tonight

Brandon upstairs, getting ready to bathe the boys and asking one/both of them: 

"Why is there pee there?  Is that your pee?"

What Grayson informed us at dinner tonight that he wants to be when he grows up: 

"A baseball player, a door opener, and a piano player!"

+

family picture day 2013

When Grayson was about six months old, we were given a gift certificate at Christmastime for a family photo session with a real, grown-up, fancy photographer.  But that following year we moved and it took me a moment or four months to locate the certificate.  Turns out I had stapled it to the family calendar so I wouldn't lose it. Ha.  By then it had been about a year and we'd discovered we were expecting Jack.  Ward Photography very nicely agreed to let us hold off using the certificate for another six months so we could capture life as a family of four.  We picked a date in early July, when Jack would be about a month old and I remember it seemed so far off in the distance!  It was strange (in a good way) to have something scheduled on the calendar for our family of four during the last half of my pregnancy.

The day arrived!  As is always the case, summer nights in Virginia mean the likelihood of thunderstorms... July '06 outdoor wedding anyone?  But they usually pass over pretty quickly, and always make for beautiful light in the sky afterwards.  July '06 wedding anyone?  Wendy and Jason Ward met us at my dad's house and spent a couple of hours snapping away after the storm. Within minutes of officially starting, Grayson slipped on a damp slate walkway and fell face-first, completely destroying both his pants and his shirt with lots of dirt and a wee bit of blood.  But we rallied, putting him in something from the diaper bag, and the Wards somehow got fantastic shots of our family that we will always treasure.

Given our delight with last year's session, doing it again this summer was an easy choice.  But that might have been the only easy part...  Cue Mommy planning everyone's outfits weeks in advance, buying the menfolk all new shirts, and readying the boys' cute little khaki pants but  dear Daddy running around five minutes after we were supposed to leave looking for the shoes he wore last year out in the storage building.  Cue, also last minute, Mom rejecting Dad's chosen (athletic?!?!) pants for having stains on the front.  Cue the thunderstorm, cue the kid falling on slate in a mud puddle I swear wasn't there five seconds ago, cue the dirty, dirty pants.  Cue the photographer being an awesome guy about it all, mentioning every once in a while that, as a dad himself, he understands. And that when he sees perfectly angelic kids at wedding shoots sometimes he wonders if they've been drugged.  

He certainly knows our sweet things weren't drugged.  At least not sedated.  Grayson was just... wild.  And Jack who had all of two teeth to date, well we'd like to officially welcome the remaining chompers that chose family picture day to *start* their painful arrival process.  (If they go the route of the first two, they should be fully here by Christmas.)  He was soothed by his pacifier between shots, which turned out to also be convenient for keeping chicken poop he found and mistook for play-dough out of his mouth.  All in all, it was a fun afternoon and we can't wait to see what comes back from it! 

Here's Ward Photography's sneak peek for us, and good evidence if we ever have to testify to that teething... :) 

mom! i mustache you a question.

We have an affinity for fake mustaches and the recent conclusion reached by everyone three and up was that it was time to introduce Jack to the wonders of a temporarily fuzzy upper lip.  

our original mustache man.

welcome to the family, jack.

we get the feeling he may not share our appreciation.

father's day from the beach.

Grandmother M'tia Practices Putting Together a Beach Tent

 or, "Looking Back at These, We Laughed So Hard We Cried"

 

 

 

 

 

bagels

 

 

 

jack's first cupcake

Oh, boy.

 

 

 

Still too under-the-weather to make a big birthday mess, but we should have taken a picture of the floor below/around him!


Asking, "Would you like some, Papa?"



AT is here! So let's all get sick

Every year Brandon's gone for 2 to 3 weeks of the summer for annual training with the Nat'l Guard.  (Ok, when not deployed overseas.  Then it's just a little longer.)  Last year was, as I recall, pretty rough.  We had a newborn along with a super-needy toddler and I seem to remember that combination was a lot harder than the five months of pregnancy solo and three months of single newborn parenting in 2010.  It blurs a bit, but there was also last summer that blasted derecho after which we didn't have power for a week and, new-mama-squared-panic-stricken, I had Brandon and his 1SG sneaking away from their post-derecho official duties to find a working freezer for a lots of rapidly thawing breastmilk.

So this year is definitely going to be smoother.  That's the plan.

My 2am-picture-of-explanation to my
mom about why we couldn't make it down
 to the Outer Banks the next day.

Within 24 hours of Brandon leaving, Jack - who was battling the virus passed along from his older brother - took a turn for the worse and got as sick as he's ever been.  I'd kept the boys pretty quiet all day, and because we were supposed to leave for a week at the beach with my parents the next day, I had packed the car as thoroughly as I could during their afternoon nap.  Everything was under control-ish.  We all know that's how I like it.  It used to be without the "-ish" but God said, "You shall have two boys. And they will be amazing and they will bring great chaos and disorganization into your world. And you shall be tested but also love it greatly." Or something like that.  By around 5pm, they were both showing signs of slowing down for the day, so I pulled together an early dinner, gave them both a bath, and began the putting-to-bed process.  This is the time of day at our house when it's most beneficial to have two adults around only because both boys go to bed at around the same time, but neither of them is old enough to be left alone for any length of time while you're putting his brother down.  As I'm reminded on this very evening. :)

I focused on Jack first. He was the most fatigued, working on a fever of 104.  Grayson was supposed to be "playing quietly" with his train set in his room.  He did great, except for one teeny tiny instance where he decided to jump on his bed and fell off, bumping his head (JUST like those adorable monkeys, that's so great, love that song, awesome) and then just one more itsy bitsy instance where he fashioned some "stairs" out of his wheeled[!] toys to climb up the back of a couch. (Dear Lord. In. Heaven.)  Ok.

All things considered, Jack went down relatively even with some medicine-dispensing taking place, and then it was Grayson's turn which was good because his guardian angel was getting worn out I'm sure, dying for a smoke break or an episode of Whose Line Is It, Anyway which he just thinks is so hilarious.  (We initially requested non-smokers, but you get what you get plus it should be noted that guardian angel smoke doesn't cause second-hand anything, it just smells like honeysuckle.)

The boys kindly took turns popping back up for a bit, but by an hour later I was a little maybe too pleased with myself that they were both down for the night without much drama.  I took a few more trips out to the car, and then decided to take my first shower in a few days. Don't judge, both boys had been sick you remember, and then there was all that packing and hauling pack 'n plays and bags of sand toys, sunscreen, clothes and diapers and sippy cups to the car. 

As I was wrapping up my shower, I heard a noise but decided against giving it any attention, hoping if it was a he, he'd go back to bed.  However the noise got progressively louder and finally a young man popped into the bathroom announcing he needed to poop.  I was halfway dressed at this point, and upon seeing me scurrying to finish putting on my pj's Grayson said, in that slightly accusatory toddler way, "What have you been doing in here NAKED, Mom?"  Before I had a chance to answer, he asked again with a different spin, "Mama.  What have you been doing in here NEKKID??"

Admittedly somewhat exasperated because at this point it was close to three hours since I'd started readying him for bed and I'd really thought the coast was clear to bathe and maybe even brush my teeth, I responded "I've been trying to get a shower, Grayson."  I paused before asking him, "And what have YOU been doing?"

This was his response:
"Oh well, you know, I was just running up and down the hall and stuff and thought I'd come in here and go poop."

I think I was still laughing as I laid down to go to sleep an hour later, teeth all shiny and fresh.

 

~

epilogue:

I was not laughing by sunrise when I'd been thrown up on three times, my bed was taken apart and sprayed down, Jack hadn't slept for more than 45 minutes at once, and I'd scored all of 27 minutes of sleep total.  On the plus side, I'd gotten to take an unexpected second shower around 4am (to get the vomit out of my hair and Jack's eyelashes). 

We did end up driving to the beach later that day (after we stepped around a fresh copperhead skin on the front walk - just a thoughtful parting gift from one of those cute lil' guys - and after Grayson cut his knee on some glass, but before Jack got really, really, really sick) because I'd decided we were sticking to our original plan and, shall I be honest, I was desperate for my mama's help.  There were a couple of moments in our long drive where I regretted that decision (namely when Jack threw up more at a gas station outside of Richmond and again later, literally as I was paying a toll.  Hypothetically, a woman four hours into a road trip on 27 minutes of sleep might burst into tears when seeing her sick baby start to gag yet again in the rearview mirror.  To Toll Booth Operator #394, I am so sorry for that scene we left you with.  But how great was it that I had $6 ready in quarters? That was nice, right?). 

happy first birthday buddy!
(this is what you got instead of a card)

 At our doctor's advice (by phone), we ended up taking the littlest man to an urgent care facility to get checked out.  Nevermind that I went to the wrong urgent care place (meaning it's not in our insurance network meaning $$whoopsy-dooooos, cha-ching$$), we left with a dose of medicine and prescription for an antibiotic and high hopes for a great week at the beach!

~

epilogue pt 2:

And then I got their plague...  Fever, congestion, chills, nausea, aches, you name it.  Sadness.
Still better than last year's derecho and aftermath though!  Funny thing: as I am writing this, the word "derecho" is being thrown around/predicted by various weather forecasters for both back home and here at the beach, within the next day or so.  Hopefully they just ate a bad cheeseburger and are having some hallucinogenic flashbacks of a year ago, I've heard that can happen.  (From Grayson's guardian angel, actually.) Fingers crossed and pass the cold medicine and sunscreen, please!