Report Cards

So I realize it's been way too long since my last post. And I have lots of things that I want and need to blog about, but some of those I'm not quite ready to discuss.

I did want to share that Garrett got his first report card this week.

I will be honest in saying that I was anxious to see it. I will even confess to emailing his teacher 2 days after the 6 week grading period was over to ask her when report cards would be sent home. (I promise I normally leave her alone! I'm not "that" mom. I've experienced "her" before and she's not fun.)

I don't know if other moms feel this way (dads too, maybe?) but the main reason I was anxious about this is because I felt like these were my grades.

Now, before you think I'm becoming "that" mom, by making that statement, let me clarify. I don't want or need to project any sort of expectations on to either of my boys. They are who they are and if that person is a straight C student, giving his all, then I'm thrilled. I have no particular aspirations for either of them. I just want them to follow God's will for their lives whatever that may be.

So the reason I felt like these grades were mine were because it gave me an idea of whether or not I had done an adequate job of preparing Garrett for this first year of school. I will admit that I'm not much on doing a lot of structured learning at home in the preschool years. He got some of that in his MDO/preschool program a couple of days a week and the learning he got from home was mostly from teachable moments and games that we played. I was excited to see how well prepared he was for kindergarten and where he stood over the course of these first 6 weeks of school.

Before I share specifics, I have to say that I've always thought of math as something that kindergarteners don't do much of. I know there's lots of counting taking place and other math processes going on, but that's honestly never been a subject I've thought much on during these preschool years. We counted things and sometimes Garrett would ask more in depth questions that involved addition and subtraction, but that was about it. When he started kindergarten, he was able to count to 100.

I was very pleasantly surprised to see that in the 4 areas of math that are graded during the first 6 weeks of kindergarten, Garrett scored all "4's". Their grading system is: 1=a skill that the student is unable to do, 2=a skill that the student can do with help, 3=a skill that the student has mastered, and 4=a skill that the student has mastered and is helping others to learn.

Obviously, Daddy's CPA genes are being passed on!

All other areas, Garrett scored 3's, except in reading skills he scored a 2 (it's the first 6 weeks of kindergarten and he started the year only knowing environmental print, letters, and sounds. I had no expectations of it being any higher than that. He now knows all of his sight words and word wall words as of the lists for the 2nd 6 weeks of school and he's reading all of the guided reading books he brings home. I'm thrilled with his reading progress this early in the year. And I never worked at all with him on reading, other than to learn the letters and sounds and we've always read lots of books together.) He also scored a 2 in writing stories. (He started the school year knowing how to write Garrett and Cooper with no help. He's having a hard time writing when he is still learning to read. Plus they don't teach phonics anymore, which is a major problem that I have with the public school system, in general. So it's harder to sound things out without the phonics foundation. I'm actually strongly considering getting some phonics curriculum and starting on that with him at home. If anyone has any recommendations for it, I would love to hear them!) I got off on a couple of tangents there, but I'm so thrilled with his progress and assumed this was roughly where he would be (with the exception of the math skills I knew nothing about).

The rest of the report card is based on behavior and graded with E, S, and N, which I'm sure we're all familiar with. He got all E's except for an S in "follows classroom rules" and "works neatly and carefully". Neither of those S's are surprising in the least if you know Garrett. I was surprised he didn't get an S that would somehow relate to "talking when he's supposed to be quiet". Or "oversharing about Super Mario". That one would result in an N, I'm afraid. His teacher wrote that she loved having him in her classroom and he was a great joy to her.

I feel like I passed this first test of motherhood. And I promise the rest of the report cards from now until graduation will be a sole reflection of Garrett!

Garrett stories

The scene:
This afternoon in the living room, playing with our Fisher Price Nativity Set.

I heard Garrett yell "Baby Jesus!!!" So I looked over and Baby Jesus had fallen off the cliff (aka entertainment cabinet) and the camel was watching and yelling for help. The angel swooped down and rescued Jesus, returning him to Mary's anxious arms. Mary said "Thank you sir for rescuing Baby Jesus." Then one of the wise men fell off the cliff and got buried in a pillow avalanche. The angel swooped down to rescue him accompanied by Mary. Either Garrett thinks this wise man is actually Joseph or this wise man is Mary's dad, not sure which, but Mary was hollaring "Daddy!! Where are you? We found Baby Jesus."

The scene:
A few days ago in the car, pulling into the garage after picking Garrett up from school.

Out of the blue, Garrett says "Momma, we need to build Daddy a new house." I asked him why. He said "This house isn't big enough. This is a Momma-size house. Daddy needs a Daddy-size house. So he can fit in the shower." (I should explain that he can fit in the shower just fine. He's 6'5", but the ceilings in our bathroom are 20 feet tall, so there's no problem there.) Garrett was very insistant that we needed to do it and it should be a surprise. I'm sure he would be very surprised.

The scene:
This morning in the car as we were pulling into the Walmart parking lot.

Garrett said "Yay! Walmart! Finally!" I said, "You love Walmart don't you?" He said "No. I love Nana and Pawpaw." He's missing them a lot since we saw them at Thanksgiving.

*Sorry it's been forever since a post. I'm very much behind this year with my Christmas shopping, plus Cooper has been beyond clingy lately, so that leaves me with little blogging time. In fact I'm holding him right now as I type this. Which is loads of fun.
The plus is that everyone outside of our family is bought for (except for a few small gifts) so I just have Keith and the boys to finish. I ordered Garrett's big present this afternoon. Toys R Us is having Free Shipping right now! So I could not pass up getting his new 2 wheel bike with training wheels shipped to our house rather than the hassle of going to the store and lugging it out to the car. I have a few ideas for Keith and have bought him some things already and Cooper could get by on what I've bought him so far. He won't care what he gets. I'm leaving early this Saturday morning and hope to get everything else purchased in one shopping trip. I've never actually done that before because I've always been able to do a little here and there, but that has not really happened this year, so one big trip it is. I promise to post at least a couple more times between now and Christmas. I have a birthday and Cooper has a half-birthday in the next week, so there will be plenty of material. So long as I can get a moment with my hands free...

Professional Pictures

For those of you who aren't my friends on Facebook (or never check your account), I took the boys to have their pictures taken yesterday at JC Penney's.  I've been taking Garrett there for the past couple of years and really liked the way his pictures turned out, so I was looking forward to what they would do with both boys this time.

I was not impressed.  

Maybe they're not trained to work with small babies.  Or maybe we just got a bad photographer.  Either way, I was somewhat disappointed in the results, but I went ahead and ordered some shots because I'm not going through all the hassle of getting both boys ready and there on time (despite someone having a dirty diaper in the mall parking lot and getting to change yet another one in the car.  I might as well move my changing station out there as often as I'm changing diapers in the seat of the SUV.  I changed another one just today!).  Not to mention just the general hassle of scheduling the appointment and going through all the poses and the breakdowns.  Last year's picture taking was perfect.  Garrett was terrific.  This year's photographer totally intimidated him and he cried several times.  He's much past the age of just crying without being hurt or totally tired (and this was at 11am, so he was NOT tired nor was he physically hurt.)  

Anyway, here are a few of the decent shots that I ordered.  

The best shot of the boys together.  Not wonderful imo, but it's cute.  Cooper's totally in the smiling stage right now, yet this photographer couldn't seem to get him to smile to save her life.  Not that she tried very hard...

For this picture, the photographer kept trying to get Garrett to cradle Cooper like a newborn.  Cooper weighs, at the very least, 12 pounds.  I can barely cradle him without something supporting my arm, there is no way Garrett could hold him that way.  That's why he looks awkward in this picture.  

Literally the best picture of Cooper.  Pathetic.  Yes, it's cute, but I capture pictures that are, in my opinion, 10x's cuter than this at my house.  And he's typically smiling.  She kept insisting that he lay on his stomach initially, but she had a bunch of weird pillows under him which made him slide down and he wasn't comfortable.  So she moved him to his side and did not attempt another position after that.  

A strange pose for a boy, but I love his long eyelashes, so I like it.

You can tell that his eyes are shinier in this picture.  He had been crying because he didn't understand what she was saying when she kept telling him to look through the hole.  Rather than SHOWING him (hello, he's 3!!), she just kept repeating herself over and over until he started crying and I had to go to him and show him how to do it.  While I was holding Cooper.  Ugh!  I would have complained to someone, but she was the only employee working that day.

I'm surprised she actually took this picture.  She kept telling him over and over to stop smiling like that and keep his fingers down.  But this is totally Garrett.  So I do love it!

Tomorrow is the big birthday and the big birthday party!!!  I'll be sharing pictures from that as soon as I can.

8 Weeks

Cooper is 8 weeks old today.  His personality shows more and more and I'm afraid we have another Garrett on our hands.  He was being really vocal last night, cooing and "talking" to Keith when he got home from work.  Keith looked at me and said "Great, we have another talker on our hands.  We're both gonna be deaf before these boys are grown."  Garrett is quite the chatterbox. Poor Keith.  Between me, Garrett, and now Cooper, maybe, he's just going to do a lot of nodding and tuning us out.  

With Cooper getting older and changing looks, we've been debating over who he looks like.  We don't really think he looks much like Garrett, though the following pictures may say otherwise.

Can you tell who is who?  You've got to love the pictures of them screaming.  At least it shows a bit of the reality that goes on in our house.  

I also found this picture of me as a baby to compare with a picture of Cooper.  I think he might resemble me a little.

A Garrett story:  He has taken to saying "I'm gonna tell God."  Not in a tattle tale sort of way, just in a way that he wants to have a convo with God.  This is always after his bedtime prayers, so I guess he feels his mumbled prayer isn't cutting it and he needs to tell God other things.  Mostly listing all the things God made.  Like rainbows.  And Spiderman.  

6 Weeks...Almost

As of tomorrow, Cooper will be 6 weeks old. I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel with his sleeping! Saturday night he slept from 10:30pm until 5:00am! I guess technically he slept from 8pm to 5am, I did get him up to eat at 10:30, but he barely woke up to do so. Last night, he did the same with a brief intermission at 3:00. I would have fed him when he woke up at 3:00, but I thought it was 1:00, so I just gave him his paci and went back to bed.

My alarm clock is one of those atomic clocks that sets itself and keeps time based on some highly scientific method that, I have no clue how it works, I just know that the time is accurate and I don't have to worry with changing it come Daylight Savings Time. So last night, when I heard Cooper waking up, I checked my clock as I got out of bed. When I saw that it was only 1am, I simply gave him his pacifier and went back to bed. Keith asked me "Is he done eating already?" and I told him it was only 1am, so I was going to have him hold off till 3:00 if he would do so.

He said, "But it IS 3:00."

And I said, "No, it's only 1:00. Your clock is wrong."

Garrett is notorious for playing with Keith's alarm clock and changing the time on it, so we both assumed that was what happened and went back to sleep. When Cooper woke up 2 hours later, I got up and headed to his room to feed him. When I turned on the lamp in his bedroom, I glanced at his clock and, surprise!, it was actually 5:00, not 3:00. Apparently my clock WAS wrong. I felt badly because had I known it was actually 3:00 2 hours prior, I would have fed Cooper. But thankfully he didn't even take the full bottle that I offered him, so he wasn't THAT hungry. When I got up later this morning at 7:00, my clock had fixed itself! I hope it doesn't do that again because now I'm not going to trust it to be correct.

On another note, I know I badmouthed summer television programming, but I can say that I'm thankful for "Wipeout". Garrett LOVES this show. He will readily agree to just about anything in order to watch it. Inevitably, he will have his own obstacle course set up in the living room by the end of the show. He also enjoys giving us a play by play, along with a visual, of what each person has done. Thank goodness for baby equipment because it gives him more items he has to maneuver around.

Tomorrow we're headed to my cousin's house to see her and her new baby along with a visit with my grandparents. This will entail a 1 hour car ride there and back. It will be Cooper's longest car ride yet and our longest amount of time spent outside of the house so far. When Garrett was about this age, we did something similar, except we drove 2 and a half hours one way to meet up with my family in Huntsville for a day. Just me and Garrett. He did really well and slept the majority of the trip. So hopefully the same will apply for tomorrow.

And finally, the prerequisite picture.

About a week ago, I went in to check on him at naptime and found this. The sucking of the thumb.

No Stage Fright Here

I think I mentioned a week ago about Garrett's school program.  On a Sunday night, the kids who attend our church's Mother's Day Out and Daycare joined forces and performed several songs for all the parents.  I took a video of one of the songs from Garrett's class, but Blogger takes forever and a day to upload, so that will have to come at another time.  But here's a pictorial overview of the night.

"Where are my parents?  I want to be sure they're watching my every move.  They're gonna love this!  There they are."

"Smile pretty and get ready to sing!"

"Aha!  The microphone!  I know the singers in the worship team on Sunday morning sing into these, so I should give it a shot."

"Hmm, a little closer.  I don't think the people in the back row can hear me."

"And, now I'm done.  I don't know this song, so I'll just look away from the audience and then they probably won't be able to see me."

After all the groups had finished their songs, our pastor came on the stage to thank everyone and had the kids sit up there for a minute.  During that time, Garrett and his friend, Avery (the girl in the purple shirt standing next to him in most of the pictures), sat directly in front of a speaker that sits on the edge of the stage.  They both started talking into it and then running their fingers up and down the metal grating on the front until one of the adults up there told them to stop.  I have a feeling that Garrett and Avery will be getting into trouble together for many years to come.  They've known each other since birth and have always been in the same Sunday school class along with being in the same MDO class.  (And we're friends with her parents and swap babysitting back and forth.)  It will be fun to show them these pictures when they're older and have forgotten how long they've known each other.  There's just something to be said for friends you've known since birth.  That's the way I feel about my friend, Mary.

This Sunday, Garrett will be performing again with his VBS class.  That should be interesting.

Garrett Stuff

It's so frustrating when something happens that I would like nothing more than to blog about it, but if there's even the slightest chance that the other person would read this, then I just can't do it.  I don't think this person even knows I have a blog, much less reads it, but I still can't do it.  I'll just say it's in regards to breastfeeding and leave it at that.  And all (2) of the men who read my blog are breathing a big sigh of relief.  But I promise it's more about the breastfeeding vs. bottlefeeding debate than anything else. OK, I'm done.

And since I'm posting a blog, I just have to share something funny that Garrett did yesterday.  We were outside and he was drawing on the driveway with sidewalk chalk.  He drew a family portrait and narrated for me as he drew.

"This is Daddy.  He's a big giant."  And he drew a very tall stick person.

"This is Momma.  She's so cute."  haha  I know the only reason why he said that is because Keith randomly asks Garrett "Isn't Momma cute?"  

"This is Cooper.  He is teeny tiny."  And he drew a dot.

"This is Garrett.  He's a big boy."  And he drew a short stick person next to my average-looking stick figure.  I tried to take a picture with the camera phone, but the drawing was half in the shade, half in the sun and I haven't thought to take another one until this moment.  

Yesterday I installed the infant car seat in the SUV and Garrett immediately told me I had done it all wrong because it was facing the wrong way.  I explained that babies face the back of the car and big boys face the front.  But he still thinks I did it wrong.  Nothing like being told how to do something by a 3 year old.

And Baby Makes 3

As I get ever closer to my due date, I've been thinking back on my pregnancy and the birth of Garrett.  So in order to keep my 2 pregnancies and labor experiences separate, I thought I would jot down what I remember from Garrett before I go through labor and delivery again and start confusing what happened with which child.  While I have no plans of being overly detailed with this post, I do want to give you the opportunity to exit out before I get started if labor and delivery "stuff" isn't your thing.  

My pregnancy with Garrett was pretty similar to this one.  I found out I was pregnant about a week before Christmas in 2004.  I have exact dates for all of this written down in a "What to Expect When You're Expecting" calendar, so I'm not going to drag that out to remember.  With Garrett, we were not quite to the point of being ready to have a baby when the second line showed up on that test.  We were both a little surprised, to say the least.  I cried, mostly because I didn't know how Keith was going to respond when I told him.  So I waited for him to get home from work, we ate supper, and then I sprang the news on him.  He looked at me in shock for a few minutes and didn't say much for the rest of the evening.  It took awhile, but we both adjusted to the idea and got excited about having a baby.  I only had one bout of morning sickness, beyond the random moments of nausea, and for the most part had an easy pregnancy. 

I taught school throughout the majority of my pregnancy.  Months 7 and 8 were during my summer break, so I was able to spend that time finishing up Garrett's room and doing a lot of relaxing and soaking in the cool air.  I do remember constantly feeling hot when I was pregnant with him, which could have had something to do with the fact that he was born in August, the absolute hottest time of the year in Texas.  My brother got married in south Texas about 8 weeks before Garrett was due and I know I froze Keith to death on the drive down and back for the wedding, and that's no small feat.  

3 weeks before my due date, I had to start the new school year.  I walked into my classroom for the first time after being gone for 2 months to discover all the furniture had been moved around and (worst of all) there was no a/c!  In August!  For some reason, the a/c was out in my room and the room next to me for the entire 3 weeks until I left for maternity leave.  I think I had 3 or 4 fans in there to try and make things bearable.  The most fun though was moving all my furniture back to where it belonged.  I wasn't worried about going into labor while moving everything because I was ready to be on maternity leave, but let's just say it was interesting trying to move a 4 drawer filing cabinet across my classroom while being 9 months pregnant. I was able to get my substitute set up and ready to start the year off for me and then my maternity leave started.  I remember going to my last doctor's appointment on my first day of maternity leave and telling him that I was so ready to be done.  Turns out I was dilated to 3 cm already so he said he would induce me the following Monday.  

My family was only 5 hours away at this time, so they drove up that weekend.  Monday morning, Keith, my mom, and I left our house between 5 and 5:30 am because I had been told to be there by 6 am.  At 8 am, my doctor came to the delivery room and broke my water.  Initially I had very mild, inconsistent contractions, so at 10 am I was started on pitocin.  Once this got in my system I was definitely feeling uncomfortable.  My doctor came back to check me at noon and I remember thinking to myself "If I'm 7 cm or more, I'm going to try to do this without an epidural."  I was 6 cm.  So I told the doctor to bring in the anesthesiologist.  Keith left at this point to go to lunch.  He had no desire to be in there while I was getting the epidural and I didn't want him in there.  My mom stayed and helped me to breathe through the contractions while the epidural was being put into place.  I made sure that, while I couldn't feel my legs, I could still move them.  I didn't want too much of an epidural, just enough to keep me comfortable.  By this point, I had visitors who wouldn't have dared come in the delivery room pre-epidural, but now felt comfortable enough that I wouldn't take a swing at them since I was medicated.  Throughout the afternoon, when my doctor would come in to check on me, he would say "This baby has a big head!"  And I would say "You're scaring me" to which he would respond "You're scaring me!"  

The further along that I got, the worse I felt.  First, I had to throw up.  It came on me all of the sudden and my mom was just barely able to shove a bed pan in my face before it happened.  Then, after an exam, I began feeling very light headed.  I told the nurse I thought I was going to pass out, so she brought out an oxygen mask and made me lay on my right side.  At this point, Garrett's heartrate was starting to drop, so they moved me around until I was in a position that kept his heartrate at a level that looked good.  5:30 pm rolled around and the nurse came back in to check me.  She said it was time to start pushing, but we were going to do some practice pushes so I could get a feel for it.  Once she felt like I was ready to push for real, she called the doctor and started disassembling the room.  Atleast it felt that way, lights pop out of the ceiling, the bed is broken down to be in a better position for delivering a baby, all sorts of equipment and people showed up to take over with the baby once he was born.  My doctor showed up with someone he was training and I started pushing.  I remember hearing my mom say "I see his head!" and a few more pushes later he was born at 6:30 pm.  The cord was wrapped around his neck twice which explained why his heartrate was dropping earlier.  He also had a conehead and a lot of bruising on his scalp, so the doctor wasn't kidding when he had commented on the size of his head.  

The rest of our hospital stay was relatively uneventful.  Garrett had jaundice so we ended up staying in the hospital for an extra day so he could spend time until the lights to try and bring down his levels.  Since we went home over Labor Day weekend, which means that our doctor's office was closed, we had to go back to the hospital every day to have his jaundice levels checked.  It was NOT fun holding down a newborn to get his heel pricked.  

It took us awhile to get into a good routine once we had him.  I never knew how much of an adjustment it would be to have a baby.  Now I feel like I'm a little better prepared for Cooper, simply because I've gone through this once.  I know there will be plenty of other new and different experiences with him that will still take time to adjust to, but atleast I now have an idea of what it will be like.  I have to say that I'm more than ready to move on to this next phase and it will be here before I realize it.

Garrett's Room

I've intended to post this for atleast a week now, but I'm just now getting around to doing it. My apologies for those who were waiting with bated breath. haha

As I've explained before, Garrett moved out of his old room and into what used to be our guest room. In the move, I've attempted to reorganize Garrett and all his things in order to keep his toys from overtaking our house.

Unfortunately, I don't have a good shot of our former guest room on this computer, so here's the next best thing. Right around when Garrett turned 2, he discovered our board games in the guest room closet and had a grand ole' time playing them following his own rules and mixing and matching game pieces. So here's a shot of him in the room before it became his bedroom.

During the moving process, while Keith was painting, Garrett was "helping". Such a good helper, don't you think?
And now here's the finished product. I know that a lot of kids' rooms have cute murals and wonderful paint schemes, but I just don't have that talent, or that kind of time, so we stuck with refreshing our current paint color and then went with a generic Disney theme. Garrett is a big fan of a variety of Disney movies so I couldn't pick just one. This made it easier to just go with several that he currently likes. It won't be hard to change it up when his interests change, as we all know they will.

This picture was taken from the doorway. Garrett wanted to be included in the shot. He still has a John Deere pillow on his bed (which was his nursery theme) because he loves that pillow very much. I'm on the hunt for a similar pillow except with some sort of Disney character on it, but I haven't been successful so far. Unless I go with Hannah Montana, but I doubt Garrett or Keith would like that very much. In case the posters aren't self-explanatory, one is from the movie "Cars" and the other is from "Toy Story 2". Garrett loves to set up all his Toy Story characters to look like they do in the poster. The rug on the floor is a "Cars" rug with a road to drive cars on. I would really like to find a different bedskirt than the one currently on his bed because I would prefer a blue one rather than green, but that's way down the bottom of my list of things to do.

This shot was taken from the window looking towards the door and the closet. I'm still deciding if I want to rehang the wooden letters that spell "Garrett" and if I do, they will go above the clock. So right now that wall looks a little bare, but at this point, I'm happy with it. I love the hot wheels organizer on his closet door. That has been such a help in keeping his cars organized. Inside the wooden toy box are all his musical toys and big trucks and cars (no small toys to prevent something getting lost). Inside the baskets are miscellaneous toys and I've got several other baskets in the top of his closet with more miscellaneous toys and I switch out the baskets periodically so he doesn't get tired of the same toys, but also to keep from having every single toy he owns out at once. It's really helping to keep his room clean and the rest of the house from getting too cluttered with toys, since we don't have a toy room or a play room.

This picture was taken from the corner by the closet door. One poster is from the movie "Monsters, Inc" the other poster was totally Garrett's choice. I knew I wanted one more, but couldn't find another poster that wasn't a ridiculous amount of money, so one day we were looking through the Walmart posters (flipping quickly through the scantily clad women posters) and they had 3 Spiderman posters. He's a big fan of Spiderman's right now, so I told him he could pick one to hang in his room. I figured he would pick one of the 2 that had just Spiderman on them, but instead, he picked the one with every Marvel comics character on it, with Spiderman standing in the front. He asks me all the time who they all are (there's probably a hundred or more in the poster) and I can only tell him 2 or 3 that I recognize. So any comic buffs out there are welcome to come by and name those characters for us.

In the picture, Garrett is watching a worm that's crawling down the wall, hence the reason why he's not looking at me. We are currently having issues with little inch worms getting in our house. Garrett loves watching them and playing with them. Yes, he's all boy and no, I don't encourage the playing part, but I have to be honest and say that I've heard "Hey, Momma, the worm is riding on Thomas!" many times in the past few weeks. (Thomas being Thomas the train, for the uninformed.) Back to the picture, the train table was free, given to us by some awesome friends who were cleaning out their kids' rooms before Christmas, so we keep all his Geo Trax train equipment inside of it and a few of the bigger pieces on top of or underneath it. His Thomas train set either stays in the living room for a few days at a time or it's in a container in the top of Garrett's closet. I couldn't tolerate having both train sets out at the same time, it's too much of a mess.And the final picture. One shot of his closet. Something that sold me on our house is that all of the closets are walk-in, so there is more to it than what you can see, but it's almost impossible to take a good picture of a walk-in closet, as I discovered the day I was taking these, so I'll just stick with this shot and be done with it. The drawback to our house is that the 2 kids' bedrooms are on the small side, so in order to maximize space, I've eliminated dressers and use the closets to their fullest potential. I bought this hanging organizer from the Lillian Vernon website on clearance for $10. I keep Garrett's underwear in the top slot, his socks in the second slot, miscellaneous stuff in the third slot and then his shoes go in the smaller slots. Most of them are empty right now because most of his shoes are on the floor of the laundry room where we also tend to keep our shoes that we wear frequently. In the basket on the shelves in the middle is where I keep Garrett's pj's. The shelf below that are a couple of Garrett's throw blankets. Being a former elementary school teacher, I have a ton of kids books. Garrett would get them all out at once and make a mess if he could, so that's why the 2 top shelves have books on them. Inside the closet and to the left, is a small, plastic organizer with more books on it that he can reach. His hamper sits next to it. To the right, inside the closet, is one of those blow-up punching bags that stands about 4 feet tall, and a wagon full of Mega blocks. All along the top shelf are baskets of toys, a container of sheets that fit Garrett's bed, a box of memorabilia that I've saved so far for Garrett, and a container for Thomas and his train tracks.
And that is the tour of Garrett's new bedroom along with my attempts of organizing him and his stuff. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks I'll be able to post something similar from Cooper's room. Today, I put the mattress in the crib. I think the only thing left to do is to hang the curtain, vacuum, then move all the furniture where it belongs and hang everything on the walls and it will be finished. I organized his closet last week. It's a little more chaotic than Garrett's because of the baby equipment and baby toys that will be stored in there until needed. With Garrett, we didn't get a lot of that stuff until he needed it (like a potty chair), but now we have to have some place to store it and his closet is the most convenient one.

Tomorrow I have yet another doctor's appointment, so I'll post about that later along with my Mother's Day. It's been wonderful and my husband bought me an awesome gift!

A Day That Will Live in Infamy

I guess I need to write this date down in Garrett's baby book because it marks a significant event.  

The day that all parents know is coming, but dread the arrival.  

The day the question "Why?" is introduced in a child's vocabulary.  

Garrett has been an inquisitive kid for a while now.  When we've told him we can't do something/buy something/go somewhere, etc, his response has been "Tomorrow, can we do it? buy it? go there?"  

But today we were on our way home from Sears (after having been to church and then eaten at Whataburger) and we saw a carnival off the highway, complete with a ferris wheel and several bigger rides.  Garrett asked if we could go there and ride the rides.  How he knew they were rides meant to be ridden, I don't really know.  But when I said "No, not today.", his response wasn't "Tomorrow, can we go?" as I would have expected, but "Why?"  Instead of jumping out of the car, screaming, I just said they were for bigger kids and when he gets bigger then maybe he would be able to ride those rides.  And then I went off on a tangent about going to Six Flags some day and how much fun we would have there and so on.  I was really hoping to distract him from asking "Why" again and again until I really did jump.

So I'm scared.  I'm scared of being asked "Why?" a thousand times a day now that he knows it's a legitimate question to ask.  I have a very small amount of patience for a thousand "Why's" a day, so I really hope he won't abuse this line of questioning because I'm not sure I can handle it.

Off to the Dentist

Garrett had his very first dentist appointment today.  I know I'm a terrible mom for not having taken a picture of the momentous occasion, not to mention a terrible blogger for not hauling my camera with me everywhere to include snapshots in my blogs.  To be honest, I'm too tired.  

Anyway, I had been prepping Garrett for today's appointment for about a week now.  We've discussed the idea of going to a doctor who will check his teeth, take pictures of his teeth and clean them to look nice and pretty.  Then, low and behold, Sesame Street's episode this morning was all about teeth!  One more bit of reinforcement for my dentist discussions.  

First off, I know most people/parents fall into one of two camps.  Camp 1 includes parents who find any dental visits when the child still has baby teeth to be a tad ridiculous considering the fact that those teeth will eventually end up in the trash (or a jar for safe keeping if you're that mom.)  I know these parents would of course take their child to the dentist if something were noticeably wrong, but otherwise, they wait until permanent teeth are in place before making this trip.  Camp 2 consists of parents who take their small child to the dentist, but this group is actually divided as well.  There's the group who takes their infant to the dentist before they even have any teeth and then the group who figures, hey, the kid is already on our dental insurance and it probably wouldn't be a bad idea for them to go before they get too old to develop some sort of weird fear of the dentist.  I'm in that last group.  Dental insurance for our family versus for just Keith and I is exactly the same, cost-wise.  So Garrett has had dental insurance for as long as I have.  (I didn't have any while teaching.  And we never had any growing up.  A perk of being a PK.  That's why my first dental appointment wasn't until I was 13.  And I lied and told the dentist it had only been a year since my last appointment.  I'm sure he thought I hadn't brushed my teeth once in that entire year, since I had 4 cavities and a plaque problem.)

A friend of mine gave me a recommendation for a pediatric dentist, I called and made the appointment, and there we sat this morning, in the waiting room, watching "Toy Story" on one of 2 wall-mounted TV's.  If you know my child at all, you know that this movie is one of his favorites.  A positive to seeing a pediatric dentist instead of a regular one.  The hygienist gave me a quick tour to show me where exams take place (a huge room with ceiling and wall mounted TV's, a large aquarium, and tons of toys), the room for x-rays (with yet another TV), and finally, the room where I met the dentist and got a quick overview of today's appointment (this room also had a TV along with several books and toys).  Every TV was showing the same movie, so no matter where the child was, they were able to keep up with what they were watching.  I only wish my dentist would invest in something similar, except maybe showing "Friends" reruns instead.  

The dentist told me they would do x-rays, a cleaning, fluoride treatment, along with an exam.  Then he asked Garrett if he wanted to come with him and let Momma go to the waiting room and read a magazine.  Garrett happily went along with him without a single backward glance towards me.  The way this office is set up, parents are invited and allowed to watch the exams through a window in the hallway, but I chose to read "People" in the waiting room in the relative peace and quiet that accompanies other moms waiting for their kids.  

45 minutes later, I was called back and told that Garrett was finished.  I sat down to pay our co-pay and schedule his next appointment, when I hear his voice.  He walks around the corner being followed by 3 ladies who worked there, who were treating him as if he hung the moon.  They gave him a sticker and a balloon (which are protocol) and then every single lady came up to me to tell me how great he did and how fun he is and how friendly he is, etc.  He somehow managed to charm them all.  If he feels like being charming, then he is, it just depends on his mood.  Thankfully today was one of those days.  

He has some nerve damage to one of his front teeth, which I suspected, because he fell and hit his mouth about a month ago and the tooth has been changing colors since then.  He also has 2 small cavities on his back molars.  While I do find myself rolling my eyes about filling baby teeth, knowing they will fall out in the next 4 years, it's not that big of a deal and atleast this way he will learn early on what a filling is all about.  

Now I get to try and figure out how to floss his teeth.  It's not something we've been doing, but apparently it's something we're supposed to be doing, so I'm going to give it a shot.  But this is the kid who randomly snap his mouth shut while we're in the middle of brushing his teeth, so the first time he bites me, I will probably be tempted to quit, among other things.

And how weird is it to think that at his next cleaning appointment in October, I will have a 3-4 month old with me!  

Things I've learned so far about having a boy:

-The wet spot on the outside of the shower curtain (and bath mat) could either be bath water or pee pee.  (The same can be said for the water droplets on the wall.)

-I can't be too surprised when I find a shoe in the washing machine.  After doing a load of laundry.  Most of which is Daddy's work clothes.  Thankfully the shoe wasn't terribly dirty.

-I can say the same as above in regards to an orange crayon.  Which just so happened to end up, again, in a load of Daddy's work clothes.  He's now down one shirt and one pair of khakis.  I washed them 10 times atleast, trying out a huge variety of stain removers that did not work.  Our dryer is now streaked orange as well.

-He only chooses to pee standing up when he feels like it.  And he never feels like it when we're at a public restroom.  

-The bath water is ALWAYS 10 times dirtier than I would expect it to be after a bath.  

-I've become oblivious to bodily noises, which are always accompanied with "That was Garrett!!" shouted at the top of his lungs.  He lays claim to it.  Unlike women who typically would look around the room as if to say "Where did that come from?". 

-He must be allowed to climb into his own car seat.  And he is also "too big" to hold Momma's hand in a parking lot.  (Momma says otherwise about that one.)

-No kisses unless he says it's ok.  That includes blowing kisses.  

I'm sure this is all just the very tip of the iceberg. 

Kid Interview

Some of you have seen these "Kid Interviews" on Facebook.  My sister did one with my 6 year old niece, Riley and it was really funny.  So I decided to do one with Garrett and see where it went.  He's 3 and a half, for those who don't know.

1. What is something Momma always says to you?

-No (hmm, I wonder why?)

2. What makes Momma happy?

-When I go to time out.  (I haven't a clue why he thinks that.  I certainly don't smile and laugh while he's in time out.)

3. What makes Momma sad?

-When she makes this face (and he made a sad face).

4. How does Momma make you laugh?

-When she's funny (and he mimicked some sort of weird, goofy dance that I've never done before.)

5. What was Momma like as a child?

-(He grabbed my hair and held it up high on my head like a pony tail) and said "That's a girl."

6. How old is Momma?

-3 (haha, I wish.  He said Daddy was 3, too.)

7. How tall is Momma?

-Big giant. (then he acted out a big giant, stomping around the living and saying "Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum.")

8. What is Momma's favorite thing to do?

-Wash her hands and go night night.  (?? The sleeping I can understand, but washing my hands?  I guess he hears me harping on him about the right way to wash his hands and thinks I love doing it.)

9. What is Momma really good at?

-Going to bed.  (haha.  That made me laugh a lot.)

10. What is Momma not very good at?

-Building a castle.  (Apparently my lego/block skills are lacking.)

11. What does Momma do for a job?

-Work in the bathroom.  (?? I don't clean the bathrooms that often.)

12. What is Momma's favorite food?

-Hamburgers (I'm sure he said this because that's what we had for supper tonight.)

13. If Momma were a cartoon character, who would I be?

-Cars

14. What do you and Momma do together?

-Sleep and draw.  (His current obsession is trying to get to sleep in our bed any chance he gets, so I guess he thought this answer would butter me up to let him sleep with us tonight.  Fat chance, kid.)

15. How do you know Momma loves you?

-You are crazy.  (That's verbatim.  I don't know either.)

16. What does Momma like most about Daddy?

-Going to work. (haha)

17. Where is Momma's favorite place to go?

-Turn left to go to Walmart. (again, verbatim.  And we actually do turn left to go to Walmart.)

18. Who is God?

-God saves from the fire. (I thought that was a really interesting answer.  We've not quite gotten to the point of discussing hell yet, so he either said this at random, or Sunday school is getting much deeper than it did when I was a kid.)

19. Where does He live?

-In your belly.  (Cooper lives there, so apparently God does too.)

20. Who made the world?

-Daddy (haha)

21. Who is your best friend?

-Jiminy Cricket (he saw Pinocchio for the first time today.)

22. How tall are you?

-3

Just wanted to let you know that this interview was conducted while Garrett ran at full speed around the living room and many of these questions were asked multiple times before he gave me an answer.  I know it probably sounds nearly impossible to get a 3 year old boy to answer all these questions, so I didn't want anyone picturing him sitting sedately beside me while I asked each question.  Haha, that's very far from the case.  And by number 21, he was very much over the whole interview.

I can now resume my eating of carbs and sugar.

I don't have the results yet, but I survived the 3 hour test, as we all knew I would.  Turns out I was misinformed on how those things go down.  You only have to drink that stuff once, not 3 times.  Thank goodness!  But it's stronger and sweeter than the stuff for the one hour, which was very obvious.  

One of my arms has better veins than the other for blood work, so I got stuck 4 times in my left arm.  On top of the blood draw from last week.  I'm sure it's going to look lovely tomorrow.  Not to mention the marks from the multiple band aids that were put on and ripped off.  

But besides the using of my arm as a pincushion, the experience wasn't all that bad.  Thankfully the doctor's office is pretty calm on Tuesday mornings, so there was never more than 3 people in the waiting room at a time, which is pretty rare for this office which has about 10 doctors and midwives total (not there all at once, obviously).  The only complaint I would have is that someone scheduled the aquarium maintenance to be performed this morning.  And that stunk!  I'm just glad I didn't smell it immediately after drinking that stuff and that I also wasn't newly pregnant.  I'm not sure I could have just sat there while the tank was being cleaned and water changed.  Didn't realize the funky smell that accompanies that procedure.  

Thankfully the book that I brought was entertaining which made the morning pass by relatively fast.  I would call it pretty similar to "The Devil Wears Prada".  Who knows if the movie will be similar to that one, but I liked that movie, so maybe this one has hope.  I got about 2/3 of the way through the book during my 3 hour stint in the waiting room and have since finished it this afternoon.  

One thing that I discovered during my time there was that Garrett is very well behaved when he accompanies me to my doctor visits.  There were some pretty wild kids that came through the doctor's office this morning.  So I now have much more of an appreciation for his ability to somehow maintain his self control while we're there.  I can't really say that of his time at home, but atleast at the doctor's office, he's able to reign in the craziness.  

Just today he came to me in the kitchen, put his shoes on and said "I need to go outside and pee in the grass".  To which I firmly told him no and directed him towards the bathroom.  To which he argued his point multiple times until he finally got that I wasn't letting him use our grass as a port a potty (not unless we're already out there, no special bathroom trips to the out-of-doors.  This isn't "Little House on the Prairie").  He also told his teacher that he did not like the sandwich that I sent for his lunch today.  Apparently it was discussed at length because she made a note of it on his paper that came home.  And she never does that.  I'm not sure what he didn't like about the ham sandwich with a little mustard, on wheat bread, cut into 4 squares, which he eats every. single. school day.  But apparently today it wasn't working for him.  It might have been because I wrapped it in plastic wrap rather than putting it in a sandwich bag because we were all out of them.  You know that plastic wrap, it totally changes the taste of a sandwich.  

Garrett and Cooper

I promise I will post pictures soon. I'm still illiterate when it comes to uploading pictures on this Mac and I forgot to upload the pictures when I'm on the Dell, but I have several I want to share and I'll do it soon.

I wanted to share that we've finally decided on Cooper's middle name. First off, we made a list of about 5 names that we both could agree on. One of them was Cole, which is why I had previously asked about first and middle names starting with the same letter, but ultimately Keith took it off the list. So we narrowed it down to Gage and that's the one we're going with. I know it's different, but I like that name, though I was hesitant to pick it for a first name, so we decided to go with it as the middle name instead. The funny part is that we know of a set of boy twins named Garrett and Gage, but that's not the reason behind our choice, though I will admit that was probably the first time I had heard of the name Gage.

Cooper has been pretty active lately. Keith was able to feel him kick the other day, so that was pretty cool. I'm also definitely showing now. I hadn't really noticed until yesterday and then I had a lady ask me when I was due the other day at the store, so it's always funny when strangers start to comment.

I bought Cooper's coming home outfit yesterday too. It's a cute, little overall outfit, with a light blue t-shirt, and blue/green plaid overalls. I bought a newborn size because I remember how big clothes were on Garrett, even newborn stuff at first. And he wasn't a tiny baby. He weighed 7 lb 12 oz and was 19" long. So assuming this baby is roughly the same size or even a little bigger, this outfit should fit just fine. I debated having him wear Garrett's coming home outfit, but decided against it. I'm keeping a box of memorabilia for each boy and those outfits would probably be the only baby clothes I'll save, so they need their own.

As I type, Keith is painting Garrett's new room. I'm in hopes that by next weekend, the painting will be finished and I can start to move his things over to the new room and maybe even move him in within a couple of weeks. I think it will really start to feel "real" when the crib is set up in Cooper's room and I start washing baby clothes and hanging them in the closet. My mother in law is fixing a few pieces on Garrett's crib bedding and I plan to reuse that. If Cooper was my first child, I would be appalled at the thought of reusing baby bedding, but now I just find it a waste of money since he will only use it, at the most, for 2 years. But if for some reason my mother in law isn't able to fix it or I find a really cheap bedding set that I love, then I might consider buying something else...

Garrett has earned himself a new nickname: Motormouth. He talks constantly. This morning we brought him into church with us because it's been a few weeks since he's been in the worship service. He talked the ear off of the greeter who came up to us and said hi. She told us "I'm so sorry you're raising such a shy child. It's really a shame." Ha! He would have kept on talking if I hadn't told him to tell her bye. Of course that mouth got him in trouble about 1/4 of the way into the pastor's sermon. Garrett was being loud, so I got out crayons and some color sheets for him to color on. He says "I don't want to color!" in a voice loud enough to be heard from the front stage. I told him to be quiet (we had already had a talk before church about not talking in church and if he needed to say something then he had to whisper). He said it again in the same voice, so I picked him up and we started heading out of the church. We were thankfully only 3 rows from the back. Garrett immediately started yelling "I want my Daddy!" It was a lovely scene. I took him straight to the nursery, even though he didn't want to go, and explained to him that when he gets loud he can't stay in church. He was not happy about it, but hopefully it will be something I can point out the next time we decide to take him into church with us.

I know some of you are wondering why we even bother taking him when we have the option to put him in the nursery. In 6 months, he won't be able to go into the nursery anymore and our church doesn't have children's church. I would prefer to slowly get him used to how to behave in worship services now while I have the nursery to fall back on when he's behaving like he was this morning. Rather than just start things off when he turns 4 and have to train him from the beginning. I'm sure that would result in Keith or I spending time out of the auditorium because I refuse to allow my child to disrupt the services. You never know when someone sitting around you really needed to hear what the pastor had to say, but your child afforded them a reason to be distracted and ignore God trying to get their attention. That's not to say that children will always sit quietly and motionless throughout a church service, nor is it to say that those same people wouldn't find something else to distract them if your child wasn't acting up. But I still don't want to contribute to any excess noise during the worship services when I can help it.

Now that you've had your sermon of the day from me, I'll will close here with the promise to post again soon with pictures. Joy spoke at MOPS a few weeks ago about how to get the most out of your digital camera and how to take the best pictures with any camera, not just the expensive ones.  So I've been attempting to use some of her tips when I can, and I do see a difference. (Thanks Joy!) I'm looking forward to trying them all out on Cooper in a few months. Atleast he'll be still enough to try it, unlike some of my other subjects around here.  

Random Kid Stuff

I *think* we've decided on a name.  But I'm not going to share it yet because we still haven't agreed upon a middle name.  I made a list of about 5 middle names that we both like, so we'll hopefully narrow it down soon and then I'll feel free to share our decision.  What's your opinion on first and middle names starting with the same letter?  Most people are rarely called by both names, and I'm not a mom that tends to "middle name" my kids, I'm not sure if Garrett really knows that his middle name is Lucas because he rarely hears it.  I don't know if I like first and middle names starting with the same letter, but one of the middle names Keith likes starts with the same letter as the first name we've picked, so if that's the only one we can agree on, then I guess that will be the name we'll go with.  I'm just curious what other people think about that.  

I don't know if it's because I'm beginning to anticipate a newborn in the house, but Garrett just seems more and more grown up all the time.  I know once the baby comes home, Garrett will appear to be a teenager to me because of the drastic differences between the two.  This morning he was laying in bed with me while Keith was getting ready for work, he rolled over and said "Hey Momma, I have an idea, why don't we turn on the TV and watch Sesame Street?"  Not a big deal to most of you, but Garrett has been a bit behind with his speech and while he does a great job with communicating to us, I've never heard him say such a long sentence and do it so clearly.  The part "I have an idea" cracked me up because that's the first time he's ever said it.  

Another Garrett story briefly (he's currently saying "Psst, Momma, I want you to turn the lights on in my new room."  I hung up a Toy Story poster in there yesterday to see how it would look, but he hasn't moved in yet.)  Yesterday, when I went to pick him up from MDO he was wearing a different pair of pants than he had on when I dropped him off.  I asked his teacher if he had an accident, which isn't a big deal.  She told me that when they were out on the playground, Garrett came up to her and asked if he could pee in the grass, she told him no, he can pee in his yard at home, but he can't pee on the playground (very good rule!).  So she asked him if he needed to go inside to the bathroom and he told her no.  Of course a few minutes later he came up to her and said he had an accident.  I'm only surprised that he asked permission to pee outside instead of just dropping his pants and going.  Which would have been funny because the church playground sits beside the busiest street in our town.

I just want to end with a big congratulations to my cousin, Stephanie.  She found out yesterday that she's having a baby girl.  She's due a few weeks after I am.  Now I'm curious to know what my other cousin, Andrea, is having.  She's due right between Steph and I.  (My sister is due with her second boy 2 months before me!)  Our family is doing our part to contribute to the so called overpopulation on the planet

One More Week!

Exactly one week from today we will hopefully know if we're having another boy or a girl.  As Keith so eloquently put it yesterday, "You know we're having a girl because we already have all the boy stuff.  That's just how it works for accountants."  Meaning, obviously, that having a girl will cost us more money than having a boy.  I don't think he even realizes the half of it.  

While neither of us really cares one way or the other, so long as the baby is healthy, I think he's learning towards a girl whereas I'm leaning towards a boy.  One of us is bound to be right.  

We're almost done cleaning out the guest room.  All that's in there now are a few of my clothes that I currently can't wear but will have to find a spot in my closet (along with my wedding dress, I'm not sure what to do with that), 7 containers full of blankets and/or picture frames that need to find a spot in the garage or attic, and the baby crib, which will be moved to the baby's room once there's a free spot for it.  Initially I planned on painting Garrett's new room a grayish blue color because all of the walls in our house are what we call the builder's khaki color and I'm getting tired of it.  However, yesterday I was really taking a hard long in that room and decided I don't have the energy or the drive to tackle painting right now.  Keith didn't really want to change the color, so he agreed to touch up the walls and baseboards for me so atleast everything will be fresh before Garrett moves in.  Now I need to buy curtains and a curtain rod along with some poster frames and we'll be ready to start moving Garrett over.  I would like him to be completely moved in by April for a few reasons.  One would be that he will have plenty of time to adjust to the new room before a new baby will take over his old room, and two, we will have enough time to get the baby's room ready before it's born.  

As for the baby's room (ie Garrett's current room) it will need to be completely repainted because toddlers are hard on their walls.  But since we're just repainting with the color that's currently on the walls, it shouldn't take as much work as a new paint color would.  

Is anybody else tired after reading all that?

Back to more important things, I'm feeling the baby move every day now.  Nothing too crazy so far, more squirming with the occasional kick or punch, but I know it will get more and more noticeable as it gets bigger in there.  The other night, Keith put his hand on my stomach, so I moved it to the hard spot where it was obvious that the baby was laying.  I pushed around on my stomach to show him that you could definitely tell that was the baby because everywhere else wasn't that hard.  He freaked out and told me to stop pushing on the baby, I was going to poke its eye out or something.  I promise I wasn't pushing hard at all.  

I can't wait to post next Monday and announce to everyone what we're having.  Hopefully it won't be too much longer after we find out that we'll also have a name chosen.  I've got a few ideas, but we haven't talked seriously about names yet, so I'll wait to share until we have the name picked.  

And I'll close with a somewhat funny story about Garrett.  On Friday night, he had his tent in the living room, so Keith said he was going into the tent to play.  Keith's leg couldn't fit in the tent, let alone his entire 6'5" body.  So he stuck his upper body into the tent and Garrett said "Daddy's stupid".  Well, atleast that's what we thought he said, but I did some quick analyzing of his sentence and determined he actually said "Daddy's too big".  I had to reassure Keith that was what Garrett said before we started in explaining that we don't call people stupid.  Thankfully we've avoided that discussion.  For now.  

Quick Change Artist

For the past few months, Garrett has dressed himself off and on. He's better at undressing than putting the clothes on, but he gives it a great try. Yesterday I had a splitting headache so we had no plans to go anywhere while I spent the majority of the day on the couch. Tylenol wasn't cutting it. So Garrett was on the lookout for something fun to do in the house.

He spent quite a bit of time playing in his room, which made me very happy. I could hear him talking to himself and his toys, but I knew there wasn't anything in his room that he could get hurt on or do major damage so I didn't check on him as often as I usually would. After awhile of playing, he came out wearing different clothes than he had on when he went in his room. I immediately recognized them as clothes he had worn earlier in the week. Once I went in his room to see exactly what he was doing, I realized that he had dumped his hamper out (which only contained about 3 days worth of clothes) and was mixing and matching the clothes in there, changing his outfit every couple of minutes. Thankfully nothing in there was truly dirty, just worn for a day and needing a washing. He had even gone so far as to change his underwear and socks. I should have known that this would probably happen because that morning, he had dressed himself in the clothes that I had laid out for him, which he has never done before. (I always lay out his outfit for the next day, the night before, when I'm putting him to bed.)

I had thought that he had gotten this clothes changing out of his system that afternoon, but apparently not. Last night, right in the middle of "Lost" (the best show ever!), Keith looks up and says "Why is Garrett's bedroom light on?" We had put him to bed before "Lost" started so that we wouldn't be interrupted. And he can't reach his light switch without using a chair, so something was going on. Of course "Lost" was right in the middle of a good scene and a commercial didn't look imminent, so I did what any pregnant woman would do, I said "Keith, can you go check on him?" He goes to Garrett's room, opens the door, and says "You need to come see this." I reluctantly got up and headed for his room (we don't have Tivo or DVR so don't ask me why I didn't just pause the TV until I was done). There Garrett sat, in the middle of his bed, completely naked, no socks, no pull up, no pj's. Those clothes were in a pile on the floor along with the clothes I had laid out for today. Apparently he had changed out of his pj's, into his school clothes, and maybe was in the middle of changing back when Keith interrupted him. He immediately started crying because I think he knew we weren't too thrilled with this. I told him that he cannot sleep without his pull up on because it would make a big mess (otherwise I really don't care what he sleeps in, as long as he has some clothes on-atleast in the winter, though I didn't tell him that.) I put his pj's back on him, minus one sock, I have no idea where it went so I told him he would have to go without that sock for the night. It wasn't going to get very cold so I knew it wasn't necessary that he have it on.

This morning he woke up early for some reason and started calling me to come open the door around 6:45. First off, we keep his door baby proofed so he can't get out of his room without someone letting him out, when he moves to his new room we won't do this anymore, but I didn't want to take the chance of him wandering the house at night once he started sleeping in a big bed. Secondly, my rule is that we don't get up before 7:30 unless we have to. So I called to him and said it wasn't time to get up yet. About 15 minutes later, he called back and said the sun was out and it was time to get up. I somehow managed to doze off and woke up right at 7:30, so I went to his room to let him out. He had already turned his light on (he has a little lawn chair in there that he regularly uses as a step stool) and was wearing the shirt I had laid out for today, along with yesterday's underwear and socks and a pair of random sweatpants. The shirt was backwards too. I should have taken a picture, but I was still a little tired so I didn't think about it. I told him he looked nice, but we would need to change his pants before he went to school because those didn't match. He was fine with that. He was not as ok with me turning his shirt around to face the right way, but he went with it.

Right before it was time to leave for school I told him to put his shoes on. He said his tennis shoes are dirty (they aren't) so he wanted to wear his brown shoes (which are church shoes, but they went ok with the clothes he was wearing) and I told him that was fine. Next thing I know, he's wearing one brown shoe (on the wrong foot) and one Lightning McQueen croc shoe (also on the wrong foot). I told him he needed 2 brown shoes and he needed them on the correct feet. He tried to insist that he wear the shoes just as he had them, but I put my foot down on mismatched shoes, unless it's crazy shoe day. Somehow we managed to get out the door with all the correct clothing and shoes intact.

I have a feeling this new habit doesn't bode well. I'm going to have to empty his hamper every night to keep him from trying to wear dirty clothes. Thankfully he can't access his clean clothes because they're all in his closet which is also baby proofed. But hey, if I lay out a clean outfit for him to wear, atleast I know he'll be dressed every morning. The clothes may not be facing the right direction, but atleast they'll be on his body.

And now we begin the fully independent streak.

Friends Forever

The Scene: Our toy-strewn living room (again! This time, the rest of the house is clean though.)

My mood: frustrated with the lack of cooperation in getting Garrett to pick up his toys.  My voice has been raised multiple times, and while a few toys have made their way to the appropriate places, everything is not picked up.

Garrett comes to me, lays his head on my shoulder and says "I your best friend."  

My mood: Suddenly lighter and more forgiving.

The Scene: Still as toy covered as before.

Here's the Proof

I know some of you have a hard time believing me when I say that the book pictured above is an actual necessity for me in parenting Garrett.  I will admit that after having read some of the stories from Dr Dobson's book, Garrett is certainly not at the end of the spectrum for the strong-willed child.  Though he is only 3...  

I thought I would present you with some proof of the strong-willed/defiant nature that my child exhibits to me.  First I have to say that this is not a daily problem, thank you Lord!  But he does it with enough regularity for me to think of him as strong-willed and therefore parent and discipline with that in mind.  

Today was definitely one of those days where Garrett decided to exert his will at a few various moments.  We went grocery shopping at Walmart this morning, which is not something I've been doing with Garrett by myself lately, but he's always asking to go to Walmart and I needed a few things, so off we headed.  He was pretty good throughout the store.  As we were walking out to the car, he was standing on the end of the cart while I pushed it.  He has the bad habit of stepping off of this perch while I'm in motion resulting in me running him over, so I warned him not to let go, mostly because we were going to be going through the parking lot and I didn't want him falling down on the cement.  The words "Don't let go" had just finished leaving my mouth, when he let go with his right hand, held it up to me and wiggled his fingers with a smirk on his face.  I think I've run him over enough that he knew it would hurt if he went that route, so he thought he would go the safer route by just letting go with one hand.  Whenever the thought crosses his mind, he will do exactly the opposite of what I say.  I chose to ignore his little flaunt and kept on walking to the car.  Dr. Dobson's big emphasis in his book (atleast as far as I've read) is picking your battles and that was not one of the battles for me.  My intention was to keep him from stepping off the cart, which he didn't do, so I moved on.  

Once we got to the car, I quickly unloaded the groceries while Garrett stood beside me.  I specifically told him to stay by the car, and had him helping me to keep him busy.  As I was finishing, he said he wanted to stay at Walmart and I explained to him that it was time to go home so we could put the groceries up and eat lunch.  He immediately bolted into the middle of the parking lot with all the traffic.  Safety is most definitely one of the battles that I will pick every single time.  I grabbed him up by the back of his shirt and "yelled" in a low voice in his ear about what can happen when you run out into traffic (as best as you can explain this to a child this age).  Then as I was stuffing him into his car seat, I spanked him.  I avoid spankings in public whenever possible, but this definitely warranted a spanking and he was already in the car, so I'm sure few, if any, people saw it and if they had been watching for a minute or two they would have known why it was happening.  

By this point I was downright furious with my child.  In less than 10 minutes he had done exactly the opposite of what he was told.  Not surprising, but still infuriating.  Yes, I will put him in the car seat before unloading groceries the next time.  However, I do think he's getting to the point where he should be able to mind an instruction like that for the couple of minutes it takes to unload your shopping cart.  I'm not even going to get into the whole bedtime fiasco this evening, involving a Daddy spanking, which are very rare.  

So I'm trying to really think through what areas I should consider to be battlegrounds.  For the unaware readers, I am also a strong-willed person.  I'm one of those moms suffering from the curse "may you have children just like you!"  If it were up to me, everything would be a battleground because I cannot stand disobedience, disrespect, defiance, etc.  But if I truly stuck with punishing for every single time my child disobeys me or even as simple as telling me "no" all the time (which I equate to defiance in a way), then he would be in a constant time out and/or constantly being spanked.  I certainly don't want to live that way.  Now I'm asking you, what are/were your battlegrounds with your kids?  Those areas where you said you would absolutely "win" anytime your child attempted to go toe to toe with you?  

Obviously safety is one without a question.  In Dobson's book he shares a story about a family that used to be their neighbors years ago.  They had a strong-willed 3 year old.  One day Dr. Dobson's wife saw the mom and the 3 year old outside.  The child was attempting to ride in the street and the mom pulled him off the bike and brought him back to the driveway telling him it wasn't safe.  He threw a huge fit, got back on the bike, took it back to the street and kept riding.  The mom just looked on helplessly as her child rode his bike in the street.  Never once attempted to stop him, discipline him, or anything.  

Another one, for me, is disrespect.  Having taught in public schools for 4 years, currently teach Sunday school in our preteen department at church, and just spending a good bit of time around a variety of children of many ages, my children will be respectful.  So far, that hasn't really been a problem area for us.  Not sure why, but Garrett is very good about saying please, thank you, welcome, etc.  In the south, ma'am and sir are very common, and that's still an area Garrett isn't quite as proficient, but overall he's pretty polite and respectful.  Except when he's disobeying, obviously.  

I wish somebody could tell me that the second child isn't going to be strong-willed like Garrett (and me).  According to Keith's mom, he was a very easy going child.  I think I could handle having one of those.  Keith has asked me why he's paying for my raising.  He was a fairly good kid, yet he gets to help parent one like me.  Life just isn't fair at times....  

But hopefully that doesn't transfer to having one who is actually worse than Garrett.  I don't think my blood pressure could handle that.