Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Monday, December 21, 2009

Knit One, Birth Two: Thoughts from before our newest life.

21 December 2009


We have been busy lately, to say the least. Our days are filled with Sam & driving and schedule, schedule, schedule and work and relax and coffee and love and family and love and laughter and excitement and anticipation and anxiety and 'we'll figure it out' and 'I'll kill you' and 'I love you' and 'I can't go on like this' and 'I would never go on any other way'. We have downsized, grown up, interviewed, outer-viewed, worked hard, played hard, listened softly, listened hard, prayed hard and hoped for answers. Some of which have come and some of which are in the process and some of which have yet to reveal themselves.

We are dreamers and we are artists we are determined. Our dreams our made up of our wildest fantasies... of which we each have many. Woven together throughout the past five years beginning on the very first day we met until now. Just a few short eve's away from the second birthday of the little curly haired boy we dreamt of long ago as children and the birth of our much dreamed of and wished for second baby and sibling for Sam, we continue to knit furiously to create our life, just the way we dream it. Blistered hands in spite of the 'you can't do that's' and the 'why would you ever want to be differents?', we have a vision for our days together as a family, as best friends, as adventurers and as parents. We go to bed each night, sometimes defeated by the struggles, the broken promises, the negativity of strangers and family, the fractured deals, the hard work that sometimes seems to never pay off and wrap up tightly around us what we have. We wake up each morning in the little nest we've created, our refuge from the outside and often depressing world and wipe sleep from our eyes and remember that we are one day closer to amazing new opportunity. It's hard to remember the days when it seemed like we had it all, luxury cars, money in the bank, vacations planned for the year......until we realize that we never really had anything until we simply had each other.....and a beautiful family, and time to lay on the floor and sing songs and read stories in our little home with a new squirming baby on the way. We just have it all now at the time when we have the least. That's all.

e

The Car Seat Diaries

ok so I recently realized while flipping through photos on my iphone that I have an addiction to taking snaps of Sam in his car seat while he is sleeping (and awake). It all started with holding his little hand from around the back of the rear-facing car seat just two short years ago. I got my iphone about the same time we turned Sam around to witness the world through the front windshield which also happened to be exactly a year ago on his first birthday. Below is a collection of images of my heart little boy throughout the past year, up until just today. We have coffee with Paul some mornings, run errands and he often falls asleep in the car on the way home. I scoop his sleepy, curly head up out of the car and carry my snuggly little boy upstairs to his crib before I sit down to work for a bit in the room next door.

We are just five short days away from his second birthday. *tears* What a beautiful, rough, wonderful, educational year filled with kisses, milestones, late nights and early mornings, long walks, amazement and wonder that I wouldn't trade for all the money in the world.




mama

Monday, December 14, 2009

Bad Santa

We ventured to the mall the other day, the self proclaimed 'place to be seen in the Palm Beaches' (barf) to visit Santa and do a little shopping. The morning started like any other, breakfast, coffee, and an half hour long battle to put clothes on Sam and tear him away from a million books that he desires to have read each morning before they spontaneously burst into flames before he has fully memorized each line of each page. Unlike most mornings we attempted to dress him in something other than a soft t-shirt by adding a super-fly vest (see below) figuring that since the vest had no sleeves (which he loathes) that he might not even notice it was on. Wrong. He proceeded to have a shizzy (this is somewhere between shit fit and tizzy) pulling and stretching the vest until it nearly looked as though it belonged to my pregnant belly and not his toddler tummy. Finally after 20 minutes of screaming he realized he would not win this or any fashion battle with his 'stylist' and was released from the crib for our meeting with Santa. Strong willed much? Must take after his mother in this department. :)

With much anticipation we waited while Santa took a break to 'feed the reindeer' or as Sam calls them 'moose' (he can't help his Northwest roots!). I came equipped with my own camera this year in the hopes of avoiding another crappy photo from the elves. As we approached the 'on deck' waiting area for our turn, we saw a father wrestling his screaming and thoroughly terrified daughter into the arms of a stranger with a Marlboro stained beard that reeked of booze we quickly changed our plan. Instead of forcing Sam to sit on Santa's lap and scarring him for life, we instead placed him on Dad's lap next to Santa. Good plan, but not quite good enough. With 2 seconds to react, bad mall lighting, a non responsive Santa and a quickly escaping toddler this is all I managed to get. Crap. I can't say that I won't try again. I don't want to, but seem to have found the real Santa today at a mall west of us, who I know to be real because he was sipping a Starbucks latte on his break. I mean, come on!



'anticipation'
the money shot. ahem. santa? sam? camera please!

Friday, December 11, 2009

Sam's 1st Milk Moustache


Elise is teaching Sam to drink from a 'real' cup. Hence, he has his first 'real' milk moutache. You can't really see it in this picture, but you figure he's got to have that tongue out for some reason, right???

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Sam Finds a Sheep


"BAAA! BAAA!" at a very un-library like volume.

Saturday, December 5, 2009

The Great Room Switch of '09

We are approximately 2/3 of the way done with the Great Room Switch of '09. Elise and I decided to switch rooms with Sam and give gime and #2 the bigger room and more space to play.

The switch began yesterday when I spent the day painting Sam's room an 'adult' shade, Early Morning Mist. He was, thankfully, not under-foot most of the day, or under-ladder, as the case may be.

We picked up this morning where we left off last night. After Saturday morning cartoons and blueberry pancakes (we even made coffee at home instead of opting for our daily Bucky's run), Sam and I delved into crib deconstruction soon followed by crib reconstruction. I had to take the crib apart and put it back together again to move it from one room to the other. Fortunately, it rained most of the day, and Sam didn't even get out of his pajamas until it was time to take a bath at 7 p.m.

We did venture outside, braving the mist, Sam in pjs and Crocs (sandals) to splash in the puddles and get a little fresh air. We came inside to watch the Muppet Christmas special. Elise's favorite is Beeker. Mine is the Swedish Chef and I couldn't figure out what Sam's favorite was. It was definitely this one character, but I couldn't detemine if it was supposed to be a cockroach, king crab or a shrimp. Though he got a chuckle or two out of Dr. Bunson Honeydew.

Tomorrow there will be that last 1/3 of switching followed by numerous touch-ups over the span of the next few weeks as we prepare for the arrival of #2. Sam gets to help me put the new crib together tomorrow morning. I'm staying busy so I don't think about having missed the UF-Alabama game too much..! :)

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Danger Mouse


A picture tells a thousand words, but there is an epilogue to the story not captured in the picture. About 20 minutes later, Sam took a tumble in a much less ambitious manuever. In fact, he tripped going up one of the smaller steps, bumped his nose and got a nose bleed (I didn't take a picture...). He was a VERY tough boy. We walked into the rec center's bathroom (he had already stopped crying at this point, but the astonished looks and panicked faces of the staff behind the counter were sure to fire him up again). I learned this morning that as long as they don't actually see the blood (even when it is smeared all over their face (i.e. NO mirrors!) and you keep telling them they will be fine, they usually are. Now, I will post this and wait for child services to come to my door for letting my son take a tumble at the park.