Actual Conversations

What you are about to read is true. These events happened in the last 24 hours.

RR; Mom, I learned how to play black jack today.
Me: Black jack?
RR: Yes, you know you can play it without gambling right?
Me: Who did you play with?
RR: My friend Adam at school.
Me: Um OK. How did you play cards at recess? It was nice out today.
RR: We didn't play at recess.
Me: Then when did play? (By now I am very confused)
RR: We played them during school. We have a lot, I mean a LOT; of free time.



Me: TT what do you want to be for Halloween?
TT: After Christmas. For ever and ever.
Husband: Apples... apples for Christmas?
Me: I think he said after Christmas.
Husband: TT, what costume do you want to wear? Do you want to be pirate? (That's what he was last year.)
Me: Or a monster?
Husband: Or a policeman?
Me: Or a bunny?
TT: I'm not a bunny! I'm Teddy Bear.

Silent Saturday - Helping

Helping drain the pool/

Friday Five

5 things from this week....

1) Co-workers who bring me chocolate. Specifically Chunky candy bars, the giant size.

2) Dinner date with Husband, first one since before ERP was born (YES!!!)

3) A very cool new babysitter, seeing as our last sitter "left" us when she went away to college and is now a graduate of a 4 year nursing program and working on her Masters.

4) The cool new babysitter's mom, who is teaching HIM, yes our new sitter is a HIM (good role model for RR) the ins and outs of babysitting.

5) Sushi lunch at work, paid for by work

It has been a good week.... because ERP also won the baby contest and RR won the youth cake award....

Judge's Choice Award

Every September our little town has a fair. I've mentioned it a time or two in this blog.  It's little, it's cute, it's family friendly. Aside from all the games, and vendors, and craft fairs every year they have a "Baby Contest". I had entered TT in said contest when he was a wee one; it's open to babies under the age of 1 year, and he didn't place. Husband decided the whole contest was rigged. I mean, how could they not see that out of the 50 or so babies gathered under the tent and sitting on hey bales with their parents that HE was the cutest.

So fast forward to this year and I tell Husband that I am entering ERP. He reminds me the contest is rigged and he makes plans to check out the fair with the Big Boys and his brother while ERP and I go to the Baby Contest.

We get a seat in the second row, but the judges ask to only have babies and a parent seated with them so a stop in the front opens up and ERP and I slip in. We fill out a card with his info, and place it on the backpack. When your baby gets selected for an award they take your card. Awards are offered - 1st, 2nd and 3rd for Best Personality, Youngest, Twins, Chubbiest, Handsomest and Prettiest and then Judge's Choice (the overall winner).

ERP and I are having a blast. We are seated between two little girls. One about 6 weeks old, her mom and I chatted about pumping and nursing and all that fun stuff. And the other girl was about 5.5 months old. ERP took a shine to her and kept hugging her and petting her soft jacket (and trying to eat her mom's long hair). He was standing on my lap. He was jumping up and down. He played with his toys and kept making judges pick them up for him. He was laughing and smiling. He was eating up all of the attention.

First the judges took the cards for the youngest - there was a three way tie for 3rd - all three were born on the same day. Then you heard rumors about them taking cards for other categories. While rumor had it they were taking cards for chubbiest they took ERP's card. Now I KNOW Mr-5-Percent-for-Weight was not chosen for chubbiest. So I thought maybe best dressed... which wasn't even a category... shows what I know. I sent Husband and brother-in-law a text that he placed and hope they would get the hint and come back to see him. (I should have been more blunt, but in their defense TT was being a total pill... he was All. Day. Long.)

They started calling prized and I kept wondering when they were going to call his name. The judges were running out of categories to award prizes for and I started thinking it was a mistake and he hasn't won anything. And then they announced the Judge's Choice. And sure enough ERP won.  I was shocked.

He won the biggest ribbon and got a cute little trophy. I was over the moon happy. So proud of my cute little guy. Husband was more shocked than I was when he got there.

We pinned his ribbon to him on the ring sling and happy wore him and his award around the fair for the rest of the day.  And we treated him to his first chocolate chip cookie - his first cookie - some of his first grains in fact - for a job well done.

ERP my beauty contest winner.

And no, he will NOT be the next Honey-Boo-Boo.  Can I just admit that RR and I get sucked into watching Toddlers and Tiaras?  Yup, it's true.

Friday 5

Today I learned some news that made me stop in my tracks and to be thankful for what I have. It made me want to hug and kiss everyone a little more.  And to that, I decide to start showing more gratitude, to be thankful for the little things. The little things that keep me going... and so with that I present to you Friday 5.

1) I am thankful that ERP is a "mama's boy". That nothing calms him like being picked up by his mama. I don't even need to "whip out a boob"; he is happy with just be being present. I love that about him. That and his addictive little smiles.

2) I am grateful to be sitting by a warm crackling fire on a chilly September night. Nothing like coming home from work to a nice and toast house. 

3) I am loved and love, the builder of that fire. Love is important.

4) I am thrilled that TT now wants to read his stories and nurse in his bed. The rocking chair served us well all those years, but he liked me to pick him up and swing him onto his bed when we were done. He was getting a bit too heavy for that.

5) I am thankful and lucky to have such an awesome eldest son. A boy who is the moon and stars to his little brothers. A 10 year old who has a baby bouncy seat in his room for when his baby brother sits with him, and laughs when his three year old brother barges in on him while he's on the phone.

The 3rd Option

When I had just two sons I used to think how different they were. RR talked very early, around 6 months, TT talked late and eventually had to have speech therapy. TT had a head of blond thick hair when he was born and long baby curls, RR was bald for years. I used to think they were so different, yet so the same. I thought I covered the full range of kid possibilities in them.

Then I had ERP and realized there was a 3rd option. And I bet if I went on to have ten more sons, they would all be unique and individual.

ERP is the opposite of his brothers in so many ways, he is unique to the core. Not that they aren't unique but he has broken the mold of baby-ness set by them years ago.

TT and RR have blond hair and hazel eyes; ERP has brown hair and blue eyes.

TT and RR didn't get any teeth till they were a year or better; ERP got his first tooth at 8 months.

TT and RR didn't crawl until they were about a year or older; ERP is crawling at 9 months.

TT and RR love the water and always have; ERP is finally enjoying the bath - all other water makes him cry.

ERP started talking at 8 months, similar to RR but still at his own pace.

TT and RR were bigger at 6 months; then ERP is at 9 months.  ERP is a peanut.

In their own uniqueness -

TT knows exactly what to do with any piece of sporting equipment upon seeing it for the first time. RR would rather avoid sports.  Except running, RR has taken to running.

RR loves to read and TT was slow to warm to books.  ERP likes chewing them.


And something they can all agree on.

LEGOS!!!  RR builds with all sizes. TT builds with the medium and small ones, and he loves Lego mini-figures. ERP bangs the big ones together and chews on the medium and large ones.

Husband and I run around, like crazed people, making sure ERP doesn't eat any of the small ones.


Love my boys and their personalities, and I thank them for showing me how we are all different and special.

9 Months (Already)

ERP is 9 months old.  Hard to believe.  And I will fully admit I have already been thinking about his birthday plans.  His birthday is on a Friday, so his party will be a Saturday. Right now I am tossing around doing either a Circus or Hungry Caterpillar theme. He is growing like a weed lately, and I'll see just how big he is when we go for his well baby visit next week.

Sleep has been all over the place.  He went from waking three times a night to two times, then he started sleeping through the night.  I mean, really, REALLY sleeping all night - 10 to 11 hour stretches. Then a pesky thing happened, he got a TOOTH!  Beating his brothers by three to four months in the "get some teeth department". But the tooth coming through caused a rough night or two. Followed by his need to learn to crawl, at one in the morning.  I kid you not, Husband and I sat in the living room coaching his crawling in the wee-hours of the day.  He has been a master of the backward crawl for months now, and just that night went forward a little. He can also get himself into a seated position and can pull himself up in his crib.  I foresee him crawling him full time by next month and pulling up on everything.

Food is his best friend.  He still nurses a ton, and takes bottle from daddy when I am at work, but he is now eating two meals most days.  Some days just one, and some days (if he's backed up) we skip solids. Baby lead weaning (feeding table food, not purees) has been much more successful and easy with ERP (opposed to TT).  In fact, as I write this he is sitting in his high chair chowing on big old hunks of watermelon. We tried a lot of new foods this month.  Peanut butter, steak, strawberries, kiwi to name a few.  In typical ERP fashion he has loved them all.

He has started saying "dadadadada" and "heeeyyyy".  Adorably cute.

Still wearing a lot of 3-6 month clothes and some 6-9 month ones.  He has me wondering if he'll fit lion costume that his brothers also wore for their first Halloween's.

Things from this month I don't want to forget:
~ how his hair is just starting to curl on the bottom in the back
~ how he makes his grunting sounds when he wants something
~ the way he swivels his hips from side to side when getting a diaper change
            I would love to get video of this, it is so funny, but he only does it naked but
~ how he likes to be laid on his left side when put to sleep
~ how he lays in bed when he's done sleeping and babbles away and flings his stuffed sheep around
~ how he hated, I mean HATED, the spray park we went to
           Oh did he cry and cry, it was terrible
~ how he hated going to the beach, again HATED
~ but he loved the mirror and the dance bar at the children's museum
~ how he learned to roll the ball and how excited it makes him
~ how he learned to bang things together, using my hands to make a clapping sound
~ watching him play peek-a-boo with his brothers
~ how RR will gladly watch him, get him, or hold him any time
~ how he loves being carried, he was born to be worn
~ how when he's nursing with TT he tries to hold his hand (then TT gets mad because he's touching him)
~ how he loves playing "On the Farm" with TT (the Little People Farm)
~ he finally enjoyed going for a walk in the stroller
~ how soft and warm he feels snuggled in the crock of my arm as we lay in bed after his last morning nursing session
~ how happy is, almost all the time