What I want to be when I grow up.

I promise I will get pictures up as soon as I get my camera back...I left it at a friend's house. But tonight, I am sorry to say there are no pictures with this post. No videos. This post is just for me. It was just something I realized and had to capture in writing before fatigue overcomes me and I crash for the day.

Tonight as I walked around our beautiful home turning out lights and locking doors, I looked around at dishes in the sink, laundry on the couch, and stuff piled up on counters, and was going through the motions until I noticed at a little pair of shoes sitting on the bar. Those tiny shoes...well, I don't know how to explain it other than in an instant I felt a wave of joy. I looked back around the room with different eyes...stuff on the counters was there because sippy cups and bottles had filled up the cabinets. Dishes were in the sink because I made baby food from scratch, the laundry on the couch was made up of little socks and pants and bibs...and with this perspective I felt myself smiling with my whole heart and soul.

When I was a little girl my mom and dad both worked so hard to make ends meet. I know it killed them to put me in daycare, but financially they couldn't afford any other alternative. My aunt on the other hand was a stay at home mom. So when I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, with the clarity of a child I replied, "I want to be a mom. One like my aunt that stays home."

Fast forward a quarter of a century, and that innocent aspiration got lost. My goals changed, and I became swept up in wanting to be something more special. Someone the public would want to know, someone they would remember. I took an acting class in college, but was so bad I ended up with a C. I went off to London after graduation only to find I missed home so badly I could burst. I killed myself at every dumb job I had trying to find my stride and work my way up in the business world. Yet, my resume isn't that wonderful, and I doubt by the time I re-enter the workplace it will be worth anything more than the paper it's printed on.

And as much as I might try to spoof it up with fun blog entries, being a mom and staying at home is not all that interesting. If someone stopped by unexpectedly on most days they would find me in my pajamas eating cereal for lunch and playing on the floor with my son. I'm not even one of these stay at home moms that has a hobby or passion or crafty side that could earn me a little extra spending money. I'm even bad at staying on top of the chores. But it's what I'm meant to be, and tonight I found out there is a hum you feel in your very core when you finally hit the perfect note God has been pointing out to you.

I haven't completely come to grips with the fact that I will never in a million years see my name in lights, that I will never be that person everyone wants to know about, and I will most likely live out my days in suburbia being special only to a handful of friends and family. But even though I'll never achieve fame, I did achieve fortune. By an unbelievable series of events, God has richly blessed me to be exactly what I had wanted to be. A mom. One like my aunt that stays at home.

Videos

So I've been taking several videos this month trying to capture the elusive crawl on film (with no success), but I thought the grandparents might enjoy a few of the out-takes.

Not Crawling - Take 1


Not Crawling - Take 2 (he was more in a chewing mood than a crawling mood - he even tries to eat the camera at the end)


Not Crawling - Take 3


Not Crawling - Take 4 (he sort of crawled in this one - I got excited at first, but when I saw the re-play, I realized it wasn't the real deal.)


And here's one we took just for fun...I sneezed one night while I was getting him ready for bed and he just thought that was hilarious, so of course I kept doing it :) I love his laugh...

Happy Fall Y'al!

After years of seeing adorable pictures like these from friends and family that visited a pumpkin patch with their little ones, I decided that there was no time like the present to start our own fall family tradition. So yesterday we loaded up the munchkin and headed out to the Old Time Christmas Tree Farm pumpkin patch.

I was so excited when we pulled up - the parking lot was full of little kids hauling their wagons full of pumpkins to the car. The patch itself had hayrides and slides and a 'petting zoo' (two goats). There were piles of pumpkins everywhere - the day was going to be great!! Then we got out of the car and reached for the diaper bag....only there was no diaper bag...which meant there was no camera...so back into the car we got. The 20 minute ride home quickly turned into a "I thought YOU had gotten it" argument. Aw, the sounds of a fun-filled family day....

Anyway, we got home, got the diaper bag and got back to the pumpkin patch where it was now 100 degrees (I just love TX fall weather), and joined the 175 other parents trying to capture cute pictures of their kids when we noticed the stain creeping up the back of Carter's onesie...

Oh my gosh, did we had the blow out of all blow outs! Back out to the car we went, and it was good thing we now had the diaper bag!! I won't go into the details because every mom has been there, but of course the day he's in a onesie that has to come up over his head is the day this kind of thing happens. At least I had a full-sized container of wipes in the car because the travel pack just would not have cut it yesterday...he got a head to toe wipe down before the new clothes went on.

15 minutes later, he was cleaned up, changed and we were ready for a third try...

We actually had fun getting some very cute shots. Then we loaded up a wagon with our own loot of pumpkins and an hour later, we were finished. Stephen even let me stop by a friend's antique store to buy a few things I had been eyeing for our dining room before we headed home for the UT vs. OSU Football game and...well, let's just say that despite the mis-haps, it turned out to be the perfect fall day after all :)

The money shot


Pumpkins :)


Yes, we were those parents.


The boys rooting Texas on to victory


The perfect 'end' to a perfect day

Blog Giveaway

My friend Allison who is stationed in Germany with her husband Paul is doing a very cute blog giveaway for some beautiful German Christmas ornaments to build her blog following. Click here to check it out! :)

And we're crawling!

Seriously!?!?!?! YES, Seriously! His monthly birthday's have always held little surprises for us. On all five of them now, he's pulled some trick out of his hat on the day-of as if to say, "ok, it's time for something new."

He's been getting up on all fours for about two weeks now, but this morning he took his first TWO 'steps' then went back onto his tummy. Of course (as always) we were unable to capture it on film, but here's a video from about two weeks ago of the first time we caught him getting up on all fours. I'll admit, the video is definitely not a lesson in safe changing table practices, but we threw caution to the wind for a minute to capture the very cool moment.



Ok, now I've got to go child proof the house.....

Laryngomalacia

So it wasn't laryngitis, or even reflux...well not directly anyway. According to the ear nose and throat doctor he saw today, he is hoarse because of mild laryngomalacia (yea, say that ten times fast). Because I had never heard of such a thing before today, I won't even try to explain what it is. If you are really bored, you can read a little more about it online.

Bottom line, it's probably been what we've been mistaking as sinus congestion since he was born and it's what causes him to go hoarse after crying for only a few minutes. It's aggravated by reflux which the doctor did confirm he has and that it was indeed irritating his vocal chords (surprise, surprise). It's also aggravated by illness, stress and vocal exertion. So either the stress of traveling, a virus or reflux (or all of the above) likely caused the hoarseness which could persist for as long as a year.

He'll out grow all of this by the time he's about a year to 18 mo. and in the mean time, we have to 'make sure' he sleeps on his stomach (yea, like we could keep him off his tummy if I tried!) and to keep him from crying excessively. So no Ferberizing or any other meathod of 'crying it out' for our little guy - doctors orders. Oh well, I wasn't really all that amped to try either of those anyway.

Above are the pictures of his vocal chords that took two nurses, a doctor and a very unhappy momma holding him down to get.

Poor little guy sleeping it off right now and I hate that I put him through it. Don't get me wrong, I'm relieved it's nothing serious, but it's so frustrating to have to watch your child go through something like that just for a "he'll grow out of it" diagnosis.

Trips, Ike and Laryngitis

Before I get any further, I want to first thank all of you who remembered my birthday! Second, I want to apologize for the thank-you notes you have not received...I promise I will get them out before Thanksgiving!

As I post this it's after midnight and therefore officially October. I can't believe it! Where did September go?!?!

For those of you keeping track, we were out of town the last two weekends in August, and we were only supposed to be out of town the first and last weekend of September. No such luck thanks to Ike.

Considering the hour, I'll give you the Cliff's Notes version of our Ike encounter:
We were very fortunate - minimal damage is an overstatement. In the short 10 days we were put out, our friends and family did so much for us, we were reminded again and again how blessed we are, and we really got to know our neighbors. All-in-all our Ike experience was filled with a lot more positives than negatives.

So Carter's first weekend out-of-town segued into 6 weekends in a row plus several weekdays in between. And considering he's only 4 and a half months old, 6 weeks on the road was a decent chunk of his life. Needless to say he didn't take any time off from growing and dare I even say thriving given all the extra time with grandparents and aunts and cousins! He even did his first ever back to front flip! (a skill he now does with the greatest of ease as you can see from this video :).

Drum roll please.....


Unfortunately as soon as we got home Carter developed a case of hoarseness that worsened over the last week...doctor thinks he probably picked up a little virus somewhere along the way that caused him to lose his voice, but it's hard to say. We'll just have to wait - if it's a virus it will run its coarse in a few days and go away. If it doesn't, it could be a side effect of his prolonged reflux and require a trip to an ear nose and throat specialist so let's hope it's just a little laryngitis! :)