Stella

So this weekend we decided to add another member to our family. I know what you're all thinking.............."Missy, ya'll don't have room for anything else right now", but we just couldn't resist her sweet, beautiful, black face. And she doesn't take up that much room.

So without further ado..............
Meet Stella

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Isn't she lovely????
She came in this perfect little box and was very easy to put together. I must admit, we had our doubts bringing another female into our home, but we have fallen hard for this sweet little girl and she's here to stay!

Here are the two main reasons we picked her:
Exhibit A:

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I bet you're wondering why she looks so pitiful.............

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How would you feel if you ate AND SWALLOWED an entire pack of Trident Strawberry Banana gum, wrapper and all? And the answer is "no", it does not take 7 years to digest...........I'm just sayin'.

Exhibit B:
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Need a close up????????

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Yep, Mr. Grayson decided he needed a WHOLE BOTTLE of baby powder to make him smell extra delicious for mommy and daddy. I was at the grocery store when this little incident took place, but Kev said he was sitting at the computer when all of a sudden he saw a big white mushroom cloud walking towards him.

We made an executive-mommy-daddy decision and are quite proud of the outcome. It looks like we steam cleaned the carpet! You can actually see little foot indentions where we've walked.

She's THAT good!

Small Favors......................

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Sometimes God grants small favors to mothers of small children. Favors that no one but mothers of small children would need or notice. Maybe it's just his little way of saying, "Thanks for hanging in there and listening to your one-year-old's incessant and constant whining now in its fifth hour without ripping your ears off the side of your head."

Grayson has had shoes on his feet once in his 12 months of life. That single shoe wearing episode lasted about 45 minutes ... long enough to have Pumpkin Patch photos taken. They were the cutest robeez I had ever seen and not the knock offs, either. His Nana and I fell in love with them on our "girl's trip" to Hot Springs during my 8th month of pregnancy. I was all hot and hormonal and just had to have them! Well, the dang things ended up scratching his little foot all to pieces and even caused blisters. Blisters on a 3 month old! I felt so bad....I threw the little suckers in the top of his closet and promised "never again, son".

I lied.


But really, what purpose do shoes serve on a 3 month old anyway? Perhaps to keep the feet warm, but socks, proper clothing and blankets can serve the same role. And none of the three confine little toes. Let them wiggle, I say.

The only problem with this philosophy is that when said little one reaches the walking phase and decides walking needs to be done anywhere other than the floors in your home, shoes are a must. This is where the struggle begins.

Little feet that haven't been shoved into shoes for longer than 45 minutes of the 564,000 minutes they've been kicking don't always take kindly to the idea of pushing the curled little piggies into anything other than a sock (even that's not ideal some days). There's an "adjustment" period involved.

An adjustment period of a couple weeks when you slowly introduce shoe wearing and allow them time to learn to walk wearing something other than a sock. Usually it starts with them dragging one foot against the other trying to get the things off. After they realize those babies are staying on, they then try to take some steps sporting the new look.

Those first few steps appear as if there are cement blocks on each foot. Exaggerated in every aspect of the motion. The first foot slowly pulls up, the foot awkwardly goes down. The other foot goes up and clumsily gets placed down. It takes a bit to get used to this new feel, this new way.

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A couple of weeks ago I attempted to put shoes on Grayson's feet. I took him to Stride Rite and they measured him.

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He has a 5 1/2 XTRA wide foot. I bought two really cute pairs...an every day shoe and a cute sandal-y pair. Expecting the above scenario to play out and to have a little walker ready for the world in a week or two. By his birthday. Not so.

Screaming. From the time the velcro was velcroed until the time I pulled the shoes off he screamed at the top of his lungs. "Okay, it's nap time, we'll try again later when you're in better spirits," I reasoned with myself.

Skip ahead to that evening when dad's at home and decides to take a crack. Shoes go on, screaming starts. Shoes come off, screaming stops. We get it, you don't like the shoes. This kid's graduating and getting married barefoot.

Expecting the same result, we tried again the other day before leaving for church. He's seriously the ONLY child in his class that has bare feet and I just think we've only got a couple more years to get him sold on the idea if he's going to preschool, after all.

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Put one shoe on, quiet. Put the other shoe on, quiet. Stand him up and he walks. Right across the living room, on out into the kitchen, to the front door, he walked. A change of heart? Perhaps. Or maybe it's one of those small favors God grants to mothers of small children.

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If A Toddler Falls on His Face, And No One is There to See Him Fall, Does He Make a Sound?

Here's my latest child-development experiment:

I see that Grayson is about to hit his face on an edge or run straight into a wall, trip on a toy or his blankie, take a tumble off his John Deer tractor (which I'm obsessed with, by the way. I seriously ride that thing to the bathroom every morning. It's way better than walking, that's for sure) and instead of running toward him to be of comfort, I make a b-line outta there. Out of the room, or the hall, or Grayson's view, so when he falls and looks for me to acknowledge his incident, I am nowhere to be found. He looks for me, readying himself for tears, and then seeing that I'm not looking at him, brushes himself off and keeps going about his business merrily.


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Every. Single. Time.



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So the answer is: no-- when a toddler falls on his face and a parent is not there to see him fall, he does NOT make a sound.



Because he's a tough kid. They're all tough kids. But they're also tricky little suckers, humoring the fact that we're all psycho-in-love, which is sweet and adorable and lovely, until about the 67817623th time.


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Which is why, now, when Grayson trips and falls I look the other way until he's back on his feet. Up and running full speed ahead like nothing in the world could ever stop him.


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And he's right. Nothing can.

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

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Caffeine and Heinies

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When I was little I wanted to do whatever my parents did. I wanted to drink what my parents were drinking and eat what my parents were eating. Mom was chowing down on sweet pea salad? I was too. Dad was drinking a beer? I wanted a sip until, "YUCK!" I changed my mind.

So I figured when Grayson went straight for my coffee the other day, I would give him a sip, turning him off of the stuff for good, or at least, for a few years. He took a sip of my no-fat iced vanilla latte, recoiled from the taste and then smiled, his big eyes blinking sweetly.

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"Mmmmmmmm," he said and then motioned for more.

"No, baby. This isn't for Graysons. This is for mommies."

His whimpers turned into cries and then turned into wails until I had no choice but to slurp the entire cup and hand it over, empty of its contents.

"Here," I said.

He scowled at me, totally pissed and then went on to scream for ten minutes until I decided to distract him with a graham cracker in the shape of a ladybug. I had forgotten about the incident until the other night Kevin had drank a Heineken and left the almost empty bottle on the coffee table. Grayson got to it before I could and walked into the bathroom with it trying to show off his new, shiny, green treasure to anyone who cared.

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"No, Grayson. This is for daddies, not for babies," Kev said but Grayson wanted a taste, anyway.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," I said. "He's going to like it and then he'll be an alcoholic before he turns 2."

"He's not going to like the taste of beer," Kev said.

"That's what I thought about the coffee."

"Vanilla lattes taste like candy. Beer, especially Heineken's, tastes like crap for years before it tastes good."

He had a point. Still, I was skeptical.

"Fine. Let him taste it but I'm warning you..."

Grayson took a swig, puckered and quickly spit it out.

"See?" Kevin said. "Non-issue."

Grayson started walking back to the living room to harass the dog until... wait a minute. Maybe that wasn't so bad after all...

"Jeez, Kevin! See? He's coming back for more! He wants more! He likes beer and coffee and pretty soon it's going to be clove cigarettes and pretty soon he'll be the next Drew Barrymore!"

But thankfully he wasn't coming back for more. He toddled over to Kevin's leg and asked to be picked up, giving the bottle a swift shove and smiling as if to say, "psyche!"

"Smooth, Grayson. Real smooth."

But just in case, I told Kevin to chug the contents like a frat boy. And he did.

Mommies Who Leash

Several years ago I watched in horror as a respectable looking woman crossed 6th Street with four toddlers all on leashes. It was like something out of a horror film and I gasped, giggled, and then gasped again.


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Babies on leashes always seemed so wrong. Soooosososo wrong. It seemed so tacky. So lazy! So... ick! Bleh! Yuck! I was the first person to roll my eyes at Six Flags when I spotted fanny-packed mothers with their toddlers on Six Flag brand leashes. I judged mothers left and right and wondered how they slept at night, knowing they leashed their kids.

"They're not dogs. They're babies," I thought. "Sheesh."

That was before I was the mother of a wandering one-year-old. Before my shy little boy turned into a brave and disobedient little explorer with a mind all his own and no desire to impress me or entertain my rules.

He may stay close to me in familiar places but in new and dangerous ones, he's fearless and curious and wants nothing more than to run free. Far, far, away.


Today we had lunch at Olive Garden with my two favorite preggo's, Katrina and Michelle and Miss Grace.

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Grayson ate his lunch like a good little boy and then decided to play with his lunchable wrapper for the remainder of the lunch hour. He started whining to get out of his highchair and I new I had about 30 seconds before disaster struck. Meltdown City was heading our way. So, I gave him some fun little sugar wrapper thingys that were blue and pink. Way fun. He then proceeded to eat said sugar wrapper thingys with SUGAR STILL IN THEM, so we asked for the check.

We then ventured to Babies R Us to buy some necessities for Katrina. We had a little scare last night that Baby Paige was about to make her grand entrance and realized we still needed some important baby stuff.........you know like cute little polka dotted long sleeved onesies and sweet little burp cloths with butterflies and adorable little zippy pj's.......you get the idea. Important stuff.

Grayson wasn't really interested. At all. He started whining with that un-adorable nasaly whine so I thought to myself, "Hmmmmm, why don't I let him stretch his little legs for a bit. Big mistake. Huge. Not a second after unbuckling him from his stroller, he went running through the aisles , weaving in and out of strangers toward the little kiosk where you pick up the registries. I ran after him, screaming for him to slow down.

"Ahhhh!!! Wait up! Graaaaaaaaaaayson.."

I went sprinting after him, and pretty much spent the next hour, chasing him through the endless aisles of baby paraphanalia and carrying him kicking and screaming back to Katrina.

Tantrums persisted. I got very dehydrated trying to stop him from picking things up off the floor and putting them in his mouth. I picked him up. He wiggled back down. I gently placed him in the back of a shopping cart thinking, "Oooooh, he'll like that".....he didn't. It was a little slice of hell.

I forced him in his stroller where he kicked and screamed and reached out to passer-bys to be rescued and set free.

"Nope. Sorry, dude. You just lost your freedom privileges. You can't run away like that! You have to stay close."

Did I mention he was shoe-less? The boy still refuses to wear shoes! So now I'm all hot and sweaty from chasing him around and HE has grocery-store feet. Ugh! You know what I'm talking about....the nasty "black feet" you got as a child because you wouldn't wear shoes in the grocery store. No? Just me??? Maybe that's the one thing he got from me, his mom. I didn't like wearing shoes either.
Hmmmmmmm............

We eventually got everything we had came for and headed to the checkout.

On our way to the parking lot, we passed a woman with two toddlers on leashes. Grayson was still squirming in his stroller hysterical. I was on the verge of tears, exhausted and feeling like a total failure......I just didn't want Kat to think I was a bad mommy and that I was raising a hoodlum.

The woman with the leashes, on the other hand, was smiling away, chatting with her boys who were happily orbiting her, their arms stretched out like airplanes. Happy. They all were happy.

I envied the mother. For being able to have a comfortable afternoon at Babies R Us with her kids. It was obvious, she was doing something right. Me on the other hand? I was the "idiot". I was the "tacky" one.


I'll never judge a mother who leashes again.


On the contrary, I may even follow her lead and become a mommy who leashes, myself.

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As I was changing Grayson's diaper this morning and letting him run around naked for just a brief moment in his room, it happened. I wanted his little wet hiney to air out. Big mistake. He toddled over to his tractor and started making a face. That face. The "I'm about to poop" face. As I hesitated lunging forward and saying, "Noooooooooo", it happened. He pooped. Four little bluish, green, runny plops of poop (hey, the kid likes his peas and blueberries). I grabbed a diaper and scooped it under his butt and headed toward the tub. I sat him in it with the water running, turned to get a washcloth and towel, turned back around and saw It. The nasty, black mushroom cloud inching it's way from my son's bottom. AUGHHHHHHHHH!!!! Dude! WTH?????? I grabbed the towel, wrapped it around the pooper and headed to my bathroom. I jumped in the shower with Grayson in tow and scrubbed his little butt from top to bottom......all the while, Mr. Poopy is laughing hysterically. It was contagious. I started laughing, too. There we were, Mommy and son, soaking wet.......me, still in my pj's.
So, I decided to think of 13 Things That Make Me Laugh Out Loud:

1. Grayson's laugh. It's contagious. Every single time.
2. When Bentley farts and then jumps up because it scared her. Like she can't believe that came from her body. We can't either, sister.
3. Grayson's fishy face. It's really quite perfect.
4. DJ Lance from Yo Gabba Gabba. Weird, but laugh out loud funny.
5. When my little friend, Grace, says, "bell pepper". Or anything with 3 or more syllables.
6. The funny posts that I read from My Big Fat Italian Lifeon a daily basis.
7. The hair decorations my friend puts on her little girl's head. Absolutely precious and at the same time, funny.
8. When a customer at work asks, "That's a cup of soup"? Still funny after five years.
9. The way Kevin plays with our son. They escape into their own little world.
10. When I ask Grayson, "What does a snake say?" and he replies, "Sisssssssss" shaking his head like a gay snake.
11. The loud burp that escapes my mouth EVERYTIME I drink anything diet.
12. When my girlfriend's little girl screams at the top of her lungs and Grayson comes looking for me because he's scared. (not really funny, but, it makes me laugh)
13. The way Grayson is turning into such a little charmer/playa with the older girls.

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"So...uh, wanna get some goldfish later..........my treat"?!

What makes you laugh out loud?