Tonight during the blessing over supper, I squinted one eye open to make sure that Garrett hadn't covered himself, or the table, in ketchup, or something equally as messy. He caught me looking at him and immediately pulled his index finger up to his lips and said "Sssshhhhh, Momma!" in a very loud whisper. I'm not sure if he was telling me that so I wouldn't say anything about him having his eyes opened (they're never shut during prayer, he's not quite to that point yet), or if he mistook the fact that I was looking at him as if I was about to say something and interrupt Daddy's prayer.
After Keith said amen, Garrett immediately launched into his own prayer. This time including Momma.
I think he secretly read my last blog.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Friday, January 25, 2008
Amen!
Garrett prayed his first "real" prayer tonight. By real, I mean containing actual words. In the past he would jabber and then say "Amen" really loud and laugh like he had just said the funniest thing. But tonight as we were mid-supper, he looked at Keith and said "Pray!". Now, we had already blessed our meal, so don't worry that he was reminding the heathens of something they had forgotten. He held his hands out to us and we grabbed on. He then proceded to say "Pancake (mumble, mumble), Daddy, Garrett, Brennan, Avey, Dew. Amen!" We were having pancakes for supper so I'm assuming he was thanking God for the pancakes with his first word choice. I'm also happy to hear him praying for his list of people, though a little perturbed that I wasn't included. Momma needs prayers the most! :) Brennan, Avery (Avey), and Drew (Dew) are all friends of his who have come over periodically or he has been to their houses. I thought it was very cute that he included them in his prayer. Bad mommy that I am, we've never actually sat down and prayed for other people outside our family (with Garrett, I promise I'm not quite so self-centered in my own prayer life), so we were really surprised to hear him actually list his friends in his prayer.
It definitely lifts my spirits to see my child displaying what he's learned from us. We've never once asked or told him to pray, but we always do it at every meal and he's just picked up on that and had a desire to participate.
I pray that will continue.
It definitely lifts my spirits to see my child displaying what he's learned from us. We've never once asked or told him to pray, but we always do it at every meal and he's just picked up on that and had a desire to participate.
I pray that will continue.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Lost!!
I am officially counting down the days until next Thursday.
"What's so special about next Thursday" you ask?
The season premiere of the best TV show EVER, Lost!
This is their 4th season and the season finale last year was so awesome that I just can't even begin to imagine how this season is going to kick off. I'm already making plans to put Garrett to bed early and insist that, if Keith comes home from work during the show, he will have to wait to speak to me until a commercial, and no questions about what's happening. I know I sound like a tyrant, but there is a serious lack of good, quality shows on TV nowadays, and I've been watching Lost since episode 1, so I'm not about to miss a second of this episode (it's times like these that a DVR or Tivo would really come in handy). I hope that atleast a few of you out there will be watching so we can discuss it later on. Although, if you've never watched a single episode, it might not make much sense to you, if you just jumped in at season 4. I'll try not to spoil anything for those of you who are currently watching previous seasons in order to catch up. I currently have the first 3 seasons of Lost in my Blockbuster queue, but I'll probably save them until season 4 is finished, then maybe it will be out on DVD by the time I'm through the first 3 seasons. Of course working your way through entire seasons on DVD is hard to do. Especially when, though Keith is a big fan, my husband would much rather watch movies than rewatch episodes of a show that we've already seen, whereas I love doing that! So it will probably be something I'll be watching during naptimes and when Keith travels.
Just a reminder, the new season of Lost begins next Thursday night at 7:00. Please don't call me then because I won't be answering the phone until after 9:00. Thanks! :)
"What's so special about next Thursday" you ask?
The season premiere of the best TV show EVER, Lost!
This is their 4th season and the season finale last year was so awesome that I just can't even begin to imagine how this season is going to kick off. I'm already making plans to put Garrett to bed early and insist that, if Keith comes home from work during the show, he will have to wait to speak to me until a commercial, and no questions about what's happening. I know I sound like a tyrant, but there is a serious lack of good, quality shows on TV nowadays, and I've been watching Lost since episode 1, so I'm not about to miss a second of this episode (it's times like these that a DVR or Tivo would really come in handy). I hope that atleast a few of you out there will be watching so we can discuss it later on. Although, if you've never watched a single episode, it might not make much sense to you, if you just jumped in at season 4. I'll try not to spoil anything for those of you who are currently watching previous seasons in order to catch up. I currently have the first 3 seasons of Lost in my Blockbuster queue, but I'll probably save them until season 4 is finished, then maybe it will be out on DVD by the time I'm through the first 3 seasons. Of course working your way through entire seasons on DVD is hard to do. Especially when, though Keith is a big fan, my husband would much rather watch movies than rewatch episodes of a show that we've already seen, whereas I love doing that! So it will probably be something I'll be watching during naptimes and when Keith travels.
Just a reminder, the new season of Lost begins next Thursday night at 7:00. Please don't call me then because I won't be answering the phone until after 9:00. Thanks! :)
Friday, January 18, 2008
Pirates
Today Garrett and I headed off to the movies. As many of you may be aware, the new Veggie Tales movie, "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything", is now in a theater near you. From early on, Garrett has been a fan of all things Veggie Tales. His first song to sing along with was the Veggie Tales theme song and his first attempt at dancing was in time with "Ultimate Silly Songs", part of our Veggie Tale collection. His interest has waned some now that he's older and Disney movies have been introduced, but on Saturday mornings, if we're home, he still catches some of the TV versions of it.
When I saw that this movie was coming out I just knew that I wanted to take him to see it in the theater. There are very few movies that I think he will sit through in a theater and I love the whole movie-going experience pretty much regardless of what I'm watching, so I was excited to head out this morning. There was a 10:30 showing and since it was Friday, I was in hopes that we would have the theater to ourselves. Apparently a lot of area schools have made this typical 3-day weekend into a 4-day weekend this year because there was probably 20 or so other people watching it with us, a good number of school aged kids amongst them. More people than I was expecting.
Garrett had been to the theater twice before today. The first time doesn't really count because he was 7 weeks old and Keith and I just wanted to see how he would cooperate if we took him to the movies (and we were desperate to get out and do something "normal"). We went and saw "War of the Worlds" and he slept the entire time, it was great. Every so often Keith would lean over and ask me if Garrett was still breathing because he was so still.
His second trip to the movies was pretty much out of necessity. We were having wood floors installed in our house and Garrett and I needed to kill time somewhere, so we went and saw "Meet the Robinsons". Garrett was 20 months old and that time we were the only ones in the theater. He slept through part of it and the rest he cooperated really well considering that's not really a movie geared toward kids that young. So today, I didn't really know what to expect, but he was actually pretty good. He loved the fact that I bought popcorn and ate atleast half of the medium sized bag that we had between us. I also snuck in a bag of M&M's (or "M's", as Garrett refers to them), and he scarfed those down too. (When we left the theater and got out into the light, he had chocolate smeared everywhere. I don't think M&M's are still "melts in your mouth, not in your hand" anymore.) He thought he was entitled to numerous sips of my Coke as well. Finally after he drank much more than I thought necessary (2 year olds do not need additional caffeine in their diet, atleast not my 2 year old), I moved the cup and told him it was all gone. I don't think he really bought it, but he went back to drinking the juice in his sippy cup. When the movie first started, Garrett looked at me and asked "Where Buzz?" I hated to tell him that this was not a Toy Story affiliated movie and Buzz Lightyear would not be making a showing.
I was a little disappointed in a couple of things. First, there wasn't a strong Christian theme in this movie compared to the last Veggie Tale movie, "Jonah". I mean, there was a good message behind it, but then again, there's also typically a good message in most Disney movies too. God was never mentioned and it was not based on a Bible story. So I felt a little bit of a let down because of that. My second disappointment was that Bob the Tomato wasn't in the movie!! He's my personal favorite (Garrett prefers Larry the Cucumber). We never once saw him until a brief bit during the closing credits. I don't know why they couldn't have given him some part somewhere, but apparently his salary demands were too high to include him in the movie.
Overall it was a cute movie. I think Garrett enjoyed it pretty well, though if Buzz had made an appearance he probably would have been much happier. He was mostly excited about all the popcorn, M&M's, and Coke that he got to consume, which was a special treat. So I would definitely recommend this movie to all of you cartoon lovers out there. Just don't go expecting the typical Veggie Tale movie because it's not your "Where's God When I'm Scared"-type of movie, but still good, and still including the vegetables that we all know and love.
When I saw that this movie was coming out I just knew that I wanted to take him to see it in the theater. There are very few movies that I think he will sit through in a theater and I love the whole movie-going experience pretty much regardless of what I'm watching, so I was excited to head out this morning. There was a 10:30 showing and since it was Friday, I was in hopes that we would have the theater to ourselves. Apparently a lot of area schools have made this typical 3-day weekend into a 4-day weekend this year because there was probably 20 or so other people watching it with us, a good number of school aged kids amongst them. More people than I was expecting.
Garrett had been to the theater twice before today. The first time doesn't really count because he was 7 weeks old and Keith and I just wanted to see how he would cooperate if we took him to the movies (and we were desperate to get out and do something "normal"). We went and saw "War of the Worlds" and he slept the entire time, it was great. Every so often Keith would lean over and ask me if Garrett was still breathing because he was so still.
His second trip to the movies was pretty much out of necessity. We were having wood floors installed in our house and Garrett and I needed to kill time somewhere, so we went and saw "Meet the Robinsons". Garrett was 20 months old and that time we were the only ones in the theater. He slept through part of it and the rest he cooperated really well considering that's not really a movie geared toward kids that young. So today, I didn't really know what to expect, but he was actually pretty good. He loved the fact that I bought popcorn and ate atleast half of the medium sized bag that we had between us. I also snuck in a bag of M&M's (or "M's", as Garrett refers to them), and he scarfed those down too. (When we left the theater and got out into the light, he had chocolate smeared everywhere. I don't think M&M's are still "melts in your mouth, not in your hand" anymore.) He thought he was entitled to numerous sips of my Coke as well. Finally after he drank much more than I thought necessary (2 year olds do not need additional caffeine in their diet, atleast not my 2 year old), I moved the cup and told him it was all gone. I don't think he really bought it, but he went back to drinking the juice in his sippy cup. When the movie first started, Garrett looked at me and asked "Where Buzz?" I hated to tell him that this was not a Toy Story affiliated movie and Buzz Lightyear would not be making a showing.
I was a little disappointed in a couple of things. First, there wasn't a strong Christian theme in this movie compared to the last Veggie Tale movie, "Jonah". I mean, there was a good message behind it, but then again, there's also typically a good message in most Disney movies too. God was never mentioned and it was not based on a Bible story. So I felt a little bit of a let down because of that. My second disappointment was that Bob the Tomato wasn't in the movie!! He's my personal favorite (Garrett prefers Larry the Cucumber). We never once saw him until a brief bit during the closing credits. I don't know why they couldn't have given him some part somewhere, but apparently his salary demands were too high to include him in the movie.
Overall it was a cute movie. I think Garrett enjoyed it pretty well, though if Buzz had made an appearance he probably would have been much happier. He was mostly excited about all the popcorn, M&M's, and Coke that he got to consume, which was a special treat. So I would definitely recommend this movie to all of you cartoon lovers out there. Just don't go expecting the typical Veggie Tale movie because it's not your "Where's God When I'm Scared"-type of movie, but still good, and still including the vegetables that we all know and love.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Date Night
Today, Keith and I were able to do something that we haven't done in over 6 months. Go on a date. Yes, I know we are totally lame (is that still "in"?) for not having gone sooner but time just gets away from you! Keith's parents came up to watch Garrett and we headed out around 10:30 this morning. Yes, we're also that lame couple that goes on dates during the day, but it works better for Keith's parents to come in the morning and leave in the evening and it's also easier for us to not be in the midst of all the other Saturday night daters.
Since the movie we picked started at 11:30, we were able to get $5 tickets! That's practically unheard of, but at our local AMC theater, if you go to a movie that starts before noon, your tickets are only $5. We didn't feel so bad about buying that $5 popcorn and those $4 drinks after that. The movie we went to see was "I am Legend". Trust me when I say that a lot of time and research went into our movie choice. Considering the fact that we obviously haven't seen a movie in the theater in a long time, and while I hope we go again sooner, it may still be awhile before we get back there, so our choice had to be a good one. We narrowed it down to three different movies. "I am Legend", "National Treasure 2" and "P.S. I Love You". Ok, I'll admit that the last one was my choice, so that was the first one to be eliminated. Our decision amongst the last two was simply based on which one would probably be the best to watch on the big screen. I liked the first "National Treasure", but it was one that we rented and watched at home, so I didn't feel that it was one that needed to be seen on the big screen. So that left us with "I am Legend".
A little info on this movie (you can read it in any movie synopsis so I promise I'm not giving anything away). Will Smith is the main character who is a scientist searching for the cure for this virus that has spread by the millions, wiping out cities. Initially this virus was supposed to have been the cure for cancer, but apparently it mutated or something (that part wasn't really explained that I can remember). He's basically all alone, just him and his dog. Parts of it reminded me of "Castaway" because he talks to his dog like he would a person (which is better than a volleyball, but still...). At one point he turns to his dog and says "Now, you'd better tell me if you're planning a surprise birthday party for me tonight. You know I don't like surprises and I promise I'll act surprised." It was pretty funny. The movie has some scary/gruesome scenes so if you're not into that, you shouldn't go see it. I also didn't like some scenes where they were using a handheld camera. I didn't see where it was necessary because there wasn't any movement on the part of the characters, but the camera is moving around like crazy and it made me a little dizzy to watch. Thankfully that wasn't the case for the entire movie. All in all, I would say it was a good choice and worthy of our first date in the past 6 months. I might even buy it when it comes out on DVD. If any of you have seen it, I would love to hear your thoughts.
After the movie, we went and ate at our favorite restaurant, Texas Roadhouse. Their steaks are consistently the best around, for the price. If we had a Ruth's Chris Steakhouse really close, we probably would have considered going there, but we also wanted to get some shopping in before getting back home so the Roadhouse is a very good second choice. We then headed over to Best Buy. We're in the market for a new TV (and have been for a while), so we wanted to check them out (we didn't buy anything). Then we went next door to Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Honestly I didn't plan to be in there but for maybe 10 minutes, just long enough to check out their curtain selection. However, I didn't take into account that my husband hadn't been there in a long time, and honestly, he enjoys looking at that kind of stuff. What was supposed to have been a quick scan of curtains, turned into us buying new sheets, pillows, shower curtain, and towels. They were all things we were needing, just not what I was planning on buying today. Keith picked out the sheets and pillows and I chose the rest. He actually did great on the sheets. What was a $150 set of king sized sheets, rang up to be $25, so I was pretty happy. I love a good deal! After a quick swing by Kirklands to look at some home decor stuff, we headed home. It was very nice to be able to do all of this without Garrett and he had a good time here at home with his grandparents.
While I'm on the subject of movies, we watched "Mr Brooks" last night. I wouldn't recommend it. Others might like it, but I found it very weird and disturbing. The next movie in our Blockbuster queue is "Evan Almighty". If you've seen it, is it worth our time?
Since the movie we picked started at 11:30, we were able to get $5 tickets! That's practically unheard of, but at our local AMC theater, if you go to a movie that starts before noon, your tickets are only $5. We didn't feel so bad about buying that $5 popcorn and those $4 drinks after that. The movie we went to see was "I am Legend". Trust me when I say that a lot of time and research went into our movie choice. Considering the fact that we obviously haven't seen a movie in the theater in a long time, and while I hope we go again sooner, it may still be awhile before we get back there, so our choice had to be a good one. We narrowed it down to three different movies. "I am Legend", "National Treasure 2" and "P.S. I Love You". Ok, I'll admit that the last one was my choice, so that was the first one to be eliminated. Our decision amongst the last two was simply based on which one would probably be the best to watch on the big screen. I liked the first "National Treasure", but it was one that we rented and watched at home, so I didn't feel that it was one that needed to be seen on the big screen. So that left us with "I am Legend".
A little info on this movie (you can read it in any movie synopsis so I promise I'm not giving anything away). Will Smith is the main character who is a scientist searching for the cure for this virus that has spread by the millions, wiping out cities. Initially this virus was supposed to have been the cure for cancer, but apparently it mutated or something (that part wasn't really explained that I can remember). He's basically all alone, just him and his dog. Parts of it reminded me of "Castaway" because he talks to his dog like he would a person (which is better than a volleyball, but still...). At one point he turns to his dog and says "Now, you'd better tell me if you're planning a surprise birthday party for me tonight. You know I don't like surprises and I promise I'll act surprised." It was pretty funny. The movie has some scary/gruesome scenes so if you're not into that, you shouldn't go see it. I also didn't like some scenes where they were using a handheld camera. I didn't see where it was necessary because there wasn't any movement on the part of the characters, but the camera is moving around like crazy and it made me a little dizzy to watch. Thankfully that wasn't the case for the entire movie. All in all, I would say it was a good choice and worthy of our first date in the past 6 months. I might even buy it when it comes out on DVD. If any of you have seen it, I would love to hear your thoughts.
After the movie, we went and ate at our favorite restaurant, Texas Roadhouse. Their steaks are consistently the best around, for the price. If we had a Ruth's Chris Steakhouse really close, we probably would have considered going there, but we also wanted to get some shopping in before getting back home so the Roadhouse is a very good second choice. We then headed over to Best Buy. We're in the market for a new TV (and have been for a while), so we wanted to check them out (we didn't buy anything). Then we went next door to Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Honestly I didn't plan to be in there but for maybe 10 minutes, just long enough to check out their curtain selection. However, I didn't take into account that my husband hadn't been there in a long time, and honestly, he enjoys looking at that kind of stuff. What was supposed to have been a quick scan of curtains, turned into us buying new sheets, pillows, shower curtain, and towels. They were all things we were needing, just not what I was planning on buying today. Keith picked out the sheets and pillows and I chose the rest. He actually did great on the sheets. What was a $150 set of king sized sheets, rang up to be $25, so I was pretty happy. I love a good deal! After a quick swing by Kirklands to look at some home decor stuff, we headed home. It was very nice to be able to do all of this without Garrett and he had a good time here at home with his grandparents.
While I'm on the subject of movies, we watched "Mr Brooks" last night. I wouldn't recommend it. Others might like it, but I found it very weird and disturbing. The next movie in our Blockbuster queue is "Evan Almighty". If you've seen it, is it worth our time?
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
The Positives
After re-reading a few of my most recent blogs I feel like I've been too negative as far as Garrett is concerned, so I thought I would share some of the funny/cute things that he does. Thanks everyone for the encouragement and advice on the last blog. I'm feeling better about things today now that he has started back to "school" and I've had some quiet time. It's amazing what a short break can do for you.
~He loves to pull one arm out of his shirt and stick it through the neck hole, so he looks like Tarzan with one arm and shoulder bare and the other still in his shirt. Of course he doesn't know who Tarzan is and he usually gets irritated with his shirt being like this after a little while and then comes to me demanding that I put it back on correctly. I think he's trying to take the whole thing off, but he hasn't quite got that figured out.
~He says many things with some weird accents. The main accent being Spanish. He rolls his r's a lot and pronounces double ll with the yuh sound. I don't know if that even makes sense after re-reading it. One example, a girl's name in his class is Bella. He pronounces it Bay-uh (which would actually be the correct pronunciation in Spanish, atleast how I learned it.)
~His favorite movie currently is "Toy Story". He calls it "Stody na". The d sound going back to him sounding like he's rolling his r's. I have no idea where the na sound comes from or why he says it like that. If I asked him to say the word toy and then the word story, he could do it, but put them together in the form of a movie title and it's totally different.
~He absolutely loves his Buzz Lightyear and Woody dolls that he got for Christmas. When he sees them after being separated for the eternity of bathtime, he gets so excited and hollars "Buzz!! Woody!!" He can't go to bed without them. The other day Woody stopped "speaking" (the battery went dead or something). Garrett kept telling us he was broken. We needed a special battery, which we didn't have so we couldn't fix him right away. But later that day he started working again. Garrett was absolutely beside himself when he heard Woody talk again. It was like he came back to life.
~He also loves to watch "Toy Story" while playing with Buzz and Woody. He makes them re-enact the scenes, even repeating most of the lines while doing it.
~He very rarely will ever sit still long enough for me to read a book to him. About halfway through the story, he's ripping it from my hands and saying "the end". Yet, he sits all the way through "Toy Story" and many other long movies.
~He loves his friends Drew and Avery. They've come over several times, and he's also been to their house many times. We occasionally run into them at Walmart, so now every time we're grocery shopping, he asks me "Where Dew, where Avey?" Sometimes he will just randomly say "I want Dew, I want Avey".
~Anytime a song comes on the radio with a good beat, Garrett always bobs his head in time to the music with a big smile on his face. He also repeats the call letters of some of the local stations when they're saying them between songs; KLTY is his favorite, and if we're listening to 99.5 the Wolf, he has to say "wolf" and then roar. He also can sing along with the theme song of "King of Queens".
~If we would let him, he would survive on cheese with an occasional apple, cookie, and piece of chicken thrown in there.
~Anytime he picks up his sippy cup to take a drink, he has to shake it to be sure there's something in there. If it is empty or feels low, he won't even attempt to take a drink, he just bring me his cup and repeats approximately 1000 times "I want water", even though he typically is drinking milk, all liquids are water to him.
~He thinks we're torturing him when we ask him to say "please" and would rather do without something than to say please. Yet, he says "thank you" and "welcome" without any problems or prompting.
~He knows all of his ABC's, can sing the song, and if I hold up a random card with a letter on it, he knows it.
~He has recently started counting to 13 without me even knowing he could do this. We've been counting to 10 for a while and then yesterday he went to 13 while I just looked at him.
~If you ask him for a hug, he will come up to you, lean against you, and say "awwww". No arms wrapped around anything. He did this to a girl at his Christmas party. He leaned on her until she finally put her arms around him and hugged him.
~He hates having his hair cut and will cry the entire time (which is why I've only had a professional do it once and I've done it the rest of the time). Last Saturday I cut his and Keith's hair. Garrett went first and then took a bath while I cut Keith's hair. About every 5 minutes he would hollar at Keith to make sure I hadn't killed him yet. He didn't understand why Daddy wasn't upset about the haircut as much as he was.
~Even though I have referred to myself as Momma since the day he was born, he has called me Ma for several months now. Nobody has ever called me Ma but him, so I'm not sure where this is coming from.
~One afternoon this past summer I was mowing the yard, Garrett was inside napping (still in the crib at that point) and Keith was doing some work in the kitchen. I looked up at Garrett's window at one point and saw him hanging 3/4 of the way out of his crib, pulling back the blinds on his window, and waving to me. I knew one of two things was going to happen, he was going to fall out of the crib and hurt himself or he was going to break the slats on the blinds (they're the wooden kind). Thankfully neither happened, but he also didn't take a nap that day.
~One day I walked into the bathroom and found Garrett sitting in the sink with the water running all over him. Thankfully it was cold water.
~Another time I walked into the guest bedroom and found him standing on top of the dresser eating potpourri. Atleast his breath smelled good.
~One evening he went to Keith with my nightgown and bra and asked Keith to put them on him. That will make a good blackmail picture at some point down the road.
~He loves to pull one arm out of his shirt and stick it through the neck hole, so he looks like Tarzan with one arm and shoulder bare and the other still in his shirt. Of course he doesn't know who Tarzan is and he usually gets irritated with his shirt being like this after a little while and then comes to me demanding that I put it back on correctly. I think he's trying to take the whole thing off, but he hasn't quite got that figured out.
~He says many things with some weird accents. The main accent being Spanish. He rolls his r's a lot and pronounces double ll with the yuh sound. I don't know if that even makes sense after re-reading it. One example, a girl's name in his class is Bella. He pronounces it Bay-uh (which would actually be the correct pronunciation in Spanish, atleast how I learned it.)
~His favorite movie currently is "Toy Story". He calls it "Stody na". The d sound going back to him sounding like he's rolling his r's. I have no idea where the na sound comes from or why he says it like that. If I asked him to say the word toy and then the word story, he could do it, but put them together in the form of a movie title and it's totally different.
~He absolutely loves his Buzz Lightyear and Woody dolls that he got for Christmas. When he sees them after being separated for the eternity of bathtime, he gets so excited and hollars "Buzz!! Woody!!" He can't go to bed without them. The other day Woody stopped "speaking" (the battery went dead or something). Garrett kept telling us he was broken. We needed a special battery, which we didn't have so we couldn't fix him right away. But later that day he started working again. Garrett was absolutely beside himself when he heard Woody talk again. It was like he came back to life.
~He also loves to watch "Toy Story" while playing with Buzz and Woody. He makes them re-enact the scenes, even repeating most of the lines while doing it.
~He very rarely will ever sit still long enough for me to read a book to him. About halfway through the story, he's ripping it from my hands and saying "the end". Yet, he sits all the way through "Toy Story" and many other long movies.
~He loves his friends Drew and Avery. They've come over several times, and he's also been to their house many times. We occasionally run into them at Walmart, so now every time we're grocery shopping, he asks me "Where Dew, where Avey?" Sometimes he will just randomly say "I want Dew, I want Avey".
~Anytime a song comes on the radio with a good beat, Garrett always bobs his head in time to the music with a big smile on his face. He also repeats the call letters of some of the local stations when they're saying them between songs; KLTY is his favorite, and if we're listening to 99.5 the Wolf, he has to say "wolf" and then roar. He also can sing along with the theme song of "King of Queens".
~If we would let him, he would survive on cheese with an occasional apple, cookie, and piece of chicken thrown in there.
~Anytime he picks up his sippy cup to take a drink, he has to shake it to be sure there's something in there. If it is empty or feels low, he won't even attempt to take a drink, he just bring me his cup and repeats approximately 1000 times "I want water", even though he typically is drinking milk, all liquids are water to him.
~He thinks we're torturing him when we ask him to say "please" and would rather do without something than to say please. Yet, he says "thank you" and "welcome" without any problems or prompting.
~He knows all of his ABC's, can sing the song, and if I hold up a random card with a letter on it, he knows it.
~He has recently started counting to 13 without me even knowing he could do this. We've been counting to 10 for a while and then yesterday he went to 13 while I just looked at him.
~If you ask him for a hug, he will come up to you, lean against you, and say "awwww". No arms wrapped around anything. He did this to a girl at his Christmas party. He leaned on her until she finally put her arms around him and hugged him.
~He hates having his hair cut and will cry the entire time (which is why I've only had a professional do it once and I've done it the rest of the time). Last Saturday I cut his and Keith's hair. Garrett went first and then took a bath while I cut Keith's hair. About every 5 minutes he would hollar at Keith to make sure I hadn't killed him yet. He didn't understand why Daddy wasn't upset about the haircut as much as he was.
~Even though I have referred to myself as Momma since the day he was born, he has called me Ma for several months now. Nobody has ever called me Ma but him, so I'm not sure where this is coming from.
~One afternoon this past summer I was mowing the yard, Garrett was inside napping (still in the crib at that point) and Keith was doing some work in the kitchen. I looked up at Garrett's window at one point and saw him hanging 3/4 of the way out of his crib, pulling back the blinds on his window, and waving to me. I knew one of two things was going to happen, he was going to fall out of the crib and hurt himself or he was going to break the slats on the blinds (they're the wooden kind). Thankfully neither happened, but he also didn't take a nap that day.
~One day I walked into the bathroom and found Garrett sitting in the sink with the water running all over him. Thankfully it was cold water.
~Another time I walked into the guest bedroom and found him standing on top of the dresser eating potpourri. Atleast his breath smelled good.
~One evening he went to Keith with my nightgown and bra and asked Keith to put them on him. That will make a good blackmail picture at some point down the road.
Monday, January 7, 2008
The Joys of Parenting...a 2 Year Old
As I've mentioned previously, Garrett is now out of the crib and in the big bed. We are slowly making progress with getting him to stay in the bed at naptime, and after about an hour of me going in and out of his room (to "encourage" him to stay in bed) he will fall asleep and sleep for 2 hours or more, so this is a nice change of pace compared to those napless days. We haven't had many issues with getting him to stay in the bed at bedtime, but last night was interesting. He went to sleep just fine, but then off and on all night long he would stand by his door and alternate between hollaring for us and crying. I think he slept there. It was a long night because, while I didn't go in there since he's gotta work through this himself, I also can't sleep through my child crying, as much as I might want to.
Another fun thing that Garrett has started doing involves poop. Over the past couple of weeks, anytime he has dirtied his diaper, he immediately shoves his hand down the back of his diaper to get a handful. Then he runs to me and sticks his poop-filled hand in my face and says "yucky". It's not like I leave him to sit in a dirty diaper all day long, he does this immediately after "the act", giving me no time to change him prior to making a big mess. I am so ready for potty training. I want to wait until he's more adjusted to the big bed before throwing something else new at him, but trust me when I say that I'm counting down the days until I can get him out of diapers.
Garrett has also decided that he is now one of the parents. He has become super bossy lately, not just to us but to anyone and everyone. He shakes his finger in my face (which I really don't do much of, so I'm not sure where that comes from). He also tells us "no sir, no ma'am", but not in the polite way for answering a question, but rather that's his response when we get onto him for throwing his toys, or after he gets a spanking, or just when he feels the urge to boss someone around. Trust me when I say being disrespectful like this always earns him some form of punishment, but it doesn't seem to be changing anything. He's even taken to trying to hit me, mostly in the face! And yesterday he tried to bite Keith a couple of times until Keith wore him out. I don't understand this behavior beyond attributing it to him being 2 years old. We try to be very consistent with discipline, we don't laugh at him one minute and punish him the next (though there are a few times where I'm laughing on the inside as I'm punishing him, because honestly, it's just hard to believe that after only living in this world for 2 short years he's already picked up on a lot of negative things.)
I used to think that parenting a newborn was the most tiresome because you just never get enough sleep and it's so easy to get stressed out over everything because you don't always know why they're crying. I had a "honeymoon" period from around 9 months old until maybe 18 months old where Garrett was a lot of fun. Learning new things, very playful, loving, etc. Now he's just ornery and disobedient. It wears me down sometimes. I just want to say "to heck with this" and let him run wild and tear the house down so long as he leaves me alone. But then what kind of person would he grow up to be? I certainly don't want to raise a child who is destined to be in juvey before he hits puberty. So I just have to keep on keeping on and pray about when will be the right time for us to have another child. I can't imagine adding a newborn to the mix right now. I certainly don't want Garrett to be an only child, but I also don't want to intentionally wear myself down to a nervous breakdown because I had a second child and it was too much for me to handle.
Something else that scares me is that I know everyone is going to respond with, "it doesn't get easier" "4 is worse than 2 any day" or "you're a terrible mother". I want to think there's light at the end of the tunnel, but I'm afraid this tunnel is going to be a long one.
Another fun thing that Garrett has started doing involves poop. Over the past couple of weeks, anytime he has dirtied his diaper, he immediately shoves his hand down the back of his diaper to get a handful. Then he runs to me and sticks his poop-filled hand in my face and says "yucky". It's not like I leave him to sit in a dirty diaper all day long, he does this immediately after "the act", giving me no time to change him prior to making a big mess. I am so ready for potty training. I want to wait until he's more adjusted to the big bed before throwing something else new at him, but trust me when I say that I'm counting down the days until I can get him out of diapers.
Garrett has also decided that he is now one of the parents. He has become super bossy lately, not just to us but to anyone and everyone. He shakes his finger in my face (which I really don't do much of, so I'm not sure where that comes from). He also tells us "no sir, no ma'am", but not in the polite way for answering a question, but rather that's his response when we get onto him for throwing his toys, or after he gets a spanking, or just when he feels the urge to boss someone around. Trust me when I say being disrespectful like this always earns him some form of punishment, but it doesn't seem to be changing anything. He's even taken to trying to hit me, mostly in the face! And yesterday he tried to bite Keith a couple of times until Keith wore him out. I don't understand this behavior beyond attributing it to him being 2 years old. We try to be very consistent with discipline, we don't laugh at him one minute and punish him the next (though there are a few times where I'm laughing on the inside as I'm punishing him, because honestly, it's just hard to believe that after only living in this world for 2 short years he's already picked up on a lot of negative things.)
I used to think that parenting a newborn was the most tiresome because you just never get enough sleep and it's so easy to get stressed out over everything because you don't always know why they're crying. I had a "honeymoon" period from around 9 months old until maybe 18 months old where Garrett was a lot of fun. Learning new things, very playful, loving, etc. Now he's just ornery and disobedient. It wears me down sometimes. I just want to say "to heck with this" and let him run wild and tear the house down so long as he leaves me alone. But then what kind of person would he grow up to be? I certainly don't want to raise a child who is destined to be in juvey before he hits puberty. So I just have to keep on keeping on and pray about when will be the right time for us to have another child. I can't imagine adding a newborn to the mix right now. I certainly don't want Garrett to be an only child, but I also don't want to intentionally wear myself down to a nervous breakdown because I had a second child and it was too much for me to handle.
Something else that scares me is that I know everyone is going to respond with, "it doesn't get easier" "4 is worse than 2 any day" or "you're a terrible mother". I want to think there's light at the end of the tunnel, but I'm afraid this tunnel is going to be a long one.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
In Sickness and in Health (I'm ready for the health)
This will be a bunch of randomness, so you've been warned.
I would like to ask all you moms and dads out there for some assistance. As I mentioned in a previous blog, we have moved Garrett out of the crib, into the big bed (a full-sized bed in his room with a bed rail on the side). He seems to be sleeping decently in there at night, but he has yet to take a nap in there without me laying beside him. As much as I would love to take a nap every day, I do have things that I need and want to get done while he's napping. Does anybody have any suggestions as to how to accomplish this? I'm going crazy every day at around 6:00pm because he becomes unbearable to be around after having been up since 7 or 8 that morning. He used to nap for an hour and a half to two hours in his crib, so he needs to be doing the same thing in the big bed. I've tried getting him to sleep on my own and then moving him to the bed, that didn't work. I've tried putting him down like I always did in the crib and then shutting him in his room with no way for him to get out and no toys for him to play with except for the ones he has to have to sleep with. Then he just plays with the danged door stop until I go crazy from hearing that stupid twang sound; he also has begun peeling the paint off of the back of his bedroom door, it looks like it snowed in there. During these times, I hollar through the door for him to get back in bed and go to sleep, he doesn't listen. I'm tempted to go in there and spank him and then put him in the bed, this is what I have done at bedtime, but it's not completely successful and it takes approximately one billion times before he finally does what I tell him to do. I wish they made full sized cribs. Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated.
We went to the doctor today because the croup episode from over the weekend is still lingering in the form of a horrendous cough, which isn't helping the nap situation one bit. The doctor thought he heard "something" in Garrett's lungs and had us go for an x-ray (second one this week! and they didn't have me wear a lead apron this time, I hope that doesn't mean anything bad for my health.) We'll find out tomorrow if that noise means he has bronchitis or pneumonia, just what we need to round out our time of sickness in our household. On top of all this, Keith has caught some stomach bug, so between him getting up and down at all hours of the night and Garrett coughing up a lung, I'm very well-rested. I'm in hopes that when my guys are healthy, I will stay that way. With my luck I'll probably catch pneumonia and the stomach bug at the same time, that would be interesting. Thankfully the doctor did prescribe some cough medicine that should not only quiet Garrett's cough, but also help him sleep. Maybe I'll toss back a shot of it.
Today is the 10th anniversary of mine and Keith's first date. I can't believe it's been 10 years, in some ways it feels much longer than that and then not near that long in other ways. We were introduced by a friend of Keith's who I barely knew. We actually met at his church when my family had visited for a revival service. It took him several months to get up the nerve to ask me out. Turns out I was the first girl he ever asked out (and the last, obviously). I remember a couple of weeks before he finally called me, he and his family visited my church for our choir's Christmas cantata. My sister and I were both in the choir and we were supposed to wear white shirts with navy or black skirts. As I was putting on my only white shirt appropriate for the church choir, I got makeup all over the back of it! I just figured, oh well, the guys in the back row of the choir will get a good laugh. When we got to the church, my mom insisted that Grace and I swap shoes because Grace was in the front row of the choir and my mom thought her shoes didn't look appropriate. So here I am, white shirt smeared with makeup, black skirt and hose, with brown shoes. Yup, I looked like a clown. So we all went to our seats on the stage, I look out in the audience and see Keith. I was immediately embarrassed. Of course he couldn't tell from where he was sitting that I was a definite 'fashion don't' at that particular moment. As soon as we were done, I held my sister at gun point to get my shoes back (not really) and put on my jacket so no one could see the makeup and Keith and I ended up talking for a little while. He still didn't ask me out though.
Finally a couple of days after Christmas that year, the phone rings. My sister, Christie, answered it and then hollars to me (without covering up the mouthpiece), "Lydia, there's some cowboy on the phone for you." You can't really avoid embarrassment when you have younger siblings. So after small talk, he finally got around to asking me out for the following Saturday (Jan 3, 1998). We went bowling and ate supper at the Ole' West Steakhouse in Athens, Texas. When he brought me home afterwards, he got to sit in on Christie's 10th birthday party. She had 2 friends there to spend the night who kept coming out and looking at Keith and then running away, giggling. It was fun. :) After that, we pretty much saw each other every Friday or Saturday night until my family moved to Lake Jackson 15 months later. Then we just talked on the phone a lot and tried to see each other every few months or so. We didn't get engaged until after we had been dating for almost 4 years. Then we got married 9 months later and have been married for a little more than 5 years. So, that's our story. We won't be doing anything in particular to celebrate, but it's always nice to remenisce about the beginning of your relationship. Who would have known we would go on to create "a Garrett".
Who is, at this moment trying to climb some shelves in order to reach sidewalk chalk. I'll keep you posted on the pneumonia/bronchitis thing when I know more.
I would like to ask all you moms and dads out there for some assistance. As I mentioned in a previous blog, we have moved Garrett out of the crib, into the big bed (a full-sized bed in his room with a bed rail on the side). He seems to be sleeping decently in there at night, but he has yet to take a nap in there without me laying beside him. As much as I would love to take a nap every day, I do have things that I need and want to get done while he's napping. Does anybody have any suggestions as to how to accomplish this? I'm going crazy every day at around 6:00pm because he becomes unbearable to be around after having been up since 7 or 8 that morning. He used to nap for an hour and a half to two hours in his crib, so he needs to be doing the same thing in the big bed. I've tried getting him to sleep on my own and then moving him to the bed, that didn't work. I've tried putting him down like I always did in the crib and then shutting him in his room with no way for him to get out and no toys for him to play with except for the ones he has to have to sleep with. Then he just plays with the danged door stop until I go crazy from hearing that stupid twang sound; he also has begun peeling the paint off of the back of his bedroom door, it looks like it snowed in there. During these times, I hollar through the door for him to get back in bed and go to sleep, he doesn't listen. I'm tempted to go in there and spank him and then put him in the bed, this is what I have done at bedtime, but it's not completely successful and it takes approximately one billion times before he finally does what I tell him to do. I wish they made full sized cribs. Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated.
We went to the doctor today because the croup episode from over the weekend is still lingering in the form of a horrendous cough, which isn't helping the nap situation one bit. The doctor thought he heard "something" in Garrett's lungs and had us go for an x-ray (second one this week! and they didn't have me wear a lead apron this time, I hope that doesn't mean anything bad for my health.) We'll find out tomorrow if that noise means he has bronchitis or pneumonia, just what we need to round out our time of sickness in our household. On top of all this, Keith has caught some stomach bug, so between him getting up and down at all hours of the night and Garrett coughing up a lung, I'm very well-rested. I'm in hopes that when my guys are healthy, I will stay that way. With my luck I'll probably catch pneumonia and the stomach bug at the same time, that would be interesting. Thankfully the doctor did prescribe some cough medicine that should not only quiet Garrett's cough, but also help him sleep. Maybe I'll toss back a shot of it.
Today is the 10th anniversary of mine and Keith's first date. I can't believe it's been 10 years, in some ways it feels much longer than that and then not near that long in other ways. We were introduced by a friend of Keith's who I barely knew. We actually met at his church when my family had visited for a revival service. It took him several months to get up the nerve to ask me out. Turns out I was the first girl he ever asked out (and the last, obviously). I remember a couple of weeks before he finally called me, he and his family visited my church for our choir's Christmas cantata. My sister and I were both in the choir and we were supposed to wear white shirts with navy or black skirts. As I was putting on my only white shirt appropriate for the church choir, I got makeup all over the back of it! I just figured, oh well, the guys in the back row of the choir will get a good laugh. When we got to the church, my mom insisted that Grace and I swap shoes because Grace was in the front row of the choir and my mom thought her shoes didn't look appropriate. So here I am, white shirt smeared with makeup, black skirt and hose, with brown shoes. Yup, I looked like a clown. So we all went to our seats on the stage, I look out in the audience and see Keith. I was immediately embarrassed. Of course he couldn't tell from where he was sitting that I was a definite 'fashion don't' at that particular moment. As soon as we were done, I held my sister at gun point to get my shoes back (not really) and put on my jacket so no one could see the makeup and Keith and I ended up talking for a little while. He still didn't ask me out though.
Finally a couple of days after Christmas that year, the phone rings. My sister, Christie, answered it and then hollars to me (without covering up the mouthpiece), "Lydia, there's some cowboy on the phone for you." You can't really avoid embarrassment when you have younger siblings. So after small talk, he finally got around to asking me out for the following Saturday (Jan 3, 1998). We went bowling and ate supper at the Ole' West Steakhouse in Athens, Texas. When he brought me home afterwards, he got to sit in on Christie's 10th birthday party. She had 2 friends there to spend the night who kept coming out and looking at Keith and then running away, giggling. It was fun. :) After that, we pretty much saw each other every Friday or Saturday night until my family moved to Lake Jackson 15 months later. Then we just talked on the phone a lot and tried to see each other every few months or so. We didn't get engaged until after we had been dating for almost 4 years. Then we got married 9 months later and have been married for a little more than 5 years. So, that's our story. We won't be doing anything in particular to celebrate, but it's always nice to remenisce about the beginning of your relationship. Who would have known we would go on to create "a Garrett".
Who is, at this moment trying to climb some shelves in order to reach sidewalk chalk. I'll keep you posted on the pneumonia/bronchitis thing when I know more.
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