Happy 2nd Birthday Brooks!

Happy birthday Brooks!  I cannot believe how quickly the first two years of your life have flown by.  You are such a constant source of entertainment and joy.  You are sweet by nature and mean by necessity.  Each morning when you open your door and poke your little head out of your room, you offer us the sweetest grin on the face of the planet.  You always wake up in a great mood (such a contrast to your brother who STILL wakes up crying or screaming most of the time).

You love your family fiercely - always meeting your mommy in the evenings by running full force with open arms.  Your best bud is your brother Will, with whom you are constantly fighting with for toys.  Most times it's you who tries to steal his toys!  Sometimes though, in a brief moment of weakness, you will sweetly offer your toy if your brother cries hard enough.  Your favorite person in the whole world though is your "Pappi".  You've just recently started calling him "Pappi" rather than "Poppa", which is what everyone else calls him.  Last night, you hurt your foot while falling out of your dinner chair at home and you cried "Car. Go. Pappi!"  Bless your little heart, you just wanted your pappi to make it feel better. 

You are extremely tough.  I know most people say that about their little boys, but I've had two boys so far, and you are far and away tougher than your brother Will.  You burned your little hand on the fireplace one day this winter and only whimpered.  In fact, we only realized it was a second degree burn (complete with HUGE blisters) about 8 hours later when giving you a bath. The blisters are long gone, but you still have a pretty sizeable scar on your hand :(  You also broke a glass shadow box (that happened to contain your great-grandfather's folded American Flag that was presented to his wife at his military funeral :/ ) with YOUR HEAD while jumping on the bed at your great-grandmother's house during a birthday party.  There was broken glass everywhere and blood all over your head.  You never cried or whimpered.  It took one of your older cousins to come tell me that you were bleeding for me to even know you had done it! 

You are a great eater, and you are always willing to try whatever anyone offers you.  Even if you don't like it on the first try, you will try and try until you finally get it down.  You love all types of foods - casseroles, breakfast foods, veggies, fruits, meats and pizzas.  You drink milk - whole or almond milk and water.  You will drink juice if I offer it to you, which is not often based on what it does to your diapers (yuck!) You also ask for tea, which is ironic since I don't make tea at home.  This is a good indication that you're getting tea at your grandparent's ;)

You have finally started talking more.  For a while I was beginning to think that you would grow up grunting and pointing.  You still try to get away with that sometimes, but once you figure out that I can't understand you, you will use your words.  Within the last month, you have started putting two or three words together to form short sentences.  It's still tough to understand you, because your versions of the words are not always similar to the word you mean.  In fact this weekend, we were visiting with your Gram and you grabbed her hand and said "Mok."  You kept pulling and tugging and she had no idea what you were trying to say, but I said "He wants milk."  When she asked you "Do you want milk?"  You nodded your head and started walking towards the kitchen.  So it seems I may be the only one who understands you right now.  My favorite words that you say are "Momokykle" for motorcycle and "Tannasee"  for Tennessee.

You absolutely loathe having your diaper changed or changing your clothes.  You will run, hide, cry and do everything imaginable to avoid the dreaded diaper change.  You weigh nearly 30lbs, so when you decide to throw yourself around, or "dead-man" on the floor, I have a hard time dealing with you.  You are also obsessed with taking your diaper off, talking about your boy parts and watching your brother use the toilet.  You are probably ready to start potty training, which is something I will be working on with you as soon as it warms up a little more and we can stay outside to avoid ruining Mommy's floors :) 

You are sleeping in a toddler bed and usually go to bed between 7:30 and 8:30 PM, depending on when Mommy can get home from work, have a little play time with you, get you and your brother fed and bathed and then put to bed.  You have never ever cried when we put you down, even as an infant you prefered to put yourself to sleep, but now that you're in your big boy bed, you do like to come out into the hall, and then run back to bed when we come after you.  We go through the same scenario every.single.night.  We took your "papi" (paci) away a couple of months ago and you did just fine.  You never cried; you took it like a champ!

You are such a wonderfully curious, happy and energetic little boy.  You love to climb, jump, run and play all day long.  Every now and then you will catch a case of the giggles and my heart melts into your dirt covered little hand.  I imagine that you'll grow up to be the little boy who never meets a stranger, and who will make friends easily in school.  You will want to play every sport known to man and if you keep those blonde curls and dimples, you won't have any trouble finding a little girl to scribble your name all over her notebooks.  I'm not going to lie, you wear me out each and every day with your endless amounts of near-death acrobatic stunts, but when you smile that little smile and blow me a sticky kiss, I feel like I could just eat you with a spoon.  God knew exactly what our family needed two years ago when he gave you to us and I thank Him for you every single day.

Meeting the family

9 Days Old

(The dates on these pics are wrong)

Believe it or not, he's only 5 months old here

Wearing daddy's childhood hat

Happy 1st birthday!

Taken this morning, on his 2nd birthday!

You Know You're the Second Child When...

In honor of Bean 2 (Brooks) turning 2 on Monday, I thought I would dedicate this post to him.  He's such a cute (but equal parts mean) little character, but that's another post for another day.  I think a lot of his personality traits come from being the second child in what was a two-under-two household - you know, where it's survival of the fittest.  A lot of my friends with children this close in age are experiencing the same personality traits in their youngest, so I know I'm not alone in this!

OK - You know you're the second child when...

• Every stitch of clothing you own has been worn before and has already been broken in for you - complete with stains, holes and stretched neck holes.  (Hey - at least mom doesn't get mad when you mess them up!)
• You don't speak many coherent words before the age of two, because your loud mouth older sibling won't let you get a word in edgewise.
• Your voice is naturally 2 or 3 volumes louder than your sibling's, because it takes at least a small scream to be heard.
• Your baby book is less than half-way completed (but mom still keeps your important memoirs, she just has no idea where she stashed them).
• You don't get to participate in any of the same kiddie programs that your older sibling participated in, such as Kindermusik, or Toddler Library Time because your mom is too busy working and/or ushering your older sibling to and from school/activities (but that's cool because your family comes with live-in playmates)
• You learn to throw blows before you learn to throw a ball.
• You're naturally more easy-going because you learned to entertain and feed yourself at a very young age.
• You learned to scale even the highest cabinets or pieces of furniture, because while mommy was busy wiping your older sibling's hiney, you were trying to figure out how to get to that Halloween candy on top of the fridge.
• The house is filled with tons of pictures of your older sibling and maybe two of you.
• You've never been to see Elmo Live, Barney in Concert or anything of that nature because your parents took your older sibling and hated it.
• You don't own any toys of your own - you play with your older sibling's and if you happen to receive a super awesome toy as a gift, your sibling swipes it for themselves.
• You potty train earlier than your sibling did, but simply out of necessity - your mom leaves you in your wet diapers so long that you figure the potty has GOT to be a better solution.
• Your infant schedule looked something like this - wake up when your loudest sibling comes bursting into your room and turns the lights on at 6:30AM, eat, nap in the car on the way to take sibling to school, eat, swing while mommy takes a shower, nap on the way to pick sibling up from school, eat, chew on the grocery cart handle while mommy chases sibling through the aisles, nap on the way home from said store, eat, bath with sibling, bed again. (Drastically different than Bean 1's strict schedule.)

Happy Valentines Day!

Happy Valentines Day friends!  Valentines Day is such a funny day to me.  Aren't we supposed to love each other every other day of the year too??  I guess it's fun to make a big deal out of your relationship (or lack of) at least one day out of the year though.  Brandon and I didn't do gifts for each other this year.  It wasn't about the money - it's just that the flowers die, the chocolate gets eaten too quickly and what the HECK are you supposed to get a man for Valentines Day??!!  HOLY CRAP I hate shopping for Valentines Day - how many more printed heart boxers do we need???

But I do enjoy getting the boys excited about Valentines Day.  Who remembers their little pink construction papered shoe box with a slit cut in the top??  I do!  Those were the days when everyone just gave out those little paper valentines with a nasty sucker stuck to it.  Now, you gotta go all out.  Pinterest is full of neat ideas for classroom valentines.  Will and I decided to do the "I really dig you" valentines this year.  The two of us went to Target and bought the .99 cent plastic sand shovels.  He picked out the candy (Sweet Tart hearts and Red Starbursts) and bubbles.  We wrapped it all up with a red bow.  He was really proud of his valentines this year!  Here they are - pink for the girls, and blue for the boys:

This morning, when the boys woke up and trickled into our room we surprised them with a Valentine from Mom and Dad.  A co-worker was selling Scentsy stuff earlier this month, so I went out on a limb and bought the boys a Scentsy "Buddy".  These are little stuffed animals (Will already has about 10 that sleep in the bed with him each night) that have a zipper pouch on the back and you insert the "scent pack" and rezip.  Before you know it, their room smells like whatever scent you picked, instead of dirty socks (or in Brooks' case dirty diapers).  I picked a really yummy orangey/tropical scent pack for both boys.  They'll be sharing a room soon and I can't deal with two different scents in the same room.  Yikes.

Will got "Roarbert" the Lion

And Brooks got "Mollie" the Monkey

And if Bean 3 were here, she would have gotten this little guy:

How stinkin' cute is this guy??  When she gets here, we may have to get her one anyway ;)

They also each got a Disney Blu-Ray/DVD combo, which were on sale oddly-enough on the day we went to pick out Valentines Day stuff for school.  Will got Dumbo and Brooks got Bambi.  You can never have enough Disney movies when you have kids!  Especially the Blu-Ray for the house and the DVD for the car.  Sweet!  They mostly just played with the musical greeting cards their daddy picked out though :) 

Will also had a special day at school today - his Valentines Day Tea Party.  It was so cute.  The older kids served hot tea in real procelein tea cups.  The parents all brought snacks and we sat together and munched on cupcakes, cookies, chocolate covered strawberries and heart-shaped sandwiches.  Cute!

"When do I get a CUPCAKE!?"

Sipping water (his choice!) out of a real antique tea cup.  (Brave teacher!)

I hope you all have had a great Valentines Day.  I am so blessed to have three Valentines and next year, I will have FOUR!  Who would have ever thought??  My boys (my husband included) are my whole world and I can't wait to see how Miss Priss melts each of our hearts.  Will is already in love with "his baby".  He grins so big when someone asks him about his sister.  How Sweet!  

A Working Mom's Post

Well, true to the form of a working mother, I'm a couple of days late posting this.  Chalk it up to working on the weekends!  On Friday, I linked up with Kelly's Korner to get to know some other working & blogging mommies.  I'm supposed to post any stories, tips, etc about being a working mother.

I really don't have a whole lot of tips about being a working mother, because there is NO WAY I can claim to have this under control.  Some days, it makes you feel like the worst mother in the world.  Other days, it makes me feel empowered.  There are days when I feel frustrated leaving my children in the hands of others and days when I feel relieved to have an outlet outside our home.

We are blessed to have two sets of grandparents nearby who split our childcare.  So my mother has the boys a few days a week, and my husband's parents have them the remaining 2-3 days (depending on whether we work the weekends).  This is an ideal (and free) situation for us.  And while that may be the best alternative to being a stay at home mommy, there are still days when I wish I could stay at home.

I often see my stay-at-home mommy friends post pictures of their child's crafts, play dates and handwriting on Facebook.  Those posts always make me sad because I feel like my boys miss out on so much of that stuff.  I try to cram preschool training and craft time in on the weekends, but it's tough when that's only 6-8 DAYS out of the entire month and that time is also shared with housework, errands, a husband and friends.  And you can forget playmates.  Unless it's an actually birthday party on the weekend, my boys rarely get to play with other kids outside of their cousins and preschool classmates.

We also deal with the issue of consistent discipline on a daily basis.  Imagine this - you have THREE separate sets of house rules, expectations and temperaments to deal with.  We are constantly struggling to train or re-train our boys on what's expected in our home because what doesn't fly at home, will sometimes fly with one grandmother and always fly with the other.  So I'm constantly having conversations about behavior, timeouts, punishments, etc.  with the grandparents.  As an example, my almost two year-old will always take one nap at home.  He will take two naps at my husband's parents and NO nap and my parent's home.  That's because he pushed the boundaries at each place until he knows how far he can get.  My oldest (almost four) whines a little too much, and his favorite phrase is "But ________ let's me do it!" And their infancy was a whole separate issue - bottles, naps, playtime.... the scheduling drove me nuts.

So yea, it's hard to trust others with raising your children, even if it is their own loving grandparents.  But there are lots of great things about it too.  My children have learned to develop wonderful relationships with other people from the very beginning of their lives.  They have such a special bond with both sets of grandparents, and to me (someone who had that same relationship with her grandparents) that is priceless. And there's no 24 hour after a fever rule with grandma.  If my kids are really sick, I do what I can to stay home with them.  If they have a low-grade fever with a cold - they go to grandma's.

So here are my (probably not useful) tips for surviving working motherhood:

• Find a job/boss that has children.  I've worked for one that didn't.  What a nightmare.
• Hire a cleaning person.  We do twice a month.  This cuts most of my house cleaning time in half on the 6-8 days per month I get to be at home.
• Make working-mom friends.  It sucks being the only friend who constantly misses playdates, lunches, etc..
• Communicate.  I call to check on my kids every day.  I want to know how they're behaving, what they're eating and all that other good stuff.  I don't care if it gets on anyone's nerves.  You've got my kid, so you've got my heart :)
• Make sure your husband is playing an active role in the home - cooking, cleaning, child-rearing.
• Turn your lunch break into "Me-Time".  Get your nails done, go to a park and read a book, blog, have lunch with a girl friend.  Otherwise, you'll find yourself wondering why you never have time to get a pedicure or read a book.
• Finally, when one of your stay-at-home mommy friends mentions that her job is the toughest in the world, don't argue.  Yes, we know our job is tough too, maybe even tougher.  But don't be jealous of her - you all know there are days (most likely on Sunday evening) when you're tired, your kids are cranky and all you can think about is getting back to the office and away from the whining.  She doesn't get to do that and that's probably a fitting punishment for a bragger ;)

A Baby Girl is Coming to Our House!!

It's true!  I can't believe it but it's true!  We went down to Baby Vision in Atlanta this past weekend, where Bean 3 played shy.  It took the ultrasound technician about 20 minutes to determine the gender due to her crossed ankles and an umbilical cord between the legs.  I was a little nervous at first that she wouldn't let us see if she was a boy or a girl, but knowing now that she's a girl, I'm proud of her modesty! ;) 

Oh man - I'll be honest.  I have no idea what kind of mother I'll be to a little girl.  After two boys, I was kind of under the impression that we were "boy makers".  I guess that chemo did all sorts of crazy things to Brandon's DNA.  Now if she comes out with his post-chemo hair (thick and curly), we'll be in a lot of trouble!  No amount of detangler or hair bows could tame those tresses!

But seriously - I am in love with those little hair bows and clippies.  And I have wanted to buy one of those little romper bubble jumpsuits for a looonnnnnggggg time.  I'm excited for all of those things, but I'm also a little nervous.  I'm not too crazy about pink.  I can only take it in small doses.  I never played with Barbies or baby dolls and just walking down the Littlest Pet Shop aisle at Target makes me hyperventilate with all those little pieces.  I can only hope that I can learn to love that stuff. 

For her own sake, let's pray Baby Girl is tough.  I have a feeling that her two older brothers will make certain this happens.  When I close my eyes and dream of her, I picture her in her tutu and boots playing in the mud with her brothers.  I see her sticking her Barbies in her brother's rescue helicopters and firetrucks.  I want her to love pretty clothes, nice shoes, the great outdoors and a good game of neighborhood baseball.  But mostly, I just want her to be herself and be happy with that.  Let's hope I don't screw this up!

The Latest & Greatest

Today's post will most definitely be all over the place.  We just have so much going on that narrowing this one down would be too difficult for my puny little over-stuffed brain right now.  I'm either pregnant or I have early on-set dimensia.  I think I'm pregnant. 

The Willster
Will is doing muuuuccccchhhh better thank the good Lord!  He's eating most of his usual foods again and has stopped with this whole "I'm gonna choke" thing.  He does chew very very slowly, which drags our usual 30 minute meals into an hour or so, but I'm not complaining (at least not to him).  If I tell you how we trumped this phobia, you have to promise not to judge.  Promise?  Okay.  Here's how we broke solved this problem:  after two weeks of my child not eating, or chewing his food and then spitting it out before swallowing, I sat at work all day and cried.  I was devasted.  So I went home and in a moment of desperation, concocted my own "medicine".  I emptied and washed an expired medicine bottle and filled it with sugar water.  Next I added a few drops of blue food coloring.  I went to pick Will up from his grandparent's house and showed him his new "No Choke" medicine that the doctor just called in.  He took the medicine (and said it tasted like water) and then ate a few bites.  The next day, he ate a few more bites, and the next day a few more.  It took about three doses of "No Choke" medicine in total.  So don't judge me.  Yes, I stooped to a level that I'm not proud of.  Yes, I lied to my kid.  But he's eating.  He's not afraid to swallow, and that little crease in his forearm where his little infant self had it's first fat roll is back.  I'm a happy girl.

The no dairy thing is going wonderfully.  He hasn't had dairy milk, yogurt or cheese in nearly three weeks and the child has only complained about his tummy once in that time.  The one time he complained about his tummy was right after he had started eating again after his little sabitical and I honestly think he just ate too much.  Anyway, it's all almond milk (chocolate or vanilla - both of which are really yummy!), veggie cheese, and soy or coconut yogurt (which also has all the good bacteria of dairy yogurt in it.  Beware though - that coconut yogurt will crack your tooth it's so sweet!). 

Will is doing well at school (as far as I know - we'll have a parent teacher conference in a few weeks) .  He loves school and his little buddies there.  We have already agreed that we will send him there again next year for their 4 year program.  It will be a three day/week program and it's a little more money, but he's happy there and a lot of his buddies from this year's program will be returning.  If there is anything that I've learned in my short four years of being a mother, it's "don't fix what ain't broke" if you don't have to :)  He does have a little issue with helping the class clean up after center time (see photo) and one of his teachers divulged that he doesn't like being reprimanded - he tends to pout and give the 'ol slant eyes once he's been corrected.  That doesn't sound that unusual.  Heck, I don't even like being corrected!

Brooks
February is Brooks' birthday month!  My little sweet cheeks will be turning 2 on the 27th and we are going to be celebrating with a "Construction Party."  He's all about all things construction related - dump trucks, "diggers", hammers, etc...  I've been scouring the internet for weeks and have tons of cute ideas.  His party won't actually be until March 3rd due to my work schedule, but I've already placed orders with some of my favorite Etsy retailers. 

He's talking more and more.  It's still hard to make out what he's saying most of the time, but I can usually guess by his timing what he's talking about.  One funny about his speech - he usually just says one word at a time and rarely uses two words together.  When he does, it's so jumbled up that you can't make it out.  Well one night at dinner, as he was fussing to get out of his chair, I tried to distract him by asking "What do you want Brooks, a baby boy or a baby girl?"  Just as plain as day, he replied "Baby Gurl."  It was so clear and so definite that it took us all by surprise and after we processed what he said, we all started laughing.  I've asked him 1,000 different ways since that night if he wants a baby boy or a baby girl and he always replies the same - "Baby gurl."  Will says the same thing and only refers to "his baby" as a "she".  I hope these boys aren't too disappointed come Sunday.

Bean 3
Our little surprise dinner guest, or "Bean 3" as I refer to it, is hanging tight (quite literally).  I will spare you guys the obligatory "belly shots."  You Facebook friends may notice that you won't find any pregnant pictures of me with any of my pregnancies.  Yuck.  "I don't choose that choice" as Will would say.  Don't fuss at me about that.  You won't get anywhere.

We will find out Sunday (yes - Sunday) if Bean 3 is a boy or a "gurl".  We're going to a place called Baby Vision in Atlanta to do an early gender reveal ultrasound.  This place isn't a doctor's office, but rather a place where you can find out your baby's gender as early as 14 weeks or even do the more extensive 4D ultrasounds.  I didn't do this with the boys.  We just waiting for the OB to tell us the gender at the 20 week ultrasound.  This time however, I want to find out early.  As I mentioned in a previous post, we gave away any and all things baby related this fall when we were told we couldn't have any more children.  All of it.  Clothes, car seats, strollers, blankets, boppies, wipe warmers, even toys.  By finding out if Bean 3 is a boy or girl early, I will have more time to prepare for our new addition.  A few of my friends have used this place for early gender reveals and have loved it.  Our appointment is at 11, so all you Facebook friends should find out around lunch time.  I'm not patient enough to make you guys wait any longer. 

EVERYONE but one person has predicted that Bean 3 is a girl.  I'm not sure if that is because they're simply hoping that I'll eventually have a girl, or perhaps because the odds of having at least one girl out of three pregnancies is in my favor, or (and I think this is most likely) because this child is most definitely a miracle sent straight from God (not that my boys weren't miracles) and that He is giving me a girl this time.  Contrary to belief, I don't have a preference and I also don't have a "hunch" about whether Bean 3 is a he or a she.  A girl would be wonderful.  I would finally be able to buy some of these adorable girl clothes that I pass by each time I'm shopping for my boys.  But another boy would be swell too.  Let's face it - I'm a tomboy myself.  Any of you that know me personally can attest to that.  I hate dolls and fake makeup.  I would have to either learn to tolerate that stuff, or send her to Gram's house for her Barbie fix.  AND - I've got the boy thing down.  I'm almost accostumed to the craziness of a house full of boys - the noise, the broken things, and the trucks, trains and superheroes that fill my house.  PLUS - there's nothing like the way a little boy loves his momma :)  So don't worry about me.  I'll be happy with either a boy or a girl. 

So I'll leave you with my pregnancy symptoms.  You guys can use these symptoms to better determine if I'm having a boy or a girl.  I will put a * by the symptoms that are different than with my boys (who had very similar pregnancies).

Sickness: Yes*.  Worse at weeks 5-9.  Not at all in the AM, mostly around lunch and the worst at night.
Tiredness: Yes. 
Tender "areas":  Yes but not as bad as with the boys.
Cravings: They change from day to day.  I consistently want cereal - mostly Fruit Loops.  But I've also craved spicy buffalo wings and salsa.  I didn't really have any cravings with the boys (except chocolate milk with Will).
Carrying High or Low:  I think it's too early to tell.  People are just now telling me that I'm starting to look pregnant.  Plus I think with the third pregnancy in 4 years, this child will have no choice but to carry low.  I mean, my muscles are nonexistant.  Let's just hope it doesn't fall out.
Acne: YES*.  This has been horrible.  I look like a stinkin' teenager (no offense to my teenage readers!)

So y'all continue to ponder.... I'll be sure to keep you posted!