Lucky.

I am just plain lucky.  Lucky to have met the man I married, who devotes himself wholly to me and my boys. 

Lucky to have given birth to two happy, joyful little boys.

When I think back to the excitement we felt as we drove to the hospital to have Henry, there were so many unknowns.  Every day is still filled with unknowns with this one; specifically, what in the world is about to come out of his mouth now?!?  This child keeps us on our toes constantly, and Paul and I constantly catch ourselves making eye contact and trying not to laugh out loud at his antics, imagination, and never-ending chatter.  Our house gets eerily quiet at 7:00 p.m. when this one goes to bed, and while it is a total relief at this stage in our lives, I am already in total denial that this one will ever enter the teenage years where he's too cool to talk to me.

 

And this one, the one that I spend half my time "chasing" because he thinks it's a game, is already working to break my heart daily as he begins to refuse my help and is determined to learn his way around life on his own.  This age will forever be imprinted in my mind as the era when Walter looked over his shoulder, daring me to come chase him across the room.  All chases were completed by tickling him until he laughed so hard his giggles went silent.  Afterwards, he'd roll on his tummy, get his chubby cankles under him, jog ten feet away, and then start the entire process over again.  Precious.

We are lucky these boys love each other.  I suspect there will be moments where they don't like each other, and moments they may even question whether they actually love each other.  But their foundation is strong, and they won't have much of a choice from their Mama when it comes to how they treat each other.

 

We are lucky to have grandparents that love every ounce of these boys. 

We got luckier by having one set of them nine houses up the street.



 

We are also lucky to have each other.  I foresee lots and lots of fun in our future, and pray our house is filled with warmth, love, and memories that make these babies want to come home when they're grown and on their own.

As always, a giant thanks to Jeremy Schmucker for his beautiful photos.  His sweet family is getting ready to move to Pennsylvania, and while we are selfishly bummed, we are so excited for them and their new adventure!!  Little does he know, we very well may try to catch up with him and get him to photograph us when we're up visiting the other set of grandparents, who don't live far from his new town.  If you think about it, say a quick prayer for this family as they get ready to embark on a church-planting mission.  Hope we get to visit their new church sometime soon!

 

Mr. Independent

I have been a vocal defender of a the toddler 'tude.  The ability of these tiny humans to go from such joyous, screeching laughter in one second to the hair-raising, deafening screams of rage in the next second has a diagnosis in the adult-world: bipolar.  I truly believe that 99.9% of these little people suffer from toddler bipolarism, and all parents are ladened with the task of attempting to teach them to overcome this affliction by the time they reach the point in childhood where it's no longer appropriate to have your child throw his/her head back in a fit of verbalized rage when your shopping cart doesn't stop and/or slow in the Goldfish aisle to provide them with a snacking opportunity.

While Henry is 100% full of energy and personality, he has a surprising ability to pull himself together most of the time.  For those out there questioning whether I'm making this up, I readily admit this doesn't happen always, but more often than not, we can discuss, reason, and get control.  I recognize this as a blessing because I know this isn't always the case with toddlers.  Naivete led me to believe that because Walter was a more laid back baby, toddlerhood would be even better.  Boy was I wrong.  And I swear I can hear God chuckling at this assumption...

This sweet face, my precious little mini-Paul, has decided that he is 100% independent.  And he thinks he's in charge, too.

 

 I will readily admit that this is a really tough age.  I suspect Walter understands 90% of what's going on and what we're saying to him.  But his communication is very, very limited. He can say, Mama, Dadda, Juh-juh (Gigi), uh-oh (we've MASTERED that one!), guh (milk, duh!), and cah-ker (cracker). Cah-ker can mean Goldfish, cookie, Teddy Grahams, etc. - you just have to hope you guess the right one.  He's really good at grunting and pointing, and if you're lucky, you'll figure out what he wants and avoid upsets.  But sometimes, upsets can't be avoided.  Like those times your 14-month-old decides he wants to skip his fruits and veggies and go straight to the cah-kers....

 

So like any good Mama would do, I calmly explain over the screaming child that he has to eat his veggies and/or fruits before he can eat junk.  And like any good toddler, he backhands his food to the left.

 And then, just to prove his point, he continues to scream and backhands the food behind him.

And because it is wholly illogical to continue hitting his food across the kitchen, that is, of course, the choice of the toddler.  He gets up from his seat, continues to cry, and bats the food six feet away. 

 Unbelievable.

And, of course, his next move was to ensure his feelings were fully understood.  And heard. [Can I please just say that this photo makes my heart well up with love? Yes, I know that's weird, but whatever. I just want to reach through this photograph, grab this precious human, and hold him while he tries to wriggle away and I giggle and hold him tighter.]

Please note that while it took a little longer than normal, Mama prevailed in this situation.  He ended up finishing his fruits/veggies, and was then handed some Goldfish as a reward.  Dr. Dobson would be proud. :)

And just because I've been terrible about keeping my blog up in the last few months, here are a few other things I love about this child.

He is all up in his brother's business.  Henry tolerates him pretty well.  I mean, he even voluntarily shares his milkshake.  That's some true brotherly love.

 He loves the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.  And prefers to watch it approximately 4 inches from the screen.

 He loves snack cups.  If he sees one on the counter, he throws a fit [for an example of his fit-throwing abilities, see above] until you hand it to him.  It doesn't necessarily have to have anything in it.

 He also loves his teething necklaces.  So he wears them a lot around the house.  But no, we don't let him wear them in public.  Yet.

He is surprisingly coordinated and very careful. Especially compared to Henry.  He is much better about paying attention to different levels, slopes, etc.  If he suspects he might get thrown off, even by a mere 1/2 inch, he will carefully bend over to ensure he makes the step.  Even if that slows his duck chasing a little.

He loves to listen to music on the iPad.  And just like Henry, he prefers the Itsy Bitsy Spider.  What is it about that song?  Is it the actual song, or the fact that they're both boys and they can sense that spiders are gross, creepy, and slightly dangerous?!?

So despite the fact I'm living with two bipolar mini-humans, life couldn't be better.  Both kiddos went to bed with smiles on their faces, and they know, despite the occasional fruit and/or veggie fight, that they are loved to the moon and back.

Easter 2014

As seems typical lately, I'm running at least six days behind schedule.  So although a little late, I hope everyone had a fabulous and happy Easter with their family!

Henry and I dyed eggs, which requires a lot of patience for a 2.5-year-old.  We'd put a batch of eggs in the dye, run outside and plant some flowers, and come back in for another batch.

 I love watching his little brain trying to figure out how to make his body work.  Absolutely no coordination. Still so awkward at this age!

And Walter eventually woke up from his nap.  This child has developed quite the temper, and will ensure all know when he's unhappy.  Fortunately, he's unhappy very infrequently.  But it has become more and more frequent around meal times that we get a solid temper tantrum in the high chair - it seems he may not enjoy being confined...

 So I offer him the chance to participate in the fun...

 He snatched it, grunted, and flung it to the floor.

 Poor egg. [Note, the background noise for this photo is similar to 2 photos up - screaming, crying, full out temper tantrum.] 

 So to his walker he went, where no ankles were safe but the baby is content.

And Henry and I were able to complete the egg decorating with the fancy stickers that came with our kit.

 Henry then remembered that one of his Easter books had stickers to decorate eggs.  I've been finding stickers everywhere this week - on stuffed animals, shoes, the couch, carpet, etc.  next year I think we'll get the kit with the wraps for the eggs. :)

 

 I love these hands - uncoordinated and all.

After bedtime, the Easter bunny was given the assignment to put the Ikea easel together.

 

If you've read my blog, you know about my serious love/hate relationship with Ikea.  It's so affordable but the directions are SO ridiculous.  I mean, what does the below even mean?!?  The commentary from Paul was totally priceless, however.

But Paul got it put together pretty quick, and the baskets were set out before we collapsed into bed.  And please note that while their baskets appear to be obscene, my kids get toys on 3 occasions each year: birthdays, Christmas, and Easter.

I would love to report what a smooth, wonderful Easter morning we had as a family.  But that would be a fat lie. It was awful.  Paul and I essentially threw the kids into their Sunday School classes and were relieved to fall into our seats in church.  We managed to snap a few cute photos beforehand so we could at least pretend a few years from now that we had a perfect Easter morning.

 Henry tried to be sweet and hold Walter's hand. Walter wanted none of it.  I'm telling you - T.E.M.P.E.R.

Despite an awful Easter morning filled with temper tantrums and nagging and time outs, we had an absolutely fabulous day.  Apparently, all the inner demons got worked out at church.

Just love these two.

And this guy was super excited about the sidewalk chalk that came in his basket.  When I asked him to look up and say, "Cheese!", he did everything I asked except tear his eyes from the chalk.

And while it appears Walter was neglected as there are very few pictures of him, we are spending most of our time chasing him at the moment (with little ability to snap photos except when he's screaming in his high chair).  He's always into something!  And he also started walking on Sunday, so we've had a busy and treacherous week.  He's got a matching set of bruises on his forehead, both from the corner of a toy box at school.  I'm sure we'll have plenty of injury photos in the near future.

Happy Belated Easter, everyone!!!