Him.

For the final day of my "What I love about Baby Walter" posts, there are multiple things I could choose to write about. But the reality is that I simply love him. Unconditionally. Unquestionably. I will love him when disappoints me over the years. I will love him when he makes decisions I don't necessarily agree with. I will love him when he hurts my feelings every now and then. That's called being a Mama. And even though it can be hard and terribly exhausting, it's a greater blessing than I ever imagined.

Discovery.

For Day 6 of "What I love about Baby Walter," I love to watch him develop and discover new things.  With Henry, I had my head in the books and was trying to make sure he was developing at the right pace.  Sometimes that can distract from simply enjoying the tiny miracles of development.  Not this time!!  I still have my head in the books, but they're all Henry/discipline/toddler related, which allows me to kick back and simply enjoy this sweet baby!  Walter's latest discovery is his hands.

Every once and a while I will be in the middle of chores and hear him sucking on his hands.  I immediately know it's time for food.  This has been incredibly helpful in preventing a few of his famous expressions of hunger (see Day 3). :)  I can't wait to see what's around the corner with him!

Smell.

For Day 5 of "What I love about Baby Walter," I love his sweet smell.  And not his fresh-out-of-the-bath smell (though that smell is quite nice as well), but his smell.  

Walter's older brother typically smells like the outside by the end of the day, and it won't be long before my house smells like hormonal, stinky, teenage boy.  So while Walter's young enough to have that sweet smell, I'm going to enjoy it. And keep kissing the top of the gigantic, bald head.

Snoring.

For Day 4 of "What I love about Baby Walter," I love that he snores like a grown man.  As we were driving to the zoo today, my Mom commented that she'd never heard someone snore that loud, especially when their mouth was closed.  It's hilarious!  Paul doesn't snore, and I only snore when I hit the ginormous stage of pregnancy.  So we're not sure who to place the blame on for this trait.

Short Fuse.

For Day 3 of "What I love about Baby Walter," I absolutely love his little personality.  He is 98% cool, calm, and collected (eh-hem, Paul Meredith), and is 2% short-fused craziness (not sure WHERE that comes from). This baby is generally so relaxed, and is typically either smiling or sleeping.  However, when the child decides he's hungry, he goes from completely calm to screaming and doing what we call the ugly cry.  He turns into a sobbing heap and tears pour down his chubby little cheeks like someone is trying to remove his leg.  

I am so thankful I got this little personality with my second baby.  While I still hate to hear my baby cry (as all moms do), its much easier to for me to shrug and know that he's just hungry and will be fed as soon as possible.  In fact, there have been a few times I've had to yell from the laundry room that he'll have to wait all of 4 minutes for me to finish folding a load of laundry.  No, he doesn't tend to listen and calm down to wait patiently for his next meal, but there is NO WAY I would've completed a task while my child was screaming with my first.  Live and learn. :)  In fact, because this baby is so loved and well fed, sometimes it's kind of funny how worked up he gets...

 

I can't wait to see how his little personality develops.  I haven't figured out whether he's just going to be grumpy when he's hungry (a DEFINITE personality trait of mine), or whether he has my short-tempered, Scottish "William Wallace gene," as my sister calls it. Time will only tell, and I can't wait to see what the future holds with this sweet one.

Just like Daddy.

For Day 2 of my "What I love about Baby Walter," one thing I say almost daily is how much I love how he looks just like his Daddy.  If I had not given birth to him (and if he didn't look a LOT like his older brother), there may be a question about who his mother is.  There is NO question, however, about who his father is.  We don't have many pictures of Paul when he was younger than 3 months, but here is a photo of the two of them when they were a week old.  Whaddya think?!?

And Paul's a little older than Walter in the picture below, but I still think they look so much alike (not sure whether it's the ears, nose, chin, or combo)!

Baby Johnson!

Is there anything better than celebrating babies?!?  Not only is every child a miracle that needs to be celebrated, but the excitement and joy of becoming a parent is also something to be celebrated!  So that's exactly what we did last Saturday - celebrate the upcoming arrival of Baby Johnson!!

 

So glad Mandy's sweet family could travel from the Houston area!

  

Mandy with one of the hostesses, Elizabeth.  (I would include a picture of all the hostesses, but the person that took the pictures with my Rebel thought that the camera took the picture when it made a clicking sound after focusing. This is a serious issue I have with this camera, and I could likely spend an entire blog post ranting about all the great pictures that were never taken due to Canon designing their camera to fake out non-Rebel users.)

 

 Gift time!!

 I think she racked up!

 Sweet babies (and Mamas) that came to the shower!

 Future Mama and future Aunt Traci!

So happy to celebrate Mama and Baby Johnson!!  We absolutely can't wait to meet the baby (and get the name so the clothing and monogramming can begin)!!

And beginning today, the countdown to returning to work begins.  I head back one week from today, and I've only cried twice today thinking about it. I consider that holding it together.  So to ensure I don't take this last week for granted, I'm going to make sure to write down things I love about my littlest love each day this week.  To start my list, I absolutely ADORE the fact that I can get Walter to smile by just talking to him and popping into his line of vision.  Nothing makes a Mama feel better than the knowledge that her baby feels loved by her and loves her back. Nothing.

CIO

So I thought we would wait to sleep train Walter until I went back to work. Then I realized that poor Paul would be trying to chase Henry and sleep train Walter at the same time. Doesn't sound fun. Therefore, I decided to start trying today.

He typically doesn't fight sleep if we're on the go. I think he likes the movement, though oddly, he won't sleep in his swing at home. He prefers to be held and walked around. But this morning, when he started fussing cause he was sleepy, I decided to swaddle him, stick a pacifier in his mouth, and walk away. I then proceeded to vacuum because listening to your baby cry when you know you could comfort him is terrible. But he ended up unconscious in about 5-6 minutes. Poor kid wore himself out. And apparently kicked so hard while screaming that he freed his feet. :)

I'll count this as a success, but as we parents all know, when these kiddos make us proud, the next few times seem to be epic failures. Fingers crossed he catches on quickly, or my Dyson may get worn out....

Mother's Day

While Mother's Day is a total Hallmark holiday (and I do my best not to buy into all that stuff), it's always a good reminder to appreciate the ones you love.  Mothers are no exception.  So today, I am especially thankful for the woman that taught me to be a mother, whether she knew she was teaching me or not.

I am also grateful for the child that will one day call me Mama.

 

 And I'm grateful for the one who already calls me Mama.

 

I'm one lucky lady!

 

Here's actual proof of how lucky I am.  I'm glad I have this on video since I will probably need to watch it over and over throughout the next few years as Henry continues to push every limit and boundary that is set by me and Paul.  He has such a sweet spirit, though, and that is something to bei'm thankful for!  By the way, please excuse the hiccups. :)

Farm Visit

We decided to take a last minute trip to the farm last weekend, and the boys did awesome!  I think Paul and I were worried about the drive and how the boys would handle being in their car seats for a 7+ hour tip.  We made sure to get them out of their seats a few times for extended periods, and that seemed to do the trick.  Granted, our trips turned into 10 hour trips, but 10 peaceful hours are a whole lot easier than 7 crazy hours. :)

We were glad Nana was able to spend more time with the boys (she and Mr. Jim came to visit us in Dallas a few weeks ago)!  There are no pictures of her and Henry because Henry has some serious stranger danger!  He would wave at her across the room, but we couldn't get him to actually get close and spend any quality time with her.  Kids can be so weird!

  Henry loved, loved, loved the tractors, though he couldn't quite press all the buttons and pull all the levers on the larger one...

 One of the few shots where Henry actually looked at the camera while he was saying, "Cheese!"  Typically, he says it while looking in the opposite direction. Ha!

 This tractor was more Henry's size.  He could actually climb up here on his own and cause a ruckus.

 Here, Henry was yelling at the fire ant beds.  The farm was overtaken with fire ants this trip, and we quickly had to teach Henry that fire ants are bad and that they bite.  This lesson involved us wagging our fingers and saying, "No, no, no!", which resulted in Henry stopping at every single fire ant bed he spotted and saying "No, no, no!"

 This is him after doing a face plant into some mud.  Fortunately, we had no real injuries on this trip.  When we were kids, there was always someone who seemed to need stitches....

 Teaching my tentative child the joys of frosting from the can as I made Mama a cake for her birthday.  It sure is hard to beat a Duncan Hines cake!  He warmed up to the frosting quite quickly, but only after checking it out first.

 Henry has only shown signs of jealousy with Walter when my Mom holds him.  He has to run over every now and then to make sure she hasn't forgotten about him.

 Since a trip to the creek is probably the equivalent of a 4 mile walk for Henry, we decided to give him (and his escorts) a lift after he was halfway there.

 It was a last minute decision to head down there, so I did not wear my boots.  I hired a sherpa to take me from sandbar to sandbar. :)

 These are my people.  Only missing my siblings and Lauren - wish they could've made it!

 Love our family of four!

 Happy birthday, Mama!

 Henry was not scared of the creek one bit - can you tell from his pants?!?  Time to get this child some swimming lessons!

 Solution to cold wet pants: LOSE THE PANTS!!

 It finally warmed up the last day we were there (what's up with it getting into the 30s in May?), so we took full advantage!  These two look like they could get in some trouble together.

 Kiddo loves hoses and water.  Cheap entertainment - especially when the water comes from a well and you don't have to worry about a water bill!

 

So glad Henry enjoyed the farm.  Walter didn't seem to mind, but then again, he pretty much seems to be okay with whatever it is we're doing.

Be still my heart.  I always wonder what these two talk about when they wander off on their own like this....