a week ago with a nasty black eye for poor Charlie.  He was in pain and pretty droopy.  So we started snuggling on the couch and watching some movies.  2 days later and he was well underway with a nasty cold.  He got even droopier and I can only assume in even more pain since he would wail every time I wiped his nose, and, oh yea, wake up every hour at night because he couldn't sleep due to the head cold.  So there was more couch movie watching.  And then Mommy caught Mr. Sniffles' cold.  Bummer.

So we have been house bound for the last 3 days, and watching a movie storm.  Although it's pretty much been confined to the likes of Cars 2, Tangled, Happy Feet, Wall-E, and Cars 1, and repeat.  And repeat.  Not exactly my viewing choices, but it distracts Mr. Sniffles from his running nose and cough, and it lets me sit down and rest a bit.

Cars 2 is by far the viewing favorite for at least one member of our sick party.  I think he gets such a kick out of Mater.  I don't mind too much.  I sit here, subconsciously memorizing parts of Cars, while perusing the internet.  I'm just under the weather enough to need to get off my feet and rest, but not sick enough to be knocked out flat on the couch.  Just sick enough to have food taste weird, but not sick enough to lose these crazy food cravings that are raging.  Just sick enough to not feel up for cooking, but not sick enough to squelch this insane desire to try some really yummy looking, new vegan recipes right now - sickness and all.


How about these...

Vegan Mac n Cheese?  I'm always skeptical, and usually rightly so, but I'm always curious anyways since Mac n Cheese is such a comfort food.  Too much margarine in this though. :(

Pumpkin yumminess!  Looks incredible.  And we do eat tofu.  But not that much.

How about this vegan taco recipe.  Now that looks supremely yummy.

Asian salad, heavier on the veggies (once Farmer's Market time hits), and whole wheat noodles of course.

These look AMAZING.  Not for everyday that's for sure, but special treats, yum-ME!

These are plain chocolate chip cookie dough balls without the addition of coconut like the above recipe.

This chickpea cookie is actually based off of a recipe I've already tried, which I'll try and blog about soon.  Chickpeas are amazing, btw, if you didn't know.  Clever little buggers can be used in so many ways.

Chickpea falafel - Mmmmmm.

Blueberry Coconut Pancakes.  Again, not for everyday, but a treat every now and then sure would be awesome.

Okay, I'm reciped out.  Not to mention I'm tired.  And sniffly.

Missed that one...

My poor son has a black eye.

He's had one all day.  Since yesterday evening in fact. I didn't want to take him out this morning for errands, but we did anyway.  In spite of my reassuring all of my friends when they have had to take their bumped and bruised children out in public, that everyone knows that little kids fall down and get hurt all the time and therefore are not automatically going to assume abuse, I was in fact, hesitant to do it myself.  Maybe it was just the black eye thing.  I think that looks worse than a bruised leg, but maybe that's just me.


But run errands we did.  The cleaners, Walmart and the grocery store.

We made it back alive with no question of abuse and no one running up to me and grabbing my child to turn them over to social services.  Whew!  


Then began our whiny day.  It escalated after nap time when Charlie was repeating over and over again "heiny owie, heiny owie" with an occasional "eye owie" thrown in there, which I admit I was ignoring due to the fact this his heiny was actually in pretty pristine condition, with no sign of rash or owie anywhere.

Then daddy came home, saw the poor little shiner on Sonny, heard about the whiny day and said "do you have any baby tylenol?  Have you given him anything?  His eye probably really hurts."

Oh.

Duh.

I grew up taking very little medication, and really getting hurt very little.  I guess we'll chock that one up to being a girl.  So why would I ever possibly consider the fact that my son's black eye was actually causing him pain?  Smacks forehead.  I was even at the grocery store and walmart where I could have easily picked something up.  Smacks forehead.


It took Daddy.  Now I'm sitting here feeling terribly guilty as a mother (especially after the ear nicking incident during last weekend's hair cuts), and the only reason I even have time to blog is because Daddy took his little boy out to Kroger to get some baby tylenol.  :-(

Oh yea, how did he get the black eye?  Apparently diving under the piano bench is only fun as long as you manage to actually dive under it, instead of diving into it.  Ouch!

It looks lighter in the pictures than it actually is in person.  Poor little Bubby.  There will be snuggles tonight.  Though whether it will be more for the comfort of my child, or to assuage my mommy guilt, who knows....

Gratituesday: therapy

I was reminded yesterday at Charlie's Dysphagia therapy, that this coming Thursday will be 2 years exactly since we started therapy for his eating issues.  That was quite a realization to think it's been 2 years.  My initial thought was how ironic that the anniversary of something I've been so un-thankful for is falling on a day of thanksgiving.  Wait, is that irony?  I never know.  And not that this is the only day we should be thankful, people.  

It's been a long two years.  There are plenty of days where I feel like the martyred mother who must do therapy with her child every day, multiple times a day.  The mother who can't eat a meal in peace unless her child is at someone else's house.  Wait, maybe that's all mothers with toddlers.  The mother who's life revolves around her child's meals and food.

And then I get perspective.  Perspective like the Dragon Mom I recently blogged about.  Or this other story I found recently of another Dragon Mom who finally lost their battle and kissed their sweet baby girl one last time. I'm sure I would have cried over both of these stories even when I wasn't a mother, but being a mother now makes these stories so much more real, and I can easily saturate tissues and napkins galore before I get past the first paragraph of stories like that.


And when I finally connected all of this in my brain yesterday, I had this moment, perhaps for the first time, where I was truly. seriously. for real. absolutely grateful. for therapy.  Not just the "oh yea I'm grateful we have this and are trying to fix it, blah blah blah" kind of thankfulness.  Charlie has never been failure to thrive (which some kids with eating disorders can be), it's not a terminal illness, we have money to see a therapist, and most vivid yesterday was the fact that WE ARE SEEING PROGRESS!!!  The progress part is exciting because we have definitely been through long periods where progress has been microscopic to non-existent.  And recently it's been visible!  I have hope!  My son will one day eat soup and bread and raw veggies and nuts and pieces of all kinds of healthy foods, instead of pureed everything.  Did I mention I hate purees?  I do.


Why am I glad for therapy specifically?  Because we are seeing progress.  Wait, back up.  Because the speech/dysphagia therapists caught the problem when he was 6 weeks old, and we started taking measures to make sure that nothing got worse, so he didn't grow up establishing a cycle of incorrect eating patterns, resulting in more problems as he grew, poor digestion from un-chewed food, refusal to eat food due to poor digestion and upset tummy (which can lead to failure to thrive) and scariest of all, lots of potential choking that happens when you don't have correctly established chew/swallow patterns.  I don't care how experienced you are in the matter, that moment when you realize your child is really choking, it's scary.

Am I grateful to have avoided all of that?  You bet.  Did that mean I was thankful for therapy?  Not really and truly.  Not until yesterday.

So on this Gratituesday I am thankful for Charlie's therapists and his therapy sessions.  And while I'd love to think of what else we could have done with the time and money we've poured into therapy, I can truly say that  I am grateful we have been able to do this for our son to save him a whole host of problems as he progresses through life.

And this Thanksgiving day - 2 years from our first therapy session - I will be so grateful to have a happy, healthy, thriving child.

Join us for Gratituesday at Heavenly Homemakers!

The weekend in reverse in pictures (take 2)

....minus the death warmed over part

....plus today, which is definitely not the weekend, so we'll say "extended weekend in reverse".

So here we go...

Today is crockpot day.  Almost every Wednesday is or there is no dinner when I get done teaching.  Charlie loves to help Mama make food.  Mostly stir things.  He loves to stir.

 So he stands on his Learning Tower aka The Tower of Power and helps Mama stir.  Did I mention he loves to stir?

And yes, that is a teaspoon he is stirring with.  I finally figured out the smaller the spoon, the less mess he makes.  And yes his hand is practically in the soup in that last picture.  What can I say, he loves to stir soup.  Also, this is why hand washing is important.  Who am I kidding, a little dirt never hurt anyone.

Back up to Monday afternoon.  This is what I came home from Charlotte to.  :-)

Are you grinning from ear to ear?  Cause I was.  See, William left last Sunday afternoon to go to Baltimore for a week.  I left the following Friday morning to go to Charlotte to visit friends.  He came back on Saturday afternoon and I finally came back Monday afternoon (while he was at work).  8 days without seeing him.  So I loved my welcome home greeting. :)

The Daddy and Mommy legos being key components of it all.  We're a little obsessed with "Daddy and Mommy Wegos" as they are called in our house.  Someone marches all around the house toting them and losing them and causing his mother to stress about finding them again.

The best part being that Charlie was the one who actually came up with the "Daddy and Mommy Wegos".  At first sight he immediately associated the red hair with daddy and the brown hair with mommy.  I was pretty proud, I have to admit. :)

Me and my "Mommy Wego".  See the resemblance? ;-)

Back up to Friday morning on the road and this is what I caught sight of.

Don't know what you are looking at yet?

I kept inching closer and closer.

Yea baby.  Only the best beer ever. ;-)  I wanted to follow that van wherever it was going and grab an ice cold Hummin' Bird.  Too bad we had our own separate agendas.

This one's for you William! 

Caught it as I drove by!  And no I did not take my eyes off the road to snap that picture.  I got a lucky shot as I was driving by.  Always drive responsibly.  I was.  For the most part.

So somewhere in between the Legos and the Red Oak beer, the weekend with Charlotte friends occurred, as did the 36 hours from hell.  Still don't know if it was food or just a passing bug or both, but I spent Saturday morning to Sunday evening in such tummy agony as I ever remember feeling.  No one should spend that much time in the bathroom.  Need I say more.

My host was gracious enough to take care of me and watch my kiddo and not take any pictures of me stumbling around in my sweats looking like death warmed over.  Erin, I am EVER so grateful for all of those.  I am pretty sad that I didn't get any pictures of Charlie and Jack playing, but maybe Erin will send me some pictures and I'll get to post them anyways.  I think they had a jolly good time, in spite of the person making mad dashes to the bathroom.

So there was this past weekend.  Glad to be home.  Enjoyed seeing friends.  Wish I could have seen more of them instead of so much bathroom tile.  But still good.

So many more things to blog about.  That must be what being a mom blogger is all about.  Tons of posts to write and never time to write them.

Happy Wednesday evening!

How to handle a bad day when you're 2

What do we do in this house when we're having a bad day?

What any decent self respecting toddler would do.

Double-fisted applesauce shoveling.

That's how we roll.

Seriously though, I'm beginning to wonder if he has a bit of ambidexterity about him.  I was totally under the assumption that he was going to be a lefty since I usually see him eat with his left hand and he has much better fine motor control with his left hand.  But lately he's been going back and forth.  I need to take a real good look at him when he's coloring and drawing to see what he does.  Hey, I'd take a lefty or an ambidextrous kid...or a righty.  Those are just fine in my book too.

Gratituesday: Perspective

When one is in the middle of potty training, one needs perspective.  A whole lot of it.

When one's two year old still cannot/will not correctly chew table foods in his mouth and has to be fed purees and done exercises with every meal, one needs perspective.

Potty training has not been going swimmingly.  In fact, I have my doubts as to whether or not he's ready.  I feel a little like hitting myself in the head with a brick due to the tediousness of it, but I think I could deal with that if I truly felt like this was something he was willing to do.  When after two and a half days he cries whenever I take off his pants to have some "naked potty time", I have my doubts.

But back to my tediousness.  In my few attempts at potty training, it's the one thing that really makes me feel like not having anymore kids.  I sat on the kitchen floor Monday morning thinking in the most no uncertain terms, that I was done having kids and didn't ever want to go through this again.  And for those of you that know me, you know considering stopping after one kid is just not on my list.  But this is tedious.  I almost hate it more than his daily eating therapy.  Actually I do hate it more than the actual act of therapy, but the length of time we've been doing his dysphagia therapy outweighs the more unpleasantness of the actual act of potty training.  One kid and I feel like potty training has defeated me already.  I'm sure all you mother's of multiple potty trained kids are laughing at me right now.

Anyways, back to Gratituesday and the actual topic: perspective.  This morning I read this article called Notes from a Dragon Mom.  I would encourage you to read it, but do know it was absolutely heart wrenching.  Confession: I did in fact cry, a lot.  My heart broke for the mama writing it.


If you don't feel that you can make yourself read it, the gist of it is a mother of a little 18m boy who has Tay-Sachs, an incurable genetic disease, that will likely take his life by the time he is 3 years old, and how that has altered their life.


If that doesn't give you perspective over potty training and two years of non-life threatening dysphagia therapy, I don't know what does.  Lord willing, I have a reasonable hope to enjoy my sweet baby long after he is 3 years old.  As bad as I feel it can get when I'm stuck doing exercises with a little guy who doesn't want me near his mouth, or when I've sat on the floor for two hours watching my son's every move in the hopes of catching some pee-pee in the potty, I am grateful for my reasonable hope.  I am grateful for my God-given son, whom I cherish getting spend time with, raise and love.

At the risk of sounding completely insensitive, there is one aspect to their situation that, I wouldn't exactly say that I envy, but that I wish I could implement in my daily life even without their unique circumstances.    Because her son is slowly regressing towards a vegetative state within the next few years of their lives, there is no push, no schedule, no "we must get through this for the future".   There is just today.  Just loving.

"But the day-to-day is often peaceful, even blissful. This was my day with my son: cuddling, feedings, naps."

How often would I describe my day as peaceful and only consisting of cuddling, feeding and loving my son?  Less frequent than I would like.  Mothers of non-terminally ill children have a different set of goals for living.  They plan for the future and make decisions based on future good.  Dragon Moms have today.  They have loving and living and comforting today.

I'm not jealous of her situation.  My heart grieves for that Mama and Daddy who will soon lose their precious child, but I wish I could capture the "freedom from tomorrow" mentality sometimes and remember to take days where all I do is enjoy and revel in the amazing little boy God has given us.

I do realize that no one is guaranteed tomorrow.  "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. Job 1:21"  We don't know when our time on this earth is done and we are not guaranteed tomorrow.  I know this.  But....I admit that this feels different.

So, perspective.  On the verge of feel very frustrated and declaring potty training unsuccessful at this time, I am grateful for perspective on it all.  And grateful for yet another day to enjoy my son.

NC State Fair 2011

Join us for Gratituesday at Heavenly Homemakers!

Are you a Dr. Seuss Character?

So Charlie loves reading books.  He's really enjoying some of the simpler Dr. Seuss books right now.  More specifically he loves There's a Wocket in My Pocket.  I can't really blame him - it's one of my faves too.  Don't you get your kicks from saying, "Sometimes I'm quite CERTAIN there's a JERTAIN in the CURTAIN"?

But my absolute favorite part of the book is when we get to this page.  Why?

Because Charlie always, without fail, points to the Bofa and shrieks out, "Sahhmeee!  Uncko Saahmeee!!  Dah-deee!!"

You people who know Uncle Sam and his glasses, and the crazy resemblance to William - you know exactly what I'm talking about.

And seriously, I totally got it the first time Charlie said "Uncko Saahmee!"  I knew immediately.

So how does it feel, Uncle Sammy, to resemble a Dr. Seuss character in the eyes of your two year old nephew?

Gratituesday: Nana and Grandbobby

I forgot to mention in my beach posts that we stopped at Nana and Grandbobby's house (William's maternal grandparents) on our way to the beach.  We are very lucky that they are about half way between home and the beach so it makes a perfect breaking point in the trip for the Charlie man to run around and let off steam.  And I FINALLY remembered to get some good shots (posted below) of just Charlie and Nana and Grandbobby, something I have been meaning to do.  Yay!

Charlie is so blessed to have 3 of his great-grandparents living, and 2 of them within easy driving distance.  I never had the chance to know any of my great-grandparents, and because we lived a good 12 hours away from all of our extended relatives, I never got to see my grandparents more than about once a year.  I loved them and appreciated them, don't get me wrong, but I wanted so badly to have a relationship with them and see them more than once a year.  I couldn't be more thrilled that (at least for the time being) Charlie has his grandparents and 2 great-grandparents all close enough to see on a regular basis.  Charlie loves spending time and Grandma and Grandpa's house, Grammy's house, and Nana and Grandbobby's house.

I'm a little surprised that he has such vivid memories of N&G's house actually.  To this day, 2 months later, he still talks about going to see "Naaahh and Bah-beee".  He even talks about seeing "Djeaanie" a lady who was there that day helping them around the house, and talks about the little lion they had there as part of a Noah's Ark toy.  He loves to talk about Nana and Grandbobby.  Sometimes he will just walk around the house saying, "Bah-bee, Bah-BEE!"  When he picked up my hair clip the other day and I told him it was a Bobby Pin, he got this gleam in his eye like, "Bobby!!  This is Grandbobby's?!?"  I just knew that's what was running through his head. :)

I love this series of shots because it shows him interacting with Nana and Grandbobby.  Sometimes small children have reservations about being around elderly people, but Charlie has no qualms about running right up and hugging Grandbobby and sitting on Nana's lap.  That indeed makes my heart glad.

Do you still have a great-grandparent that you can hug and tell how grateful you are to have them in your life?

Join us for Gratituesday at Heavenly Homemakers!

Posting in high school note style...sort of

AKA Now you can see my desperation when the internet goes....

Our internet has been going out a lot lately. A LOT.  The TWC guy was here again yesterday, for the 3rd time in the last week.  Sheesh!  I feel like my internet time, blogging especially has been spotty at best.  Just for kicks, here is a post I wrote a week ago last Wednesday, in my first day of internet withdrawal phase.  Ha.  There is actually some useful Charlie tidbits in there too if you can dig deep enough.

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12:53pm Our internet is down.  It has been since early this morning.  At this point I have gone 5 hours without internet.  How am I typing this?  Well I’m doing the good old fashion type-it-up-in-Word-and-publish-later thing.  It reminds me of high school actually.  The very few times that I actually wrote notes in class…

yes I was THAT girl who didn’t pass notes – infact I TOOK notes – didn’t talk during class, and generally paid attention and would have been considered all around a teacher’s pet

…the very few times I wrote notes, it was actually something from the day I wanted to record before I had forgotten it or an email I wanted to write before my thoughts escaped me.  Then I would type up the couple of paragraphs later in an email or journal or whatever and there you have it.  Exactly what I’m doing right now, except that was paper to email, and this is MSWord to blog.  Blogging and saving for later.  The only reason I’m doing this is I have a couple spare, Charlie-free minutes, and I wanted to make note of some of the things he’s been saying lately.

Oh yea, how is life with no internet?  Bizarre.  And uncomfortable.  Not unmanageable, but uncomfortable.  I know I’m addicted to the interwebs, but it’s a little alarming to feel so unsettled when it’s not available.

Anyways, I feel like Charlie’s verbal skills have just taken off recently and I need to record some of it before I forget.  He’s starting to string words together to form phrases, and his vocabulary is just growing by leaps and bounds.

In the car the other day we were talking about all the people we knew and loved – which is essentially me rattling off names and asking Charlie if he loved them and him going “Yessth!”  - and out of the blue he just says “Uncka Sah-meee!!”  That was the first time he had ever paired the “uncle” title with any of his uncles’ names in an understandable-by-a-stranger kind of way.  (So Sam, you should feel mighty fine as the first.)

“Oh-keeee” is his latest go-to word and I hear it all day long.  Do you want to go to the park?  “Ohh-keee!”  Can you go get E-O?  “Ohh-keee!”  Do you want apple sauce?  “Ohhh-KEEEE!!”  Okay has pretty much become synonymous with “yes” which I’m pretty sure is a bad thing, but it’s so cute right now I can’t reform the usage just yet.

"Eeee-meean."  Every time after praying, we hear a resounding “Eeee-meean!” from the high chair.  He has even started saying it in church whenever he hears the pastor say it, which is alternately incredibly adorable and touching, and slightly embarrassing as well when it happens so much.  He has started singing the “Amen chorus” with us at the end of service.  It’s not in tune and the rhythm is pretty out there, but he’ll sing “Eee-meean” over and over again just like we do.  That’s another Mama Moment for me.

Last night after bath time and a clean diaper were on, I told him he could go play for a little while because he was all done now.  He scrambled right up and said “Aaalll dum” which is the first time he’s attempted that phrase, and the first time he’s of his own accord just repeated something I said without me prompting. 

“I sorry” is what he had to say after he had gotten into something he wasn’t supposed to.

“Gah-gee” has morphed into “Gam-my” which I assume will one day finally morph into “Grammy”.  Maybe.  One day.  If we can just get those Rs.

There are a plethora of telephone conversations in our house now and not a half are done by me.  Here’s a sampling of any of the 20 conversations you’ll here in any given day: 

“Oh, hii, Saah-mee, uummm oh-keee, noo noo, umm ohkeee, bye.”

“Hiiiii-eeee Uncka, Ee-um, Sin-nee, Rooorr-eee, byee.”  (Those are all people, btw, not made up words.)

“Hi.  Hi.  Hiii.  Um, yessth.  Umm yessth.  Oh-KEEEE!  Bye.”

Quite frankly I’m a little mortified that that’s what I sound like on the phone and how my son perceives my conversations.

One of my faves is when he points to the little indentation below my nose and above my lip and says "foom-ball" which sounds a lot closer to "foot ball" than it does "philtrum", which is the technical term for that little crevice above your lip and below your nose.  FYI.  In case you didn't know that.  My two year old does.  He also knows where your nostril is, but can't say that worth a flip.

"Fohmbot" is what Charlie keeps asking to watch on TV.  He loves the movie “Robots” and would happily watch it any time I let him.  By the way, do you know what “Fohmbots” say?  Charlie does.  “Beep, beep, beep!”

6:01pm still without internet.  Gone nearly 12 hours without it.  Driving me up the wall.  And feeling even more pathetic because of it. 

On a good note, I still managed to muddle through my workout before Charlie gets home, even though my workouts are all internet based, and I was having a hard time remembering the whole thing.  Maybe I made up a couple of those exercises, but who cares.  My face is still red and sweaty and I still stink, so I think it counts as a workout.

Now it’s time to get some dinner and clean up the kitchen a bit before the Charlie-man gets home.

8:01pm I was able to gank some internet from a neighbor for just a couple minutes before it went away.  But now it’s gone again and I’m left typing in my Word doc and cleaning up the kitchen.

9:22pm.  I feel like I am officially losing my mind.  I want to get on the internet to check a recipe for tomorrow’s breakfast!  Nope.  No can do.  I like the ease of pulling up recipes from the internet and not having to copy them off by hand, but oh today has left me wondering what would happen if I lost my internet for multiple days in a row.  Probably half my recipes are stowed somewhere on the internet.  I am a little lost puppy who keeps trying the same thing over and over hoping that one time it will actually bring my internet back.  Going to bed.

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In case you actually made it this far, now you can see how pathetic I am without internet.  I felt pretty guilty about that.  But at least you got to hear about Charlie's really adorable phone conversations. :)

The Great Green Smoothie Disaster

Oh that title reminds me a little too much of The Great Vaseline Incident.

This one was not quite so bad, but oh man.  Hah, yea.

So a couple mornings ago I was really excited because we'd made a green smoothie for breakfast.  You might be wondering why this is exciting, and that's because I have to admit, our smoothies have been fewer and farther between right now as we are in a budget crunch while hubbs finishes up his PhD and we are on a lower income. Smoothies = incredible, nutrient, power packed breakfasts, but also = more $$$ than oatmeal. :)

So there I said it.  Not too many green smoothies in our house for the time being.

Anyways, so this was a special occasion, and I told Sonny first thing when I got him up out of bed, cause I knew he'd be excited.  And sure enough he was.  His face lit up and he started squealing "Smooosh! Smoooosh!!" as I got him ready to go downstairs.  I went downstairs ahead of him with my hands full, and stopped off in the bathroom really quickly.  He was a good minute behind me - or so I thought.

I was in the bathroom when I heard the fridge door open.  Not a huge deal - he does that a lot these days - although he is not supposed to.  Then I heard this funny, unfamiliar "sploosh" noise.   ...   Then it dawned on me.  I had left his glass and my glass (about 5 cups of smoothie total), sitting on the fridge shelf right out in front - within perfect reach of a little pudgy arm.

I ran out of the bathroom just in time to see Charlie burst out into uncontrollable sobs.  Sure enough, green smoothie was splattered all over the fridge, the floor, the dishwasher, the cabinets, Charlie and....are you ready for this?  E-O.  E-O the little blue elephant was once again a casualty of war? a Charlie made disaster? ....only this time it was green smoothie not vaseline.

Selfishly I looked to see if my smoothie jar was still intact - it was, whew! - then I set about the task of dealing with my son and his spilled smoothie glass.  Poor little Charlie-man was crying buckets.  I immediately felt so bad for him that he was so upset over his delicious smoothie being all over the floor.  My heart went out to him.  Surely he was just as upset as I was over the loss of precious, nutrient packed, yummy tasting smoothie that he was looking forward to eating for breakfast.

But as I tried to comfort my son and clean up the mess, it became apparent that the tears were not over the spilled smoothie, but the covered E-O.  He must have known that E-O was "dirty" again and that he would end up going away for several days to get cleaned up like he did after The Great Vaseline Incident.  He was heart broken and I thought would blow a gasket when I picked up our now-green little elephant and deposited him in the washing machine.  It took a great deal convincing that E-O was just going to take a bath in the washing machine bathtub, like Charlie does upstairs, and that everything would be okay.  Seriously.  I had to play that one up big time.

He finally started to calm down and I put him in his chair for breakfast.  He eagerly gulped up the 3 swallows of smoothie that were still in his cup, cast his eyes at my full glass, put on his sweetest little face, and started saying "Mooah, mooah" while signing "more" with little hands and pointing at my glass.

At that point, my heart just about broke.  I have had those "okay, now I really feel like a parent" moments,  but this time did me in.  Serious Mom Moment.  I have never felt more like a parent.  Here was my son, who had been disobedient (by opening the fridge), spilled his smoothie in his eagerness to drink the beloved drink, and created quite a huge mess for me to clean up while simultaneously trying to console his broken heart - here he was, asking me so politely and sweetly to share my smoothie - mine! that I had so much looked forward to and that I had every right to because I didn't foolishly spill mine.

And what did I do?  I took pity on him shared my beloved smoothie with him.  I wanted him to have green smoothie as much as he wanted it, even though he had been disobedient and created a great deal of work for me.  I showed him mercy, shared my smoothie and we laughed and giggled.  After I reminded him one more time of his folly and what he was NOT supposed to do ever again.


I even got some pictures. :)

There was lots of smoothie love that day. :-D  And lots of Love.



Oh and for those curious, the green elephant is now back to his original blue hue, hardly any worse for the wear.  I tell you, that elephant and music box inside has survived about 5 more laundry washes than I ever expected it to.