piano / trash truck

How to Play the Piano.

by Grayson

 1.

Find the perfect piece of music.
 

 

 

 

2.

Perform it. With gusto.

 

 

 

 

 

3.

Then try to figure out how the piano works.

(Didn't have a chance to film all of this part.)

 

 

 

 

4.

If it can make sounds like a trash truck AND has wheels...

 

 

 

 

 The End.

a summer of sleep deprivation

I dedicate the Honest Toddler link in today's post
to my comrade-in-arms...

Who once, in a truly brave show of honesty,
admitted he was a tiny bit glad to be flying back to a war zone
because he knew he'd get more sleep than at home.

(And that was when we only had one child.)

 

http://thehonesttoddler.com/love/




 

domino boys

As the week started off, Grayson was feeling much better and we went shopping for his school supplies (while poor Daddy was home sick in bed... the second one to fall).

You made yourself a hat...
out of the school supply list

"Oooooh... markers!"

"Is my hat still on??"
(and it stayed on until when we got in the
car you rolled it up on your right arm and
announced it was your cast, like his
great-grandmother Dorothy.)

Then, sweet Jack got sick. The third to get taken down..

(Thank you very, very much, preschool.) 

I got up for his 2am feeding and noticed he felt really warm.

With a fever of 103 degrees, his doctor wanted us to come to the ER.

Snoozing in your great-grandmother Lucy's
arms at the hospital.

At least one of us got some sleep!

A couple of days later, he thankfully was feeling better, and as cute as ever.

"Thank you, thank you very much."

And by the weekend, everyone was ready for a trip to visit family in Pulaski!

Sweet Gray held Jack's hand for a lot of the 2 1/2 hour trip...



"Mom. I need a break."

rain storm

working hard in the rain...

makes you thirsty! :)

mid august

things that happened these last few days 

and what i learned from them:

SICK & SNORTING

• After begging Brandon to pull over and hold his hand, Grayson threw up all over the truck repeatedly on a 3-hr drive home from out of town, which was only the beginning of some fun viral bug.
• We are officially parents of a pre-schooler.
• Maybe if it starts with a bang, the winter cold/flu season won't be too rough?  Maybe??
• He tearfully called the traumatic event of puking "snorting". 
• Like dreams, it is hard to explain throwing up to a new human.

the sheet was for germs,
the bathrobe was for popsicle juice

• Brandon came home from a man-date to be informed he was sleeping upstairs with the sick boy. Gray woke up every half hour (mostly because he'd soaked his sheets and pillows with sweat and drool each time), but there were times throughout the night I could hear him being made to giggle infectiously despite his discomfort.
• B. is such a good dad
• Although you don't want to be too slow with his dinner, Jack is so so so so so chill.
• God blessed us with an "easy" baby and we couldn't be more grateful in these times of toddlerdom!

READY TO RELAX

• After Gray started finally feeling better one night and we'd gotten both boys to bed and were enjoying an episode of Modern Family, we heard a really eerie sound. The spookiest, weirdest noise either of us has ever heard in fact. In Brandon's words, it sounded like a child, but as we agreed with wide eyes... "not one of ours!!" 
• The cat makes sounds like a little ghost girl shouting "hello" when she's about to yack throughout three rooms of the house. 
• Before I could grab cleaning supplies, the dog was on it, taking care of the mess himself.
• I might have more room in my heart for Cole after all. Anyone that can help me keep things clean around here deserves my respect!
• Brandon ran outside gagging at the sight of the dog eating the cat puke, and then also a second time later when I stepped in a tiny spot Cole and I had both missed as I was rushing to get the darn dog out of the house (because he spontaneously decided to pee on a rug).
• A little weak stomachedness from the hubby could never tarnish the deep respect I have for him as a husband, father, Soldier, son and friend... 
• However, it is o-v-e-r for the dog.  

FIRST LAUGH

• Jack really laughed for the first time.  It was in the car as Gray messed with him in the backseat.
• Yay for brothers!

"just don't leave him alone with me please!
 he keeps trying to pick me up..."

RAIN OR SHINE

• My family's entry of Gray "busking" downtown won four concert tickets to see Old Crow Medicine Show!
• My mom is turning into how crazy-crafty-silly my grandmom was (and still is!) when I was a kid - albeit her own version. 
• Love it.

we won!!! ready to go rock now.

• Gray jammed out with his guitar in his stroller in the rain to The Lumineers
• The show does go on!

"can you hear me?"

• I splurged on the large bag of kettle corn.
• A surprising number of people in our family apparently don't care for kettle corn.

jack's first concert. :) and
no one in this pic eats kettle corn.

• It started to rain more steadily at the concert and we weren't sitting under the tent. Brandon was running to the car to get umbrellas while I did my best to shield Jack when a stranger appeared with an umbrella and insisted we borrow it.
• People are nice.
• A girl near us at the concert threw up (a LOT. I have never ever ever been around more human and animal puke in such a short period of time.) and then abandoned the nasty area with her friends. They just moved to a fresh location to watch the concert, with no one attempting to clean up the disgusting mess.
• People are gross.
• If there's no dog around to do it for you, it is really always classier to clean up after yourself.  Or at least put something near it so no one walking by slips in it.
• Ew.
• I left the concert early to get the boys to bed but may have received a great picture of my husband doing that strange dance they call "flat footing"...
• You can take the boy out of the country but you can't take the country out of the boy.
• Thank goodness. :)

first day of preschool

Sending him off...

a kiss for my firstborn
on his first day of school

mommy definitely needed
a kiss, too.

ok, ready to go!

let's GO, daddy!

And picking him up...

i LOVE this place!

you think this day is hard?
just wait until i turn 16!!



apparently we made good friends
with all of the older girls.  sigh.



jack was kind of popular.
probably not going to take him
back in the height of flu season :)

did you know that?

Kids teach you all kinds of things, right? Patience, for one thing.  How it would be possible to poop off the front porch through the railing slats to the flower bed below, for another.  But by far my very most favorite thing is how to appreciate every little thing in the world around you.

Along these lines, the newest phrase, repeated every four point three minutes, in our house is, "Did you know that, Mama?" and "Did you KNOW that, Daddy?" 
To give you the full picture, it's always prefaced by something like "These shorts have pockets - did you know that Mama??"  Or, overheard on the phone with his grandfather last night, "You have a John Deere tractor, did you know that Poppie?!?!"

Did you know that, guys?

And the thing of it is, you're so happy for his delight, you can't bring yourself to say, "Well of course I knew that, little man! I also know how to floss my teeth, make a seven-layer lasagna and write my name." We try to avoid robbing him of his hourly astonishment.  So you find yourself replying with true sincerity, "No buddy, I didn't know that band-aids make it all better!"  His little face is so lit up that you honestly can't help but stop whatever very important adult thing you're doing and reflect on how amazing pockets and band-aids and buttons and steering wheels are...

But then too, sometimes, at the end of a long day, and many many many new discoveries, I'm afraid I have been heard to say, "Yes, sweetie, I did know our car is black. And that it has wheels." 

And, really happily, it doesn't really seem to lessen his glee one millibit.  (:

Sorry, cat.

I began a blog a few years ago.  This one, actually, exactly four years ago.  It was pictures of our cat and dog (as you can see).  Then, we had a baby and life was unbelievably more interesting, but with seemingly no time left to take pictures of a cat chewing a cardboard cake box. Then we had another baby (the last one, I'm pretttttyy sure) and I'm finally admitting it might be more than worth the five minutes it takes from time to time to document the wonderful insanity.  As my family knows all too well, I have a horrible memory.  I owe most of what I know about my childhood to my brother, and most of our dating life and marriage to my husband.  (I think they may be making a few things up though. I just can't picture myself actually biting a stranger.)  Anyway, I hope that whenever the boys are old enough to be interested in this and/or the cat and dog learn to read, this will still be around for them!