7 Months of Silly

You are growing well, but are a little skinny, which is surprising to me because you eat as much as we can put into your mouth. You LOVE food, you eat with gusto. Fruits, vegetables, rice, bread, anything is met with a wide open mouth and slurped up. I hope this trend continues and we don’t have any food issues with you beyond normal pickiness. Or maybe, dare I hope, that you just like food, from the beginning. Oh it’s much too early to tell, but a mother can dream can’t she?

At 5 months you went from being with me all the time to being watching by your grandparents. They really like having you with them and I think you like it too now. It was hard on you for about 2 days and then you realized that they will feed you food, whenever you want! Now it’s party time at grandmas. When you hit 6 months, we left you for a whole week with your grandparents and went to Disney World. We are a rude family, but I don’t think you would have enjoyed it very much and boy, it would have made things much harder for us. But you had a fun week-lo

ng sleepover and I even taught your Popi how to text me pictures of you so that I didn’t miss your cute little face too much.

Speaking of your cute little face, you are looking like such a big boy now. Everyone says how much you look like your big brother, but I think you look more like yourself, you are all different.

You are still quite a little cuddler and love to be held as long as you can also look around. You are working off a lot of your baby fat in your jumper, which you love to jump in and was the best investment ever. Of course you want an audience while you bounce, but that works well when I’m working out too.

You are very silly and you have the sweetest personality, you love everyone now and going new places is the best as long as you can put your mouth on everything.

I'm so happy you're in our family!
Love you, Mama

4 Months of Slobber

Wow, three kids really is more difficult! Sorry about not being on the ball and getting each month recorded. But, in my defense, you haven’t done too much besides grow.

But now you are so smiley and giggley and ticklish. The cutest thing you do is you stick out your tongue and curl it to the side of your mouth. It makes me laugh every time, I love it, so I copy you and then you do it more.

Your current favorite thing is to chew on a burp cloth (or any cloth that you can get into your mouth), but it’s good because you can hold it easily, if it falls out of your hands it’s easy to find again and it doesn’t make a mess because all the slobber goes into the cloth! It’s great. I’m sure your brother and sister were not so easily entertained. You are a big chewer, you want to chew on everything! I’ve already got the teething toys out and with how voraciously you go after fingers people are convinced you are already teething. Oh don’t do that to me kid!

We had our first ER visit! That was fun, it was due to the cold we all had and we were worried about how well you could breathe at of course 9:30 at night. I’m glad that now you are doing better.

You also recently discovered your toes, which are the best toys that you can’t drop! I’m so mean and I put them in socks and clothes, but that’s okay because they are so much fun!

You are already so big, I look at you and see a grown up and not the tiny baby that came home with us just a few months ago, I miss that baby, but I’m excited to see more of your fun personality as you grow!

Love,

Mama

1 month of Bodily Fluids

Welcome to the world little boy! We’ve been getting to know you the last few weeks and honestly, I don’t know how I thought our family was complete without you. So far you are a little squishy monkey who likes to stay up late and stare at walls. Of course the moment after you were born you pooped on me, so that was fun, but at the time it didn’t really bother me. Since then we’ve been getting to know each other. 

You have a mostly laid back personality, but are really keen on being held and only last so long on your own in a chair or during tummy time. You have decided you like the swing but that chair is still evil if you have to sit in it for more than 5 minutes. You are a cross between your sister and your brother so far. Your sister didn’t like being cuddled and wanted to always see out and you are definitely like that sometimes, but I figure you are working on your neck muscles and you will still let us cuddle you sometimes too.

You have fussy time at bedtime and it can last up to 2 hours, where you want nothing more than to be walked around and held, luckily for me, your dad is home and likes to hold you so I can get myself ready for bed so that I can get my first 3 hours of sleep that night. Oh if only I get more than 3 hour stretches of sleep. During the day you can sleep up to 4 and half hours, but night time I’m always trying to push you to 3 hours of sleep. If you start fussing I won’t let you wake up until it’s been at least close to 3 hours. I’m the worst.

I wanted to take a picture of you every day, but I don’t know where all the time goes, but I don’t have a picture from every day, but I do have some good ones. Hopefully you don’t change too fast.

I’m so glad you’re here, you’re the bestest new little buddy and I heart you to pieces.

Love,

Mama

8 Years of Pink

Well little girl, you finally made it to 8. You’ve started second grade and just got baptized. You are a little Mathlete since math is your favorite subject, which makes your accountant mama very happy.

I’m so proud of you for choosing to be baptized and it was a very special day that you let us share with your baby brother for his blessing.

You’ve started playing the piano over the summer and I’m impressed by how well you are already doing. You have a problem counting, but you probably get that from me, since your grandma was always yelling at me that I needed to count. Wow, I am just like my mother now!

You’ve become a great big sister to your littlest brother and you want to hold him and carry him around and read to him all the time, it’s nice to have a little helper!

You are “crazy” about My Little Ponies, which are totally different from when I was a girl, but I’m glad that you like them just like I did.

You are developing your own sense of style, which is sometimes a little bit crazy for my tastes, but you love to wear arm warmers, long skirts with pants and jackets.

It’s been a great 8 years; I’m excited to see what the next 8 have in store for you. But don’t be a teenager. Not sure I can handle that.

Love you,

Mama

4 Years of Putting the Blanket Back on You

Just last Saturday marked your 4^th year on this planet. This year it was hot, 4 years ago it snowed and I was sure the nurses would turn us away when we got to hospital to be induced. This day was much more laid back, being the weekend of memorial day but getting ready for a party is never easy for me, but we got your Sonic the Hedgehog decorations and the balloons and I made a silly Sonic cake that I saw on Pintrest and it turned out decently. As I reflect on the past year it’s been rocky, your meltdowns come frequently and intensely. We’ve started some therapy and you’re now in a therapeutic preschool that is trying to help you figure out how to express your feelings without throwing, screaming and hitting. Just this morning while your sister threw a fit about not being about to undo the knot in her shoe you told her to “ask for help” and I was a proud mama.

Now to the good: You’re finally potty trained! You were almost there for so long, but now it’s real and even with very minor accidents you are mature enough to tell me right away! Can I just tell you how many times I declared “this is the last box of diapers that I will buy!” at least 3, but the last time stuck since I said you could start wearing cloth again during the day and use the disposable ones at night until they ran out. You did not like wearing the “baby diapers” and I think that helped, I also think your new babysitter pushed you more than I would have knowing that things I did at home might not translate to what you did when you were apart from me, but she took the initiative to put you in underpants during the day and you liked being a big boy. Now we are even having dry nights, it’s a magical thing!

You’ve matured a lot and I’m amazed when I look at you how big you are, you were just my little baby a few weeks ago, I swear! Now you have a backpack and ride a bus to preschool.

Eating is still not fun, for either one of us (unless it’s me sneaking cookies while no one is looking) but at your doctor appointment, you were average height and while still low on your weight, not to the point that the doctor was concerned. But lately you’ve stopped eating your favorite meal of the day – breakfast. Not all the time, just most of the time, and I think it might be that if someone isn’t at the table being social with you or at times, feeding you, you just don’t eat. Ugh, kid, you are 4 now, you can eat cereal and oatmeal on your own now, okay?

Your coordination has gotten better and you can get dressed and put on your own shoes and ride your scooter, but of course it’s much more fun to yell at me about how I’m not getting your shoes on while you run away and hide. But still. And drawing, you draw people with arms and legs and faces, but mostly we get monsters; that is your specialty.

You have 10 imaginary big brothers that live in the North Pole with Santa. They are giants and can walk through walls and do all kinds of things. Some day when you want to be big and strong, you will eat broccoli, since that is how your brothers grew to be giants, but at the moment you say you just want to stay the same size, no growing for you, which is why you refuse to eat any healthy food whatsoever. While moms all say they never want you to grow up, we do goes nuts over the whole “I’m not eating anything so I can stay in my 3T clothes forever” thing.

With all the dramaz you create, you also love so very much. You are the sweetest thing sometimes and tell me how beautiful I am and how much you love me. You want nothing more than to be best friends with me and your sister. Of course that can create tension when our lives don’t than revolve around you. Currently you are often found sneaking out of your bedroom to cuddle with Hayley at bedtime and I often find you snoozing together and I have to take you back to your bed or your sister will crush you with her flailing limbs.

You are excited to be the big brother and are very impatient for the new brother to get here because you’d like to play with him now thank-you-very-much and so we talk about how much more time the baby needs to grow (oh just about forever and I can’t count the days yet because my brain doesn’t comprehend that large of a number) but you are very good with the ~1 year old at the sitter so I’m hoping that while you already act like a middle child that syndrome won’t surface for awhile and I can get some rest between the meltdowns and the baby stuff.

It’s been a tough year but I think we’ve grown and hopefully we’ll have the tools to face the future in a better way. I heart you my little boo bear and look forwards to many more sloppy kisses!

 

Love, mama

My Evening with Peter Murphy

Getting tickets to the show was an adventure. Not wanting to pay $5 in fees I decided not to pay them online, but hit Greywhale on my way home, although I never made specific plans and of course forgot, so the weekend before the show I decided I would get my ticket at that point, but that day I was so sick and all thoughts and plans left my head and. Monday I started to panic as the show is tomorrow, but I figured I could still get them online. Until I read the bold SOLD OUT, that is. I started calling Greywhale locations and of course, the one by my house was sold out too, but the one in West Jordan still had a few. I called Husband but he was too sick and I figured I could go after work. They close at the unreasonable hour of 6 PM, but I figured if I really drove fast from the trax station, I could make it. Of course I don’t normally take trax on Mondays, but because of being sick I didn't want to risk going to the gym, so I took trax because it's so convenient, or something. Of course the ride home and my train gets stopped behind another train. I keep watching the time slip away, but it's only an extra few minute hold-up, I can make up for that. After practically running to my car at the station I speed to get onto the freeway. Only to come to a dead stop. Traffic is terrible and slow moving, finally when i make it up to the onramp, I find out why. The lights to get onto the freeway are out. My glimmer of hope is fading; I think that it's possible that I could still get there just before they close the doors. Then I see the freeway. Gridlocked. There is no way that trying to wade thro

ugh that mess would get me there in time.

My new plan is to call the venue tomorrow and see if any tickets open up. In the morning I check the online classifieds to see if anyone is selling tickets. Only 2 different people. One wants $75 for his pair, and the other wants $75 a piece. I send a text to the first guy; the tickets are spoken for, but if that falls through he'll let me know. I'm not desperate enough to pay $75 for a $25 ticket and if that's what it would cost me I'll just stay home. As the day starts to draw to a close i start calling the venue. No answer, I also work just around the corner from the venue, so I decide that I'll check it out if I can't get them to answer the phone. After work I walk around the corner, I see people milling about, the front door is slightly ajar, but I decide to head around back, as I could swear I heard music on my way over and if I can't get tickets, maybe I could hear Mr. Murphy sound checking and that would have to be enough. Unfortunately all I could hear was an occasional drum beat even with the venue's back door open to the parking lot, I wanted to get closer, but noticed some other people and didn't want to be asked to leave yet. I went back to the doors and walked in, the entry way was empty and right as I opened the door to inside a girl came in to man the desk. She told me there weren't any tickets but I could come back at 9 and see if there were any scalpers. Gee thanks. I walked out and went back to the back of the building and noticed that the chain link fence to their lot was shared with my work's I sat down and fiddled with my phone, trying to look busy and listen, but I couldn't hear anything, so disappointed I walked over and found that there was a gate in the fence and I could get back to my car that way.

I drove home disappointed. At home I jumped on the internet to see if I could find any other tickets for sale. No dice, but I saw the person trying to get $75 a ticket had lowered his price to $60 in the last hour. I sent a text asking for one at $40. No response. After about 40 minutes I decided I was staying home that night and tried to accept that. Then I got a text. It was from the first guy who had thought his tickets were sold. Since I'm so clever and I only needed one I told him that since I wasn't sure I could find anyone to take the other ticket if he would take $70 for them. He agreed. Now I had to find someone who would be willing to go on about 30 minutes notice. The wonderful Niki had commented when I had posted about wanting to go, so I called her and she was in! I spent a few minutes getting ready and saying bye to the kids and I picked up Niki, we headed to the venue and parked in my employee lot.

We met the nice Darren who sold us the tickets and waited in line. Doors opened around 8:30. The venue was pretty crappy. I saw some old friends who I haven't seen in years, even the boy who had always looked like Peter Murphy, actually when he walked by, for a moment, that's who I thought it was until I realized that this chap had hair and also wasn't as old. Honestly I had expected to see lots of folks that I knew from the old days of Baushas-listening and clubbing, but it was just these two. The opening people weren't much to write about, I liked the first guy okay, but the ultra-goth seeming Ours was too screamy and over the top, also the sound up front was awful and far too loud. Niki and I took ourselves to the back for Mr Murphy.

The wonderful Peter Murphy came out. He is looking pretty old, and his commitment to his thinning longer hair isn't doing him any favors. He began with new stuff, which is actually quite good, but I didn't know it as well (of course) but he treated us quickly to 2 Bauhaus songs Silent Hedges and In a Flat Field. He seemed very personal-able and comfortable, but almost everything he said was unintelligible which I think was mostly the fault of the poor sound system, but you could still hear the lovely British accent and a few words would slip through. His voice was still amazing, he has such a unique way of singing (just now my pandora radio is playing me a Peter Murphy song) and it was amazing to hear again. He played a song called Rose Hunter and said it had his absolute favorite guitar riff in it. Peter Murphy has not been idle, releasing EPs and albums and appearing in Twilight movies as a vampire (which knocked my socks off that I totally recognized him at the theater even in a wig for the brief time he was on-screen).

The section of older songs including Cuts You Up and I’ll Fall with your Knife was brilliant, all the club favorites. I was hoping for a cover of Hurt, but it was not to be and while I was expecting one additional song from the new album, the song The Prince and Old Lady Shade is one of my new favorites. The first encore started with my heart skipping a beat as he began to play Marlene Dietrich's Favourite Poem, which when the universe kept trying to remind me to buy tickets the week before had come onto my iPod and I thought "Oh wouldn't it be awesome if he played this song?" thinking that since it wasn't in any recent setlists and unlikely to make an appearance, but there it was and he sang it beautifully. Then Ziggy Stardust, he owns that song, sorry Bowie, when he sang that, the crowd went nuts and there was so much energy in it. I was surprised that we got another encore, a cover of some obscure singer and a final Bauhaus song Stigmata Martyr, which while awesome, didn't have quite the same "this is the last song" amazingness that Ziggy did.

It was a great show, and parking just through the gate was super fast which was good since it was soooo much later than I meant to be out on a Tuesday night. There was even a raccoon in my parking lot, staring at us with its wee banded eyes.

I'm so glad that Niki came with me, she rocks the house party and I was glad to have one of my dearest friends to share in the awesomeness of an unexpected concert!

2 Years of Being in Love With You

Today is your birthday! Happy birthday baby boy! This year has seen you turn from a baby into a fully fledged terror toddler. I’m still impressed by the huge personality you were born with. You have always been your own person. You love so much, your heart is so big. Everything you love you put such passion into. You adore the neighbor girl who is also Hayley’s friend that if we even whisper her name you will start calling out for her and wanting to go and visit her through the fence. Planes, trains, fire trucks, school buses: they are all things you love with your whole being and you’re always excited to see them. You love story time before bed, you love to read books and see the pictures. It’s one of the funniest times of the day for me. Watching you learn and enjoy it. You and Hayley are little peas in a book-loving pod.


You are also so smart. You’re talking so much now and can repeat just about everything. I love when you say “I lub it!” and “Thank you much” it makes me giggle. Sometimes you are still rambling in toddler-ese and you get frustrated when we can’t understand you but usually you can get your point across.

Eating I think will always cause me to get more gray hair, but you are opening up sometimes. You ate rice with “stuff” in it last night and you do love pasta, and you would think your love of carbs would help fatten you up, but you are so skinny. You can wear the shorts that you were wearing last summer, of course now they aren’t long on you, but the fact that you are so skinny does worry me still. But I try adding cream and oil and butter to everything that I can get you to eat, but it’s still the amount of not eating. You are perfectly fine not eating any dinner and just drinking your bottle before bed. I know you’re probably suppose to be off the bottle by now, but it’s one of the only foods I know you’ll consume and the bottle is the best way to get it all in you. So until I don’t worry about your lack of nutrition, then you get the bottle, but we are cutting back in the morning and at nap time so we can get you to eat actual food.

You are decidedly too mobile. You are just steady enough to run around and only skin your knees up every few days, but face plants are not yet a thing of the past and you sport bruises all too often and I worry people will think I’m a bad mother, but I blame your father, it’s always on his watch that you get your owies.

You get to start “school” tomorrow. This is the last summer before Hayley starts kindergarten and while she’s still at the Eccles lab at SLCC I figure it would be fun to have you guys in there together and now that you are officially 2, you can start, so no more having to drop Hayley off and be sad you can’t stay and play with the kids, you will finally have your own class to go to and have fun. This really is the end of my little baby, we’re going to trust you to strangers 3 times a week. Luckily you have almost no separation anxiety. When we get to church on Sundays you are so excited to get to go to nursery that it’s a struggle to keep you entertained until it’s time to drop you off and if you do escape you want to go straight to nursery for and ask for “toys.”

It’s been a whirlwind year, it seems like only a few weeks ago you were a tiny baby and I was trying to get enough sleep to make it through the next day where I hoped to find time to shower, but now I’m still trying to find time to shower and if I can duct tape you down to keep you from running amuck. It’s been fun and I’m so excited to watch you grow, but I wish I could keep you little forever too. But I’ll take whatever I can get.

Love you,

Mama